Welcome to this week's edition of The Freedom Fridays podcast. This week, I'm chatting to a colleague, but probably you might not know this. Somebody, I perceive as somebody that I feel closest to professionally. And as a consequence, personally, and I may never have said that to him before. So he might come on and be a little bit shocked. But we're going to talk about one of the big transformations he's been through. And I'm so pleased and grateful and just quite inspired by the story and the outcome. So, Mr. Steve Ellis, welcome to the podcast.
Cheers Pete. Yeah, you've embarrassed me now. That was a bit embarrassing. Although I do say that you are my mentor. And you've always been my mentor, especially in this space, the place that we occupy around helping people to to be bigger, better versions of themselves. So you were my first mentor in this space. So there's a mutual backslap there, but yes, you embarrassed me, I've got a flushed up a little bit there.
Yeah well, I think I'm flashing up to because whilst that may be your perception, and that may be the apparenty of, but I'm merely on the next line, not even the next page. And sometimes not even on the next line.
Let's get into it.
So yeah, that's a bit of a love-in we're having there for a second.
Steve, as you know, we chatted offline, the main context for the Freedom Fridays podcast is through, trying to explore ways in which people have navigated certain life transitions, some big careers, some big lives and big health things. How have they done that? What's happened? What were the mistakes? And what were the learns? And so really, it starts with this main question. And this kind of, we'll pick up threads as we go. What's the what's the big change or transformation that you've been through?
Yes, I taken a deep breath as it because it's tough sometimes to know where to start to answer that. I'll start with a lack of expectation that I even needed one. Let's start there. I am. Not I'm not saying I breezed through life. It's it's been hard work hard yards, but I've never really found myself in a situation in which the kinds of things that I was doing needed to change.
Yeah, I was working hard. I didn't want to stop changing that and working hard was bearing fruit. I was doing exercise and exercising a lot was bearing fruit. I was socialising with friends and family and that was bearing fruit. I you know, I things were all right. Things were good. And then just back in April, I was diagnosed as being pre-diabetic, which isn't diabetes, it's pre-diabetic. So I was...
You were just thinking about it.
Pardon?
You're just thinking about it.
Yeah, I was getting ready for it. I was on your marks, get set, go. Yeah. So um, it came as a real shock. So I was getting a bit tired. And I'm one of those people that never goes to the doctors unless he's accumulated at least four or five different ailments. And I'd probably accumulated four or five different ailments. And my wife said, get to the doctors. I went to the doctors had some blood tests, the blood tests came back pretty much great, except one, one indicator, which was the HbA1c indicator of blood sugar levels, getting a bit technical there, and I was 45. Now on that scale, when you are between 42 and 47, you're considered pre-diabetic. The moment you tap into 48, you are a diabetic and diabetes comes with, you know, a lot of a lot of issues, especially at my age of slender age of 53. And it did shock me I was I was I was taken aback actually. I sort of went oh, I don't know whether it was an identity thing, or whether it was a fear thing, or whether it was a mortality thing. I'm not sure, I'm not entirely sure what it was, but I know I felt anxious and nervous and worried and worried enough to, you know, want to do something about that. So, so the last three months or so, four months, I've continued so back in, I guess, May, June, July. I, I've been on a on a regime to turn that around, which is good pre diabetes, for anybody that's got pre-diabetes, it is something that you can turn around. It's something that you can transform. And, and it's been, it's been an interesting transformation, and not least because of what we do, you and I helping others to transform and to change and to adapt and earn to have bigger, better lives. And I guess that's interesting, because that's what we teach others. And here I am having to, you know, walk the talk. And that was quite, I was quite interesting and rather self damning at parts. And also, you know, it's interesting to go through change. And it's interesting to experience what that has been feeling like, and also the challenges of that transformation. And just noticing that those issues that you experience during transformation, while they were true, for me, at least, but I suspect that the complexity that I experienced is true for others as well. Right? So it's not as simple as, aAll right, change. Away you go, 3-2-1 change, do things differently and you'll get different results. It's not well, my experience was it wasn't as simple as that.
So yeah, yeah. Lots of things to pick up on there. I will acknowledge and comment and you know, align with, when you've been through any form of change, forced or not, that perhaps you didn't know you needed. Certainly in the walk, I do, and I'm guessing it's the same with you, it gives you a better appreciation of what's required beyond the books. A better appreciation of what really is required beyond what the academics or the framework or the model will tell you. And I have hand on heart, fully guilty of in the past, a bit like well, just do that just follow these steps, just do this, and you'll be different. And I, I hope I'm landing this way, but I'm much more grateful and humbled. And I have to say a little bit frustrated sometimes, when I hear others, clients included going well, we'll just do this, we'll just tell them and they'll be fine. And I'm going oh, my God, you haven't got your you've got no idea. Really what people individually and therefore multiply that by collectively go through to go from to.
Yeah, totally. You touched on a point that I think resonates with me, which is the books, right? So vocabulary, and, you know, Venn diagrams, or staircases or whatever, whatever visual representation of whatever we're talking about, in this case, transformation, just is not sufficient, is nowhere near sufficient to, to sort of represent the human experience of change. And therefore, to coach somebody to follow the steps to coach somebody to do you know, do this or do that is somewhat naive, I guess. And I fall into the same trap of saying, with clients will take you on an 18 month transformation journey, and here are the steps for that. And clients themselves go great. And then they execute the steps, right? And, but there's subtlety or nuance of human response to that sort of rather clunky step that somebody has just communicated or talked them through, is just not, it's just not works. Not empathic enough, right. So. So that was interesting. I was interesting to almost recognise that sometimes I didn't have the vocabulary, or I didn't even have the awareness or to be able to express why I was failing in my transformation, or it wasn't going as well, or, or I was anxious about it, or I was frustrated by it, or even delighted. Why am I so happy about the progress I'm making? Sometimes you haven't got the vocabulary or the model? Right. That said, of course, in my recent blog, I've tried to put it into some steps I've tried to say is what I observed that I went through, but in saying in writing that blog, I acknowledge that that's a that was me. And B, that wasn't a full representation of my journey, because I can't even begin to express it properly.
Look, I think we're going to pick up on that because I think there's some really helpful things that you've written in your blog, and I'll pick up on that later, because I think people would find it helpful. But I'm with you in terms of any of my experiences, even the stuff you've got in your blog, it's kind of like a 2D version of a 3D experience. And if one takes literally, you're probably not going to get the same results because we are by definition, different. We are entirely unique in some nuance in some form. So look, take it as a guide to pointing in the direction that I went. Here's the path I took. But the path has to be unique. The path has to be owned by you the team, you know, that's the uniqueness about it, I think.
Yeah, for sure. Totally, totally agree. And, and for anybody reading the book, reading the blog, reading, whatever, that's all it is. It is a it's somebody else's representation, not not yours, somebody else's guide path, not yours. I guess the biggest invitation I always offer is just to notice your own path, notice your own sense of progress or lack of progress and investigate and be curious about what it is that's making your progress, progress, or not progress and, and and double down on empathy and understanding yourself. And that might help. And the blog is just my representation of what I noticed. And I suspect I've missed a lot as well.
Yeah, the classic, you know, fish don't see water, you don't see you on golf swing, how could you possibly know all of that stuff? But we'll get to that, because I think there's some really helpful things in there. I do want to, if you're willing to pick up on almost the first comment you made, you had a lack of expectation that you even needed one. Right? Binary, or was it whispering?
Okay, yeah, that's good. I... Probably, probably whispering. Being, as I reflect now, and that's a great question, because you ponder and I, you make me think. Yeah, look, I was I was fit. I was, I was doing a lot of running. I was going to the gym a lot. I was working well, things were going well. You know, if I went back into my 20s I'd go, you probably need to reduce your alcohol intake, Steve. But you know, it's not, it's not actually showing up in any particularly bad social outcomes. In my 30s, with kids, you could probably do with some more sleep, Steve, but it wasn't really showing up in any any bad outcomes for me. So I might be hugely in denial about that there probably were bad outcomes. I was just either not accepting of them noticing of them, or indeed bothered by them, and motivated by them in any way. So this was, I did have an incident in my late 40s, or mid 40s, in which I damaged my back. But that wasn't a gradual thing. That was a moment I damaged my back. And yes, that has meant I've adjusted some of my activities. But it's genuine up until here. I'm again, you know, you know, you're all right. And as I wasn't, I wasn't expecting and maybe maybe it's in this in the word transformation. I think I back to your whispers question. I think there was definitely some whispers saying you probably need to adjust. Steve, you probably need to adapt a little bit. Steve, you probably, you know, you could probably do with eating a little less sugar. And, Steve, you do notice sometimes when you get back to the house after a long drive, that the passenger seat has got lots of crisps wrappers and snack wrappers and everything. There's probably some clues out there, but in my mind, I was probably saying moderate adjustments. Right. The the diagnosis of pre diabetes was *GASP*. That's not a moderate adjustment.
Yeah, well, yeah. This packet of biscuits won't kill me.
Yeah. Yeah. So. So one packet of crisps at a time was whispering to me.
It won't be this one Smith's pickled onion crisp that'll kill me.
It won't be this one. So yeah. I was probably listening to some of the whispers that said you probably shouldn't and probably should. Should, there it is. Probably should and shouldn't to do certain things. But there wasn't a there wasn't a an expectation that it required a transformation.
Yeah, it wasn't a shout yet, to use my language.
Yeah.
Yeah. I wonder as well, Steve. I've been pondering this a lot recently, whilst you might have been getting whispered to which does beg the question who's doing the whispering? Which we'll maybe we'll get into that topic, right? Let's take that offline possibly. But I'm going to guess because if it's anything like what I go through, there's, there's part of the whisper that would say, Steve, you probably shouldn't be having that packet of biscuits. But there's another whisper that creeps in that goes, Yeah, I'll be okay. Yeah, but you probably shouldn't. Yeah, but it'll be okay. I'll do it tomorrow, I'll you know, I'll sort it, you know. There's almost like a, like a dual dialogue going on a dual dialogue of whispering that convinces us in some way that not this one not now. As you reflect on that, was that the other voice, the other internal voice, that you know how many voices that we got? Was there things going on internally that caused you not to hear it?
So you put, played something over over to one side earlier. And I think the two things are connected, who wass doing the whispering? So there's, there's who's doing the whispering and what are they whispering? Right. So inevitably, I'm doing a lot of the whispering. You know, the other version of me is saying, hey, you know, you could probably lose a little bit of weight. Hey, you're reasonably bright guy. My wife, by the way, is a endocrinologist. She's a consultant endocrinologist that works with children with diabetes, right? So the language of diabetes is in our house, right? So I've got some awareness about this topic. So there's a there's the other version of me that sort of having a little chat and saying you should and you shouldn't, and stuff like that. For health reasons, you shouldn't you shouldn't, but for other reasons, the world is telling me I'm okay. So nobody at work is telling me that, hey, you look like you put some weight on or, Hey, you're probably because nobody's going to nobody's given me a blood test at work and saying, I'm pre diabetic. Nobody's saying those other things like, Hey, you're unattractive. My wife's not telling me I'm unattractive. There are other things going on in my life, whether it's sex life, social life, other relationships, other things going on on my life that are saying, You're alright. So the scale of the voice that saying, yeah, all those other things, you're pretty good at you, everything's going all right at this little niggle that you have in your brain that says logically you already know that you're eating some of the wrong stuffs. Well it's not impacting on the critical variables or the KPIs of life, right? The KPIs of life are like they're all Okay, right. And I've talked to some clients about that, as in some of their challenges. Some of their sub optimal activities are not yet showing up in the KPIs of the business. And you go, interesting because here I am saying I've got lots of KPIs of my life not that I've written them down. But generally speaking, I feel okay in my environment in my life in what's going on and they were all going well, so So the Whisper wasn't loud enough to shout louder and over and above all the other metrics of life the person doing the whispering in society whispers to us you're acceptable in the form of Instagram or in the form of social media or in the form of whether your friends invite you out to dinner or, or whether you know, you've got those material things society is telling you you're okay. I'm telling myself I'm okay the immediate people around me are loving me. And so everything's everything's okay. And I am telling myself, you're a naughty boy. You know, you shouldn't eat that.
Look at the smile on your face, you're a naughty boy, you shouldn't have eaten that, but we all love a bit of spontaneity. Come on I'm going to be naughty.
Well, that's one of the things I put in my blog was was also the naughtiness if you like, it was all almost reduced in its feeling by this other thing called deserve-ed-ness. I've got this entitlement. This, I've worked hard, therefore, I deserve a treat or you're tired at the end of the day. Why are you tired, Steve? Well, because you've worked hard and you've given out to the world and you've given you've given to your wife and you've given to your children and you've given to the world you've given to clients so Hey, have this treat. What about me? Yeah, what about me? Me, me, me.
And that that sort of, I put in I mentioned, it's actually a moment and I didn't notice it until I investigated it a moment of reduced self esteem, in a form. Some kind of self concept self esteem thing. It's a real bind here. You deserve the chocolate bar. You're not deserving of being healthy. Steve, you have not put your you've not put sufficient discipline into your life to deserve to be healthy. But you deserve the chocolate bar, because you've given to others. So you're deserving and undeserving. And it's quite it was, and but the outcome was the chocolate bar, you ate it, right. So, so in one part, you deserved it, everybody deserves everybody deserves a good life. Everybody deserves a treat everybody, and it wasn't a treat, it became a regular thing. But you deserve it because of all of these other things, saying you deserved it. But actually, you didn't deserve to be healthy. You didn't deserve other things. And so actually, I would say that the greatest of those two things was was the lower self esteem that was telling me to have it. And weirdly, of course, in you'll know this, the moment you consume it, you know, the self esteem doesn't grow. It definitely doesn't grow. Because that little voice tells you there you go. I told you, you're not strong enough discipline, you know, you don't deserve to be healthy. Because you're not good enough. Wow. That's that's that big. So so, yeah, it's on the one part, you're convincing yourself, you deserve it.
But the person doing the convincing is undeserving.
Yeah, that's a bit of a mind blown. The second thing you said, which I thought was fascinating, I love your your perspective, in hindsight, and then we will get into some of your thoughts about what to do about it. And when you said you were shot, you know, it shocked me. And I didn't know if it was an identity thing, or a fear thing, or a mortality thing. And there might not be a binary answer to this, on reflection to get any sense of what it was about now.
I mean, I guess, given I expressed it in those terms, it was a combination of that. I think I have always seen myself as a performer. I'm not an elite performer. I'm a good performer, top quartile performer in areas of life. So definitely some, even that sentence has an identity centre. So there's definitely some identity thing going on. I did start to notice around the gym, some relativity going on, like he looks older than me and yet looks better in perfect shape. So maybe I was I was going into second quartile and third quartile. So definitely some identity thing. There probably is a mortality thing. There's there's a number of things going on with family at the moment that is put with parents and so on mortality into my mind and wanting to have a lifespan and healthspan. Right, so two terms, both wanting to have the longevity of life, but wanting to make sure that that life is a is a as a healthy one. And we certainly witness at the moment in our family of somebody's lifespan not necessarily being a health span. And I don't want to be on unhealthily alive kind of thing. So I think that was probably certainly a contributing factor to that moment of, oh, that was a lot more painful than I wasn't ready for that.
Yeah. The way I've enjoyed hearing that being said, is the goal is to die young as late as possible. Yeah. which I think's a lovely way of combining lifespan and healthspan. Yeah, yeah, that's as opposed to, you know, dying early as ill as possible.
Yeah, don't want to do that.
So Steve, why don't we jump into some of the reflections you had on your blog? Because obviously, this is in hindsight, and as we talked about at the front, people shouldn't follow these literally. We just provide some signposts some guideposts on the way as they go through their own personal journey, personally, professionally, relationship, etc, etc. Would you be happy to do that?
Yeah, the hindsight ones, not quite. Everything's in moderate hindsight, isn't it? But um, I was, I decided to see it as a study thing too. So it was like, so I was noticing almost with each action, whether it was working or not working. So I ah, whether it was helpful or unhelpful for me joy during my three months, so I wrote the blog afterwards, which looks like in hindsight, but actually I was sort of writing it as I was going along. So the headlines were noticing whether the three typical things that happen in transformation, were ever going to be strong enough, and they weren't. So the first typical thing is the one that we spent a bit of time talking about, which is the sort of burning platform, this sort of fear thing, this sort of businesses, we do this with clients all the time, what's, what's the, what's the reason or the burning platform for the transformation? And they'll say something like, well, it's a strategy change, it's a market position, or, you know, our product has become commoditized. So we need to become something else, whatever it is, and if we don't, we're going to die, we're going to, we're going to reduce our margins, and everything's going to be bad, right? So there's the burning platform, and I had one a pretty powerful one, because, you know, get any worse and the consequences are bad.
Second one was like a goal. So I set myself the goal of losing 10 kilos. And going from 89, nearly 90 kilos, to 80 kilos. So that was the goal. And the strategy was eat less, eat less rubbish, it less rubbish. There was a few extended strategies, like, do a little bit of fasting, but basically eliminate all the bad stuff. Right? And that typically is what clients do you go, right, there's a burning platform. So we're going to do this, and here's how we're going to do it. Right? Yeah.
I think they might, what really helped what really helped me was telling lots of people. Telling loads of people. There was a moment when I was telling so many people that I felt like I was boasting about pre-diabetes. And it was really weird. But telling people were super helpful.
So did you tell them burning platform, goal, strategy, or all of the above?
I told them mainly strategy. So I said, I've got prediabetes. I recognise it's pretty dangerous. So you will witness me foregoing, you will witness me for going crisps or snacks or chocolate or stuff. Please help me on that. That was pretty much it. So those are sort of communicate and request. And, and it was, that was really helpful. Because it was it was those social moments in which, you know, there's a party and people are going do you want tanother beer? Do you wan another beer? Do you want another beer? Or there's a party, do you want some crisps, do want some? Do want some dip with those snacks, or those crisps? Do you want these things, the typical things that you put out now, they didn't not put those things out. They just didn't put them out directly in front of me. Or they didn't tease me for not having another beer, you have another one go on have another one. In fact, you weirdly - have another one, you deserve it. They almost reaffirm my deserving narrative that I shared with you earlier. So by telling lots of people, they become more sympathetic and empathetic to your situation to the point that they don't they begin to help you, my friends helped me. My wife helped me more in those social situations. People understood me better, they understood why I was not behaving possibly, like I had previously at any of any of those parties. So that was really important. Just tell people.
Can I ask we're, the reasonable I asked the question is when we make these changes, apart from maybe the stark one for you, sometimes, and I've been victim and party to this, like I think many people have, we made the changes based on someone we want to be. But the person we are someone else has a connection to that. And so me changing means they lose out broadly, and wondering of the many people that you told, did you have any naysayers going? What you doing you idiot, get back to what you're doing before? Because actually, without even saying, I have an attachment to the person you were?
Yeah, but you know, I'm very acutely aware of the sort of David Rock Scarf model and that there it is, right. There's the relatedness. How does my behaviour and this change, how does it relate to them? And how does it relate back back to me? Yeah. And so there's a loss of something for somebody, right? Even if it's a loss of familiarity with who this person is, or predictability about this person. Oh, you're being heathy as if that was a bad thing? Yeah. Well, less so that, because I think that's reasonably easy for people, some of my friends, at least, the people around me were able to, okay.
What I find interesting without the, I'm pre diabetic. I'm trying to lose 10 kilos. Without those two things. Had you just said, No dip for me, please. Yeah, no more beer for me. I wonder what your response would have been?
Yeah, I get you. Because that's unpredictable that so that you've changed. We've changed. And if you've changed, and we've changed, I can't trust you anymore. I can't trust my dialogue with you. I can't trust my exchange with you because you've changed which means which our relationship has changed. Oh this is freaking me out. I'm going freaking you out? I'm the one with pre diabetes. You know, so you're absolutely right. So being able to tell people what it was to help them understand my change, you made them almost weirdly feel a bit more comfortable with observing me change. Which is absolutely right. And the other thing about communicating it is and I knew this, from from from the books, right, I knew this was it increases my sense of accountability. As soon as, as soon as I've externalised something, people are anticipating an adjustment, and therefore I'm going to live up to that it becomes a sort of textbook to expectation out there. Yeah. The second thing that, and again, I probably knew this, I just, I did know this. Not probably. I did know this, but I've never really done it. Because previously, the big ambitious goal was always good enough for me. So running marathons, I want to run it at such and such a time, we could do that. And my wife would always comment that I never trained very well, for whenever I did marathons run. Yeah, I just ran, you know, it started training 4 weeks before the marathon. And I did one, I just did one. And I because I never really, I was never really disciplined enough to break it down into a proper training regime where she always did, she had like a 12 week training plan. And it was broken down day by day. And it was broken down by different training types. By different training runs from Fartlek running to medium distance running to slow, long distance, she could do all of that, and I just went running. So I thought I'd just stop eating, eat better, right, I thought that I thought that goal and strategy was was concrete enough, it clearly wasn't. So I really on this transformation I really did need to break it down into sort of micro habits. And fortunately, it was on shortly after reading the Atomic Habits book. And so that was really helpful, really breaking it down into micro moments of decision making, a that that moment, whether it's 10pm at night, or 11pm at night, and everybody's gone to bed, there's a moment. At that moment after doing exercise. It's that moment. When I, I mentioned it in the I mention it in the blog, I travel a lot and I use a local train station. And as I go up onto the platform, and the train station, literally that side is WH Smiths and that side is Starbucks. And it's they're perfectly positioned to entice you in to eat stuff. So I purposely walk and go to the end of the platform and remove myself from that. So I broke down both the environment I talk about that later in the blog, but the environment and the moments of choice into micro, micro habits. Even that moment you put the kettle on. Steve, what do you normally do when you put the kettle on? Well the kettle is right next to the cupboard, which is right next to the fridge. What's What's that micro habit? And what are you going to do and say to yourself in that moment, that means you no longer do what you previously would have done, which is reach in and slice a bit of cheese and have a lump of cheese or reach in and grab it grab a snack or something? So breaking it down into micro habits absolutely was pivotal to this particular transformation.
Again, if I can offer an observation, Steve, I think your distinction of micro moments of decision making is even better than micro habits. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Because I think the habit is the what we refer to as cutting the cheese and the decision point, the you know, the micro moment is the putting the kettle on, Oh, what do I do next? That feels for me like the precursor to the what's the habit I need to build? Yeah, so the habit I used to have was Starbucks/Smith's oh hang on in that moment as well. walk up the stairs and I can see the logos. Oh my habit is triggered, what if I just focus on the end of the platform? You know, but I think those micro moments of, I'll certainly be nicking that if that's okay? Micro moments of habits of decision making - I think that's really powerful.
Well, we need to, you know, the decision precedes the behaviour, I guess to what extent you're in control of that. So the decision go to the end of the platform, well, that then becomes a habit, as long as I'm actually helping that by picking up a newspaper and going to the end of the end of the platform sitting down and occupying my mind with something. So that's the new habit reading stuff. So yeah, the decision making. It's interesting, that decision making thing because that there was something else that I noticed. I've been listening to for quite a few podcasts around this topic for the last sort of 12 months. And again, it's never really applied to Steve here is he's already got a healthy ego, he doesn't need any more, doesn't need any more healthy ego stuff. But this this point I made earlier about this sort of deserving, but having low self esteem and not deserving. I investigated that a little bit more around. What was that self esteem issue? And in what way could you like yourself more or love yourself more? So one of the, I think powerful things that helped me in the transition was connecting to purpose, connecting to identity, you're giving giving yourself a reason beyond not being diabetic, right? What's the other reason so it did go back to, I want to be healthy, I do want to have a health span, not just a life span. So definitely the identity thing. But there was something else in the moments of decision making this sort of T junction of a decision, go right to the end of the platform, go left into Starbucks, or whatever, whatever. Wherever that moment of decision making was. And I, I practice something I don't know whether this is useful for anybody listening, I practice something that I called it self love. But it was actually probably self future love, loving your future self and being attracted to the future self. And it wasn't a physical attraction. It was a pride attraction. So the question that I asked quite regularly at the point of decision making that T junction was, will your future self love yourself? And that future self could be in two seconds time. In two seconds time? Will you be proud of who you are? Right? Or in two minutes time? Or in two hours time? Would you will you like yourself? And do you like yourself enough now to like yourself in two seconds time? Oh, it's a bit of a mental challenge. Do you like yourself now? Do you like yourself now enough to like yourself in two seconds time? So as I got to the top of the stairs? Do you like yourself enough now to like yourself? When you get to the end of the platform? It's so funny as well. Because you sort of go yes, I do like myself enough. I do love myself. And you get to the end of the platform. And you sit there again? Yes. God, I'm good. You did, I did. I liked myself at the end of the platform. So it I don't know, whether it's a little gimmick or a little trick or whatever. I don't know whether it's genuinely the definition of self love. It probably isn't. But a couple of little coaching questions around liking myself now, enough to like myself in two minutes time, because of the decision I was making now. Not just on that platform, but in front of the fridge or in front of the cupboard. I really enjoyed actually, I actually enjoyed the, it made me smile, as soon as I caught myself asking the question that actually made me smile. And maybe it was the smile and the endorphin that. Really I enjoyed. I have no idea. But I thought I'd share that with people because it was I found it amusing as much as anything else.
From easily if it's, you know, how we know. You know, we're told it seems to bear fruit that if you own your morning, you own the day. And the way we own our morning is the night before. Right? It sounds like as you've thought about those micro moments of decision making, as you using the example walk up the train station sit steps for the Smiths and Starbucks on either side ahead of time, you've imagined yourself asking yourself that question. So you've kind of owned that moment, by owning the moment before. You've owned that morning by thinking about it the night before I go, when I get to the top of those steps, I'm going to look left look right, see the logos and go, Steve, would you love yourself more now? You know, whatever the question was, so you gotta have a little bit of what's the question? What's the prompt? What's the statement? And are you willing to practice or are living consider ahead of time, ahead of the more that happens to you?
Yeah, yeah. It's interesting, because then there's a new trigger starts to get established. Right? So triggers are fascinating. So the trigger is the logo is the saliva is the whatever it is. But the more I've enjoyed the smile at looking down the platform, at the end of the platform, there's a new trigger that never used to be there anymore, right. And the new trigger at the end of the platform is like this picture of Steve who's smiling, glibly add himself reading the newspaper thinking, Oh, you're so clever. It's, and it's quite an enjoyable little trigger. As I look right. I can see him at the end of it at the end of the, at the end of the platform. So I think I thought that was useful to share, I think, a couple of other things.
Before you do, can I can I go off on a tangent for a second. And something that I think for me, and I think you'd think this is important to, which you've just touched upon, and I'm conscious of our, you know, immersed experience in what we do for a living, right, we help individuals and organisations transform. So guess what we've got to be able to read about it, do about it facility to all that kind of thing. You know, we're kind of immersed in that world. And where I'm going tangentially is this - How does someone there's not an answer, but it's more just a discussion point. Given that there is a high rate of middle aged or male depression, albeit even further than that. How do we open up the possibility to have a conversation about self love when even those two words on their own, could trigger someone to shut up, but together, it's like 10 times the Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, for people that have had no immersion in any of this stuff that we might be aware of. And that's not to say that we're any better, but maybe even worse, because we know, but how any thoughts on how we use somebody, we can open up that conversation because it sounds like that is a critical variable in what's happening around the world.
Oh, yeah, crikey. That's a debate and a half. I just started. Yeah, thanks. Yeah,
I want one want you to use your own brand, really I want one whisper at a time. I think you mentioned the almost the trigger of those two words, put them together and that and that might weirdly create the opposite reaction. So rather than engaging in a dialogue about self love, you end up you end up coming up with a yes, but dialogue. Yeah, but yeah, but now I'm can't unknow it all, and all that resistance. I think, I think one whisper at a time. I think if we can, from an early age, or as early as possible, introduce people to have a wider vocabulary of emotions, words, to express feelings, emotions, and sentences and states. I'm a big believer that your ability to recognise yourself and then to be able to express self is impart something to do with vocabulary. You know, I mentioned at the top of the call, I'm not even sure I've got the vocabulary to express what I went through and hence we use models and frameworks and things. But I think around self love or self awareness and feeling I think we're so one whisper at a time. Improve, improve the vocabulary. One person at a time. I think there's there if we put it into a work context, I think the better that leaders and indeed people in positions of trust. So I might include human resources or people officers, if they can be a go to place for well being, a go to place, a safe place, but if managers and leaders can be better at creating psychological safety or having these conversations then I think that shifts it one whisper, one person or as the as the I think the story goes one starfish at a time kind of thing. I can help this person, I can help this person. Ah, you know, beyond that you're looking at large, large institutions making statements of intend to and I'm not sure that that actually I'm not sure whether people would respond to those large institutions, governments and things making making statements of intent or healthcare systems. Yeah, I think there's possibly something that can be done at a macro level around healthcare systems.
But a middle age might be where it, often, not always, but often surfaces. But the cause wasn't middle age. It started it started in the dialogues that we're having when we were 6,7,8,9,10. And that's not to say, oh, you know, I suffered trauma back then. But just the narrative, and the interchange that parents have, and society has with everybody. That's what that's what puts the shield up.
Yeah. Well, I'm glad I planted the seat for our second podcast then.
Cheers mate, Yeah.
So anyway, back to your blog.
Yeah, the last couple of things that occurred to me were, during the experience was, and we sort of talked touched on it, when we're talking about those moments of decision making ad the questions that you ask yourself. It's just paying a lot more attention to my, to the chatter, that the voice that keeps going, you deserve, you don't deserve, you deserve you do, you don't deserve. Okay, and trying to interrupt that. And with truces and better choices, and better questions, and therefore better, better actions.
And then the last couple was, I touched on it at the top to do with people. The most significant person in my life is my wife, Debbie. And not just telling Debbie what my goal was and what my situation was, but asking for a little bit more help from certain people around me. And in this case, Debbie, particularly around it was a big ask, actually, it was a big ask. So in the last 12 years, 13 years of our relationship, she would always scream at me, when she'd go to the cupboard and go, the crisps have gone they're for the weekend. They're a treat for the weekend. The chocolates gone, they're a treat for the weekend. I go well, you keep putting them in the fridge, you keep putting them in the cupboard stop putting them in the cupboard. Yes, I put them in there for the weekend, Steve. That of kind of conversation. So at the request of the people directly around me, it actually came at a loss for her. Can you at least for the next period, whatever that is, actually not by those things at all. At all, for you, or anybody else. If you want them for a treat, we could could you possibly can, if you get if you're going to consume that can just out of sight kind of thing. I wanted to put them beyond, beyond temptation kind of thing, um, and kindly, she did. So I think we still until possibly a new pattern of behaviour, which says that when I see them in the cupboard, the trigger doesn't stimulate me to have them on a Monday or Tuesday. I shared in the blog, on a couple of occasions, well not a couple, many occasions, I would consume the chocolate bar feel so guilty, and then drive to the nearby service station or shop, buy a replacement one and put it back in the fridge before Debbie noticed, right? I'd start replenishing things. But I mean, it's awful, as I think about it now. So there was a request for Debbie to remove all of those things. And until I got to a point where when they were in there, they weren't triggering me to consume them. And we're at that point, which is great.
And the final one was and I knew this, again, was as you're going on, as in my case, sort of a 12 week transformation, the the pace of behaviour change, and the pace of results do not always coincide. So I had a relatively fast pace of behaviour change, eliminate chocolate, crisps, snacks, cereals, massively reduced bread, reduce all of these things. And I quite quick results, I lost two or three kilos relatively quickly. And then the behaviour stayed exactly the same. Probably got even more disciplined, but the results just plateaued and for like three weeks. And it was really tempting. I remember recording it in my journal that the chatter was this doesn't work. This isn't working anymore. And then you get sort of self deprecating, it doesn't work for you. You can't do this all of the stuff that's about to say Oh, let's give this up and go back. It's too much like too much like hard work. So my last comment would be with regards to measurement, yeah, measure it, it drives your accountability. But don't be beholden to the measurement all the time. Be be pretty patient. And just keep things in perspective a little bit. And don't bend, don't get bent out of shape, don't blow it all out of proportion, are those three weeks in the middle, they were they were the toughest. It's in the middle. They worked though. The might the first three, the second three weeks, my behaviour was no different to the first three weeks, right. But the results weren't the same. So notice how externally referenced I become I go, Ah, I can only feel good. If the thing outside of me called the scales, right? If they're moving, if they're changing, I'll feel good, right? Boom, I've been teaching this stuff for 25 years you'd think I know better by now, Is to keep things in perspective, stay true to the behaviour stay true to the discipline of all of that. And be just be patient with the KPIs or be patient with the results coming out of the other end.
It reminds me of that phrase, the person that loves walking will always walk farther than the person who's walking to get somewhere.
I love that I love I've been using that quite a lot lately. Yeah, absolutely enjoy. It's full of cliches, isn't it, you know, enjoy the journey, not the destination. Who you become who you become as a result of the goal is more important than the goal itself. And but I totally get it and I I've got this new sense of, of can. Of can do. Can, can do. can do when you find it really hard. I've always had a can do when when it's easy. And I found many things relatively easy. I've now got a reference called you can do it when your experience of doing it is hard. And I've quite liked that result in who I am.
Steve, I suspected this would go really quickly. And we've literally scratched the surface. So one I'm very grateful.
Let's do it again!
Let's do it again. So I'm very grateful for you sharing. We will post your blog excerpts and stuff like that on the podcast notes so people can reference that. And thank you for being willing to, you know, open your head and heart to you know, whoever's listening. And if it's if it's just my Mum, that's okay.
That's okay for me too.
But I just I will thank you for being on the podcast. And it seems like this is this is quite an easy conversation to have about many things. And I can't believe quite what the times gone, so I'm just really grateful for that. So thank you very much.
You're welcome. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
