EP151: You Can't Build a Successful Business by Abandoning Yourself | with Nikola Howard

Most women don't burn out because they're weak (even though that’s quite often how we end up feeling when we do).

It’s actually that most of us burn out because we've been taught that success means pushing harder, saying yes more often and putting ourselves last.

In this episode, I sit down with award-winning health-led business coach Nikola Howard to unpack why the very habits we've been applauded for are often the ones slowly destroying our health, our businesses and our lives.

Together we explore what happens when ambition collides with chronic illness, menopause, decision fatigue and hustle culture, and why looking after yourself isn't a luxury. 

It's one of the smartest business strategies you'll ever adopt.

From eating lunch properly to building better boundaries, this conversation is packed with practical ideas that will help you create success you can actually sustain.

In this episode we talk about:

• Why hustle culture was never designed with women in mind

• The hidden cost of skipping lunch, living on caffeine and constantly pushing through

• How your health affects your decision making, creativity and leadership

• Why so many women abandon themselves in the pursuit of success

• The identity shift from employee thinking to business owner thinking

• Boundaries, people pleasing and why "No, thank you" really is a complete sentence

• Decision fatigue and simple ways to reduce the mental load

• Building a business around your energy instead of forcing yourself into someone else's schedule

• The surprising connection between nutrition, productivity and better business decisions

• Why joy isn't the reward for success. It should be part of the journey.

Memorable moments

"Lunch is the best business decision you can make."

"If your business is killing you, something needs to change."

"No, thank you is a complete sentence."

"You cannot give from an empty cup."

"Success feels like joy."

If you've ever believed that exhaustion is simply the price of ambition, this episode might completely change the way you think about success.

Connect with Nikola Howard

Website: https://nikolahoward.uk

LinkedIn: Nikola-Howard

Instagram: @nikolahoward

Facebook: Nikola Howard | Life Alchemist

If this episode resonated, I'd love to hear from you.

Take a screenshot, share it on Instagram and tag @thequeenofreinvention and @nikolahoward with your biggest takeaway.

And if you're enjoying The Reinvention Era, please leave a review and share the podcast with another woman who needs to hear this conversation.

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Transcript

SPEAKERS

Sarah Elizabeth, Nikola Howard

Sarah Elizabeth  00:00

Hello and welcome to the Reinvention Era podcast. And today we have a guest, which is very exciting, and she's someone that I'm excited to have on the podcast because we've both been talking about success a lot, but from slightly different angles. Nikola Howard is an award-winning health-led business coach, author, and mentor-or multi-author, I should say-and she helps women build businesses that actually support their health rather than destroy it. After years as one of the UK's leading low-carb experts, interesting. Her work has evolved into helping female business owners step away from the hustle culture and create success that's aligned with their energy, hormones, and real lives. As someone with chronic health conditions herself, she doesn't just teach this stuff; she lives it every single day. And I think this conversation is such an important one because so many ambitious women think success means sacrificing themselves. So today we're talking about why looking after yourself is not a luxury. It's actually one of the smartest life and business strategies you'll ever have. So Nikola, welcome to the reinvention era. Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm delighted to be here. That's okay. I'm delighted that you're here. So, tell us a bit about yourself, Nikola. How did you get into this line of work?

Nikola Howard  01:35

I think you actually said it all in my introduction. I found low carb eating in 1999. One of my work colleagues handed me a copy of Doctor Atkin's New Diet Revolution, having tried it himself. I, at that point, was very large, even larger than I am now, and I've never, I've never reached my my after because, of course, we're all during. I've been talking about that this week in socials, and I looked at it and read it and went. This A  makes logical sense. B I love steak. I'm going for it. And at that point, I did that in the mentality of this is just another diet. I'd done several. They had all not worked because I believe the work in here is more important than what you put in. The work you put in here is important, but what you put in here is even more important.

Sarah Elizabeth  02:20

Yes.

Nikola Howard  02:20

And so when I then hit bumps when I was, oh god, 33,32 I was given a medical menopause with drugs for three months. That literally sent me batshit crazy, and now I'm 55 I feel the shadows of the very very fast thing that happened to me back 

Nikola Howard  02:42

and I then reached for sugar, potato chips, all the things that I knew would calm me down and drag me through the day, which is what it had been doing the three before I started in 1999. So I had three years worth of low carb dieting. At that point, I also started my website Low Carb. Now, what become Low Carb in the UK and a Yahoo mailing list? Because when I walked into Holland and Barrett and I picked up a packet, a Scan bran, and went, "What's the calculation on this? and I got minus four carbohydrate, and he's like, "Hang on a minute, that can't be that can't be right, and of course we have different laws around our labelling system than the Americans do, and the book haven't been edited. Okay, we do not need to take any way away any fibre. Our figures are already net carbs. So I thought, well, if I know I need to know this, other people must need to know this, and so that's when I made the website and I made the waiting list, and that sort of wobbled along. As I say, I had my medical menopause. I then spent a year in the wilderness of whatever was going on in my brain with no period at all, and then I had a year long period. Looking back on it, I don't really remember a lot of it. I know I didn't change the bed for six months because I'm only going to bleed on it anyway. What's the fucking point?

Sarah Elizabeth  04:09

Wow! A year

Nikola Howard  04:11

Yeah literally. And it was, but I didn't seek any help because I didn't know I needed to or whatever. There was nobody really telling me because, of course, stimulant just doesn't follow up. Is the one thing that we could do better as a as a as a health service is we gave you this treatment. Are you okay? And it's that whole. I look back on that area of my life and go, I probably had clinical depression. Don't really remember it. I've lost like four years of life effectively. When I hit 2010 and it's really, really, really, it's time I need to pull myself back in. And I went and got, I'd got myself an IUD at some point, so everything normalised from that perspective. Right, let's get back to knowing putting food in my body that I know. Makes me feel great, but I can't do it the same as I did last time because that I I hadn't built any form of resilience whatsoever. So I then thought, well, how can I do that? And where I was at work at that point, we were talking about creating wirearchy, which is basically everybody has a voice, everybody is listened to, developing leadership coaching facilit facilitation, mentoring within that business, and I turned out I was quite good at that. So I then started incorporating some of the stuff I was learning at work into systems for myself. We moved from Yahoo mailing listing to Facebook group in 2016. I then started to give the system I developed for me to other people. That then got formalised when I when I wrote that book in 2016 to 2018. It was published 

Nikola Howard  05:59

How to do low carb UK style, 

Nikola Howard  06:03

that then got named the Hope Protocol in 2020. Amazing, and from there it sort of all evolved into I now have stabilise your body, which is with the Hope Protocol, takes six weeks. I then have the Path to Health, which is all about the mindset stuff, which I'd learnt between sort of 2010 and 2016 or so, and and you never stop learning that, do you? So

Sarah Elizabeth  06:25

never. Sometimes devil new devil. Oh yeah, the

Nikola Howard  06:30

amount I've invested in me, and then of course in 2025, I had shrunk a lot because my mum died in 2022, and my business at that point had got quite large. But then I had no exter. I couldn't do external marketing. I had no energy to do that. I had energy to focus on my clients. I had focus to energy on my mum, and I had focus to energy on me. Possibly not in that order, but probably that was the way it was going. And so I sort of just hunkered down, served the people I needed to serve, and that took sort of three three ish years to resolve itself with this. And the people that had stuck with me through that journey were all women in business with chronic conditions, and we'd sorted their health out, and they were starting to ask me, "Well, how are you going to do their launch? How are you going to run your business? How? So I went right, health is dead to me. I'm done with that. Let's let's do business. And in about the middle of last year, one of my one of my one of my peers basically said, "Hang on a minute. Why are you throwing away 20 years worth of credibility, authorship, awards. Why don't you bring yourself back to the middle? And of course, I liken it to a pendulum swinging because I did. Oh yes, pendulum goes over there, and so the pendulum had to come back to the middle. And now that's where I am-a health-led business coach. Because if you don't have your health, you cannot run a business, and if your business is killing you, we need to sort that out so that your health is stable. So, is that health business access where I now live?

Sarah Elizabeth  08:09

I think that's absolutely amazing because, as you know, I have Crohn's disease, and what it's a challenge, right? You see some of the business strategies and even life strategies that are out there, they're not necessarily built for people with chronic health conditions, right? This is

Nikola Howard  08:32

where I think hustle culture can get in the bin. Hustle culture was designed in affected the industrial revolution by men for men, probably neurotypical men. Let's face it, and so and their testosterone. This is where we get into physiology. The testosterone cycle is a daily cycle. So you wake up. We all know how they wake up. They go through the day and then they finish, and the cycle completes and it's done. We are monthly, if we are lucky. I am not, and it's that whole. We have a cycle where we have bits of the month where we can win the world. We have bits of the month where we want to kill the world, and it's that whole we. I'm glad it's not

Sarah Elizabeth  09:12

just me. We need to do

Nikola Howard  09:14

business in different ways, so we need to figure out. It's like I am a I'm a night owl. I do not talk to people before two numbers o'clock because my mouth and my brain are not engaged at that point, and it's that whole. I couldn't serve properly at 9o'clock in the morning. It would not be. It would not be on. So, so I've I know that if I am doing like client work, that's from some at 11 till about three. I like doing my writing and creativity from about 5o'clock in the afternoon till whenever I finish in the evening. If I've got stuff that needs to get done in the morning, that's the easy stuff. That's click, drag, paste, copy. Never reply to an email before midday. It's this whole. I have learned with the experience of me. This is how I run my business, and then of course I then, when I did the business stuff, codified that because what I do is formulas, frameworks, yeah, and and then brought that out as one of the exercises to give my ladies that ran my my system through, and they were going, oh my god, yes, I've realised I do this work better here, where they've been trying to force themselves into the nine to five from being an employee, and it's like, well, mate, you're a business owner. You set your hours. If your hours are 11 till seven, crack on, it's yours.

Sarah Elizabeth  10:34

Yeah, it's so true. But I think that's the thing, isn't it? And a lot of a lot of us, we we go into business from a nine to five sort of typical job, and it's really hard to shift that mentality and that identity of who we are, and and also I think you know that employee mentality of being told what to do when, and perhaps less accountability as well in places, and then suddenly it's all on you, and you've got to do everything, and it's not necessarily things that you might have done before either.

Nikola Howard  11:12

Absolutely,

Sarah Elizabeth  11:13

and it makes you go, "Oh my god, I I don't know what I'm doing. I'm no good at this. And then if you throw in your health as well when you're having a particularly low spoon day, a particularly fatigued day, like it can end up feeling really, really hard, and it doesn't have to be right.

Nikola Howard  11:35

Yeah, and and this is where effectively the flow formula, focused, leveraged, optimal, optimised work. L is all about well, what are we doing that we don't necessarily need to do? What can we outsource those things? Can we automate those things? So, so thinking about as you say that those days where we just what can I set in place? That means that if I'm not if I am minimum Nikki, which I completely nicked that one from Dan Meredith, if I have when I am minimum Nikki, what is the minimum I need to do to keep the things going? And when I'm maximum Nikki, or I'm running on all cylinders, what have I? What can I automate and and outsource and whatever, so that when I am in the minimums phases, everything still runs.

Sarah Elizabeth  12:23

Yes.

Nikola Howard  12:23

So relying on batch creation, batch scheduling for socials. I hate socials, but it has to happen. It is one of those things that is the way we do business advertising. So it's that whole when I'm on, we batch a couple of weeks worth of content, so that if I in the whole gallivanting and or crashing phases of life, it's going to go out. I don't have to worry about it, and it's all there. That's that. That's the immediate example of that. And you imply that to food, back cooking. So if you have time to make dinner, then you've probably got time to make four portions of dinner. So make four portions and stick three in the freezer instead of when you have that I can't be bothered to cook. What am I doing? Day you just go to the freezer, you grab it out, popped your ping, done.

Sarah Elizabeth  13:11

I love that. I love that.

Nikola Howard  13:13

So the flow formula. So what did you say? Focus,

Nikola Howard  13:17

focused, optimised, focused, leveraged, optimised work,

Sarah Elizabeth  13:22

right? Okay. So

Nikola Howard  13:23

focus is all about that energy. Figuring out where your energies are, and also figuring out what your values are, what the business's values are, the business purpose, the business mission, the metrics, all the numbers, and so so really turning that lamp on yourself. Because a lot of women, when we start a business, we just start a business. We just do, and and so it's that taking that step back. But why did you make the business? And it's not because you're really cracking at a thing. That business serves people. the The reason for Nicola Howard Limit exists is is to empower people. That is the business's purpose. Yes, and its mission is to help 26 women a year to be awesome. I can't remember what exactly I've read, yeah. But but it but it has a it it serves an amount of women to do a certain thing and to achieve what they want to achieve, and then the metrics on the the numbers on how much that then so it serves me and the values which I I have then printed out, she says, holding up her little value graphic that lives on my desk

Sarah Elizabeth  14:28

to remind

Nikola Howard  14:29

me that the what the

Sarah Elizabeth  14:31

values I can't see. So the

Nikola Howard  14:32

value the values of the business are in all things open, honest, and authentic. The default is kindness, joy, and love. Brings empathy, curiosity, and candour. Collaborates to get results and have evidence-based health first thinking.

Sarah Elizabeth  14:47

Beautiful. So

Nikola Howard  14:49

that is the. And but this is this is work that most women, when we start a business, you never did

Sarah Elizabeth  14:53

think about. I didn't think

Nikola Howard  14:55

about it. But because I have my values, these now that informs the business company. And that, then, any decision I need to make as a business owner does this? Is this in the purpose of the business? Is this going to fulfil the mission of the business? Does it meet the values? Yes. If it doesn't, it's a no. Takes away so much mental load. So again, it's an automation of a decision essentially from a from a baseline of does does this fulfil the business compass? Yes, no, and it makes there's no people pleasing in that. It's easy.

Sarah Elizabeth  15:32

Yes, yeah, it's true. But pleasing yourself, you're

Nikola Howard  15:36

pleasing

Sarah Elizabeth  15:36

yourself in it. Yeah, but that's it's so true because decision fatigue, when you are fatigued, making decisions is even harder, isn't

Nikola Howard  15:46

it? Oh, completely. So again, automating food, outsourcing jobs, be they business roles or like getting a cleaner in if you can afford one. I have a cleaner that comes sort of twice twice a month, and they just do the bits that I physically have problems doing. I don't have a great time bending and stretching. Blood pressure stuff does weird shit. So they do the hoovering and the and the like the deep cleaning stuff, and I keep it day to day. But it's that whole yeah. Why would I not outsource that bit of thing that I have a problem. Yeah. As I say, the batch cookery. So things are in the freezer for when you have a bad day, and and socials are automated so that when I when I am not feeling it, it's just going out anyway. And all these things then make work optimised.

Sarah Elizabeth  16:40

Brilliant. That's amazing. That's a really good framework to kind of go, and it it just sounds like then you are in flow as well, which is absolutely kind of the point, isn't it?

Nikola Howard  16:52

And those are of course supported by the the previous two frameworks. Yes, that once you've stabilised your health and oriented your mind, so that you are knowing all the things that are affecting baby personal development, you can then look at your business objectively and go, "Well, where is that serving me? Where is that not serving me? What structures can I put in place? All these lovely things that make a business then not have to be so much weight on you, so that you, as a human, can be amazing.

Sarah Elizabeth  17:21

That's gorgeous. I love that. One thing I always talk about is that identity always wins. Look, you can have all the goals in the world, you can have all the ambition, aspirations in the world, but your identity will always win along with your energy, but that's part of your identity, right? What identity do you think then that many female business owners will start out with?

Nikola Howard  17:55

Oh, that's a how long is a piece of string question, isn't it? You, you, I think because it is that hustle culture, isn't it? That's what we're kind of told. Most women I know that have started a business have done so because they needed some form of flexibility in life. Yeah, they needed to not have to show up for a boss, even though you then realise that you are your own boss, and you have to be, you have to be in charge of you. And sometimes that's even harder than being as externally accountable. I think also, especially when you start, you want to work with everybody and anybody because it's all money. Yeah. So you you end up being. This is where I want to say even more in what the patriarchy would call the feminine role-the putting yourself last, being subservient, saying yes to everything. That that thing that doesn't serve us really doesn't serve anyone.

Nikola Howard  18:56

Although it serves the system because it keeps the system going, but it's not going to keep your business going. So a lot of the work I do with women around the identity piece, especially when you start with the hope protocol about boundaries, I where I reformulated my business, my my effectively my journey, my business journey for people, the value ladder. That's the one. That's the one. It the the the boundary piece theoretically should go in path to health, but it's so important to have. You have to have it right at the start because no thank you is a complete sentence. And when people in an office are offering you cake or biscuits or whatever, because it's part of social bonding and it's an important thing.

Sarah Elizabeth  19:43

Yeah, yeah.

Nikola Howard  19:44

Being able to just say no, I'm good. Thanks a lot. Thank you for thinking of me.

Sarah Elizabeth  19:48

So true, isn't it?

Nikola Howard  19:49

And that's it. And being able to hold those boundaries with yourself, and then if somebody pushes, oh yeah, no, actually, I really can't do that. My doctor, borrow some white coat a uthority. My doctor really says that I need to keep my blood glucose stable. So thank you so much for offering, but no, and that normally damps that down.

Sarah Elizabeth  20:08

Yeah, because I talk about the that kind of lack of boundaries, that lack of self trust, as from a kind of survival identity point that you, because we want to belong, we want to fit in. That's that's kind of how we're wired. So it's kind of it's very difficult then if someone sort of says, "Oh well, go on, just have one, just just do a bit of this or just do a bit of that. And even in business, and someone says, "Oh well, can you just do this? or or end up with a client that isn't really who you would want to work with because you can't say no. So that's yeah, 100% that.

Nikola Howard  20:46

Yeah. So so building that boundaries in as soon as somebody starts working with the way I see the world and the way I do things by having that no thank you. Just I actually say go do mirror work on it and look in the mirror and just say no thank you from your heart, and if it feels awkward, well, that's expected. Just, just get that in practice. Yeah, and that little thing just changes everything because we can then start preserving our own no from the pressures of whatever's going on. That then trickles into your health, trickles into your relationships, trickles into your work if you're still in a day job, trickles into not accepting struggle clients because, as you say, when we start business and we're just accepting everybody, being able to then say, "Well, actually, yeah, no, that politely, no, thank you to the person that's going to ask you to do more than the the package that you sold them. Yes, yes. Oh, you know, I can just do that. I'll just do that because you think that it will make them happy, but it's not going to make your bank balance happy. It's not going to make your business happy, and ultimately make you happy.

Sarah Elizabeth  21:54

Exactly that. So,

Nikola Howard  21:57

so being able to have that no is, I think, one of the first identity pieces any woman needs to learn.

Sarah Elizabeth  22:03

No, you're absolutely right, and I think again that's one of the, you know, then we go on a complete tangent on the patriarchy. But where where we as women have historically put ourselves bottom of the list, we would put everyone else first, and that can often include our health. Which you know, this isn't. We're not talking self care. You know, we're not talking bubble baths and candles. We're talking basic health needs. Well, because without that, you haven't got anything.

Nikola Howard  22:38

Yeah, you think about the way this is. This is another side rant we could go off on. The way that the medical system is set up to not actually believe women. Oh my God! When we say we've got a pain, oh, that's the pain. That's just the way it is. Yeah, effectively. And your and and what is it? The diagnostic journey for endometriosis is currently 10 years because women are not believed that they have pain going on when they have a period and when they feel rubbish, and there's a whole, and again, I think polycystic ovary syndrome has just been renamed polyendocrine metabolic ovary syndrome because yeah, they've recognised PMOS. They've recognised that the the having ovary cysts is actually one of the symptoms of a whole endocrine problem. So it's been renamed.

Sarah Elizabeth  23:30

Okay, that's

Nikola Howard  23:30

literally it's taken 14 years worth of

Sarah Elizabeth  23:33

healing. Yeah,

Nikola Howard  23:35

and and it it's this whole. So not only we disbelieved to put ourselves last in a in a family situation at the glue work in a job, the work that is in nobody's job description but needs to get done in any office, usually gets done by the women.

Sarah Elizabeth  23:50

Yep. Yes. Not

Nikola Howard  23:51

always, but usually.

Sarah Elizabeth  23:53

Yeah. And

Nikola Howard  23:54

and so so we have a whole society that is built on women being put last.

Sarah Elizabeth  24:00

Yeah.

Nikola Howard  24:01

And so being being able to start stepping up and saying, "Yeah, actually, and and this did comes with business. I went to an event in February, March, where we saw a venture capital lady who was saying that because of the way that venture capital works, women are getting 2% of the funding, men men led business gets 98% of the funding. If we equalise that, then we would give 19 billion pounds to the treasury. Now that is solving Angela Rayner's problem like that a $22 billion black hole or pound black hole by just having proper venture capital frameworks because women build businesses differently. We build them to last, to be sustainable. Whereas men build businesses to create profit and sell quickly. They get lots of venture capital to do that. Whereas women build businesses, as I say, on. More long-term view, so we don't get a lot of venture capital funding, and that then means that we aren't paying the amount of tax, we aren't earning the amount of money. We and this is literally, I think it's what was it 30-5 billion pounds because we aren't getting funded is what we are losing in economic benefits with 19 billion to the treasury. It's just it could be there if we just could be

Sarah Elizabeth  25:23

there if we just changed changed around it. Yeah. So how do we as women start to put ourselves first in a society that isn't built for it? That's a that's a long question. We could go for hours. We could.

Nikola Howard  25:41

that's what I call being ethically selfish, because being selfish gets a very bad rap. The dictionary definition of selfish is doing something to the detriment of someone else. That's the dictionary definition. Whereas I believe you cannot give from an empty cup.

Sarah Elizabeth  25:59

I agree. We

Nikola Howard  26:00

have to pull ourselves up first. We have to be selfish to make sure we've eaten, we've slept, we've done done things that make sure that we are stable. Yes, before we do anything else, and that just means that yes, we need to start looking at ourselves not from the bottom of the pile, but saying, "Yeah, actually, I need to. I need Dr. Jones calls it the needs creed to be okay, not amazing, not astounding, not phenomenal. Just to be okay, I have these needs. I need eight hours sleep, certain type of food, a certain amount of sunlight, certain amount of sexual whatever loveliness with partners, and these like basic human needs are what we need to do just just to get to okay. Everything else then is gravy. It's what we want. But it's that whole again basing our identity on I need this, and then being able to say no if anything then impinges on those needs is a great place

Sarah Elizabeth  27:00

because we are the first to go, aren't we? We're the first to first to go off the list when something happens when there's some kind of crisis or something.

Nikola Howard  27:11

Absolutely,

Sarah Elizabeth  27:11

we're the first to step up and lose ourselves in the process.

Nikola Howard  27:16

And the amount of women affected-it's called abandoning self, isn't it? I've looked at this recently with with various people, and the abandonment of self to self is

Sarah Elizabeth  27:28

huge. Yeah, yeah.

Nikola Howard  27:29

Which again, I looked at that when they've said that. I'm not doing that. I've done that so much in my past. Changed myself to meet partners' needs. Been different people.

Sarah Elizabeth  27:41

Yeah,

Nikola Howard  27:42

that whole thing. And again, I think some of this is about when you hit perimenopause and menopause. I'm now 50-five, so theoretically, I'm just, I should be there. Although technically, I am still peri, and it's that whole. I don't have oestrogen making me fluffy, and so I'm I'm up for going on kicking down the doors and making a lot of trouble, wearing a red dress and a purple hat, as it were, and and it's this whole again some of the ways that society functions is because oestrogen makes the feminine energy, the feminine body fluffy and compliant, and that's that.

Sarah Elizabeth  28:23

Yeah, I call it the "fuck it" 40s, fuck it 50s.

Nikola Howard  28:27

Absolutely,

Sarah Elizabeth  28:28

for women, there is definitely a point where we all hit where we go, "fuck it.

Nikola Howard  28:33

Yeah, fuck it. And I think not with this anymore. The

Nikola Howard  28:36

generation we're in now, we actually have the platform and the voice to be able to talk about it, whereas my mum, my mom could never have said any of the stuff about this that I can say.

Sarah Elizabeth  28:46

No, absolutely, my mum wouldn't have done either.

Nikola Howard  28:48

What I can say will then help the millennials come through the door that I'm kicking down for them.

Sarah Elizabeth  28:54

Yes, what a legacy.

Speaker 2  28:56

Yeah,

Sarah Elizabeth  28:57

what a legacy. So, why do so many of us still not put ourselves first, not look after ourselves?

Nikola Howard  29:09

Again, another hand on as a piece of string, because I think some of it is down to the education system, because we aren't educated to do that, both in schools and our upbringing.

Sarah Elizabeth  29:19

Yes,

Nikola Howard  29:19

role modelling. We we what is it? We parent like we were parented.

Sarah Elizabeth  29:23

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nikola Howard  29:24

Unless we realise that that model doesn't work and we actively start to change it, which again something that is now happening. Yeah, because we're not accepting the. I want to use the really harsh words: abuse culture of the past, that might be a bit too harsh, but it's what's landed, so I'm going with it. Yeah, we don't accept that as a valid way to bring up children, and and that there is studies that whilst again I'm a Gen Xer born in 1970, I was given the opportunity to run wild, drink from the home. Not come home until I didn't have a phone. Taught me resilience, but also taught me that I had to be compliant, not be a threat, not cause trouble, not speak up. So I had the so it's it produces adults that are not as balanced as the kids now. Apparently, although I'm happily child-free, but the studies are showing that although they don't have these resiliences built in, they become much calmer and more together humans when they reach adulthood because they haven't had to live through the the ultimate threat of you might get a slap, yeah, yeah, not behaving. So it's again, it's the pendulum thing. Of I had it like really quite quite bad up here. The kid, the the kids then have had like been released and are now producing lack of discipline. I would say, and not necessarily discipline, but more structures and knowing how to talk to people. That will eventually come back to somewhere in the middle, and they will have the hopefully. What is it? This wonderful, amazing, terrible device that we've all got now-the phone. This is no longer a phone, is it? Really? Let's face it. Who needs it to call people, talk to people? Human communication. I'm waving my arms around. I've got intonation. All of those bits form up 93% of the communication we are having. 7% is the actual words I'm saying, and with we learn that yeah, it connects you, but it removes all of this communication that you learn when you're with people, and that's that's effectively the swing of the pendulum all the way up there. So we have to. I'm I'm actually quite in favour, although I think we're doing it the wrong way round, of licencing a a mobile a smartphone in the same way that we licence cigarettes and alcohol. You can't have it until you're 18.

Sarah Elizabeth  32:01

Yeah,

Nikola Howard  32:01

because the system itself is addictive. Now there is the argument to say, well, actually the systems should change rather than the thing be regulated. But we aren't there yet.

Sarah Elizabeth  32:11

There is there is that argument, but yeah, there is also the you know you could say the system should mean that alcohol isn't available, drugs aren't available, but it is. So, are you going to let your child do that when there are there are smart free options? Because then you get the child to walk to school when they're 11 or 12 or whatever, and it's like I mean, no one knows the pain of having to carry round change for a phone box that actually bloody works and doesn't. And then if no one's in, you're screwed. You know, but you know there are smart free phones, aren't there? But yeah, phones is massive, and I think it's a massive thing for our concentration and our our focus as well. It's it's like screwed our focus, hasn't it? Yeah, that

Nikola Howard  33:11

whole I I that that the thing of I find my and even I know I've I've developed a full brain. I have all the grey and white mash that I need. There is there is science that shows using these types of very short addictive dopamine giving things stop our white and grey matter developing properly, and which is vital when you're a kid. Which is again one of the reasons why I'm quite in pro removing that thing because I want people with properly formed brains. Yes, properly formed brains. Properly formed brains. Very important. Very important for humanity. But then it's that whole thing around. Even me, I've got critical thought, and I choose when I interact with my phone. It lives on silent the whole time, but when I pick it up, I could easily lose a couple of hours to the

Nikola Howard  34:06

Yeah, and then having again the discipline of I'm an adult. I I I have I can do that if I want.

Sarah Elizabeth  34:11

Yeah, yeah.

Nikola Howard  34:11

Um, but then knowing that yeah, enough's enough. Put it down and get on with your day. And when something is engineered to keep you doing it, especially

Nikola Howard  34:24

if you then have, for better or worse, in your genetics an addictive personality of some description.

Nikola Howard  34:33

it's gonna then get its hooks into and exploit the mechanisms in the brain, which it's completely designed to

Sarah Elizabeth  34:41

to do to

Nikola Howard  34:42

do so. Why on earth are are we not regulating? This is where why are we not regulating those platforms in the same way that we we regulate? You can only sell alcohol to 18 year olds.

Sarah Elizabeth  34:54

Yes, yeah.

Nikola Howard  34:55

You can only you can only sell cigarettes. Is it still 16 or is it 18 now? That's gone up,

Sarah Elizabeth  35:00

hasn't it? They're not going to be sold at all, are they? At some point. Yeah. Well, I think it's a it's a rolling phasing out, isn't it?

Nikola Howard  35:09

Yeah. Yeah. And and the whole being controlled drugs and whatever. Although you, I, I am personally again of the control it and tax it phase, rather rather than buying it illegally and funding a whole bunch of horror in the world, people, humans, we want to get off our box. It's the way we we way we evolved. We love getting out of our box, so let's do it with things that we know are relatively safe, but but are not mixed with things that are not safe because it's come from work God knows where. Tax that in the same way you tax alcohol and cigarettes, which will clean up that whole pipeline. And again, you could then use the phased phased out, although it's never going to happen because humans will always want to get out their box. So, so you make they will find something to get out of their box. So, so it's that whole making sure we can do that in as safe a safe a manner as possible. Nothing is is risk free, but making sure that, and again with your phone, making sure that we can then use that in as safe a way as possible for our brains, so that it is enriching our lives rather than detrimenting them. That was a big soapbox. Where did that work? I

Sarah Elizabeth  36:20

love that. I love a soapbox. I call it Sarah soapbox. I love it. I love a soapbox. I love

Nikola Howard  36:26

it.

Sarah Elizabeth  36:26

I love it. But talking about all of that, the the kind of the foams and the and the sort of things that we do. So bringing it back to like the health, what does it do for us, like physiologically, when we spend all day on phones, on tech, drinking coffee, skipping lunch-I know that's one of your big things, isn't it? About what's what's your your tagline?

Nikola Howard  36:57

Eating lunch is the best business decision you can make.

Sarah Elizabeth  37:01

I love that. I love it. I love it. But it's true, isn't it? What happens to us physiologically? Why is that one of those words that you go physiologically until I say it slowly? Anyway, what happens to us when we just function like that? When we're just on phones and caffeine, and no lunch, and all the rest of it. What happened?

Nikola Howard  37:26

Just push through. Haven't got time to do that. Just

Sarah Elizabeth  37:28

push through.

Nikola Howard  37:29

Well, let's go for physiologically. The body wakes us up in the morning with a burst of cortisol. When you then slam some coffee in that, that's also pushing the cortisol button and a little bit adrenaline and various other bits and pieces, cortisol pokes your liver to make your liver produce glucose. Which also, if you've either eaten no breakfast at all, if you've grabbed a couple of biscuits, well, you've already got glucose going on. So you're also then having a blood a blood glucose high, which you will then pay for because what goes up must come down. If you've then not, if you're too busy to then stop and eat lunch, and there's a whole host of also mental and other reasons why lunch is vital, and instead you're then just pushing through and relying on coffee, well, you're borrowing energy from tomorrow, because yes, the the caffeine will give you an energy fake energy lift, because it's it's pushing your adrenal glands. It pushes adrenaline out, which makes you feel like you can do. But you have to pay for that. The body, the body has to have what's called horces. It has to be in balance with itself. So eventually, you will then want to put something between a horse between two scabby mattresses, as my mum uses. And it won't be. It will be fast food. Probably, possibly, literally. It will probably something that is sugary or or very like fast starch, and it will again it will make you feel better in the moment. It will send your blood glucose sky high. You will then pay for that and feel like crap. Possibly have some more sugar. Possibly have some more coffee. And it's this horrible sort of cycling spiral of I feel crap. I will put something in my face that makes me feel better. I will push through. Oh, I'm I'm then also having reduced thinking power. Using the analogy of the three layers of the brain, this is a model that that was proposed in the 60s. Sort of doesn't work from a physiologically perspective, but it does work from a talking about the brain. We have three layers: we have the reptile brain, which evolved first, the limbic system, which is where emotions live, and the neocortex up front that does the decision making. The first thing to get shut down when you've got low blood glucose is the neocortex, and then you go for emotion. Even and then you can even just retreat into survival and stay alive.

Sarah Elizabeth  40:04

Yeah, yeah.

Nikola Howard  40:05

And so when we are removing our ability to rationally process something by just pushing through on caffeine and and not eating or eating crap, our ability to make cogent decisions for ourselves, our business, our lives, our partners, our whatever is reduced to reactivity. That's where emotion emotions live in reactivity. So, so we're then living reacting rather than taking empowered action. Yeah. So when you stop and eat lunch, and I'm talking proper, nutritious food. Yes. You you stop and eat lunch. A that gives you a nice level playing field that keeps the brain awake, but also the act of stopping, taking a breath. Taking a breath. There is a thing called cognitive load, which which relates to willpower. Willpower is a finite force. So when we are constantly using willpower to do things that will then make us make worse choices because we don't have the willpower available to say no to the thing that could be detrimental to us. So by actually taking that stop, one of the ways you recharge willpower is just taking a break. So having that mid midday, it could be two or three or 11 or whatever suits your energy.

Sarah Elizabeth  41:24

Yeah,

Nikola Howard  41:24

but having that even 20 minutes just worth of all I'm doing right now is having my food, maybe reading a book, just for a little bit, just for just for a little while, re tops up the willpower battery, brings the neocortex back online, and then if then want to bring it into, we are then more productive. We are then more decisive. We are more compassionate as well. At that point, so yeah, you've got to eat lunch. That's why

Sarah Elizabeth  41:51

lunch is the best business strategy. Yes, lunch is your

Nikola Howard  41:55

best business strategy because instead of having the life strategy,

Sarah Elizabeth  41:59

life strategy as well, yeah. Not just business life.

Nikola Howard  42:03

The amount of it's it's got its own. The 3pm slump. It has a name. When you when you have lunch, you don't have that slump. Therefore, you are actively being productive all day in the workday, whatever the shape of work day your day is, rather than just pushing it through, wiggling it around, and producing work that you might not be actually very proud of. Yeah, making choices that put your business in shit later on. Yeah. So, what about having lunch at the same time as working? Oh, there you have it, but it ain't multiple. As because from that perspective, it's the food itself that is the important part-the nutritious stuff. Yes, but it is it is a better nutritional balance for your body and your mind because when we're putting in information that is valid and lovely to the brain, it's serving you as much as putting information. Food is just information to the body, effectively. That is is is good for the body. So feeding yourself appropriately,

Nikola Howard  43:15

and and brain

Sarah Elizabeth  43:18

brain, yeah, is

Nikola Howard  43:19

a good thing.

Sarah Elizabeth  43:21

I love that. Okay, so I need to stop when I have my lunch.

Nikola Howard  43:25

Yes, even even if it's 15 minutes, but just just take a little break because it re it will reset the mind, which allows you, as I say, to then make better choices going forward in the afternoon. Your your food brings your gives you energy in the brain. The brain is the most hungry of organs. It has no storage itself, so whatever you're putting in is used by the brain now. Keeping that honest, and I've kind of got a whole 20 minutes. We could talk about the way the brain works in terms of its brain chemistry, how it uses energy, how it how it how it wants to to how it demands food, essentially.

Sarah Elizabeth  44:02

Yeah.

Nikola Howard  44:03

Um, and so by by then giving your brain the level the level thing that it needs to be to be able to give you what you need, yeah. Lunch is win win win,

Sarah Elizabeth  44:17

win win win. So that's your top tip for life and business. Absolutely, lunch.

Nikola Howard  44:21

Eat your bloody lunch. Absolutely. Is that

Sarah Elizabeth  44:23

is that is that your biggest takeaway for for any business owner or any anyone? Is that your biggest? Eat lunch and look after yourself. Eat lunch. Say no, and

Nikola Howard  44:36

and make sure that you are finding joy because we are here as humans, I believe, connected to everything through all time and space, put here to have an experience of joy in whatever our purpose is. Because if you're not having joy, if you're not what is it, Dan Meredith again, fun and profits. If you're not having joy, then you it is literally draining you from the only turnaround we've got in this particular incarnation. Or particular, whatever. If you don't believe we'd come back, that's it. This is all you got. Life is not so helpful. My mom tells me. So, so live it, enjoy it, be joyful, enjoy your business. If your business is making you feel sad, it needs to change.

Sarah Elizabeth  45:16

Yes, completely, completely, completely agree.

Nikola Howard  45:21

But lunch is a good start.

Sarah Elizabeth  45:22

Lunch is a good start, and I think do do you notice that in your work that the the people that your clients, the people that tend to look after themselves and are healthier, have better businesses.

Nikola Howard  45:40

Yeah, because you can make better choices.

Sarah Elizabeth  45:44

Yes. So,

Nikola Howard  45:45

so because you can make better choices for your business, it serves you better as the business

Sarah Elizabeth  45:50

to have healthier business as well.

Nikola Howard  45:52

Yeah, they they got. That's why. That's why I ended up being a health led business coach.

Sarah Elizabeth  45:57

Yes. Yeah.

Nikola Howard  45:58

Because that if you are looking after your health, and and health is bigger than what we think of as just physical. It's mental, it's emotional, spiritual. Yeah, all of these things are connected because the human condition is complicated and wibbly.

Sarah Elizabeth  46:15

When we are

Nikola Howard  46:16

looking after all of these these the the health of our what's called ecology, your your surroundings, your environment. By having your ecology nice and clear, that then helps your business to remain nice and clear. Yeah, I love that. I love that because your business effectively is part of your ecology. It's very true. It's very true. So, if someone listening knows that they're not looking after themselves, they're constantly exhausted. They're constantly in that hustle era,

Sarah Elizabeth  46:54

but tell themselves that's the price of ambition. That's the price of being a business owner. What

Nikola Howard  47:00

would you say them to them? I would say that's not the price of being a business owner, because you can. If your business is killing you, you won't enjoy your life. So, yes, there are times where we do need to do the things. We need to show up. We need to be on. It is just the way the world works right now, yeah. But again, this is part of knowing that I can show up because I've taken care of, I've stabilised life, so that then I can show up and use energy where it needs to be used, rather than showing up and using energy because you thought you had to, and then your social life suffers. You don't see your partner, or you can't give your partner the juice that your relationship deserves. Your relationship breaks down.

Sarah Elizabeth  47:47

Yeah.

Nikola Howard  47:48

So, so, so, I actually think the whole you can have it all. Whilst I am a rampant feminist, because I believe that humans are equal and should have equity.

Sarah Elizabeth  48:02

Yes, the

Nikola Howard  48:02

world is not set up like that.

Sarah Elizabeth  48:05

No, no, not

Nikola Howard  48:06

so. So there is a certain amount of this ethical selfishness. If I'm living in this world that is designed to detriment me, the only person that's going to come and save me is me.

Sarah Elizabeth  48:18

Absolutely.

Nikola Howard  48:19

So take the actions I need to take to make sure that when I do need to show up, be on, entertain people to bring, make sure that whatever needs to happen is happening. I've taken care of my needs so that I have the ability to do that.

Sarah Elizabeth  48:37

I love that, absolutely love that. Okay, so we're gonna finish with some rapid fire. So, coffee or tea?

Nikola Howard  48:50

Green tea or jasmine tea. Coffee's horrible. Coffee's horrible. Black tea is also horrible. Black tea is horrible. I don't love green tea though. Biggest myth about healthy eating, all of it, every everything that we've been told since 1983 is is 180 degrees wrong. I I'm one of my biggest fears at the moment is the new health pyramid in the states is actually built on science and evidence and is what I believe is the the right path for humanity. It's built on what I call the human appropriate diet. Okay, but because what's going on in America, the rest of it is also at the moment. I I fear that it will be lost.

Sarah Elizabeth  49:37

Right. Okay. What's one thing every business owner should do before 10am

Nikola Howard  49:46

before 10am Oh, I think every business owner should make sure that yeah. Well, for me, definitely. But you might be you might be a 5am wiser. You might

Sarah Elizabeth  49:57

be a 5am girl. You might be a morning

Nikola Howard  49:59

bird. I'm not one of those. I don't even understand those. But if it, if I'm seeing five a.m. if I'm seeing five a.m. I want to be going to bed, having had a banging night. But the thing you need to do before 10 a.m. I believe, is just make sure that you've you've got this today. Have I got this today? Is today going to be a good day, or is today a minimum Nikki day, and then making sure that you know where you are so that you can show up what you with what you need to do. It's just like taking a little mental inventory and going, yeah, before 10am Have I got everything I need today to make sure today is a good day?

Sarah Elizabeth  50:34

I love that. What's something you've completely changed your mind about?

Nikola Howard  50:41

Hmm, I. I don't know. I tend to form opinions based on evidence. So if evidence changes, I will change my mind about. I am not a close-minded person, for better or worse. I think. think if we're going back in history, it's it's this self-abandonment stuff. If we're picking on that, I I believed I needed to be a thing to get what I wanted in the world, a a certain shape, a certain personality.

Sarah Elizabeth  51:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nikola Howard  51:17

That that that type of thing. Although it it gave me fun experiences and quite a cool thing. It didn't fulfil me. It didn't give my soul what it needed, and so I changed my mind around abandoning myself. Essentially, there you go.

Sarah Elizabeth  51:36

Thank God you did, and oh love. Right, finish your sentence. Last one. Success to you feels like

Nikola Howard  51:46

joy.

Sarah Elizabeth  51:47

Ah, beautiful! What a way to end. Love it. We end with joy. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Nikola. It's been fascinating. I love. I love your soapboxes. They they make me they make me they give me joy they give me joy. Your soapboxes, I love a soapbox. So don't think this is on here. You are more than welcome. Thank you so much for

Nikola Howard  52:12

having me.

Sarah Elizabeth  52:12

Where can listeners find you?

Nikola Howard  52:16

I tend to hang out mostly on LinkedIn at the moment because I think it's the least evil of all the social medias.

Sarah Elizabeth  52:23

Yeah, social media's got a bit light of a lot, haven't it? Yeah, last few weeks particularly.

Sarah Elizabeth  52:30

Nikola Dash Howard is my LinkedIn handle. Although I am Nikola Howard on Instagram and Nikola Howard dot Life Alchemist on Facebook. If you just Google Nikola Howard, Nikola with a K.

Sarah Elizabeth  52:42

I was going to say Nikola with a K.

Nikola Howard  52:44

I am the only one at the moment in the world. The the other Nikola Howard, who is a social media person in the states, got married, so she's no longer a Howard.

Sarah Elizabeth  52:52

Oh wow! Okay, I am the only. You're the only Nikola Howard. Nkola Howard with the K. So

Nikola Howard  52:59

you should people should be able to find me, and of course, my website is nikolahoward.uk So I'm not hype. I'll pull your

Sarah Elizabeth  53:05

links in the show notes anyway. So thank you again so very very much.

Nikola Howard  53:10

You are more than welcome. And for

Sarah Elizabeth  53:12

everyone, I will be back in your beauts badass earbuds again next week. Loads of love.

53:18

Bye.