You can hear it in people's language all the time. I've always been overweight, or I've always been a smoker, I'm helpless, I always give in to this, I'm a quitter. We say them as though it's just a fact. This is why it can be so hard to change. That missed run gets logged as proof. See, this isn't really for me. All of these experiences, they go into the suit. This is who you are, this is who you've always been, and this is who you will always be.
SPEAKER_00Today's guest is so interesting to be Pim. I know you're a doctor for 20 years, and she gave up to be a coach. She makes more money as a coach than she made it as a doctor. If you had to define the thing that stops people making the change, what would you say it is?
SPEAKER_02The big difference maker is your identity. What advice would you give them? You need to get curious about what is the gap between what you currently believe about yourself and what your future self requires you to become.
SPEAKER_00How can we go from knowledge to action? Well, I think the first step is Welcome to another exciting edition of Your Mind, Your Rules. And today's guest is so interesting to me because she's someone who broke every rule. She trained as a doctor. It was her heart's desire. She gave up to be a coach. She makes more money as a coach than she made as a doctor. She took a leap of faith. And I want to know all about the rules you broke, how you broke them, what made you break them. And I'm so glad you did. So if you don't mind starting, Kim, I know you're a doctor for 20 years, is that right? That's right. What was it that made you think, actually, this is not making my heart sing anymore? Hmm.
SPEAKER_02Uh there were a lot. It wasn't one moment. It was, I think of it less as a lightning bolt and more like a sunrise. So I gradually came to see that the career that I had chosen for myself, you know, I decided to go into medicine when I was 17 years old. When I knew exactly nothing about anything in the world or myself. But then once I had made that decision, I set myself on the path and then just executed, then just did what I needed needed to do to actually get into medical school, get through medical school, get into practice, all of those things. So there wasn't much reflection happening. It was all execution at that earlier stage. But then once I settled into my career and had been practicing for many years, I started to realize that really it's the transactional nature of my days, what I was doing every day was not lighting me up in quite the way that I had always hoped. And I started feeling pulled to some more um creative uh pursuits, things that I had left behind in my earlier life. I was a very creative and artistic person. And I started rediscovering a lot of that and realizing that I needed my um my professional life to incorporate more of that writing, teaching, communicating, um, the things that I wasn't getting in my day-to-day work as a family doctor.
SPEAKER_00And how did your friends and family react when you said, you know what, I'm going to leave this career that I spent seven years training in and 20 years in? What feedback did you get when you told friends and family you were leaving?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, it's much as you would expect. Of course. A lot of surprise, a lot of confusion, um, a lot of concern. So um, people who love you, they don't necessarily want to stop you because they're trying to sabotage you. But they truly, people were truly concerned for why I was throwing, throwing everything away. Why would I, um, you know, I'd worked so these were the things that I heard all the time. I'd worked so hard to get where I was. Why was I just throwing it all away and wasting all of the education that I had got, everything that I had worked for? So it was, there was a lot of confusion. Um, there was a lot of concern. Um, and uh, I mean, of course, the people who knew me the best had known that I was, I was ready for a new chapter and had been for a very long time. And it did take me a very long time to actually come to the final decision that it was time for me to walk away. That wasn't a decision that I came to lightly, quickly, or easily. Um, so the people who were closest to me had seen all of that. But it's more people who were, well, I mean, patients, of course, and people who I just encountered, um, acquaintances and things, they had much more of a struggle. And people continue to struggle to understand why I would do that, how I could do it. On my YouTube channel, I regularly get people commenting about how um, you know, how could I waste that education? How could I do that? All of those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00But and you're a family doctor, that you were like a one-curve. Family doctor, yes, TP. Yeah. What made you decide that coaching was the career? Because I can see obviously the this the road, you you were a doctor, it wasn't what you thought it would be. But what made you think, you know, I'm gonna be a coach, not a doctor? What take me through that mindset shift when you were looking for another career? How did you find coaching and how did you know that that was the thing that would light you up? Well, I did give myself permission to experiment.
SPEAKER_02Of course. Um, because I wanted to really, you know, I I feel like, as I said, I made my decision to go to medical school when I was very young, and I wanted to give myself an opportunity to try some different things. So I did that. I tried, I was blogging, I was writing, I was um speaking, I was teaching workshops, I was doing a variety of different things to see. Um, but when I discovered the concept of coaching, because coaching, when I had gone through medical school, coaching was not of course, woo-woo. Yeah, it was not, it was not popular, it was not really mainstream, it wasn't uh there might have been some executive coaching, but really not as mainstream as it is now. Um, but when I discovered and I really understood what coaching was about, it was, I realized there was a lot of things that I had actually wanted in medicine, but it didn't exist at the time when I was going through. So, because what I found working with patients every day, all day, is that a lot of people they know what to do. So they know what to do to improve their health and well-being. There's no shortage of information. We are inundated with information about what we need to do to improve our health and well-being physically, mentally, emotionally. But there, what I noticed is that people really struggled to actually do the thing, to actually implement those changes, to actually become the person that they wanted to be, you know, to make those changes in their lifestyle. And I got really fascinated with that. So, what with that gap? So between knowing what to do and being quite motivated to make those changes, but then not being able to do it and or in a sustained basis. And I got really fascinated with that, and I realized that coaching is something that can help to fill that gap, to to bridge the gap of when people are struggling to make a change that's for their own well-being and health and positive changes, but they're just not doing it. And coaching is really can make a big difference in that.
SPEAKER_00You know, I was told I would never be able to have a baby. I had cancer twice and was told I'd have to live with that forever. I got run over and was told I couldn't walk for six months. I actually walked in six weeks. And each time I got that diagnosed, I thought, no, this is my mind, my rules. I bounced back from cancer. I had a perfect baby. I recovered from being run over super fast, and I used the techniques in this book. In fact, I wrote this book while I was in plaster, having been run over. Because the things that made me bounce back will make you bounce back from relationship issues, wealth issues, childhood issues, confidence issues. If you want to live your life on your terms and have love, success, health, wealth, even the body of your dreams, it's all in here. Buy it and change your life forever. So you see people who say, I know I should lose weight, I know I should stop drinking, I know I should ex, I know I should finish that book, I know I should leave that job. In your experience as both a doctor and a coach, if you had to define the thing that stops people making the change, what would you say it is?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, this is a great question because I have come to understand, and to me, the big difference maker is your identity. So, what you believe about yourself, your self-concept, the stories that you are telling yourself about who you are, what kind of person you are, what kind of things that are available to you, and what things are not possible for you, that really is the difference maker because, and you can hear it in people's language all the time. I've never I'm not an athlete, or I've never been good at sticking with things, or I've always been overweight. They, you know, we say, we hear people say these things.
SPEAKER_00No one in my family's done that. Exactly. I'm not the kind of person, in fact, interesting enough, I've been a therapist my entire adult life, and I found that I could put all my clients into three categories. And the first was always, I'm not enough. I'm not worthy enough, I'm not good enough, interesting, intelligent enough, and therefore I can't go for it. But the second one was interesting, it was it's not available to me. Which is what you just said. I'd I'd love to be free of depression, but I've got the depression gene. I'd love to find love, but my dad abandoned me when I was a baby, it's not available. I'd love to be successful, but we come from a family with nothing. It's not available. I found they're not available was a very interesting core belief. Because of course, as you say, and as I say in my book, one of our the strongest rules is we will act in a way that lines up with how we identify ourselves. People often say, Well, I'm I'm Irish, so I drink. I'm Italian, so I have a bad temper. Well, I'm a fatherless woman, so of course I'm not going to find a loving partner. And what we're not taught, and I wish we were, is that how you identify yourself shapes you. But the great news is you can re-identify yourself any time at all.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, 100%. That's that's what I say all the time. Because yeah, those those rules that we and and identity statements that we make about ourselves, people, we say them as though it's just a fact, as it's just a neutral, like my eye color. You know, we just say it as though it's that is what it is, and there's no point in in changing. And exactly like you said, that we then act. So that becomes our our instruction manual for ourselves because our brains are very happy to have when there's alignment between what we believe and how we act. And so people are, you know, carry on contentedly acting according to the identity statement that they have created for themselves. But you're right in that we're not born with that identity statement. It's not written in stone. It was created at some point, which means that it can be recreated through intention. But the key, of course, is identifying it in the first place because it just operates on a subconscious level. We don't, we say these things and throw away comments as though it's just unchangeable.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um, I had an interesting time because my mother was my father was never sick. My father was a head teacher, loved his job, was didn't have a day off in his entire life. Had cancer twice, but my mother, on the other hand, was always sick. And I found out later that when she in the war they evacuated children from the cities of the country. She was very unhappy. She stopped eating, they sent her back. She was the only one who was sent back with her mother. She loved that. And she learned very early that if you're sick, it solves all your problems. So her identity was always the sick one. And she actually really liked it. I'd go and visit her in a hospital and she loved being there. She goes, Oh, everyone's so worried about me. The doctors say, So look at these cards. I've never met anyone who loved being ill like my mother did. My father, on the other hand, hated it. And they both had a very clear identity. She'd say, Well, everything's wrong with my body. I've got allergies, I've got migraine, I've got gut problems, I've got leg problems. My father goes, There's nothing wrong with me. And he just didn't believe in illness. And it was always amazing to see how their lives were totally in line with what they believed about themselves. And of course, a lot of people say, Well, I can't change just the way I am. I was born like this. But of course, that isn't true. No baby's born saying, I'm no good with confrontation, uh, uh, I don't like arguments, I don't, I don't like being the focus, don't look at me. Baby is very clear. I'm here, and you're gonna, I'm here for attention and love, and I'm gonna wake you up at 3 a.m. if I feel like it, because I'm worth it. So I've seen that a lot with clients. I always ask them a question if you were born with confidence and stuff, worth where did it go? So, as a coach, what do you find is the biggest blocker that's led your clients to having these limiting identity beliefs? What do you find has gone on in their life? Because babies are born, certain they're lovable, they love attention, they gurgle and kick their little legs when you look at them. They never say, Don't look at me, I'm having a bad head there, I've got some spots today. Well, they're things that leak out of every orifice, they still smile and gurgle. What in your experiences as both a doctor and a coach do you see as the issues that take someone from I'm a baby born expecting love to I'm someone now with low self-worth and low self-esteem?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there are, I mean, there's so many things that can happen to a person as they are going through their childhood, adolescence, um and adulthood that can start to shape that concept, that self-concept. So obviously, you know, the statements that your parents say about you. Um, I mean, that's for me, that was always, you know, I was, first of all, I was the artistic kid. And so I, and I was not a sporty kid. My sister was more athletic. So, and this was just, these are just handy little things, shortcuts that your family will say about you to make it easy to understand. You know, Kim is the is the academic one and and Deb is the sporty one. And so then I grew up thinking that you're identistic, right? That's that's the way that it is. Um and uh so it seems innocuous, it seems neutral, but but kids and teenagers, you know, you start to really identify it and then act in accordance with that. So then I don't seek out academic or athletic experiences, and I don't put myself forward for new sports or physical things because I've been told. And that's especially when your parents tell you that's the truth, right? Like that is, of course, they know better on everything. That's how it feels as you're growing up. So yeah, but I mean, it could be teachers, it could be extended family, your friends. If are you the quiet one in the group? I was always the quiet one in the group of my friends. So, you know, all of these experiences, they go into the soup, they go into the mix, and you come out of it with uh an aggregate picture of yourself that feels like it's the truth with a capital T. This is who you are, this is who you've always been, and this is who you will always be going forward.
SPEAKER_00You know, I write a lot of my book about this thing. I go, when you label a child, you limit them. Even the label of this, she's so good or he's so smart, you know, this is my clever kid, this is my good kid. She's so good, she's so sweet, he's so good at art or running. And what a child hears is, oh, and that's why you love me. Yeah. So the good girl is condemned to be the good girl forever. The smart kid feels like if I'm not smart, I lose my identity. And we're not taught that even good labels are limiting. But the worst one is you're the sick one, you're the sick one, you're the difficult one. I was talking to a friend of mine with triplets, she said, This is my problem one. I said, You be careful with that. Yeah. She said to it in a very loving way, this is the problem one, this is my problem child. She calls him that all the time. And I have had to say to her, Look, darling, I know you don't mean it, but you're labeling him. She's got two girls, one boy, triplets. And he's just a boy, you know, he's not like the girls, you want to comb Barbies here, he wants to break things and jump out of trees. But uh it was so funny in a bad way to hear her say, This is my problem child. And we should really be teaching parents, do not give yourself a label. And if we have a label, I'm the kind one. I'm a giver, you know, I stay behind and help people. The problem is that once you have that label, you can't actually move away from it because, as you say again, it's your identity. So we have the difficult one, the smart one, the sick one, the rebellious one. And I often see in families, big families, how each child takes on a role. And they take the role in order to belong, but then long after they've left home, they still play that same role.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I'm I'm the oldest of three girls. So of course, I was the responsible one, I was the achiever, um, I was the dependable one. And so those identity labels that I had internalized for my whole life really, I when it came time for me to decide that I was going to walk away from medicine, a respected, stable, responsible career, and do this wild thing of building a business online as a coach, that something that nobody had ever heard of. You know, that that went against everything that I believed about myself, that I had told myself I was the responsible one, I was the achiever, all of those pieces. So it it that I mean, that's that is the main reason why it took me a very long time to actually walk away from medicine and pursue my next chapter.
SPEAKER_00You know, I've trained a lot of doctors and psychiatrists, and indeed police officers all say the same thing. I went into this profession to make a difference. I just wanted to make a difference. I mean, there's nothing like making a difference. Having a career where you create meaning and purpose and you all grow and change, make a difference is a wonderful thing. But they often say the same thing. I was just locking up drunks, or I was just prescribing medication, and it was so disheartening. And then I became a coach or a therapist, and now I really make a difference. But I you still see people in the medical profession. I mean, I'm quite lucky, I would say 50% of the doctors I meet love what I do, and the other 50% think, well, this is just woo-woo. It's not real. No, it's just snake oil. And they don't understand that we really can make a difference. Because a doctor, of course, is strange. If you go in and say, I have a headache, they're trained to look at what's causing that. A coach will say, What's un what's wrong with your life? What are you unhappy about? So I have often noticed that as a coach, you see something that doctors. I'll give you an example. I had a client who had tremendous OCD. I mean, it was ruining her entire life. The rituals for washing and teeth cleaning took hours of her day. And if it went wrong, she had to do it all again and again. And she'd been um to the doctor and she was on all kinds of medication, but she still had OCD. But the thing is, the OCD had a purpose in her life. It made her feel I'm in control. If every cushion is just so if every fork is matching, then I can pretend I'm controlling out there, because I can't control in here. Yes. And it was all to do with her childhood, living in a chaotic household with multiple kids and multiple partners, and then she could control is her corner of the room, which was always perfect. So what I found so interesting is she'd been to a lot of doctors, but a coach will say, Let's look at the role the OCD is playing in your life. What's it giving you? And when we finally understood, because she said it's a mystery to me, it's a mystery, I have no idea, but it all became very clear that this poor kid in a chaotic household being put into foster care, taken back, sent to a relative, taken back, could only control her external world because she had no control in here. And the minute we identified that, she know about OCD again. Oh, brilliant. It was amazing, and that's what coaches do so well. They instead of saying what's wrong with you, they tend to say, What happened to you? What was going on in your life when this happened? And what's the role this might serve? So, I could I ask you to share some of your amazing stories.
SPEAKER_02I love that example that you gave, and that's that's a perfect example. And I mean, in because in medicine, we it's as I said, it's transactional, um, and we have very limited time to just to deal with the surface level symptoms, see what if we can figure out what's going on, and then and then prescribe or recommend a treatment. And that's what I found that I I wanted to reach people before they got sick. Like before because people were only coming to see me once they were already sick. And I I wanted to, you know, help people to prevent getting sick in the first place. Are there things that you can change and shift in your life before you actually get sick? Um and that was the that was the space that I really was wanting to work in more and more. There's so many occasions, especially as a coach, not so much as a doctor. It was difficult to really um f have the time because we are so strapped for time in primary care um to really. Really peel back those deeper layers, only if somebody was really willing to come in repeatedly and work with me to dig deeper. So I did have some examples. You know, there was a woman who I could think of who she really was having high blood pressure. And one of the ways that she wanted to control her blood pressure that I had we'd talked about was getting more exercise. I mean, it's just such a simple, free, beautiful, effective way of lowering your blood pressure. But she had a story of that she was not an athlete. So it was something that I sticks in my mind because that was my story too. And so she thought that exercise really wasn't on the table for her because she wasn't very sporty, she wasn't coordinated. And I remember asking her, why do you think that? And she said, Well, my mom always told me you're more of a reader.
SPEAKER_00You're not really the sporting loud people, we're quiet, we're bookish. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yes. And she believed that and it because it had worked for her. It served her. She felt comfortable in that role until it was causing her a problem because she was very sedentary and she wasn't doing anything. And I so we we unpacked that. What if you were not an athlete, but somebody who values movement in your day? Um, and you don't, you're not competing, you're just doing something that is incorporating a little bit more movement. And she really had never thought of it like that before. She'd always thought that athletic people were the ones who did exercise, and readers and indoor people were the ones who, you know, didn't. Um and so it was, it sounds such a simple thing, but when you're inside your own head, you can't see, you can't read the label when you're inside the bottle. So um, so it was just such a simple question to ask her. And then and then we started to, then we got somewhere. Then we started to actually to discuss, you know, what could that look like? And so then there was the tennis bubble just down the street from her house, and she started just showing up at the tennis. It didn't matter that she wasn't any good at it or that she, because she wasn't going to be a competitor, she wasn't heading to Wimbledon. She was just playing it for fun, because there was a fun drop-in thing. And because she was able to expand her sense of identity beyond just being a sedentary reader, academic sort of person. Um, she was able to give herself permission to just have fun and start moving her body because it was part of taking care of herself.
SPEAKER_00You know, I you're making me think of the first plant I ever had almost 40 years ago. This man came to see me and he said, I get depressed every Sunday. It's like a black cloud. He said, You know, Sunday afternoon approaches and I feel so depressed. And he said, And it normally lasts until Wednesday, then it lifts. But every Sunday, like clockwork, by Sunday tea time, I'm in a deep depression. And I'm I've taken lots of medication. My doctor said it's genetic, but you know, I just I've had it for 30 years, and I just don't think I can go on. And of course, the obvious thing was you must hate your jaw because Sunday's Monday's coming around, Wednesday it's getting close to Friday. And it's very easy to say, well, let's just do something. So what you and I do, which I love, is we find the pattern, it makes sense of the pattern, and we change it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Some people just try to change it, some people try to find it. When you find it, it makes sense of it and change it. It's an amazing thing. So he went back to this really interesting scene. He was a little boy, and he was standing in the lake in the middle of the lake at a pond at his parents' house. And then he told me this story that he'd hated boarding school and he was returned to Woodsville every Sunday. And one day it just got too much of him. So he went and stood in the middle of the pond as I'm not going back. And this was probably in the 40s, it was 40 years ago, after all. And his parents, probably with a good intention, called out the family doctor who gave him Valium and then said, put it in his lunch every Sunday, and then he'll be unconscious, take him back to school. He won't have to go through this drama anymore. This is obviously very upsetting. And they weren't bad people, they probably was a great, it was in the 1940s. So now they medicate his lunch every Sunday. He's asleep by three o'clock, and they drive him so when they put him in the bed in the school and he wakes up in boarding school. Oh, wow. And every Wednesday it was almost time to go home again. So that was so interesting because no doctor had found that pattern. Yeah. And even he hadn't really understood it. When he went, Oh, I see a little kid I didn't understand. I was trying to express my unhappiness. Their relief was, well, let's not, we don't want to make it's upsetting. Let's just give him some tranquilizers and that will solve the problem. And that was why he was depressed. And it all went away completely when you could see that little boy, and then say, but that's not me. That was who I had every right to be sad, and he didn't have a voice, but not how did I go to boarding school? And all the doctors had missed that because they were looking for the genetic cause of depression, which would make sense. That's what doctors do. They're good people, they're looking for something that's causing your illness. So I want to ask you a question because Joe Dispenser says that 90% of all turning up at the doctors or A E have real illnesses caused by not diseased organs, but by disease thinking. And I've always found that fascinating quote. What do you think of that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I I mean, I don't know about the percentage, but absolutely, I mean, when I was working as a family doctor, there was so much um stress that walked through the door. Stress, chronic stress causing so many, because it I mean, and it was it was difficult because I could see it, but a lot of people it's not always received well to talk to start to talk about stress or you know uh distress as being a root cause. Sounds like I'm saying you're imagining it, which is never what I was saying. Um it's more that that's the root, and then it creates real physiological change in our bodies, creates inflammation, creates our immune systems become depressed, all kinds of things cascade as a result of that chronic stress. If you I tried to explain it to people, if you think about the stress reaction that you can feel when you're driving and you all there's a, you have a near-miss with an accident and you you feel it a split second later, just that rush that goes through your body of all of the physiological responses that happened with that near miss. I've had that experience. So if you think about that, but not just in a moment, uh, you know, spread out every day, every hour of your life, that kind of physiological reaction that your body is mounting to deal with chronic stress, of course, it is having physical action and chemical trickle-down action on your system. So in some people it comes up as chronic headaches. For some people, it comes up as insomnia, some people it comes up as it shows up as high blood pressure, some people it shows up as gut problems. There's just so many different manifestations of the way that, you know, we are um, you know, yeah, thinking, emotional reactions, all of that thing, all of those kinds of things um turn up in the body.
SPEAKER_00There's a very famous English psychiatrist who was Henry Morty, and he said this quote which I loved. He says, the feeling that cannot find its expression in tears may cause other organs to weep. And I was like, that was so profound because that's actually true. When people say, Oh, my dad died when I was 22, and I never cried, I went straight back to work, but now I've got this really weird rash all over my arms, or yes, you know, something awful happened, I just carried on, but now I've got these terrible headaches or insomnia. One of my clients said, Well, my child died, I never cried, but now I've got conjunctivitis all the time. Because often the body says, if you won't express it, I must do it for you. Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_02Your body will tell you you, and you, it's very easy to ignore those messages that are coming to you. They often first start as a whisper.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, but then they will get louder and louder if you don't pay attention. So uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00And of course, we know the stomach is the seat of all emotion, so it's normal that we'll say, I've got a stomach ache, or when I think about that. And you know, something else I noticed when you talked about identity and the stress is that if you work in a on a trading floor, or maybe you're a fire crew, you actually expect that level of stress because you see everyone else have it. So when you start to get the headache, saying, What's that? You go, it's you, it's normal. You actually believe that, well, this is what happens. I've got to stress that job. And the driver, and one of my clients was pilot, said, You know, I'm driving people. I've just had a huge fight with my wife over custody. I've got all these people in the plane behind me, and I don't know what to do with my stress. And of course, he began to get chronic headaches. Even harder than having them is disbelief, this is normal. So so many people who have that identity, this is normal. I've got a str I've got four kids, I've got a hard job, my my partner's not either. They expect it, and they don't even do anything about it because of the identity that comes with the territory.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, if it gets exhausted.
SPEAKER_02If it's normalized for you, then what why would you? It's a very logical thing.
SPEAKER_00Why would you look for a solution if this is just the way that it is? And I see, I'm sure you I see that a lot too people who just accept it. And and I see people who normalize the most abnormal things. And of course, when they normalize it, they don't expect to fix it.
SPEAKER_02Right. They're not looking for solutions because that would be a fruitless endeavor. Why would you bother looking for a solution for something that is just expected? It's just part of the territory, it's unchangeable.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I read a study that adopted girls have the same periods as their adoptive mothers. If the mother's going, oh, it's got such cramp and it's awful, or the mother says, I'm going to play tennis now, it's nothing, they tend to turn into the expectation. Because of course we make our beliefs and they then they turn around and make us. Then we have that confirmation bias. We look for proof of what we have chosen to believe or what we expect. This this always happens.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yes. Because we we will log all of those things as proof of see, this is who I am. I I often think of so when people are trying to change their their life, maybe they want to start. This is why it is, it can be so hard to change, of course. Um, because say you want to become healthier, you want to start exercising. Um, maybe you decide to start take up running. And it starts out okay. Maybe you get a decent start because you're motivated and you know, digging in. Uh, but then life gets busy or it rains or it's cold out, and so then you skip a run. But that missed run gets logged as proof. See, this isn't really for me. I'm not really this kind of person. That's the kind of stuff that we tell ourselves. But somebody who, on the other hand, identifies as a runner, I'm a runner, is something that they would say if they were introducing themselves. Uh, I'm a runner. They can still skip runs too, of course. They can have a busy week or, you know, miss some, miss a run, but they don't make it mean anything about themselves that they have failed. It's they're still a runner, that's still their identity. And so then they just lace up again. And that is really such a key difference maker that people really don't realize is what what we make our what we make it mean when we encounter difficulties. Because when you're trying to change, you're always going to encounter difficulties. There's definitely going to be some challenges. It's going to get hard at times, but the difference is what you make that mean about your ability to stick with it or or not.
SPEAKER_00So, what would you say to our audience who say, I I want to change, I want to eat better food, I want to go to the gym, I want to be a calmer parent, I want to be a more understanding partner. How can I do that? What advice would you give them?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think the first step is really to identify what they are telling themselves already. Of course. So becoming aware of your identity. Um, so this is what I talk about in my book, too, is um my book that's coming out shortly, Redesigning You. We'll talk about this in a minute.
SPEAKER_00I love the cover.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, thank you. Um we've got gold on our books.
SPEAKER_00Yes, we do. Love the little gold for the game.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, first of all, is recognize. So you absolutely have to recognize what it is that you, what is the story that you're telling? Because you've probably been saying it to yourself without realizing it for a very long time. And so tuning in, it's like tuning into a frequency on the radio. What are you actually saying to yourself about? Well, as we've talked about, you know, what is this available to you? Is this something that is even possible for you? Um, so that's the very first step. And then you identify the gap. So, what is the gap between what you currently believe about yourself and what your future self requires you to become? So the future self who is taking better care of yourself. What do you need, what do you need to believe about yourself in order to bridge that gap? Um, and from there, it's what are you gathering evidence for? So many of us become very good at gathering evidence, as we just talked about, for the old story. So, you know, I'm not a runner, I missed a run, of course I didn't because I'm not really good at this, or whatever story it is. Um and you need to start logging evidence for the new identity.
SPEAKER_00Logging evidence.
SPEAKER_02So I uh my recent passion, my obsession really is learning to play golf, which, as I said, because I never considered myself to be an athlete, um, so in the last year I've been learning how to play golf and becoming obsessed with it. But it would have been really easy for me when I first started learning to play golf, to have logged a lot of evidence that this, of course, isn't for me. So every awkward swing, all the awkward moments on the course, feeling like I didn't belong because and because I'm getting the etiquette wrong, because there's a lot of that in golf too. Um, and it would have been really easy for me to have just filed that as further evidence that this isn't really for me. So I had to be very intentional about creating evidence that this was something that I was pursuing. So the fact that I had booked a lesson and that I was showing up for it, even though I felt awkward and not really sure, I was logging that as evidence of I'm the kind of person who is trying something new. I'm the kind of person who at this stage of my life, I'm willing to be a beginner at something publicly. You know, a golf swing is something that everybody sees, especially when you're on the first T. And so I had to make the choice I'm that I and be intentional about logging evidence for this new version of me.
SPEAKER_00And I love the fact that you said I am, because the words that follow I am will follow you. Words that go after I am will go after you. And so I have my clients say, look, I am someone who prefers healthy food. I am a really calm parent doing my best. And I might have a day when I'm not calm, but I'm still a calm parent doing my best. So I am, and I often have my clients, I am saying, I am calm, I am super chilled, I am good at this, I am gifted, or I'm a person who chooses healthy food. Yes, I can look at donuts, but I I prefer the blueberries. Doesn't mean I don't have a donut sometimes, but I'm still a person who prefers healthy food. So I say to my daughter, I don't eat sugar, she goes, Mummy, you just say sugar. I said, I know, but I don't really eat it. I only have it very occasionally. But I still say I don't eat that, I don't like that, that's not me. Because again, it is an identity. No vegan says, gosh, it's so hard not to eat meat. I struggle every day. They go, I'm a vegan. Yes, I don't eat living creatures. And an Olympic athletes, I'm an athlete, so I don't eat that, or I'm I'm someone I don't eat that because of who I am. So when you can make it your identity, like you know, I worked with lots of athletes, and I'll say, Well, I don't eat that because I'm an athlete, or I don't stay up at four because I'm an athlete. So I love the fact that make sure that what's going after I am is something good, not well, I'm an idiot, I'm always anxious, I'm always sick, I'm insecure. You want to flip your I am to some example, well, I'm doing my best. Yes. I'm changing every day. Find a song um that says something like that. There's a great song from um Dream Goddess that I am changing. I love that song. Or find some great lyrics that's like I am titanium from a sea. Yes, and put them on your phone, but find a really good I am statement. And it really helps because you're saying all the time, it's all coming back to your identity. How do you identify yourself? How can you have a better identity? Well, state it, affirm it, embody it, write it down, keep saying, I am, I am. Like when I had cancer, I said, I'm I'm I'm just recovering all the time. I'm getting better, I'm doing wellness. I was always saying, I'm doing wellness. I didn't really want to do illness. And I think when I got run over, I said, I'm I'm recovering in record-breaking time. And even though people say, well, that's just woo, it isn't because your brain tunes into what you say, which is stable. Well, but then it starts to prove it. You know, this is what I call a proof-making robot. When you say, I'm always sick, guess what? You're always sick, and when you say, I'm recovering so fast, you know. Somebody wrote to me last week, which I really love, and said, I heard you talk, and you said something about being run over when they were trying to give you lots of medication. You said, No, I'm not in pain, I'm in discouragement. And I've started to say that. And I says I've got a chronic illness and I'm always in pain. Now so I've got a little illness and I'm in discouragement, and I've come off on my medication. And I don't feel the pain because I stopped saying I am in chronic pain. Because it's a statement, isn't it? We don't understand that this proofmaker says, Let me prove it. So if you change that to, well, I'm a little bit uncomfortable or I'm in mild discomfort. Of course, if you're in pain, you should take medication. But sometimes we take too much medication because we use the words chronic. I've got the worst migraine in the world. I've got a horrible cold, I've got an extreme fatigue. And you want to be aware of the words you put in front of words. If it's chronic, extreme, the worst, a massive headache. Try and change that to mild, a little sniffle. Like I would say, I'm going through a slight cold, not, oh God, I've got a terrible cold, a horrible cold, the worst codegor. I'm going through something very minor. Yeah. Because what people don't understand, you are directing your body every day. Your psychology has a full-on conversation with your biology. So when you say I've got the worst headache, your psychology has told your biology what you've got. When you say I've got a little headache, it's dehydration, it'll be gone in 20 minutes. Your psychology tells your biology something very different. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Those I am statements are so important. Um it's what I talked about in my, I did a TED talk uh earlier this year, and that was exactly the In the green dress. Yes, exactly. Which I can't ever wear again.
SPEAKER_00But I love the story. The story was so inspirational because you were saying just because you had this plan from your childhood to be adopted. Yeah. It doesn't mean 20 years you can't say, no, I don't want to do it anymore. I I'm ready for a new part. And I'm allowed.
SPEAKER_02Of course you're allowed. But I didn't feel allowed for a long time. Um, and I it wasn't until I realized that I needed to let medicine be my foundation, not my cage. Yeah. I didn't get the. What a great expression, your foundation, not your cage. It that thinking of it like that is really what helped me to release because it was okay. And I didn't have to deny that I had gone to medical school, that I had practiced as it's I'm not making it go away. I'm not um, you know, pretending that that didn't happen. I get to bring that all with me.
SPEAKER_00It's not a waste either, because I'm sure you use it all the time.
SPEAKER_02I use it all the time. It's absolutely part of me. Um, and it always will be, and that's okay. So it's not about rejecting, because that identity actually served me for a long time. So, because and that is the truth too, is that yes, sometimes there are some dysfunctional identities that people can bring into adulthood with them, but sometimes they are actually quite adaptive and can help you to create quite a bit of success. But at a certain point, an identity that has helped you get to where you are is not going to be the one that is going to help you move forward and do there.
SPEAKER_00It's not going to take you further. Yes. So, can I ask you, tell me about your coaching training? So you resigned from being an MD and you started to train as a coach. How long did it take you?
SPEAKER_02Um, I, you know, I tried a variety of different programs. Uh, I found some mentors. I thought that mentorship was going to be really important for me because I mean the tricky thing about pursuing a path like coaching, in contrast to becoming a doctor, is when you become a doctor, is a very clear path. You absolutely need to get into medical school, you absolutely need to complete your medical training, you absolutely need to, you know, jump through these hoops and pass all of these levels. When you go into something, it's the Wild West of coaching, it was there's all kinds of options, there's all different ways of doing it. Um and so I, but I found some a couple of key mentors who had created something similar to what I thought that I wanted to create. And I learned from them, which is actually the same model as I've in medical school. You know, we learn how to be doctors from older, more experienced doctors. Um I just replaced that. With the same in this this new pursuit. And and then, but also I got to bring, as we said, you know, my experience as a doctor too. I didn't come to it not having had any kind of experience of interacting with people and working with people and trying to help them improve their lives. So it became my own thing, really. You know, I learned from some mentors, took some programs, and then created my own out of it. And do you niche? Do you have a niche as a coach? I have pivoted my niche as I have been going. But currently, what I help people most with is the concept of reinvention. So, and that's what my YouTube channel is all about, is really reinventing your life. Thank you. Yeah, I love it too. It really brings me a ton of energy. And um, especially for people who have achieved certain level in their life. So they've maybe things look great on paper, uh, but they are feeling like there's something missing. They're feeling like there's something else that they, you know, is this the whole story? Is there something else I'm supposed to be stepping into? Because that can be a very particular pain and a very particular struggle. And it was certainly my struggle too, is because nothing is, you know, nothing's on fire. It's not a disaster. You're you actually have achieved quite a bit. But the the thing is, that can be really tough to walk away from and change too, because you've got a lot to lose. Um, uh when you're starting from nothing, it it's a different struggle. It's a different set of problems. But when you're when you want to change everything from a position of, I actually have a lot already, that can be very tough because you are, you can potentially it can be very scary. You're walking away from change. You're walking away from a lot. That's so you have a lot to lose.
SPEAKER_00Do you have clients who I imagine you would, women who've raised their children, the children have left, they've kind of lost their, they're not a hot babe anymore. And they've got to their 50s and think, well, what do I do now? I've got another 50 years on the planet before I meant my grandmother's time. When you got to 60, you just relaxed. You only had a few years left. But we live a long time now. Do you see people, not just women, but men who've been a family person, the family's gone, and they don't really know who they are.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and I love that phase, that midlife phase of exactly, you know, some of those issues that you described where you've your everything has been identified been wrapped up in the role of the identity parent.
SPEAKER_00I'm putting my children first, and then they leave, and you go, oh, yes, yes, that's how identity is.
SPEAKER_02It's such a rich territory. It's just such an um such a ripe time for because exactly like you said, you probably have decades left to go. It's not just a sort of decline, um, which is exciting but daunting for people because where do I go from here? What what even is available for me anymore? Um, what are the options? And uh and especially because you've carried into those, so you've had decades behind you and a lot of ingrained identity stories, not just about being a parent, but also whatever it is that you've been carrying forward. And so to then have a pivot from there, that's that can be very challenging for people. So I love working in that territory with people.
SPEAKER_00So, two decades as a doctor, what was the big thing you saw in your patients that you knew would be better served in coaching than in being an MD? What was the kind of thing that jumped out to you over and over again?
SPEAKER_02Well, it's the concept of, so as we talked about before, is that there's so much more going on for a person than can be tackled in, you know, a short medical appointment visit. And I really wanted to scratch that itch of like unpacking those details and what is as a family doctor, I do get to know patients, you know, the all the different layers of their lives, and I because I see the different family members at different times and all of that follow-through seasons of life. Um, but I wanted to go deeper with what is working for a person and what isn't working for a person, and what do we need to change, and especially if they want to actually change something, um, because that is that's no easy task. And so those were those were the uh those were the little nuggets that really were capturing my fascination, my curiosity, uh, that went outside of the boundaries of what what a medical doctor is typically expected to do.
SPEAKER_00You know, I met someone in America, maybe different, and she was a little bit like you. She was a medical doctor in a practice with four others, and she just didn't want anymore to keep giving people prescriptions or sending them for tests. And when she stopped doing it, they actually asked her to leave. They said, You're not bringing in enough revenue now without all these tests people go from, without all the medication, and they actually made her leave her position in a doctor's office. Have you come across that?
SPEAKER_02There is a lot of administrative pressure, yes, absolutely, because there are quotas. I mean, yes, I sat in meetings um where we when I worked at a university clinic, we had it uh so I was in student wellness, so we were dealing with the university students, um, and more than 50% of the day was mental health. Um, and you can't tackle mental health in the sort of short appointment times. It's not right, it's not fair, it's not helpful, and it's not safe. Um, and but the the bean counters were not pleased with the pace that the the doctors were keeping in the clinic. And so I remember having a lot of arguments and and struggles to try to advocate for uh a different model, but you know, it's there because there are admit there's there's always been a straw uh tension between medical administrators and medical practitioners who are in the room with the patients dealing with their problems.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's it. I wonder how that's ever going to change. I know what I when I'd been run over and they they came in and the nurse had this bag of medication and I'd already said I'm not in pain. Ammonia and how much is it? And she does 600 pounds. I said, but I don't even want to. I I'm I'm not gonna take any of that medication. Thank goodness I asked her how much it was. I said, Oh, you can take it all back and take it off my bill, but six hundred pounds for some painkillers that I would never take. It it's a great sadness that doctors like you go into the profession to help people physically and mentally and often become giving people prescriptions that they may not even need. Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Um there's a lot of things that are uh we our healthcare systems have a lot of work.
SPEAKER_00I mean, we're not we're not knocking one particular country. I think it's an issue all over the world now that people and people expect medications, oh, I've got a stomachache, I need antacids, I've got um a pain, and and they don't really understand that sometimes you're dehydrated or stressed or tense or but it is a shame we've gone into a where we're medicating everything.
SPEAKER_02Well, yes, and because then that creates an expectation. So you as a patient, then you are tr being trained to expect that you walk into a doctor's office and you're gonna walk out of there with a prescription that's going to fix things right away. And that's not a great expectation for people to have.
SPEAKER_00And also when you take one set of medication, there's no such thing as side effects. They're just effects that might affect something else. You may take a medication for something, and then years later you feel that that medication has had. I I know that if you take too many pain transfers, it affects your liver because it gets so congested with pain meds, and now you've got liver problems because you took make pain meds to cure the headache problem, but it's a long road to get people to see that.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_02It is. Because, yeah, I mean, well, pharmaceutical companies advertise on TV now. I know. Uh, which never was a thing when I first was practicing. Um, so people come in requesting something specific, and uh yeah, it's it's a it's a tricky dynamic, and um yeah, I there's it's it's a very complex problem.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. My little girl went to visit my mother, who was, you know, she was a wonderful woman, but she was a hypochondriac. And she had a little nights, and she had it was like a pharmacy. She said, Grandma, what are all those pills? She said, Well, that's for my head, that's for my stomach, that one's for my legs, that's for my sleep, that's for my bowels. And she said, But grandma, how do they all know where to go? That's a brilliant question from a child. But a week later, she said to me, Mummy, I need a pill for my headache. And I was had to say, No, darling, this the grandma has pills. We don't do pills, you know. You you can have some water, but you don't need a pill. But I noticed how quickly at five she was identifying with, because she saw all this medication. Yeah, I need medication. I've got a headache, I've got a stomachache. My mother would have put antacids on the table with dinner. Like that was the dessert. Oh dear. And so my daughter very quickly, just from staying with her for a week, began to identify with I need pills. So I we stopped that very quickly. And it was quite a funny story. But also in there was that message, gosh, be careful what you're around. Because it starts to influence you and shape you and mold you. Yes, absolutely. You see a lot of people with physical and mental health issues, of course. What are your own rules for good physical and mental health for you and your family? What are the rules you live by, swear by, to have good physical and good mental health?
SPEAKER_02That's a great question. I mean, there are a lot of things that I do to maintain my physical and mental health. Um but I think that that the underlying, the underpinning thing is that um there are always things that we can do. It's it's taking agency for your own health and well-being, I think, is such a key thing. Um because there, yes, things happen to you when you, you know, illness happens, all kinds of things. So you can't control everything. But there are always things that you can control. Um, you can always take care of your foundation. So obviously, exercise, sleep, I protect my sleep, like I really protect my sleep. Um, and you know, healthy eating, all of those, the regular things. So we all know the things to do. Make sure I eat my vegetables, all of that stuff. Um, but it's it's more doing those things on a regular basis, taking control of what I can can control, um, and like I said, having agency over my own health and well-being. If there's something that's coming up that I can't really understand, um looking for solutions and never accepting that it's just because of aging. So as I get older and you know, there's just so much drama and there's so much talk about, oh, you know, as your own aging woman and menopause and all of those kinds of things, there are it feels like there are things that are out of your control. Um, and yes, of course, there are physiology is real, aging is real, but there's a lot more under our control than we realize.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and when you travel, you see that people age differently in different countries. You go to Japan, you see a very different experience. People are in the street doing Tai Chi, and same thing in Greece, where you see people still working in their 80s and still walking and moving. And so, of course, we age, but of course the expectation of how we're going to age is what we become.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yeah, exactly. I will never just chalk a thing up to I'm getting older, there's nothing I can do about it, whether it's my weight, my energy, my sleep, any of those things. Because I've I've encountered problems with those things as I have gotten older and found solutions for all of them only because I was looking for solutions. If I had just said, shrugged my shoulders, oh well, I guess that would it, that's what it means to be a woman in my 50s, then I wouldn't have looked for solutions.
SPEAKER_00What's the difference between changing your circumstances and changing yourself? Hmm.
SPEAKER_02Changing your circumstances and changing yourself. So um I mean, circumstances can absolutely change, but yourself actually can change too. And I think that we would we might dichotomize that and think, well, I can change circumstances, but I well, actually that's not true now that I'm thinking about it. I think that people feel like they can't change circumstances. Um, that it's they're helpless, powerless. It's the agency thing that we were just mentioning. Of course. Um and so yeah, there might very well be circumstances in your life that you can't change, but you can you there's always something that you can actually influence and that you have um control over. And as long as you are looking for that, then you will be able to actually control it.
SPEAKER_00And of course, you can always change the way you feel about it. Because we we've taught such a lie, you know, that you've got to be in control, control your weight, control your kids, control your home, control your life. And the only thing we can ever control are the thoughts we think, yeah, the beliefs we hold. But we can change those all the time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, all thoughts are optional. Yeah. Um, everything that we believe is an option, even if it doesn't feel like it at first. But once you start to, I mean, asking yourself the right questions, like, do I, is this absolutely true? Do I have to believe this? Is this true for everyone? Is there another way that I could be thinking about this? So, but being open-minded enough to ask yourself those questions, I think is really just so foundational.
SPEAKER_00And that's such a key part of coaching. Who told you that? Is it true? Even if it was true for them, does it have to be true for you? Can you make it not true? Yes. If your grandmother said, Well, you're you're past it at 35, that probably was true for her. Yeah. But it's not true for you. Right. And you can decide is is it true for you or not? No one else can decide, is this true? You you're never gonna find love. You can, your fertility falls off a cliff when you're 35. Well, maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't for you. You know, when I had cancer, I knew that I was not going anywhere. And I would say, look, that I'm not saying that's right for you. But for me, it was a thing where I thought there's no way I'm gonna succumb to this because I just couldn't leave my daughter. I know other people say, well, I didn't want to leave my daughter, but that happened to someone I know, the same thing. So you have to say, look, I'm not saying this is you. Yeah, but for me, I knew that I could force my body to recover by talking to it and compelling it and doing things. I will say, well, why doesn't everyone do that? Well, first of all, you have to believe it's possible. You have to say, I'm not going anywhere, I'm staying here at any cost at all, and I would have paid any cost to stay. But then people get upset because it didn't happen for a relative. But you have to make a decision about you. It doesn't matter if we'll say you've got more chance being run over by a bus than finding love at 50. Maybe, but you only want one person. Yes, you don't need it to be true for a one of my clients says, you know, I'm gonna call off my wedding. My husband doesn't have enough sperm to give me a child. Well, how many do you need? She said, Well, he's hasn't got, I don't know, 250 million. I said, but you only need one. Just need one. Maybe he's got one. Because when I was a kid at school, they said you mustn't do heavy petting because one can leak out and get pregnant. Okay. So I heard that. So if that's true, then I heard that my husband hasn't got 250 million. Right. So I thought, so which one is true? Well, it's the one you decide to make true. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yeah, and and I think taking ownership for your own choices, your own actions, and it doesn't mean that everyone should be doing it like that. I certainly have uh, you know, on my YouTube videos that where I talk about my decision to walk away from medicine and pursue a different path. Um, sometimes people comment and say, Well, if all doctors did that, we would be in a terrible mess. And I'm saying I agree. And of course, I'm not, I'm not scrubbing on here, never am I on my YouTube channel saying I think all doctors should walk away and find something else to do. I'm describing my story. To you, yeah. This is what happened to me. This is what I chose to do. It doesn't, I'm not saying this is the universal truth.
SPEAKER_00Um, so yeah, my father was bliss, his whole life was made better by being a teacher. He loved it, but I walked away from being a teacher. Oh yeah. So I could see that for him it was his reason for being. He loved it. It nourished him, it gave him everything. For me, it didn't. Right. But that doesn't, because it's all different. We can't say, well, we've all got to stay here. What is the one thing you would love every patient to know about? The power they have over their own transformation.
SPEAKER_02Well, one thing I love to say is that your past is not your prophecy. So just because something has been true for you in the past does not mean that it is always going to be true for you. Um, because the as we've taught some of the examples that we've talked about in this conversation, people, you know, I've everyone in my family is overweight, I've always been overweight, or I'm a smoker, I've always been a smoker, I'm not good at quitting things, or I'm a I'm a caregiver, I put everybody else's needs first, um, or I'm not a very organized person, or whatever it is. I mean, and it's not just in health and wellness, but when people say I'm not I've never been good at tech, I'm no good at tech. Well, no baby is born, knowing how to your past is not your prophecy. You can absolutely choose a different path forward. It's is that going to be easy? No, not not necessarily. Sometimes it actually is. Sometimes it's just a matter of making a decision and then going forward in a new way. But sometimes there are, you know, there's challenges and difficulties that arise, but that doesn't mean that it's not possible. There's a world of difference.
SPEAKER_00And and also the pain of doing something new is no different to the pain of staying the same. You're just gonna swap out pain. It's painful to stay the same. I might have to leave this relationship or this career, but it's also very painful to stay in it if it's not feeding you or nourishing you. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02I often get people to make uh two loss lists. So when you're thinking about making a change, so you're gonna write write down all of the things that you could lose if you make this change. So, you know, often that's you know, the stable income or status or prestige or whatever it is. So and it's different for everyone, of course. But you're making a list of all the things that you could lose if you make the change. And then make a list of all the things that you could lose by staying the same. So what are you losing? A sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, a sense of fulfillment, or whatever it is, depending on the situation. And then ask yourself which list have you been pretending doesn't exist?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's very clever. Which list you pretend doesn't exist? I sometimes talk about crabs and lobsters because you know, a crab and a lobster has a shell that will won't grow anymore, and that they get to a state where they know if I stay in this shell, I will suffocate. But if I shed it, I'm very vulnerable, which is why crabs bury right down under the sand, because they've got only a membrane and it's not safe, and there they grow a new shell. That's why we like soft shells. I don't eat soft shell crabs. But I always love that metaphor that the lobsters make a decision. I'm gonna stay in this shell and suffocate. And to shed it, I'm gonna be very vulnerable, go hide myself away, but I'm gonna grow a new skin. And if a crab and a lobster can do it, I think you can do it too. Yeah, but they can shed their own skin and risk, there's a huge risk because, of course, the more I do therapy, the more I understand one thing. Everything is about being safe. Our brain doesn't care if we're happy, it really cares if we are safe. And so many of our decisions, I can't leave that job, I can't leave that marriage because I'm not safe. But if you can say to yourself, I'm safe, I'm safe to be on my own. What's wrong with that? I'm safe to ask for, I'm safe to change careers. If you can prefix your fears with I, it's safe. Yes. Because you know, we're all tribal people. If we stepped outside the tribe, we'll probably die. We still we think we're so modern, we've got an wee gobby taxi, I can open my bank account with my son. But inside we're tribal people with a fear of not being safe. So we stay in the wrong relationship, the wrong career. So much pain is caused by staying somewhere that we think is safe. Yes, exactly. And you have to say safety is a choice, it's a state of mind. Even if you're not safe, like we'll say, I can't go on a plane because it's not safe. It's yeah, but the taxi drive to the airport, that's the most dangerous part of a flight. The the cab drive to the airport is more of risk than the flying. Yeah. But if you say I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe, although it sounds silly, again, your psychology studying a biology. Oh, you're safe. Because so much of what we do is because we avoid things in case we're not safe.
SPEAKER_02Right. Because everything that we have done that has led us up to this point has ensured our survival. Because we're still right here. So your brain just says, okay, just keep doing what you're doing. Because we know that that is associated with our existence. So don't change anything. Uh, even if it seems kind of exciting or interesting or fulfilling, no, it's not associated with survival. Therefore, no, we're not making that change because it's uncertain. Uncertainty, our minds do not like.
SPEAKER_00No, they hate uncertainty. You know, that that's and often when we it's quite fascinating to look at, okay, I've got some chicken at home. I'm waiting, I'm gonna have an hour's drive home, but suddenly I'm so hungry. I'm just gonna run into the shop and eat potato chips because the brain knows that hunger isn't safe. It was the biggest killer of people, more than disease, more than war, and it still is in some places. But interesting that when we're hungry, we become irrational. Yes. We'll eat anything and everything rather than be hungry because it's not safe. And it's why if someone knocked on your door at two in the afternoon, you'd say, Who's that? But if it's two in the morning, you'd think, Oh my god, what's happening? Yeah. Because in the dark, you don't feel safe. I I love walking along London in the summer at nine o'clock, but I wouldn't feel the same in the winter at night because we don't feel Feel safe in the dark. Correct. We don't feel safe late at night. Yeah. But understanding is what we can when you think, oh, let me understand why I'm eating irrationally or thinking irrationally, it's just because I don't feel safe. But it's my job to go, I am safe. I'm safe to have a voice, have an opinion, share my needs.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, because that desire for safety, I mean, that's a primitive brain. Primitive, yeah. But we fortunately have a brain, a more developed brain that can override that, but only if you know, if you acknowledge what you're dealing with. And only with repetitions.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're right. We can we can override the primitive brain if we understand it. Yes. It's why people get so upset with rejection. It's like I'll die if you leave me. Because years ago, rejection killed us. If we were cast out of the tribe, we were finished. So to this day, people get very upset about oh, why don't you like me? They don't love me anymore. They ripped out my heart. It's like, darling, no, you're just not a good energetic match. It's okay. They haven't rejected you. You're just not right. But that primitive fear of rejection, you must see that all the time in your practice. It's not real, but it feels so real.
SPEAKER_02Yes, absolutely. Because it triggers that deep-seated need to belong and be validated and be accepted.
SPEAKER_00Our greatest need is to find connection, avoid rejection. But I see, and I'm sure people living in a world now where they're finding more and more rejection. They're connected to their phone, they're working from home, and we are hardwired to need connection. But I think we're finding disconnection. I mean, I can get an Uber and not speak. I can have my groceries not speak. I can get in a wee gubby taxi, which I have a few times, there's no driver. And I think this is such a strange world. Human beings need connection more than anything. But we're creating all this disconnection. What what do you see in your practice with this epidemic of disconnection?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, actually, I mean, more than just in my pro I mean, I certainly do see it in with my clients and students. But for me personally, when you just said that, uh, that's actually something that I have been working on myself in the last couple of years. Well, more like the last year. Because I mean, I I left medicine where I was with people a lot every day, all day. Um, and then built an online business where I was, you know, all virtual and a YouTube channel where it's all, I'm just talking to my camera. And I love that. I absolutely love I love owning my day and being in control of all of those things. But I started to feel that I was not having real, actual in-person connections with people, which is why I love doing things like this. This is why I wanted to make more connections when I'm in London and um when I doing my TED talk this year was was also another thing about just instead of just speaking to a camera, I really wanted to be in rooms with people. And that was on a stage, but all of the preparation and the leading up to it, the rehearsals with the other speakers on the day, it was so, it's just so nourishing and spiritually nourishing in a way that we have have forgot, of course, we can reach the whole world from our behind our computer screens. We can, but it's not the same. So that's actually something that I have made a decision for myself is to really get in rooms with people more, actually, have more face-to-face.
SPEAKER_00It's good that you recognize because most people don't think, oh, this is life, people are lonely. You know, we have an epidemic of elderly people. Oh, yeah. But what happened to everybody with teenagers now who've got a thousand friends on Facebook and no one to talk to because they don't make phone calls, they just text speak. Um we have um a situation where people are going to jail and saying, I like it there. It's like a community, I don't want to come out because when I come out, I'm on my own. So when you wrote this book, I mean, I've written some books too, that's another, you have to kind of shut yourself away to write. You have to shut yourself away. It's quite solitary and disconnecting, but then you have the joy of connecting with your readers. Yes, absolutely. So tell our audience about this beautiful book that you've written. Where can they find it? Why should they buy it? What's it going to give them?
SPEAKER_02So uh, I mean, this uh the title, obviously, Redesigning You subtitle, Change Your Inner Story, Transform Your Health. And my definition of health throughout the book is not just strictly physical health, it's really your whole entire mental health, emotional health, physical, your um your career, your relationships, all of those things are in is what I define as being part of your health. So, because what I wanted to the reason why I wanted to write this book is because in the health care industry, in the wellness industry, there is so much attention paid to the what. So, what are you doing? What kind of exercise are you doing? What diet is the best? Is it keto? Is it paleo? Is it vegan? What is it? Um, and we get really, really caught up in the what do we need to do, the habits that you need to adopt, the behaviors that you need to do. And we very much ignore the who. So who is this person who is going to start exercising? Who is this person who can go from being a party guy to being somebody who's actually protecting their sleep and taking care of their well-being? And that's the stuff, because of course that's what I saw 20 years in medicine is that people would kind of know what they were supposed to do, and they would even know what they wanted to do, but it was the doing it that was the struggle. And it's because of who they believed they were, what they believed they were capable of. So this book goes into all the different ways that we um, you know, adopt a victim mindset where we don't think we can change things, or we don't think that things are available to us. I go through several different mindset traps that I saw again and again in medicine and in coaching. And uh, how to start to recognize those in yourself, how to start to unpack that stuff for yourself, and how to start to choose a different way forward so that you can benefit your health and well-being and adopt the lifestyle that's gonna support you.
SPEAKER_00What's the first change you recommend to someone who feels exhausted, overwhelmed, and doesn't know that change is even possible for them? What's the first thing you would recommend?
SPEAKER_02Um, I mean, the first thing, of course, is taking stock. So you absolutely need to take stock of what is, how are you spending your time? What are you, you know, what are you prioritizing, what are you giving your attention to? What are you giving your energy to? Um, because a lot of us find that we're giving our attention and energy to some non-supportive practices, scrolling, watching a lot of TV at night, or whatever, to procrastinating on our bedtimes. So, you know, getting into reality about how you were at, what is a priority for you.
SPEAKER_00And you started in the beginning with a very interesting observation that people know why. What is this gap between knowledge and action? So we know we shouldn't eat cake, we should have berries, we know we should move, and we know you should go to bed and stop scrolling on Netflix all night. But what is this gap between I know it, I've got the knowledge, but I haven't got the action. And how can we go from knowledge to action? If you were giving someone advice here that says, I know I should, but I don't, well, how would you help them?
SPEAKER_02Well, I think one of the first steps is to get curious for yourself about what you're telling yourself, about what your actions are. Uh, because we can't guess at what is going on for a person, but you need to get curious for yourself about what you're doing. So, you know, if somebody is, they want to stop eating so many potato chips, um, crisps. And um, but they have a story, I'm helpless in the face of I love potato chips. I just have no willpower when it comes to potato chips. So if they're telling themselves that they're going to act. But you need to get curious about well, what is it that I am saying to myself about my ability to execute on this thing that I am trying to do? As many of us have these dysfunctional, disempowering stories. I'm helpless, I always give in to this, I could I'm a quitter. There's so many different things that we tell ourselves because then and then we act accordingly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So that's really the first thing is to just get curious when it when there's a breakdown between what you want to do and what you're actually doing, get curious about what are you saying to yourself about your ability to execute on that piece.
SPEAKER_00And of course, the word cure comes from the word curious, the Latin for to care. The more curious, the more you get to the cure. And then give yourself another label. So one of my clients said, I can't stop eating. I'm a food lover. I'm a food lover. I said, darling, let's call you a food abuser. Not to be, but you're a food abuser. Your body doesn't want donuts and cakes and ice cream. Your body would never say, I want all that sugar, but you have a belief I'm addicted to it. And if I crave it, I must need it. But if you crave wine, that doesn't mean you need it, it just means your body's got used to it. So you're absolutely right. And then if you could give yourself a new label, oh, that's food abuse. If I wake up and have three donuts for breakfast, that's not love, that's abuse. And actually, my body doesn't really want it. My body could never say, God, knock me, knock me out with all that sugar, but my mind wants it again because I'm telling myself I need it.
SPEAKER_02I think we try to change ourselves through from a perspective of self-loathing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, self-hatred.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I'm I'm disgusting, I need to change this. I'm the worst at this, I need to fix this. And so that we think that that's going to give us the motivation to actually make changes. But I find, and the research shows too, is that it's so much more successful if you are coming at it from a place of self-compassion and self-love. I'm choosing this because I love my body. I love that. I am, I treasure, I'm taking exquisite care of myself. I'm someone who takes amazing care of myself and I love myself for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because the diet industry, I'm amazed it's got away with it for so many years, comes from self-hatred. Punish those pounds, punish your body, go on a strict diet. Oh, that didn't work. Find a stricter diet, deprive yourself, deny yourself. And it makes women hate their bodies. And every year we've got the thigh gap, the bikini bridge, the A4 challenge where you've got to get your hips behind a piece of A4 paper, they shouldn't poke out. And it's we wonder why people hate themselves, but the media's taught us that. Yes, we've learned for to look like that, shameful to have a fat stomach. It's you know, get yourself together, control yourself, go on a rigid diet. And it it says, hey, here's a diet, it's very restrictive, it's only 800 calories, it's like lettuce and peas. Go on that. So when it doesn't work, they go, well, you failed. It's not the diet's great, it's you're the failure. Yeah. Then we have another reason to beat ourselves up. So diets often something they have a 98% failure rate, and you're so right that we come at it from hating our bodies. I hate my thighs, I hate my stomach, I wish I looked differently. It's my fault. But I know you will agree the only way you can have a body you love is to love the only body you'll ever have. Your body is the most priceless, mind-boggling thing you'll ever have. And if you can love it, you go, I love this body. I'm not going to give it pop-tops, or I'm not going to drink litres of Coke, because I love my body and it deserves more. So to get away from the self-hatred, love the only body you'll ever have. Nothing's going to come from hating it. You can't hate it better. You can't punish it better, but you can actually love it better. Because when you love it, you begin to respect it. And when you love yourself, you go, you know, I could stay up till 3 a.m., but I'm going to go to bed at 10:30. I could scroll all day, but I'm going to turn the phone off. I could live on coffee, but I'm going to drink some water. So life becomes easier when you can love the only body you'll ever have. Love it, respect it, and marvel at what it does for you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. And that's the, I mean, that's really the true definition of self-care. Self-care is not just having bubble baths and you know that kind of thing. It's actually just caring for one and only body.
SPEAKER_00And also you can take it further by saying, I love myself enough not to be in an abusive situation. If my brother or cousin or uncle is rude to me, I'm not going to go to family events where they are. I'm going to say to someone, I don't appreciate you talking to me like that. That's not okay. Then you can say, Well, I have a different need to you. I recognize your need, but I also have mine. So self-love goes so much further. You don't lend people money you don't have. You don't have their kids all weekend when you're exhausted. You don't take on someone else's project at work so they will like you. If everyone likes you and you don't like yourself, well, where's the point? Yeah, but if you like yourself, if you have everything and you don't think you're good enough, you don't have much. But if you like yourself and can, you know, people say, but I don't I don't want to be selfish, selfish. You also don't want to be selfless. The bit in the middle is called honouring yourself. Yeah, that's beautiful. Don't put everyone else last, but also don't put yourself last. Yeah, boundaries are very important in self-care practice.
SPEAKER_02Probably better than bubble baths.
SPEAKER_00I'd love talking to you. I could talk to you all day. Where can we get this amazing book? Where is it? Yeah, so you can buy it and read it.
SPEAKER_02Wherever books are available. Um, it is launching uh in the US on July the 21st. And then in the UK uh two months later. So yes.
SPEAKER_00Well, I love it. I love all writers because it's such a thing to sit and share your beliefs of the world with the um objective of helping somebody. When we write self-help books, it's not like writing a novel. You're giving the world what you know to help someone.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00I love that. This has been such a lovely conversation, Russia. I love it. You know, there's something in the Quran which I've always loved, and it says if you change one person's life, that's the same as changing everyone. If you save one person's life, it's the same as saving everyone. So I'm sure this book is going to change many lives.
SPEAKER_02That's my hope. And maybe save some too. Yeah, that's my hope too.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. It's been amazing. Thank you.