Part 2 of my conversation with Eric Bartosz, founder of Bar40 and author of “Bar 40, Achieving Personal Excellence”, a book that share the tools and framework behind a unique 52-week program to help anyone reach their peak potential and achieve previously unreached goals.

In today’s episode we talk about why repetition is mastery, why we must think of every day as a fresh start, the power of tracking daily successes, and the importance of growth mindset. We also discuss habit formation and habit change and what many people get wrong about trying to create change in their lives. Eric also shares some insights into how he chose the books and reading recommendations he makes in his program. 

This is a powerful conversation you do not want to miss! It’s the perfect kick-off to the new year!

If you missed Part 1 of the conversation, you can catch it here.

>>> Subscribe to Guts, Grit & Great Business on Apple Podcasts

Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• “Do yourself a favor, and be the CEO of your own life.”

• Learn about the concept of the “profitability of your mental well being.”

• The importance of tracking successes: “It’s the last thing we think about. It’s like, when everything else is done, then I’ll go to sleep.”

Check out these highlights:

6:40 Why repetition is mastery.

11:30 We must believe every day is a fresh start, a blank page- a chance to be and do better.

16:10 What is growth mindset?

26:27 The importance of sleep and why we lack it as a nation.

35:00 Learn about Eric’s free gift.

38:00 Visualize your life as a book, a story you are writing.

How to get in touch with :

On social media:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbartosz/

FREE GIFT FOR LISTENERS:

Book your FREE Bar40 coaching session here. Just mention the Guts, Grit and Great Business Podcast. Open to the first twenty listeners who respond.

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Eric Bartosz is the founder of BAR40 and author of BAR40 ‘Achieving Personal Excellence’. BAR40 is a unique 52-week program that provides the framework and tools to help anyone reach their peak potential and achieve previously unreached goals. Core components include a customized fitness program, diet modifications, personal accountability practices, habit creation and elimination, mindfulness practices and daily strategies for achieving continuous personal excellence. Also included in the book is a 52-week training journal that provides space to track all key activity areas. BAR40 is designed to help you supercharge successful outcomes in your life and it delivers amazing results.

Learn more about Eric here.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below. 

GGGB Intro 0:00
Coming up today on Guts, Grit and Great Business.

Eric Bartosz 0:05
It’s such a simple little tool, but in that in a journal just having like goals for today, you know what I mean and daily successes because that part of that too is like when you’re in that habit of writing every night or every morning, whatever works for your schedule of your three daily successes. It gets you in the habit of thinking all day long. Like what am I going to have my daily successes, it’s such a small little thing, but it gets you in the habit of what am I doing right? And it makes you do something right.

GGGB Intro 0:33
The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:07
Hello again, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I am an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington. Welcome to part two of my conversation with Eric Bartos. So, if you were listening in yesterday’s episode, you would have heard all about you know how Bar40 came about. This is what Eric is working on. He’s the founder of bar40. Right. He’s the author of the Bar40 book called achieving personal excellence. Bar40 is all about how to create the best year of your life. And we jumped in. And we spoke in yesterday’s episode quite a bit about how Bar40 came about what Eric was able to accomplish and his year, and he’s now done it for years, but his first year of Bar40. When he really created the concept created the methodology behind what is now a book and a 52 week program. And today, the conversation continues, we get to dig into some additional details. We get to cover things like sleep and some additional talking points around what it means to be the CEO of your life. We talk about habit change. There’s so much good stuff in this conversation. So welcome back. Really excited to jump back in. You’ll be glad that you stick around. Alright, and welcome, Eric. Well, books, I mean, books are my favorite thing. I’ve got books falling off of bookshelves, I’ve just moved offices, but I have a bookshelf over here and literally, like the books don’t go this way. They go this way. And there are two rows, you know, to me, yeah, huge fan of books and I can’t stop won’t stop. And I’m also a paper person. So I have a really hard time like just limiting myself to a Kindle because I do a lot of like shorthand and taking notes and books but books just like yours bar, like a single book has the power to literally change your life. Right? And Oh, absolutely. It’s I just think books are the most magical thing in life because you can pick up a book that you didn’t know existed yesterday and tomorrow, your perspective and your world can be totally different.

Eric Bartosz 3:25
It’s so true. It’s crazy and I’m like you, I’m a voracious reader so that’s why I can I write this in Bar40 like I’ve read you know, for every 20 books I’ve read I put the best is that is that month suggested book so that is I’ll save everybody a ton of time of reading a ton of different books and I’ll give you the highlight reel right there and the number one book that I start with for the first month is the Power of Habit why we do what we do in life in business which is I don’t ever read it but awesome book I and I read that. And I was like holy cow it’s just it uses all this brand new brain imaging technology to be able to just deconstruct how we create and eliminate habits and I was on a tear it’s forming habits is habit forming and eliminating habits and I was like there is…

Heather Pearce Campbell 4:09
A real science to it like I read.

Eric Bartosz 4:16
I read I didn’t read all that I read a couple reviews I’m it’s on my list.

Heather Pearce Campbell 4:19
Yes, well on the power of habits on mine but changeology talks about how one of the things that is that most gets in the way of actually completing a goal is people basically jumping into the wrong part of the habit-changing process at the wrong time. Right. So it actually breaks habit down into like habit, you know, development or habit change into like five different sections really based on time, right? There’s like a preparation stage where people are thinking, maybe even for years, like I need to quit smoking. Right, right. And so they’re kind of preparing themselves for it, but they’re not yet doing it. And then there’s a point where you actually decide and you do it. And so it breaks it down into actually, the biggest problem is that people often jump into trying to make the change without preparing enough for what it truly takes to make that change. And so they get frustrated, they give up, right. And so that’s why it is like to the extent people can read up on and really bolster themselves around what it takes to change not only a thought pattern, but change a habit. Like it’ll serve you so well in your goals. And so I’m so glad you’ve got one on habits in there.

Eric Bartosz 5:35
Yeah, I mean, repetition is mastery, you know, what, unfortunately, sometimes what we master is quitting, right? We can, we can master that too. So if we always kind of try something, don’t give it enough time, and then just say, I can’t do it, I quit. And then repeat that becomes our habit, quitting becomes our habit. So but there’s so much science to it, there’s so much technique, and it is such a powerful thing. And that’s Bar40 is largely based on habit, right? It’s about passion is the genesis of genius. So you find these things that work for you, that you’re able to do. And that works with your lifestyle that’s sustainable for you, instead of trying to read some book that says like, okay, eliminate all carbs, and this and this and this, and like, Well, that sounds like it’s going to be horrible, but I’m going to do it, it’s not, you know, it’s very unlikely that it’s going to work and save this seems like New Year’s Day resolutions that fail within a couple weeks, it’s, you got to give it enough time, again, the 52 week thing is is critical to to that. So I strongly encourage anybody that really wants to have a complete game changer to give that to invest in themselves that amount of time, and not quit early and just have that grit and that perseverance, and that’s to this to kind of hold the course and you know, recognize that there’s going to be people around you that that are not gonna be doing what you’re doing. You don’t mean they don’t share that commitment to personal excellence, and they’re not necessarily it’s easy to do nothing, right. Until you get in the habit of doing a lot, then that becomes a habit and become you know, and doing nothing becomes very difficult. But and it’s hard to get that escape velocity to take you out of your normal orbit, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell 7:19
Well, that’s right. And so many of our habits involve things in our space, they involve restrictions on our time, they involve people that share that spirit, like so much of our habits actually have to do with our surroundings and people that are in our life. And they’re incorporated into some of our current habits. And so it is your right, there’s a lot of like outside influence and pressure that you have to rub up against to be able to change any aspect, you might be changing your entire schedule, you might be changing your family dynamic, you might be changing your friend dynamic.

Eric Bartosz 7:53
Yeah, yeah. And there’s, there’s a section in that in the CEO of your own life part of the book, where I talk a little bit about toxic personalities, right. And we need to be mindful of because energy is real, right? If you go into a room and there’s somebody who’s just like a real, real, real negative person, and like that, that bleeds out onto other people. And conversely, if you go into some place, and there’s somebody who’s an extremely positive and high energy, and like, they’re gonna light that room up there, they’re gonna illuminate, you know what I mean. And that’s all of this without getting too far out there. But that’s like energy, that’s, that has an impact on us, right? So you have people in your life that weren’t we all we all have people that we work with. And you know, there’s there’s some people that are just unavoidable or whatever. But we can take steps to minimize our exposure to that as much as I would not. I’m not a cigarette smoker, as much as I would not sit in a room with someone change smokey, when no windows open and the door closed, I would not spend an equal amount of time in close proximity to someone that’s extremely negative, I just won’t I won’t do it. You know what I mean? And I don’t want to be so I don’t want to subject myself to that. And that’s something that we all need to be cognizant of how you know, who we’re spending most of our time with, for better or for worse, they will have an impact on us. And it’s, you know, if we’re spending time with positive people that are going to give us some massive lift. It’s such an amazing thing, you know, and I mean, it’s like that old, like, I think my grandmother say, like birds of a feather flock together. But it’s true, because you know, we find or that other one, show me your friends. And I’ll tell you who you are, you know, we say that if you’re hanging out with these.

Heather Pearce Campbell 9:31
That’s right. Well, it’s why for people that need to change that up. And you know, my response even in right now, in the midst of COVID, some of us don’t really get a choice because we’re not socializing, but is like pick up books, spend time with the people that have written the book, you know, through the experience of the book, spend time on a podcast, like there’s other ways that you can incorporate that positivity into your life if you don’t have it right now.

Eric Bartosz 9:55
Right and get away from you know, move away from the people on social media who are filling your head with, whether it’s political stuff, or just anti, you know, whatever negative rhetoric is out there, and there’s, that’s junk food for your brain that you do not need, right. And that’s kind of habit forming as well move, get that stuff out of your life, you know, that’s something that is a very easy step that all of us can do. And I would coach anybody that is feeling overwhelmed by kind of sensory overload of all the stuff that is, it’s a constant barrage, you know, but we have the power to turn that stuff off, you know, we turn the TV off and say, Alexa, play 70s Classic Rock, you get lost and Leonard Skinner, you know, there’s ways to just avoid that stuff. We’re not just because there’s 24 hour news coverage doesn’t mean we have to listen to it, you’re not learning anything. And that and there’s so much stuff out there on social media and all these posts and stuff like that. Do yourself a favor, and be the CEO of your own life, again, eliminate that’s the department that is malfunctioning.

Heather Pearce Campbell 11:03
Right, not working underperforming.

Eric Bartosz 11:06
They’re impacting the bottom line of the profitability of your mental well being eliminated. Now, and we have the ability to do that. But again, it takes that mindset to say, Okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna break my life into these different chunks and understand good and bad of each one and make the appropriate changes. That’s that’s just like a starting step. Right? What do you like about something? What do you don’t let it just start? History is not destiny, right. And every day, we get a fresh start. I was talking to a buddy of mine the other day, and I use this example, right? We’re the authors of our own life story, right? And we get to decide what happens in the plot. And every day is a blank page that we get to write. And at the end of it, we’re the only one who can write this life story. And we can have plot twists, we don’t want to be the same. That’s a boring book, right? But we can ultimately determine where it goes, we don’t know what every page is going to happen. But we’ve got some ideas of where we want the book to go. But we do not have to be hijacked by external forces. We are in the driver’s seat. And that’s one of the big takeaways Bar40 lets people kind of get that control of their life and really start compartmentalizing what areas and it’s just a real roadmap and a field manual on how to live that best year.

Heather Pearce Campbell 12:29
You know, I’m a super fan of the concept I exactly what you were saying about being in the driver’s seat of your own life, what I was thinking is, first of all, one not deciding is still deciding, right? So there are certain, I mean, probably a much larger percentage than we’d like to admit of people that are just on autopilot, that are just going through the motions doing every day, just like yesterday. And that’s autopilot if you are not intentionally deciding, like, you know what, I’m going to put limits on TV in our house, or I’m going to do this differently with my kids, or I’m going to show up and be this way. Like if you’re not deciding, that’s still deciding, yeah. And like nobody wants to live a life on autopilot, we do. But that’s not really how we want to be living. And so, you know, the shift that like where I see your book is really yanking people out of autopilot into getting out of autopilot getting out of automatic even and being in the driver’s seat, but also like a manual stick shift, you are in control of the speed that direction like.

Eric Bartosz 13:36
Yeah, you know, get present in the present, we, you know, we all have these examples of, we look forward to some vacation, we get on that vacation, we’re thinking about all the things that are going on at home or next week and what we need to do for work and you know, mentally we’re everywhere, but where we are, you know what I mean? We can plan on a you know, kind of like live every day like it’s truly one of the last ones but still plan on living forever, we can run both trains on parallel tracks, but a part of that is just really living in that moment. And, and that’s, again, getting back to that breaking it down day by day and having that it’s such a simple little tool. But in that in a journal, just having like goals for today, you know what I mean? Daily successes, because that part of that too, is like when you’re in that habit of writing every night or every morning, whatever works for the schedule of your three daily successes. It gets you in the habit of thinking all day long, like what am I going to have my daily successes, it’s such a small little thing, but it gets you in the habit of what am I doing right? And it makes you do something right? Right. So it automatically adjust your behavior to accomplish this goal of being able to write what you want, what would went well in your day.

Heather Pearce Campbell 14:49
And it sounds like you’re really maximizing this opportunity of the power of observation, right? We know even from science that like you observe a molecule and it behaves differently right? So the power of, of observation and reflecting on how things are going is where we have the opportunity to do a lot of fine-tuning. Otherwise, you miss like you miss taking the time to observe, like, how are things working? How did today go?

Eric Bartosz 15:15
I think right? Yeah, that didn’t journal part that that daily reflection and introspection of what went well today, what could I do differently? What can I do better? It’s such like a powerful thing, because then it changes the way the next day you don’t necessarily make the same mistakes again, and there’s, it’s, we all screw up every day, right? That’s just the nature of our species, right? But all we can do is kind of be mindful of it, and try to do better, right, these small incremental changes every day. There is no there is no finish line to this thing, right? There is no it’s a lifelong pursuit. There’s no arriving Hey, that’s, that’s the beauty of this life of ours, right? We have a chance every day to, to keep getting better and learning and stay curious. And having that that just intellectual hunger to keep learning more and doing more. It’s such a cool thing. And like the growth mindset versus fixed mindset, right? This growth mindset, which there’s amazing studios, and one of the books in there is about that. But however, we may be born with a tendency towards growth or a fixed mindset. But the growth mindset, just deals specifically with the fact that no matter what I am today, I can be different tomorrow versus Well, I’ll never, you know, I’ll never get that right. You know what I mean? Like two different very different mindsets. And they they’ve done a tremendous amount of research with young people in at this like elementary school level about how this stuff works. But getting into this growth mindset trend, where I’m going to be better tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, no matter no matter what. And that’s, that’s the process. And that is a such a cool thing to do. And again, that journal, you’re able to look back and, and write notes to your future self. And I’m telling you, I’m a bit biased, but I think it’s a pretty cool program. And I know of what I I’m a subject matter expert in the sense that I’ve been doing it myself for there is no end to Bar40. For me, it’s not a 52 week program, obviously. But for the people that do it, and that I speak to them and hear the results of what’s going on with them. It’s a you know what, I’m one of my friends that did a while he’s like this, this should absolutely be required, like teaching at a young age, like how do we get these kids to be thinking about living their best day ever every day? It’s a cool mindset.

Heather Pearce Campbell 17:40
Yeah, it’s very cool. And you know, the thing that comes to mind for me is I feel like a lot of adult. So I’ve got a couple things. And then I know we’re bumping up against needing to wrap up. But the mindset piece, I think it’s really easy as adults to be like, Oh, yeah, I’ve got that handled. Kids are who needs to learn growth mindset. We hear a lot about this, especially as parents, right, my son, and I loved his first grade teacher taught a lot about growth mindset. And I think it’s really like what sounds like part of a really powerful piece of your program, this idea that we still can change, like in our 40s, you know, when we turned 40, in our 40s, like, it seeds, a lot of hope that you know what, like, growth mindset really is not about young, flexible brains, this is something that we need to carry with us through our life. And even in our 40s or 50s, or 60s, you know, wherever we are, we can still change, we can still apply the process and change. And I think it’s a really important reminder for adults, because we don’t often recognize, I think, how set in our ways we are or how, you know how much we’re on autopilot. And so I love that you mentioned growth mindset there, it is totally..

Eric Bartosz 18:50
True, too. And, and, you know, I was just talking to somebody earlier this week, who’s 60 and they’re like, I’m too old to do, they’re, they’re talking about specifically something too old to do. And they said, you know, very cliche, but I wish I did this when I was 50. So, you know, my, my thing automatically is like, you know, you’re gonna be God willing, you’re gonna be 70 saying, I wish I did this when I was 60. That’s what you can be doing now. It’s not too late. Like every day, we get a brand new chance.

Heather Pearce Campbell 19:17
Well, and back to the very beginning of the conversation where you were talking about, it’s like a small degree of change. It’s like every, you know, you just make a tweak here and make a tweak here. It’s like that 1% rule book that came out, right, literally, if we’re 1% better today than we were yesterday, like in a year results can be phenomenal, right? That’s what it reminds me of is like totally one degree of change actually goes a really long way over the long run. It’s the consistency of doing that repeatedly.

Eric Bartosz 19:47
It’s just these slight incremental changes. Like every we’re all faced with all these decisions throughout our day, right. every tiny decision is like a little tiny fork in the road. Right and neither direction makes a huge impactful difference at that moment. So like one, one example I, I give in the book is that, like, I was heading out for a run, and my daughter was like, come for a bike ride with me. And so my first thought was, well, I’m, I’m about to go for a run right now. So I can’t, and then my future self filter kicked in saying, Listen, she’s not going to want to go for a bike ride for you five years from now, take this opportunity right now. So I ended up going for the bike ride. But if I didn’t, or did not go for that bike ride, nothing significant would have changed at that moment. But I run the risk of when she’s a teenager. It’s like the cat’s in the cradle. And I’m saying, Riley, do you want to go for a bike ride for me, and she’s too busy to do it. I’m like, I should have done that bike ride. So like, that’s, it’s a split-second decision. Neither one a big game-changer, but one is slightly better than the other. Right? So being in that habit of always trying to lean towards the better decision. It’s a recipe for living regret-free life. And if you really want to get down to it, you ask your future self. That’s the ultimate like magic eight ball right there. You think if you’re asking your future self, you’re sitting across the table, what would you do? Like, hey, stupid, go for the bike ride? What do you do? It’s not even it’s a hard decision. Like that’s an easy one you want me talking about and do it. But if that if there’s ever a coin toss moment, in any of our heads about a decision, it’s such a weird thing. But if you can get into that mode of just like bouncing off your future self like a wise, or like your wise grandmother, a grandfather, which is you and say like, what would you do? Because you’re and the answer is in your subconscious, we know the right thing to do. And sometimes we rationalize and justify, to find the decision that we really want to do in that instant isn’t the right thing, right? We know it, we have this amazing supercomputer in us that has the answer. So we, if we really want to get it, we’ll get it. And then we can let that inform our decision. And that that is that becomes our default habit doing the long term right thing.

Heather Pearce Campbell 22:05
And I love that, that wise, optimized version of our future self, I really think is such a powerful concept. And, you know, even for me, in my personal life, it’s like, okay, you know, should I have another cup of coffee? Or should I probably make a smoothie? You know, like, my brain wants to go to the next guy, you know, I mean, and it’s this joke that I was telling you about with my sisters where we get to the end of the day and be like, Oh my gosh, we didn’t eat? Right, right. Like it’s those slowing down in the moment and optimizing that decision making the slightly better version of that decision. So I really, really love that. Now, a question I have for you, because I’m curious about it is in the midst of COVID? Are you finding that there’s an uptick in the number of people interested in this program? What are you seeing?

Eric Bartosz 22:50
Oh, yeah, with without question, I again, I think it comes from the fact that people do feel like their life is kind of just been then taken away from them in so many ways, like their gyms are closed, the restaurants are closed, like everything is just like, we’re on like, an alternate universe version of Earth. Right? So they’re just like, this is crazy. And Bar40. Again, although it wasn’t designed with COVID in mind, it happens to be this program that is not reliant on anything external whatsoever, you could be on like a desert island and do Bar40. You know, so it’s, it’s kind of like this survival kit, if you will, a COVID ultimate year survival kit that is in isn’t contingent upon all these other variables that can be canceled anytime. So there’s certainly a lot of that the drinking thing like we alluded to, before that is it sad to see because a lot of people that were borderline, the daily structure were the guardrails that kept their drinking or drug use in check. And you take that away, and this microcosm of alcohol marketing that’s been magnified, like romanticizing these zoom, happy hours, and these it’s normalized, like this day drinking more than ever, and like, it feels like it’s getting, it seems to get a little bit better. But for months, it seemed like it was that week, between like Christmas and New Years, where it’s like, they’re like, technically work days, but nobody’s doing anything. And it’s all this like, you don’t I mean, it felt like that was it for months, and people were just kind of getting really, really loose on on everything. And I people I really do believe are clamoring for some reinforcement of structure in their life that.

Heather Pearce Campbell 24:37
Yes, replacing Yes, yes. Yes. Placing that missing structure.

Eric Bartosz 24:42
Yeah. So I think Bar40 is helping. I like to think it’s helping people with that, even if it’s just in these various areas, but it does kind of check off the boxes for a lot of things that have gone wrong during COVID. So I think it’s definitely popular in that sense, and the fact that there is no again dealing with the psychological uncertainty that we are all in there isn’t like, well, all we got to do is make it to February and then we’re back to normal there, isn’t that right. So we don’t know how long this is going on for you take something like this. It’s like, Alright, so no matter what goes on elsewhere, at least I know for the next 52 weeks, I’ve got this program that I’ve created, I’m going to have a great year, at least no matter what. And it’s kind of, I don’t know, it’s soothing in a way, right, we have this tool that we can use in a world of chaos, we have one certain thing that we can do, and again to I mean, do it with your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, kids, you know that that sort of thing. So it’s something that you can do together. And so I think it’s again, I would like to give Bar40 to everybody, if I could, that would help. I think it’s a tool that for people that are looking for it, it will be good. And if people are looking to change your drinking habits, or get rid of it altogether, and I say that in the book, too, like listen, you want to give it a try not drinking for 52 weeks if you hate it, it’s a year goes by like that, go back to your go back to drinking you like you know, drinking is like a car that you park on the side of the road or a book that you put out, nothing’s gonna change. You go right back to it. Exactly like the bookmarks in the exact same place. You know what I mean? So you’re not gonna, you’ll, you’ll lose weight, you’ll add some years to your life.

Heather Pearce Campbell 26:25
Better. That’s right.

Eric Bartosz 26:27
Yes, we’re clearly we didn’t even talk about sleep. But sleep is a big part of the bar 40 book. It’s something that we’re chronic as a nation, we’re chronically short on that. It’s the last thing we think about. It’s like, when everything else is done, then I’ll go to sleep. But meanwhile, sleep is such a huge thing in our daily life. And I here’s again, I’m, I feel like Heather, I could talk to you all night.

Heather Pearce Campbell 26:49
No, it’s okay, this is good. Actually, what we’re gonna do, and because there’s so much here is I’m actually going to split this into two episodes. So we’ll just hit a midpoint, I’ll make a separate recording, that wraps it up, and then I’ll actually release two back to back episodes. So

Eric Bartosz 27:02
Awesome.

Heather Pearce Campbell 27:04
know. I know. No, but I agree on sleep like I was doing. There’s a guy that I follow who’s a naturopathic doctor and he, he puts out just amazing educational content. And he said, You know, I work with clients who are short on sleep, and especially women who are moms, and they’re doing all the things and they’re trying to push themselves and like, get a hard workout in or do something else to, you know, check all the things. Check that whole the boxes on there. Yes. And he said, what I tell them is right now, I would add more sleep and forego the workout until you’re getting enough sleep. That’s how important it is to our hormonal health. Oh, and that piece alone will keep you from losing weight and having the energy that you need and like sleep first, then this other stuff.

Eric Bartosz 27:54
Yeah, the losing weight thing was really when I started reading more about sleep. Because I was always in that same boat where I felt like, like, I was like one of these short sleepers where I could sleep very little and still be perfectly functioning, which was completely wrong. You know what I mean?

Heather Pearce Campbell 28:12
I need to have a chat with my husband. Yes, yeah.

Eric Bartosz 28:15
I was like, I don’t need sleep. It’s like my superpower. Meanwhile, I would fall asleep at a red light. You know what I mean? I was like, just chronically exhausted. But I started reading more and more about it. And learning that just like, we never understand, we still don’t fully understand sleep. But we’re learning so much more about it with again, more of this brain imaging technology, the fact that every species sleeps, and we’ve, if it didn’t serve such a vital purpose, I was reading this great book, it’s the title is sleep, but I’m trying to remember who the author is. But his point was, if it wasn’t so vital, we would have evolved out of it a long time ago, because we’re not you know, even from olden days, we’re not hunting, we’re not doing all these things that are vital to our species continuity. So it must be doing something super important otherwise we our body wouldn’t keep doing it. And one thing that is really interesting about sleep because a lot of people this is like a problem it’s been around forever, right? People are always struggling with the best way that they can lose weight. That’s such a it’s been like the number one book topic for 200 years. So and it’s so such low-hanging fruit is sleep because it’s such an A lot of people don’t realize this. I know I never did too. So a lot of our hunger is driven by low energy because of lack of sleep. So we wake up a little bit tired. Our body is just red lights going off saying low energy, which creates a hunger to trigger us our triggers our appetite to eat. Meanwhile, though, from a caloric standpoint, our tank is full, we’ve got plenty of food that that low energy is not food-related. It’s sleep-related, but we interpret that low energy alert as as eating so we end up with We ended up eating way more than we need to be because of our lack of sleep. And it’s such like a simple, simple, but not easy solution. If you sleep more, you’ll your appetite will regulate to where it should be. And you won’t have cravings that are not related to actual hunger, but actual sleep. And it’s such like a weird thing like you don’t like a lot of people don’t need these crazy diet plans and all that stuff. Like they’ll still kill themselves eating things they don’t want to eat all day long. But they’re still sleeping five hours instead of getting seven. And if they just got a couple more hours of sleep, you could eat like much more in line with how you want to be eating.

Heather Pearce Campbell 30:39
You know, you’re not craving sugar or something that’s going to give you an instant energy hit. I totally know, as a mom, I have lived this, like, I feel like I’ve had chronic sleeping issues for years. And yeah, part of it was pregnancy-related. I had seven pregnancies for over seven years. And it was really tumultuous getting my two kids here. But I learned a lot about sleep on the way because I slept terribly when I was pregnant. And then you have a newborn like, it just was like chronic exhaustion and the absence of sleep in my life for a very long time. And the weight issues are totally related. And the days where I would wake up having the least amount of sleep is where I’d have these terrible cravings for usually caffeine and sugar, right coffee, or sugar just to get through just to get my brain in a place where it would function properly. Right, the more that you read about sleep, like especially our deep REM sleep is when our brain is actually cleaning up. Yeah, dead brain cells, like literally bad brain cells and stuff that it needs to flush out to keep our brain healthy. And if we don’t raise it, you don’t get that deep REM for the right amount of time. Like we’re actually just not cleaning up the toxins in our brain.

Eric Bartosz 31:50
Yeah, it’s like sleep is kind of like our pit crew, right, we blast around the track all day long. And then at night, when we’re sleeping, the pickers in there, they’re changing brakes, change tires, they’re doing their thing. So when we don’t get that we go back on the track the next day, and then we keep kind of limping around, or we’re really you know, so if, if food is the fuel for our body, sleep is the oil, right? It keeps everything moving all the parts kind of meshing together. And, and again, we just, we, we like we really abused ourselves with that. And, like drinking especially ties into that, like that. Alcohol, like, is so disruptive to sleep. That’s why and I write that about that in the book too. For people that are one of the reasons you’re gonna feel so great. And some people like even if you don’t have a lot to drink, you have a glass of wine. And the next day, you’ll see you’ll hear somebody say like, I’m not hungover, but I just feel off or I feel tired or something like that. So even though small amounts, like is so disruptive to your sleep patterns, it basically stops REM. So like a, it acts as an anesthesia. So you you pass out quickly, as anybody who has had a few drinks knows you’ll fall asleep very easily, like an anesthesia. And just like if you’re put under, you don’t dream. So your REM sleep stops so that that sleep cycle is just a eliminated, right. So you wake up feeling very groggy, because you missed a big chunk of that restoration aspect of your sleep, which is so critical for it. Like if anybody has a Fitbit and you see your report in the morning, I think the Apple Watch is having to where you can get how you slept the night before. And it breaks it up into the, you know, light and deep. And you can google images of your sleep pattern with drinking versus not drinking. If you’re chronically underpowered, if you have a few drinks and go to bed the next day. And that’s another one same thing, right? Your appetite is stimulated, because your body’s like no energy, you know, get some fuel on this fire, which you do want to food but it’s actually sleep, and round and round it goes. So it’s hard to get back to that 52 weeks silver challenge. Hard to live your best year ever.

Heather Pearce Campbell 34:06
If you aren’t drinking,

Eric Bartosz 34:08
Getting up every day throwing that 100 pound backpack on and trying to do everything and it’s you take you know, I got nothing against alcohol, but you take that component away. And it frees you up like to sleep better to eat healthier, to have more energy to get your brain chemistry the way it should be, instead of pouring in a depressant, having your brain counter with stimulants and trying to get it to regulate which is a nightmare for your poor brain and body to contend with. And you take that away and it just simplifies life and see what you think. And then, like, I missed that drinking and go back to it. Your buddy gave it a year and there’s no it’s not a lifetime commitment. You know what I mean?

Heather Pearce Campbell 34:48
Right? No, it’s I mean, it sounds like the whole system. The components are designed to support other parts of the system, right? So I know that you have got and then This is crazy. I can’t believe that you’re offering this but I know you’ve got a free gift that you are willing to share with our listeners. And if you’re listening, you’d be nuts. Oh, not to just jump on this. I can’t I really can’t believe you’re doing this. Do you want to talk for a minute about what it is?

Eric Bartosz 35:15
Yeah, sure I so I wanted to open this up. And again, I said before I get my this Bar40 was always about me, my daily goal is how do I help other people that was long before the Bar40 was a known term. But I’m still that same way. And I spend a lot of my time helping other people that anybody I can help I help. That’s my lot in life. So yeah, my gift would be for the first 20 respondents, I’d be happy to give a complimentary coaching session to those 20 people.

Heather Pearce Campbell 35:45
I love that, that’s amazing. If you are listening, and you feel like you could use support in any area, I mean, you can see that, in this conversation. We’ve covered a lot of topics and Eric has experience coaching I mean, mindset, you know, physical nutritional changes, habit-forming, support and habit eliminating. I especially love that one. So get in touch and Eric, where do you like to connect with people? And for people listening, you can obviously find all of the links that we’re going to share how to connect with Eric on the show notes page, which is at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, but Eric, how do you like to connect with folks? Where are you online?

Eric Bartosz 36:24
Yeah, so you can go to bar forty.org. And that will allow you to fill in some basic questions about as far as coaching, what would you like to achieve during our call, and just submit that you can also go to bar40 book.com. And use my website on that and schedule yourself right on there, if you’d like to do it that way. So bar 40 book.com, or bar forty.org, for either one of those. And we’re moving into more corporate coaching as far as so if anyone has a business or works for a company that you think Bar40 would be of interest to like an employee wellness program? That’s a pretty exciting program. I know, that’s one of the biggest struggles, a lot of companies are having their employees are all working remotely. And how do we keep people feeling engaged? And how do we offer some services that help people in their life in general, you know, cuz they’re not coming into the office, they don’t have this social aspect. So kind of a group Bar40 program helps people do something together and stay connected. And so there’s a lot of upside and benefit to that. So happy to chat with anybody about that as well.

Heather Pearce Campbell 37:35
Oh, I love that I was just talking with a friend the other day, who consults with corporations and organizations, in Canada and in the US. And, you know, she talked about this concept of compounding pressure and what’s happening to people who are working, who are you know, trying to maintain the same performance at a job while other pressures in life have piled on? Right? The loss of childcare loss of our kids being in schools. And so I love that you’re taking this into organizations and offering it as a way to support corporate health and individual employee health. I think that’s huge.

Eric Bartosz 38:11
Yeah, it’s a real thing. You know, everybody’s in this together this, there’s no real I’m not going to say the hits on president. I’m so sick of my president. But there is no historical comparison to this. So everybody’s kind of building the airplane mid-flight from a company an employer standpoint as well. So there, you know, everybody’s struggling, how do we all do this together? So this is a resource and a tool that can help with that?

Heather Pearce Campbell 38:36
Yeah. Well, I love it. I’m so grateful to you for your time and for taking a deep dive into like, the various components of Bar40. And I know there’s so much more that we could touch on. But what would you like to leave our listeners with today? Any final thoughts? Or, you know, little motivational pep talk or whatever you want to leave people with?

Eric Bartosz 38:57
Yeah, yeah. So I would just really think about the concept of think about every day as a fresh start. And, you know, visualize really do visualize the fact that, you know, you’re writing this life story, visualize the actual book itself. If you’re a visual person, think of it as a leather-bound. Does it have a red bookmark in it, but think about every, like tomorrow, when you wake up naked, that blank page? And what would you like to see on that page. And the other thing I would leave everybody with as a really easy, quick tool for managing stress that pops up in your daily life is just a simple breathing exercise that I’ve been using for years. And it’s something that they really drill into special ops soldiers that are in combat scenarios because it’s like a reset button for your brain and it’s called some of you may be familiar with it, but it’s called box breathing. And just as a quick visualization, if you close your eyes and imagine just a square, so envision A fixed object like a ball, and four seconds, it’s going up the left side of the square, that’s when you’re inhaling. So inhale for seconds while it’s going up, hold your breath for seconds, while it’s going across the top, exhale, for seconds, while it’s going down the right hand side and hold your breath for seconds, well, it’s going across the bottom. So those that revolution takes 16 seconds, obviously. And if you do that a few times within a space of a minute, it’s an amazing reset button for your brain. So you don’t have to do it with your eyes closed, obviously, special ops soldiers in a combat situation not closing their eyes while they’re doing this. But if you can close your eyes and do it, and you can just imagine any object you want, navigating its way around those four sides of the square. And it’s like a very quick one minute meditation, breath technique that is amazingly powerful. If you’re in you know, if you’re in traffic, if you’re, and you can do it while you’re having a challenging conversation with your boss, for instance, or your kid is making you crazy, whatever, whatever is going on, that’s raising your blood pressure, increasing your stress level, and you can feel that happening. You do something like that, and it’s gonna automatically even it’s out of your control how effective it is. But it’s your brain and your body respond to that. And it’s like a reset. It’s a it’s almost like magic. I would leave you with that and recommend.

Heather Pearce Campbell 41:32
I love it. Well, the power of mindfulness. I mean, it’s been studied over and over. And it’s, I think, just key, especially now more than ever, but, Eric, yes. I’m so excited to be connected with you. I’m so happy to learn more about Bar40, the origins what’s inside of it really, really happy to share this conversation with my audience. Thank you again for joining.

Eric Bartosz 41:54
Thank you. It was awesome talking with you. And I appreciate all the time.

Heather Pearce Campbell 41:58
Absolutely. Talk to you soon.

Eric Bartosz 42:01
All right, thank you.

GGGB Intro 42:06
Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. four key takeaways links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more see the show notes which can be found at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us to keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.