Healthy Habits That Stick and Build Entrepreneurial Resilience

Let me set the stage for an engaging and informative discussion, that will spark curiosity for my next guest interview focused on sticky habits for vitality and resilience. Have you ever wondered how some people manage to not just survive but thrive in both their personal and professional lives? What if I told you that secret lies in seeding healthy habits in ways that enable them to take root.

INTRO

Welcome to the Leveraged Business Podcast, where we dive deep into the insights, stories and strategies that help entrepreneurs to earn more, work less, grow faster, and rise resilient. If you’re just joining us for the first time. I’m your host, Jay Allyson, and today we have a “truly” special episode that you won’t want to miss.

My next guest is Annika Ek, an evolutionary nutritionist, holistic health coach, and founder of TrulyU, and we’ll be talking about what that means in practice and how to build some sticky habits for vitality and resilience.

Annika is a client and a friend who I had a fun trip to see in Ottawa last March. She has an innovative approach to holistic health and entrepreneurial success for herself, and her clients.

PREFER TO LISTEN?

Today we’re joined by Annika Ek. an evolutionary nutritionist who has transformed the lives of countless women by helping them embrace self-care and wellness as a cornerstone of success. Annika is not only a nutrition expert, but also a seasoned entrepreneur who combines ancient wisdom with modern techniques to empower women everywhere.

In this episode, Annika is going to share her journey from battling auto immune challenges within her own family to pioneering her unique brand of wellness that integrates functional nutrition, mindfulness, and holistic self-care. Her approach is self-compassion first. She helps women unlock their full potential by fostering resilience, vitality. and a profound sense of purpose.

So, if you’re ready to transform the way you look at health and success, let’s dive right into my conversation with Annika and discover how you too can live a life filled with meaning impact and incredible health.

INTERVIEW

JAY: Today I have Annika Ek. Welcome to the Leveraged Business Podcast, Annika. It’s so great to have you here today.

ANNIKA: Thank you, Jay. I’m actually really excited to be chatting with you on these topics that are very close to my heart, as you know.

JAY: I know, I know. We’ve worked together for a fair while now, and I know part of your brand is very much about compassion, self-compassion first, so we’ll dig into some of that.

ANNIKA: It’s nice to take some time – just to make sure that the fun and the passion is still there and that you’re really going in the right direction, right? Because it’s a refinement. You can’t just keep going with the vision I had a year ago, it’s very similar, but there’s subtleties that change because of everything I’ve done over the last year and the clarity I hopefully achieved.

JAY: That’s so right. In fact, that does kind of dovetail on some of the conversations I’ve had around resilience because sometimes we keep powering on and we keep pushing something that we’re holding on to very tightly, when actually creating that space allows you to sort of think differently about it.

And leverage is as much about working on yourself – you know, you are your best asset. Some of that was what was coming up for people in terms of their blockages, not the business mechanics side of it, but in the personal side of it.

And I say, I thought like I’ve got these wonderful women I work with and they, you know, they all tackle challenges and change in different ways. And it’s about being resilient and that was a word that kept coming up. So, I’ve got rising resilient as the working title, as you know, and tackling challenges and changes in your life and business with confidence, compassion, and courage.

What part of the theme that I just talked about sort of speaks to you the most, and why?

Well, I think resilience really is something that I hear loud and clear because I know what it’s like when you don’t have resilience and you know, when you bump up against life and you’re not able to do what you want to do.

In a way there’s two things that can happen when we’re out of step. One is that we don’t know what we want to do, but we have our health, but you still don’t have resilience because you’re not doing something that’s meaningful to you.

And what I experienced when I went through a period of some health challenges was that I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn’t have the health or the energy or the motor to do it. And that was a very painful place to be in. And I realized we need both. We need our health, which is that driver or motor, so we can actually fill our lives with those things we’re called to do.

JAY: Very good. So, for context here, tell us a little bit about the work that you do and the clients that you work with, how you help them.

ANNIKA: My basic training, is in holistic health. I’m a nutritionist. I’m also studying wisdom studies on a PhD level. So that’s sort of my secret sauce, but it’s really about building health and resilience and longevity, so we’re able to fill the longer and longer lifespans we’re having, you know, especially in the West and making the health span equally long, so we can actually support the life goals that we have.

I mainly serve women over 40 and I call it midlife. And my midlife may seem a little different than when people hear the word midlife because I bookend it from our forties to our late seventies. And there’s a reason for that, that I can talk a little bit more about later, but as long as we are active in our life, I think we’re in the middle of our life.

Cool. So, we’ll probably hop around between your life experiences and your resilience, and how you help clients with theirs as part of what you do. But can you share a little bit about first of all, your clients that you support and giving all that’s happening over the years. And yes, we’re living longer, but we want to have this vitality. How does lack of health and energy, as you described it, how do they show up for them when you first kind of talk to a client? What’s it looking like?

Well, it depends. Some people, I guess most people, when they look for nutritionists, there’s something going on in their body physically, but a close second or maybe even first tier is about managing what’s going on in life and stress and anxiety. But it’s often low energy or fatigue or inconsistent energy, and a health challenge may pop up.

There may have been an injury or a diagnosis or something going on, something that’s sort of is upsetting -something that make people realize you need some help. Or there’s usually a triggering event before somebody takes a step to get help. Things have reached a point where you know, it’s not okay anymore.

And for some women, it’s also just, they’ve gained too much weight, especially during the pandemic. A lot of people ended up changing their habits, they were getting movement into their days without much conscious effort and suddenly that stopped, combined with everything that happened during the pandemic, and all these pounds or kilos later, they don’t feel at home in their body anymore. And what we look like in other people’s eyes and it may be a trigger.

I never work with people only to lose weight because I think weight loss is sort of a side effect, a possible side effect of other things when it comes to working on health at a deeper level, but it could be one of those things that brings someone to a nutritionist.

JAY: In a sense, you’re way more than just a nutritionist in the traditional sense, like your GP may send you to a nutritionist who then sorts out like what’s wrong with your diet and generally judges you. Whereas what you do is a lot more holistic where you’re really listening to the person and what’s going on for them.

You mention triggers because when I was speaking to Leah [in the previous episode 111], she was talking about three stages, almost like a process of clues, warnings, and then crisis.

So tell me a little bit about triggering. I mean, you said low energy, weight gain, fatigue. How else might this show up? Because I’m sure there’s lots of people listening who maybe that’s their life, right? That’s what they have. So when does it become something that takes you to look for solutions?

ANNIKA: Yeah, well, what you just said is kind of sad because people associate getting older, getting into our 40s 50s 60s and even 70s, that’s what it has to be like, but that’s also where we’re misinformed. Because often there’s inflammation or “inflamma-aging” behind that and there’s so much we can do.

A big focus of the work I do is often about anti-inflammatory approaches to eating, cooking and living because that’s so powerful. And we think we have to feel worse. But I feel better now than I did 10 years ago. Right? And that’s not uncommon if you’re able to get these things right, along with being on purpose. But people get used to this.

That’s why they think it has to be like this. And then they reach a point where, okay, I am about to have a grandchild, but I can’t sit on the floor and get up, or, you know, my husband is retiring, we want to start traveling, but I can’t anymore. I gained so much weight my knees are giving out or things like that.

Being an entrepreneur we all know it takes a lot. And I think health challenges, life challenges, and being an entrepreneur, these are like if you compare going to the gym and lifting weights for us. We need something to work with. Because all of this is personal growth, right?

And that’s why I like that you say that I’m more than the regular nutritionist. The reason I don’t do that approach, because I used to, is that it doesn’t work. It’s not sustainable, because we have to become someone else to be able to do those things. We can only willpower for so long, but we need a paradigm shift to start like swimming in a different ocean.

So it becomes. more joyful versus the chore or something we’re gonna do because we’re following somebody else very detailed plan from like exactly how to make a smoothie to take supplements for 7 days, 14 days, whatever it is. But then when that’s over, the pendulum always swings back if it’s not rooted and it often swings further back than when we were when we started.

And then it leads to a lot of negative self-talk. It’s like: Oh, I failed again. We always put it on ourselves. And then it’s like: Oh, what’s the point of trying again. Right? But the problem is not you, the woman; the problem is the approach. That’s why I’ve sort of, I keep going back a step and back a step, and that’s why I’ve come to this thing that we need to change the paradigm, how we do things, and it doesn’t happen overnight, but at least if we know to consciously choose. I call it our adventure because the default usually doesn’t work. We know where to go. We know where to start, right?

And then, it’s a different impact and the impact can be huge.

I’ve worked with women who say, because of what I call wisdom practices or other may want to call them spiritual practices that I always include in my courses and when I work with somebody – I’ve worked with women who’ve never stopped to take care of themselves or to listen to themselves and realise they can actually connect for the first time – and they’re saying like I used to be so afraid of you know what happens after death and when life is over. I thought I’ll just go go go go I’m not gonna stop and look, but she said like I’m not afraid anymore. I’m connected and that’s like it wasn’t even deep spiritual work but just having that gap to let that light in right so to get that perspective.

And I think that’s very rewarding to hear that I can make that kind of shift for somebody as they’re working on health, but just weighing those equally the inner and the outer. That’s what I’m big on because they support each other. And if we live in half, it doesn’t work.

Wow, there’s so much I’d love to dive into. I’ve written some notes down so I can come back to some things. Something. I remember someone saying a while ago always stuck with me: it’s like, when I get to the pearly gates, I don’t want to kind of just turn up with my head bowed, I want to arrive like sliding in saying What a Ride!

To come back to where you started on not just assuming that this is what happens when you get old and it must be old age, but you’re missing, it’s almost a grief of missing the energy that you had, and that you need to do the stuff you still want to do. And as you said, as entrepreneurs, there’s always a bunch of stuff that we want to do. We’ve still got impact to have on the world, and our bodies are kind of letting us down. And then we beat ourselves up about all of that. So it’s like this circular thing that we do.

So I know that one of the things that you talk about is how to create healthy habits that stick. I can come back to that, but I think it’s particularly about how do you unpack some of these layers? We’ve just thrown a whole load of stuff up in the air. What do you tackle first? Cause you mentioned consciously choose about how we think about these layers, aches and pains and emotions it brings and that feeling of failure. How do you get into it? Cause it feels like everything’s connected to everything else. Where do you start?

Yeah. Well, first it’s about being okay with where you are, you know, to stop fighting that. And just a huge part of surrender to what is. You probably heard, what you resist persists, you know, I don’t know who said that, but it’s a saying that I’ve used for many years because that’s like, okay, you’re here now. You’re not going to be somewhere else.

Cause that’s power in accepting where you are, and then meeting the person where they are with the resources that they have available to them and then understanding first their life goals, and then create health goals that will support those life goals. Because the health goals, they don’t exist in a vacuum, right?

So, because we need something to motivate us when the going gets tough. And when we’re learning new things, it’s going to get a a little tough sometimes, right? But it’s not meant to be something that we willpower or white knuckle ourselves through, because that’s not sustainable like we talked about before.

So, it has to really meet the person where they are. And the framework that I use is: first we choose, we decide, and we start a practice around being, choosing consciously self-compassion first. Because otherwise the default that’s going to be driving everything we do after is the patriarchy of women, that we’re never enough, we have to look different in other people’s eyes, we have to do different, we have to do for others to have value, and all these things, along with, you know, living in a material world where only the physical reality and accumulation of things is valued. Right?

So we have to work on that. That’s sort of in the background. And if we lose that, we just step back and we always work on that. But if you feel like the other things, when you start to take action, if that doesn’t work, you have to go back and do more of that. I think of it as putting money in the bank, so you have something to withdraw on when you’re going to start doing things. Because that’s like the first circle is choosing self-compassion first, because then you don’t start from deficit, like we do otherwise, we have something to draw on.

The other circle is what to do, which I call it your outer game. And in a way, there’s no shortage of information what to do. There’s so much out there. We’re bombarded with, you know, do this, do that. There’s this supplement. There’s this miracle thing. So that’s where my expertise over 20+ years as a holistic health professional, mainly nutritionist and working with a functional paradigm, I can go in and see what the person needs.

And it always starts with a big history where they’ve been, where they are and where they want to go. And then to create a plan that works for that person that combines the food we eat and just when we eat, how we eat, the state of mind we are when we eat, and all of that. Then we get a plan.

But then the third one is what I call the inner game. That’s when we’re actually going to do it. That’s when the rubber hits the road, right? People think it’s the big choices in life that shape our lives, you know, who you’re going to marry, what work you’re going to do, what are you going to study at university. But what is really shaping our lives, especially as women in this big portion we call midlife from 40 to late 70s, is really the little everyday choices is what shapes our lives.

When we’re in this age bracket, we really have to accept, I guess, and come to terms to that it’s the little everyday choices that seem so unimportant in the moment that shape our lives. It shapes how much energy we’re going to have, and are we able to turn on those longevity genes and get the physiology that we are looking for, whatever changes that is. And the more we can reduce the gap between what we really want – when we sit together and make that plan for you – and what you want in the moment when you’re rushed between calls on Zoom, and all of that.

So what you want in that moment, the smaller that gap can be, the easier it’s going to be, but it’s part of that work of the inner game is actually working on that. Then just catching our own self-sabotaging habits. I call it the negative space. If we say, Oh, I don’t know what I do, but then we just watch, you know, if we can watch and see what shows up and then we have something to work with. – and consciously.

Because we all know this feeling: at the end of the day, we’re tired. We don’t know what to make for dinner. You know, it happens to everybody. Because part of it is we’re too tired to think. We’re too tired to think about that.

So that’s where being smart and having the thinking done ahead of time, you just learn how to think about these things, having simple formulas, to make it easy so we’re actually able to make good choices, even in those moments becomes powerful. Whatever that person needs. And that’s what I help them troubleshoot, especially with one-on-one clients, but even in group coaching, because you don’t really know it till you see it, because you have to observe.

And doing it without judgment. This is what happened. Oh, interesting. What kind of problem was it? Is it because I don’t have a resource or a tool or is it because I have too much inner resistance, or is it because I need more coaching and accountability? Is that why I’m not doing it? I did it last week when I was, you know, reporting to a group or a coach. The people have to know what’s going on and then we can troubleshoot for it.

Because those daily choices, it’s not about 100%, right? Because life is not like that. It’s enough so it tips the scale, that’s when you’re able to get habits to stick.

And it has to be something we want to do, that you want when you’re honest with yourself, when you’re calling in your higher self, like when you’re sitting there in a parasympathetic, restful state, that has to be something you want in that state.

If it’s not, it’s never going to work.

JAY: So let’s just take stock for a minute. What I’m hearing Annika is that you’re starting from a place of surrender. So number one, accept where you are. And it’s definitely the whole outer game and inner game. And I would tell people to go to your website and learn more about that because it’s an important thing. And it’s often that we’re playing only one of those games.

And, second, it’s the little everyday choices in the moment. And that’s what I wanted to come back to. Because reconnecting with your goals was something else you said in terms of accept where you are, reconnect with your goals.

It’s that playoff between the short-term moments that you talk about and those choices and the kind of grab and go, or skip the walk because I’ve got too much to do -and all sorts of things that we’ve talked about over the series – versus the long-term gains that are going to get you to your goals, right? The ability to, you know, sit on the floor with your grandkids or whatever examples you gave earlier.

It’s really hard, I think, for people to connect the short-term joy of a piece of chocolate or a glass of wine, whatever is your thing, with the longer-term health benefits that you’re trying to get to, or the outcomes that you’re trying to get to.

How do you help people really connect the two, so they stay motivated to not just give up on those moments, and that they do make those choices.

ANNIKA: Yeah, one thing that I hear when you say those things, you can’t have the chocolate or the wine is that you think: Oh, I can’t do this. I’m a foodie. I like these things. And that’s not what it is. Because I have those things when I want to. And that’s not what it’s about. It’s about the framework around those things.

And sometimes depending on what, where you are and what your health goals are, what are your negotiables, what are your non-negotiables. So, I can have my chocolate if I have it at this time of the day, but if I eat it all the time and I have it, you know, at six in the morning and at between 10 and 11 at night, it’s a very different impact.

So it’s not about denying ourselves if we think that’s what the only solution is. It’s never going to work. Right? And I’ve worked with clients who says, I’ve never eaten better in my life. I’ve never had such tasty food as when I learned this new way of cooking.

JAY: Yeah, so is it more about creating new boundaries for yourself so it can be the same things that you’re doing, but do enough or less of them to tip the scale, that was a key expression. Rather than saying, I can’t do these things, or I have to stop having these things. That feels like, as you say, denial but to create boundaries around those things, so that you’re regulating the level or the frequency.

ANNIKA: Yeah, well for example, I don’t eat gluten. I haven’t eaten gluten for basically 10 years. And for me, that’s a non-negotiable because of whatever all the health impacts and, especially with my health history, it’s not a good choice. That’s a non-negotiable.

But other things, I eat chocolate. I eat dark chocolate. I love dark chocolate. I eat like 88 to 92 percent chocolate. And that’s like a massive treat for me and it’s not something I’m limiting a lot and it’s like, it’s just something I enjoy and but I don’t eat it like early in the morning. I don’t eat it late at night. I eat it during certain hours. I give my body enough time to clean out and repair and all those things. So if we understand and respect our body, see our body as a trusted companions. This is something I use a lot in my coaching and my course, in the first class that we connect with our bodies.

Trusted companion is a term that I heard from Dr. Pinkola Estés. She’s the woman who wrote Women Running With Wolves. I love that way of seeing us, our relationship with our bodies as our trusted companion. And, you know, we feed our bodies when we’re hungry. We give ourselves water when we’re thirsty, we let ourselves sleep when we’re tired, and that we’re caretakers, right? Because as women, we’re such good caretakers. For our kids, for our partners, for other people, for the people at the office. And then when it comes to ourselves, we’re not able to be the caretaker.

And it often starts with just, okay, how is this relationship? Is there any trust? If I say I’m going to do this and I don’t do it? So it’s a lot about building trust at the beginning. If I say I’m going to do X, I do X. And the key is to start really small. Because if we start too big, we get into that pendulum swing again, and we never get anywhere. So it’s about having small wins we can actually build on it.

And if we only do a few key things at a time, and when we have those under our belts, we can do more, that’s how we’re able to build. Then climb that mountain. So we can get into the cool, exciting new research on how we turn on certain longevity genes. But there’s no point starting with that if we’re not doing the basics, right?

Just like why start taking a lot of fancy supplements if we don’t have the foundations in place? That’s asking too much of the supplements because it’s – you hear it in the name – it’s supplemental to something else, right?

Yeah, that makes sense. I’ve never thought of it like that, actually.

It doesn’t work, you know, maybe people don’t realize some things are subtle, but it’s also the fundamental stuff, like, are you drinking enough water? Are you getting enough sleep, right? And yes, this is where I am. This is where I’m starting from. So it’s about building that foundation along with the trust and seeing that you have this most important relationship with your body that you’re walking with you. You’re like a soul in a body. It’s like this relationship all along. It’s with you from your first to your last breath. So becoming aware – conscious awareness, we’re aware, but it’s like, whatever.

And then writing that letter, you know, a lot of clients find that powerful. That like, cleans the slate.

JAY: Yeah, people have talked about journaling as like just get the emotion out of what you’re feeling. And you said earlier, it’s kind of funny because you said wisdom is your secret source and we’ve talked about this in coaching. And yeah, actually also talking about eating and cooking. So that’s another kind of secret sauce.

And it’s interesting because obviously when we talk about resilience, a lot of it from entrepreneurs’ point of view, you know, like the listeners of this show are mostly small business owners, coaches and consultants, the self-employed. And so a lot of it is about how do we keep going in the face of adversity.

We talk a lot about mindset and mindfulness, et cetera. But what you shared today is a lot more also about feed the body and the mind will follow kind of thing. Like sometimes our mind plays against us because we feel so tired and as you said low energy and those things then that’s the story we start to tell ourselves. And the mind and the body is so connected, and you even brought the soul into what you just said there as well.

So what I’d love to hear from you is just to circle all of that wonderful goodness and great advice into, like, resilience and resilience generating habits and habits that stick, etc. It’s just to focus us back on why do these things make us stronger, keep us going in a way that feels easier than like, there’s more stuff I’ve got to do.

ANNIKA: Yeah, we have to realize where we’re starting. We’re starting from having trained all our life, and especially, Western world, Europe and North America, there’s this availability of all these things that aren’t good for us. It’s become so easy, right? So we have to start realize where starting point is and how many rocks we have in our backpack, so we can become aware of those and take them out.

And the quick fix? It doesn’t work like that, especially if you live the conventional way of eating and living, what society has trained us to do, as consumers. So if you realize that it hasn’t been great the last 70 years. It hasn’t been that uplifting for us if we just take what society gives us.

We’ve had all the chemicals coming in, and the pollution in the water, the air. And then with the screens and then 24/7. Our starting point is way down. Then if we think: Oh, I’m just going to start eating more salad and everything’s going to be better. But we have to realise where we are and this is going to require my attention. It’s going to be one of the things where I need support on a consistent basis. Cause I know I do better when I keep learning and keep getting supported.

It doesn’t have to be a massive amount of time, but find someone to follow that you resonate with, so you always get inspiration and motivation and learning that fits where you are. Just thinking it’s a one and done, I think that’s the fallacy because the world we live in is not like that. Plus that we’re in bodies that keep changing, right?

So, as we get older – and if I can tie back to why I call midlife 40 to 79 because these are like the bookends because the rules of the game change physiologically. And usually as a woman, you probably know that nobody told you that the rules changed as you moved into your 40s, because we can’t get away with, you know, the late nights, the working crazy hours, eating whatever we feel like without gaining weight, drinking alcohol and being able to get going early the next morning, may not work so well anymore, right?

So the rules have changed and they change again, sometime as we get older, and what I mean by that is that we have a window of opportunity where we are able to benefit from all these interventions we can do, whether it’s how we eat, when we eat, what we eat, the supplements we take, the movement we do.

Because there’s so much cool science out there and I love following the latest, and we can benefit from that. We’re able to see the shifts. Because the saddest thing is when somebody is so sick that it doesn’t matter what they do because the body has to be able to respond to whatever we do. It’s the life force in our body that responds, and that gets less the older we get.

I don’t want to say 65 is the end of midlife, like if you Google when is midlife or you ask ChatGPT, it’s going to say 40 to 65. I don’t agree with that because I see so many women in their 70s, as I’m sure you do, who are full of vitality and energy and entrepreneurial spirit, right?

JAY: Men too, I mean, let’s not forget, it’s the same for men, just different things at play. Yeah.

ANNIKA: Yes. Yeah. Eventually it will happen to all of us that we’re not able to respond the same way, but it’s a window of opportunity, so take it. Because it’s gradually closing for all of us – it’s just cellular aging.

There’s a lot of things happening, but just remember that we don’t have forever to make these changes, but whatever we do in a day, it has to be something we consciously engage in. There’s no quick fix. But it can be joyful and can be fun. It can be community.

Often what happens when we start caring for ourselves differently, we change on the inside too. It’s an inside out, outside in game. It may be an inside shift that makes us take the first step, but then it feeds back into you get more clarity, you get more purpose.

And maybe you don’t even want that food that was so vibrant, you know, technicolor, and calling your name when you walk by, maybe you don’t want it anymore. Maybe it loses power over you. That’s what will happen if you’re able to stick with it. Because you change -our bodies every seven years, we’re completely different.

And the good thing is that for our taste buds and things, it’s like within a week, we have new taste buds. And let’s use that because that overly seasoned, salty, sweet corn syrupy thing is not going to taste good if you don’t have it for a period of days. The new taste buds, they’re going to be shocked. They’ve only tasted an apple. The sweetest it had was a piece of melon, right?

The body has so much healing, regenerative power, if we’re able to align ourselves with that. Then of course we have to become friends with ourselves and realize that we’re caretakers for ourselves, and that we’re enough, and that we are living in our trusted companion that we’re all lucky enough to have.

JAY: It’s quite a shock to the system that we all need is we don’t have forever to make these changes. That’s what’s jumped out. I know in one of your ebooks, which I think is on your website, you talk about centurions, and actually there’s a lot of surprises in there, things that you wouldn’t have thought of. There was a program as well the blue zone, where they also talked about a lot of different places where people were living longer and why that is. I do think if you have your energy and your vitality, you are more resilient for whatever life throws at you.

Part of me thinks that actually that holistic way of looking at it is your positive superpower for rising resilient, that you live what you teach as well. But I’ll let you answer that question. What would you say is your positive superpower for being resilient?

ANNIKA: Yeah, well, I’ve experienced firsthand. Chronic health conditions is something that a lot of people in my family had growing up, my parents and then uncles and all that. I saw serious illness and I realized, oh, wow, like from a young age. And then I’ve experienced in my own family, myself being sick a few times and I always go deeper. I’m a learner. So I always go deeper and like problem solve. Yeah. And then I implement and then I see shifts.

And that’s part of the approach that I have now that I call like the TrulyU way because it’s a way of living -again, it’s not a quick fix. How that came to be because sometimes when life, when we get hit by something, it could be a serious illness or a family member gets a serious illness, whatever it is, we need something to draw upon.

And that’s where, for me, I guess, I’ve always been a spiritual person, not in a religious way, but I’ve always had that connection naturally, but I’ve made it more conscious in the last decade and realized that if we slice and dice our day, like now I’m doing my wisdom practice, oh, now I’m on my call for work, and I’m doing this meeting, that’s how we burn out.

But if we’re able to be in that moment and in every, now person we interact with, we realize that we’re on this journey together and not take it so seriously. Because we do a lot of very important things, but we don’t have to be so serious about them. I think that’s something I’ve learned from all these things.

And this is just, like I said doing weights in the gym, we’re supposed to face challenges. Once you realise that it’s I’m just doing my day’s work. And at the end of the day, I shut down my computer, I go down to the kitchen and start making dinner with my family. We put on music and I just completely, I don’t work at night. I don’t, because I know I need.

Even if the work I would do, it wouldn’t be good. And I did, many years ago I did and I burnt out. This is when my kids were little and my husband travelled a lot. I would sit hammering away at my computer and doing very non-productive things, but I wouldn’t get enough sleep and I would be tired. And eventually I got, I got sick again. I got burnt out. It’s like, hang on a second, this doesn’t make sense.

So, I keep those boundaries. When I work, I’m able to be I guess engaged and come at it from a place where it’s joyful and you can keep going, you know, in spite of it’s ups and downs, right? That’s part of it.

JAY: Totally, totally. Sometimes we don’t see in ourselves what other people see. I mean, I always see you as someone that turns up with a smile even when you’re struggling with something you know, that’s taxing and difficult and complicated and all of that is that you approach things with that curiosity and that learning and I’m going to make this work.

But you also have the boundaries in place where, it’s tools down, time for family and you’ve got that balance that I think we’re all seeking. And I always like to think I sort of show up with a bit of a smile and a joke, but you know, we all have heavy days where we don’t really feel like it and shut ourselves off. But the energy side of it, I think it’s really a big one for a lot of entrepreneurs. So I’m really glad that you spoke a lot about that today.

I mean, it’s funny because I have a PhD in biophysiology, you know, that’s my field. I know how the body works. I know all the hormones and I know all these bits and pieces of like how different foods affect and impact us. And yet you still fall into the trap.

So it’s not a lack of knowledge. It’s, in a way, a lack of making a connection to your goals and then taking some action and something that’s an easy step to take to make that first transition to start doing something differently. Because as you say we’ve not got forever. So make a start, even if it’s a small thing. That’s what I’ve got a lot of today. I hope that that’s useful for other people listening as well.

I’m just amazed. I think we can, we’re always when we get together is so much we can talk about business, but we can also talk about a load of this stuff as well, because I think we’re both fascinated by it all.

So thank you so much for joining us. And I know it feels like short time, but it’s been amazing and great insights. Thank you, Annika.

ANNIKA: Lots of fun. Thank you. And thank you for bringing attention to this. You know, we need to be whole people, right. To really do what’s meaningful as well.

JAY: Very true, and not trying to fix it all at once and like, you know, just wave some big wand and join some program and then all of a sudden, it’s going to be fixed. But yeah, those daily habits that stick is something that I always remember from your work.

So thank you so much. We’ve gone a little bit long.

ANNIKA: What else is new? You and me go long? Never happened before.

JAY: Absolutely. There’s always lots to cover. Lots to dive into. But it’s great.

ANNIKA: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for having me and I’ll see you tomorrow.