Habits are Your Identity. Learn how to Achieve Any Goal With Your Habits and Habitual Way of Thinking In this episode of Transform Your Future with Eddie Isin. Discover the dual power of visualizing success and preparing for potential setbacks with Ronnie Lo. Learn how anticipating challenges can actually enhance your performance and resilience, whether in sports, career, or personal growth.
SHOW NOTES
Introduction:
In this enlightening episode of "Transform Your Future," host Eddie Isin sits down with Ronnie Lo, a certified professional life coach with a unique approach to integrating mind, body, and psyche for holistic development. Ronnie shares her journey from fitness training to life coaching, emphasizing the pivotal role of habits and the concept of celebratory accountability in personal transformation.
Key Takeaways:
Conclusion:
Ronnie Lo’s insights offer valuable lessons on the importance of habits, the power of accountability, and the transformative potential of life coaching. Whether you’re seeking to make significant changes in your life or looking to fine-tune your daily routine, this episode is packed with wisdom and actionable advice.
Call to Action:
For those inspired to embark on a journey of self-improvement or curious about life coaching, visit Ronnie Lo’s website at RonnieLoLifeCoac
Subscribe to Transform Your Future Newsletter for personal development tips and information to Reinvent & Dominate your industry: http://transformyourfuture.com
Habits are Your Identity. Learn how to Achieve Any Goal With Your Habits and Habitual Way of Thinking In this episode of Transform Your Future with Eddie Isin. Discover the dual power of visualizing success and preparing for potential setbacks with Ronnie Lo. Learn how anticipating challenges can actually enhance your performance and resilience, whether in sports, career, or personal growth.
SHOW NOTES
Introduction:
In this enlightening episode of "Transform Your Future," host Eddie Isin sits down with Ronnie Lo, a certified professional life coach with a unique approach to integrating mind, body, and psyche for holistic development. Ronnie shares her journey from fitness training to life coaching, emphasizing the pivotal role of habits and the concept of celebratory accountability in personal transformation.
Key Takeaways:
Conclusion:
Ronnie Lo’s insights offer valuable lessons on the importance of habits, the power of accountability, and the transformative potential of life coaching. Whether you’re seeking to make significant changes in your life or looking to fine-tune your daily routine, this episode is packed with wisdom and actionable advice.
Call to Action:
For those inspired to embark on a journey of self-improvement or curious about life coaching, visit Ronnie Lo’s website at RonnieLoLifeCoac
Subscribe to Transform Your Future Newsletter for personal development tips and information to Reinvent & Dominate your industry: http://transformyourfuture.com
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:00:00):
Speaking with this guy, he wanted to train himself to run again. I'm like, alright, feel how you're going to feel when you want half a banana? Feel how you're going to feel like, oh my God, I'm getting thirsty. Feel how you're going to feel physically. Imagine your foot hurting, your ankle hurting. And he was like, this is all negative. I'm like, yeah. We went through it. We went somatically through it. He would imagine it. He would meditate it, man, he progressed so fast, and of course he visualized winning in all the successes, but he also visualized How will I feel and how will I handle if something goes wrong or I'm just tired? Or when I hit that marker and I get tired, he already processed it. So when he was training for that to run, his brain wasn't shocked by it. It's like, yeah, yeah, you knew you were going to get tired. And he just kept going, kept going, kept going. So you have to plan for the what ifs. If this happens, then I'll have a backup plan and your habits support those. You think, oh, what if it throws off my habits? No. Habits are natural. You're not going to go for five days without brushing your teeth. That's just conditioned unless you really are on a deserted island. But you plan for, okay, if then what? So your habits help you prioritize the main thing.
Eddie Isin (00:01:34):
Hi there. Here we go. Welcome to another episode of Transform Your Future with me, Eddie Eisen. Remember, if you're interested in joining our newsletter, just go to transform your future.com. Today we have a special treat. I am with Ronnie Loisa, AKA Ronnie Lowe. She is a certified professional life coach with a holistic mind, body, psyche connection. She's here today to talk about habits and celebrative accountability. She's also a certified habit coach, a certified personal trainer. She helps people create doable habits that get them to their goals without more to do hacks, discipline, or willpower. Ronnie focuses on habits that are doable, that don't take more time from you or stress you out. Instead, she helps you fit these habits into your life. These are great new habits that you stick to, whether it's in fitness, eating, wellness, careers, or your love life. Additionally, Ronnie helps her clients change their habitual or default way of thinking. When you change your thoughts, you change your behavior. This includes changing how you react to situations at work socially and at home, or when you're alone. When Ronnie's not coaching, she loves to strength train as well as train others in strength yoga and self-care. So welcome, Ronnie, how are you? Thank so much for coming on.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:03:00):
Thank you for having me. I love this. And people that know you're in Tampa, Florida, and I went to high school and college at USF, not high school at USF, but I grew up around Tampa in the suburbs, so I was really delighted to find out about that. And we're both from New York originally.
Eddie Isin (00:03:16):
Yes. I love that. It's funny, right? It's synchronicity over here.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:03:20):
It is. And now I live in Los Angeles and I work virtually. One quick thing, you made me giggle when you said Ronnie Lowe, it made me think of J-Lo. It's like, no, I'm not Ronnie Lowe from the hood. I'm Ronnie low life coach, and so I don't want to get her identity. A client of mine just he called me Ronnie Low. He's like, you're Ronnie Lowe life coach. It just kind of went out. I'm like, I like that. So I go by Ronnie Lowe, life coach, and that's my website. So that's now my brand. But yeah, I'm just Ronnie. Ronnie from the Bronx. No, I'm just kidding.
Eddie Isin (00:03:50):
Well, let's talk about habits and let's talk about how habits dictate our identities.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:03:58):
Well, the thing is, habits are our identities. I don't know if you've read the Aristotle quote is really rewritten, but he says, we are what we repeatedly do. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit, meaning, and this is what I mean by excellence, is once a habit is a habit, by definition, it's second nature. You don't think about it. So you are always in excellence. Whatever you do that is consistent. If you want consistent excellence and whatever goal you want or in your life, your lifestyle, consistent excellence just means that you're doing as best as you can. Think about what the word excellence means as the top that you can. Well, when you're on autopilot, you're doing the best you can at that moment. You can always do better, but you're doing the best you can at that moment.
(00:04:50):
I know that's a lot, but when I say sometimes you are your habits, your habits, therefore are you. Often people are like, well, no, no, no, and it's open for discussions. I'm more than just my habits. It's like, talk to me. And they're like, well, it's my values and what I believe in. It's like, yeah, yeah, go on, go on. And we get into more detail. But I'm much more than that. It's my personality, my traits, and I can always change my habits like yes you can. You are your personality, you are your traits. And when you think about it, Eddie, what is your personality? It is innate. You're born with certain genes and it's also conditioning. You are conditioned, you are programmed by your environment. You condition yourself as you're growing up. So your personality grows from that, I venture to say. But we can get into whole signs of that, that the exact same person in another milieu, in another environment may have a little bit different personality or may have a different attitude or may have a different way of thinking. So your habitual way of thinking, your default programming, how you react to things and how when people describe you, they can describe Eddie. They can describe your personality more or less. Once they get to know you, it's because of how you react and the way you carry yourself habitually. Your default programming. You used to be in the entertainment industry. When you read a character, just a character blue. It's more than the casting sheet, blue eyes, five foot, two red hair. You start painting the picture with their quirks, their way of walking, their way of
Eddie Isin (00:06:30):
Talking it to bring it to life,
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:06:32):
How they react, what they say, how they say it. You start painting the picture of that person. That's how they habitually carry themselves. That's how they habitually talk, all that stuff. So people start seeing, it's like, yes, your core values, you act with your core values. You act with all your traits because you've programmed yourself and that's what you believe in. Absolutely. Therefore, what you do because of your core values and your beliefs are your habits. They're your identity. They're who you are, and what you consistently do every single day without much thought every single day on a consistent basis is a habit. And I'll let you talk. Sorry, I can go on and on about this. That's why it could be like a 30 minute TED talks. But the meta research shows, and that meta is when you grab four or five, six different studies from around the world, different time periods, and you put 'em all together and you see what the average is. The meta studies on habits are 40 to 50%, and the big number is 40%. I tend to think it's more. 40% of your day every day is a series of habits. So it's who you are because what you do is who you are.
Eddie Isin (00:07:45):
Yeah. Yeah. I think about, first of all, when you were talking, I mean that is so true. Just for myself, how I reinvented myself so many times over the last 36 years was by looking at those things and what are my habits and what is the things I do all the time, and if I want to be something different, what does that look like and what are that person's habits if I want to be successful, what does successful people do all the time? What does successful people think? Do the successful people waste time on this or that? No, they focus on these things. So I need to start making that a habit in my own life. So I absolutely a hundred percent identify with all of that. And for some reason, I was thinking also when you were talking about how some habits work for individuals, but maybe for somebody else, it wouldn't work at all.
(00:08:34):
Right? They have completely different habits. And I was thinking about my desk. My desk has been an issue for a lot of people in my life because they feel like it's messy and it's not cleaned, and I don't need a clean desk for me to work, and I like to, I have all these things that I'm trying to work on, maybe 15 different projects. That's how I work. It's very exciting for me. I have to have my mind in 15 different things that I'm trying to do. I don't like just having one thing and a clean desk. And so I like having a pile of things there that I'm working on. Okay. Sometimes it's true. Sometimes all the pile goes into a box and I just put it in the corner. I don't look at it. That does happen sometimes when it gets overwhelming maybe, but it's all things that's okay with me, and it doesn't change how I function and operate in my work environment.
(00:09:28):
But other people, they have to have a clean desk and have to have things a certain way. So we have different habits. And the last thing I just wanted to say real quick is I did an experiment the other day and I just started walking around my house looking at how we set up this house, look at it, what was important to us, that we did things like why did we put two coffee makers and this machine over here on this counter, in this corner, and why do we have those things out over there? And obviously those are signs of things that are obviously, obviously coffee's important to me for some reason, right? They support
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:10:03):
Your habit and your habitual way of living.
Eddie Isin (00:10:06):
Yeah, exactly.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:10:09):
Well, okay, so I'm guessing here one Keurig and one Nespresso.
Eddie Isin (00:10:14):
Yes, that's right. There you
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:10:15):
Go. The Keurig is for the everyday constant, and the Nespresso is a little bit more of a treat. Yes,
Eddie Isin (00:10:23):
That's right.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:10:25):
No, I absolutely get it. And when you think about it, people ask me, okay, I want to work on time management, or I want to work on a relationship, or I want to work on growing and getting promoted in my job. What do habits have to do with that? Everything. Because again, what you do all the time and how you think, how you set up your desk is how you work. And you feel weird if it's not the way you like it to you. That's what you see and how your brain is programmed. It's your subconscious. And remember, we act mostly, I would say 90% out of our subconscious mind, not our conscious mind. We can easily whatever habits you have, I don't care how old you are or from what culture you are, I know that that really digs deep, especially with religion and culture.
(00:11:11):
But no matter what the thing is, you, if you want change a habit. So you are used to your desk being the way you are. It's like, oh, it's weird not to function that way. And when you talked about your house, and I know we're going all over the place, we're not going in sequence, but that's exactly it. That's part of the loop. You set your environment up to support your habits. The bad ones, the good ones. We all live in a habit loop. I can take you through your day and we can pick out two or three habit loops easily. The habit loop is something activates you, activates you to do something, think something in a certain way all the time. The same way.
Eddie Isin (00:11:48):
Negative or positive.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:11:51):
Exactly. So something activates you. Some people call it trigger. And then you have the ability to do that behavior. You are able, negative or positive, and then something about that habit is rewarding. Even the bad habit, there's an instant dopamine reward. There just is. And then you set yourself up with your environment and your beliefs to repeat it. Again, we're talking bad habits or good habits. So let's take this habit loop and let's make it to what you want to do, whatever it is you want to work on. And I should backtrack a little bit. I am a certified professional life coach. I'm a master. This is because I keep, I'm a master life coach because I keep studying. I'm always studying. I'm always looking into what I want to do. And when the pandemic hit, I was a personal trainer and I used to train people in their homes and in private studios and bing, bang, boom, everything shut down.
(00:12:42):
I was not an Instagram selfie kind of girl. I'm like, oh my God, okay, here we go. We'll go online. So I started training people on Zoom. They loved it, but they started telling me, I've got my sister or my boss or my friend. She's not working out. It all started with fitness. It's like fitness was the first thing to drop off their Google calendar, because you remember Eddie at the time, we all wanted to be indispensable at work so we wouldn't get laid off or furloughed or whatever. So people were constantly going past their boundaries, and fitness was the first thing that faltered. The kids were at home, everybody was working off the coffee table, or they didn't want to work out with their spouse there, their partner. So I offered to talk to 'em. I was like, well, you want me to talk to them?
(00:13:20):
So I started talking to people and somebody said, wow, you really coached me well. And somebody else was like, you should really be a coach. I'm like, what's a life coach? Real housewives of Beverly Hills? I mean, who uses a life coach? I was a real cynic when I looked into it. I'm like, wow, people who take it seriously, really take it seriously. Coaching works. Why? Because you're already where you are. Coaching takes you to that next level. It propels you. It's different from therapy, it's different from mentoring, it's different from consulting. So I took it seriously and I went ahead and started studying and getting certified, and I'm still getting certified, and then I became certified in the habit. This brings us to today, because I noticed no matter what people came to me with whatever area of their life, career, life, transition, midlifers, there was that common thread of habits.
(00:14:12):
What do you habitually do that supports whatever it is we're working on? What do you do in your marriage? How do you treat your relationship? What's your habit? What's your go-to reaction? What's your go-to behavior? What do you do at work? How do you react to that negative email? How do you react to your coworkers? What do you do in parenting? It's all habits. So I started noticing that. So I started delving into it, started studying more about that, and it's all cognitive behavior. Cognitive as you recognize it, your brain recognizes cognizance and behavior is the result of that. So I decided to become a certified habit coach. It really delves into every aspect of your life. So when people's like, well, what do habits have to do with weight management? Everything, what do habits have to do with my career? Everything. So that's why I did that.
(00:14:59):
And we can take whatever your goal is and we start tiny. That's why I keep saying tiny, doable, easy. Because when people have a goal, people start going for all the strategies, the strategies, the strategies, the programs, the challenges, no matter what they try NLP, they try hypnosis, they try diets. They try the inspirational, motivational, Tony Robbins kind of things. They're all great, everything works, but they're not sustainable. They're inspirational at first, but they're too big. So whatever it is we're going to do and we decide what to do, then you start small and usually people resist. That's like, that doesn't seem like it's going to make much of a difference. Let's see. Let's try one tiny step. Those tiny steps keep growing. And the more you practice a tiny habit, it becomes a habit, I should say, a behavior. The more you practice a behavior or a way of thinking, it becomes a habit, your habitual way of thinking. So that grows stronger, and then you can progress and you can actually go faster than all the stumbles and falls you had when doing the strategies.
Eddie Isin (00:16:06):
Yeah, yeah. I always remember when you're talking about inspiration not lasting, that when Rocky first came out, I was a young man, I dunno, I was probably 14 or 15 years old, and I just remember being so inspired from that movie and the underdog story and coming home with a bounce in my step and shadow boxing and things like that. And then two or three days later, it was all gone. So it just doesn't last. You can get inspired, and it might be good for a day or two, but it doesn't last. And sustain, you'd actually change anything.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:16:44):
Exactly. So all these motivational speakers, they're great. Act now. Take action. But how so people get overwhelmed. So with me, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Bessie, what can you do? And something I'd like to address is we run by our perceived, and you talked about this with somebody, and I forget who it is, please forgive me. I'm the worst with names. Although I'll always remember what they wore with jewelry, a story about that, and yet I forget their names, but you had an actress on who practices hypnosis. Do you remember her name?
Eddie Isin (00:17:14):
Ronnie? Oh, I'm sorry. No, you're talking about Emma. Emma. Emma. Yeah. I can't remember her last name right now.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:17:24):
Oh, or something. Okay. But I remember her story and she was speaking my language, but in another language, it's like we're saying the same thing, but she's speaking Spanish, I'm speaking Hebrew, whatever. That was a weird anecdote. But she said, everything is in the subconscious. And so when she practices with people, her hypnosis, and that caught my attention, and it was recent because I just discovered you when we met and I started listening to your podcast, and I'm like, I tried hypnosis a long time ago, three decades ago. I'm pushing 60, by the way. But I tried it for insomnia, didn't work. I tried NLP didn't work. I tried all these things, yoga, meditation, nothing worked. I wanted it to work acupuncture. So it's like, okay, whatever. So it's not like I became a cynic, but it didn't work. I realize now it's like ding, ding, ding, ding.
(00:18:21):
After listening to her podcast, I'm like, oh, I'm practicing for people just like me, and even people for whom those things do work, but this will work even better or support that in her hypnosis. And you guys were talking about this, it's constantly repeating to your brain, I can, I can't do this, I can do that. Whatever it is. Because the more you repeat it to your brain, the more likely your brain will go, okay, okay, see, that didn't work for me, and I meet a lot of people for whom that doesn't work. So here's the thing, affirmations don't work for me. Just clicking my heels three times and going, please work, or a million dollar, whatever, I'm not. And so my brain's like, no, you're not. For a lot of people, it's like, I am a fabulous thin woman, and here you are looking at yourself in the mirror and your brain's going, no, you're not. Because that's heuristic. Your brain just looks for confirmation and evidence. I realized habits are real. They're facts. Once they become habits or whatever action you take, it's a fact. You just did that action. So my
Eddie Isin (00:19:28):
Celebrative, it's like the simplest thing, the simplest, smallest thing that you could look at is just those habits. Instead of looking at big concepts and big ideas and something that you're going to just tell yourself, and everything's just going to magically change in your life because you tell yourself something, right? It's looking at the actual behaviors of what you're doing and what behaviors you want to change to.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:19:52):
Exactly. And so like your papaya, you say papaya, before you start anything you've trained your brain to, I'm on now I'm going to have fun and this is going to go great.
Eddie Isin (00:20:01):
It's showtime.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:20:03):
Exactly. And so that's why. And when people say, break a leg or in France, before you take an exam or something, they say Shit. But in France, I don't know if you knew that. They go, nah, you've traveled. And when I first heard that, I'm like, what? It's like it's wishing you good luck. Yes. Vision. When you envision yourself and athletes and all that, yes, it's great, but if you don't believe it, if there's even a little bit of doubt, even a grain of sand, bit of doubt in your brain, guess what? Your brain's going to look for that sand of doubt. So there's a fine line between affirmation and you truly believing it and doubt and fear. That's why so many people failed with the secret because they just thought, if I just think it, it'll come. No, it's not a baseball field. It's not a movie.
(00:20:49):
You can't just think it. You have to take action. But to take action, you have to believe in yourself. How can you believe yourself? You have no proof. You can't just wish it So to manifest, it's not woo woo manifest as a verb. You have to manifest it. You have to literally do something. So when you celebrate, here's my celebrative accountability. I'm really good at holding people accountable, but my thing, accountability, I've changed the definition to share and celebrate and start with yourself because you're not going to have me around all the time. But at first, my clients share with me, and at first they're resistant, and I'm like, it's not nagging. It's not nudging. Don't ghost me. This is for you. So they share and then they start really liking it. I'm like, I don't care if you go on there and just say done.
(00:21:38):
But they're training themselves, getting in the habit of acknowledging that they just did something. I don't care how tiny it is. And then their brain goes, noted, noted. Your brain is just a computer goes noted. You're capable. You did it. And then they start, I even start asking people, celebrate right before you do something. I'm about to go work out. I hate working out and I'm doing it anyway. I take the word but out. It's like, don't say, but I'm doing it anyway. I hate working out and I'm doing it. And your brain goes, yeah, you hate it. It's okay to hate it, and you're doing it done, noted, capable. And as you're working out, I really don't like doing these exercises. I'm laughing. I remember one of my clients was like, she started giggling every time that she didn't hate it anymore. It's like, I hate doing this and I'm doing it.
(00:22:27):
Anyway, as she was doing a bicep curl, and then she realized, I don't really hate it, and she was doing it, and so she started sharing with herself. She's holding herself accountable. That's what I mean by celebrative accountability. And after a while, it becomes a habit to just go, yay. You don't have to go all out and do a happy dance on a football field. You can just go, yay, noted. Did it done whatever. When you start getting the habit of sharing with yourself, holding yourself accountable, it becomes fun. You don't beat yourself up. And if you didn't do it, you also go, why? You have to get into the why, and we can go there, but that's what I mean by celebrative accountabilities is validating yourself and not validating in the old SNL skit. Like you are good. You are loved. I forgot the skit, but do you remember it?
Eddie Isin (00:23:17):
No.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:23:18):
Oh, it was funny. But it was my generation. I don't know. You are wanted, you are loved, you're whatever. It's more than just affirmation. It's confirmation. That's accountability. And again, so we go back to activating. We make sure I make sure with my clients, whatever they're working on, that they go through the habit loop. For example, let me take you through a habit loop if I may. Yes,
Eddie Isin (00:23:43):
Please. Please. I was going to ask you to do that.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:23:46):
Okay. Pick a time of day. Most people pick the morning. What do you do first thing in the morning? But if you want to pick something like at night, because a lot of people work on their
Eddie Isin (00:23:55):
Sleeping habits. Morning's good. I have a morning routine.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:23:57):
Okay, bing, bang, boom. First thing that happens in the morning,
Eddie Isin (00:24:01):
I go to the bathroom. I go to my bathroom. Nope, nope. Oh, you're talking about really first thing in the morning, I open my eyes.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:24:11):
There
Eddie Isin (00:24:12):
You go. And I lay in bed for about five more minutes, and I just think about my day right now, how I feel, whatever gratitude I have. If I don't have gratitude, I ask myself why I don't have gratitude. I woke up, it's another day, and then after maybe five minutes or so, then I move to the bathroom and I take a couple of supplements that I take in the mornings when I wake up. Let
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:24:38):
Me ask you right before then, did an alarm go off or did you wake up naturally?
Eddie Isin (00:24:44):
I do have an alarm, but it's like the alarm is like the backup. Usually I wake up at the same time every day. Okay,
(00:24:51):
Good to know. But sometimes the alarm does go off and I'm like, okay, it's time for me to get up. But either way, when I wake up, I take a few minutes, few, few, and then this also, my mornings is also my private time for myself for some solitude. So I spend about 30 minutes reading and meditating, looking at some things, and then kind meditating about 'em. Then I have my self-care that I do every day that get myself ready, take a hot shower, and then take a cold shower to activate my nervous system, and then by then I'm ready to go attack my day.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:25:34):
Okay. So you would say that that routine is supported by your spouse. She doesn't get in your way. No pets get in your way. Your children are grown. They're not there getting in your way. Nothing is getting in your way.
Eddie Isin (00:25:48):
Everything. No, when all of my three kids, four kids were all together in the same house, they knew in the morning to just let me alone that, that was my solitude time.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:25:57):
Okay. So before you go to the bathroom, is there anything that you skip? Do you make your bed?
Eddie Isin (00:26:06):
Not at that time. Afterwards, after I get washed up, ready to go and everything, I make the bed, put my shoes on after I get dressed and leave the room.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:26:16):
Okay. Do you open the curtain so you let some sunshine in, or do you turn on the light?
Eddie Isin (00:26:20):
When I go to the bathroom, I open up the curtain so that I get the sun on my face and I could go adjust my stuff to the day.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:26:28):
Exactly. See how many little things you're skipping. That's how tiny we get. That's how detail we get when we look at the loop. When you brush your teeth, do you do it the exact same way every time?
Eddie Isin (00:26:40):
No, I fluctuate, but I mean, it's about the same way. It's just that every other day I use the electric toothbrush, and every other day I just use a handheld toothbrush. Very good. That's about the only thing I fluctuate in it.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:26:55):
So that's a habit in your habitual way of thinking. It's like, I should do the electric now. That's good. You remember your brain's going, you haven't done it in four days or whatever. Do you do it with the same hand and in the same way?
Eddie Isin (00:27:10):
Yeah, I always do the right hand and I always start in the back and come forward. Yeah.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:27:15):
Okay. So everything's set up. Your two coffee makers, everything's set up for you to,
Eddie Isin (00:27:20):
And I don't even drink coffee really anymore, but Oh, that's funny. They're still there occasionally that I still have a cup of espresso or cappuccino.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:27:31):
Okay. So everything is set up to support your routine, correct?
Eddie Isin (00:27:35):
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:27:37):
So something activates you to wake up. You've probably gotten enough sleep, something activates you to think and pray and see if you're, well, I call it pray, whatever you think to yourself, am I grateful? Am I not? So you think in the morning you reflect, and so everything supports, and then you have the ability to do it, meaning no one's getting in your way. Nothing is throwing a wrench in it. You're physically able to.
Eddie Isin (00:28:06):
I would say that if for some reason, just like an example is I get up every day about 7:00 AM every day, but there have been times that I would get up at 6:00 AM or five 30 in the morning because if my lifestyle changes where I need to be somewhere earlier in the morning, I still need an hour, hour and a half every day for myself to start my day.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:28:30):
Yeah, you would feel weird if you didn't,
Eddie Isin (00:28:33):
Right? Right. The idea
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:28:35):
Of, I mean, it happens when you travel and stuff. Yeah,
Eddie Isin (00:28:38):
Well, not really. I mean, it's not exactly the same. You're correct. But I mean, I still support the same ideas even when I'm traveling. But I think that when I was younger, none of this was important to me because when I was younger, I would just get up, roll out of bed, jump in the shower, brush my teeth and run it right out the door. I mean, I think my morning routine, rush, rush, rush, rush, rush was 15, 20 minutes and out the door and run, grab something on the way, a cup of coffee or a bagel or whatever, and be on my way to work and just do my day and whatever you disprove. I need what I do now and what I've been doing now, I've been doing this for over 10 years. It's been like 15 years. I've been doing this since about 2010, about 2009, 2010, I started doing this and it serves me very well.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:29:28):
Notice you said, I need, you need it because you like it and it supports the person you want to be your identity. Remember how we started this whole conversation? Your habits are you are your habits, so you need it. But if somebody gave you $2 million and kidnapped your wife and said you have to change your routine for three months, you would.
Eddie Isin (00:29:49):
I would, I would, I would.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:29:52):
So you don't need it to survive. That's your perceived ability. But you want it, and it's so natural because it's your routine and your routine is supported by a series of tiny habits. Your whole morning routine is not a habit. It's a routine based on little habits. Let's say the reason I asked you if you open the drape, because that's one thing that I really propose to a lot of people in the morning that linger in bed and then they feel lethargic the rest of the morning or the rest of the day. That's because when you linger or remember the old digital clocks, they would have the, what do you call that? Snooze. The snooze. Now it's like they just snooze their phone. So we get into, can you get in the habit of putting your phone in another room? So you have to go turn it off and on your way there, open the shade. Because when you open the shade, boom, that tells your brain it's daytime. Now caveman, it's like people at first
Eddie Isin (00:30:47):
It's the melatonin.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:30:49):
Yeah. So it's little tiny habits like that. But you just also proved, and I know I talk a lot, so you have tore me in, but it also proved that when we talked about travel, you said not really. It doesn't really change. It love it. Because when I was solely a personal trainer and people would go travel, it's like, well, I'm going to not work out for a couple of weeks. I'm going here. It's like, so it's like, oh, come on, Ronnie. It's like, no, seriously, you can work out at the airport. You can get up half an hour before your partner so that you don't mess up the rest of the itinerary. If you're being tourist, you can still get up and keep your routine. You can take a little exercise band, the Infinity band that looks like a rubber
Eddie Isin (00:31:28):
Band. I'll tell you what's hard to do when you're traveling. And that's maintaining a diet. That is a
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:31:35):
Lot of work. No, it's not. Okay,
Eddie Isin (00:31:37):
I'll arm wrestle with you. Hold on. For me, I'm just saying that has been a real challenge at times when I go fly to California, and it's just a lot of preparation and work that I would have to do to stay on whatever food plan that I'm on. So I've had,
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:31:56):
I see what you're saying.
Eddie Isin (00:31:58):
I've had some trouble with that
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:32:00):
And I work with people with that because what is the main, the gist? What is the core of that plan? You can accommodate it as you travel. I don't mean like, oh, I won't eat this. I'll eat that and be all that way to demanding at restaurants. What I mean is what is the main thing? Is it plant-based? Is it that you're vegetarian? Is it that you're vegan? Is it because you're calorie cycling? So we look at that. We prepare. We prepare to fail. But let me get to that. I totally hear you. But in the exercise or in the morning ritual that you have, you know that can still wake up before your spouse or that you don't undo the itinerary if you're being tourist and you can still have your alone time, just adjust it a little bit. When you prepare, you prepare for those changes, but you still do basically the same thing.
(00:32:50):
You reflect for five minutes, you get up, you brush your teeth in the hotel room or Airbnb or whatever. Maybe you go for a walk, maybe you just go to the other room or maybe you have to go to the lobby. It depends where you're staying. And go ahead and do your half hour of whatever it is, journaling, meditating, whatever it is you do. So you can still keep those series of habits. Just adjust them a little bit. You can do it. When I used to set people up for success, for people always say, well, I'm going to walk a lot. Yeah, that's great, but that's not raising your cardiovascular and that's not working your muscles. So what can you do? Do you have five minutes? Do you have seven minutes? Just your own body weight? So we would plan for it. And you know what?
(00:33:32):
Every single one of my clients succeeded because in the bigger scope of things in life, seven minutes wasn't that long, but they felt great just doing their own body weight. They had to sneak off to the hotel, gym, or just in the lobby or just by the pool. They could do it. They absolutely could do it. You set yourself up for success. So let's say another thing that people have to go through. The fear, and I know you've talked about this with other people, when you go through some trauma or fear or emotion, you have to go through it. Don't force yourself, but go ahead and let yourself, because people don't want to think back on a trauma. Fine, don't think back on a trauma. You don't have to do that all the time. But perhaps what is your fear? What is your emotion? And if it's a bad emotion, why? If it springs up naturally, go ahead and acknowledge. It's like, oh, I have doubt. Oh, I have rage. Oh, I'm angry, or I'm frustrated, or I resent them. Well, why, real quickly. And then we set you up with how can you change that emotion with truth, with a fact, not with, well, I should be a good person. Well, I shouldn't feel that way. No. What's a fact that can
Eddie Isin (00:34:49):
Neutralize it not with wishful thinking, but with actual real intelligence
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:34:56):
And give yourself a fact that can just neutralize it. Am I capable of waiting to talk about that, let's say with a boss, am I capable of? Yes. So we look at your proven capabilities. Am I capable of setting that aside for a second? So you look at whatever a fact is, I revert to, again, the physical because it's a lot easier for this podcast. But physical, for example, I had a woman who tried everything. She was overweight, tried every diet in the world, she tried all these hypnosis and all that, and she finally, she looked at herself in the mirror and with me, one tiny little habit, women have bellies. That's how she started. Her brain could accept that women have bellies. We're not saying what kind of belly. She finally changed that to. Women have big bellies. Many women have big bellies. I have a big belly and I'm beautiful. I have a big belly and I'm on my way to getting healthier. But this took time. This took a month. But when she was ready to say it and accept it, because it was her truth, and it's really started neutralizing things instead of lying to herself with, I'm not saying all affirmations are lies, they're not. But some affirmations, like I said, our brains don't believe. So when you go through the fear of some and
Eddie Isin (00:36:22):
Belief is so important.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:36:24):
Yes. And that's just it. So when you look at inspirations like inspirational thing on Instagram or TikTok, yes, a great inspirational beliefs. You have to believe it, but if you don't really believe it, it's not. It doesn't work. So tell yourself something that you already believe that's positive or that's neutral. So let's go back to set yourself up for failure. We also do that because a lot of people don't. You have barriers. You have your real ability and your perceived ability. People often think, well, I've tried this, I tried that. So it's not going to work. That's your perceived ability. How can we change that perception? Not with a lie, but how can we start making it so that you are able to, so we shrink the change, we shrink the tiny step. We shrink what you're going to do instead of a full on diet, what can you do? I just started a lady on
Eddie Isin (00:37:22):
Her new habit, right? Setting realistic expectations for yourself. Yes, you want to lose 200 pounds, okay, that's great, but what can we do right now to move the needle right now today? Right? What can add exactly?
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:37:40):
And for her, we set her up as like, can you do 10 minutes of pellet? First? I asked her, would she like to do? Would she like to go? And we whittled it down to would she like to go take a walk? Would she like to get on the row machine, which she just bought, never uses. Or would she like to get on the Peloton? She doesn't like her neighborhood, so she doesn't want to walk. She doesn't want to see her neighbors. Literally. I mean, she lives in a nice area, but she doesn't like her neighborhood for whatever reason. So I'm like, what will you do? Don't say, yeah, I can do the Peloton. If you're not going to do it, what will you do? And she's like, I can do the Peloton. So she wanted to get on three times a week, 45 minutes.
(00:38:16):
I'm like, she hasn't worked out since I almost said 19. Oh my God, 2022. So I'm like, you do five minutes. She's like, yes. I'm like, are you sure? What's going to activate you? So we went through the activators so she can turn off the computer at the end of her workday, the is right there next to her desk. She can hop on five minutes. She committed to 10 minutes. And I asked her, can you do 10 minutes a day, five days a week? If not, whittle it down. We whittled it down to eight because she knows yes, eight sounds easier than 10. Alright, so that's her activation. The second she signs off, she cannot go in the house until she hops on that Peloton. And even if you just look at the Peloton and go around a few cycles in a minute, okay, you did it. She's like, really? She can't believe I was letting her off that easy. But Eddie, if she gets on that Peloton and starts spinning, she'll stay at least five minutes most,
Eddie Isin (00:39:12):
And then maybe, maybe I can go another minute. Maybe. Let's just see if I can go another minute. Let me just see if I can go another 30 seconds. Absolutely.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:39:21):
I'm glad you brought that up. She goes, well, Ronnie, you know I'm all or nothing. And I am like, I knew what she was going. I'm like, Nope, don't do it. She's like, what am I going to say? I'm like, you. What? If you think, well, I can go for half an hour, I can go for 45 minutes. She's like, you don't want me to, I'm like, you can do whatever you want. You're an adult, but I propose that you reward yourself for the 10 minutes. Get in that house. So she just started. We'll see, because if you can accomplish, I'm sorry, not 10, eight minutes, you can accomplish eight minutes a day. And then I set her up for failure. I'm like, what if a kid gets sick or your boss calls or something happens? What are you going to do? She decided she'll make it up.
(00:40:04):
She'll make it up Saturday. And if you can't, what time can you do it Sunday? You have to set yourself up to succeed. Don't just say, I'll make it up Saturday. What time? Your kids have softball, they have this, they have that. What time can you do it? She literally picked five 30 at night. So you have to set yourself up. I can do this at this time in this location surrounded by this. It's like the butler with the candlestick in the lounge. You have to set yourself up with exact details where you can do it. So you have actual ability instead of perceived ability. See the difference?
(00:40:40):
Yes. And we see, we set out to do what you will realistically and are capable of doing. Now, not your perception like, well, I've tried everything. Well, you haven't tried this, so what haven't you tried? Let's shrink it. Let's shrink that habit. And those build those actually build. Now the other thing I talked about, I had this guy who really wanted to get better at a certain sport, mostly for his health. He wanted to get better, and I didn't invent this. I heard somebody on some podcast talking about how some football player would start visualizing not the win, not the yes and the crowd cheering and making the touchdown. And you probably know this because you probably know sports better than I. But he would visualize himself if he fumbled, if somebody tackled him when he would be tackled who would tackle him. He would think of certain players that the team he was about to play, who's going to hit him the hardest. Oh, how would that feel? Would he get enraged? Would that hurt physically? What does he do when he feels dehydrated? What does he do when he didn't see something coming? He actually visualized the failures, the fumbles, the falls, the struggles. Did that make him a worse player? Oh heck no. That actually helped him already process it. And his brain wasn't traumatized or shocked by it. When little things happened, I thought
Eddie Isin (00:42:00):
It was like he had a plan for it.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:42:03):
His brain already processed the shock. Oh, I'm going to get hurt. He would feel the hurt of being tackled. I know how that feels or being sideswiped or somebody making a bad call. He was really angry at the ump or whatever you call them. Sorry, I'm running into sports. So I started thinking with this guy. He wanted to train himself to run again. I'm like, all right, feel how you're going to feel when you want to half a banana. Feel how you're going to feel like, oh my God, I'm getting thirsty. Feel how you're going to feel physically? Imagine your foot hurting, your ankle hurting. And he was like, this is all negative. I'm like, yeah. We went through it. We went somatically through it. He would imagine it. He would meditate it, man, he progressed so fast. And of course he visualized winning in all the successes, but he also visualized, how will I feel and how will I handle if something goes wrong or I'm just tired, or when I hit that marker and I get tired, he already processed it.
(00:43:00):
So when he was training for that to run, his brain wasn't shocked by it. It's like, yeah, yeah. You knew you were going to get tired, and you just kept going, kept going, kept going. So you have to plan for the what ifs. If this happens, then I'll have a backup plan. And your habits support those. You think, oh, what if it throws off my habits? No, habits are natural. You're not going to go for five days without brushing your teeth. That's just conditioned. Unless you really are on a deserted island, but you plan for, okay, then, so your habits help you prioritize the main thing, like your diet when you're traveling, what's the main point of my diet plan? Maybe not the details, but the main point of that particular diet plan. See what I'm saying?
Eddie Isin (00:43:50):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that I'm really getting something out of what you're saying because right now I have some things I want to change, and part of what's holding me back from changing them is my fear of that I'm not going to be able to follow through with some of these things. And so that's stopping me from starting. And so I allowed myself to, well, let's just do one meal a day in this way. Let's just start with one meal a day in this way to start moving forward. And so I am really inspired by what, saying I'm going to keep doing that. And until I have a whole new food plan, yeah, I lost a lot
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:44:38):
Of weight. There you go. There too many people start.
Eddie Isin (00:44:41):
I lost a lot of weight, and now for the last six months, I've been living the life of Riley, just enjoying my time and myself and hanging out with my fam and my wife and I gained 20 pounds. And I'm like, okay, that's enough. That's enough of that. Let's go back the other way now. And so changing a little bit at a time is what I'm doing right now, because it, it's not that difficult. It's not that difficult to say. So I'm going to do eat healthier meals, and I'm going to start by eating those healthier meals one at a time every day, take one of those meals and make it a very, very healthy meal for me. No carbs, no meat.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:45:21):
Okay. Fruit and vegetables or carbs. So I always correct people with that. I know it sounds obnoxious of
Eddie Isin (00:45:26):
Meat, but you need
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:45:27):
Carbs.
Eddie Isin (00:45:28):
No, simple carbs or whatever.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:45:31):
They're refined, processed poptarts cereal starches. Yeah, refined sugar,
Eddie Isin (00:45:35):
Processed foods. I don't need any of that, but yeah. But yeah, but definitely things like, okay, but the potatoes and the starches and those things. The starches, yeah, that's what I, yeah, there's
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:45:44):
Are refined sugar things. Oh, okay. Now, if you don't mind me asking, you don't have to answer this, but Yeah,
Eddie Isin (00:45:52):
No, I don't care
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:45:53):
What is, unless you have a hormonal problem, a glandular problem in your thyroid, do you?
Eddie Isin (00:46:00):
No.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:46:01):
Okay. So in general, and I know I'm broad brushing, excluding if you're clinically diagnosed with some disorder such as obesity, clinical obesity, not just,
Eddie Isin (00:46:15):
Like I tell you, if you're alluding to why I ended up gaining weight and why am I in this? Oh yeah. That's mainly because my lifestyle changed. That's what I was saying. I've been on vacation. It's like I've been on vacation for six months.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:46:29):
So bottom line, Eddie, you were eating more calories.
Eddie Isin (00:46:32):
I eating more calories, maybe, maybe, but definitely not burning as much. I mean, I used to do five miles a day of activity and walking. I do like 14,000 steps a day, 12,000 steps a day, and then I'm down to 2000 steps a day. So my activity and what I was doing all the time to burn whatever I was eating is gone. So it's like now I have to eat less or I have to get more active again. So I'm doing both. I started walking 45 minutes a day, a brisk walk every day, and I'm starting to change what I'm eating. And look, my biggest success in losing weight, because it's only 20 pounds that I need to get rid of, it's not a big deal. I know the fastest way for me to do that is to go back to Whole Foods, kind of fruits and vegetables, plain
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:47:24):
Foods.
Eddie Isin (00:47:24):
Yeah, no meat and no starches. And quickly I shed the weight.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:47:32):
Okay. So I contend that you just proved my point in that you said, well, it's less activity. The thing is, when you were more active, your body was getting rid of the excess calories. So now that you are, even if I can have somebody lose weight on Twinkies and Pop-Tarts, okay, if your body is not taking in the amount of calories it needs, which is bad because it then slows down your metabolism, so you'll survive. But you can lose weight on crap. The point is you're eating whole. But I've also had many clients way back in the day when I was mostly doing nutrition and personal training, who were gaining a lot of weight and they couldn't figure out why, because they turned vegan or they went paleo or they went keto or they went vegetarian and their body was starving for necessary fats or necessary carbs.
(00:48:21):
So we would have to look at that. It's like I had more overweight people that were vegetarian when it was really in the early two thousands, and they were trying to, and then, yeah, it was about then because they were getting skinny fat. So with you, Eddie, for example, it's great that you know what you need to do. You're going to up your activity also. I hope you'll take this advice, get some strength training, because our bodies need to boost your metabolism and to boost your metabolism. As we grow older, when I mean by older is over 40, we all start losing certain hormones. That's just it. You're losing. You're going through andropause. You're a man. Women go through menopause, men go through andropause, your metabolism slows down. But at any age, 60, 70, 80, you can boost your metabolism, how you work your muscles, because we're all losing muscle mass. When you work your muscles, it goes, Hey, hormones, feed me. Okay, so your metabolism revs up and you burn calories, plus you gain muscle. So I would also incorporate that if I were, you don't mind me throwing that
Eddie Isin (00:49:28):
At you right now. That's a struggle for me, but I'm doing it. I'm doing it, and I just need low resistance in what I'm doing because I have injuries to my neck and back that I sometimes aggravate them by doing stressful exercise. Yeah. I started a new routine doing no resistance type, using bands instead of weights.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:49:59):
Well, that is resistance, but yeah, low resistance is
Eddie Isin (00:50:02):
Awesome. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:50:05):
No, that's awesome. I have people working out, even just with their body, and I even have one lady, for example, tiny, tiny, tiny, again, back to the habits. She really didn't know how she was going to work out. She just has this thing on her brain like, oh, I hate going to the gym. Oh, I hate dumbbells, and I hate doing that. So I'm like, okay, that's your habitual way of thinking. So we started going through that. I'm like, can you do one muscle a day and no more? You're not allowed to do more. And she's like, really? I'm like, it's just the habit you're trying to form. You're not even worried about your body yet. For two weeks now, she's been doing one muscle, and that's it. I'm like, don't do arm. She's like, okay, I'm going to do legs one day. I'm like, which part of the leg?
(00:50:40):
The hamstring, the quads, the outer thighs, the calves. She's like, I didn't know there were so many muscle. I'm like, don't just say legs. Do your cals one day the next day, do the hams the next day. Do the quads the next day, do the inner thighs next day, just do abs next day, just do triceps. So now she's been doing one muscle a day, and it literally takes her about two minutes. It's like, that's it. But she's getting in through the habit and she's doing it at home, and it only takes two minutes. So she's really not hating it. So you can get in the habit of just building up by doing five minutes or maybe two minutes, or just one or two muscles a day. That's it. That's it. And using your own body weight, you can even do wall Pilates. I mean, there's so many ways to boost your ability. So habits are formed on that habit loop. Something activates you when you're going to work out, and you have to have the ability to do the behavior. If all you're going to do is body weight, yay, start looking for body weight exercises that are safe. You can do pushups against the kitchen counter if that's not going to hurt you. Or you can do little squats right there off your wall. What I'm saying is I work with people to find what they can do to make it as easy as possible.
Eddie Isin (00:51:47):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I believe that. I believe in that. I live that, and I think it supports my overall philosophy about myself and about life. And that is it's my responsibility to take care of myself and to be gentle and loving with myself and not to hurt myself in any way. Not to beat myself up or put myself down. So part of setting these things up and doing a little bit and a little bit, and adding a little bit more and changing a little area a little bit, is it supports that whole idea of not beating myself and not making things so difficult because the more my mind, it's kind of like I read this book about losing weight and this guy's doctor's philosophy about it, I can't remember the name of it, but it was a popular book back in the late nineties.
(00:52:40):
And he said, if I told you that, he asked, just think of for a second, what's your favorite food in life? What's your favorite food? And then you think about that. He says, okay, so you visualize that. Now what if I told you you could never have that favorite food again? How does that feel? What happens to you? And typically people are going to fight that. They're going to be like, whatcha talking about I can't eat my favorite food forever? He says, exactly. That's why he said, you need to, instead of saying, I'm never going to eat this again because it's not healthy for me. You have to maybe say, I am going to eat that only once a month or only on special occasions or something like that. So you Or less
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:53:25):
Portion. Yeah, or a
Eddie Isin (00:53:26):
Smaller portion so that your brain doesn't fight against you from making the change. I always remember that.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:53:33):
Yeah. So when you said, when I hear people and it's my trigger, when I hear people go, oh, no carbs for a month. Well, what are you going to do after the month? Oh, no carbs for six months. Carbs are your friends. So are fats. They don't make you fat. Sugar makes you fat, okay? And I don't mean sugar from a sugar cane. I mean all the other chemicals that are substitute for that, all the flour. So exactly what you just said, restriction. Your brain's going to fight restriction, so don't restrict it unless you know that I absolutely have to stop drinking alcohol or else, or I absolutely have to stop smoking or else. And then you find a way to wean yourself off, and you can, it's doable with tiny steps, but to just restrict yourself temporarily, it's not sustainable and you always gain it back.
(00:54:18):
I'm working with somebody now who paid this highfalutin thing to some chiropractor who has a program where they were literally eating six to nine calories a day, but they were clinically observed and they had to eat a certain diet and okay, she lost. She's gained it back and her metabolism is probably worse. She felt great when she lost it. Just like, I don't know if you saw the special with Oprah in it, how she's lived a life of up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down. So she wreaked havo on her metabolism and so now she's on medicine, which is wonderful. I don't know if she's on Ozempic, but she's on one of those. She had a special on this. I love seeing that she had people who were clinically diagnosed with obesity to show that is the disease. What she didn't address because she only had an hour for the hour special, is the other population who is taking these drugs and they are not obese.
(00:55:09):
It's those people that go for the temporary fast fixes where it comes back all the time. It's only for those people I'm talking about. Okay. That's why I asked you, do you have a glandular problem? Do you have any other medical issue? If you don't, you can change it, but without restrictions, more of what can you do with that spaghetti you like, what can you do with that chocolate? I'm in shape and people ask me, how do you stay so thin? I'm like, I'm not thin. I'm strong and I'm scrappy and I eat chocolate every single day of my life. I'm not going to restrict myself unless my doctor says you have to for whatever reason. But I don't overeat. When people ask me, how do you stay so thin? It's like
Eddie Isin (00:55:48):
I eat a life without chocolate is not worth living.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:55:54):
I eat. I don't overeat. And then you get into the compulsions and the compulsive eating and most of that, again, most I say, because I don't want people throwing at me like it's all or nothing. Most compulsive eating is a habit. It's your habitual behavior because of your thoughts, because of your feelings, and it is your habitual way of thinking. It's how you react to a stressor. So you can, and I have worked with people who do the mindless eating or the compulsive eating.
Eddie Isin (00:56:27):
That's awesome. It's dope. What are some of the misconceptions that people have about your area of expertise and about habits and celebratory accountability?
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:56:44):
The misconceptions they have is that they're too old, too programmed or accountability. Again, we kind of went over that. Most people when they hear the word accountable, they feel like, oh God, I have to check in. Or at first they want the accountability pod or the accountability partner or the accountability coach, and then they ghost and then they hide because they didn't do it or they didn't do something or they just feel like children. That's the resistance upon hearing it until they find out what it really is, which I explained. It's just sharing and it's celebrating and Can I cuss on here?
Eddie Isin (00:57:18):
Yeah.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:57:18):
And tell me if I can't. You're a grown ass adult. Okay. That was my cuss word. It's like you can do whatever you want. I can't rope you in. Nobody ever will. I'm offering for you to use me to share because I really do take delight. I take delight in looking at my Voxer app and seeing my clients share with me the good, the bad, the ugly when they share with me and most of them are wins. I'm dancing with them and it becomes fun. It becomes natural that you're validating yourself. So the misconception is, no, I'm not my habits, because yes we are. You are what you do every day. You are what you eat, you are what you think you are, what you do, and yes, you incorporate every aspect of who you are. Your chemical makeup, your culture, your ethnicity, your religion, all of that is part of your personality and who you are and what you do to be part of that culture, that religion or that way of thinking, what you do to support that are your habits.
(00:58:22):
So that is the first misconception. And I like it because like I said, when I did NLP, when I tried to do hypnosis, I realized it didn't work for me because I was trying to force myself to believe I can sleep. And obviously it didn't enter my subconscious because my subconscious didn't believe it. And it wasn't until I learned to accept the noises around me. I would hear a train or I would hear, well, you grew up in the Bronx, so maybe this is easy for you. But when I would hear noises at night, I would be like, yep, this is part of my natural every night thing, I'm always going to hear noises, I'm going to hear the cat. I started accepting it and by God my insomnia went away when I gave into it. Yep. It's all part of me sleeping.
Eddie Isin (00:59:13):
Yeah. The first time I was outside the city I couldn't sleep. It was too quiet.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:59:20):
I hear you didn't have the subway.
Eddie Isin (00:59:23):
So what about this though? I'm just curious. I know habits is something that you believe in and you talk a lot about, but also just in general, what's some of the misconceptions that people have just about life coaching in general?
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (00:59:38):
Oh, like I did. I was a cynic. I'm like, what the heck is life coaching? I thought it was all woo woo Simon sin, not Simon Sinek, but I shouldn't name names, but I just really thought it was a lot of people getting all woo woo and that's great. People say that my way is your way, and there was very guru or very motivational speaker until I found out coaching really is taking you where you are and helping you really get it out of yourself. Express yourself, be honest with yourself. If you had been honest with yourself about your marriage in the first place, your first marriage in, am I fulfilled? Is it okay to be fulfilled? We had you reflect. It's not therapy, it's not going back and going through all the hurts and all the trauma. Yes, you can bring up because you have to know why am I this way?
(01:00:30):
But we don't stay there and I don't tell you what to do. Coaching is really, you are already on the team. If you want to bring it to sports, you made the team, you're here now let's look at the playback, see what you did there. See how you reacted there. Do you want to change that? Do you want to keep that? Do you want to strengthen it? You are the one people who are being coached are guiding me. They take the lead and I'm guiding them from the back. When you go with a hiking troop, there's the lead in the front and there's the lead in the back like the shepherd and everybody else in between. The coach is that way. We guide you from the back. You are leading the way. You know what you want and no one is a better expert about you than you.
(01:01:11):
It's just people get so overwhelmed and consumed with their own stuff. So the misconception is that coaches just kind of guru you somewhere, and I don't believe in gurus. Nobody should tell you what to do. Nobody's got the one answer. Coaches fine, good coaches help you bring out the answers that will work for you to get to what you want and to be who you want to be. So a good coach, first of all, in my opinion, and this is my opinion, really, studies really practice really goes through training. Anybody can say they're a coach. I do believe in talking, walking the talk, studying psychology, finding their own style, implementing their own style, but helping the person get to what they want and then letting them go. We don't keep you forever. So the misconceptions that they were all airy fairy inspirational people were not, and I was very cynical about it and I take it seriously.
Eddie Isin (01:02:09):
Yeah. I wanted to talk to you, I want you to talk about when you met Mother Teresa in Mexico. That's such a great story.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (01:02:22):
I was working as a news reporter in a past life in San Diego, and I speak Spanish. So I was a news reporter at this TV station and they're like, who can go to Mexico? So a photographer volunteered. I'm like, I speak Spanish. Like, oh, you too, don't you? Okay. Because Loa doesn't sound Latin to many people. They're like, okay. So I went down there and I had the assignment and all we really wanted was getting her walking out of this convent where she was meeting with some nuns. I actually went up there right by the sidewalk where she was coming out and we made eye contact and it was so beautiful. I made eye contact with her and she really looks at you. She grabbed both my hands in between hers and she said something, and honest to God, I don't know what she said.
(01:03:16):
It was so small and soft. Plus there were all these other people, but she really looked into my eyes and I thanked her. I don't know what she said, and my photographer got this, or it may have been used, but it was just wonderful and it was such an experience. I'm not going to say that. It was like, oh my God, spiritual. It's just when I think about it, she had so much true love in her eyes and when I read her memoir years later, she doubted her faith all the time. She doubted the existence of God and it made me really believe in her and like this human being who was a nun and worked for the poor kept going and going. And despite her lack of faith or her doubt, that really showed me that you can question, it's okay to question. That doesn't make you a non-believer. She still walked the talk. She was still a good person and she was still loving, and so that really inspired me.
Eddie Isin (01:04:21):
Yeah, that's so great. So is there anything that you would like to impart to the audience? Anything? What do you want people to take away from this?
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (01:04:36):
That coaching is very tailored and yet it's structured. I do take people through a process and that I have learned how to structure it and then we take it from there. It's tailored to who you are personally as a human being, your conditioning, your goals, who you are. So it's not a program that's fit for everybody, it's just structured in how we approach you. I do cognitive behavior and I would really love to just have you have on a call with me and I call it what do I want or what I want, and how do you coach, call, let's just pull up a chair and talk. Discover what your goal is and also I'd like to impart that every aspect of your life affects the other aspect of your life in some way. They're all subsets, some more than others, depending on the time of your life, but your relationships affect your career, affect your health, affect your spirituality, affect your finances, and each one is a subset of the other. So how you show up in one area is literally how you show up in the other areas. You think, well, I'm different at work than I am at home. Really look at yourself. Are you really?
(01:05:49):
So I invite somebody to get on a call with me and discuss and challenge me, challenge me, not because I'm defensive, it's because I want to learn. I just said, I just learned from something that you had from another guest on a podcast where I finally realized, oh, that didn't work for me because deep down in my subconscious, I didn't believe, and it's not convincing myself to believe. It's like, well, what do I believe? And work with that. So I'm always growing. So challenge me, let's talk about you and if anybody knows somebody that you think maybe they can use some coaching to progress, refer them to me. If they sign up with me, you get a free session.
Eddie Isin (01:06:27):
That's awesome. And of course everybody could just go to Ronnie Lowe life coach.com to get in touch with you.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (01:06:34):
Yes, my website, Ronnie Lowe, life coach, and I'm that on LinkedIn and on all the social media and I really love talking to people, so I really invite that and thank you so much for having me, Eddie.
Eddie Isin (01:06:43):
Yes, thank you. And thank you for giving up your time so freely. I appreciate you. We'll talk later.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (01:06:49):
We will. And I'd like you to start sharing about your workouts and your one meal.
Eddie Isin (01:06:55):
Okay, I
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (01:06:56):
Will. Your one good meal a day.
Eddie Isin (01:06:58):
I'll do that. Some of the comments you made, I think I have to rethink my strategy.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (01:07:02):
Okay. I can help you.
Eddie Isin (01:07:04):
Alright, I talk to you soon.
Ronnie Lo Life Coach (01:07:07):
Thank you.
Eddie Isin (01:07:08):
Alright, great plan. For more information and monthly topics of interest, please go to transform Your future.com and join our newsletter.