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Welcome to The Figuring It Out Podcast.
At 22, I took the plunge to go on the entrepreneurial journey and start a fitness business, 7 years later I’d been the nutritionist for 2 elite sports clubs and private coach to some of the worlds best sportsmen and women.
Now it’s my mission to show fitness coaches how you can put yourself in a league of their own, become the go to coach, and finally eliminate the self-doubt and imposter syndrome that's holding you back from building the business of your dreams.
This podcast will help you figure out how to thrive and conquer the fear that comes with the lonely entrepreneurial journey.
If fear is the only thing stopping us from achieving our dreams and we only fear what we don't understand, then the antidote to fear is knowledge.
Speaker 2:All we have to do is find out who has the knowledge that we need to conquer our fears and achieve our entrepreneurial dreams. My name is Callum Walker, and welcome to the podcast that will help you figure it out and conquer this lonely entrepreneurial journey. Hello, everyone, and welcome to not only the podcast, but the second well, technically first, but second installment of the sleep series. So on the last episode, I really went deep into the outline for the podcast for how this is going to be structured and specifically how this month, we're really, really focusing on sleep optimization. So, in this episode, I'm really going into why sleep optimization.
Speaker 2:Why is sleep important? Not just for your clients but for you. I really, really, really feel, and this is the reason why I'm starting with sleep optimization in terms of my series, that sleep is the backbone of foundation for everything. I'm gonna start off with the obvious one, which might be obvious to to me, but listening to this, it might not be obvious. As a fitness coach, as an entrepreneur, running a business, it is so hard.
Speaker 2:It is so, so, so hard. It really is. I found that entrepreneurship running a business has been the most challenging thing and rewarding thing in my life. It has been the the most difficult emotional roller coaster I could ever expect to go on. Now it's fantastic because you really, really do learn so much about yourself running a business.
Speaker 2:You understand your weaknesses, but you also understand your strengths. And, also, I'm sure that you've probably, know, really, really understood how strong and resilient you really are off the back of moving forward with this. Now what's that got to do with sleep? Well, like I mentioned, this entrepreneurial game running a business is so challenging. And do you know when it's even more challenging when you haven't slept?
Speaker 2:That naturally, our ability to juggle the plates that we're spinning to ride the entrepreneurial roller coaster of running a business, my god, is it harder when you haven't slept. That, you know, briefly kinda going into the science of it, what you find is that, you know, look, this this entrepreneurial journey is an emotional roller coaster. It's an emotional game. It's a game of viewing and managing your emotions and using them in a way that is productive versus destructive. So in the sense of, let's say, a client drops off.
Speaker 2:We have one of two ways that we can tackle it. One, that negative emotion of, oh my God, a client has just left me. That's also 200 next month. I'm not getting that two hundred pounds I've now gotta find. My god.
Speaker 2:I'm a failure. Everyone else is so much better than me, and I'm just a bag of shit. I know that because that is how I used to operate. If so, just really quickly, I have just got a whiff. I'm just going down the canals and whooping say, I've just got a whiff of what is known as the sweet Mary Jane.
Speaker 2:I've never smoked this stuff, but my god, does this canal stink of weed right now. Anyway, coming back to it. I know that process so well of a client's dropping off, me feeling like I'm just a bag of shit, that everyone else is so much better than me. I take it personally. And I'm gonna be honest, there have been times where I've just crawled into a ball and just completely capitulated, taking it as a, something personally, taking it as a reflection of my own ability as a coach, and it's caused me to then just be completely paralyzed.
Speaker 2:So my point is that prior dropping off, negative emotions drive me to paralysis, to destruction. But when we can harness our emotions better, and by harness our emotions, I mean, view them, see them for what they are and then go, right. How can I use this constructively? I can go right. Client has dropped off.
Speaker 2:Okay. I can do two things. First of all, if they're dropping off, see if there's a way for me to actually resolve this. Ask them. Okay.
Speaker 2:Right. I get it. Why have you dropped off? What is it that I've missed? Have I missed something?
Speaker 2:Can we repair it? What can we do in order to move forward with things to keep you on the program so that I can continue to serve you? If that's still not an option, we can then go, okay. If you are leaving, I'm really, really sorry. Could I get some feedback?
Speaker 2:Could I get some feedback as to what is it that I missed? What is it that you would have liked to have seen within the service? That then provides you with some form of constructive stuff that you can use moving forward to be able to actually grow your business and improve the quality of your service to prevent this from happening again. But thirdly, if a client drops off, we can then go, okay, they've dropped off and I just got to suck it up. I've got to suck it up that I'm not getting £200 next month.
Speaker 2:If you're charging that or $1.50 or $2.50 or whatever, I'm not getting that. What am I gonna do about it? How can I find a new client? Where can I go and acquire a new client to come into my business to go and do that? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:So first of all, emotional regulation, when it comes to running our coaching business and being able to coach is huge. Like, it is so huge. And the problem is that when we're in a sleep deprived state yes. I will go into the science of it, but I'm gonna make it point blank and obvious. How much harder is it to navigate those emotions and use those emotions when you haven't slept?
Speaker 2:Like, your ability to take a step back and go down the constructive route that I just spoke about, it isn't there. It's almost like, you know, everything is just darker, gloomier, more challenging and difficult when we haven't slept. That negative voice is so loud when I haven't slept. It is so loud, and it's it's hard to quieten it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's things I can do to overcome it, but really, you know, like having a good cup of coffee, doing some exercise, you know, eating a decent meal, staying hydrated, all of those things. Yeah. There are things that you can do to kind of help overcome the emotional barrage. But if you've got a rock in your shoe, you can do one of two things. If it's causing you pain, you can take paracetamol to numb the pain or just take the rock out.
Speaker 2:So if you are finding that your ability to deal with this emotional roller coaster is dwindling a bit. It's it things are getting harder. You're becoming more emotionally involved, and your ability to deal with these emotions in a constructive way is not working looking at your sleep. So why is that? Well, again, really simplified.
Speaker 2:There's a part of the brain called the amygdala, which, again, I'm really, really gonna simplify this, but the amygdala is basically like the emotional center of the brain. You can call it kind of your we can call it your chimp brain. I know that's not exactly how professor Steven Peters, spoke about it in his chimp paradox, but if we look at the amygdala, basically your chin brain is raging and the amygdala is really responsible for emotional control. So when we're in a sleep deprived state, that ability to control your emotions via the amygdala just goes into haywire. It is so much more heightened when we haven't slept.
Speaker 2:So I think first of all, really why is optimizing your sleep important? I'm really looking at this from you as a coach, as a business owner. Clients are gonna piss you off. Clients are gonna leave. You're gonna have lean patches.
Speaker 2:You're gonna have periods when you're doubting yourself. You're gonna have periods where that voice is really, really loud telling you you're not good enough and you're not gonna make this a success and everyone is better than you. And those things are going to happen. And when you haven't slept, they are even worse. So first of all, yes, the purpose of this sleep series is to educate you so that you can, you know, provide a better service to your clients so that you can really help them with their sleep so they can get better results.
Speaker 2:But really, the most important thing is applying it to you so you can deal with this emotional roller coaster even more. You can quieten that voice down. You can deal with those negative emotions in a positive and constructive way that is going to improve the quality of your life as opposed to destroy the quality of your life. So that's the first thing. Now kind of moving it into the second part, you know, why, why else sleep optimization?
Speaker 2:Why, why do I need to learn more about sleep? Aside from just learning more about sleep, but sleeping better. And no. Actually, no. I'm gonna go into the learning side of things.
Speaker 2:But why would you want to learn more about sleep? Well, first of all, like I kinda touched on, it really, really is the foundation of optimizing your own performance physically. So I'm a big believer that we really, really need to be a walking advert for the result that our client can get, but more importantly, the person that they can become. If you're having adherence issues, if clients aren't following your plan, which is like insanely frustrating and insanely just like mind numbing, and it feels like you're just banging your head against the wall and kind of feel like a tick box exercise. If you are feeling like that, this will really help.
Speaker 2:And again, kinda ties into the sleep side of things that for me, if I look at, myself as a client myself as a client. So I had a coach for a long time, and there was never a problem with me following his plan. The same way with I was in Russell's mentorship, Russell Brunson's mentorship, and there was never a problem in me following the plan. Now why is that? It's not because I'm holier than thou and I'm perfect child.
Speaker 2:It's because I wanted to be Russell's biggest success story, because Russell inspires me, because my coach inspires me, because me being part of Russell's mentorship really kind of made me feel. I was like, I have the reason I'm with you is because you inspire me, that you have achieved things I want to achieve, and you are a person that I find inspiring, and you have characteristics that I would love to have. So I want to be your success story because I want to make you proud. You inspire me. You have helped solve problems in my life.
Speaker 2:You've helped me overcome challenges, and I want to make you proud. Does that make sense? Can you see how that can apply to you? That what we wanna do is in order to influence your clients to take action, there's two things you can do. You can manipulate their behavior.
Speaker 2:And by manipulate, I don't necessarily mean it in like the negative derogatory turn of how you're manipulating them. I mean, in the sense of that you can put things in place, adhere in strategies, do specific things to get them to do it, or you can inspire them to want to take action. And I have found that the real secret to inspiring them to take action is to be inspirational, be an inspiration to them in terms of showing them what is possible, that you can command that authority, command that respect, that when you are talking from a place of authority, they believe you because you believe it. Does that make sense? So I am a big believer that if you really, really want to level up your coaching and you really, really want to, be able to provide them the best possible result, but more importantly, them to a deer, be a walking advert for the result and person that they can become.
Speaker 2:Which brings me off to the next part in terms of how I want you to use all of the information that I'm going to provide you around sleep optimization, which is and I've I've mentioned this so many times on the podcast, but I will mention it again and again and again until it really, really, really hammers into you that that in my membership, we go through a very clear three step process in terms of how to level up your knowledge and how to get better results with your clients. That what I want you to do with this information is all the stuff in this sleep series. Before you go and apply it to any of your clients, apply it to yourself. So the three step process is really, first of all, acquiring the information, learning the theory, listening to everything that I'm going to talk about and understanding it from a theoretical point of view. But then secondly, before you go and apply it to your clients, it to yourself.
Speaker 2:Why? Why apply it to yourself? First of all, like I've just said, it means that you're going to be a walking advert for the result that they can get. You're a walking advert that it works. I know it works because look at me.
Speaker 2:I remember Susan specifically tied to to sleep, but I had a client who was a nightmare, an absolute nightmare. I mean, she was causing me sleepless nights. She was constantly moaning that her plan just wasn't working. She wasn't losing weight. And all I'd done was asked her to do some intermittent fasting.
Speaker 2:That's all I'd done. Do a little bit of fasting, do a sixteen hour fast, and eat twice a day. That's all I was asking. Basically, just don't have breakfast. And I remember she said these words to me, which were, I just don't think this is good for my soul.
Speaker 2:It's just this just isn't good for my soul. And the problem was at the time, I, you know, I didn't know where my next client was coming from. Financially, I wasn't exactly in a very secure spot. I was charging £650 for a twelve week program at the time, and I needed that £650. And the problem was that she was just constantly going on at me about how she wasn't getting results.
Speaker 2:I haven't lost weight this week. I haven't lost weight this week. I haven't lost weight this week. I remember sleeping in my study one night trying to figure out why she's not losing weight. And I just couldn't sleep.
Speaker 2:I couldn't sleep because I was so scared about losing her, but not necessarily losing her because that would have actually been a bit of a dream, but more the refund side of things. I was like, she's gonna ask for her money back here. And I can't give her her money back because I need that money because I haven't got any money. Does that make sense? So so what I did, I finally realized well, not necessarily realized, but I was like, chief, you do realize the reason why she's not following she's not getting results is she's she isn't following the plan.
Speaker 2:She's not listening to you. And I then was like, right. I'm gonna do something about this. So sorry. I'm you can't see this because this is audio, but the canal is so muddy today, and there's just water everywhere.
Speaker 2:Fortunately, I've got my Nike trail running missiles on so I can navigate the mud in the water. But see what happened was that I decided I was like, right. I'm gonna fast for two days. I remember seeing her on the Wednesday, and I fasted all day Monday and all day Tuesday. And I turned up to our consultation.
Speaker 2:I turned up to one of my follow ups with her. And I said to her, she she started moaning. I haven't lost any weight. Whatever. And I said, I'm just gonna stop you there.
Speaker 2:K? I'm gonna stop you there. I haven't eaten for two days. It's Wednesday. I have my last meal on Sunday.
Speaker 2:K? Now I haven't slept because of you. I'm gonna be real. I haven't slept because of you because I've been so anxious and worried about the fact that you're not getting a result. And I'm gonna be really honest with you.
Speaker 2:I questioned myself and was like, what have I missed? What have I missed? What have I missed? And I realized I haven't missed anything. You just haven't done what I've told you to do.
Speaker 2:Now I realized I I run the risk of upsetting you here, but I also know that I would be doing you a disservice by not telling you what I really do believe you need to hear. And I haven't eaten for two days. And it's not because you've caused me to be so stressed that I'm now like starving myself. The reason I haven't eaten for two days was because I wanted to show you that I haven't eaten for two days and I'm fine. You keep telling me about how you can't fast, about how it's so hard that you're scared that you're gonna wither away, you're gonna die, and your body's gonna go into starvation mode, and everything's gonna fall to pieces.
Speaker 2:So and all I'm asking you to do is not have breakfast. I haven't eaten for two days. I am thinking so clearly right now. I have so much energy. I am not hungry.
Speaker 2:And do you know what? I could go for another twenty four hours. And do you know what she did after that? She then went, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.
Speaker 2:You're right. And do you know what? You are right. If you can do it for two days, I can prolong my breakfast by two hours. Do you get what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Because I had applied it to myself, my own certainty and confidence in delivering my coaching was through the roof. Because I hadn't eaten for two days and I knew that I was fine and that it worked, because I'd been practicing intermittent fasting for so long, I could push it onto her. This works. This works. I know it works because I've applied it to myself.
Speaker 2:I am a walking advert that it works. That is why we apply it to ourselves first and foremost because this then comes to the next part which is that I really believe that in terms of coaching, what we need to do is get away from sharing facts and sharing lessons. So the reason why I'm going to ask you to apply all of the stuff from a sleep optimization perspective, but then also all of the series that I go through, whether it's alcohol, cold water therapy, ketogenic diets, intermittent fasting, mindfulness, yoga, meditation, all of that sort of stuff. But I need you to apply it to yourself so that you can speak from pure confidence and certainty and be able to have those sorts of conversations with your clients. Call them out because before I applied all of this sort of stuff, I I really was very fearful that I wouldn't call them out because if I called them out, the problem was that I needed to make sure that the stuff that was actually like, I was actually passing on to them would work.
Speaker 2:And I didn't have absolute certainty that that if they did follow everything that I was telling them to do, that they would get the result. Does that make sense? So that's why, secondly, we wanna apply it to ourselves so we can speak with pure confidence and certainty about the stuff that we're talking about. And that's where the impostor syndrome can kinda come in. That for me, the problem was I was just trying to memorize things I'd learned on podcasts, memorize things I'd read in books, and my knowledge was just a bit like I was trying to memorize things and tap into my memory about things that I'd read, learned, or heard versus the real secret where impostor syndrome goes away is I'm sharing things that I have experienced.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say that again. I'm sharing things that I have experienced. Because one other thing is that, you know, one of the main reasons why we might, you know sorry. I'm trying to go. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow. I wish you could see this, but I am going through almost like lakes here. And I've just been tangled by a tree. Yeah. One of the the biggest reasons why I was scared to put myself out there in terms of my coaching business was one, a scare fear of being exposed, but also a fear of being criticized.
Speaker 2:That fear of criticism is huge. And the beauty is that when it comes to you sharing your lessons and your experiences, no fucker can criticize that because it's true. Because you experienced it, and that's your interpretation of it. So if someone criticizes you for that experience, they can get in the bin. So it makes you criticism proof, completely criticism proof, and you get the benefit of being able to share it with your clients.
Speaker 2:You then also get the benefit of applying the information to yourself and reaping the benefit, for example, of sleeping well. How great is that? And the third part, I am breaking this episode into two parts. And the but because, like I said, I like to keep these episodes as short as possible. I don't want these to be, like, hour long episodes.
Speaker 2:So that's why I'm gonna split it into two parts for you. But the the third reason why I want you to apply it to yourself is again for the purpose of your clients. You know, like I've just touched on that we're we're able to fully pass on the information to our clients with absolute certainty, but also the the real benefit is that by applying it to ourself, can give them the information that they actually need. So the actual knowledge and information that they need, which isn't your appetite is significantly increased by 30% and sleep deprived individuals consume an extra 200 to 600 k cals. It's actually the practical challenges and limitations that come with applying sleep optimizing strategies when you come in contact with this thing called life.
Speaker 2:Because the thing that I found in terms of university where it failed me you know, I've got qualifications coming out of my ears coming out of my ears. But the problem was all of the stuff I learned at uni, do you know how much of it I was able to actually use in the real world? None of it? Well, maybe a portion of it. But the thing is that, like, all of these things that experts pass on to you, all of these facts, of these, like, you know, these these tools, the problem is that when you actually go and apply them to a real world individual, a real world situation, it's so hard.
Speaker 2:So, you know, for example, me telling an individual, like in terms of a ketogenic diet, for example. A ketogenic diet, typically, you find that an individual's ability to burn fat doubles, maybe even triples. But the problem is that if they have a lifestyle that doesn't quite fit in with being able to use a ketogenic diet, it goes through the toilet. Same as sleep optimization. I can like share the perfect sleep optimizing strategy.
Speaker 2:But if they're a shift worker, that's really challenging. Does this make sense? So I think the point that I'm coming from is that you can then share the real world information and knowledge and strategies that will help them. You can speak to them on their language. You can say the most powerful words in coaching.
Speaker 2:I get it. I get it. I understand. I get how challenging that could be. But do you know what happened?
Speaker 2:When I was in that situation, I did this and it really helped. That's such useful information. And because you've done it yourself, you can then articulate what you did and how you did it in a way that is coming exactly from their point of view, exactly from their point of view, because they are literally sitting where you were sitting when you first learned this information. Does that make sense? So yeah.
Speaker 2:So so in this episode, hopefully, you've really kind of bought into why sleep optimization is so important for yourself so far. I, actually, tell you what, in terms of in terms of my notes for everything I wanted to cover on this episode, I've actually done it. So I totally need to split it into two parts. I thought I've got a piece of paper here, with some notes on, and I thought that I've missed something. But I think that off the back of you learning, listening to what I'm saying, you're probably bought into, yeah, I really wanna learn how to sleep better.
Speaker 2:I really, really, really do. So yeah. I can keep this to half an hour actually. So yeah. So really kind of like what I've covered is like three primary reasons why we want to optimize our sleep for ourselves.
Speaker 2:First of all, the most important one, being able to deal with this emotional roller coaster, being able to deal with this entrepreneurial game of being able to, you know, tackle our emotions and use them in a positive, constructive way versus a negative, destructive way. It is huge that it's almost like, you know, being in a sleep deprived state is like pouring gas on the fire. It just makes it so much harder. So making sure that we're prioritizing gas sleep is vital. Secondly, in terms of our own performance, like, you know, we need to be a walking advert for the result that they can get.
Speaker 2:We need to really be like bulletproof to make our clients proud, to really prove that, hey, this does work. And I know it works because look at me. So in terms of, like, your own confidence and certainty when it comes to passing this information on with your clients, it's heightened massively because you're speaking from your own experience, which then comes on to the third part, which is you then become criticism proof because you are sharing your lessons, not your facts, which then stops you, first of all, from feeling inadequate, feeling that fear of being exposed in terms of, if I put myself out there, I'm gonna get criticized. No one can criticize your lessons. No one can criticize your experiences.
Speaker 2:And if they do, they can go in this canal that I'm walking by. And finally, you're able to meet your clients where they're at. You're able to actually share with them the real, the real practical strategies that they can use, they can implement with their, themselves within their lifestyle because you've experienced it. They'll be able to buy into it because you're not just, like, you know, sharing these technical, almost like gobbledygook. You're you're sharing practical real world things that can help them.
Speaker 2:So on the next episode, I'm really gonna go into specifically I mentioned previously around how sleep optimization serves as the the real foundation for optimizing our physique. I'm gonna go into three core things on the next episode. For us to really optimize our clients results from a physical point of view, there's three key things we need to nail. First of all, we need to optimize our clients ability to burn fat. Just because our client is in a calorie deficit does not mean 100% of that energy is going to come from fat.
Speaker 2:K? Remember, typically, standard calorie restriction, 40 to 55% of the weight that is lost actually comes from lean body mass. So I see this all the time with coaches, they're posting, you know, all my clients lost 10 kilos. I'm like, yeah, but the way you're doing it, 55 of that has come from their bicep. So remember that just because our clients are in a calorie deficit does not mean 100% of that energy is going to be derived from fat.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to go into detail about, first of all, how sleep optimization impacts your client's ability to burn fat, why it could be the missing link as to if you've got a client who's currently hitting a plateau, they're not quite making progress, that this is the reason why sleep optimization and sleep sorry, sleep deprivation is probably the reason why they're not losing weight. Secondly, we need to ensure that we can optimize their ability to build and lean, build and maintain lean body mass, lean muscle tissue. And again, I could just touch on standard calorie restriction means 40 to 55% of weight is derived from lean body mass, and sleep has a huge impact on that as well. Because when we're sleeping, this is when we produce the testosterone, human growth hormone, our muscles are really repairing and regenerating themselves. So, I'm going to go into detail about how sleep deprivation really impacts your ability to build and maintain lean muscle tissue that can be applied to your clients or yourself.
Speaker 2:And then thirdly, I'm gonna go into we need to ensure that we can satisfy and suppress our clients' appetite. So I'm really gonna go into detail about why being in a sleep deprived state is the reason as to why your clients aren't quite staying on track with their plan, which drives your frustration, drives that pain of feeling like you're banging your head against a wall that a client isn't following your plan. So those are the three key things. So at the end of that episode, you will know exactly, exactly why sleep deprivation is probably the missing silver bullet as to why your client isn't losing body fat. They're not able to perform at their highest level in the gym and where they're constantly hungry and falling off the wagon with their plan.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, really exciting. Really, really exciting. So I'm just going to leave you with one thing. Never forget, if every single one of your clients gave you just one new client, you've doubled your business. But the question is, are you giving them a good enough reason to recommend you?
Speaker 2:If not, come on board.