When I coach freelancers, founders or business owners we are always working on individual first. A person's belief system, perspective and one of you in front both their personal behaviour and professional actions.

Are you putting all your energy into your business that you are neglected your health and body?

Are you trying to so hard to 'succeed' in your business that you're sacrificing too much of yourself? Many people do this but as a long term strategy, it's a bad idea. As Max Strom says "if you lose your health, you lose everything "

This mini episode contains some case studies of people I've worked with and strategies you can consider for how you can also benefit from a healthy body as part of a healthy business.

Get in touch with Sal

If this episode has caught your attention and you wish to learn more, then please contact me. I offer a free 20 min call where we can discuss a challenge your facing and how I may be able to help you.

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

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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.