EP180 – It’s Time to Start Looking After Yourself with Rachel Williams & Ian Luckett

INTRO

In this episode of the IT Experts Podcast, we help you look after #1.

Welcome to the IT Experts Podcast, the only podcast to help MSPs scale to 1,000,000, and if already there get to 5 and go fast at the end of the day, isn't it all about building a business that works for you rather than you for it? I hope you enjoy the show.

IAN

So, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Welcome to the IT Experts podcast, wherever you are, and today, this podcast is all about you. And we have the amazing Rachel Williams on the podcast this morning. Good morning, Rachel. How are you doing?

RACHEL

Good morning. I'm fine. Thank you.

IAN

Great stuff. Now we've known each other for a couple of years now through the in betweens, CompTIA, and various other communities in the IT space, and you'll be, I'll let you explain a little bit in a minute, but the reason for this show is to help everybody who's listening to this. Look after yourself, understand what good and bad health looks like. Understand what good and bad well-being looks like. Understand what good and bad stress looks like. Because running a business is great fun. It's great fun when you making money and getting profits and you going holiday and treating family. And that's all that great stuff. But as you know, I learned from a very, very early age in my journey, you know from the likes of Tony Robbins in one form or another. If your battery's not full and the engine is not working properly, life gets very, very hot. So today Rachel and I are going to help you to sort out some. We're a bit of a punch on the nose. It's going to be a bit of a vulnerable podcast. It's going to be, I might hit you a little bit, hit you a little bit hard, but if everybody just takes away just one or two actions to help improve their life, their mindset, their, you know, their well-being then with one, haven't you Rachel?

RACHEL

We have, yes.

IAN

Excellent stuff. So who are you? What do you do? Who do you help? And why are you? So amazing at what you do.

RACHEL

So I run a business called Zest Lifestyle and I'm an employee once consultant. So what I do is I go into organizations. And I help you and your teams get healthier and happier so that you're more productive. And engaged at work but also another thing that I do is sneaky little thing is I want you to live healthier for longer, so I want to increase your health span and what your lifespan.

IAN

And we were just talking just as we just preparing for the show. You gave us some pretty interesting stats on how long people are living now, which we know, which is why things like the health service and all that sort of stuff are stretched because people living longer, which is a great thing, if you're in, somebody in mind is my kind of caveat to that. But what were some of the numbers you were just sharing with me about the illness years, which I've never kind of heard this metrics before? What was that all about?

RACHEL

Okay. So when we're talking about your health span, we want you to live healthier for longer. So that's all at the moment this comes from the King's Fund the average male will live to be 79 to 80, with about 14 years of ill health. And a female will live to be about 84-85, and that's with about 16 or 17 years of ill health.

IAN

That sounds pretty scary, right? We're we're 3 minutes in and I'm scared. What does ill health mean? What does that? What? Yeah, what does it mean?

RACHEL

I mean that could be living with some kind of a disability or long term illness. Somewhere where you might or something that you might need some kind of care. I mean, you see the amount of care home at homes that have been built now you know, and people are maybe being kept alive for longer with medication. But my whole thing is like, well, if you can have a healthier lifestyle and it doesn't mean not living like a Tibetan monk, but look a healthier lifestyle. You're going to reduce these numbers or these number of years of ill of ill health. You know, it's things like reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancers, type 2 diabetes. I mean, type 2 diabetes comes with so many different kind of lock on illnesses. You do with your heart, with all your major organs, really, amputations. If you don't do anything about them.

IAN

And you know one thing for me was, you know, we we've had the conversation about enjoying a glass of the great produce at the weekend, and I think it was our last chat come here. But, you know, my goal was always to be, you know, I want to be fit and healthy so that I can be the best dad I can be for my kids, which obviously growing up quite a bit now. But you know you can play with them at the weekend. You don't get a bad back, you're not tired or exhausted. I mean, when you knew, I mean, this was going back a few years now. But you know, when we when we had our boys and they're like 24-26 now. I remember, you know, because I was in my mid 20s. I remember the exact question of, you know, having children. And it was like I need to do something about this. I can't just sit behind the desk and not doing things. So I started running, going to the gym and all those kind of great things just to keep fit and healthy for your kids so that you can, you know, be with them but also, you know, one of the great things about the MSP world that we know of is, is that a is an incredibly profitable. Business model when we get it right, which means that you can take good chunks of time out your business and go and do great things, but there's no point doing that if you keep pulling your back out or you can't walk, cause you know you cause it. It's tiring even to walk up the stairs or anything like that and it's a really interesting thing because it just kind of like happens to you, doesn't it sort of that you know as you kind of get older you just whether you get unfit I suppose. It's a problem that people, don't focus on it. If they don't create it as one of their goals. Because they don't see it being as a benefit cause it's not here right now like your cash flow and your profit is that some of the things, how do we help people to bring their looking after their well-being and their body as important as their cash flow there you.

RACHEL

I'm going to share briefly my story because, well, I'm 60, so I try to look younger. So my main focus is to focus on the next decade of, like, reducing the amount of aging as much as possible. However, in my late teens, 20s and 30s. I was 3 and a half stone heavier than I am now never did any exercise used to smoke used to drink every night probably a bottle of showers, may, but you know dull the pain of the day and a great reward. It's all valuable. Yeah, but, I was in bad shape, but it wasn't until I was like the age of 37 when I was practically at burnout. Did I suddenly think Oh my God, I'm going to be 40 in three years time and I need to do something to make sure that I am going to be healthier in my 40s and 50s going on and also I think the other thing that scared me is watching my parents age and you know, they're always at the doctors. And I suddenly thought, I don't want to be a drain on the NHS and that was kind of my big why to get fit and healthy. And then after, well, I did it in about 6 months. I gave up smoking, gave up well, cut my drinking down to weekends. I stopped going on diets, I started eating healthily, but I would believe that if I healthily 80% of the time, 20% of the time I could indulge in moderation and still enjoy the things that I all enjoyed. And then I decided to get my backside down to the gym and actually start doing some exercise, but I got myself a personal trainer because I had no idea what to do.

So the interesting thing is, out of all that sort of doing that and sort the changes in six months and felt a completely different person. But I wasn't going, you know, mad doing it all and was completely obsessed. But you know, I was being sensible, so I got fit and healthy and then, you know, three years later, I decided to start a business out of what I've planned. And that's how I got into Wellness, really. And I trained as a fitness trainer, did nutrition, did the kind of mind stuff like Neurolinguistic programming, the pilates, all sorts of stuff like that, and then later on we saw specialised in sleep.

So for me it was either on to be a drone on the NHS now. The NHS 24 years ago, was in better shape than it is now, yeah. So if you get ill, who is going to look after you. Are you going to be able to get the care that you need as you get older? So we all have a responsibility to look after ourself, health, because, you know, if you don't get the care, you can't get the drugs, you know, the shortage of certain types of medication. We kind of need it, we need to leave it there or the NHS there for people. Who really, really need it and a lot of illness is down to lifestyle. Doesn't actually take that much effort. Once you get into a habit, you know, and I'm a complete convert. And actually says my husband Mark, because he was actually three stone heavy. When I first met him, and I've completely changed his life around. You know, so he's fitter and he's healthier. And it's that investment in yourself, but also thinking about, you know, as you grow old, grow older, what are the implications are if I don't do anything. Yeah.

So when you're in your 20s, you don't really think about it in your 30s. Well, you know, maybe there is that slight change your starting families and you might sort of know to see the difference. Probably between 30 to 40 you don't notice that much difference in your aging 40 to 50, maybe a little bit more, 50 to 60, a little bit more, 60 to 70, then you're going to go to decline.

IAN

Yeah, yeah.

RACHEL

Then my whole thing is, I have got to keep my muscle mass going because your muscle mass starts to decrease from, well, in your 20s, really 30s, 20s, 30s. So I always kind of look at old people and think do I want to be like them? Getting out of a chair when I'm in my 70s and 80s where I have no core muscle strength to get out of a chair? You know? Do I want to have to rely on other people to help me as I age, it's like. No, I don't.

IAN

That's so inspiring, and it's so, you know, thought provoking as well, so I'm going to chuck an action in here. Straight away and I'm going to just ask everyone who's listening to this to say. You know, look at where you are today. You know, look at your energy levels. Look at your where your health will be. I guess your BMI is a good one, isn't it? You know, it's no it's not.

RACHEL

No.

IAN

Fantastic. Let's have some controversy, right? Could make you take over then. What are the things right now? Do people need to look at and go right? These are the three or four metrics. That would help me set a goal for the next 10 years in this place. Rachel, go.

RACHEL

Right there. Am I a complete waste of time if you are a person that carries a lot of muscle.

IAN

Love it.

RACHEL

It's done on weight and height ratio. But you will come out obese if you're heavy, so my advice is you can get body scan scales. I recommend some to me to make body scan scales.

You can get them in on Amazon, most department stores. And if they've got like the basic things on them which will do your weight. Yes, they do BMI, ignore the BMI, throw that one out the window, your fat percentage, your muscle weight, your visceral fat. So that's the fat that covers your organs. So if your visceral fat and this is the both male and female is 12 and above, this is going to increase your risk of what I call the nasty. So increase your risk of cancer, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease. So if you can keep that below 12 then you're in a good state so at the moment mines and then metabolic age is another one. It's your age, on the inside your fitness age. So what? Your chronological age and a lot of people I see when I do health consultations, they're amazed and quite actually upset because they're metabolic age or fitness, age is maybe 10-15 years older than what they are. So if you're 45 and you're on the scales and you, you come out of 60. It's like, oh, my God, that's terrible. What can I do? So I think they also do hydration as well and bone density. But I think if you've got your muscle mass, your fat percentage, your notable occasion, your visceral fat, I think those are kind of key markers and also just make sure that you measure your blood pressure regularly. I mean you get blood pressure.

IAN

Yeah, do it at home, can’t you.

RACHEL

It monitors online. Yeah. It's like, don't rely on doctors tests or wait till you cause in to do it just keep an eye on your blood pressure, cause blood pressure can lead to strokes. You know, it's a silent killer. If your blood pressure is high and you don't realise it.

IAN

So we've done the we've jumped on the scales. We've had a bit of a shock of the moment. We know that we are not as fit as we should have been either through eating, you know I love, I just I, there's one thing that just keeps coming back to me, you know, all the time and I and I don't know whether it's true or not. But I've been gifted with a fast metabolic rate. I think my wife keeps telling me this anyway. I've never had too much of an issue, but whether that's because of my lifestyle or whether that's cause I'm always active and never sitting down, I don't know, but I'm very grateful for where kind of like where I am. But I remember in the early days when you're consuming all this, you know this mindset stuff as you do a great quote as Hitler said, and he said he said a stage in his life. I knew I was overweight because I've never accidentally eaten anything right, isn't that I thought that was number one. I thought that was quite hilarious. But how true is that? You know, and you know, I sit down and I go ohh, blaming what's shifting this weight or anything like that. And I'm asking your fingers in the bloody biscuits in every night. Why are you surprised at that? You know, you've just been on holiday. You've indulged, you've eaten all the food you wanted to do. You've had an amazing time. It's all quite good now. You've got to read the, you know, you got to, you know, buckle down and get over that when you, when you kind of get back. So I think there is a big level of personal accountability and personal responsibility as well in this. But let's just talk about you know what, it's really easy to say, Ian, you should eat those biscuits and you should go and do a bit more running. You should do this. You should do that when people start, when they want to make a change in their health because you know it. It's like, yeah, I'm going to go to the gym and after one session, I'm not going to look any different. It's going to take months. It's too slow. It's not here in my face. I'm not getting smacked with it every single day, but I know I should do something. About it, how do we help people to bring that in the forefront. What do we need to do to get them started?

RACHEL

I guess it sounds like. Yeah, exactly because I think, once you've kind of got that big enough. Why? It's like why do? You want to get healthy? And you know, as I said mine was, I didn't want to be a drain on the NHS because I could just see what you know, parents going to the doctor's every week. But also it's a feeling, it's like how can I feel better on the inside and actually, some of us you know and this was my problem that I didn't know actually what good felt like, but I always worked to five principles and this is these are the five principles of my business – it’s sleep, number one look after your sleep because so much happens when you sleep. Always doing its repairs and all sorts of stuff. And look after your diet. It's like, well, what can you cut out and what can you replace or what can you have as treats? So I'm as I say, I'm not an advocate of like just eating lentils the whole time, but so I mean good places to start are things like the fast 800 there, the doctor, Michael Mosley and Claire Bailey stuff he's done. The 5/2. I'm not so keen on the five two, because it's like, eat unhealthy for five days and then fast for two or yeah, yeah you can.

IAN

Can you have that mindset, can't you? And it's it actually. It actually goes eat normally for five days or what does normal look like and then yeah and then but you I you know the first time I did it was great the second time I did, I said don't have fish and chips cause I'm not eating anything tomorrow and you get in this mindset of fast and famine, which isn’t healthy?

RACHEL

Isn't healthy? No, exactly so know doing, I did Zoe experiment and that and that was really good. But they've got like loads of really good stuff on their social media sites for recipes, for healthy foods and foods that you should be eating. So, you know, buy some of Tim Spector's books because I think, you know. They're kind of him, doctor Michael Mosley. Dr. Rangan Chatterjee as well. I think there were. And it's like my 3 male health gurus that I think are absolutely amazing and they give uncomplicated advice and then move more so if you're not doing anything, do something. If you're doing something, then do more of it. But it's important with fitness and this is what I struggled with for, for years was not doing anything because I was traumatised by PE at school. Because I was kind of developed as a woman probably before my cohorts, I was slightly larger than the rest of them. So I was given the shot put to throw on sports break. So you can imagine what that did for my self esteem. And it's like, I'm sure. So don't make me do a hurdle you know I'm going to back my pin so and I painted hockey. Yeah, I enjoyed doing country dancing cause it meant you could dance with the boys. So enjoy dancing. But it's really important that you keep fit. But it's doing something that brings you joy and that you love doing so, you know, my whole thing is this walking. I love coastal walks cause I moved down to Dorset. Last year, but I have joined the gym. But it's group personal training sessions are of people. No, it's no. It's no more than six in a group. I love that, and they're all different ages and it's not one of these kind of clicky gyms or anything like that. So so.

IAN

Lovely.

RACHEL

That is kind of what I enjoy, I enjoy doing yoga. And you know it. Fitness doesn't have to cost money you can get an app called FitOn which is, FITON it's free and they have so many workouts on there for all different levels, but free and you can get it on your mobile phone or your iPad or stick it on your telly on the wall. It's just thinking outside the box a bit as to what you want to do because running isn't the be all and the end all. And you know what people go all who should go running. It's like you don't there's like plenty of other things that you can do and then down, sleep, eat, move, so next pillow. Think, which is looking at your mental well-being and this is looking at your stress levels. And then we have Paul’s which is all about your rest time, your downtime taking time out, taking the time out to recharge your batteries. So you mentioned, you know, recharging your batteries that we can of this podcast and we will recharge in different ways. So some of us are what we call passive Westers. So we like to, you know, just chill out and read a book. Some of us are active. We like to kind of be doing other things other than work then that's fine. Some of it, you know, some of the time we want to do kind of both those things. So it it's kind of like what brings you joy and what is going to help you relax and rest, you know. So for example, when people go around holiday, some people might want to just sit their pool with a good book or sit on the beach. Other people want to get out there and explore because they hate teachers and the heat pools and et cetera, et cetera, all it's a mixture of those things. So it's kind of you have to have that break away from work and you and rest is not sleep. It is that bit in the middle that bit where you can relax.

IAN

Actually, get your golf going out for a walk and going back and and then also you know you can link that back to your. Why can't you? What is it that I wanna do? You know, we hear a lot of people come and join the growth hub and in there and you know the goal setting session that we have at the beginning a lot of the time there is I want to be able to put my children through private school and the children might be in single for the years right now so they want to make sure they've got the money to do that. So if you are in that position, wrap around what else does that look like? Does that look like being able to be active and having you know a great time with the family and enjoying cycling and enjoying being fit and being healthy? Or does it mean I'd rather be flat on my back because I pulled them back out and I'm now lying, you know? You know, we had, we unfortunately had one of our clients who pulled this back out and he was out of the business, three months now. Luckily for him, you know the business kind of moved around him, which was fine and the only thing that suffered, it was with some of the growth, but he's a strong man and he was not in a good place. It was very, very hard for him. I'm just going to flip back over these five points that sleep, you know, sleep. I think it was Joe Wicks who made me think about this a year ago. And he said he said something was one of his little YouTube videos or something like that. And he said something along the lines of, if you want to lose weight, sleep more. And I thought. What? Oh, like? Oh, I know, I know. So when you're sleeping while you're eating this cause. There's less time. When you're awake, I thought, no, that's not it. And what? We what? What it boiled down to, which was really which was really key point is that when you sleep more and where all these entrepreneurs. And we want to do this and be up late and get up early and do this and burn and hustle and all these crappy words that just do nothing but bringing in health. And when your disease you said, rested, recharged, you wake up in the morning. So I tested this and I thought I'm going to sleep a bit more and all of a sudden you're actually more bloody productive because you wake up in the morning. You're feeling amazing. Therefore there's more chance of me getting up on a Monday morning and doing a workout. Now I do some workouts at home. YouTube and there's this couple of fellow in America and they just use dumbbells. How easy and simple is that it is in my lounge. It is on a mat. There are two sets of dumbbells and by God, I know about it. When I've gone through this work and if I do that three times a week, that for me is a tick in the box I'd. Have to go to the gym. I can't bank my bloody. You got arthritis, you know, and all those other bits and pieces I need to be at home for, to, to care for my son and all this other. So just kind of like works. There's so many different ways you can cut this thing, you know, 10-15 years ago the only thing you could do was go to the gym, isn't it? That's all you possibly do. So you know, the sleep thing was a really interesting. The interesting thing for me, I think the diet you've got there, you know that's going to be driven by the the numbers on these scales, isn't it? On what you need to do and notable.

RACHEL

On your waist measurement.

IAN

Yes. okay, let's, let's cut to the chase. Yeah, you're. Very specimen. Are you happy with your waist measurement?

RACHEL

So your waist should be less than or your waist measurement should be less than half your height.

IAN

OK, half your... height less than...

RACHEL

And if you haven't got tape measure, just get the string.

IAN

Yeah. Yes. So we're talking about that out loud. You once you could go and buy, buy the scales and the big equipment. The other thing you can, you can buy a piece of string. If you want some string I can get some branded string.

RACHEL

Yeah, that's low tech.

IAN

Yes, Stuart wouldn't mind me paying for some string. You know this this. Whole move more walking thing. I think that accountability, enjoying what you want to do. I think that's really key and another thing that there's a lot of running. When I was younger and someone said look, you're driving down the road and you see someone plugging in the pavement. It's like going Oh my God. Look at them and it's like going. But they've beaten. Everybody was sitting on the sofa. You know, it doesn't matter how fast you're running or walking or whatever you're doing. If you're moving to help improve those numbers and improve your overall, you know health, then you're beating everybody who isn't doing it. And it may be wrong for me to say this, but it feels to me sometimes that sometimes that unhealthy habits are now becoming accepted norms and and I say that with a lot of, you know, a lot of resistance cause it's like hmm, is that the right thing to say? But I actually really believe that I think that you look at some of these people and you sort of go you know go back to the Zig Ziglar comment you know you you're sitting there at McDonald's with the full blown meal. I'll get a Diet Coke. Look, you know, because I think that might be that might be doing something for me and it's like, where is this? It's almost like you want to get some of these people and go where is this going? Where do you think this is going, which kind of like, flips back to the beginning of the podcast? It's like how I think this is going to do. This has not got a happy ending. What's going on here with your lifestyle, I think it's how our phase. It's not got a happy ending so. So that's really cool. Yeah. Mental well-being. I've been meditating now for every morning since Nigel Moore told me to about two or three years ago now. Absolutely massive. And I've advocated with that and the results that some of our clients have got about out there, you know, calming their anxiety, ADHD, autism, whatever you want to call it with doing that mindfulness as well is so important.

RACHEL

And do you use an app.

IAN

Yeah, I use headspace. Yeah, I use headspace and I really get annoyed one day because I missed it.

RACHEL

Yes.

IAN

About two years ago I was like, Oh my God, I just missed this, missed this streak. And then this bloody St. cause we were he's an airport in Heathrow and it was just like, get up and get on the plane. And it was like ohh and I could have done it any time that day with for one minute and I failed. It was absolutely ohh no.

RACHEL

I think. I did it for about 3 years straight but I've got back into it because I didn't realise I still had a membership and it was like, Oh my God, it's just renewed. I didn't even realize I had one. So yeah, I've got back into it now, yeah.

IAN

Look how wonderful with that, what I love doing with that and we, you know, we love going up to Norfolk and different places around the UK and stuff he's finding somewhere you know bit random first thing in the morning out with the dog and just sitting down for 5 minutes in the middle of nature and it's wow this is like such a cool how you know how grateful how cool is that to come to come and do. So Rachel, as I said, absolutely brilliant show. Thank you very much for the time and starts and the chat on this. So I think we've just flowed, flowed through this and I now need to we title it which is absolutely fine and we're going to do some more podcasts with Rachel on this. This is all about just really simply helping you live healthier for longer so. What's the key summary points key takeaways, Rachel, what does what's everyone need to do on the back of this podcast.

RACHEL

Right. Take responsibility for you because nobody else is going to do it. How many years of ill health you want. So if you want to live healthier for longer, there's five areas of your health that you need to need to look at #1 is sleep. Sleep is like the number one thing for health. #2 is eat a healthier diet for the 8020 rule, 80% healthy, 20% indulge in moderation. So I'm not taking away all those treats that I have this. #3 is move more so do some kind of exercise if you're not doing anything, do something. If you're doing something up. You're going a biy but do something that you enjoy. It's not all about flooding the streets and running. If you hate running #4 is looking after your mental well-being, so watching your stress levels and we're going to discuss that more in another episode. And #5 is pause, take some time out to rest. So whether or not it's active rest or passive rest, just make sure you take that time out of your business out and it's so rest is not sleep. So it's something that you were just doing where you can recharge your battery. So thinking about recharging your batteries, you charge your phone maybe every night or several times a day, you need to do the same.

IAN

Brilliant stuff, absolutely love it. And if you had a little chap in the red slap round the face, hit on the head, whatever you want to call it from this podcast and you wanna talk to Rachel to to find out a little bit more about what she does, how she can help you, how she can help your business then how do people get hold of you?

RACHEL

Okay, so my website is zestlifestyle.com, that's zestlifestyle.com so I work with businesses organizations and I do work 1:00 to 1:00 with people as well. So I do mentoring and coaching. If you want daily health tips, you can find me on Instagram at zest_lifestyle or you can find me on LinkedIn. Best way to find me on LinkedIn because there are lots of Rachel Williams is zestylady.com>/says the lady. Doing like daily health tips on all the five pillars. That's it for the moment.

IAN

That’s it for the moment, if you want to send over those links, we'll drop them into the show notes and make sure that make sure that everyone can easily access those. Thanks again Rachel. Been absolutely value bombs all over the place. I've even been a little action plan for myself as well down here.

Right. I look forward to catching up with you on the next one. You guys listen out for the next one. We going to be talking about stress how to identify, overcome stress and help out yourself and your colleagues with, you know, the most important part of your body I guess. Introduce your brain. So thanks again Rachel. Good luck and I look forward to catching up you soon.

RACHEL

OK. Take care. Thank you.