87: How to Reduce Burnout and Skyrocket Team Productivity w/ Sheri Traxler

Most leaders say they want peak performance from their teams, but ignore one of the simplest levers to get it: health and wellness. In this episode of No Limit Leadership, Sean Patton sits down with nationally recognized wellness expert, speaker, and CEO of The ViReo Life, Sheri Traxler.

With over 30 years of experience helping leaders and organizations optimize health for peak performance, Sheri shares the business case for wellness, how to move beyond “check-the-box” programs, and the simple daily habits leaders can model to boost energy, productivity, and retention.

You will learn:

• Why strategic wellness efforts deliver 6–10x ROI.
• How to use the “Stages of Change” framework to reach employees at every level.
• The high-impact, low-effort habits that sharpen focus and reduce burnout.
• Why leading by example is the fastest way to change your culture.

If you want your team to thrive, this conversation is your playbook for turning wellness into a competitive advantage.

Timestamps:

• 00:00 – Introduction to Sheri Traxler and today’s topic.
• 02:00 – The meaning behind “ViReo” and why words matter.
• 06:00 – Do organizations have a moral or legal obligation to prioritize wellness?
• 07:09 – The business case for wellness: 6–10x ROI.
• 08:18 – Why top performers value health and wellness.
• 10:28 – Generational differences in wellness priorities.
• 13:48 – What actually works (and what does not) in workplace wellness programs.
• 17:43 – Why education and behavior change matter more than perks.
• 20:44 – Using the Stages of Change to design effective wellness initiatives.
• 24:22 – How surveys reveal hidden barriers and boost buy-in.
• 26:42 – Moving employees from exploration to action to maintenance.
• 29:33 – The “leadership canary” and how example drives culture change.
• 31:51 – How one person’s habits can shift an entire team.
• 33:24 – Why blocking and protecting wellness time increases respect.
• 37:10 – High-impact, low-effort habits: standing, sunlight, hydration, powerful plates.
• 41:15 – Benefits of walking after lunch and mid-day resets.
• 44:48 – Structuring work blocks and breaks for maximum productivity.
• 47:28 – Matching workouts to your day’s mental demands.
• 50:35 – The role of music in managing energy and focus.
• 52:08 – Male and female hormonal cycles and optimizing performance.
• 55:36 – How to connect with Sheri.

Resources & Links:

• Connect with Sheri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheri-traxler/
• Sheri's website: https://www.thevireolife.com/
• Email Sheri: sheri@thevireolife.com
• Subscribe to No Limit Leadership: https://www.nolimitleaders.com/growth

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
Most leaders say they want peak performance from their teams, but ignore one of the simplest levers to get it, health and wellness. Today's guest, Sherry Trexler, is a nationally recognized wellness expert, speaker, and CEO of VirioLife. She's spent over 30 years helping leaders move beyond check-the-box wellness to create programs that truly change behavior, boost productivity, and retain top talent. We dig into the business case for wellness, the simple daily habits that drive ROI, and how leading by example transforms culture.

Listen closely, these insights could be the energy advantage your team's been missing.

Sean Patton (00:49)
Welcome to the No Limit Leadership Podcast. I am your host, Sean Patton. I am very excited today to have Sheri Traxler She's a nationally recognized wellness expert, speaker and behavior change specialist with over 30 years of experience, helping leaders and organizations optimize health for peak performance. As the CEO of VeraLife, Sheri equips companies to move beyond the check the box wellness and build high impact programs that actually change behavior, boost productivity and retain top talent. Sheri thanks for being on here today.

And you helped me before with the name of your company that Vireo Life is like Oreos. Did I say it right? Cheer. Yeah, Cheerios. I did get it right. my gosh. All right. Well, got it right. I got it right in the intro. So, you know, we're we're already back in a thousand, but no, thanks for being on here. I'm excited.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (01:25)
Furio. Cheerio. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. So it's

absolutely, absolutely. it's my pleasure. I've always, Vireo is, it's not a common word. It's a Latin word. And so people are like, how do I pronounce this? It's like, just pretend you're over in Scotland or Ireland or wherever it is that they say cheerio. It's like, it rhymes with that.

Sean Patton (01:53)
Perfect. No one is going to forget it now and they'll know to go look it up. And you said it's a Latin word. What's it mean in Latin?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (01:59)
So it is a, I'm a geek on this, so we're gonna dive into it. That Vireo the word is in first person present tense and it means I flourish, I thrive, I am strong and active. So when I was getting my trademark from my company, my company actually used to be called something pretty generic and the trademark attorney was like, nope Sherry, that ain't gonna fly. You gotta find something. So I did. And when I came across that, it just hit me so strong.

Sean Patton (02:03)
Please.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (02:26)
Every time somebody says the name of my company, they are confessing over themselves that they flourish, they thrive, they're strong and active.

Sean Patton (02:35)
Isn't it crazy? feel like, there's so many other languages or especially I feel like older languages, they just had better words. feel like we, you know, I feel like we took like there'd be a word that was like it perfected. meant this one thing and we needed to like chop it up and give it, make it before things. And we just, there's like a better word. feel like I see that all the time with, you know, different, different languages, you know.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (03:00)
Well, I think it's that and I also think it's that because we tend to dumb down our own language, there's probably English words that we quit using 100 years ago that have a richness to them that we don't know about because we don't use them anymore.

Sean Patton (03:14)
Hmm, yeah, that is 100 % true. I am like fascinated, we're totally off on a side quest, but that's cool. We'll come back to the main quest in a second. ⁓ But I'm totally ⁓ interested in like the, is it etymology? Is that the right word? Like the history of like the study of language, I guess. Is that the right word? Do you know? I'm gonna roll with it then. Yeah, there's gonna be like comments on this, like you idiot, that is not what that means. But I'm pretty sure that's what it means.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (03:34)
Sounds right. We're going with it.

Sean Patton (03:44)
Yeah, I think that's such a, like a fascinating, you know, topic. And I've only, you know, I learned a little Spanish, but for the military, had to learn Arabic. And I found there's like still words in Arabic that I'm just like something, a couple of conversation. And in my head, I'll be like, that's the word is this, you know, like, there's a, yeah, there's a word, um, that I use all the time in Arabic called Wasta. And it basically is just like pre the presence.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (04:02)
Interesting.

Sean Patton (04:14)
you know, ⁓ someone that has a lot of influence and like people want to follow and they respect, but it has an element of like respect, but also of like, like real power, like someone like, you know, who runs things or that people want to follow or like a war, almost like a warlord, but not like a, like a militia leader, but not like a, ⁓ over violent, you know, like Gestapo type person, just like a very powerful person. And there's all these times where I'm coming up like, ⁓ that person.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (04:29)
Mm-hmm.

In other words, kind of a power

under control that they've got all this power, but they're they're not violent with it unless they absolutely had to be.

Sean Patton (04:45)
Yes!

Exactly. Yeah. And like they're respected for it. And so all this time I'm just like, this person is Wasta, but I know, I know, I, no one knows what I'm talking about. anyway, all right. Well, good. Great word. ⁓ Love that. What we're supposed to be talking about today on the podcast.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (05:06)
Well, we're, it's okay.

This is going to be a, hard segue. And that is what we're talking about is how to make individuals and teams more WOSTA.

Sean Patton (05:17)
More wasta, yes, and make them flourish and be stronger. You know, just like your very own life. So as we talk about that, you know, one of the questions when we were doing our pre-interview call that came up was like about what do organizations, as we're talking about business leaders here, and we'll talk more specifics about individual health and all those things, but like at an org level, should they, or, you know, do they have a moral

a legal obligation, any obligation, how it is of an organization or a business, do they have an obligation to have part of their purpose or their structure be health and wellness?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (06:02)
Great question. Yes and no. No in the sense that there is no other than safety guidelines, things like that. There is nothing out there legally or maybe even morally that's saying this is something you have to do. This is something that you must do. However, for the sake of your stakeholders, if you want your company to not only survive but thrive, you want to outperform your competition.

Yes, you absolutely have to have it because it is the game changer. 89 % of employees who are looking for a place to work or are currently working in your organization, they are looking for wellness as a part of that. There's all kinds of other stats we can go into if you want to, of the way that wellness impacts the bottom line. So yeah, it's not morally required, but for success of your organization, it's absolutely essential.

Sean Patton (07:02)
So give me the business case for including health and wellness as a priority for my business.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (07:09)
Ooh, I love how you phrased that. Six to 10 times ROI. That's kind of the bottom line number of, for every dollar that you invest as a business owner in wellness, you're gonna get a six to 10 return on it. And that's going to come in things like productivity, employee engagement, top talent recruitment.

Sean Patton (07:18)
Wow, okay, say more about that.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (07:39)
top talent retention. It's going to like one study, this was one of my absolute favorite studies on even just an exercise program, not even a full blown wellness program. On the days that employees exercised versus the days that they did not, there was an over 20 % improvement in their interactions as a team. So if you've got conflict on your team, maybe they just need to go for a walk at lunch. So it's

The way that wellness impacts your business is super profound.

Sean Patton (08:18)
I also feel like, you know, we talk about attracting and retaining not just anyone, but in this competitive landscape, like the best people or, you know, top talent, top tier people. And what I've noticed, especially with sort of the senior executives I work with, business owners, those are generally people I work with, especially kind of one-on-one.

in the last few decades, like they see for themselves how their physical, mental health, spiritual, all the healths, right, allow them to perform at their best. so other top performers, like health and wellness is like the higher someone performs or almost the higher ambition they have professionally, I'm seeing, I see a correlation between

them also wanting to perform well and prioritizing health and wellness as well. That's what I'm seeing. I don't know if you see that as well.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (09:24)
It is, they are, it's at least on their radar. Even if they are not pursuing it, they're like, yeah, I know that I need to. Whereas many years ago, when I started in this industry, no, it was just kind of assumed that you grind it out and you work a hundred hours a week and you don't take care of yourself. And then because I worked with a lot of executives on burnout,

they know that they're burning out and they know that wellness has to be a part of their program to get out of burnout.

Sean Patton (09:58)
And especially I would think with the, I'm gonna say, know, maybe we'll say it like younger generations or newer generations. Like it's a different, you mentioned a different mindset between, cause we're in, think a pretty unique place with depending on the size of your organization where we've got, I've heard, you know, I've heard people say four times, four or even five distinct generations working together in the workplace. you're everywhere from, you might have, you know, ⁓

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (10:23)
Yes.

Sean Patton (10:28)
a boomer down to a Gen Z, maybe a Gen Alpha intern, right? the Gen, like you've got all different levels, those, the, when I see those, those rising, you know, this millennials who, know, that's I'm, I'm right between the, I'm the Gen Y, I'm the micro generation between millennials and Gen X, you know, where they're rising in their forties now into.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (10:51)
huh.

Sean Patton (10:57)
40s and early 50s into senior leadership positions. And the way they look at and prioritize their health and wellness and fitness is different maybe than the people they're replacing that maybe came from that boomer generation.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (11:11)
Yeah, absolutely. And we're talking stereotypes at this point, because as we're talking about it, my mind is actually going to some of the CEOs that I've worked with in the past and top leaders I've worked with in the past, like talking 20 plus years ago, that yeah, health and wellness for many of them was a top priority. they have gotten to the... And what I find interesting...

Sean Patton (11:16)
Of course.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (11:38)
is, this is more individual than team, and we can go back to team talking about, you know, corporation level if we want. But on an individual level, sometimes when somebody has already gotten to that very, very, very, very top level, they are at a place in their life that they are outsourcing everything except for what they can't outsource, and you cannot outsource your health and wellness.

Sometimes it's that upper level management or maybe mid-level management that they're not quite at the place that they can outsource literally everything except for their work, their family and their health and wellness. So for them, that's where a lot of times I see the burnout coming in because they're trying to get to that next level in their career or grow their business at that next level and yeah, but I can't really outsource everything else.

Sean Patton (12:35)
Hmm. All right. Well, I think that's it. You know, last time it was a hard segue. Now it's an easy segue because now you're talking about those rising leaders inside an organization and we're, senior leaders and we know that there's the business case to support that. don't want those middle and rising leaders to burn out, sacrifice their health because it's going to, you know, as you mentioned, increase conflict, decrease performance, all those other things. So at an org level, if we know that and we're trying to

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (12:41)
Okay?

Sean Patton (13:05)
you know, take care of our people and also get our best ROI on the talent we have. Like, what should we be doing inside of that? You know, and I guess in short, it's like,

what actually works at an org level to accomplish that versus maybe what doesn't or, know, there's a lot ⁓ of wellness stuff out there that I see companies do or put out. And sometimes it seems check the boxish. Is that a word? Check the boxy? As opposed to impactful. It's like they're doing it to say they do it as opposed to making sure that and seeing it as

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (13:38)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (13:48)
the business case for ROI. what works and what doesn't.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (13:52)
Yeah. Ooh. Okay. Well, we can spend the rest of the time just talking about this, because this is so rich. This is so good. The first thing you have to ask yourself is why are you doing this? What is your goal? Is your goal to outperform the competition and to do that maybe in your industry, you're needing faster iteration of product. You're needing fast thinking. You're needing creative thinking. That is very different than an organization that

oh, we're self-insured and we're seeing a whole lot of our population deal with diabetes or deal with heart disease or deal with whatever. You're going to look at something different at that point. One, you're going to be looking at what is going to help people's brain health. What is going to help people to perform better, be more alert without living on lattes. Like one of my talks that I do in organizations is get energized without living on lattes. And it's like, okay, how do we do this without them doing that? Somebody else, it's going to be,

I'll give you a couple of real life examples. Just last week, I was talking with an organization that they had someone come in, actually last week, a dermatologist to come in and talk about skin health and sun exposure and all the things related to skin health. That was because as this company is not just wanting to do some feel good stuff, but you know what? We're self-insured.

We have, as far as I could tell anyway, they're self-insured. So this is about what are we doing for our employees' health so that we're keeping our healthcare costs down. That's not necessarily going to improve productivity other than way down the road, somebody doesn't have skin cancer, so they're staying at work. If someone is saying we're wanting to have brain health, then you're going to be looking at we need to, what are we having in our break room?

bring in a nutritionist to do an evaluation of that? Are we having standing desks so that people are able to stand while they work? You know, I'm standing right now. You may be standing right now. Well, we've, okay, there we go. We're moving. Yeah. So, all right. We know that the blood flow to your brain increases when you do that, but it's not just about having the standing desk. There was a company two years ago, I think it was. I went to, and I did this whole

Sean Patton (15:59)
I'm standing too, look at me, I'm moving, I'm moving. I'm lying on my feet.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (16:17)
program for them on energy, having better brain energy and so forth. I did not know that they had standing desks because when I came into the office, everybody in all their cubicles was sitting down at their desk. So I start talking about the benefits of a standing desk and how to make shift if you don't have one and somebody raised their hand and they go, Sheri, we all actually have standing desks. They had just invested a total redesign, remodel of their office.

everybody got these high-end standing desks and nobody was using them. So after this education session, I walk out and literally, Sean, without exaggeration, every person had their desk up. I thought, this is so good. The owner, yes, this owner had just invested probably as many employees as they had, probably $50,000 in standing desks and nobody was using them. They bring in a speaker for one simple session and now

everybody's using it and getting the benefit of it. Oh, hands hands down, easy things that you can do. You were talking about checking the box and interrupt me anytime because you've got me on a soapbox now I can talk forever. So jump in. Okay. So I remember this, this goes back like 20 or 30 years, when we first in the wellness industry started looking at corporate wellness, we were looking at what we thought

Sean Patton (17:26)
Stay up there, stay up there. I'm listening.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (17:43)
was important at that point and that was, okay, fitness, we're gonna go for fitness. Well, what do we do for fitness at that time? If there was a very large organization, we built a gym on site. If it was a smaller organization, you gave everybody a gym membership. Sean, who used that?

Sean Patton (18:05)
people that are already going to the gym.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (18:06)
Exactly. It just made it super convenient for the people who are already going to do it. The population that wasn't going to get the benefit, the population that needed to do it either because of healthcare cost or productivity or whatever, they aren't going to use it. So now we start looking at what do we need to do? And there's twofold with this. One, what do we need to do to help people mentally make the shift? And so here we're bringing, mentioned behavior change in my intro.

that's a big piece of it is what do we do on not just an individual level but on a group level so that people begin to change their behavior. Part of that is making things available. So nothing wrong with having a gym membership reimbursement. But part of that is something called stages of change. And I think in our pre-interview talk, we talked, I mentioned that phrase to you. So in stages of change, you've got somebody who is

pre-contemplation, that is they don't even know that this is an issue. They don't even know that eating junk food every day and living on coffee and going from bed to desk to desk to bed and not moving at all, they don't even know it's an issue. That's pre-contemplation. And then you go through contemplation, you go through exploration and you're thinking about maybe doing something and then you're starting to take some action all the way up to maintenance. In a nutshell,

You need something in your organization for every person along that journey. So that if you've got somebody in your organization that's pre-contemplation, maybe you have some signs in your break room talking about the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables and you make them available. It's not that you don't have the other stuff there, but you've got some options for them. If you are dealing with a lot of stress in your workplace, you start having things in

newsletter and an email talking about the benefits of stress management and then you bring in a speaker to talk about how to manage your stress you bring in whether it's a meditation or a yoga or whatever whatever your whatever's the vibe for your organization what people would be open to you start making some of those things available and then all the way up to somebody who is in they're active they are doing these things what do they want to take to the next level

Because if it's an A performer in wanting growth, they don't want to just, okay, I went for a two mile walk, what can I do? Are we gonna be starting as a company and getting involved in some 5Ks or 10Ks? So that gives you a few ideas. Jump from there with any questions you have.

Sean Patton (20:44)
Yeah, so let's go through this. I like the pre-contemplative phase sounds like to me the education phase. I'm just repeating back. So what I'm hearing from you is that we need education that is also tailored to population, work environment, vibe, all those things, right? Cause we also have

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (20:53)
Yes.

Yeah,

and also education on what that company's goals are. Because if that company's goals are about healthcare costs, then we're going to look at the big hitters. Heart disease, cancer, etc. If that organization, if the goal is, we've got a lot of really bad relationships and we need people getting along better, then we need to start educating on stress management and conflict resolution, things like that.

If it's an organization that's like, no, it's in a rapidly changing industry, we need to look at how do we iterate faster? We need a lot of creativity. Okay, we need education on this. These are the things that you can do in your day to make your brain more powerful.

Sean Patton (21:51)
Mm, okay, love that. So that's pre-contemplative phase. And then the next one is contemplative, contemplation, okay. So what does it look like in those different areas to address that and make that available? now someone knows, they've got the education piece in those different areas. How do we fill that phase?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (21:56)
Contemplation. Mm-hmm. Yep.

Love that. it's a, they're both actually education, but it's two different kinds. Pre-contemplation, they are not going to seek out the education. They're not going to go to a lunch and learn, but they are going to read what is on the break room wall. They are going to read, they may not open the email, but they'll at least read the subject line of the email. And if the subject line of the email says, did you know that angst, angst, did you know that X,

decreases your risk of heart disease. ⁓ okay. yeah, that works too. That works too. Yeah. That's good. That was not a slip then. So pre-contemplation is more passive education where they're just kind of becoming exposed to it. Contemplation is, ⁓ maybe I need to start looking at this. ⁓ my company is offering a lunch and learn on how to get

Sean Patton (22:44)
I would say decreasing angst probably helps your risk of decreasing heart disease too.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (23:10)
more energy so that I can't and also is what is the benefit to the employee? If the benefit to the the benefit to the company is they're going to be more energetic at work. The benefit to the employee is I've got energy at six o'clock when I get home to be with my kids. So things are phrased differently when you are basically marketing it to your employees. So at that point that person who's contemplating is saying

All right, I will go to this lunch and learn because it's going to help me.

Sean Patton (23:45)
Okay. And then on both those actually before we open that. So when you're trying to make a decision about that, is that just like a conversation with some leaders? this like a survey tool that you would put out to be like, what does matter to my employee? like what is gonna be, cause like any good marketing, right? You wanna know your audience and where you're gonna position. So is it a combination of company priority, survey population,

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (23:46)
And then.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (24:15)
use those two to inform the education piece in the pre-contemplative and contemplative phase.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (24:22)
Yes, and you would use both and you would actually use both. We'd use the survey in a different way too. So when I'm getting information from a company on this, we're looking at what do we already know generally about this population? If most of your employees are older, they're going to look for, they're empty nesters. They're not going to necessarily need energy at five o'clock to be with their family. If you've got folks that are in their thirties, yeah, they got youngins at home.

They need to be able to have energy when they get home. And also when somebody is in their thirties, they can't get away with all the things they used to get away with and still come to work sharp. so that's a different conversation too. The other thing with the survey individually that I really love doing is then there's two things that happen, Sean. One, you've got numbers, you've got data then to go to the leadership in that company and say,

this is why we need this. Like there was a company that I did a pre-energy survey and on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the most amount of energy you can have, one being you're crawling into work. There was a co-owned company, was a small company, co-owned. One person, one owner was really into wellness and knew that the team needed this. The other was like, okay, whatever. Their aggregate score came in at a 5.6.

And that owner that was like, we really don't need this. When she saw that she was sold. She was like, okay, whatever we need to do to get the team's energy up, because this is obviously affecting customer service in a way that she didn't realize it was, you know, all the things. So it's a great selling point. And then you've also got metrics that after six months of running a program, after three months, even running of a program, you can see here's a change or here's what's not changing that we thought would.

So we need to switch what we're offering or here's what they're responding to because sometimes people don't know what their motivation is. We think they do, but they don't always. So you can get it on paper and then you realize sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, we need to make some fine tuning.

Sean Patton (26:38)
We'll also love that because then you've got that quantifiable ROI that you mentioned of, right? Like then you implement your protocol and six months later, you're later, you do it and everyone's at a seven one and you're like, you like, you know, you've got, you've got to quantify about quantify ⁓ that. So we've got pre-contemplative, contemplative next phase.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (26:42)
Yes.

Right. Right.

Next is where you're starting to explore and that is someone and we'll we'll do it on an individual level if somebody says Okay, I'm now I've been contemplating getting into an exercise program When they start exploring it's they're starting to talk to a couple of personal trainers or they're starting to look at some gems there They're starting to take not the action of actually working out, but they're starting to fill things out

So in an organization, what this is going to look like is when you're starting to put some opportunities in place, not just lunch and learns, but you're making changes in your break room as far as what's being offered. You're having a once a week session with somebody coming in doing a yoga, meditation or whatever, if it's a stress management. You're offering a lot of companies are doing this now through better help, having therapy being an option.

Then you're having people starting to look at the resources that the company is making available and feeling those things out even if they're not committed to it yet. The next level up from that is action and that's where they're saying, okay, I'm actually going to sign up for the therapy or I'm going to not just go to these lunch and learns but start implementing it or start getting some coaching because some companies will offer coaching to their manager levels and up one-on-one coaching with me or whomever.

And then maintenance is when I've been doing this for six months. At that point, you know, it's becoming a habit.

Sean Patton (28:34)
⁓ I love those and what I'd like to add on that is, I think it's important to remind ourselves of like scale. when you, we're talking from the org level down, generalization, population level stuff, but then we're talking about individuals and individual responsibility, right? And what we can do. And as a leadership podcast, I wanna call out that.

You know, have, I have a concept called what I call the, the four leadership canaries, right? Like canary in a coal mine of like, what, what are their early, what are our, our leading indicators that our leadership efforts are working? Cause it's hard to get our awareness things, just like a lot of times in health, it's hard to get our awareness things. And one of them, maybe the biggest one is they start mimicking your behavior.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (29:12)
Yes.

Sean Patton (29:33)
⁓ without you saying anything. And so I think that the leadership, by example here, to your point of like everyone walked in, you the leader bought the owner bought those $50,000 in standing desks, but like no one was using them. But if those top leaders, they went down to the managers, the top manager on the floor and we're like told them like,

Here's the benefit also, I want you to do that because if you do it, everyone else will, or who are informal influencers, if they would have done it, more people would have done it, but no one stepped up and did it, right? And I use the example of, I'll brag on my, this is now almost 10 years old, my wife, Madison, girlfriend at the time, she worked as a salesperson for Postmates, ⁓ downtown at Cummins Station, doing B2B sales and tech sales. And they were in person all on their phones, they were doing calling and stuff.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (30:05)
Absolutely.

Sean Patton (30:27)
not a healthy environment generally overall, know, pizza parties and like all that stuff, you know, the cold brew kegs and all those things. And to your point, there was a gym in the same building and no one ever used it. But Madison takes her health and wellness very seriously. at the time, especially she was competing, doing jujitsu a lot. so, and they would go to like, people would go to like the Mexican restaurant just above them for lunch every day, right? So Madison would just bring her own salad sort of.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (30:31)
Yep.

Sean Patton (30:54)
And she would just bring on salad. at first, I remember like people would like give her, you know, give her crap, right? They'd be like, you know, eating the rabbit food, like whatever, you want it, you know, want a slice of pizza, whatever. She's like, no, no, I'm good. She would do that. And then also she would schedule her lunch where she would be able to go to the gym. So she would like go to the gym, come back, eat her desk, work. She would just do that over and over again. And then she became a junior manager. And it went from like, then people started like,

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (31:02)
yeah.

Sean Patton (31:22)
asking and she noticed some people on her team started bringing their lunches. And then, you know, and then it was like, then they would sit and eat with her. And then, the, the chat, a people ask her like, Hey, I see you go to the gym every day. I just don't know what I'm supposed to do. Can I go with you? So then she had like a workout buddy, like workout team that would go like workout with her and go back. And it just goes to show you that like, that was before she was in a formal leadership role. And so I think this is like this intersection of like leadership and health and wellness as an example of.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (31:25)
⁓ yeah!

Sean Patton (31:51)
You don't have to be the CEO owner to affect the org, to impact other people, to be a leader. Leader is about influence, not about position or title. so this is health and wellness is such a powerful place where, because it's so like physical and real, where we can step up no matter where we're at in organization, lead by example, and we can shift culture just through our own personal actions at an org level.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (32:13)
Yes.

Yes. And one fabulous for Madison, you go girl. And from a leadership standpoint with that, I remember hearing a leader talking about they always worked out at lunch, but they just felt weird about it for whatever reason. And so they basically hit it. They would not change at the office.

They would be showered and changed when they got back. Nobody knew where they went. And then this leader was frustrated because nobody was working out. And they realized, it's because I'm not being transparent in setting the example. So they started owning it. People started seeing it. And the biggest thing that people said was it gave them permission then to go do that because the leader was doing it. And

able then because I mean we know if you go work out at lunch you're going to be 10 times more productive in the afternoon your brain's going to be sharp. So it helped the organization of course but it also helped those individuals.

Sean Patton (33:24)
Yes, gave them permission. To pull this out in even a bigger context, the leader of going first and being vulnerable and how that gives other people the permission to do the same thing. And ⁓ I know some of the leaders I worked with too, we'd be working on ⁓ time blocking and creating what their priorities are. So they would say priority is health and performance, taking care of myself. Okay, don't see it on your calendar.

Right. Or, you know, it or it gets, it gets, it gets put at lunch, but I also then if anyone brings up anything where they want to talk to me at lunch, it gets, it gets scheduled over and instead of treating it like a true priority, like if your health and is a true priority for you, which hopefully it is, you know, for me, I always have my top five priorities listed. have my whiteboard and like my physical, mental, emotional health is number one. Like it's above.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (33:53)
Yep.

Sean Patton (34:22)
work, it's above my relationship with my wife, it's above even, you know, being a father, like, because if I, if that isn't there and as other things get scattered over, I can't be great in those other areas. Right. And that's what we're talking about here. So just holding on. And the worry was for them was like, I got pushed back on like, well, if I, if I tell them, I can't take this meeting, I can't do this thing because that's my workout time, they're going to respect me less. Right. They're going to respect me less because like, I'm not all in on the work.

And what I told them, what they found, I'm sure you found this too, is like the complete opposite is true. When someone says, Hey, can you meet tomorrow at, you know, eight, like actually I don't get the office till nine because I work out my, my, my workout time, seven 30 to eight 30 every day. They're like, ⁓ or my workout. I take an hour and a half for lunch because I work out for 45 minutes to take care of me every day. So no, I can't do that. They actually like, ⁓ like they respect you more because they see that you respect yourself and you have self discipline and.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (34:57)
Yes.

Sean Patton (35:22)
Self-discipline is, to go back to our very first conversation about language and cultures, that's one of my big talking points is that self-discipline is one of the few principles that is universally respected and revered across history and across cultures because we know it's what it takes to accomplish big powerful things.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (35:44)
Yes, absolutely. And for the leaders listening who are like, well, but what about, well, if the what about, I'm going to, I'm going to give you a little bit of grace here. If the what about is an absolute true emergency, not a, it's not going to feel pleasant, but an, you know, the house is burning down kind of emergency. It's like, Sean, you know, if, something was going crazy like that and

you needed to skip a workout one day because you needed to rescue your child from whatever, know, or you go take them to the, I'm not going to speak that over you, but something going on basically that's an emergency. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's things, but when it is, Hey, can you meet at nine o'clock? No, because you can just as easily meet at nine 30 or 10 or nine o'clock the next day. Yeah.

Sean Patton (36:19)
Yeah. Yeah. Your kids stick at school. Like your car breaks down, right? Like you gotta go.

I love that. If you don't mind, what I would love to do here is a bit of like, a little more rapid fire, ⁓ very tangible takes from an expert here on like what people can do, like immediate stuff. So what are the things you see, like the lowest hanging low effort fruit, so to speak, right? At work.

so that we can feel better and perform better that you see people not doing. Like what are the first things we can look at?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (37:10)
Number one is stand. That is, you are having going to have such an immediate impact from that. And, you don't have to stand all day long. It can be, I've got these two zoom meetings stand. I'm going to go ahead and we can put it in the show notes. If you want to uncaged ergonomics is who I use for it's, it's not a full standing desk. is a, what's called a laptop stand and it adjusts so that

Right now as we're conversing, I've got my laptop on it standing. It will be lowered whenever I'd need to do sitting work. So standing periodically during the day is a huge one. Another one that has a very high impact for very low effort is sunlight. When sunlight hits your eyes, it immediately begins to produce serotonin. That serotonin is a mood lifter. If you can go walk outside or just have your lunch outside,

and not outside, not set by a window, but actually go outside, that is going to have a massive impact. And it doesn't take any effort other than walking outside to do that. Those are two big ones. Hydration is another one that's huge. Yes, absolutely. I've got my water, you've got yours. It's any time that your brain even gets one to 2 % dehydrated, your productivity begins to plummet. And if you're living on coffee,

Start one of the things I have clients do is they're like, I don't want to give up. You know, it's like, I'm never going to ask anybody to give up their morning coffee. Have, go have your cup of coffee in the morning. We're, not crazy here. But from that point on, they're like, but I want a cup of great. Have a cup of coffee after you've had another cup of water, have a cup of water. If you still want a cup of coffee, have a cup of coffee. ⁓ so just start rotating that through the day. You're going to start getting in a lot more water, start being more dehydrated. And by coffee at that point, it can mean sodas or anything else.

At early stage, we're not cutting out, we're adding. So we're adding sunlight, we're adding standing, we're adding water. ⁓ And I would say the fourth is making sure that you've... Eating what I call a powerful plate can be a challenge to go full on with it. And I'll describe a powerful plate real, real quick. I've got videos on this on my YouTube channel. I teach it all the time. If you take your plate, you divide it in half, half of it be vegetable.

The other half you divide between about a quarter carb, complex carb, a quarter protein and some healthy fat in there somewhere. That is going to give you the most sustained energy. Most people, if they are eating junk food, it's going to be a hard, hard turn to get all the way to a powerful plate. But if you'll just start adding a vegetable each time that you eat, you're not going to see an immediate impact. Like sunlight, you're going to notice an immediate impact. Water, you'll notice an impact within about 48 hours.

The powerful plate starting to add vegetables, it's going to take you a week or two to start noticing a difference in your energy, but you'll start noticing that.

Sean Patton (40:16)
I'll tell the two, you you mentioned it there, but like two for me, uh, that are powerful. Sunlight is, I'm just going to like double down on that. Um, especially in the morning and also, um, right after lunch, but, in the morning, like four and a half, that, that first coffee or a first caffeine is like 16 ounces of water, like 16 ounces of water. Uh, if I'm

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (40:27)
yeah.

Sean Patton (40:46)
If I'm working out a lot, ⁓ I'll put electric lights in that or even just some salt in it in the morning, some minerals. It's like that. think if you just be like, for me, I'm like, if I, I notice a difference when I make sure that that's the first thing I do, I also think there's like a mental side of like the first thing you do is like prioritize health versus grab that cup of coffee. You know, it's like something about my mentally, I'm like, I feel like I'm setting myself up. I feel good about how I'm taking care of myself. I'm prioritizing myself just by like,

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (41:07)
Yep.

Sean Patton (41:15)
drinking a glass of water before I drink coffee for some reason. ⁓ And the other one that's huge for me is walking after I eat lunch. walking after a meal for like 10 minutes, I feel like completely changes how I feel. What's going on there?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (41:17)
Yes, yes, yeah.

So I'm going to speak to the water and then I'll speak to that. So the water first thing in the morning, I'm 100 % with you on that. I keep a glass in my bathroom so that, because we have a whole house, we're blessed. We've got a whole house filtration system. So the water even from the bathroom tap is no chlorine filtered and all that. So that is literally the first thing I do before I make the bed or anything else. And for me, I think that's one reason I typically, every so often I'll need green tea for a little bit of caffeine.

But because you get dehydrated when you sleep, when you're putting water in first thing in the morning, you're immediately getting a brain boost from that. So you don't crave as much caffeine. If you're a coffee drinker, you might be able to, let me say you normally drink two or three cups. You might be able to start just drinking one cup of coffee in the morning. If you're doing what Sean and I are talking about, drinking 16 ounces, two cups of water first thing when you get up. So the movement after

From a digestive standpoint, it certainly helps digestion because you're not power walk. You're not power walk. You're not doing something that is shutting down your digestion. You're not going running. It's just a 10 minute walk, right? Yeah. So you're helping your digestion along with that. You're stimulating the nerve that I forget what the nerve is called. All of you science geeks out there, please put in the comments what nerve I'm forgetting the name of right now, but there's a nerve.

Sean Patton (42:42)
Yeah, no.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (43:02)
that helps to stimulate your digestion and when you walk, it stimulates that nerve. So it's gonna help your digestion with that. I would say that the other thing that it does from just a general getting reset is you've been working all morning. So being able to walk for 10 minutes after lunch mentally is refreshing. It helps you disconnect from whatever went on that morning and so it lowers your stress.

Sean Patton (43:27)
Mm-hmm. That's really true. I get like the I'm very susceptible to you want to eat healthy. I feel like does Like energy my energy drops get sleepy after I eat almost I think it's like an insulin type thing too I feel like it helps and I still I don't feel that same like drop almost of like whatever is going on

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (43:46)
Does that happen only

at lunch or does that happen after breakfast, after snacks, after dinner, after everything?

Sean Patton (43:53)
Almost, almost any meal, but I would say I notice it most at lunch.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (43:58)
Okay, so if you're noticing it most at lunch, that's also feeding into your afternoon circadian drop.

Sean Patton (44:05)
Mm, so it's a double hit, it's a double whammy a bit.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (44:06)
So it's like,

cause even if you were to skip lunch, you would still probably notice a little bit of a dip at 130 to 230 because that's when you've got a little bit of a dip in energy from a circadian rhythm. Yeah.

Sean Patton (44:19)
in this Arcadian rhythm.

What about ⁓ like work blocks, right? Because ⁓ that's something I feel like can be kind of personal, but also you mentioned like if someone's doing creative work or someone's put like, you know, sitting down, work four hours straight, take a lunch, work four hours straight, go home, not happening. Like that's just not.

This is not, I mean, I don't owe my best work that way, you know?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (44:48)
⁓ Yeah, you got about two hours

of productive work in that eight hours. Yeah, exactly.

Sean Patton (44:53)
Exactly. like, especially as we think about ourselves, if we can, if we can control that, which most people can, I would say in most working environments, but as, then at a work level, like as we look at what does that sort of like work break, you know, rest, because I know, I know people that where it's like, Oh, I'm back to back for five hours. You know, so they're like on zoom and it's just like next to me, next to me, next to me, next to me. And it's like,

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (45:16)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Patton (45:21)
How does that impact it? How can we schedule or should we schedule optimally to increase our performance? Because ultimately that's what we're looking for is like total output, right? And so what does that look like for, you most people or what should we consider that for ourselves?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (45:34)
my gosh, this is so fun. And I'm saying this because it's like, this is something I work with my clients on because yes, you're right. Everybody's different, but everybody's also the same. every, so this, my gosh, this is so fun to talk about. the, you have, one of the things that will help is you as an individual, begin tracking when you start noticing your brain starting to wander. Is it every 30 minutes? Is it every hour?

is it was certain topics like if you're on five hours back to back of zoom meetings are you good for the first two and then after that you're noticing having trouble concentrating start tracking it but for most people anywhere depending on the topic that you're working on about 60 to 90 minutes is the upper end upper upper end of what you can do concentrating before you need a break

Now what that break looks like can be different. And this is where, this is for the high performers out there. For those of you who are like, I'm just trying to get a little bit better and get functioning, don't go here. This is gonna be too complicated for you. But for those of you that are saying, I'm already exercising, I'm eating well, I'm wanting to optimize my performance. Now we're starting to look at actually the types of workouts that you do.

for the type of activity that you're gonna be doing. So if you are, if you're having a day that maybe you're studying for a continuing education exam, or maybe it's a day you're just doing a lot of personal learning for your role, whatever it is, if you've got a lot of learning that you're gonna do, Sean, I know you're familiar with high intensity interval training, yes? Okay, high intensity interval training activates the parts of the brain that help you learn.

Sean Patton (47:21)
Yes.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (47:28)
The days that you're gonna be doing a lot of learning, that is the day to go do a HIIT workout. If on the other hand, you are going to be doing a lot of memory recall, maybe you are giving a speech that day and you're needing to remember what you're gonna be talking about. Maybe you're taking a test, maybe you've been studying for continuing ed and now you've got the day of the test. High intensity interval training shuts down your memory recall. So that is not the day.

to do a high intensity, you wanna do a moderate, a low to moderate intensity training that day. If you've got a lot of people interaction, there's mixed reviews on, there's studies both ways. So for that, I call it, it's individual. You test it out. Do you get better? Do you get along better with people, irritating people the day that you've done a HIIT workout? Or do you, so pay attention to yourself, the types of workouts that you do.

So even when you're taking those breaks, it's, I do better to go to a room and do some stretches and some yoga and some deep meditation, deep meditative breathing and calm my system that way? Or do I do better to go out for a brisk walk? Or do I do better to go lift weights hard and heavy for 10 minutes and just get it out of my system? Start playing with that and you'll be able to then know what types of movement breaks to take.

So every 60 to 90 minutes, you need some kind of break. If, here's just a quick tip. If your work one day, just maybe this isn't your norm, but one day has to be those five hours of back-to-back zooms. In between each, even if you have to cut out 30 seconds early, bend over, touch your toes, do a couple of stretches, something so that you're getting more blood flow to your brain. Do a few jumping jacks before you get on that next zoom.

Another thing that really gives us Zoom fatigue with that kind of meeting and back to back is like right now as we're talking, I'm looking at the camera. So I'm just, I'm not even making eye contact with you right now, Sean, I'm looking at this. Staring at a dot for five hours is exhausting. So in between, go look far in a distance. That's a great thing about going outside is you're making yourself look at a distance. Do not just look at your phone, because that's still yet another up close device.

Sean Patton (49:54)
Hmm. So many good things are in this. I love that fact. It's like self experimentation a bit of like what works for you. I didn't know about the recall for hit. That's good to know for, you know, when I do like speeches or do things like that, ⁓ going to maybe just give myself a break in terms of like go for a long walk or, you know, a jog or something. and I know, you know, you mentioned that when, I have to do a lot of people interaction, what I've noticed is just me, you mentioned as like kind of in between that, not necessarily a hit workout, but like a strength training.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (50:10)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sean Patton (50:23)
you know, get my, get, of wear myself down, like get my, you know, put on, you know, I'm an angry music guy, so take my pre-workout, put on my angry music, and just like not talk to anyone, and just like lift heavy weights, and hit muscle failure, and then I'm like, okay, now I can, now I can talk to people all day.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (50:35)
Mm-hmm.

Well,

you mentioned the music. That is another piece of it. Like when I'm getting deep in with the client on managing their energy, we look at things like music, of what type of music is going to make you more productive, what type of music calms you, what kind of music lifts you. We get into all of that because music changes your state. And all of this is about getting your brain and your body into an optimal state. And I'll say one more thing on the time blocking piece of it is knowing

when you're best for what? Like Monday mornings, I tend not to book meetings because that is very strategic and creative thinking time for me. I'm very fresh at that point. For other people, Monday mornings, they're just kind of getting their head into what they're doing. That's an ideal time for them to knock out a couple of meetings. So it's for you paying attention to what your brain likes to do when, and then blocking accordingly when possible.

Sean Patton (51:40)
And isn't it true? know I've it for me, but I think I've read this and heard this multiple times, especially for men because of the 24 hour hormonal cycle that we tend to be much more like focused ⁓ and attentive during and productive, during the morning versus at night as we're with women, maybe it might be not as pronounced because of the longer hormonal cycle. Is that true? Am I making stuff up?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (52:08)
I'm going to speak from experience, not from science that I've read. So experience for me says that yes, true for men on what you said. Women, it all depends on the time of the month.

Sean Patton (52:13)
Okay.

Yeah. That backs up what I've, what I've studied too. And I've talked is like that men is on that 24 hour hormonal cycle. And so like where our test is to start sort of so much higher in the morning and sort of like slowly wanes. And so I know if I'm trying to do deep work, hard work, complex thinking, that sort of thing, I always try to do it first thing and, ⁓ and you know, after lunch, basically I'm worthless when it comes to that, as I get older, it gets worse.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (52:23)
It's,

Sean Patton (52:51)
but I have heard not from experience, that, you for women again, but important to know, right? So maybe you can plan blocks of days or times when it's like, maybe I need to do a lot of writing. Maybe you could plan it around those times when you are sort of like harmonially optimized. ⁓ And maybe there's some days we have, we need to take light days. We need to schedule our personal time, you know?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (53:11)
Yeah. Yeah,

absolutely. Yeah. With women and with women also remembering half of the workforce of women is on cycle. And so there's going to be ebbs and flows of energy and ability to focus and create like there's certain times of the month, you know, you're extra creative. mean, so learning those rhythms. And then there's another half of the workforce are either in the middle of perimenopause, which means everything's jacked up, or their post menopause, which means

depending on if they're on hormones or not or what, that's where it does become very individual. But it can be done. Been there, done that. It can be done.

Sean Patton (53:51)
Maybe we'll do another whole episode on hormones and in women in the workforce, just awareness around that. I think there's this and has been historically at least this, I mean, we can't go into this because we would be a whole nother episode, but around how historically most of a lot of work, which is corporate work has been sort of driven by masculine social interactions, masculine phases.

all those things and so integrating and how women and almost trying to expect women to perform or be optimal in the same way you expect men to do from a social situation, from a hormonal, from an energy situation, from a work flexibility. mean, there's all those things, right? They go into like, as we become leaders in complex and diverse organizations, we need to be aware of and educate ourselves on, think.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (54:35)
⁓ Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And I want to completely 100 % agree with everything you said. And yes, it would be a fantastic, interesting conversation for us to go down that. For the women listening who are at different levels of leadership and different levels of influence, know that it's okay if you've been needing, because your job is your job.

That is, you know, I worked in corporate for several years. It didn't matter what time of the month it was. My job was my job. But knowing, oh, that means some particular weeks, I have to not take on an extra project. I still do my job, but maybe I don't take on something extra that week. Or maybe I take extra better care of myself that week. So learning personally how to give and take. Yeah. Important.

Sean Patton (55:36)
Awesome. Should have been great. I appreciate you in this time. like I said, I feel like we keep going on. I think there's a ton of value in this. If you want to find out more about working with you and what you do, what's the best place for them to go?

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (55:52)
A simple things. One is my website, thevirialife.com or just reach out to me, Sheri, S-H-E-R-I, at thevirialife.com.

Sean Patton (56:06)
Beautiful. And we will make sure we have links to that. as you're listening to this, you can go to show notes and click it. Sure. Good friends. Good to see you today. This is a fun conversation and I hope it's not our last.

Sheri Traxler, M.Ed. (56:18)
I hope not either, and it's almost lunchtime, which means that it's time for both of us to go walk.

Sean Patton (56:23)
Let's get outside. All right, we'll see you soon.