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Solocast: Key Things I've Learned in 50 Years on this Earth · Lean Out Podcast

• 0:01
  Welcome to the lean out podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:04
  Don baker.
• 0:05
  Are you looking for a new approach to finding authentic and sustainable work-life balance?
• 0:10
  You've come to the right.
• 0:11
  Place.
• 0:11
  For inspiration.
• 0:12
  information.
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  and a community.
• 0:14
  community.
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  of like-minded.
• 0:15
  Professionals.
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  Let's get to the show.
• 0:19
  Hello?
• 0:19
  Hello.
• 0:19
  Thanks for being here.
• 0:21
  Today, I want to share with you key things I've learned in my 50 years on this earth.
• 0:26
  Yes, I turned 50 last month.
• 0:28
  In fact, as we're recording this, I'm preparing to get a colonoscopy.
• 0:32
  Aging is not for the week.
• 0:35
  This will actually be colonoscopy.
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  Number two, as they're now recommending them at age 45, because diagnoses of colon cancer in younger people.
• 0:43
  Are becoming much more common.
• 0:45
  So PSA, if you're 45 and older looking to getting your colonoscopy now.
• 0:51
  Whenever I do these solo cast episodes, I wanted you to know that I publish a corresponding article on my blog practice, balance.com.
• 0:59
  If you prefer to read and not listen to these particular types of episodes, you can always find them.
• 1:05
  And fully written form with images and also links to relevant articles on the blog.
• 1:11
  And while you're there, put your email into the purple box in the sidebar and receive my free exercise on finding your core values.
• 1:19
  Okay.
• 1:20
  On with the episode.
• 1:22
  So milestone birthday.
• 1:25
  The day, he basically came and went without much fanfare, really?
• 1:29
  And that's just fine with me.
• 1:31
  I remember rounding on patients in the thoracic ICU when I was an intern, sometimes days would go by and not much what happened with the patients.
• 1:40
  To be honest, if you're on the slow mend in the ICU, that's much more preferable to dramatic life and death swings.
• 1:48
  Anyway.
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  Not knowing what to write for the notes on these patients.
• 1:52
  I asked the attending for some guidance.
• 1:55
  Sash months.
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  He said still alive, still here.
• 1:59
  More of the same.
• 2:01
  Despite the dark humor behind this, it actually holds exquisite truth.
• 2:06
  Most of the time, we're just going along in our lives, doing the same things.
• 2:09
  Each day changes are made very slowly.
• 2:13
  Yes, sometimes drama happens, but it's not a regular occurrence.
• 2:17
  Could you imagine life?
• 2:19
  If it was.
• 2:21
  Living life making progress as an adult and navigating this world while filling.
• 2:26
  all your roles, balancing your orchestra and.
• 2:29
  I'm hoping to improve yourself in the process is truly about being consistent with the same stuff.
• 2:36
  And then adding in some tweaks every now and again.
• 2:39
  Boring is good.
• 2:41
  Let's talk about three main areas of life to demonstrate this health, wealth, and happiness.
• 2:48
  So first health.
• 2:50
  Health and fitness have been a big part of my life since I went off to college.
• 2:55
  When I was in my twenties, I noticed pretty quick changes to my fitness when I would mix up my routine.
• 3:01
  Maybe I would eat a slightly different diet or I would add a 10 minute jog each day.
• 3:06
  Or when we went on a climbing trip and then all of a sudden I would be fitter.
• 3:11
  However I've noticed as I get older, it takes a lot more time to notice any sort of changes.
• 3:17
  This is true as you advance in any sort of skill, whether it be sports or knowledge or a work-related skill.
• 3:24
  When you progress to higher and higher levels, that progress you make might look like a tiny little change.
• 3:32
  Two and a half more pounds on the bar in the gym.
• 3:34
  One hire, move on the rock climb.
• 3:37
  Or a slightly faster procedure time at work.
• 3:41
  Recognizing and accepting this as the definition of progress is key to sustainable enjoyment in whatever you're doing.
• 3:48
  Just recently within the past year, I decided I wanted to get serious about getting leaner, gaining some muscle mass and getting stronger.
• 3:56
  Why.
• 3:57
  Well, as we age muscle is easily lost and I knew I didn't really have much to begin with.
• 4:03
  I'm a very tall person and I tend to have a low body weight naturally with a relatively higher body fat.
• 4:10
  Though I look really thin.
• 4:12
  I'm also not exactly known for my feats of strength.
• 4:15
  I was not able to do a pull-up or even a pushup before I started this endeavor.
• 4:20
  Yes.
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  I spent lots of years rock climbing at a high level, but in certain climbing genres, it's really more about technique than brute strength.
• 4:29
  So I designed a three workout strength routine that would have me doing compound lifts.
• 4:35
  And those are like, Lifting moves where you use multiple muscles at the same time for each exercise.
• 4:42
  Think squats, dead lifts, bench, press chin, ups, pushups, et cetera.
• 4:47
  Even though I just got my yoga teacher certification in 2022, I put yoga on the back burner so I could focus my free time on lifting.
• 4:56
  It's really fun because I'm able to do most of my workouts in our home gym.
• 4:59
  And my daughters comes into the gym with me, sometimes I can get her to do some exercises and sometimes she just plays around on the equipment.
• 5:08
  The other thing I started doing was consistently tracking what I ate, making sure to get an adequate amount of calories.
• 5:14
  Uh, not too little and not too much.
• 5:17
  And at least 140 grams of protein per day.
• 5:20
  This is another tactic and what they call body recomposition for people like me, who don't have substantial weight to lose and maybe even want to gain a little weight.
• 5:30
  You challenge yourself with your exercises, but you want to make sure to eat adequate protein so that you don't lose any muscle mass in the process.
• 5:38
  So at the time of this recording, I have been doing this for about seven to eight months and I just recently started noticing lasting changes.
• 5:47
  My body's muscle definition has changed slightly, but more importantly, I can do chin ups and pushups and lift more weight than I ever have, but seriously, it took almost six months to see any sort of difference.
• 5:58
  And in the beginning I was thinking, am I on the right path?
• 6:02
  Am I eating too much?
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  Am I eating too little?
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  Am I exercising too much?
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  Or am I exercising too little, et cetera?
• 6:09
  We are conditioned to expect immediate results.
• 6:12
  I can't tell you how many times I have tried experiments like this in fitness in recent years, but I just gave up after a month or so when I noticed no changes to my body or to the amount of weight that I could lift.
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  Don't get me wrong.
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  I'm all for 30 day challenges.
• 6:27
  I've written articles about them on the blog.
• 6:29
  And I talk about them in the doing hard things, section of lean out and while they're great for experimenting with habits and gaining confidence that you can do something challenging.
• 6:40
  They're not necessarily going to produce some sort of dramatic physical transformation.
• 6:46
  Okay.
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  I realize this is a lot of detail about my particular fitness regimen.
• 6:51
  All this to say is that if you really want to make a big change in your health, you need to stick with something for awhile.
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  Be consistent.
• 7:00
  Show up and do the boring work because eventually you'll see the rewards.
• 7:04
  But the older you get the longer it takes.
• 7:07
  One more note on health.
• 7:09
  And I've said this before about leaning out and about work-life balance too.
• 7:14
  Don't compare your journey to other peoples.
• 7:17
  We all have our own strengths and weaknesses and starting points.
• 7:21
  It's great to look to others for inspiration, but the key is accepting yourself while still trying to improve yourself.
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  So comparing yourself to your former self is really much more relevant.
• 7:33
  So now let's talk about wealth.
• 7:35
  There's so much talk in the professional world these days, about side hustles, leveraging growth, go big or go home.
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  I'd like to make the case for being simple and boring here again.
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  Consistency is key.
• 7:48
  Now my husband and I have done well financially, and it's not through some sort of real estate venture or a windfall or big side hustle.
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  It's a combination of luck and good choices.
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  For most people there is.
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  No silver bullet.
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  To wealth.
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  My husband and I knew early on the things that we greatly valued and we spent money on those things.
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  We did not get lured into lifestyle inflation in the areas of spending.
• 8:15
  That didn't matter that much to us.
• 8:18
  We saved money and maximized its growth by putting it into retirement vehicles with low fee funds and appreciating assets.
• 8:26
  We really subscribed to the tactics in the book, a simple path to wealth by JL Collins.
• 8:32
  If you have not checked that out.
• 8:33
  Definitely do so.
• 8:34
  And I will link it in the show notes.
• 8:38
  We try to balance Yolo with frugality and truly, you never really know what will happen to the markets.
• 8:44
  We've got lots of years left before we must start withdrawing retirement funds or social security.
• 8:50
  So we keep doing these boring things.
• 8:54
  One thing that helps with that uncertainty is knowing you're able to spend flexibly if there's a bad year or if something happens and you have a big expense.
• 9:04
  Like we know that we can be happy living in an RV because we've done it before.
• 9:08
  Again, it comes down to knowing yourself what you value and your definition of enough.
• 9:13
  So I encourage you to try to figure.
• 9:15
  Out those things.
• 9:17
  Also remember that wealth is not just about money, like success.
• 9:21
  There are so many ways to define wealth, figure out what living wealthy means to you.
• 9:26
  Is that your health?
• 9:27
  Is it your freedom?
• 9:29
  Is it travel?
• 9:30
  Is it being surrounded by great friends and family.
• 9:34
  Okay onto happiness.
• 9:36
  Surprise surprise.
• 9:37
  There's no silver bullet for happiness either.
• 9:40
  We want quick transformations.
• 9:42
  You read an article that says something like meditate for 10 minutes a day and you will be happier.
• 9:48
  When I was in the depths of illness and burnout during my residency training, I just magically wanted to feel better.
• 9:55
  I get it.
• 9:56
  And now I see it in my coaching clients.
• 9:58
  I see it online.
• 9:59
  And in talking with other professionals, But happiness is decidedly different than short-term pleasure.
• 10:06
  Doing something that quote makes you happy.
• 10:09
  Like exercise or learning something new might not give you pleasure in the very beginning or in the whole time that you're doing it.
• 10:17
  And I don't think I fully understood this until I was older.
• 10:21
  Happiness as a confluence of living in alignment with values and living with purpose.
• 10:26
  When I wanted a happiness quick fix, I had no idea what my values were.
• 10:31
  I didn't know what I wanted my life to even look like I was on the treadmill of achievement and that's where I derived my purpose.
• 10:39
  Contrast that with now.
• 10:41
  And it's like a night and day difference.
• 10:44
  So, how do you get there?
• 10:46
  Well, I'm oversimplifying things a little bit, but two big things I've learned from all the reading, writing and living I've done that can get you.
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  There are.
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  Number one competence and number two clarity.
• 11:00
  Both of these things are continuous practices that take time and effort.
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  They are not sexy.
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  They are not dramatic.
• 11:08
  Are you seeing a theme here?
• 11:10
  Incidentally.
• 11:11
  I am working this year to create two new courses on these two very important subjects, confidence and clarity.
• 11:18
  So stay tuned for those.
• 11:20
  Hopefully later this year.
• 11:23
  TLDR, or I guess in podcasting, I should say T LDL.
• 11:28
  Simple boring, consistent practices have been my keys to success in health, wealth, and happiness.
• 11:35
  I hope these examples and stories have been helpful and inspiring to you.
• 11:39
  Let me know what you think by leaving a comment on the link for this show or sending me a direct message at practice balance on Instagram.
• 11:48
  Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast.
• 11:51
  If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier.
• 12:03
  If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services.
• 12:19
  You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker.
• 12:32
  Have a great day and we'll see you next time