Your Business Can’t Outperform Your Health: Alex Neilan

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What happens when your business is growing, but your health is going backwards? Alex Neilan joins Adam Stott on the Business Growth Secrets podcast where he explains why your business can’t outperform your health, how to build more energy without going all-or-nothing, what successful entrepreneurs get wrong about looking after themselves, and why you either make time for your health or eventually make time for illness.

Alex Neilan is a weight loss expert and entrepreneur who has built one of Europe’s biggest sustainable weight loss community, with more than 100,000 members, and has helped over 4,500 women lose weight and keep it off. After starting his own weight loss journey at 15 stone, he went on to study the subject to master’s level before building a hugely successful online coaching business.

They explain:

• Why being “too busy” to look after your health is one of the biggest mistakes successful entrepreneurs make
• Why all-or-nothing thinking destroys consistency with your health, diet and training
• Why better health, sleep and energy can directly improve your leadership, productivity and business performance

Chapters

• 00:00:00 Intro
• 00:00:56 Alex Neilan’s 15-Stone Weight Loss Journey
• 00:03:45 Building A Business From Rejection
• 00:05:24 £36,000 In Debt And His Lowest Point
• 00:07:13 Taking His Personal Training Business Online
• 00:08:52 Why Alex Was Charging Too Little
• 00:09:35 Why You Need To Charge Your Worth
• 00:09:57 Why Conversations Grow Businesses
• 00:11:10 Taking Conversations Online
• 00:12:20 Hire People Who Know More Than You
• 00:13:24 Building A 100,000+ Person Community
• 00:15:36 Why People Struggle To Lose Weight
• 00:16:15 The All-Or-Nothing Trap
• 00:17:33 Stop Eating For Weight Loss And Start Eating For Performance
• 00:18:33 How Health Impacts Your Energy And Business
• 00:19:48 Finding Your Reason To Get Healthy
• 00:20:30 The “Me First” Approach
• 00:23:33 The Beliefs That Stop People Taking Action
• 00:25:29 Make Time For Your Health Or Make Time For Illness
• 00:26:24 Why We Trivialise Our Health
• 00:27:04 Why “Eat Less, Move More” Isn’t Enough
• 00:28:31 Why So Many Women Put Themselves Last
• 00:29:17 The Three Choices You Have With Your Health
• 00:30:48 The Health Risks People Don’t Think About
• 00:31:51 The Story That Changed Alex’s Approach
• 00:33:08 Alex’s View On Weight Loss Injections
• 00:35:42 What Sustainable Weight Loss Actually Looks Like
• 00:37:42 Three Simple Behaviour Changes You Can Make
• 00:39:42 Simple Food Swaps That Make Dieting Easier
• 00:40:35 The 80/20 Rule For Hunger
• 00:41:34 Health And Business Performance Quickfire
• 00:42:21 The Biggest Health Mistake Entrepreneurs Make
• 00:43:44 How Business Owners Should Think About Long-Term Health
• 00:44:14 Business Growth Quickfire
• 00:45:06 Alex’s Number One Strategy Lesson
• 00:45:34 His Best Branding Advice
• 00:46:39 The Marketing Lesson Every Business Owner Needs
• 00:47:33 Alex’s Best Sales Advice
• 00:47:56 His Biggest Operational Lesson
• 00:48:17 Who Would Alex Hire As CEO?
• 00:49:11 Where To Find Alex

Everybody, welcome back to Business Growth Secrets. I’m very excited today because I’ve got a good friend of mine, Alex Nealon, that is on the podcast with me today.

I’m either going to have to make time for my health, or I make time for illness.

He has built Europe’s biggest sustainable weight loss community, has hundreds of thousands of members in his

every time our company and business plateaued was I stopped hiring people who knew more than me.

group. He’s helped 4500 women lose weight and keep it off. And the reason why I asked him today is one is built an incredible business.

But two, I really believe health is fundamental to business owners energy and success. And I’m excited to have Alex on with us. So, Alex, for those people that don’t know you yet and this is the first time you’re speaking to them, tell them who you are, what you do. Yeah. Which I’ve given that bit away a little bit and give it a little bit more.

And what is your superpower? Oh, I love this. My name is Alex, West of Ireland. Great to be here. Hence the accent. And started with my own weight loss journey at 15. I was 15 stone and lost the weight for stone a year. And then my whole career became built around this. Like it’s the reason why I get up in the morning.

So yes, absolutely. My family and my kids. But this is the reason why superpower is going to be productivity. I would say finding a mechanism of family health business without ever feeling like I’m letting any of the three suffer. Well, I think that’s definitely a great topic to, you know, to be diving into some stage. We hear a bit more about the journey, but we’ll definitely revisit that because I think that that’s definitely something that all business owners need to get better at is actually how do they use their time more effectively.

So you just mentioned there you’re 15 stone. You put a lot of focus on weight loss. How did you feel before when you was 15? Stone you know, what was that version of you? What did that feel like day to day? What was your energy like versus how you feel now for stone lighter?

Well, truth is, like I was the guy who was wearing black. I was the guy who was shying away from doing anything really. And I would make his use not to do things. I know a lot of women really battle with that, and then it kind of got to a stage where I was being bullied because of my weight.

I was called. And actually, to be fair, I actually admire some of these names. The creativity is brilliant. I was called Fred Fashion Red for the red hair, which I read Fred Fat and Red because the red hair and I was called Fat Boy, not slim as well. So there’s some creative names, to be fair to the people at question, but, it gave me the the kick that I needed to do something about it.

And then I did four degrees to a master’s level in this specific area. And I would never look back because I’ve just more energy now. But I have a purpose. And then my whole life after that has been about helping other people achieve what I achieved. And anyone can do it. Like I refused to believe there is anyone on this planet that cannot lose weight sustainably, provided they have like the courage to stop lying down to limitations or reasons they’ve told themselves as to why they can’t achieve it.

Okay. Brilliant. Well, I love that and I can’t wait to get get into it. I haven’t been called Fred or Fat Boy, not slim. I have got red hair, and I have carried a little bit of weight over the years, so I’ve. Maybe someone will comment Fred for me. Yeah. So, you built a business around this? You said you did four degrees.

Tell us about like how how did you you know, you got obsessed with this topic and then built a business around. Tell us the journey. What’s that been, like a rejection, like, literally from day one. It’s been built around rejection. And I planned on going to college in the west of Ireland, and I recognized all of my friends to go, and then I never got the points to get in.

It’s the point system in Ireland versus like A-levels over here. So I never got in. I had repeat my exams or leave all my friends and go to Wales, go to the UK. I chose the latter. Best thing ever. The sports science degree then applied for dietetics to be a dietitian. Got rejected again, and then I was told I had to do more credits in certain areas.

Applied for a master’s in public health and nutrition. Got that, then got into dietetics. I then went to the NHS and I struggled with the fact that we had such limited resources to help these women who I knew genuinely needed more than a 15 minute call every eight weeks. So I left, left a permanent job. Everyone thought I was mad when volunteering in Canada teaching kids nutrition.

Came back, did in MSC, in with the International Olympic Committee in Sports Nutrition, and then I decided to set up a business in Edinburgh as a PT, however, I had nothing so I was on a mattress, someone made floor and then I started a 1 to 1 business in a gym and it was really hard because then transitioning that to online was more failure.

Like, I was 18 months with a failing business and I had 36,000 pounds in debt. When I’m calling my fiancee saying, can you transfer me £24 so I can pay fuel to get home in the middle of the motorway? And that was one of my lowest points. But rejection was like the common theme. And then having like a stubborn belief that you can’t quit because like the opposite, the option of quitting can’t be an option.

So rejection was a journey and humility. Sleeping and a mattress. In my 30s, I asked the manager in the gym, could I have his toilet roll room as my office? So I’m there with his little dark desk and like, laboratory toilet rolls all around me. So don’t always be looking for glamorous, but you have to make that decision from day one.

That high water, you’re not quitting. And if you don’t quit, you can’t fail. I think I’ve known a lot of Tess over the years. I’ve hired a lot of years. I’ve had a lot of times come to my events and a lot of people that we’ve trained and businesses that we train, fitness businesses, and a lot of them have just struggled.

Exactly what you just said. How do they transition from that in person 1 to 1 personal training to actually going online. But I’ve also seen a lot of PT businesses struggle financially. They really struggle. They’re selling time for money. They’re selling, you know, to be honest, that something quite I feel is very valuable. But I think a lot of other people don’t see it as that valuable, if that makes sense.

Like they often take it for granted how much of an impact it can, can have on on their lives. So I can imagine how tough that was in the early stages. So how long were you PT in 1 to 1? For how long was that happening? I started PT in 2016 and then I transitioned the company online in 2019.

So two and a half, three years and it was a pretty successful business, 1 to 1 like I had five trucking under me. Oh you did. Yeah. So you got other people build it up in a pure gym. And I got up like 8,000 pounds a month in revenue, but I got to a stage where it was hitting a ceiling.

But I also recognized that it was missing something, like speaking to someone for an hour once a week or two hours a week. When there’s 168 hours in a week isn’t enough. So I believed you had to build something where you could help people 6 or 7 days a week. So that’s the reason, the why behind why I had to bring it online.

So wasn’t just to make more money, it was actually want to make more impact. That’s why. Oh well, the number one rule from the beginning was if it’s not sustainable, we’re not starting it. Which is why I didn’t sell. Like I don’t know how you didn’t sell PDFs or things like that that I know or recipes that we’re not going to work.

Yeah, that’s really, really interesting. So you go online, what was that transition like building that business? And what I want to get into is I do want to get deep into the health stuff, but I think there’s a lot of people listening that are small business owners that well, first of all, I know there’s probably going to be some listening.

I’ve not been able to get past themselves, let alone get multiple people. There’s a lot of people that got 1 to 1 in person, businesses that have not been able to go online. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about that transition of taking the business online? What was that like? Okay. So I think the key thing I learned was you have to be really careful where you’re getting information.

So I had a business coach who said they’re going to survey everybody in the UK and figure out what weight loss is worth. And I was told it was worth about 30 pounds a month. And I tried to build programs and 30 pounds a month, and obviously that means it was me and me as a team because I was charging too little, which I know a lot of people do because they want to value themselves.

And then I spoke to this guy who said I knew he was doing what I wanted to do. I’m like, how have you done it? He goes to me, well, first of all, you’re charging too little. I don’t care if a thousand people said £30 month is what people will pay for weight loss. If you don’t charge your worth, you won’t be able to build a program that will make a lasting difference.

And that hit me like a sledge. So number one, charge your worth. Number two, get better speaking to people like don’t get a fancy website and all these Canva pages. Start having conversations. I actually like that that I couldn’t agree more. Yeah, like for me that is fundamentally the biggest flaw in what most people are doing. I agree then completely.

Yeah, because I noticed that like even on the gym floor before I went online, I just said a little goal to myself, I’m going to speak to eight people today, and I’m going to get four phone numbers and four emails. How am I going to do it? I’m going to sign up saying, guess what this drink is? And I little shark glasses of like strawberry and chocolate milk and people walk past couldn’t resist that.

What is that? And I’m saying to them, would you. Why do you think this is. It’s going to be a fancy supplement drink. No, it’s just plain Sainsbury’s chocolate milk. And it had reasoning behind using it. It protein. It had sold for rehydration. And then that opens the conversation. The conversation opens a free consultation or a free dietetic assessment or free movement screening session.

And then that builds the relationship. But if you if you don’t have a goal for conversations on a daily basis, like everything you want in a business is a wish. And I really believe that. Yeah, I believe that as well. And I think that’s great advice for our business owners to watch him. So when you take it online and now you’re not in the room.

Yeah. This is where people struggle with that transition. How do you take that conversation velocity online. What was your method for for doing that? I’d really love to understand the model of how you marketed it. Yeah for sure. So I found someone who was doing really well at like high ticket coaching online. I messaged him out of the blue when I asked him for like 40 minutes of his time.

In that conversation, I found out who his media buyer was and I got his name and I hired him even though I couldn’t afford it. But I knew that this guy has a secret sauce. He knows how to build a form of a funnel that will allow us to help more people, and then that got it off the ground.

So I skipped the usual steps of like, starting organic business. Oh, do you know what is? I laugh because it’s actually so simple, isn’t it? Yeah. There is. A lot of people just won’t do it, but most people would rather have two years worth of pain in trial and error than than actually potentially get rejected or reach out to someone.

I mean, so I think that’s great that you skipped it. Well, you nailed it because like so the key advice there is

every time our company and business plateaued was I stopped hiring people who knew more than me.

So the key ingredient is to find someone who’s done it and pay them to teach you. And I and I continue to do it like it’s why I’m literally learning from Adam.

Like it’s literally the reason. Because if I can speak to someone who knows more than me and then I can learn from them, why would I go through years of doing the wrong thing, or running enthusiastically in the wrong direction, rather than actually learn from someone who is already doing it? So don’t be frugal. Don’t be miserable. Like invest in yourself.

You know Jesus. Be generous.

Yeah, well, I think it’s it’s the smart ways in it. And people people don’t often want the smart way, don’t want the hard way. But it’s definitely the the smart way. I think it’s something interesting is like you built this community, so you’ve built this massive community I love that. So share a little bit about about your your mindset behind that in terms of, okay, I think this is a good way for me to to build my audience.

Where did that come from? And talk to us about how you’ve managed to to build a successful community, for sure. So the key offering is we offer a free, sustainable weight loss support group, and that group is where and I’ve committed to going live in that group. As I said to the other side, like two, three, four times a week for the last six years.

And I’ve been consistent and showing up at those times. Anyone who comes into our community gets into that group and has been given value on different mechanisms and how to upgrade their life, their energy, their mobility, their health, their strength, their relationships, how they view themselves, their confidence, even clarity. Productivity, structuring, planning sleep like living a life of joint pain.

It’s about more than just weight loss. And when that is valuable, people share it. Like we have 34 people sharing our lives 3 or 4 times a week. So because of that, it keeps growing. It’s now at 106,000 people. My mission is to help a million people live longer, healthier and happier lives. And the only way I can measure that is by having a million people in this group.

And even if people can never afford. Because by the way, only 1% of people who are in that group ever work with us in a 1 to 1 basis. So my mentality is, if I can help the 99% to either can’t afford our services or are on benefits or unemployed, it means I’m helping people regardless of financial situation.

And that ties me into my core value of kindness and care. And then the people who can afford 1 to 1 working with us then allows us to bring in medical consultants, physios, dieticians, sleep specialists, financial advisors so I can continuously provide holistic support so the group has grown because of given away value. Yeah. Well I think that’s awesome.

So and I actually like the I love the philosophy of it as well okay. Not everyone can work with us but they’re still going to get get great value. So you built this group. You bring people in and then you’ve got a 1 to 1 offer, a coaching offer that you work with people on. And that’s been really successful so much that you had 4000 women work with you.

So when we look at that and we get into the weight loss side of it, when somebody makes a decision, they want to lose weight, okay, I’ll throw some scenarios and some situational questions. Aren’t you not about me, honestly. Yeah.

Well, I’ll start with me. I’ll be a bit and then I’ll throw some different ones, which is slightly different because I’m not a woman. Yeah, but I know you specialize in women, but we’ll see what you can do with me. Yeah. So let’s say that I want to lose weight. And you know, what is the kind of the biggest thing that stops people from being able to lose weight, even when they have intention?

They’re all or nothing. And I’m saying that deliberately with you because obviously you’re a very successful entrepreneur. So someone like yourself who is very driven, puts very high standards and everything they do. So for that reason, it’s very common to say, if I cannot do it, the letter of the law, I’m not going to do it at all.

So it has to be all or nothing. In the eyes of my entrepreneurs, however, all or nothing doesn’t leave room for life. It has to be a couple of key commitments that you make to yourself. So that’s really interesting. So first of all, I’d agree with that. I can be, you know, I can be like, right, I’m going to train four times a week, I’m going to eat perfectly.

And then I feel great. And then I’m like, oh, I ate one of those of and shells and now I’m on a three week binge.

I’m not quite. That’s exactly. Yeah, yeah. You get a point, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very common, very common. So I laugh because Sophia’s in the studio. She give me some Gallivan show really feel were other Haas a good friend of mine. And then they’re like, oh I have some of these. Like I’ve never recovered. And it’s been weeks, of course, but to be, to be fair, like you remember, you’re speaking to someone who’s also had these battles, and I’m not gonna sit here with an Irish accent and pretend to not enjoy a drink either.

Yeah. You know, and Adam knows that I do. So it is about balance, and it’s about ensuring that you don’t feel like you’re depriving yourself. So the key things there is stop falling for all or nothing. See yourself as a vehicle. And you wouldn’t pour sludge into a Ferrari. So for that reason, if you’re able to look at yourself as eating for fuel and performance, don’t even look at the ways like the weight loss is secondary.

We celebrate non scale victories, non scale victories like promotion, nicer hair and nails and skin. That might not be your thing them by the way. But maybe it is. Maybe correct me here. And exactly energy levels how you carry your I see what that’s one thing that yeah the energy levels that I get from being in a good place.

I think that’s the one thing that’s keeping me hooked. Yeah. I don’t know if you have to. I don’t know if that’s a part of your kind of philosophy, but I think the one thing that definitely keeps me hooked is that when I’m training, I give more to my people, to my business, to my clients, to the stage, you know?

Well, if we unpack that for a second and we talk solely about energy. We’ll attach sleep with it. People who train regularly, eat regularly, sleep better. You have an higher energy and higher performance in terms of your sleep performance leads to. You’ll be able to handle stress better, leads to you getting more done, higher cognitive function, higher physical performance, family knockout in the dregs and it reduces your risk of dementia.

So sleep and energy levels is not just a nice to have. It’s better for your relationships, your productivity, controlling your blood pressure, stress management and even reducing your risk of dementia. Outsiders. So it is critical. And while energy isn’t as pretty as a before and after photograph online, it is so important to allow us to persevere in times of challenge, because 90% of our life is how we react to it.

And if you have more energy, you will be better at handling those tough situations in life. Yeah, well, I definitely think it’s really, really valuable. So there’s some really good tips there. So what lean into the thing that’s driving you. But also don’t go all or nothing. Yeah, yeah. So what else would you say to someone that I’m gonna for sure I love this.

So energy is going to be one of your wise. So find out what your wise are. You need to have three is a why going to be to feel like you’ve aligned every year of your life with who you are as a person? Is your why going to be having more energy? Been here for your family and feeling proud and photographs.

Or even just like never having head space being taken up because of your weight. Because you may want to be able to just not waste any more headspace on it. Like if it’s taken up headspace, that could be your why. The how is build a recurring structure that’s doable and sustainable. So for example, when you have so many people at them reliant on you, you have huge responsibilities.

The key thing there, if I was working with you would be ask yourself, what can you do before the world wakes? If you could set a system where you train or you exercise first thing in the morning, the me first first concept, which means you come first before anything or anyone else, you’re sharpening the ax. That’s one method.

Have a recurring event in your diary and alarm on your phone at a certain time every day. If you’re not going to a gym, you’re going for a walk. If that doesn’t work, you could do what I do, which is I use it as a tool to reset. I do for hours of deep work in the morning, starting at 5 a.m., and then I will train at 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. I will eat before and after, and then when I come back from the gym, it’s like I have a second wind and now I’m reset if it’s a brand new day.

So I use it deliberately to reset for work performance and I perform better, like in the business on days when I train. So. And I’m so conscious of that because I can see it from all of our data that I don’t need convincing anymore, that it’s important. So you just do it. Just, you know. Yeah. And I think that’s really good because I think a lot of business owners, I definitely I’m in a bit of a better place with the training and stuff personally, is that I will be training 3 or 4 times a week, and I’m starting to measure on energy rather than measure and wait.

I think if I measure on weight it, if I’m to like fixed it going up and down, if I actually measure an energy, I’m like, I feel good, then it’s really, really good for me. But I think it’s valuable to everyone that’s listening, which is why I’m so pleased to to have you on is because I know that there’s loads of business owners we’ve got of business owners that we’re working with that are in our in our programs.

And I don’t think they realize how a lot of them don’t realize how important it is because they’ve got everything else going on. So this becomes like an afterthought. You’ve got your business, then you’ve got your family. I thought your introduction was quite interesting, because I’ve always found that managing three things is doable, but you put a fourth on a fifth in and you’re trying to be good in five areas.

The balls kind of drop. Does that make sense? You know, because for me it’s like fundamentally the most important thing to be a good dad, which is really important. Run a run a good business, have a good relationship. And then you’ve got to squeeze in your gym, your friends, everything else. That’s when it becomes tough. Right? So but I have I haven’t what you said earlier.

Now in the morning I train. I get some good results from that. So if we flip to to, to women for a moment, that’s four and 4000 women that you’ve trained. What do you there’s a lot of people that want to get fit, right? Or they want to they want to go and they want to lose weight.

But what I’ve noticed, right, is on this subject is that some people go, I want to get fair. I want to do this. I want to be in shape. You know, they really have a desire to do it, but then they do nothing about it. Yeah, right. Do you feel like that’s quite common? How often do you see that and what do you think is that block?

How do you get someone over that block to actually take it seriously? Understand what the leading indicator is and the self limiting belief. If you reverse engineer weight gain. Yeah. And then reverse engineer, you can find out what’s happening. So if we look at relapse or weight gain come back a step is normally complacency and stagnation drifting come back a step justifying in action.

Got too much going on. Too busy right. Come back a step. And this is where the magic happens now. Because if you can identify the leading indicator here, such as fear of failure, overthinking, overconfidence, downplaying or trivializing the problem, people pleasing black and white thinking, not prioritizing yourself, which is really common in women like women are the glue holding everything together.

And they’re they’re like conditioned by society to put themselves last. So if we can recognize those patterns and then we can start to build skill sets in decisiveness, in guilt free self prioritization, in planning of recurring events, in having tough conversations with partners and saying, I need you to empty the dishwasher. I need you to do something as well, and then have a strong why, which will be being here for our family and friends.

Or then look back in the last 20 years of struggle and recognize that’s literally like 1100 weeks, 1100 weeks of your life has been taken up with your weight. So if we look back from when it was first on your radar, where it is now, calculate the weeks. Try and calculate the minutes of headspace being wasted. Look at the trajectory that you’re on and then look into the future of what happens the next 1520 years.

If you do nothing, it means you carry the weight of I wish I’d started sooner to stop the procrastination happening again. And then you have the foresight to see. Right now I’m at a Y in the road, and

I’m either going to have to make time for my health, or I make time for illness.

And that’s the choice you have to make.

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And when you look at it like that, it becomes a much easier decision. So don’t downplay it. Don’t trivialize it. It is really important. Oh yeah, a lot of people really do, I think I think nobody I mean, the way you it sounds very serious. Yeah. Which it is when you talk about my dad is my dad is relentless with me.

He’s like, Adam, your health is your wealth. Adam. You need to look after your health. Adam, are you looking after your health constantly? Yeah, all the time. You know, and to be fair, 76. He’s very healthy. And he’s he’s he’s he’s in great shape. But I do think I’ve definitely done it. I’ll bet you as loads of people listening that have done it is people do trivialize it and they do make it smaller than what it is a lot of the time.

Right. This is really common. And it’s actually been peddled out by GPS who say, just eat less, move more. If it was that straightforward, like we wouldn’t have 70% of the UK struggling with their weight, eat less, Move More does not take into account the need for personalization, the need for overcoming things like board meeting stress eating comfort eating tired, easing hormonal changes in women, metabolism slowing down, lack of self prioritization, or a fear of success.

Which is when we’re afraid if we want to lose weight, I’m going to have to give up my social life. Give up everything that I love, that fear stops action. So if we don’t recognize those things, then we don’t start. But downplaying and trivializing the problem, or oversimplifying it by saying just eat less, move more. It’s why so many people fail because they say, oh, I know what I need to do, or I’m an intelligent person and no one talks about humility like it’s why I have three coaches myself now, and I’m 23 years since I lost the weight.

So be humble enough to be a student and recognize that when you say, I know what I need to do, you’re subconsciously in a non-verbal way saying, But I’m not doing it. That doesn’t increase confidence. It actually decreases it. Yeah. I mean, you gave loads of reasons there. Why why what people do you know. And you obviously when you went back in time, the trivialization of it, making it smaller, all these different things.

What’s the most common one for you? 4000 women. Not the first. Not coming for everything. Career came first, family came first. Everything came first. And they’ve built an identity of being the person who does everything, everybody else. And one of the most powerful, meaningful statements I here women say, which I love hearing, is it’s finally my time. And that that has to be a why.

So if that is where if that’s one of the most common ones, hone in on that. Like what would you say to somebody that’s listening right now that knows that they should look after their health, they should prioritize their health more and knows that they should put themselves first. Yeah. What would you say to them to to try and help move them along?

We’ve only got three options. Option one is we procrastinate and we say option one is we say, you know what? This is my lot can’t be changed. It is what it is. I’ll accept whatever health problems come my way. That’s option one. Option two is we say I’m not willing to accept it. I know I have to prioritize myself.

I know I have to come first if I want to be here for when my grandkids get married and I want to dance at their wedding. But you know what? Not now. Maybe later. Even though, ironically, that leads to a way bigger mountain that we have to climb, and that makes it so much harder. And the likelihood of success is significantly reduced.

Its result of it, or option three, is we say, I’m not willing to accept it. We say, I want to have a full life where I’m useful and I’m stuck in a chair, or living a life with joint pain in my 70s, 80s and 90s. And I’m an intelligent person, so if I’m going to address it, I might as well to dress it now when it’s easier rather than later when it’s significantly harder.

So my advice there is literally write down those three options. It makes it so much more logical to prioritize yourself now, and to recognize that your kids would prefer when most kids prefer you being there, rather than just being a will. Yeah, absolutely. Cool. He makes it sound pretty like it’s pretty serious. Pretty serious stuff. Yeah. And you know I think that with all the all the health risks when you’ve looked, you’ve obviously got so much experience in so many degrees.

What are some of the things that people just don’t know. What’s the unknown unknowns. Oh no. Knowns is stroke. I spoken to women who have had weight related strokes, who have had no warning signs. So strokes are more prevalent in women without there being worn signs. So when you have a GP saying yes, perhaps you’re overweight, but you’re perfectly healthy, that’s actually not true.

So if cholesterol and blood pressure are indicative of being in normal ranges, that doesn’t mean there aren’t risks. So again, don’t trivialize the problem. That would be the most common one. Right. So a risk of stroke a stroke and cancer weight related. And then believing that we’ve nothing to worry about, it’s called positivity bias. We believe that bad things will happen to somebody else, but not us.

And I’m not trying to scare anyone here. I know this is really difficult to look at, but because I’ve spoken to so many people and because like, and I haven’t planned on sharing this, but in 2019, like I was texting a guy, I was helping men there at the time as well as women. And.

I really struggled to, like, have tough conversations. I struggled to talk about scary things, and because of that, I wasn’t able to, I suppose, help people get over the destructive beliefs that have led them to have the struggles they have now anyway. And there was this one gentleman called Frank, and I remember texting them six months later, checking in to see how things were going to be spoke, and his daughter texted me back on his phone saying sadly, Frank died.

He died of a hashtag. So because of the sheer number of people who come in our front door and because of the number of people we have seen, I genuinely go through serious health problems. Like, I am so passionate about it because I know we don’t always get second chances, but then there’s amazing stories of people who have committed to losing weight like Jackie Roll.

Toby listened to this, who lost two and a half storm with us and then was diagnosed with cancer, went through a 12 hour surgery in one sitting, the consultant said a if you hadn’t lost the weight, you wouldn’t have been fit enough to go to the surgery and be. If you never the surgery, you wouldn’t be here. So it’s life changing when you make that commitment.

But we don’t always recognize that because we can’t measure what never happened to us. Yeah, of course, if that makes sense. Yeah. No, I think it’s totally needed. I think it’s interesting to ask you about the weight loss drugs, okay. Out there right now, being that you’re an expert and you’ve got all this experience, there’s probably a few people out there that are taking those drugs or even the peptide stuff, the coming out as well.

Yeah. Yeah. These different things. What’s your what’s your opinion on on those. How do you see those. Because I know your, your business is is about being sustainable. Right. And that’s very very important. People always looking for shortcuts. This life isn’t it. Yeah. What’s your opinion on on those at the moment? The first thing I think that we should do is make sure that we recognize that someone who’s on injections should be celebrated for trying, and I think sometimes they can get really misrepresented, as in like as in like doing it the wrong way.

And yes, I don’t agree with injections, but we have lots of people who are on them. So what I recommend, first of all, well done for trying, well done for doing something. Second of all, if you’re on injections, we help people come off them safely without regaining the weight. And thirdly, if you’re not comfortable in doing injections or you recognize that it ultimately is going to be temporary because you can’t be injecting yourself till you’re 90, you know, realistic, everyone knows that.

And also because they’re so new, there is absolutely zero data on long term side effects. And even now, in the short term basis, we’re seeing, like I’ve spoken to two dozen women who’ve had their gallbladder removed, like from beyond them. I spoken to one woman who’s had visual impairment. And like, they’re not small side effects, like they’re really serious.

So for those reasons, we don’t recommend them, but we don’t judge people who are on them. We actually help people supportively come off them who want a sustainable solution. Yeah I think it’s interesting you know, and it’s it’s difficult because a lot of people again it comes down to belief really, I think the person that does the, the kind of jabs and things like that, they’ve just, they’ve got a strong belief it’s going to work.

Yeah. Does that make sense. Because because of the PR and the marketing and the promo. Yeah okay. This is going to work. Therefore I’m okay to do it. And this guy, let’s go and do it because I want something that’s going to work. You know, and obviously they’re very, very strong. So when you look at the sustainable weight loss, what are we trying to do with someone to get them in a place where they get rid of the weight and to keep it off for ever?

What’s the the philosophy or the process for that? If I had to pick two words to describe it would be holistic support for long term behavior change. It has to be holistic. And I fundamentally believe this, which is why we’ve got physios and medical consultants and physios and dieticians as well. And it has to be about changing behaviors.

So making behaviors automatic, that is the key to sustainability. And one of the ways we do that is I absolutely hammer home the importance of sharing your wins. What are your non scale victories like. It could be more sex with your husband. It could be you’re traveling on a plane with no seatbelt extender. It could be you be able to get back into your wedding dress or get your wedding ring back on.

Like what? What are your non scale victories? It has to be built around holistic support not once a week and has to be like seven days a week. And you have to learn how to overcome certain behaviors that won’t be fixed with it. Less move more injections. So like board meeting, comfort eating, very, very common. Even the key skill of learning how to structure your day where exercise or training or healthful eating isn’t a when I get around to it, it’s diarist.

No meeting can be booked over us. No car can be booked in there. That’s happening. It’s as important as my sleep block. It’s as important as my family block. The work actually goes in around us. And that doesn’t mean I’m an even less in my work. It means that I’m actually sharpening the ax. And actually, on that note, I listen to anyone who has an iPhone, listen to the motivate app on my phone.

It’s like a white flame and a black square, and it’s full of motivational videos from entrepreneurs, athletes, successful business people, and speakers. And I listen to that for like an hour a day when I’m training. And it’s just consistently like, remind me of specific skills that all entrepreneurs have. So I see it as learning. So I’m actually learning while I’m physically improving my body.

Yeah. Which I think is really helpful to create that kind of habit. Yeah, yeah. Is there if you were to say there’s like two behaviors or three behaviors that you should change, could you give a couple of examples of behavioral change 100%. That would be helpful for people. That’s easy to do as well. So just like a couple of perfect anyone out there who has border meeting, stress eating, comfort eating, do a time analysis and find out what time of the day is it happening.

It’s normally 9 p.m. cravings. 9 p.m. snacks. Okay. Why is it happening then? It’s normally boredom. So what can you plug in at that time of the day to reduce the risk of it happening? If it’s safe? Could be a 9 p.m. walk. It could be a jigsaw. It could be something involved in your hands. You can graze.

It could be having a deliberate, planned phone call with a friend at that time. So food displacement by adding a behavior in to make it harder for you to snack. So that’s a very helpful way of stopping that. Second would be the me first first concept I mentioned earlier, getting up 30 minutes early.

If you’ve read The Miracle Morning

if you’ve read that that is a great book to teach you the importance, getting up slightly earlier to prioritize yourself first.

So get up earlier. Number one me first first. Number two is find out when board meeting reading is happening and then put something else in place to block it. And then number three, set recurring events in your diary with alarms, with Google notifications that remind you as prompts, which is a key element of James clear as atomic habits.

Having prompts to remind you to do what you already know. Sometimes we just need to actually have prompts to remind us. Yeah, I think I think they’re all really, really great tips. I think they were awesome.

What about, say for example, like food swap outs and things like that to to create habits. Do you, do you talk about that, for example, like, you know, swap the chocolate bar out for a banana or have these different things?

Yeah.

with those food swaps, we’re actually swapping certain things to make it easier. So common examples would be if you wanted to swap.

Like if you want to swap potatoes for carrots, you’re half in the calories, doubling the volume. If you want to swap a sirloin steak instead of a rib eye, you’re cutting the calories by 20%. So finding mechanisms of plugging in leaner foods or higher fiber or higher protein foods means you’re not reducing volume, so you’re not living a life being hungry.

And that’s the key. Because if you live a life being hungry, you won’t sustain it. Yeah, I definitely have seen that. When you have like for example, protein, there’s a protein mousse actually, that Sophie put me on to of when you’re having a craving at night. Yeah. Yeah. You can have that protein mousse. It fills you up like you won’t believe 100%.

And it stops you from eating chocolate. Right. And you’ve got another 30g of protein in from the moose. So I think these little kind of habits are really cool. And I think they’re really, really useful. Just on that note, that one help is the 8020 rule. Never allow yourself to be more than 80% full or 20% empty. And if you can have that in place, it means you’re eating more frequently and you’re eating before you become hungry.

How would you know if you’re 8020? Well, I just figured out exactly when I should be eating, and I’m eating really frequently throughout the day. Like five, six, maybe seven times even. And then I’m doing that intentionally to stop me becoming over hungry. Or if you go into a restaurant, have planned inclusion. Everyone talks about excluding things.

What about inclusion, like having a piece of fruit before you leave the house? I mean, you’re not going to a restaurant starving. Have something every time. Clever for sure, because it means you’re going to you’re less likely to have three courses then. Yeah, yeah for sure. Very clever. So I’ve got a bit of a quick fire around that.

It’s all for that, right? I’ve got two quick fire rounds for you. Usually we do one but I’ve actually got two. Okay. So one quick fire round is going to be on business performance for health because I think that’s specifically for your for your topic. And we’re just going to burn through them. These are like quick answers. And we’ll jump into these.

So the first one is how much does health influence leadership.

Alignment. When you have alignment it means that you don’t feel like there’s one nagging thing in the back of your head that you haven’t done. And if you’re able to prioritize your health and everyone sees you as someone who’s in alignment with health, relationships, business, I think it’s a sign of success. Okay, brilliant. The biggest health mistake that successful entrepreneurs make.

They say they’re too busy. Even though we fail to remember that sharpening the ax means you’re not swinging a blunt ax against a tree, you get more done sooner if you have that foresight. What is a business owners best way? A super busy business owners best way of managing their food? Oh, delegate, delegate, delegate. But either by chop veg or get a private chef in or go for like some service that will give you fully cooked healthful foods.

Make it easier. Get a house manager. Get someone in your house to do food prep for you. Make the meals. Get used to having the same meals for lunch and dinner like. Get used to repetition. Make your life easier, not hard. Or stop believing. The cooking from scratch is a badge of honor. Sustainability, in my opinion, should be the badge of honor.

Okay, has tech made us healthier or less healthy? I think tech has made it more aware, my Fitness Pal more aware of what’s in food, which is great. And it’s faster now to scan scan packaging for like foods. In terms of unhealthy unhealthy, I think it can be a thief of time, with average screen time being 2 or 3 hours in most people.

So this is where people really are losing time. Is doom scrolling okay? Yeah, definitely. How should business owners think about their long term health?

I think that if we don’t prioritize our long term health, it means that retirement will happen not by choice, but by not having the Russian. Okay, brilliant stuff. Right. So that’s our first quickfire round. Well done on that. Hey good work. This is our second quickfire round. So one of the things that we do is we help business owners and entrepreneurs, and we help business owners to build a business model that, interestingly, is simple and replicable.

So it means that they’re going to be able to go and build their business in a very simple, easy way. They’re going to be able to do the same things over and over again, to create profits to their business and make it successful with their overall goal. After they’ve built the model and got it running to remove themselves from the day to day hard work to allow the business to run without them.

Now, the way that we do that and the way we help business owners do that, is we train them on five elements, the first element being how to build a really good strategy for their business. The second, how do they build a brand around that strategy? The third, how do they actually go and market that strategy out to the market and generate leads from there?

How do they create a sales process that’s really powerful, that converts, and how do they build an operation where they deliver their product or service to very happy customers that want to come back, spend more money with them? Right. So they’re there. The five elements. What it’s going to ask you for is one tip on each element. Don’t worry, I’m going to repeat them.

Thank you. Who did I take with that in the introduction. Right I’m going to repeat them. Make it nice and easy. So quick fire around. What is your number one strategy tip for business owners have a way bigger than you. Like 7 million people live healthier, happier, longer live. So what’s the why behind making the big impact? And if you have a Y strong enough that’s built around kindness and care, it’ll help you make decisions elsewhere.

Okay, beautiful. What’s your best bit of branding advice in terms of building either a personal or a business brand? Having sound bites that remind me of who I am and remind everybody else of who they are as well and the values they have once we use our kindness beats everything. Secret to living is giving. Kindness and care. Start where you stand, so don’t put it off.

Don’t procrastinate. 54321. Do it now and not dead can quit. Like having mechanisms that literally tired or dead can quit. I’m dead. I’ll quit. But as soon as you have things like that that you live by and And I’m laughing because the community, like at a charity event recently came with, like, them all embroidered on their t shirt, like, and if it’s memorable and impactful, it will stick.

And that’s how you actually ensure your core values are just are nice to read out. Occasionally it’s how you live and read them by making them memorable. Yeah, brilliant. What is the number one marketing lesson for you?

Charge your worth and continuously ask yourself, how can I make what we do better? How can I sell more problems and more people and listen to your market like I’ve learned? Like one of my early lessons was I used to sell tailored nutrition programs, and I realized that nobody in my market used the word tailored. So I looked at all of our Google reviews, which all said incredible personalized nutrition programs.

I’m like, well, there you go, listen to what your market saying. So now we speak about personalization, not tailored. Listen to what your market is saying to you. Have some sort of a system for every client, you on board to ask them, what was the single message that made them sign up to work with you that gives you data on actually what they’re hearing from what you’re saying, and then double down on what you know, they’re hearing that they actually take value from I like that.

Brilliant. What’s your best sales advice? Best sales advice is get out of your head and believe in that. Sales is sleazy and like a car salesman, recognize that sales is shifting beliefs to allow someone to get out of their own way. Like it. What is your biggest operational lesson that you’ve had in your business so far? Don’t have a complex.

Complex is like crucifying yourself and make it simple. Keep it simple. How can I make this simple and how can I make it fun to actually. Yeah, okay. Brilliant stuff. And my final question for you today, Alex, which is a good question, is if you had to appoint another CEO of your business and you had to go and hire somebody to come and run your business, it wasn’t you.

You were going to hire. Anyone from anywhere in the world could be doing anything, could be anyone. And they were going to take over your business. Who would you hire if you can have anyone? Well, and what do you think they would do that you haven’t done? Well, actually, Divina McCall not because she’s a qualified dietitian, but she’s very much in line with her values.

We’re going to be in a partnership working with her very soon, and I really believe that she understands her market because she is in our market. And what I think she would do that we haven’t done is she’d bring a huge network of people in from her incredible brand on her own. So yeah, we’re doing stuff. Well, I love it.

Look, I’ve really enjoyed having you on. And where can people from from you said you got your free community. Maybe that’s a good place, or there might be a good other place that people can go and connect with you and find out more. I’m sure there’s going to be people on that want to lose some weight as well, but how do they go and find you two ways?

One. Got a sustainable change. You will give away a fat loss cheat sheet there, and there’s a variety of free fat loss trainings there that will help you. A second way is going to Facebook and search the Sustainable Weight Loss Support group. You’ll see 105,000 members there. During that group. We have mindset specialists and psychologists and physios going live 3 or 4 times a week and make sure you raise your hand as well, like when you’re in the group, don’t sit in the background all the time, just raise your hand, ask questions because everybody there who you see, who is achieving what you want to achieve, was a one stage where you are now.

And don’t forget that that everyone, everyone is unique, but no one is special. And you’re listening to this now. You’re unique, but you’re not special. And I say that to level the playing field because everyone is limitations. But as long as you refuse to lie down to them, it means that you’ll just take that first step, which is making the decision to start.

And that’s the hard bit. And as soon as you’ve done that, it becomes so much more, well, it becomes easier after that. The herb has done brilliant. Well thanks Alex mate has been incredible. I’ve loved it. I think given a massive amount of value, huge tips. And just for everybody that’s been listening or watching WhatsApp, big thank you for participating in Business Grow Secrets.

If you are here at the end, that means you’re an A player you went all the way through. If you’re watching on YouTube, go ahead and comment a player. If you’re listening along and you’re on Apple Podcasts or you’re on Spotify, and the way that you can help this grow is by giving us a five star review. It only take you ten 20s and if you go and give us that review, what that does is that pushes it out more in the box drafts.

We’re looking to help as many business owners as we can. I think today’s episode can help a lot of people with Elf. So your support by going and giving that review will be absolutely awesome. Thanks again for watching. I look forward to seeing you all very soon.

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