Positive habits for high-performers with Kat Thorne

0:00Kat, welcome to Strategy and Tragedy. You are the queen of positive habits, so I want to hit the ground running. If you have to choose just one single habit, what one positive habit would you recommend every entrepreneur listening to this does straight after listening to this episode? move your body and I was about to say exercise but I think exercise has a lot of negative connotations and it certainly did for me growing up and in my adult life so I would reframe exercise move your body love that yeah I feel like exercise intrinsically has a bit of this like obligation and what does that mean I have to like sign up to a workout class or go to a gym but move your body I love how you make it even just like sound so much more accessible doable because you could just literally pause this right now and get up and just go and get some fresh air do a little dance like whatever it is and I think move your body I it has it has been life-changing transformative and I know lots and lots of people who've um heard me speak or worked with me who've done this as well perfect all right well let's stick with this a sec and by the way gang you don't need to pause this keep listening we can have you can have us in your in your earbuds but move about move your body you can still listen to us while that is the benefit of listening to podcasts on the go so um I feel like we all know like movement is good for us what are some ways that we can really manageably integrate it more into our daily lifestyle that doesn't need to be this like workout regime okay so this comes up of course all the time and if I look back to what got me in a very difficult situation in my life when I think about exercise I think it's difficult it takes a long time and if I was say to you Steph how long do you need to exercise for you and if I was to ask five other people we would all give different answers and that's because there isn't a book that tells us how long we need to move our bodies for or how long we need to exercise for so I say to people what about if you just did it for 10 minutes and this 10 minute thing is a game changer the thing is though is what's interesting about 10 minutes is automatically people think it's not enough yeah and actually I'm just I'm writing my book at the moment and I've just written this whole chapter on 10 minutes and how people have actually made fun of me for doing it for 10 minutes but when when you compare the alternative is no minutes how good is 10 minutes now all of a sudden yeah fantastic and I laugh when you say that then suddenly 10 minutes doesn't sound like that long because there is that um there is that positive psychology around achieving something you did it you proved yourself that you can do it so then it becomes so much more encouraging to do more right yeah you think okay well i'm already out and about moving my body and this feels good and i'm in the rhythm and maybe i'll stay out another 10 minutes exactly and also it has this ripple effect if you do something good for yourself and it doesn't have to be exercise it could be anything do something good for yourself for just 10 minutes then you want to eat better then you sleep better then you're just a nicer person to be around and it just it has this huge ripple effect and that really is kind of my mission now is to make 10 minutes acceptable but not just acceptable but actually make it as people realize how powerful it really is and I'm fascinated by the deeper psychology here as well I'm not sure how much of this you can speak to but around keeping the promises that we make to ourselves and that really what you spring to mind for me there is the deep self-respect the self-respect to take care of our bodies to get a good night's sleep to fuel our bodies in the right way is there any more on that side you can speak to at all I think in terms of my own life experience you know waking up every single day and taking my body and my brain for granted I think that was a massive lesson I learned the very very hard way and it's one of the reasons I started the morning game changer and the work I'm doing because when you wake up one day and you don't have any feeling in your body it's a very terrifying moment and I think if you think about the majority of people and and anyone listens to this I would really encourage you to think about what were your first thoughts when you woke up this morning because quite sure they're not you know about your body you don't you don't make that connection do you between your legs and as you get out of bed you don't think oh you know I can feel my legs you're thinking about work you're thinking about you know the parking ticket you haven't paid for you're thinking about getting your kids ready for school we take it for granted and I think what I'm trying to do is try to help people before they reach the point where it's taken away from them or they have such an explosive moment in their life that sometimes they can't undo some of those things so what's your origin story with this what was the catalyst why did you wake up one morning and not being able to move what's your story there so in 2016 I had the biggest wake up call and it was the result of years of unhealthy and toxic habits and I used to wake up every single morning and by the way at this point in my life I was a global commercial director I was working for this incredible tech company I was working across a bunch of different teams across Europe I was traveling all the time I was planning my wedding like I had an amazing life but I thought I was untouchable and I think a lot of high achievers high performers we think that we are untouchable and I think a lot back then I think a lot of these ideas like exercise and meditation all these things um they were around but it was almost like they were for other people I didn't I didn't need them I was like superhuman yeah but and what's quite interesting I think about my story is that the things that I used to do um didn't affect my ability to perform really well like I was one of the highest performing people in my company like I just bought my first house like on paper I was really successful but what I talk about now is how success is only sustainable with good habits like you could you could achieve incredible levels of success in your life but at some point it's going to catch up with you and it's just a case of when not if and in 2016 my body said no more and I nearly had a heart attack and I think but even that wasn't enough for me to change yeah but that was the start it was like have a big explosion lose pretty much everything in your life start all over again and then you'll start that that was when the journey started but that's not when I started making the changes so what was it that took you to make these changes it was a happy accident and it was getting woken up at 5 a.m so at this point I'd already moved to Portsmouth I'd like lost my long-term relationship I was married for just a few weeks I'd literally started all over again and because I was so embarrassed I guess about what had happened to me or what I'd done to myself I quit my job and I got headhunted and I'd become a CEO and it was like a dream job on the vision board but I was in a really difficult position where I was given a year to turn it around and I was trying everything I could think of and all of a sudden I start getting woken up by a partner I was with at the time at 5am and those first three days I was pretty annoyed because at that point in my life I used to wake up at like 6.45, 7, 7.15, 7.30 like literally I was the person that would wake up 30 minutes before I had to be somewhere and I had like a 30 minute get ready get out the door because I really prioritized sleep but actually secretly I never slept well because of my habits so it wasn't an intentional thing it was because I always woke up tired and I would do three things every single morning I'd snooze my alarm four to six times I'd check my phone with like one eye shut which I now think is your brain's way of telling you you're not ready for that information and then I would like go looking for some kind of caffeine um actually coffee wasn't my my caffeine of choice back then it was any kind of energy drink I was Red Bull's biggest customer yeah and um yeah and and and so those those were the habit just some of the habits the toxic and unhealthy habits that were quietly draining me and and my body in the background but waking up at 5am was something I just did if I was going on a plane somewhere it wasn't It definitely wasn't like I'm part of the 5 a.m.

8:31club. And on the third morning of being woken up at 5 a.m., I remember thinking to myself, and I can honestly say, I think this was the first time I'd ever recognized, like consciously noticed a thought. And the thought was this light bulb moment. It was like, Kat, you've got all this extra time now. If you wake up every day at 5 a.m., what could you do with all this time? And the answer was work. That was it. That was the golden answer to my problem of trying to turn this organization around. I wasn't working enough hours. And this was the default from growing up, a belief I had growing up, which was the harder you work, the more hours you do, the more successful you'll be.

9:10And that's literally how the rule book for my life. And so that morning I caught that thought and said, no, if I do that, I'm going to be in the same mess I was in a few years ago. So instead, I turned to my bedside table and almost everyone laughs when I say this because everyone I think so many people can relate to this. I had a pile of books. I had every intention of reading, but just used to dust. And and that morning I grabbed the top of the pile and it was a book called The Miracle Morning, which is a is a brilliant read. But that morning, it wasn't really about the book, although the book kind of gave me a lot of new thoughts.

9:49But that morning, something changed in me. And it was like going into my day, really resisting, by the way, not looking at my phone and not having those that usual morning routine. But it was like reading that book kind of calmed my nervous system. I want my heart wasn't racing, but I was getting excited about the content I was reading. And as they say, the rest is history. That was the first habit I created. And then I've been building positive habits ever since. And for me now, this is a lifelong journey. It's not something that just ends. It's yeah, it's a lifelong commitment to being the best version of myself.

10:27Incredible. Well, I love that mission. And I definitely want to double click into the harder I work, the luckier I get. We need to talk about that. But before we do, I think what you've described here, like everyone can relate to the whole like the hustling, these habits and the listeners of my show are entrepreneurs. And I think that every single entrepreneur feels that pressure on them to build the business, to find, you know, some money so they can pay all the bills at the end of the month. It's an immense pressure that it can feel incredibly counterintuitive to do some of those things, to actually slow down.

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13:08So I think there's two things. I think first of all it requires a mindset shift and the shift that I've experienced is that it's not the harder I work the more successful I'll be, the more hours I do equals the more output it's actually the more I invest in myself the more I look after myself the better I perform so you know for example you see a lot of whether it's entrepreneurs or people working within an organization and they don't take breaks like that is counterintuitive to your productivity and your performance and also going on your phone like first thing in the morning like for example I was booked to speak at this incredible event in Dubai and they've just postponed it and I'm like I'm gutted because I was really like up for that and it was going to be really exciting so there's two things now one I'm already ready before I read that email like I've done my morning routine I've done my positive habits I'm like resilient I'm feeling like really energized really strong and I can take that email whereas if it if I had just looked at that first thing in the morning it would have had a different effect on me and then it would have um kind of negatively impacted the rest of my day whereas I can look at that objectively now and go do you know what a it's not not happening it's just going to happen at a different time and b it allows me an opportunity to do something else with those few days whereas I think when we're when we're in this cycle of like not sleeping that well feeling run down stressed about everything um chaotic with our sleep we don't make as good decisions and we don't think as clearly and we lose that perspective as well right like your head down you're too close to it you get you take these things personally as well what can you speak to with the guilt that might come up for someone so as much as you're like yep I know it like I've heard you say it I've heard others say it I've read the books but it's just it's not actually happening like mentally I get it logically I'm kind of like processing that information but like it's still not translating to the actions that I'm taking the habits I'm integrating to a daily basis and I wonder how much the guilt comes up I wonder how it can feel comforting to like oh I did work so it can I feel like as humans we crave that certainty and if we know that we can rely on ourselves what I can rely to put in the more hours or and it's kind of it's a it's a misplaced craving of certainty I think so I think there's that guilt that might come up for some people of like I can't I can't take that luxury of reading a book in the morning I've got stuff to do what can you speak to that yeah but that's that's the mindset shift and this is this is the honestly this is the biggest learning I've learned is that if you think like that then you'll always be in this state of stress like I'm sitting here now I've taken a whole day out of my diary to come to London to have this amazing conversation.

16:05Appreciate it. Yeah. No, but I'm really thrilled. And I've had to overcome some thoughts of, well, I could be doing X, Y and Z. But actually, is this something I want to do? Yes. Is this something I'll enjoy? Yes. Is this something that could benefit my, you know, the impact I'm trying to create in the world? Yes. So I think you it's about recognizing. you can't push guilt away it's about recognizing it's gonna come up but also like I go to bed every night and and often I get those thoughts like oh I haven't done that yet I could have done that I could have done that I think I did as I did my best today and tomorrow we go again but actually I think one one thing we shouldn't forget is that we are also living our lives like a lot of people wish things away don't they they're waiting for the next thing and an entrepreneur might might be waiting for an investor or they might be waiting for their next big gig or whatever but actually meanwhile life is happening all around us and we shouldn't forget like this is a journey this is an experience like I think it's a real privilege to be an entrepreneur to to start your own thing no matter how it goes I feel so like grateful to have created this opportunity for myself but I just want to enjoy it and if I wake up one morning and I feel like going for a long walk and not going straight into my emails or like jumping on a call then that's what we need to be able to do and not feel guilty about it I'm just laughing at that wonderful comment there Kat because I literally had the same conversation with a friend just the other day and was like time's still passing which means life is still living and it really is especially in business and especially when you have your own business as an entrepreneur it's it is where I just need to do this I just need to like take that thing off my list get to that point and you're like this is still your life in the meantime life is happening in the meantime not once you've got these other things out of the way yeah and I think that's the biggest mistake we can make in life and in business is to say I'll enjoy my life when you know and and it's also that if you read a lot about like happiness and you know I'll be happy when and then you realize like I thought that about a new car that when I had a new car I'd be like really happy or when I when I'd left my job and started my own business or when I was in the new relationship all these things then you realize like happiness is an inside job what makes you happy these days oh what makes me happy everything that I'm doing like this mission is making me really happy but I think ultimately what's making me happy is the way I live my life that um that ability to have control over my thoughts and my behaviors my habits and I'm really proud of and going back something you said earlier about how we you know we we almost tell us of conscious things we commit to things like before and then we let ourselves down and we would we do that very easily with ourselves but not with other people I'm really proud that most of the time and I live by an 80 20 rule but most of the time I am doing the things that I say I'm going to do and I do a lot of things that don't feel good in the moment but I know are good for me in the long run in the long run even if that's something I'm going to benefit from later that day or later that week I've I'm really proud of being able to do that consistently and that for me is really important because I don't want to be promoting something that I'm not experiencing and living and breathing myself yeah 100 % and that definitely comes through Kat I yeah I love all of that and what comes to mind for me is in the earliest stages of entrepreneurship especially if there are some like first-time founders as much as what we're saying makes complete sense and by the way I think 80 I think even if you're doing 80 is phenomenal I don't know if that's just comparative to me my own benchmark but if you're keeping the promises that you make to yourself 80 at the time I think I think that's fantastic um but I'm just aware of there are you know different ages different stages and whether it's different seasons of our life different stages of business I feel like post product market fit if we use the you know the startup lingo with that once you've got that you've got the traction you can set up systems all these things become scalable but in those first few weeks few months that first year where yes it's still your life and these things are happening but there is still that pressure to perform I'd love you to share like any more kind of evidence as to how maybe delaying checking your emails an hour later is not going to be the end of the world?

20:47I think it's just that simple thing of, will anyone die from this? And it also is, I think the biggest kind of idea I can share is just, okay, I'm going to tell you a story to explain this. So I worked a little while ago with a group of superintendents and one of the things I get them to do in in all my talks is is imagine a day in the life of yourself right so from the moment you wake up to moment go to sleep what are some of the things you're doing that you know are negatively impacting you and this superintendent was incredibly brave and incredibly open to stand up and share and she said that one of the things she was doing within a nanosecond of opening her eyes so one eye shut kind of idea was reading the daily briefing the daily briefing are it is a report of the most horrific crimes have happened in the last 24 hours these superintendents work in child abuse so we can imagine what's on that report now what was interesting about is when we started to unpick it and said right what's the impact on on her on that day what's the impact if she does that five days in a week every month every year and so on and you know we don't even need to kind of spend any time thinking about that because we already know what the impact would be we already know it wouldn't be positive so um i think it's the same with entrepreneurs so if you woke up and you were waiting for an email from an investor or about a product or whatever it is and it's immediately negative or you read some like social stuff or some news or whatever i don't believe our brains are ready for that information and I think that um that superintendent she went away and she created some space and I call it the yellow box so just giving yourself just 10 minutes just giving yourself a little bit of space to get yourself in the right headspace because I think this is the challenge we're all living in autopilot you know most people are sleeping with their phones I was looking at some crazy stats the other day of the amount of people not just sleeping with their phones as in phone next to their um bed but actually on their pillow wow like so afraid that they're gonna miss something that's gross but very very like real and and i think if we recognize that if we were to just delay it even if it was just for 10 minutes and in that 10 minutes we just got some fresh air we did a dance around our kitchen you know we just sat in silence for a minute god forbid or anything that got us in a mental and physical state we would be able to handle that information in a totally different way yeah so i do understand having you know started um a business from the seed of an idea and now three years later i do understand the pressures and especially when when it's yourself and you're kind of in your own thoughts a lot of time but it is a it will completely transform your performance both personally and professionally if you create space for yourself even if it's just 10 minutes I think there's such this is kind of what you said with your story as well I think there is such a lack of respect that we do give our physical bodies I think that where we're living in the information age right now we are majority at least like in our circles we're knowledge workers all of that worth that value is put on our brains how fast can we go we can't keep up with technology and we overlook our body needing still having its basic needs yes i totally agree to me this is like it's funny actually because someone made fun of me a little while ago and but and i'm totally cool with all this stuff now because i've been doing it i'm so confident in the results i know that i can help people achieve but it is funny when people say cat you get paid to tell people things they already know i'm like i know i know we know all this stuff but we don't do it and and part of the reason we don't do it is because life is running too fast yeah exactly and i think you're right we are over um we're over consuming and we're under producing and if you think about the typical person if they're looking at their phone as soon as they wake up and then they're consuming information all day in different ways talking into people doing stuff on their phones whatever their whatever their job is what if they're an entrepreneur and then we're doing that at night just before we go to sleep then we finally put it down or people fall asleep to it when is there any space to rest or to have creative ideas and that's why um this is so critical and I think what's interesting now is if you look at some of the data around like the global mental state of the world report people are more even though there are more initiatives that people are more stressed and more overwhelmed and more exhausted than they've ever been and I I know it's because of our habits yeah absolutely I don't think we recognize how much information there is being input and you know you're saying about even having that space to think and be creative let alone that I mean even just processing just digesting just digesting this much um I heard as well like similarly as well like by the time we do go to bed that's the only time when we have finally put down our phone even if we do take our phone to bed with us that's for a lot of people the first time that they are left alone in peace and quiet alone with those thoughts and if you don't your early point on the breaks if you don't create those breaks and those spaces for it throughout the day throughout the week then it all kind of comes crashing down yeah like and that feeds into you having a bad night's sleep and yeah it's that vicious circle what can you speak to in terms of managing others because i feel like i would definitely talk about other habits and things but i feel like definitely for me where I'm like okay I'll do those things but whether I have got an investor breathing down my neck or a bit of an aggy client or whatever the situation is no man is an island as the saying goes right so you laughed at that question I'm curious to hear what's your answer on that look you can only control what you can control you can't control what other people are going to say and do and again I think the more positive habits you have the better you can manage those things and I think I look back to my career where I was so-called successful and I think I could have been like 10 times better than I was if I had had control over myself interesting and and I think that about my relationships as well as well as my physical and mental health so I think it's it's about um and I also think there's something interesting about role modeling so if whether it's an investor or a colleague or um you know a contractor you're working with it's it's uncomfortable sometimes to share that we're doing something for ourselves because it could be seen that you're not working hard enough yeah because you know you're taking some time out to do leisure activities when it's actually well if you don't have a healthy body and brain how can you possibly scale your startup how can you possibly run a huge company or or fulfill any dreams or goals that you have how can you even do it so for me it's just such a like a paradigm of conflicting messages because your investor um wants you to achieve these really amazing ambitious goals but yet you as an individual you need to be you know in a good place to do that and i recently spoke at an event in Saudi um which was incredible and I was speaking at um a conference about the impact on a of AI on well-being and resilience and I could sum my whole talk up in just a few seconds which is basically we can't take advantage of any of this amazing stuff if we are not okay it's that simple yeah yeah you cannot scale a startup if you don't if you are not putting good if you're not feeding your brain good brain food and if you are not fueling your body yeah resilience is such a non-negotiable isn't it and in order to keep going for as long as you need to whatever your endeavor is you need to make sure that you've got that those sustainable practices in place to maintain that kind of resilience um you're making me laugh about with the role modeling I had I think probably one of the best if not the best role model for that happens to be a walking advert for his business anyway I also had Hector Hughes on the show I know Hector so I've worked with his team he's a great gang you need to check out that episode I'm going to link it in the show notes but even just obviously for me I'm physically sat here in person across the table from him but I hope his kind of vibe came across to the listeners as well but he just exudes that zen that calm and he really talks about how important it is for him to show up as a leader in that way as well for his team so um so there are some real role models out there that we can actually kind of point to and look to in this day and age thankfully now um I mentioned before about double clicking back into working uh working smarter not harder you mentioned it again so let's talk about that can you expand on why working harder isn't the best strategy I know we're talking about why it makes sense to be your best self but I'm just curious to get your angle I guess from how especially in entrepreneurship you just don't always get out what you put in and how much kind of luck and all these other kind of things come into the equation I think so let's let's talk about thoughts for a second so when I was thinking about starting my own mission so I was on a great salary I was in a very comfortable job and I remember telling my dad I've got an idea and I by the way I never had any dreams to become an entrepreneur or start a business even though I actually come from quite an entrepreneurial family I was very happy working for someone else making someone else you know happy and and I loved uh being employed but I had this idea and I couldn't let it go and I didn't know what it looked like at the time but I just I spoke to my dad and he said oh why would you want to leave a safe job and it was that one his thought and actually now I realize a self-limiting belief that nearly stopped me from moving forward and then when I did um sort of think about those thoughts I could I well it was all swirling around in my head like his thought his comment of you know oh maybe you should be stay safe stay in this job and then I was sort of battling with this other side of me, it was like, but there's something here.

31:26You've got this, there's something you need to explore here. And do you know what I did? And this is one of the best habits I can recommend is I got it down on paper. I mean, it's known as journaling, but again, journaling for me has got some weird connotations. So I just like to call it like, call it brain dumping, whatever you like. Just we have, yeah, we have thousands of thoughts every single day and a lot of them are sabotaging us. So I put these thoughts down on paper and I thought, right. And I've heard this other great thing recently, which was take your thoughts to court. Yeah. Like really challenge them.

31:58And I wrote it down in black and white. I wrote down exactly what he said. And I was like, is that true? No, it's not. Because A, they've given me a one-year contract, which might not get renewed. Like B, you know, if I jumped ship, tried my own thing and it didn't work out, could I get another job? Evidence, I've always had a job. Yes. So then it doesn't feel as scary. But then when I did start, when I resigned and I was working my notice period and I started putting my foot into the entrepreneurial world, I then got a whole raft of other thoughts. Like, where am I going to find opportunities?

32:33Who's going to pay me? Is anyone even going to learn anything from this? Is anyone even going to care? So, again, I just wrote those thoughts down and started to really unpick them. And I think that is a really, really powerful, high performing way to operate as an entrepreneur. And I think if you don't do that, you lose a lot of opportunities. You lose a lot of your power. And especially in this crazy fast paced world we find ourselves in now, like it's even more important. And I think the other thing that I've learned as well is just to trust. so you can do a lot you can put in a lot of effort and I think like if you follow Dr.

33:16Joe Dispenser he talks a lot about this you know manifesting you know whatever you desire isn't about just imagining it and it will just suddenly happen by accident it's also about putting in the work but also I think we have to trust that if we put in the effort that that our lives and our businesses will take us on the journey that we're supposed to go on yeah yeah that your dad comment is so generational as well isn't it it's such a like this is where you've got to be careful of like who that advice is coming from right like is it the Baz Luhrmann the the son always wear sunscreen so one of the lyrics is like no be careful who you take that advice it's just the best bits recycled polished stuff however Steph I also I remember when I when I started my career I was a teacher and I saw this job working for this tech company that I had the amazing career with and it was double the salary and I remember showing a teacher friend who was the same sort of age I thought we were kind of quite similar in terms of our ambition and she said you won't get it and I was like well how do you know I won't get it I haven't even applied for it yet should you won't get it look at the salary and look at you I was like right honestly it makes me laugh so much one of the biggest truisms is you miss 100 of the shots you don't take and i find myself saying it multiple times on a daily basis i'm like why again it's like telling people what they already know but i'm like you miss 100 of the shots you don't take i cannot stand people like that i'm kind of i see saw between having like an allergic repellent reaction from people like that but also finding it funny because it's just these are projections as well right like she's not telling you no no it's herself and but I'm a massive empath and I think now I think before I would have judged and and I definitely did I was very very judgmental about a lot of people's opinions and now I I look at people's kind of um responses to things and I think what has happened to you for you to be for you to say that and like where is your lack of confidence coming from and things like that so I think it is important to recognize that and and this is you know my dad and if you read the chimp paradox like I've realized that he wasn't trying he was trying to keep you safe yeah of course and he wasn't he wasn't it wasn't like he was doing it out of love which is also kind of the crazy thing to get your head down um and I'm really conscious now that whenever I'm speaking and in my content that I I don't tell people what to do and what I'm trying to do is is create an opportunity for people to just um stop for a minute think differently and then create a habit that works for them.

35:57Yeah. Okay. Love that. Well, that ruins my next question. Oh, no, sorry. I'll give up more habits.

36:06You can ask me about as many habits as you like. Well, obviously, okay. So we can't have a conversation about habits without mentioning, of course, James Clear, Atomic Habits, phenomenal book. Read that one while it's out until Kat's book is available. So we'll put the link to pre-order if it's available. but there are so many like one-liners and concepts that have just been quoted over and over from his book one of them is you um you don't rise to the level of your goals you fall to the level of your systems so what can you speak to in terms of like I think this is the huge power of habits is that they are systems ingrained within us individually as as humans and they can be positive negative right and we'll talk about the negative because we've also said about how another great quote is when the weight of habits can become too heavy you can't break the chains like we're saying about phone like doom scrolling is always the best example so I want to talk about breaking those habits as well as creating new ones but what other advice you said before there about not giving any other specific advice you've got to do what works for you whatever habits you can create but what can you speak to in terms of getting those like systems set up so that even if it's the little things I know you keep it very practical easily integratable into your lifestyle we kicked off the conversation with like moving our bodies are there any other little inspirational tidbits you could share one of the best ones is getting a home for your phone so one of the reasons I put my phone here was because um what's interesting about when your phone is next to you is it's as as James Clear talks about it's a cue and it's becoming especially with our phones it's becoming such an unconscious cue so we if you were to look at how many times you pick up your phone you'd be horrified and one of the challenges with our phones that goes everywhere and I'm kind of more and more the more I kind of the more control I get over my phone the more horrified I am at phone habits out in the world yeah same and um and I think a few years ago I stopped taking my phone into my bedroom and it was a total game changer and when I tell people that I feel like I met with these like reactions like yeah like what how do you do it yeah and And people, it's so fascinating.

38:37If I was going to have my life again, I'd love to study psychology and people's reactions because some people get really defensive and say, you know, and almost like challenge me like, well, that might work for you because you don't have kids or have like a poorly mother or whatever. But that would just never work for me. And I just love those conversations because I'm like, OK, let's talk about why it won't work for you. And I also know because I used to be totally defensive myself about everything. So I was resistant to change. And like a home for your phone, though, has this ability to change.

39:16I mean, literally everything in your life gets better. And it's so incredible. And then if you just you just find if you need still an alarm to wake up, you just find an alternative. One of my favorites actually is just my Fitbit gently vibrates on my wrist. It kind of depends who you share your bedroom with, you know, maybe a light alarm or whatever. But actually, the interesting thing is once your phone is no longer the queue anymore, aka you can't see it, it's out of sight, out of mind, you then kind of go into a different state. And whether you pick up a book or you do nothing, which is, again, almost unheard of these days, but whatever it is you choose to do instead of that, it's usually something very positive and very good for you.

40:01But honestly, a home for your phone. And I remember one guy in one of the talks, he said, he literally just sort of sat back and said, oh, my God, you've just made me realize something. He said, I walk through the door every night and I'm half writing an email. And my son, who must have been like two or three years old, because the way he described his son, like, would run up to me and cuddle my leg. And I'm not even, like, giving him my attention. I'm still half writing the email. and then he went on to say and you know what's even worse cat i'm scrolling instagram whilst he's in the bath and i and i've just realized like what am i doing like what are we doing and i think you know i don't know about you but lots of people i talk to can relate to this so you get home you let's say you've got you've got someone in your um home like a loved one or a family member you're watching tv and you've both got your phones next to you like why like if you just question it for a second why what and and what happens is when you pause the tv and one goes to the loo goes to get a drink what does the other one do instantly yeah i know yeah exactly and then they're looking at their phones and then i always say to people and what is it you're looking at and we all know it's just nonsense but what happens is the what i've learned and and definitely learned the hard way is the connection between you and that person i mean because you're already doing a fairly passive activity like watching a film or tv or whatever but then the connection is eroded yeah yeah and like you see that time and time again and i think what's more scary and again don't have a tv in the bedroom either is couples that go to bed with their phones and they're they're double screening essentially yeah like what are we doing yeah to our relationship I think you're so right to just bring up that question of why, like, no judgment, safe space.

41:57A lot of us do it. But when you have those pattern interrupts, I think that's the big thing. Even just stopping and asking why nobody does. It is. And this again, that's the dark side of the habits. And what people, you know, I don't know how consciously they realize this, but the the advanced, the seriously advanced level of mass media manipulation that we have with these devices and platforms at the moment are next level this is manipulation at like an insane level and so even as fully developed adults we don't stand a chance against these hacks and nudges and cues and everything that these tech giants have created there's a reason why mark zuckerberg's children go to a tech-free montessori school with no screens and with wooden bricks right and I think what you shared there is like sometimes there's either a catalyst with children I've definitely seen or a life event or something has to happen to shock somebody out the system and what I'm trying to do with this with this interview with you is also just try to like how can we try and get more people to that state without the need to suddenly wake up and realize they've spent more time looking at their phone instead of playing with their baby in the bath or getting to having a heart attack I remember I was waiting for a friend this is like ages ago as well now but I was waiting for a friend in a restaurant to meet for dinner and I was just sat there I was very happy like just to sit just sat there yeah chilling like maybe a bit of people watching looking out the window I mean I also live in the best city in the world in my opinion and I remember when she showed up and she was like it's so cool because I think she maybe saw me from the window like I mean she was like it's so good you're just sat there you're just not on your phone I thought she was I thought she was gonna say you're right yeah check your temperature obviously I was like the only person in the restaurant to do that and I think it's yeah so you know I'm great practice to really encourage people to do yeah I've tried it now for quite a few years and like I'm not gonna sit here and say I don't have these urges and flip into those old habits sometimes.

44:08Yeah. But I think what's different when you start practicing this is your level of consciousness. And it does feel uncomfortable to sit for even a few seconds, let alone a few minutes, without your phone. But I think, again, doing a lot of activities like sauna or going to the gym or running, where you literally are forced to have that space. So nice. It's swimming. I was swimming. I was like, so am I. I can't be on my phone. Yeah, yeah. But it's really good to try it when you could be on your phone. Of course, that's next. So, yeah. So, like, when you get home, putting it in a drawer or putting it on, like, I've got these stands now, these, like, yellow stands for people I give out at events.

44:50Nice. And just putting that there. And it's, like, and also notifications. Like, I've turned off all the notifications. I have never. And again, I apologise if this is going to come. I'm sounding like holier than thou because I'm definitely not perfect whatsoever. But I since I've owned a smartphone, I have never had my notifications on. Never. Because I own my phone, not the other way around. I don't literally. I think that's really unusual. Yeah, it is. And, you know, I was actually doing a I was recording an in-person podcast before with someone else. And they had their phone up and all these notifications were pinging.

45:26and we were talking about this exact topic and I said, your phone is actually distracting me from what I'm saying right now. It's so distracting. And it's that, but like you say, going back to tech drones, that's exactly what it's designed to do. Yeah. And I remember Gary Vee, love him or hate him, there's a brilliant video of him and there was a mother who came up to him at one of his events and she said, look, I've got this 15 year old daughter. She's always on her phone. I feel like she's got really heavy anxiety, lots of issues. I don't know what to do for the best. I feel like taking the phone off her.

45:56And he gave this piece of absolute gold. And he said, you cannot take her phone away from her. It's part of her world. It's all she knows. It's how she communicates with her peers. But what you can do is build her self-esteem so high that anything she sees online on her phone, she'll be able to handle. Yeah, fantastic. And I think that as adults, you know, we also need to start becoming more mindful of our phone habits, especially. because what we are doing is role modeling to children and to young people and to each other what's acceptable behavior yeah and if i'm talking to someone and they're looking at the phone i just stop talking same i literally can't stand i can't stand it and it and i think it's like pandora's box once you open it you can't close it and you notice it everywhere and you know my my biggest um challenge i think is when i see people like talking to someone whilst they're trying to like interact with like a shop assistant or something it's like we have lost the ability to kind of respect each other's attention currency is becoming very rare 100 100 i shouldn't have been surprised by this but i am noting how much the conversation has gone to social media tech phones and how many parallels there are actually with like the hector hughes and the unplugged mission as well I mean they have a minimum of a three night stay and that is baked in non-negotiable if you want to stay less you literally can't because it takes that amount of time to really feel the benefits and to switch off from it any more that you can speak to in terms of like breaking the chains of the negative habits aside from social media if anyone else has got any kind of habits cues they're not even really thinking about kind of subconsciously on the flip side of the positive habit building is only more you want to speak to on breaking the negative habits so if you go back to the essential um i guess framework for breaking a habit or building a good one it's first and foremost it is that cue that association so and i was watching this funny video this morning of this um pt who was saying if i let my brain choose all the foods i want to eat this is everything i would eat and he had this like this um handful of like lovely foods foods that we all like to eat but foods that aren't very good for us and um and i think for example food so if we go back to the mental state of the world report 2023 that there are top there are three top contributing factors to poor mental health globally number one is the smartphone which we've talked about the second one and the third one are very interesting the second one is food the increase of ultra processed food and the third one is connection and lack of family bonds if you look at food i think one of the things i've really um changed over the last few years is really being much more aware of what i'm putting in my body and it is becoming by the way more difficult than ever to know whether what you're eating is good for you or not because everything's labeled yeah like healthy high protein natural right but actually you have to be like a detective yeah work out so true whether this is actually good for my body or not.

49:05And everyone's telling you different things. So I totally appreciate that this is not easy. But I remember like working with a PT for the first time a few years ago. And he was like, right, Kat, I want to know about your steps and what you're putting in your body and like your calories and different types of foods you're eating. And I was like, no dramas. I've got a dog. I'm out walking all the time and I eat really well because I'm vegetarian. Don't worry, I've got all this. And then he basically got me to plug it all into a calorie counting app. including my steps right and i was horrified after seven days i realized i was lying to myself and i was partly lying but partly i was just completely oblivious so i used to take my dog to um like a drive to a field or a park or something stand by the coffee van have a coffee which is probably like you know 250 calories whatever have a good old chat let my dog run around but i didn't actually move so my steps were like ridiculous compared to what i thought yeah and then secondly all the things that i thought i was eating i was missing about half of them because they don't count like that lovely dip that you get like with pizza that was like 500 calories full of oil right like i just didn't count that because that wasn't like part of the pizza yeah yeah and and so i think what's so important is that we become aware of like for example foods you're eating and the second the really a really good habit is just preparing it and not you don't have to do some crazy big meal prep but just thinking right what am I going to eat tomorrow and if you prepare just a few minutes and that by the way there's so and it's almost overwhelming but there are so many good videos of like food prep I've seen like amazing like um creators like make food prep bags like for big families and things and I think if you just if you just prepped one meal then that's one better decision you're going to make about food tomorrow that you wouldn't make otherwise yeah my partner is a massive I mean foodie like he's just incredible in the kitchen and uh he was almost gonna go on master chef and everything he's like amazed just just to illustrate just how much of like a chef at home he is we have never in the 15 years we've been together have never bought like a jar of pasta sauce because he's like just throwing some tomatoes garlic olive oil and whip it up and it's done so like just to like illustrate and with him the obviously this is an extreme example but what comes to mind is some of the gorgeous delicious things that he makes it's like when you're actually there having to like source those ingredients and measure and put them all in I mean a while ago he was into like french baking and he made croissants and it was like the amount of butter in this course it's the stuff that you don't if you're constantly just getting stuff off the shelf and eating whatever like you don't actually realize kind of what goes into it so that is definitely an extreme example we're not all we're not all spencers in this world but but yeah I think your point on I think what's really kind of coming across throughout all of this is take a beat with all of it right whether it's not looking at your phone first thing in the morning not reaching for whatever convenient fast food is available just take a moment and you do I think the very first thing is like you do have a moment you do have one moment or 10 minutes or an hour like no one is going to die to your point and if you start setting up those smaller habits it's just going to have that like transformative effect yeah and I I look at packets now and I think what's in that and and what is in that that makes it stay on a shelf for a year yeah disgusting yeah and do I want to put that in my body and I also think when you just focus on one thing it doesn't and it really doesn't matter what it is I mean of course there are some habits that I've experienced that I think have a greater impact faster but um food and movement are definitely two of those yeah but if you focus on one of those you start to feel better like if you start fueling your body with better nutrition you almost instantly feel better and then after a few days you're like well this feels great so now I'm gonna actually start moving my body and then I'm actually gonna do and then i've got more energy so now i can do other things and so but i think part of it is it's raising your awareness so i whenever it comes to choosing something to eat i will think right what have i got to do today what else am i going to eat how is this going to make me feel yeah is this the best alternative i can choose and you know there are days i love pizza there are days where i'm just like i just want to eat a pizza and by the way i don't think any foods are bad for you i think has a really bad culture and a bad mindset i think if you make good choices most of the time you are winning it's the 80 20 again yeah it is it is but i think once you once you start to think do i need to pick up my phone right now what food is going to fuel me today you have won whether you make a good choice from there or not actually you've won because you're thinking differently and you're conscious any helpful advice on that pattern interrupt can you give anything so we all know that like discipline even for the most self-disciplined of us is not an infinite resource that we can rely on right so when that self-discipline wears out are there any other go-tos on that pattern interrupt before again I'm kind of like in that awkward stage before a bad habit is broken or while you're trying to build a good habit um any psychological kind of tips on the pattern interrupt that's needed that taking a beat that before because the thing is like the phone example is just the best one it's like it's always near us it's with it's within arm's reach how often are we how often are we further away from our phone that it's not in arm's reach literally i mean i'll give you two examples that i've seen um one is like literally I've seen people writing post-it notes on their phone yeah exactly their beds whatever amazing literally telling them or reminding them how that makes them feel um but actually for me what works the best was thinking what kind of person do I want to become and what do I actually want to achieve in my life and going back to what we talked about earlier on in the episode about this idea of so I really want to you know travel to a lot of different places still and how am I going to be able to travel to those places how am I going to speak on bigger stages how am I going to create the impact I want in the world if I haven't got legs that are going to take me there it's that simple so if I wake up in the morning and my brain my chimp tries to tell me oh you're tired you don't need to go to the gym today or you don't do this don't you do that I get I revert back to who what kind of person am i love that love and also i think if you think of yourself on your deathbed if you or if you met your future self would you be happy with them yeah with how you are now would you feel like you are like being truthful to yourself and if you are then great like happy for you but these are all exercises to help re regain that perspective yeah i love that you mentioned the identity this is like one of my favorite topics I'm like I'm having to like bite my tongue because that'll be a whole other like three hour episode but I'm obsessed with that as well that's such an important I'm really glad that we managed to um to touch at least on that point as well is like how we self-identify is the single biggest motivating driver for anything that we do good or bad so yeah I love that little tip there Kat who do you want to be who's the person that you're trying to become or that you can see that you can become and how does that person it's even like that great superintendent exercise you mentioned as well with like the day in the life I think a version of that that I've come across is um this is kind of Gary V thing as well actually it's like imagine you've got cameramen following you around for a day and it's almost like watching a documentary of a day in your life um so you've got kind of two things where you've got one which is like getting that perspective of what does a typical day actually look like but also if you had somebody following you around of every second of every minute of every day what would what would change about the things that you do um my penultimate question because I'm just like geeking out on the whole like habit psychology I just love all of this is again to reference the godfather Mr Clear he talks about all these other sort of ways to build a good habit or break a bad one one of them is the habit stacking as well so I'm curious if anything like that has helped you either like habit stacking specifically or anything similar that's helped to um to get those good habits in place I think the one for me was kind of getting rid of one that you don't want and replacing it with one that you do want so for example ditching the scroll first thing in the morning and getting out of the door as quick as you can was something that worked in the early days for me um I know people who have kind of uncovered treadmills that have been used for you know washing lines and things who have paired it with and I know James Keir talks about this as well like their favorite tv show so they're on the treadmill but they're getting to binge something they like watching so and and for me one of the things that's really worked is like I love now a morning coffee but I don't allow myself to have it until I've done my thing okay nice so there's also that kind of delaying of the reward and and I think for me and I really enjoy it because I'm like yeah girl you've done your good stuff yeah you've done your good stuff but ultimately I think all of this is down to the more space you create and I think having that blank piece of paper to really tell yourself the truth about your thoughts having that space then allows you to reach another level of consciousness and ultimately performance because you realize that all of these habits are either holding you back or they're about to unlock some serious potential inside of you and one of the things i think we dis our brain wants to dismiss things um like 10 minutes is not good enough when actually 10 minutes could increase your performance by 15 so entrepreneurs for example who are like i haven't got time to exercise what if i told you that just doing 10 minutes of something could increase your performance by 15 you might all of a sudden listen to that so sometimes we need data to really give ourselves that proof but actually for me data isn't important it's like how you feel and then how you perform and then everything when you see this ripple effect it's actually way more than 15 yeah it's actually unquantifiable yeah absolutely I mean I used to do just walking meetings with my team before I used to just you know if we have a weekly team catch-up call um I just do it on the phone on the move like if we're not screen sharing you don't have to show me and I think this is also one of my big gripes as well with like the world of work and the status quo there's so much that's just not even questioned with the way that we work the the off you know it took a pandemic it's absolutely insane it took a global pandemic to accelerate flexible working and what we can do and I love it I am a huge proponent of remote flexible working and honestly I've been gagging for it I've been like the the job I had before the pandemic before I set up my previous business um so when was this this would have been just to put like some date dates on this this was like 2015 2016 so like literally a decade ago and it was only that job where they were like super like pushing the envelope and being really innovative and breaking the boundaries and the rules where we could work from home once a week and I remember I would put in so much more like um I would go the extra mile to give my boss the confidence in how well I was working because I loved it so so much and um and there's bits with this as well with what you're saying you know so with the you know going right the way back to the beginning of the episode as well with like move your body why why is a zoom like we spoke on the phone yesterday right like why is a zoom the go-to default for people I think okay unless you've got maybe a bigger group or you've got something to share and like is there really a real reason otherwise can we walk and talk on the phone like that's a way to hit two birds with one stone move your body and you're thinking better and thinking fresher and oxygen oxygenating your lungs in the meantime totally and do you know what in the pandemic there was some really good habits like awkward talks was one of them yeah and and i often talk about this do you remember when boris johnson like locked us down that first march and he said you can go only go out once a day and everyone everyone went out like i remember seeing people on my street that i've never seen since and and i and unfortunately as much as i know there are lots of people like you who really value it and who who uh you know really really thrive on working from home unfortunately there are there's also this huge population of people who are actually um struggling with it because it's it's they're having to prove that they're working as hard as they are and they're they're not getting this separation yeah yeah for sure and actually it's created a lot of unhealthy habits which is like they're always on and i think we need there are times when we need to be more on than others and definitely entrepreneurs can relate to this at different stages of growing your business but ultimately if you cannot give yourself 10 minutes a day like what is what what's the point yeah 100 you're totally right and i was reading this book recently we should just kind of talk about like the way the world of work and how much it's changed and how we used to i mean besides like office work but like the agricultural revolution going as far back is like you'd have to go to the farm you'd have to go to the factory at the beginning of the industrial revolution you'd have to go and now you're right it's like well are we working from home or do we live at work and how those boundaries have become so much blurred as well Kat I could definitely talk too far out if you can't already tell I could geek out on habits and psychology until the cows come home I think just one last thing I do just want to mention before I wrap here is um you know I've been trying to really sort of dive into sort of different like psychological hacks and tips and tricks but I think what you made me realize as well is like how different people are motivated by different things and I just wanted to underscore a point you made before around like the gamifying the gamification of it and so whether it is something like there's a reward there's that delayed gratification you get to have your morning coffee when you do this whether it's the habit stacking whether you just need that that whip cracked on you there's all these different like tools at your disposal it's totally possible you we all have these limiting beliefs that we need to overcome but I think that key thing is just taking a beat and realizing you have a moment for these things yeah life is way too short and I I think losing my mother at four years old showed me that, you know, we just we treat life like it's got this infinite amount of time for us and it doesn't.

1:04:40And we don't know when it's going to be over. So I think, you know, for me, that is now that creates a lot of discipline. And also, I think when you start to do one of these habits, you feel so good that you never want to go back to how you used to feel. right so i think thinking about your your bigger dreams in life reminding yourself how precious life really is how much we get stuck in our own heads but also just that once you start start taking action you already feel that's so good that why would you ever go back it's on the other side it's waiting for you the water's all available for you everything like loads of energy like feeling really good like I walk I wake up feeling excited I never used to wake up feeling like that it's a nice feeling it's the little things that really fascinate me as well that you don't even expect and when you do experience them it's a nice surprise and it's only then you can compare to when you didn't have it and you're like oh yeah that's a transformation and a really good shift I know we're going to finish but a really good shift is um switching from I have to yeah I get to you get to wake up every day yeah get to go and do what it is you're doing you don't have to nice well before I do wrap with my traditional closing question are there any other piles of wisdom that you'd like to share that you haven't already as it relates to psychology and habit building I think I've shared like a lot of really good things I think for me the if you take one thing away it's just doing something just do one thing for 10 minutes that's it nice don't make it any more complicated than that people run off after my sessions go well i tried to do two things i'm like did you hear nothing i said it's called one small habit change your day for a reason just one don't be tempted to do three or five just one one thing one thing all right so listeners here's my question to you what is one small change that you're going to make now either right now while you're still listening to us or as soon as you finish this listening to this episode what are you can do differently to get you closer to becoming the person that you want to be all right Kat my traditional closing question what is one tragedy that's taught you an unforgettable lesson I think it is it's my mum's death I think experiencing the death of a parent when you're four years old is pretty profound and of course I'm very conscious that a lot of us have lost people close to us but I often think when I'm you know battling with my thoughts about whether I should do something that's good for me long term or not I think she didn't get that chance and I get it so I've now shifted into a mindset of I get to live this life I'm privileged to live this life and I think when you sit in that kind of abundance mindset you know your experience of life completely shifts and I'm no longer taking my body or my brain for granted anymore and like I said earlier it's a lifelong commitment and I think if we just take a moment step back and realize that we don't know how long we've got we might start treating ourselves and the people around us differently yeah nice Kat thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all these wonderful pearls of wisdom you've given me so much inspiration I really hope all of our listeners have taken away something as well where can people go to find out more about you um so you follow me on LinkedIn or instagram or my website catthorn.com and that's cat with a k yeah thank you all right we'll obviously put links and stuff in the show notes thank you so much again for coming on the show great to have you and thank you so much for listening as always really appreciate you being here if you enjoyed this you know what to do please give us a little like and a follow if you're not already episodes are weekly so hopefully see you next wednesday take care gang bye

1:08:41Bye.