Ted Talk 171: The Secret To Staying Healthy As A Busy Entrepreneur

Podcast Transcription: The Secret To Staying Healthy As A Busy Entrepreneur

Ted Ryce: Have you ever thought to yourself, you know what? I'm a smart, successful person. I run a thriving business. I have a great career. But I don't understand why someone so smart and successful as me struggles with getting in shape. Have you ever said something like that? Well, if you have, today's Ted Talk is for you, so you want to tune in.  

What is up, my friend? Welcome to the Legendary Life Podcast. I'm your host, Ted Ryce, health expert and coach to entrepreneurs, founders, and other high- performing professionals. And the reason why I do this show is simple. There are two reasons.  

Number one, I want to bring you the best lessons in 24 years of being a coach so that you can skip all the mistakes I made and go right to what works. And the second reason is that I know some of you are going to want the fast track to success, and you want a mentor coach to help you. And I want you to think of me if/when that time comes.  

So, I want to tell you something. I am a world class coach. I've never been better than today as a coach. 24 years, I mean, I had a few moments when I wanted to do something else. But even the lessons I learned from that period of time when I came back to coaching, it made me an even better coach.  

I'm so confident and proud of how good I am as a coach. But guess what? I suck at growing businesses. I can't say suck. I could say I used to suck. Now I just am not good. Or maybe mediocre or average. I mean, I'm not going to lie to you. Running my coaching business along with this podcast and posting on social media and taking sales calls, it's a pain in the ass.  

I know, I know, when I show up on these podcasts, I have a lot of energy. And I love doing the podcast, so it's not the podcast or the coaching that drives me nuts. It's kind of like the nuts and bolts of growing a business. And if you've seen my social media, you know, I scuba dive with bull sharks and traveling around the world and doing all this cool stuff.  

So, it's not a pain all the time. But there's a good number of days, like today, I felt super frustrated. And what causes that pain? It's not the coaching, it's not the podcasting. It's actually a couple of things. Number one, I do the breakthrough calls/sales calls, right?  

Those are challenging for me. I do them because at this point, I can't have someone else do them. Eventually, I will. But we've tried to outsource that part of my business, and the guys sucked. And they were good, they had a good reputation, but they just didn't do well.  

Every time we've tried to get someone to do the calls for me, it hasn't worked out well for whatever reason. So the sales calls, those are challenging. You know, I'm comfortable doing them now. And thankfully, our business is successful enough where I don't feel the desperation of, you know, if someone doesn't want to join, that's okay.  

But it disrupts my flow of work because these sales calls get put into my schedule. Like, hey, you’ve got to take sales calls. And then there's the other thing. I'm growing on Twitter right now. And let me tell you: I love doing this podcast because it's just me here speaking to you. It feels very natural for me, even though I had seriously crippling social anxiety in the past. Story for another time.  

But growing on Twitter has been really challenging. You can't just post stuff. And if you're on Twitter, you probably know you've sent a couple tweets, and it's just crickets. And it's taken me years and years of frustration in addition to learning and learning and paying money to learn, by the way, but it's still a pain in the butt.  

And then now I'm training my assistant coach, Stefan. And Stefan, he's amazing and so happy to have him. But training an assistant coach is just something I've never done before, and I didn't know how to do it, so I’m like, figuring out on the job. And sometimes I do all of these things on the same day.  

Like, I'm recording this content today. Actually, I haven't done a coaching call with a client today, but I had a call with a potential client earlier, and I've had a lot of back and forth with my assistant coach, and I did talk to some of my clients. So it gets kind of crazy sometimes, at least this stage in my business growth.  

Eventually, we'll have more employees, we'll have more systems in place. But right now, it's kind of chaotic. Not all the time, but enough where I'm just like, “Ah!” Sometimes I don't even know what to do. Do I record a podcast now? Do I get back to clients now?  

And I do have a schedule, but it’s just switching from hat to hat to hat, it can be challenging. Just ask my business partner, Gisele. There was a period where I would literally call her every morning because I had no idea what to focus on. Like, what do I need you to do to grow the business today? “Hey, good morning. What do I need to do today?” 

Actually, don't ask her, because it might retraumatize her when she remembers, like, oh, my gosh, that was horrible. She hated it, but I really lack direction. Because it just felt so overwhelming sometimes. And I want to tell you something. The way Gisele and I got out of this; we hired a business coach. We hired a guy named Mike Chu last year.  

And I won't go into the full drama because there were some challenges there in the beginning—not working with him directly, but working with a group of his, like, the team for his initial, his first coaching level. So not where you work with him, but you work with his team.  

But anyway, we ended up working with him directly, and it was just an incredible experience, so much so that one of my biggest wins of 2022 was hiring Mike again for an entire year. I committed to a year of coaching. Let me tell you, I feel like I need, like, three years, but we'll take one year at a time.  

And I want to tell you something else. I wasn't feeling like doing a podcast today. I was just lacking clarity. But I just finished a call with him and the Accelerate Group. So it's a group coaching model that I'm a part of. We have calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  

And let me tell you, I did not want to show up on the call today. I'm being totally honest with you here, okay? I feel like some people think I'm like this machine, and sometimes I am. But today I wanted to skip the call. I didn't want to go. And I had lunch at a restaurant… I'm in Sao Paulo, Brazil. They were on Brazilian time.  

I got back, I was ten minutes late, but I was like, you know what? I’ve got to make it to the call. I know every time I go to the call, I show up with—or sorry, come away with more focus about what is important in my business. Sounds so stupid and simple. But I lose track of it because when the stress is on, when the overwhelm is on, you just lose focus. Can you relate?  

The other thing I come away with is clarity. What do I really need to focus on here to grow? Not grow a month from now, but, like, literally, what do I need to focus on? And third, I come away with a renewed sense of energy to continue to push forward. Part of that is Mike's leadership. The other part is Mike's direction.  

And the third part is being with a group of people where—it's kind of funny—they're all in similar businesses. I think most of them are actually in health and fitness, except for there's one in real estate. There's a couple in real estate. But I'm in this group with people who are doing exactly what I'm doing. And they're good people, but I don't feel like they're any smarter than me. In fact, I've got more experience as a coach, probably a better coach.  

And when I say probably, I mean definitely—not for everybody, but you know what I mean. I just objectively have more skills, more experience, etc. But they're all making more money than I am. And I don't mean it's not to focus on the money. They have a more successful business. It's not just that they make more money, but their clients are getting great results.  

And also, they're not stressed out, at least all the time, operating at the level they're operating at. And I came away from that call thinking I really relate to my clients who feel like they're kicking ass in business, but feel like they're getting their ass kicked when it comes to health.  

In fact, earlier today, I had a call with a new client. Well, she's not a new client. I have a new client. And it was a call with his wife who was interested in coaching, too. And she's a high performer. And she was saying something to me kind of interesting.  

She's like, “Hey, I had a successful career in finance, and now I left a year ago just to focus on growing the home and being a mom to our two young children. And I really want to take my health to the next level. I really want to transform my body, and I know what to do, but it sounds so silly. I just don't know why I can't do it.” 

And I related to that so much. And I told her, “Well, guess what? I don't have a problem with my health. Not with body fat or knowing what to do or writing work. I know all that stuff.” But with business, growing my business, I mean, I know how to make money. I know how to coach clients. I know how to sign clients up.  

But how do I grow that into something that is making money but more money, but doing it in a way that still delivers the level of quality we deliver to our clients? And without us feeling like we're about to have a nervous breakdown because we're just taking on more and more clients, right? How do we do that?  

That's exactly what Mike has been helping me do, especially when there's so much misinformation. So, with you, maybe you just want to be an entrepreneur, run your consulting business, practice law, practice medicine, or whatever high-performance profession you're in, and you might think to yourself, man, I'm so great at what I do. Why do I need the headache of having to get in shape? Why is it so much of a headache?  

And it reminds me of a client of mine, Dan. He told me, “It's just frustrating when you view yourself as someone intelligent and able to achieve a lot in life, but you can't crack this particular nut, or at least you can't do it on a sustainable basis.” Dan, before he ended up working with me, he knew the basics, and he lost 40 pounds, but he gained it all back.  

And here's a guy, he's at the peak of his career, 52 years old, been practicing law for 26 years, and he's got it on lock. He has a level of success that the majority of people in the United States don't have. But he just was struggling with his health.  

And, you know, when he said that too, I keep hearing this theme over and over again. I’m a smart guy, I have achieved a lot—or a smart woman—why can't I figure this out? And I've said the same thing about business. I mean, I feel like, again, going back to what I said at the beginning, I'm a world class coach, no doubt, and not because I'm so special, but damn it, I've been doing this for 24 years.  

And I've been working with very complicated cases sometimes where people's lifestyles are very complicated. Someone just sold their business, but they're working in their business, and there's all this stuff going on. I've supported my clients with their health and really executive coaching through some tough situations.  

And I'm great at solving other people's problems. But growing my business on my own, man, that just wasn't happening. It's just not my wheelhouse. And again, I know the basics of running a coaching business. I know how to make money. But I kept getting burnt out in the process. And what was the solution? Like I said, I hired Mike to help me.  

And as a result, my business has grown in a way I know I wouldn't have been able to do on my own. I mean, I could grow my business, but I would have been working more, or there would have been so much frustration and headache, so many two steps forward, one step back moments.  

And every time that two step forward, one step back moment happens and you have nobody to talk to about it, except maybe your business partner, in my case at least, who's kind of as clueless as you are, it takes a toll on you. And we were so close to being just totally burnt out. There were so many times—I probably shouldn't share this, but I will—Gisele was crying to me, saying, “Oh, my God, I want to run away from this business.”  

I mean, even though it was making money, it just, it's like so much stuff to do. It's overwhelming: the website, the social media, the podcast, the employees that we have, the freelancers who work with us. And now I don't have that anymore. I feel because of being with Mike, I feel more emotionally balanced. I feel like I get reminded of the things that I need to focus on and I get that renewed sense of energy to go after it.  

In fact, again, this podcast that I'm recording right now came from showing up to his call today that I didn't want to show up to, by the way. And Dan, my client, was feeling that frustration too. And just like I hired Mike, Dan hired me. And as a result, Dan lost 45 pounds and feels like his habits are on autopilot now. I'm going to say that again, he feels like his habits are on autopilot how.  

How would you like to lose 45 pounds and not be worried about whether you're going to gain it back or not? Not worried that, oh, my gosh, I am competing in triathlons just so I can keep my body fat at a reasonable level, or I have to do keto or the whole 30, and I have to stay home all the time because I don't know how to eat out and have a normal social life on this strict diet that I'm following.  

So, he has it locked in. What want to tell you is this. That's what an excellent coach can do for you. Not just help you get a result like losing 45 pounds or making a certain amount of money per month, but locking in the habits and systems to make it feel more effortless. It will never feel effortless, because life throws you curveballs but more effortless, like it's more habitual and it doesn't take so much mental effort with that.  

If you remember, I've talked a lot about cold cognition and hot cognition and using your cold cognition to train your hot cognition. In other words, how to take new habits and turn them into—or new skills or new practices, new behaviors and turn them into habits, default habits. And thankfully, Dan is a lot more skilled at maintaining his weight and taking care of his health than I am at growing a business, because Dan only had to work with me for a year. 

And I'm on my second year of coaching with Mike. And like I told you, I feel like I've got two or three more years before I really get locked in. But what I've told myself is this: when I think about that time frame, it's like, man, can I have results this year? And certainly, I will have results this year, but I won't be able to achieve exactly what I want.  

And realistically, I'm maybe one to two years away from where I really want to be. But what I want to tell you is this: the time passes anyway. And I know I'll be so much happier by making consistent progress and having support through those tough times no matter how slowly the progress comes than being stuck in the same place for the next two years, five years, ten years.  

And so what I want to tell you is this: if there's a goal that you're looking to accomplish, whether it's with your health, your wealth, or your relationships, and you're having a hard time with it, and you've feel like you've been stuck doing the same thing for years and you're just stuck in the cycle, can't break out of it. Stuck in the cycle, listen to podcasts, read books, watch YouTube videos, scroll on social media and nothing ever helps you, break out of the cycle. The way you do it is you stop asking how you can do it on your own and you start asking who can help you achieve it.  

I'm the type of person I've always liked to do things on my own. It's not 100% true. In sports, I had coaches, but as far as working with a business coach, it just wasn't something I came to initially until I got into to a tough situation where I was forced to make money. 

And when I got back into personal training in my early 30s, I got forced back into it. Won't get into the full drama, but my step mom died, had to take care of my dad, dropped out of school and there I was. I let all my clients go and I needed to get my income going up quickly again so I could pay my bills.  

And that's when I finally, after, let's see, probably ten years, over ten years in personal training. That's when I started realizing the power of coaching. And even then, I was resistant going forward. But now what I want to tell you is all I think about is who can I hire to help me with this? Well, I'm really struggling with this and I don't have a natural inclination or a natural talent in this area, so who can I get to help me? And that's all I think about now.  

And what I want to tell you is: coaching, it's not a fad. In fact, it comes from the past: mentorship, being an apprentice. So apprenticeship, you would learn from an expert and that's how you got your training. And if you were an apprentice or a student of someone great, you are going to be great too. And so again, that's all I think about right now.  

So, if there's something that you're looking to accomplish and you're a bit stuck with it, make sure you start asking, who can I hire to help me achieve it? It will be the best decision you've ever made in your life, provided you've hired the right person. That's a story for another time too. But when you get the right person, like Dan hired me and I hired Mike, the magic happens.  

So, I hope that hit home for you and gave you some perspective. Coaching isn't the past. It's going to become more and more of the future. In fact, it's going to become more... I'm so excited talking about it. I get so excited talking about it because it is the future. Let me tell you, AI is not going to take that over. There's not going to be a chat GTP for coaches, not anytime soon. Sorry, my thoughts got lost on a tangent.  

So, thinking about…what was it? There is a movie with Matt Damon in it where he goes into the courtroom and the judge is like this robot and it just doesn't go very smoothly. And so that's kind of the thing, right? We're not anywhere near to AI replacing human beings, and coaching, it's super powerful.  

So enough about that. I hope it resonated with you. I hope hearing a little bit of my struggle made me seem more human. In other words, more realistic. Because that is my life, some of these struggles that I deal with. And know that maybe I have this area with my health and fitness handled and I'm an expert, feel super comfortable calling myself that.  

But there are these other areas where it's just like a lot of frustration and maybe you can relate with that with your health. So that is it for today. I hope this hit home for you. And I hope you appreciated hearing a bit behind the scenes of some of the challenges that I face growing this business, running this podcast, getting my clients results, and trying to write a thread that does well on Twitter.  

And of course, if you're looking for someone to help you with your health and this kind of hit home for you, and you think I might be the person to help you because you're resonating with the message that I share on this podcast, then go to www.legendarylifeprogram.com/apply. That's www.legendarylifeprogram.com/apply. All right, have a great weekend, and I'll speak to you on Monday.