In an empowering episode of Sweet on Leadership, host Tim Sweet sits down with Erin Ashbacher, a highly accomplished CSEP-certified personal trainer and Senior Health Advisor. Tim and Erin delve into the crucial intersection of health and leadership development, with Erin emphasizing the need to view health as a dynamic lifestyle change rather than a time-consuming endeavour. As a powerlifter and former dancer, Erin draws on her expertise in cardiac rehabilitation, challenging common excuses with a focus on small, consistent steps and flexibility in workouts. 

Erin emphasizes intentional movement, goal-setting, and the creation of personalized fitness programs. The episode explores overcoming the common “no, but” mindset with the mindset of yes, and. They emphasize the evolving nature of fitness journeys and the positive impact of investing in health on professional success. Erin's unique approach combines her expertise in listening, goal-setting, and life balance, positioning her as an invaluable resource for clients seeking personalized fitness and coaching services. The episode encourages leaders to prioritize preventative wellness and provides the resources to start your journey to a healthier work-life balance. 

About Erin Ashbacher

Erin Ashbacher, a distinguished Senior Health Advisor and CSEP-certified personal trainer, is a driving force in health, wellness, and fitness. Armed with a Bachelor of Kinesiology from The University of Calgary, Erin, a powerlifter and former dancer, seamlessly combines expertise in movement, nutrition, and motivation.

As the owner of ERA Fitness, Erin boasts a top 10 industry performance since 2016, offering personalized training and coaching services. Her approach, emphasizing life balance and aligning health with professional goals, positions her as a key collaborator for leadership development clients in Calgary and beyond. Erin's superpowers encompass listening, goal-setting, movement expertise, and the ability to create customized programs, both in-person and online. Rooted in a famous Alberta rodeo family, she brings a unique appreciation for farming and ranching to her multifaceted lifestyle, which includes enjoying outdoor activities with her partner, Doug.

Resources discussed in this episode:

• Julie Freedman Smith

--

Contact Tim Sweet | Team Work Excellence: 

• Website
• LinkedIn: Tim Sweet
• Instagram
• Linkedin: Team Work Excellence

Contact Erin Ashbacher | ERA Fitness: 

• TWE: teamworkexcellence.com/about
• Email: [email protected]

--

Transcript:

Erin 00:01

There's definitely been a lot of people who think that being busy is really, you know, the gold standard and you know, making sure that we do it all. And it's hard when you're working in cardiac rehab, and you see people that have all of a sudden just been stopped in their tracks. And it made me really realize that preventative medicine, preventative wellness is where we want to be.

Tim 00:25

I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you consider yourself the kind of person that gets things done? Are you able to take a vision and transform that into action? Are you able to align others towards that vision and get them moving to create something truly remarkable? If any of these describe you, then you my friend, are a leader, and this show is all about and all for you. Welcome to the Sweet on Leadership podcast. This is episode 29.

Tim 00:59

Hey, everybody, welcome back to Sweet on Leadership. Today, I am thrilled to introduce to you somebody that I've known for years now. I mean, I think we've known each other since 2014. Or maybe even before that 2013, 2012? This is Erin Ashbacher. Erin and I met years ago when Erin was my trainer at a gym. And I would say it's been a friendship I value more and more every year that I know you. So, welcome, Erin.

Erin 01:29

Oh, thanks, Tim. That’s so sweet of you, I very much value our friendship as well. So, thank you. 

Tim 01:36

And for those of you that work with TWE, you'll know that Erin is our in-house trainer. Fun stat is about 90% of the executives that I work with rank their health and their balance as one of the things on the life side of the work-life equation that always needs work. And so recognizing this, I'm not qualified in this area but I sure as heck know somebody who is. Erin is part of our team and as well as running your own business, ERA Fitness. Erin is our key associate in this area. So, happy to have you as part of that team There. 

Erin 02:12

Yeah, I'm super thrilled to be part of the TWE team as well. Yeah.

Tim 02:17

So, Erin, why don't we just take a moment and besides what I know about you, why don't you take a moment and introduce yourself to everybody that's listening today?

Erin 02:25

I'm a Kinesiologist and went to school at the University of Calgary for Exercise and Health Physiology, started my career in cardiac rehabilitation, which was the scary side of being in kinesiology right, like people have already done and experienced a really traumatic thing and now they're super grateful to have a second chance. It was a really great learning experience for me and it was where I wanted to start my career. And then I eventually brought myself back to Calgary where I got to work downtown, and I went into kind of the corporate world and got to work with ton of wonderful, wonderful clients from all walks of life, you know, and got to experience what it's like to work hard, not only from like, I want to complete this race on the weekend, but just like a stress management perspective with my clients of getting them to be able to kind of add that health and wellness into their world. Yeah. And then I've gotten a chance to be part of a little bit part of everything that interests me, I've got my mountain bike coaching certificate, and I've been doing that for the last few years, worked with snowboarding and got my coaching with snowboarding. Although, I will admit I'm a horrible snowboarder. I just really love doing it and I enjoy coaching. Yeah, so that's my kind of professional career. And yeah, I grew up in rural Alberta, part of a big family on a ranch with cattle and sheep and I still to this day, well along with a lot of help from my parents run 100 head of meat breed sheep, which is super exciting, to just continue to be part of that.

Tim 04:09

And for those listeners that are listening from around the world, you may know that Calgary and the Calgary Stampede is a big part of our heritage here. We are an agricultural province besides oil and gas, that is one of our key areas. And of course, the Ashbacher family is renowned as being one of the big rodeo families in the province. And so something that I always think it's such a neat aspect to your life and what a thing to be involved in as well. I mean, you're a powerlifter, I think that's important to mention. And you're an award-winning trainer. You're not just a kinesiologist and a trainer run of the mill, you are award-winning. 

Erin 04:47

Yeah, I was recognized for I think four years in a row with my company as being the top trainer. It's interesting because it was never something I was really necessarily aiming for. But when you're doing what you love and things are just kind of clicking in place, it just made sense to me that all of a sudden, I found myself on top. And I was like, Oh, this is kind of cool. Like who knew? Yeah.

Tim 05:07

And I love when you talk to me about what you're learning and where you're going, that you're so active in that space. I mean, you're still attending conferences, you're still up on the literature, you're not passive when it comes to continuing to grow and to develop and to learn and to stay on the cutting edge of what it means to help others be healthy.

Erin 05:25

Absolutely. Our industry is constantly evolving, and there's constantly new evidence-based research out there that can be implemented. And I think it's really important to understand like how our society is evolving, and how the people around us are evolving, and how we can continue to make sure that, you know, health doesn't come in a bottle, that health is one of those things that we need to continue to invest in. And knowing how I can help assist my clients with that is really important. So yeah, continuing education is a big part of that.

Tim 05:59

Yeah, and I think for anybody listening, many people will have been exposed to trainers. And a lot of trainers are kind of fly by night, it's something that they're doing in the part-time, it's something that they do just so that they can, you know, I don't know, they don't tend to be educated much beyond what they're getting on the job site. For those of you listening, Erin is not that, okay? This is somebody who I admire because professionally, you are gripping and ripping it. I mean, you are always expressing yourself to the utmost of your potential. And that's something that I find inspiring. So again, just happy to have you here. And I can't wait till we get into what we're talking about. So, when we thought of having you on the show, we're really thinking about this balance that I see so many of my clients have, which is although they're excelling in their professional lives, and they're shooting for higher and higher levels of impact with their teams, perhaps going on promotions, and they tend to be you know, these are really leaders in whatever industry that they're in, they can still struggle with health. And an interesting stat, as I say is 90% of them will have health concerns. They don't feel like they're quite as balanced as they want to be in that area. And the other part is any of them with kids also tend to have 90% of people with kids had family concerns, which is why as you know, we have Julie on the other side with the family expertise. But for you, when you come through cutting your teeth with cardiac rehabilitation, and having been around business stress and professional stress, a lot of my life, we're no stranger to seeing people go down from that as a problem. Because it's often one of the things that people who work too hard and don't look after themselves have to face. How does that ready you or lead you towards your thoughts on the importance of one's leading their own health? Can you speak a little bit to that for me?

Erin 07:59

Yeah, I mean, there's definitely been a lot of people who think that being busy is really, you know, the gold standard, and you know, making sure that we do it all. And it's hard when you're working in cardiac rehab, and you see people that have all of a sudden just been stopped in their tracks. And it made me really realize that preventative medicine, preventative wellness is where we want to be. And I've always kind of said to my clients, like, let's try and make small steps for a better, more active, healthier lifestyle today, so that we don't get that big stop of, oh, gosh, we've had a cardiac event and now we need to change your life completely, right? When you're all of a sudden taken out of work and being able to care for your family because you've had this serious cardiac event. We don't need to get there, we can pull it back. And we can take care of it right now in small doses, that compound and build on each other in a really positive way. So, you know, making sure that we're taking care of our stress and taking care of our physical health as well as our mental health. Absolutely.

Tim 09:06

There's no shortage of examples of people who don't even get the chance to second crack, they work their entire lives, and they can often be very successful. They don't get a chance to enjoy retirement, they don't get a chance to see what's on the other side of all that hard work. They're always waiting for tomorrow, aren't they? And I speak from experience here. You're always waiting for tomorrow.

Erin 09:27

I don't have time today. I'll do it tomorrow. Yeah. Well, even some of my clients that have reached retirement, and they've had a really successful career, and now that they're retired, they're like, oh, now I'm going to take care of my health. But maybe they have an ailment that has been kind of creeping around on them. And so they just feel like they're starting at a really deep bottom. Like, oh man, if I would have just started going to the gym or being a little bit more active in my 40s or my 50s. Now that I'm in my 60s, I wouldn't have to deal with this big mountain, right? And then it can be a bit discouraging to people when they kind of thought that their retirement was going to be one way. And their health and physical limitations are creating some a different story for them. Right? So yeah, let's take care of it today.

Tim 10:14

I was facilitating and teaching a room of about 40 Higher Education executives last week. I was sharing with them, you know, we often think about how are we going to empower our staff, or our faculties, right? And the interesting thing about that is I was showing them how often when people start a job, they are never going to have more potential, they're never going to feel more optimistic about growth. And then we start to scuff them up. And the leader can inadvertently push that person down and liquidate that person's sense of potential and sense of growth. And then we're in a position where we have to build it back up. And I'm reminded of that as you're speaking, because we would never knowingly want to liquidate someone else's health and then have them have to try to on the back foot, get it back. We wouldn't let an employee do that. That would be outside the value set for so many of the people that I work with. But we seem awfully comfortable letting ourselves liquidate our health and then having to find ourselves on the backfoot trying to gain back our health, right, trying to gain back our fitness or trying to gain back because we had an event or where we've now had a nagging injury that's gotten worse and worse and worse. We would never treat anybody else like that. But we seem quite comfortable letting that be the standard of our self-care. Is that something that you see, too? 

Erin 11:43

Yeah, absolutely. Like, like you said, you would never let your spouse treat you that way. But yet you're willing to treat yourself that way. You’d never let your leader treat your employees like that, right?

Tim 11:55

Yeah, there's people that will take their dog for a walk because they don't want their dog to be overweight, right? But they won't make the time to take themselves for a walk. To keep themselves in fitness. 

Erin 12:05

I think some of the limitation on that too comes from there's this idea that taking care of your health and being physically active is a bit of a luxury, right? It's a luxury in time. It's a luxury in finances if you're paying for a gym membership, or whatever. And so this idea that I'm being selfish if I'm carving out this time for my health, and so I don't want to be selfish because I want to make sure I'm giving to my team or giving to my family. And so we kind of easily just kind of, you know, sweep it under the rug. I'll do that tomorrow. Right? And yeah, it's something that we are saying to ourselves that we really need to change in my opinion.

Tim 12:48

Erin, I want to play you a little clip here and get your thoughts on it as we continue here. If you don't mind?

Audio Clip 12:52

Baby, I feel sorry for you. Did you forget your headphone? Stop being a girly man and work out. I don't have enough time. Which of course the biggest bullshit I’ve ever heard because we have 24 hours a day. You didn't have time for working out, you’re not having time for taking care of your body, are you out of your mind? You don't have time. Manage your time better. Okay? The gym is too busy, well then go at five in the morning, you forehead. Okay? Have you ever seen a gym at five in the morning? There's almost no one there. So, just get up early and go to the gym early.

Tim 13:28

So, Erin what do you think when we hear Arney speak there?

Erin 13:31

It's a bit tipsy. Right? But I mean, it makes you laugh. And there's so much truth to it. I mean, we do, we have a ton of time in our days, you know, are we scrolling for an hour? What are we doing that we can put something more positive in, you know, we get so much more out of it. Right? So, stop making excuses. If you need accountability, find someone that can keep you accountable, right? Whether that's your trainer, right? Well-educated trainer, or whether that's a good friend, that you guys are making a commitment to each other. But yeah, he's not wrong. Take care of your body.

Tim 14:05

It's funny because he talks about, you know, I love how he uses the term, you know, get up at five in the morning, you forehead. And I don't know if this is what he means. But I feel like half the time we're in our own brains. We talk ourselves out of stuff. Practically most people know why it's important to work out. Most people understand why it's important to put in the effort and put in the time and not slack on that, like we understand, theoretically, that people have to exercise. We've received all of the information for the most part. Very few people can claim to be ignorant, that it's not important to you know, at least be active if not engage in resistance training or do something cardiovascularly. So, we don't need a lot of science to tell us that's important. And in many cases, we know we feel better when we go and we do it. So, why in your experience, do people find it so hard? What are some of the excuses? Or baby excuses that you hear?

Erin 15:05

So many baby excuses. Yeah. I mean, one of the big ones is, well, I just don't have a full hour to dedicate, or like, you know, an hour and a half to dedicate, by the time I get there and then get back to the office. Yeah, so I just like to tell people like stop making it so rigid. Like nobody said, your workout has to be an hour, you have 20 minutes, go for a really nice brisk walk, call it a good one. Try again, tomorrow, right? Doesn't have to be this rigid time interval. So, that's definitely a big excuse that I've heard. The other one that I've heard is always this. Well, you know, my boss won't let me get away from the office. And I'm at the office for nine hours a day. And then there's an hour commute. So it comes down to that, I don't have time. Yeah. But then they tell me about all the TV shows that they watch when like, maybe you can be working out while you're watching those TV shows, I don’t know.

Tim 15:53

Yeah, or they take a bunch of time to record a podcast. When Sandra Sherry and Arnold Schwarzenegger mean. You know, if we think about the time issue, and we think that really we could break it up into different choices, 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there. Another team I'm working with, when we went through, and we were looking at getting back a sense of camaraderie and teamwork that they seem to have lost. We talked about one of the traditions that they had lost, one of their senior leaders or senior colleagues had always gone around and tapped everybody on the shoulder and said, Come on, we're going for a walk for 15 minutes. And then as the group got younger, and he started to question whether or not he was sort of had the same sway or, because it was lateral. He wasn't their boss, he was their colleague, he stopped doing it. And he assumed that nobody wanted to be bothered. And he felt like he was bothering people. But the interesting thing was, is that I talked to those younger staff, and they were all like, Man, I sure miss when so and so would tap me on the shoulder and say, Come on, let's just go for a walk. And I really miss that. And so it's funny how we talk ourselves into these excuses. And look, I'm no expert here, you've heard me talk myself into excuses all the time. I was dealing with a knee replacement but I had focused because I knew that if I didn't get that movement back, and it's turned out well. But if I didn't get it back in six weeks, I was not going to see significant improvement. But since then, like I fell on my can over the Christmas holiday and so I had a sore butt. That sore butt has been a pretty convenient excuse for not getting up and moving. Right? And it's really late at home to me just how rampant sitting disease or I don't know what we call it officially. But you know, spending a lot of time sitting in an office, working virtually, working on technical things, is such an easy way to see yourself slip. So, very quickly. And then the little pains in the age start to come in. And we have reinforcers that oh, you know, it's hard. And you know, I've talked about this, but why is that such a flawed formula? You’re hard on me, I'm alright with it.

Erin 18:24

That’s loaded. I mean, it is hard. But I feel like most of us when we think about okay, we need to go back to the gym. Like I said, it comes back to that rigidity, if it has to be me lifting weights at my max capacity, it has to be me going to the pool for an hour, it has to be right and it doesn't have to be. It’s so easy to just say this is going to be hard, and I'm going to be in pain and I won't be able to sit properly for a month after I start. So, I don't want to do that. I don't want to do that pain, right? And I think that like I said, your physical fitness needs to be and your physical health needs to come in as a lifestyle change, right? Go for a 20-minute walk. I am stressed out about all the things that have been flying at me on my keyboard today. I'm just going to take a moment and go for a 15-minute walk. And it might be brisk, or it might be strolling. You need to choose your own adventure in that right but stop getting wound up and all of the things that you think it has to be.

Tim 19:25

And it’s so counterintuitive, because if I feel really stressed, often it can be like Oh, I'm stressed I got so much to do. I better stay at my desk and slug it out, versus saying you know what? If I went for a 15-minute walk I'd probably come back and be even more productive. 

Erim 19:41

Absolutely, and there's there's tons of research that shows that that actually happens right? Even me, I had something come up just recently super stressed. I didn't know where to turn I needed to talk it out. I phoned up my bestie and I'm like we need to go walk the track because it's winter so we're walking the track instead of outside and you know we're gonna go do a workout. And we got five ways around the track. And I said, No, I still need to keep walking and venting. I can't I'm not ready to lift weights yet. And it was great. We had a, you know, short impromptu weight session after that, but there was no intention of doing weights. I just wanted to go for a walk and get it out. Right? So yeah, we just need to stop. And then just do. Yeah.

Tim 20:24

You forehead.

Erin 20:25

Yeah, I have one of my clients, they put a sticky note on their computer. And just when it gets hard, go for a walk, right? Or do 10 Push-ups, right, like, get away from that stress thing, the oh my gosh, my to-do list is 150 things long. And I only have 10 hours to do it in and just take 10 minutes, 15 minutes to yourself. They'll come back better.

Tim 20:49

Yeah. Julie has this thing. Again, Julie Freedman Smith is on the parenting side of our association here. But she talks about not having to be rigid around, Oh, we had a good day parenting and if in the first, let's say you have a messy morning, and then you know, the breakfast was kids were fired up. And it was they were whining and whatever. And then you're like, Oh, my whole day is shot now. She's like, What are you talking about? Like, there's another interaction coming around the corner, do well in that, like, start granulating your day down to saying, I can't get away for an hour, you've told me this, I can't go to the gym for an hour. So, I'm not gonna go. It's like, well, whatever, go to the gym for 20 minutes, or don't go to the gym, go to the grocery store and buy a couple of four litres of milk and walk home with them or do whatever, right? And it doesn't have to be fancy. Focus on the outcomes, not the definition of this is the only way to do it or your window is closed. Often it just we have to consider, is it our own limiting belief or our own definition of what things have to be that is flawed? There's a bunch of different ways to do it. And I remember seeing how people who are training for long-distance running. When you look at the much less affluent teams in Africa, when they're training distance runners. They have training regimes and equipment and stuff, which people would think comes from a junkyard half the time, it doesn't matter because they're focused on what's the roots of what they're trying to do. And what are the outcomes that they're seeking? They're not worried about how it shows up. It's just about getting it done in a way that's always moving towards progress. Because if they were locked into that they had to, you know, you're part of some community that doesn't have a lot of money and you're locked into some thinking that you have to have the latest and greatest equipment or you can't compete, they would never be showing the way that they're showing in the Boston Marathon or anything like that. They would be so paralyzed by all the things that can't be. 

Erin 23:00

Yeah, we need to we need to practice I feel being more a yes and when it comes to our fitness. Like, oh, my days crazy busy. I have to run to this meeting. And then I have to run with my kids. Yeah, and? Where can we put in 20 minutes of exercise? You dropped off your kids at the center, so they can go do their thing. And there's a gym right there that you have access to go spend 30 minutes, why not? Right? Yes, and, instead of the no, but. 

Tim 23:27

Yeah. I think of Gabby Reese, right? Gabby Reese is an Olympic volleyball player, married to Stuart Laird, the championship surfer. And I've talked about this before, she talks about this going first mentality where it's just like, sometimes you just need to risk it. Get off your biscuit and risk it. Right? So, what really makes it hard? Does life make it hard? Or the way we perceive life makes it hard?

Erin 23:58

Oh, the way we perceive it for sure. Right? That's a no-brainer to me.

Tim 24:04

One of the things I love about these conversations is I get to put myself forward as a proxy for the audience. You and I've had a lot of these conversations in part before, but it's always a rediscovery. I mean, and I'm being sincere here when I say every time I talk with you, it's enlightening. And I can't wait for other people to experience this when they get you one-on-one. But one of the emotions that this raises for me is I start to get really frustrated with myself. I start to be like, You know what, sweet, you know better than because right now, like I've told you, I mean, I'm dealing with a bit of back pain and the rest of it, but I know darn well when I was working at that university and I chose to walk back to the hotel instead of getting a cab and I'm rigged to walk back to the hotel, I wear certain shoes and I wear a backpack so that I can walk if I want to and I made that choice. The next day was better. I know what the math says. But I still, despite the knowing I managed to slip in behind and have to keep sort of vigilant about this stuff.

Erin 25:07

It doesn't easily become our lifestyle change, right? But giving yourself the opportunity to be ready for it right like wearing the right shoes, I have a backpack too, I'm ready to walk anywhere for any amount of time. And you know, it's late at night, I'll just hop in a cab instead, right? It becomes easy to like, take that second to stop and be like, No, I am equipped to walk back, I can do this, right? Any habit change is hard. So, when it comes to our fitness, just being able to give ourselves the best opportunity to just take that pause and say, Yeah, I'm gonna walk or I'm gonna do 10 Push Ups before I sit on the couch, or whatever it is, right? I like to give my clients these like tiny little challenges which amount to a lot when they stick with them. I think I've given you this one before Tim or like, I want you to go for at least a 20-minute walk every day. 

Tim 25:58

Or intentional movement 20 minutes a day. 

Erin 25:59

Intentional movement for 20 minutes, right, gives you a lot of opportunity to choose what that is. I've also given you the opportunity to do 50 pushups a day, they don't have to be all at once do 10 in the morning, before you get out of the bedroom and to the kitchen and do 10 more before, you know, sit back down at your desk, right? But eventually, I want you to do 50 in one day, and, and they can look all sorts of different ways. People say to me, I can't do a push-up. Great, but you can do a wall push-up. So, let's start there, right?

Tim 26:31

You can do a push-up against the stairs if you need to.

Erin 26:35

Yeah, so, when I'm working with my clients, I try to find, talk to them and find ways that we can add more movement into their day. So, that when they get to that one training session, or two training sessions, or three training sessions a week, they're not feeling like I haven't done anything since the last time I saw you. Right? Like, I want to give you that ability to just pause and say yes, and, every time you can. 

Tim 27:00

I like that, because it's you know, we often talked about pattern before perfection. I remember listening to one guy say, you know, even if you get in your car, and listen, he was talking about the gym, but he says even if you get in your car and you drive to the gym, you sit in the parking lot, you decide you're not going to go in, you drive home that it’s still better than having stayed in bed. Right? Because sooner or later, you're gonna figure out well, I'm already here, I'm going to go or whatever. And I think it doesn't have to be that complex. But like before you get nailed that, oh, I need to be cracking off 50 pushups the way I did when I was 18. Which I will say there's one thing that I think is really interesting, and that is for people who have been athletes in the past. And then if let things slip, I do believe there's like a mental barrier to come through because I've been a high performance, not professional, but I've been a high-performance high school athlete where I was, you know, captain of teams and wrestling and training all the time before my knees were shot. And I remember what those days were like, and I remember what it felt like, everything was in flow, and it was working. And then you know, you're like, Okay, well, I'm gonna try to do this again. And suddenly, it's like, well, wait a minute, guess what? You sit on your can for 20 years and yeah, burpees aren't gonna be that easy. So, we kind of disappoint ourselves. And then we get all in our heads.

Erin 28:26

So many of my clients have had this experience, like when I was 20. And like, yeah, you've sat on your butt for 20 years, right? Or I’ve even got the privilege of training some ex Olympic athletes, right? And they do the same thing. Oh, man, when I was training and like we always remember ourselves at our peak, we always remember what it felt like and how good we felt and how good we looked. When we are at the peak of our performance. We rarely ever remember what the first day felt like, right? And even myself, a competitive powerlifter, a couple of years, 2020-2021. I didn't train, I just wasn't lifting weights. It was not a possibility for me in my life and man got back into the gym and immediately wanted to go right back to Okay, this is where I stopped/left off training two years ago. Like, wait that's not where we start. And I was fortunate enough that I went through a back injury, which is what got me into powerlifting that I could remember, remember how crappy that felt when you started powerlifting. Let's go back to not the back injury, but just easing my way into it and giving myself the grace to come back to where I want to be, right? And like just because you were competitive 20 years ago, doesn't mean you to be competitive today. It's not necessarily about the competition, right? It's about making the best choices for yourself and your body so that you can make the best choices for your life.

Tim 29:53

So, one thing is that there's if we were to make sure we have that in the notes. The one thing is it's not about necessarily turning back to what you were capable of before. But accepting what means progress today. I think there's a counterpoint to that, that I'd like to talk about a little bit. And that is, sometimes we get very complacent about, we may be stuck with what we've got as well. So, then there's the other side of that, which is to say, it doesn't have to be what it was when we were 20 but there's lots to work on. And I'll give you a little story, when I was going through just recently here and getting a checkup on my knees and whatnot. So that involves getting a lot of X-rays and things like that. I was flipping through and researching, you know, this back issue and looking for, what does the skeleton look like? Just to educate myself. And I ran across some photos, and I'm gonna share one with you now. And I am going to put it in the show notes so that people can see it, and I'll put a link to it on the website, so people can take a look at this. And what this was, is I was going in for something called a scattergram, I used to have a leg that was almost three-quarters of an inch, but a centimetre shorter than the other, just through fluke or tremendous skill of my surgeon, now the Delta, the distance between leg length is less than two millimetres. And so I've got almost an equidistant leg length. And that's great, because my mechanics in my body are a lot more in line, although my body's getting used to it, which, you know, is still happening two years later. Anyway, I'm looking at these X-rays, and I'm gonna show these to you. One was sort of an illustration, the other was a full-body scan. And it was, you know, of people of various widths, I will say, I looked at these X-rays, you can see, well, the ones in illustration, you can see a simulation of two skeletons, which are the same skeleton. But one is showing a person that's carrying about 50 pounds, 80 pounds of extra weight, but the skeleton is the same size. And then when you look at people that might be the on the much more heavy, morbidly obese side of things, their skeleton is the same size as anybody else's. But sometimes in my mind's eye, and I'm a big guy, and you know, it's like, I'm more of a cartoon skeleton like we would have seen in WALL-E or something where this is all bone under here. Well it's not. I mean, my skeleton is still my 20-year-old skeleton, in a sense, it might be a little more beat up. But I've hung a ton of stuff off this frame. You know, I've hung sure muscle and stuff. But I've also hung a–

Erin 32:39

A little bit of adipose tissue. 

Tim 32:40

A little bit of pasta on some you know what it means, beer, is hanging off of there a little too much cheese and whatever. But you know, when I showed this to my wife, we were like, you know, this is actually quite a powerful image to have in your head to say, there is a delta here, there is a gap that we can close that it's possible, there's still this skeleton, this smaller form within us that we've decided to surround with things. So, from a weight loss perspective, because some people deal with that. There's so much potential, there's so much, so much can happen. And maybe for some people, it's more running distance, or cardiovascular or putting on muscle mass, or bone strength and bone density or whatever their particular gap is that they're closing. But it's not so much that you have to shoot for the old 20-year-old version of yourself. But what can you do today? Where's the potential? Because there's that saying, you know, if you want to know what you're committed to look at what you've got. And at the end of the day, there's only so many explanations for why a person could find themselves out of their own version of optimum health. People have different challenges in the rest of it. But are you doing the best with what you've got? Yeah, maybe you've got an endocrine issue, or you've got whatever, but are you doing the best you've got with that? 

Erin 34:19

Yeah, well, and I mean, there's this. Yeah, there's this evolution, right? I think that it's important for people to remember that. I mean, when I think back to when I was in high school, I was a competitive dancer, and I loved dancing. It was it was amazing. And, you know, I went to university and that wasn't an option anymore for me. And so I casually went to the weight room because I thought that should be something I was doing. And, you know, and then got into running when I came back from Australia because I was broke and I needed to do something physically active. Which by the way, I'm like, I admire runners because I ran every day or every six days a week for over a year, and I still don't enjoy running, so go runners. Good. Good on ya. Yeah, and then, you know, I after a back injury fell into powerlifting. And I mean, can I lift my leg over my head? Like I could and do the splits? Like I could when I was a dancer. Absolutely not. I cannot do that anymore. But that's okay. Because I became a runner for a short period of time I became a powerlifter. I took up mountain biking in 2020. And now I get to be a mountain biker, and I love cycling. So, I can bemoan the things that I don't have. And like, oh, well, I used to do this. And I used to love it. And my body used to be able to do this. Or I can say, Yeah, and I get to do this today, I get to fall in love with a new sport, a new activity, a new social engagement, right? So, I think that it's super important for all of us to just kind of be like, Yeah, we could do that. And that's okay, that this is where we're starting today.

Tim 35:57

So having that optimism and that openness, and that idea that things are possible, is important. And then there's the just, let's take a step. 

Erin 36:09

Yeah, let's let's put our heads down and be a bit serious about the fact that this is important to you, it's important to the people around you, and you need to get it done.

Tim 36:18

So, for people that are leading others, let's go back to this. That is our core mandate here, although we serve everybody, but for people that are leading others, maybe they’re parents, maybe they’re teachers, maybe they are working as leaders in a business, what would you like them to focus on when it comes to their particular set of excuses? If you could boil that down to sort of three key things that you think they should be taking away?

Erin 36:45

Three? Only three Tim? 

Tim 36:46

Okay, well, let's remove the number. What would you like people to think about?

Erin 36:51

I want people to think about the fact that when they're investing in themselves, in their health, in their wellness, it's not selfish, right? Like, this is not that you're taking away time from your team or taking away time from your family, it's that you're giving yourself back in an even better way. Right? Be a bit hard with yourself about making sure you're being active, there's so much benefit to being physically active. We have so much research to support that. Make sure you carve out that time, right? Whether it's daily, this time works for me 5 am, every morning, and let your spouse know that and you don't get into the office until seven, if that happens, or whatever time it is, right? I don't like daily, my schedules change every single day. So, I like sitting down on Sundays and planning weekly. But you know, you have to find out what works for you. Right? And then yeah, whatever excuse there is, find a best friend, whether it's yourself or whether it's an actual best friend to say, okay, yeah, that's just a roadblock that you're putting in the way let's find a way around that. Right?

Tim 37:55

When we deal with personal achievement, or making change in an organization or making change as I work with people around their careers, and coach them, it's important that one person's incentive is not necessarily going to work for somebody else. Do you understand yourself because if we think about some of the key ways in which a person is gonna see success, can they translate that into some into a currency that works for them? Some people, it's going to be achievement, it's going to be, you know, running a race or getting a bucket list thing off their life list. For other people, it will be social. For other people, it's going to be doing it because it's logical, and they enjoy the science behind it or something along those lines. Other people will be witnessing their own improvement. And other people, it'll be that sense of control, like so much today, we can trace back to longevity efforts, and those kind of things. And I mean, it's a million other things. But it's not all about you, sport. And it's not about like, No, all of those things can make us not just better for ourselves, but better for everybody that cares about us and the people that rely on us. And you know, that idea of it being just selfish. What a cop-out because it's like, what's really selfish is the fact that you're willing to liquidate yourself, you know, nobody will enjoy you and you won't be nice to be around and you'll be frickin miserable or whatever. You know, find your currency man. Holy moly, maybe that's money. I did this exercise and I remember telling you about it. But I figured out that every pound I carry that's extra costs me I figure and if you ever want to know the formula, feel free to give me a ring. But I figure costs me about $2,700 in productivity and marketing potential. And I've got real justifiable reasons for that. I actually think that it limits my market potential, I think it limits my productivity and confidence and everything that a person in my position who motivates others and has to inspire others can't afford. You cannot give away what you don't have. As we wrap up here, tell us, what's one thing that you're working on that's got you really excited? What's something that's coming up in your future? What's on your Horizon that fires you up, personally? 

Erin 40:28

Oh, for the first time, no, that's not true. Not the first time, I've put my entire summer towards coaching mountain biking and training clients exclusively. And so it's been this really fun balance of figuring out where I'm going to be on my mountain bike, but also having access to my clients when I need to be with them. And so I'm really excited about my summer I have coming up. For me, any day on my bike, it's a good day, except that one time, no, I'm kidding. Yeah. So, I'm really excited about my summer. It's kind of a bit of an experiment to kind of juggle this mountain bike coaching gig and my business. So yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to.

TIM 41:14

You know how deep TWE is in that. So, stay tuned, everybody. If people want to get in touch with you, where should they look for?

Erin 41:21

Right now I'm working on a new website. It's not up yet. But as soon as it is, I will send it to Tim, best way to get a hold of me is my email address, which is [email protected]. Fire me an email and I'll get back to you right away, we can set up a virtual call and or an in-person call if you're in the area, and we can get you rolling on whatever questions you have, or whatever fitness journey you're wanting to embark on, for sure.

Tim 41:49

And for any of you that are already under contract with me, remember that Erin is part of the TWE team. And so, I'm not trying to be possessive there. I'm saying until you get your website up and we link to it. You can always find her at TWE.teamabout and take a look at everything awesome about Erin there. So, you are easy to get a hold of we're gonna make sure all of those dates are in the show notes. Okay, tell me a little bit about, if there's one takeaway that you could say, everybody here and you mentioned it a little bit earlier. But recap for me at this point in the conversation for everybody listening? What do you hope for them? What's your wish for them? 

Erin 42:31

Yeah, my wish is that everyone knows that investing in their health and their wellness is going to always give back in so many new ways, and so many different ways and all other aspects of their life. 

Tim 42:46

So, like any other change program, or investment we would make in business or any institution that we're working on. Let's take a look at this is not an area of cost. This is an area of investment. And we have to see it that way. And recognize it. Recognize it for all the good stuff it gives us back. Okay, awesome. Erin, I just want to tell you how happy I am that you took the time with me today to go through this and I know it's going to do a lot of good for a lot of people. And I can't wait to see how the world opens up for you. And for everybody that you help.

Erin 43:21

Oh, thanks, Tim. Super appreciated being on today and I had a lot of fun.

Tim 43:25

Thanks so much for joining us.

Tim 43:33

Thank you so much for listening to Sweet on Leadership. If you found today's podcast valuable consider visiting our website and signing up for the companion newsletter, you can find the link in the show notes. If like us, you think it's important to bring new ideas and skills into the practice of leadership. Please give us a positive rating and review on Apple Podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders. And you can spread the word too by sharing this with your friends, teams and colleagues. Thanks again for listening. And be sure to tune in in two weeks time for another episode of Sweet on Leadership. In the meantime, I'm your host, Tim Sweet, encouraging you to keep on leading. 

Tim 44:12

Hey, did you have fun?

Erin 44:17

I had a ton of fun, Tim. 

Tim 44:19

Awesome. We’ve got some great people coming up. If you were to give me a question to pose to them that I guarantee I will ask them what would be a question you'd like me to throw by other leadership experts? 

Erin 44:32

Yeah, I want to know when does the imposter syndrome stop as a leader? Yeah.

Tim 44:37

Yeah. We'll make sure to talk about that. Newsflash. It never stops. 

Erin 44:41

Oh, good. I'm not alone. 

Tim 44:42

No, that's fine. But we didn't learn to deal with it in a much different way. And it can actually believe it or not, can be something that's an area of strength for you. So, stay tuned. We're gonna get somebody else to weigh in on that question. Thanks again, Erin.

Erin 44:58

Thanks, Tim. 

Tim 44:59

Okay, Big hugs