Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / Ep 81: The NEW Path to Wellness Using Positive Psychology with Darlene Marshall

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Ep 81: The NEW Path to Wellness Using Positive Psychology with Darlene Marshall · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Darlene Marshall: So a lot of times what I'm trying to do is really look at, well, what is this thing that we think of as kind of Woo? Where is the science? underneath? The thing that most people think of as kind of Wuhan upward spirals is a perfect example. It sounds really hippie dippie. And in actuality, it's measurable effects.
• 0:24
  Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits& Weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger. Optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in. Wits& Weights community Welcome to another episode of the Wits & Weights podcast. We are talking today with Darlene Marshall about the fascinating interplay between holistic wellness coaching and positive psychology and how it can help you unlock your full potential. We'll explore the concept of holistic wellness how emotions can be used as information and the power of upward spiraling for building resilience and enhancing performance. We'll dive into habit priming neurological flexibility, and the balance between ancient traditions and modern science.
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: Darlene Marshall is a holistic wellness coach who has been working in the fitness and wellness space since 2012. She's an expert at the intersection of fitness, wellness and wellbeing, and was named America's favorite trainer by Bernal along in 2021.
• 1:35
  Philip Pape: She hosts the better than find podcast make sure to follow make sure to subscribe better than fine and is certified with NASM in wellness coaching and personal training. I was personally introduced to Darlene through my friend and fellow podcaster Carl Berryman of inspired by impact, and then I started following her podcast better than fine. And she explores the interplay between ancient traditions and modern science. So topics on her recent episodes, things like the benefit of time outdoors, mindset topics like analysis, paralysis, and even the additive approach to nutrition. So check it out. She has a master's in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, and additional certifications in nutrition coaching, Neuro Linguistic Programming, 200 hour ytt and alignment yoga and training in sleep coaching, motivational interviewing, meditation, and mindfulness. You can find her on Instagram at Darlene dot coach or on her couch with her two cats.
• 2:27
  Philip Pape: Darlene, I am truly excited to welcome you to the show. Hi, Philip,
• 2:32
  Darlene Marshall: thank you so much for having me, I am excited to be here with you.
• 2:35
  Philip Pape: Awesome. And I want to start right with that unique background you have we were talking about beforehand, which is holistic wellness coaching, but also this degree in applied positive psychology. And the combination really appeals to me, because behavior and psychology, they really seem to be at the heart of why people do or do not achieve the results they want. Or you know, put in place the wellness practices that that will serve them. So help me in the listener understand how your expertise in positive psychology has influenced your values in your approach as a coach, maybe it's even the foundation of your practice.
• 3:09
  Darlene Marshall: I think it'd be hard for me to tease them apart at this point. But I you know, I came in the positive psychology space, primarily still working as a personal trainer. So I was teaching yoga and mindfulness meditation, working with my clients one on one, and entered the positive psychology space with every intention to primarily bring those tools back into a fitness context. And then the pandemic hit. And you know, obviously, things change for a lot of people. But part of my study, part of what I was really diving into was on positive, lasting behavior change. And really, the big shift for me came was in this big recognition of how people actually change effectively. And so much of the fitness paradigm is prescriptive, right, we're telling people what to do, when in actuality, a lasting behavior change comes from having an internal shift on your behavior.
• 4:09
  Darlene Marshall: And that's where really the coaching paradigm can took over my practice. And of course, the other big lens shift was in the fitness space, I was trained that a lot of times you're looking for during the console like, okay, what are they doing wrong? What's their movement?
• 4:22
  Darlene Marshall: And where are their faults in their movement patterns? Where are they like messing up and their nutrition. And that was the lever that you tried to angle right to sell your package. And that really was the paradigm I was trained in as a trainer. Whereas in a positive psychology lens, you're not looking at what's wrong with people, you're looking for what's right with people, and then how do we use that to help you get to where you want to go.
• 4:48
  Darlene Marshall: And it was really this shift to focus on. I'm not going to tell my client in the console everything they're doing wrong anymore. I'm going to praise their positives. I'm going to Look for their strength, their resilience and their calling and purpose, which then gives them a reason to change from a positive lens. And so those are probably the biggest paradigm shifts that led me out of only working as a trainer and a fitness professional context. And now doing this much more holistic, hybrid kind of everything, everything in the kitchen sink except for career.
• 5:26
  Philip Pape: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, at least it makes sense to me. But I do want to dig in a little bit. You said, you evolved from the training, which I never did training, like I came from the corporate world. I was a manager, a coach, people leader, I think a lot of those aspects resonate, like what you say resonates with me is like why people do what they do. And understanding that first is helpful. You went from a trainer to this other paradigm. I mean, was there a particular client that really helped you make that transition was it just bit by bit over time it happened? Well,
• 5:57
  Darlene Marshall: even when I came into grad school, I was coming in having already gotten certifications in nutrition, sleep, yoga, meditation, mindfulness, NLP, motivational interviewing, like, pick your thing, I had the piece of paper, it was just missing the the positive psychology piece. And the clients I was working with at the time, I graduated in 2020. So I was finishing grad school in lockdown writing my master's thesis in lockdown, and all of my clients have gone remote. And obviously, we were all under this big pressure cooker of of a massive, not self imposed change. And a lot of the conversations we were having at the time were on resilience behaviors and burnout. And And so really, that suite of clients was a lot of the pivot for how do we build sustainable resilience that isn't a buzzword, but it actually is fostering the person that, you know, a decade from now, when you look back on this time, who do you want to have been? How can you create that person with intentionality? And really, that was a lot of the incubator for what I'm doing now.
• 7:08
  Philip Pape: So isn't it amazing how the pandemic cause that for many of us and working from home, you started to have all this special training and special interventions and like, at risk and high risk for retention, at least again, from the corporate world, it's sounds very similar, where you started to focus on the individual well being but it was kind of given lip service in many contexts, or, you know, it's kind of this forced training. Yeah. And what you're saying is right, that, you know, we don't want it to be buzzword, you you dive down and really understood that. That's awesome. As a as a coach, and we can get into that what a coach is, because I know that's a whole thing. It's like, I know what you mean, when you're working with clients. And like, they asked you a question, I'm not going to find the answer in this book over here about nutrition, you know, there's this deeper thing going on that they need help with. So just just one more level deep on the field of applied positive psychology. The words are obvious, right, linguistically applied, something that you do versus theory and then positive as opposed to negative. Right.
• 8:06
  Philip Pape: Sounds great. How does it differ from traditional psychology? And why should we care about that distinction?
• 8:11
  Darlene Marshall: Yeah, so traditional psychology really focused on what's wrong with people, right. And in no fault to you know, the great grand Pooh Bahs of psychology, it really was because, you know, when you're looking at scientific disciplines, you got the hard sciences of things like chemistry, physics, mathematics.
• 8:28
  Darlene Marshall: And so those early psychological practitioners wanted to be taken seriously. And at that time in that milieu, you know, we're talking mostly about European educated, affluent men, you weren't going to be taken seriously talking about love.
• 8:43
  Darlene Marshall: Right? You were going to be taken seriously saying, we're going to solve the problems of the mind using a Western medical model, which was identify disease and correct it. And that's really traditional psychology. Yeah.
• 8:58
  Philip Pape: I'm laughing because I'm just thinking like, just the classic man woman paradigm. You know, what I'm saying, like, my wife knows, I always try to fix problems and you know, and try to be more empathetic and not do that anyway, keep going. Well, and,
• 9:14
  Darlene Marshall: and I'm not throwing shade at that, like, that's a well intentioned for any scientist, regardless of discipline that you identify a problem. You develop a hypothesis, you run experiments.
• 9:25
  Darlene Marshall: But But where we ended up by the mid 20th century was okay, maybe we've got some, like, decent treatments for, you know, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, right, the dysfunctions in the mind. But I know this was my experience with therapy in my 20s. Okay, the absence of all of the bad stuff, I've mapped all the trauma, I've done all the cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, I can get myself to neutral gear, the absence of the bad stuffs not the same as the presence of the good stuff. So we took out all The stuff now the buckets empty. What do we put in the bucket? Positive Psychology is the focus on all the things that are good with people. So I don't refer to it as the science of happiness I refer to as the science of well being human well being. Because there's so much more to a well, well lived life. That's the phrase we're trying to get out there, there's so much more to a well lived life, then, soft Cody's here happiness, because happiness is a state just like sadness is a state, and happiness can come and go but purpose meaning calling love, you know, the ability to build a sustainable lifestyle that then supports me in actualizing on my purpose is so much richer. And that's really what positive psychology is about, when Martin Seligman who was considered to be the founder of the field, but he's not the only one. They all are affluent white guys, and also, to their credit have recognized the gap that that creates, and so we're trying to do better as a field. But Seligman, when UPenn, offered to start a positive psychology program, he insisted that it had to be an applied program, because you don't build wellbeing by thinking about it.
• 11:09
  Darlene Marshall: And I always use the metaphor of the gym, you don't get stronger by thinking about lifting, you got to pick up the heavy stuff.
• 11:16
  Darlene Marshall: You don't build wellbeing by thinking about, Oh, these are all the things I should be grateful for an effective gratitude practice, you're actually taking the time to pull up the emotional experience. And so just writing your three gratitude things is an exercise an obligation, not in cultivating an emotional state.
• 11:33
  Darlene Marshall: So you have to do it for it to work. And that's where the applied piece really comes in.
• 11:40
  Darlene Marshall: That's,
• 11:40
  Philip Pape: that's great. So it's like the when we talk about holistic wellness, it sounds like positive psychology fits into the pie of psychology to give you holistic psychology, I guess, right, which is a piece of wellness. I mean, where does it? Where does it fit into wellness? Overall, if you were to make that into a big diagram or something?
• 11:58
  Darlene Marshall: Yeah, it depends whose model we use. So my show is produced by NASM, the National Academy of Sports Medicine, I was one of the authors on their wellness coaching certification, and I'm very proud of it. They define it as mental physical and emotional betterment of life, as wellness as a whole. And then the tools of that being movement, nutrition, sleep, recovery, and regeneration and mental and emotional well being. I if we're going to make the pie metaphor, I would say positive psychology is the pan. If we include embodiment, as part of the modality and positive psychology obviously, I'm a body person.
• 12:33
  Darlene Marshall: That's primarily how it works people. Positive psychology for a long time focused only on the mental experience. And fortunately, one of the evolutions in the space has been to include the fact that like, hey, we have a body and how you take care of it is going to directly impact state, and more and more we're seeing that play out in the world. So I'm grateful to see it all evolve.
• 12:58
  Philip Pape: Yeah, we're not a disembodied brain. That actually sounds like a nightmare. But yes, not all of us. Yeah, that's funny, because that again resonates like the language I sometimes use was is this physical self mastery how like to exist and function in the world. It is a physical world.
• 13:12
  Philip Pape: So I wouldn't everything integrate with that in some way even mentally, right. So all right, because sometimes people think of holistic in the fufu set sense of it, right?
• 13:22
  Philip Pape: annotation, mindfulness, right, we will. For others, it's maybe the more definition, the literal definition of whole right, everything integrated approach.
• 13:29
  Philip Pape: So I guess okay, I guess we talked about holistic wellness.
• 13:35
  Philip Pape: So you mentioned actualization before. So we talked about the mind and positive psychology and applying all of these practices, and then actualization becoming more of I guess your aligned self is the way you've put it?
• 13:49
  Philip Pape: Where do we go from there? So where do we take where do we take it and actually put it into practice? So well, I want
• 13:55
  Darlene Marshall: to circle back to the UI Sure, go for it.
• 13:57
  Darlene Marshall: Because I do think that that's an important piece. And where I settle on that, especially with a client is around belief. You don't have to believe what I believe in order for us to have a meaningful conversation around belief. But that's going to be an important mechanism when it comes to building your lifestyle. Because your value system your meaning making is all going to come out of however you think all this works. And you know, you mentioned like yoga and meditation is kind of like a woowoo thing. But when we look at even the mechanisms of the nervous system, and what something like meditation is doing in the nervous system, you don't have to believe in a higher power for that school skill set to be true. So there's Fortunately all of these layers that we're getting to examine now because we have the technology to look at things that 50 years ago, we're being poo pooed as nonsense. So it just it's a very exciting time to be a practitioner in the space. And then you could ask me another question that I honestly don't remember where you're
• 14:59
  Philip Pape: from. Yeah, I wanted to get into like emergent actualization and upward spiraling you want to we can jump into that. So because what you, I had never heard that term before upward spiraling, right, yeah. Which is, again, linguistically the opposite of downward spiraling. It's these positive feedback loops, right?
• 15:16
  Philip Pape: To reinforce things reinforced while being create momentum, build your resources and so on.
• 15:22
  Philip Pape: So explain the concept. How will they help us be more resilient, perform better? And do it
• 15:28
  Darlene Marshall: and how we can do care? Yeah, are you care and I love to just point out the differences between this and like, some of the woowoo like wellness nonsense, and I, I was allergic to the word wellness, I had no desire to be a wellness practitioner, when NASM approached me about contributing to their wellness coaching certification. It's essentially like, Hey, we're building the thing that you always wanted to exist, do you want to be a part of it? Oh, hey, you just have to Swallow this pill. And I was like, Okay, fine, Apollo wellness. But when we talk about upward spiraling, we're talking about integration, we're talking about actualization, we are talking about measurable effects in the human experience. And so upward spiral specifically, or when you take two or more phenomenon in someone's life, two or more interventions, or practices, whatever you want to call them. And they create a positive feedback loop that is building, whether we call it capacity, we call it resilience, you know, there's all these different ways that we can measure it. But we'll take for example, you know, a meditation practice, like a mindfulness practice and a positive emotional priming practice. So this would be something like you're doing morning meditation, and you're doing evening gratitude. And because of the morning meditation is increasing your mindfulness and the gratitude is affecting your default mode network construct in the brain, you start sleeping better, and your mood is improving. And now because you're sleeping better, and you're moving, improving, it's easier to meditate longer, your gratitude practices getting richer, so you're sleeping better your movies improving you feeling so much better, your relationships improve, now you're communicating better, because you have more self awareness. And, and, and, and there's, there's, you know, a doe today, I want to say there's two dozen documented upward spirals. But there's many theorize that we just haven't gotten the funding of the research to go out and measure yet yet being the operant. Where my work comes in what I wrote my master's thesis on was the way in which these upward spirals which have been measured in the short term, integrate with one another and creating compounding positive effects toward sustainable lifestyle change.
• 17:39
  Darlene Marshall: Right? What does lifestyle transformation actually look like? And what I found in my work was when we take something like Maslow's peak experiences, right, these are your big touchstones, the birth of a child standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon and experiencing your own smallness.
• 17:57
  Darlene Marshall: Going to space, right, the Overwatch effects is one of my favorite things. Resources is what happens to an astronaut go into space for the first time.
• 18:05
  Darlene Marshall: And they have this profound feeling of awe and wholeness and oneness with all of humanity.
• 18:13
  Darlene Marshall: And then they end up coming back and like starting nonprofits and doing doing like completely divergent work from where they were before, because of that profound tilt, transcendent experience. And when I talk about actualization when I talk about wellness for integration, and I'm talking about is the way in which our wellness practices or self development practices, leadership development, whatever work we're doing within ourselves is really looking for what's the next lesson, what's the next important skill set that I'm going to integrate into my lifestyle in a sustainable way, so that I can serve my purpose, my calling, whatever that is right now, and also recognize that I'm continuing to grow as a person. So oftentimes, when I have conversations that actualization people think it's like one thing, and it's never going to be one thing, because you are in an emergent experience of your life. And as that horizon continues to grow back, you're gonna have new and exciting experiences of actualization if you allow yourself to keep growing in that way. Okay, so that's the big kitten caboodle.
• 19:25
  Philip Pape: Oh, no, you played it really well, because I've heard it talked about once or twice and, and kind of understood where you're going.
• 19:30
  Philip Pape: But I always like to get very concrete for people, especially, you know, selfishly, how can I use this to help people in my practice as well. And I remember taking, actually a friend of mine, her name is Stephanie Caputo, and she and her husband have a company they, they do, there's something called navigating life and it had these three spider they call them spirals and they were overlapping and one was relationship. One was physical, and then one was another and I can't remember what it's the same concept of, you're not gonna you're not gonna improve everything at once and it's not a switch right? and pick the things that are, maybe you have strengths and pick the things that are the big go gets maybe and kind of work on those. And then as they improve, the other ones get brought up. So you mentioned 12, or you said two dozen, there's two dozen these, like there's actual things that are upward spirals, like. So give me an example of one specific one.
• 20:19
  Darlene Marshall: So mood and self directed physical activity.
• 20:24
  Darlene Marshall: So especially if you do it with other people, so choosing a physical activity that you enjoy, we know that within the next 24 hours, you're more likely to say good things happened. And you'll say more good things happened in 24 hours after you engage in some kind of physical activity. Well, because of that, like literal increased sensitivity to positive experience, we can now measure it when the initial tests, when the initial research were done on that effect, we couldn't measure it yet. Now we can measure that physical activity makes you more sensitive to your own serotonin through the endocannabinoid system. So okay, you're more sensitive to your own serotonin, you fill up my new friend or being nice to me, I'm gonna have a mood boost. Now because I'm in a better mood, I'm more likely to repeat it again tomorrow. Now I continue that positive effects of being like high on my own serotonin supply. That's an upward spiral dynamic, right? Because I'm in a better mood, I'm going to be looking for more opportunities to continue to grow and improve.
• 21:27
  Darlene Marshall: There's upward spirals between meditation, mindfulness and relationships. They're, you know, I'm trying to pop them off the top of my head, I didn't have them ready. And to fall, I'm just thinking of like, okay, what are the upward spirals? I know, it's probably about two dozen. But that number might be wrong. I don't want to I don't want anybody to go hunt and be like she said, it was two dozen.
• 21:51
  Darlene Marshall: And it's only 18. Like, yeah, no,
• 21:53
  Philip Pape: I didn't mean that.
• 21:53
  Philip Pape: What was interesting was that it was these concrete lists that we were starting to compile, which then of course, my brain goes to Okay, now, let me see that list.
• 22:02
  Philip Pape: And then we can sort of work on on the checklist of things. Let
• 22:06
  Darlene Marshall: me plug a few things in for you. The books are Barbara Fredrickson is the world's leading researcher on positive emotional experience.
• 22:12
  Darlene Marshall: The the broaden and build theory of positive emotion is the foundational work that then put upward spirals grew out of her books are positive. Thing is positivity, wholeness. Yep. So positivity, and love 2.0. My master's thesis was on all of the stuff I'm talking about. So if you literally just search like UPenn, positive psychology, Darlene Marshall Capstone, it'll come up and download it and go nerd out super hard, along with all theories about how this stuff works,
• 22:45
  Philip Pape: I'll tell you, your stuff is going to be in my stuff before long because this is this is this is really connected with me. And I think a lot of people listening to like, Oh, this is a big missing piece. And it's not that we don't do this, to some extent, not know what to call it, right? There is some of that, like, I see all the time with clients where one thing leads to another and all of a sudden, just everything in their life is a win, because these other things are now no longer giving them the stress or holding them back. And it's it's it's incredible to watch, right.
• 23:11
  Philip Pape: But to be able to actually induce that, right. That's, that's where the power comes in.
• 23:18
  Philip Pape: So yeah,
• 23:19
  Darlene Marshall: that's what that work is about. And I'll just throw this out there. So the three things I start every client with in order to prime and I'm happy to unpack the science underneath each of these practices. In order to prime the effect is some kind of appreciation or gratitude practice every day, 20 minutes of moderate intensity cardiovascular exercise to increase their sensitivity to their own serotonin. And after I up regulate their brain derived neurotrophic factor, and a mindfulness practice some kind of meditation. So what I'm trying to prime there is not only their malleability to change, but also the positive emotional priming, because we know that someone in a positive emotional experience is more open to new information. They have neuro more neuro flexibility, they have greater self regulation, they're more likely to explore, they're more curious. Like there's all of these things that happen when someone's in a positive emotional state. Not that challenging. emotional states aren't useful, and they can be.
• 24:15
  Darlene Marshall: But positive emotional states have a different effect in the brain and the nervous system that lend themselves toward the self work. So by getting clients to start with that flexibility, everything else that we want to come next, they're leveraged into the upward spiral effect.
• 24:30
  Philip Pape: And are those three habits that you gradually build in the first few weeks? Is that the idea or do these are three things you do every day? Right off the bat?
• 24:37
  Darlene Marshall: Most clients, this is the one place that I tend to be prescriptive, most clients if they're not already doing them, that's the firt that's a prescription that comes right out of the console like okay, you're going to work with me, I want you to do these things between now and our next meeting, so that they're more flexible.
• 24:52
  Philip Pape: And here's just a little thought that popped in my head right. You know, we like to say people have personalities and some people are were positive and others optimistic than others. And, again, I will use that labeling myself and like feel like I've always been a positive, optimistic person who just brushes off things. And yet, when I look back at I know, it's because of my environment, there's the social psychology aspect to it. The opportunities I was given as a child, my family and so on. What do you think of that concept? And where I'm going with this is, is it?
• 25:20
  Philip Pape: It's gotta be easier for some people to do this. Right? When you start with them, potentially? And how does that play into it? Or do we just is it pretty much the same? Same approach, no matter who you are, it just might be easier for some people.
• 25:34
  Darlene Marshall: How technical you, I
• 25:37
  Philip Pape: love tech, I love tech, the listener stays tuned.
• 25:40
  Philip Pape: I'll see my apple sense later.
• 25:42
  Darlene Marshall: So we're getting theoretical a little bit. We know that we all have a certain bandwidth of wellbeing and disposition towards, you know, thriving, right? Some people aren't yours. Some people are piglets, and some people are everywhere in between. optimism and pessimism, we think in the positive psychology space or not. personality traits are what we call explanatory style. It's the lens that you are looking through on the things that happen to you. So pessimists in that context, are looked at as when something goes wrong, is it they view it as permanent, pervasive and personal. So this sucks, it's always gonna suck.
• 26:23
  Darlene Marshall: It's because everything sucks, and it's because I suck. Whereas the optimistic explanatory style looks at it like, Okay, this sucks, but not everything sucks.
• 26:35
  Darlene Marshall: It won't always suck and stuff happens to people. It's not anything wrong with me. And so think about optimism pessimism in the positive psychology space, it's less about like that bandwidth I'm talking about that we all kind of have. Now on the upward spiral side, when we're talking like you said, some people this stuff is easier for it's more accessible. The theory is that the way that upward spirals work, is, you have something called Vantage sensitivity, how much sensitivity Do you have that you can take advantage when the good stuff happens? Right? The same thing happens to the piglet and er, er is going oh, and piglets like whatever. Right? So your vantage sensitivity is directly related to something called Vantage resources. Do you have the mindset, the emotional social support your foundational needs met all of the factors that go into a lifestyle that support you to take that what we call a capitalization opportunity, can you take advantage of the good thing emotionally and come in neuro chemically? Now, like you said, we don't necessarily know why some people are more of a piglet than an ER. But we also know that if we teach the ER certain skills, give them access to whether we're talking about relationships, support or community organizations, you know, psychological skills, reframing techniques, get them moving their bodies, you know, there's all these things that we can do for the ER, that increases their vantage sensitivity. Now, do they end up in the same place as piglet? Not all of us, but expecting them to is also toxically? Positive? And really from my lens as a coach, it's what is what is er want for me? Or if yours okay with who they are? I don't force it onto them like a moral obligation.
• 28:32
  Darlene Marshall: But if they want my help, I'm here to do it. Fair
• 28:34
  Philip Pape: enough. Yeah, right. That relative change?
• 28:35
  Philip Pape: You're right. Yeah, this is great. This is good stuff. I think this is awesome.
• 28:38
  Philip Pape: Definitely. Wow. Okay. I'm taking a ton of notes, because this is this is. This is I'm down. So you talked about the habit priming. And I don't know if we already addressed this.
• 28:47
  Philip Pape: But you said you talked about Barbara Fredrickson, I think you mentioned the FR. Fr. fMRI studies on one of your other shows how that show how the positive emotions affect the body differently than negative emotions, right? Neurological flexibility, broaden and build.
• 29:02
  Philip Pape: So how does that pathway work and contribute toward the upward spiral?
• 29:06
  Darlene Marshall: Yeah, so there's actually the foundation for upward spirals. And so the deal if we take it to from an evolutionary psychology approach, we all have something called negativity bias. And it's because our ancestors were the ones who when a threat presented itself, they were looking out for that threat, and then they never forgot it. And the ones who are kind of like, oh, whatever, weren't likely to survive and reproduce, because they were more likely to be susceptible to repeated threat.
• 29:34
  Darlene Marshall: So from an evolutionary psychology standpoint, that negativity bias, we're more likely to think about all the negative stuff but negative emotions narrow our focus, right. And that's, that is also an evolutionary benefit. Right?
• 29:51
  Darlene Marshall: The Tiger comes over the hill and we all have to be ready to respond. The problem Because now we're not living in that world, because that kind of challenging emotional response is very intensively stressful to the nervous system and therefore the entire body, right your autonomic nervous system, your vagus nerve, it is enervating all of your autonomic nervous system function. So everything automatic that we don't have control of so blood sugar and hormones and heart rate. And I think blood pressure, I didn't say that one yet. It kind of everything else in between. And so that upregulated stress condition is not that great for us. It narrows our focus, we're looking for threats, the flip side of that positive emotional experience, our pupils constrict, so that we are not so alert to threat, our blood pressure comes down, resting heart rate relaxes, you know, there's all of these physiological changes. But on the psych side, you have less subconscious biases, you're more curious, you're more creative, you're better problem solver, you're more likely to explore your environment, it's easier to make friends, it's easier to learn new material, because in times of calm, that's when we would be bonding, that's when we would be exploring, that's when you would be learning new skills, you're not going to learn new skills with the tire coming over the hill. But we're going to you know, you're going to teach me cool stuff, when we're all just hanging out. And so that also has a significant reparative function to the nervous system and the tissues of the body. Because now all of those baseline processes that happen when you're in your parasympathetic, your calm state of your nervous system are kicking in when you feel the positive emotional experiences.
• 31:43
  Darlene Marshall: So that is the broaden right?
• 31:43
  Darlene Marshall: I'm broadening my cognition build is learning skills and resources. Broaden and build theory is the foundation for upward spiraling.
• 31:53
  Philip Pape: Okay. Love it.
• 31:53
  Philip Pape: Yeah. So that, and that was a spiraling effect you just talked about with the positive experiences causing you relax, making you more creative and one thing leads to another.
• 32:04
  Unknown: Shout out to Philippe an awfully for a long time and know how passionate he is about healthy eating, and body strength. And that's why choosing to be my coach. I was no stranger to a dieting and body training. But I've always struggled to do it sustainably really helped me prioritize my goals with evidence based recommendations, or not over stressing my body and not feeling like I'm starving. In six months, I lost 45 pounds without drastically changing the foods I enjoy. But now I have a more balanced diet. I weight train consistently. But most importantly, I do it sustainably if a scientifically sound healthy diet links from body is what you're looking for. Really paid Easter guy
• 32:48
  Philip Pape: to be a little negative here. What if you take somebody who's on the opposite extreme, who's really struggling with a lot of things and very negative about themselves and making excuses things are holding themselves back. And there's reasons for these right in people's lives. Usually they might be overwhelmed. They're busy with life, they family, kids career, whatever. Or they've tried a lot of things that and they think they're they're applying themselves over the years. And then those things don't work, right, which is just reinforces this. So where would you start that conversation or the process to move them toward that actualization, I guess is the word.
• 33:21
  Darlene Marshall: Yeah. So the first thing I always like to throw out in a conversation like that is the recognition that a coach, a positive psychology practitioner, a personal trainer, we are not clinicians.
• 33:30
  Darlene Marshall: And very often when we are working with someone in a state like that, they may have untreated mental health considerations. And making sure and I am very direct with my clients about scope of practice.
• 33:46
  Darlene Marshall: And the recognition that one, if we bump up the edge of the scope, and I'm worried about you, I'm going to tell you that you need to go to therapy or or I'm not going to continue working with you. Or they're already working with a therapist, and I make sure the therapist knows that I exist.
• 33:59
  Darlene Marshall: And I respect them and all that.
• 33:59
  Darlene Marshall: And so there's that piece of so often, the struggle bus and the overwork and the hyper productivity is reactive to some kind of unprocessed trauma or mental health consideration.
• 34:15
  Darlene Marshall: Right? Why? Why would we want to create a life that burns us out?
• 34:20
  Darlene Marshall: Right? So it starts there from my perspective. Now, if you've got somebody who's already working with a therapist, and then we enter that conversation, and they're on the struggle bus, and they feel overwhelmed, and they feel overstimulated and it in it in it in it always comes back to what is it that matters most to you, my client? What is your purpose, meaning calling?
• 34:43
  Darlene Marshall: Why are you here? Why work with me now? And if they can give me that information, I can help them make better choices about who they want to be when they grow up, because they're working with me for a reason.
• 35:00
  Philip Pape: Ain't they reached out to you? They took that step.
• 35:02
  Philip Pape: Yes. Right. So
• 35:03
  Darlene Marshall: they want change, there has to be some vision of something else they want, or they would not have reached out. Or if they reach out and there's nothing there, they wouldn't have gotten past the console. So they're going to be feeding me. What is it that you're here to do? What is it that you want for you? What is the example you want to set for your kids? What is the change you're trying to make in the world? What is your leadership, your mission? And anything else?
• 35:31
  Darlene Marshall: To me, all of the lifestyle stuff is in service of that for it not to you know, just be narcissism.
• 35:36
  Philip Pape: Fair enough. Okay.
• 35:36
  Philip Pape: So then where did he so then we're talking a little bit also about ideas like agency empowerment, right, taking control of your life and so on, where do these concepts comport with those? Which are the opposite of codependence right?
• 35:49
  Philip Pape: And I know we're talking we talked about coaching and training and all that we don't want that we don't want to codependent relationship, what what you're talking about here?
• 35:56
  Philip Pape: So maybe explore that a little bit. Darlene? Yeah, sure. I
• 36:01
  Darlene Marshall: think you know, what you're talking about is the difference in codependence and interdependence, right. And I'm a strong believer that in effective lifestyle practitioner should not be trying to like Bootstrap some codependence in the client, which is not what I was taught as a trainer I was taught, it's always easier to keep a client than get a client.
• 36:21
  Darlene Marshall: And so you try to keep the clients forever. And the people who stay with clients forever are the most effective people.
• 36:26
  Darlene Marshall: And really, I'm like, if after three years of working with me, you can't work out on your own, I am not good at my job. Yep.
• 36:32
  Darlene Marshall: Because my job is to empower you with information. Now, if we find that that same person just knows that this is the right thing to do, and they cannot find truly authentic internal motivation. Okay, then let's create accountability structures. And that's different than I'm trying to trick you into renewal, which is, again, what I was taught as a trainer.
• 36:54
  Darlene Marshall: And the reason is that if I'm truly helping someone, like walk the path to their authentic self actualize on their purpose and meaning and calling, they won't need me after a certain point, because they'll have learned everything that they were meant to learn. And then they're gonna go, you know, with whatever their belief system is. And if not, there's some other resistance there. And I just wasn't like the magic practitioner. And that's okay.
• 37:25
  Darlene Marshall: Right. Not everything works for everyone all the time is one of the most important things I've tried to put out there. If any practitioner tells you they have the perfect answer, just do my do my five point system, system and reset system run, because not everything works for everyone all the time. And no, one practitioner has all of the answers for everyone. And if they think they do, they're actually just a narcissist.
• 37:52
  Philip Pape: Yes. And and did that happen? So can you recall a time where that happened to you?
• 37:56
  Philip Pape: Where perhaps at the end of it all, you realize that you couldn't be the magic practitioner? And yeah, maybe learn from it? And oh, yeah, of course. Of course. Yep.
• 38:06
  Darlene Marshall: Of course. I mean, it's happened. How I don't know how many?
• 38:12
  Philip Pape: Oh, god. No, no, no, I guess you learn something from working with every client?
• 38:16
  Darlene Marshall: Oh, sure.
• 38:16
  Darlene Marshall: Yeah, but specifically, the failures like, you know, if you've, if you've got a big coaching audience, I'm happy to talk about accepting and learning from and then moving on from the failures. And, you know, I, I know a thing or three about helping people. And there have unquestionably been clients that I sit down with my notebook, and I look back at and I go, Okay, what did I get wrong? And without the sense of ownership, that it was my, you know, it's my work, it's their work. But maybe it's the recognition that you know, what, I should never have accepted that renewal. I knew that we were on the wrong path. They asked to stay and I let them stay. And I never should have accepted that renewal. I should have heard them out. Or I knew six months before that, that I didn't want to be doing that kind of work anymore. And I you know, it was the pandemic and I wasn't worried. Yeah, no. And so I did it, but I wasn't aligned.
• 39:16
  Darlene Marshall: And every time there has been a part of me that knew that we were not, we weren't it. But I kept pushing, because I tried to convince myself and I think one of the big lessons for me and one of the big lessons for every client is that there is a voice inside of you that you know, is your authentic voice. There are things about yourself that you know to be true, if you are honest with yourself. And when that voice says you shouldn't be doing this anymore. Listen to it. It's not a failure is just the next step.
• 39:50
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and I think that even applies to the other side, right? If you're listening and thinking I'm working with someone and you your job to interview them right and hold them accountable to it. You want and make sure you ask them the questions that that set would set off any red flags for you.
• 40:05
  Philip Pape: And if don't try to force the coach into doing what maybe isn't their thing for you. And vice versa, right? That's yeah, that's makes me as well, because I definitely can think of some clients that I should never have taken on. You know, when you're like, well, they're super eager.
• 40:18
  Philip Pape: So we'll work it out. Cool. So a couple other other topics I want to dive into. What are your thoughts about the fake it till you make it phenomenon? Right, the idea of, I guess, manufacturing confidence to push through an obstacle come out the other side, and then incrementally build your natural confidence.
• 40:41
  Darlene Marshall: Oh, you know, it's funny, I thought when you were saying fake it till you make it that you were referencing something else?
• 40:46
  Philip Pape: That's okay. That's okay. So yeah, well, I
• 40:50
  Darlene Marshall: just, you know, there's there's a lot of people out on the interwebs, who use the word coach that aren't paying this coaches, let's get into that qualify. Yeah, we can play this game. Which direction?
• 41:03
  Philip Pape: Yeah, well, just just, let's just be real about it. Right. So the word coach has a definition. Let's define that.
• 41:11
  Philip Pape: Let's define what not what is not a coach. But also the idea that people who are not coaches, let's make them aware of that, and how they can become better coaches in the context of what you're talking about here. So that's a positive way to approach it. Yeah, let's
• 41:24
  Darlene Marshall: look at so you know, let's recognize there's two uses of the word coach, right. There's like, my nephew's basketball team. And his coach, that's a coach, great, there's coaches and all levels of sport.
• 41:35
  Darlene Marshall: And the rest of us out here using the word coach are talking about individuals who are educated in the skill set of holding space, asking good questions, making an informative, you know, paradigm with their clients, or giving them good information, and then empowering the client to make good decisions for their own progress towards their own self directed goals. A coach is not being prescriptive, right, a coach will give information, and then they get out of the way.
• 42:11
  Darlene Marshall: They might give guidance, they might give a particular shape.
• 42:15
  Darlene Marshall: But that's what coaching really is, you know, working through ambivalence working through resistance, helping people get unstuck, but not by saying, this is exactly what you do, right?
• 42:27
  Darlene Marshall: That prescriptive model. If that's not what you're doing, you're not coaching, and no shade on other modalities of change. But that's not coaching.
• 42:43
  Darlene Marshall: It's something else. And so I mentioned, I come from the fitness industry, like personal training is not coaching, and even working within the corporate setting I was in, you'd get to a certain level, and they'd start calling you a coach, because they want to charge more money for your work, but you're still making a prescription with everything you're doing. You're you're telling them what to do. So it wasn't coaching, it was training. And I see a lot of trainers out in the world who you get a certain amount of certifications, and you want to distinguish yourself from other newer trainers. And so you start using the label coach, the problem is it creates a ton of confusion in the market, people end up not understanding the difference. And then they pay for something thinking they're gonna get one thing and they get the other and then they're upset. And so I I have fallen into this pit, I have clients, I have referred to someone because I thought they were coaching and then they turned it out making prescriptions. And that's not what I wanted for that client, and ended it in. And so it is a pet peeve of mine, I'll own but I'm attached to it. Just it just grinds my gears.
• 43:52
  Philip Pape: Yeah, no, let's No, let's play devil's advocate, because earlier you mentioned you there is something you prescribe and that is those three habits. And then less than two weeks. Yeah, yeah, no, and that's okay. But that's context.
• 44:05
  Philip Pape: And there's also my interpretation of what you're saying a little bit is, is meeting the individual and understanding what they want.
• 44:12
  Philip Pape: They're asking for something, then then you can guide them.
• 44:15
  Philip Pape: But you do have to give them information and giving information. So for example, if if someone very simply just wants a nutrition plan, right, not not a meal plan, but just they want to understand how do I go from here to here? Lose Fat, right? Just a very simple practical thing. And you have to give him that calorie deficit to do that. So is providing guidelines for how to do that and targets prescriptive and not coaching even though you're coaching them on how to stick to that and how to do all the things to get there.
• 44:46
  Darlene Marshall: In my opinion, yes, because it as somebody who's been a nutrition coach for 10 years. Additive nutrition coaching is not a prescriptive protocol, but There are also times that someone's working toward an outcome that requires a prescriptive protocol. Right, I got friends who are competitive fighters and bodybuilders and rugby players, and you know, you got to make weight. So if you got to make weight, you need a prescription.
• 45:12
  Darlene Marshall: That's when you need a really effective expert practitioner, who is a trainer or nutritionist specialized in those ways. But that's not coaching a process that's prescribing a paradigm.
• 45:26
  Darlene Marshall: And again, I'm not demonizing doing that. I'm just saying like, can we use the word for the thing? We mean?
• 45:33
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I'm trying to understand where there's like a hybrid in there, which kind of seems like there's a, you know, are you doing
• 45:39
  Darlene Marshall: out there?
• 45:39
  Darlene Marshall: Right? Yeah, I do do both. Many of my clients are hybrid clients, where I'm like, Okay, we got two hats here. And you when do we get to your movement, if what you want is prescriptive movement protocol, because, you know, your movement screening is showing significant dysfunction.
• 45:54
  Darlene Marshall: I used to do these, and they, but they consent to it. Right? I am transparent with them about the difference between coaching and training. And when they say, Yeah, that would be amazing.
• 46:06
  Darlene Marshall: Could you train me, and then I'm writing their exercise protocol.
• 46:09
  Darlene Marshall: So that we get that specific outcome, that's when prescriptive is appropriate. But it's also not coaching. That's a hybrid coach trainer model. And that is how I run my business.
• 46:19
  Philip Pape: Love that. Yeah.
• 46:19
  Philip Pape: And you made me think about a book that I wish I could remember the name of it, it's about asking for feedback. I don't know if you've heard this book before. And it distinguishes the, like three types of feedback that you want from someone that the important, the important thing is do you need to ask for the feedback you want, don't rely on somebody else to guess it what you need.
• 46:37
  Philip Pape: And coach coaching is one of those. And but there were like two other types. And it kind of sounds like a similar categorization as you're giving me here. It's interesting. Yeah, I was reflecting on that ever since Carl brought it up as well, that I know some of my clients where we have a prescription for, say, macros, but then they they learn the process and can do it themselves. After a while we don't even talk about it anymore. And I'm like, that's, that's an interesting, you know, it's kind of like one shifting into another. And then meanwhile, all these other things, having nothing to do with the prescription seems to be where people get hung up the behavioral stuff, the change the whatever, you know, so it's just, it's fascinating philosophically. Yeah.
• 47:18
  Darlene Marshall: And yeah, like, I think you're leading into what I want to say is like, this is my opinion, right? Like, it's, it's all made up by people anyway, right? We're just we're making up words and slapping them on the stuff. It's all a construct that we invented, and we get to evolve and change. And my argument is just like, hey, wouldn't it be better if we were being specific about the thing that we say we're doing and like, not just everybody is suddenly a coach, even though you have no education in facilitating meaningful behavior change. And the flip of that is coming from the fitness space, a lot of fitness industry, education and behavior change is just outdated and wrong. And so then you're working off of paradigms that aren't effective, calling yourself a coach. So that's that's my argument.
• 48:05
  Philip Pape: No, I love it. And there's a transparency element and there's a you know, the trying to make money off of these things and these labels and certs and Pathak, you know, credentials you have behind your name. And it's not like we could all just stop people from being hucksters. That's like humanity's always kind of been like that. But those of us who want to do better and learn and hopefully you're listening to this podcast into your stuff, can at least start to describe it more precisely. And as we have our sales calls, or our discovery calls or talk on our podcast, it's like, make a distinction between those. So I will be doing more now after learning this from you. So there you go. He made an impact. Okay, so what else do we want to cover? Oh, your podcast, your podcast, I like the premise right of of examining ancient traditions and modern science.
• 48:52
  Philip Pape: And it kind of strikes me as it's like the parallels between evidence based science and anecdotal experience or common sense. Like what you discussed, I think, on your episode, and additive nutrition was what I was referring to, how do you balance those perspectives? So separating like the fringe ideas of from ancient traditions, and maybe I'm using the word fringe in a loaded way that might actually work things that work but aren't really considered evidence based? Because they're rooted in ancient traditions?
• 49:24
  Philip Pape: Yeah, well, I
• 49:25
  Darlene Marshall: think, you know, first off, like, let's just layer on, there's so much appropriation in the wellness space, right, like, there's a lot and as a middle aged white woman, I gotta own, you know, respect for whatever culture or lineage we might be using as inspiration or influence in a particular practice. Obviously, alignment yoga, it's an ion guard derivative, you know, that is a big base of my entry into these alternative ways of thinking that we're now just really starting to measure and understand and more and more nuanced ways. And meditation is such a perfect example, where within our lifetime and making some assumptions about your age, within our lifetime, it's really gone from this like esoteric, woowoo thing to totally mainstream with a ton of research. And we can we can thank the Dalai Lama. And we can thank Jon Kabat Zinn, and you know, all of the hippies for having brought those practices back, and then we examine them.
• 50:27
  Darlene Marshall: And so a lot of times, what I'm trying to do is really look at, well, what is this thing that we think of as kind of Woo? Where is the science underneath the thing that most people think of as kind of Wuhan upward spirals is a perfect example. It sounds really hippie dippie. And in actuality, it's a measurable effects. And in terms of, you know, like the additive nutrition thing, really, that comes out of the recognition that people get a lot more nutritional traction, they make more progress longer and sustain it longer. I said that all in the wrong order. When you focus more on putting in the good stuff, instead of removing all the things that have been demonized, and it's really that simple. And so when I first start the nutrition conversation with my clients, I don't give them a list of all the foods they're going to avoid that is useless. And their next birthday party or the weekend, heck, I got a client right now who the her doctor gave her a single printout sheet of her new diet, and no support in actualizing on it. And she said to me, she's like, I'm not starting this till Monday. Sunday is Mother's Day, and my birthday is this week, like, why would I do this? I'm like, great. Can I just get you to eat more protein, please?
• 51:44
  Darlene Marshall: Yeah.
• 51:45
  Philip Pape: Oh, yeah.
• 51:48
  Darlene Marshall: So specifically, from the additive nutrition piece, it's just how do we apply what we know about behavior change and the human experience. And what we know is that people are not getting enough of the right things in the right ways. Yet, we're all just talking about how evil sugar is all the time. And the more you demonize like it's the pink elephant thing, right? When I was trying to quit smoking, and I just kept thinking about how badly I wanted a cigarette, that was totally different than when I filled my life up with enough positive things that I no longer needed the stress relief of the cigarette, right? This is going back 15 years,
• 52:23
  Philip Pape: ya know, for sure.
• 52:23
  Philip Pape: And there's there's a parallel there between positive versus negative or positive or traditional psychology as well.
• 52:29
  Philip Pape: And I'm seeing these constant themes of focusing on the positive, whatever we mean by that. And the idea and I use that same analogy with the protein of when you just when you try to get enough protein, it starts to crowd other things out, you just can't help it right. And when you go to the grocery store and look for protein, you end up being on the outside of the store, because that's where all the protein is, you know, so I hear what you're saying. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, dig, I dig it, too. It's pretty cool. And the fringe i The these, what we think are fringe ideas or hippie dippie, or whatever, when you could actually validate them with science and show how they work.
• 53:04
  Philip Pape: There was a guy on my podcast, it hasn't come out yet. What's his name? Christopher. I can't forget his last name. But he taught he basically is Eastern medicine, traditional medicine and like meridians and some of that, and I have my skepticism meter. So hi. Let's talk about it. I was even asked about it.
• 53:21
  Philip Pape: But ya know, and the way he described I'm thinking, well, there's something there with the nervous system and, and muscles and everything else. Lines.
• 53:27
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and go Yeah, exactly. Like does so
• 53:31
  Darlene Marshall: many of the main meridians track with what we now understand to the fossil lungs. And in 2018, Dr. Neil Thiess, published his research showing that fascia is actually an Oregon and the interstitium.
• 53:44
  Darlene Marshall: And so the, you know, along the interstitium, things like vibration and sound and light travel further than other connective tissue structures, called the physics of it, okay, right. So we're just starting to measure what the intersted GM can do in a way that allopathic medicine, Western medicine can quantify. And part of what made makes northeast brilliant as a practitioner, his book notes on complexity comes out this week is he's also a Zen Buddhist, in addition to being one of the world's leading liver pathologist. And so he's bringing that influence into trying to show Western medicine that there's a much bigger scope than we are necessarily taking into account. But like the meridian lines, follow interstitium main, like main lines, and I guarantee you in our lifetime, we're going to have better ways to measure what that's really on about. And I could go on and on about like prana versus chi versus your mitochondria. And essentially this idea that these these traditions that are so much older than In Western paradigms, were using their vernaculars to try to explain something that they could observe. But they didn't yet have the technology to measure. And add to that our most advanced physicists understand that we can measure about 5% of the phenomena in the universe. Right?
• 55:24
  Philip Pape: That's where it's good. That's what that's true.
• 55:25
  Philip Pape: We know very little so right?
• 55:25
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 55:28
  Darlene Marshall: If we can only measure 5% of the observable universe as we experience it, there's all kinds of stuff that we don't know. And what I do when it comes to application with my clients, the placebo effect is still in effect. I don't care if that's placebo, I care. Did it make you more better? And did it move you towards the thing that you wanted to work? Yeah, who cares?
• 55:49
  Darlene Marshall: If it's placebo?
• 55:53
  Philip Pape: I agree. I agree.
• 55:53
  Philip Pape: There's a lot of things like that. We just do them. They work and we don't understand them.
• 55:57
  Philip Pape: And that's okay. Exactly. That's okay. Women's Health, I don't even want to get into it. I'm just saying I'm thinking of a lot of parallels with women's health and what we don't know, the gaslighting and everything goes on because I have women in my life and clients that have dealt with that. It's just terrible. But, but there's there's hope, when you talk about, you know, uncovering some of the mysteries as we go along.
• 56:19
  Philip Pape: Okay, so do you have a couple more minutes? Sure. Let's go.
• 56:22
  Philip Pape: Okay. I wanted to ask what your favorite personal episode of your podcast is just to help you like plug it a little. But also, I want to understand what your favorite theme or episode is.
• 56:32
  Philip Pape: Your you just asked
• 56:33
  Darlene Marshall: me to pick my favorite toe, like,
• 56:36
  Philip Pape: oh, pick one or a theme? That was part two, or a theme that you like,
• 56:41
  Darlene Marshall: I can't tell you my favorite episode here.
• 56:43
  Philip Pape: I couldn't either.
• 56:43
  Philip Pape: So
• 56:44
  Darlene Marshall: your favorite eyelash, like it's a tough? How would I will because it's such an extension of myself conception and when it comes to being like Hotelling. Um, you know, I think the cool thing about the show is how much it's evolved. So I started the show originally in February of 2020.
• 57:01
  Darlene Marshall: When NASM invited me onto their podcast network, we had to do a reboot, because I had been cursing in all previous episodes, and they didn't want me to swear on the network.
• 57:10
  Darlene Marshall: Okay, fine. I'll take
• 57:12
  Philip Pape: a lot of pressure right there for you. Right.
• 57:15
  Darlene Marshall: Actually, I originally the plan was to have you seen the good place? Yeah.
• 57:19
  Darlene Marshall: The plan was to like, yeah, to like the way they do cursing on the good place. Yeah, weird words that had the same leading letter. So that was originally my plan. I was like, no that.
• 57:31
  Darlene Marshall: But it would make it too obvious. So anyway, so we had to do a reboot on the show. It's now been on their network for a year. So we're just had our 50th episode on the network. But originally, it was really going to be like, say, ancient wisdom, modern science through a well being lens, the fitness industry and all that and of the pandemic kit. And so the first two years of the show were really focused on, like, what is the emergent thing that we're all experiencing right now? And how could I give you tools to help with it? And then as we came out of the pandemic, and now we're moving into, who are we now? How do we take these major forces of the human experience like species level challenges, learn from them integrate and step forward? And this recognition that as millennials, you know, young Gen X, millennials, like we're the adults in the room, now, we get a say, so if we're the adults in the room, what are we going to do with it? And how do we do it in a holistic, positive additive way, in a world that has a lot of challenges? And so how do we dismantle some of the toxic stuff that we've been given?
• 58:45
  Darlene Marshall: Obviously, the fitness and wellness spaces have a lot of that. And so one of the things that we're doing right now, is a series with one of the program directors at NASM. So he runs the teams that are pulling together the new courses, they're they're kind of cultivating the educational materials that NASM produces.
• 59:02
  Darlene Marshall: Well, he's been on the show this, so he's about to come in again next month. So we're getting a clip of like, every six weeks or so he comes on the show, and he's done a full deep dive literature review into a topic that's controversial in the fitness industry. And we talk about why the conventional wisdom is wrong. So we just did that is in public health. Next.
• 59:24
  Darlene Marshall: The next one we're going to do is on BMI. We did want to January on why is dieting actually bad? Why is everything you think you know, I mean, even in this conversation, Philip, you mentioned caloric restriction and changing body composition. What most people think that means is actually detrimental to their long term well being and doesn't actually work. But we've been taught to think it does. So that whole episode is him going through all the scientific evidence and us talking through it in a way that would empower For the listener to make better choices. Cool. So yeah, the show's evolved a lot.
• 1:00:03
  Darlene Marshall: And it's been really fun to do that.
• 1:00:07
  Philip Pape: Yeah. I love that that you answered the question that way telling us the whole story of how it's changed because my podcast is only a year or what is it a year and a half. And even in that short time, it's just amazing how things go. And the skepticism, you know, my mission is also to kind of put the skeptical lens on, and you're ramping it up for me here, which I love. Like, it's really challenging. It made me think you also probably guess my age when you said, Gen X millennial, so you got it, right.
• 1:00:33
  Darlene Marshall: I was assuming, at this age,
• 1:00:35
  Philip Pape: I was born in 1980.
• 1:00:35
  Philip Pape: So try writing three,
• 1:00:37
  Darlene Marshall: this is my 40 year.
• 1:00:40
  Philip Pape: Oh, congrats, I guess. And then take each species level challenges and learn, but I love the ambition.
• 1:00:47
  Philip Pape: And it's great. This is awesome.
• 1:00:47
  Philip Pape: Good stuff. So second, the last question I asked all guests, Darlene and that is one question. Did you wish I had asked and what is your answer?
• 1:00:57
  Darlene Marshall: You know, I tried to I have my answer for this. And you actually ended up asking. I love when that happens. Okay, so I've got a new one. I think one of the most important conversations we need to be having as a species as especially in the technologically advanced countries, is about loneliness.
• 1:01:15
  Darlene Marshall: We are experiencing a loneliness epidemic, that we are only just beginning to understand the ramifications of the mental health crisis that we are having. But a lot of it is due to the lack of feeling authentic connection and compassion and open heartedness to one another.
• 1:01:36
  Darlene Marshall: And it sounds really Woo. Except there is very hard science on this, I did do an episode on loneliness in the middle of the winter. And I encourage if you're going to listen anything, go back and listen to that one.
• 1:01:47
  Darlene Marshall: Because the physical, emotional and mental health ramifications of loneliness are profound. It is more impactful than diabetes and smoking. But we shrug it off like it's Nbd. And there was a there was a very cute study that came out earlier this year that showed that what reaching out to your friends that you haven't talked to in a long time, you anticipate that they're not going to care and actuality they get this huge boost. So if you take one thing away from me, to our listeners, go tech, somebody you haven't talked to in six months, they need to hear from you. Because we all need each other really desperately right now. Not only for our short term well being but there's no way we're going to solve the problems that we're all facing alone, we got to do it together, which means we have to figure this loneliness thing out.
• 1:02:45
  Philip Pape: So if you're listening, think about that person, go through your history, go through your contacts, find at least one maybe three people that you haven't talked to in a long time. Say hi, yeah, there you go. And send them a funny meme or something else. Go for it emojis. All right. Cool. So definitely, where can listeners learn more about you and your work? They have if they don't know already? Yeah, so
• 1:03:09
  Darlene Marshall: obviously, the show is better than fine. I've got a substack costar dot sub sect.com, which is all just almost all of its application articles. It's like whatever that thing. Is it your Yeah, more the subsets called more better. shows better, the fine, more better. And then Instagram.
• 1:03:25
  Darlene Marshall: I'm Darlene doc, coach. My website is Darlene doc coach. I like to keep it all neat.
• 1:03:32
  Philip Pape: Yeah. All about branding. All right. So this has been a lot of fun, Donnelly.
• 1:03:36
  Philip Pape: Really, I'm super excited. I'm glad Carl recommended you. So I want to give him a shout out for that. I found you and your content and the whole just everything. It's so refreshing and resonates and I think the listeners gonna get a ton of value from this episode. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you very
• 1:03:53
  Darlene Marshall: much for having me.
• 1:03:57
  Philip Pape: If you've been inspired by today's interview, and are ready to take action and build momentum on your health and fitness journey, just schedule a free 30 minute nutrition momentum call with me using the link in my show notes.
• 1:04:09
  Philip Pape: I promise not to sell or pitch you on anything, but I will help you gain some perspective and guidance so we can get you on the right track toward looking and feeling your best