How to Avoid Burnout in Business and Life with Lisa Lewtan

Transcription

What’s up, healthpreneurs? Yuri back with you and welcome to episode 67 of the Healthpreneur podcast! Man, it’s been a fun ride so far. Hope you’ve enjoyed it.

If you’ve missed anything, by all means, subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. We’ve got 66 amazing previous episodes that you may not have gotten your hands on. Go do that now if you haven’t already.

Today, I’m excited to be speaking with a friend and an amazing health coach, Lisa Lewtan. We’re going to have some fun on this one, because Lisa has a background in the tech world. She actually had a tech start-up/company for 20 some odd years.

Then, she kind of burned herself out a little bit. And like so many of us do in our space, we tend to share what we need healing with. That’s kind of how it all started. I’m not going to ruin the surprise as she’s going to share more of her journey in the interview.

Just to give you a little more background about Lisa, she is a health and lifestyle coach, the founder of Healthy, Happy, and Hip. She’s an award-winning author of the book, Busy, Stressed, and Food Obsessed, and a radio show host on Voice America.

I was actually on her show several months ago. We had a great time—we share very similar philosophies when it comes to food and all that stuff, so that was pretty cool.

As I said before, after co-founding a successful tech start-up, Lisa literally collapsed from years of stress overload. Using the skills she developed as an entrepreneur, she self-hacked her own mind and body to restore her health and go on to feel a lot better than ever.

She has since transitioned over the past couple years into her health and wellness company.

I’m excited to have her on the show. She’s spoken at Google, Canyon Ranch, Kripalu, a bunch of other amazing places. Our discussion today is going to be really, really insightful because we’re going to talk a lot about the idea of comparison. Comparing ourselves to other people on social media and all that kind of nonsense. How you can get better at staying focused on what you need to focus on—the power of the two letter word, N-O, and how you can really tap into that.

Plus just a lot of other cool nuggets of wisdom that I think you’ll really enjoy.

With that said, and without any further ado, let’s welcome Lisa onto the Healthpreneur podcast, and let’s jump into it.

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Yuri:                Lisa, welcome to the Healthpreneur podcast. How’s it going?

Lisa:                So great, Yuri. Thanks so much for having me today.

Yuri:                I am pumped because you’re doing some pretty cool stuff. We’ve connected a few times previously, and I’m just fascinated by spending half an hour with great entrepreneurs in our space like yourself. People who can share some wisdom and insights based on their journey—what’s been working, what are some of the lessons learned—and really just to inspire our listeners with your awesomeness.

Lisa:                Oh, well thank you. So much good stuff to talk about in that.

The power of saying N-O

Yuri:                Yes. Okay, let me ask you a question right off the bat. Actually, I’m not sure this is a question I’ve ever asked anyone on this podcast, but when you think of a business role model, is there someone that comes to mind for you?

Lisa:                Believe it or not, it’s my husband who pops into my mind.

Yuri:                Nice.

Lisa:                Which is kind of ironic. We worked together for many years. In my first business, we had a tech startup which we started in our early 20s. He’s probably the hardest working person I’ve ever met in my life.

The thing that he taught me so well was it’s not how many things you say ‘yes’ to, it’s how many things you say ‘no’ to—which is so hard for me to do. I continually think about that all the time now.

Yuri:                That’s a huge takeaway. I do a solo session every week, and one of them was on the magic two letter word that will transform your business, and that’s ‘no.’ How do you find yourself being able to make the decisions to say ‘no’ to stuff?

Lisa:                Well, I’m very fortunate that I’m at a point in my life where I have some flexibility. I did work so hard at that tech company, which gave me a life with some room for flexibility. I literally now listen inside and go, “Is this something that’s going to get me jazzed about it? Is this something that I’m going to get excited to do?”

If it’s really not, then I’m going to probably push it aside and focus on those things that light me up. When we’re excited about things, we work hard and we make them work.

 Transitioning out of tech; Lisa’s story

Yuri:                Mm-hmm, yup. Absolutely. That’s great advice. Talk to us about the transition from the tech company to your current company, which is more on the health and lifestyle side.

 Lisa:                Well, of course there’s a story. When I started the company, I just worked all the time. I was living on Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I wasn’t taking care of myself in any way, shape, or form—like many people in their 20s were doing at that time.

By the time I got into my early 30s, I had gotten married, I had a couple babies,I moved into a house … and I collapsed.

It wasn’t pretty. It was a really horrible episode for me.

It rocked my world, because I was that type-A, go get everything done, never an issue woman. All of a sudden, I’m like, “What the hell?” Like, nothing’s working—my mind wasn’t working, my body wasn’t working. I was a real mess and fell into a deep, dark hole. And doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me—they just offered me meds and I didn’t want them.

I said, “Hey, I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve got to take this on as a project, and figure out how to get better,” and I did. I really started experimenting. You hear this story with a lot of us in this health and wellness field.

Yuri:                Yup.

Lisa:                We had to cure ourselves, because the answers weren’t really out there. When I started doing that, it was just fascinating.

These were things I’d never paid attention to before; not only food and exercise, but mindset and the roles of caffeine and the roles of sleep, the roles of friendship, the roles of fun, all those yummy things.

I did get better, and I actually got better and better. It seemed like a no brainer for me when I eventually decided to go back to school and study holistic nutrition and get into this world of health and wellness. It’s amazing.

Beautiful place to be.

Yuri:                Yeah. It is, and I really believe that there’s no other profession in the world that can transform people’s lives like we can—whether you’re an accountant, financial planner, whatever.

That’s cool, but if you can help someone transform their health. That’s pretty profound.

Lisa:                It is. If you can make someone smile and feel like they’re not broken, it’s been a great day.

 Yuri:                Absolutely. That’s awesome. What are some of the similarities between your tech company, or the world of tech, and this kind of entrepreneurial, bootstrapping way of building a health business? Are there any similarities, and maybe some of the differences that you can think of?

 Lisa:                Well, we started our company like 30 years ago. It wasn’t like it is now, it wasn’t cool to be in your 20s and be a tech entrepreneur. We were a bootstrap company.

I think that was great training for me on how to figure things out. It doesn’t matter what you know. It matters, “can you figure it out?”

I became really good at just figuring out how to do things, whether I knew or not. I think that was a really good similarity. I was lucky that I had dabbled in so many different areas of our company. In the early days when it was super small, I got to do like 15 different roles. That’s been really helpful.

The thing that was so bad for me is that we were in an environment that did not have any self care. We were running ourselves into the ground. I have to fight those demons all the time, still.

That’s how I was brought up in the business world. You go until you drop. That does not serve me at all anymore. I have to constantly keep that part of me in check, and say, “No, you’re getting to that point. Your warning signs are there. Haul it in, bring it down, and walk your walk. Walk your talk.”

So that’s the good and the bad of it, for me.

Yuri:                That’s really cool. I mean it’s cool to talk with entrepreneurs in our space because I find a lot of them, including yourself, are more conscious of this “black hole” that we can all end up going down.

I think—and maybe you can speak to this more than I can—outside of the health space, I don’t know if people are as aware of this. They’re just going, going, going, and then all of a sudden, they have a heart attack or they have a breakdown or they’re just exhausted.

Is that something you’ve found? Are people in our space, on the entrepreneurship side, a little more in tune with that? I’ve had a lot of conversations with people who are versus more of the pure tech/business world.

Lisa:                Well, I think that first of all, so many of us in the health and wellness space got here because we had some medical or health issue. We learned that we have to take care of ourselves.

That’s number one. We can’t help anyone if we’re not okay.

In our space, absolutely; there is an awareness of it. I think some of the more enlightened companies, maybe the Googles, are putting these wellness practices into place. Perhaps. Maybe not.

I did give a talk at Google. I talked about how I collapsed and burned, and it kind of ruined my life. Their response at the end when I got some feedback was, ‘Well you know, your business made it okay, so what’s the big deal?’

I was like, “Whoa! That is not the message at all.” You know, the message is that we have to take care of ourselves, or we’re all going to end up in either injured, sick, or something’s going to happen if we don’t take care of ourselves.

I really like helping people start to understand what those warning signs are for them so they don’t get to that place.

Yuri:                It’s so weird. I don’t know the culture of workplaces like Google, necessarily, because I really haven’t spent a lot of time in them. I have this perception that you have all these young millennials or 30 something year olds who are just like, “I’m invincible. It’s all good, as long as I make money and the company works, then it’s all good.”

I think maybe it’s human nature as well, where we don’t really do something until crap hits the fan.

 Lisa:                Well, I think that we get that little tap, the tap, the tap, and it’s not until the hammer hits us on the head that we go, “Wow, something’s not working here!”

 Yuri:                Yeah.

 Lisa:                That’s what happened for me. I probably had a million warning signs, but I was brought up in a world where you’re like “Oh, it’s only stress. No big deal,” right?

“It’s just stress, I can handle that.”

Yuri:                Yeah.

Lisa:                The dangers of stress are so profound and I see so many people who are totally burnt out, exhausted from living real life. Especially a lot of the women that I work with—they might be working full time, they’re coming home, they’ve got kids.

Even if they have people helping them, it doesn’t matter. They’re still just going, going, going, all day long. They’re just tired. They’re really tired.

We need to start teaching people what self care look like, because I don’t think people even know what that term means.

Yuri:                Yeah. I think it’s nice that you do what you do, because it’s well needed. But it’s very tough because we’re fighting an uphill battle a lot of times—for anybody who’s doing stuff in our space. Because no one is taught about nutrition, health, mindfulness, self care, at all … until they hit a point where they’re like, “Hey, maybe I should look into this.”

We’re not taught this stuff in school. Most of our parents don’t teach us about this stuff. It would be a lot easier if kids were taught this stuff at a young age, which would be part of their fabric. Yeah, hopefully we’ll just continue spreading the good word, and more and more people will be served.

Lisa:                Well I can’t agree with you more. We learn like the dates of war, but we don’t learn how to cook a meal!

And I think anxiety among young kids, teens, people in their 20s, is at an all time crazy high. We’re not teaching anyone tools. We should be teaching meditation and breathing and everything in schools from birth. I think they do in certain other countries.

We have a little bit of re-prioritization. I think that needs to happen.

 Yuri:                Yeah, totally. I recently found out that the highest rate of suicide in the US is girls between the ages of 10 to 14. That’s shocking.

This is a little bit of a tangent, but when I go to Starbucks and it’s after school, I see all these girls who are in that age group. They’re there drinking their venti frappuccinos with their friends, and they’re sitting at a table with each other; but they’re not even talking. They’re looking at their phones.

There’s bigger problems. There’s this disconnection, people are not even socializing properly anymore. When you compound that with a lack of proper self awareness of what health is, what good food is—it’s going to be an interesting couple decades ahead.

Hopefully we can make a good impact on that.

How technology is a blessing and a curse

Lisa:                I know, it’s so scary because I have three kids. I remember when my girls were that age.

That’s a very, very insecure time in life. You’re so worried about what people think about you, and am I wearing the right thing, do I look the same way? Now with social media, it’s not just the kids in your class. It’s the world. The pressures on these kids to look at a certain way, and have enough ‘likes’ per second, or whatever the thing is now on their Instagram, it’s just so high pressure.

You’re right, it’s going to get worse and worse. Technology is such a mixed blessing and a curse for us. I love technology. I’ve worked in technology, I love using technology, but I know I’m an addict now, too. I have a real hard time putting down the phone. It’s something I’m working on personally.

And if I’m that way, think about all these kids growing up with that. That’s just a scary thought.

The social media comparisons and why you need to stop scrolling

Yuri:                It’s not just the kids, too. I mean there’s so many entrepreneurs who are comparing themselves to other businesses and other entrepreneurs; like, “Oh my god, this person has this many likes, this many followers,” whatever.

How do you deal with that person? And we all do this. How do you deal with that comparison?

Lisa:                It’s so hard, oh my god. That is so hard!!

Well, I’ll tell you that I’m guilty, just as guilty as everybody else. I started unsubscribing to certain newsletters that made me feel bad. Again, it’s really tapping into, is this something helpful and useful for me? Or, is this something that’s going to make me feel bad about myself?

If it’s a newsletter that is just telling me that I’m not doing good enough, it’s out.

The same thing on Facebook on my feed. I am so sick and tired of these people saying, “I made a million dollars this month.” Bye. I don’t care. I grew up in a world of humility—that just doesn’t feel right for me, so I’m going to nix you, too.

And I keep coming back to, why am I doing this work? How can I best serve people? When I get back to that really grounded place, that’s when I do my best work and that’s when I feel best about what I’m doing.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s a tough balance. You want to look at what’s working, you want to model to some degree, but you also have to just stay in your lane and put your blinders on, because otherwise it’s a downward spiral of self loathing.

Lisa:                Totally. I like that “stay in your lane.” I’m going to use that.

Yuri:                Yeah, I mean I live in Toronto where there’s a lot of bad drivers, so I think for us, it’s a good analogy here.

Lisa:                I’m in Boston! We’ve got tons of bad drivers!

Yuri:                Yeah, I know. It’s funny. For you, in your journey with the health business, what’s been one of the biggest challenges you’ve had to deal with, and how have you overcome that? What’s the lesson you’ve learned in that process?

Focusing on the stuff you like and detaching from the outcome

 Lisa:                I think that a really big challenge for me was the glory.

I was super lucky. I came out with my book, I got a lot of attention, I got a lot of offers and a lot of big dreams and big visions of all these great things that I could do. And I had opportunities. I started going down that path, and I was like, “Oh my god, I am so tired, and I don’t have time. I can’t even see my friends.”

I realized it wasn’t really working for me.

I had to start saying ‘no’ to a lot of things. I really had to consolidate even my own offerings, and figure out what are the things I really love and how can I help people the most? I cut out a lot, and really focused on a key program, on some other things that I’m doing. I think that I have better clarity and focus now, and I think I’ll do a better job for everyone because my mind isn’t into 50 different projects, if that makes sense.

Yuri:                Yeah. No, totally. That’s why I love entrepreneurship is because you learn so much about yourself in the process. You’re always evolving. You’re like, “Okay, that didn’t work. Maybe this doesn’t work for me. Maybe this is more of my thing.”

It’s something that I don’t think a lot of employees have to go through. As an entrepreneur, you’re just forced to grow because your business becomes a reflection of your growth.

 Lisa:                You know, I’ve never really been an employee. I started my first company at 22. I think I had one year of work experience.

I don’t even know. I can’t really relate.

My husband’s an entrepreneur, and we talk to our kids like they’re entrepreneurs—we raise entrepreneurs! I think it’s just a way of thinking. It’s not failure, it’s just another route.

Like, “Okay, that didn’t work. Let’s try something different. Let’s see what will work.” And there has to be a lot of patience in this, because there is so much trial and error. I’ve learned so much in this journey. It’s incredible.

Yuri:                What’s one of the biggest learnings that still kind of sticks, like first and foremost for you?

Lisa:                Well, one thing I learned about myself is that every single time I offer a course or a retreat, anything, I am convinced no one’s going to show up.

I am absolutely 100% convinced every single time, nobody is coming. I have finally learned that that happens. I say, “Oh, there’s that thing.” It comes.

Instead of freaking out about it, I welcome it. I go, “Yup, I know you’re here, and this has not been true in the past. I hear you, but I’m probably going to be okay because other times, it’s worked out totally fine.”

These are the lessons that I remind myself of. I teach my clients that just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true.

Yuri:                Yup, that’s good advice. I mean I know for myself, I don’t regret anything in life. But there’s one thing I would have regretted had I passed away like yesterday, or a couple months ago.

Lisa:                What?

Yuri:                That would have been not putting on my own big live event. The only reason that I’ve postponed doing it is the fear of … Are people going to show up?

Lisa:                It’s a big one!

Yuri:                Yeah. I mean it crippled me for so long, because you’re like, “I’m going to look like an idiot,” and whatever.

But when we did Healthpreneur Live and we had like 100 plus people, it was phenomenal. And as you said—once you’ve done it once or twice, now you have all these reference points. It’s like, “You know what? It worked out before. We can make it happen again.” I think that’s why experience is such a great asset as you build your life and your business.

Lisa:                And also, un-attaching from the outcome. It’s a Buddhist principle, it’s hard to really implement into your life, but you kind of have to.

You do your best work, and who’s meant to show up is going to show up. That doesn’t mean that you don’t work your butt off to get the word out, but it always works out. It’s always, always a learning experience no matter what happens.

I really do genuinely take that attitude with everything I do.

Yuri:                Yeah, that’s awesome. That detaching from the outcome is huge. I had an epiphany about this several years ago.

I would check my stats all the time, like all the time. I was asking myself, “Why am I doing this?” I think at the bottom of it all, it was like I didn’t have faith that things were working out for me. I had to feel like I had to control everything, every second by looking at the numbers.

I challenged myself. I’m like, “What if I just believe and have faith that everything’s working out, and I just kind of distance myself from tracking and looking at the stuff every second of the day?”

It’s extremely freeing, so I totally get what you’re saying with that.

Lisa:                It’s so liberating. It really is.

And that goes to what you were saying before, even on social media. Forget the ‘likes,’ forget this, forget that. Just keep putting out your best work to the world from a genuine place—the right people will find you.

 Spreading your message with awesome content

Yuri:                So, speaking of people finding you, what has been a really effective strategy for you to help people find you and help spread your message?

 Lisa:                You know, I think that I just really come from a place of generosity. I really do share a lot through Facebook Live. I have a radio show which comes to an iTunes podcast, it’s called ‘Healthy View Radio.’ We just changed the name this year, which is super exciting.

I write quite a bit. I wrote a book, and I write for different online magazines. I’m getting out there in a lot of different ways and just sharing my own struggles.

I think that I’m really honest about my own issues and struggles, and people can relate to that. I don’t think that we relate when everything’s perfect and so great; but if they see that you understand what they’re going through, then they’re more likely to start a communication with you.

 And that’s what I really look for. I’m not looking for the, “I’m going to trick you into buying my course.” I want long term relationships with my clients and the people in my tribe. I think I am surrounded by the most amazing people, and I appreciate them every day.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. That’s great. I’m sure they feel that way as well. If you’re starting all over again, knowing what you know now, would you do anything differently?

 Lisa:                Oh, I’d do it all differently. … But that’s the beauty of it!

I think that I went fast forward for five steps in doing all these great things, and then I had to go back and say, “Wait a minute, I didn’t have a sustainable business model behind that.” Maybe I would have done that a little bit differently, but I think it all worked out all okay. It’s continuing to evolve. It’s all good.

I think, again, as long as I keep checking in with myself and make sure I’m taking care of myself and that I’m doing work that feeds my soul, that’s the key. That’s the key for me, is to keep doing that. Yeah, so no regrets.

Staying resilient and patting yourself on the back

Yuri:                That’s good. That’s awesome. Now what do you think is the number one skill entrepreneurs most possess for lasting success?

 Lisa:                Resilience!

 Yuri:                That’s a good one, that’s for sure.

 Lisa:                Got to take a punch all the time. We get punched every single day and we just get back right up into the ring.

 Yuri:                Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.

One of my favorite quotes of all time, and I literally should print a poster of this, is from Winston Churchill where he says, “Success is going from failure to failure with unbending enthusiasm.”

Lisa:                I love that, it’s so true!

Yuri:                It’s so good.

Because I don’t know about you, but  don’t know if I’ve ever reached a goal that I’ve set. Like I’ve come close, but sometimes I’ve been way off. It’s very demoralizing if you don’t have your head on right.

Lisa:                Totally, and the problem is that people like us that are drawn to these entrepreneurial careers, we set the bar really high. And we keep raising the bar again, and again, and again. We’re constantly putting ourselves in this thing of like, “Okay, I’ve got to get there, I’ve got to get there.”

And that’s really hard, especially when you’re trying to help other people not do that.

Again, it’s checking in and saying, “Okay, let me just remind myself, what is success for me? What does that look like? How am I going to know when I’m in a good place, and have achieved some of my goals?” And they’re not always obvious ones.

Yuri:                Mm-hmm (affirmative), yeah. That’s very true. I was at an event a couple weeks ago, and Daymond John was speaking. Someone in the crowd asked him about goal setting and stuff.

He said, “Every six months, I set six new goals, and I never hit them.” He’s just like, “I go to bed at night, I review my goals. I review them in the morning, but I never, ever hit those six goals, and then I just redo them every six months.”

It’s interesting, because one person could say, “Oh my god, I didn’t do this. I didn’t hit it again.” Or, you could maybe just look back, instead of looking into the gap, right?

Lisa:                Right. And give ourselves a pat on the back on all the stuff we do, do. I think that’s something everybody needs to do is, like—hey, maybe you didn’t do that, but look at the ten things you did do. And take a second to just celebrate that.

Yuri:                Yeah, absolutely. Do you have a regular practice for journaling, or acknowledging those elements of gratitude or success?

Lisa:                Oh my god. Well, I have a morning practice that saves me. I’m really into affirmations, and I’ve had gratitude journals for years. I meditate, and I use that time to really ground in.

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with tapping, too, a little bit in the morning. That’s kind of new for me, and I’m actually enjoying that quite a bit.

So, I have the routine in place and I can bring in and out different things to try, but you need to really have that place in your day. Once that’s there, it’s really fun to play around in there and see what works for you. I’m really big into all that stuff.

Yuri:                That’s cool. Well, that was one of the rapid fire questions, is what do you do first thing in the morning? Do you mind elaborating on what that morning routine looks like?

Lisa:                Oh sure. Usually I do some quick affirmations when I’m having breakfast. I like to eat right away.

And rather than affirmations, they’re actually reminders to me—that I choose to be healthy and happy, and I’m grateful for my food, and my family. I go through these series, and then I always end with, what wonderful thing is going to happen today? I think about my day and I think about all the great things.

I go, “Yeah, that’s going to be awesome.” It puts me in a really good state.

Yuri:                That’s a such a good question to ask. Like, “What wonderful thing is going to happen today?” That’s a great question.

 Lisa:                Yeah! Because I really do believe that if we say, “Oh my god, things are going to go wrong, they’re going to go wrong.” But if you go, “What’s going to go right?” They kind of do, a lot of times.

And then I might work for a little while, and then I’ll go do my “stuff.” I write in my gratitude journal. I might read a little passage from a book, I do my tapping, I do my meditating. I love it.

And even if I only have ten minutes, I’m not saying this is an hour practice. Sometimes it’s eight minutes of meditation, sometimes it’s 15. It’s really what I’m feeling that day.

But it leaves me feeling so connected, grounded, and in touch with what is going on emotionally, physically, spiritually, in my body. And I really do believe it will help me prevent illness. It will help prevent injury, because I’m so in tune with my body.

Yuri:                Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s pretty interesting. For everyone listening, if you’ve listened to all these episodes, meditation is actually one of the most common practices from everyone we’ve spoken to; which is pretty cool. Thank you for sharing that.

 Lisa:                My pleasure.

The Rapid Five

Yuri:                Lisa, are you ready for the rapid five?

Lisa:                Yes, hit me.

Yuri:                All right, so you’ve already answered one of them so I’m going to swap that out with another one; so it’ll be a surprise in slot number four. So again, you have no idea what these questions are. Whatever, just whatever comes to mind. Just blurt it out.

Number one, what is your biggest weakness?

Lisa:                I’m a planner, I’m an excessive planner. I’m trying to be more in the moment.

Yuri:                Cool. I mean there’s a benefit to that, to some degree, for sure.

 Lisa:                Our greatest strength is our greatest weakness.

Yuri:                Yes, that’s the second question is what’s your biggest strength?

Lisa:                I think my greatest strength is that I’m a creative problem solver.

Yuri:                Nice.

Lisa:                I don’t give up easily.

Yuri:                That’s good. I just want to talk about that for two seconds, because I’ve worked with a lot of people. I’ve hired a lot of people. One of the biggest things I look for in anyone is resourcefulness, and the ability to solve problems.

I don’t care what they’ve done in the past. I don’t care what their resume looks like. What you just said is such an invaluable skill because you’ll find a way. That’s it.

Lisa:                Absolutely, exactly. You don’t have to be book smart, you have to be just smart in creativity, and go, “Okay, that didn’t work. There’s got to be another way around this.” It’s hard to really recognize in people sometimes. It’s hard to really haul that out and figure out if people have that.

 Yuri:                Yeah, I’ll share a quick little story with you. For our Healthpreneur Live events, we had two amazing event planners work with us. Christie and Alison, I mean I continue to give them praise because they’re unbelievable.

One of the things that I loved about what they did is they went behind my back and did things above and beyond what I would have asked for. They had an idea of what the vision was.

So as an example, we wanted to create these yearbooks for everyone that we would mail out to all the attendees after the event. Lo and behold, Sunday comes. It’s the last day of the event. And they’re like, “Yuri, we just want to make sure it’s okay that we actually give out the yearbooks today.”

I’m like, “What? You got the yearbooks done during the event with pictures from the event?”

Lisa:                So cool.

Yuri:                I don’t even know what printing places are open on a Saturday night to do this stuff, or a Sunday morning. They made it happen. That kind of stuff for me is like—they get it, right?

They’re just going to find a way. It’s so, so valuable. If you’re that type of person already—like you are, which is tremendous—or if anyone listening has the ability to work with someone like that … Man, it is a game changer.

 Lisa:                The best. Yeah.

Yuri:                Yeah, it was awesome. All right, so number three: what is one skill you’ve become dangerously good at in order to grow your business?

 Lisa:                Listening.

Yuri:                So number four was the morning routine, but I’m going to swap that out for something else. What is something very few people know about you?

 Lisa:                I have a black belt in TaeKwonDo.

Yuri:                Are you serious?

Lisa:                I’m serious.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. Do you still practice?

Lisa:                No. I was very goal oriented, I got the belt. The truth of the matter is I got hurt and I kept re-injuring it afterwards. I stopped, and I did eventually heal the injury, but I knew if I continued that I wouldn’t heal; and so I did stop.

It was one of the hardest things I ever did, for me, because I had to fight. This was serious TaeKwonDo.

Yuri:                If you were jump back in the ring now, would you be able to kind of find your way, or would it be like … Nope.

 Lisa:                No, I don’t think I could; but I mean I went to a very traditional TaeKwonDo school where you had to go and fight every Friday night for like six months before you could take your black belt test.

I’m not like this huge person. I had all this gear, and I’d have these people like two feet bigger than me attacking me, punching my head, and kicking me. You couldn’t get me back in that ring if you paid me.

Yuri:                That’s cool, very cool. Final one here is complete this sentence: ‘I know I’m being successful when.’

Lisa:                I know I’m being successful when I smile with my eyes closed. I just sometimes will sit there and just be smiling and peaceful at the same time.

Yuri:                That’s awesome. That’s a very visual image there. I can picture that. That’s great. Lisa Lewtan, thank you so much for joining us on the Healthpreneur podcast. This has been a lot of fun.

Lisa:                So fun!

Yuri:                What’s the best place for people to stay in touch with you and follow your work online?

 Lisa:                So, my website is HealthyHappyAndHip.com. When you visit there, there’s a place to join my free Facebook community. That’s pretty active. We’ve got a great community going on in there.

So I welcome you to visit the website, click the little button to get access to the Facebook group; and I will see you there.

Yuri:                Perfect. Lisa, once again, thank you so much for taking the time and for sharing your journey, your wisdom, your insights. This has been a lot of fun.

Lisa:                Thanks so much for having me, Yuri. Always a blast.

Yuri:                Thank you.

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Yuri’s take

Hey guys, so I hope you’ve enjoyed that interview. That was a lot of fun, as it always is for me.

I really enjoy doing this podcast, because all I get to do is just have cool conversations with people like Lisa and everyone else we’ve interviewed on the show. That’s my selfish reason, honestly, for having this podcast is because A) it’s a great source of inspiration and content for you, but also because I get to connect with these awesome people.

Many of them I know already, many of them I don’t. It’s just a beautiful way for me personally to do what I love to do.

Yuri’s phone challenge

I want to leave you with a question, as I have started to do at the end of every episode. Today is actually a little more of a challenge. This is something I issued to myself several months ago, and it’s really been great; because it’s something that I knew I needed to do, but I needed to figure out a way to just confirm to myself that it was okay to do it.

And that is this: … Lisa and I talked about this addiction to social media, and how we can tame that beast a little bit. One of the things that I’ve found extremely helpful for me is I’ve actually deleted the Facebook app and the mail app from my iPhone.

I’ve spoken with my wife about this several times. I’m like, “You know what? I wish I just had my flip phone, my Nokia flip phone from like ten years ago.” That’s kind of what I want. It was nimble. It was small. I could just flip it open and look … It was badass. I really enjoyed that phone.

But to be very honest with you, the camera capabilities of the iPhone, the navigation, the maps, the very fact that right now, what I’m speaking into, at this very moment, is my iPhone … There are definitely some important uses that I have for my phone.

Well, what I recognize is that if I’m not creating, I’m consuming. I want to challenge you to spend more time in creation than consumption.

If you find yourself going on to Facebook, Instagram or your mail, and you’re just scrolling (i.e.: consuming) that is a waste of time.

My challenge to you is two fold, okay? Step one is, before you log on to social or your email, I want you to ask yourself, “Am I going here to create, or am I going here to consume or react?”

If you’re opening up your email, your app on your phone, you should be writing an email to someone. It’s not about going through and refreshing, “Did someone send me an email, did someone send me an email, did someone send me an email?” That’s a waste of time, okay? That’s what you want to avoid.

If you’re going to Facebook, “Am I going there to create and leave something of value to people, or am I just going to scroll on my newsfeed?”

If you want to take that approach, that’s cool. If you find yourself, like me, wasting too much time scrolling the newsfeed, I’m just going to suggest that you remove it off your phone. How do you share stuff on Facebook otherwise? Well, you can do it on your desktop or on your laptop.

If you’re doing Facebook Live video, use a really cool software called “eCam Live.” It’s 30 bucks, a one-time purchase, and you have it on your desktop or your computer. You can stream Facebook Live directly from your computer.

If you don’t want to hold your phone all the time, that’s what I do. I use eCam Live from my computer. And worst case scenario, for instance, if we do live events and I want to get some actual footage for my phone, I will re-install Facebook for that event and then I’ll just delete it afterwards.

I’m telling you, environments will always trump willpower. Don’t rely on discipline and willpower, because it’s fleeting. You only have so much of it. Set your environment up to win, which basically means set up your iPhone to support you.

I would much rather be on my phone in Google docs creating something than scrolling my newsfeed on Facebook. I have Google docs on my iPhone, and I go in there to create stuff. That’s a much better use of my time with my phone.

So those are my two kind of challenges that I’m posing out to you. If you want to take them, go for it. That’s awesome.

That’s all for today. Hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. A couple reminders, subscribe on iTunes. That’s first and foremost. If you’re not subscribing, you’re missing out big time; because we’ve got some amazing interviews we’ve done, many more to come.

If you want to take your business, your health and fitness, wellness business to the next level, this is the podcast. This is the podcast that’s going to show you how. You’re going to learn the real life journeys from some of the most successful people in our space. You can learn from them and save yourself a lot of time and frustration in the learning curve.

Second is, if you haven’t yet picked up your copy of Health Profits Secrets, I would suggest you do so right now. Go to HealthpreneuerBook.com, and I’ve already covered the cost of the book for you. In fact, all I’m asking you to do is cover a couple dollars in shipping. I will send it off to your front door in the next couple days.

Inside the book, you’re going to discover the four underlying secrets that all successful health businesses have in common. If you already have the book, terrific. If you don’t, grab it today. It’s a really, really good one. It’s basically a compilation of my 12 years in this space, and seeing what does and does not work. There are also three big mistakes I also highlight in that book that you’ll want to avoid in your business journey.

That’s about it. I want to thank you once again for taking your time, for your attention, for being with me once again. Continue to go out there, spread your message, be great, do great, and I look forward to seeing you in our next episode.

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