Why your body is the foundation of your business.

Sal Jefferies: 00:00:03

Why your body is the foundation of your business is perhaps

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a different thought that you may have

come across, but I would really want

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to get something across today which is

a little different from normal, let's

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say business and strategic coaching

thinking and comes in a more human.

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coaching thinking way, but

utterly applied to business.

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Now I coach a lot of founders and

business owners and they, they come

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in different varieties and lots of

businesses, but the general theme is this.

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Everyone I coach, we are working

through challenges, problems, stressors

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and things that come up for that

person in their, in their life, both

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personally and professionally, because

they get the close together, right?

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If you're a founder, you, you know

this, how you think and how you feel.

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That plays out in your home

life as well as your work life.

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So we worked through a lot of this

content and material and how that

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affects the business, which is great.

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What I've seen is that a lot of founders

and business owners are putting so

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much time and energy into the business.

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They don't have enough time

and energy to put into their

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health, fitness and their body.

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And I was working with someone a couple

of years back and, and he was in a high

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level business in a financial sector,

running, running his own own business.

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And He'd worked so hard, put in all

these hours and, great work ethic, but

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he literally did not exercise at all.

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And the classic getting north of

40, got some weight gain, tiredness,

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sleep issues, highlights and stress,

heightened anxiety, all of these

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kinds of patterns of problems.

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And What happened was, is that, was

trying hard to work hard, trying so hard

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to work on the business that actually it

was becoming detrimental to his health.

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And in the session, I said

to this guy, I'm like, okay,

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why are you working so hard?

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What are you trying to prove?

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And Now, of course, I'm not going to

share the details with this client,

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but there was two big questions

that made him say yeah, why?

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And I I said, look, if you carry

on this way, your chances of being,

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without your business, because

you're no longer here because of your

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health has gone quite high, which is.

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Crazy as a business strategy.

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And he was like, yeah, you know what?

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This is time to change it.

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So one of the things we looked at was

this relationship with our body is

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secondary and our mind is primary.

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And, and I, and I often talk about this

to all of my clients, the mind body

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dualism, which is rooted in Descartes.

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It's still prevalent in our culture.

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It's incorrect and it's outdated.

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Our mind and our body work as a system.

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You, you don't live in a body.

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You live through a body and your

body and your mind are one ecosystem.

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So what's happening in your

nervous system, your body and

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your brain, they're all talking

and connecting with each other.

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Therein, if your body is functioning

well, so you're sleeping well, your

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stress is able to be managed through

good practices, that you are physically

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fit, like your heart works well, your

lungs work well, your musculature is

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strong, all of those sorts of things.

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That all affects how

your mental capacity is.

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Your resilience, your ability to be

creative and to run a business so when

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I talk about the bodies, the foundation

of the business, it's looking at it

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through this lens that everything that

we do in life in work is built through

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our physiology and our psychology.

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If we only work on the

mind and miss out the body.

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we're missing the foundation.

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And of course, the same

goes the other way.

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If you only go to the gym and

work out, but don't deal with your

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emotional stuff, don't deal with

your traumas and backstory, then

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you are also missing the other half

of the, of the pie, so to speak.

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So working on the body.

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Now, one of the things I've really

wanted to share was a couple of stories.

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So I've worked with this.

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client John.

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So again, I'll, I'll keep

their, their details alias.

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John was, super, super stressed.

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We did a load of work around moving

away from burnout and making sure that

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they were running their business well

in both strategic way and behavior way.

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And they said to me, that's it.

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I'm going to get, I'm going

to get fit the classic.

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And, and John was around about 50.

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so I was like, great.

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I gave them some pointers.

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They, they seeked out

a PT and off they went.

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And we had a coaching session, I

think it was a month later, and

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they said, that's how is it going?

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And I said, yep, three times a week.

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I'm there every week, pushing

hard, crushing it, all this,

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all this kind of intense stuff.

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A month after that, they got a massive

injury and stopped all activity.

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So we had a debrief after that

because I was only coaching them

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in the psychological and the

emotional space at that time.

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And.

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And I said, look, what, what is this?

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You, you said you want to work on your

body because of a lot that we've covered.

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You've gone at this hell for leather and

you've gone at it with this, short term

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mentality that I'm going to be fit and

fixed in three weeks or three months.

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And that's just not viable

for someone who's 50.

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It's not viable for someone who's 30.

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You need to be looking at this

as a three to 10 year program.

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And now people say, Oh, what, how long?

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Slow it down.

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If you look at Olympic athletes,

they work on four year cycles

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and normally double that.

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So eight year cycles of

training and development.

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So this beautiful body of ours, this

very powerful system, it takes time to

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adapt and change and consistency is key.

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Short term results don't

last, and problems come up.

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So if you go and work really hard at the

gym or push it hard in high intensity or

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something like that and you don't have

the foundational structure, strength,

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suppleness, whatever it is, the link is,

the weakest link will kick in and you'll

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have a, probably an injury and fail.

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And the problem with that is then

it confirms that you're no good at

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exercise and it's a waste of time.

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And then we're back to square

one, probably even minus one.

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So that's a kind of, a negative

story that I wanted to share

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about how it may not work.

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Let me give you another one.

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I was working with another client,

Sarah, Sarah was running, a hospitality

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business and doing really well.

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A lot of pressure, I get to say

deal, there's a lot on, right?

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There's a lot to do.

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Sarah was in hospitality, so she was, a

partier, let's say, had a lot of alcohol

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consumption, wasn't active, so forth.

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And we started work together and all the

things to help her be really successful

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as the founder of her business.

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And, and I called it out.

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I'm like, look, if you are

drinking vast amounts of alcohol.

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You're going to be tired, fatigued.

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Is that going to damage your sleep

and everything else that goes with it?

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Fair play to Sarah.

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She's okay, you know what?

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I'm just going to stop.

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And she made this decision because

it was too easy to have it.

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So she just chose to

stop consuming alcohol.

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And it's a really admirable decision.

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But the interesting thing was soon as

she made this decision to connect with

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her body and, and behave differently,

she chose to take out running again.

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And she, she told me that when she

was a younger woman, she, she used

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to love distance running and do

10 Ks and marathons and so forth.

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mid forties, I think she

was, she started out running.

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Distance running, putting in the miles.

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Sign up for a marathon and I've been

catching her for a while and she's

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done I think at least two marathons

now and some other things like got

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involved with triathlons, bike rides

and really, really relish the activity

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of fitness and, and development.

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And what I've seen with Sarah is that.

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Not only has her fitness improved,

she's a lot less stressed.

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She's sleeping better.

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She has an outlet for all those pressures

that's going on in the business space.

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And what we find is that running a

business is a bit like running a marathon.

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It's a long game.

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It takes time.

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you can get an injury if you don't do

the right type of training and just

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like a business, if you don't make the

right decision, you can have a problem.

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So there's so much that crosses

over between physical fitness,

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the body and that relationship.

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And the relationship we

have with our business.

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So when we can think about your

business, your business model, and

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what all those foundational pieces

are, your body is the prime piece.

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Your mind is it's other aspect and you are

the fundamental piece in a whole business.

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So if we take that view, then you

might choose a different strategy

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around how you exercise, how you move.

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Now, if you're not active right now,

and you want to get into activity and

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movement, Then get the right guidance.

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So the guidance would be this.

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Go get a PT of some kind or a strength

and conditioning trainer or whoever you

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want to work with in your, in your space.

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Get the right guidance because you

need to move well to avoid injury,

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particularly if you're midlife.

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Secondly, get the right mindset.

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Throw away any expectations to

change everything in three months.

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Think about this like I

think about my own training.

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In my view, I'm an athlete and Olympian.

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Four years.

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Each four years I review the cycle.

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Now I'm on my second block, right?

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So I'm six years into this, this program

I set myself and through it, I've had to

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deal with an autoimmune condition, which

comes and goes, pandemic that came up,

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all sorts of hiccups and problems, but

because it's such a longterm goal, because

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it's working over this scale where there's

time for interruptions and problems and

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you can come back, there's no failure.

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If I'm trying to achieve everything

in 18 months, it's a big ask.

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So make it a long term goal.

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Think of it in, four year cycles, five

year cycles, and consistency is key.

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So intensity never comes

before consistency.

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It's far better to do a gentle run,

some weights, some plyometrics, whatever

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the mix you do, then crushing the runs,

smashing the weights, and then suddenly

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being too fatigued to run your business.

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So go.

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Get the right guidance, get the

right timeline and then go at

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this with a new fresh mindset.

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I'm, I'm, I'm 52 now.

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and I often share my podcast and

to people, I do a lot of stuff.

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I move every day and sometimes it's

gentle and sometimes it's intense.

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It's a range of things I do.

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Now it's taken a while to get here,

like many years to get to this

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level from mid forties onwards.

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If I want to have a business that's

going well over the next 20, 30 years.

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If I want to have a retirement, and

my real retirement is a bit different

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to other people's, but if I want to

be really dynamic and active in my

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eighties and nineties, it starts the day.

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You can't get it back later in life.

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All the research says, if, if

you're in trouble in your forties,

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fifties is going to be tricky.

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Sixties is going to be a disaster

and don't even talk about the rest.

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So not to be a naysayer negative,

but it's if you don't want all

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that stuff, the health span of

your life to degrade later in life.

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And why would you?

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Start now.

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It's the long game.

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So there are some salient points I hope to

perhaps get you thinking a bit differently

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about how you might move, connect with

your body, exercise, and, and think

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about that long game and perhaps even

build it into your business strategy.

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and notice if this works for you.

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So if you have questions, I imagine

there's many that come up and, and you've

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got thoughts, I'm always accessible to

reach out to answer those questions.

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So you can reach me, via my website

link is on the back end of this podcast.

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And, and I hope it has triggered

something for you to move well, to

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be connected to your body and to

enjoy your business at the same time.

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Until the next time, take care.