Credits:

Music Track Title: Everybody Loves a Catastrophe; Licence type: Standard Licence; Artist: Twirl; Composer: Neal Busby & Huguette Arsenault (SOCAN); Publisher: Lynne Publishing (PRS - CAE#: 541626758)

Logo Artist: Avril Orloff; Outsidethelines.ca

Transcript:

Welcome to the podcast. Risk is the new kale. Each episode I talk with folks who have figured out how to extract opportunity from risk. As someone who has spent a career controlling risk, I want to know those who embrace it. Risk is the new kale good for you? Hard to take.

Marisa's interview is great because she's an experienced podcaster and she has such a positive, engaging message around personal health, which for me is the same thing as personal wealth. We've known and worked together for more than 10 years, and that's really ever since I finally realized that the people I most admired around me, who were the most successful in their careers, actually were the folks who prioritized their workouts. So this podcast theme, it offers some surprising insights into how individuals assess or maybe are in denial about their health risk and eventually what changes their mind. So that's perfect. Look at that. The two of us in our. Space. He's a health coach to CEO's athletes and business owners, and has been in the health and nutrition coaching and fitness space for 25 years. A certified with a degree in human kinetics from the University of British Columbia as well as certified with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition. Her clients live and work across North America. You can follow her on Instagram and LinkedIn to. I'd like to welcome Marisa McKenzie, owner of Marisa Mackenzie Health coaching. Thank you Catherine. I'm happy to be here great. All right. So I'm going to just dive in reisa. What's the number one thing your CEO clients say about their lives?

Now, do you mean when they're training with me or before they start? Yeah, I would say before they start before you put them on the right path before we start. I think the biggest thing is they're so used to having confidence in every aspect of their life except for their health in before they start with me. That's and it's different for them, that's they're used to having confidence in it, every aspect, but they don't because it's such a specialized field that unless you've done a lot of research. On it, you wouldn't know what to do, so there are a bit lost. Sometimes before we start, so I would say that's it. And then as you get into a program with them, do you actually see a shift in their thinking and about when does that happen? Yes, and that is the best when you see the shift in it is great. I mean this happens with all clients, but it's very cool seeing it with somebody such as a CEO or an executive because they're just so confident in every other aspect of their life. And so when you do see that shift, it's fantastic. It's different for everybody. It can be a few weeks and depending on what their goals are and what they're looking at, why they hire me. And and if it is a risk, something high like that, like a diabetes or a heart attack, it's other scared too. And this might be the first time in a long time they've been scared. So that's another thing that we work on is confidence around what they're going to do, and so we get an action plan together. And then if they know they've got a plan

to follow, it's just so much easier because they know, OK, I can stay on track. With this I can follow this and it's going to get me to where I need to be. I think it's it just feels a lot more comfortable when you know you have a plan of attack where you're just not going aimlessly into something that seems like such a practical way to get people past fear. But isn't it interesting? The people that we don't expect to have that kind of uncertainty or lack of confidence in their lives? This is probably the most vulnerable place they have. Exactly, yes, I think that's it, and I probably get to talk to those people more than anybody else does in a personal way, except for maybe their spouse or their very close friends. And even our very close friends. We don't often, especially CEOs, get to talk to them because they're so busy. So if I see a CEO one to three times a week that say that's three hours or two hours a week, one on one time talking about themselves, that's usually a lot more time. That they can spend with anybody else on just themselves. You know, when you're talking with your spouse, you're talking with your kids. It's different, right? So we're really focusing on their as you said, their fears, their weaknesses, and what's going to get them past that next obstacle that they're trying to get past. I just want to back up a bit then and ask you about your career. I started right after university. I kind of lucked into a job and it was right when corporate health was taking off in Vancouver. I worked at about 5 different companies in their corporate sector, so the people that I came across right away were executives, and that was really lucky for me because I got to know what their lives were like right off the bat. And I realized how much I liked working one on one with people.

So then I decided to go into. Personal training and within a couple years I opened my own personal training studio and it was one of the first ones in Vancouver, so it attracted a lot of people and those were the type of people that attracted executive CEOs and business professionals. So it worked out really well and I think it was luck at the beginning and then it just connections and I really enjoy connecting with people and helping people. Seeing how just everything changes in their life, it's not just one thing. It's not just their health, it's their mental health. It's their emotional health. It's their physical health, it's everything. So it was a really exciting time.

You know it just reflecting on the gym being an intimidating place and you know wearing you know not very much when you're in there. When we're in the business world and you have a jacket or a suit on it's armor. And so there's sort of a mental and physical sort of peeling off of armor when you have to face your own health challenges and what risks? That's exactly it. We're all the same when we're in a gym, right? You don't know if you're beside a person that's been at the gym for 20 years, and that works in a construction site. Or if a person that's in an office as a CEO, we're all even playing field there. And that's exactly, I think. Yeah, you could wear a suit every day to work, or you may not, but it doesn't matter at the gym. Great democratizing exactly exactly. You still got to pull the weights away at the end exactly. Yeah, now you're a business owner and you've had to invest a lot of your personal time and attention to get to where you are. How do you think about your own opportunities and how you've achieved them, you know? It's so funny that you asked that Catherine because I started my personal training studio when I was twenty six something like that. And so I basically worked for two years out of university and a woman that I was working with in corporate health. She came over for dinner one night and she's like we should just start our own personal training company. We want to do it. We want a really good space to train out if let's just do it. And literally we decided over a bottle of wine and dinner that night. We were going to do it. Next day we looked for business investors and we had it up and running in. I think 3 months we went to LA. We checked out gyms there. We thought this is what we want. We wanted our own private studio to train out of and it worked fantastic but it didn't even cross my mind at that age that it was taking a risk. It was so I think it was just now. I think I would be more nervous than I was then because it was just, I thought. Well, I'm if it doesn't work. Big deal.

And luckily it worked and it worked really, really well. So it was the there wasn't much thought. I'd love to tell you that it was something else and I was thinking about risk at the time, but I wasn't. It was just I thought, you know what I'm going to do it because it's what I want to do and I'll see if it worked and it did. So that's just unencumbered joy and enthusiasm about achieving something that was it. And both my friend and I were so passionate about it, and we both had many clients and we thought, well, we've got a full clientele. Now they're only going to like it more if we have great equipment and a great studio, and we did so. And as I said, there was hardly any other one in Vancouver at the time, so it just worked really well. It was good timing. Everything was good. I think there was a really good energy there. It was and we wanted to make it non intimidating. So because just as I was saying, I think that's the biggest thing when you walk into a fitness and health space. It's intimidation if you've never been in before, you don't know what to expect. And it's scary. So that's we wanted to welcome people with a smile and just be able to make people feel comfortable. And we did that. So back to health coaching. You mentioned a few of the things that you see in some of your clients. What do you think are some of the biggest risks in general for the people that you see? I think that my average clientele is probably 40 to 60 now, so the risks would definitely be cancer, heart attack, diabetes, stroke, lifestyle, diseases. In having high stress jobs. Alcohol intake too high. You know everything because my niche market is busy professionals and CEOs. They do a lot of business travel, a lot of entertaining and their high stress. So it's taking care of prioritizing

their health again as opposed to their business coming first. So prioritizing health. What would you say would be the top one, two or three things that people should do probably know they should do, but don't. The movement every day movement, meaning getting some steps in and I know the 10,000 steps is the big one that people say and the 10,000 that came from a long time ago. There's no rhyme or reason to that 10,000 steps anymore. It's somewhere though I'd say upwards of 8000. you can get your 8000 steps in and get it outside as much as possible, because then you get daylight and you get fresh air. I admit I had to chair a very long meeting today and knowing I was getting on a call with you, I went for a walk. Just perfect. That's great. What is this psychology of risk reward tradeoffs that you see in folks like when people know something will be good for them and what just gets in the way for them about making a positive change. I think they have to really get their mindset around it and they have to be ready to some extent, but they think it's all willpower and it's not. Willpower is only gonna get you so far and it's not an all or nothing. There's some days when you're going to go out and you're going to decide. I want to have the glass of wine and a really nice dinner and you want to own that decision? Enjoy it, not feel guilty, not feel shamed because you're doing it. It's just that's what I'm going to do. But that can't be every day. Obviously, if you want to see results, but as long as you have those healthy habits in place, it shouldn't be an issue. So I think that that would be the main reason. The main thing that they have to get over in their head that, OK, I still can do this, but that hasn't been the

case for years and years. We've seen on magazine covers we've read. Oh, you've got to go down to 1200 calories a day and the average person doesn't need to do that. That's such great advice because I think you're essentially saying that. You know people are going to do what is automatic unless there's something that they've already set up to set themselves up for success. Yeah.

So Marissa, tell me a bit about your family story and how that changed what you ended up doing for a career. So I was a personal trainer for over 20 years and in 2012 I had been away in Europe in the summer and my brother was away at the same time and he was 44 time and we both met back in Vancouver and I remember him saying we talked the day after he got back from Europe and he had been to see the Olympics and he was gone for about 6 weeks and he was sleeping in all different beds throughout Europe because he was traveling through. And he said my backs killing me. He said, I think I just need to relax the set. Well, two or three days later it wasn't any better. So he thought he better go to the doctor and it turned out that within a few days they realized that he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. But it had already progressed throughout his body. It was in four different organs and it was stage four. So it was bad and he was only 44. So it was a complete shock because. That was his only symptom, and so he quickly got on a chemotherapy plan and my dad had already been diagnosed with prostate cancer. But it had been pretty much in remission for about 14 years. But it came back with a vengeance that same month as well, and it went into

his bones, so both of them were fighting cancer for the next eight or nine months. And unfortunately they both. Ended up passing away within a six week. So at that point I thought obviously my brother ended up passing away when he was

Hadn't led a very healthy life the last 10 years of his life. He had let himself get to, let's say, £40 overweight probably, and it was mainly in his abdominal region, so he had been really active and healthy up until that point, but the last 10 years he hadn't been and my dad had gone up and down with his health. He had had a heart attack. He died when he was 72, but he had had a heart attack in his late 50s and then got prostate cancer at 58. So that's young and again, he carried a lot of weight as abdominal area as well. So he that really was eye opening to me. I thought, you know they were not linked at all those cancers. It just happened to be at the same time and I thought if I can help one person. I was obviously helping people as a personal trainer, but I wanted to do more so I didn't know quite how I was going to do it. But I ended up listening to a podcast about maybe a year or so after that on health coaching, and I'd never even heard of it before that that was in. 2014 and I thought that's what I want to do because it encompasses everything. Basically I help people with every aspect of their life except for religion. It needed to be a very holistic way of thinking and more functional than just the fitness and nutrition that I had been. So I did a lot of research on where I could get certified and what was the best certification and I went back to school while I was still working as a personal trainer. And I got certified and it worked out great. I love helping people and I am. It's made a huge difference. I feel like I am

actually making so much more of an impact this way than as a personal trainer. Even though I loved that too and I still do that. But it's I like doing both and really having that impact on people so it's hopefully if I can help one person not get a lifestyle disease like they did. Because I really feel like in both of them near the end said I wish I would have paid more attention to my health earlier on. So it was a life lesson that's for sure, a hard one. Thank you so much for sharing that. That's really, really powerful and moving. Yeah, hopefully it will help somebody, especially my brother being only 45 like you never think it's going to happen to you at that age, and he never did.

I'm going to skip down a couple and then come back. Marissa, can you tell us a story about overcoming a particular fear that you had and when when people have a fear of something and they see it as riskier than it actually is, there's a definition for that. It's called dread. So what did you have? I know what you're referring to. I have had oh it feels like it's more than a fear of heights my entire life, like they terrified me. They always have even looking off a deck that's more than two stories has scared me so about I guess about nine years ago, maybe 10 years ago my daughter started doing aerial silks, which is if you don't know what those are. If you've ever been to a Cirque du Soleil show is what they're they're hanging on these silks, so she started doing them. When she was about 9:00 and I would go watch her performances and I could hardly watch them because she was up about 2530 feet and my husband used to always say is like you've got to do something about this. You're gonna scare her which is watching her and so a couple of years after she started she challenged me. She said Mom, I think you should take a class and my first response was there's not a chance. There's not a hope in hell I will take a class but I decided you within a few days there was a place right around the corner. From where I worked and I thought I'm gonna do it. You know what have I got to lose? You know, hopefully I don't fall kill myself but I went to a class. It was in the afternoon. It was about 1:00 o'clock in the afternoon and I walked in and there were three other women in their 40s and I was at the time I was 47. They were all in their 40s and they were amazing. They were totally inspiring. They were all business women and they were just taking their lunch off to do it and it was so beautiful and they were so strong and they just inspired me and they were so welcoming too because that was my intimidation walking into this room. It was basically a circus school and seeing these women up there and my hands were sweaty just walking in and thinking Oh my gosh I'm going to have to do something. My hands are sweaty

just listening to you.

And so within that hour I was totally hooked. And it was because of those women and the instructor. They were all so welcoming and so happy to have a new person there. And so I started going once a week and then within a month I was twice a week. And then I added on handstand training and that was another thing. I was scared of throwing myself upside down in a handstand position and it just sounds like such a little thing. But overcoming that fear within a month I was climbing up 20 feet, two in the air and holding myself up there. And that was another thing. It took a lot of strength to get up there too, which luckily I had. But it was both. I had to really depend on myself not to fall, and it was just so inspiring. Seeing these women, and I had such fun, I had such great new friendships with these women as well. Bonding over that. And then after that. I just felt like if I can do this, I can just emote do anything. It sounds so funny to say, but it gave me the confidence that I saw in my clients all the time. Yeah, it was one of the I think one of the best things I've done in my life, actually.

Well, that's a good bounce on to a question about what gets you excited like. What keeps you so optimistic and continuing to take positive risk yourself. I think that actually because I've seen how getting out of my comfort zone and not putting limits on myself has changed my life. Like that one class and actually not just that one class, my daughter challenging me to that because if anybody else had. I probably would have just said, yeah, I don't think so, but because it was her then I really realized on the other side of your comfort zone. That's when things happen, right? When you don't put limits on yourself. That's when things happen. And I don't know if I ever thought about it in those terms before, but when that actually happened, now I'm pretty much open to that in all parts of my life. So I think that that was a huge change at 47. And maybe it's a little late, but it worked really well. Well, what's the next challenge that you've given yourself? I climbed the lions, which are a huge mountain range in British Columbia. You know, this last year, which was a pretty big challenge. It's a pretty intensive hike at a long one and very high. There was many ledges, so I think I would actually like to do it again this year, but not quite so fearful. Do it one more time. I didn't think I would, but I think I'm actually going to force myself to do it one more time. And when you say ledges you mean like granite outcroppings where you're

looking to put 1 foot in front of the other, and it's just sheer below you, exactly there was on the lions. There were quite a few of those that I just had to pray. So many people have done this. They've gotten through. I'll get through too. Yeah, I think I think that's it. I was. I was trying to think of other things, but I think that's right now what my my goals would be just to keep going because I love hiking. I love seeing the different parts of our province or I'd love to even travel to ghosts. Do some cool hikes somewhere so I think that's it right now, excellent. Do you mind sharing with us what your typical meal or your typical day or your typical workout looks like? My day OK, I usually wake up around 4:45 or five. I do do a gratitude list. When I wake up in the morning. The first thing. So between 4:45 and 6:00 I'll write three things that I have gratitude for, and I'll do a little bit of journaling as well just to what's going on in my life. What my intentions are for the day, and then I'll train a few clients. I usually start training at 6:00 AM, so I'll do some personal training and that could go till noon straight. Sometimes, sometimes I might have an hour break, maybe around 8:00 or nine. It kind of depends if I do have an hour break, I'll do a workout or a walk then and my workout would be a strength training workout because I would be at the gym. So right now I'm doing a full body three times a week so it would be a full body workout. Then I would finish with my clients, usually 12 or one. And I would have an hour or two off, and then I start with my health coaching clients in the afternoon. I do meditate and if I can get it in, I'll usually do it in the middle of the afternoon. I find it's a really good break between my personal

training clients and my health coaching clients, so I'll usually try for 20 minutes in there. So that's my day. It's pretty, very intentional. It's very intentional. I also get a walk in at some point during the day. I'll make sure because I can if I'm not going for a walk, I'll usually have maybe 4000 steps. I'm training when I'm just going place to place, but and my walk can come in anytime during the day depending on when I can fit it in. If it's between clients or if it's after work or sometimes it's with my husband in the evening, sometimes it's by myself or I'll meet a friend, but in the weekends I'll always meet a friend to go for a hike. It's just kind of the one thing it's a way of connecting, and it's a way of getting out in the trees and making sure I do something too. Yeah, so that's that's it. It's very intentional, because I notice if I do not have my walk or getting outside, not Even so much my workout in the gym. I love that too, but my getting outside is huge for my emotional being and my mental being. I love the physical movement too, but it's a time that I really think sometimes I'll listen to a podcast when I'm out walking or I'll connect with somebody and sometimes I'll just be thinking about what the rest of my day looks like. I'll be thinking about a client or a plan that I'm going to do, so I think that that's. One of my favorite parts of the day, so I think that's a big thing and I would recommend it to your listeners because it's game changing how different you feel and how much energy and not just on the treadmill, but actually outside. If you can. I've heard that expression forest washing. Yeah, forest washing or forest bathing kind of rolls over you as you walk through green.

I've always wanted to know if athletes really do have extremely good nutrition and sleeping habits like is that just table stakes for most of them? You know, I think that it is so personalized, I think some put so much effort into that and others don't at all. I've trained some university athletes, some from the States and I really thought that they would have an incredible, especially like in the private universities that they've went to. And I was kind of shocked that they really didn't really care about their nutrition. They didn't focus on it as much as I thought they would have going to a private. Diversity when they're on very high level team and so. But from professional, I think it's really everybody's different. Some athletes definitely put, for instance, Tom Brady. He is really focuses on his health and nutrition, but there's other NFL players that really don't at all. So I think more so now than 10 years ago. But I still think that there's some that do some that don't. So I think it's certainly yeah, it's a performance edge, isn't it? And if people grab it, but again, it's sort of. I'm not an athlete, and yet you know, I think it's the same thing around. You know it's good for you in your whole life and it's just getting past that hurdle of OK, yeah, no. It's actually going to make me feel happier and live longer, perform better. Exactly. Yeah, I think that's it. I think in some ways they may think so much of their life is regimented by their practices and how much training time and how much sleep they need that some of them just think you know what. It's a lot of effort that to put in the extra nutrition that some of them just don't. You know the sport that definitely does is bodybuilders. They have to because it really is their aesthetics.

That and I'm not saying it's a healthy sport because I would say it's not. It's so based on their look. But they definitely are. Setting up their nutrition because every Oz counts when they're in their training season. But more performance athletes. It's a little different. You and I have talked before about that mind body connection and how sometimes for people to make a decision around their physical health that they see that show up later in their mental resilience and in their capacity for working longer and being more successful. But you said you've also seen it where? Their mental strength had to come before they could actually work on their physical strength. And what made me tell us a little bit more about that mind body connection and how you've seen it play out? I think the mindset is so so huge and that you're right. I think it can happen in both ways. I think for some people I've had a client recently that came to me as CEO and in every aspect of her life doing amazing and this aspect doing very well. But she basically turned a switch called me and said I need to do this this and this and I need to get there. You know, can you get me there and she had already turned it on. She just needed an action plan, whereas sometimes other people they knew they needed to do something, but they weren't quite there. So we chatted about it. We got into it and then maybe three or four weeks later I could tell OK, they're seeing results now. They're feeling results, I think, actually, that's a better way. Not just seeing, but when you're feeling increased energy, you're feeling better. You're feeling stronger. In the gym,

you're feeling stronger at work. You're not getting, as you know that 2:00 o'clock or three o'clock slump. Needing the coffee, then all of a sudden too, your mindset changes too. Like, OK, This is working. I'm feeling better. I just a little bit more spring in their step, and I think that crosses over to their mind then too. But yes, you're right. I think it definitely happens both ways. And it's just different for each person. We're just coming to the near the end and I just have two more questions for you. Have you seen someone recalibrate their risk tolerance as a result of their holistic health approach? Yes, I've seen the blood markers change. I had one client come to me last year and he his blood sugar levels were very high and his hormone levels were completely out of whack and his doctor wanted him to take medication and he said, you know what? Let me just try it on my own and I think doctors are so used to just giving medication. Because most people, the majority of people, they may say they're going to do it, but they don't. So then that puts them at a higher risk, obviously, but this person did, and everything changed and he went back to his doctor three months later and everything was right where it should be. So he was. I think the doctor was pretty amazed because I don't think that they see that very often and this guy felt so great that it was all back to where everything it should be because he had been dealing with it for a while. And just basically putting it on the back burner, because as I said, most people that I see their business comes first because when you're in your 40s and 50s, I think that such impactful time of their career that it kind of has to come first in some ways, even though it probably shouldn't. So that was great. I think that was probably the. The best story I have in terms of the

markers and the risk. What a wonderful outcome for him. OK, Marissa, if you could make anything better with a wave of a wand, anything, what would it be? Oh, people's health. Hands down, yeah, I think you know if people just realized that if they took care of their health, how it would impact so much in the world like first them and their internal world, their spouse, their family, everything. And then just from a worldview. Think of what that would save the money in the hospitals. So I think that would be it. Quality of life. Yeah love it makes sense. From a health coach, right? Marissa, thank you so much. So much for this conversation. It was great. Catherine, thank you for inviting me on. I've enjoyed it. I always love talking about health and risk too. You've got me thinking about my next challenge.