Episode 138 : Seven Health and Wellness Steps to Enhance Productivity and Maximize Success

Dave Sherwin is a certified fitness nutrition coach, entrepreneur and practitioner of mindfulness and meditation. His passion is helping grownups navigate real world business and live challenges to achieve their best health and wellness at any age.

He is also the creator and host of The Dirobi Health Show which covers everything to do with health and wellness, including the latest in nutrition, exercise, supplements, and clinical studies.

Questions

  • Could you share with us a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got to where you are today as a fitness and nutrition coach?
  • Could you share with us maybe some things that you think are integral for you to be really impactful as an employee in an organization or even as a manager and a leader? What are some of the things that you need to do on the nutrition side or the exercise side that will help you to be able to really be your best self so that you can be able to have better relationships?
  • Could you share with us what’s the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business?
  • What books have had the biggest impact on you? Do you have any other books that has impacted you greatly?
  • Could you share with us what’s the one thing that’s going on in your life right now that you’re really excited about? It could be something that you’re working on to develop yourself or your people.
  • Where can listeners find you online?
  • Do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you’ll tend to revert to this quote, it kind of helps to get you back on track or get you refocused. Do you have one of those?

Highlights

Dave’s Journey

Dave shared that he’s always had a passion for fitness ever since he was young. He was very awkward and shy as a kid, he didn’t make many friends and he didn’t feel very talented. And one day in elementary school some kids were trying to dunk a small ball on a hoop, maybe it was a golf ball or some small size ball, he doesn’t remember but they couldn’t do it. And he was a little bit taller than the others and he was able to dunk this ball and they were so impressed.

And at the time, it was his first memory of doing something that other people thought was impressive and it started a passion for basketball. And through that he was able to build more confidence and finally work hard and make the high school team. He was never a great player but it gave him a lot more confidence. It really helped him in those early years and ever since then, he has just loved health and fitness. He continued to play basketball until he was 40, he played basketball three times a week, and he lifted weights three times a week. And that got him through to his 40th birthday in a very healthy way.

After that, he couldn’t jump as high, couldn’t run as fast or play as well as he wanted to after he turned 40, so he started doing endurance sports. He did a lot of triathalons and running races and bike races and swimming and that kept him going for eight years and then he moved into cross fit and just into general health and keeping up his strength and endurance through cross fit. And so, that was kind of his journey, kind of his fitness journey. And along the way he was a real student, he’s always loved learning about nutrition and fitness and everything to do with the human body fascinates him.

Health and Wellness Tips that will Impact the Quality of the Experience as an Employee and a Leader  

Me: So this was your destiny, you’ve always had a dream and a passion for this. So that’s good to know. So our show is Navigating the Customer Experience and I think one of the reasons why I was intrigued to have you on the show. Even though nutrition and exercise is not really directly related to customer experience, I do believe that your health and wellness will definitely impact the quality of the experience that you deliver to persons in any service industry, whether your industry is hospitality, or telecommunication or the financial industry. If you are not well physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, then clearly it’s definitely going to impact your interactions with others, whether it be internally or externally.

I have a sister who is a dietician, she lives in Canada now and I’ve always thought that marrying nutrition and just being healthy and wealthy was a good way to really have an all-around wellness approach to customer experience. So you don’t just talk about his soft skills, but you talk about all the things that will help you to deliver better soft skills. So I’m not sure if you have any corporate experience, but could you share with us maybe some things that you think are integral for you to be really impactful as an employee in an organization or even as a manager and a leader? What are some of the things that you need to do on the nutrition side or the exercise side that will help you to be able to really be your best self so that you can be able to have better relationships?

Dave stated that that’s a great question and to give a little bit of context here business wise. He has been an entrepreneur since 1993 and he has built and sold multiple businesses and have ran teams of salespeople and customer support and currently own three businesses.

And so, these are things that are near and dear to his heart. So he loves what Yanique mentioned about marrying the physical side with the business side, that’s something that he does in his own life and he has had to navigate. And so, he does have a fair amount of experience in business and to this day, like he said, he has his own companies. And for him, I didn’t get into the health space as a business person until 2009 when he finally had the epiphany that just kind of alluded to that what he really loves is health and fitness.

And so, why isn’t he doing that for a living and he started his first supplement company in 2009. And it went crazy. And one of the reasons he thinks it went crazy is because he loved it. They were doing over US $100,000 a month in sales within 6 months. And it was the easiest business he has ever built and it was because he finally married the passions that he had.

Me: I think that’s brilliant. I think it’s good that you are able to see the correlation between both of them and you were able to now create that opportunity for others to tap into. And so I think a big part of what our listeners want to hear. We’re going through a pandemic globally and I’ve had these thoughts about nutrition and exercise for a very long time. But I think it’s even more important now that people, they’re burnt out mentally, they’re overwhelmed, they’re working from home, they have to be balancing their family life as well as their business lives. And some of them are not adjusting very well to the new normal, for a better way of saying it.

And so, what has your experience been? What are some of the recommendations that you give them?

Sleep is important, how much hours of sleep should we be getting?

How much exercise should we putting in?

What’s the best type of exercise?

As human beings working from home, especially for me, for example, you spend so much time seated, and as human beings, we weren’t meant to be sedentary.

What’s your recommendation in terms of just standing and moving around, should that be done every hour?

Should that be done once or twice per day?

We want your expert advice on how we can just be better overall.

Dave shared that his first answer is one that he’d love for people to get more information of and they give out some information on their website for free, you don’t even need to enter your email address, just simple click on it, it’s a PDF, download it.

And he’d recommend two and he’s going to say them and then he’s going to talk about them. So for those of you who want to dive deeper and really get like a guide that you can sink your teeth into, go to dirobi.com and download the 10 page Un-Diet PDF and that’s the best answer he has.

Now he’s going to go over the seven points of that here quickly. But he does want people to know there’s a resource that they can get so they could just read it, again, you don’t even have to enter your email, just grab it, download it and read that.

And the Virtuous Cycle is how to live a healthy 24-hour period. And it’s very integrative of our physical, mental, spiritual, social emotional sides of how we live 24 hours in a very healthy way in between those two, those are some more in depth resources.

Now, he’s going to go through the seven health tips that they teach their customers and that he’s a huge fan of and that he currently lives by.

And that is number one, Focus on Water as your Primary Source of Food. Our bodies are made up primarily of water, we all know this but getting dehydrated is quite easy to do, it doesn’t take very long without water to get dehydrated and too many people are drinking calorie rich and sugary drinks. So cut down or cut out on unhealthy drinks, even juices, a lot of people think fruit juice is healthy, it’s really not, it’s quite acidic and usually full of sugar. So, focus on water, drink plenty of water. And there are seven of these and so he wonder would you like him to list one and then give a chance to comment or do you want to just give you the whole list?

Me: I’m sure we can discuss on each level, so after you finish the first one if I have any comments I’ll definitely jump in.

Dave stated so that is number one is water and especially for those of you wanting to lose weight.

Now, for some people in the pandemic, activity level has gone up because they’re outside more often and they’ve taken to outdoor exercise as part of the whole social distancing thing and it’s one of the things they can do to not go stir crazy.

Others unfortunately, their activity has gone down and so weight loss is currently a challenge.

So getting rid of drinking calories would be hugely helpful if you’re wanting to lose some weight.

Number two, Eat All Your Food Slowly and Mindfully. This may not sound like a big and important health tip, but it’s number two for a reason. According to multiple PhD scientists and nutritionists who study the human digestive system, we eat too quickly, our stomach is not like a hole in the bottom of our throat that we just dump food into and it just somehow magically gets processed, rather, it has folds and the food has to work its way through the folds.

And not only that, before it even gets to the stomach, we have to chew our food thoroughly working the enzymes to that food. And then it comes to our stomach and slowly works its way through.

When we eat too quickly, we don’t give our digestive system a chance to operate correctly, we don’t get all of the nutrients out of our food.

And not only that, but the hunger signals and the hormones like ghrelin that trigger fullness are not 100% accurate, they don’t trigger our mind that we’re full the second that we have enough food, rather, it can be delayed as much as 20 minutes.

And so, if you eat very slowly and mindfully, studies have shown that you also eat less and are less likely to put on weight. So that’s number two.

Me: So stick a pin in there, Dave. So eat all foods slowly and mindfully, as you’re talking, I actually went to your website and I’m on this document that you have. And so when I was growing up, I don’t know if this is applicable to all persons but my mom used to say I’m to chew, I think it was 32 times. And I’ve tried that, I think by the time you’re probably at chew number 16, the food in your mouth is completely liquid.

Just explain that whole concept to me and you’re not really thinking about the food when you’re chewing it because you’re just thinking about, okay, I need to kind of just get eating and complete this activity really quickly, especially if you’re on the go like you’re driving and eating or maybe you’re trying to eat in between meetings because you need to jump back onto a Microsoft Teams call with a client or you’re doing a training session.

So how do you suggest persons to overcome this and train their mind because I guess it starts in the mind to be able to eat food slowly and mindfully as you’ve suggested?

Dave shared that Yanique made a great comment about what not to do, no one’s going to do that long term, it’s kind of a pain in the neck.

And the fact is that chewing until the food is about the consistency of applesauce is what we’re shooting for and for some people, that happens quickly, others take a little more work but it’s the whole experience.

Food is a pleasure of life. Now, we may not be able to do it always, there’s always a time we have to rush to eat between meetings, as Yanique mentioned, but there are seven days in a week.

And all of us have many meals that we could slow down and be more mindful.

And so by mindful he means, the phone is away, if you’re with other people, you’re with other people, let’s make eating a social experience as it has been for millennia with human beings.

And make it a time with your loved ones, whatever that is.

If you’re alone, like he mentioned, try to avoid distracting yourself from the food rather than looking at your phone, or your computer, or a newspaper or whatever.

Instead, just take those few minutes to really enjoy the food, to eat it carefully, mindfully savour it, enjoy the smells, enjoy the taste. Too many people worry about what food is going to do to them, instead of thinking about how enjoyable food is and enjoying what they eat.

So it’s a human experience that we’ve kind of lost. We’ve kind of let our busy lifestyles turn food into like putting gasoline in a car.

And it just is better, our life is better when we enjoy nutritious healthy food slowly and mindfully. So it’s a matter of understanding this is not an all or nothing thing, we can’t always do it. But many meals a week we can if we’re just a little bit more thoughtful.

Dave shared that number three is Intermittent Fasting. We do really well when we eat in a certain window of time during the day. And a very practical one for a lot of people is about like nine o’clock in the morning to have their first meal and five o’clock in the afternoon to have their last or maybe it’s 10 o’clock and six o’clock or 11 o’clock at seven o’clock, that’s about a 10 hour window.

You can experiment with different lengths of window, everyone’s different, everyone’s at a different stage of life, everyone has a different activity level. But generally speaking, there’s a magic that happens when you stop eating any food after dinner for one thing.

For example, once we quit eating, our body gets to digest that food fully before we go to sleep so our digestive system is now done and our body is able to focus on getting rid of pathogens, carcinogens, and getting rid of that food and developing up the hormones and replenishing the brain and doing all those healthy things that need to be done at night.

The hormones work correctly, when we stopped eating at dinnertime, the melatonin starts rising making us drowsy helping us get a better night’s sleep. While we’re sleeping, the HGH is rising, the oestrogen is rising, the testosterone is rising, and the blood sugar is dropping.

And we wake up in the morning and that’s an ideal state for some of our best work. And so, he gives an example of this morning. As he mentioned, he’s an entrepreneur, he gets where you’re coming from with the podcast.

And he was asked specifically how things changed with the pandemic?

Well, here’s how one thing has changed and this goes also back to the comment Yanique made about standing and about making these adjustments.

So this morning, his workout consisted of four things. So today’s a strength day for him and he has a pull up bar out his garage for pull ups, he has a dip bar in his office which is also half gymnasium, he’s got a rowing machine, he’s got some kettlebells and he’s got a dip bar.

And then he did step ups, that’s where you have a box, and you just put your leg up on the box, and one leg at a time you very carefully and in a controlled manner, just lift yourself up and it’s kind of like a squat, excepted, rather go down, you put one foot up on a box and lift yourself up, which you can also do in a chair.

And then his last one was some core exercises, lying on the floor, stomach work. So each of those he had to do six rounds of each one with a two-minute rest and so, what he did is he went out to the garage and he did the pull ups then he came back to his computer and he checked email.

He has his clock going and he has a little notepad checking off how many sets he’s done he has a terrible time keeping track of that he’s got to check it off, once the blood gets flowing and you got all this stuff going on, it’s easy to forget where you’re at.

So he’s got a little pad of paper for check marks on his desk, set of pull ups, do some email, set of dips, check email, set of pull ups, check his calendar and his daily MO.

He has what he calls it his daily MO sheet, which is his daily method of operation which has all his to do’s and everything on it.

And so he’s going back and forth, by the time he finishes this workout and this is kind of a long one, it took him an hour and a half. But there was a two-minute break between everything and by the time he gets done his workout, he’d been moving every two minutes for an hour and a half and he had gotten rid of every important email, he had his plan all laid out for the day and had accomplished two or three of his most important tasks.

Some people call those trigger workouts and these are things that you can do, either the way that he described it or on a set schedule.

Here’s another one, for example. Many fitness experts do recommend that we get up out of our chair at least once an hour and that was part of the question asked earlier. Once an hour is a good standard.

Guess what if you’re not exercising that much, and you want to incorporate exercise into a very busy entrepreneurial lifestyle, there are three workouts that are surprisingly beneficial that you can do during your work day.

One of them is squats, there’s nothing like a good controlled, good postured deep squat. And if you had a timer, and after hour one, you simply stepped away from your computer, and did say two sets of 20 squats, the heart rate is going to go up, it feels pretty good, your brain gets kind of cleared after sitting for an hour and focusing on whatever you were doing.

And then you set the timer for another hour. And the next time you do push-ups. Push-ups are great exercise for the chest and strength of the arms, the triceps, the shoulders, and you do some push-ups.

And the third one is any type of core exercise that you like, it doesn’t matter, it could be bicycles, it could be some crunches, it could be any type of leg lift, or mountain climbers, it doesn’t matter, there’s a lot of them.

But if you combine some push-ups and some squats and some core work into your day, by the time you’re done and imagine you did some form of that or some little bit of exercise or maybe after you’re kind of done enough squats and push-ups and core, after the next hour, you could go for a brief walk, maybe five minutes at a good pace.

If you work in a building, you could walk the stairs kind of aggressively, put something into it, put a little work into it to get the heart rate up a little bit. And so that is a wonderful way to get out of the chair, to get your workout in, even if you didn’t get it done, you don’t have to get up, you don’t have to get dressed in your fancy yoga outfit to go to this, just whatever you’re wearing, you just go ahead and do it. And so that’s a great tip right there for keeping your fitness going.

Number four is Eat Healthy Macros – carbs, protein and fat are the three macros. And in addition, as part of those, we need to make sure to get five to nine servings of vegetables per day. Now too many people eat too many carbs, and not enough protein. And often the fats that we get are unhealthy. So tip number four is to make sure that you’re getting a healthy form of macro – protein, carbs and fat with a serving of vegetables with every single meal as often as possible, breakfast, lunch, dinner, try to work in those all three at the same time to every meal. And if you can do that and by the end of the day, have eaten five to nine servings of vegetables, that’s a really great routine. And you’ll have phenomenal health if you do that. For most people, that will mean they’ll eat less unhealthy carbs, more quality proteins, and higher quality fat.

Number five is Observe a Simple Supplements Strategy. The fact is that even if you eat really, really well, you’re going to be deficient on some things, we know this from science, we know this from all the blood work that’s being done on people right now.

76% of Americans are deficient in vitamin D. Similar percentages are deficient in things like chromium, many women are deficient in iron, and so on. And so we need to take a good quality multivitamin, a good quality mineral and trace mineral, supplement and those are the very basics. Ideally, you want to get a nutritional blood panel done once a year, he does one once a year, he has for about the last 5 years, they’re getting less expensive. The first time he did it he thinks it was $500 for him to get a blood test done to find out his vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Now that $500 a year to him is well worth it but happily, it now costs about $200. By the way, these are available easily and quickly at Amazon, if you go to Amazon and just search for nutritional deficiency test or something like that and there’s a variety, some of them you send hair samples, some of them are saliva, some of them are urine and they all have a different way of doing it, some of them is to prick your finger and get a little bit of blood.

And so depending on if you get the “heebie jeebies” about some of those, you pick the one that works best for you. So you just kind of determine how they do their sample and what you want to do and how accurate you want to do it and pay a little bit of money, send it in, and they’ll tell you exactly what you’re deficient in.

If you’re taking the good quality multivitamin and mineral though, hopefully it won’t be very much. They have a phenomenal one Mimi’s Miracle Multi is specifically designed for what most adults are deficient in, that’s why they designed it. And they have Mimi’s Miracle Minerals that has over 70 trace minerals and so that’s how they answered that for their clients, but those are the basics, a really good multi and a good mineral.

Number six is Exercise Everyday, seven days a week. Now again, this doesn’t mean you have to get dressed in your fancy clothes and make a big deal of it and go out to the gym and spend a lot of time, you don’t have to become a gym rat.

But what we’re talking about as our society has become too sedentary, when he mentioned taking a break and going for a walk, that counts. This does not have to be difficult, our body though is not designed to sit not even for 24 hours, if we don’t exercise in a 24-hour period, we’re not doing ourselves a favour, we have multiple systems that we need to look after.

We need to look after our strength, our endurance, our general longevity, our balance, our speed, our accuracy, all of these things are part of how our body functions at its best. He’s 55 years old, he’s got grandchildren and he wants to have great grandchildren but he doesn’t want to have them if he’s decrepit and unable to get out of the bed, that’s not the vision he has.

And so, he knows that the way he takes care of himself now is going to affect how well he is if he’s going to be a healthy great grandfather. And that’s true for all of us. What we’re doing today is setting the groundwork for how healthy we are in the next decade, and the one after that, and the one after that.

Me: So in relation to move your body everyday, seven days a week, your sheet says make sure even your rest days involve light activity. Can you quantify that for me? Let’s say, for example, I normally go to the gym four days a week, that’s been my routine for the last maybe three months. So, I go to the gym four days a week, and on the days that I go, that I don’t have any pressing meetings in the morning, I’ll also do a three mile walk at a field that’s pretty close to my home, just as additional cardio and because I have a back injury, I don’t typically do any form of what would you call now heavy impact, like jogging or running or anything like that. I just tried to brisk walk for the three miles as much as possible. That’s four days but then there are other three days, now maybe two of those days, I’ll do brisk walking alone, because obviously I wouldn’t go to the gym. But then on that seventh day, are you suggesting that I do additional activities? And if so, for how long?

Dave stated that this is a great question and the answer is yes. Even if it’s yoga, another walk, mobility of some sort, there’s all kinds of great videos on YouTube.

Now, for example, if you go to YouTube, you have a back injury, he does as well, he has a condition in his back, actually, that gives him chronic pain and he has to deal with it and so he understands that.

However, he’s dealt with it much better than many other people have been able to do because of this routine. When his back is active and flexible, he has very little pain, it’s when he’s not exercising, when he’s not taking care of himself that it flares up.

So if you go to YouTube and you search for exercises for back pain, that is a wonderful search, if you ever heard of foundation training, there’s a really good 10-minute foundation training on YouTube for any of you that have back pain, it’s fantastic, he highly recommends it.

And there’s many others as we know, there’s many, many workouts that are available for free on YouTube. So yes, we’re talking about light exercise, whether it’s working on a pre-existing injury that we have, whether it’s just working on general flexibility and mobility to improve our quality of life over time because as we know, if we don’t work on our flexibility, it gets worse and worse as we get older.

And as it gets worse, this is why people end up in a wheelchair often, that are otherwise healthy and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.

So, mobility, flexibility, yoga, very light, low impact exercise, find something that you can do on your non gym days that’s very easy but you’re still getting your heart rate up a little bit, you’re still keeping yourself limber.

Me: And the length of time you recommend for that 20 minutes, 15 minutes, half an hour.

Dave stated that he really doesn’t recommend by time, it’s really a personal thing. For example, Sunday is a very easy day for him. And he takes his dog, they are lucky to live near a lot of farmland and dirt roads and they’ll just walk for an hour and he loves it and she (the dog) loves it. And there’s nothing magical about the hour. And so, he would say make anything minimum 20 minutes, under 20 minutes, they know that it’s not doing our heart near as much good as it could the American Heart Association encourage us to make sure our exercise is at least 20 minutes. So I’d say 20 minutes is a minimum and of course, there’s not really a maximum as well. So, let’s just say minimum 20 minutes makes a lot of sense.

And then the final one, Get Seven to Nine Hours of Sleep Per Night. This is what entrepreneurs don’t like, a lot of people want to burn the candle at both ends. He’s been self-employed since 1993 and you got to ask yourself this question, “Is your lifestyle for your business or is your business to support your lifestyle?” This is a critical question. To him, when someone says, “Hey family, I’m going to work super hard for 10 years so that we can have a really great life.” To him, that is a terrible thing to ever say to a child or to think. Those 10 years are going to go and you’re going to miss piano recitals and football games, and dances and the stuff. And his motto, when it comes to family, his family comes first, his family comes before his business, his health comes before his business. So without his health, he doesn’t have a family or a business, he can’t serve anybody else.

And the seven to nine hours sleep is foundational to our mind functioning at its best, our body functioning at its best. And so those temptations, when you’re thinking, “Oh, if I just get this project done, then I can go to bed.” That’s just a lie. As entrepreneurs, we are a personality go getting hustlers.

And we could work all the way up to the day of our divorce. No problem. Because we’re wired for work but we got to just step back and understand.

Dave shared a principle that has absolutely changed his life. In your business, there’s probably only one and maximum two mission critical things you have to do today.

If you ask this question, what is the one mission critical thing I have to do today, that if I got it done, and then I had a family emergency and had to go to a hospital for the rest of the day, my business would still survive?

That’s extreme thinking but you get the idea.

Now, in his business, they use Basecamp, each of their employees, they have this principle baked in. Basecamp pings everyone at 9:00 am in the morning, it says, “What is your one thing?” Every single one of them has to plan their day around the one thing and do the one thing first. And they all have to tell each other what that one thing is.

So that someone else might say, “Oh, hey, did you forget about this? Because I kind of think that in our meeting, we talked about this project. And you’re saying this is your one thing, I kind of feel like you ought to do this thing.”

So by having some accountability and having other people do that, it makes sure that each person or business knows what their mission critical, most important thing is, and they get it done first. Once you’ve done that, it’s amazing how much pressure comes off. And then from there, you realize that come 4:00 pm, 5:00 pm, you really don’t need to work anymore.

You’re never going to get it all done, that’s just not reality. There will always be something on your mind that you think is so important that you have to get done. The fact is, most of these things that feel so important, they’re just not that important. There’s usually just one or two.

Me: I think of all the ones that you’ve given so far, I talk the most about sleep. I’m a big, big, big supporter of sleep. I believe in the seven to nine hours of sleep. And I can’t tell you how many customer service training sessions I’ve been on for leaders, for supervisors, for frontline staff, and people telling me they’re surviving on three hours sleep or four hours sleep and their body doesn’t need that much sleep, you only sleep that much when you’re a baby.

And I’m like, No, no, like, there’s scientific data out there that proves that sleep, your body needs sleep. The reality is, there is no cure for sleep, but sleep. There is no tablet for you to take to replace getting sleep, you have to sleep.

When your body says it’s time to sleep, it’s time to sleep. And so, I’m so happy that it’s on your list and I’m so happy that it matches back with what I’ve been saying for years. And I just want you to reinforce it again for me, Dave, because I just think people just don’t recognize the importance of getting sleep. And as you said, the seven to nine hours of sleep, so important.

Dave agreed and stated that one of the reasons why is because nutritional and fitness science has come so far in the last few years and sleep and intermittent fasting are two of the newest to hit the radar and because of that, many of us were raised to believe that to be successful, we had to burn the candle at both ends, that it was like some badge of honor to not get very much sleep.

There’s these groups that were everyone gets on Twitter, like 3:45 am or 4:45 am in the morning or something like that and they feel so terrific because they’re getting up earlier than everyone else and getting stuff done. And that’s really great short term.

Long term, he doesn’t want to be that person and he doesn’t need to be that person. No one needs to be that person to be successful, whether with their health or with their business or in their relationships. As a matter of fact, as you mentioned, all the scientific data supports that we need seven to nine hours of sleep, that might be seven for you, it might be seven and a half, it might be eight, might be eight and a half, it might be nine, but don’t think you’re always the exception to the rule. There are very, very few exceptions to the rule.

So this is the other problem is everyone thinks that they’re the exception and in health and fitness, it’s usually a lie we tell ourselves, we all want to feel exceptional, that’s wonderful.

At the same time, we should have some level of humility and accept scientific research that people do. As mentioned, I have the Dirobi Health Show and one of his favourite interviews was with Molly McLaughlin and her tagline is, sleep is a skill. And he had her on his show and she’s just excellent.

And so, for those of you that want more on this, he’d recommend that interviewer that you just look her up, she’s got some of the greatest cutting edge information on sleep and really up on all the studies. But the fact is, the other question that he’d ask people is why do you think that you don’t need to spend that much time in bed?

What is it you’re trying to accomplish exactly?

If you have to work 16 hours a day, the answers why, what are you working for?

What’s your goal?

Again, business is supposed to support us, we aren’t supposed to support our business. So you’re doing something wrong.

In 2015, he took his family to Europe for 90 days. For 90 days, they spent time in Scotland, in England, in Wales and then they spent time in Paris and Brussels, and it was wonderful. And his business grew.

Some people may not believe that but from September to December 2015, his business grew while they were travelling for 90 days in Europe, because they’d created the systems, they had the staff, they had the ideas, they had this one thing concept.

And so, his whole business is designed to support his lifestyle.

He takes every Friday off, he loves to golf and every single Friday, he’s got his little golf group, and they go out and they golf.

And there’s literally not been a Friday in the last three years that he can remember where his business took over that golf outing, it just doesn’t happen because he doesn’t let it happen.

He realizes not everyone loves golf, but you get the idea. If your business isn’t supporting the lifestyle you want, change it, do it differently so that you can have the health you want, so you can have the relationships that you want, so you can have a wonderful life where you see the world and do all these exciting things that that life has to offer. And sitting at your desk is not it.

App, Website or Tool that Dave Absolutely Can’t Live Without in His Business

When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Dave shared that he would say the one kind of philosophy or book that has changed his life more than anything else is The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Tim Ferriss. That book, it’s a little bit dated now so don’t use techniques when he talks about advertising, that type of thing. But the underlying principles of what he (Dave) just said about life and lifestyle and travel, that book teaches you how to create a business that can support a wonderful lifestyle. And he read it years ago, he read it in 2008. And as an entrepreneur, he’d say that book changed his life more than any other business book.

Me: So that would be a resource that definitely helped you to get to where you are today.

Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Dave

When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Dave shared Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, he thinks is a basic self-development book that everyone should read. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey, he believes is one of the best personal development and professional development books ever written. So if he backs up and talk about a resource, one of them would be the one he mentioned earlier, Basecamp. Basecamp is a very inexpensive tool, but he runs his whole business using Basecamp. And so that to him is an absolutely essential tool.

What Dave is Really Excited About Now!

Dave shared that the one thing he’s most excited about at the moment is a transformation programme that he’s doing for their customers. He’s been developing it for a while, it’s where he’s getting to take all his years of experience and his health certification and put it into an app that he’s developed.

And they did their first run, it’s called the Dirobi Transformation Programme, earlier this year. And it was his first chance to really kind of put together a programme that people took that involved all these principles they’ve been talking about where every single day they get a ping about a training and then accountability, did you follow the principles.

And for 90 days, they follow this health journey. So that’s been something he envisioned years ago but the technology, he’s sure it was there, but he didn’t know how to do it. And so finally, this year he was able to develop out a programme to really take his whole business and his customer base to the next level.

And the reason he’s so excited about it is because while he loves making a living in the dietary supplement industry, which is what he does, it’s not about him selling bottles to people to make a living, it’s about health transformation, it’s about the success that they have, it’s about filling in those deficiencies, it’s about them. So, for him, he’s never just wanted to be a guy who sells stuff in the health space, he wants to be a guy who helps people raise their quality of life in the health space and he’s been doing it since 2009.

But he feels like just this year, he’s actually getting to where his vision really has been leading him to where he’s able to create something that’s more than just buy the bottles, but actually take the bottles, understand how to use them in the context of these principles that we’re talking about and develop out the habits so people can go beyond weight loss, beyond yo-yo dieting, beyond thinking of health in terms of such simple measures as that and instead achieve their ideal body weight, great energy, feel their best, look their best in a way that makes sense and that they can do long term. So, that’s it, he’s excited about it, it’s still a work in progress like he said, he had one group go through it, from that he learned a lot and he’s improving it. And from here on out, he sees that being a real core part of their business.

Where Can We Find Dave Online

Website – www.dirobi.com

Instagram – @dirobihealth

YouTube – Dirobi Health Show

Facebook – @Dirobihealth

Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Dave Uses

When asked about a quote he tends to revert to, Dave stated that he’s going to change the question a little bit. He has a practice, rather, it’s not a quote or anything. But he’s a meditation practitioner, he goes to retreats, he meditates every single day in the morning.

And one of the things he does is walking meditation and there is a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh that he recites as he walks slowly. So, if he really needs to get centred, he goes for a walk and he recite the poem. And now that he’s under pressure, he hopes he can get it right but it’s very simple.

It goes, “I have arrived. I’m home. In the here. In the now. I am solid. I am free, in the ultimate I dwell.”

And you simply breathe and walk slowly while you recite those words in your head.

And he’s been doing that for years. I did it just this morning and it’s a unique kind of a practice, was very grounding. He talks about kissing the earth with your feet as you walk and recite this little poem or couplet. You just recite those words though as you walk very slowly and ideally outside. And it’s incredibly grounding, that experience.

He’s walked for as much as 2 hours reciting that, probably sounds like the most boring thing ever to people listening. But keep in mind though, he started his meditation practice a long time ago and he was terrible. He couldn’t sit still for like more than two minutes. His first meditations, literally didn’t last more than two minutes, it took him two years to work up to 10 minutes of meditation. And then after going through his first retreat, he really broke through to where he was able to meditate for longer periods of time and generally be more meditative and more mindful in his general living. So, that’s his best answer is walking meditation.

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