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Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Chantal Gerardy, and I'm super excited today to be here with Steven Groom from Elite Breath Training. Uh, he works with athletes in, um, improving their performance, and also, uh, the law of assumption, which we'll get into a little bit later today.
Hey, Steve. How are you?
Hey, good, uh, thank you. Thank f- thanks for having me on.
It's an absolute pleasure. So I actually went and did one of Steve's classes, um, last night. Um, and I was absolutely exhausted coming off the back of a Bali retreat, um, but I love breathwork. I had committed to, um, bringing one of my girlfriends along, and I s- and so I couldn't say no, and I ended up going and having an epic experience.
And, um, I love breathwork. Yeah. Love the journeys, and I think a lot of people don't realise how invaluable it is actually for yourself in performance.
It was great to see you there. I wasn't expecting to see you there, and then, yeah, it's... Like you said, it's, it's so good. It, it goes everywhere with you, your breath.
So if you pay a bit of attention to it and train it a little bit, it can go everywhere with you and just improve things.
Epic. So tell us a little bit about yourself first, Steve. A little bit about your story. You know, w- what led you down this pathway of now doing what you do?
Yeah, so back in 2020, I developed shingles.
Developed that again, and someone I'd know had told me about these breathing exercises, 'cause he was always chirpy and happy. I'm like, "What is this guy's secret?" So he told me, and then, uh, it was in my head, and then the second time I got shingles, I'm like, "I need something." You know what I mean? I was trying to eat good.
I was d- got rid of alcohol for a bit, and I was like, "I need something." And then I just started doing these breathwork, just, uh, Wim Hof breathing just on YouTube, man, and I was just like Just felt euphoric. Every morning I'd do it before work, and then I found my health getting a bit better, and just feeling freer.
And then I was doing, uh, cold showers, the ice baths, and just going all in. And then I heard about the holotropic breathwork, which is similar to what we did last night. It's where you breathe intensely for an hour, and that's when I was like, "Wow, there's way more to this breathwork stuff than I knew," you know?
But I always knew I was just scratching the surface. So that was 2020, '21, '22. I was just g- going through things, talking about it, trying to div- like, you know, find more about it. And then I thought, "I wanna be..." I did more men's groups, more breathworks, released more anger, released more anxiety I didn't even know I had.
And then, uh, came to 2023, I decided I wanna become this pr- practitioner. I wanna hold space for people, and bring it back to the ev- everyday guy, especially guys. 'Cause at every, unless it was a men's group, most events I'd go to were mainly l- female, and I was like, "Men need this as well," so. But in that course, I heard a thing called Oxygen Advantage, and Trey Williams, who I did the course with, that was so well known on the course, he said to me, "This could be your thing.
You could, you could do this. You could run with this." I'm, "Okay." So then at the end of tw- at the start of '24, I just went all in on the Oxygen Advantage, and that's where I, I found, wow, this can be what people have with them all the time. So the breathwork events are amazing, but that's an hour or two hours, and then you're back to your own devices.
So if you improve your breathing as well as doing that breathwork, it's endless.
Yeah, epic. So firstly, shout out to Trey Williams. He's my mentor for breathwork as well. I've done my level, level one and level two with him, so hey, Trey. Hey, Trey. Thank
you.
Um, so awesome. Okay. So before breathwork, what were you doing?
Like, so- I was- ... what were you doing before breathwork, like your industry or your- Yeah ... what you, were you involved in?
I, I, I install fire, fire alarms, and just a victim all the time. If I get given a crap job or I get sent to Brisbane, I'm down here in Crummy and I, I'm a victim. Oh, and I'd moan about it to everyone, and then looking back at that, I'm like, "Well, you're just making your whole situation way worse."
You know what I mean? And I'd just, everyth- everything would- F- I'd feel like a victim. Do you know what I mean? There's no regulation. I'd just be like, "Ah," you know, just- ... blowing up at this and that. Like, and I just, I'm... It's re- very rare now that I'll actually snap. Very rare. And if I do, it's gone within a minute or two.
Whereas there, you'd, you'd see me and you go, "What's the matter with you?" I'd be like, "Oh, my boss said this last week." And they'd be like, "Last week? What are you still holding onto that?" But that's like a, a... We're all like that, aren't we? You know, we hold onto these things. So looking back at myself where I was then to now, I'm so much calmer, so much more regulated, and just there's no room for that now.
The room's all for growth and optimi- uh, you know, being, uh, op- uh, what's the word? Op- uh, what am I looking for? Just being, uh, optist...
Optimal?
Op- yeah, yeah.
I got there.
Yeah. It's, and just, you know, I can just see by doing that, it's just, it's just regulating.
Yeah. So we can obviously see, um, how passionate you are about what you do.
Mm. And with this being the Meaningful Marketing Podcast, obviously we can see this is meaningful for you. Yes. Um, and I obviously love what you do as well. Um, so my question is then- We know that you can't help everyone, as much as we wanna help everyone. So for example, when I had, uh, w- when I was in the fitness industry and I owned health, wellness, and fitness centers, we'd have...
Say we had 100 people coming in a week and saying, "I need to lose weight." But out of all those people, out of the 100, maybe only five were actually committed to actually signing up, showing up, and actually doing the work to get there, right?
Yeah.
Um, so we can't, as much as we can help everyone, we actually can't because- Yeah
there has to be some buy-in from people. So where have you found your niche? 'Cause I know you said that at one point you felt like you just wanted to help everyone, but then you started looking at your niche. Yeah. Talk to us a little bit about that.
So looking back, I think I was trying to spread myself between 20 different things and just giving myself 5% to each one.
And I was like, I'd work with people, help them sleep. I'd work with people, uh, stop, uh, limit their Parkinson conditions. I'd help people stop having panic attacks. And I'm just like, "Man, everyone needs to hear this." But then I'm a boxing coach by... My background's a boxing coach, and then I started just...
'Cause I've already worked with a few boxers at our gym at Fight Club in Burleigh, and I'm like, "This can help these guys", and some of them are pretty, pretty well known, and the people that follow them can then hear that. And it just hit me that I need to zone in on this one, like, you know, just this one sector, have that, and then I know things are gonna come from that.
It just hit me like an epiphany. I'm like, "This is where I need to go." So, uh, yeah, I just zoned in on boxers, and boxers, some boxers don't have the best breathing, but they can still get fit. But a lot of it's determination, willpower. But I don't believe they'll ever be as good as they can be if their breathing's better and if they're calmer in between rounds, their recovery.
CO2 plays a massive part in our breath. Uh, it's actually the way we move oxygen around our body, and that's the thing that is just misunderstood, CO2. So I've found that with boxers or anyone doing combat sports, their exhales are very huh, huh. That's losing CO2. So if their CO2 levels aren't already the best in their blood and they're not tolerant to it, I've got these high altitude exercises which you don't need a high altitude room, you don't need a sports mask.
You can just do it with simple things, like, that's already inside. So then by doing that, getting them more tolerant to carbon dioxide, just makes their breathing more effortless
Yeah, that's epic. So good. So good, and we'll talk about that now. So when it comes to coming up with a niche, a lot of people have this, like, scarcity mentality of, um, "If I only zone in on one particular niche, I'm gonna lose out on everyone else."
I always say that if you get really, really good in one niche and you become known in that niche, you'll ultimately just be able to... people will just be attracted to you from other niches, and you'll catch them anyway. Um, so with regards to the boxers that you're working with at the moment, let's just talk about, you know, some of the limiting beliefs that they may have, and how do you get them across the line, like, to say the answer is breathwork?
Yeah, it's, it's not taught to many people to, to work on your breathing, so it's kind of not in their mind. And I think because especially older trainers, they think the, "I've been in this game 20 years. If, if this was that good, I'd already know about it." So there's all those limiting beliefs. And so it's just, just by just doing one or two sessions and having their mind open to it, it can really sort of, "Oh, okay, yeah, this could, this could be what I'm missing.
And if I improve it..." A lot of people say they're looking for the 1%. I actually believe this is 10%. I actually believe by doing this work, you can raise your game by 10%. The recovery as well, and also any athlete that trains twice a day, that second session they might go in there feeling a bit fatigued.
There's these simple breathing exercises, drills you can do to just build your CO2 up, then it moves your oxygen better for recovery. So recovery is not always about saunas and ice baths. It can be about the respiratory system, how that recovers. Ah. Yeah, so it's, it's all new stuff. It's, it's exciting. I'm really excited about it.
So I think it comes down to, like, key messaging. It comes down to being able to effectively communicate what you do. Um, and then also handling those objections in your marketing. So, um, you know, just making people aware and building that know, like, and trust, and educating them on new ways to do things.
And then of course, getting testimonials. So for example, you could, um, video some of the people, get some of the results and testimonials. Um, you know, get them to share their, their personal story about how the breathwork has actually changed. Um, and, and I think then it's like, "Oh, I want what she's having."
Yes. We... And we all... No one wants to be the first person to do summat, but no one wants to be the last. So once they're seeing more things, more people happening... Like, I trained a lady who won a world title in Madison Square Garden just over a Zoom call once a week for three or four weeks, and that, she said that helped.
I didn't help her with her boxing skills to win the title- ... but I helped her stay calmer and recover faster in between rounds. I've helped two other boxers fight for world titles. They came up short, but this is the game, you know? But, like, and then I know I've seen people watching what I do and go, "Oh, he's working with them.
Oh, he's working with them." So it's, you've just gotta believe in what you do, and you've just gotta keep- uh, banging that drum?
I think unfortunately what happens, um, is often people don't do something until it gets to the point where you have to do something.
Mm.
So for example, like you said, you had shingles- Yeah
and then you had shingles again, and then you get to a point where the discomfort and the pain is so bad that- Yeah ... you're willing to try anything. And I'm always like, why do we always have to wait until it gets to that point?
Yeah.
You know? And it's the same as the marketing. It's like marketing becan- becomes such a mess for business owners.
Yeah. And it's only when, um, they're having heart attacks, or they're burnt out, or they at a point now where they're about to get r- have to get rid of staff, or close down, or sell. Yeah. And it's like, oh, I better do something about my marketing.
And I, I think with that it's the brain doesn't like change, does it?
It freaks out. But it, the, the pain's gotta be worse than the pain from the change. And yeah, you're right, 100% right.
Yeah, so you mentioned, um, when we were chatting earlier about the law of assumption. Mm. So talk to us a little bit about that.
So I've been in that state, uh, just a few months ago, where I'm pushing, I'm pushing, I'm grinding, and I'm hustling.
Checking the phone, has he messaged back yet? Has he put in all these... Oh, once I train with him my, my Instagram will blow up. Once I train with... And then I'm like, man, just stop, just relax. Just... So the law of assumption is assu- just assume in your everyday life, not just the time when you're training someone, but have, even waking up, this is working, this is working.
Assuming it, becoming that person already before it happens. And then instead of, so you, I've planted the seed, don't keep digging it up to check it, just let it grow. You'll see. So yeah, the law of assumption, and I believe once you stop hustling, and trying, and just be calmer- Things are gonna happen for you A- a- yeah
when you're pushing, pushing, pushing, and it feels like... And you're like, "What more can I do?" That's when, uh, yeah, you're just not in a flow, are you?
And well, that's- that's no good for your nervous system, right?
Definitely
not. And then you're working reactively rather than proactively when it- Yeah ... comes to every, a- um, every element in your business- And-
and your life.
And the whole... I see everywhere on Instagram now, regulate your nervous system, regulate your nervous system. Guys, breathing is the fastest way to regulate your nervous system. You can do it in under five minutes- Yeah ... with the right knowledge. It's the fastest way. And everyone's talking about the vagus nerve.
Well, the vagus nerve runs through the diaphragm, so if you optimize your breathing in the diaphragm, that's gonna help stimulate that as well.
So let's talk a little bit about mindset. Um, because earlier, again, we were discussing around, you know, mindset, and I was like, mindset's not quite the right word because when it comes to the breathwork that we do-
Yeah
it's almost like an inner knowing. Yeah. It's almost like when you've done it, your clarity, um, and all your stuckness dissipates, and all your inner knowing and thing just starts to come, and all of a sudden, all these amazing things start to open up and flow.
Yeah.
Um, so talk to us a bit about that.
Yeah, I think that what helps with the breathwork is y- you're moving energy, and a lot of that can be negative energy or s- or limiting beliefs that we've held on f- to for 20 years.
You know, like, money's hard to get, money doesn't grow on trees. We've all heard these sayings. So by, by regulating yourself and doing the breathwork, you get rid of some of these things, and th- they're not in the way anymore, and you become more familiar with who you are. Meditate means to be familiar with yourself, so it doesn't...
A lot of people think that they can go, "Right, I'm gonna decide to meditate," sit there, and they'll freak out, most people, because th- y- it's a skill, you know? Like, and you... I, I don't think you're ever gonna stop your thoughts.
Yeah.
I think you can observe them and be f- co- comfortable with them. But to just try and stop thinking, tell someone to stop thinking, they're gonna keep thinking.
Oh. Do you know what I mean?
I'm gonna be honest with you, like- I, everyone was going meditate, meditate, meditate Yeah And I always look at what successful people do, right? Yeah. Because whatever successful people do, I wanna be doing. Yeah. Because that's my aspiration for myself. And when they said meditate, like, I could not meditate.
Yeah. With my ADHD, I, like, there's just no way, right? Yeah. And that's one of the reasons I love breathwork.
Yeah.
Because where- breathwork, you come back to the breathing. Yeah. So it leaves you thinking about, you know, breathe in through your nose, breathe out through your mouth. Yeah. Go through your stomach, through your, like, you're actually thinking.
It's a process. So f- for me, personally, that's why I love breathwork
over meditation. And you can even, you can even count. Like, you could do, like, a four-second inhale through the nose, a six-second exhale through the nose, and that can help you 'cause you're counting. It's hard to, it's hard to have your mind racing when you're thinking and counting.
Yeah. You know what I mean? And then after a couple of minutes of that, you can just slip into a little bit of a calmer state.
Yeah. Well, I'll be honest, I mean, I did the breathwork last night. I was so tired. I did not think that I was gonna have a great experience, and, um, I had an epic experience. Um, which, you know, brings me back to what you said earlier when you said, you know, when athletes train for the second time in a day.
Yeah. 'Cause I did triathlons, right? So when I did triathlons, we'd have to train twice a day. Yeah. We did 13 hours a week in, in our peak season.
Yeah.
And, um, and hours and hours in the morning and in the afternoon, and you're tired.
Yeah.
Like, how many business owners are tired? How many people doing their marketing are tired?
Oh, man. Like, you're so tired. Mm. But you still have to suck it up, princess, and now it's like, suck it in, princess, because, like, I went last night, did the breathwork. Yeah. And, um, honestly, I'm feeling so much better today. So even though I didn't feel like doing it, I went and did it. Yeah. Had a great experience.
I'm feeling awesome today.
And that's what you can do. You can create your own practices. Like, have you heard of the, uh, the, the nasal breathing, the alternate nasal breathing?
Yeah.
So there's one where you can alternate nasal breathe, but there's another one with the, that's a hack. So, uh, we've got a, a right and a left side.
The right side's, uh, masculine, the left side's feminine. So if I want a quick dose of breath, I just cover my left nostril and just breathe in the nose, right side, out the mouth for a, a minute or two. Man, it's like I hit a caffeine. And the opposite's true. If I'm laying there and my mind's racing a bit, I'll obviously be just slower breathing.
But then if I really wanna, uh, like, hack it, I can cover my right side Just breathe in and out the left side- Yeah ... as slow as you can. That's super calming.
Makes you super- Okay, so for those of you listening on the podcast You can always jump onto YouTube to Online Business Marketing, and go to the Meaningful Marketing Podcast playlist, and be able to see the visual.
Yeah, and as you're talking about meditation, meditation could be painting. Yeah. It doesn't have to be sitting there, 'cause you're just in your own thoughts. You're familiar with yourself. That's what I think. I think meditation, yeah, it's great if you're sitting there doing it, but there can be other ways of, of doing it.
You could go on a run with no headphones and meditate.
Yeah. I think it's about scheduling the time to do it. I'm a massive person, um, who is a pr- like, I massively promote time blocking, um, and scheduling in these sorts of activities. Yeah. So schedule in not just working, um, on your business and in your business, but working on yourself as well.
So making sure that your exercise is in there, that your mindfulness stuff is in there as well. Yeah. 'Cause it's not in the diary, it's not gonna happen, right? Yeah. So for example, last night was probably about a, what, an hour and a half journey last night? Yeah. Probably around an hour and a half journey.
Um, and did that last night, feeling absolutely epic and amazing. Um- But that's an hour and a half. Let's just say it's an hour because I also have to do the maths. It's an hour. That's an hour in 24 hours. Mm. So for the other 23 hours, what are you doing? Say you sleep for another eight hours, so that's nine hours, again my maths.
Okay, so what are you doing for the rest of it? And your breath, like you said, goes with you everywhere, so it's what are you doing with the rest of that time?
Yeah. Yeah, your breath goes with you. You can slow it down, you can train it a little bit, and then you just take that calmer state with you. You know?
L- like you'll never get rid of stress, but you can also help how you deal with that stress, you know?
Yeah. In Bali we were talking about, um, focus and, you know, remaining focused in what you do. Mm-hmm. And again, time blocking's a massive part of that. Getting clear on what you want- Yeah ... but then also having it up where you can see it all the time.
But one of the metaphors that I used while I was there was watching all the Hindu, um, all the Hindu people in Bali, all the Balinese people, and they pray like six times a day.
Wow.
So six times a day, like, correct me if I'm wrong, send me a comment if, if I've got it wrong, it might be four, but I thought it was six.
Um, but they take flowers, they go pray. They r- they calm down, they get focused again. So I... Just think about, like, if you did that a little bit more often in the day- Mm-hmm ... just came back to your breath and went, "Ooh, hold on a sec."
Yeah. "
I've just been triggered by the next door neighbor's dog. Like, you know, let me just do a couple breaths over here."
Yeah. "Or I'm about to go into a meeting," or, um, "I'm a little bit upset with my team right now. Before I go and scold them, let me regulate myself first," right? Yeah. Um, and I think that that's important to have a look at the rest of the day and what you're actually doing with the rest of the day. So scheduling it in, 100% do it, but also looking at the rest of the day.
Yeah, so I taught... I, I got a, a mate who's a builder and he's high stress, high stress. Gets home at 6:00 PM, straight into it with the family and the kids. He, he's, he's exhausted. So I did a, an h- just a 15-minute Himalayan breathwork with him. So it's just two minute rounds, you know, and did that with him, and then, uh, he said he felt amazing.
And then a week later I said, "How you going, mate?" He said, "Oh, I got, I ain't got the time to do it. I get up at 4:30 in the morning, I'm straight to work." I says, "How don't, why don't you try just pulling up in your car the street before your house and do it for 10 minutes? Take that 10 minutes for yourself."
Yeah. "Clear the day, go in the house." And then a week later I said, "How's it going?" "Mate, that's a game changer." He does it at least every other day, and he just- blows off the, the whole day. Yeah The stress from the day, he just gets into a little bit of a different state so he can go into the house a little bit calmer, and that took him 10 minutes.
So if you learn these things to do, this can really help.
Yeah, so, um, I work with Empower You, and Empower You have this thing that state plus strategy equals success. That's one of their mottos.
Yeah.
Um, and making sure that you're regulating your state or choosing your state. Yeah. When people say they've got no time, I love there that you found something practical that you could do.
Mm. Um, and everybody can practically do something, so you know, for example, stopping on the side of the road before- Yeah ... you come home. 10 minutes. Um, for me, I just wake up that little bit earlier. Yeah. Um, and I do it. Yeah. Um, sometimes I just go to the bathroom. Yeah. And really I'm just gonna- Yeah ... it's a toilet activity.
I'm just regulating my breathing.
Hey, you need to. Some... I like doing it in the morning as well.
Yeah.
In the animal kingdom they shake, don't they?
Yeah.
Animals shake to get rid of that stuff, somatic, yeah, movement.
I have become a very good shaker- Yeah ... I must say. Um, and ironically what's happened too is my body's starting to talk to, to me now.
Yeah. So having done this now for the last five years, when I'm going through a journey my body will actually say where it needs some pressure- Yeah ... or it'll say where it needs some tapping or, um, and I don't even know what I'm doing.
Yeah, but it's intuition.
My, my intuition- Yeah ... and my body is now talking to me, and that's the somatics.
It's just talking to me and telling me what I need.
Yeah.
Um, and my back pain, like, I had such bad back pain last year, and I could not understand what was going on. And then in breathwork it c- I just got this thing about something's happening in my sacral area.
Yeah.
Um, and all I did was some of these, like, somatic releases in my stomach while I was doing breathwork, and my back's been epic.
So-
The
psoas
muscle can also tighten up as well, can't it?
Yeah, that's... So digging in that psoas
there. Yeah. Just
amazing. That can give you back pain. Yeah, so good. Um, so during the course of the day when I work with business owners- Even though they're trying to stay focused, right? They've got a goal, they're trying to stay focused, but now the phone's ringing, the dog's barking, the kids are going, um, they're getting interrupted with, you know, people the whole time.
Mm-hmm. Um, but one of the biggest things that's actually interrupting them the whole time is their subconscious little monkey mind- Yeah, yeah ... that's coming in, going- Yeah ... "You're not good enough." Yeah, yeah. Uh- You know, "Who do you think you are?" Yeah. And you know, when it comes to marketing, a lot of these ones that came up when I was in Bali was like, "Oh, what if people don't like me?"
You know- Mm ... "If they see my content and they don't like me? What if they think I'm fat?" Mm. "And what if, um, you know, what if I get judged?" And like all these things are coming, coming through.
Yeah.
Um, you know, and one of the exercises I came up with was just called the declaration exercise, and it literally is using the body to release it, right?
Yeah. And it is throwing a tantrum. It's literally just throwing a tantrum and going, "What if nobody likes me?" But you've got to put your face into it. You've got to put your body into it. Yeah. You've got to scream. You've got to shake. Yeah. Um, and we're mimicking that whole ani- animal kingdom thing, you know?
Yeah, yeah. And then afterwards I go, "Okay, now say, 'I create contents on social media.'" Yeah. And they say it, and they're now not feeling it in their body- Mm ... and it's now s- not stopping them from moving forward. Yeah. So that's a little fun thing that I've been bringing to the table- Yeah, that's cool ... with people when they start getting this bodily response of eh.
But in saying that, more breathwork.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.
More breathwork. Cool. So- Fight or flight
Yeah
Talk to us about fight or flight, um, and how that impacts people in performance and how what you do helps.
So fight or flight, yeah, in short term things is great, but if, let's say we'll just use boxing for example, if you're in that constant fight or flight state, then your adrenaline's up, your, your breath's getting shorter.
You- you're not controlling how you breathe, and also you're not in a flow with what you're doing. And it'd be the same with, uh, the footy players, rugby players. They, you know, they, they've gotta be re- they've gotta be ready. A- and fight or flight just... And if, if it's a long-term state off the field 'cause they're stressed or they're worried about their performance, that's their body not working properly.
When you're in fight or flight, it's a primitive body. Blood's getting d- dumped to the arms and legs, ready to run or fight something. There's no room for the blood flow for the digestion and the immune cells. So it's important that if you're an athlete or you're anyone and you're stressing about things, you know, could be reading an email and stressing you out, but your body's reacting as if a lion's down around the...
You got, you know? That's how it's spiking, and if that happens t- 50 times a day, that's a lot of cortisol. That's a lot of adrenaline, and that's a lot of times your body's not functioning properly.
Yeah, so true, and I love that you brought the whole marketing thing into it as well, and, you know, because I work- Email
syndrome they call it
Yeah.
So, oh, for us it's like when it comes to, 'cause I work with marketing, um, you know, the business owner plus the marketing managers, the in-house marketing managers and offshore virtual assistants, and you have a look at how they're managing it, and literally they are, they're lacking in creativity- Yeah
getting completely stressed when... 'Cause marketing's ongoing, right? You just gotta keep doing it all the time. Yeah,
and I've heard about people spending thousands of dollars a week on m- uh, meta ads or-
Yeah ...
and they get nothing.
Yeah, 100%.
It's set up wrong, so.
Yeah, incredibly, incredibly stressful. So I think it's vitally important that, you know, business owners, marketing managers, anyone in a role that has- a lot, like a h- like it's highly stressful, and it's ongoing, and it's consistent- Mm
and it's, it's not gonna change. You're gonna be stuck- Yeah ... in that day-to-day, eight hours a day. You have to regulate yourself, 'cause if you don't regulate yourself, how are you gonna be able to cope with it?
Yeah, it's gonna be... Y- you might get away with it for a few weeks, but long term it's gonna really damage you.
Yeah, yeah. It's gonna- No, so true. So true. And I've seen it as well play out in a leadership role as well, where suddenly business owners can't actually delegate or lead their marketing teams. Um, and the marketing teams are becoming frazzled because the business owners are just absolutely trashing them with- Yeah
I'm gonna say spitting stuff out to them, just blah, blah, blah.
Yeah.
From a place of desperation, not from a place of, "Hey, this is clarity on what our business needs." Yeah. "This is clarity on the direction we're taking." Yeah. "And we're planting those seeds, and we trust it's gonna work." Um, and that's meaningful marketing, right?
Yeah.
It's a lot of pressure, isn't it? You got to... Yeah.
Yeah. And if that's your job, you gotta be able to control it.
And I can imagine at those big, uh, high corporate roles, you just, you're not looked at favorably if you can't handle the pressure.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah,
100%. But you might not be able to handle it, and it's just the nervous system breaking out or just shutting down.
Yeah. I love it. So- I went somewhere the other day and, um, I was introduced, um, to a whole group of people, and they went, "Oh, this is Chantal. Um, how are you, Chantal?" And I went, "I am epic." And they were like They
all
sat and looked at me and went, "Epic."
That's a good word. Why aren't we feeling epic?
And they were like, "What have you just had?"
I'm like... So, yeah. It's so good. So you've got, um, something to share with our community. So could you tell us a little bit about that?
Uh, yeah, just how, I... If you... Or y- yeah, just slowing down your breathing, using your nose as much as you can. I've had a few people say to me, "My nose don't work." So just two weeks of s- Mm
two sessions, and they're already And slowing it down, breathing as slow as you can. Breathing's the only thing where you do more of it, you get less. You blow off too much CO2. CO2 is what actually moves our oxygen around. If you go into Google and say, "What happens if my body is low in CO2 in the blood?"
Anxiety, panic, depression. This all is a, an effect of carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, we want plenty of it to move the oxygen around. Good for recovery. So it's just having more mindfulness about this and learning about it, and there's a few things, it's just something we've never been taught about. I'd love to get into schools, teach this to kids.
I help regulate my own kids. My daughter's eight, and she asks for breathwork before we go to bed, and it's just me telling her, "In, and out." And then every three breaths we'll do like a five-second breath hold after the exhale. That's just to calm a bit more, you know.
Epic.
Epic. That's just my mission.
That's my purpose, to get this to everyone.
I'm gonna say meaningful breathing.
Yeah, meaningful
breathing.
Meaningful breathing. Yeah. Yeah. But not the big . Yeah, it doesn't have to be. You can do that if it's a short time. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You can do that style of breathwork. That's great, but that's not all of what breathwork is.
That's why I've, I'm calling it breath training, 'cause we're training our breathing to be, you know, if we take 20,000 breaths a day, if we improve it by 5%, that's a compound. Epic. That works for you all day, and you, like we said, we, you take it with you. It goes everywhere with you. If that's calmer, you are naturally gonna be a bit calmer.
I'm not saying you won't get stressed. You will, but you might, I believe you'll handle it better. I certainly do. Yeah. People I teach this to does. Uh, I've got a, I'm working with a Titans under 21 player who's in the Queensland team. He said he doesn't feel the pressure anymore from performing or, you know, "I have to do this game, otherwise I might not get in the team."
He doesn't feel that. He's, he's more calmer with it, you know?
Yeah. So good. So how can people connect with you?
Uh, it's, Instagram's pretty good. Uh, I haven't got my YouTube channel going yet, which I will do, and I'm on LinkedIn, but again, I haven't, I've been working as much on that. That's one I really wanna do, 'cause I'd love to get into the corporate scene and bring this to show people how to sit at their desk better and work with a bit more, you know, intention.
Uh, Inst- Instagram's good or, uh, yeah, there will-
Awesome. We'll share it in the- Yeah ... we will share it in the, um, comments down
below. And it can be, I've got a program, Breathe Better, Sleep Better. It's, you, you can do it for four weeks, and I guarantee you, if you, if you follow it, you will sleep better. Yeah, epic.
I'm not saying all your problems will go away. But everything will help.
Epic. Sounds amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks, Chantal.
It was epic. Thank you.
So this is Chantal Gerardy from the Meaningful Marketing Podcast. If you haven't already, please make sure that you subscribe or rate us.
If you'd like to, please, uh, comment down below as well, or send me a private message on Facebook, and I'm happy to answer any of your questions there. See ya.