Wellness, Re-Organized (Ep. 98)

As we roll up on 100 episodes, I want to revisit one particular area that constantly rears its ugly head: ongoing change and the need to respond to stress.  For context, the world is crazy, definitely stressful, outrageously distracting – and it’s pulling away from the focus you need on getting to where you need to be. Russia/Ukraine, pandemic, great resignation – the list goes on. I feel it, you feel it – it’s like a broken record – there is always “something.”  That said, we also know that the only way to deal with macro change is to focus on micro you. (Provided there aren’t tanks outside your house … I get that).  Two years ago I did a podcast that organized my thoughts on wellness – and I did it because I was frustrated with the product and messaging that was thrown around in the corporate world: judgmental theory on what you were “supposed” to do, without context, the why or anything tangible on how to get started.  I revisit it today, because in two years I, myself, have changed, and while the framework remains the same, my experiences in chatting with other people about it and how I respond has shifted enormously. None of us are the same person we were two years ago.  Lots to discuss, from physical to mental to social … but it’s an ongoing dialogue that needs to be had for you. Long story, short: wellness is bespoke to you, and requires full accountability and responsibility on your part. Nobody can make you well but yourself.  Enjoy the show – I’m here to chat about it … and look forward to seeing you soon! Your Title Goes Here Your content goes here. Edit or remove this text inline or in the module Content settings. You can also style every aspect of this content in the module Design settings and even apply custom CSS to this text in the module Advanced settings. Click Here for an Unedited Transcript of the Podcast Speaker 1 (00:00):3, 2, 1. Welcome to bellwether. Thank you for joining this week, episode 98, we’re almost at the, the triple digits number 98, and we’re gonna keep going and, and do many more. But as we roll up close to the hundredth episode, that I’m, we’ll try to do something special. We’ll see what comes out. I wanted to revisit something in particular, because I think it’s relevant today. And you hear me talk about it all the time. I guess this is almost like my shtick. Now my thing is about the never ending change and ongoing stress that comes with change. And, you know, we’re, we’re in the middle of a very dynamic time, which might be an understatement with lots of, you know, pandemic challenges, Russia, Ukraine, um, workplace is changing great resignation and everything. And, and, and the con with context today, the context between why I wanted to revisit wellness, which is what we’re talking about today is the world is crazy, immensely, stressful to the point where it’s ridiculously distracting. Speaker 1 (01:09):Um, and it’s all pulling you away from what’s important today and where you want to be. And this is relevant. You know, this is obviously relevant to myself, you know, I’m going through it, I’m seeing it. And the people I’m interacting with people aren’t as responsive as they usually are. Um, and, and I would say it’s because we’re, you know, we’re tuned in, we’re tuned into all of this crazy stuff going on in the world. And, and how is that relevant to what we need to do today? The spiral of this is distracting me. I can’t get this done tomorrow that wasn’t done and now the other thing’s not getting done. And it, it snowballs into bigger things, all types of worry. We’ve got families to take care of. And all of this is, is a challenge to our in particular wellness. And if you, if you look at my previous time, I’ve talked about wellness. Speaker 1 (01:54):I’ve talked about wellness a lot. If you listen to the episode for two years ago, it’s a big topic. And the reason I wanted to tackle wellness and I, I called it wellness organized. I did this two years ago. Um, I was frustrated with, I guess, I’ll call it the wellness product and the messaging that was out there. I didn’t really appreciate, uh, the way that it was framed, especially in the corporate world, I’d come out of the corporate world and, you know, doing the coaching thing and everyone telling you just do yoga and meditation. And it was very, very judgemental. I thought the wellness product was very judgemental in the way that you’re, it was very disingenuous. It was telling you all the things that you were supposed to be, and it was never telling you how it was never telling you how to do this stuff. Speaker 1 (02:39):And, uh, and that was the big fall down. And so I, I needed to come up with some kind of framework I needed to organize what I actually thought about wellness. What did I actually need in the moment? Where did I need to focus? And what did wellness actually mean for me? So wellness is a massive topic, right? You’ve got mental wellness, you’ve got physical wellness, we’ve got all these things. My thought process on this led me to down a rabbit hole, right? I wrote the book, uh, I did the podcast, lots of coaching engagements and, and everything came out of it. And so I wanna revisit it because it’s not a onetime solution. Wellness is not a onetime solution. Wellness is this ongoing challenge. It’s an ongoing struggle. It’s an ongoing focus, whatever, but it changes because we change. And so I, I mean, I didn’t even listen to it, what I talked about before. Speaker 1 (03:27):I kind of know what I talked about in terms of what wellness means and, and how to structure it. And it’s my three categories. And, uh, you’ve got your, your physical and your mental and your, your social, it spiritual it’s social, spiritual falls under mental. I’ll talk about that in a minute. Um, but, but now it’s time to really make it real for people because, uh, being a hundred episodes in, we’re talking about things like, as I reflect and I’ll reflect more on the a hundred episode, but things like imposter syndrome, things like communicating to the C-suite things like interpersonal dynamic and relationships and everything else, I’m gonna kick off this next century of episodes with experts that are gonna tell you how I’ve got a nutritionist coming on the show. I’ve got, uh, this team that have made this incredible app, uh, that I don’t wanna give away the title of it yet, because they’re gonna be coming on. Speaker 1 (04:14):And I want them to talk about it, but it’s really on a, a mental health and accountability aspect, uh, which doesn’t doesn’t even really do it justice. It’s just, it’s it’s, I I’m really Ja really jazzed about it. I’ve got, uh, too sweet, the, the, the professional boxers coming back to talk about resilience. He’s coming back from, from a, from an injury and, and how he’s going to rebuild and, uh, all of that good stuff. So wellness, what, what it is is it, it really evolves, okay, what wellness than what you need in the moment continually evolves. And, and my wellness today is very different than what it was two years ago. And right now, I mean, I’m in a very different place. What I need is very different right now, I would argue my biggest focus is on social wellness. Two years in the pandemic, haven’t really been interacting. Speaker 1 (05:01):The, these levers go up and now the past two years has been purely focused on mental, my mental wellness. What’s my, what’s my, you know, self-love aspect. What’s my belief system. What do I really believe? What does self-care actually mean? And, and what I do with my clients, and what I wanna do on this podcast hopefully is I hope I get people to think. And, and, you know, I, I keep calling it wellness. I wish I could come up with another word. I don’t know what it is. It’s, it’s, you know, when we hear wellness, we think of yoga and drinking, shakes, eating healthy bowls and kale salads and meditating, and yada, yada yada. And that may be right. That’s, that’s not where the focus should lie. I would argue it’s some of these are come components and how people respond to their challenge of finding themselves to be well, which is great. Speaker 1 (05:47):Good for them. It’s the needs that they have. Um, yes, physical wellness is important, but it’s one of the three yoga may not be your solution for that. Uh, tofu in terms of diet is, is never a solution I can ever, ever, ever. Um, and we have to go beyond what other people are doing in order to find wellness for ourselves. Just why we have fad diets, why we have, you know, all of these things. It’s, it’s, um, we have to fill out what it is for ourselves and what I know people who eat once a day. I know other people who eat small meals throughout the day. I know other people who do intermittent fasting. I know other people will say, absolutely not inter intermittent fasting doesn’t work. And that’s, that’s crazy. Um, and, and so as a refresh, I wanna talk today about, about wellness. Speaker 1 (06:36):And I wanna talk about what you’re thinking about and how to think about wellness and how to almost, you know, whether it’s meditation, if you wanna call that, you can call it whatever you want. Uh, but I want you to, to think through a dialogue on, on what do you need in the moment and, and how to do it, the, the three categories, and I will stand by this spiritual is not one of them. It’s physical meant and social. Those are your three categories that it’s almost like this, you know, the cup game with the little marble underneath, and you’re moving things around. And thos...