Podcast Transcription: How To Make 2022 Your Best Year Ever with Ted Ryce Part 3 

Ted Ryce: What is up, my friends? Welcome back to the third instalment of “Your Best Year Ever”—super excited for this. Now, if you haven’t listened to Episode One, it’s where I intro this series. It’s where we do a self-analysis and I even give you a downloadable PDF, to go through some exercises to, one, get clarity on what you’re trying to achieve. And the second thing is to get some emotional leverage on why you’re trying to achieve it. You need both you need to be clear, you need to understand why you want this and the effect it’s going to have on your life if you achieve it.

So go to legendarylifepodcast.com/2022  if you haven’t downloaded the PDF, that exercise that goes along with this series.

Now in Episode Two, we talk about the strategies, we talked about the levels of investment, we talked about where we get strategies from, and the level of investment, we talked about free content, books, courses, coaching/mentorship, and we had you break down okay, in your weakest area, your second area and third area, what level of investment do you need to make to achieve the results that you want?

And today we’re going to be talking about how to manage your focus, energy, time and emotion so you accomplish your goals. Because you may have clarity, you may have emotional leverage and understand why you want to achieve something, you may have some strategies already that you’ve been taking action on.

But here’s the thing: when we’re trying to change our behaviour, it’s really important to understand the stages of change.

Now, this is something I’ve talked about a lot in this podcast. And if you’re new to it, because you’re listening to this for the first time, well, get ready because this is a game changing concept.

And I guess I should say, welcome back to the show! Welcome back to the Legendary Life Podcast. I’m your host, Ted Ryce, coach to entrepreneurs and executives and other high-performing professionals.

And what we try to do here is…what we try to do? What we crush here is we crush not just fitness goals but how fitness is really like, the foundation of all the areas of life because here’s the thing, when you wake up full of energy, when you see your body in the mirror, and you feel proud of what you see, that’s huge.

I don’t need to tell you that, because you’ve probably been on both sides. You’ve probably been in this situation where you’ve liked what you’ve seen. Hopefully, you’ve been there.

And we’ve all been in a situation where we don’t like what we see. And I’ve even had clients come in tell us, or tell me, rather, share with me, and it’s been multiple clients who have shared this story that they see themselves in the mirror first thing in the morning, and it just kind of ruins the rest of the day. That’s why health and fitness is so important.

So, we’re going to use health and fitness as the example. Now I’ve done exercises here that helped you with relationships and career/finance goals, or wealth goals as well.

But I’m going to come back again and again and use examples out of health and fitness. Why? Because I’m not a real estate investor, I’m not a relationship therapist, I’m a health coach, really.

So that’s my wheelhouse. That’s what I’m going to come back to. And I’m going to tell stories of people and myself and how we have to manage the process of getting in better health.

And the first thing I want to tell you here is that—let’s go back to the stages of change. So, there are six stages of change.

There’s not thinking about it. So, there’s a problem, like your weight or your high blood pressure or your high blood sugar, but you’re just not thinking about it. You’re too busy with work most likely.

And then there’s thinking about it, “Oh, you know what, blood pressure is…” There’s no argument about whether high blood pressure is bad for you or not, “I should probably get that handled.” Or your weight, it’s just a matter of time before you come down with problems due to having excess body fat, “I should probably do something about it.” So now you’re thinking about it.

Then there’s the preparation stage, which is where you might be right now; you’re listening to podcasts, you’re reading blogs, you’re reading books, maybe, you’re actively searching for the strategies, for what should I do to handle this problem.

Then there’s the action phase. Maybe you’re already here, maybe you have a gym routine, maybe you’re trying to eat better. So there’s the action phase or stage.

And then there’s the maintenance stage. After you’ve been doing an action for a while, it becomes a habit, so it’s something that you’ve maintained for a while. And actually, research shows—at least the research that I’ve read regarding the Stages of Change, it takes about six months for you to establish an action, when you go from the action phase to the maintenance phase.

And then the sixth one is what I want you to pay attention to. Are you ready for this? Relapse. Going backwards is part of the stages of change. And I’ve talked in the past about how smokers need to go through this Stages of Change four or five times to quit completely.

Why is this important for you? Well, guess what? How socially acceptable is smoking in the United States.

Now in Europe or Asia, I know it’s different. But in the United States, oh, people look at you— I’m one of those people who will look at you too, like, oh, what’s wrong with that person? And why are they…? We’re all already living in this toxic, modern environment with all these manmade chemicals? Why are you making me breathe in your smoke? In other words, people who smoke are kind of pariahs, in the United States, at least.

But what about people who are overweight? Oh, it’s the same way. Oh, really? No, it’s not, it’s 70% of people are overweight or obese. It is, we say it’s not socially acceptable, or it shouldn’t be that way. But man, when you look around, that is the behaviours, that is the standard.

And if you’re looking to change your behaviour, it’s one of the things that is going to be the biggest problem for you, is because it’s so socially acceptable.

Everybody talks about losing weight, everybody’s going on diets, but they end up gaining it back, they end up eating too much, drinking too much, “Hey, let’s order another slice of pizza or order some dessert or whatever, whatever it is. I mean, I’ve been in Orlando for, I guess a little bit over a month right now, I can tell you, it is much more socially acceptable and much more common than it is in other countries.

Brazil isn’t nearly as bad with their obesity rate. Why? Because it’s a social norm. Now it’s going to get there eventually. But Americans, we’re leading the way, along with Canadians, Australians and also Mexicans, and the UK as well.

So now that we have that out of the way, the point is this: expect setbacks. The whole environment here is—I mean, you’re in the line to check out at the supermarket, and they’re trying to get you at the last minute to buy something, “Are you sure you don’t want these cookies?”

I was shopping in Sprouts Market, which I believe is an LA brand, but now it’s here in Orlando. It’s kind of like a Whole Foods, but not quite as amazing, but nice. And right at the checkout, there are these boxes of cookies. And the checkout person was like, “Oh, you should buy one, they’re on sale.” I’m like, “Yeah, they’re cheap to buy, but they cost me a lot in terms of my physical health. No, thank you.”

And of course, I didn’t say that to her. That would be a douchey thing to say. But the point here is this: expect setbacks, expect relapses, understand that the environment is built up against you, understand the challenges that you’re going to face.

Because here’s what I’ve found happens to my coaching clients, they get in the zone, when they join my program. They’re not sure like, “Oh, is this going to work for me? I just paid a bunch of money to be a part of this.”

And then after the first week, they’re like, “Boom, I’m in Ted. I just lost four to six pounds. I’m crushing my workouts. This is way easier than I thought it was going to be.” I see, “I’m going to crush it.” Confidence goes high, which I love. And it’s amazing. And I always, I’ll be honest, I always second guess myself. I’m like, “Should I tell them yet that there will be setbacks?”

And eventually, of course I do. I say, “Listen, I know you feel like you’re crushing it now. But look at the stages of change. It’s only a matter of time before a setback happens before a relapse happens.” Whatever terminology you want to say.

So, here’s  what we need to do: we need to expect the setbacks, we need to expect the relapses.

And I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, and I’ll keep repeating it, because what I want you to understand, just like it takes a smoker four to five times to quit for good, it might take you a lot more than that. Really earnest efforts at changing. Not just dropping weight because really what we’re talking about when we’re talking about dropping weight is different strategies, different habits.

And if you do this properly, you’ll go in what’s called “an upward spiral.” So in other words, you’ll go through the stages of change.

For example, I had a client who lost 30 pounds with me and stopped after a year, we worked together for a year. Now, that’s not a lot of weight to lose in a year’s time, I’m not going to go into his own personal struggle with that, but it was very difficult for him.

But now he’s back. So, he lost 30 pounds, he’s maintained it, but wants to get to the next level. So, in other words, he went through the stages of change, and he even relapsed a little bit. And he wasn’t thinking about doing anything for a while, he had some business situations that needed to be attended to, but now he’s back.

So, he fast forwarded to—there’s not thinking about it, there’s thinking about it, he got to the point where he was ready to take action and hired me actually one on one again, which is, obviously financially, more of an investment than working in the group.

So, we’re going through those stages of change again, and he’s on fire right now, which is great. He’s been in the program for about a month, we’ve lost almost 10 pounds. I think eight-ish, eight or nine pounds. But again, there will be some setbacks, there will be a relapse, there will be a time where work gets a little crazy, or something happens or he goes on a trip.

So, wh at I’m telling you is you have to expect setbacks, you have to expect the relapses, don’t tell yourself, “Nah, that ain’t going to happen to me.”

If you say that, you’re not listening here, or you are listening intellectually, but emotionally, you’re leading with your ego a little bit. And that’s okay, but I’m telling you, the relapse has happened. It’s always a matter of time.

In fact, I’ve shared many times throughout this past year how I had a setback when my father got sick and died and I ended up losing the veins on my abs. If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, I made a bunch of jokes about veins on my abs, and then all of a sudden, they’re gone.

And I talked about that story and talked about what I went through. And it was extremely difficult, I don’t need to rehash, I don’t need to go into the full drama again, of what I went through with my dad. But the point is, I relapsed.

And guess what? I’m more knowledgeable, my skill level is way higher than yours and it happened to me. It’s going to happen to you. It’s just a matter of when.

Nothing to get stressed out about, nothing to get in anxious about, just accept it and have some strategies prepared.

And I want to talk a little bit about strategies because what really threw me off when I was dealing with my dad’s situation is one word, “stress”, or more specifically, high amounts of stress.

So, what happened? I started eating emotionally, so my nutrition habits changed. I was still even tracking my nutrition, I could see the calories going up, I could not stop myself from buying the frozen key lime pie, because I was hanging out in Florida during that time, and that’s one of the best desserts that I could buy there.

Another thing that happened was, I didn’t have the energy to work out very hard, so my workout habits changed. I couldn’t push myself that hard. I did maybe 10-minute workouts. I do a push exercise, a pull exercise, a leg exercise, and I was fried.

So, in a way, I almost can’t call it a setback. I’ll call it a setback for me. But I was still tracking my nutrition. I was still exercising, it’s just, you know, I wasn’t doing enough. Like, I couldn’t use hard training to deal with the stress, because I just felt even more burned out when I tried to push myself.

What I needed is massages, what I needed was more meditation, what I needed was to spend more time in nature, things to bring down the stress levels. And my point in bringing this up to you is to tell you, the same is going to be true of you.

Now, you may have a very different situation than me. Maybe your parents are super healthy, maybe your parents are gone. Maybe it’s going to be something different, but it may be stress that throws you backwards.

In fact, the  big thing that I don’t think we talk about enough, especially when it comes to health and fitness, is how stress drives eating behaviour. It’s probably the number one thing that doesn’t get talked about. Medical professionals who deal with obesity will talk about how it’s a brain disorder, they’ll talk about all this stuff and complicate it, the genes. They’ll talk about all that, but guess what?

This is a new thing, the obesity epidemic, and certainly, other people talk about hyper palatable foods and the availability of hyper palatable foods, but guess what? Big Food, if you want to call them that, they’re just there to capitalize on your lack of stress management. They’re just there to help capitalize because you can’t help yourself from, in my case, buying the key lime pie.

So, what’s crucial about this is when the setbacks happen, learning from them. F or example, when I was in Fort Pierce, Florida dealing with my dad’s sickness and his eventual death, I realized now, I realized after I had left, I’m like, “Wow, I could have done surfing lessons.” Now, I’ve never done surfing, and I’m from Miami. There are no waves in Miami, really, unless there’s a storm of some sort, so not ideal for learning how to surf.

But in Fort Pierce, there’s waves so there’s surfing. I could have gone surfing, and it would have been a great thing for me to do, because I would have gotten out there, out in the sunshine, out in nature, learning a skill, learning something that when you’re going through the process of surfing, for example, or like what I was doing in Mexico going scuba diving. You have to pay attention, you’re not thinking about, oh, how my father is sick, and how he’s not going to be here anymore, or how he’s dead, and he’s gone, and what that means for me philosophically.

No, you’re in the moment, and that’s what we need. When we’re under stress, when we’re maybe feeling guilty about the past or worrying about the future, we need routines, habits, hobbies, whatever you want to call them, that can bring you back to the present.

And so, as I’m sharing my story here, I’m sharing it because I want you to see yourself in my situation—actually, I want you to see yourself in your situation, is what I meant to say, and ask yourself, what are the things that you need to combat the stress so that you can stay on track with your goal. Stress management is the key.

There are two things that are stopping you from achieving your goals.

Number one is the strategies; you’ve got to have the right strategies. For example, if you want to change your body, you can go running seven days a week, twice a day, but you’re not going to look the way you want. You might get skinny, but you’re still going to be skinny fat, you’ve got to lift weights. That’s an example of hard work, but a smart strategy is what you need.

And then the second thing is stress, because the triggers are stress. The trigger is when you don’t want to exercise because you’re too stressed and you can’t even bring yourself to go for a walk. A lot of my clients, they’re like, “Oh, I couldn’t do the workout. It was too hard, kind of like how I was feeling lifting weights. But I would still go on a walk, I would go on a walk every day when I was in Fort Pierce, Florida dealing with my dad’s situation.

And so, I tell my clients, don’t  skip your workouts, go for a walk, do something different. Go do something that’s going to lower stress, because walk outside, that’s going to lower stress. It’s going to make you feel better. Get a massage, get acupuncture, get cupping, get Reiki, whatever, whatever works for you. But it’s managing stress that is going to give you the results that you want, or allow you to stick with the habits that will give you the results.

I had a client not too long ago, one of the things he was dealing with was, he would feel amazing in the morning. But by five o’clock, he had no more willpower. He’s like, “I can make great decisions from the morning all the way up until five and then after that it’s fuck it.

It’s like, let’s go eat a steak and drink some wine.” Why do we drink wine? Because we want to taste a wine? Well sometimes.

But mostly, if we do it chronically, if we do it regularly, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to change our state by using alcohol. The problem with alcohol is that it has calories in it—or there’s a lot of problems with alcohol, but it as calories in it so adds more calories to your daily total calories.

The other thing is it affects sleep. So, when you wake up in the morning, you’re not feeling like working out and you’re not motivated to eat the superfood salad, as opposed to the four cheese pizza. Hmm, four cheese pizza after a night of drinking sounds delicious. So, managing your stress is key.

My whole magnum opus is going to be on stress management, by the way. It’s just the key to life. More on that later.

But as I’m talking about this, what are the strategies that you need? What do you need to do daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, bi-yearly, yearly, so that you’re able to stay in a good emotional state, because that good emotional state is key to the habits that will let you achieve your goal?

And when you figure those out, here’s the bonus tip here, schedule them. Schedule your workouts. I have my clients, I have them schedule, I have them track their nutrition every single day in My Fitness Pal. Do they do it every single day? No, even I skip a day here and there. But if they’re 80% to 90% compliant, boom, magic happens. Schedule your workout, schedule when you’re going to work out.

If you keep scheduling your workouts at 5pm but then you keep skipping them, you know you need to change, they need to be in the morning somehow. So, what are some things that you need to do to manage your stress?

What do you find yourself doing maybe take that money that you’re spending with the Opus One and the Tomahawk steak and get yourself a massage instead? Or an infrared sauna, or it could just be a regular sauna. That lowers stress, that changes your emotional state immediately.

Ooh, I missed that right now. I was in Mexico and going for cold plunges and saunas weekly, sometimes twice a week with a group entrepreneurs I was hanging out with. I felt way better, my body felt way better as well. Like the aches and pains, the injuries that I deal with felt better as well. What do you need to do, though? And go schedule it. Simple as that, folks.

So, listen, that wraps up our series. Now you have the goals. Now you have the clarity and emotional leverage on yourself. Now you have the level of investment that you need to achieve your goals. And then you’ve pondered the fact that number one, you’re going to have a relapse.

And number two, you’re going to have to learn from them. And number three, learning from them is probably going to involve some type of stress management, whether that’s changing your perspective, setting better expectations, setting more consistent habits, or doing things that destress you: vacations, massages, acupuncture, meditation, whatever it is.

And if you follow through with this, you will achieve your goals. It’s as simple as that. We’re not in the habit of achieving our goals in an area because simply we don’t have the habits dialed in yet, or we don’t achieve…

I totally messed that up. Let me try again. We don’t live up to our potential in the area of say, health and fitness because we’re not in the habit of doing it. We’re in the habit of saying no to ourselves, saying yes to our families and yes to work, that will need to change, and I’ve given you all the strategies on how to make that change in this series.

So, hope you enjoyed it, crush your year, make 2022 your best year ever!

Don’t allow, “Oh, well the gym closed?” Well, workout at home. Don’t allow any excuses to sink in, “Oh, work got super busy.” Who’s the boss? You? That’s an excuse. Okay, if you’re the boss, you set the hours, you set the boundaries, go and do it.

And if you need help, you know who to reach out to. Love you lots. Let’s crush 2022 together and I’ll speak to you soon.