Episode 10
Habits and happiness
Habit change starts in the mind, before any other change can happen. That’s what fat loss coach Joe Robinson discovered for himself, that he now helps others understand.
Joe Robinson is an agent of change, empowering women to take back control of their health and happiness. Through an understanding of human behavior, Joe has created a program that helps people to recognize, analyze, and modify the underlying causes of their behaviors. By guiding clients to make informed decisions, Joe is confident that his program can create lasting changes that will result in a healthier and happier life. Joe is passionate about helping people create the life they want to live and is committed to making a meaningful contribution to the world.
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Transcript
Welcome to Generative Leaders.
Julia:If you are interested in building a business and a around an area of need and unlocking people's minds to find solutions.
Julia:This is the episode for you today.
Julia:I'm in conversation with Joe Robinson.
Julia:so Joe, lovely to be here with you today and, um, it'd be great to hear to, to start off with just hearing a little bit about what is it in the world that you are contributing to society with the work that you do?
Joe:Well, thanks for having me on.
Joe:Much appreciated.
Joe:And what am I contributing to the world?
Joe:I'm trying to help people, primarily women, to be healthier and happier by changing the way that they eat, by focusing primarily on the way that they think.
Joe:And so for a long period of time, I was at, I was a personal trainer and then set up Sustained Nutrition seven and a half years ago and found that if you just tell people what to do or advise them on the right things to do, then you hit a brick wall very quickly when they struggle to do those things.
Joe:And it's taken me on a down a rabbit hole of.
Joe:Human behavior and have realized that a lot of the things that I work with with people now can have wider ramifications for their lives.
Julia:I mean, that sounds really rewarding work that you are doing, you know, helping people with that, with that change, you know, we're in an obesity crisis, um, in the uk you know, there's all this kind of talk about health and wellbeing being so related.
Julia:What, what do you, what do you see about that in terms of people's relationship with their body image, their weight, their, their health and their, their lifestyle?
Joe:It's interesting when you talk about the obesity side of things, because that's, despite being a fat loss coach, it's probably not what I think about on a day-to-day basis.
Joe:Cause there's a lot of, a lot of overweight people who are.
Joe:Not the people I tend to gravitate towards.
Joe:It might, if someone's got seven pounds or seven stones to lose, it's the people who it's most important to, and then you can have a big impact on their life.
Joe:It might not even be visible on a, from an outside perspective, or it might even not be visible from a, a health perspective, but it's the difference that it can have to people's Happiness.
Joe:And I think that to me that's almost more important.
Joe:You know, if you can, if you can fix two problems instead of one, and those two problems are health and Happiness.
Joe:One of the things that's often, I kinda spoke about quite a bit before, you know, and years gone by of doing sustain is, if you said to people, what would you want for your children?
Joe:And most people would say, I want 'em to be healthy and happy.
Joe:So I think if I can help people to do, and obviously one of those things often leads to the other.
Joe:So if I can have any role in that, then it's extremely, it's rewarding on a personal level, it feels like I'm, I'm contributing something to the world.
Joe:It's, it's so rewarding and I think that it's not the fat loss element that's rewarding.
Joe:It's the health and the Happiness and it, it goes much deeper than just the superficial.
Julia:And it, it sounds like, you know, it's a, it's a very generative process that you take people through and, um, you know, this, this podcast is obviously all about generative, um, leaders and people who want to make a difference in the world.
Julia:How do you, how do you see that, um, as a, you know, leading a business, doing this work, and wanting to contribute to a wider purpose?
Joe:If you look at how society has shifted towards being more focused on mental health, I think that it's inevitable that fat loss will fall into that and people will realize that their decisions aren't conscious choices and that so much of, of what they're doing is running at a more subconscious level.
Joe:And until you start to work on those things and you're not gonna get long-term change, it's not going to be sustainable.
Joe:You're going to have this flash in the pan, rapid unenjoyable, willpower focused, fat loss.
Joe:I think a lot of people struggle because they just want it to be quick and to be easy and to be effortless.
Joe:And for just, ah, I'll just change my habits.
Joe:I'll just read the three habit books that have been doing the rounds for the last five years, and at some point people start to look for more effective, deeper methods.
Joe:And I think once that release starts to take a bite, then what we do.
Joe:You can see it with Noom, can't You?
Joe:The, the Rise of Noom over Weight Watchers and Slimming Worlds over people who don't know.
Joe:It's a more CBT based, mindset, focus approach to fat loss.
Joe:And I think over the last few years, their business quadrupled like 15 million, turnover to 60 million turnover to 240 million turnover.
Joe:So, whilst I would like to be a leader in that sense, I don't think it's needed for it to get where it, where it needs to be.
Joe:And yeah, it's just not a word.
Joe:It's not necessarily a word that I would associate with myself in this industry, I don't think.
Julia:So, so tell us a little bit about the journey that you've been on to sort of come to that realization, which, you know, now, starting here in this moment.
Julia:Kind of just, it just looks really obvious.
Julia:It's like, Oh, how could I, you know, have not known this before and, and how do I now, you know, help people to have that same realization, you know?
Julia:Tell us a little bit about the insights that you've had, the journey that you've been on, what you've seen, and, um, and how it's led you to, to this place.
Joe:I think there's probably a thousand, 10,000 different insights that I've had over the course of, you know, the last 20 years since I first tried to start getting in shape.
Joe:And for people who are trying to work on these things.
Joe:It's that acceptance that this is gonna take thousands of different, of tiny nudges forward.
Joe:So all started for me when I was a skinny teenager and I was a similar height to who I am now, and about four and a half stone lighter and getting called names, and I didn't like it.
Joe:And I recognized that, I guess there was an awareness then that there were other men who had more power, more control, more authority, and I linked that to physical size.
Joe:And so that was probably the first step that I was taking that maybe if I changed my physical form, it would change the way that I thought and the way that I felt.
Joe:I guess the, the work that I've done with, with you and learning from you and the resources that you've given me access to, shown that I could have achieved that without it, but it, I, I probably wouldn't have been able to recognize, you know, it's probably taken me 20 years to get to the point where I've recognized that that is just something that comes from within, doesn't come from gaining a large amount of size, although I did, and it, it certainly helped me at that mo it was what I needed in the moment, but not longer term.
Joe:When I finished university, I didn't really know what I wanted to do, but I, a friend of mine said he was gonna be a personal trainer.
Joe:I thought that sounded good.
Joe:I always had, always enjoyed going to the gym.
Joe:It had given me so much.
Joe:I felt like it had given me my confidence.
Joe:It's probably given me my masculinity to some degree as well.
Joe:It'd given me a sense of authority and a sense of purpose.
Joe:It's probably now talking about it that I realize that it didn't give me anything, that it was me who, it took me changing the way that I thought.
Joe:You, you see it now with a lot of people who are the, the steroid epidemic that is currently, I won't say gripping young men, but I I'm sure there'd be, if you could get hold of it, stark statistics on that about what people think that it gives them and, and what they feel like they need in order to be a man ought to have those feelings.
Joe:And so I started working in gyms.
Joe:I realized that helping other people, I enjoyed that almost as much as my own training.
Joe:But with your own training, you can only get one of you.
Joe:Whereas the more people you help and coach, the more you get from it.
Joe:And especially when you're working with people, they can have these massive tectonic shifts.
Joe:You know, that's a privilege to be a part of and to, to facilitate to some small degree.
Joe:And then I, a friend of mine, the, the start story of Sustain was a friend of mine saying, I want to lose some weight.
Joe:And I thought, be really good if he could speak to someone every day.
Joe:And that's what we started doing.
Joe:And we would support people through their journeys, by keeping them accountable.
Joe:I realized pretty quickly that just saying to people, why did you eat that?
Joe:Or not even, why did you eat that?
Joe:You shouldn't eat that.
Joe:It didn't take very long to realize that didn't work.
Joe:And that's when the, the, the learning piece has really kicked into gear the last few years of just recognizing that the more that I learned, the better coach I could be, and the more time I put into that, the more refinements I can make to the process and the better that journey can be for the people I work with.
Joe:And I, I guess the reason I, I almost don't like to take you back to the question before that.
Joe:I don't like, almost shy away from the idea of being a leader, is that the way that I run, Sustain as a business and the way that I coach is I just try to shut up.
Joe:I try to, I try to talk a lot less now, obviously not coming across particularly well at this present moment in time, but letting people have their own ideas and letting people, leading people in that sense, I suppose.
Joe:But mostly just letting people think and talk and figure things out for themselves and, and stepping in when you need to.
Joe:I've never quite realized the depth of skill required to be a good listener.
Joe:I felt like I was a good listener before and I'm probably still a very long way away from where I could be on that front.
Joe:I think one of the parts that I struggle with in my job and from a leadership perspective as well, is I just want to help and I want to fix things right now, and I believe in my own abilities possibly too much at times, and therefore, you know, I've got the answer, I've got the solution and we should do it this way.
Joe:And then I'm very passionate about that and it means that I'm not always listening.
Joe:So it's, that will be one of the key developments to Sustain and where I see it continuing development is learning to listen better and to help people get there on their own.
Joe:Because it just, the traditional route, here's the diet plan, here's the exercise plan, I think for most people, I just don't believe in it, and I think for a lot of people it does work with, you know, I would be one of those people who you could look at and say, well, he followed that plan and that regime, but then what happened afterwards?
Joe:Or what were the other, the knock on effects of that.
Joe:And I think that from my self development, from working with you, I'm now a, a weight I haven't been at in a long time, and I'm able to stay there and I'm happy and I'm calm and I'm in control.
Joe:Is that not what people desire?
Joe:I don't think many people want the end result, but to be tired and bored and frustrated, you know, it's, it's far too single track minded.
Joe:I, I just don't think that it's, it's what people would say they want verbally, but then you give it to somebody.
Joe:And I've been in that place where I've been really happy with how I've looked.
Joe:And you could have said the rest of my life was a car crash because of how much time I was spending focused on achieving that result, how unhappy I was in certain areas.
Joe:The, the self obsession that comes with that, because it's this belief that it's going to change your world and it does change your world, but not necessarily in a good way.
Joe:And so when you see people following that path, you can't help but.
Joe:Maybe you can help it, but I, I, I choose not to, to, to not push people away from that to say, you know, you think, I guess it's, it's probably like my mom when she used to watch me when I was younger, going out drinking and saying, you shouldn't drink so much.
Joe:And you'd be like, no, it's fine.
Joe:I'm gonna do it.
Joe:And I'd wake up with a massive hangover and spend loads of money and she'd obviously think, but not say, I told you so.
Joe:And you see that so often in the dieting industry.
Joe:People come in and saying, this is what I need, this is what I'm gonna do, and you have to me, but me saying, no, don't do that, as with my mom, wouldn't work, didn't work.
Joe:So you then have to, to bring people or try and point people in the right direction.
Julia:Yeah.
Julia:And it's, I mean, it's so interesting, isn't it, Joe?
Julia:Cuz it's like, there's, there's sort of so many different layers to this in terms of people's relationship with, um, with food and, um, you know, so many, so many different habits that people have, have picked up.
Julia:And um, you know, there is that balance between giving people some knowledge of, you know, what healthy nutrition looks like.
Julia:You know, if I sort of think back to, um, you know, me, me growing up and, um, you know, the food that I ate as a young person, as a teenager, it was really, really unhealthy.
Julia:And it's, it's not because there was a desire to do that.
Julia:It's just, you know, my, my mom grew up in a post-war family, which was tight for money and, you know, just trying to get the, the best things, um, in you.
Julia:And, you know, and that's what got perpetuated.
Julia:And, and so I, I know for myself when I, when I learned about nutrition, it was like a massive eye opener in terms of what, what do you mean pasta's bad for you?
Julia:I thought it was really good for you.
Julia:You know, and eating lots of bread.
Julia:But it's then this binary thing that people get into of this is bad food.
Julia:This is good food, isn't it?
Julia:That, that can start to cause, that knowledge awakening, but then there's also the other side of what you then do with that knowledge.
Joe:It can be disempowering to a degree when people then know too much for their own good.
Joe:And in my experience this, you then have a lot of people who, so we have, um, 10 calorie control habits.
Joe:So the 10 things that you want people to work on.
Joe:So five things that you recommend you do more of, and five things you do less of.
Joe:And people will be very picky and choosey with the ones that they choose, depending on their narrative.
Joe:So people will say, well, swede's not on the veg list.
Joe:Say, I'm not too concerned about your swede intake.
Joe:I'm more concerned about the five glasses of wine you have on a Saturday.
Joe:And so very often that level of knowledge is then focused onto the detriment of the larger pieces, and people will accidentally make themselves less effective, or they will dis, they'll dilute their distraction.
Joe:Well, they'll dilute their thought process by being distracted.
Joe:So it is definitely a fine line to have.
Joe:And I guess it's, there's a piece here about being able to learn enough, but then be able to forget what you've learned.
Joe:Because if you can't implement it, then it's useless.
Joe:And, and this is where the whole career development that I've had, has come through is that we, there was a period of time when we hired nutritionists or, um, nutrition students fresh out of universities.
Joe:So registered nutritionists, but they weren't very good coaches.
Joe:Or they, you know, they, they were fine.
Joe:I wouldn't wanna poo them if they ever came across this.
Joe:But they weren't exceptional coaches.
Joe:They weren't able to help people to change to the same degree that I can now, because they just didn't understand what's going on underneath that.
Joe:And so you can have the perfect plan and you can have all, all the knowledge about the micronutrients and the macronutrients and the vitamins and minerals.
Joe:If when you get stressed out, you drink eight panlar over the course of a week, who cares how much vitamin Krenn having, you know, it's, it becomes irrelevant.
Joe:And I think then people can, it's such a, a dogmatic industry.
Joe:I was talking to somebody earlier today and he was saying, there's this doctor who I follow and he says, do this.
Joe:And in my mind, you, you'd hope doctors would be more impartial and would, would set balanced, um, solutions to be able to follow.
Joe:And there's a lot of people out there trying to make money by focusing on these minutia and the niches, because it's more profitable isn't, it's more, it's more, diversive if you, if you can say, no, no, no, it is not carbs.
Joe:They're the big problem.
Joe:And you people set out these big stalls.
Joe:And actually, if you look at what we focus on with Sustain, it's focusing on protein, veg, water, and minimizing processed food, which is pretty much, if you were to get every diet in existence, what they would all agree on.
Joe:So there's an irony here that people put themselves in opposing camps, but they're not opposing.
Joe:They're, they're, you know, I'm gonna phrase it wrong, concentric circles that overlap, you know, to a huge percentage.
Joe:And so people then focus on the bits that fall outside of that.
Joe:And it, it's confusing to the consumer in the, the quest of fame and money and whatever it may be.
Joe:I'm not sure of those people's, uh, goals, but they're, they're not, not the same as mine.
Julia:A lovely friend of mine, um, says, you know, whenever somebody thingies anything, you know, they're onto a loser.
Julia:Whereas the simple ideas that are easy to follow that make intuitive sense, and people go, yeah, that's true, they're the ideas that get traction, that make sense.
Joe:I was thinking this yesterday about how so many people in the health and fitness industry have made, built huge followings of basically just having a go at other people, of, of criticizing other people's ideas.
Joe:And I was thinking, About my own drive to be more consistent in my content creation.
Joe:And I just never want to go down that route.
Joe:Cause I just want to talk about the things that I think people should do and the things that I'm grateful for and happy about, and the tools that have worked for me.
Joe:And that be it.
Joe:So if someone else has got an idea, that's all well and good.
Joe:And if you want to follow that idea, great, and I'll listen, you know, if I think if I find something that's better than what I'm doing, then happy days because I found a way to improve.
Joe:And if not, then I'll stick with the things that, that I've learned so far.
Joe:And I think that's a much more, much more positive environment to be around.
Joe:Do you want to be coached by somebody who's or advised by someone?
Joe:Main MO is just to criticize of the people, you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't choose a coach based on that, even if it was funny.
Joe:And I guess that's the, the difficulty with social media and all these other pieces that tie into the algorithm of clicks and likes and comments and, and everything else, which makes it hard for people because the, the voice that they hear is often the, the loudest or the most critical in the people who have got the more, the, the calmer midline are ironically not in the middle.
Joe:They're ostracized to the edges and not seen.
Joe:But yeah, that's, that would be how I would want to, to run my business and, and how would want to live my life.
Joe:I don't wanna be making content just criticizing and moaning about things.
Julia:So, you know, coming back to, um, you know, what, what, what you've learned, cuz we talked about there that obviously there's the, the, there's the knowledge piece.
Julia:So people actually having an idea of what the body needs, um, to function and to, you know, be a healthy functioning body.
Julia:And then there's all the habits that we have that overlay on top of that and kind of get in the way of that healthy functioning, um, body.
Julia:So what have you learned about how people change habits?
Julia:What, what have you, what have you seen about that?
Joe:For me as a coach now, it's, it's helping people to recognize that they don't necessarily have to have positive thoughts to want to, to do things.
Joe:A lot of my own success in managing my weight more effectively has come from recognizing that I don't have to act on my thoughts.
Joe:So I eat a lot of very similar meals.
Joe:And I regularly think, most days I think, I don't really, I don't really fancy eating that meal, but it's just a thought.
Joe:I don't have to want to eat it, but I know that when I do, I'll feel better for it and I can make a conscious choice to a conscious decision to do that.
Joe:And actually, the meals that I typically eat of bologne and chicken curry and rice and veg, I really enjoy it when I'm eating it.
Joe:You know, I'm just, it's just a moment of of thought, a bit like when I wake up in the morning, I think I don't wanna get up and I ignore it and I get up anyway.
Joe:Is that, that's something, that's a habit that I've developed over time as the same with the food.
Joe:But those two pieces that I've mentioned, there are the hardest parts of people to, to grasp is sometimes the monotony of dieting or having to make decisions that you don't necessarily want to or with exercise.
Joe:And so helping people to recognize that feels like the next big shift or the next shifted within me, but to ingrain into Sustain into the process that we're doing.
Joe:So I feel like when, you know, to tie it back to the original question eight minutes ago, however long I've been monologuing for, is what have I learned about habits and helping people change?
Joe:Is that I've only learned that very recently.
Joe:And so a lot of the success that we've had historically has just been through, not luck, but it's definitely evolved and improved now through some of the pieces that I've just said and recognizing the role that thought plays.
Joe:I think before, I definitely thought if you help people to manage all those external circumstances, I'm really tired.
Joe:Okay, well let's work on your sleep then.
Joe:I've got some really good stuff that can help with your sleep.
Joe:But what if you've got a young child and you're never gonna, you know, I can't help you supplement or get the right curtains or the right pre-bed routines.
Joe:You just have to get these things done sometimes.
Joe:And so, And that's not a willpower piece.
Joe:That's an awareness of your thoughts and being able to move past them.
Joe:And I guess there's, that's the other big part in the fat loss industry, that there's this huge reliance on willpower.
Joe:And I think once you can become more in control of your thoughts, you can let that go.
Julia:So It sounds like what you're saying is that, you know, you've, you've had this realization that, that a habit change starts in the mind before any other change on the outside happens.
Joe:Absolutely.
Joe:I think you can, you can white knuckle your way through fat loss and there's a certain sense of pride in that.
Joe:I would certainly say that that's one of the pieces that I've struggled with as a coach is that I've been able to do that and therefore I want to give that gift to other people.
Joe:Cause it does feel like a gift at times.
Joe:I'm able to do that.
Joe:But there's an easier way.
Joe:and if you change the way that you think first, it's much easier to then change the actions around it.
Joe:You know, the I, and it sounds so simple, and what I said before about me being happy to eat bolognese every day.
Joe:if I could impart that to my clients, you'd see a huge amount of weight being lost.
Joe:And I don't mean bolognese, I mean a meal that they enjoy and they can make easily.
Joe:If people could grasp that faster and be able to navigate that, then it'd have a huge impact on their health.
Joe:You know, absolutely ginormous.
Joe:If I think of the number of people who are unable to, to action that, because, and you know, if you said somebody the same thing every day for the next year, how many people would be able to do it?
Joe:A tiny percentage.
Joe:And you don't, you know, you don't have to be everything the same thing every day for the next year, but having a a a part of that would be manageable for most people if it was a meal that they enjoyed and it would've a massive success, but their thoughts get in the way.
Joe:Oh no, I need more variety.
Joe:I get bored easily.
Joe:I don't enjoy that meal.
Joe:But then how many times have I worked?
Joe:I, I have never once worked with somebody, and this is something I'm pretty proud of, who's gotten end of the process and gone That wasn't worth it.
Joe:No one has ever lost weight or changed their habits using our approach and gone, oh, that was just an absolute nightmare.
Joe:You know, people always say, oh, it's so worth it.
Joe:And it's getting people to that side of the coin or to, to that part of their journey.
Joe:And you can't do that without changing the way that people think.
Julia:and it's, it's so invisible, isn't it?
Julia:People don't see that that thought has anything to do with it.
Julia:It's sort of, um, you know, helping people see that.
Julia:What, what have been some of the ways that you've helped people have that be more visible to them
Joe:One of the things that that really helped me was, was through reading Invisible Power and recognizing that the the one thought that I had, which was around cravings on an evening, was coming from within me.
Joe:And as soon as I was able to recognize that it was this, this gateway key that just kind of exploded into action almost, I was able to recognize that so many things in my life.
Joe:Primarily, you know, fat loss is gonna be the main one for me.
Joe:That, you know, to recognize that how much of this was being, being stopped by me and.
Joe:I think when you talk with clients and you're able to phrase questions in the right way and to say to people, one of the, the question, in fact I was gonna mention it to you to get your thoughts on this, so maybe, maybe you could give me your thought on, on this question is.
Joe:So I had a client who was saying, well, I've been really ill and so I've been eating high calorie food.
Joe:And so I said, why are some people able to be ill and not eat high calorie food?
Joe:Because then it, people are well aware that it is possible and that other people are able to do this consistently, and it forces them to then see that from a different situation.
Joe:Why are the people in the same situation as you able to deal with this?
Joe:Because I've got clients who've gone through awful trauma and past histories and I've said to them, how come other people are able to, to manage these thoughts without eating or drinking?
Joe:I felt like, and I'm interested to get your thoughts, I'd, I'd quite like a critique on it, but it's quite.
Joe:It's a very guided question, isn't it?
Joe:Is because if you look at the, the trauma that some of the people I'm referring to have gone through, that 99% of those people will struggle.
Joe:But I'm forcing that client, I'm taking them down that alleyway of what's that 1% doing?
Joe:And then the answer that always, that eventually follows and with a reasonable success rate has been, well, they're thinking about it differently.
Joe:And then, and it, it then shows it's a possibility.
Joe:And so it's, I felt, I've found that that's been a useful way of guiding people to seeing that 1% of people.
Joe:Cause it's very easy to legitimize your own actions, especially with food and drink.
Joe:You know, it's something that people ingrain for years and every way they turn, they see it.
Joe:There's not very many people are going, do you know what?
Joe:I deal with all the stress in my life by just changing the way that I think And somebody said that to me a while ago and I've gone, what a load of rubbish.
Joe:You know, you are, you are lying to yourself.
Joe:And then now I'm there, you realize that actually there's some people out there, and again, my arrogance people out there who know more than you, who have been able to do things that maybe you thought weren't possible.
Joe:And that's the, the blind spot versus the weak spot issue is the, all the areas that you think there's no way you could change that.
Joe:That's where you'll get your biggest change from.
Julia:Well, it, I mean, it's interesting, isn't it?
Julia:Cause it's like, You know, there were, there was a period in history when everybody thought that the world was flat, they were absolutely convinced that the world was flat and then a few people started sailing off into the distance and then they came back and they hadn't fallen off the side of the side of the, um, the side of the planet.
Julia:And, um, you know, so that then started that step change of, there's a different way to think about this.
Julia:There's a different way to see this.
Julia:Um, but it is that, that sort of mental model, and you are, you are right.
Julia:I mean, it's, you know, so many people are not even aware that they're having thoughts that are driving their actions.
Julia:You know, it just looks like the outside world is, is is doing that.
Julia:And we've have this societal narrative of eating high calorie food when we're ill.
Julia:You know, it's like the, the whole adage of feed a cold.
Julia:Um, you know, and that's sort of, uh, you know, something that certainly as I was growing up, you know, that was constantly my mom, if I was ill, she would say to me, you know, well, you need to feed a cold.
Julia:And if your friend would say, oh, well you need to eat more because you've got a cold, and you know, so you need to have high calorie food and that's gonna be the best thing to get you well.
Julia:And you know, now the science is saying, no, that's not true.
Julia:Actually actually having a well-balanced diet of vegetables and proteins and, and carbs is, is the thing that will, will get you well.
Julia:So I think your question's a great question because, you know, it starts to have people see the role of thought.
Julia:Is playing with, you know, two people, being in exactly the same set, set of circumstances, um, and one person seeing it differently.
Julia:And I think that starts to sort of wake people up because, you know, look, we've all taken on these thoughts that are not our own, they were given to us.
Julia:We took them on as, as if they were our own.
Julia:And then we just constantly replay them,
Joe:It forces people into a really, a really uncomfortable place, but it's a place of, of growth and of of benefit, and I.
Joe:I was thinking before about how eating is one of the most common acts that we're, we're often surrounded by people when we eat, but it's still a very intimate thing in that I live with my partner, but she probably sees me eat a quarter of the food that I eat.
Joe:And so it's very easy to hide away.
Joe:It's very easy to justify your decisions, and it'd be very difficult for somebody else to comment on your food intake.
Joe:So, for example, my girlfriend will see me start my breakfast and she'll see me eat my evening meal.
Joe:And so she has no idea what's happened in the, the hours in between like I could easily just get the food that I've boxed up in the morning and put it in the bin, or, you know, I could, I could go out and eat quite a lot of high carry food in between that.
Joe:And I said, there's certainly been times that I have done that.
Joe:I've not put my food in the bin, but I've eaten outside of the, the food that I had planned.
Joe:And so when you ask questions like, why does everyone not act like this?
Joe:is that it forces people to look at the other side of what are the, the possibilities of what they, what they could do.
Joe:And, and no one has ever answered that and gone, no.
Joe:Everyone who's been through this eats high calorie food, yeah it makes people see things from a different perspective.
Joe:And that's difficult to get to on your own.
Joe:I, with my own situation with the cravings craving on an evening, I'd have never got there on my own without something helping me see things from a different perspective.
Joe:And yes, it's still me seeing it, but there was a guide, there was a new perspective that I wasn't privy to until I learned about it, until I did that self-development piece.
Joe:And so how, yeah, to tie back to one of the questions you said before of how do I help people to, to change their habits is try the more I can surround people with literature or podcasts or YouTube videos or whatever it is, the more people get engaged in this, then the more effective they're gonna be.
Joe:You know, I might talk to someone for half an hour a week, they might get a few touchpoints with me over the week, but if they read for 10 minutes a day, they'll have more time with that book than they will have gotten from me.
Joe:And so it's you, you can suddenly make somebody so much more effective if they engage in these different points of view.
Joe:And people phrase things differently.
Joe:Yeah.
Joe:Some of the, some of the people who I recommend people to read are, are far more, uh, intelligent than I am, and, uh, have a better way with words than me.
Joe:And so why not leverage that?
Joe:Why not leverage the people who have written the books and had people edit it, and, and that has been through so many hands and so many sets of eyes that it's going to be a different way of phrasing it.
Joe:So it's trying to give people the bene the benefit of what I've learned from and say, well, I've, I've read these five things.
Joe:I think from knowing you that, that this might be the best fit.
Joe:So it's trying to use all the different tools you've got at your disposal and other people's tools to help people change.
Julia:You know, one, One of the things that's been really alive for me recently is that the, the stimulus that helps me have a realization doesn't necessarily work for anyone else, and so, um, you know, that that point that you were making about asking people really good questions that helps them look inside at their own thinking or almost kind of have be revealed to, you know, oh shit, I, I think this, and actually I didn't know that I thought that,
Julia:um, you know, I, I remember you and I having a, having a conversation and you asking me a question about, what's your purpose in eating?
Julia:And I sort of, I'd never, ever considered that we have a purpose to eating.
Julia:Like I'd always thought, well, you just eat cuz you're hungry.
Julia:You know, isn't that, isn't that the sole purpose of eating is, is for hunger?
Julia:And then when I reflected on that question and I really went inside, I was like, no, my God, we, you know, I eat for hunger.
Julia:Yes, that's one purpose, but I also eat for pleasure and enjoyment.
Julia:And I also eat to be in, um, relationship with other people.
Julia:Um, and I also eat for, you know, a a sense of comfort.
Julia:Um, you know, there's like all these different thought processes that I had about food that I was just completely and utterly unaware of.
Julia:Um, but that, that single question made me have to actually go and look at all of my own thinking.
Julia:And, and by asking that question, it sparked a whole load of things in me.
Julia:Um, and I think that's what you're saying about, you know, when you read something, what's really going on is it's sparking, um, something within you, or insights within you, or realizations within you that it, you know, it resonates or it doesn't resonate.
Joe:There's something different about things coming from people who've been through more difficult experiences than you, so the, the or the same experiences as you, and sometimes as a childless male athletic 32 year old nutrition coach is, I'm aware that I don't always resonate as well as I could do with my demographic beyond my control.
Joe:I'm not gonna get, have a child in a sex change so I can resonate more with my clients.
Joe:But if you think about someone like Mo Gawdat who was, I dunno if you've followed any of his work before his son died, when he was, had a, he had his appendix out when he was 21 and there was something like four complications during his procedure that meant that he died unnecessarily.
Joe:And so you then look at Mo Gawdat, that's journey this to be happier, you know, just to, just through telling that story, I feel kind of choked up because it, it takes you to a place where you think, if he can do it, then so can i.
Joe:It takes away, it gives you that different perspective.
Joe:It takes away all those, well, here's the reasons I can't do it.
Joe:And I think when you have these inspiring stories, it can, it, it does give you that change in perspective.
Julia:Well, it can do, you know, and it is, you know, for it, it can do.
Julia:And I think that's the point is that it's sort of like the content is almost irrelevant.
Julia:Um, because for you, that's really inspiring.
Julia:Whereas someone else could hear that same story and go, wow, what an amazing man.
Julia:I could never do that.
Julia:I could never, I could never think that way.
Julia:You know, I, I, I could never get over the loss of my child.
Julia:Um, yeah, it's been in interesting.
Julia:Recently in my family, we, we had a tragic loss of my cousin who, um, was 33 with two young children who died in a, in a freak freak accident.
Julia:And, uh, my way of coping with that, um, with that loss was, was eating, um, which, which led me to sort of go, hang on a minute.
Julia:I've got all these habits I need, I really need to make this change.
Julia:And I, I sort of feel very inspired as one of her gifts that she gave to me was really looking at that habit.
Julia:Um, and she was an amazing person of, she loved Bourbons, they were her favorite biscuit, but she'd only ever have two.
Julia:And she was, you know, really healthy, really fit, really, um, amazing.
Julia:And I, and I feel really, you know, I feel really grateful to her and I often talk to her about it.
Julia:She's on my fridge.
Julia:I talk to her every day and, and we have a little, we have a little chat.
Joe:think it, it, there's, there's something quite exciting in there for, for people or for, for me anyway, that, that you can control that.
Joe:That's a skill that can be learned and developed and nurtured to look for the positives in these situations.
Joe:And I know if anybody is into the self-help, industry as much as I am, then, then you'll heard the name Victor Frankel, kind of bandied about.
Joe:One of the things that has often caught my eye is the, the rise of the toxic positivity movement.
Joe:And I feel like to some degree I was raised on a diet of a diet of toxic positivity.
Joe:You know, my mom would always be, what the positives?
Joe:Or you should be grateful because of the, you know, I can, I can, I can hear it like it was yesterday.
Joe:And it's to the tune of roof over your head, closing your back clean bed to sleep in food in the fridge, fresh running water flushing toilet.
Joe:I can, I, I'd probably reel them off in the same order every single time.
Joe:And I think there's, there's definitely a, a place for accepting when you're not feeling very good.
Joe:But there's, I can't help but feel like, and obviously there's no way to track this, but my life has benefited off the back of that, that approach.
Joe:Now, could it have been better?
Joe:Yes, definitely.
Joe:Do I think that it served me pretty well on the whole, yes.
Joe:Is my life better now that I've got a better balance?
Joe:Absolutely.
Joe:Actually, I can't do, couldn't do anything about it anyway, you know, I was, I was 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Joe:That was just what my mum thought was the best thing at the time.
Joe:And it's, it's just how it is.
Joe:And is that how I'd raise my children?
Joe:No, I would, I would refine that process, but taking the positives from what was there, you know, I can look at that as toxic positivity that I wasn't able to express myself as well as I could have done.
Joe:But you know, that's, that was what my mom was able to do.
Joe:And on the whole, you know, it's worked out.
Joe:It's worked out well for me.
Julia:But it is, it is really interesting you say this cuz it's, it's very alive for me at the moment.
Julia:So I've got a 17 year old son and I was part of the, you know, positive Pollyanna from the age of, from hi from when he was probably about four till.
Julia:He was 11.
Julia:And, um, you know, and he would, he would react violently to my, you know, positive, uh, spin on things.
Julia:And he would see it for what it was.
Julia:And he would call me on it and he would go, I know you're trying to make it really positive, but it's bullshit, you know, in the, in the sort of 7, 8, 9, 10 year old, um, way.
Julia:And what's really interesting is that now he's been learning about how the mind works and how it creates thought and that then creates your experience is, you know, he'll, he'll sort of accept that, that he's having these thoughts.
Julia:And if he's feeling stressed or he is feeling anxious, that it's between him and him.
Julia:And he always has a choice to continue that thought or to let it go.
Julia:And for something new to arise.
Julia:And so he'll, he'll go, Yes I'm in the mu in the middle of the cast catastrophe loopifying movie right now.
Julia:Uh, so we'll just see how that plays out for a while.
Joe:did you actively teach him?
Joe:That's how did, how did that kind of come about then?
Joe:Is, is there, like, was there a time when you said, dunno, I think I could really help you here?
Joe:Or did, or did he come to you?
Joe:Or how did that go?
Julia:well, so I, you know, I, I think that, um, all of all children, you know, my, my I guess philosophical, um, view is that, you know, all children have something to teach you profoundly, um, if you are a parent.
Julia:And, uh, Luke really set me off on this journey of, of self discovery from, um, a very, hi, his entrance to the world, um, was, was.
Julia:Um, not easy.
Julia:Um, and he and I both, uh, both suffered in that, in that process.
Julia:And when he was six years old, he, uh, became severely anxious.
Julia:Um, so he couldn't be in, uh, a room without one of his parents present.
Julia:The only place he felt safe was at school, um, to be without one of us.
Julia:Um, but any other place, he just, he just didn't feel safe and he would have severe panic attacks.
Julia:And this sort of went on till he was about 10, 11 years old.
Julia:And, um, you know, I thought that the way to deal with it was, um, and following the lead from the psychologist that we were working with, was to have him censor and monitor his thinking and just change a negative into a positive, and that that would make him feel better and he would, you know, as I said, he would vehemently react to that and go, it's not helping.
Julia:I still feel bad.
Julia:I, you know, I, this is really awful and I can't do these things.
Julia:And he would, you know, have these, have these panic attacks.
Julia:And so when he was, um, about 11 I I learned about the human mind and, and how it works.
Julia:Um, no, it was probably a little bit before that.
Julia:And he noticed a serious shift in me, um, and not putting the positive spin on everything.
Julia:And, you know, actually listening to him and being with him and, uh, and, and just seeing everything.
Julia:And he said, he said to me, Mom, I think what you've learned can really help me, but I don't wanna learn it from you.
Julia:And uh, so he went on a course, uh, with a child psychologist who, uh, had learned about the human mind and he went every day for a week for, for four hours.
Julia:And he sat with this woman and he learned about how his mind worked.
Julia:And his panic attacks and his anxiety almost dissipated overnight.
Julia:Um, cuz he had this one realization of, if I'm not thinking it, it's not real.
Julia:And he just, that was like the key to the look.
Julia:And, you know, he just saw the, the role of thought and what it had to do with it.
Julia:And it is really, really helped him out and it's really helped out his, um, his friends, his.
Julia:, you know, all, all people that he comes into, into contact with.
Julia:And there's still times when he gets absolutely gripped by his thinking, but he's, he knows what's going on.
Julia:And so, you know, we now have a language and a way of talking about that.
Julia:And so the effect of it is now much smaller.
Julia:Um, so, you know, on Sunday we would, we were driving somewhere and he suddenly start imagining that he was having a stroke.
Julia:And that seemed really, really real to him.
Julia:and he's had a lot of health problems and, you know, things happen to him.
Julia:So, you know, I just said to him, well, touch your face.
Julia:Can you feel it?
Julia:And he went, yeah, yeah, I can feel it.
Julia:And I said, so then you're definitely not having a stroke because you'd be able to feel it if you were.
Julia:And I said, so what do you think is going on?
Julia:He said, I'm imagining it.
Julia:And I said, great, great to know that.
Julia:And he went, yeah.
Julia:So he sat with that for a while and kind of was like, yeah, okay, I'm imagining it.
Julia:And then 15 minutes later it had totally gone and he went, well, that was a stupid endeavor.
Julia:Why would you do that?
Julia:Why would I do that to myself?
Joe:I'd like to tie some of this back to fat loss and, and maybe a bit of an insight in some of the stuff that, that I do, because so often there's this, the, the obstacle is obvious and clear, or at least one of the obstacles is, is obvious and clear.
Joe:So go back to the sleep example.
Joe:I'm struggling to sleep, but I need to get more sleep is that if you can't weaken that thought, that the, the solution can't be actioned.
Joe:And so especially with cravings is probably more of a, a viable one as I can say to myself, I'm not craving or I don't want this, or I'll be annoyed if I eat this.
Joe:And I think this is one of the things that I see hamstring people more than anything else.
Joe:They have this moment of rational thought of clarity, but it's not enough to offset the emotional desire.
Joe:And so they make the decision that's counter to their goals.
Joe:So eating or drinking, whatever it may be.
Joe:And often when I'm trying to teach people some of this stuff, and, you know, I'm, I'm a, a recent converter to it, so I'm feeling my way through this as well, is that that's the bit that I see people miss so often is that being able to weaken the initial thought.
Joe:And it feels like, or it looks like the moment that it broke.
Joe:is where you should focus.
Joe:So with me, with my cravings, I'll recognize that my cravings are internally generated, I'm creating them.
Joe:Do I want to keep doing that?
Joe:No.
Joe:Okay.
Joe:So I can choose where I focus, where am I gonna focus?
Joe:So me, I like reading.
Joe:So I'm gonna go read a book.
Joe:That when you explain that to people, and when people go through that process, they hear the last bit and go read a book.
Joe:Get away from cravings.
Joe:If you don't do the 80% of work beforehand, which is the hardest bit to do, then you can't have the piece at the end that makes it easier.
Joe:So it's a bit like looking at Luke's example there saying to people, well, next thing you feel like having a stroke, just tell yourself that it's a stupid endeavor, his words, but it won't work because that thought is so real in that moment that you have to, you have to recognize it.
Joe:And so it, on paper, it looks so simple.
Joe:You know, if someone was watching me, they go, you gotta look at the fridge.
Joe:And I picked up a book and he started reading.
Joe:Well, that was easy.
Joe:I'll do that.
Joe:But until you start to engage your mind, it's not gonna work.
Joe:And so when you talk about the difference between the visible and the invisible is it's very difficult.
Joe:Cause if you watch me for a day and went, well, he eats that food and he goes to the gym, well, I'll, I'll mirror that.
Joe:But you're not looking at all the processes that go behind it.
Joe:Or all the processes that historically gone behind it.
Joe:You know, I was a, an insecure teenager who joined the gym at 14 and used to travel for, you know, an hour and a half after school so I could go to the gym with my mate's mum.
Joe:You know, there's a lot of, that is a big habit, you know, that is a serious efforts to put yourself through.
Joe:It's very easy to look at that and, and to dismiss it or to, to think, well, I'm going to the gym.
Joe:But you don't really want to go, you know, and I had that drive, that meant that that habit is so enga ingrained for me now, that's so much easier for me and for a lot of people that when it comes to changing habits, and that's why I labeled the point before about the time piece, is that I've put 20 years into that habit.
Joe:I'm only 32.
Joe:You know, I've been, and there were, there were times before that with regards to exercising at home.
Joe:There's lots of huge volume that's gone into that.
Joe:It's such a nice idea.
Joe:Well, I'll just change my habits.
Joe:Habits are made in 21 days, 66 days, 200 days, whatever it is.
Joe:Like I just,
Julia:Well, yes, and you know, it is, it is really interesting cuz obviously a lot of the habits that you've, you know, you and I have been talking about, they changed in an instant.
Julia:So, you know, it's like we've got this idea that habits are hard to change and we've got this idea that it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort and all of that kind of stuff, but they're just ideas too.
Joe:Yeah, true.
Joe:Very true.
Joe:I feel like with regards to my, I dunno if this is the same for everyone or not.
Joe:The, the whilst it changed, in an instance, there was a lot of prep work that went on beforehand, all subconscious.
Joe:I wasn't thinking this is working towards that big goal.
Joe:And actually my goal wasn't necessarily Happiness or to be calmer.
Joe:It was to control my food better.
Joe:And, I've just got stumbled across it and it is, but it's had a much bigger effect than I could have imagined.
Julia:And that's, that's what I'm pointing you to is that, you know, it is a, it's again, an idea that habits are hard to change and it's, you know, it's, it's actually not true.
Julia:it's the realization that thought is creating the habit.
Julia:. And until you see that, you see the truth of that.
Julia:You see the, the way that it works, then it looks like it's really hard because, you are doing a lot of the stuff, but your being hasn't changed.
Joe:And just to go against what I said before about how the idea of kind of one habit can lead to other things changing or one change can lead to something else changing is I could probably reel off five or six things that have happened and not in the last three months, but probably happened in the first month since that realization around the craving about relationships that I had with money, relationships that I had with anxiety, relationships I had with that, uh, anger.
Joe:They would be some of the, some of the emotions.
Joe:I can think of a few very specific examples where I've been able to let that go in a heartbeat.
Joe:A really interesting one.
Joe:You were driving along the other day and somebody nearly crashed into us.
Joe:And then I think they might have either beeped or sworn at my partner.
Joe:And there was about two seconds where I thought, I'm gonna get out the car and I'm gonna, and I'm gonna lose my mind.
Joe:And then so quickly I was able to access that and go, you've created this.
Joe:And I, and I, and I, and I reduced it mentally way before my body adjusted.
Joe:You know, my adrenaline was still going, and I sat there calm, would you like, not, not about to, you know, drag someone out of a car.
Joe:But for that, for that split second, that, and whether that's a human nature thing or something that's, that's been cultivated within me over a period of time, I would probably guess towards the, the latter knowing, knowing my, my backstory of my life.
Joe:But that was something that, you know, I have those immediate thoughts.
Joe:Not rarely, they're not things that I'm, I'm proud of, but they're, that's all they are.
Joe:And actually, if the rest of my life, I can go on, continuing to be as kind and compassionate and, and all those other, the, the traits that I aim towards being, then that's who I am.
Joe:That's how I'll be remembered.
Joe:That's the impact that I'll have on the world.
Joe:It won't matter if I have these moments of two seconds of, of feeling like I'm gonna fly into a rage because it doesn't actually exist.
Joe:It's just a passing, you know, you wouldn't have been able to see it on me unless you'd, uh, you know, a body language expert might have been able to see my pupils dilating, my face red and those pieces.
Joe:But if that's as bad as it gets then, then I'm in a pretty good spot.
Julia:Well, I think that is a great place for us to land at the end of our time today and uh, thank you so much Joe.
Julia:So Joe, where can people find, you know, more about you, get in touch with you?
Julia:How would they do that?
Joe:So a few options if you are on Facebook for Sustain Nutrition.
Joe:If you're on Instagram, sustain underscore nutri, or if you'd like to reach out to me directly, then I'm always happy to talk about these things.
Joe:joe@sustainnutrition.co.uk, it's J O E just to clarify.
Julia:If you enjoyed that episode and took away something from it.
Julia:Please feel free to share with someone else who needs to hear it.
Julia:You can do that at generativeleaders.co or any other place you get your podcast from.
Julia:In terms of takeaways from that, uh, discussion with Joe, I was really struck by Joe's personal connection, his why for starting the business of Sustain.
Julia:He talked about his own relationship with weight loss and some of his previous tendencies that he had got out from underneath.
Julia:And this ability for him to learn about himself and his clients allowed him to invent and reinvent the way that he runs his business.
Julia:I was so struck by how Joe is constantly reading, learning, experimenting, trying things out, and then building that back into his business by sharing with his clients and sharing what he's learning.
Julia:The other thing that I was really struck with from the conversation with Joe is that the obvious isn't always obvious to everyone.
Julia:And so Joe has come across something that has now just become so obvious to him that he's almost waiting for the world to catch up.
Julia:This can be true of so many generative leaders..
Julia:It's like you look at the world and it, your solution just looks so obvious and makes so much sense to you, but the rest of the world isn't there.
Julia:How do you position what you are sharing?
Julia:How do you get out from underneath all of the noise in your space and help people see the obvious link there?
Julia:One to reflect on for many of us.
Julia:I'm sure.
