“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams and have a system in place to achieve them.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
While we may not be able to stop aging, we can slow it down. When health and performance are declining too rapidly as we age, you can typically boil it down to three reasons. Today, we’ll dive into those three reasons and how to fix them.
The episode continues our short episodes through the Ignite Performance Blueprint – which shares the blueprint we’ve used with purpose-driven executives to reverse aging and perform at their best.
The segment for today includes:
- How hormone changes when not dealt with can lead to a host of consequences
- Why KPIs may be even more important for your body than they are for your business
- How to increase goal achievement rates from 35% to 95%
- That real success comes from living fully in all aspects of life & how the right kind of accountability is the key to making that happen
- The assessments we use & how to use the results to turn back the clock of aging and live a life with vitality
Episode timestamps:
[00:01:57] – Hormone changes and their impact
[00:05:38] – A simple protocol for your body and age
[00:07:47] – The need for a a proper accountability system
[00:09:56] – The accountability system for lasting results
[00:11:15] – The power of small daily habits
[00:12:41] – Guidance and support for personal performance
Transcript
* This transcript was mostly generated by AI, so please excuse any mistakes, and enjoy!
00:00:00 Hello and welcome to Live Fit Ignite Change. I’m Patrick O’Donnell. While we may not be able to stop aging, we can slow it down. When health and performance are declining too rapidly as we age, you can typically boil it down to three reasons. Today, we’ll dive into those three reasons and how to fix them. On this podcast, we cover how to live fit so you can ignite peak health and performance and thrive in all areas of life so you can live longer, better and make the kind of impact that you’re called to make. We’ll share the links to the free guides, show notes, and tips in the description and on livefitignitechange.com.
00:00:44 Today’s episode continues our short episodes through the Ignite Performance Blueprint, which shares the blueprint we’ve used with purpose-driven executives to reverse aging and perform at their best. The segment for today includes how hormone changes when not dealt with can lead to a host of consequences.
00:01:03 Why KPIs may be even more important for your body than they are for your business? How to increase goal achievement rates from 35% to 95%. The real success comes from living fully in all aspects of life and how the right kind of accountability is key to making that happen. And the assessments we use and how to use them and their results to turn back the clock of aging and live a wildly fulfilling life filled with vitality. So, are you ready? Let’s go.
00:01:38 All right, here we go. The three reasons why health and performance decline as we age. So, first off, this is why you wouldn’t be performing like you did before. And the first is, as we age, our hormones change and you have not changed to counteract those changes. So with age, as I mentioned, hormone levels change. It causes physical and mental impact. These changes as we age can lead to excess fat, stomach issues, interrupted sleep, and really a whole host of consequences if they’re not dealt with properly.
00:02:12 One of the main keys to peak health and performance and living a great life with lasting fat loss and staying fit over time comes down to our hormones. One of the main keys to peak health and performance, lasting fat loss and staying fit over time comes down to our hormones. While the big drug companies would like to have you take their pill to medicate yourself, it may not work, and it may cause other more serious complications.
00:02:37 There’s a better way. That’s why we’ve taken years of research from top scientists, studies, and results within our community to find a safer, more effective solution. So hormones are like messengers in our bodies, telling our bodies how to feel and what to do and what not to do. They tell us if we should burn fat or keep it, and if we should feel hungry or full. If we have issues losing fat, it’s quite often due to hormones being out of balance. That’s what causes hunger cravings to stay high, keeps energy levels low, and prevents us from losing excess fat.
00:03:12 For example, those processed foods contain a huge amount of sugars and carbs, well beyond what our bodies need, and lead to the release of the hormone insulin. We need insulin to shuttle sugar to our cells for energy, but not so much of it because while insulin is in the blood, fat loss just cannot occur. Plus the fast paced nature of our lives leads to higher levels of stress, which causes the hormone cortisol to rise.
00:03:41 When you experience a stressful situation, your body releases cortisol. This is great and helpful for fight or flight response when you need to run from danger. Cortisol has a number of helpful functions in the body as it impacts metabolism, blood sugar, circadian rhythm, the immune response and inflammation. Yet consistently high levels of cortisol from this increased stress can cause anxiety, fatigue, gastrointestinal issues, high blood pressure and memory and concentration issues, sleep difficulties and actually prevent fat loss.
00:04:14 Of course, all of these would lead to a host of medical issues. And with these issues and all the distractions and with all the stress that we talked about, we’re not getting the quality and quantity of sleep that we need to function properly. And again, lack of sleep impacts those hunger hormones that we were talking about. So they could be causing us to gain weight.
00:04:38 When we’re sleep deprived, your body produces a hormone called ghrelin. Ghrelin is a hormone made by the stomach that signals the body that it doesn’t have enough energy and needs more food. So it makes you hungry for high calorie foods and stores fat. Yet when you have proper sleep, your body produces a hormone, leptin.
00:04:59 Leptin, on the other hand, is a hormone made by the fat cells that tell the body, we have enough energy and do not need any more food and thus burns fat. When you are well rested, there’s more leptin than ghrelin. Therefore, simply by sleeping well, your body will suppress unneeded food intake and thereby induce natural weight loss.
00:05:23 Plus on those hunger hormones, it’s the processed sugar-loaded foods that will throw off the ghrelin and leptin levels so you feel hungry when your body already has more than enough food. That’s why so often after a diet, the cravings are still there so the weight comes back. That is why it’s important to dial in the foods that work for your body that you really enjoy.
00:05:44 And so, with that, we’ll move on to reason number two, why health and performance decline over age. And the second reason why you wouldn’t be performing like you did before is you are not focused on a simple protocol for your body and age. If you’re using a protocol that worked for you, then you wouldn’t be having these issues.
00:06:05 I’m often stopped and asked at my age with children on a busy schedule, how do I stay fit? Is it nutrition or exercise? Yet it’s not about me, it’s about the protocol and the system. And there are actually other components that come before those two. So if you think about it, there are four key components. One, it’s mindset, two, sleep, three, nutrition, four, exercise. Plus there are many more steps that make these four work.
00:06:32 We’ll cover all of them in detail later. A key part to this is that you need to be really intentional about your actions and focus on what is most important to you. The areas of life that get your most focused are the ones that get the best results, right?
00:06:50 We often like to use a phrase, many have the will to win, but few have the will to prepare to win. And this holds true with your level of health, right? Have you been preparing to win for your health and performance? Maybe you haven’t maintained your health and performance as a priority. You have KPIs that you track for your business, but do you have them for your health and are you tracking them daily?
00:07:16 This can really be done in just 90 seconds at the start of each day. Put some intentional focused thought into it and you can put down your metrics for what you did the day before and then what you’re gonna do that day. And we’ll dive into more of those KPIs when we get to the seven components later.
00:07:31 But for now, let’s move on to reason number three. So the third reason why you wouldn’t be performing like you did before is you don’t have a proper accountability system to form habits and sustain at peak health and performance. Many times people are motivated to start something, but they don’t finish. They may lose weight for a short time just to gain it all back. And that’s frustrating, right?
00:07:56 It’s not meant to be a yo-yo like this. Willpower alone can only get people so far. And that’s why the stats have shown that 90 plus percent of diets fail. The real magic and sustainability comes from the systems and the accountability. That is what is needed the habits to create lasting change.
00:08:18 Think about it. Think of any great success from a company or an individual or even one of your greatest successes. It took time and effort and there was a system and a process behind it, right? You may have put systems into place to reach business success or family goals, but if they are not in place for your health, then guess what’s gonna happen to your health?
00:08:38 Right, it’s not going to be where you want it to be. You must have a system that works and have the intentionality to make it happen, to build a truly elite life. Discipline, accountability, system, structure, these words may not bring up feelings of a lot of fun, yet they’re actually the keys to freedom. Accountability helps us stay focused and on track, providing that extra push that we need to achieve our goals.
00:09:09 Research has shown that accountability can significantly improve our chances of achieving our goals. For example, a study published in the American Society of Training and Development showed when goals were set, 35% of goals were achieved when the goal was kept private. 65% were achieved when they were shared with others. An amazing 95% of goals were achieved when there were regular check-ins with someone else about their progress. That is pretty powerful.
00:09:41 And related to that, I think this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt says it so well, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams and have a system in place to achieve them.” So, for every great success over time, there’s been a system that’s made it possible along with the accountability to reach results.
00:10:03 Quarterly goals with bi-weekly milestones along the way with daily actions to reach those milestones lead to success. This is what allows you to live fully in all aspects of life. And when we talk about all aspects of life, it’s the eight F’s from the personal compass of faith, family, friends, fitness, finances, fulfillment, freedom, and fun. And the eight F’s are core to the elite execution system, which is a system to help leaders thrive in business and life. It was created by Don Wenner, founder and CEO of DLP Capital.
00:10:37 This system takes the best practices from Jim Collins, John Maxwell, Gino Wickman, Lloyd Reeb, and other business and performance leaders. It combines them into the most complete system for leaders of organizations to scale high growth, high profit organizations, and it’s helped organizations scale from 1 million to a hundred million and beyond. Plus it’s helped many on the go driven professionals thrive in all areas of life.
00:11:03 The summary here is that you need to have a system of accountability, so your positive behaviors will become habits. It’s those small actions performed day after day, year after year, that truly transform lives.
00:11:14 That is right. Transformations start with one action, then continued over time form a habit that leads to these transformations. We talk about the power of this all the time. It’s what Angela Duckworth talks about in Grit, to have the passion and perseverance to keep going, to pursue long-term goals.
00:11:32 Jim Collins covers it in Great By Choice when he talks about the 20 Mile March and the importance of the consistency to move forward day after day, year after year, despite the prevailing conditions.
00:11:44 That’s what Darren Hardy discusses in The Compound Effect, how it’s a small daily habits repeated day after day, year after year that lead to your ideal life. Then the magic comes when you stick to it. Yet in life, it’s often such a challenge to stick with these little changes if you don’t have the proper system and cadence of accountability.
00:12:05 That’s why in our programs, we’ve systemized the process to have a cadence of accountability with our healthier habits to reach our health and performance goals. So before you move on from this episode today, were there any nuggets that you picked up on? Something you could take away to put into practice? Do you need to address the hormone changes with simple protocols that work for you at your age and your body?
00:12:28 Maybe you know the protocol that you need to do but you haven’t had success in making it happen without that cadence of accountability. And you could find an accountability partner or a coach or an advisor to help make sure you do it. Just like the best golfers have caddies or the best CEOs have a team of support for those taking care of accounting, marketing, HR, is there someone looking out for you and your personal performance?
00:12:52 Maybe you’d like your team to improve performance and productivity and start implementing aspects of the elite execution system into your organization or maybe you just need to ask a question to see where to start. And if so, we’ve been helping people with each of these, so feel free to reach out.
00:13:07 Whichever it may be, make a mental note of one and take that one action to start the transformation. And then make sure you’re subscribed and stay tuned for the next episode as we’ll discuss the phases of the transformational journey. You can find all the tips and resources in the show notes for this episode at livefitignitechange.com/fix, that’s F-I-X.
00:13:31 If you resonated with this and would like to go deeper, there are a few ways to get started. Our goal is to share how we’ve guided purpose-driven leaders and organizations to ignite peak performance in less time without questionable medications.
00:13:45 So you can one, join our community of high performers to get access to our kickstart resources, eBook, the blueprint, and accompanying PDFs for free at livefitignitechange.com/start. Two, If you have a question, you can connect with me on LinkedIn and send a message to ask any question. The link is also at LiveFitIgniteChange.com/connect. Or three, if you’re the type who prefers to fast track results with a personalized plan, guidance and accountability to ensure results for you and or your organization, you can book a free assessment call at LiveFitIgniteChange.com/call.
00:14:23 And finally, since we’ve been talking about igniting performance and change, my family and I are igniting the change that we wish to see in the world. We were sick of all the process, sugar-loaded foods and drinks marketed to us, especially to our youth. So we’re developing a line of truly delicious, brain-free, sugar-free products that student athletes and home-to-go adults love as part of our Inrive performance nutrition brand. Learn more and join the Inrive insiders for free to be the first to hear about samples, launch parties, and specials at inrive.com. That’s I-N-R-I-V-E.com. Thank you so much for tuning in.
00:15:01 And I certainly hope you received value from this. If so, please help spread the word. The best way to do that is by subscribing, leaving a five-star review on the podcast, or liking and commenting on YouTube, and sharing this episode with someone you find helpful. It means so much to us, and it may change a life for someone else. That’s what’s needed to reach more and serve more. So together, we truly can ignite the change that we wish to see. Thank you for your help. I hope you make it an outstanding day. Go forth to light, love, and serve the world, and live the life you’ve always imagined.
