050 Getting fit after 50 with Emma Hine

In this week's episode I am speaking to Emma Hine, a certified business strategist, about how turning 50 made her think about her health. 

We discuss:

• the difference between being busy and being active
• why thinking about your health at fifty will have an impact as you get older
• the benefits of focussing on your health at fifty for your wider life
• the power of goal setting
• what the small changes can be to make a difference
• habit stacking

Starting to consider how you can prioritise your health is important at any age but as Emma shares, it is incredibly important as you turn fifty. How are you prioritising you own health?

Emma Hine:

Emma Hine is a certified business strategist helping ambitious people to grow a business they love.

She ran a successful million-pound e-commerce business, which ended up taking over her life which is why she is so passionate about helping others grow their business on their terms.

Now a celebrated Amazon bestselling author, the Calibrated Life, she is helping others see that success comes from doing things your way with passion at the heart of what you do. And the biggest lesson of all is you don’t need to sacrifice yourself to find what works best.

Beyond work, Emma is a happily married mum of 3, and a nanny of 3. She loves spending time with her friends & family, combine that with a glass of wine and some glorious sunshine and she is in her happy place.

You can follow Emma here:

https://www.instagram.com/iamemmahine

https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-hine

https://www.emmahine.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/iamemmahine

Book:   https://www.amazon.co.uk/Calibrated-Life-rebalancing-scales-business/dp/B0BDG8JF75

About Sarah:
Sarah Bolitho helps fitness and health professionals develop their careers and grow their businesses by providing specialist training in teaching, assessing, and internal quality assurance, together with qualifications in exercise referral and disability.   

With over 30 years in the health-related fitness and physical activity fields, Sarah has a wealth of experience and knowledge.  She has worked in most roles in the industry from group exercise to personal training but specialised in working with specialist populations.  For over 25 years Sarah has trained fitness and health professionals to work with clients with long-term conditions, mental health issues, disabilities, older adults and pre/post-natal women.  She has a post-graduate diploma in exercise and health behaviour and extensive training in supporting behaviour change.  She has worked with awarding organisations to develop qualifications and training and with accreditation bodies to endorse high-quality non-regulated training. 

In her spare time, you will usually find Sarah walking in the mountains, by the sea or anywhere in nature.

For more about the training and support Sarah offers, visit www.sarahbolitho.com or contact her at admin@sarahbolitho.com.

Follow her on social media
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fabnewlous_active_lives
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fitnesscareermentor
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahbolitho

Transcript

Sarah (00:02.926)

Hello and welcome to this episode of Creating Active Lives with me, Sarah Bolitho and my guest Emma Hine. Emma is a certified business strategist, bit like me, but she helps ambitious people grow a business they love. She's in the past run successful million pound e -commerce business, but it ended up taking over her life. So she's now really passionate about helping other people grow their business on their terms, which is a really important thing, I think. 

She's a celebrated Amazon bestselling author with her book, The Calibrated Life. And she really helps other people to see that success comes from doing things your way with a passion and having that passion at the heart of what you do. And the biggest lesson of all with Emma is that you don't need to sacrifice yourself to find out what works best. She's a happily married mum of three. She has three grandchildren. Yeah. And loves spending time with her friends and family, ideally with a glass of wine in the sunshine, which is her happy place. So Emma, tell us a little bit more about yourself and then we'll talk about how turning 50 kind of made you start thinking about your health.

Emma Hine (01:12.563)

Yeah, oh gosh, I mean, you've said a lot of it there. You've said a lot of it there. Yeah, I mean, my past was e -commerce. I started in e -commerce. I grew that business to, as you said, a successful business. It was turning over well in excess of a million pounds every year. So financially, it was a very, very successful business, but it never made me feel successful. In fact, it made me quite poorly, made me feel very overwhelmed. I had a very bad burnout. My mental health took a real toll. But I made changes to that and I realised that my passion in life is to help people to grow a business that they love. My passion in life is to help people to realise that in order to grow a successful business, you've got to understand what success means to you and you have to grow alongside it. You have to grow alongside it. And as I'm approaching 50, I've now realised that a key part of that as well has got to be your health.

Sarah (02:09.006)

so important isn't it and like one thing I would like to sort of go back to is what success looks like to you because we we do see a lot of people saying I want to earn this much every month I want to earn this much in a year and to me those sorts of numbers are meaningless unless it's because it will enable me to do x y or z and you know one person may see success as earning I don't know £2 ,000 a month whereas someone else it might be £200 ,000 a month and this is really really important when you know you're defining success is to look beyond the financial isn't it?

Emma Hine (02:44.563)

Exactly, exactly. And what I always say to people is when you start to put monetary values on things, really delve into the why. Why do you want to earn that amount of money? What is that going to impact you? How is that going to impact other people? How is that going to change your life? And how is that going to make you happy? Because ultimately, that's what we all want, isn't it? We all want to be happy people.

Sarah (03:06.83)

And we want to be healthy as well within that happiness because let's face it, you can't really put a price on your health, can you? So the thought of turning 50 then, you've said that that kind of made you think, hmm, need to think about my health maybe. What was significant about approaching 50 that made you think, okay, need to start getting healthy.

Emma Hine (03:13.523)

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, part of it for me, part of the honest answer for me there is the fact that I now have more time. When I was running my e -commerce business, because I was so, so busy, I never had any time to think about my health. It never even entered my head that, you I possibly needed to do some exercise or I needed to do these things. I was younger. I'd got more energy. I'd got more life. Things didn't ache the same. Over the last sort of 12 months or so, I've really started to feel things going on in my body that I know that I can control menopause starts to creep up on women blessers as we start to get to this sort of 50 point that has a massive impact on your body. Things ache. I've had various health scares, things I've never had before. And then I think it just sort of thought, do you know what, you're gonna be 50. This is gonna start happening now, but actually I can control it like I can control anything.

Sarah (04:21.934)

It's interesting, isn't it? Because do you think that having more time, which is something you've said, means that you're noticing these things a bit more? Because I think a lot of times we confuse being busy with being active and we think we're active. We think, well, I'm on the go all day. I'm really busy all day. Therefore I'm active enough for my health. But actually there's a big difference, isn't there, between busy and being active? But there's also when you're busy, you don't necessarily tune into what your body's telling you as much.

Emma Hine (04:52.115)

Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. If I look back at photographs of me when I was at the real depth of my business and really struggling really at burnout point, you know, I'd lost a ridiculous amount of weight. I looked so, so poorly, but I didn't see or feel any of that. I was just literally focused purely on, I need to keep going. I haven't got time to even think about that. And it's only now when I look back at those photographs, I realized how poorly I did look. Other people saw it, but I didn't.

Sarah (05:18.158)

And that's, I mean, for most of us, we'll know that feeling of going on holiday and you're away for two weeks and within a few hours, it's like your body sort of goes, oh, I'm exhausted. And you suddenly, you spend the first few days of your holiday kind of almost flat out because you just can't move because you've given your body the space it needs to say, hello, exhausted here. And I think having more time does mean you tune into it, but it's such an important thing, I think for all women and men is to actually take time regularly to say okay how's my body feeling, how's my digestion, to almost like do a check, like have a checklist of you know have I been getting headaches, how am I getting enough sleep, how's my vision, like you take your car in for an MOT and they check all these things, it's like having an MOT for your body but on a regular basis, not just once a year isn't it?

Emma Hine (06:12.915)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And the sad thing is so many of us don't do any of that stuff. We don't give any priority to our health until it becomes a problem. And I'm one of those people because I've not given any priority to my health until suddenly I've started to have things where, you know, chest pains, I've been under a cardiologist. So all of these things suddenly become a problem, but they were all things that I probably could have prevented, if I'd have eaten a bit healthier, if I hadn't have drank as much alcohol, if I'd have actually done some exercise, you completely hit the nail on the head there when you said about being busy versus being active. I never stopped, but it wasn't activity, it was work. It wasn't physical exercise or moving. And do you know what the funny thing is? The odd time I have done a little bit of exercise or I have done a bit of walking, I've actually enjoyed it. And it's given me so much more than just knowing that it's helping my body, actually it's the mental health side as well that doing things, being active does to you.

Sarah (07:15.918)

It's interesting, a couple of weeks ago I was talking to somebody on this podcast about networking, which is basically networking, but going for a walk as you network. So instead of sitting in a hotel room or a conference room or an office somewhere and networking, you're actually out there in the fresh air in nature walking and networking. And I just think that's a genius idea. I really do. And I think there's a lot of women who it's two birds, one stone, isn't it? Which is handy. So why do you think your house wasn't a priority? Was it because you just felt okay or genuinely just too busy to stop and think?

Emma Hine (07:53.459)

I mean, I'm generally, I was too busy to stop and think, but I was too busy to stop and think because I was so busy focused on looking like I was successful as a child. I was told at school, I would never be successful. So I just focused so much on making sure that I looked like I was successful, that I never gave myself any consideration. I completely lost who I was and anything that sits under that, which includes my health, didn't matter because I just needed to keep going so that people could see that I was successful. And I saw that as if they see me buy a new car or a new house or a new thing or a new handbag, then they'll think I'm successful. So it was, you know, it was literally this obsession, I think is the word to use for me that took over my life that health just didn't, it just did not come into it at all. And when you're busy, what do you do? You grab a, you know, a takeaway or you, you know, you just grab something out the fridge or, you know, in my case, I could literally go, you know, 24 hours and then think, have I eaten anything?

And I've had wine and I've had packet of crisps or a chocolate bar or something to boost the energy levels. But actually, had I eaten a proper meal and quite often, especially when we were in peak at Christmas, the answer was no. And that could be for days where I've just literally ploughed my body with sugar to keep it going.

Sarah (09:02.39)

Really? Gosh, so do you think, I mean, you've said turning 50 is approaching, you've also said that you've noticed things going on in your body that perhaps shouldn't be going on. You know, was it the combination of the two and having more time to notice that you think made you consider your health more?

Emma Hine (09:27.763)

Definitely. Definitely for me, the key thing is having more time to notice it. But then the second thing is, you know, these niggles and things that go in in your body, it's like, you know, you have to start investigating them. You have to start understanding what they are like, because what I don't want to do is grow really old before my time. You know, I am at a point now where I've got time and I value that time and I want to be able to do things with that time. So I don't want to get myself to a point where I can't because I'm poorly or I can't because I can't walk up the stairs or I can't walk around the block because I'm out of breath or I don't want to be that person. I'm going to be 50, but 50 is young. 50 is an age that is not, by no means is it old, by no means is it an age where you want to be sat on the sofa watching television. I don't want to be that person. I want to be able to. Now I've created this life. I want to be able to enjoy it and I can't enjoy it if I'm not healthy. And I can't help other people if I'm not healthy either.

Sarah (10:21.686)

Yeah, and potentially, you know, you've got more than a third of your life left, which, you know, like you said, we want to get into older age, healthy and fit. And people have heard me talk about this before, but in actual fact, a lot of the things that happen as we get older, we attribute to ageing, oh, it's because I'm getting older, oh, it's my age and things like that. But actually, a significant number of the impact, a significant amount of the impact is actually being inactive and not looking after our health. And there are things that don't have to, you know, they don't have to slow us down because we're keeping going. And, you know, so many people will get to retirement age and they'll be like, all right, it's time to slow down now. It's actually no, now's the time to speed up. Now's the time to actually do all of those things that you've been putting off. But it's almost like, at 50 you want to be thinking, right, okay, potentially I've got another 15, 16 years before I retire, before I get my pension. What can I do to prepare for that now? And I, you know, from the sounds of it, that's something you're thinking about is okay, 66 might not be your retirement age, but it's almost like you're thinking, right, okay, how do I train for a healthy retirement? How do I train for a healthy old age? Not an unhealthy one.

Emma Hine (11:44.755)

Yeah, that's it. And that's the sad thing, isn't it? You see so many people that work so hard all of their life. They work, work, work, work, get to retirement. And then it's almost like the body say, that's it now. You've stopped. Now we're going to throw all of this stuff at you. You know, my dad was one of those people. My dad had always got this dream of, you know, lots of walking and moving down to the, down to the coast and all of these things. He retired and then got diagnosed with Parkinson's and his health dropped very, very quickly.

You sort of, I'm not saying my dad's scenario could have been done any different. I don't know if there's anything my dad could have done during his life, but there may have been, there may have been things that he could have done that may have helped, you know, with that, when he, when he got that diagnosis, but certainly things, the things that I am going through, you know, the aches, the pains, that I'm having health checks, I'm having blood tests and I'm finding things that are going wrong in my body that actually I could do something about things like iron levels, things like B12 levels. So, things that have such an impact on how you are, but actually if you don't ever prioritize your health and go and check those things, you can't make things better.

Sarah (12:54.318)

That's it. And that's so important. And it's, you if you prioritize your health, there are so many more benefits for mental health, for business and things like that. And it's, you know, you've mentioned about things like B12, iron levels and things. I mean, they're quite simple tests that you can get done, but things like strength, our muscle condition, if you like, and our muscle function deteriorates from the age of about mid-30s onwards. But once you start hitting 50s and 60s, it plummets if you're not doing anything about it. Same with our cardiovascular health, same with our bone health. And these are the sorts of things that, you know, you might not, people listening might not wake up in the morning and say, no, I really need to focus on my cardiovascular health and my bone health and my strength. But you might be thinking, I need to focus on doing things that mean I can keep doing things for all of my life. The World Health Organization talk about something called disability affected life years. And essentially it's years of life lived with a disability. Now that we tend to think of disabilities as things like spinal cord injuries or cerebral palsy or things like that. But actually it's where you have become so unfit and frail that you're effectively disabled by your health rather than what we think of as a disability. 

And it's estimated that for most people it's anything between 15 and 17 years of life. Now, like you're saying, okay, no, I'm hitting 50. I want to live as healthy as possible for as long as possible. And this is, you know, we need to start planning for that almost is saying, right, I do not want to end up disabled by my health. I want to end up enabled by my health. And I think that's a good way to look at health isn't it? It's not just about your body size or shape or weight but about what you can keep doing for as long as possible. So what sort of goals have you set yourself?

Emma Hine (14:55.123)

This year I've done a few little bits and pieces and I think this is the key for me. I've got to start small, I've got to start with little things because there's no point telling myself that I'm going to start going to the gym five times a week because it's not going to happen. I'm not in that space yet. So I started with Dry January, which for me was a big thing because I'm not, I used to be, but I'm not a big drinker as in I drink a lot in any one go, but I am a regular drinker. So I do have, you know, regular glasses, a glass of wine here, there and everywhere.

So I did dry January, which for me was a massive step because I literally cannot remember probably not since I've legally been able to drink alcohol, have I ever gone so long without having alcohol. So I did dry January, which was a massive tick in the box for me. I also have set myself some little walking goals. So, you know, I've been doing like 30 minutes walking and I've been doing that out in the fresh air because for me that was really important to actually get some fresh air because I'm mindful that I spend a lot of time inside. And I think from a mental health point of view, being outside is a good thing. So I set myself a little walking goal that I will gradually build up. And they're just all little things like that, really. They're all small things. And my plan is throughout the rest of this year to build all of that up, to start doing more things. I would love to get myself back into the gym. I did do it for a little while and I did enjoy it.

So I'd like to get myself back into that without the constant disruption of work saying you can't do it this week. I want to be able to do that sort of thing. I've got grandchildren. I want to be able to do things with them rather than be that I'm a nanny rather than a grandma, because I like to think it's younger, but be that nanny that can't bend down to pick the things up because my knees hurt. And at the moment, that's not the case. I climb out of bed in the morning. I feel like I'm about you know, 403 some days, things ache. And I know that's partly menopausal, but actually that's partly because I'm not using any of the muscles in my body other than my fingers to type and my mouth to talk.

Sarah (16:51.694)

It's interesting, isn't it? Because grandchildren can often be another kind of spur to do something about your health. I just looked after two grandchildren for a week, eight days, all on my own. And honestly and truthfully, if I wasn't reasonably active and healthy, there's no way I could have kept up with them, you know, four and six years old. But we were walking loads. We were taking the dog for a walk. We were going for walks. We were going to different places. We were at different parks. And it was just, you know, constant activity. And, you know, if I didn't prioritise my health,

there's no way at my age I would have been able to keep up. But I just keep thinking, I don't want that to stop. And that keeps me going. Just talking about the small steps, I mean, for me, pick one or two tiny little steps that you can start to build on is key, isn't it? Because it's like dry January can often make you rethink your relationship with alcohol. Might not make you stop, but it might make you think, actually, I do want to carry on drinking, but less or different things like that and other people find it actually makes them cut right back. But it's quite good just for redeveloping that relationship. But instead about going for walks, do you work from home?

Emma Hine (18:11.283)

Yeah, yeah, I do now. I didn't used to, I used to work from a warehouse in office, but again, it was literally car to work out back in an office. But yeah, yeah, work from home.

Sarah (18:14.542)

Yeah. Because I think sometimes when you work from home, it's very easy that you get up, you have your breakfast, you just go straight to your office. What I do is I will commute. I work from home. I commute to work, but I commute by going for a 10 minute walk around the block. And then so I'll leave the house, walk for 10, 15 minutes around the block, come back in and start work. And I do the same thing at the end of my day is I close the office door and I go, I've got a dog so she likes it, but I go for a 10 or 15-minute walk, usually longer, at the end of the work day so that when I walk back in through the house, I'm no longer at work. So two things there. One, it separates work and home life, but also it means I'm getting at least 20 minutes to half an hour of walking. Even if I don't go out on any other walks, I'm still getting that little walking. And it's a nice way for me, like you said about the fresh air, it's a nice way of closing the door on the workday and walking back in as me. So, you know, that's always something to consider as well for people who do work from home. It's a nice way of bookending your workday. What other things have you done? You said about eating more healthily. Is there anything in there that you've decided that actually I'll look at this or I'll look at that? Or is it regular eating in your case?

Emma Hine (19:35.987)

Yeah. Well, regular eating is a thing. You know, I've started having breakfast, which for me is something that I've always, always, always skipped. I've always skipped breakfast. So I've started having breakfast. I book a lunch break into my diary every day. So I now have a lunch break, not a great big lunch break, but I have a lunch break in my diary every single day. I've started wearing my, I've got an Apple watch, but I just, just just sit in the drawer most of the time. I've started to wear that every day. So that tells me to get up every hour so it just forces me off my feet, because I would be this person that would sit here literally all day until somebody came and said, move. So if there's nobody else around me, I literally would sit here all day. So, you know, that sort of helps me to get up off my feet and to move around a little bit. I've built the little bit of walking into my daily routine as well. And I think for me, food is a big issue because I have a real, a phobia with food. So there's a lot of food that I find very difficult to eat because of literally it fears me, the texture, the color, all of these things. So food is always going to be a really difficult one for me to overcome, but it is something that I know I need to overcome. So for now I've tried little things rather than having a drawer full of snacks. So when I'm hungry, I'll have a snack. I will make myself go and have, you know even if it's a sandwich, it'll be a wholemeal bread sandwich at lunchtime. So it's better than the snacks in the drawer that are keeping me going. So I drink lots of water. I make sure that every day I drink lots of water, something that I never used to do again. I'd literally go all day without a drink and then probably top it with wine at the end of the evening. So it's all of these little things and they are very, very little things that to a lot of people are things that they've done forever, but they're all things I have not done. I have never once prioritized my health. It has never been a consideration. And that's my physical and my mental health. I book time in my diary now for me. So that helps with my mental health. And I think that if my mental health is in a better position, I'm in a stronger position to actually start thinking about the physical health as well. I think the two do quite often go hand in hand. And you just touched on something that, I've realized I've done this. I do this in business, but I've only just realized I've started to do this in life. And you just spoke about adding the walking onto your morning and evening routine, habit stacking. So it is all those little things that I've just started to do that are, you brush your teeth, add something onto that that you can do. So like now, I used to jump straight out of bed and brush my teeth. Whereas now I do something different. I'll come and have a glass of water first.

It's just little things that are meaning that I'm getting some of the right stuff in me.

Sarah (22:28.27)

And do you know that habit stacking is so important. There's a couple of really, really good books on that, which I can link in. But you're so right. It's A, small things, but habits stack. No one is going to go from drinking very little water to drinking a couple of liters a day overnight. A, your body just will feel uncomfortable and you won't remember. But it's things like, have a glass of water before you brush your teeth, before you get dressed. Have a glass of water, before you have a cup of tea or coffee. Swap tea or coffee every now and then for something more herbal because you're still getting the water in from that. But it's, you know, that's how you start to remember things is like do something else. I do squats while I'm brushing my teeth. It's just my way of doing things, but don't you find that when you've got, when you stack like that, it quickly becomes another habit. And you mentioned the word routine. The more things become routine, because we all have habits in our lives, we all have routines. Some of them are good routines, some of them are neutral, some of them are bad. But the more of the good routines we can build into our lives, the more we kind of don't notice that we're doing these good things. They just become part of it, like you say, having a sandwich at lunchtime. It's not something you're going to start doing iinstinctively overnight and just stick with it but the more you do it the more you actually start to become just habitual in doing it don't you?

Emma Hine (24:00.403)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And I think, I think this is key, isn't it? You've got to start somewhere and that somewhere is, it's got, you know, it's a teeny, teeny little step. And I noticed some of the things that I'm talking about are going to, you know, are going to feel very, very small. To others, they're going to feel massive because they're not yet at a point where they are, you know, taking that first step outside or having the breakfast in the morning or drinking that glass of water. But I know that these are all steps in the right direction. And if I do them a little bit at a time,

I know I'm more likely to stick at them. I know I'm more likely to turn them into a habit. And I know that I'm more likely to start increasing what I do because my platform is moving up, isn't it? Every time I do something else and I get to a consistent point, I'm taking it up to the next level. And it's crazy to me because this is all the stuff that I do instinctively in business and I help people to do in business all of the time. But when it comes to me, I've never ever done it before. And if I want to run a business and I want to be a mom and a nanny and all of these things and a wife, I need to be healthy because otherwise I can't be there to do what I want to do. I can't be there to be this freedom person that's got lots of freedom and time because it's worthless, isn't it, if you haven't got your health?

Sarah (25:15.086)

Exactly. And it's so important, like you're saying, to be realistic about just very small steps. Like coming back, you say you take a lunch break now. No one's going to go from working straight through the day to taking an hour for lunch. It's not going to happen because you'll get itchy, you'll get antsy, you'll get... you're not used to it. Even if you just start with a 10 minute lunch break at lunchtime, say, right at 12 .30, I'm taking 10 minutes and then expand that to 15 when you're comfortable, to half an hour and if half an hour is all you manage, at least you've had a break. I'm quite strict now, a lot of the training that I do is over Zoom and people always want a quick lunch break or can we have a short lunch break and then we can finish early and I'm like well no actually, how mean am I? But I'll say no because half an hour isn't long enough to get away from the screen. What I want to do is have 45 minutes as that's the minimum but I want you to get outside and get fresh air, get natural daylight into you because otherwise, you're just going to be sat on the screen and you're not going to be productive. And I think, you know, it's like anything, isn't it? It's, you know, you're not going to go to an hour lunch break overnight. You're not going to go to eating healthily overnight. It's making that one small shift. Even if it is, right, 1230, I'm going to stop for 10 minutes and get something to eat. And then then it'll be 1520. 

The same with healthy eating. You're not going to go from a poor diet to a great diet overnight, you need to do it in stages, even if that is, well, I'm still going to eat that, but I'm going to add a salad or I'm going to add a portion of vegetables or something. But it's doing it in ways that work for you, isn't it? And remember what the goal is. The goal isn't, yes, the goal is good health, but it's also to stay healthy so that you can be around your grandchildren as much as possible. And I think that's a big thing, isn't it? It's not like you said, we said about the money. It's not just the money, it's what you can do with the money. The goal isn't health, it's what we can do with good health that we can't with poor health, don't you think?

Emma Hine (27:17.747)

Yeah, exactly that, exactly that. And I've never actually said it that way before, but that is completely it, isn't it? If you haven't got your health, then you can't do exactly the same as you can earn lots of money. But if you haven't got the time, the money is worthless, isn't it? And it's the same with your health, isn't it? You can create all this time, but if you've not got your health, what are you gonna do? You're gonna spend it feeling poorly or at the doctor's or worse still, you know, well, we're even gonna go where you could go, but you know, your health is probably the only thing that we don't give priority to, but actually the thing that we should give the most priority to, because without our health, we've got absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing to give if we're not healthy.

Sarah (27:58.862)

And people talk about, you know, work -life balance and I'm not a fan of that because I think it's life balance. I think when your life is balanced, then it encompasses many different areas, doesn't it? Including business, but it's the overall balance that's so important. Has your health...

Do you think your health has affected the growth of your business or do you think there have been times where it's had an impact on your ability to do business?

Emma Hine (28:29.555)

Certainly my mental health had an impact on my e -commerce business. It grew, but it grew in a way that wasn't the right way for me. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't giving me that, my version of success that I mentioned at the beginning. So my mental health definitely had an impact on that. And, you know, there was obviously all the underlying health stuff that was happening to me as a result of my mental health and the alcohol that I was drinking and all of that sort of stuff.

But it absolutely had an impact on my business. And ultimately, the reason I had to sort of say, right, that's enough is enough. I'm walking away from that business was because of my mental health, was because of the fact that I had not prioritized looking after myself one way or another, however that sits. I got to the point where I had to say, I just cannot do this business anymore. If I'd have been in a good state, healthy, health -wise, and I'm talking more mental health here, but if I'd been in a good situation that way, I would have been able to do things differently. I would have been able to make changes to the business, to sell the business, to have done something that would have been more strategic rather than actually just something that I reached a point of, I just can't do this anymore. And, you I'm fortunate that I was able to do that. I was able to say, I can't do this anymore and move on. If that had been something that had already set in. I don't know what the impact would have been on my body, my actual health if I'd have kept going. I don't know, but definitely had an impact on my business, definitely.

Sarah (30:06.682)

Unfortunately poor health doesn't you don't wake up one morning and think oh gosh my health, it creeps up on you it's quite a very unnoticeable process and it is like you say it's often when it's it's overwhelming that you actually stop and go this isn't good so you notice it suddenly but it's it's crept up gradually and I think again it's the more you get to know your body the more you get to know what good health feels like the more you notice when something's not right and you can go and get it seen to and fixed. But similarly, good health doesn't, again, that creeps up on you. And all of a sudden you wake up and you think, gosh, do you know, I'm feeling really good at the moment. But, and I've been feeling good for a while. So I think that's important to remember is, you know, both bad and good health is a process. It's a pathway. But you can kind of, the more you notice how you're feeling, the more you can get on the right pathway towards good health, can't you?

Emma Hine (31:05.299)

Yeah, yeah, exactly that. And I'm right at the beginning of this journey in terms of starting to put my health first. I'm absolutely right at the beginning of this journey, but I want to get to 50 and I'm 50 in August. I want to get to 50, feeling healthier than I do now. And that isn't going to just happen on its own. That is not going to just happen on its own. So I have got to do things. I've got to get uncomfortable. I've got to put myself into situations where I don't want to do that. Because when you start anything new, when you start to do anything, whether it's exercise or a business thing or anything, at first it's uncomfortable, isn't it? You think, I don't like this. This isn't for me. I can't do this. This is for other people. All these things that we say to ourselves, and I've been saying myself to these things to myself for a while in terms of, oh no, running's not for me, or that's not for me, or no, that's not for me. Well, how do I know if I never actually try it? And it's not just a case of trying something once, is it? You've got to try things a few times and then find the thing that actually works for you. But I am determined and I've never have been determined before to make sure that my health gets into a good position. I know it's not now and I know that part of the problem with my health now is the repercussion of how I've abused and I think that's the right word to use, abused my body over the last nearly 20 years. I have abused my body and because it's carried on.  I've let it carry on, but it's now got to the point where it's like, I suppose it's a buildup of anything, isn't it? That my body is actually saying, right, now is the time to sort yourself out. I'm giving you a warning here in effect. I'm giving you a warning that says, you know, you're gonna be 50 and you've got every opportunity to sort your bits and pieces out so that actually they can then go on into, like you say, your retirement years to do what I think you always dream of, don't you? You retire and then suddenly your life is yours. Your kids get bigger and suddenly your life is yours if you're able to do it.

Sarah (33:02.19)

Well, I'm going to issue a challenge now. I want you to come back at the end of August and tell us how you got on because, you know, that gives you six months. And think that's a really good time. Now, Emma is starting a podcast soon. So tell us a little bit about your podcast and when it's happening.

Emma Hine (33:06.803)

Okay. Okay, I'm up for that.

Emma Hine (33:20.563)

Yeah, well, my podcast is going to be called the Growth Podcast by Emma Hine. And my podcast is going to be very much about looking at what I call holistic growth. And when I talk about holistic growth, I mean about growth as a whole. So we're talking about business growth and personal growth, because I don't believe that you can grow a business successfully. And again, I focus here on success being your version of success. I don't believe you can do that unless you grow personally alongside it.

And I realised that back in like 2020, 2021, when I started to change my business model, to come away from the e -commerce business and focus more on this, helping people to grow business they love. But now I realised that part of that is also health. So that is really interesting for me and that is definitely going to form part of it. So yeah, it's going to be bringing on inspirational stories. We're going to be bringing on people who have gone through the growth journey.

And also there'll be lots of tips and things in there that we can do. So we'll definitely be bringing Sarah on to talk about how you can grow your health.

Sarah (34:19.222)

Definitely, because it's something in business, whichever industry you're in, there's usually a very big emphasis on continuing professional development, CPD as we call it. And I've always been a big, big advocate for the fact that we also need continuing personal development. And it sounds like this is what you're recommending is developing personally and professionally, because really and truly, you need both. You can't develop professionally unless you develop personally. And I think it's so important. And this is what you actually do in your business, isn't it?   That kind of holistic growth. So tell us a little bit more then about what you actually do in your business. I'll put all the links into the information about the podcast people, but just tell us briefly what you do in your business.

Emma Hine (34:52.211)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely, to summarise, what I do is helping people to grow a business that they love and I say that because I think it is very easy and this probably sounds really big -headed here but I think it's really easy to grow a business that makes you money. I absolutely believe that anybody can do that but I think it takes a special sort of person and a special sort of beliefs and training to enable people to grow a business that they absolutely love doing. I honestly believe that if you love what you're doing,

you are passionate about what you do, you're going to become much more consistent at what you do. And if you're consistent, you are going to get more growth. So I believe that, you know, that the more that you become what you want to become, that your business can grow with you. So my work is very much focused on really getting to know who you are, what your passion is, what your drive is, and then building a business around that rather than the other way around, rather than saying, this is what I want my business to look like, and then trying to make everything pigeonhole into that.

It's very much the other way around. Who are you? What do you enjoy? How can you help people? What are your passions in life? What is your purpose? What does success look like to you? And then let's build a business model around it. And there's a model for everybody that absolutely is a model for everybody.

Sarah (36:17.038)

I like that it's sort of passion into purpose into profitability, I really like that but it's all about planning isn't it it's all about getting to know people and in my field it's always about getting to know your clients because then you can actually help them move forward. Emma it's been really really interesting talking to you and I think I definitely am going to get you back towards the end of August to tell us about how it's going because I think six months you're going to start to notice a lot of benefits a lot of positive things changing and again like anything else, in business it's about finding out what you like doing, it's about finding out what lights you up, what makes you feel good physically and mentally and that might be running a marathon or it might be just walking a mile, it varies for everybody but it's being honest isn't it about what you want to be able to do and then working towards it. So thank you for coming on and sharing so much of this because like I say, it's just such an important field and hopefully a lot of people will realise that it's never too late to start thinking about your health. And actually, I'll put the links in so that people can come and find you. But best of luck with the podcast. I'll be listening in. And thank you again for coming along and being a guest.

Emma Hine (37:34.835)

Thank you so much for having me. I've loved the conversation and I can't wait to come back in six months. That really helps me actually. It gives me something to work towards. So thank you for that, Sarah. Thank you.

Sarah (37:43.598)

We'll keep you accountable, don't you worry. You've been listening to Creating Active Lives with me, Sarah Bolitho and my guest Emma Hine talking about how turning 50 can trigger you into a positive health pathway. Thank you very much for listening. We will see you all again soon.