133. It’s Not About Willpower: 3 Keys to Transforming Health for Busy Professional Women with Greg Fearon

What if the reason you’re struggling with your health isn’t discipline… but identity?

In this episode of The Quiet Warrior Podcast, I’m joined by Greg Fearon, creator of the Million Dollar Body Method, to explore a calmer, more sustainable approach to health — one that doesn’t rely on willpower, extreme diets, or doing more.

Together, we unpack why so many high-achieving professionals — especially introverted women — feel stuck in cycles of burnout, low energy, and frustration with their health, despite knowing exactly what to do.

Greg shares why knowledge is not the problem — and how identity, rest, and small, consistent actions are the real drivers of lasting change.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing everything “right” but still not seeing results, this conversation will offer a powerful reframe.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• Why willpower isn’t the answer to sustainable health
• The hidden role of identity in shaping your habits and behaviours
• How high-achieving women are conditioned to deprioritise their health
• The connection between rest, energy, and performance at work
• Why burnout and under-recovery sabotage your progress
• How micro habits create lasting change without overwhelm
• The concept of a “superhero identity” and how it shifts behaviour
• Why introverts may have a natural advantage in creating deep, sustainable change

Key Takeaways

• Lasting change doesn’t come from doing more — it comes from becoming someone different
• Your current habits are a reflection of your identity, not your knowledge
• Rest is not a reward — it’s a requirement for clarity, performance, and wellbeing
• Small, consistent actions build trust with yourself and create momentum
• A compelling vision of your future self is more powerful than short-term goals

Notable Moments / Timestamps (approximate)

• 00:00 – Introduction to Greg Fearon and his journey
• 04:30 – Why knowledge isn’t the problem — identity is
• 10:00 – The power of having a bigger vision for your health
• 16:00 – Creating a “superhero identity” that drives behaviour
• 21:00 – Micro habits and building sustainable change
• 25:00 – Why rest, sleep, and recovery matter more than you think
• 33:00 – “Working in” vs working out
• 40:00 – The one shift that changes everything

Connect with Greg Fearon

Website: https://gregfearon.com
Instagram: @gregfearon
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/gregfearon
Million Dollar Body Method info & coaching enquiries available on his platforms

Work With Me

If you’re ready to be visible and impactful without performing extroversion or burning out, join The Visible Introvert Community:
https://serenalow.com.au

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Work with Serena Low at serenalow.com.au. 

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This episode was edited by Aura House Productions

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Overview

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Today's guest is Greg Fearon, creator of the Million Dollar Body Method, a simpler, calmer approach to simplifying your nutrition, exercise, and hormones for CEOs and executives who want to lose weight by doing less. Welcome Greg Fearon to the Quiet Warrior Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Thank you. I'm so pleased to be here.

Greg’s Health Journey Begins

SPEAKER_00 0:25

I'd love to take you back to the beginning, Greg. Your story, what you started noticing and experiencing, and the moment it changed.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Okay, so to dive in, um, when I first started out on this journey, I was really just taking an interest in sport and understanding health. And at some point, when I was about 12, I discovered the ability to run and I could run fast and I could play football. I had coordination all of a sudden. So then I started to obviously take it more seriously. I started to read up on it outside of lessons and understand it. But the real kind of shift for me into this was seeing my mum and my sisters both all struggle with their weight. Okay. So mum, I've got two sisters, um, both younger than me, and they all struggled with their weight. One of them has PCOS as well. So I watched them struggle with their weight. And I managed to kind of drop the kind of baby fat, as it were. Well, not really baby fat, but teenage fat quite easily, because I understood what I had to do. Um, but what would happen is they would ask me advice and then totally ignore me and go on to AOL and find some other random advice to give people that they would give people and just to regard. So it was really frustrating for me. But I wanted to, I saw that a lot of women weren't getting the right advice. They were getting confusing advice, conflicting advice, et cetera. So that pushed me to go to college and do things like biology, uh, physical education, uh, chemistry, etc. Then I went to uni and did a degree in sports science with an emphasis on human physiology, metabolism, etc. Then I took a weird twist. I went into management, which has actually really helped me on this journey because being a manager and a leader actually helps you understand people. Like it's the it's the best environment to understand people. So at one point I was working for a big uh mobile company and I was running six departments with about 300 people across two sites, one in London, one in like northern England. So I used to travel between both sites. Lucky for me. On the side, I would do my personal training and nutrition coaching. So I get up in the morning, maybe work with a client, go into the office, work with all of these people, lead projects, manage people, all that kind of stuff, budgets, then go home in the evening and repeat, you know, what I did in the morning. So that's how we got here.

From Corporate Leader To NHS Insights

SPEAKER_01 3:04

And then after I was made redundant from the mobile operator, I went to work in ENHS. Um, that was an eye-opener because I then ran uh gynecology and maternity services at one point. Um I also was a system manager manager for dermatology, endocrinology, rheumatology, nephrology, uh, and all those kind of allogies. So there was a lot going on there. Um, but what that allowed me to do was spend time with world-class endocrinologists and endocrinologists and really geek out and understand what was happening for, especially the women that they would care for. That they eventually would say, Oh, Greg, we've heard that you do some, you know, you help people lose weight on on the outside, because they would hear me talk about it. Or when I I used to really, I forgot to tell you this before. Um a dietitian in the NHS approached me to help her lose weight. And that was fascinating for me because she would have all the expertise, right?

Why Identity Beats Information

SPEAKER_01 4:16

And what a lot of this came down to, it wasn't necessarily the knowledge part, it was about our identity and who we are that allows us to execute all the advice and all the knowledge that we have access to. And so knowledge is not the issue, it's the identity we believe that's the issue.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

That that right there, I need to press pause because I need to reflect on what you just said. It's not about knowledge, it's about implementation. But implement implementation requires identity. Yes. So we need to be literally someone else before we can make the change that we want to make. Is that what you're saying?

SPEAKER_04 5:01

Essentially, yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

How does one get there?

Nicknames That Change Behaviour Fast

SPEAKER_01 5:08

So, this is um something that I saw when I used to have like a boot camp. You know, the boot camp, everyone gets muddy and gets fit in the park or whatever. I started to give my clients nicknames. And I realized that if I if they were flagging and a bit tired, the minute I walked up close to them and said, Hey, um, one of my clients I used to call her Wonder Woman. Let's call her. I said, Hey, Wonder Woman, go on, you can do two more. They would automatically switch their state and get two more done, no matter how tired they were. And that was really fascinating to me. So I would look at things around human behavior, etc. Here's the real, here's the interesting thing. For a lot of the women, especially listening to this, you already have a very powerful identity, which is why you're successful at your work. This is why it's maybe successful relationships, growing a family, achieving lots of stuff over the years. You've done that. However, what happens is when it comes to our health, that gets pushed to the side all the way through our childhood, teenage years. It's almost like as long as nothing happens to you, then health is secondary. And I realize that there were so many stories that women hold about their bodies. Because you can imagine, right? From about, let's say, the age of 12 to 13, women start to have start to see a change in their hormone cycle, start to have periods, start to feel really uncomfortable about movement because all of a sudden hips have expanded, balance doesn't feel as good, things hurt at certain times. So straight away, there's always that thing of exercise is uncomfortable. Then you've got the thing of families and the dynamic of because of a lot of our parents have tried to do crazy things to lose weight. And so then they I've seen moms put their kids on crazy diets to help them lose weight. It's just like no. So you've already got a an identity on a story around it, which is exercise is painful, I'm not very good at it. Um, losing weight has to be, I don't know, um hard and I have to sacrifice a lot, takes a lot of time. Two, sorry, three, when we go through things like university, we were always praised for staying up late and studying. No one said, Hey, did you go for a walk today? Did you get sunshine today? Your parents only cared about whether you've got the the the pass in your degree or whatever, or your A-level, whatever, and whether you were up cramming, which is actually the opposite of what's healthy. So in your mind, your identity, your story, and your identity is built around I must achieve at work, and my body always comes second, third, or fourth, or fifth. And that's the shift that we have to make where identity, where your health is just as important as all of those other areas of your life.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

I think this is a huge one for women because we've been taught to play small, we've been taught to minimize ourselves, to be compliant, to be the good girl, to take care of everybody else first. So women are already wired to be that caretaker, the nurturer, the peacemaker, the people pleaser. And then you add on top of that the ambition in the professional space. So whether they are in business, in corporate, they already have this urge to do really well, the ones who are the quiet achievers. But at the same time, taking up as little space as possible. So, yes, what you say about health coming in, second, third, fourth, and so on, it's true. I I know I didn't seriously consider or think about health until health fell apart, until issues showed up, until pain came along and became a part of my life. And then that's when I, you know, it's like something opens up or you wake up because it's too painful. You you can't ignore it anymore, you can't brush it aside, you can't just say, oh, you know, let me take a painkiller or something. It's so much more than that. You realize something else is going on, and that's when, like you said, people start paying attention. So you have a combination here of high achieving women who are doing too much in an external sense, but not doing enough for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 9:49

Yep. That's the perfect storm. So

Build A Bigger Health Dream

SPEAKER_01 9:52

one of the things I do with my clients is what I call a superhero identity. But before that bit, you have to have the dream. Because here's the thing. We when we were younger, do you remember everyone had that? The teacher that said, What do you want to be when you were younger, Serena? Greg, what do you want to be? And you had astronaut, I don't know, whatever you had, right? But there will be people who had those dreams and kept them powerfully and have now doing their dream job. Or at some point after uni or something, you said, I'm gonna be director of this department or company or whatever. And lo and behold, you're there. And then if I ask the question, say, what would you like for your health? Oh, I just want to lose a few inches, I just want to lose a bit of weight. The energy of both of those things is so very different. Now, if you say, so here's the contrast. Greg, I want to lose weight. Okay, I get it, that makes sense. Greg, I want to be the most energized, fit, capable body that gets me through board meetings, helps me run projects, gets me on speaking stages, and also means I can show my family or my kids or whatever that I can be like an athlete. Which one of those gets you kind of go? Oh, yes, I want that. So if the dream isn't big enough, you won't be able to change to meet that. You can't do the identity change. And I think what happens, and you mentioned about women playing small, is actually that bleeds over a little bit into their professional life. Because I've seen it so many times. When I have a client who really gets hit and they start to change how to look after their body, all of a sudden, I mean, I've got one client, she's had four promotions in our work together. I am not a recruitment coach or a business coach, I know I'm none of those things. But I understand that if you look after your body and your health and you can perform better, it's going to carry over into your work. So the first thing is to set big dreams. If you're saying I just want to lose weight, you probably said that, I think it's 45 times or 60 times, something like that, that the average woman has been on a diet. Emotionally, it doesn't get you. In some cases, it actually creates there's a story and an association with lose weight, which is almost deflating. It's like, oh yes, I have to be in a calorie deficit. And you can, I can literally see someone's body language shift and change. You can see it as soon as you mention certain words. Oh yeah, I want to lose weight, shoulders drop, eyes look away, big sigh, because you associate those words with disappointment, failure, because maybe you've not been able to do it successfully before. If I say, hey, I want to look amazing when I do my first speaking gig, that sounds exciting.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

We just were never taught to put that excitement about our health.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

I'm hearing something in there too about capacity. When you say I want to look good for my first speaking engagement, there's also something else. It's not just the looking good in a physical sense, because there is another aspect about when I'm actually on that stage in that outfit that makes me look good and my energy is good, and I know my brain is firing well, and everything, you know, I've done all the preparatory work to get there. There is this sense that I have something more to give. I'm not scraping the bottom of the barrel for leftovers and trying to get by and trying to wing it. I know I have I can deliver that, and there is still some more. There is a buffer, there is there is something more in reserve. And that makes me feel good. That makes me feel confident. So, you know, somebody could ask a difficult question or something could happen in the presentation itself. It's not going to throw me the same way it would if I was just scraping to get by.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

I think you nailed it. Because I think, like you said, you deliver this amazing talk. Then afterwards, you're going to have to go into the crowd and maybe feel questions. You might even have to go back to the office after. You want the energy to go, I can handle that. I'm not going to have that three o'clock slump, or I'm not going to be hiding in the toilet thinking, oh my God, I need a break. And I think there's something so powerful about knowing that your body's never going to fail you in that way. That your body has the capability to do all the things you want to do. And I think you you mentioned a really good point. Humans are very good at moving away from pain. I think you mentioned it earlier. Something goes wrong, we quickly fix it. The things we have to do to fix it are probably things we have to do for a long time. But as soon as the pain subsides, we go back. Okay, it's a bit like a rusty nail, I call it. The nails in your foot, pull it out or keep it in. Most people keep it in because it's too painful to pull out. Really strange mindset. It's crazy. People will stay on it and like, oh yeah, I'll keep staying up late. I'll keep reading emails at 12 o'clock at night when I should be sleeping because it feels comfortable and it feels right, because it feels like you're working.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

So when we switch it to what do you want to go after?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

There's a lot more excitement, and you're not kind of running away from pain, you're moving towards the version or the things that you want in your life.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

We need a big enough vision that's going to inspire us to become that person in that vision. So it's a bit like what does my future self want? And what do I need to do now so that when I look back in, say, a year from now, I can be really proud of myself that I did it.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Yes. And that kind of goes on to the superhero identity. So this is kind of what I picked up when I gave all my clients nicknames, and I still do, but now I get them to pick it. But I say to them, right, what give me a name for this new version of you? Well, if you have to, you're in a queue for coffee and you wanted to change your state instantly, what would that name be? So one of

Standards, Values, And Quiet Reflection

SPEAKER_01 16:32

my clients calls herself the hot body gal. I love it. Because when she's feeling a bit down or things aren't going right, she's like, right, who am I acting as? My former self or the person I want to be? So it's a really quick reframe. What we do then is we say, what are the characteristics? What are the standards? How do they eat? How do they move? How do they look after themselves? And we document all of that. We also now say, what are we going to say no to? Because what you're doing then is going, well, these are my new values, these are my new standards. And we're all human, but if you can get that close to the new identity 80% of the time, your life will change.

SPEAKER_04 17:16

But it does take bravery and it takes support. Um it takes some tough questions for sure. Um but it also takes quietness.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Because what I've learned throughout this 21 years, I think I've been in this game of kind of helping women to get in shape, etc., is this all of the tactics, you know, the the nutrition or the exercise, they're pretty universal. Like we all know, our mums told us to eat our greens when we were younger, our mums told us to go to bed on time. We know what to do. The hard bit is what where I call Doctor Quiet. It's the thinking about it. The asking why, what's driven me to this? Who am I being? What are the stories I hold about myself, my body, and my upbringing? And that demands quiet, which I think is a very powerful tool that introverts can use. But maybe the people that are a little bit more extrovert often struggle with.

SPEAKER_00 18:22

I think the self-awareness and the tendency to reflect, to go inwards, to ask questions like the kind you just mentioned, to go deep and to understand ourselves better or to understand why things are the way they are. Yes, I agree with you. Introverts, quiet achievers are very much already wired that way. And so this feels a bit effortless for them. It comes naturally. So then what you are inviting them to do is consider what's led up to this and what's going to get them over the edge. Because it's not the intellectualizing about at the very start, you said it's not about the knowledge. We all have the knowledge, we all have access to it. It's universal. The question is, why am I not doing these things? Why is it still hard for me to commit to the discipline, the routine, to go for the walk, go to the gym, eat healthily. And that's to do with the identity. It's because I don't see myself yet as that person who does those things. So then you said document what those people do, what the superhero does, and then you become, you change your state. So tell us more about this changing of state, because you've used the phrase a couple of times. And just in case there are some listeners who are not familiar with what that actually means.

Changing Your State On Demand

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Well, it's a very simple way to phrase it. If you're ever in a meeting and someone's droning on and they got a PowerPoint that you know you're not interested in really, etc. You feel tired, the easiest way to change your state is to stand up. Like it might look weird in a meeting. I totally agree with that. But get up, go to the loo or something. Straight away you feel energized. But we can do that by our thoughts. We can actually just ask ourselves the question: who am I being right now? So simple. Um, there used to be a program called Stars in Their Eyes in the UK. I don't know if you had it in other countries. Basically, what it was was people, average people, would go on this TV show and then they would become Annie Lennox or I don't know, some other great musician. But it was just someone from an office, like and they would go on, they would sing, they'll get all the makeup done, they would look exactly like that person, they would be able to perform like that person. And in their day job, they're a lawyer, solicitor, etc. etc. So it shows that we all have the power. Um, even Beyonce, she has um Sasha Fears when she goes on stage, she has an all-to-ego. As soon as she crosses the boundary of the stage, Sasha Fears takes over.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

So we all have it. We used to all talk to our imaginary friends we were younger. We've just forgotten it.

Micro Steps And Calendar Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 21:24

And then I think the next bit is how do we make the change you need to make small enough for you to feel comfortable doing? Or just at the edge of discomfort. Because what happens generally is we go, right, tomorrow, eating salad, I'm gonna work out six times a week, I'm gonna do 10,000 steps. And of course, what happens is it collapses after two weeks or even less.

SPEAKER_04 21:50

So the question then becomes is okay, what can we do today that goes towards that new identity? Is it you

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Just eat some extra vegetables today. Is it you go into your calendar? Something I often do with clients straight away. The first thing I do is, what time is your lunch break? Well, you know, it depends on what meetings I've got. And I'm like, okay, get your calendar and I get them to bring up their calendar. And I look and I'm like, I can't see your lunch break. Yeah, but you know, I don't put it in there. I said, okay, but you've got all these meetings in here. Are they important? Yes. Okay. Is you feeling rested and energized important? Yes. And then it eventually starts to click. Then it dawns on them. I said, well, okay, for you to now become who you want to be, you need to have a break. Let's put it in. Block it. No one can book a meeting unless it's like, I don't know, the major investor or God Himself. No one can go across your lunch break. And that small step seemed quite big, but that small step can go. Actually, you know what, Greg, I feel good. A week's time, Greg, I'm really enjoying my lunch breaks. And when I have afternoon meetings, I don't feel as hungry because I'm getting a proper lunch. I'm having a break from the screen. My eyes feel better. I don't feel as stressed. Okay, good. What can we do next? Once we embed some changes, what's the next ones? Because I think that's the challenge with coaching is that we let people kind of run too fast instead of going, okay, well, look, hey, Serena, it's been two weeks, we've really struggled with this thing. Let's really tackle it before we move to the next thing. Rather than we just go, oh, what's the next thing? What's the next exercise plan? What's the one to two things we can do each week that changes and creates wins? Because if you can say, hey, do you know what? This week I got to bed around 10:30 four times this week, that's going to be so much better than once in a blue moon. That's a 400% improvement. That's a win. That's evidence that you can do things for you. And no one killed you for it.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

And nothing collapsed because you do that. I think that's what you're saying is it's about commitment to yourself. It's about proving to yourself that you can do these hard things. But at the same time, you're not setting the bar so high that you're sabotaging yourself. So you're scaling it back, you're bringing it back down to a manageable level for the individual, whatever that may look like. So it's the same as when I'm coaching my clients, I tell them, what is the micro step that you can take today or right now that would actually move you forward? It is just a little tiny thing, but to you, it proves to your subconscious mind, I'm serious about this thing. I'm looking after myself, I'm prioritizing this, I'm blocking it, I'm putting it in the diary, I'm looking at it, and I'm, you know, every day you do that, it becomes that habit and it becomes part of your new identity. So I really, I really hear that. Yes.

Rest, Sleep, And The Caregiver Trap

SPEAKER_00 25:09

And what you said also about normalizing rest, taking lunch breaks as an example. Now, why do you see, you know, with introverted women, for instance, what is this thing about rest and sleep and trying to do more? What's really going on?

SPEAKER_01 25:24

I think just based on my experience, and we talked about it a little bit before. Women are always the caregivers. Um my mum used to make sure we were all fed and then bring us seconds. And I'd be like, Mom, do you want to sit down and take a load off for a second? And she's like, No, no, no, no, no, I'm fine. And then she'd be rushing to eat her food and be half digested, and someone would, you know. So we probably got a little bit of programming from our parents around that. Must look after everybody else, etc. I think when you raise go up the ladder as well in corporate, for a lot of women, especially women of ethnicities, there are different walls they have to get over to be able to get ahead. One of those walls always feels like I have to always be present at every meeting. I have to do more than other counterparts who are not the same ethnicity as me.

SPEAKER_04 26:24

Who's judging me if I don't go to this meeting? So those are kind of the three, the biggest three I think I see with clients.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

So often what I'll do is say, okay, does this meeting that you need to go, does it match your job description and is anything gonna fall over? No. Okay. Can we delegate? Can't delegate. And for a lot of these women, the thing is their roles are actually very strategic, not operational. So I'm saying, well, okay, you're a strategic leader, you're doing operational work. This is not in your this is not in your genius zone. And when they when they start to look at it, like, oh my God, why am I in all of these meetings? I'm like, I get it. You've up to this point to survive and try and get ahead, you've always been present. We can slowly start to withdraw, but get you showing up for the more high-profile things you should be leading on. That's two things. One, it arrests the fear of, oh my God, I'm not in that meeting. Two, it gives you opportunity to spotlight yourself in your genius where you actually do add the most value. So that then calms the fear of I'm not being seen enough, I'm not being present enough. Because when you go back and say, well, actually, we've managed to save X million on this project that was meant to be a big thing before, now you've actually got time to do it.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

One of the big things is the way our brains perform is when we're rested.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

If you're underslept, your appetite goes up next day, your hunger hormones go up. People that sleep less than six hours every night, even if they try to lose weight, they lose more muscle, have a harder time because leptin and ghrelin hunger hormones go up. Which is why you find yourself in the cafeteria having a croissant just before a meeting. You're like, I've got to run just to grab a coffee and a croissant. Hey, 500 calories later. Greg, I don't eat that much. Well, you do, you just don't realize it because we're underslept. Um, I think there's also reverse procrastination. Um and then what this means is literally because you work so hard during the day, you build in no time for um recuperation, no time to down. So what happens is you get home at seven. If you have family, whatever, you might say hello to them, give them food, whatever, whatever you do. Then you go back on the laptop at eight. Then you try to go to sleep at 12 while you are just gonna read this one email. It's always a justification, right? It's a bit like I'm just gonna watch this next TikTok. It's the same thing, exactly the same thing. But your body's not primed for sleep at that point. Your body's like, I'm awake, I'm trying to be cognizant of what I'm missing in emails, all the rest of it. You eventually get to sleep, it's broken sleep, you wake up with the alarm at 5:30, down a coffee, don't have breakfast because there's probably someone else that needs your attention during the morning. You get to work, first meeting you schedule is at nine o'clock as soon as you step foot in the office. You haven't had any food. So now you're hungry, sleepier, your brain's panic, scattered. And it just becomes a cycle. But we get used to that cycle. It's the rusty nail. When you're rested, and when I say rest, this doesn't just mean sleep, it means time away from screens, it means meditation. Um, I noticed you did some qigong recently as well. So I love that. I've got a background in Chinese martial arts too. So qigong, tai qi, yoga, whatever that is, that in working in is probably the best way to describe it. Doing things that feed you, energize you. When you do that, you start to see, hold on, I'm not hungry as much as I used to. I don't crave. I can concentrate on meetings better. I start to say no to things that aren't serving my role. Because at the minute, what happens is everyone jumps on you and you're like, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. When you're under slept and underrested, you can go, hmm, actually, that's not for my team.

SPEAKER_04 30:44

I think that's actually better served by that person. Because your cortisol's not up to here. So for anyone listening, when we talk about rest, it's sleep, but also things that nourish you, energize you as well.

SPEAKER_00 31:02

I'm so glad you explained all that in such detail, Greg, because it's we're holistic beings. We weren't created for this kind of lifestyle. And it's amazing how many decades some of us go doing this without being conscious of what we're actually doing to our bodies. We're just running it down at an alarming rate until something breaks. And that's when that's probably the first time we notice we haven't had that experience of being at full capacity for a long time. We're just overfunctioning but depleting ourselves at the same time. And then when you get to that, let's say for women, perimenopause, 50s, sudden change in energy levels, suddenly the brain fog sets in, suddenly you get all these joint pains and other issues going on. And that's when that's when you realize I really have to take my health seriously now.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

Yeah, that goes back to that thing of when there is pain, then you then the human brain goes, okay, let's fix it now. And what's the saying prevention is better than cure, right? So the paradox of it is it's just mind-blowing.

What Cats Teach About Health

SPEAKER_01 32:16

But I think if here's a crazy thought for people watch cats and dogs, they're our closest buddies. I a lot of my education comes from cats. I know it sounds crazy, but I like to watch what happens in nature. Um, David Attenborough is my hero, and I wanted to be a zoologist at one point. So animals fascinate me. Now, and I get it, cats don't have to work and have responsibility unless they've got kittens. Get it. But if you actually ever watch a cat, they play for a bit.

SPEAKER_04 32:49

They eat, they rest, they stretch. It's the four doctors of health. They play, they have fun.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

So we call that Dr. Happiness. Their diet. Normally I've seen I've seen some cat food that looks like gourmet food nowadays, like you can get. Yes, that's Dr. Diet. Yeah. Dr. Quiet is where cats just lie about or they sleep. And Dr. Happiness, when they play, they go out for a little wander and explore what's going on in the world. They are the happiest beings on the planet. And actually the most, the most ad one of the most agile animals in the world. Who sleep the most? So when you look at how nature does it, like you said, we've forgotten some of our nature. Corporations demand more, more, more, more, more. We're indoctrinated with TV that says you've got to work long hours, you've got to do more. Um, you watch soups and you think, oh, I've got to stay behind. No, you don't. But we have to do it in a way that makes you feel safe. Because I think that's the danger. If you try to, if I say to a woman who's very high achieving, you can have to sleep for eight hours. That will scare the living daylights out of them. They'll be like, how am I going to fit in everything? So I'm like, okay, what's the one thing we could do?

SPEAKER_04 34:15

Do we just start to journal every night? Just to create that separation between work and rest.

unknown 34:21

Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

How's your bedroom look? Is it dark? Is it cool? Oh, I've got a TV in there. Get it out. Your bedroom should be for two things only.

unknown 34:35

Cool.

SPEAKER_04 34:36

Okay. Could you have, you know, so we just start to build small things.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

And what actually happens is, it's always funny, people expect to come to me for diet and exercise kind of stuff. They're always like, yes, that's working out. These ladies need to work in more. Eventually they'll be stable, healthy enough to be able to work out more. But that just adds if you just start working out and trying to change everything in your diet straight away. It's not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. You'll be able to do it for two weeks and it'll you'll burn out. I find when I say to clients, right, we're gonna practice how we're gonna get to sleep, we're gonna just monitor your sleep and see how that goes. First night, oh a bit disturbed. I was thinking about this meeting. I've got tomorrow, okay, got it. Next day, Greg, I've got six hours sleep. Great. What can we learn from yesterday that we can repeat today or repeat when you have to travel to a hotel? Actually, I've noticed if I move my dinner back a little bit and then I chill and watch some Netflix, but I stop at nine o'clock, then I generally sleep better. Awesome. Now I have clients saying, Greg, I got eight hours sleep. A year ago, I was four and a half hours. That then frees them up. They can get up earlier. They can then maybe do some exercise in the morning, they can take some time to have a coffee outside, think about a day, whatever they want to do in the morning. But when you're in the on the hamster wheel of do more, more, you can't see it. And now they're like, Oh, one of my clients, um, her name's Helen. She was like, Who am I? I said, Oh, do you remember we asked this question before? Who are you? Who do you want to be? It's like, oh my god, I sleep eight hours. I travel the world doing athletic competitions now. Year and a half ago. It's not gonna happen. Now she can actually eat more food. Like a plates of food are ginormous. Like, oh my god, how can I eat more food? But I'm dropping body fat. Well, it's because you're not stressed to the eyeballs and you don't feel the need to pick at stuff all the time, and your body feels nourished, so you feel relaxed and you can perform. So we need to work in more for sure.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Yes, I love that. I love it, it's not working out, it's working in. It everything starts from the inside out, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04 37:09

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

That's the change that sticks.

Hormones, Stress, And The Email Myth

SPEAKER_04 37:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

I think, and it's really hard, I think, for anybody, but for also for people, for everybody, is here's the thing. When a woman often says to me, Greg, I think it's my hormones, and I and I get where that comes from. Hormones are massively important. Totally agree. I always tell my clients, get to get see a doctor and endocrinologist for, or gynecologist, look at HRT, all of those things. Go do it. But if we don't do the things that we need to be able to thrive, putting more hormones into you is not probably gonna make that much of a difference. So it's all within us, it's all within our actions, how we treat ourselves, how we see ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 37:59

I think, and I've had my own journey.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Like I had to lose like 80 pounds. So people think, oh, you've always been filled. You're like, uh-uh. And but what I used to do was I used to blame everything else outside of me. Like, oh, maybe it's my genetics, because my mum and my sisters are big. But my dad is my dad was always fairly fit and healthy. And so I was like, actually, it maybe it isn't my genetics.

SPEAKER_04 38:26

Is it my hormones? Could be. It wasn't. It was because I was doing a 10-hour day in a corporate role.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

On the way home, I'd get some fried chicken because I was hungry. Those days you didn't have Uber Eats, right? So now the equivalent now is oh yeah, here it is.

SPEAKER_04 38:48

I was doing maybe 2,000 steps a day because I thought that the next email was more important than me.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

And I guarantee that 99% of the time when you get all these emails in your inbox and you're stressed, if it was that important, the CEO would ring you.

SPEAKER_04 39:10

It's that important, they'll ring you. I've talked about leave an email for two days, don't respond.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

And you can see like the like the sweat coming down. I'm like, look, you can message me at any time if you want to talk about this this one email, it's fine. Don't worry, it's fine. Greg two days later, Greg, no one's asked me about that email. Got it. So now you've been able to work on the four or five things that are really important to you and your career and all that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 39:43

Yes. Crazy.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

It is. This is so good.

The 90 Year Old Ninja Vision

SPEAKER_00 39:51

What is one thing you want listeners to take away from all of this that we just said?

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Serena, you can't ask me that question.

SPEAKER_04 40:03

Oh decide what you really, really want.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

And this is what I would do. If it really helps you, if you want to message me and say, Greg, how do I do it? I'm happy to give give you some help with that just to get you started. But here's what I did. Um, I listened to Martin Luther King's speech, I Have a Dream. I didn't watch it, I listened. I listened to the imagery that he put into it, the words he used. Then I applied that to myself. So I said, Greg, who do you want to be? I said, I want to be a 90-year-old ninja. When I'm 90, the goal is that I'm able to fight my son. When I say fight, I mean wrestle and you know, as boys do. Or grandchildren. In order to do that, what do I need to do? I need to eat healthier, I need to exercise, I need to sleep on time, need to work in, I need to do qigong, animal flow, those sort of things.

SPEAKER_04 41:07

And that's the mantra I have every day. It's on my phone. So every day, like I can recite it for people, no problem.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

The same way that people can recite their company vision, or they can recite an advert that they heard when they were younger. I can recite my superhero identity. I can do it, no problem. It took time, it took me reading it every day, twice a day sometimes, to get it into my brain and to almost hypnotize myself.

SPEAKER_04 41:38

This is who I am. Yesterday morning, I did not want to go to the gym. My partner was like, let's go. And I was like, oh, I'm tired.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

The habit, I pick up my phone. 90-year-old ninja. Guess what I did yesterday? I got in the gym. I felt better for it. I'm human like everyone else, and I get it. But you have to decide who you want, which is the same you are that it's the same person that decided they want to become a director, manager, etc.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

That same skill can be transferred over to your health. Was that one thing enough for you?

SPEAKER_00 42:21

Yes, I think that's a powerful thing to wrap up this conversation with. Remember who you want to be. Who is the future you? Who is the that person that when you look back in a year's time, in 10 years' time, you'll be inspired. You inspire yourself. And I think that's that's the huge vision. That's the thing you said earlier about how we don't set big enough health goals for ourselves. It has to be a goal that's so big, it's no longer about I need to lose weight, I need to go to the gym, I need to, you know, go for a walk daily. It's so much more than that. You're doing all these things because you want to become that person, that version of yourself that is capable of doing that and much more. And so I think when we work from the inside out, where we can inspire ourselves, looking back, I think that's a different frame of mind. That's the identity shift you're talking about. We have to be using our imagination to already lock in that version, even before we see it. And then we're taking those little steps, those micro steps, the smallest thing I can do today to commit to that and to show myself I'm serious. I'm honoring all these things that I said I want to do. I am I'm reliable. I can trust my word because look, here am I doing that thing. Eating healthily, resting, having a proper lunch break, stopping, you know, screens at nine o'clock, having a good rest, getting in the six to eight hours of sleep and functioning better. And taking that long-term strategic view of my job and you know what exactly I'm contributing, not just pushing and not externalizing and not just worrying about what other people think of me or worrying about being judged, but actually I'm thinking, what is it I want to do and what is my role here? And how can I better deploy my time and my energy? So thank you. Really appreciate this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

No, thank you for having me. I'm glad we could have it.

Where To Find Greg And Closing

SPEAKER_00 44:32

If you are ready to be seen and to make an impact without having to perform extroversion, I invite you to join the visible introvert community at serenaloe.com.au. And also check out the show notes for links to contact Greg Viron for his work and how to work with him. See you on the next episode. I'm so grateful that you're here today. If you found this content valuable, please share it on your social media channels and subscribe to the show on your favorite listening platform. Together we can help more introverts thrive. To receive more uplifting content like this, connect with me on Instagram at Serenaloo Quiet Warrior Coach. Thank you for sharing your time and your energy with me. See you on the next episode.