0:00:00 A: I’ve been trying and you know, I’ve been tested. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast with your hosts, Ben Wright and Jemima Ashley. Ben, known as the sales strategist, and Jemima, our resident visibility expert, are here to share their wealth of knowledge and experience with a little fun along the way. Whether you’re a leader, entrepreneur, or aspiring business owner, this is the podcast where we share everything we know about business to help you succeed.
0:00:31 A: Let’s get started. Welcome to the Friends in Business podcast. Ain’t nothing gonna stop me now.
0:00:43 Jemima Ashleigh: Hey, Ben, how are you?
0:00:44 Ben Wright: Hello. Welcome. Welcome back.
0:00:47 Jemima Ashleigh: Ah, I love being up in Noosa. What a beautiful part of the world.
0:00:50 Ben Wright: I think we start most podcasts with this because it is such a great place to be and so fortunate to be here.
0:00:56 Jemima Ashleigh: The only downside of spending so much time up with you is at 5:50 every morning we leave the house and we go and exercise for a while.
0:01:09 Ben Wright: Well, I go at 5:50.
0:01:10 Jemima Ashleigh: I left at 6 this morning. I was like, no, not quite. I think you won’t this morning. But it’s one of the things that here. I will say I’ve gotten quite addicted to this idea of continually like this really early morning, big exercise near the ocean. Just something you can’t do in Melbourne.
0:01:25 Ben Wright: Yeah. I have to say that something that I used to value was being able to sit down at night, relax a couple of hours, doing what I need to do, and then, you know, I was in bed a little bit later, and then I was a little bit later getting up. Where my priorities have shifted is that I find my relaxation in things that don’t need two hours at the end of the night.
0:01:49 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:01:50 Ben Wright: I find my relaxation in things that half an hour to an hour to allow me to wind down because I get more benefit from getting up early, getting my exercise done, starting the day well, and then I find that I’m actually finishing the day better.
0:02:03 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:02:03 Ben Wright: And it’s what it is is it’s sacrificing behaviors that don’t add value. It’s almost forced when you have kids. We’ve only got one. I have friends who have five. In fact, one of my really good friends up here, they have five kids and they’re fantastic family. I don’t know how they do it, but certainly gets easier when you have kids. But having the discipline to get up early is something I wish I’d started.
0:02:24 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:02:24 Ben Wright: A long time ago.
0:02:25 Jemima Ashleigh: I’ve never met someone that hasn’t done like that 5 the 5am Club or the 6am Club. And not turned around and gone. Oh, that was a terrible choice. I used to be that person. The pandemic happened and gone a little bit out of whack. But one of the things I will say is that spending so much time up here and being so close to nature and, you know, I went for. Had a chance encounter last night with down at the water here in Noosa where there was a pot of dolphins.
0:02:51 Ben Wright: Yeah. Yeah.
0:02:51 Jemima Ashleigh: I was thinking, you know, this isn’t the worst if you have to go for a run at the same time with this. This kind of leads into what we’re talking about today, which is really about health and wellness and fitness.
0:03:01 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:03:02 Jemima Ashleigh: Because it’s one of those things that I know that you’re really passionate about this, but more importantly, it’s something that you not only advocate for, but really just kind of demonstrate to a lot of people about the importance for it, why it needs to happen. And I wanted to really get your thoughts on that today because I know you’ve got some really incredible ones. I know you teach your clients.
0:03:21 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:03:21 Jemima Ashleigh: It’s also part of your life mantra and what you do.
0:03:24 Ben Wright: This is not a story for today, but it is one that I’ll share is that I have been to the bottom of the belt. I have been, I’ll tell you, very brief snippet, but I have been walking out the front door. I picked the spot. I picked what was happening next. It involved heights and me jumping pretty morbid. And what pulled me back was my daughter. So I’m not going to tell the whole story, but what I will say is I can relate to people that own businesses, people that lead businesses, people that lead functions that are doing it tough because it’s not easy. But what I can also say is that I think there are things we have in our control to help reduce the impact that really tough times have. So we’re going to go through five things today.
0:04:03 Jemima Ashleigh: I also want to really acknowledge, like, that’s a big story that you’re sharing. I don’t know. It’s only a fraction of that. But firstly, thank you. So honor that space that you’re presenting. But also that what we’re talking about here really does have huge impact in your life. Like, this is the stuff that really, when it is bad, this is the stuff that is usually the first to go out the window, and it’s actually the most needed.
0:04:29 Ben Wright: Yeah. Yeah, you’re absolutely right. However, if we can build the habits around it, then we can. So let’s talk about that. So the first one, which I’m actually going to hand over to you around, because I know you do a lot of work around it, is our mindset.
0:04:40 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah. Mental fitness being a huge part of what we do and how we think and how we feel about these things. Because what we really do focus on does amplify. And I think it’s one of those things that’s really, really interesting for humans that I really love the way humans think and how we feel and how we move. There are often times where there are choices in mindset stuff, and it’s about that choice, what you’re doing and what that looks like.
One of the other things that I really look at is, you know, there’s a lot of stats in and around depression, particularly for entrepreneurs and business owners. We don’t have it easy. And corporate leaders, you guys aren’t exempt from this either. We’re sitting at, you know, some of the highest stats at about 70% of us are dealing with some sort of anxiety and depression at any given time. A lot of that’s functional anxiety. I don’t know about you, but that really my bread and butter most days. Yeah, I have to get this done now. And it is that, like, state of alert. We also almost always typically learn lean towards neurodivergency. We are neurodivergent in some way and mostly closely modeled. When people think neurodivergent, they think ADHD and these disruptive behaviors. And that’s just not actually what that is. Let’s be really clear about that. What it is more likely to present as is the person who’s really not okay with the same four walls every day, the nine to five sitting at the desk and being able to concentrate on one screen.
0:06:01 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah.
0:06:02 Jemima Ashleigh: That makes us completely unemployable.
0:06:04 Ben Wright: So your advice around mental fitness.
0:06:06 Jemima Ashleigh: Mental fitness. There is a part of this that is around really about understanding what’s happening and why it’s happening to you and understanding getting. My advice for this is one, speak to a medical professional if you are struggling. That’s the first one. Number two is that you really do focus on that group aspect and about getting around people who really understand that support network for you is going to be vital.
0:06:27 Ben Wright: Okay. So from a mental fitness point of view, we can really go down the rabbit hole on here, but it’s recognizing where you’re at.
0:06:34 Jemima Ashleigh: Yes.
0:06:35 Ben Wright: So if you can recognize where you’re at in your life and you can then go and appropriately deal with it, I think that’s the first stage getting it Back. And some of these things we’re going to go through now will actually really help with that. Okay. So next. And look, apologies for only skimming over mental fitness. I know it’s a huge topic we’ll look at, we’ll come back to it.
0:06:51 Jemima Ashleigh: I think we should come back and do it separately.
0:06:52 Ben Wright: Yeah. But it’s definitely a part of your overall health fit. Okay. Second one is rituals and routines. Normally this would come at the end. However, for me what’s really important here is that we’re setting ourselves routines that allow us to succeed. Now I’ll give you some examples of those people that know me well know there is always bathers, goggles and a towel in my car.
0:07:11 Jemima Ashleigh: And a lot of sand.
0:07:12 Ben Wright: And a lot of sand. Yes. And wherever I am, be it, be it a city, be it regional. Before I go, I’ve looked up where the pools are.
0:07:21 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:07:21 Ben Wright: So that then I can slot into my day a quick swim. I know I can swim 2km in just over 30 minutes. I can then get changed, shower back out there. It’s a 45 minute journey for me.
0:07:31 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:07:32 Ben Wright: So if I can slot that into my day. 45 minutes for exercise, an hour, even better if I need a bit of lunch. Right. I get that one hour and I get it done. I make it happen.
0:07:41 Jemima Ashleigh: And one hour, let’s be really clear on this. One hour is 4% of our day. That’s it. That’s really very minimal. If that’s a radical self care that you’re doing, that is a very small amount of time you’re taking out for yourself. I took a running during. In the last 12 months and have gotten fairly decent at it. And one of the things when I come back is having that ritual of going out, coming back from that and then having the meditation part for me on the balcony.
0:08:06 Ben Wright: Yeah.
0:08:06 Jemima Ashleigh: That overlook the CBD Melbourne is my. It’s just solitude, it’s peace, it’s quiet. It’s really important.
0:08:13 Ben Wright: So if we can set them up that we have in our calendar times when we’re going to exercise that we block out periods. You know, for me, I always suggest people, families find it really hard to exercise at the end of the day. They often end up doing middle of the day or morning before kids wake up. People without families have more flexibility. People with older families have different flexibility. It all depends on what your job and life needs. Find those moments, block it in your diary. It won’t happen every time, but you will slowly build a ritual around what you need to do. Whether it be for exercise, whether it be for sleep, whether it be for how you eat. Right, build in the rituals and routines and watch them grow 21 times to get that habit learned three lots of 21 to really cement it. So that’s number two, rituals and habits. Number three is all around exercise and nutrition.
0:09:01 Jemima Ashleigh: Yes.
0:09:02 Ben Wright: Now, there are so many perspectives on this and I am not, you are not going to hear me go down the path of intermittent fasting. Eat more, eat less. It’s not about that. What I’m talking about is a balanced program of exercise. So getting the exercise that you need to get in, so moving, whether it’s your 10,000 steps or your swimming or your gym. Right. Or you’re running or cycling, whatever works well for you. Find that exercise that you enjoy and build on it.
0:09:26 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:09:27 Ben Wright: Everything takes time. I tell you that there are times when I’ve had injuries and I’ve had to take off or illness and it’s a hard grind to get back into it. But I know that I still have targets of things that I compete in and ways that I exercise and it keeps me going. But most importantly is I want to show up as the leader that I would like my team members to aspire to be like, but also to motivate them. So for me, it’s making sure that I get my exercise in. And the way that I make this happen is I choose exercise that is most easy for me to complete. So I would love to go and train for an Ironman event right now, but it’s 16 to 18 hours a week at a minimum and I simply can’t fit that in. So instead I do a lot of running and swimming and I do shorter events.
0:10:14 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:10:15 Ben Wright: Find the exercise that works for you to allow you to release those positive endorphins and get your family on board with it. There’s one thing I can say is that if I come home at night and I’m grumpy, the first thing my wife says to me is, have you exercised today?
0:10:28 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:10:29 Ben Wright: And there. And she will note this, that there have been times when I’ve said no. And she said, go get it done. I’ll see you when you get back. And this is 6:00 at dinner time when we’ve got little one to handle. And she’s still, I know you need to do this. You now, I mean, amazing, amazing wife. And it always doesn’t work like that. But if we make sure we do that, then we pair it with a diet. And again, the diet is not about going for a textbook Per diet. Because for me, if we can get the preparation right in our diet. So we do meal planning on a weekend, that doesn’t mean we go and make all of our meals, but we sit down and have a quick chat that says, here’s what we’re going to eat this week. What do you need me to do? What do I need to do? It’s a 10-minute chat. We align, we go and get it sorted and we eat mostly well. Yeah, that really works because we’ve done some planning. But the other piece is I try to be really consistent with as many meals as I can. So the breakfast, I eat the same thing every day. I generally take it with me when I travel, as I know you do.
0:11:30 Jemima Ashleigh: I do too. I live in hotels for a good couple of months of the year. And it just became this problem is if you go down to the cafes, you’re suddenly, there’s eggs, bacon, sugar. There’s all stuff that you weren’t expecting to have and none of that stuff is demonized. We’re absolutely not saying that at all. What I am saying is you’re making the easiest choice possible for the best choices possible. And so me packing oats every time I travel is so simple. Me grabbing milk while I’m out is not a difficult thing. Most places have that sort of thing because otherwise you’re going to make choices that you wouldn’t necessarily have made before.
0:12:03 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. And so if we’re well prepared and we know what works for us, that tends to tick the nutrition box for me. Give me another example. When we do podcasts, generally quickly duck out, we’ll have a break to make lunch. I can get an omelette made for both of us when we’re working at home. It’s 10 minutes, but I have to make sure I’ve got the ingredients in there from earlier in the week. So we do that big shop and we’re all prepared.
The last thing I’ll say on nutrition is that it’s also really important to know your triggers when it comes to sleep, which we’re going to move into in a moment. But some of the really key pieces around nutrition is to try and have it generally. Three hours is what I read is a really key part. A key number. Now, please. That is not going to be the perfect number. There’s going to be lots of science that agrees or disagrees with it. But the point is, finish your meals, give yourself time to wind down so you can get to sleep and have that.
0:12:50 Jemima Ashleigh: It is near impossible to have a Meal and get straight into bed and go to sleep, unless you’re turkey tired. And then that’s Christmas. And that’s really the only time I know we’re heading towards that time of year. But yeah, yeah. What’s interesting, the free thing and the planning thing, I think is so important here. I have, as longtime listeners to the show would know, we’re both real advocates for having that scheduled time in for things. And on Sundays I have this big thing that’s like, have you done a food order? Is there food in the fridge? Is the food prep done? Because if I don’t have that reminder, just simply because there’s always competing priorities. Don’t have that reminder. Game over. I’m going to get to Monday morning and be like, we don’t have milk, we don’t have anything. There’s no food here, unfortunately, then I’m making bad choices. You have to set yourself up in a way that works well for you to have the best success.
0:13:38 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. So exercise, it’s all about making sure you know what works for you and you fit it into your day as efficiently as you can. Right. Block it out. We’ve talked about that in your habits and rituals, but we’re making sure we’re doing that. The next piece around nutrition is understanding again, the diet that works for us. So your more protein, your more carbohydrates, whatever it might be. But importantly, you’re preparing to have your diet. You’re as consistent as you can with what you eat and that even goes down to snacks. I take almonds with me whenever I’m doing it. You know, strategy days. But also you’re just balancing it out.
0:14:08 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:14:08 Ben Wright: So, okay, let’s move into the fourth place piece which is around sleep and preparation. I’m certainly not going to come at this from a scientific point of view. This is a story that all these are stories from entrepreneurs who have been in very difficult situations, very busy situations in their lives. And what we’re trying to do is share with others what works. So sleep and nutrition. So for me, not getting enough sleep is as bad as waking up with a hangover.
0:14:36 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah. I’m worse, I’m less if I’m sleep deprived.
0:14:38 Ben Wright: Yeah. And fundamentally, if we don’t get enough sleep, we make bad decisions. Everyone knows that. However, it doesn’t always work that you can magically get sleep. We have families where kids are waking up. We have late night work commitments. We have things on our mind.
0:14:53 Jemima Ashleigh: So possums in the roof.
0:14:54 Ben Wright: Possums in the roof. Right. So What I really suggest that for me what has really worked is I, first of all I get clear on how much sleep I need. I know that when I’m generally exercising pretty hard, I need that seven and a half to eight hours. So what I do is I set that time into my calendar so I know that I want to be in bed if I’m getting up at 5:30, I want to be in bed by 9:30. And what I do is I back my day away from that 9:30 time. So I know that if I’m in bed at 9:30 I need to eat dinner at 6:30. Doesn’t always happen. But you’re planning to do this as frequently as you can. Then to be eating dinner at 6:30 you need to be home or finish work by say 6:00 if you’re not making dinner or earlier if you are making dinner, then you have a little bit of time after dinner depending on when the kids are going down or when you’ve got other commitments to be able to do a bit of work. And then I know I need that hour wind down. Right. So I’ve got that kind of night plan. I then know when I need to get to work, I know what time I need to get up to exercise and it all works together because I’ve spent the time to plan out how I want to sleep. Now that doesn’t mean again that it simply happens. The bit that I think is really important to pair really well is to know what your levers are that cause you to have poor sleep.
0:16:06 Jemima Ashleigh: Yes. Oh my goodness. Because the preparation is everything. But if you’re walking into a really difficult day, we refer them in our office as hell day. If I’ve had a bad, I’m going to have day to day. There are rules that we put in around that if you’re going to have the bad day, if we’ve got team, they’re out. If I’m unwell or something’s happened here, we make sure that we’re ready to pull levers if we need to at that point. Because I know that if I finish work at 7pm which is probably what’s going to happen, I’m not in bed before midnight. There is no way I’m getting all of that other stuff that I need to go in there. So we have to make better choices and get assistance where we need to.
0:16:39 Ben Wright: Yeah. Okay. So these levers or triggers that can really cause us to not sleep, these are things like alcohol to close before bed. Right. Not finishing an important task from the day or not, rounding it out, I. E. When you’re on a building site and you need to make the site safe before you finish. Right. Not getting that done before you finish off. So things run in your mind. Not clearing your head before you go to bed. Right. And for some people, clearing your head is reading a book. For other people, it’s going back and noting out things for the day. And look for others, it’s just spending time with their loved ones. Right. Everyone’s different in terms of how they clear their head. Right. But if we understand what our triggers are, we can start to work around them. Same goes if we have triggers that wake us up in the middle of the night. Same goes. You know, all the areas in our sleeping patterns that don’t work for us, first we just need to recognize what they are and then we can go about fixing them again. Way to do that. Generally by preparation. But I strongly suggest that in fact, all of these tips we’re going through around health and fitness, they’re all about understanding what works for you, but then making the commitment to get it done. So that’s number four.
0:17:44 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:17:45 Ben Wright: Number five is balance.
0:17:47 Jemima Ashleigh: Yes.
0:17:48 Ben Wright: So that is balancing between. It’s not work, life, balance. I don’t say work life, balance. For me it’s just balance. Because there is a lot of things that happen across your days that you just can’t them in a bucket of work or of life. Right. But the way that I go about finding balance is I actually work out what’s really important to me.
0:18:09 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:18:09 Ben Wright: What are the golf balls in the jar? They’re the most important parts, the most important things in your life that I need to get done. And then I schedule them across my weeks and then I go to the second most important. So in that jar, it’s full of the golf balls. It’s the stones that come in next.
0:18:24 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah.
0:18:24 Ben Wright: Then I start to schedule those and then the third piece is the pebbles and the sand and the water. Right. And we go one after the other. But to make the balance work, we’ve got to be really clear on what our priorities are. Example for me is my daughter. 8:30 every Friday morning we have swimming lessons.
0:18:38 Jemima Ashleigh: Yes.
0:18:39 Ben Wright: I don’t work Fridays between 8am and 10am you just won’t get me.
0:18:45 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah, yeah. There’s no. There’s no chance.
0:18:47 Ben Wright: Yeah, yeah. Very, very rare. Look, occasionally, and I say that I’ve done a couple of Friday gigs this year, but generally I won’t because that’s the commitment I’ve made to my daughter. And I love it. I really, really want to be there for good. So for me, what that means though is there are other times when I might want to go for a two hour run, but I can only get a one hour running because I need to do work. So I’m still getting my exercise in. But I’ve taken some balance to say, well, in this instance, work’s going to be more important. The way we get balance is by being really clear on those priorities.
0:19:17 Jemima Ashleigh: Yes. The rocks, pebbles and Zen is such a great metaphor for this because the rock being family time, that swimming lesson is such a rockabout. The work becomes the pebbles and the strains. At that point, that’s totally fine. But you know, you putting yourself and prioritizing it and I think this is one of the. I do want to go through the five, but one of the biggest things will take away that I’m going to take from this will absolutely be that you have to find a balance here. We can get all consumed. Any good leader gets consumed by their business. Any good business owner is consumed by their business at one point or another. And we have to start realizing we’re not working to live like we really need to make sure that we are putting in that time and effort to also live our lives at the same time. It’s very easy to all to be all too consuming.
0:20:08 Ben Wright: Absolutely.
0:20:08 Jemima Ashleigh: At the end of the day.
0:20:09 Ben Wright: Absolutely. Let’s do the five. Number one, your mental fitness we only touched on. I apologize. However, it’s important to get that up and going. Number two is habits and rituals.
0:20:17 Jemima Ashleigh: Right.
0:20:17 Ben Wright: So we make sure we set ourselves up to succeed by having those. Number three is exercise and nutrition. Right. Working out what works for us. Number four is sleep and preparation around your sleep. And the number five is balanced. My number one takeaway from today, it’s really clear. It’s to go through each of those and decide what works for you. It’s not going to be perfect. We have so much data that’s out there now around health and the future of health that we simply won’t be able to nail it. However, what we can do is know what works for us and implement that to the best of our ability.
0:20:50 Jemima Ashleigh: Yeah, I think what’s important, the silver bullet for me across all of these really is that none of this stuff is going to happen accidentally, Ben. We actually need to make very intentional choices. And one thing I’m realizing more and more in the business game is that it’s never going to be accidental. Every single element of this is going to be first and foremost, gotta get the good food. I’ve gotta order it. I have to go to the shops. That’s when we’re gonna do it. I have to schedule in that run. It’s gonna get. I have to spend family time. I have to schedule it in.
0:21:19 Jemima Ashleigh: This is about making all of this a priority, to make our lives and what we’re trying to build a priority.
0:21:26 Ben Wright: Excellent. Well, thank you, Jemima, for today. It’s been a little bit of a change of pace.
0:21:31 Jemima Ashleigh: It really has been great.
0:21:32 Ben Wright: I’m talking about something different. We’ll get back onto the business stuff next week, but there will be more to come around health and fitness. Absolutely. I’m doing some biological age testing at the moment. We’ll share those results when they come out. But look, we’ve been your friends in business. It’s been great to have you. We will talk to you again next week.
0:21:48 Jemima Ashleigh: See you guys.
