Hey folks, and welcome back to another episode of your Brain's Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brain's Coach and it is my job here to bring to you, discover with you, share, all the amazing, exciting, applicable to your life, effective and very often fun to explore brain-body tools, all with the purpose to help you take better control of your thoughts, of your emotions, of your actions, most importantly, so you shape the life experience that you absolutely love living right and Right. And hydration. Just as I was speaking to you, I remembered that I needed to hydrate a little bit more to keep myself buzzing and speaking fluidly. Hydrate, hydrate, folks. By the way, even 2% dehydration makes your brain perform worse, you do everything, absolutely everything, worse, and your mood goes down and your energy goes down when you don't hydrate well. So for me personally, it's two liters a day, no matter what if I have to pee a little bit more often than pee it. So hydration. But besides hydration, today I wanted to talk to you about my now more or less established model of change and specifically applying it to helping your folks, to helping your parents, to helping actually anyone you care about, whether that's your kids, your loved ones, your partners, your kids, your loved ones, your partners, or whether that's your team and co-workers in your company, like the whole culture. Maybe you want to get active, helping more people change, Because when you help people change, when you help people do better, you change the world in the most profound way. So if you care about the change and people around you changing for the better, then listen up. Today I'm going to introduce to you my E3 model of change that I'm using in coaching. That is based on all the cutting behavioral psychology research and I'm going to be talking about. This model is applied to helping my folks, my parents, adopt some new, better habits for life so they could thrive in the next couple of decades, keep thriving and we could enjoy more time together.
Speaker 1I personally experienced that nothing adds more quality into my life than seeing people I love thriving, succeeding and doing better. And because I understand that and conscious of that, I try to do, if not my best, then things I can, to invest into that, into people I love. I care about thriving and doing better and improving, and with age I realized that it is very important to me to see my parents doing better and improving, that it is very important to me to see my parents doing better and improving. I also realized that they are just like myself people, real people, down-to-earth people with their own struggles and failings and things still to figure out. Like, no matter what age you are, you have a lot of things to work on. Like, nobody is just good right In life. Life just works this way there is always something to work on. And realizing that absolutely every single person is like that, whether they are older or younger than you, whether they are your parents, your friends, your partners, leaders you admire realizing that helps you to, first of all, helps you to be compassionate and stop judging people harshly, no matter who those people are. And then, second of all, it helps you to not look at others, no matter where they are in life, as some perfect human beings who you need to be either afraid of or be challenged by by or intimidated by. We're all people and we all have things to work on and we do better at some things and do worse at other things. It also allows you to not feel that imposter syndrome standing in front of someone who might be richer than you and might have more skills in some given arena or have higher or much higher social status. It allows you to still hold your ground and feel confident, because everyone does something better than you and you do something better than other people you encounter. We are all kind of on the even ground. It's just sometimes the ground, the arena changes and that's where you see, oh, this person has better skills or developed a system that works better, right. But understanding this, that we are all human beings having things to work on, improving, and having our own feelings and lessons and imperfections, allows us to stay grounded, stay simple, stay human.
Speaker 1But now back to my folks. So it's been four years. Right now I'm with my parents in their house at home, first time for the past four years, and I'm spending a month here before getting back to South Africa, getting back home. And yeah, it's been four years, and I'm spending a month here before getting back to South Africa, getting back home. And yeah, it's been four years and I'm kind of ashamed of this, but also understanding, being kind to myself, understanding that that was pandemic and there was still is war and sanctions and the world got a little bit crazier over the past four years. You know, now it's 2024. And back then, when I left, it was 2020.
Speaker 1Like, a lot of things happen, but also I realized that there is always risk and there is always a possibility. So even before coming now, you know, I was doubtful about again everything that's going on in the world and with my country and the world. But I also thought to myself you're a leader and there's always going to be a risk. So make a decision that feels right to you, aligned with your goals, your aspirations, your values, and make that decision and figure out things as you go, or also a little bit in advance, whatever you can to figure out in advance. So make a decision, take action and believe that you will figure it out and the universe will give you chances to make it so.
Speaker 1So, as I came home after four years, I realized nobody's getting younger not you, not me, not our parents and that I want my folks to thrive, and I want because I can help them do that better. I'm very curious. I learn a lot, I'm exposed to a lot more recent cutting-edge information, I'm a lot more in the science of health and longevity from all the different corners of the world, and so there are quite a few things that I could help them learn, improve, get better at and I just need to get better at figuring out how to help them change, because usually that's just what happens to our nervous system the older, the wiser we get, the more our ways we have and actually the harder it is to accept change, especially in the time of rapid change, when everything seems to be just changing and changing and you're like, well, this was true, just like a year ago, so isn't that true now? Or something that you've been hearing for the past couple of decades suddenly isn't true, or it just traveled to your part of the world later, and because of, again, the biology and nervous system that are harder to change the older we get, and plus you as a kid or a younger one, it's always harder to listen to the advice of people who are younger than you because you think, well, I've been around longer, I should know better, which is not true at all, especially in our age where everything gets so niche and so specific that you can be 20 years younger but have a lot more knowledge and experience in a very specific arena.
Speaker 1So, because of all the different aspects, helping your folks, helping your parents or people who are older and wiser than you Change might be a challenge and is a challenge, and if you tried helping your parents to do something better based on the information and knowledge that you have, you probably know how hard it can be. But also there is a better way. In general, helping adults change is more challenging than helping a kid to embrace something, even though teenagers also can be a challenge. But again, because of our biology and because how grown-ups work, it is harder to create change in an adult brain unless those adults specifically focus on learning. Adults specifically focus on learning, improving, changing and getting better and seeking out that improvement. Those adults are much more open and easier to change. But anyhow, how do you help your folks change and where do you start?
Speaker 1Well, let's take one example which is very essential for anyone, but especially for the folks who are getting wiser, who are in their 50s, 60s, 70s. My parents are 64 and 68 of age and especially in that age, that aspect of your nutrition is crucial for repair, for function, for keeping your bones and muscles, which are so crucial for ability to keep stuff moving, to keep your agile and to keep your able and to do all the other stuff that are important for your lifestyle and longevity, right. So eating enough. Protein is crucial to that. To keep that muscle, that bones, to keep your immune system working, your hormonal system working as best as they possibly can be, to keep your DNA repairing yourself, protein is so crucial.
Speaker 1The thing is, with age our appetite goes down, our digestive system works worse and so we don't really have big appetite for protein. And that's where a lot of wiser older folks find it challenging, like wouldn't I be hungry for more protein if I needed it, if my body needed it? Well, not really. Our bodies are not designed to live to 100. Not really. They're designed to procreate and to pass on the genes. And after you do that, like biology and evolution doesn't really care and actually it probably tries to save on you. So that's why it decreases your appetite. So you maybe I don't know go out of the world and give it to other generation faster, who knows?
But science, scientific research, data shows that eating more protein does benefit everyone, and especially it's crucial, essential in older adults. And what goes against adults in their years is that they don't have the desire and very often digestive system also works worse to consume the amount of protein they actually benefit from. So what do you do? Well, you accept the science you personally but how do you help your folks, your parents, to accept that and actually do something about that? And here I want to introduce you to 3E model of change that I've developed and going to be putting more and more into practice, coaching my clients and coaching people around me and coaching companies and teams, which has a lot to do with changing adults. So, eating enough protein how will you help your folks to eat more of them when they don't really want it? Even First 3E model educate, enable, encourage, educate For people to change.
Speaker 1People need to understand why that is important and you telling them that it is and that science says that, that it is and that sign says that isn't enough. So what you want to do, you want to introduce them to as many pieces of information as possible in a more casual way. Maybe they have their favorite TV show or favorite health guru or someone just who is in their age talking about those things. So showing them a third party talking about them, talking about what's important to them, spending time with their loved ones and improving quality of life. So introducing them to this information, but not again through you just telling this, but other sources that they might connect better with other more sources of information so it's not just you saying, but it's a lot, a lot of different sources, ideally the ones that they also admire or believe in maybe, again, their favorite TV show, their favorite TV persona, or maybe, in politics, whoever you can find that is closer to them would work much better than you actually telling them. So that's that.
Speaker 1Education is not about you putting on a hat of an educator and just lecturing someone. No, it's actually about exposing people to more pieces of information, especially information sources that they admire, that they look up to, that they can connect to more easily. So exposing to more of that, different sources which also deliver the understanding like why it's important, how it helps to repair the body, how it helps to repair the cells, keep on muscles and maintain bone density, and how that improves the quality of life and them spending more time with loved ones and helping the people that they love right. So for people to change, people need to understand why it's important and they need to hear that from again, from more sources, especially the sources that they already trust, that they already admire. So it feels more like they are discovering this from people they already know and trust than from you telling them. So this is very, very crucial. Of course, you also show by example. Okay, I'm doing this because I want to have amazing skin, because I want to have great muscles and mobility and quality of life and productivity. I talk more about that, not directed at them, but just genuinely speaking of that. So that's the education part, which a lot of people get wrong. Lecturing is not what I mean here, even though educate can confuse people. Lecturing is not what I mean here, even though educate can confuse people.
Speaker 1The second part of it is enable and that is just as crucial For people to change something and to act on it consistently. It's not just enough to understand it, it's also crucial, essential, to have the opportunity to do it in an easy way, changing as little as possible about routines and actions that they already do. So, in case of protein, what would be the easiest way to introduce more of that from the foods they already love, whatever diet they follow? For somebody, it might be adding a scoop of protein powder into their favorite oats porridge, or for somebody, it can be eating their favorite I don't know from South Africa biltong and having more of it for breakfast, adding to whatever meal they're eating. Maybe they like sandwiches for breakfast, so add more biltong to that. Sandwiches Like whatever is the easiest, most acceptable by them, already formed something they can do consistently without too much hustle and thinking. Introducing that, making it easier. So that's what enabling is all about to now do in a simple, easy way, the thing that they are already inspired by and know of.
Speaker 1The first step, again, is educate and then enabling. So enabling is all about creating the ease, the simplicity, and changing the least amount possible in what's currently done. So that's the second E in 3E model, and all of them, by the way, folks, are essential. You cannot just do one and it will work. You need to have all of them for the system to work. And that's what system thinking is all about. One plus one plus one isn't three, it's four, five, six, it's the result. And when you eliminate one, two will not work. It's kind of like having a four-legged table and then you remove one leg. Well, it's not going to work. One, fourth, better or worse, it's not going to work at all. So systems work like that you either have all the elements delivering the result, or you have, you don't have a system and you don't have a result. That's how systems work right. So when I talk about E3 model or system of change, they all have to be present.
Speaker 1So first educate, then enable and then the third one, third E, is encouraging. And by encouraging we mean noticing it, acknowledging it, celebrating the right action done, making a big deal out of it, spending time working or cooking your recipes, and when you see that your folks do the right thing, you're like ah, you're eating three sources of protein with that salad, some cheese, some tuna and some eggs. That is so awesome, right, let me try this salad, let me have it with you. So the more social appreciation, acknowledgement, recognition you deliver, you deliver, the more anyone will practice it and will do more of it. That's how change, effective change, works. The more our attention is brought to the right thing that we do, the more of it we will do, especially if you get that recognition from the very people you love, recognition from the very people you love, from your kids, in your case, or from your partners.
Speaker 1So encouraging is all about recognition of the right thing done, no matter how small folks, no matter how small, even if it's a tiny little bit more, even if it's adding six grams and one egg to their breakfast where there was no protein. It's still progress, so acknowledge it, participate in it, make a big deal out of it, talk more about it, and that's going to solidify the two other pieces of education and enabling and just repeat that right. Talk more about it, enable, make it easier, maybe order them protein powder that has someone that looks like them on the cover, and then encourage, talk about that, be with them for this change, do that with them like, do your best to encourage that. Nothing a human being finds more encouraging or actually any mammal that I know of, whether that's your kid or your dog or your kid. We are all like that. We value, whether we know it or not, appreciation of other human being, attention in their time.
Speaker 1So encourage, and that's you have it, the E3 model of change that I use in my coaching whenever I'm trying to help someone, whenever I'm trying to help myself to change, whenever I coach companies and teams and my clients one-on-one. It works because it's based on the science that I've learned, accumulating for more than 15 years in coaching, and it's constantly learning. Every day I learn something, every day I read something, every day I listen to an expert, and so that's what my brain came up with and it works. It's super effective. And so if you look at your process of trying to help others to change, remember this model E3 model or 3E model I haven't decided which one comes first actually 3E model, maybe that will work better Educate, enable, encourage, educate, enable, encourage.
Speaker 1So if you're struggling with helping someone to change again, whether that's your folks, your kids or your teammates, look at this model, see what's missing, see where, on what point, you can do better job and deliver, and remember that this is a system as I told you about. It's like if a table is supposed to have four legs, and that's how it works if you remove one, you do not remove one fourth of a result, you remove the whole thing. So the same with this system. So look at three of them and see, first, if they're present and second, to what degree and where you can kind of level up the game to bring the whole results higher, faster. And then a pro tip take it one step at a time, folks. You know, I think only now I start realizing the importance of this, which has been taught by precision nutrition coaches, my mentors, to me, for many years Now. One step at a time.
Speaker 1The less change you introduce at any given time, the more likely it will stick. Human brain does not like change in general, but also when introducing that change. But also when introducing that change, the more change you try to introduce, the less of it will stick. That is a what do you call it inverted relationship. So the higher, the more, the amount of change you are trying to introduce, the lower the chance of you actually making that change. So true for you, true for people who you want to help to change, true for anyone. So the more change you try to introduce, the less likelihood of it actually working. So, one step at a time.
Speaker 1Or, as old Japanese wisdom would put it in one word Kaizen. If you're not sure what Kaizen is in life, business and coaching, look it up. Wikipedia has a whole big page on it. So, kaizen and get to work on helping your folks change, because if you're anything like myself or any other human being, the more you help people around you to thrive, get better, feel better and live better, the better your, the higher your life quality gets as well. Talk to you soon. Help others change. Stay tuned for more eating, moving lifestyle advice for wiser years, based on current science, which is coming up on Friday, and have an awesome day. In small and big ways, help others change and that others include yourself.