Hey, guys, 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 also an executive coach 360, who takes care of your body, mind and systems for execution or productivity. And I'm here to share with you, deliver to you, learn with you and put into practice all the brain-body tools from neuroscience, psychology, exercise, fitness, nutrition, stress, recovery all these sciences that help us to sustain high performance long-term not just for one day, but long-term while thriving, enjoying our life and moving along our path with clarity, with drive, determination, confidence, resilience. So we are here to learn, to practice and master and share all these tools to live this beautiful life experience to our fullest potential. Today, guys, is about recovery. It's about thriving while delivering high outputs. It's about handling complexity and succeeding while having all these different bullets, quote-unquote, flying towards you from all the different directions. You know it's end of the year. I'm recording this podcast on December 1st 2024, while moving houses I'm actually in my temporal apartment in between long-term houses, while dealing with all the different conferences it's the conference season rethinking my business direction, working on different offers, transitioning my business fully to a corporate versus what I've been doing for majority of my coaching career working one-on-one with workshops, with organizations, teams in different entities, here and there, supporting my current clients, getting new clients, doing workshops on the mountaintops all of the different things and obviously dealing with my own health and fitness and relationships. In my life, I have parents and siblings and friends and a lot of different things.
Speaker 1Just like you guys, we all have a lot of things. Like you guys, we all have a lot of things. And now with change, with pace of change seemingly accelerating, we feel like we have and maybe we do have more and more on our plates. It's hard to relate to our ancestors. So, like, what exactly they had to deal with? Right, we also have a lot of certainty, like when you wake up and if you're listening to this podcast, you know that you're going to have shelter, you know that you're going to have food most probably, you never know but you don't have to worry about those things that our ancestors, you know our grandparents, had to worry about to just have shelter and to feed ourselves and our families consistently. And there's always been unpredictability and I'm not sure, again contrary to our ancestors. But it does feel like we all have a lot more on our plates to deal with, and usually I'm working with most people either on high leadership positions we're talking about business owners, ceos, political leaders on different levels. We're talking executives and people going towards or moving towards those leadership positions. This is my usual client base and what I noticed with them, compared to clients that I worked previously and sometimes still work, through different workshops and classes.
Speaker 1The more you move towards a leadership positions, the more you need to be able to take on the more complexity and the more responsibilities, and you have to deal with all of that the more decision-making, without feeling overwhelmed, without burning out, with delivering on the most important indicators of performance or progress, taking care of a lot of other things and people in your responsibility. Leadership is not about doing less. It's about being able to deliver more while more and more things land on your plate. Now how do people do that? How do leaders manage to do that? And usually the better the leader, the better they are at handling complexity, at handling more while thriving, while delivering results, and being able to do that sustainably, not just for a couple of weeks or the last push months of the year, but sustainably and at the same time, making great decisions and at the same time, making great decisions and, at the same time, helping others to succeed. If you think about that again, when I work with people who want to move further in their leadership journey, what we talk about is handling that complexity and thinking about the gap. Okay, these are the leaders I admire. This is what they're able to do and this is where I am with this skill set when is this gap and how can we close it? And we often start with creating better systems for not just taking action, but also for taking care of yourself and all the people and all the responsibilities in your circle of influence.
Speaker 1And this cannot exist without proper recovery systems. But, folks, I think what separates me from a lot of other practitioners in the recovery field or a lot of other executive coaches because I always view having been certified in different areas of biological resilience, health coaching, fitness coaching, nutrition, sleep coaching, productivity coaching, high performance I look at all of this and I see that one cannot exist without the other. You cannot be handling a lot of at work without having proper systems to recover physically. You cannot handle a lot in terms of relationships, whether that's professional and personal, without having great systems to organize your work projects or make great decisions with increasing complexity, because there is such thing as decision fatigue and if you have no systems for making decisions fast or eliminating certain decisions completely, you're going to be drowning long before you reach your leadership aspirations.
Speaker 1Systems for consistent action taking. Systems for proper recovery and recharging your battery for proper recovery and recharging your battery. Systems for managing stress so the same things don't stress you out. Systems for clarity and prioritization as you grow as a leader, you won't be able to do all of it. You just won't be able to do that. There are going to be too many requests for your time, for your attention, for all of your time, talent, money, resources. You won't be able to do it all and if you don't have systems of A how to prioritize things what needs to get done versus what's good to get done but not really necessary and you can skip it.
Speaker 1Tim Ferriss has this saying being able to do big things is often about letting a lot of bad things happen, and those things will frustrate, might frustrate you, might frustrate other people. Allowing bad things to happen, by definition, might look like a screw-up to someone outside of your head who doesn't have that strategic plan that you have inside your mind right. So it's about prioritization. It's about having clarity of focus, like what's the most important thing. It's about understanding where do you shine as a leader and what your responsibilities are versus everything else you can be doing, but actually you have to delegate if you want to be the best at what you do. It's about strategic execution, meaning investing your time and all of your resources in a way that produces A maximum amount results.
Speaker 1B takes the least amount of resources Time is one of those resources that you'll never get back and C eliminating all of the stuff that doesn't have to handle a lot more, without burning out, without feeling like you are trapped, without feeling overwhelmed. And that's what I call recovery for humans. 360 or 360 degree approach, human's 360 or 360 degree approach. That's why I call myself executive coach 360, because I never look at your execution, your goals, your priorities, your business systems, goal settings, goal setting productivity I never look at that as isolated thing. I look at all the other things that contribute to that. Again, we are talking about good systems, keeping your cognitive load low. So basically, what you keep in your mind.
Speaker 1Do you feel overwhelmed on a regular basis, like there are too many things that you can't really handle it and you feel like you're constantly dropping balls and you're not able to fulfill on the things you feel are important. Do you feel like there are too many decisions, from food to fitness, to sleep, to relationships and family, to your work? Obviously, it's all about not having good systems. To give you a very personal example, I'm now in my temporal apartment and I have a really great meaning, a very clear system around maintaining lifestyle, sleep, nutrition, fitness in a simple way, which then fuels pursuit of other goals. You see, guys, if you have to think about when you sleep, when you do your exercise, when you eat your food, or you just drop all of the balls which eventually will lead to you feeling like crap and not having energy and not having higher output, if you make all of these decisions and that's what you think about in the shower I don't remember who told this, but somebody smarter than myself said that what you think in the shower matters for your long-term success, meaning, if you spend that unoccupied time on thinking about food, nutrition, fitness, all this minutiae, things that are not really important, they are maintenance. So if you spend your time thinking about that, you're not spending your unoccupied time. Your subconsciousness, that is the most powerful computer in the world on things that are important. You spend it literally on thinking about your next meal or why you don't feel that good, or why you can never find time for exercise, and all this relationship drama because you don't have system for handling relationships.
Speaker 1But back to my systems for lifestyle. I moved to a new apartment and I was ready to go in two hours, just unpack my suitcase, went to the closest supermarket and I specifically chose the apartment so I don't have to be traveling to buy food or order. Literally, it's like seven minutes, probably even less, from the place where I live and I know exactly what foods I'm getting the proteins, the fruit and veg. I've been eating the same thing that I've calculated, flexible enough to find it anywhere and fixed enough to provide all the basics. So I don't have to think about that. Right, I got all the foods for the next five days. I stuck up my fridge and now food is taken care of, no decisions whatsoever. I found the closest movement lab studio whatever the name is where they provide some classes. So I get my fitness, my strength, flexibility, some sweating. Just get the basic stuff in. I would not be looking for the perfect gym and perfect program. Who has time for that? Especially if you're a leader, that's not your main goal. You're not like some professional athlete, right? So I found my foundational stuff professional athlete. Right, so I found my foundational stuff. I put a pillowcase on some lights in the room because it was suboptimal and too bright, so I get good sleep at night, so then I can wake up and get after my main objectives, right?
Speaker 1Today's December 1st and it's a whole month. Maybe not whole month, but there is a lot of time. I feel like also a lot of people. I see a lot of people this season. They're like oh, it's already late. You know, 1st of December, I need to chill. Well, I don't know if you burned out, chill, I'm all for. Like, if you feel you need it, take it. Take those days off, but then just slack because it's December 1st and holidays are here or around the corner. It's wasting so much time and you're never guaranteed the next day. I don't know about you, but if I die tomorrow, I'd like to be spending today on things that are important to me, and it's not just work, it's also building relationships with the most important people to me, and that's why you want to have all of this taken care of, so you don't have to make decisions every day. Back to again my routine. So food is taken care of, fitness, sleep are taken care of, and now I can jump into doing the rest of the stuff while waiting for my house apartment, which is not in my control, to be resolved One of the systems for recovery, guys.
Speaker 1And it's a skill set it's not something that you are born with, it's something that I trained for quite some time before mastering it, which allows me now to thrive and move forward towards my goals and meet any chaotic situations. This skill set of focusing on things that are in your control and only on those things Like okay, what I could control was finding a good place that suits all of my professional goals, all of my personal goals, creating maximum convenience and minimum amount of wasted time. Right, so I found this apartment, taking all of the essential boxes, and I was done. Then the second thing I could control I could put together all of the places to make sure that the house that we are renting with my housemates is taken care of, and I put all the chips in place that were in my control. So I did that all.
Speaker 1And then there are processes outside of my control like how long the renter is going to do the papers deposits like how long is that going to take, keepers deposits like how long is that going to take, and when the actual key handling or key giving will be handled, like that is not in my control. So worrying about that is really purposeless and would be a waste of my time, and so I didn't spend any time there. I took care of things that I could have taken care of and then focused on what I can control and focused on the important. And that is all because I built the skills of focusing on the right things, on eliminating decisions like food choices, where I don't need to be making decisions Again. It might not be perfect, but it works well enough so I can maintain high performance sustainably again without having to worry about all of this complexity. And then, when things come onto my plate, I'm not overwhelmed because I still have space.
Speaker 1You see, leadership is a lot about and recovery is a lot about handling complexity, and that you do by creating habits, by creating systems that eliminate decision-making, by delegating things to your support systems, whether that's at work or in your personal life by delegating things to different service providers. Then we have things like psychological resilience service providers. Then we have things like psychological resilience and accepting things that you cannot control and focusing on things that you can control and changing those when they are important, and sometimes being okay with dropping some balls in order to move big things forward. And it's also about not being fatalistic and being able to do what's, in strategic thinking, called level shifting being able to switch between day-to-day operations level and big picture level, when you rise above the mundane, the daily grind, and ask yourself those questions is this really important? Is this moving the main objective forward? Would I need to change my day-to-day plan? And then you get down to day-to-day operations and you test and you trial and you track your data and you change things and you get results, test again and then you rise up again to the level up and like, okay, is this working better or do I need to adjust more of the things right? So this is a part of psychological resilience managing your mindset, your thinking process, your emotions so they're serving your goals, your objectives, your leadership journey, instead of making it more complicated, creating more drama, more overwhelm, more things on your plate.
Speaker 1You are limited. You will not be able to take on more and more and more as leadership will require from you. The only way out is to be able to create again recovery systems 360, which include systems for strategic thinking, decision-making level, shifting focus shifting, managing uncertainty by learning how to narrow your focus again and open it up. There are all these tools of psychological, of emotional resilience, but then also biological resilience matters a huge time. It's how you recharge your batteries, that's how you're going to perform continuously.
Speaker 1It's prioritizing sleep, taking breaks so your brain, your body don't go to the point of fatigue or chronic fatigue that is so much harder to recover compared to if you are just to take strategic breaks. Personal example I know that if I don't take breaks between mental cognitive efforts somewhere around between 11 to 12, and I just push through it, I'm going to feel so much more tired in the afternoon, almost to the point that not being able to do anything beyond basic stuff like answering emails or calls, and very often in the second part of the day, I still have to deliver high quality work, whether those are workshops or creating the content for workshops, or creating some other intellectual property or solutions for my clients, or sometimes performing and delivering those workshops, or showing up for sessions with my clients, where I also need to be in my prime condition because my clients are amazing but they also have higher level goals that require some complex thinking. If I don't take those breaks, I'm almost useless in the second part of the day. So that would also mean strategic lifestyle design knowing how to optimize for your sustainable high brain performance, respecting your brain cycles. You cannot change your brain. You can only start learning how to work with that better. You're not going to be given the second brain. You have one and you've got to learn more about how to operate it to get to maximize its potential for solutions and output and results.
Speaker 1Prioritizing against sleep, other recovery practices like time in nature or meditation, which is basically the ability you know what meditation gives you the ability to focus on the right things, not just being driven by day-to-day distractions. Your meditation practice gives you the ability to disconnect from what is happening right now, not being triggered, but instead rise above, go to the balcony, as top negotiators say, and have an impassioned look at what's happening and then make more rational decisions. That's what meditation gives to you as well. It's not just a break and a practice to help you restore your brain's capacity to perform. It's also training of the skills of focus, of emotional balance and regulation of better communication and negotiation of emotional balance and regulation of better communication and negotiation. Then we have the right nutrition and exercise, which are essential for maintaining high performance of the brain and the body and to be the best leader that you can be. So that's what I say when I talk about Recovery 360. It's psychology, it's biology, it's systems for work, it's your environments, it's your relationships, it's your mindset.
Speaker 1All of this and again, as a leader, someone who wants to grow, to keep developing yourself and to keep creating something more extraordinary, learning what you're capable of you cannot skip it. You can't hope that you just arrive there by chance. That's not how mastery happens. There are people who you admire that didn't land there by chance. They had to learn and grow and improve by a lot, and there are probably a lot of things that they don't talk about. Maybe they don't even remember about that, but they do differently, think differently, take care of yourself differently, of your wellness and your wellbeing, your emotional regulation, creating different systems for work. All of that matters if you want to sustainably again deliver high performance. Now something on the that matters if you want to sustainably again deliver high performance.
Speaker 1Now something on the practical side that I want to share with you. I just finished the book. It's called Stress Proof the Ultimate Guide to Living a Stress-Free Life, by Dr Mithostaroni, and it's that beautiful book, completely aligned with what I'm trying to deliver meaning, got a sip of water to make my voice machinery working perfectly. So this book Stress Proof the Ultimate Guide to Living a Stress-Free Life it's not about eliminating stress or workload from your life. It's about that 360 recovery so you have the capacity to take on more in a better, smarter way and consistently deliver. And it combines neuroscience and psychology and physiology and nutrition and exercise and sleep and work systems and inflammation and gut microbiome.
Speaker 1It did feel a little bit overwhelming and you won't be able to put it all in practice, even for me. I'm like okay, let's take it step by step. What are the core things that I've learned that are useful to me, that are useful to my clients, that are easy enough to explain, versus doing all of it, which I mean for all of the people are going to be too overwhelming. But there are three things that I want to share that will help you to restore your physical body faster, better, more effectively, which will help you to recharge your batteries, which will fuel then your brain performance and better thinking, which will allow you to create better systems for work, decision-making, execution and, ultimately, success. So three things exercise, food and sleep.
Speaker 1And I want to simplify it to give you something to start with, you probably know that exercise is good for you, but very often at my workshops, people would ask me well, how much exercise is enough? You know, when it comes to stress regulation, you want to do exercise consistently, meaning every day, but you don't want to overdo it like doing too much high intensity, like some of my clients who are obsessed. A lot of my clients are actually obsessed, but with fitness obsessed, but with fitness. I always tell them don't start doing some six-week or six-month challenges, working out every day, having no prior experience of exercise. You'll just burn yourself out even more. So, when it comes to exercise, you want to do it consistently, but keep the intensity on the lower side, and that's what science shows us helps to manage stress physiologically and psychologically, emotionally, without triggering more inflammation and stronger stress response and chronic stress response. So how can it look like in real life? Well, it can look like walking every day, getting your steps in doing faster walking.
Speaker 1When it comes to workouts, keep intensity average, not super high, like some cross workout that completely exhausts you, or some high intensity interval training every day, or running for like 10k every day. It actually increases your inflammation and your stress load. So you're going to be burning your candle from many different ends, not even two. So exercise consistently every day, but don't overdo it. You still can sweat, but not to the point. You shouldn't feel like you're about to die and you can't continue. Yeah, doing high intensity interval workouts is great, but what experts recommend? Do it like once a week, not every day, right. And then do your steps and then do your yoga, and if it's cardio, light jog if you're a jogger, or just walk fast and then do training resistance training a couple of times per week, but don't go all out. Just leave weights progressively heavy and don't do it to failure. So then your brain doesn't work for the rest of the day, right? So don't overdo it when it comes to exercise and stress regulation.
Speaker 1Two food Quality is the most important factor. Processed foods even though they're called comfort foods. They increase your stress load. And here we're talking about processed sugars, white flour, pizzas, all kinds of added sugars, drinks and consuming I don't know sodas and processed foods, the food that is manufactured, that doesn't grow, runs or swims, which our grandmothers wouldn't recognize. Those are all processed foods. So some people ask me well, protein shake is also processed. Yeah, there are different things and protein shake is more like a supplement, not your food. So when it comes to actual foods, you want to stay away from processed foods majority of the time, and by unprocessed foods we mean fruit and vegetables, a lot of that, whole beans, whole grains, low-fat dairy products not double cream and cheesy stuff, but low-fat. It seems to be very important. We get our low-fat animal products and low-fat again seems to be important for health and stress regulation, inflammatory markers. But I think what also is very important is it doesn't matter what kind of food you eat.
Speaker 1Not overeating calories is very important. Overconsuming energy seems not to be good for our health and our stress load. So you don't have to starve yourself or do fasting all the time. In fact, it might backfire and it might increase your stress load, but just eating in your energy limit, and I know it takes some experimentation to figure out, but not overdoing, not sticking to some crazy no-carb nutrition, because some guru on internet said that all carbs are bad and fruit is some freaking sugar. So, food focus on quality.
Speaker 1Make sure you eat enough of protein, essential fats. Take your multivitamin, multimineral. Eat balanced meals, don't eat late, don't overconsume at any meal, don't drink alcohol and that's kind of complex, but it actually in reality it's very simple. And, by the way, follow me on Instagram Angela Brain Body Coach. Angela Brain Body Coach all one word. Tomorrow I'm going to be sharing my meals on Instagram, everything that I eat, so you get to see what a balanced meal plan might look like, because it can look differently. But I do consume all of my essential fats, my omega-3s, I do eat low-fat dairy and all my calcium. I eat enough protein and fruit and vegetables, probably around 800 grams to a kilo, maybe even more, probably even more. So look out for that on Instagram Angela Brain Body Coach.
Speaker 1And then the third sleep one. These are three main blocks of physical recovery. And there were updates like excesses. Again, don't overdo it. More isn't better Food. Don't overdo it as well. Don't go on some crazy diet just because you heard it somewhere Science still works better than your favorite guru on I don't know Instagram somewhere else.
Speaker 1Sleep, regular sleep cycles, the regular sleep schedule Guys, I cannot overemphasize it that having regularity in your sleep also in your meals, to be fair is crucial and seems to be even more important than all of the other factors. So, going to bed on the same time, waking up on the same time plus minus maybe 30-40 minutes, that is crucial for all of your body and brain systems to synchronize the whole process of sleep so you get maximum recovery from that process and you get all the hormonal regulation and all the learning and emotional regulation and physical recovery. So you get all of that stuff done and you have easier, faster time falling asleep, easy wake up. Regular sleep schedule is important, which is fortified when you have a light exposure practice, meaning getting out in the first couple of hours of sunrise, getting that sun into your eyes without sunglasses, not avoiding blue lights at night, meaning all of your devices adjust them into better sleep-friendly mode, not having bright lights in your apartment. All of that matters for sleep quality, which then matters for everything else, from your productivity to emotional and mood regulation, to strategic thinking, clear thinking, focused thinking, which are all of your recovery systems which allow you to take on more while thriving and feeling like you got more than enough space to handle it all. And the ultimate outcome of all of this is, whenever something lands on your plate, you can easily put it into your existing systems of habits of work, of decision-making, of planning, of execution, and you can work it out, and you can do it indefinitely.
Speaker 1That's a sign that you can handle your current level and you are ready to go to the next level and you'll be able to handle leadership, next level. And you'll be able to handle leadership Because leadership, again, is all about taking on more than other people, because leading is about thinking beyond yourself and taking care of things beyond yourself, and you're only able to do that if you can successfully and effectively handle what's on your plate. So, recovery and handling more while thriving, handling complexity and pressure and overwhelm, actually eliminating that and feeling relaxed when only bullets and to-dos fired you from all the different places. Being able to do that has to do with Recovery 360. We talked about exercise, food and sleep. We talked about how it's important to have systems for decision-making, for psychological resilience, managing your thinking and your emotions, for managing your workload, for prioritizing, for being able to shift your levels of thinking from day to day to big picture and back. All of that will help you to handle more, improving and living your life to the fullest.
Speaker 1I hope this episode was helpful, guys, and you have a more clear picture about what it takes to become, to be, to grow into a great leader. If you have any questions about any specific systems for recovery, stress management, psychological, biological resilience, for how to manage your focus and intention, system of prioritizing tasks and projects and filtering out the relevant strategic time, investing your lifestyle from nutrition to exercise to sleep, recovery and stress management you have questions of any of that and you would like to do a workshop? You would like to do a one-on-one class, a coaching session, then reach out Angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom. Angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom, angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom, because it's an investment into your ability to deliver more at scale, consistently, which will make you money, save you money, manage your risks, increase your impact and basically get you everything you want to get. It's all in the Recovery 360.
Speaker 1So thank you so much for tuning in, thank you so much for listening, guys, thank you so much for learning. Don't forget to share this episode with at least one other person who you believe will benefit greatly from this information and needs to hear that Don't forget to exercise not too much, sleep regularly and eat without over, consuming highest quality of food, fuel for excellence. And until next time, have an amazing day and stay tuned for more systems for leadership, excellence and living the best life you are capable of.