How to Avoid The Top 3 Things that Take Entrepreneurs Out of The Game with Shawn Stevenson

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation! JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire! are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Marketing Made Simple. Today, we'll be breaking down how to avoid the top three things that take entrepreneurs out of the game. To drop these value bombs, I brought Sean Stevenson into EO Fire Studios. Sean is the author of the books Eat Smarter and Sleep Smarter, as well as the creator of The Model Health Show, the number one health podcast in the US. And today, finally, I just want to talk about those top three things that take entrepreneurs out of the game, how to defeat these enemies.

0:40We'll also talk about the three things that you can do to improve your performance in both life and work and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Sean and our sponsors. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by my good friend, Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. A must listen episode is one of Jenna's recents on everything you need to know about affiliate marketing.

1:14Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. NetSuite is the number one cloud financial system, streamlining accounting, financial management, inventory, HR, and more. Right now, download NetSuite's popular KPI checklist designed to give you consistently excellent performance absolutely free at netsuite.com slash fire. That's netsuite.com slash fire. Sean, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. This is so good. And it's such an honor to talk to you, John. For me, this would kind of be capped in obvious, but I don't think a lot of people think about this.

1:55And also we might have a little bit of resistance against this, but it's real. Our success is going to depend on our mindset first. It's going to depend on our mental well-being first, you know, because a lot of our activities are going to spring from the ideas that we carry about ourselves, that we carry about the people around us, that we carry about our environment. Our perception is really going to dictate all of the kind of practical applications of things. It really is an internal job first. And yes, we can be successful and kind kind of dig deep and grit and bear and all the things to find some modicum of success.

2:32But if we're not mentally well and feeling good about ourselves and just feeling good in general, it's going to be so much harder, so much harder. We can do it, yes. But if we're feeling good, and the old adage says that people don't do well because they don't feel well. If we're feeling good, if we're in a good mental space, it just makes the process of building something special more graceful. I love all of this. And Fire Nation, your head is going to pop off with the value bombs that get rained down upon you throughout this episode. I do live by the quote that the healthy person wants a thousand things.

3:08And that's a great place to be. You want a thousand things. That's exciting. The unhealthy person wants one thing. They only want to be healthy. And when you only want to be healthy, you're missing out on all these other things you could be doing in the world that are so amazing, which is why we're going to be talking about how to avoid the top three things that take entrepreneurs, that's you, Fire Nation, out of the game. Sean and I go way back. I mean, we go back like seven or eight years now, Fire Nation. I hired Sean to come to my house for three days back when we lived in San Diego to get my game going.

3:44And actually, this is random, Sean. I actually just had a friend post a picture from right around that time. It was like six or seven of my friends in San Diego. We were all hanging out and the picture was taken. I looked at that. I'm like, I was 35 years old then. I'm like, why is my face so puffy? Why do I look kind of tired right now? I was not looking great. I thought I was doing all right then, but I wasn't. But that was right around the time that I hired Sean. I hired a virtual trainer, Jeff, who I still use three days a week to this day, Fire Nation. And I'm telling you, I look better at 43 than I did at 35.

4:22I feel better. And I am so fired up about that. In fact, right before the interview started, Sean wanted me to go on video because he wanted to show me that he's wearing the Entrepreneurs on Fire swag, the t-shirt, which I was so happy of. So I'm going to post that on Instagram later. And I got to show him my six pack because you know what? It's a big part thanks to him getting me off on the right foot. I still use so many of his sleep and eating and exercise tactics to this day. It's unbelievable. And Fire Nation, Sean, they want to stay in the game. So let's right now talk about the top three things that take entrepreneurs out of the game.

5:02Absolutely. And thank you for sharing that, John. Our worlds are so deeply intertwined. I got your swag on, on my body, just finished my workout and also just seeing the results. For people that don't know you personally, you really are the real deal, man. You walk your talk and always trying to find a way to empower folks. For all of us, we need to be aware of, yes, we can have the greatest plan in the world. We can have the greatest idea, but if we meet certain barriers that take people out of the game, most entrepreneurs are taken out of the game by the following things I'm going to share with you.

5:35if we can mitigate these things, if we can even avoid them, we're going to be able to have a huge competitive advantage. And so I'm going to lay these three things out for everybody. So number one, and you know how I do it, John, this is all backed by science. All right. I'm not just pulling these things out of the air. So according to the National Institute of Health, in particular, under that umbrella, we have the National Institute of Mental Health. Depression is now the leading cause of missed work in the United States. It's the number one cause of missed work. Now, again, we know that there's this epidemic going on with mental health, but to know that it's the number one thing should be shocking for everybody.

6:19Now, why does this matter? Well, and this is according to a study that was published in JAMA, this is the Journal of the American Medical Association, upwards of about 80 % of physician visits today are for stress-related illnesses. And so again, stress, our mental health is creating physical diseases in our bodies as well. And so it's taking us out of the game. What are some simple things we can do to mitigate this? I'll just share one or two right here. So number one, this is a brand new meta-analysis. This means that it is multiple studies put together. This isn't just one random study. And when I say meta-analysis, This is 1 ,039 randomized controlled trials.

7:01All right, so this is top tier science. And over 1 ,000 studies have affirmed what I'm about to share with you guys. This also included about 130 ,000 participants. And it revealed that physical activity, exercise is 1.5 times more effective at reducing mild to even moderate forms of depression, psychological stress, and anxiety than medication or psychotherapy. Yes, those treatments can be valuable, but exercise is proven to be better. And the issue, of course, is that we're often not getting prescribed movement. We're not getting prescribed forms of activity, you know, walking, doing some strength training, or the best form of exercise is the form of exercise that you'll actually do.

7:51At the time when I first met John, he was paddleboarding his ass off. Stand up, paddleboarding, baby. The first time I ever did it, you know, I didn't have my sea legs, you know, so it was, John was just like literally crossed the whole body of water and I'm just lagging behind. But the thing is, he found something that he enjoyed doing. That's what made it practical. That's what made it something that was a part of his daily routine and a part of him. And so whatever that is for you, that's the best form of exercise. Whatever it is that gets you moving. So that could be roller skating. That could be playing basketball.

8:27I just watched a great movie last night, Hustle, starring Adam Sandler. and watching it through my youngest son who plays basketball. He loved that movie. And Adam Sandler was going from city to city. Sometimes he was looking for a place where people can play basketball. But whatever that is for you, give yourself permission to do it. Pick a ball is having a moment right now. So finding something that you actually love to do and implementing it. And let me jump in here real quick because I can tell you, there's a lot of reasons to get a dog, Fire Nation. They're just amazing, amazing animals. They will fill a hole in your heart that you didn't even know that you have.

9:02But also, let me tell you, I was struggling to get out and do 10 ,000 steps a day. You know, it might be raining one day. It might be a little, you know, busy the next. But I'll tell you, when you have a dog and that dog looks at you, you're like, I gotta go take this dog for a walk. And I have been so consistent on my 10 ,000 steps. I do 5 ,000 every morning and 5 ,000 every evening with my buddy Gus, and he will not let me not do it. That is accountability, baby. So keep going, Sean. Absolutely. I love that so much. I just bumped into my neighbor. I was out walking in my neighborhood and she would see me working out or see me walking, you know, pretty much every day she'd see me.

9:39But she was walking a dog. She just got a dog. And she was giving me the story like her, her kid said that he was going to be the one to walk the dog. But it ended up being her job. And she was like, well, at least I get to get my steps in. I see you out here and it's inspiring. So, yes, so whatever it is for you, but being able to implement this on a consistent basis, because oftentimes when we've got 20 things on our agenda, we put our movement last and our genes expect us to move. It gives us a true competitive advantage, again, not to replace conventional methods of therapy, but we know based on the vast majority of peer-reviewed evidence that exercise is more effective than conventional treatments.

10:22And it's just it is what it is. Those are the facts. But are we doing it? One other little advent that we can put in here is a really big part of my mission moving forward right now. And I've been in this field for 21 years as a research scientist, nutritionist. I've been teaching, you know, lectures at everywhere from NYU to Nova Scotia, you know, and being able to, you know, Google and ESPN. The list goes on and on. But the thing that I've really focused on is not trying to get people. Because what I'm doing right now, even recommending exercise, that's a behavioral change, John. And when you recommend for people to do a behavioral change, no matter how good that behavior change is and how well-intentioned it is, if I give that behavior change as a recommendation and then send you into a culture that is fighting against you doing that behavior change, that's where the struggle happens.

11:13So my mission has been to help people to create a microculture, a healthy microculture around them that makes these choices easy. And that, for the most people, is going to revolve around their family culture. And so another one of these advents that can help to prevent the number one thing that's taking people out of work, that's taking us out of the game and helping to support our mental health, is actually spending time and eating with people that we care about, eating with people that we love. And so this new science, this is in my new book, the Eat Smarter Family Cookbook. There's like 250 scientific references in this cookbook and 100 amazing recipes.

11:52But here's one of the studies. So these researchers found that when families ate together just three times a week, they saw a significant reduction in obesity. They saw a significant reduction in disordered eating and for parents, and this was done with office workers working in tech at IBM, they found that whenever they were able, no matter how stressful their work life was, what's going on at work, as long as they were able to eat dinner with their family consistently, their work morale and productivity and stress were all negligible. All of that's work productivity stayed high, morale stayed high, and stress stayed manageable.

12:30But as soon as work obligations cut into family dinner time, their work morale plummeted, productivity went down, and of course, stress started to go up exponentially. And so there's something really remarkable about getting together with people that you love and having real face time, real face time in the real world. And one of the things it's doing is it's activating certain hormone pathways like oxytocin, aka the cuddle hormone. We don't necessarily need to cuddle to activate it. It's just being in close proximity to people that you love. And you're going to start to produce more oxytocin and it helps to counteract and even neutralize the activity of our primary stress hormone being cortisol that a lot of people are talking about.

13:13And wait a second, because you just came up with another reason to get a dog. Because I can tell you what, Fire Nation, every single day I am cuddling with little Gussie Poole. He is a cuddle bug. And that is activating my cuddle hormone, that little oxytocin. It is happening, I know it is for sure. and Fire Nation. Sean has so much more to give when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Artificial intelligence has been a hot topic this year. Even if you're not using it, you've likely heard about the many benefits it can provide, like helping you save time, brainstorm ideas, and tackle your to-do list.

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16:48So keep on rocking. Absolutely. So pets count too. family members count two friends count two everybody is invited to the party when it comes to really creating this positive shift in our mental well-being based around being around people that you love pets that you love and again that was the number one thing that's taking us out of work today and it's according to the NIH is depression let's move on to number two and again we want to circumvent these things if we can do our best to so that they're not taking us out of the game and we can maintain a competitive advantage and dominate when other people are falling behind.

17:28The number two thing, taking us out of work and building our businesses, number two, according to the data, is infectious diseases. Now, for some people, this might kind of logically be number one and they'll be surprised that depression is number one, but this is still up there high on the list. And a recent analysis, and this was titled Trends in Infectious Disease Mortality in the United States During the 20th Century. This was published in JAMA. And essentially, the researchers were stating that, listen, we thought we figured this thing out when it comes to infectious diseases decades ago.

18:04And we might have the perception that infectious diseases have been going down, in particular deaths from infectious diseases. But their data indicated that infectious diseases actually increased by 58 percent from the 1980s through the 1990s. It went up 58 percent. And obviously, recently, we've had an explosion of infectious diseases. And so, again, we thought we had this figured out. But what can we do about this? Well, let's point back to something very practical and proven by science, because yes, being around certain contagious aspects, getting sick is not the issue. From time to time, we get sick.

18:46But if we're chronically susceptible, that's where the real problem is. So I'm going to share this study with everybody really quickly. This was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. It's one of our top tiered medical journals, the BMJ. They found that, number one, regular exercise has a notable protective effect against one of the most viral conditions that we've seen in recent history, COVID-19. They found that, number two, even more significantly, regular exercise appears to slash the risk of severe infections. And number three, regular exercise dramatically reduced the risk of death from this condition.

19:25and they had a particular cohort and they were looking at what type of exercise, by the way, and they found that people who regularly strength train and utilize aerobic activity had a 27 % lower risk of contracting the infection and a 57 % lower risk of severe infections. This is, again, what's really taken us out for longer periods of time. So again, we're pointing back to the benefits of exercise, something very practical and my homework for everybody to add into your agenda. And you can stack this, by the way. You don't have to stop everything you're doing. You could listen to a podcast while you're doing this.

20:00You can take your business calls. You can take this time to actually have walking meetings or whatever the case might be. But get a 20-minute walk in each day. You can even split it up. And the data indicates that 20 minutes appears to be the sweet spot. This is from researchers at Appalachian State University. All right, so we've already hit two of these, John. We hit mental health, depression. We hit infectious diseases. Let me know when you want to go on to number three. Let's crush number three right now. All right, number three. The number three thing that's taking us out of work and building our businesses, number three, is injuries.

20:40Accidents and injuries happen in both younger and older demographics. But consistent exercise, again, is proven to reduce the risk of injuries and accelerate recovery when injuries do occur. So does this provide a science-backed defense? Another meta-analysis of 25 randomized controlled trials, and this was published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that specific forms of exercise that everybody is listening, you're probably not doing this. All right. I know that I was missing out on big pieces of this, but they found specific forms of exercise can reduce. I'm going to tell you what it is in just a second can reduce approximately two thirds of all injuries and overuse injuries can be cut in half.

21:28That form of exercise is proprioception training. All right. If you're just like, what is proprioception training? This is a form of training where we're activating different parts of our brain and dynamic movement in space. So, for example, this would be things like box jumping. This would be things like it's an exercise called bounding where we're hopping on one foot laterally to the side to the other foot and just hopping back and forth. Jump rope is another form of proprioception training, potentially, because we've got this object that we're trying to jump over and you're not looking down at the rope per se.

22:06So things that are incorporating dynamic movement in space are found to be the most effective exercises at preventing us from getting taken out of the game by injuries and improving our ability. if we do happen to get injured, we can recover about 25 % faster if we're doing proprioception training. And the other thing that really helps to build resilience and fast recovery is strength training. And so making sure that you're getting in some form of strength training twice a week, we'll do twice a week, full body or split it up however you want. But that's really the secret sauce and giving you that competitive advantage so that you're not taken out by the common things that are taking people out of the game.

22:45Now, I know that rebounding is good for different things like lymphatic movement and some other jazz. Would it help in this case as well? Absolutely. That's a form of proprioception training in and of itself. That's what I need to do. This is the preferred form of exercise by literal rocket scientists. So people at NASA love rebounding or they're astronauts because of the lack of gravity that takes place and all of their drop in bone density. As you mentioned, the lymphatic system not being able to move efficiently. So their time on earth is spent absorbing some of this extra G-force by utilizing a mini trampoline.

23:25So yes, rebounding definitely fits in here. Sean, take us home. Eat Smarter is on my kitchen counter right now. Kate utilizes that multiple times per week as we're having a lot of fun trying some recipes out and eating smarter. Why does Fire Nation need to have this in their home as well? This is such a special project for me, you know, because family for me is everything, you know, working in my clinical practice for many years. Whenever I would ask people, what is their motivation for doing what they're doing, for working as hard as they're working, for wanting to make positive changes with their health?

24:02And nine times out of 10, they would say their family. Their family is the most important thing in their life. But when I would ask them, does your schedule, is the way that you're living your life matching up and showing that your family is the most important, oftentimes there'd be a mismatch. And so my mission is to reconnect, to help families to reconnect. We've been more and more divisive as families, as communities, as society in recent years. And we should, on paper, be more connected than ever. And so we're looking at the science behind this and also catalyzing simple, beautiful ways that we can connect because oftentimes it's our devices that are dividing us.

24:42And so having real face time and not to villainize our devices, they could be great things for connection, but indeed they're supplemental. We need a real world connection with people that we love. And so the Eat Smarter Family Cookbook is something really remarkable. and I'm honored to say this, John, I kind of get a little bit choked up even trying to talk about this because, you know, when I was in college, I lived in Ferguson, Missouri, most of my adult life, which is a glorified food desert. And I struggle to say food desert because desert still implies it's kind of exotic, you know, like maybe it reminds me every time I think about a desert, I think about a Boyz II Men video or something, music video.

25:22This kind of desert is not a fun place to be around and sing a love song. All right. But in this environment, there's still so much beauty and it elicits so much creativity and coming from this environment and to have a book that is on store shelves around the country at bookstores, you know, Barnes and Noble and, you know, being the number one new release in the country. Like it just blows my mind that this is possible, but this is the power of tapping into information like you share, John, you know, and You are such a legend, and I'm so grateful for you because you've been providing these insights and the ability for people to learn from people who found a way and they're sharing how they've gotten there.