Your Lifestyle Is Your Medicine
“Your Life Style Is Your Medicine” is a podcast that focuses on how a person's lifestyle can be the key to health and happiness. Routed in the principles of lifestyle medicine, Ed Paget, osteopath, and exercise scientist, interviews area-specific experts on how lifestyle impacts well-being, focusing on purpose, physical activity, nutrition, sleep, and stress, which could lead to a longer, happier life. Edward now runs immersive lifestyle medicine retreats, with the purpose of helping others take back control of their lives to live longer and healthier.
Your Lifestyle Is Your Medicine
Episode 27: The true meaning of coaching with Judit Schneider
Do you ever wonder how a performance coach might impact the world of Formula One racing or how the principles of coaching can be applied to the demanding corporate world?
Join us as we navigate this fascinating intersection with Judit Schneider, an executive well-being and performance coach. She is a highly experienced coach with a background in corporate HR, NLP, working with Tony Robbins, and more recently, she trained as a high-performance coach with Hinsta.
Judit shares her deep insights into how coaching can help individuals reach their full potential, whether they're a racer, a corporate executive, or a mom seeking to balance her personal and professional life.
Judit enlightens us with her holistic approach, emphasizing the profound connection between mental and physical health. She takes us on a journey, explaining how a person's beliefs can potentially impact their physiology and the role of coaching in initiating these much-needed conversations. The corporate world isn't left out in our discussion as we examine the high-pressure expectations placed on knowledge workers and the need for a balanced approach like that seen in Scandinavian countries.
As we wrap up our chat, we focus on coaching's role in motherhood, its significant impact on decision-making, and how it promotes confidence in moms. We also delve into the world of personal growth, celebrate successes, and discuss the importance of having an external coach to help us recognize our accomplishments.
This episode is a treasure trove of insights and practical advice that you can apply to enhance your life and health. Buckle up and get ready to explore the transformative power of coaching with us.
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Email: judit@inspiredbyindigeaux.com
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email: ed@edpaget.com
Welcome to the your Lifestyle is your Medicine podcast, where we do deep dives and topics of mind, body and spirit. Through these conversations, you'll hear practical advice and effective strategies to improve your health and ultimately add healthspan to your lifespan. I'm Ed Padgett. I'm an osteopath and an exercise physiologist with a special interest in longevity. Today, my guest is Judith Snyder. She is an executive well-being and performance coach. She is a highly experienced coach with a background in corporate HR, NLP. She's been working with Tony Robbins and more recently, she trained as a high performance coach with Pinsa, which is also a qualification I hold.
Speaker 1:Now I wanted to do this episode because it appears that nowadays, everyone is either a life coach or having life coaching. So Judith and I explore what these terms mean what it is to be a coach, what life coaching is, how coaching can help people reach their potential, what to look for in a coach and what coaching sessions look like. But also Judith gives a really nice little demonstration of how to apply these coaching principles to organizations and how to help teams achieve high performance. Now in this episode, we discuss everything from wellness coaching after a health scare to how Formula One teams use Pinsa coaches to continually achieve high performance and how that knowledge can be applied in the boardroom. Okay, so, Judith, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:All right, so we know each other through a course at a Finland called the Pinsa Performance Coach course and it's about helping people reach their potential, and it's a very sort of loose way of describing what Pinsa does. But you've just completed the program, is that correct?
Speaker 1:Yes, that's absolutely correct All right, and you are an executive coach and a performance coach and you've worked with Tony Robbins and had tons of experience in this field anyway. So I'm interested in how are you going to weave in the stuff you've learned with Pinsa into your coaching practice?
Speaker 2:All right, that's a good question and I guess maybe it's actually good for the time being to start what even coaching is right, great place to start.
Speaker 1:What is coaching?
Speaker 2:People might have a lot of different thoughts about it actually, and you know what I was actually looking for the absolute correct definition by the ICF, which is the International Coaching Federation. It's just pretty much like one of the three biggest entities that are doing coaching, accreditation and what they say. They define coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. So these are nice words and, if you ask me, I would simply say that I, as a coach, I help people progress towards their goals. It's as simple as that Looking at where they are, identifying where they want to be or where they want to go, and then see what are the obstacles and how can they actually overcome those and reach where they want to reach. As simple as that.
Speaker 1:That sounds very simple. So is this life coaching because some people may have heard of life coaching or is it something different?
Speaker 2:What do you mean by life coaching In person?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, not live life coaching. So there's a trend, especially in the US. Lots of people have a life coach and I want to sort of tease out is what's the difference between a life coach and a performance coach or a wellness coach?
Speaker 2:Oh good knows. I mean, how long is your podcast? Because we could go down this rabbit hole. I'm telling you you're not probably discovered the most important. I think you're right. Unfortunately, the terminology of life coach has been a little bit like tainted. Okay.
Speaker 2:And that's why I also mentioned in the beginning that there are a couple of organizations that actually do accredited coaches, which means a certain level of quality standards and also certain coaching courses. I actually accredited by these organizations and, of course, people who do any of these, they want to apply themselves in doing a little bit more, compared to maybe a couple of people who only take, like you know, two weekends in a coaching course and then I can call myself by that. So that's a little bit of a bit, I think, of the profession. However, I also have to say that business coach, executive coach, performance coach, life coach God knows what kind of coach my experience is that, no matter where my clients are coming privately, on their own initiative, with their own kind of intention and goals, what they want to improve on themselves or I have clients in the corporate world executive coaching After a couple of meetings or a couple of sessions, this always comes down to actually are very much personal matters.
Speaker 2:What are personalities about? What are values out about? What do we actually hold important? What influences our behaviors? How do we create habits that are actually helpful to us, or how do we actually even, like, manage our state so that we can live up to the full potential, at least like move towards that. So that's how I would kind of like get to the bottom of this Doesn't make sense for you.
Speaker 1:That does make sense, and you're also doing some more training at the moment. Is that correct? You're doing a masters.
Speaker 2:Always yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what's that in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there is an education master of science, basically in coaching and behavior change, and I do that at the Henley Business School, university of Reading in the UK.
Speaker 2:So of course, I actually chose that, because for me it was also important that I do. I do add evidence-based practices to my portfolio science-based and that really actually helped me to look at, okay, what does the research say. And, of course, what's great about Henley Business School and this education is that they do coaching research as well themselves, while I also thought that they are a business school, so probably a more practical approach that they have. And the third thing, actually, what I discovered there, which I didn't know before, that they have an approach where they are really pushing the boundaries between coaching and therapy. So many of the different approaches that we have been studying about they are borderline or they are actually coming from acceptance and commitment, therapy, coaching, cognitive type of coaching, for example, compassion-based coaching and so on, and many of the tools. They are very, very valuable for coaches as well, so I find them useful at the time as well.
Speaker 2:So this is definitely one pillar of my approach.
Speaker 1:Just one pillar? Okay, all right. Well, we'll talk about the other pillars shortly. But how does someone know that they would benefit from coaching? Like, let's say, you know, I've got a small business, which I used to, and I'm bumbling along, I've got some employees. Maybe there's some frustrations in life. There's frustration in my personal life, frustration in the business. How do I know to reach out to a coach and not just go for a drink with my friends, for example?
Speaker 2:I mean sometimes a drink with your friends can be extremely valuable and important, because I mean it's also part of our hands education how social connections are extremely important, right, so keep those, at least as long as you are probably not exceeding those number of drinks that you are actually drinking.
Speaker 2:So that's an important thing. But you know as well that friends are great. As usual, everyone is giving you advices, even if they are the best friends of yours pretty much from their own experience and how can they actually relate to things? Even if their best intention is to support you, they probably don't have the best tools to move you and get kind of unstuck and pretty much for me, like the get unstuck is one of the very easy way to phrase as well like why do why? Or when do you need a coach, or when do you want to actually coach Is when you feel I'm stuck with something. Now, of course, if it's like clear knowledge related thing, you don't know how to do marketing for your business or sales Very, very clear kind of way to go like a professional in that area.
Speaker 2:However, if you feel that, if it's your own limitations, if you feel that, like I somehow don't have that like mindset that I need, or I'm not able to, don't dare to take the next step, that's when you can actually sit at like, all right, where is that potential that people tell me I might have? How do I unleash it? What are some of the tools that could actually help you?
Speaker 1:So you're unleashing a person's potential. Yes potentially, if you are committed to the journey as well.
Speaker 2:You know it's important, like I'm not a miracle worker, even though sometimes I love to think about myself, it's not about that. It's a two way thing. And you know, if we go back to the ICF definition, as I started with, like partnering with a client, yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:I have a magic band. You know, ed's bring. Everything's going to be great and fine. No, it's a commitment from both sides. I will be there to support you, to identify when are you at the moment? What's holding you back? Do you know where you actually want to go or is it something to actually figure out? And if you got that, let's see what? Like okay, what's preventing you? What are some obstacles that you perceive that they are there, whether in reality they are or they not? Sometimes we perceive things and then devise a plan of like how to how to go about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it there's. There's that huge difference between for me anyway, with spending time with friends and discussing something, and spending times with someone who's actually trained to bring out the conversation. I had a friend come and stay here for about about two months and in that time we were like, okay, we're going to sort out our lives, we do this, this and this plan all that, and we're good friends, we know each other a long time and it came down to more like opinions. This is why I think it's good for you. This is what I think is going to help you.
Speaker 1:But I also have a coach and I've done coaching through HINSA and the coach is like so where do you want to go? Maybe here. Why do you want to go there? Because of this? Okay, earlier you were talking about this and it seems to me those two things don't fit together. Can you explain that? And he pulls out these, these things that don't add up in my narrative and he makes me look at them and analyze whether or not I truly do want to do these things or what's the reason behind these things. And towards the end of the session, he always asks you know, what do you think the biggest takeaway is or what's the next thing you're going to do? Can you put that in order? And it comes. You come away with an action plan and I've never been in the pub having a drink with someone and someone say to me what's the five things you've taken away from this conversation and what are you going to do when you go home. You know it doesn't work like that, so coaching is amazing.
Speaker 2:It doesn't, and I have to say that, you know. I don't know whether you felt true to this issue. However, since since you have been actually doing coaching as well, sometimes it's difficult to be a friend when you are a coach as well, because very automatically have to have it off Wanting to support your friends as well with sort of your coach head on, and I have to say that I have burned myself with that. I try to support my friends with my coaching head on and try to ask them questions and you know, then they are just like I don't want you to coach now. I just want you to understand me, which is which is a very important part when you are actually friends with someone and you want to experience the empathy from someone. And you know, sometimes you really don't want to go and being asked about what do I want and what are my steps, and so on. You just want to be like can you just listen to me?
Speaker 1:Well, exactly, and it's. It's challenging having a session with a coach and people don't like to be challenged, especially if you're just with your friends. You don't want to be challenged, and especially called on your, on your misalignments. You know we could say the court and your BS, but it's essentially like oh yeah, I really want to do this. Okay, when was the last time you actually, you know, did anything moving towards that? Well, you know I haven't. So how much do you really want to do that? You know that that's a chat. It's challenging questions, not that I'd ask them particularly like that, but it can come up where the goal you have a goal and you say that to your coach, but then the coach starts teasing out the motivations behind that goal and you realize that that goal actually is, you know, it's a pipe dream, it's not a goal, it's not something you really really want to do. You know you've probably had that happen, you know, with the deadline.
Speaker 2:you know, as sometimes we say, a goal is a dream with a deadline. So you know it's important to dream as well. I think it's very, very important that sometimes you just like, let your fantasy, let your brain actually go all sorts of places and explore. Then afterwards you need to take steps. But may I ask actually, what was one topic that you explored with a coach?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the topics I've explored are writing, writing a book, which I want to do, to put together the methodology of health coaching and wellness coaching, the aspects of what we call lifestyle medicine some movements, nutrition, sleep and recovery. So it's very similar to HINSA how to avoid toxic substances, stress management and community and HINSA has a model that's very similar to that, and so I'll be pulling aspects from HINSA. I'll be pulling it from lifestyle medicine, and the idea is that a book becomes a sort of like the blueprint for people to follow. That becomes an online course, that becomes a curriculum for training, becomes what we talk about when we do in-person retreats. But I haven't written the book, and so that's what the coach that I was talking about is like well, why haven't I written it? How important is it? If it's that important, why hasn't it happened? You know, and trying to figure out how to do it, where's the time? In my space, sorry, in my life, what do I have? What motivates me intrinsically or extrinsically, and that's a big thing? Yeah, what motivates me? And it's apparent that my internal motivation isn't there, like otherwise I would have done it. So I need an external motivation and I started with a coaching group for book writing and that actually got me really halfway done and, weirdly enough, we came up with this. It's a you know, I haven't done it but I will. I am going to do it because I need to go to England to do it.
Speaker 1:I have a lots of clients elderly clients, young clients and we do fitness, we do coaching, we do scoliosis training, we do back pain a whole bunch of things and the majority of them have a problem with accountability. They just don't do the exercise. They know what to do, they just don't do it. And so what I do with some of them is I say look, here's my, here's my WhatsApp number. Every time you do an exercise, just WhatsApp me. Every time you do the program, just WhatsApp me. I'm not going to reply, just just tell me you've done it. And when I don't hear from you, I will ask you why.
Speaker 1:And so I expect like being being being from clients and I don't have to interact with them. But it's when the bing bing bing stops that I start interacting. So it's like a different. I don't know the reverse psychology. And he said to me well, can you do that with someone for your book writing? And I was like, oh yeah, this is a good idea. And so my elderly mother. She needs to exercise every day and I've got her on one of my programs. She's got to send me a text and in return I am going to send her a text that says I wrote a page today and the two of us will be back and forth her and her goals of exercise and me and my goals for book writing. And so that came from a coach. That came from a coach.
Speaker 2:I'm so curious because you said it like you need the external motivation. I'm also thinking what's the need for you by actually doing this book? What if you don't do it at all?
Speaker 1:Well, that's the problem.
Speaker 2:What are you going to lose out?
Speaker 1:That's the problem. It's not me that's losing out. I don't think, because you know, I have a business. I've had business, I can. There's income coming in from other areas. That's not a problem.
Speaker 1:But I feel as though my sort of avatar, the people I want to work with, are men who have a health, their first proper health scare be that high cholesterol, high blood pressure that pain doesn't go away. Or they've done something like they want to train for a marathon or whatever it is. They're going through something in their middle age and they have no idea on how to change that. So you know, for example, I had a client recently and he was like all I got to do is just get fit. And I was like OK, how would you do that? And he's like yeah, he's like well, I was a competitive college swimmer so I could just go to the pool and do some of my own routines. That was 25 years ago. You know, he's changed, he's not the same person. And I was like OK, so you could do that. But what about things you eat? What about how you sleep? What about the stuff you're drinking and smoking? Do you think those play a part? And he was like well, I guess. But he doesn't know how to change any of those things.
Speaker 1:So we put him on the lifestyle medicine or the hints of program and we work with him. We got his cholesterol down, we helped the whole bunch of things, and so I want to be able to offer people that style of support, but without necessarily hiring a coach, because you know coaches can be hundreds of dollars an hour. But a book an e-book or a physical book you know it's going to be $10, $15. And if someone can read that book and get you know some really good advice on those six areas of lifestyle medicine, that's going to benefit them hugely. What's in it for me? Well, potentially more clients in the future. And we can, I can build a new type of what do you call it, like a channel or a funnel to come and work with me. But you know, I just want to write the book because it becomes the blueprint for things that can do in the future.
Speaker 2:It's very interesting that you say that because, just like three sentences earlier, you said I want a wide book so that they can benefit from it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they can benefit from it.
Speaker 2:Would I be very wrong if I say that, well, you actually have your whole business and you're doing podcasts because you're actually sharing your knowledge so that people can benefit from it yes, so they can have a slightly better life.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the idea, and you know these podcasts and writing the book. It's like when I work with someone, you know, I don't care how many people listen to this. You know, I don't care if thousands, millions of people listen to it, but what I want from this is a database in a library where someone has a problem. And I say you know what you need to listen to. This episode I did with Judith about coaching and she's going to tell it. After listening to that, you're going to learn a lot about coaching and then maybe you want to get a coach. Or I had a person recently. We talked about hormones and menopause. I say you know, it's not really my area, but I did interview an expert on that. Listen to this podcast so it becomes like a. It's almost like you go and see someone have a library behind them. They pull a book off and they give you the book. This is the virtual library of information.
Speaker 2:You're sort of the spider in the web of knowledge about a lot of topics when it comes to being healthy, being well, taking care of yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and the same with you. Right Then, that's, that's what coaches do you? You, you'll, you know, you mentioned that that course you're doing in England is pulling in aspects from psychology, from cognitive behavioral therapy and so on, but you're not the expert in either one of those things which you can do a little bit and when necessary, when the clients you know showing, you know signs that it's out of your training, you would refer, I'm guessing.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I mean that's very similar to the to the hints of performance coach approach as well.
Speaker 2:For you it's you know, you know this, and for those who listen or watch this, I think it may be actually good to know that.
Speaker 2:What I also loved about this approach and that means that you have a basic knowledge or an overarching general knowledge of a few topics which are pretty much your core. What hints that it finds is who you are, what do you want and whether you have control over your life, and then six different areas being the physical activity, nutrition, sleep and recovery, mental energy, biomechanics and general health. So those are great areas. I think that once we actually focus on we are, if we are taking like tiny little steps in these areas, we can significantly improve our life quality and the approach that hints as well. It's not that you need to be an expert deeply in each and every of these topics, but rather have a good overarching knowledge, zoom on absolutely what the client wants, what they need, what would be congruent with them, and then, if needed, then pulling actually people who are absolutely specialized in some of these areas. If you actually need like support and, as you know, as probably it's, I think 80% of the issues are covered within the 20% of knowledge, so to say right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now I agree, and can you tell us because people may be wondering what hints there is and why we keep talking about it can you tell us how that was developed within the world of motorsport and how it works? The example of a Formula One driver.
Speaker 2:How long is your podcast? I'm very passionate about this topic. Okay, well, very, very good. I'm very proud of it. Just show me when it's like really enough.
Speaker 2:And yes, so it's a Finnish organization and definitely I also actually came across them via Formula One, which I have a huge passion and almost I would say, obsession about. Since I was a kid, I have been like an Ayrton Senna fan, coming from Hungary with my dad. Every Sunday we have been watching Formula One and I actually still remember the day when I was on Senna died. I completely remember what I was doing and I heard the news. It's crazy. And at some point in my life I actually worked in Brazil and I went to a Renault factory and the company where I saw one of his yellow helmets and I felt like heaven. And of course, I have been following lately as well, like how the sport is developing. There was a little bit of a gap, but now I kind of got back to it a few years and very quickly I learned about hints of performance and because what really really interests me it's not the technical aspects of the sports but rather driver's psychology. Like these are like extremely young boys man. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, sometimes, like you know, around 20 years old. Okay, we have like some like or double, but that's more than examples and I found it extremely fascinating, like how they are actually performing, or need to be performing, on an extremely high standard, week in and week out. If they crash their cars on a free practice, how do they get over it emotionally and mentally and then get themselves ready for a qualifying and to do the best one lap performance in order to ensure a good grid position the day after? How do they get up to speed if they do, if they have a crash, for example? So for me, like how the driver's psychology and mentality and emotional processing works, it's hugely important and interesting. Also, the very interesting team dynamics in the sport. You have one team with two drivers. They are teammates while they are enemies as well.
Speaker 2:They are the only two people with the same machinery. You don't want to be having second right With the same car, yeah, so very interesting aspects as well. And thirdly, I mean organizational culture. My background in the corporate environment was human resources, organizational learning and development, so you know that's. I can't just take that away.
Speaker 2:It's an interest still, and so, of course, I learned about performance coaches having or playing a huge role on many of these aspects, and many of the teams and drivers in Formula One HINZA and I kind of like deep dive into what I have at some point that the book, the core by Aki HINZA, who has been the founder basically of the company, has been a doctor from Finland, have been working in Africa as an MD, as a doctor basically, and they have pretty much actually formulated this approach that I just described before with focusing on the core and the six different areas, and I mean they have a long history now since supporting. I think it started with Miko Hekinem and then now it's up to many of the different teams as well, not only drivers.
Speaker 1:And so can you just describe the support that would happen, let's say, with one of the drivers?
Speaker 2:Probably not in detail. That's definitely not going to be like my.
Speaker 1:No public knowledge, but yes.
Speaker 2:I know it by like third sources, I would say and what you see? That actually I think it's quite a lot of support, both on the mental side and also on the physical. So when you look at the performance coach, supporting a driver, let's say, a driver or a racing driver and it's a lot about keeping them fit, making sure that they do the relevant exercises, their nutrition, their sleep habits and so on, and also make sure that, like mentally, they are up to the challenge. And what I find also interesting, actually or I found it very interesting when I learned about it how much work does it go, for example, to supporting a pit stop crew? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't even think about it that those people are changing a bunch of people changing four tires in approximately like two, two and a half seconds. So, in order to make sure that people are at the right places, their biomechanics you know the way how they move are exactly great and they are ready and healthy to do these moves in such a short time. It also creates a bit of a preparation and, as far as I know, hintza is involved in to do this as well with some of the teams, not all. Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:So, hintza, they supply these performance coaches with work with individual drivers or some of the teams to keep them fit and healthy in all those different areas of biomechanics and nutrition and stress management and so on. And then they've taken that model and they said well, if a Formula One driver has to perform, you know, at the best they can every weekend for the season, all over the world, with all the time zones, is that similar to a CEO of a high performing company that's flying around the world, pitching, you know, ideas, meeting with other business leaders and so on? Yeah, they're sitting down athletes, essentially because the driver sits down and works and so does the CEO. And so they took those, those principles of performance coaching, and they moved it into the CEO world and that's probably what got you and I both into it. Yeah, maybe I mean.
Speaker 2:I certainly got a little bit of you know anxious when I got into this education because my background was absolutely on the corporate side. Right. A lot of knowledge actually, and experience with more the mental side of coaching and executive coaching and so on, and my experience was lacking, actually in the physical areas.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I was a bit like, oh my goodness, you know how am I going to fare here and, as you know as well, we are actually split into groups of four or five people with whom we are working to very, very closely during the nine months program, and what I soon realized is some of my strengths can actually be out of people's weaknesses or lack of differences for the time being, and the other way around. I felt it's couple of things that you said that I wanted to actually connect to, because one of these things also supported me in realizing that there are sometimes specialists coming into this education who are absolutely having their own practice whether it's kind of like physiotherapy, for example, their own personal training and so on, and they have been used to one way of coaching which is pretty much from the sports world Meaning this is me.
Speaker 1:This is me. I'm terrible at this, yeah.
Speaker 2:I know what you're going to say. Someone comes to me and pays for my knowledge I have accumulated over the years. But how my body works and they come to the problem. I try to give them a solution. I ask them to implement it, do the exercises, or I manipulate them and so on, and then we see how it goes. After a period of time.
Speaker 2:However, what I noticed sometimes people with this sort of background they have not been used to asking questions from their client of like what do you want in life. So they were like, oh my gosh, like how should I ask this question? My, you know my client's going to be like are you nuts? Why are you even worried about that? I came here to fix my knees and so on. So I think we had like great discussions about like, how can you sort of like integrate the two things?
Speaker 2:And even when you are a very specialized coach, trainer, whatever you call yourself and how can you sort of like expand your practice and when you meet a client, start from like okay, I know there is a thing with your knee, let's take a step back. And how are you? How are you feeling? How is your life? What are you happy with what doesn't make you happy. What do you want actually? And then let's also like connect a little bit, like how this tension in your knee might actually contribute to things. Maybe it expands, maybe it doesn't. There is an option actually to unpack things. How we are connected, and I mean mind and body. You know they actually have like an impact on each other.
Speaker 2:Your thoughts, your mindset, has an impact on your body. I just saw, actually, you shared an article recently about how your belief, how your beliefs, are actually influencing even your physiology. I think those are extremely interesting.
Speaker 2:And also sometimes you know when you are feeling down, when you are not being actually in a good mindset, just moving, and I'm not necessarily saying like go to the gym and push yourself to your limits. It might be also great, but just actually move your body, go out, take a walk on the fresh air. It's actually having like an impact on your mindset as well. So it goes all around.
Speaker 1:It's huge, isn't it? And yeah, I was definitely one of those specialists like with osteopathy, that when people come to me and they've hurt their ankle, I'm like, okay, this is going to take six to eight weeks, you need to do this, this and this, do these exercises, I'll see you next week. And that's what the mindset I brought to some of the coaching. And it's like no, no, no, no, no, no. That's not how coaching works. And I have a friend who's a Jungian therapist and I said to him I'm like do you ever give advice? He's like no, no, you can't give advice. I'm like, okay, so when you meet someone and you listen to their story and you're like this person really needs to get a new job Right, you know that. And day one, and he's like, yeah, sometimes you sit there for a whole year until that person says you need to get a new job. And then I said to him what do you do? High five. And he says, no, inside you go, yes, outside you go. Why do you think that? I was like, oh, wow, that's tough to do. That's tough to do.
Speaker 1:And for me, learning that the people sure they want when they're in pain, so they might want my skill set for that. But the coaching that's their, that's their intro into this, into my world. And then the coaching is what can happen afterwards. You know it can be, yes, you've got a sore ankle, yeah, you can do some exercise and fix it. Or you've got a sore ankle, but that's actually not much of a problem. You've got this back pain thing as well. It's been there for a long time and that's because you're not eating right or sitting too long. But why are you not eating right, sitting too long? Because you've got this and so on and so on. And it all begins to sort of unravel and then we can coach a person to get holistically healthy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you actually ever had cases in your practice when you know someone was coming with symptoms of pain and so on? You actually haven't really found like a physiological reason.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I've had the yeah, totally, I've had pain, people with pain that hasn't gone away, and I know that the solution is not physical and it's somewhere in the mental, emotional, spiritual space, but I haven't found the trigger. But on the flip side, when I say trigger, so I haven't found the solution, on the flip side I've also had people that I know the pain is not physical and I have found the thing. And it's funny because it's, for example, with back pain. There was this really good doctor, a New York doctor called Dr Sano, and he's got a book called, I think it's beating, beating lower back pain, and he would have these meetings in his like, in his clinic, maybe 10, 15 people and they would all have searing back pain, shooting down their legs and their foot. Some of them would have MRIs showing that they've got a disc bulging and it's pressing on the nerve. And he would just take an hour to explain that sometimes when the disc is bulging, pushing on a nerve, it doesn't cause pain, there's no pain. Sometimes there is pain and sometimes there's pain without the disc bulge or there's nothing.
Speaker 1:And so he would put a little bit of doubt into the person's mind about what's causing the pain. That's the first thing, and there's a phrase that says the slightest of doubts is stronger than the strongest of faiths, and what that means is, if you've got a little bit of doubt, you're like, well, maybe that this isn't the problem, and then he explains what else could be the problem and basically the muscles can get tight because your body's actually manufacturing the pain to distract you from thinking about something else. And so he explains this, and then he says the good news is you don't need to know what the other thing is. All you need to know is that that pain is manufactured by your body to distract you. And after that hour he would have documents, but it was about 60 to 75% of people would leave pain free.
Speaker 1:And when I first heard of that, I was like no way, and so I tell that story to my back pain clients. And then I do a little bit of a little bit of you know, hands on work to make them feel like they've got something. And I tell you these people, 20 years, sometimes 15 years of back pain, they'll get up and they'll be like, oh, it feels better. I don't know what you did. I didn't do anything. I just told them they're subconscious almost that it was a trick.
Speaker 2:No, I think it's very crazy, and now I wish I had a better memory. Maybe you might remember, because this just actually reminded me of one of our lectures about back pain, with the hints as well, and I think there was like a awesome statistics about something on the line of Germany is spending more money on treating back pain, then maintaining the high basis, some in the entire country for a year or something like that.
Speaker 1:I can't remember that.
Speaker 2:Just like you know, if half of it is true, it's already like a mind blowing, mind blowing.
Speaker 1:It's crazy and there's all this, yeah, and you know, back pain is, it's a multifactorial thing for sure. It's not all just in your head and it's not all just in your back. It can be your hips, it can be your feet, can be your knees, all sorts of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Another thing that I wanted to connect back is that you said something along the lines of like our modern times, you know, ceos kind of like athletes, yes, and you know that was one of my kind of shocking learning points or discoveries during the, during the education, because I thought why do we think that and why do we actually consider it like normal and accepted that athletes have times of physically really stretching and pushing themselves and then recover and recover, and then pushing themselves and then recover? And then why is it like that? Meanwhile and you know, this area was not that much familiar to me Meanwhile, in the corporate world, the language that we are using is, you know, look at any job description nowadays they want to look for companies are looking for people who go above and beyond. You give your 110%, don't? You are proactive and always, you know, ahead of the curve Like 24, seven or even more preferably.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking like I mean, it must have a cure to some people already that you know, knowledge workers are also somehow like endurance athletes. And how can we? Why are we actually even expecting people to be 100% every fricking day? Like, how is it possible to be on top of your mind every single time. Is that actually possible to expect that, or is it reasonable? So for me, the optimal, looking for the optimal performance and kind of like supporting the people that I'm coaching as well.
Speaker 2:And then some of them are, like you know, executives, actually in in C suit and they are extremely stressed. And then some of them are actually having like a little bit more issues with like delegating or they don't actually feel that there are competent people, for example, in smaller companies, startups, where things are also kind of more in a rush and they don't have potentially that many resources or less experienced and so on, and they just also just put a lot of pressure on themselves. And I mean, that's pretty much you know where all coaching process starts to put a lot of pressure on ourselves. I think that we should all the will do this and we should be enough, and we are not. We are not able to perform in a good way, and then what they do actually is they feel like I'm not living up to their own expectations and potentially to other people's expectations, which is you should be always on top of your tanks.
Speaker 2:So, unpacking those processes is a huge part when working with in the corporate environment. I would say.
Speaker 1:And do you think that's a societal thing? Then most, most, the their corporate culture or the country culture is work, work, work and when they're not doing it, as much as they can.
Speaker 2:Good question. I mean, I work in Scandinavia, I'm living in Sweden, in Stockholm, and, of course, if I compare this culture with perhaps even like with North American or with a couple of others, maybe this one actually has Scandinavian culture. I think generally has maybe a better, more relaxed approach, more balanced approach when it comes to this and recovery, keep having actually boundaries and involving other people to support you and so on. I definitely experienced that on myself as well in my past two decades, even if I, even when I was just like starting out and that's definitely helpful and of course, you know some of the systemic approaches that are prevalent in these countries. You are being sent on a vacation, you having three weeks in the three weeks of vacation after each other, continuously during the summer. It's normal. Right.
Speaker 2:That's happening in the US right. When you have maybe like weeks of vacation annually, good luck with that.
Speaker 1:That's if you've had a baby. Otherwise you don't take it. Most people don't take it their vacation.
Speaker 2:Apparently, it would be like a totally not a subject.
Speaker 1:No, exactly, it's like I'll see in two weeks, whereas in in Europe it's, you know, very different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean my experience is here. It's like most of the women. They to take like approximately a year. It varies some. Some some take less a little bit, maybe six months, some take actually a little bit more, one and a half. I mean I've been in the Atlantic two months or three very often, and when the child is one year old, then I also will add that I come from Hungary. In months often go for three years to be with a child. Now I won't be the judge for sure. I'm not going to make like a statement here whether it's good or not. I don't want to be up for everyone to decide. But it also means that you can only decide to the extent that the system actually and your conditions.
Speaker 1:Allow, yeah, it's the same. But you know, I think also we have to think about the biology, and one of. For me anyway, one of the surprising things when my ex wife and I had kids was the breastfeeding aspect of it. How long do you breastfeed for what's physiologically normal, what's culturally accepted and what can? You can what you do as an individual, and so if the average breastfeeding is to two years thereabouts- yeah shouldn't maternity leave be around that same length of time?
Speaker 1:And I have some people who go four years of breastfeeding and some people manage, you know, a few months. So there's a big spectrum. But I was thought about like more sort of evolutionary speaking, like from an anthropological point of view, what, how long does that mother need to be with the child, and why do we force a separation before would be you know naturally where it naturally occur and I think, I think the US is making massive mistakes when it comes to that.
Speaker 2:You know, there are actually many female coaches who are specializing to support matters and young matters, especially with these sort of questions, because, as I mentioned as well, like there are no one set of standards that are actually said this is the best practice and everyone should follow, and there are so many different opinions.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, like I guess, every, every woman, every mother feels that for themselves, yeah, and kind of have a preference based on probably how they have been socialized as well, or what they have been exposed to as well, what they feel actually is right, or based also like how they have educated themselves.
Speaker 2:What I find interesting in that aspect is the coaching often comes into play is again here, when mothers don't feel that they are actually are doing the right things and they are not perfect when it comes to nurturing and supporting their children. And I do see, not only among my friends and people are women around me, but in wider circles as well, how very often this can create a fairly long lasting issue for a lot of moms by not feeling enough and it's the same motive almost, you know, not feeling enough, am I actually doing the best for my kids, and what if I cannot dress feed, actually, and all those questions of am I being a good mother or not? And then we are actually getting into the question of identity, which is has a huge, huge impact on how we behave, how we actually make decisions. Are we satisfied with who we are, you know? Are you happy with your choices?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we've got, we've got one group there that's very easy to identify as new moms and they may feel, have all these feelings and they may feel like they need to see a therapist or a psychologist. But actually a good, qualified coach in that area could be a person to see as well. And then we have, like, like you said, anyone who feels like there's coming with the words you use exactly, but like there's, they're not living up to their potential. And then we we highlighted the sort of the pinnacle which would be like a high end athletes and CEOs as well. So who else? I mean, does everyone need coaching?
Speaker 2:It's a question of time. I would say I bet money on it that everyone may need a coach to work their lifetime. At some point yeah.
Speaker 2:Now we need to be working all the time? Probably not, god knows. You need to break sometimes from a coach as well and from all those grillings and hard questions. Let yourself just be sometimes but I think it would bring back to one of my previous answers when you feel that you're stuck, when you feel that you would actually benefit from someone supporting you, challenging you I often use the word challenging and cheerleading my clients. You want to cheerlead their success because, honestly, a lot of people do like to be challenged and, of course, in the corporate world as well, like a lot of people high achiever, they want to do well, and that's also kind of like my belief as well, that people mostly want to do well and be well.
Speaker 2:And then you wake up in the morning and then you feel like, okay, what harm can I do with this world today? Right, like it's probably not, like I would want to solve it, all the things that you are actually doing to support people, right? So if you want to do good, if that intention is there, that's probably just like something blocking you. So what can actually help you over that hurdle a little bit for a bit of a time being? But then what often happens. That's kind of like the challenging part. And then what happens often is that you get over a hurdle and then you're like, okay, next, you know what's next, what's my next thing, not even stopping for a second to look back and say like, okay, what have I just achieved? Would you have ever thought and I'm actually asking you would you have ever thought, when you were like I don't know 20 years younger, that you would end up where you are now? And if you ask yourself, do you think your 20 years old self would be proud of where you are now and who?
Speaker 1:you are? Yeah, I don't. My 20, well be my 25 year old self would not have conceived living in a foreign country learning a foreign language. No, absolutely not. Couldn't conceive it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and those are like absolutely tiny achievements, right, like learning a new language, living in a different country, like everyone does that right. So no, but seriously, the cute things. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So sometimes, you know it's also there's a saying of sometimes, or very often, we overestimate what we can achieve in a year and underestimate what we can achieve in 10 years. So when you look at when you were like 10 years ago and where you are now, probably there's a difference and you have overcome a lot of challenges that probably are worse to celebrate because you grew from them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the celebration that's it Celebrate the successes. And we as a culture well, I guess the Northern European culture we don't do that. We don't like people who blow their own trumpets. You sort of say, hey, look at me, look at me, we don't. That's not a thing that we're fans of. So, yeah, it's not part of our, it's not part of our culture. So, having someone else, having the coach, like you said, the cheerleader and the coach, help you express that. You know, the enjoyment with the accomplishments is key.
Speaker 2:I think so. Yeah, so I think, let's do this. Just think a little bit about yourself, how you can challenge yourself for your next step and how you can also cheerlead yourself for what you have already achieved Not small feats.
Speaker 1:That's it, not small feats. Who do you coach? Do you have like a particular person that you coach, or Particular, many types.
Speaker 2:I would say it like that. I have a set of clients who are privately they have been drawn into kind of like my knowledge or experience when it comes to like executive coaching, performance coaching, and they are like privately. They are interested, they are stuck. I want to have some help. Can you please support me? Great, I actually got more into executive coaching for corporations as well, primarily not my focus when I went on my own. To be honest, I was a little bit like I wanted to make sure and I think that is a key thing I want to make sure that I work with people who are actually up for it, so they are motivated, they want to do a change. They just actually need some support.
Speaker 2:And sometimes my experience in the corporate world was it's a bit tainted but, of course, nuanced that often companies give a coaching support for perhaps like a lower performing person which is not a problem in itself. It becomes a problem. Then the company already knows that well, we probably not genuinely believe that this person can improve, but we do what we are required to do. So here you get some coaching, get fixed. That's not the thing for me.
Speaker 2:I've done a couple of those and I realized that it's not a good place to be. The client is genuinely actually not up for a process to work with themselves, or when they already feel that the intention is not genuine for themselves to actually become better. Now, lately I actually been found by companies where the issue is or the case is a little bit different, when they do believe in a person and they say, yes, we actually promoted these people. They are great cultural fit to the company. They have been already adding great value. There are a couple of missing pieces and we want them to be supported to actually reach those. Now, that's the kind of corporate coaching that I'm up for. Interesting.
Speaker 2:Corporate is important for what's the motivation, what's the intention? If there is an aspect of the company coming in, there is a genuine interest in there, the most important is the person actually up for the journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sometimes challenging.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I've heard that as well, that within some corporate culture, someone with some influence has had coaching and they're like this is great, we're going to get coaching for everyone in the team, and then the coaches come in to coach the team, but the team didn't ask for the coaching, we didn't want it and it just doesn't work as well. So I get that, you've got.
Speaker 2:It may work actually, if a coach is actually coming in, if the manager or hire up whoever actually was a sponsor of this initiative they do have a good intention and say like well, you know what, I'm going to commission someone they can help, and we're going to go through a set of like team coaching sessions, and if that kind of work together starts with a very open discussion, okay, what is happening here is this team. And that's when we kind of like elevate the individual coaching into like a team coaching. Right.
Speaker 2:It's happening here, like what do you guys and girls think? Are you performing in your best performance? Is it a high performing team or not? On a scale of 127, 1,210, whatever, where do you date yourself, your team, when it comes to your outputs, quality of your output, and also, like, the way of your collaboration? How does it work? Okay, why do you say that? What would make it attend to you? What's missing? And also not only focusing on what's missing and what's not there and what's weaknesses, what is there, what are you adding, and what is other person is adding, and what the third person is adding, and so on, and how you can actually build on that. How can we actually build on the strength of the individuals? And to make it more, you know cliche, but one plus one, can it be more than two? Yeah.
Speaker 1:Nice. A little example of corporate coaching right there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, teams I love to work with teams as well. Actually, we haven't talked about that much now. That super interesting and very, very thrilling to see that as well. Now, when you start working with a team and they're a little bit all over the place and they don't even trust you in the beginning because they feel like, oh yeah, I'm manager, told us to have some coaching, what's going to happen now? And you actually work with them a couple of sessions Well, more than a couple, definitely more than a couple when you see start, when you start seeing actually tiny changes how they actually work with each other, that's nice.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. That's a really good example as well. Okay, so people have been listening to this. They might want to know more about coaching, and I want you to share some of those resources. Maybe recap what you said at the beginning is there a directory of coaches that meet a certain standard? And also, how can someone find out more about you?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the first question about, like finding a coach, I mean, I think that's the tough one and I don't have one silver bullet answer for that. I'm really, really sorry for that. I mean, if you actually, or if people go to certain or some of the coaching federations or coaching organizations websites, you know they keep track of their certified coaches. There are plenty.
Speaker 2:So I think if someone is about like okay, I'm actually stuck with some something, but I'm lost to an issue, what do I do? And sometimes it's actually just like good, good to, even if you start like get a Googling going or ask your, ask your friends around, ask yourself around, because I think a couple of things when you want to actually choose a coach is that most important is is that you can establish a trust with each other, good respect, so you actually can develop a good chemistry, good feeling when you're working with this person. If you have never been coached, it might take a little bit of a discovery with someone. At the same time, many most of the coaches I would say the majority of them they offer 20 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever how many minutes, discovery session, intake sessions, different names for it, because they also want to make sure that they work with people who fit to them, because otherwise, you know, I don't want to work with someone with whom I feel like it's not going to work. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to do my best job, but maybe one of my colleagues could actually.
Speaker 2:So, and I think actually also maybe that's like number one criteria if you meet a coach who doesn't have any kind of system for that, to have an initial discussion like that's probably already like a no in the beginning Great.
Speaker 2:And then you can get a feel for it and there to ask your questions what is it actually, what is your issue and what is the question that you want to unpack. And it's also good to reflect for yourself what it in the beginning of can you be open with this coach, because if you feel that you need to hold back things or if you actually cannot share things, you know how much goes in or the quality that goes into a process is going to actually having an impact on the quality of the output. So that's an important thing. If it's important for you to have, like, specific credentials, go for that. If it's, if there are other aspects that are important to you to check for those, should it be certain religion, specific approach? Do you want to have cognitive, behavioral kind of coaching, for example, or acceptance and commitment or whatever? For those, always good to have referrals. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you already know someone who has been coached, check for those, even reach out to those coaches and then actually ask them like, but they can refer you to someone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do people find out about you?
Speaker 2:My LinkedIn is the best thing actually where you can connect. It connect with me at the moment, so probably you put it in the notes or whatever.
Speaker 1:I'll put your LinkedIn in the notes. Oh, thank you very much for being on the show. This is a really good conversation about coaching, all things coaching, and I think the clients who listen to this, if they didn't know anything about it, they know something about it and also they'll know how to find out more if they feel like coaching is in their future. So thank you.
Speaker 2:It feels like it flew by actually.
Speaker 1:It did, didn't it? It was good, Thank you very much. Bye, bye, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me in my conversation with Duda Snyder Now. If you've enjoyed listening to and learning from this podcast, please leave a comment and a suggestion for any future podcast guests that you might like us to feature. In addition, on Apple, you can leave us up to a five star review and you can leave a comment there. If you might help directly with anything to do with lifestyle medicine, osteopathy and performance coaching, you can send me an email, ed at edpadgettcom, or visit my website, edpadgettcom. And, last but certainly not least, thank you for your interest in lifestyle medicine.