Latest / FitMitTuro Fitness Podcast / You Don’t Need More Discipline—You Need More Capacity with Gamal J. Palmer

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You Don’t Need More Discipline—You Need More Capacity with Gamal J. Palmer · FitMitTuro Fitness Podcast

• 1:09
  Turo Virta: Welcome back to the Fit Meet Turo Fitness podcast.
• 1:12
  Turo Virta: Many people know what they should do for their health. They know they should exercise, prepare nutritious meals, sleep more, and spend less time scrolling. But by the end of the stressful day, those intentions often disappear. We usually call this lack of discipline or motivation. But what if the real problem is that we are trying to build healthy habits while already carrying more than we have the capacity to handle? My guest today is Gamal J. Palmer, founder and principal of Conscious Builders. Kamal has nearly two decades of experience working with leaders and organizations, including DreamWorks, Nike, Nestle, Universal Studios, and NPC Universal. His approach combines behavioral science, systems thinking, and practical tools designed to help people build capacity, strengthen self-trust, manage stress, and create consistency without obsession.
• 2:09
  Turo Virta: Today, we will discuss why willpower fades, why food, alcohol, and scrolling can become an emotional off switch, and how to maintain healthy habits when work, family, poor sleep, and real life make everything feel harder. Kamal, welcome to the podcast. And before we get into the practical tools, could you share a little bit about your background and what led you to this work?
• 2:39
  Gamal J. Palmer: Yes, thank you so much for having me. It's great to be in conversation with you and to be helping people get more fit, not just in their body, but also in their minds and in their spirit, because as we all know, that's exactly where it all begins, right? It's how we talk to ourselves, what we think about that those things and make us that it it determines how we feel, and then how we feel is the thing that actually moves us, right? To either change our habit, or go to the gym, or read the book that we might want to read to bring us some relaxation or some stimulation. So I'm really happy to be here with you. And to answer your question, what I do is I work with CEOs, with executives, with high-level team members in multiple industries, and I really help them bring their humanity to strategy, right? So I help them remember how what it means to actually be working with people, and that a lot of what people are doing in their jobs is actually to benefit other people, to benefit society, whether that's to build a product or whether that's to actually bring a service, but ultimately sometimes we forget when we're working in these jobs and when when we're leading people that we actually are leading people. We're not leading robots. So I-that's in short-that's what I do.
• 4:10
  Turo Virta: Yeah, no, and it's-it's that's very interesting. I'm so excited to learn from you and your thoughts because you say that people need to build capacity before healthy habits can become sustainable.
• 4:22
  Turo Virta: What do you mean by capacity?
• 4:28
  Gamal J. Palmer: Capacity. I mean that they need to number one be able to build the brain space, right? They need to be aware of how they talk to themselves, how they think about things, how do they relate to the commitments that they're making for themselves, right?
• 4:44
  Gamal J. Palmer: So, for example, if you are a mother of one or two or three children or any children, really, right? And you, you know, you you're you're working full time. You're also making sure that your kids get to go to the soccer practice or the play rehearsal or whatever. You know, it's really hard to to. It's easy to imagine that you you wish you were going to the gym, or you would like to be going on a walk or on hikes with a friend, right? But where are you going to have the time? How do you you know how do you how do you do you really? It's one thing to imagine something, and it's another thing. Do you actually have the capacity to do the thing that you're imagining?
• 5:32
  Gamal J. Palmer: So maybe you want to work up to going on the on the long walk with a friend, or you want to work up to going to the gym.
• 5:41
  Gamal J. Palmer: Maybe you just start with, I'm going to do 20 push-ups every day, or sit-ups, right? Or I'm just gonna walk around the block like once a day, you know, or a couple of times a week. So just really thinking about the capacity that you actually have versus what you are imagining that you want to accomplish, and I guarantee. To you, the more you do that, you're going to start having more capacity.
• 6:13
  Turo Virta: And how is then that lacking capacity different from lacking motivation or discipline? Because many many people I talk with they they talk that they lack motivation or discipline when it might be just capacity.
• 6:31
  Gamal J. Palmer: Yeah, a lot of people have motivation, right?
• 6:36
  Gamal J. Palmer: You're, you know, you're motivated to do something. Maybe you start doing something, right? Like, I mean, have you ever? I'm sure you, and maybe many people listening-they're so proud of themselves because they-they had the discipline to do that one thing in the beginning of the year, right?
• 6:56
  Gamal J. Palmer: Their their their New Year's promise. So they say, you know, wow, I'm going to be and I'm going to be more disciplined is what people say once they do it once. Now I'm going to be more disciplined, and then what happens is life, you know. And so, and so with that, you start finding yourself like you felt so good for going to the gym those first two weeks of the year, that first month of the year, and then you start telling yourself, "Oh well, I couldn't go because the meetings started to pile up, right? Or the commitments with the families started to get so much bigger, or maybe something health related happened to you or to somebody else, and so you start to tell yourself, 'I need to be more disciplined, I'm not disciplined, but I'm motivated.
• 7:48
  Gamal J. Palmer: I'm motivated, but I'm not disciplined, and so it's actually negative self-talk that you're doing, right? Because really, you can actually build discipline in so many ways, and you want to, you kind of want to trick your mind, right? Maybe you don't have for myself. I'll give you an example. If I want to go to the gym because of where I live, it's basically about a 30 minutes drive to the gym, and then there's going in and if you say hi to a few people, right, and then you work out and everything, you stretch and then you cool down, and then it's another 30 minutes home.
• 8:28
  Gamal J. Palmer: That's, I mean, it's almost three hours,
• 8:31
  Turo Virta: yeah,
• 8:31
  Gamal J. Palmer: in total in reality, right? Yeah. And so, so maybe you know, it's not about the discipline. It's about I don't have three hours to go to the gym, you know. So what I can do is I can trick my brain to stop telling myself that I don't have discipline, and I can start saying to myself, "You know what? At least five times a week, I'm gonna make sure that I make my bed.
• 8:59
  Turo Virta: Yeah, right. So before I,
• 9:02
  Gamal J. Palmer: you know what I mean, like before I before I go and do my day, I'm gonna. It's my little small practice that I know I can do, even if I have a lot going on in my house, a lot of commotion. I know that I'll be able to make my bed, and so you start doing little things to create the discipline, and you start telling yourself, "I am discipline, right? I can do, I can create a new habit because that's really what you're.
• 9:30
  Gamal J. Palmer: That's what you're saying is you want to be in the habit of something, so you have to find the one thing. Another very quick one is like something that I started doing. I started to make sure that when I take off my shoes in my house, that I make sure that they're sitting next to each other and they're facing the wall, and they're like, and if I and if there's two pairs next to each other, then they're sitting there neatly next to each other. And when I put my slippers off and before I go to bed, I just make sure that my slippers are sitting there nicely on the floor before I go to sleep, and it's just a small little thing.
• 10:08
  Gamal J. Palmer: Nobody knows, you know, but me.
• 10:13
  Gamal J. Palmer: In fact, I never told anybody this, but before.
• 10:16
  Turo Virta: Yeah. Oh, but it's it's funny. It's like we often what I say that we make those promises way too big, especially in the beginning, and then when it it's ultimately at least for me, like and for most successful clients, when I think back that they there was not a single one who came and started from zero.
• 10:38
  Turo Virta: If the goal was health building healthy habits, that they said that they start to do five times a week something. Of course, there was somebody who who started five times a week, but that was never a long-term solution. It was mostly those most successful clients. They started with very small, and like you said, you said making your bed, or or if it's going to the gym, it could be just knocking on the door. Like I had a other case. In my podcast, who had a transformation by himself, and he said he started just by going to the gym, but he was not even allowed to go inside. It was the only job was go to go to in front of the gym door and turn away and go. Just building that habit that even after a busy day, you could actually go there, and that that is how you, in my opinion, you start to build those difficult habits.
• 11:32
  Gamal J. Palmer: Yes, I want to just say one more thing about that too. Is you know you can sometimes it's to change the way that you think about you you talk to yourself because it's very easy to say oh I need to talk to myself more positive or oh I need to you know but what are you gonna say, right? And so it actually can sound very kind of like fake or corny, you know, like like cheesy. Like, well, you just have to have you know really positive self talk. So what I recommend people to do, and when you're thinking about capacity, right, you can ask yourself. This is an example, okay. So what I recommend is people come up with their own questions, and maybe it's one question for you, or maybe it's three questions for you, right?
• 12:17
  Gamal J. Palmer: But here's one example, okay. So let's say you know you say three questions before you're allowed to to call yourself lazy. Did I sleep? Did I sleep last night?
• 12:31
  Gamal J. Palmer: Did I sleep well? Right? Have I eaten today, or have I eaten in the past hour? Am I carrying something? You know, am I holding something emotionally or mentally that's unresolved that I haven't said out loud to anybody, right? And so I'm I'm carrying tension or like an emotional stress. And if if two of the answers are no, this is not a discipline problem, right?
• 13:02
  Gamal J. Palmer: It's not an amount of discipline, and no amount, no amount of discipline is going to fix that. We need to sleep. We need to be nourished in our bodies, right? And we need to be emotionally and mentally whole, or at least well, right? Yeah.
• 13:19
  Gamal J. Palmer: And so sometimes we think, "Oh, I don't have discipline, or I can't do this. It's not that.
• 13:28
  Gamal J. Palmer: It's like you-you actually need to take care of your wellness.
• 13:32
  Turo Virta: Yeah, that's so.
• 13:32
  Turo Virta: That's that's a great example.
• 13:35
  Turo Virta: Thank you. Why are healthy habits often the first things to disappear when life becomes stressful?
• 13:45
  Gamal J. Palmer: Because bad habits are fun, and they feel better. You know, you know things that are not healthy for us. I mean, one-not to-I don't want to get too much into psychology, but you know, we tend to we tend to, as as beings, do things that are the opposite to get us where we want to be, and and it's it's it's a it's a funny, weird thing. But you know, if you look at what we say in America, we say it's self-destructive behavior, self-destructive behavior, right? So and or a self fulfilling prophecy. So there are a lot of people who say,"I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna make it. I'm never gonna make it. And if you tell yourself you're never gonna make it, whatever making it means, whether that means getting a a raise or getting a promotion or getting a job, period, or getting a new job or whatever it is for you making it right, you tell yourself you're never going to make it. What are you spending your mental time on?
• 14:58
  Turo Virta: Yeah, you're
• 14:59
  Gamal J. Palmer: spending you're spending it on you're spending it on telling yourself you're not going to make
• 15:03
  Turo Virta: it. Yeah,
• 15:04
  Gamal J. Palmer: right. As opposed to telling yourself, I'm going to make
• 15:10
  Turo Virta: it.
• 15:10
  Gamal J. Palmer: I'm gonna be okay. I'm gonna be good. I'm gonna get that job. I'm gonna get that promotion. I I own a home in Los Angeles, and I it was young in my I was early in my career. I'd never owned a property before, and I came into a situation that every that a friend of mine was selling her house, and it's a long story, but she basically said, you know, I won't put the house on the market if you want to buy it. If you want to buy it, I'll I'll sell it to you directly, and I was like, okay. I had no idea what that meant. A lot of times, people say, "Oh, does that mean you got a discount?
• 15:53
  Gamal J. Palmer: It's like, no, I did not get a discount, but it means that you're not competing with other people who are looking to buy a house, right? And so I had a short period of time to figure out. How I was going to be able to have all the things in order, taxes, and you know the down payment, and make sure that the mortgage is not going to be so high, and all of these things, right? And what I did was I because I was actually living in the house, I would either go outside to the backyard, or I would just stand by the door in case it was like too cold or something like that. And don't make fun of me. LA does get cold, especially at night in the winter. But you know, so I and I I would stand outside or stand by the door, and just for just for a minute or two, I would look up at the sky, at the moon, you know, just whatever the clouds, and I would say, "I'm going to get this house. I don't know how, but I'm going to get this house. And I mean, I it was not easy, but I now own this beautiful home in Los Angeles, and I promise you, it's because of me telling myself I'm going to get it and believing it. And I didn't know how it was going to happen. And I really think that we we need to trust that our words our words create the world that we say we want to live in, right? And so that's a really important habit to to have. And just to answer your question really quickly, I would say that Turo is that you know it's easier to stay where we are than it is to go somewhere new, and that is why I think we fall into the the bad habits, you know, more easily because it's kind of just easier.
• 18:01
  Turo Virta: Yeah, no, absolutely, that makes so much sense. And I think I'm also a big believer of all kind of visualization, like and for you, I think it's the moment that you are actually living in the house, standing there outside, and that is already creating that visualization. And then you use that even in addition that self talk that I'm going to do it, and that is giving you that kind of certain to be certain that it it's going to happen somehow you will make it. It's it might be taking longer than you would like, or or not the easiest way, but you will find a way and figure out the way. And I'm so happy to hear this story and happy for you that you made it happen. So what I often hear is about willpower, and and when people people are telling that I'm doing so well whole day, but then by the evening I don't have any willpower anymore. So why does willpower often fade by evening? Why does what say why does willpower often fade by evening?
• 19:13
  Gamal J. Palmer: Because we've been stimulated all day, you know. I mean, it's it's so funny. It's like now listen.
• 19:22
  Gamal J. Palmer: Some people, for myself, like I do my, I don't know. I don't know if it's true or not, but I tell myself I do my best work late at night, and I think that there are some people who you know who are they call them like night owls, right? But I think that we, I think that we don't give enough credit to all that we do in one day, and particularly in a country like America where we don't have a-I mean, where it's very, very new to have a culture of like rest, wellness. You know, like in Spania, in Spain, there's the siesta, and in Italy, right?
• 20:06
  Gamal J. Palmer: Italy, siesta. You know. you know, and many other countries.
• 20:11
  Gamal J. Palmer: There's different, there's different like social structures for rest, or society. I guess you call it societal structures for rest. But but anyways, and even with that, you still do a lot, and you go to work. You drop off your kids. You maybe go to a class. You know, maybe you go to work, drop off your kids, and go to a class, right? Or maybe you're looking for a job, or you know, maybe you you you're in charge of carpool, or you've got the parents association, or you know, you're helping out with the bake sale, like all the things, right? But number one, human beings are wonderful and beautiful, and they're also tiring, right? So engaging with people is that alone is work, and it's stimulation. Then if. You add on the other component, social media. So now we have social media. Our brains are processing all of these, you know, different things that we're scrolling. They're they're listening to these really cool guy Turo, who's got this podcast, you know, who's like making them think that they should be doing so much more than what they're doing, right?
• 21:27
  Gamal J. Palmer: So we have all of these. We have all of these things that, like, our brains are processed, and and naturally, we're actually. I mean, it's it's actually not really totally natural, to be quite honest, right? You know, if you go back centuries and centuries, I mean, we're really supposed to be here to to survive, right? But we've made surviving mean so much more than than the natural order of things, right? And so, just to survive, just to participate in society, right, in in your community, it takes so much. So, I think that we don't give ourselves enough credit about what happens in one day and how much our brains have to process in one day.
• 22:15
  Turo Virta: Yeah, yeah. So we're talking. Yeah, yeah. And then often people have kind of off switch after difficult day, like food, alcohol, television, maybe shopping or scrolling. Why you think that it comes kind of off switch after a difficult day?
• 22:38
  Turo Virta: Those kind of things. But you know that they are not doing good for you. Maybe at the moment they feel relaxing, but
• 22:48
  Gamal J. Palmer: Yeah, I mean, I would say that before we say that something is not good for us, so for example, having a a glass of wine that may not be unhealthy, but you know, and and maybe that glass of wine is going to calm you or switch you into a different vibe, right? A different mental place where you're actually more imaginative, or where you let go of a stress, but if that glass of wine is something that gives you an excuse to not do something and to just keep putting it off and putting it off, then that's where I would say you want to look to see.
• 23:44
  Gamal J. Palmer: Okay, that's like a bad habit, right? Or it's behavior that you-it's a behavior that is not.
• 23:53
  Gamal J. Palmer: I don't actually want to. I want to take that back. I don't want to say it's a bad habit, and I love I love wine very much. I want to say that it's that it's it's behavior that's not allowing you to become who you are dreaming of yourself and envisioning yourself to become, and so when we do that, we create this level of disappointment, right? So every every little thing or many little things that we tell ourselves that we're going to do, and then we don't do it.
• 24:29
  Gamal J. Palmer: We're teaching ourselves that we're not reliable, right? We're teaching ourselves that I can't count on myself to do the most simple thing, right? And I've seen this. I've seen this with with people that I work with, you know, who who they've gotten really upset. They say, "I can't even, I can't even make this recipe, you know, or like, "I can't even. I, I, I wanted to make a nice dinner, and like, I couldn't even set the table properly, you know, or just whatever the example is for you, and so then you start telling yourself you can't do something.
• 25:08
  Gamal J. Palmer: So then you just have a glass of wine, right? And and what you could do is say, you know, I didn't make the recipe the way that I wanted to, or I didn't set the table the way that I wanted to set the table, or I didn't have the kids set the table. I wanted them to set how I wanted them to set the table, right? And that's okay. And you replace the I need a glass of wine with that's okay.
• 25:42
  Turo Virta: That's so insane.
• 25:43
  Gamal J. Palmer: So it's right, and so you need to. I really feel very strongly, and a coach told me this one time. She said,"You know, okay, so if you're going to stop telling yourself that you're not good enough, what are you going to replace it with? And I was like, "What?
• 26:03
  Gamal J. Palmer: You know? And she said, "Yeah, because if you're going to stop." Doing something, there's a space there, and if you don't fill in the space, your brain is going to fill it in for you.
• 26:13
  Gamal J. Palmer: Wow! So it could become from I'm not okay, or or I'm not good enough, and I say okay, I'm not going to say that anymore to myself, and then the brain could come up with something else like you're stupid or you're lazy, or you don't have discipline, right? So what I said was, you know, it's like I'm going to replace I'm not good enough with I'm doing great. Wow, that's a pretty and it's shift. It's the same thing when they when you quit smoking. If for people who quit smoking, I haven't been to Italy in a long time, so I don't know if people are still smoking as much as yeah
• 26:51
  Turo Virta: they do, but not as much as earlier.
• 26:55
  Gamal J. Palmer: Yeah, but but it's the same thing with with with quitting smoking. Is like you know then when they give you the gum, so they give you they replace the the the habit the physical habit of of taking that smoke with chewing gum and it's the and it's that replacing it so when you talk about the bad habits the scrolling the alcohol or eating right I mean I I stopped drinking coffee I did a Tony Robbins unleashing the power within, like Tony Robbins, the you know the thought leader.
• 27:33
  Gamal J. Palmer: He does a lot of leadership work with people around the world, and he's got these big. I don't know. They're almost like they're almost like leadership concerts. You know, it's like it's a combination of skill building and personal growth and music and all kinds of really like thought thoughtful speakers. But anyways, so I you know you walk on fire. It's like it's pretty extreme. It's but it's good. So anyways, I there was a challenge. There was a 10 day challenge at this at this convening that I went to on the last day said okay so for 10 days you're not going to eat any meat you're not going to drink anything that's in a bottle that comes in a bottle or a can other than water so no juices that are coming a can or a bottle only fresh juices right no soda nothing no coffee, no caffeine, no zero caffeine, and I don't know. There was like a couple of other things that that was on this list. I was like, okay, I don't think I'm going to be able to do this, but sure. So I actually was able to to do it for 10 days, and the one thing that I kept was the no caffeine, so I had no. I have not had caffeine in like, wow, I guess 10 years.
• 28:58
  Turo Virta: Wow,
• 28:59
  Gamal J. Palmer: and but what I did when I when I when I because I used to drink the Starbucks, you know, I'm American, so it's like you know Starbucks is our gym, so we don't know good coffee. So so you know it's I I would I would drink those trinti iced coffees, right? The like the biggest ones and no sugar, no no milk, just black, and I'm like two of them a day, which is basically like drinking gasoline, and so I, but I, I would have a coffee cup and I would put water in
• 29:35
  Turo Virta: it,
• 29:36
  Gamal J. Palmer: and so I replaced my coffee with a cup of water, and I would go to meetings. I was an executive at a company at the time, and I would go to the meetings, and I would sit there, and I would hold the cup like as if it was coffee, and it was just plain warm water.
• 29:52
  Turo Virta: Wow, wow!
• 29:53
  Gamal J. Palmer: So it's the replacing.
• 29:55
  Turo Virta: Yeah, that's a that's a great practical example how you can actually that you gotta replace and fill the fill the empty space, or otherwise we fill it with something else. So
• 30:09
  often, what I wanted to ask is: often people make some unrealistic promises for themselves. How do those unrealistic promises damage self-trust?
• 30:24
  Gamal J. Palmer: I would say to try your best to not make unrealistic promises,
• 30:32
  Turo Virta: it is
• 30:34
  Gamal J. Palmer: the recipe for a feeling of failure, and we do it often. You know, if you make, if you say you're gonna go to the gym, let's say you haven't been going to the gym for you know a year or for months or a long time, and you say I'm gonna go to the gym and I'm gonna go to the gym six days. A week, I would say that that's an unrealistic promise. Now, does it mean it's possible? Yes, it's possible, right? So we're not talking about what's impossible, what's not possible. But I would say, if you want to build the habit and the belief that you are disciplined. If you want to feel good about yourself, because it's very disappointing when we promise something to ourselves and we don't fill it right, and that does lead us to bad habits like drinking, eating, scrolling, all those things, because we just feel like, okay, well, we're not worth it anyway, so whatever, who cares? If you want to build a belief system that you do have discipline, then you make a promise. I'm going to go to the gym once a week, and then you carve out that time and you put it on your calendar that Monday mornings, or Monday afternoon, or whenever you know, or I'm gonna, I'm going to go on a walk around the block three times a week. That's it, and and you're going to once you start to just keep that promise to yourself of going walking around the block once or three times a week, whatever it is, you're gonna start walking longer.
• 32:31
  Turo Virta: Oh yeah,
• 32:31
  Gamal J. Palmer: because you know, right? Because you're gonna you're gonna feel like yeah, I I do this. This is easy.
• 32:38
  Gamal J. Palmer: What and it becomes a habit.
• 32:38
  Gamal J. Palmer: Yeah, and you're no longer talking to yourself about how you didn't do something or how it's too much to do something.
• 32:44
  Gamal J. Palmer: You're you're enjoying your walk, or you're talking about how you're proud of yourself that you've been going on that walk, you know, three times. So I really strongly recommend, and I do this with business as well.
• 32:57
  Gamal J. Palmer: When people, you know, like when companies want to change their culture and do a whole big cultural shift, right? Which is largely what I work on. You know, I say, okay, like we go through a process and we we list all of these things that they want to do, and then I'm like, okay, so which two do you think we're actually going to be able to make happen?
• 33:21
  Turo Virta: Yeah,
• 33:21
  Gamal J. Palmer: which two of the 10 things?
• 33:24
  Turo Virta: Yeah, that is so well, and I I'm also I'm big believer of starting almost too small. Like it was was my coaching business when I started 11 years ago. I wanted to get clients fast results, but then I understood that it's not. This is not making you get long-term results. Long-term results you get by starting small, especially for someone who, or it always depends where you are at and what is your current background. But but starting like really small and what feels almost too easy, and then adding up and goes once you build the self-trust and keep those promises. You make yourself.
• 34:09
  Turo Virta: It's so much easier to start adding things, and you most likely once you start to keep them, if it feels too easy, you have more time. You you are automatically doing already something more. But why? What is then your thought about? Like I'm big believer of minimum version of habit. So, why that minimum version of habit can be more powerful than an ambitious plan?
• 34:37
  Gamal J. Palmer: I think because we live in mini, medium, and maximum crises all the time.
• 34:47
  Unknown: Yeah,
• 34:48
  Gamal J. Palmer: right. So we have crises happening in our lives all the time. Many crises for one person could be a maximum crisis for somebody else, which also means that all the people that you're in relation to are also having different kinds of crises happening all the time that they're managing, and a lot of times when a crisis happens, whether it's something simple like, "Oh my gosh, my kid forgot his lunch, and now I got to go all the way back to the school and drop off his kid the lunch, but I had an appointment on the completely other side of town, right? Like that's a mini crisis, right? And but it changes your your day. It changes how what you thought was going to happen today, and and your flow. And so, we need to be able to be able to have habits that we're creating in the midst of crises, and crises can actually be a really fun thing, right? So it can actually be almost like a game, right? Like, okay, so and I and I see I see it. I think moms do this better than dads, and you know, women do this better than men. Like they're they're sorry not to be you know not PC or whatever. But I'm just saying. I think that I think that you know when crises occur, women kind of they get much they get very strategic.
• 36:14
  Gamal J. Palmer: Okay, well the lunch has got to go there. I've got that meeting.
• 36:17
  Gamal J. Palmer: I'm gonna call this person. Da da da da. I I promised myself I was gonna do my walk. I'm not giving that up. So that means I'm gonna have to make sure that somebody picks up the kid or whatever, right? So you know, so it can be kind of like fun in a way or like strategic, right? So when we have promises that are manageable, we have promises to ourselves, a discipline that we're building with things like you know that that are really doable. Then when the crises occur, whether it's something like the kid forgot the lunch or it's something like my dad's in the hospital, right, which is a much bigger crisis, right, that you're still able to have space to maintain the promise that you made to yourself, even in the midst of something very scary and you know and stressful,
• 37:11
  Turo Virta: yeah. Oh, this is something like what I I love to do. Like basically, what I have for myself and for my most of my clients too. They have three versions: it's a minimum version, medium version, and full version. What you're gonna do depending on your how day and week are going, and this is it.
• 37:31
  Turo Virta: Have been working. Minimum version could be just simply focusing on hydration, because that is like that. That is simple to do. That is easy to do. It could be five minute walk. Might sound that what is this five minute walk? But it's the when everything goes and but you are still able to do, and you still keep the promise. And full version could be one hour timber cut, and that is the most ideal case. But most days won't be full version. It's kind of adjusting what is happening, and I think that is that when you are giving yourself that kind of options with those plans in different for different days, and that is. But I think the most important part is that you have those plans in a place, and not that only having that the best version planned at one hour gym. And when that for some reason won't happen, then it's like nothing, and then we go again all in or nothing mindset.
• 38:25
  Turo Virta: So, what is then? How should those habits change during low capacity weeks? In your opinion, I've talked a little bit about it, but do you have something else to add?
• 38:42
  Gamal J. Palmer: What what what is it? So, how do how to change?
• 38:46
  Turo Virta: Yeah, habits if you have low capacity week.
• 38:52
  Gamal J. Palmer: Yeah. Also, it's okay if you don't do something once or twice, right?
• 38:54
  Gamal J. Palmer: Just because you don't do something this week, the next week, it doesn't mean you can't do it the third week, right? So, I mean, one of part of this is about stop being obsessed with being in trouble. Stop being obsessed with that you didn't do it, or that you got it wrong, or that you're not enough. We have a we have a a need to not feel good about ourselves, and then what's really funny, and particularly in America, and actually other places that I've been, when you, the more affirming you speak, the less credibility people will give you. Oh, he's so he's so cheesy, or he's so he's just like rose-colored glasses all the time, or he doesn't really think critically. He just wants to, you know, say nice things. Like, what is that? Why is it that?
• 40:01
  Gamal J. Palmer: Why is it that you get more credibility the more critical you are, but you get less credibility the more affirming you are, right? So I would just say that to break that norm for ourselves because it's not healthy, and and the newsflash is is that you can be a critical thinker and you can be affirming at the same time, right? So you can be clear that you know what, I haven't eaten that much today, or I'm not getting very good sleep this week. That I actually am dealing with a stressful situation that I haven't had a chance to fully talk about to process those things do not allow me to have high capacity.
• 40:51
  Gamal J. Palmer: In fact, they bring my frequency down. They bring my capacity down, and so, so that's critical thinking. And then you can affirm yourself by saying, you know what? Good job, Turo. Like.
• 41:06
  Gamal J. Palmer: I just realized, like, I haven't been sleeping well, and that's why I'm a little off. And good job, Turo. Like, I realized, like, I I'm not eating that well this week. You know, I've just been busy, go go go. So I'm kind of like my body's not nourished.
• 41:22
  Gamal J. Palmer: So I'm just glad that I noticed that, right? So I just recommend for people to to let go of of needing to have gotten it wrong or to be in trouble with yourself or with other people, and that is one way that you can continue to build capacity, to build habits, to discipline, even when you're in a low capacity state or environment.
• 41:50
  Turo Virta: Wow! Thank you so much, Kamal. Our time is unfortunately clock is peaking, and we have next meetings. That was such a pleasure to talk with you. Where people can find you and how to connect with you?
• 42:09
  Gamal J. Palmer: For sure, yes.
• 42:09
  Gamal J. Palmer: So you can find me at my website, which is www gamalpalmer. com. I didn't realize my name was G, so I'm just going to change it really quickly. Yeah, I will. I
• 42:23
  Turo Virta: will put. I will put all links to show notes anyway.
• 42:26
  Turo Virta: So,
• 42:27
  Gamal J. Palmer: and on Instagram, on Insta it's Gamal J Palmer, and I'm on LinkedIn as well. And but yeah, my email is my my website is my name ww.com gamal www.com and on Insta and LinkedIn. And it's been a real pleasure to talk to you. I love the work that you're doing, and thank you so much for really helping people navigate this wild world that we're in in a way that can be safe, healthy, and we feel whole.
• 42:58
  Turo Virta: Thank you so much. I really, really appreciate your words, and if you enjoyed the conversation, please share it with one of your friends who might need this conversation, and if you haven't leave five star reviews, please do and leave. Do a favor and leave a five star review, as those are helping so much more people to find the show. Thank you so much for listening, and talk to you in the next episode.