My 3 Self-Care Priorities | Ep 230
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What is up? Welcome back to Build. And today we are going to talk about all things self-care. So I want to talk about this topic because it is something that I do not speak to much. And I want to explain why I don't speak to it much. And I also want to speak to it. So the reason I don't speak about self-care much is because I had a pretty bad time with it.

pretty poor experience in my past with people who really over-indexed on self-care. And what I mean is they really over-indexed the importance of how routine and self-discipline and doing all these things on a day-to-day basis and taking four or five hours every day to take care of yourself would lead to success.

So much so that, you know, it created a lot of anxiety for me. Like I had more anxiety around the thought of not keeping up with my self-care than the self-care took away, right? And so like the whole point of taking care of ourselves is that we want to feel good. We want to be clear. We want to be mentally sound. And I actually found that it really was stressing me out because I felt like I was constantly just trying to keep up with all the things needed to take care of myself.

And so I really steered away for a couple years after that from speaking anything over people into like routine or self-care because I actually just was trying to understand what I really believed about it. And where I've kind of fallen is that I really believe that true self-care is self-discipline.

And I get it because a lot of times when people think about self-care, they think about bubble baths. They think about face masks. They think about eating your favorite junk food. They think about tropical vacations, right? I beg to differ. I think that self-care is not the spa day that you want. I think it is the 5 a.m. workout that you really need, right? Because if you're running a company or even if you're building one from scratch or even if you're just working within one,

The type of self-care you need is the type that builds self-trust and self-respect. What you need is discipline, okay? Self-discipline is self-care in action because skipping the hard stuff today costs us trust and respect for ourselves tomorrow, okay?

And that is really my philosophy around self-care is just that we want to do things that make us like and respect ourselves more. And if we do those things, then we're going to be taking care of ourselves. However, we have this traditional view in society that self-care is taking a bubble bath. And I beg to differ. I think that self-care is making ourselves confront the things that make us uncomfortable today so that we're more strong and resilient tomorrow. Now, does that mean that we...

subject ourselves to unnecessary suffering? No. I think it's silly to suffer for the sake of suffering. Why? Because intelligence is really exists so that we can be strategic and avoid an exorbitant amount of suffering because there's enough suffering as is, right? And so I'm not like, I need to go do all these things to suffer because it's going to make me stronger. Like that's totally not me either. I'm not on either end of the spectrum.

I really just believe, right, that as in my life, as somebody running a big business, managing teams every day, and trying to build a life that I just love, I have learned that taking care of myself, aka disciplining myself, is not optional. Okay, it is actually mandatory for me if I want to reach my goals. Because here's the thing, when you choose discipline over indulgence, you are choosing long-term success over short-term comfort.

Right? Here's the thing. The reason I don't talk to it is because it is not glamorous. It's not what people want to hear. Okay? Most of the time, it's boring. It's not sexy. And it's all the consistent, boring work that keeps me sharp, clear-headed, and able to lead every day. And so what I want to do is I just kind of want to dive into what self-care as self-discipline looks like and give you real examples from my life so you can understand how this plays out. And here's the thing.

I want to preface this. This is what I do. I am not a, uh, well, how do I say it? Like take what you like and leave the rest. If you don't love how I live my life, I by no means think the way that I live my life is the only way to live it. And I think sometimes that gets lost because people who make content on social media, people think, oh, they must think that. No, I think I have plenty of issues. I think I have plenty of things I could do better at. And I think that I am human.

And so I'm just sharing my human experience. If there's things that you like, take them. If you don't like some of them, leave them. If you don't want to listen to me again, then don't. So here's my philosophy, right? Self-care is a discipline, not a luxury. Here's the thing. If you are the CEO of a company, you don't have the luxury of neglecting yourself.

Okay, you do not have the luxury of neglecting yourself. You're not just responsible for you. You're responsible for your team, where the company's going, and everybody's paychecks that you pay on a weekly basis.

This is the frame shift that I had to make in order to allow myself to feel like self-care wasn't selfish. Because maybe if you're like me, doing these things for ourselves, like, it's not necessarily innate. Like, I want to take care of other people. I don't necessarily put myself first. And I'm actually pretty bad at it, if I'm being really honest with you guys. And I get a lot more joy out of helping other people take care of themselves. So it's like, I don't love just focusing on myself. I love focusing on others. And I get a lot more joy from that than I do for myself a lot of times. But...

What I've realized is that not taking care of myself is selfish. Because if I don't show up as 100% me at 100% every day, everything and everyone else suffers. Why? Because people do what you do, not what you say. And so if you want your team to show up as the best version of themselves, then you have to be a model of that. I learned this early on when I was first running my first company because I

When I first started, I'll be honest, I had been not taking care of myself. I had for many years prior. But then when the company started, it was like, it's so busy. There's so much going on. Like there's so much happening. Basic stuff that I'd been doing to take care of myself, like coming from a fitness background, I just kind of stopped doing. Like I used to get a certain amount of steps. I used to track my food. I used to and I just kind of stopped doing it all.

like it just slowly fell off because I was like, dude, I just am like trying to make sure I can pay the bills tomorrow. So like, I don't really give a shit if I gain five pounds. That's just kind of where I was at. What I realized is that then I started the company and I very quickly was like, oh, oh man, I am not an example of excellence anymore. Like I have let myself go. I'm not taking care of myself. And like,

The last thing I want to be is a leader who sets a bad example for people that follow me, right? Because here's the thing. I've never wanted to be a boss. I have wanted to be a leader. And the difference is that I think a boss is somebody who you respect them within the zone of work, right? But like outside of work, you might not like have a lot of admiration for them or you don't like look up to what they want to do. But I've never wanted to be that. I've always wanted to be a leader, right?

And a leader is somebody who takes care of every area of life, right? They lead by example. They do things in a way that you would want to model, not just at work, but outside of work. And so that was when I was like, oh my gosh, I got to get my shit together. And so it's funny because in the year that I grew my business the most, we went from, gosh, in 18 months, you know, doing nothing to $28 million. I actually really prioritize self-care. I woke up and the first thing I did every morning was I walked for an hour.

I walked, I reflected, I listened to a podcast, whatever I had to do. If that means I had to do it at 5 a.m. or 4.30 in the morning, I did it. The next thing I would do is that every day, every day for the first two years during that period of time, I had a trainer and I had an appointment at 2 p.m. Now, why did I have that appointment at 2 p.m.? Because I knew, I knew myself. Beginning of the day, that was my favorite time to work, right? And so I didn't want to go at the beginning of the day. End of the day, I just found myself skipping. And so I said, okay.

I have to be strategic here. And so I got a trainer and I did it for the middle of the day because I knew I would have the energy and it kind of split it up into two shifts for me. And so I felt like I could do a certain kind of work before that meeting and a certain kind of work after.

That shift changed everything for me because it really went from me not taking care of myself, not prioritizing myself, not being an example to the team, to showing the team that these things were important to me, showing them like, I don't answer my phone when I'm at my personal training appointment. You know, like I'm doing these things. You guys should do these things too. I saw how much of an effect it had on my team. And like, literally that was all that was needed.

I saw them taking care of themselves. I saw them losing weight. I saw them looking nicer and more presentable on meetings, right?

And so I knew that I needed to keep doing it because I saw that if I did it, they did it. And honestly, a lot of them needed it more than me. You know, I had people that were able to get off of their blood pressure medication. I had people that, you know, said that for the first time their kids wanted to go to the park with them because they were like, you can finally keep up. I had people who said that they were finally able to play with their kids because they had the energy. And that kept me more motivated than anything else to take care of myself. So here's the thing.

When I think about self-care, it's really about laying a foundation. It's about making sure that my body, my mind, my relationships, and my energy are all functioning at peak so that I have the capacity to make hard decisions, to handle the stress of the business, and still be the person I want to be at the end of the day who can inspire a team of inspirational people. And

You know, like the people that work on my team are inspirational on their own. So for me, I have to be even more of an example of inspiration to be able to earn the respect and be their leader. And here's the kicker. Self-care is not about doing what feels good in the moment. It's about doing what's necessary, even when it's uncomfortable.

Right. So I think for a lot of people, they think self-care might mean, you know what, I'm just not going to work out for a little while. But for me, actually, one of the highest forms of self-care for me is that discipline to know that even when I don't feel my best, to know that even when I'm having a hard time, to know that I'm still going to take care of myself. Think about it like this. Think about if somebody else

We're doing your self-care for you. If you were having a hard week because of something going on at work, do you think it would be thoughtful and loving of them to say, you know what? You don't need to eat right. You don't need to go to the gym. You don't need to do any of this. I'm going to let you off the hook because you should just wallow in your misery.

you know, and it's not like they're going to say it like that to you, but really think about it. Or is it that person who says, listen, I know you don't feel great in the moment. I know that it feels hard right now. I know that you're tired. I know that maybe you don't want to do it. I know that you feel like you're not even making progress, but I promise you it's about earning the respect of yourself every day. It's about earning trust from yourself. And so let's go to the gym. Let's do it. That's true self-care. And

And it's taken me a while because I have oscillated between two sides a lot of my life. And I really think it's in the last, I want to say the last three years that I've really gotten to a point where I really feel good about my self-care. You know, like even honestly, like I think it's why I can make content because, you know, before I was just stressed and it was really hard to like sit down and even record a podcast like this because it's like...

If I'm not managing my mind, if I'm not managing my emotions, if I'm not taking care of the things in my business, the last thing I want to do is make a podcast and tell other people what they should be doing. If you think about it, it really is...

One of the highest leverage things you can do is take care of yourself. You know, when I'm taking care of myself, it's easy to show up for my team. When I'm taking care of myself, it's easy to have hard conversations. When I'm taking care of myself, it's easy to demand more of others and tell them to take care of themselves because I know I'm doing it too. And so if you want to be the best version of yourself, self-care is not optional. The difference is that self-care is not a bubble bath. Self-care is holding promises we make to ourselves.

It is not fun or easy, but it sets the tone for everything else you do. So what I want to break down for you guys is a little bit more of what my non-negotiables, right? Or I would say things I stick to, right? Because I do negotiate at time to time based on circumstances. If something very unforeseen happens, like somebody gets sick, something exorbitant happens, right? I do have, you know, times where I change things.

So I will say this, there are a few areas where I focus and I think that they're probably the ones that I focus up on a daily basis. I would say physical health, mental resilience, and time and energy management. Those are really the three places I focus. So I just kind of want to walk you guys through a little bit of my philosophy. And again, just like take what you like, leave the rest.

So for me, working out is not about aesthetics anymore. Now here's the thing, I am definitely vain in the sense of like, I want to look good. It's not that I don't care about how I look. I just actually think that for me, a lot more of the physical health is about what I eat than working out. Like as long as I am fairly lean and thin

I feel good about myself, right? That doesn't mean I need to be ripped like I used to be. I used to be very muscular and I used to have a lot more muscle than I do now. Probably about 15 pounds more. Yeah, really. I've really toned down on lifting weights, but that's because really for me, it's about a balance of energy and resilience. Like the way that I see it, my body is a machine that powers everything else I do in my life. And so if it doesn't feel good, I don't feel good. If it breaks down, I break down. If it distracts me, then I'm distracted, right?

Right. And so my goal with physical health is to optimize my energy and my attention. Right. And so that actually does follow with a couple different things. One, if I'm distracted by having an extra five pounds, then I want to lose that five pounds. Why is that? Because I don't want to think about it. It's not about the five pounds, like me being five pounds heavier. Nobody will notice but me. But what it is about is it's about how I feel and the fact that I'm thinking about it.

I would rather just lose the five pounds than have to think about the five pounds because I don't care that much about the five pounds, right? And so for me, the best thing that I can do for me is ensure that I am in physical shape to the degree that it's not something I think about. I feel good in the clothes I wear. I feel good in the pictures I see of myself. I feel good when I'm on a Zoom call. If I'm distracted by how I look, then I need to change something.

And so that is, to the degree that I focus on aesthetics, what I focus on. Because I will say this, like, I feel like I've got a lot of it handled, but I do oscillate. And so if I've oscillated up five pounds, but it's taking my attention, then I'm like, all right, I got to lose this five pounds because...

it's not worth the mental bandwidth to be distracted by it. Now, the second piece is I used to work out really, really hard in the gym. And now I work out more to feel good about myself and to have energy. I want to be healthy. I want to have energy. I want to feel vibrant on a daily basis.

And so I don't murder myself in the gym. I can because I used to lift incredibly heavy, deadlifted 395 for 10. That was my record. So just put it out there. You know, I can be strong if I want to be. It's just that I choose not to be anymore. And really the reason for that is because

When I tax my CNS too much, I don't feel good showing up for my meetings the rest of the day. And the second order consequence of that is I don't want to have to eat a ton of food. And the more that I exercise, the more that I know I need to fuel my body. And I actually just prefer to exercise less and eat less.

That's just what's worked for me. And it gives me a lot of attention back and is a great way that I feel like I can take care of myself because I don't like to have to eat a lot of food during the day. I also don't like to feel exhausted from exercise. That's just what I found works for me.

Now, here's the thing. When it comes to diet, I eat the same type of meals pretty much every day. I focus on protein. I focus on really minimal. I would say like I eat like whole foods for the most part. You do see like never skip dessert. To be really honest with you guys, like I'll eat two bites of something. I'll have two chocolates at night. Or if we order dessert, I eat two bites, maybe three bites of the dessert. But like I...

I don't even know the last time I finished a dessert. Like, and I'm not trying to replace desserts that I love with some weird Frankenstein protein dessert. That's just not my style. I'd rather just have three bites of ice cream and call it a day.

So, you know, is this exciting? No. But I have found that for me, using that philosophy around exercise, around my body, around my health has helped me a lot. You know, it's really just about how do I get energy back? How do I get attention back? I don't want to be thinking about my health and fitness all the time. I want it to just kind of run on autopilot. You know, the same thing goes for my workouts. I have them pre-programmed two months at a time. And so every two months, I've

I probably take 35 to 40 minutes to write a program again. I put it into an app and then it's good to go for eight weeks.

And that's just kind of what I've done for the last, you know, since I started acquisition.com and it works really well for me. I don't want to have to think about stuff, but if it does get to a point where, hey, you know, over the holidays, maybe I gained a few pounds. Okay, well then I'm just going to focus on that for a short period of time until it's not something that's bothering me because I know that that does affect how I show up for the rest of my life. Now, the second place where I take care of myself and I definitely insert some self-discipline is mental resilience.

Here's the thing. As a CEO, your ability to handle stress literally determines how far you go. I cannot emphasize this enough. Like if I am stressed, then the business is not going to do well. And I am aware of that. And so for me, I would say that probably even my number one is that I am mentally resilient. Right. And so what does this look like for me? I reflect every day.

What went well? What didn't go well? What do I need to do differently tomorrow? What is one thing I can do differently tomorrow? Now, here's some other questions that you could ask yourself because I think that a lot of becoming mentally resilient is becoming mentally aware as a first step. One, what is taking the majority of my attention? Two, what fear is controlling how I act? Three, what person is in the back of my mind? Especially when you're running a company, these are important questions to ask yourself because you don't want to be dictated by fear.

Great leaders are not influenced by fear, okay? They're confronting fear on a daily basis. And so for me, it's really important to ask, like, is there a fear that's dictating how I act? Because I don't want to be controlled by fear. And so if I do see that, then I want to immediately take action and make sure that I am minimizing whatever that fear is.

Right. The second is what person is in the back of my mind. If there's a person in my company that's stealing my attention, I see that as a problem too and something I need to address quickly. Because if somebody's underperforming, somebody's, you know, has a bad attitude, if somebody said something weird to me that day,

I always tell my team this, like there should be quote, no space between us. Like I don't want space between me and my team or somebody on my team. If I'm having these weird thoughts about them, I just go and address it. I'll give you an example. So about a week ago, I saw one of my employees who had not been active on LinkedIn, getting active on LinkedIn. And so I just asked her on a call. I said, Hey, you know, I just want to be straight up. Like, are you looking to leave? Because a lot of people do that right before they want to leave a job. Uh,

And a lot of people don't, but I just want to understand because, hey, if you are looking to leave, like, is there anything I can do? Or did you want to talk about it? And she was like, oh my God, that's not the case. If I was going to leave, I would tell you. Here's why I did it. Blah, blah, blah. And then guess what? I got my attention back. I don't got to think about it again. I'm not going to sit there and wonder.

You know, the same thing happened at one point. I saw a company, I saw one of my executives had a meeting on the calendar. It looked like an interview. I reached out, I said, "Hey, is this an interview? You looking to leave?" He made a joke and then basically was like, you know, "I'm flattered that you even thought that that was an interview and that you were concerned, but no, I'm not looking to leave," you know, etc., etc. Then what happens? I don't have to think about it again. I don't have to put my attention towards it, right? Same goes if somebody says something that's with a bad attitude.

So the other day, I had somebody on the team. He said something that I felt was a little off to me. So I addressed it. I said, hey, next time you give me this feedback, here's how I would love if you came to me with it instead. And he was like, wow, completely understood. Thanks for letting me know. So what you'll see is that a lot of this revolves around not leaving things unsaid, addressing things that are concerning, confronting things that are problems, confronting fears. The root of bad leadership is experiential avoidance.

People who seek to avoid uncomfortable conversations, fears, anxieties are not good leaders. Okay. Because if you want to be a great leader, you have to be the first person to confront the hard stuff.

And so for me, addressing stuff when it's small is how I take care of myself so I don't need to address it when it's big. And now the third area is really my time and energy management. So I am a psycho about my calendar. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a psycho. I don't do endless meetings, but I do do a lot of meetings.

But the thing is, I don't say yes to every opportunity and I don't say yes to meetings as they are typically presented. I say no more than I say yes or I say I need a memo. I need a loom. I need more context before I say yes to this thing. The reason for that is because I look at my time as one of my most valuable resources. In fact, I look at my time as like the most valuable resource for the company. So I treat it that way. And that has also been a frame shift for me. But again...

It goes back to if I don't take care of myself, what's the team going to do? If I don't respect my time, is the team going to respect their time? And so I just look at myself as if I'm replicating myself throughout the company, what kind of success am I creating? Or am I creating no success at all, right? And so does that mean that I say no to a coffee chat? Yes. Does it mean that I might block out two hours and cancel my meetings to think strategically when I have a strategic meeting coming up? Yes.

I am constantly asking myself, am I spending my time on the right things? And I am not allowing my fear of people not knowing why I won't spend time or take the meeting that they asked. I don't allow that to dictate what I do. The second piece to it is that protecting your energy is also about who you surround yourself with and how you allow people to use your time. I have had to cut people out of my companies who completely drained me and others.

I have had to coach people on the fact that the way that they run meetings is draining and I do not want to attend their meetings unless they learn to run them better. These are things that I've had to do because here's the thing, you cannot afford to carry that negativity. You cannot afford to waste your time in that manner. And so you have to hold the line and show people how to treat your time. Really, if you want to manage your time as a leader, you need to show other people how to manage your time. You need to teach them how to manage your time.

And so for me, two things that I do. One, Mondays, I call them Monday meeting marathon. I take all the meetings on Monday. I try to get as many through as possible. I probably take meetings from usually like 7.30 or 8 until like 6 o'clock.

It's a lot. But here's the thing. I'm locked the fuck in. I'm ready for that Monday meeting marathon and I'm good to go. Like I'm prepared for it. I'm okay with it. It doesn't bother me. And I know it's gonna be chaotic and it's gonna be a lot, but I'd rather have more on that day so that I can do my Wednesday no meeting days.

So I always block Wednesdays. I put no meetings on the calendar unless there's a true emergency. And what I do is I block that time for strategic thinking, for project work, for planning, for reflecting, for talking with teammates that maybe I don't get a chance to talk to.

for going and spending time with people that I don't get to spend time with. So that is my day that I cherish. And in order to have that day, I've got to do my Monday meeting marathon. I will tell you, do what works for you. How I run my schedule, very different from how some other CEOs run theirs. You just got to find what works for you based on where your business is at at that point in time. Now, there are many other aspects of self-care and self-discipline that we could go into as somebody who runs a company. But what I want you to understand is this, the ripple effect of that discipline.

Here's why all that matters. When you prioritize self-care as self-discipline, it does not just benefit you. It benefits everybody around you. And when you are disciplined about your health, about your energy, about your mindset, about your time, you show up as a better leader. You make better decisions. You're more patient with your team and you're more present with your family when you're home. Here's what I would suggest.

If you're ready to take a step in this direction of being more disciplined with your self-care this coming year for 2025, pick one to master.

Whether it is time, whether it is attention, whether it is mental resilience, whether it is physical health, don't try to tackle all three. Instead, start with the one that you believe is the biggest constraint to you succeeding and then stack the rest from there. But get some wins under your belt first. Start with one. Don't make it into this thing that you try to do everything at once. And I promise you, you will get there.

If you found this episode helpful, go ahead and share it with a friend, share it with a colleague, maybe even share it with your boss. And I hope to see you on the next one.