With Olly Wood, the go-to authority for individuals over 40 seeking holistic wellness, tapped into over 20,000 hours of expertise dedicated to empowering busy professionals and business owners across New Zealand and Australia.

Starting out as a personal trainer in a big gym, Olly noticed something: despite all the effort his clients put in, they were still stuck because of stress and not taking care of themselves properly. So, he decided to change things up. He created the Body Reset program, a simple 4-step plan to help people get healthier and feel more energized.

The cool thing about Olly’s approach is that it’s not about strict diets or crazy workouts. It’s all about making small, doable changes that fit into your busy life. With the Body Reset program, Olly’s helped loads of people feel stronger, healthier, and more productive without all the hassle.

In our conversation, Olly shares his insights on the importance of prioritizing self-care and wellness, especially for busy entrepreneurs. He advocates for focusing on actionable steps rather than being driven solely by emotions, emphasizing the transformative impact of small, achievable changes in diet and lifestyle on overall health and resilience. He also gives actionable advice for individuals looking to enhance their physical and mental well-being amidst the demands of entrepreneurship.

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Takeaways & quotes you don’t want to miss from this episode:

• The connection between mindset, mental health, and digestion.
• Why is there a need to prioritize body awareness and mindfulness practices?
• The importance of small, achievable changes in diet and lifestyle.
• How to prioritize self-care and wellness for busy entrepreneurs?
• Focusing on actions over emotions to build confidence.

“It’s not what you eat, it’s what you absorb that matters…”

-Olly Wood

Check out these highlights:

• 12:14 Olly shares his personal journey on how he ended up in this space.
• 19:55 What are the things that are easy for people to usually miss?
• 28:21 Where Olly typically starts when working with a client…
• 39:41 How did Olly shift his mindset to maintain his physical and mental well-being?
• 47:21 Olly’s final takeaway to leave people with…

How to get in touch with Olly on Social Media:

You can also contact Olly by visiting his 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  00:00

Here’s what you get on today’s episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®…

Olly Wood  00:04

The one thing I think hinders people from that health pursuit so much, it’s the simple fact. And I really want this to hit everyone. You don’t give yourself permission to feel good at 80%. And that’s really the big one is we’re trying to improve nutrition, but we’re not looking for 100%, we’re looking to do the best we can in an imperfect world. What are those little tweaks and adjustments we can do? How can we give permission to ourselves for being a little bit better than yesterday rather than crashing in our pack, and I think that’s fundamentally what gets in the way of consistency, the stress, the guilt, the shame we give ourselves for not nailing it. Because when we put 100% into work, things change. And we aim for 100% and health, it doesn’t quite work the same way.

GGGB Intro  00:45

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  01:13

Alrighty, welcome. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®. I’m an attorney and legal coach based here in Seattle, Washington, serving online information entrepreneurs throughout the US and the world. Welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®. I am super excited to welcome our guest, Olly Wood today. Welcome, Olly.

Olly Wood  01:38

Hey, Heather, really good to be on and love the name, by the way.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:41

Oh, thank you. Well, so good to be here. I love your name. It’s unique. And I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation, in part, like so many of us been going through my own health journey. But also, it’s just so true. And I think particularly in the journey of entrepreneurship, where so much can be on your shoulders, like you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything, everything about the journey gets harder, right? So stick around. If you are tuning in today you are in for a treat, we are going to be talking about all things health related a lot about all his work and how he helps his clients really turn things around and make massive improvements in their health. If you don’t know Olly Wood, after spending 20,000 hours working with busy professionals and business owners, Olly has become a well known expert across New Zealand and Australia as the go-to coach for health and performance for busy professionals over 40. His unique approach is not just focused on dumbbells and calories, but rather using his unique our four methodology to address mental, physical and digestive stress to quickly get your body and energy back on your side in a simple, smarter way. So first of all, I’m like simple and smarter who doesn’t want that, but I feel like you might be selling me something. Kidding. But I am like, you know, having walked on this path for many years now trying to figure this out. Right. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that it could be simple. Anyways, welcome, Olly. I’m super excited to dig in with you today.

Olly Wood  03:23

Yeah, well, you know, the big part we’ve just discussed with the business owner standpoint, one of the things that certainly going down that path myself is how much that mental activity really impacts how your body works overall, right and awareness of you know, certainly in our 20s we’re made of rubber and magic and things tend to work, we just need to eat a couple less pizzas, couple days beers, maybe go for a run and things start work, right. But if you are noticing that the body is shifting, it’s not responding like it used to, and you’re a business owner on top of that, there’s a level of cognitive load that really I think for me, I had to go through to appreciate and it is very much one of those, I need to touch the stove to realize it’s hot kind of experiences where I started to realize how much that impacted by my sleep, my digestion, my overall ability to show up. And that’s something that just really hopefully from today allows us to go into more of a discussion around how you can approach being the athlete in regards to how you show up, how you conduct your day, so that you’re actually recovering, you’re not borrowing from tomorrow’s energy. So wherever we need to go, that’s kind of the goal.

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:22

I love it well, and also I want to mention, because I didn’t cover it in your intro that your business name is called body reset, then we’ll be sure to share all the links but I think so many of us and like you said these cumulative effects of life living maybe poor choices. And also sometimes I will say that in the space that I live in like with quite aware conscious people as my clients and my circles etc. can also be the case that people are really trying hard to get it right. And they’re still missing the boat. Yep. Right. So maybe we talk a little bit about that as well. But I think so many people, especially coming out the other side of COVID, and the stresses that went along with that period, whether it was COVID illness related, or just the stresses of other things piling on, are really understanding the connection between mindset, and mental health and digestion, right, this whole issue of like getting the digestive system working the right way, I think that’s been a painful lesson for a lot of people.

Olly Wood  05:33

Totally. And it’s simply the awareness that it’s not what you eat, it’s what you absorb that matters is something we talk about a ton. And it’s a simple analogy that allows us to go into, if you’re inhaling food in between meetings, you’re flushing it down with another drink, you’re you’re not paying attention to your actual state. I think that’s an area where certainly the clients we’ve worked with that period allowed them to go through a little bit of self discovery, where they may have been relatively aware, even emotionally, but certainly physically around how they went through their day. But it wasn’t that deeper level of, I’ve just been running around like a headless trip for the last four hours, I haven’t taken the time to breathe, I’m certainly not paying attention to the state when I eat, and an awareness of even if it was your healthy salad that you’d have every day, being able to pay attention to the state we’re eating, it’s gonna have a pretty big difference. So simply taking three, four or five deep breaths before a meal and doing that without a screen or a meeting just around the corner. I think a lot of people started to see benefit and realizing that there was a disconnection between I’m eating the healthy foods yet my body is not changing, or I’m feeling sluggish, even though I had an energy field meal is not working the same way. I think all of those just became a I need to ask other questions here. As we said before, it’s it’s not calories and macros and dumbbells, it’s an awareness of beyond thermodynamics, what are the parts that play a role in digestion? And I think when we’re at an all time high, and you know, a lot of these inflammatory conditions, everyone now seems to have IBS or IBD, or something there with these digestive issues.

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:07

Or auto immune, yes,

Olly Wood  07:09

It’s massive. And I think realizing that it’s, it’s not the healthy salad itself, it’s our state, when eating actually plays a huge role in a lot of those inflammatory aspects, or certainly the stress that we’re placing on a gut, and that as a business owner, you know, if you’re looking to improve your energy, it’s probably not the extra Red Bull, it’s probably not the extra coffee, it’s an awareness to extract more energy from food. And we’re gonna be looking after I got to get there.

Heather Pearce Campbell  07:35

Well, I love that you’ve shared such a simple but poignant example about how easy it is to become disconnected from our bodies in small ways that really turn into big ways. Right, that mindfulness. 

Olly Wood  07:49

Totally. And this ties into, you’ve noticed this, I’m sure in the legal field, you’ve noticed this in the business space where corporate in general, there is such a leaning towards the rational mind, you need to be direct, you need to be focused, you need to be clear on your goals, why would we get emotions in the way that just makes things foggy, right, but if we’re not, if we’re able to pay attention to that, it does give us a lot more awareness of ultimately, the balancing act between the spreadsheet and the art of actually working out what their body needs. Because I think if it is purely rational, what we see a lot of the time is that it’s very much a head on top of a meat suit, they’re really not connected. And if we don’t pay attention to that, we start to run into a lot of these issues. And certainly it comes through on the gut.

Heather Pearce Campbell  08:32

Oh my gosh, you know, for a couple years, I remember and, you know, this was after I was already dealing with thyroid, I had quite a journey to motherhood around a variety of things. But I remember not only feeling for lack of a better word, like head heavy, like, I just had a busy brain that you know, it’s like I got work to do, I gotta just plow through this stuff. And it was clearly a disconnect from the body and I relate so strongly to the analogy just said ahead on a meatsuit. And I think so often, business, you know, even digital online work like entrepreneurship, it can become that tunnel vision, type of approach to work and business where it is really easy for those the personal timeout and the body care to be fit in in the right ways, you know, and in a way that is really, truly mindful, where we tune back into our body and we make sure that we’re taking deep breaths. My sister said to me the other day, I’m an expert at shallow breathing. And I was like, how many of us are experts at shallow breathing, right? So many. 

Olly Wood  09:47

90 to 95% of us easily.

Heather Pearce Campbell  09:50

Oh, you know, and how awful is that not only for our nervous system, but our digestion like everything’s connected and so this whole more whole ballistic approach to that body-mind connection and looking deeper beyond just the simple inputs that we’re doing for the body, I think is such an important conversation.

Olly Wood  10:09

Totally. I think even when you know, certainly your audience, I’m going to assume you’re in that range where you’re starting to put a leadership team in place, you’re starting to hopefully work on the business around in the business, those sort of questions that are coming up, right, you start to bring an awareness to, you know, I’ve probably worked super hard for a long time, my body’s taken a bit of a beating, and now you know, what is there in life? What else am I looking at doing? And being able to look after your health that one vehicle you have to actually enjoy? It starts to become more and more of that discussion? And if it coincides really nicely, because it’s, why am I so addicted to this reactivity of my day? How do I create a space to regulate better, that really does allow you to reshuffle what’s first in your morning? What do you think about first thing to really create, that are remaining, because I think many of us have got to a point where, if there is, you know, a decent sized team in place, you are starting to really grow or you have been really in that spot for 510 years, personal energy management becomes something that becomes blatantly obvious, certainly to the business owner more than anyone else. Because if you don’t have that, you lack vision, you lack leadership, you lack everything. And I think it really just becomes more of a picture.

Heather Pearce Campbell  11:18

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And so many folks, I mean, the stage of like, really evaluating not only everything in their business from the standpoint of like, what do I absolutely have to be involved in versus, you know, be a leader on, but so much of that correlates with how things are going and in their personal life as well, right? I mean, a lot of folks, if you’ve got outside pressures, like children, other time constraints that really have you evaluating those things, like, the time is right, and I love what you just raised about personal energy management, looking at morning routines, I want to get to that next, let’s take a moment, I’d love to dig in and know a little bit more about your own personal journey and how you ended up in this space, and then also building your expertise in this space.

Olly Wood  12:13

Yeah, so for me, you know, coming out of uni, I, rather than going down the classic, sort of corporate path, I started off a bit of personal training in a one of the bigger gyms in the city is sort of, you know, just to get us get myself through uni. But it was an awareness of, you know, there’s clearly an obsession here with exercise, how do I maximize every aspect of this, and what that allowed me to do is obviously, get a fair name for myself in regards to who I started working with. And it was time to become more of these business owners more of these corporate professionals that were fairly high up. And certainly being in the capital city of Wellington here, there was more and more of an awareness that was blatantly obvious to me that I could not ignore, which was, I can maximize every aspect of this person’s training today, and it won’t make a difference until we look at the stress and inflammation you’re walking through the door with. So knowing that I was from the start, incredibly client centric of like, there’s no point having this business unless we’re absolutely crushing results, and we’re building something where they’re getting value out of it. And what happened there is rather than being 100% training, very military style, it’s make sure you’re sweating and hobbling out of the gym, it started to become, you know, 30% nutrition and 70% training and then 50% lifestyle design 50% training to the point that, you know, I’d have certain clients walk through the door, I’d hand them my headphones, getting to sit in the corner of 10 minutes and actually breathe, right? Like they weren’t gonna get anything else out of the session, because you could see the brain darting around with no level of consciousness, again, that meatsuit right, let’s connect the two again, for that session to actually be effective. So that became a very natural progression for us, you know, certainly aligned, because we started to expand from certainly just me at this point, but this expansion of just training to let’s really look at how we get your body back on your side. And if you are anything beyond 35, you’re probably starting to see levels of fatigue in certain parts of the day, not bouncing back from the night before. A level of foods don’t quite give you the same energy thought. And I think being able to apply some awareness to that bit of the picture certainly becomes more and more effective, the more you demand out of your day. So as your business owners, as you’re busy professionals getting awareness of that doesn’t actually require the next bootcamp or the next six week diet that’s putting you on 800 calories, there’s actually an awareness of consciousness and building the skillset of health, which is going to be with you for the rest of your life. And it becomes fundamentally it’s a discussion of when you pay attention to these things. You’re no longer running on the Prius engine, you can get back to a proper V8, you can actually start to really turn through your body fat, you can start to build that energy back. You have the engine really ticking along and I think for a lot of people this awareness of carbs really stick to me I have a sluggish metabolism, I’m noticing those dips in the afternoon. All of that often it comes back to a level of consciousness around how that body digests food, how it how it responds to that was our natural progression online. So I’ve gone a bit off tangent here, but that was really the client centric focus there. For me personally, I wasn’t that aware, to start with, it was very much an awareness that I, it was so blatantly obvious going through my own progression, if I was working with a client, one-on-one in a gym, my training was great, I could eat on time I could eat in between clients, there was no real massive stress is coming on. I then, put the fingers in all the pies with the startup communities and the growing certain businesses and just doing all the stuff, right, we’re in that yes, period of getting things off the ground. From there, I think there was a three or four year period where we grew from literally just me to having 15 people on the team. So there was a pretty big awareness of all of the things you talked about being able to, rather than be just the person that has to do all the delivery, I now need to look at this marketing and sales, I need to have a leadership team in place, I need to realize that my training feels like shit, because I’m not looking after myself because of how my brain felt all day, always focusing on so many things. And just that simple awareness of why working with clients and getting these results and having this discussion of how I need to pay attention to breathing more. It was because I was that type of intellect. I was eating the right meals. But I was starting to realize that it was done a little bit jiggling around the meal like I’m training well. I’m eating well. Yes, I’m busy. But what does that matter? But my body’s not responding? Right? It really starts to force you to look at this a bit differently of what are we truly missing here. So I’m really grateful for the journey we’ve gone through because it became just as much an asset for me around how I conduct my day now to make sure I can run the business, lead the team, and help these clients but very much to it’s now we’re really starting to get to the root cause of why so many business owners struggle with health, because it’s not the dumbbells and calories. It’s the awareness and skillset of health. And that’s the missing link we dive into.

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:07

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Heather Pearce Campbell  18:50

Well, I mean, a couple of things stand out. One is that you’ve walked this on your own journey, right, which I feel like is so important for people to hear. I think in so many ways, it just makes the information so much more credible, because they realize like not only have you worked with clients on this, probably across the board, every clients had some version of this journey. But you know, you’ve walked it yourself. I love so you had mentioned and you made a really great example out of even just the mindfulness brought to mealtime sitting down, breathing, paying attention. What other things like I’d be interested in kind of a short list of like, what are the little things that you began to notice that contribute to this skillset of health, right? Things where people are coming to you and going, like I’m doing all the things right and you look at it and you’re like yeah, but here’s all these other things you either are not addressing or haven’t thought of what are those things that are easy for people to miss that people regularly do miss?

Olly Wood  19:54

Totally, you know, if we’re going to look at it through a nutritional lens, you know, we could talk about the fact that people will massively under eating on a protein standpoint, and it’s not just muscle building, that’s immune system that’s health, you know, hormone regulation, all the stuff, right? It’s not just having more water, it’s are you actually absorbing that as your electrolyte balance, we’re looking at timing of food, if you’re in your mid 30s 40s, even 50s, fasting 16 hours a day is no longer a, it’s more of excuse for you to not think about yourself till lunchtime than it is maybe anchoring something in the morning. And I do see that become very helpful. So we can talk nuts and bolts all day around what that looks like nutritionally but fundamentally, I think the big thing that got business owners and high functioning humans to where they are, is this all or nothing attitude to really double down and get things done. And it’s the one thing that I think hinders people from that health pursuit so much. And it’s the simple fact, and I really want this to hit everyone. You don’t give yourself permission to feel good at 80%. And that’s really the big one is we’re trying to improve nutrition, but we’re not looking for 100%, we’re looking to do the best we can in an imperfect world. What are those little tweaks and adjustments we can do? How can we give permission to ourselves for being a little bit better than yesterday rather than crashing in our park. And I think that’s fundamentally what gets in the way of consistency, the stress, the guilt, the shame we give ourselves for not nailing it. Because when we put 100% into work, things change. And we aim for 100% and health, it doesn’t quite work the same way.

Heather Pearce Campbell  21:22

That is like a gut punch. I’m listening to that. And a couple things come to mind. One is this mindset of like, I’m either on the wagon or off the wagon, like I either did my full workout or I followed my like right now, you mentioned protein, right? Oh, one of the biggest lessons that I’m going through right now is around this concept of not getting enough protein. And for years, I’ve had adrenal fatigue, thyroid issues, right. And yeah, none of my doctors even in the health space naturopathic space have been able to give me the right like, here’s the nutritional plan you should follow. And I’ve tried everything under the sun, right? Yeah, I’ve yet to get that right. But the one thing my doctor has me doing right now is aiming for 90 grams of protein a day. And I know that some people be like, No, you need 150. That feels insane to me. Like it feels really hard for me to get 90. Yeah. So I like I’m living through some of the lessons that you’re talking about right now. And also the guilt and the shame around like, oh, my gosh, there was another day where I did not meet the water intake or the minimum steps or whatever it is. Yeah. And so it’s, yeah, it’s both like a big, big blinking light. And also, like a bit of a relief to hear like, oh, my gosh, what would it feel like to aim for 80%? Yeah, and I mean…

Olly Wood  22:52

There’s a phrase I want to bring up here, here, which I never expected it to be like a thing. Because it was, you know, fundamentally against my personality as well, like, I’m talking to myself here. But one thing there now, in our world that became a real thing is how fast is better than no us? And I was like, No, that can’t be, you know, like, it needs to be all in I need to be perfect, but it’s really become a thing, because it’s just that permission to do 80%, you know, and another example of this is, I want you to walk for 10 minutes, right? How many people screaming that now I need to find two hours, I need to put a rucksack on here to carry a 20 kilo dumbbell with me, right? How do I make it harder, but I’m like, if you just do two minutes every day, like you’ll feel better. And it’s just that it’s that action of getting your bum off the seat, getting yourself out the door, if you want to over 20 once you’re out there amazing, but just look for 10. And the opportunities come up to me.

Heather Pearce Campbell  23:41

Oh my gosh, I love that so much. I think that is I’m sorry, this is a crude. This is a totally crude phrase, I’m gonna use it. It’s like that balls to the wall approach of like, if I can’t go get the hour in the gym or two hours in the gym or do you know a full, like 45-minute walk like I’m not going to start and it’s what keeps people also being stuck or being like Okay, so today was a totally shitty day, when it could have been a pretty good one. If I’d given myself the flexibility to like what you said how facet or 80% it or whatever that means in that day.

Olly Wood  24:20

Yeah, I understand. And even come back to your personal scenario with the thyroid stuff. We see that with so many business owners because what are the two things that really impact thyroid unless there’s of course autoimmune conditions involved is stress and uterine deficiencies, I under eat right. So both of those are tech tech and business owners.

Heather Pearce Campbell  24:39

Oh my gosh, it is so crazy. And the thing about having a thyroid or adrenal fatigue issue is like what your body does in response to that is put on weight and to be an under eater that’s overweight is like such a painful, terrible experience.

Olly Wood  24:55

And it’s becoming so common, right because 320 year old on Instagram says you just need should you be in a deficit? So everyone’s like, Okay, I need to eat less. And you get down to the point where things aren’t working? 

Heather Pearce Campbell  25:05

No, totally. And I’ve accidentally intermittently fasted, like my entire adult life. I mean, so people are like, Oh, just trying intermittent fasting. I’m like, well, that’s probably not the approach for me right this minute. But it’s yeah, and then you can start to feel a little bit crazy, like trying all of these different strategies, but still not getting the whole picture, right? Like, a couple years ago, I remember like, being like, Okay, I just need to do this hit training thing, you know, and just hit it. It was the opposite of what I needed to do at the time, actually, right. So you can get a lot of advice in the marketplace, that’s not the right advice for you, and you’re…

Olly Wood  25:46

Even been in industry, as long as I have, it’s your question every day, because, you know, you find out that you need to be doing your zone to cardio for more than 30 minutes, otherwise, it doesn’t tap into your fat loss, or whatever it might be, and you keep putting these rules everywhere. And you start to be like, Oh, well, you know, unless I do two hours up the mountain every morning, what’s the point, and that’s the space, they think we’ve got to now in the information age of, there’s no lack of information, it’s very much relevance and context that we are looking for. And I think that’s why it’s so enjoyable to talk to busy humans that are business owners in that, at least over 35, 40, 50 space where the body is not working the same way, you know, if we started to go through hormonal changes, both male and female, getting an awareness of what that looks like, whether it’s on the male side of testosterone sort of dropping slowly, and certainly the instance in simply becoming an issue, that is something that we start really starting to kick them in the bum around 50, whereas females, certainly going through perimenopause that can last up to nine years becomes a bit of a punch in the face to, again, the same kind of thing, a level of insulin sensitivity, you know, we can dive into female hormones if you want, we can go so deep there. But an awareness of how the body just simply doesn’t use nutrients like it used to, and you start to you know, that breakfast that used to make me feel really good after I went for a run now just makes you feel tired all morning, I’m forgetting my keys, I don’t know what to focus on. That’s all very impactful, not just to your work, but your overall quality of life. So fundamentally, if you’re putting on body fat, and under eating, it’s tough, you know, it does become a complete shift, and what everybody is telling you, which is you actually need to eat more and do less. So there’s not this massive stress response on your body, you need to start fueling the change you want to look for. And as we talked about before, this is why we talk about building back the engine, it’s a best visual analogy I have of actually burning more fuel, rather than trying to burn it on two liters leaves and unarmoured. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:42

Yeah, I’m so glad that people get to hear this. I think there are so many folks that first of all, beating themselves up for not figuring it out not getting it right so far, right? Or if tried the wrong strategies, or are starting to recognize like stuff is slipping, I’ve got to do something about it. Where do you typically start? Like if you were working with a typical client? Are there major areas that you started? Like? How do you get those early wins for clients so that people start to feel like, okay, I’m creating some momentum, right? Even if it’s just doing some small things? Where do you look first?

Olly Wood  28:21

Four things, one, a two minute walk every day. Number two, eating greens with two meals a day, right? Because that’s multifaceted. It’s not just a you having greens is are you actually sitting down for a meal? Or is everything on the rush, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell  28:32

And what do you say to the folks that are like oxalates, and spinach is terrible, and blah, blah, blah?

Olly Wood  28:37

Yeah. If everything is spinach, then there’s probably there’s not a lot of variation, I like to look at it through the lens of let’s count calories, not calories becomes a nice way to look at just more like vibrancy and color overall oxalates and lectins. And all the things here, absolutely have its role, but it’s kind of like the icing on the cake of what’s the actual bigger issue, right. And I think unless this has severe gut issues, you’re not going to notice the couple of extra toxins that are coming through from your spinach, when what you’ve done is removed the deep fried, you know, chips that are now causing a lot more issues, right, that’s a lot more toxic load on the body. And unless there are severe gut issues, I think there’s some fantastic experts that are bringing awareness to these greens. But unless there’s significant issues, which we certainly work with quite a bit, it becomes more of an awareness to fundamentally we’re getting back to Whole Foods. We’re getting back to having a bit of greens on that play.

Heather Pearce Campbell  29:31

And starting there as a place to analyze then how does this go for a person? 

Olly Wood  29:36

Oh yeah, yeah. The third one, which is one, No one wants to hear but I don’t care is alcohol remove it for months. Yeah, you go. And not only is that going to make an impact from you know, certainly being able to be much easier at dropping body fat because you’re not storing the food while you that you get through the alcohol. It’s also for me, much more important to give yourself prove to yourself that you can do a month without it. Because so many people now, it’s ultimately the only way they’re coping with life. And that’s a problem. And if we can bring awareness to this perpetual cycle of I wake up with caffeine, I calm down with alcohol or something else, it becomes a bit more of a problem than simply the caloric intake from alcohol, it becomes more of an emotional regulation aspect, which I think fundamentally is what we’re talking about here around paying attention to your digestion and your breathing and your stress throughout the day, as if the only way that you can take the edge off is by smashing back a couple glasses of whiskey. That’s the big issue. Right? So alcohol was multifaceted. That’s why I take it out. And then we can have more of a discussion of improving your relationship with alcohol, and with even the binges and things that would come through foodwise. It all comes back down to a level of emotional resilience and, and tolerance.

Heather Pearce Campbell  30:50

So huge. Well, I think the benefit of being in the information age is we have study after study that now shows impacts, you know, based on alcohol on brain health, brain size, sleeping hormones, right, none of it really good. So in case people needed the evidence, it’s out there on why, you know, definitely remove it, or very most, like, minimize it as much as you can. But certainly, I think in trying these changes, yes.

Olly Wood  31:20

Yep. So those become three that just focus on as we talked about the physical, digestive and psychological health, all three of those are focused around those three. Because it’s not just about the greens, right. It’s about what your day needs to involve for that greens to happen. And for most of us, it’s will go flat out till lunchtime, then be like, Well, what’s for lunch? What’s close, right, and then we’ve already lost the battle. So being able to look at those components of how they do actually infiltrate other areas of your life in order for you to hit them regularly. That becomes the point that becomes the foundation that we can build from and that really allows you to feel good at 80% and just allows those that’s now these first and then the fancy stuff can come out.

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:00

Well, and those also feel like from the standpoint of making a simple decision. Those actually feel simple. Not easy, right? But a simple decision like okay, 10 minute walk, putting some greens on my plate, right? At least twice a day, good dose of greens, alcohol, for me, simple decision and easy for a lot of people. Not easy, but simple. It’s a clear, you know, like an end from a health standpoint, big wins. So what’s the fourth one? I think? Did you say four things?

Olly Wood  32:32

Yeah, fourth one, got me on this one. The fourth one is where we put in. It’s usually getting a meal in before 10 o’clock. And I think that’s just that’s to really do a… yeah, exactly, a bit of a nudge for…

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:45

Those who are not watching the video, stick out my tongue. I am drinking by the way, this smoothie, which is high protein has blueberries has green powders, not actual greens, because I was out. But this is my first meal of the day. And you can see how far into it I am and we are three o’clock. I will just say it I’m failing today, I am less than half assing this today. That’s how hard it is for me some days to get a meal in. And I like clearly have so much room to do it better. And I’m still trying to figure out how to build those skills.

Olly Wood  33:18

Yeah, so the first three would be super relevant. But the last one is very much a I’m certainly not anti fasting we’ve done areas of that can be super helpful. But the realization that you know, again, it’s you can get stuck in the information age if we need to at least 16 hours to relay these magical autophagy benefits. No, we don’t like it’s happening throughout the night. We’re all fasting for at least 10 to 12 hours, right? It’s more a case of how long does that window have to happen before that we’re needing to introduce food and more essentially, when we’re working with more of our clients in the 40s and 50s. There’s an awareness towards this muscle centric medicine, right? That Dr. Gabriel Lyons talks about a lot is this concept of prioritizing and maintaining a level of muscle around your day. And that really comes back to the whole under eating, you know, not having enough protein part of the picture. But if we’re not taking the time to address anchoring a meal, and before that 10 o’clock or three o’clock, it becomes an awareness of, you know, as you mentioned before, most people don’t get the meal. And because it’s not actually a health benefit. They’ve justified it as a health benefit later, right. And I think being able to say that, hey, if you find that fasting works, amazing, keep doing it. But if you’re noticing that you’re under eating your energy’s low and things aren’t functioning well, being able to do something different might be a nice way to get a different result. And it just allows a bit of a different discussion and opportunity to have three or four decent meals have a high protein option so that you can hit that 100 grams or 150 grams in the day and go from there.

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:47

Totally well and I think in my own lessons related to like female hormone health one thing I’m realizing is like the under eating has contributed to increase cortisol right and part of that getting that early. Elan is to satiate your system and tell it to calm down like you’re not starving food is coming your way. And also another opportunity to get that protein in. So it’s like, intellectually, you can know that and still, you know, between like waking up and taking my thyroid meds and having to wait a while and then shifting the kids and getting kids out the door. It can be 10 o’clock, and my first call is happening. And there goes my morning, and then it’s boom, boom, you know, so it also does create, I think, the need to recognize how intentional we need to be to make even the small changes happen. And so on that point, how do you help your clients build that stuff into their routines? Or like if meat like like me, if they’re struggling even to do one of them in a consistent manner? You know, is it just like do you have like, because partly where I see you fitting in rewiring the brains of your clients is like, yeah, health and fitness coaching, but also like personal coaching. 

Olly Wood  36:03

Yes, performance coaching at the end of the day, but because you’re looking at, you’re looking at the athlete behind the to-do list, and ultimately, I think I actually got this from a friend recently. And I really liked it, which is, when you think about yourself, as an athlete, you just have a higher standard for yourself, you look after yourself, but more because it’s what athletes do, they need to show up on the pitch better tomorrow, so they’re gonna feel the body a bit better, they’re gonna go to bed on time, there’s just those little things that make a huge difference. And the really big scary thing about business is that, you know, with sport, you have rules, you have a finish lines, and you have clear boundaries of winning, you have one of lost in business, you have no rules, you have no finish line. And you don’t know if you want to last it’s continued right with the only way to lose is to stop. So all of those things, just tied into this never ending sort of always on culture of 10 different ways to message us means that we’re just bathing in a level of anxiety, even if you don’t feel it that way. That is coming back to that level of cognitive load. And I think when we are able to anchor that discussion of thinking of ourselves like an athlete, it really just comes from a place of it’s a 66 year way of saying, look, let’s be a little bit more self compassionate, let’s look at what are the things we can do in our day to to actually look after us. So we’re still here tomorrow? And to answer your question of how I would approach it. That is one usually this discussion, right? All the things you care about right now are the things that only you can do. If you’re not here, someone else picks up that bucket and carries on with it, you’re just not that important. And that becomes a really nice power move in regards to changing the discussion of how many things you’re so important that nobody else can do. Because when you’re not here, when you’re in the hospital bed with a second heart attack, someone else has picked up that activity. Right. And I think that, yeah, that’s a biggie. But once we do that, now, we can actually just have a discussion around the calendar, which is there’s one of you, and you’ve got two calendars, a personal business. And when you have the work meeting at 10 o’clock, you get it done. When you don’t have your lunch booked in, you don’t get it done. So you know that awareness that I personally, if I look at my calendar, now I’ve got nine to 10 hours on average booked out a day. And no, that feels structured. It’s self care, it’s an awareness of, I’ve got my workout in there, I’ve got my lunch in there, I’ve got my afternoon walk in there. And then I’ve got all my meetings on top of that, but those other things don’t move. And that becomes a really nice shift that usually hopefully has become an aha for you listening to this already, but more of a hopefully something that stays with you over the next couple weeks and see how many opportunities you actually have to fit you in that you’re not choosing to.

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:32

Hmm, I love that well, and even what you said about thinking of yourself as an athlete, like for folks that are listening, there’s probably a fair number that use to think of themselves as an athlete, right. And I’m speaking for myself in this regard as well. And then at some point, whether it’s the path to parenthood, whether it’s a traumatic experience in your body, like there are many ways that we can get disconnected from our bodies or lose that identity as an athlete, or maybe you never had it right. Maybe you were never a person that really had to think about that. Because help came pretty naturally right to the young. I mean, what do they say youth is wasted on the young. Physically, you never had a challenge and then, right 40s 50s, it starts to catch up with you and you realize, like, you’ve got to do things differently. But I do love that mindset shift around. If you think of yourself as an athlete, like how do you show up differently? Because you you certainly would, and this is the importance of really any type of coaching is that it does start with identity. Right.

Heather Pearce Campbell  39:41

Well, and it’s such a powerful reminder that I think part of the human experience is lessons like that right shaking things up, because we need to be more mindful about something and also just a reminder of how frequently that happens. I think a lot of times, you know, humans can feel really isolated in these hard physical journeys that we go through. And, like I know, for me, the path to motherhood was completely unexpected from the standpoint of how hard it was seven years, seven pregnancies, multiple near death experiences. I mean, I remember there were times being pregnant where I was like, and I’m a super adventurous person. I was not scheduling weekends, like I was. So I’d had so many repeat experiences of needing to go in for emergency blood draws or emergency procedures that saved my life that I remember feeling like I can’t even travel a far distance from the hospital in case something goes so dramatically wrong. And that was such a weird, like, disenfranchising, period for me realizing like how much independence I felt like I had lost, and, truthfully, post children, I’ve got two kiddos. Now, it’s been really hard to regain that confidence that I had pre babies in my body. Right. So I think there’s a lot of folks that are in their own version, whether it’s a traumatic injury, whether it’s, you know, I mean, you even talk about young folks who are having strokes or something that damages you know, their brain or their functioning temporarily, or whatever, there’s so many ways that we can experience this and have to rebuild. And you know, your description of how it needs to be so intentional and scheduling ourselves back into our own schedule, treating ourselves like an athlete, even when we don’t feel like one is the key.

Olly Wood  39:41

So one part of that story I didn’t mentioned before, and I’ll share this simply because I think it’s helpful to the discussion, which is this motorbike helmet that I have here was a crash I had about three years ago now. And that was that exact discussion right where I shifted away from feeling like the athlete because I fundamentally broke my body, things were not working, I basically tore a whole bunch of muscles off, I couldn’t use my shoulder, I went through two or three different surgeries trying to repair things. And in that time period, I was like, Well, I’ve got too much to do. So I’m going to focus on just being always on always working, always doing the to-do lists. And my physical and mental health really started to deteriorate, I was getting to a point where I was seeing burnout around the corner, I was seeing immense amount of fatigue through our morning, we are as having that extra 2, 3, 4 cups of coffee to make it happen. And that’s all numbing, right? That’s all just, it doesn’t matter, my body can keep moving. And I’m not thinking about what I need to nourish this thing, and being able to go back through that switch and get back to ah yeah, the reason I felt good, you know, 10 years ago, was not because I was training harder. It was because I had the capacity to train harder, which is all of these components of self compassion, of just like that little insertion of a walk that little insertion of lunch, when it should be lunch, you know, those shifts, I went through again, personally, because it was a shift away from what was working really good, how I conducted myself on a day to day level, and where I just inserted myself back in because I cared about me.

Olly Wood  43:14

Yeah. So I want to leave you with one last thing here, around how you do that, right. If you say that you’re an athlete, and you don’t believe it, this is what you need to do, which is, rather than the emotions focus on your actions, ie, if you go to the gym three times a week, you’re a gym person, if you get up and go for a walk in the morning, you’re a morning person, right? It allows opportunity for actions to become a new level of confidence. And I think for so many people, they have a lack of confidence because they do the big shit at work. But they don’t look after themselves with the small promise they keep breaking. And I think that becomes a really cool place to start of what are those little things in my day that I keep promising and breaking? What are those things I could actually now follow up on. And confidence starts to build, you start to notice that everything in between the little things and the big things start to improve?

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:03

Oh my gosh, that’s like a ding ding ding set ladder for the kids in the back. Right? What is that small promise to myself that I keep breaking so important. I think so many of us have a list of those running in our heads right now. Right? We know exactly what they are. Olly, you’re amazing. I love that you are an expert in this stuff. And I can tell by the way that you talk about it, how much you care and how much your clients benefit from your work. Couple of questions and out of respect for your time, we’ll get people directed in the right way. But where do you show up online? And do you like for folks to connect with you?

Olly Wood  44:36

Yeah, you know, I’m happy to help anyone from the space as you said I’m super interested in the space because business in itself is fascinating and there’s so many moving parts but when we bring the human to it, and we bring an awareness to how we tolerate it, how we we block it, how we are able to do it for really long time I find that even more interesting. So you know, super happy to connect, I think Instagram or Facebook, just literally search Hollywood will be easiest place to find me. And I’d love to, if there’s anything that’s popped out from today’s podcast, I’d love to hear from you. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  45:09

Oh perfect, we will definitely share your social handles, will share your website. Again, if you’re listening, all these companies body reset, we’re going to share the link to that and to where he shows up online at the show notes page, which you can find at legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast and again, look for Olly Wood’s episode. Olly, I forget, do you have? Was there something on your? Yes, you had a like a five-day reset challenge, right? Do you want to tell us a little bit about that it lives on your main website?

Olly Wood  45:43

Yeah, if you just go to bodyreset.online, that’s our main website, you can find tons of stuff on there, whether it’s your podcast, or whether your more videos, more articles, you can find it all but I think the five-day reset would be a great place to start because everything we go on we went through today was focused on how we create relevant, actionable change based on the little simple stuff you can do every single day that really does build up to you bringing back that confidence that momentum that energy. So if you want simple steps on what that looks like, and help me guide you through that for free, simply just go to our website, there’s a male and female version, just because we want a new answer a little bit from a female standpoint, and hormonal standpoint, that becomes a fantastic way to put an action step in place. You know, don’t put this off till January, actually anchor some things so you can feel great. And I think it becomes, you know, we’ve had 1000s of people go through that tons of great reviews on just how how simple it is, and how much better I feel. So if you’ve got five minutes to look at that, I think that makes a significant difference to your day.

Heather Pearce Campbell  46:41

I love that. So definitely check that out that is on their main website, which we will share only what first of all, thank you so much for being here. I consider this one of the most important conversations that we can be having in our lives is about how we really achieve optimal health that and and also create our businesses in a way that supports our life, not the other way around. Right. And this is a huge component of that. What final either thought action step takeaway would you like to leave people with? I know you’ve already given us so much, but I want to give you the chance to share anything else that comes to mind.

Olly Wood  47:21

One last thing I’d love to say is, it might sound random but in awareness of if we put a hamster on a hamster wheel, right, and we track how much health benefits they’re getting out of that because they chose to do it, it becomes fairly something that they should keep doing. It’s healthy, it’s beneficial. But then if we attach that hamster wheel to another one that automatically moves when he does. And we put a second hamster on that wheel so that they’re forced to exercise when the first one does. Instead of getting all the health benefits, we get all the stress detriments. So what I want you to take away from this is even if you’re doing the stuff, the big thing here is you get to you don’t have to. And if you shift that mentality, I think you start to really explore and give yourself permission to feel good, and it’s nothing that’s been forced on you.

Heather Pearce Campbell  48:05

Oh my gosh, what a dramatic example. Just demonstrating the power of choice, right. And recognizing like we get to choose this rather than essentially forcing ourselves to feel further stressed by healthy choices. Olly, thank you! I so appreciate you, I’m really looking forward to sharing this conversation with our audience. And following up maybe there’s a part two, I’m super intrigued by the what you said specifically about female hormones, in part because, as we all know, the health and fitness industries, like nearly 100% of the studies are done on men, not on women. And so I feel like even now, we’re learning so much more about women’s health, women’s hormone health, how we respond to certain things that we just haven’t had before. 

Olly Wood  48:54

Yeah, 100%. Happy to go down there. Even if it’s our main hormone expert specialists coming in to talk about we could do that too. But I think you know, awareness of how this applies to not just the more information piece, but if you’re going through this specific shift in your life, or you’re seeing these changes, hopefully, this just allows you to give yourself permission to remove a bit of noise and just focus on the actual, just go through this again, go through the five day challenge, getting awareness of just anchoring in the daily stuff every day and realize that when you feel better because you went for a walk, it’s something that you do every day, if you forced yourself to go for a walk because you didn’t enjoy it, you’re not going to do it again. And that fundamentally is consistent consistency. So I think it’ll make a difference. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  49:33

No. I love it. Well, I appreciate you so much and we will be in touch. 

Olly Wood  49:38

Thanks, Heather. That was great.

GGGB Outro  49:40

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. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.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 too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.