With Hadlee Garrison, a wellness coach who specializes in behavioral change strategy, ayurveda, and science based approaches to guide her clients to feeling better in their bodies.

As the founder of Happy Healthy Habits, Hadlee’s mission is to empower, encourage, and guide health-seeking individuals to implement essential habits for a thriving body, mind, and spirit. She helps her clients feel better in their bodies, have more energy on a day-to-day basis, gain more confidence, cultivate a better relationship with food, and become less stressed and more joyful in their day-to-day lives.

She graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience and a Master’s in Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Education. Her research on the intersection of health behaviors, habit change science, body image and food during her MPH informed the program she later created to empower individuals to take control of their own habits, behaviors, and relationships with their bodies, food, and themselves.

Her online program, called Happy Healthy Habits, combines the concepts of behavioral science, habits for optimal health, and group dynamics to help her clients make lasting, influential changes in their lives. It is a program founded in modern science, Ayurveda, and behavior change strategy. Members gain an understanding of core methodology through clear content and step-by-step instruction. They implement these habits through intentional and reflective practice, collaborative group dynamics, and open-minded self-inquiry. Participants experience increased energy on a daily basis, gain greater confidence, cultivate a better relationship with food, and become less stressed and more joyful in their day-to-day lives. They learn to trust their intuition and implement the Happy, Healthy Habits they need to thrive!

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

• Learn why Hadlee is not a huge fan of new years resolutions
• “Self compassion is actually the most effective way to make any sort of change in our lives.” BOOM. Be sure to catch the discussion around this point!
• Society rewards disassociating from your body.

Check out these highlights:

6:15 – 8:05 There are so many ways we can set ourselves up for success. (And hear Hadlee’s book recommendation on habits / behavior change.) Listen to Hadlee’s description of how to use motivation in your favor.

9:45 – 11:08 Instead of beating yourself up, TRY THIS to boost your success instead. (This part is super important).

17:21 “While not everyone has a full blown eating disorder, almost every woman I had ever talked to had a really really weird relationship with food if not a totally dysfunctional relationship with food.”

21:35 “It’s about experiencing our lives in a way that we want to experience them … and going through life without so much stress and turmoil and drama.”

28:00 Why Hadlee works with all of her clients for at least a year.

36:00 When we are not aware that what we are experiencing is stress (including how exercise stresses the body).

45:15 Nothing is bad or good. We assign morality to certain foods, certain amounts of foods, to exercise …

51:25 How to successfully achieve behavior change – and how to get started and be more consistent.

How to get in touch with Hadlee

On social meda:

Instagram: instagram.com/happyhealthyhadlee
Facebook: facebook.com/happyhealthyhadlee
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hadlee

FREE GIFT FOR LISTENERS:

Take the Healthy Habits Quiz here.

Plus, get a free 30-minute Health Goals Session to help you gain clarity on your wellness goals and next steps for getting there!

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Hadlee Garrison is a wellness coach and founder of Happy Healthy with Hadlee. She helps her clients feel better in their bodies, have more energy on a day-to-day basis, gain more confidence, cultivate a better relationship with food, and become less stressed and more joyful in their day-to-day lives.

She graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience and a Master’s in Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Education. Her research on the intersection of health behaviors, habit change science, body image and food during her MPH informed the program she later created to empower individuals to take control of their own habits, behaviors, and relationships with their bodies, food, and themselves.

Her online program, called Happy Healthy Habits, combines the concepts of behavioral science, habits for optimal health, and group dynamics to help her clients make lasting, influential changes in their lives.

Learn more about Hadlee on her website 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.

Hadlee Garrison 0:04
It’s not about willpower. It’s about, you know, when we do have motivation, which sometimes we do, but motivation goes up and down. And so when we do have that motivation, that’s when we can actually set ourselves up for success in the future, you know, whether it’s creating physical systems in our lives, or it’s creating, you know, goals and thinking of the obstacles that might arise so that we can plan around those things and everything. You know, there’s a lot of different ways that we can actually set up when we do have the motivation.

GGGB Intro 0:41
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 1:13
Hello and welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I am an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit, and Great Business. Today, I’m super excited to introduce our guest, Deborrah Ashley. Welcome, Deborrah. I’m super happy to have you.

Hadlee Garrison 1:38
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. I’m really excited to be here.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:42
Absolutely. This is gonna be such a great and timely conversation. I know before we went live, I was talking about like, Oh my gosh, I personally need this conversation. And I know that in the midst of COVID, so many other people do as well. So let’s get you introduced for folks that don’t know Hadlee, Hadlee Garrison is a wellness coach and founder of happy healthy with Hadlee. She helps her clients feel better in their bodies have more energy on a day to day basis, gain more confidence, cultivate a better relationship with food and become less stressed and more joyful in their day to day lives. She graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science in bio psychology, cognition, and neuroscience and a master’s in public health and health behavior and health education. Her research on the intersection of health behaviors, habit change, science, body image and food during her mph informed at the program She later created to empower individuals to take control of their own habits, behaviors and relationships with their bodies, food and themselves. Her online program called happy healthy habits combines the concepts of behavioral science habits for optimal health and group dynamics to help her clients make lasting, influential changes in their lives. godly man I feel like there’s so much we could talk about right now. But I, I first of all, really love the emphasis on habit change, right? behavioral change behavioral science, because as much as most of us if not all of us want to make positive change in our lives. Sometimes, you know, it feels beyond us. Like sometimes I think there are things that we just don’t understand about what behavioral change really looks like. And if we missed the boat, then we just are not equipped to make the changes that we want to make. So I’m super excited to have this conversation because I feel like we all can use more information rather than less when it comes to behavioral change and creating healthy habits. Totally Yes.

Hadlee Garrison 3:49
I, you know, especially around this time of year, when it’s like a new year resolutions, like I want to change my life. That’s one of the reasons that I’m not a huge fan of resolutions because it kind of creates this, like, I have to change everything right now. And you know, we wait for that, that arbitrary date and everything. But I am a big fan of goal setting and changing our habits and all of that kind of thing. So I do think it’s a really important topic. And it’s not something that like habit change is not something that a lot of people are talking about. More More and more recently, but usually, it’s just like, do this diet, do this exercise plan? The new goals,

Heather Pearce Campbell 4:33
Here’s how you..

Hadlee Garrison 4:33
Call set, right? Exactly, yes. And the behavior change piece is what’s missing the creating the systems to actually achieve those goals. You know, like smart goals are great. But there’s something missing still, it’s we still have to get those little teeny tiny micro habits in there in order to achieve the goals that we then that we’re setting for ourselves. So hugely important.

Heather Pearce Campbell 4:57
Yes. Well, and I remember it It was a few years ago now I picked up the book Changeology, right, which is five steps. Have you read it? Is it familiar for you, so Changeology – let me see what the subtitle is five steps to realizing your goals. But it talks about how people get behavioral change wrong, right. And it, it basically breaks down behavior change into different phases, like there’s something that happens before you make a decision to actually change, right, and then you’ve got this activation energy, but that’s a different phase, then once you get started in, you’re actually climbing that hill. And that’s still a different phase, then maintenance, maintaining that habit over the long haul, and I remember it just being so helpful to understand behavioral change in that way, even from a timeline perspective. And one of the things that really stood out to me in that book is how often we will start trying to make a behavior change when we’re actually in the wrong phase. Like we’re not we’re not ready yet. For the time being. We haven’t set ourselves up for success, which almost guarantees that we’re gonna fail huh?

Hadlee Garrison 6:14
Yes. And there’s so many ways that we can actually set ourselves up for success, and most people are not doing those. There are some awesome books out there on habit change, for sure. One of my favorites is atomic habits. by James clear, that one’s like pretty popular right now. He’s kind of popularizing habit, every change behavior change.

Heather Pearce Campbell 6:36
I’ve heard that one. I haven’t read it yet.

Hadlee Garrison 6:41
Yeah, that one’s really good. There, there are many out there. But basically, we need to not be relying on motivation. And that’s what most people in, especially the health and wellness industry are peddling.

Heather Pearce Campbell 7:00
They’re like, and when you say motivated, yes. Is this is this also relate to or overlap with, like willpower? Yes, will often end up just thinking like, I don’t have enough willpower to do this.

Hadlee Garrison 7:13
Yes, I talked to so many people who are like, I am not like, I don’t have enough discipline, I’m just, I don’t have enough willpower. I’m weak. I know all of these things. And I’m like, That’s not true. You’re a human. It’s not, you know, it’s not about willpower. It’s about, you know, when we do have motivation, which sometimes we do, but motivation goes up and down. And so when we do have that motivation, that’s when we can actually set ourselves up for success in the future, you know, whether it’s creating physical systems in our lives, or it’s creating, you know, goals, and thinking of the obstacles that might arise so that we can plan around those things and everything. You know, there’s a lot of different ways, which we can go into as well, that we can actually set up when we do have the motivation. And because we won’t.

Heather Pearce Campbell 8:07
That’s right. And the most obvious example, when you say that, like the number I can’t even count, especially during COVID that because I feel like COVID at our house has been like one big long experiment in chaos. I have two children, one who’s three and one who’s eight. And you know, we’ve got some special needs going on. And it’s just there’s always a lot and meal planning around here, right? If I don’t do it, if I don’t plan ahead for the week, if I don’t do my grocery shopping, you know, with, with the meals in mind that like it doesn’t happen, we end up throwing food out, I end up just not eating and like, I’ll drink coffee all day like the you know, your environment will influence what actually ends up happening, if you haven’t set up the structure and the support to carry you through those times when your motivation drops, or it is chaos, or there’s unexpected things happening in your schedule. We’re kind of laughing because I showed up 15 minutes late to this interview, right? So like, every day, I feel like again, you know, and if I’m still you know, and the reality is like, I punish myself so hard. Even though I know this, I’m not always able to implement it. Right. So this is I’m just fascinated by what it really truly takes to achieve behavioral change. Mm

Hadlee Garrison 9:36
Well, and so the really important thing about especially behavior change, health changes. I heard you say that, you you I don’t know what what exactly you just said but like you, you’re beating yourself up because you’re like, I know what I need to do, but I’m not doing it. And that’s so common. And that’s like how I always was I knew I knew all of the things I knew how like what kinds of things I needed to be doing for health, like I was really into health and wellness as a high schooler and then into college and everything. But I was not living, the things that I knew that I actually knew that I needed to do. And the reason for that is because I didn’t have these behavior change methods, but then also because I was beating myself up so much that was counterproductive to my, to actually creating the habits that I needed to create. And so a lot of times that self criticism, research has shown now that self compassion is actually the most effective way to make any sort of change in our lives. Which is huge. Like one thing I know, I’m like, can you..

Heather Pearce Campbell 10:45
Please repeat that for myself and for anybody? Sounds like I’ve got some work to do on self compassion, because you’re right. I’ve all I mean, you know, and I think a lot of us are, especially for high performers in certain areas of our life, like, it’s really easy to be self critical when we’re not measuring up in other areas.

Hadlee Garrison 11:05
Yes, okay. So this is like the exact avatar, the exact client that I work with is someone who’s super high achieving knows how to succeed in, you know, like, as an entrepreneur, or in business or whatever. But when it comes to themselves and their own health, or maybe they’re really high achieving with their family, and they always put their family first, you know, I help people who are really high achieving, but who tend to be super self critical, to be able to start to feel the way that they want to feel and their bodies and improve that self compassion, and that self confidence and all of that kind of thing. So that they can actually, you know, be living the life that they want to live essentially, in, of course, you know, be more productive in their job, have more mental clarity, be more efficient, procrastinate, less, all of those things.

Heather Pearce Campbell 12:02
It all goes together. So I’m curious, because I know we just jumped right into habit change. But talk to us about how you got interested in this field to begin with.

Hadlee Garrison 12:13
Yes, so like I said, I was always very health conscious. My whole family was really into health. And they were like, eating organic before, it was like a thing. That I was like, really weird. In my, in my hometown, being from a small town in West Michigan, it was like, what’s organic?

Heather Pearce Campbell 12:33
Like, you’re oh my gosh, I love that. Just recently, I was joking with my sister. And, like, we did not have unintelligent parents. And yet, when I look back on what we ate in our childhood, like, my dad was a veterinarian, there’s part of me that’s like, he should have known better, you know, and, and yet, like, we didn’t eat a vegetable, unless it came out of a can. I mean, so bad, so bad. And it’s not like we ever starve. But when I look at our childhood nutrition, Oh, my gosh.

Hadlee Garrison 13:08
Well, right. And so that’s the case for so many people like, in, in our country, and, you know, I’m basically like, people are eating enough food, but they’re not getting enough nutrients, nutrients, that food. So like the, the, they’re having enough calories. Not that I am into calorie counting, right like that, but they’re having enough calories to survive, but they’re not getting the nutrients that they actually need to have long term health.

Heather Pearce Campbell 13:37
Have mental clarity well, and then when you layer on because, you know, in so much of what my sisters and I have even learned in our adult life, I know began in childhood, right. So we’re all gluten intolerant. We’re all dairy intolerant, like I’m sure that we have probably had leaky gut for years without even knowing what it was. And so you layer like not only not getting enough nutrients to begin with, but then what you are eating is causing inflammation and so even the nutrients that you are getting, you’re not absorb it, like there, you know, it’s it’s really much there so much and looking back and piecing together the puzzle, it’s just like, Oh my gosh, you know, for people that can’t see me, it’s like, on the forehead, right. And then when you understand and start to really get what it takes to be nutritious and to eat a really wholesome, yeah, eat in a wholesome way, then you understand in some ways how high that bar is, right? But it’s, it’s one of the things that I feel like as much as we know, like, we can always do better.

Hadlee Garrison 14:43
Mm hmm. Well, and that’s kind of what got me started in all of this when I was a sophomore in high school. My my whole family basically became vegetarian because we were like, okay, like, you know, meat is killing us. And so we Whatever. I don’t believe that meat is killing us. But the type the quality of meat that we were having was, you know, not great.

Heather Pearce Campbell 15:08
You’re talking to somebody who literally, you know, like a treat in our house where those little Vienna sausages? Do you even know what have you so bad, it’s like spam or whatever, you know, anyways, I remember like, we would pull those out of the cans and Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, Yeah, totally.

Hadlee Garrison 15:27
Yeah, so that was kind of like, and I feel like that’s the case for a lot of people, people will become vegan or vegetarian or whatever. And that’ll be kind of their start in the health journey. Which, you know, nothing wrong with that. However, when, when I started, you know, being becoming very health conscious, I was also becoming very body conscious at the same time as in high school. And I was not like, real thin, though, I was absolutely not overweight, at all. But, you know, I, I had a sister who was very thin, everyone in my family is way taller than me. So, you know, I had these, I had a different body, from people in my family in some of my friends and stuff. And so I started to pair like, my health with how my body looked as, as I would argue, almost every single person in our society does, right.

Heather Pearce Campbell 16:26
And certainly most women that I know, Yes, exactly. Most women just yeah, on societal messaging, the way that values are deeply embedded within certain families, like all of it,

Hadlee Garrison 16:39
And so that was, that was something that was a real struggle for me, especially with the if you think about the self compassion piece, like there was no, it was all very self critical. And so it wasn’t necessarily trying to be sort of was trying to be as healthy as I could, but really, so that I could look the way that I wanted to write, right, and so when I went into college is the same way. And I started to do some research in my grad program. at U of M, in my Master’s of Public Health. And, you know, we, I started to research a little bit about like, disordered eating, and eating disorders in general and stuff. And I was talking to a lot of people about this. And I realized that well, not everyone has a full blown eating disorder, almost every woman I had ever talked to had a really, really weird relationship with food, if not a totally dysfunctional relationship with food, and, you know, the restriction and binge or, you know, forgetting to eat all day, and then eating everything in sight. And, you know, and there are so many different patterns that we have, that are dysfunctional around food. And so that became, that became something that I was really, really passionate about, even though before that I had been passionate about the nutrients that we need to be getting, and that we’re not getting, you know, food access and things like that, or rather nutrient nutrient access, right. Um, but then I paired that kind of with this, you know, rejecting diet culture, essentially. And something that was really frustrating for me during that time was that it was either, you know, super, super health focused, and, you know, like, I’m going to eat all of the clean foods, I’m never going to eat anything, quote, unquote, bad all these things, or it was like, on body positivity, which is great. But it was like, not actually focused on health on how on earth right? And so so I was like, how can we actually bring these things together so that we can feel the way that we want to feel in our bodies and be healthy, but still, you know, feel good about ourselves and our bodies and not be beating ourselves up all the time and everything? And I found that they actually go together.

Heather Pearce Campbell 19:05
Right? Well, and the thing that’s so interesting about that is like of course they go together and yet, if you’ve lived in modern society, you know how much at least I can say in my own personal experience variance has a female like you in a family row is like, one of these does not look like the other, you know, had like real thin sisters and parents who placed a very high value on being extraordinarily thin. So, it you know, there are some things that we certainly inherit, but I think also just society, in general, really rewards like disassociating from your body. Right, everything that it teaches, like, even from a young age about, you know, oh, there’s not enough food to go around, eat everything on your plate like it really like there’s so many ways that we are taught to disassociate from The way that we feel and from intuitive eating and from really tuning into our bodies, rather than just turning off that connection.

Hadlee Garrison 20:09
I am so glad you brought that up, because that’s a huge part of what I help my clients do. And it’s something that I was totally disassociated from my body even as a young kid, I remember, I remember reading books and having them talk about like, you know, people could sense things like with their body, it like, you know, the hair on the back of their neck would stand up, all that kind of thing. And I was like, Oh, that must just be like a literary device. It’s not a real thing. And, you know, little did I know that our bodies could actually tell us things, and we could actually listen to them. And we didn’t have to just have our mind control everything about our bodies. And so when I started learning, and actually I started learning about iron VEDA, which is the sister science to yoga, and an ancient Indian health system, and they’re all about, you know, that mind body, even spirit connection. And I was like, This makes so much more sense. Yeah,

Heather Pearce Campbell 21:13
Integrated approach to how we actually are meant to live and enjoy ourselves and enjoy this physical experience. Absolutely.

Hadlee Garrison 21:24
And it brings it into, you know, it’s so much more holistic, not even just like holistic for our physiology, but it is it’s, it’s, it’s about experiencing our lives in a way that we want to experience them. And, you know, reacting in a way that is, that makes it more positive. And, and just being able to kind of go through life without so much stress and turmoil and drama, even. So one of the habits that I coach my clients in is actually called easeful living, and that’s separate from meditation, or mindfulness or anything else. One of the habits is also mindfulness sitting in silence is what I call it. But easeful living is, is incredibly important, because if we can actually, like lean back into the support of our physiology, and the habits that we’re implementing, and the automation of the habits that we’re implementing, then life becomes so much easier. And we become so much more resilient.

Heather Pearce Campbell 22:30
That will, and I love this, you know, because one of the things that I’m thinking is that I think we tend to so often and I think certain personalities are more prone to this than others, but we tend to segregate areas of our life, like, how am I doing measuring up as a mom? How am I doing, you know, measuring up in my business? How am I doing measuring up as a partner, how am I doing in the health and fitness, you know, and so, rather than looking at it as this integrated whole, and I really love the concept of, you know, teaching and educating people around nutrition, health, the mind body connection as a way, especially for people who are highly motivated, and other areas of their life as a way to connect those together, right? And understand, obviously, even though we recognize it, we don’t always live it that health is underlying all of those things, and our ability to show up with joy and ease in different areas of our life.

Hadlee Garrison 23:32
Totally. I, I remember, I had there was like, an application that I wrote in, in high school, and it was like, what’s the most important factor for, you know, like, social well being or something like that? And I was like, Oh, it’s health, you know, like health has has to underlie all that. So I wrote an entire essay on that. And yeah, it’s, it’s so incredibly important to, to bring those things together. And I think that a lot of the health and wellness industry is missing, missing a large component of what health actually is. And, and that is self compassion, and actually feeling really good rather than having it be like no pain, no gain, push, push, push, you know, I don’t think that we have to push nearly as much as we do. I do believe in, you know, full engagement, and then full recovery, for sure. Because I think that builds resilience. But you know, we don’t need to be especially women don’t need to be doing the same exact workout in the gym every single day or following eating the same foods every single day, or anything like that. We need different variety. Then I’m speaking of exercise and food because that’s the most common thing but I focus on a lot more than that because because it helps like other hats. It’s actually helped with a relationship with food and exercise and all of that. And so, so yeah, so I think that we have it backwards in our society, and a lot of that has to do with, like, you know, the industry making money, right? Like, they have to convince you that you aren’t, you know, worthy or whatever. And if you follow this diet, then you will be in order for them to make money and keep making money. So, you know, that’s a huge piece of the puzzle, for sure.

Heather Pearce Campbell 25:28
Real and I think there’s a part of this, you know, short term fix to a long term problem, if you will, right. And whether you call it a problem or a long term, whatever, like, the reality is, we have to live with ourselves our whole lives, and there’s nothing that is a short term fix to underlying, you know, issues with the way that we prioritize ourselves or prioritize health. And so joining a 12 week program is not going to change your life if you don’t fix the underlying issues. And so, what you’re speaking about this issue of self compassion, and like, so much of the really probably mindset around how we address this is missing, because, like you said, it’s an industry that’s heavily monetized on, first of all, convincing people that there’s something wrong with them, but also addressing a long term issue with the short term, short term fix.

Hadlee Garrison 26:25
Exactly. And then having repeat customers, because they know that they’re not actually going to fix it, right, with the 12 week thing, or the 10 week, or 30 days or whatever.

Heather Pearce Campbell 26:36
But even with exercise, and you look at the way, you know, metabolisms adjust, if you will, like, there, there isn’t a reason that it should always be the same solution. Right. So I think it’s really important this concept of, you know, being flexible, not only with your diet and your eating and seasonally and understanding, it doesn’t have to be the same routine day in and day out. And it can be and yes, should it be? Yes. And I think totally often want, like, what is that one solution that’s going to make all of this easier, and I just don’t think that there is one.

Hadlee Garrison 27:13
And that’s what my, my mental patterns used to be totally, it was, like, if I can just follow this diet, like, if I can just follow like, vegan, or if I could just follow this, if I can just not eat these things, like, then everything will be fine.

Heather Pearce Campbell 27:31
You know, that missing piece to the puzzle? Like there’s one piece?

Hadlee Garrison 27:35
And I remember like listening to podcasts, and reading books, and, you know, listening to all these different things. So I was like, just Just tell me the answer. What’s the answer? You know, like, especially for people who are really driven, who are just like, I followed this thing, and that led me to success. patient, follow something here. And so, so that’s what I do with my clients is, I work with all of my clients for at least a year, because it is, you know, incredibly important. And the the hope, and the goal is that by the end of that year, they’ll have the tools to be able to take it out into the into the world. And that’s happened for for all of my clients who have who have left, though, I still have some clients who have stuck around because they love the community. Um, but basically, I help people, I don’t just tell them, okay, you know, you’re experiencing this, okay, do this, you know, I’m not a nutritionist or a dietitian, and I there’s absolutely a place for nutritionists and dietitians. But I help people really start to notice what’s happening in their bodies, when they don’t get enough sleep, or when they meditate, or when they are, you know, eat, eat a certain food or eat too much of a certain food or too little, you know, whatever it is, and just start to get really curious. Curiosity is the game here, start to get really, really curious about, okay, you know, how do I feel right now? And what actually led me to this point, and that’s so much more valuable than just telling people what to do, because then they don’t have the skills after the fact to be able to discern that for themselves.

Heather Pearce Campbell 29:22
Yeah, well, and that piece that you just talked about, I think is so huge, because we’re in a society where I think so many people look outside themselves for the solution. And like, nobody knows your every day, your eating habits, your sleep, like when it comes to your health, like nobody knows more about your picture than you do. And yet we’re often I think, taught to really rely on experts and doctors and somebody else to tell us what’s going on. And I remember right out of law school, I had a series of just really crazy events that happened back to back back and they were all very, very high stress events. And it I had a basically like a stress induced round of hypoglycemia, where my blood sugar was dropping really, really fast, I would get these really terrible headaches. I had for a short time, like I had a series of panic attacks, they were all related. But it led into a year of poor health of like feeling really, really badly in my body, and it was all stress related. And I couldn’t, I didn’t recognize that I could fix this with nutrition, right? It was the stress induced round of like, hyperglycemia I just wasn’t eating enough, you know, I would. And what I was eating wasn’t wasn’t helping the problem. And so I just had these cyclic headaches and like body tremors and things that literally lasted for a year and my doctors couldn’t figure it out, like regular medicine could not figure out they were telling me I needed a spinal tap and a brain MRI and, you know, thought maybe I had Ms. And like it was just crazy town. It was so crazy. And I went to a nap I threw in the towel on traditional medicine, I was like I am done with that, like that is not working. And I’m not getting a spinal tap. And I that was the last straw. And so I went I found a natural path and I went to it but I had been keeping a journal like this is the part About going inward is that somewhere in that year of Hell, I thought, you know what, nobody knows more about what’s going on than I do, I should probably start observing it. And so I started this journal and actually my sister who’s having some health issues right now I looked it up the other day. It’s called the health minder healthy mind or body minder, there’s a set of journals that are brilliantly done, if you have a health issue that you’re tracking. I mean, you track whether you track sleep habits has a space for everything you track, like it has an image of a human body. So you can track track like symptoms and you know, anything that you’re feeling on a daily basis, you track your supplements. And that way you can start to observe any patterns or associations that might be arising because of your habits because of either what you’re putting in your body or what you’re doing. And so I did that for an extended period of time. And then by the time I got to my naturopath like I literally just handed over this journal, like, here’s everything you know. And so he he, I was so relieved in our first meeting, he said, you’re young, you’re healthy. There’s a very simple explanation for this. And we’re gonna figure it out, you know, and that was the first time in a year I’d heard somebody say that. And guess what he started with just a full bloodwork, my full panel of bloodwork, just looking at the basics. And he studied my journal for a few weeks, and we scheduled a follow up and he came back and he said, I think you’re having hypoglycemia. And I think you feel terrible. And if you eat this way, for you know, consistently for eight or 10 weeks, I think all these symptoms are going to reverse out in the order that they came on. We did that. And I simply needed to be adding protein, higher protein, every meal every time I ate that needed to come first. Really simple changes, but I just didn’t i didn’t have the knowledge to know what was going on. But once I did that, he was exactly right. Like in four weeks, all my symptoms were gone. No more headaches, no more tremors, like all these things that had rocked my world for a year.

Hadlee Garrison 33:36
Yes, it’s huge. It makes so so that’s for sure one piece of the puzzle, right? Like, you know, we have like all these mindset things. And then the other pieces, like we actually do need information about nutrition and stuff as well. And so, when people, when people talk about how we don’t need, you know, we just need to, you know, eat, eat intuitively, a lot of times people think, oh, that just means I’m going to eat whatever I want. Of course, the intuitive, like specialists and stuff don’t actually promote that, but that’s what people think. And so yeah, so having that knowledge of nutrition is, is very, very important as well, because a lot of times we just don’t know what what is going to make us feel a certain way. And so that’s where, like the, you know, naturopaths and dietitians and all that come into play and I’ve had awesome success with some of my clients who have gone to a dietitian and then I’ve worked with them to figure out how to actually implement a lot of the habits that or you know, the food patterns and all of that kind of thing. Um, you know, they get the information from the dietitian, of course I help people with some some of that too, but not you know, I don’t give them plans. I don’t tell them what you should be eating this kind of just basics. But once they come back, then I’m like, Okay, let’s actually implement this stuff. And having that pairing is huge for people who are experiencing, you know, like, something health related or, you have to figure it out.

Heather Pearce Campbell 35:13
Well, and I think just, you know, there one, what I want to say, as I think there is no one size fits all solution, but you, you do have to combine the power of attention, paying attention to what you’re doing, what’s working, what’s not working, right, that power of observation, and tracking it and not everybody loves to track. But if you literally, you know, have an issue that you’re working on that you’ve got to resolve, I think it’s really important to measure it, and to have some way of tracking results that will guide you to making better decisions.

Hadlee Garrison 35:49
Yeah. And the other piece that I’ll say here, too, is like, his stress totally impacts all of it. And a lot of times we don’t think that it does.

Heather Pearce Campbell 35:59
Yeah, we’re just not aware that what we are experiencing is stress. Right? Well, yeah.

Hadlee Garrison 36:04
Yeah. Well, and that’s actually an interesting point. Because sometimes I’ll have clients who are like, I’m, you know, I’m working out every day and like doing an intense exercise and stuff. And it’s not really it’s not helping me, because we learn that exercise decreases stress. However, if we’re doing really intense exercises every day, and we’re already in a state of fight or flight, it increases your cortisol is it Yeah. So we’re increasing, we’re staying, we’re not only staying in fight or flight, but it’s actually it’s a literal stress on our bodies. And so we then experience more stress. And so doing things that are more fluid, you know, sort of more dancey type things. You guys can’t see me, but I’m dancing.

Heather Pearce Campbell 36:51
Or even walking, even gentle, slowly walking, right? Where restoratives thing? Yes, yeah, absolutely. This point is huge. Because I have learned this over the years as an adult, which is that we’re fed this lie about needing to work out intensely for long periods of time, the more the better, you know, all of this kind of stuff on this track to new, you know, fitness, or, you know, health and, and I think what science has shown us and especially the trends that we’re seeing in more recent times is like, you know, the high impact interval training for shorter periods of time, where you have bursts of energy in your workout in your fitness can really promote that the stress response or the you know, the endurance, the rebuilding muscle tissue, but you don’t need to do it for an hour, right? Right, you don’t go do that every day, or get on a treadmill, and just be killing yourself to actually achieve the results that you want.

Hadlee Garrison 37:51
Exactly. And, and again, it’s it’s full engagement, and then full recovery as well. And so we can, you know, our bodies can sustain some really intense exercise, and it’s like really cool. However, we have to also be doing things that recover us from that really intense exercise in order to keep it sustainable, and not get injured or not get burnt out, or anything like that, or not just get really, really stressed. Because, because again, it’s it’s all about sort of like a pulsation of, you know, intensity versus recovery and rest and rejuvenation. And then especially for people who are really high achieving, you know, who’s who have started their own business or who are, you know, high up in their business or whatever. For a lot of those people on they tend to push, push, push. And so, that’s a lot of times what I’m working on with, with my clients is, okay, you think that by pushing, you’re going to succeed, but that’s not how it works here. And I would argue, you know, it’s not how it’s gonna work, you know, anywhere really, because if we push too hard, we’ll burn out even in business or, you know, that kind of thing. Well,

Heather Pearce Campbell 39:09
I think especially on like, you know, my husband has done some fitness things in the last year and actually, I joke like, he’s living his best life during COVID and like my, you know, my way on the back burner, but, but I also like in watching some of his trainings with them, like I think sometimes the the masculine approach to, you know, working out and this concept of pushing and no pain, no gay, you know, I think it really does a disservice to this idea that, that our health and fitness and nutrition I think we’re better off if we can approach it as a journey, not a regimen and not a short term solution, not like a one piece of the puzzle that’s always going to fit, you know, and I think it can be really hard to undo that. Is that training or that wiring that I think is so often built in?

Hadlee Garrison 40:04
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, there are some really, there’s some really interesting research coming out about this now, because all of the, you know, health and wellness models that we’ve had, all of the research that we’ve done in the past has really been around the male body. And so, like, that’s the case for, you know, pharmaceuticals, and, you know, anything in our healthcare system, basically until like, the past couple of decades. And even, that’s rare. The reason for that is because women’s bodies are cyclical, and so they didn’t want to deal with the fact that, you know, women could be on their periods, or they could be, you know, oscillating, or whatever. And that could impact the study, well, we need to know that it’s gonna impact the study, because we need to know how it’s gonna work for us. So now, there’s some research coming out about it, which is awesome. But there is that that model that we’ve all grown up with, and that has been ingrained in us that is very masculine, it’s in, it’s literally based on the male body. And so the female body needs to be working in cycles, like we need to be doing different exercises at different times, need to be eating different things at different times of the month. And usually, we don’t, you know, we can have like, a lot of information around what things we need to be doing at those times of the month, but we, if we are really tapped into our bodies, our bodies will also kind of show us what it is that we need to be doing, our bodies will be a little bit more tired, you know, at different times of the month. And that’s telling us that, okay, don’t do a super, really hard. It’ll tell us, you know, we’ll have cravings and, you know, that’s a whole nother thing, where if we can get really, really curious about our cravings, and you know, wondering like, Okay, what is it that my body is actually wanting, rather than just just chocolate or just totally whatever?

Heather Pearce Campbell 42:08
Totally, like, are you missing magnesium? Right.

Hadlee Garrison 42:11
Exactly. Exactly. And, and those fluctuate throughout the month. And so we do we need different things. And so all of that being said, is that when we do tap into our bodies, more our bodies will, will help us along the way to tell us what we actually mean, which is really cool.

Heather Pearce Campbell 42:30
Well, and it’s, I love this approach. I mean, first of all that it’s really varied and there isn’t one strict thing that we all should be doing. there’s a there’s a guy in this space. Do you know have you heard of Dr. Jade Tita? I’m not sure how you say his last name teta Tita, just to you probably really, based on what I’m hearing, I think you’d really like his stuff. Because he is he’s very much a contrarian like he he, like, that’s Bs, don’t know, anybody who says this is the only thing that’s going to work for you. And you have to do it this way. He’s, you know, he said, Every body is different, you have to approach it, like an experiment, here are the things that you should be paying attention to and measuring. And maybe, you know, if you’re having a craving for junk food, or whatever, you should have a little bit because it’s gonna make you stay more on track throughout the day versus ignoring ignoring it. Like he actually just totally believes in paying attention and the power of observation and just saying, like, no, all junk food is not bad, if a little bit helps you stay on track the rest of the day, so that you are more helpful. That could be a helpful strategy for you versus just total restraint, where then you lose it and you fall off the wagon for a week, you know, and even every mindset shift.

Hadlee Garrison 43:52
Yeah, it’s so for so many people that I work with, and this was absolutely the case for me, it was like I was, it was very all or nothing. It’s like I am on it, I’m doing the thing, whatever. And then I would eat something or do something that was like, not on the plan. And, and I’d be like, I ruined it all. I’m just gonna eat everything and say, I’m just gonna, I’m not gonna work out. I’m just gonna, you know, they’re not gonna sleep early, like a light switch. It’s..

Heather Pearce Campbell 44:23
on or off. Yeah.

Hadlee Garrison 44:25
It’s like, oh, well, I’ll just start tomorrow, or I’ll start on Monday, or I’ll start, you know, whenever and then I’ll finally be able to do it right. Here, change works at all. And it’s super, super detrimental not only to actually changing behaviors, but also to our physical and mental and emotional well being, as well.

Heather Pearce Campbell 44:48
And I said, you know, it’s so interesting, because I think so many people can relate to what you just said about like, all or nothing. I think we’re partly trained that way like you’re either on a plan doing all the things or you’re not If you’re not, you’re failing part of diet culture. It’s, you know, how do you get people to soften up around the edges on that and be more flexible with themselves?

Hadlee Garrison 45:15
Yeah. And just looking at everything is like, okay, you know, nothing is bad or good, really, that’s another thing that we assign morality, that’s part of diet culture is like, we assign morality to certain foods to certain amounts of foods to, you know, exercise, or, you know, just living a healthy lifestyle. And, you know, I mean, like, I tell my clients, like, if you’re not living a healthy lifestyle, that does not mean that you’re bad, it doesn’t has nothing to do with your worth at all whatsoever. And you can also do things that are going to make you have a better experience in your life and better day to day, you know, habits and a better lifestyle, essentially. And so if we can take ourselves out of the morality piece, and not look at things as good or bad, but rather be like, what do I want to experience next? How do I want to feel next in my body? If I’m going to if I eat this, my experiences in the past have told me that I’m going to feel this way? Do I want to feel that way? Is it worth it to feel that way? Right now? Do like, Is it going to make me feel on you know, more energized, or, you know, whatever it is? And then we can with that curiosity of like, how is this you know, impacted me in the past? Then we can make those decisions without it being good or bad?

Heather Pearce Campbell 46:42
No, that’s right. So back to and I just I so enjoy his teaching, but it’s like this. How did what how did that choice that I just make influence me? And how does it you know, is it a choice I should continue to make but understanding that relationship and getting curious about it I think a lot of people have a hard time doing if they’re just following somebody rulebook, you know, and the Jade Jade Tita or Taylor, however you say his last name, his rule for this, it’s a funny phrase, it’s like he says, Is your smack in check. And Schmidt stands for, like, I think it’s sleep, hunger, energy. hormones, like he’s got this whole, you know, whole little acronym, but but it’s really true. If you do something like you go to bed after midnight, and you realize you feel terrible The next day, versus going to sleep at nine or 10. And just waking up earlier, like, that’s a sleep issue, you’ve got to figure out to optimize your health. Not everybody, you know, can go by the same rulebook not everybody’s are an Early to bed person, not everybody’s an early to rise person, there is no one size fits all. But you know, looking at the fact that it’s a complex picture, with all these elements, and being very curious about how they relate to each other, I think is so powerful.

Hadlee Garrison 48:02
Totally. Yeah. And so there are, there are definitely universal truths. And we need to have some nuance to all of them. Right. And so, that’s, so that’s what I do with my clients is, I have a framework of the habits that we go into basically, for everyone, and refining those different habits and everything. But they have to I help them figure out, you know, I don’t tell them, this is what’s going to be right for you. But I help them with kind of some structure and everything to figure out what is going to be the right thing for you, at this stage of your life. You know, with this kind of schedule you have going on with how you’re wanting to feel what you’re wanting to do, even the season of the year, that impacts us and for women the season, you know, the month, the time of the month and everything. So So yeah, so have like, there are universal truths that you know, there are, there are things that are going to make us feel better and feel worse. For most for pretty much everyone. Yeah, and we need to tailor it to what it is that we actually need.

Heather Pearce Campbell 49:16
I love that. And I love this idea of universal truth, but then having some flexibility within that. What do you find? Like are there a couple of things that you can share that you find? Either most people get wrong? Or misunderstand or like is there any myth-busting you want to do that we haven’t talked about yet.

Hadlee Garrison 49:37
Yeah, I think the biggest one is, is like the all or nothing tendency, the perfectionism of like, I just have to do it right and then everything will be fine. Um, the other piece of that is that like, we’re doing that because we want to feel better about ourselves. We feel like there’s something missing. And so A big piece of what I do with my clients is help them to realize that there’s not actually something missing, we don’t need to fix them, we just need to, you know, help them figure out like their own worth, and also tweak some things in their behaviors and that kind of thing in order for them to feel, you know, to actually feel the way that they want to feel like physically and that kind of thing. But, but there’s nothing missing. There’s nothing wrong with anyone. Yeah. And so that’s another that’s a huge piece of, you know, the wellness industry that I’m like, we to not promote that anymore, I get that you’re making a lot of money off of it.

Heather Pearce Campbell 50:42
Yeah.

Hadlee Garrison 50:43
But in order to actually make that real, and lasting change, we have to come from a place of like self love, even body love before we get to the place that we want to be in our bodies or whatever. We have to come from that place in order to make lasting and sustainable change for sure.

Heather Pearce Campbell 51:03
I love that. Yes, the body love. I mean, I think that that could be a whole separate conversation just on its own. The, you know, I know, we’re getting a little bit short on time here. But the other thing I wanted to ask is for people that are struggling with making that behavior change, so one, you know, yes, we need to figure out the body love peace and the self compassion and all of that. But what are some of the quick or easy tips that you give around how to successfully achieve behavior change, right, and you can maybe could just walk us through one or two examples.

Hadlee Garrison 51:38
Yeah, so the first thing that I start with is on, basically make it as easy as you possibly can. So start with like, two minutes. You know, if you’re like, I am super inconsistent with my, let’s say, like exercise with workouts in the morning, you want to work, you want to, you know, be working out every day, which is fine, as long as you as long as you’re doing some recovery workouts, they’re not the whole time. Yes, um, so start with two minutes. So the goal is not the workout, the like, one off workout goal is consistency. And the the big bigger goal is becoming the kind of person who works out every day. So you have to pair that identity evolution with the habit change. So you have to think in your mind that you are the kind of person who works out every day. And in order to bolster that, basically, we need to work out every day so that we become the kind of person who’s working out every day, we need both of those pieces. So because we can change our behavior, but if we don’t change your identity, then it we won’t continue it long term, we can also change your identity. But if we don’t change the behavior, then we’re free. We feel like we’re lying to ourselves. So we need both. Yeah, so we need to, we can start with two minutes. And we can always build on from there. This is not tricking ourselves and being like, Oh, well start with two minutes. But really, I’m gonna do an hour. Like, that’s not what I’m saying here. It’s literally starting, I’m going to do jumping jacks and sit ups and push ups or something, whatever you want to do for those two minutes. And, you know, you can keep going if you want to, but sometimes I’ll tell my clients like, don’t like stop at two minutes so that you know that you’re not lying to yourself. And then then you can add on after those two minutes consistent. So that’s the that’s the number one thing to start with. That’s kind of the easiest one to start.

Heather Pearce Campbell 53:48
I love that. First of all, the concept of identity. Evolution, I think is what you called it. Yeah, really, really important that we are doing things align with our identity. And if we need to change it, like our identity needs to change as well. Right. But also this concept of consistency, because I think it also can feel really futile to attempt something that’s actually too high of a hurdle. Yeah. You know, if your goal for yourself is five days a week, and you do it, too, it still feels like you’re failing.

Hadlee Garrison 54:21
Totally. Yes. So the consistency piece is so important. A lot of times, you know, people will be like, Oh, I’m going to do this three days a week. And I always encourage people to, instead of, instead of that, how can we make it so for example, like going to going to bed. at a certain time, people will be like, I want to go to bed by 10pm, three days a week. And I’m like, that’s going to be so much harder than going to bed at 1130 if you’re going to bed like at midnight or one or whatever. Then going to bed at 1130 every night. And then we can actually we can like build you know, go backwards. From there if you’re wanting to do that.

Heather Pearce Campbell 55:01
Oh, you’re speaking my language right now I have had a year of late nights based on trying to do what I want to do with kiddos and work. But yes, that feel like, I would love to go to bed at 10. But is it reasonable? Probably not for me right now. But when you say that like Oh, 1130 every night, I’m like, I could probably shoot for that. Like, that’s probably something I could actually hit. You know? Totally. Yeah. I love that. Yeah.

Hadlee Garrison 55:27
Yeah, for sure.

Heather Pearce Campbell 55:29
Well, Hadley, so for for folks that are thinking like, Oh, my gosh, I need more of this. I need more education, information, support, whatever. I mean, if you’re like me, there’s, you know, there’s just not enough. Meaning that more support as always welcome. Where do you like for people to connect with you online?

Hadlee Garrison 55:48
Yes, I’m mostly on Instagram, and a little bit on Facebook as well. But I’m at both places. I’m happy, healthy. Hadlee.

Heather Pearce Campbell 55:58
Awesome. And just for people listening, that’s Hadlee with two E’s?

Hadlee Garrison 56:02
Yes, yes, l e, instead of Le y. So and then my website is happy, healthy. hadley.com made it easy on everyone.

Heather Pearce Campbell 56:11
Love it all the same, but consistent. That’s perfect. So if you’re listening, you can grab those links to her social media. I’ll share her website at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast where you can access the recording as well as the show notes. Hadley, I think you’ve got a gift with our audience. I mean, your audience, right? Would you like to talk about that for a minute?

Hadlee Garrison 56:34
Yes. So we’ve talked a lot about behavior change. And we’ve talked a lot about the mindset and you know, different things that we need to change, shift around our mindset around health and all that. And so I have this quiz that’s actually going to help you figure out what habit might actually make the biggest difference for you in your life. And so if you’re wanting to figure out okay, what’s actually like, what do I need to do? Because a lot of you are high achieving people who want to figure out what they need to do. And you can go to my website and and take this quiz. And basically, it’ll just it’ll ask you a few questions to figure out what habit you might be like the first step for you. You know, all of the habits that I coach people are are important, but this is a good first first step for sure.

Heather Pearce Campbell 57:26
So I’ll share that link as well at the show notes. So if you’re looking for that quiz, I know I want to go take it to figure out where to start. I will put that link in the show notes again, legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast and I think you this is a crazy offer to me, but I think you were offering also a maybe a session or something you want to talk.

Hadlee Garrison 57:48
Yeah, so I’m offering a 30 minute free health goals session. I love doing these because it helps people gain clarity around what they’re actually wanting to experience in their lives next, and you know, starting to put together the pieces of like, what do I actually need to do in order to get there? And so you know, that’s what I that’s what I love to help people do, obviously, my clients and everything, but not for you guys.

Heather Pearce Campbell 58:18
Yeah, that’s amazing. If you’re listening, you need to go run and not walk with that offer because it’s free, 30 minute session to help you get started on your goals, which just sounds phenomenally generous. Hadlee, so fun to connect with you today. I know we just covered the tip of the iceberg. But I really love this conversation. I think it’s such an important one. There were so many gems. You know, I think the self compassion is a huge one. So many others. And so I really appreciate you taking the time to come on here today.

Hadlee Garrison 58:49
Thank you so much. Yes, it was so fun.

Heather Pearce Campbell 58:52
Absolutely.

GGGB Outro 58:57
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 legal website warrior.com slash podcast, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on iTunes. Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts so others will find us to keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.