Why Is Self Care for Leaders a Necessity? The Habits That Keep You Strong

0:03Welcome to Leadership DNA, a podcast for those who aspire to be a better leader. Alongside Arturo Gomez, I'm Rob Cressy. Today's topic, advancing self care. Arturo, what is advancing self care? Well, you know, I think it's falling deeper in love with yourself and making sure that you're doing the little things that you certainly would do for any person that you have, that you hold in extreme high regard and that you love.

0:38I love that. And I really enjoy the way that you framed that because sometimes we care for others more than we do for ourselves. And that's a good trait, but at the same time to be a great leader, you also need to take care of number one. Side note, go back to one of the previous episodes that we did about taking care of number one. So let's now get to why is this important? Why is it important that we advance our own self care?

1:06You know, it's the idea of self care. I've seen it as a theme and as an anthem, certainly for 2021. I think that there's a lot of people that are that this is really top of mind. And it's, it's been something I've been reading about and consistently kind of challenging myself with over the last couple years, because it really has, I think it's been become a more prevalent concept, certainly in the last couple years.

1:30But, you know, without having yourself fundamentally rooted in, and again, in a strong emotional state, I don't think that you have the wherewithal to really provide yourself with this personal, with personal leadership, personal guidance. And you certainly are not going to be of, you know, of huge, tremendous value to others, if you really can't establish, you know, this, this care and this attention and this love for number one.

2:02For number one. And, and that's, you know, that being you. And so I think, you know, for me, 2021 is the year that I, and that others should either you fall in love with yourself again, you fall in love with yourself for the first time, or you figure out how to maintain and keep that consistent love with yourself throughout the year.

2:28And, and hopefully this is a springboard and a catapult for the future and for subsequent years, because it's, it's critically important. And, and I'm not talking about a narcissistic concept or, you know, a conceited view. I'm talking about somebody who gives themselves little pieces of, you know, write yourself a love note, right? You know, right. Do things that you would do for somebody that you are badly in love with and, and treat yourself right.

2:58It's almost like turning yourself into your own client. What would you do if all of a sudden you're like, Hey, what's up? I'm Rob. This is my client, Rob. Let's go ahead and do something. And this reminds me of something. And I've mentioned this on the show before when I meditate. And the very first thing that I say to myself is I'm doing this for myself and I'm doing this for others. So by doing it for myself, I can show up better for others. And as a leader, that is oh, so important.

3:27So Arturo, now let's get to the, how you can do it. And I'm really excited about this episode because we're going to share a ton of ideas for how you can advance your self-care based on both what Arturo and I have done for ourselves and that we know work. So Arturo, do you want to throw a few out on your end that you do to advance your self-care?

3:49Yeah. I mean, I think, I think the way that I would have people look at it is mind and body. You know, how do you, how do you provide yourself with this nourishment, this love, this care? And, and, and treated both again, from a spiritual standpoint, but also from a physical standpoint. And there's, and when you, when you dissect it like that or allow it to diverse, there's a lot to talk about. You know, you can talk about the emotional and the spiritual things that you should be doing.

4:19You should be, you know, we can go through a long list of ideas, but some of the stuff that I'm, that I'm purposely really driving for myself is, is meditation. Obviously you and I talk about meditation quite a bit because it's, it's something we both love and we believe in it. Sleep. I have been somebody that I would say over the last, you know, 22 years of my entrepreneurial career, I've been somebody that, you know, sleep was never really something that I, that I cared about. I, I cared deeply about getting a good amount of sleep now. Now. And so, you know, that's, that's one thing I think physical exercise is something that I have a cadence in it, in a strong belief in.

5:03And, and that could be, you know, one of the things I want to make sure that people understand is that when we talk about this particular episode and these things that you can do for yourself, they can be as small and minor as, you know, something that it just, it doesn't need to be in a large scale. It doesn't need to be supersized. You know, you can do things for yourself that are small acknowledgements of caring and love.

5:31And so, but the list is, the list is quite long. And I think that there's some things that I know that you wanted to talk about in terms of, in terms of this list, but it really can be small or big in terms of the way that you identify it. So let's talk about fitness for a second, because I know it's an area that is top of mind for everyone. And so often as high performers, we have a high standard for what fitness means to us.

5:57But when I look into my mindset, I like to simplify things as small as possible. And I'm actually going to use today as a great example. So yesterday I ran five and a half miles, gorgeous day. It was good. And today I woke up and my day was a little upside down and I didn't get the opportunity to go and work out today. But you know what I did get the opportunity to do? Drop down and do 26 pushups.

6:25And why did I do that? Because it's more about the mindset than anything, because I don't believe in zero days where I'm not going to do anything. When I know, all right, I'm not going to the gym today or I'm not going to make it for a run. I say, all right, what is one thing that I can do to still satisfy that need that I did something physical for myself? And one thing that I've learned that I've done for the longest time to make this even simpler.

6:54How in the world do you do 26 pushups? So I created a thing called naked pushups. And what is this? Before you shower. So we all turn it on and it takes what, 15 seconds, 30 seconds for it to get warm. You just drop down and you do naked pushups, do as many as you can. And there's several reasons for this one. We all have the time and I don't care if you do three pushups or you do a hundred pushups. Number two, you do feel kind of jacked when you're done.

7:20So if you drop down and you see how many that you can do, you get into the shower and you're like, well, I'm kind of feeling kind of good right now. And number three, it's actually all about the mindset of it. So often in fitness, I've found it is sure. I love to look good and there are benefits of it, but I love what it does for my mind because I no longer have to think about, oh, did I do anything today? Because boom, I checked that off. And then all of a sudden that breeds confidence. And now the rest of your day, you're like, you know what? This wasn't a zero day.

7:50I actually did something. And you can really work on that self-love. And we talked about this in our past episode where fitness to me can be an element of self-love in a way that you can love yourself is by doing less. And just by doing something instead of zero will make all the difference in the world. Yeah.

8:09I mean, it's, I think it's the level of, uh, or just this feeling of, again, we, we tend to, we tend to look at things, accomplishments and, uh, supersized kind of segments. Right. And that's why many of us have these lofty goals and these resolutions at the very beginning of the year and, and difficult, some, sometimes difficult to maintain because we're putting ourselves through, uh, you know, this pressurized environment that, um, that inevitably we're human. And there's going to be days we missed. And we, what we have to understand is that progress is, it can be, can be measured in many different ways.

8:49And so as long as you're making a commitment to continue to improve yourself from a physical standpoint and a spiritual standpoint, you're going to really get to the place where you want to be. And so, uh, you know, 26 pushups is better than zero and, um, a 20 minute walk is better than zero. And, you know, um, and so everything doesn't need to be so, um, mentally straining and, and significant in, in, from an outside perspective to be, to be something that, uh, shows progress. It also shows consistency. And we've talked about what consistency means. And so if you're committed to this idea of better and, uh, your physical or your mental state, there are certain things that you should do, um, with consistency.

9:38Yeah. And if someone says, Rob and Arturo, I don't have the time to drop down and do 11 pushups. Well, that's just a lie because then your priorities are out of whack because we all have the time to do 30 seconds. It's now about the intention of saying, Oh, I realize I need to do this. And here's something that, um, I want to share in terms of this is, uh, what do you do first thing in the morning?

10:07And I think this is going to be one of the biggest game changers around advancing self-care because so often what stops us from advancing self-care is allowing the world to dictate how our day starts. And for me, I believe this is probably the number one, most important thing. If you said to yourself in 2021, when do I start working on myself?

10:32And I know a lot of people wake up, hit snooze, check their email, jump on social media. Immediately the world is running their day. But imagine if you just said, I'm waking up to do 10 pushups, that's it. Or I'm going to meditate for three minutes. So I ask yourself, when do you start investing in your self-care at what point during the day?

10:55Because I can tell you from experience, from the second you wake up, every second moving forward is less of an opportunity for you to do it because there's more reasons not to do it. So Arturo, I'm curious to hear from you in terms of starting your self-care and how you do that. Yeah. I mean, I think it's for me every day, what I try to do is I have a schedule for the week in terms of what days I'm going to do physical exercise. And it really lines up where it's basically the idea is that it's seven days a week, but I'm not doing, I'm doing a couple of days where I'm doing a yoga practice. It's not too rigorous. It's actually way more relaxing than anything else. It's just basically a stretch.

11:43But I actually, when I get up in the morning, I go straight to, I have these, I have a soda stream, which by the way, I'm not plugging soda stream, but I think it's amazing if you like carbonated water. So I have a couple of liters always in the, in the fridge in the morning, I become a very big proponent of getting enough water because one, I was not doing that in the past.

12:10And you know, water is such a, such an important part of the, you know, the biology and the metabolism of our body. So, so I go right in the morning, as soon as I wake up, whether it's at four in the morning, four 30 in the morning, five in the morning, five 30 in the morning, whatever it is that I time that I get up, it's early. It's significantly early. And so I get, it automatically brings up my blood pressure. And so I go to the, I go to the fridge, get that started and then look at my notes from the, from the previous day.

12:38So what I'll try to do is I send, get myself organized so that I can set up my notes the night prior. So I have a little bit of direction as I'm, as I'm waking up and getting going. And then, and then after about 35 minutes, 45 minutes of getting my day organized, I'll get into my exercise actually. I love that. And I love how you prioritize it early. And on my end, the very first thing that I do every single morning, and it's been this way for the last eight years is work on my personal development.

13:07I've read for 30 minutes every single day for eight years, including on the weekends. And it's very simple. Why in the world do you do it? Because when I audited the success habits to the most successful people, the CEOs I aspired to be like, they said, on average, the average CEO reads 60 books a year. And I was like, sh*t, I'm reading zero. So it's clearly important. If something is important enough, when is the best time to do it? First thing, why? Because there's no longer an excuse for why I won't do it.

13:35And now by doing that, I've actually built growth into my life. Because every day that I read, I am better than yesterday. So by design, the very first thing that I do every single day makes today better than yesterday. And as a leader, if you can make today better than yesterday, and you rinse and repeat that for eight years, 10 years, an entire lifetime, what do you think the result is going to be?

13:59But if you start your day and let the world dictate what's going to happen, you can go an entire day by saying, wait a second, today actually wasn't as good as yesterday was. Whoa, whoa. We do not want that. So be intentional about the design of how you do it. You don't need to do what I do. You don't need to do what Arturo does. We are just giving you examples of how we think and operate about being intentional about starting our day. So I just want to reiterate, be intentional on your end.

14:26Ask yourself, huh, when do I start investing in my self-care during the day? Am I consistent with it? Because Arturo, from what I hear from you're extremely consistent about it because it's part of who you are. Yeah, I mean, well, the consistency is, I think, is matured and evolved over the years, certainly. But it also, having consistency for me, de-stresses things. I know what to expect.

14:54And again, I like being in this state of where there's a good amount of time allocation in the day for myself. And I could probably argue that there's probably not enough time. But when I'm getting exercise in, I'm getting a meditation in, and like you, one of the things I love doing is I love reading the paper. I love reading a physical newspaper in the morning. But to me, those are the things.

15:23Those are my guilty pleasures that really, it's actually not even the right word because I don't feel guilty doing it. I feel actually fantastic. I feel like it's something that's a critical part of my emotional stability. And so, you know, as we talk about self-care, it doesn't need to be, you don't need to send yourself to a spa. You don't need to go to retreats. You can do things that signify it.

15:49To me, it's just about, it's a signifying that you are consciously making an effort to actually treat yourself the right way. Treat yourself as you would want to. And this should be one of the additional Ten Commandments, you know, not just treat others as you would treat yourself. Treat yourself as you would treat others, you know. And so, and that can work both ways. You know, you don't want to ever treat yourself badly. So don't treat others badly, right?

16:17But if you're treating other people with kindness and with love, then you certainly should redirect that and put that back on your plate too. You know, and so it's, I see, I see so much in the news. I see so much in a lot of the leadership media periodical stuff that I'm reading. And then also, you know, in glimpses of social media people, there is a real high level of consciousness right now around self-love.

16:46And I really hope that our listeners and I hope that, you know, the world at large, I think, would benefit tremendously by giving themselves a little bit more attention and care. Yeah, 100%. I agree with that. So here's some other things to give as inspiration or ideas. Being intentional about allowing yourself to think, allowing yourself to journal, allowing yourself to actually write on paper. And so often we don't think we have time. But what have you thought about your self-care as an investment? Because guess what? It really is an investment. It's an investment in yourself. It's an investment in your future. It's an investment in your being and how you show up to others and how you be as a leader.

17:35And we would never say to yourself, oh, you know what, Arturo? I don't have time to make investments in my life because I'm too busy doing other things. No. So think about, hmm, what are some areas that you want to invest in? And I find that thinking and not just sporadic thinking. But if you can set aside 15 minutes where you say, all I'm doing is thinking. And candidly, I both do this and I struggle at it.

18:05I love doing it. But then I'll look back and I'll be like, man, I've gone three weeks without having an intentional thinking or brainstorming session. But nonetheless, I'm at least aware of it enough that, boom, I'm going to reactivate that. And what you realize is the absence of the world really allows you to get in tune with yourself and your thoughts. And you get done with that and you're like, whoa, I feel amazing right now. Yeah. Yeah.

18:32I mean, you're never going to feel as amazing as you do when you give yourself some time and attention. I mean, there's really that it's a special, it's kind of this special moment. And again, that's why I kind of started this episode with, you know, if you don't feel like you're madly in love with yourself. And I don't, and I say that again, I repeat, it's not, it's not a narcissistic conceited kind of concept, but if you don't, then learn how to love yourself and fall back in love with yourself or fall in love with yourself. It's a, it's a necessary, it's a necessary piece of evolving yourself to get to a higher level. And here's another simple one.

19:17Ask yourself, what time do you stop looking at your phone? And for me, this is a game changer. And my number was nine, 9.00 PM where when 9.00 PM hit my phone is done because once again, just like in the beginning where you want to control the way that your day starts, you also want to control the way that your day ends. And you need to shut off switch. And as leaders, I know some of the challenges can be, we're always on as go, go.

19:46There's so much to do, but once again, sometimes it is the absence of go, go that allows you to sleep better and be happier and adding a little bit of stillness in your life. Arturo, I'm curious on your end, how you deal with shutting off your day and or turning off your phone. God, I knew you were going to redirect that towards me.

20:11Well, I'm not, I'm still trying to figure that out. I think here's what I will say though, because I obviously mentioned that sleep is an important piece. You know, in a traditional normal day, you know, for example, I was in bed by 7.30 yesterday. You know, so, you know, a normal work week day would be, you know, my phone is off because I'm, I'm off.

20:41I'm, you know, I'm personally, you know, but I, but I, that's kind of how I push myself or I'm able to get up really early in the morning. I, you know, that's, that's a, that for me has been a challenge. It's been a challenge and I think it will continue to be a challenge over the course, certainly over the course of this year, because it's, it's, I think it's a, it's something that I've identified as an illness.

21:06My own personal ailment, but I have, I have gotten better. I know that I've gotten better because I'm, I'm getting reports from my phone every week telling me how much time I'm spending on the phone. But I think, you know, I think it's part of it has been, this year has been such a turbulent business year for me.

21:27And I've, I've felt that the proximity to phone and contacts and network has been a necessary thing that that's there. But I think that there's a lot that people could learn specifically from what you said and kind of having parameters around how you're, because if not, if you, if you, if you allow yourself to, to live like that, you are being dictated to by technology.

21:57And it's, it's, it's, you know, certainly this has been something that's been top of mind for me, probably for called last five or six years. And it has been a work in progress. So I'm probably not the best person to give feedback on that. I will say though, that we all have, and I think you highlighted this is that we all have our challenges and we all have these unique things that we need to, we need to work on.

22:20And so I think as long as there's consciousness to me, having consciousness around the things that you need to improve or want to improve is a tremendous start. It allows you to, it allows you to, again, and I don't beat myself up about it, but I will, I will very quickly, especially towards the end of the day, realize that, you know, what am I, what am I doing like this?

22:46I need to just kind of, I need to, it's, I've put in, I've done 12 hours worth of work today. It's enough. It's enough. So, so yeah. Yeah. And as we've said numerous times, neither of us are perfect. These are ideas. These are things that we go through in our everyday life. There's things Arturo does that I don't do. And likewise, and we at least like to bring this top of mind in the name of self-improvement, because it is way better for us to at least be aware of these things and say, you know what?

23:18I'm going to work on improving these in my life. Doesn't mean I'm a hundred percent all of the time, but that's way better than the inverse where this isn't even part of our radar. And the last things that I want to sort of bring up is ask yourself, when do you feel most alive? Are you doing new things and are you doing things differently? As we look at 2020, so much of it was homogenous. It was like Groundhog Day, day after day of seeing Ned Ryerson over and over and over again.

23:48And we get tired of that. And you fall into this rut in sometimes that sameness can be a bad thing. Well, are you intentional about designing newness into your life? Are you intentional about feeling alive? And if you're like, well, when do I feel alive? Set some time aside and say, what makes me feel most alive? And you're like, wow, it was actually when I was at New Orleans down in Mardi Gras and blah, blah.

24:13It doesn't matter what it is. This is a judgment-free zone. And then start working backwards and saying, huh, what's something that I can do that'll make me feel alive? And maybe the answer is I'm going to go call my friend that I went on that trip to New Orleans with, and we're going to talk about that. And all of a sudden you're in flow and you're feeling more alive. What we really want to do is give you actionable steps and little prompts for you to say, huh, how can you advance your self-care just by asking yourself simple things that you can do?

24:41Right. I think what we'll do is we're going to need to post a little bit of a list of things that we, because we haven't really dove into the entire list. And I mean, everybody's list is going to be a little bit different, right? I think the one thing that's occurred from 2020 is that people have perspective, a perspective and a level of consciousness that I did not feel as a society, literally as a, as a planet that I, that I don't think that we had prior to this.

25:09This is a moment that I think is going to be very constructive for us where we realize that there is, there is such importance to our own health, mental and physical, that there's such an importance to the wellbeing of the planet, that there's such an importance in around the things that I think were never really. I think that there's such an important thing that we're going to be at the forefront of our thoughts and, you know, moving a mile a minute and having the, I think societal beliefs that we've, I think all grown up with.

25:46I think this year was, I think this year was a game changer, certainly for me in terms of making sure that the, there was enough time and attention, or there will be enough time and attention kind of moving forward to really give back to myself so that I can be stronger, better version of myself to do, to do what I can for my family, to do what I can for my businesses and to do what I can for the community I live in.

26:12Because remember, focus on what you can control. Don't worry about the things that you can't control. So everything that we just talked about here, all of these completely in our control. And let's say 2021 is the exact same as 2020 and we have no idea what in the world is going to go on. Guess what you can control your mindset, your personal development, your intention, how you show up for yourself, how you show up for others. These are all invisible things that cost zero dollars.

26:42All it takes is you being aware and conscious of them in making it happen. So Arturo, what is your action item or takeaway from this episode? I would say that I want people to actually write down some things, some small things that they can do to really kind of show that they have an interest in progressing this concept of self-love.

27:06And again, be mindful that it doesn't mean that you need to run five, 10 miles a day or even a week. It's small things that will show intent. Intent is a major component of this. And so I think just writing down some, and these don't need to be dramatic New Year's resolutions, just small little things that will contribute to a better acknowledgement that you really care about yourself mentally and physically.

27:34And on my end, my action item is both simple and fun. I want you to do something new this week and bonus points for doing it today. What in the world does new mean? Well, you know what? You can go to a restaurant and try something you've never done before. You can walk around the block and take a different route. I find that when you add newness to your life, so many good things happen because newness becomes contagious. Now you walk around the world being like, huh, what's something new that I can do?

28:03And for me, that advances your own self-care.

Transcript cleaned up for reading. Sign-off trimmed.

0:02Welcome to Leadership DNA, a podcast for those who aspire to be a better leader. Alongside Arturo Gomez, I'm Rob Cressy. Today's topic, the importance of taking time for self care as a leader. Arturo, this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart. We live in a world that glorifies hustle culture and often time that comes at the expense of our well-being.

0:26So let's unpack why self care isn't just a luxury, but a leadership necessity. Well, I mean, I think first and foremost, I think it's a necessity, obviously, for everybody to be able to have that balance point. But, you know, the balance points, I think, looks different for everybody. And I think when we kind of bring it to the subject of, you know, why it's important for leaders is because I think that in my mind, you know, leaders have a responsibility to be able to drive momentum and have a certain energy level that's just required to deliver to the team. And so it's like if you can't maintain that energy level, which is 100% required, then I think it's a problem.

1:10But, you know, one of the other things that, excuse me, that I've seen is that, you know, this ebb and flow and this balance in this, you know, kind of taking time to reset or to, you know, to be able to self care, I think is different in ebbs and flows and throughout everybody's life, career path or whatever. And I think that there's going to be different points in time that the intensity is going to be different and you're going to have to be required.

1:38You're going to have there's going to have to be more time committed from a leader standpoint to get a specific job done or whatever. And so, you know, I think having some real basic fundamentals that that you can adhere to really throughout those different, you know, those different periods, it's because the reality is that if you're if you're a leader and you're in your involved in a startup or you're going through a little bit of turmoil and, you know, in your career or your job or whatever, you're going to have to put in a lot of work. And, you know, there are no silver spoons in entrepreneurship. It's it's you're going to get what you work for. And so I think, you know, for me, some of those basic necessities that are going to be, you know, you've got to eat right. I think it's I think it's critical to be able to maintain certain energy and certain stamina. I think you're going to have to get into a cadence or regularly you're regularly exercising.

2:33You know, I think, you know, a big advocate for trying to get three to seven days in, you know, whether it's 15 minutes, whether it's an hour, whether it's two hours, you know, in sleep, you know, sleep is something that I think early in my career, I definitely were was was not, you know, religious about about making sure that I that I got that. But, you know, for me personally, I function on, you know, six to seven hours of sleep pretty well. And and so, you know, I think it's important to get to get that to factor that in.

3:02And then there's going to be some other ancillary things that I think that you can do in terms of self-care. But to me, those are the three fundamentals that you really have to adhere to that you can stick to, I think, throughout the different ebb and flow. Absolutely love what you said. I'm going to yes and everything for you. And I'm going to make this very formulaic because this is an area that I specialize in, because a lot of the coaching that I do is with successful entrepreneurs and leaders all around their personal growth and well-being.

3:31And so many people are successful at business, but not necessarily successful at life. And it's very easy, especially in the hustle culture world that we live in, to think that business is number one. And then you look back and you never prioritize yourself. So here's some formulaic steps or things that have served me that can you as well. Number one, self-care is a non-negotiable.

3:58I learned this the very first month that I was an entrepreneur over a decade ago, that I sat there and I said, all right, well, if I can guarantee that I make myself better today than I was yesterday, if I rinse and repeat that, I'm going to win. Therefore, I'm going to stack my personal growth and development first thing in the morning. That way, there is no excuse to make it happen. So for me, if something is important enough, you will always find time to make it happen. When is there always time? First thing in the morning.

4:28And Arturo, it's one of the things that actually brought us together because I think back to our very first podcast before you and I even really knew each other. I brought you on my show and we talked about a variety of things, including your morning routine and when you're getting up and the things that you're doing to cultivate yourself into the best version of yourself. And for both of us, this is a non-negotiable.

4:51There is no thinking about this because we know there's always an endless amount of things to do on our get-to-do list. There's going to be tickets to games or family members are going to get sick. There's a myriad of things that are going to stop you from this. And that's why you make this a non-negotiable. Number two, you talked about it with sleep. And this is something that so many people wear as a badge of honor. Oh, I'm burning the midnight oil. I'm only getting three hours of sleep.

5:21When I hear that, I feel bad for those people because they don't get it. Because enough research says that when you function with good sleep, you're a better performer. So as a leader, this is a very binary thing. When you are well-rested, you will perform better for your team. All right, I get it. I schedule sleep like it's a meeting. Like you, Arturo, my number is seven hours. So I sit there and I'm going to bed at somewhere between 9.30 or 10.

5:50And I'm getting up between 4.50 and 5 a.m. every single day, Monday through Friday. It is like a meeting. There is non-negotiable. If I am out later, I move that wake-up time so that I'm still getting my seven hours. And a lot of times when we do it, what's the very first thing that goes? Working out. All of the positive, the reading, the self-cultivation. No. What if you saw this as the most powerful part of your day?

6:20Because it is. This is what creates my energy. Because then, Arturo, you said exercising. This is a non-negotiable. Because there aren't very many 400-pound leaders that I'm looking up to right now. You just don't see that in the world. But I'll tell you this. You look at the best of the best in the world. Why does everybody love the rock? Among other things, his energy, the way that he looks like. The best in the world look good. Because when you look good, you're confident.

6:49And when you're confident, you feel good. People want to follow a leader who puts in the work. And you can see it every single day. And there is no hiding from exercise or bad eating. Because it will show on you. And when you design your life. And this is so important. This is lifestyle design 101. Design your life before your business. But Rob and Arturo, we can't do that. We're high-performing business leaders. Business is everything.

7:18Well, imagine the perspective that if you take care of yourself first, everything else gets better. Yeah. You know, for me, it's just, are you able to competently deliver the levels of energy that are required for leadership? And, you know, the people that I've admired in the past and the people that I think, you know, that are public figures that have really strong leadership skills, I would say all of them are high-octane, high-energy.

7:47You know, and it's, when you're dealing with a group of people, I think people want to motivate to the highest point. And so if the highest point is below the energy level of the people that you're trying to move, it's just not going to work. And so, you know, those three basics are the, you know, like you said, like the non-negotiables. And then I think that, you know, there's going to be other periods of time. And I can remember back, you know, in another lifespan, basically, that I, you know, that I had in another time that there was a period of time where we were making a lot of money and we had some great people on the team and things were just, it was smooth sailing. And so for me, self-care at that time looked a little bit different. It was my three points plus, plus. And so, you know, I had more time to do some additional things that, you know, I'd like to do. But, you know, the way, you know, the life that I live in right now, it's a little different. So, you know, there's businesses that we're trying to build.

8:43There's, you know, goals that we're trying to achieve. And, you know, I don't know that that's ever going to change. But, you know, the current situation is there's just enough time to get some family time in throughout the week. And then those three other points. And I think it's really critical to be able to adhere to that. So Arturo, I want to dive a little bit deeper into this specifically around, I don't have the time or a lack of time. And remember, I was not always this person.

9:11I did not live a holistic life for the first 32 years of my life. So I know what it's like to not prioritize your self-care. It's why I'm so fanatical about it because I know what's on the other side of this. And some of the things that have served me is simple concepts. One of them is called the micro fitness mindset. And for any of my clients that are challenged to work out consistently, I say, all right, can you give me three pushups or two air squats? And they're like, of course, cool. So it's not really a lack of being able to do it. It's a lack of awareness and consistency. So for me, if I know I'm going to run into a day in which everything's packed and inevitably happens, I'll sit down and I'll do 27 pushups. And this is more of a mental trigger for me than it is a physical one.

10:06Because the next thing is, it's called no zero days. I am not taking a zero for my fitness. And that includes doing 27 pushups or three jumping jacks. Because I've at least invested in myself because 27 pushups, if you were to do that every single day for the entire year, that's going to stack up to some massive number. And I think this is the biggest thing that a lot of people fail to realize. Because when you're not doing something, you don't necessarily see the negative results.

10:37Until 10 years later and you say, why is my health not there? Because I haven't been sleeping, I haven't been eating well, and I haven't been exercising. Doing it just today, you're not going to notice it. But this is more about the mind, your ability to stay dialed in. So the way that you do that and where I really lived this, and this is the last two years of my life, we have a 21-month-old son. Here's Rob, the robot of personal growth, who, boom, I do everything so on demand.

11:05The baby's like, nah, I think I got some other ideas. You think you liked that routine? Now I was really challenged. So I started to find little 15-minute things. I bought weights for my garage to work out there. Going for runs in between meetings, if I had 27 minutes, great. I can get in a mile and a half run. This is all about the mindset of high performance. And you don't find time, you create time.

11:34Yeah, and it's critical. It's an essential thing. And I think if people just give it a shot, I think they're going to realize that the results are going to be dramatically better in terms of their energy levels and in terms of their overall demeanor. It's funny, on a daily basis when I'm interacting with teammates, I can tell those individuals that are struggling with some of those top three things that we've talked about, where I can tell that they're burning the candle or they're not getting the right amount of sleep or they're not eating right or what have you. And so it's evident. It's really clear that those things have a direct impact on a person's overall being. And Arturo, we'll end on this. I'm curious what you do when you're challenged by this because we're by no means perfect.

12:26We run into many of the same self-limiting beliefs, obstacles that everybody else do. And on my end, it's mental. Like, if I don't do some of these things, I can't stop thinking about it. That I know if it gets to 10 a.m. and I haven't worked out, my mind won't stop thinking about when are you working out because I know the repercussions of if I don't work out today and then I don't work out tomorrow, now I've created a negative habit.

12:56And it's very challenging for me when I don't do these things because I feel very guilty about not doing them. I'm curious from your perspective, if you're not doing some of these things like you normally would, what is your mindset and how do you overcome it? Yeah, I mean, you know, I try to make sure that the majority of that list is getting done right. And so like, you know, if it's my sleep that's going to take a hit for the day, then I got to make sure that I'm going to eat right. And I got to make sure that I'm going to exercise.

13:23Or if it's vice versa, if I feel like I'm going to run into a time crunch, and exercise is going to be a challenge. I mean, you kind of mentioned it. It's funny. But, you know, if I'm getting up at 435 in the morning, kids are getting up at 630, 7 o'clock, the house is becoming active. By that time, I've already done, I've already done like a little mini workout, taking steps off my computer. So if I'm on a contract or I'm reading through something or I'm doing some busy work or whatever, I'm taking a step off the computer like every 20 minutes to do push-ups, sit-ups, curls or whatever. And so in my mind, I'm set up to do two a days. So I do like a little mini workout at that time. And then at around 10 in the morning, 9 in the morning, I get an actual workout in. And so what I'll actually try to do is whatever I worked on the day before, I'll do that in the morning. So if I work arms or chest yesterday, I'll do arms or chest this morning.

14:21You know, and so it's just, to me, it's just to get the blood moving. It's also to your point. It's like you have to stay rigid in that commitment to do something. And, you know, and I think your body becomes a representation of those commitments. I mean, you can see times where you've completely ignored it. And again, for me, at that time of the day, I'm really happy to just get a little blood moving to the brain and to understand that I'm still committed to these things. And it's the sleep, the exercise and eating right. Yeah, so let's get to our action item or takeaway. And I've got two of them actually on my end. Number one, success leaves breadcrumbs. If you're listening to this or watching this and you're challenged by any of these things, what I would say is take any of what we said and implement one thing that you don't have to be us, but there's formulas for success and things that you can do to be the ideal or best version of yourself. And if you're looking for someone to coach you and help you on your journey, this is what I specialize in. Drop me an email, rob at robcressy.com or go to robcressy.com. I've got tons of free resources. I can jump on a call with you. I would love to help you out on your journey. Arturo, what's your action item or takeaway? Yeah, it's going to be similar.

15:44It's going to be – but I think also in this journey, if you don't have the rigid cadence, I think keeping a journal is really helpful so that you can really look back. And this is for eating, sleeping, and exercising too and really kind of tracking, you know, because if you're wondering why you're feeling lethargic, there may be indication from yesterday's notes exactly why you're not feeling well. And if you're seeing real progress, it's also great to be able to track that and say, well, you know what? I feel great. I'm looking better. But it's because of this work that I've actually put in. And so I think that, you know, the individuals that are, I think, trying to find a cadence or a pattern to these programs, I think it's as simple as making commitments to write stuff down so that you can actually see in real time, you know, how you're performing. Oh, I absolutely love that. And we would love to hear from you.

16:40What is your tips or mindset for how you prioritize self-care in your life and or for your team?

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