The Real You
1:1 Long-Form Interviews with Interesting People Doing Amazing Things
In-depth discussion of people's journeys to tap into their full potential and find ways to be the truest version of themselves.
The Real You
EP 25: Embracing New Beginnings: Rey Lambie on Transitioning from Athlete to Entrepreneur
🎙️ What if the end of your athletic career could spark an entrepreneurial journey?
In this episode, I chat with Rey Lambie, a former athlete turned entrepreneur who transformed life-altering concussions into a new path.
💡 What you’ll learn from Rey’s story:
- How discipline and grit from sports fuel success in business.
- Why stepping outside the sports industry doesn’t mean leaving your passion behind.
- The power of the athlete’s mindset in navigating entrepreneurship.
🧠Topics we cover:
- Moving beyond the hustle culture to prioritize health and wellness.
- Simple strategies like strength training and bedtime alarms for better work-life balance.
- The innovative practice of audio journaling for personal growth and clarity.
Rey’s insights will inspire you to embrace life’s pivots and turn them into growth opportunities, whether in sports, business, or any profession.
Rey's LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reyannalambie/
David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-young-mba-indy/
David's Website: https://davidjyoung.me/
Welcome to the Real you Podcast. I'm your host, David Young, and this is episode number 25. This podcast discusses tapping into your full potential and finding ways to be the truest version of yourself. Today, I'm joined by Rae Lambie, an athlete, entrepreneur, hockey player and from my new favorite city, Toronto, Canada. We will discuss her journey, how to incorporate the athlete's mindset into everything you do, and what she's learned along the way. So, Ray, thanks for making time for me and coming on the show today. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me, David.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. So sorry I missed you when I was in Toronto a few months ago my wife keeps giving me a hard time that everyone I meet and talk to is from Toronto. She was like is there any other city? Do you know people from any other cities? I'm like, apparently not, it's all Toronto all the time. So next time I'm up there we'll have to figure out, carve out some time. But yeah, I do have an unusual seemingly number of people from Toronto that I migrate towards. So you are, you're one of the one of the.
Speaker 2:Oh, I appreciate it. I mean, yeah, we got, we got good people here, so I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1:They'll put us on the map. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. No, I spent three days up there and it was a lot of fun. I got to meet a few LinkedIn connections and see part of the city. So, no, it was a good time. So are you from there? Are you born and raised there?
Speaker 2:Born and raised just outside. Not sure how much you ventured outside the city, but outside of the core city we have our greater Toronto area. Okay, I was born sort of on the west side and then came up but been in the city my whole life. Yeah, Nice.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, I didn't venture too far. I stayed downtown and mostly stayed there. I maybe drove I don't know 20, 30 minutes to the west, but not too far. But yeah, looking forward to coming back and trying to spend some more time and meet some more people and see some different parts of the city. It reminded me a lot of Chicago. I spent some time in Chicago. It had a very similar vibe and feel, at least from a few days I was there. But yeah, no, it was a lot of fun. So let's talk about your background. I know you played Division I hockey, is that correct?
Speaker 2:I didn't end up playing university. Funny, funny story that comes with that okay no, I played. I played double a hockey all the way up until university and then had my fifth concussion and since prescribed glasses and that was the end of that career. But yeah, it was a. It was a nice rising up and then you kind of either hit the climax or you put the skates away and not had to hang mine up.
Speaker 1:That stinks. It's funny you don't think of, or I don't think of, concussions as much with hockey, but it makes a lot of sense with all the cross-checking and the boards and everything. I feel like football kind of dominates the concussion landscape, but soccer and hockey probably should be included as well.
Speaker 2:Easily easily and for me it was like cross-checking you're getting hit in the boards. Actually, my last one was the worst one and I got cross-checked with my head, hit the goalpost and that's what did it. Yeah, no, they're too common and it doesn't get talked about enough and it's a big problem, especially in the minor leagues. So kids getting concussions is not something we want to normalize, but yeah, that's too bad.
Speaker 1:Well, hopefully, I mean the nfl and whatnot obviously has gotten a lot more attention. So maybe at some point, you know, it trickles down, you know, into the other sports that aren't quite, as you know, not quite as popular as football. So how, so how did that like experience kind of shape your journey? Once you stopped playing, what did you start doing? I know obviously your kind of tagline is the athlete's mindset, the athlete's entrepreneur, so incorporating that kind of athletic background into your business or your work. So how did that transpire then once you were kind of forced to stop playing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean drastically. It changed my life entirely, in a few words, to say the least. I'll be real I wasn't going to go anywhere with hockey if I went to university. Beyond that, there wasn't really any leagues or anything promising at the time. Even now it's still something that's just coming up. So I knew that even if I were to go play in university or college, that would be the end of the line anyways.
Speaker 2:So as I got closer to the end of high school, I had to think about what it is I wanted to do with my life, or at least have a start to think about it. But I didn't think it was going to come that quick. When I realized you know what? You're not going to go to the US, you're not going to go play in school, you're going to stay and study in Toronto. I ended up going to the University of Toronto, u of T, studying business there. Why, I honestly don't know. I picked something that I liked to study in high school I was curious about, but it was general enough that I didn't feel like I was putting myself into something really specific and I went with. It is the is the easiest way. Easiest way to put that, but I knew I wasn't going to leave sports. I always thought I was just okay, I'm going to work in sports if I'm not going to play. And up until my senior year my fourth year, I thought I was going to work in sports and I ended up in consulting ironically, but it's funny how that happens.
Speaker 2:But in terms of like, how it impacted me and my journey, it was a really big thing. I think the biggest thing I talked to every athlete, every former athlete, especially when you're performing at such a high level, it's your life, there's no other way to put it. You eat, sleep and breathe, whatever your sport is, and when that is gone, you just realize, yes, life has a lot to offer, of course, but at first there's just this void and you don't really know how to fill it. There's only so many times you can work out and then you don't really know what to do with that. So that maybe honestly think about who I am Big identity crisis that you already have, I'm sure, at 18. But that was definitely a bit more of a turmoil than I expected and it really forced me to pivot but also just understand myself and who I am, beyond a hockey player, because I didn't just always want to be known as, oh yeah, like the athlete, the former athlete, the former hockey player. So that was a big part of my journey, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I think that's your story kind of is why you see so many professional athletes hang on too long, right? Especially if you had a fairly long career in whatever sport. It's all you've done for most of your life. And then it does. It becomes who you are, and then what? Then what? You can't get the applause and the adulation and the coverage, and so they try to hold on when you typically way past, when they're still at the top of their game. So it makes sense you think it helped that you were 18, or you think it would have been easier, or you think it would have been better if you'd been, say, 10 years older.
Speaker 2:I think it depends on the version of me that you ask. It's better from a professional perspective, in terms of career and growing up. I think I grew up a lot faster because I wasn't attached to a childhood dream there's that but at the same time, sports and just being an athlete has been the foundation to every single thing I do, and so I definitely know that I would only reap more benefits of that the longer I stay in that. So I guess it's a catch-22. The timing happens because it happens.
Speaker 1:No, I feel that and I was with you I wanted to play in the NBA. When I was a kid, basketball was my thing. I didn't realize that I had a 1% of 1% chance of doing so. Nobody shared that part with me. They were just like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's good, keep going, keep practicing, keep trying to get better, so, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So sports was big and I was like you, like if you had asked me when I was graduating from college like what I was going to do with, like my career, I'd be like, oh, I'll work like for some sports organization in some capacity. And then I never did it. I didn't even pursue it. It's just like, yeah, I just ended up on a totally different journey and then never really got back to it. So it's funny, you had the same thing and then you ended up in consulting. It's weird. It's weird how that works, and I think part of it, at least for me, is I didn't really know what that meant.
Speaker 1:Working in sports is so broad and I think I just needed someone to be like okay, that's great, but in what capacity? Are you going to be a trainer? Are you going to be a coach? Are you going to work in the front office? Are you going to be in sales for ticketing? Are you going to do marketing? There's all these different areas. But I just was like, oh, I don't know, it's just in sports, and then it's like anything else, was like, oh, I don't know, it's just in sports, and then it's like anything else. Right, when you don't really have a plan, you just have this general, I'm going to do X. A lot of times you don't end up doing it because you don't really have a specific direction. So did you have something that you were thinking about if you were going to work for an organization or in sports? Did you have something that you were thinking? If I was going to do it, it like it would be here, like in this.
Speaker 2:You know this area yeah, I mean I had a couple things, like it wasn't necessarily specific as position. I think I had the same sort of problem or just a dilemma of it was always just going to be sports. I knew I really wanted to pursue it, like in university I was like the president of our student organization that was called like students in sports. So it was definitely something I was trying to navigate and figure out. And what does sports business actually mean and actually look like as a career? I mean, growing up in Toronto, everyone wants to work for MLSC teams, so that gives you sort of the one shot organization of being able to go to sort of any other sports. So, you know, growing up a hockey player, I was like that'd be cool if I worked for the Leafs Best fans, very rich organization, super cool, even though we haven't won a cup in time, but anyways, it's always a good time.
Speaker 2:Other than that, I knew that the type of work I wanted to do was it's always been around strategy. I'm a very as we say, in consulting top-down thinker. I like to think of really big ideas and really big problems and just drill them down to their core elements, and so what that means in normal people terms is I like to think big and I like to come up with big ideas and make a plan to make it happen. So that's naturally how I ended up in consulting. So it's no surprise to me that once I figured that out I realized I don't actually have to work in sports to be there. So that's kind of how I ended up on the consulting side.
Speaker 1:Nice. And then did you always have the idea then to take that athletic background and apply it in that athlete entrepreneur mindset? Was that something you always had with you? Or once you started working and consulting, you were like, oh, I really see this parallel and I want to bridge these two or bring these two worlds together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like, if I kind of start from the beginning, the best thing I can think about is I always knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur forever and I think that's why I actually took business in university. I was like maybe this would make sense, that this would help me, without actually understanding what the degree was, what it actually gives you, and there's so much of entrepreneurship that you know isn't actually learned in the classroom. But regardless of that, I didn't know. I didn't have like this million dollar idea or what I thought I needed to have, and a team and all this stuff, and I was like I don't really know how this works. And then, you know, luckily I kind of have come up in a time where, you know, the creator economy and content creation became such a big thing, especially for my generation. I realized that, okay, well, even though I don't have an answer to figure this out yet, well, this is a vehicle that will help me like move this muscle and kind of build it, and that's kind of what got me into podcasting, what kind of got me having conversations, writing blogs, newsletters, videos and etc. But I knew that there was some sort of connection between the athlete world and the entrepreneurship world. I just didn't know how to define it. I didn't know how I could help people. There's all these big questions.
Speaker 2:So I actually used my podcasts plural to figure that out. I just had a bunch of conversations with people. I tried to draw those parallels. I used writing to try and think about the problems that I was facing, what my experiences were and how that impacted me on my journey as an entrepreneur, but also how I would go about things coming from an athlete perspective versus how other people looked at problems.
Speaker 2:Because that's one thing I did notice is, athletes operate very similarly to each other and whether it's a mindset thing or like a discipline or a focus thing, there's something that almost is ingrained in whatever sport you played or however you trained, it's in you that you kind of operate that way in everything you do. So I found it very Not easy it's definitely not, but just familiar is the way I would put it and it's like I found my new sport, if that makes sense. So that's how I've been drawing that parallel and, through content, figuring out what are those pockets that people really need help in and that I can use my expertise and my interest to kind of bring those worlds together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I like the way you phrased that about how it's kind of when you do that, when you're in that sports playing mindset, the athlete mindset, where it does carry over and it does, you don't just like turn it off.
Speaker 1:And I think the discipline, the focus, dedication, kind of commitment to the goal, whether it's individual or a team, I think there's a lot to that and there is a lot of parallel, especially if you're trying to build your own business, which a lot of us are on LinkedIn these days, like you said, with the creator economy and trying to figure out a little different way to do it than just the traditional nine to five, 40-hour workweek for our whole adult lives. What has kind of been your experience, as you've kind of gone down this road and you start thinking about that and you said you talked to a lot of people Was there any like really common threads other than just the discipline, mindset, commitment? Was there anything else specific that jumped out? Or like what did you feel? Like you learned, you know as you were doing the podcast interviews and kind of starting to think you know a little more broadly about you know about entrepreneurship and maybe building your own thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, the first thing when you ask me that sticks out in my mind is that our problems are not unique, is the way I would put that, and it's that everybody's stressed out. Everybody has health problems. Everybody has some sort of struggle that you can relate to, no matter if you're a founder, you're a creator, you're an athlete, you're a consultant. It doesn't really matter your walks of life. There's some thread that ties us together in one way or another, and that broader term for me was health.
Speaker 2:I realized that that was the thing that connected both worlds. For me, it's the demands of let's just call it, the professional working life and the entrepreneur life have those same demands that you have as an athlete and that same pressure, whether that's external or self-induced right. And so I realized the focal point of that is if you're able to. You know how everyone says control the controllables. To me, the ultimate lever is health. If you can really nail that in, you're setting yourself up to succeed in literally every domain that you have, or you can work against yourself and pay the price later on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great point because you know, obviously that's the foundation of everything. You know it's one thing we really can't buy. I mean, you can invest in medicine and technology, but you can't literally buy your health. So it's the one thing, especially, the earlier you start taking care of it, the better.
Speaker 1:There was a post today and I'm drawing a blank on who talked about it, but they were talking about how overworking and putting in extra time and effort for a long time was kind of seen like as a good thing, right, like a badge of honor, like you're a hard worker, you're an overachiever, you're always going and doing these extra things, right. And now it's a little bit started to shift and the science behind it is like it's actually really detrimental. First of all, there's laws of diminishing returns, right, like you're only going to get so much done to. Then the effect on your health, right. If you're working 60, 70, 80 hours a week versus, you know, 40, and you're doing that over a long period of time, then what's the trade-off?
Speaker 1:And so hopefully, individuals and companies are starting to see that work-life balance is pretty cliched, but really trying to figure out that happy medium between doing the best you can with your job and your work, but also carving out time for yourself, family, friends, activities, all that kind of stuff. So hopefully that, especially as, like you said, this kind of current generation is coming through and you're going to see a shift in not as much traditional nine to five work and hopefully the balance then is more creative freedom, a little bit less structure and not just killing yourself. You know, putting in these crazy hours to drive a company's, you know bottom line.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, you're talking to someone who works in consulting. I see it, I see it, I love it, I know it right, and it's a big problem that these kind of industries face. And like it's not a unique problem, I'll go back to that Right it's, and I think it's it's. Whoever can solve this is really answering a really full question. Because you know, I'm I'm of the belief that I don't think it's that people want to overwork their people, it's that they don't see another way. So you know the question is like another way. So you know the question is like whose onus is it to fix that? Who's responsible for it? I fall on the side of your individual contribution means that you have boundaries to set, but also your employer has a boundary to enforce and to respect as well. But that doesn't bring about change very quickly. So we'll see how that falls. But yeah, I'm with you on that, I'm with you on that for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be great if companies would really, like you said, take the charge and be like don't respond to messages after a certain time, don't respond to emails, it'll wait till the next day. But I think we set this especially with the phones and everybody has connected all the time and it's so easy to you know. You download your Outlook to your phone and you're like, oh, I'll just check my work email for like five minutes and that turns into an hour. And then there's one of those emails is a fire you need to put out. You're like well, I can just start working on that now, like I don't need to wait until tomorrow. And the next thing, you know, it's like 11 o'clock and you just did like three hours of work when you should have been trying to enjoy yourself. So I don't know. Yeah, I don't know what the answer is either, but certainly the more connected we become has made it so much easier, sometimes unintentionally, to just just continue to work. You know, all the time Now I know in your, in your content and your posts, you know there's pictures of your weightlifting and training.
Speaker 1:So strength training obviously is a big part of your routine. Is that something that just kind of developed after you stopped playing hockey and you were just trying to stay in shape, or were you always kind of into the weights? Or how did you get into that part of it? Because I personally I love to work out, but I hate weight training. So if I never lifted another weight in my life, I'd be totally cool with that.
Speaker 2:Oh man, I mean we all have our thing, I think is the way to put it. But I mean, for me it's like I have the very fortunate circumstance of being exposed to fitness like not even just sport, but just fitness very early on in my life. So I had very top tier strength and conditioning coaches that I actually still have today. I've trained with our top NHLers and athletes and Olympians. I've had the opportunity of being exposed to that very early on. I would say it started seriously when I was 12. It was when I had an actual regimen that I was following throughout the week Nutrition mattered, et cetera. When it was really serious, when I was like, okay, I'm taking hockey seriously, this is my life kind of thing. That's when it really started.
Speaker 2:I continued and propelled through high school. I ended up going to a sports high school here just outside of the city called the Bill Crothers school. I ended up going to a sports high school here just outside of the city called the Bill Crothers. So we're the only public sports school that we have in Toronto and it's really cool because obviously everyone there is an athlete but everything is embedded in the school to support athletes. So what that means is. You know we have four gyms, you have a full strength and conditioning room, you have a plyometric room. Your actual routine and your daily regimen is built to support your athlete lifestyle. So there's all of that. But that only enabled me because I'm working out as a team, you're in your team training, you're working on your own, plus you're working out at school. So there's a lot of daily routine that was embedded in that.
Speaker 2:And once I finished high school, was going to university, wasn't playing hockey anymore or I was just playing for fun rather needed new goals that were physical and I really leaned into the physical component. But also and every athlete knows this you don't realize how much you train and how much you burn and if you gain so much weight you can stop playing and you're like, wow, I'm out of shape. So there's definitely a component there, from a health perspective, of just weight management. You're like, actually I can't eat 3500, 4000 calories a day day anymore because I'm not training three times a day. So there's a there's a balance that comes with that. But ultimately I ended, I ended up finding my way of moving my body that I love and I think that's why I sustained it so long and I try other things too. I've tried other sports. I got into actually Muay Thai for a bit. I did get injured so I stopped that, but I loved it Trying to get back into road cycling as well.
Speaker 2:I started calisthenics this year, which has been very humbling but also very fun. So just finding new challenges, but ultimately I think sort of the strength training component like to answer your question is it's like the bread and butter of my week. I obviously am finding my, finding my balance with, you know, recovery and taking like actually full weeks off, cause I'm a believer in a deload week which, for those who don't work out, means that after a certain amount of period you kind of wind down your training or don't train at all, just to give your, your muscles a real break so you don't burn out. So I'm a believer in that and that's a tough week because you really feel like you're like it's almost like you feel like you're unproductive when actually you're resting your body, like it's weird that you feel guilty for that, but it's part of the regimen as well and so, yeah, it's something I incorporate within my, my weeks. So definitely a big part of my, big part of my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's funny that's also, I think, that societal training, right when like rest is bad. Taking a day off or a week off is like you're being lazy, you don't want it bad enough, right. And in reality, no matter what you're doing, you have to rest, whether it's for creative purposes, for physical purposes, mental health purposes. There's a book and I'll do a terrible job because I don't remember the author's or the book's name, but I do remember the takeaway was stress plus rest equals growth, and I think you can apply that really to anything that you're working on is that you can give it your all.
Speaker 1:You can push your body, you can push your mind, but you have to then take a break, but you have to give it a chance. You have to take that work that you've just done, that stressed it, to allow it to your body to adapt so that you can then build on it. But if you just stress all the time, then you just break down and obviously if you just rest all the time, you're not ever building anything. So I think it's hard, but that's the key right Finding that balance of really pushing yourself but then also allowing the recovery. But I totally get the feeling of you try to take an extended period of time off and you're like all right now, what am I supposed to be doing? Should I be working out? I should go to the gym, probably.
Speaker 2:Just to hang out, just to hang out Maybe lift one thing or two.
Speaker 1:I'll just see what's going on there Maybe.
Speaker 2:I'll get into something no 100% relate to that. It's especially the rest piece. I like that tagline from that book though, that stress versus rest equals growth, Like 100% true, they used to tell us oh, I used to have a trainer that used to tell us your muscles grow in your sleep to make sure that we probably honestly to keep us from like partying and stuff, but also to emphasize the fact that rest and recovery is important. It's like if you're going to work this hard in the gym or work this hard when you're playing, well, you should work just as hard on your sleep, and it got us really having a really strong relationship with rest and sleep in general. Definitely relate to connect to that messaging there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a book I read.
Speaker 1:It was on triathlons in the 80s, but the short version of the story is they took it was a book I read on.
Speaker 1:It was on triathlons in the 80s, but the short version of the story is they took it was a group of cyclists and split them into two camps and they were pretty level like ability. The only change same training, same nutrition, everything. The only change they made in one group versus the other was one group was sleeping eight hours a night and the other group started sleeping nine hours a night and then I don't remember the time frame, a decent number of months, and they essentially that extra one hour of sleep, so seven hours a week of sleep, so basically like an extra night a week they said was the equivalent of them taking like a performance enhancing drug or a human growth hormone like just and it. So it doesn't sound like a ton, but just that one extra hour sleep. They were able to perform like that much better and I remember reading that I was like, oh, wow, I should have slept a lot more when I was playing sports.
Speaker 2:I know Especially sleep. It's always your biggest regret because you feel it the next day as you get older. You feel it two days later and you really start to regret it. But yeah, sleep has to be the focal point for me now.
Speaker 2:Yeah it is true, and I mean you see a ton of content on LinkedIn about the importance of it and they're not lying. So talk about. I noticed, looking through your profile, you had something that was called the Performance Journal. I solved a problem for myself. I told people about it and they were like I want to know more. Is the gist of the story how that basically went about is I mean, anyone who explore you, google, personal growth, self-development, self-improvement by the second link, you will see the term journaling as the vehicle that's going to solve all of your problems and like I don't need to go and sell journaling as the vehicle that's going to solve all of your problems and like I don't need. I don't need to go and sell journaling here. There's a, there's a ton of benefits and happy to figure them out on your own, but 100% it's something that attracted me.
Speaker 2:I'd like the idea of writing documenting my journey and like understanding myself. It's something that you know, that introspection that's been so important to me, especially since leaving competition. So I knew there was something I wanted to continue, but I really struggled with. Journaling is the quick answer. I would figure out what journal am I supposed to get? And all of a sudden I cared about which journal which is the piece of paper I don't know why. I care about which journal it is and I would sit to write in it and it would go well, and then I'd forget to write in the next day. I'd beat myself up for not writing it the next day and then I'd forget about the journal, buy another one. It was an endless cycle of on and off journaling. As I journaled those very few times I've come back to it, I saw the benefits every time. So I was like okay, the problem is that this is just not the system for me. It's like journaling works. It works for me. I'm like it's just not my method of working. So I'm like how else can I do this?
Speaker 2:And naturally, the time I was a podcaster love giving presentations, I'm always speaking. I literally am known for the fact that I do talk to myself out loud in blatant conversations, even in public, and everyone looks at me like are you talking to yourself? I'm like yes, I think out loud. So that told me enough that I was like okay, well, why don't I just like audio journal and realize that I could just click a button on voice memos on my iPhone and then just talk, like literally talk to myself, and I made a habit out of it.
Speaker 2:I didn't kind of put it on as like I need to do this every day, but every time I had something on my mind which is very often I would just kind of turn that on, maybe go for a walk and just talk whatever was on my mind and I realized that kind of couple things more than journaling. I'm a lot more open even with myself and like vulnerable with myself when I'm speaking versus when I'm writing. It's almost like I didn't want to write it down but I'm willing to speak it. So I had my own roadblock when I was writing, like traditionally in journaling, versus speaking.
Speaker 2:So I didn't really measure it, but I felt as though I grew much faster from speaking into my phone and connected a lot of ideas and I problem solved for myself. I always like left on a walk, like really a mess, thinking about a lot, and I always came back with clarity and that's ultimately the goal for me when it comes to something like journaling. So I posted about that and let people know. I'm like hey, if you also struggle with this clarity and that's ultimately the goal for me when it comes to something like journaling. So I posted about that and let people know. I'm like hey, if you also struggle with this, try this. And people wanted to learn more and I said, okay, why don't I put something together to help you out here?
Speaker 2:So the Founder Performance Journal is simply just an audio journaling guide notion. So I walk you through the written format and also an audio because I couldn't let that go. I walk you through audio written format and also an audio because I couldn't let that go. I walk you through audio journaling has helped me, how it helps me from an entrepreneur perspective, what my actual process looks like Happy to share that as well and then what my system is for sort of maintaining that and reviewing and reflecting on my entries. But that was kind of the birth of that and so now I built that to help other people and have got some great feedback from it, and now people are starting to hop on this audio journaling train and that's really cool.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. I also can't stick with journaling more than we'll say three days, and that could be maybe a bit generous. One day for sure, two usually a fall off, and by day three I'm like yeah, we're stuck at that anymore. But I never tried the audio. Audio journaling. I think that's. That's an interesting concept. What do you? What do you think is the like? What do you think the difference is speaking it versus writing it like? Why do you think it was easier to stick to?
Speaker 2:for me it feels like a conversation with yourself. But it feels like a conversation. It's almost like you know how people say, or what's that saying. That's like you know if you're in whatever situation you're struggling with, like think about the advice you would give to your friend if they were, if they were dealing with that same situation, and then you realize you're being an idiot and you know you know your own solution to your problem. I feel like I get to that point way faster through an audio journaling perspective by just having that conversation, because it's almost like you hear yourself say it and you're like why am I stressed out about this? Or this actually isn't true, or I already know the solution to this problem and it just took you saying it out loud for it to register in your brain and yeah, so I think that's the biggest thing for me as to why that kind of connects a lot better for me than writing.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating. I'm definitely gonna have to give that a try, see if I can at least get to like day five on audio and set some records. That's fascinating Because I mean, again, you spend time on LinkedIn. You see the posts like journaling, I think, is like every other post and or it's at least mentioned, and I've tried it. I've tried the bullet journal. I've tried it. I've tried the bullet journal. I've tried traditional journaling. I've tried scripts.
Speaker 1:I have something called the five-minute journal now that someone recommended, which is like prompts and so you don't really have to think about it. But you answer a few questions to start the day. You answer a few questions at the end of the day. I'm pretty good. In the morning I might write some stuff down. I almost never write anything down at the end of the day and then I'm like, well, you know, I did 50%, that's an F, I'm just going to skip it and then I stop. So yeah, I don't know, we'll see, Maybe I'll get there, maybe I never will, maybe I'll just be the anti-journaler. But I haven't tried the audio. So that's good food for been doing, consistently doing audio journaling.
Speaker 2:Oh, um, since late spring okay, now relatively recently, relatively recently my pace definitely changes.
Speaker 2:I noticed that sometimes it'll be every day, sometimes it'll be a couple times a week, but I also noticed that, like even the length, I found myself now actually spending long, like having longer entries than I used to as well.
Speaker 2:So you're talking about more of your life, and it's a cool thing, and I think, especially from a founder perspective or creator perspective, the one thing that I always see that pops up that people talk about is one of the biggest I don't want to call it regrets it's a little bit of a harsh term but one of the regrets that people who quote unquote make it have is that they don't remember what it was like when they were on their way, and so I think it's a really cool thing to look back, because I don't know personally, I'd rather press play and listen back or use some sort of AI tool to give me a synopsis on what all that is, versus having to look back physically through journals and put myself back in those shoes. So I find that as a helpful tool, too, to just document your own journey for yourself, let alone other people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. So how often do you find yourself going back and then listening Do you do it once a week, once a month? Do you have a specific cadence or you just kind of do it like when you feel like it?
Speaker 2:I try for once a week. I'm definitely not perfect and I miss weeks, but for sure I will do a monthly review and I guess also technically quarterly as well. But I'm less kind of anal about the quarterly, it's more of just thinking back in months. I very much operate my life on a monthly basis. I think about life weekly and monthly. I don't think in days, I don't think in hours and I definitely don't In years. I can't even fathom that. I just need to focus on something that's easy for me, which is 30 days and seven days. So, yeah, that's what works for me. And I also realized that I come up with ideas too, like even when I'm recording things and I'm like, oh, let me go back to that and I tend to remember things. Yeah, I really like that.
Speaker 1:Do you take notes? So when you listen back, are you then taking notes and writing stuff down, or is it still like in your head? You're just like kind of paying attention to what you were talking about in terms of like your takeaways and like what you're trying to, you know, get from it.
Speaker 2:I mean, I kind of I wouldn't say like I'm taking diligent notes as I'm listening. It's more of like I listen back to it and then if there's something that stuck out that's like in my head, I'll write it down. So yeah, that's that's the way I approach it, and usually anything that I'm writing down like I'm writing down for a reason, so there's, there's something there that I need to dig in on, and then I usually end up having another audio journal about that thing. So it's just a. It's just a constant cycle of introspection.
Speaker 1:It's amazing it just feeds itself, just, uh, just continual loop. Now do you do? I noticed on your profile you talked about coaching Do you coach people on the side, aside from your consulting? And then what kind of coaching do you do with them and for them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so right now, my coaching offer. I'm building a product right now, as I mentioned, but I'm still coaching. I'm in the meantime and the easiest way to answer this is I consider myself a performance coach. It gets really confusing, I think, for people when you see athletes and you think, oh okay, this person's a personal trainer or they're like a weight loss coach, and it's like no, I'm none of those things.
Speaker 2:Actually, I'm a performance coach, which what that means to founders is that I honestly like my personal mission is helping founders kind of get to where I got to, which means thinking and operating like an athlete.
Speaker 2:I know how much it's helped me, I see.
Speaker 2:I mean there's countless examples of successful entrepreneurs who are former, current athletes, and so it's building that lifestyle and that way of thinking into those founders who are burnt out, stressed out, unhealthy, and helping them optimize their own lifestyle by either having those stress management techniques, building a fitness routine, whether they're overcoming some sort of mental or mindset roadblock, and using those athlete principles to help them overcome it, and then what any coach does, which is holding them accountable to that plan after that.
Speaker 2:So that's the coaching I still offer. And then, from a product perspective, is I also noticed that the more I talk to founders, the more I noticed two things. One, not everyone wants one-on-one coaching. Two, founders don't necessarily have the time or want to invest in that right now because they're just so hyper-vigilant on their own ventures, which makes complete sense. So you want to think of more low-cost solutions and easy DIY versus done-with-you solutions, and so that's why I'm productizing it and building something that's a lot more accessible to founders that I'm reaching, and so that's in progress and, yeah, building that out, but ultimately you'll see from my profile on LinkedIn, but that's my positioning is around. Sort of unlocking your inner athlete is the way I like to think about it.
Speaker 1:Nice. No, I love that and I love taking the idea and what you've learned from working with founders and then trying to figure out other solutions instead of just, like you said, the one-on-one coaching, which is obviously always more founders and then you know trying to figure out other solutions instead of just you know, like you said, the one-on-one coaching, which is obviously always more expensive, and then you know time consuming and you know all that kind of stuff. What would you say? Why? So do you have like a I assume you tailor the coaching depending on the founder what would you say are some core principles or like core foundations that probably most of your packages would entail?
Speaker 2:There is, without a doubt, always a component related to burnout. Without a doubt, I actually think my post is about that today, because it doesn't matter. I meet founders in person, I meet them on LinkedIn or wherever connecting them through my network, and I can probably count the amount of founders on one hand that have not brought up the concept of burnout when I'm just having a casual conversation with them, and so what that means is it's obviously something we can't ignore, but it's also the common thread, right, and so, from a coaching philosophy perspective, I always start there and that's really understanding. Are you burnt out? How burnt out are you? Is the question I kind of go in with.
Speaker 2:I actually I guess it would be a year ago almost created the burnout recovery kit, which was a guide, very, very detailed, scientific backed. I've looked into every research, read every single piece of academic literature, everything that had to do with burnout, and also provided my own principles for me overcoming it and put that whole guide together, and I still leverage those principles in my own coaching. So those frameworks and all of that that's used, I still use today, but that's like in one thing that connects every program is the burnout piece.
Speaker 1:That's fascinating. Now I'm starting to see why so many posts on LinkedIn are about burnout.
Speaker 2:Yes. Because it is so prevalent.
Speaker 1:sadly, and so we talked about health a little bit ago and obviously that's important to you and then obviously, to your clients. What would you recommend to someone out there? Maybe they're experiencing some burnout or they're starting to feel maybe disinterested or disengaged in their work, but they're not super active, they're not going to the gym, they're not running, they're not lifting, whatever Like what would be kind of your I don't know a couple of things that they could just start doing on a relatively consistent basis, just to like get moving, moving their body, and start maybe trying to offset you know some of what they're feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like the way I like to think about health and wellness as a whole. I actually I came up with this concept of your minimum viable health and wellness plan. What is your MVP speaking in the founder language? Right, like what does that look like? The non-negotiables of health are ultimately, you need a fuel source, you need some way to exert the energy that you have, and then you need a way to recover, and you just need to pick the easiest way to do those three things to set you up for success. Ultimately, the more you lean into it, the better it's going to be. But in a practical sense, the easiest movement that you can do walking, stretching Everyone can do it. There's no prerequisite, there's no right or wrong way. You just need to be mobile.
Speaker 2:So the first thing I recommend is go for a walk, start your day off with a walk, break up your day in the middle of the day with your walk and end your day with a walk. So I like to walk at least three times a day, if not twice a day. If you're super busy, you're at a desk all day go buy a walking pad, standing desk, call it a day, but get moving and that kind of movement sort of incentivizes more movement is the way I like to think about it. It's like you don't wake up and you're like in the gym, like squatting plates, like you're. That doesn't happen. I don't know. I don't know if that mindset exists, but that doesn't happen. There's some sort of progression that leads you there. You drive by the gym, you kind of get there, but walking is the first thing From a fuel source. I mean, we don't need to get into this, but what social media has done to nutrition is just atrocious.
Speaker 2:The simplest way that I would put it is you know yourself, right. You know when you're hungry, you know when you're full, you know the foods that make you feel good and you know the foods that make you feel bad. Focus on the things that make you feel good. Eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full, period. That's like where I would start blank slate. Then you can get to yes, eat more protein. Yes, eat more veggies. We can get into all that. But right now, if you're just no experience, you know you probably shouldn't go to that McDonald's, right? Or you can go, but there's no one who's going to McDonald's and telling you I can't wait to get my nutritious meal. Today. No one's coming in and getting that, so that's a fuel source.
Speaker 2:And then the last thing I would say for wrestling recovery is and this is great advice, and I think it was Alex Hermosi that said this and I didn't realize that I already operate this way, but he said something along the lines of forget the alarm to wake up, set your alarm to go to bed, and that was the biggest thing. It's because I found that with, especially with founders, the hardest thing is stopping. Right, it's not starting. Everyone's driven, everyone's hungry, everyone's on their grind, but nobody knows when to stop.
Speaker 2:So how do you go about fixing your sleep? It's forcing yourself to go to bed on time. Go to bed on time. If you go to bed early, you're only going to sleep seven, eight hours, kind of naturally, and that's assuming you haven't been significantly sleep seven, eight hours kind of naturally, and that's assuming you know you haven't been significantly sleep deprived, right. So with that, you're going to wake up at a reasonable hour anyways and sort of get going to work. So you probably don't even need an alarm, but that's kind of the three I would say. So just to loop that back is start walking and stretching walk in the morning and the evening and, if you can take one at lunch, eating, focus on what you know is good for you and listen to your own hungry cues, and then the last thing I'm recovering is go to bed on time.
Speaker 1:No, I love that you should write that post like once a week so everybody sees it just over and over. I'm now very happy we got our dog at COVID because he makes me walk three times a day and we walk first thing in the morning, morning sometime in the middle of the day and then at night. So if you're struggling to walk, buy a dog and then you have some company and it'll force you to walk. So, but yeah, no, I, I agree with that.
Speaker 1:I. I mean I sit a lot, obviously, like most of us do, whether you work from home, but you try to get up and move. Pretty consistently he gets me out and then I just don't like to sit. So I get up and go up and down the stairs or walk around the house or go check the mail or something, just to take a break. But yeah, no, I like the simplification of that because, again, like you said, social media has provided a lot of good information, then a whole lot of misinformation and then a lot of bad information, so it gets overwhelming and so how do you know, like, what to trust.
Speaker 1:But I like the simplification of just you know, try to eat stuff that you know is good for you. We all kind of know that, no matter what your level of nutrition knowledge is uh, you know mcdonald's probably not great for you. You know fruits and vegetables probably better. So start there. Um, if you're gonna go to mcdonald's, just get water and just see what else that?
Speaker 1:they have and uh, and then and then, yeah, stretching is that's another one I struggle with. The weightlifting and the stretching. Those are my two least favorite things to do. Never I've just I've just never been able to get into this. Uh, I go run 10 miles with stretching and lifting Probably not, but but yeah, no, I mean, like you said, if you're, if your baseline is low, you know, obviously you're not going to start, you know, lifting a lot of weights and running a lot of miles, like you know, slowly build into walking, stretching, and then, if you want to do more than you know, ease your way into that. So, no, I love that, I love the advice, as we're kind of wrapping up here kind of any final thoughts, anything you want to kind of leave people with, and then, if they're interested in learning kind of more about you and your offerings, like what would be the best way for them to try to reach out and get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, if I'm, one thing I would leave you with, you know, regardless if you're a founder or not is to prioritize your health Ultimately. You know, regardless if you take an athlete approach or not, you know staying healthy metabolically healthy, you know, keeping your weight in check, eating right, moving your body, sleeping well, staying hydrated that's only going to do you good and no harm. So you have nothing to lose and only everything to gain from that. And if you are a founder, it's especially important. It's easy to get consumed in your own passions and ventures and neglect those areas. And you know, contrary to popular belief, you know burnout isn't the flex that people think it is. And you know working yourself into the ground and not having a healthy lifestyle to see for it or feeling fulfilled and energized and focused yourself, isn't really worth it. So being able to prioritize your health is the best thing I would think.
Speaker 2:And if you really don't know where to start there, I would think, like an athlete, like I say right, what would the most athletic version of yourself do? And kind of go back to that philosophy. And so that's the messaging I talk about. If you're interested in anything that connects the athletic world with entrepreneurship. We're looking to think and operate like an athlete. You're looking to build that healthy lifestyle, escape that burnout cycle? Then you can definitely find my content on LinkedIn. That's the best place to get in contact with me too, if you're interested in my offerings. But yeah, that's where I would leave you guys off with.
Speaker 1:That was great and this whole conversation is great, very energizing. You're making me want to get in better shape. I feel like I'm in pretty decent shape, but I'm realizing I probably should do more and setting the alarm to go to bed. I've never heard that before, but I should probably also add that to the regimen. I probably stay up too late and I get up early, so it's not a great combination, but I so it's not a great combination, but I love all your insight. I love what you're doing. I appreciate your, your time and energy today and thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2:Of course, happy to be here. Thanks so much, david. It's great being here.