137. Finding the 25th Hour in Your Day with Laura Timbrook

That's where we really come down to intrinsic and extrinsic value. You made the comment about four coaches down the line. Really, what we need to find and what they probably found when they started at Coach one is maybe maybe they were getting healthier for their kids, for their husband. There was something else that was external, but maybe by coach four or five now they want just to be successful for themselves.

Welcome, everybody. Today I'm excited to have Laura Timbrook with us. She's going to share with us about how you can find that extra hour, that 25th hour and create time for healthier habits. Thanks so much for joining us today, Laura.

Oh, thanks for having me, Wade.

Absolutely. Laura is a National Board certified Health and Wellness coach, international speaker and host of the weekly podcast Outspoken Nutrition and Manufacturing Wellness. She understands the chaos of life and, even more importantly, perhaps the value of getting things done. So, Laura, you and I have spoken. We've talked a couple of times before, and one of the things that I really like about your approach is a very practical approach to helping people get things done, helping people make time, share a little bit about your work and what got you started on this path, if you don't mind.

Yeah, sure. So I started my career as a health coach. And one of the biggest things I was finding is people weren't able to implement some of the healthy changes they just couldn't find. Time was always the number one issue. It was either time or money and the money times. A lot of times we can't control that too much. But the time we had ways to get around it. And I kept seeing over time in my practice that they didn't have time to work out, but they had time to go get nails done.

So it was kind of changing that mindset and working with clients. And that's when I really started seeing the changes is when we kind of altered that mindset a bit.

Awesome. So I know a lot of the times people will talk about excuses. And depending on how you approach things, there's kind of what some people might now call an old school approach, which is darn it. Just push through it, stop being a baby, stop being soft, push through it. And yet there's usually something in there that's real. Otherwise the person would do it. How do you look at excuses or barriers? How are those perhaps similar. And how do you help people overcome those?

Yeah. So you're absolutely right. Excuses are usually a fear. So we have to understand what is really holding somebody back. Is it really that they don't have time? Do they think that them taking that extra hour for themselves at the gym is going to affect their family life or their kids schooling and things like that? So really getting to the root of the excuse because the excuse is not just the excuse. There's something much deeper. And sometimes it takes us a little bit to kind of go through it.

But generally, once they start understanding that excuse is a fear, it comes out a little bit quicker. What really is going on. And most of the time, that fear is that it's going to affect a loved one, that kids spouse. Somewhere around that point, it's going to affect somebody else. And that value systems off.

Yeah, that's one of the things I've found is a lot of times when people won't do things that seem to make sense. It's kind of confusing. And yet if you look deeper, there's something connected to it usually have something to lose. And if you look at sports, sometimes the people that do the best are the kids that come from really tough neighborhoods where they will tell you I had nothing to lose. And so they'll take risks or they'll do things that are bolder. I really like just that insight to understand that sometimes people are coming from a Noble place or what they believe to be a loving place.

Well, if I do this, I'm going to hurt this. I see this with people with work. If I overwork, I'm not going to spend enough time on my family. They get this promotion. This is what happened. So people talk about fear of success. It seems like odd. Like, why would you be afraid of success? And it's not so much the success. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's what comes with it.

Absolutely. It's definitely what comes along with it one of the big things. Even when I started my career, I was kind of afraid that again, it'll pull me away from my family and family. For most of us, is the top of our list of importance.

Got you. So when you look at helping people get started, a lot of times, people take on a lot, they take on too much. They get very excited. I kind of think of the energy that when you come out of a weekend seminar, a one day seminar, or even just a really good webinar. And you're ready to take on the world. And there's this retention. It feels almost like a teenager that just wants to wrap their arms around the world and hug the world and fix everything.

And it's so beautiful. And yet very often it fails. Why do people so often fail when they're so excited? And at that moment, they feel so motivated, they're ready to do something. Why doesn't it last?

Well, you have all those endorphins kicking in, right? You are super excited. You're ready to make these changes and then real life hits. And it's usually one event that throws it off. It could be you scheduled too much in a day. Let's say someone's trying to eat healthier. They scheduled too much in a day and they don't have time to make the dinner they planned. So then they revert back to the chicken Nuggets and macaroni and cheese, which I'm not saying anything bad about chicken Nuggets and macaroni and cheese, but that might have not been what their goal was.

And it's that sense of failure that suddenly sends them in that downward spiral. Now I had the macaroni cheese and the chicken Nuggets. Now I'm going to eat the chocolate cake. Now, tomorrow morning I'm going to go back to my old ways, and it's always that one trigger. So one of the things that we work on is expecting that one trigger when all things hit the fan. What are you going to do? Let's have a plan, because we all know life likes to throw us those curve balls.

You have to know how to roll with them. And that's one of the biggest areas where we see a lot of these healthy lifestyle start failing is because it doesn't allow for that chaos of life. If we can plan for that chaos of life, then we know how to roll with it. We know what to do next.

Yeah. And that's something that I think a lot of people sometimes say you're thinking negatively. You think bad things are going to happen. And for me, it feels more realistic to say yes, I have this plan of how I want things to turn out, and I'm aiming there. But I'm prepared in case, because statistically speaking, I know something's not going to work. According to Plant, I don't know which thing that part is, but being ready for that. And I guess it comes back to that thing that you and I coaches both have heard or talked about is the idea of getting excited about the goal, but not so excited about the work of the preparation.

Everybody's excited about the goal. How do you help people get more excited or engaged in doing the work? Whether it's the planning or the actual work itself, the exercise or the eating, right?

Yeah. Well, one of the things I like to work on is finding somebody. Everybody has a certain time in their day where they are much more productive than other times. So what we want to do is take some of those tasks that might be a little bit not so great for us, something that maybe we don't like so much and put it in the time that we're most productive. So if someone let's say someone's goal is to start working out and they know they are a morning person.

Well, the last thing we want to do is set up their fitness regimen at night. There is no way when they are tired, they're going to want to work out. But if we can get them up even 15 minutes earlier, get them out of bed 15 minutes earlier, we can get a 15 minutes workout. And that's where we always like to start small. Let's start with something that, you know, you can keep up even if it's five minutes, ten minutes, give me something. Because eventually, suddenly I'm going to feel pretty good at that five minute workout.

Maybe next week I'll go to seven or ten and we're going to increase it because workouts make us feel good. It releases those good brain chemicals. So if we can put things around the time we are most productive and then multiline kind of our own brain chemicals. We're kind of setting ourselves up for a win win situation, but acknowledge that there might be a day you might sleep in and you're going to miss your workout. Well, what's your option from there? Is it that we're just going to miss the workout and that's fine, too.

But maybe we can do something two minute squats or something simple, that we have enough time that we could still feel successful?

Yeah, that's something I think that's so important is to in some way keep some sort of momentum, not even so much from the physical, though. I know there's the physical response of the body, but psychologically, when we feel we start something and we fail, you think about New Year's resolutions, and then it just feels well. It didn't work out. I guess I'll try next time, and goodness knows when next time is going to happen until they meet another coach. And I'm sure you experienced this. Well, this coach helped me or that coach helped me.

And you talk to let's say it's five coaches and all five of them are teaching similar things. But by the fourth one or the fifth one, the person was ready. And really, in essence, the students or the clients changed as opposed to the coach. Why do you think most people are unsuccessful with obtaining their goals? And it might be similar to what we've talked about. But other than the fact that perhaps they're taking on too much, what are some of the other reasons people are not as successful with achieving their goals, whether it be with their health and nutrition or just in general.

Yeah. And that's where we really come down to intrinsic and extrinsic value. You made the comment about four coaches down the line. Really, what we need to find and what they probably found when they started at coach one is maybe they were getting healthier for their kids, for their husband. There was something else that was external, but maybe by coach four or five now they want just to be successful for themselves. That is the big change. Some of my most successful clients were the ones that told me that, you know what?

I don't want to give up smoking. I don't want to stop eating this. I'm not ready. And one of the most powerful questions I have in my toolkit is in five years, you don't make this change. What is your life going to look like, letting them face that reality? I do a lot of work in manufacturing, so smoking a couple of years back was a big thing. And we had so many people that did not want to give up smoking. And when we positioned that question to them, well, I could have cancer.

So I would flip it back and say, okay, so you know, in five years you might have cancer, and you're okay with that now all of a sudden hearing that back is like, Well, I'm not really okay with it. So it changes that conversation. But that's the biggest thing when we are also looking at stuff like that, it's the difference between doing something for somebody else versus doing something for yourself.

And that's something that so many people. I think most of us have a challenge with the balance of that. And we're taught to be giving to not be selfish. And of course, there's the thing that said so often on the airplane, you have to put on your own oxygen mask first if you don't put on your oxygen mask, and for those who haven't flown or whatnot you're told to put on your oxygen mask before you help even your children, because here's the deal. If you pass out, guess what you can't put on the oxygen mass on your kids and you're not going to be helped.

And you're going to be one more person that they have to take care of when people are looking to make change, I think that's something that's so true, too, that you said is so often we're doing it for external reasons. Gosh, I'm in my late fortys. I might have had a six pack when I was 17 or something, maybe or something close and all these videos, six pack ABS, all these different things. I have a six back, but ultimately I don't really care. And yet when it came to, I want to have more energy so I can keep up with my son, who is now 15 and my daughter is twelve with sports, with energy and just like to be able to play with them and not be tired when they wanted to do things and just also keep up with the work I do and make a difference and have an impact on people's lives but still have the energy.

That's what led to my shift in my eating habits over the years, as I looked to get better with that. And I still like, some days when I eat junk food, but at the end of the day, for me, my measure is now my energy level. And like I said, that's an internal measure. And even more so, I invite people and I'd love for you to expand on this, getting in tune with how you feel after you eat a meal because that was something somebody once invited me and I forget who it was.

But they said, Just do this. Just notice how you feel after you eat a meal for the next two to 3 hours after and start seeing if you see a pattern. The person knew the pattern, but they said, look, you figure that out. What would you say most people find or how can self awareness be brought into practice?

Oh, my goodness. I love this question. Self awareness is huge. I can't tell you how many times I have had clients eating what we would deem healthy foods, and they didn't feel good. But they continued eating that food because it was the healthy food. I had a client. Specifically, it was with oatmeal. Their heart doctor told them to eat oatmeal. Every time they ate oatmeal, they felt bloated and cramped and tired. And finally I said to him, I said, Why are you still eating your oatmeal? And he's like, Well, because the doctor told me I should be eating oatmeal, I said, but your body is telling you it doesn't like the oatmeal.

Through my practice. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people doing the same thing. They eat something because they think it's good and ignoring every bodily response that says it's not. So it is so important to kind of take a moment. One of the biggest things we can do when we're trying to figure out if our body that intuitive. Eating like people like to call it is just slowing down. So many of us are eating in our cars, eating in front of the TV.

I know myself. I eat in front of the computer more than I'd like to admit, but if we could sit at a table, take 15 minutes and have food and just be present, suddenly we're starting to realize that certain foods cause migraines, that maybe certain ones make us more tired and things like that. So it's really important to listen to your body. Your body has so many response systems to tell you what it likes, what it doesn't. We're just ignoring them.

And the thing I think through me for a while when I was looking at Trisha and over the years, I again looked at it more from a place of energy is when I was starting to make my progress is realizing that there are people that have different responses to the same food. And so rather than having this approach, well, this is empirically good for me or not is something that's interesting. And then also, for example, I have to eat vegetarian, almost vegan and gosh the first year or so is pizza, pasta, pizza, pasta, pizza, pasta.

And that's not the greatest diet and energy wise. I was doing it from a compassion standpoint. Okay, I didn't want to hurt the animals. Great, wasn't hurting the animals as much. But my energy level was horrible. And so as people know, there's vegan junk food and there's food and then there's any other type of food. And again, I think it's something that as you listen to it like anything else. I think that's the thing that so many people discredit themselves that's possibly one of the toughest things when it comes to misinformation, aside from the fact that you have, well, first of all, you have people out there trying to sell stuff.

And so when people are trying to sell stuff, usually they're trying to advocate for a point of view. And then there's just misinformation. How do you help people sort of sift through that? And what are good delegable sources of information about nutrition?

Yeah. I always say the best nutritional coach you have is yourself. I get questions all the time. What's the most perfect diet? There is no perfect diet. The way I need to eat, the way you need to eat, the way Sally across the street needs to eat. It's totally different. So really start by what foods make you feel good. Now, we do know pizza, pastas, not probably the best types of foods. So we know things like vegetables, fruits, good quality proteins, things like that are healthy. We all know that broccoli is healthy and candy not so healthy.

So just start off on a base diet where you're eating things that, you know are better than some other ones. And then follow that realm of how do I feel now? One of the things I always tell somebody is if you really, really like a food, and maybe it's kind of an odd food that most people are like, I'm not a big fan of that. That food's probably your body telling you, hey, this food is really good. I have a client of mine loves Brussels sprouts.

Has always loved Brussels sprouts, and I do like Brussels sprouts. I wouldn't say I love them. But now Brussels sprouts for her are fantastic. She says every time she eats Brussels sprouts that day, she has more energy than anything. And she's like, But I know I'm only supposed to because it's a goitrogen, and she has thyroid problems. And she's like, I know I'm only supposed to eat so many, but if they're making you feel good, maybe there's something so kind of don't overeat them because we don't ever want to overeat anything.

But go with your gut, literally go with your gut. If something, you pick up something in the grocery store and you're like, I don't know if I really want this this week, don't buy it. It's kind of hard in the beginning to listen to that internal dialogue. But when we slow down and really think about it. And one of the good things, too, is just starting to pick a diet that maybe, you know, has worked for you in the past. Maybe in the past, you have gone on a low carb diet and you felt really good.

Well, go back on that low carb diet and then start adding some different foods in even if that food is a rice, try it, see what happens. But that's really the best way to start it's. Just pick a diet that, you know is worth. That includes those healthy foods and then go from there.

Awesome. How long would you say something should work before you can say it works for me. So, you know, there's fad diets or there's crash diets or there's intermittent fasting. There's so many different things a person can do. And I know in my case, there are certain, like when P 90 X came out, I wanted to do P 90 X so bad the exercise program, and every time at about three weeks in my body, just the workload couldn't do it. Now I can play volleyball for five to 6 hours in 90 degree weather on the beach.

That's a different type of fitness. And I remember even reading some of the Factoropra stuff about my body type. And I'm more like yoga. Light exercise doesn't. Well, heavy lifting CrossFit that sort of stuff my body just doesn't take to it's not about being soft, it's my body literally gets injured. I feel great, and then something hurts. How long should somebody see that? Something's working before they can say, okay, this works because the pizza, pasta, ice cream diet does work for about 30 minutes, but that's probably not enough.

How can people get clear on that?

Yeah, I would say it's really going to depend. I see a lot of times the first two weeks of the diet is kind of like the cloud nine stage you're seeing, especially keto any of your low carb diets. The first two weeks, you lose a massive amount of weight, it's water and you're feeling pretty good, most of it because you're not overeating. So we have that kind of cloud nine stage, and then our lives just start going about its normal business. Things get a little bit busier life stress comes in, and that's when we see things starting to kind of go awry.

Like you were saying around that three week Mark for some people, it might be longer. It might be more on the eight week Mark, depending on what their lifestyle looks like. But one of the other things to keep in mind, too, is it can work for six months and then stop working if you start to see. And I like how you were measuring by energy, because that's really key, because one energy for us is a little bit easier to measure. We know when all of a sudden our energy stops drastically dropping.

And one of the things we hear all the time when it comes to low carb is, oh, it's the carb flu or this or that or it's our body detoxing. If you're starting to lose energy and really take a look at what's going on because I've seen so many people have issues and maybe something is going on with their health and they've pushed it off. Oh, it's a detox. It's the carb flu. No, go get checked because our body is amazing at communicating with us. And if our body is telling something we don't like, we probably need to listen to it.

Yeah. And that's the thing that going back to the P 90 X thing that really helped me realize something was off. I was willing to do the work. I literally got sick and couldn't move in bed in the sense of flu, like stuff. Just literally, my body broke down. My body was like, okay, this is too much. And even a couple of times I slightly shifted how I was doing the exercises or the mouths, the quantities that sort of stuff. And it just wasn't working for me.

And to me, it wasn't, oh, this is uncomfortable because there's certainly parts of peanut extra an exercise program where you're like, oh, ow. This hurts. But there's muscle pain versus joint, or I'm about to break something pain. And those are two very different things. And there's just fatigue versus. Oh, no. My body is telling me something isn't going to work, or I'm about to hurt myself. I think that's the thing. A lot of people put so much stock in other people's advice, and it becomes so confusing.

Why do so many people say this works for that works. And I look at how I went from being a meat eater to being vegetarian. And again, for me, in my body, I have more energy when I don't eat meat. So I wanted to do that. But that was something that I think I set up for. The exact was like, okay, I'm going to have one day a week where I'm vegetarian. And then after about two, three months, I was going to have two days a week.

And it was something that was easier. It was more realistic. And I got a chance to learn habits like you and I know in any sort of coaching, I got a chance to throw those habits in between. That made it realistic that this would be sustainable. Similar to your suggestion to work out five minutes, then ten minutes and 15 minutes, even if you added five minutes. Because when you start doing the math and you say, what if I start in month one and I work out five minutes a day, month two, I work out ten minutes or any practice meditate yoga.

Well, by month twelve, you're in 60 minutes, and usually you might even reach month six. We're like, okay, I only have 30 minutes. I'm great, but can you keep it? How do you help people other than setting a realistic goal, how can people stay engaged and excited so that they maintain something rather than that saying that something. Oh, gosh, it worked so well. I stopped doing it because it was almost so predictable. It was like, oh, it was boring. Yeah, it worked out. And I felt great.

Like, Why would I do that? I'll stop doing that now. How do you keep people engaged now, once they've gotten past, let's say that six month Mark, that one year Mark. They're seeing results and now it's more about, well, I'm not going to have a dramatic weight loss because I'm near my weight. I'm not going to have a dramatic muscle gain, but I'm going to be able to stay engaged. How do you help people do that?

Yeah. And one of the biggest parts when we're dealing with something like that is letting them know that's going to happen. We all are going to get comfortable, and it's like, Well, I can miss it today and tomorrow. I still feel good. And then it becomes you miss one day. You miss five days. You miss 15 days and it starts that cycle. But I have noticed if you give somebody the heads up, like, hey, this is probably going to happen. They're more likely to be like, oh, I think I'm entering this stage and let me look at something else.

One of the things is if we're dealing with something like meditation, and you're right. Some people get to that 30 minutes meditation and their lives get busy and they're like, I just don't have the time for it. It's boring. I listen to the CD 80 times. What can I do? Well, the thing is, we want to change up that meditation. Maybe we're not using CDs anymore. Maybe we go to Tibetan bowls, or maybe we start meditating, going outside in nature and going for a walk, changing it seasonally.

It really depends on the person and their goal. But I have found one of the biggest things I do in my practice is let people know that that third week gets harder. And as long as they know week three, it's probably going to get a little harder. You're probably going to start loosening the reins on things and they can acknowledge it and they start seeing like, oh, yeah. Day 15 things get a little wonky. They're more likely to pull back in because they know it's coming.

So I think again, that kind of education piece is key, letting somebody know and having that plan. That okay. If I get bored on my meditation, this is what I'm going to start looking at.

Awesome. And I think at least in my experience, when I can integrate something that touches more than one dimension. So if I sit in a chair and do meditation, that can be good sometimes if I'm tired, I like that. But recently I've been doing more. There's a little nature trail bus, and I go bike slowly through there and some engaging physical. How do you find it's good for people to engage body, heart, mind, spirit and make sure that in some way they're touching on each of those because it seems to me that if you go for any extended period of time without doing physical exercise or mental work or emotionally connecting with people or connecting with whatever it is your version of spirit or purpose or what not that we're going to stall.

We're going to slow down and that overall sort of body, heart, mind, spirit, multidimensional energy. How can people keep all those connected or integrate those or perhaps even cross train, as you said, shifting things and providing variety.

Yeah. The one thing we really want to focus on is finding something that you're naturally attracted to and utilizing that. I work a lot with that manufacturing industry. And I always say meditation is like a dirty word in there. You say meditation, and you're going to have, like, 80 guys walk out of a room if I could even get 80 guys in the room. But they're going to start leaving. But the moment I say fishing, hiking, dirt bike riding. Now, all of a sudden, they're like, wait a second.

You're giving me a reason to go hunting. And it's yes, because this is something they love. But so many times, fishing is a great example. You get your fishing gear out, and most of the time you're fishing, it's quiet because you don't want to scare the fish off. And they'll stand there and they'll have their reels. And then naturally they take in a deep breath. Well, here we go with that mindfulness. They're listening to the birds. They're listening to the deer walking in the Woods. You're starting to connect with all those senses.

And now you're also connecting with something you love. Maybe you have great memories of fishing with your dad or your grandfather. Or maybe you love fishing with your daughter. And it brings up bonding moment. But if you can utilize something you already love and put it around a healthy habit, it's really kind of a win win. I have not to this day had anybody tell me, oh, I got to go fishing today.

If they love fishing, that's great. I remember one of the things one of my professors taught me when I was working on my psychology degree. He was the professor who is an addiction specialist, and he presented an interesting challenge to all the people in the class. He said, this is especially for the people if you happen to be a smoker. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to breathe in to account of five and breathe out to a count of five. And I want you to do that 20 times.

And we did it 20 times. How do you feel? And I'm not a smoker. So I was like, I feel really good and my ankle is this feels like a meditation. The people who are smoker said, That's what it feels like when I smoke. He's like, yeah, guess what he said. Take aside the nicotine. For a second. You're doing 20 deep breaths, roughly roughly 20 drags and a cigarette. He SaaS. You're doing that. And you're thinking that it's in this little thing, which, Ironically, by the way, is a stimulant.

So the stimulant is not relaxing. You it's medically, not accurate. And somebody can correct me if I'm wrong with that. But the breathing, the nicotine that will hook you to it to that being the thing to do with it. But it was something that was so interesting that you said, yeah, what you think is providing the result is not that and definitely the fishing, different things when you're just present. I think that's something that so many people miss. And in the Western culture, we don't see that perhaps as valuable we see is okay.

We're supposed to be actively doing something. And yet most of our times when we're most common, it's something like that. So now let's take the person that says, okay, so I now want to see I want more energy. Great. But now speaking specifically to the audience that's usually listening to this show, there's entrepreneurs. They're focused on getting more done, more stuff done in less time, hopefully perhaps having more time to enjoy themselves. How do you help that person, or what would you say that person to connect again?

That intrinsic motivator. What's possible for somebody if they can get, let's say, 15 minutes of exercise per day or 30 minutes of exercise. What might it look like eventually when you say, okay, hey, in six months or nine months, here's where you'd be where now you're getting more. You're investing time, exercise and the person saying, Well, okay, you just had me exercise. So now I've lost some time. Where is that coming back? Or how is that coming back to them in dividends, either energetically and or in their work?

Yeah. A lot of it comes from your overall feeling. Energy is a big one. You're going to be more energized. You're going to be more productive. So if someone before, let's say they own a small business and they go work out 15 minutes before they open their business. Well, when they open those doors, they're more likely to get things done quicker. Maybe it's just cleaning some shelves off or restocking or stuff like that. But they're going to have so much more energy. That's why we talk a lot about finding that time where you're most productive, because we kind of want to get it all together.

So that way we can get our healthy habits and we can be more productive. So we have that win win situation. So really, that's going to be. But then also the mindfulness part of it, we're going to be more present. We're going to feel better about ourselves. And there is so much to be said about feeling better about yourself. If you feel better about yourself, you're going to have better customer service. You're going to be nicer to be around. Your family is going to want to be around you.

So there's so much that comes. So when we talk about, what am I getting it on the back end? You're getting a better quality of life to a lot of your listeners that want that three day weekend, you're more productive to get things done in the week. So you could take maybe that Friday or that Monday off and enjoy yourself without having to worry about. Oh, I didn't do X amount of stuff last week. I have to put it on this week, so it just puts us in a better mindset.

Absolutely. I think I've read at least two or three different articles where Richard Branson was asked what's the most important thing you do to your success. And in three different articles, three different magazines, every single time he said exercise first thing in the morning or early in the morning. And his response is that it gets my energy at a certain level. It gets me up and gets me performing at a higher level. And he does pretty well financially and impact wise. He's one of those people. Unless something comes out that we're not aware of, he seems to be a happy guy, seems to be impacting.

The world, seems to be making money, seems to be having some fun. And one of the things I think about is something I read somewhere where the author was making reference to the idea that when that second half of the day comes, a lot of us turn to sugar foods to give us that energy boost. And that's where I found sometimes I'll schedule in to either take a walk or do ten minutes of yoga. Or I remember listening to a Brendon Burchard video once he said, even just literally, for 60 seconds, get on a treadmill or exercise bike and go really, really fast, literally just activate your body.

And if you're Eastern medicine, you'd say, well, get your Chi going. If you're Western, say, just get your blood flow going and you get into a heightened state. What have you found or what other practices you find relate to that?

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny going back to your comment about smoking. If we were a smoker, we would take these breaks. When we don't smoke, we don't take the breaks so we don't get up, we don't move, we don't take those deep breaths. And it's actually kind of funny. I like the professor that he talked about this because it's actually one of the biggest things when it comes to smokers, where they stop and they start quitting and suddenly their stress management skills go away. They're like, I'm so tense.

Well, you're missing, like, 50 deep breaths a day. How have you replaced those 50 deep breaths? They haven't because everything is tense. So being able to get up, I like, if you have the availability mid day, get up, take a five minute walk outside. When I started my corporate career years ago, I was working at a Korean company and midday they would all get up and they had it was like this thing that was about this long, and I had a ball at the end, and they used to hit themselves with this to, like a mini massage on their shoulders, and they would go outside, do this and stretch every single day.

And it was always around noon, and I was like, 21 at the time. I had no idea what they were doing. Now I'm like, I need that ball on the stick. I need to get up, even if you can get up and stretch. If you're in kind of a facility where you can't get outside, maybe you don't have that 15 minutes break if you have to. Instead of grabbing coffee, I'd recommend grabbing, like, a fruit juice to kind of get you going. But if you can just do some simple stretches, high knees, they have all those squat challenges.

Just do, like, 20 squats, standing, whatever you're doing, any way to get that blood flowing and it doesn't have to be difficult or hard. It can be something that's just maybe two or three minutes of stretching or squats, or just kind of releasing all that bodily tension. And maybe it's just breathing. Anything you can do to kind of signal that neurologic function of relaxation.

Yeah. One of the coaches I've been blessed to learn from Dan Sullivan talks about your confidence being one of the most important things, not only as a person, but definitely as an entrepreneur, that your confidence is the most important thing. He talks about protecting your confidence, because if you're not confident, well, what's your offer? Like? What are your sales conversations like, what are your presentations like, versus if you are confident, how have you found that people having their energy levels are doing working out, or even just the feeling of knowing that?

Yeah, I'm working a plan, and I'm proud of myself for that. How does that impact people's confidence?

Oh, my God. It gives them so much power, especially when you have that plan of what you're going forward with. You have that plan of I call it the plan when something happens. And, okay, what's the next step? When everything hits the fan, it gives you the confidence that says, okay, well, if life goes chaotic today, this is what I'm going to do. Like you're in control. It suddenly isn't like you're out of control. I even tell those that are working on a diet like, okay, you have plan A, you have plan B, Where's plan C?

What happens if you're stuck in traffic? You're starving. What are you going to do? Because so many times people, that's when we run through the McDonald's because we're so hungry and we just get whatever we want, not thinking. Well, give me a plan. Is there a Chickfila around? Can you grab some chicken Nuggets and a French Fry? What is your plan? But having those plans allows you to confidently execute something and still be in control?

Yeah, I feel like such a dork. I always have at least a Lara bar somewhere in my car because it's a nutrition bar, and it's just a bar, like a granola bar. I just have something because I hate being hungry. And I definitely get hangry that hungry, angry. So I don't want that. I've been told by my kids. I've been told by my wife. I get that. I've also been told if I don't get to sleep, that I get hangry or not hanging except slangery or whatever it is.

And that's not a good thing. So now what do you tell the person that says, okay, I'm ready to do something. I only want to make one change in the next 90 days. I know I could improve my nutrition. I know I could improve my exercise, but I've tried a lot of things before. They haven't worked out. I only want to do one thing just sort of a generic sort of. And I know everybody is unique, but what would be that one sort of most likely to succeed to where 90 days from now, there's a good chance they'll say, okay, now I can build upon that.

Yeah. So there's a joke I make that if you are talking to a neurologist, they're going to tell you sleep. If you're talking to a nutritionist, they're going to tell you a diet. If you're talking to a health coach, I'm going to tell you whatever you can do first. So if someone tells me that, listen, I need to drink water. Let's focus on the water. I think I can do water. Let's just focus on the water. If you know you're lacking sleep, and you know that's probably where you need to be focusing on.

Let's just focus on sleep. Let's do something that we know we kind of need to start off with, and we also know that fairly confidently. We can kind of complete it because we don't want to set them up with something. Let's say somebody wants to change their nutrition but hates cooking. Well, if I jump in, we give them a diet plan. We're setting up for a fail situation here. But if they want to change their nutrition and they don't like cooking, I would tell them, just eat a veggie.

Just start on one veggie once a day, because then it becomes one veggie. Now it's two veggies. I actually have a Facebook group called Eat Your Effing Veggies, and it's really because it's something simple to start off with. It's not expensive. You can buy carrots for $199. You can get the organic ones for 219. It's something that everybody can start with. So it comes down to what do you feel confident you can start with? And if they really have no idea, I would start at veggies because most people don't eat their veggies.

That's great. I think about our kids, and my wife will advocate for three of the mini carrots and then four of the mini carrots or a couple of heads of broccoli. Not one of the really big gargantuan ones that hasn't been cut in half, but like a reasonable sized one. And I think that's just some place to start. Laura, thank you so much for all you've shared. We're going to be sharing your social handles. I'll have those in the show notes. Where can people find out more about your podcast that relates to this?

Yeah, sure. So you can go on any platform you get your podcast, or just tell Amazon Alexa to play Outspoken nutrition and you can hear this kind of conversation. Each week. We break down some of the simplest steps on where to start forward. And I don't want to Wade your time being healthy. We want to get healthy and be active and go do fun things.

Awesome. And Where's the best place as far as website wise for people to connect with you?

Yes, you can go to Laura. Timbrook. Com and all my links to everything there.

Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing this. I love how practical this has been. I encourage people to relisten this and just choose one thing to choose, one thing that you're going to do. Hopefully commit to it for a while. And please either share that with me and or with Laura. Connect us on LinkedIn or Instagram or Facebook, whatever it is and just share what you've done. So as always, thank you all for listening. And there's always support helping you help more people and make more money, in less time, doing what you do best, so you can better. Enjoy your family, your friends and your life. Thanks for listening.