Leader Self-Care | Chris Gooden | Episode 235

Scott McCarthy [00:00:01]:
In episode 235 of the Peak Performance Leadership podcast, we speak to health and fitness expert, Chris Gooden, and he’s gonna tell you how you, despite your chaotic schedule, can be lean and fit. It’s all the health and fitness today. Are Are you ready for this, folks? Alright. Let’s do it. Welcome 1. Welcome all to the Peak Performance Leadership podcast, a weekly podcast series dedicated to helping you hit peak performance across the 3 domains of leadership. Those being leading yourself, leading your team, and leading your organization. This podcast couples my 20 years of military experience as a senior Canadian army officer with world class guests bringing you the most complete podcast of leadership going.

Scott McCarthy [00:00:58]:
And for more, feel free to check out our website at moving forward leadership .com. And with that, let’s get to the show. Yes. Welcome and welcome all to the Peak Performance Leadership podcast. It is your chief leadership officer Scott McCarthy, and thanks for coming out to the show and checking us out because you know what? It’s great having you here. You’re the reason why I do this podcast week in, week out. And without you, I’d be on a lonely journey, wouldn’t I? Anyway, Today, we are speaking about health and fitness. And I got this inspiration Because this month at the leader growth mastermind, we’re actually talking about leader self care and how we take care of ourselves as leader, and that’s the topic of conversation that we’re going in, on our weekly calls with.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:01]:
And I thought, wow. What a great time to pair a health and fitness expert like Chris to the content that we’re discussing in the mastermind this month. So This is it. This is why we got Chris here on the show this week. He is a health and fitness expert. He’s been in the industry for well over 20 ish years now. And, you know, the thing I love about Chris in full on disclaimer. I’m actually a client of Chris, Chris.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:34]:
I I get my workout schedule and routine from him, but what I love about him is he’s realistic. He’s a father. He is a, he’s a worker. He’s a husband. He has his own business. He has so much Going on, he fully understands our lives and he understands your life as a busy leader. Because no doubt, You know, you have your day job. You have your free time that you want to do some hobbies.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:08]:
You want to do some different things. Maybe you have a partner, maybe you have a spouse, you could have a children, you know, you have all of these different things pulling a different all kinds of different directions, But yet health and fitness is crucial not only just to our day to day, you know, work lives, but our entire life. So this is why I got Chris on the show with us today. And we talk about all kinds of different topics, which is super important to you, like How to find the time to prioritize your health and fitness, how to start creating habits which will enable success, not Diminish your success. Why sleep is so crucial to peak performance? And here we are talking about leading ourselves. Right? How water impacts our daily lives, the importance of protein, some tips and tricks for you just to start living a healthier life. And you go, man, I I just don’t know where to start. Well, we are going to talk about that today amongst many, many other things.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:12]:
So this show is 1 you definitely want to stay tuned. And If mastermind piqued your interest, feel free to check out our website, lead don’t boss.comforward/ Mastermind, and they’ll bring you to the landing page where you could check it out and if you want to, even sign up. We have weekly group calls where we get together and discuss leadership topics that are near due to our hope hurt. We have weekly curated content, a full platform that is away from all the social media and so much more. So, again, that is something that you’re in please check out lead don’t boss.comforward/mastermind, and I love to see you there. Alright. That’s enough of the intro. So why don’t you sit back, relax, enjoy my conversation with Chris Gooden all about leader Self

Chris Gooden [00:05:16]:
Care.

Scott McCarthy [00:05:23]:
Chris, good, my man. Welcome to the peak performance leadership podcast, Yes, brother. Good to have you here.

Chris Gooden [00:05:29]:
Good to be here. Thanks for having me, Scott.

Scott McCarthy [00:05:32]:
Al, I’ve been meaning to get someone on the show to talk about health and fitness and leader self care and all those good things for a while again now because it’s been a while since I’ve touched that topic, sadly. So I was like, hey. Who better who better to talk about it than the man who’s busting my butt pretty much every day as it is?

Chris Gooden [00:05:55]:
Heck yeah, man. I love doing it. Right?

Scott McCarthy [00:05:59]:
For for you to list out there, obviously, not video. Chris is like fist pumping right now. He’s all he’s all pumped. So, obviously, you know, disclaimer, I am a client of Chris’. I’ll throw that right at the beginning. But that being said, I’m a client for of Chris’ for one damn good reason, because what he says works. So let’s dive in. First thing out of the gate, my man.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:25]:
Like, you know, for leaders out there, What I I don’t even wanna touch health and fitness out of the gate because the leader out there right now is like, oh, great. Something else to put on my plate. You know, I got a family. I got a spouse. I got a team. I got a business. I got a, you know, whatever it is that they’re leading right now, and they’re like, something else for me to put on my plate. Like, come on.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:55]:
So from your standpoint, you know, what’s the best way for them to, 1, you know, kinda feel like They they have the ability, but 2, more importantly, the time to actually get going on this and start actually taking care of themselves better.

Chris Gooden [00:07:11]:
It’s such a good question. Right? I mean, leaders, everybody’s pulling on them. Everybody’s pulling on them no matter where you are, at work, At home, spouse, friends, coworkers, team members, everybody’s pulling on you. Adding something else to the plate is one of the worst things you can do because then you just start piling up and it gets deeper, and then you end up stressing yourself out. So one of the first things that we have to do is realize that you can’t do it all And it’s okay to give yourself a little bit of grace. I mean, Superman is Awesome. My personal favorite is Captain America, but they are fictional and we can’t be everything to everyone. So we’ve gotta give ourselves grace, but we also have to realize that 20, 30, 40, 50 years plus from now, you’re still gonna hopefully be around or at least interacting with your family, your spouse In in one of those time periods, right, we want to at least understand that Our health is going to matter a lot more as we age.

Chris Gooden [00:08:33]:
So If we can start some kind of road map, some kind of strategy now, you’re gonna reap the benefits later.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:48]:
Yeah. No. Absolutely. I don’t disagree. And, you know, from my standpoint, it’s about prioritizing your time, right, and looking at it and saying, okay. What what can I take out? Because I like I like your point. You don’t have to do it all. I certainly don’t do it all, although I try very, very poorly, at times.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:06]:
And then I realized like, oh, I’m trying to do too much. So it’s kinda like take take inventory of your time and say, okay. What can I get rid of? Because you gotta look at it from a prioritization standpoint. Right?

Chris Gooden [00:09:18]:
A 100%. I mean, hopefully, no one that’s listening this to this has been on an airplane that’s going down, but We’ve all been or most of us have been on an airplane or at least know the the scenario. Right? You’re sitting there. The flight attendant is going through the checklist. They remind you, you’ve gotta secure your mask before you help anybody else’s. Now anybody that’s a parent, we’re like, wait. What? No. We’re gonna No.

Chris Gooden [00:09:44]:
We’ve gotta secure ours first so that we can be in control of ourselves. So, yeah, prioritizing is huge and understanding that, You know, if we get into this realm of we have to work out or we have to prioritize going to the gym or whatever that means, We don’t have to go 8 days a week for 25 hours a day. We have to prioritize, but we have to be very, very strategic about what we’re doing. As as leaders, you wouldn’t in your in your career, In your job working with a team member, you would not just throw something against the wall and hope that it works. You would be very strategic with how you plan and prioritize different steps along the way, different steps along the journey to get to where you wanna be. We’ve gotta do that with health and wellness too. We can’t do it all at at one time.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:48]:
That’s actually a great dovetail. And and by the way, I wanna say I love the airplane analogy. You know, you you put your mask on first because if you don’t, you’re gonna pass out. And that’s basically, you know, take lead what I refer to here at the podcast is leading yourself. Right? You You gotta lead yourself. You gotta be able to take care of yourself. Now you talk about, you know, the steps to a strategy, defining the time, and and building. So From a health and fitness standpoint, what how’s that you know, what’s that gonna look like for a leader up there? Like, okay.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:16]:
Fine. Yes. Acknowledge. I need to do something. I got it. But I don’t know where to start. Well, where should they start, and where should they go moving forward from there?

Chris Gooden [00:11:27]:
A 100%. Great question. So think about when you learn something. Think about when you’re onboarding, a new a new member to your team. Right? You’re not gonna throw everything at them at once. You’re going to prioritize and Create a step by step plan. That’s we do the same thing. We have to create habits because habits are going to drive the success.

Chris Gooden [00:11:56]:
If you look at anybody who is successful in any endeavor, They’ve created habits to get to where they are. One of my habits is brushing my teeth every day. That’s a habit that I’ve gotten into. And because of that, you know, that’s helped my overall health. And I think most of us probably brush our teeth a couple of times a day or at least once. That’s a habit. So, when we think about health and wellness, a lot of times, the first thing that comes to mind is, you know, Getting in the gym or going for a walk or getting down on the ground and doing some push ups, 9 times out of 10, that’s not where I start With any of my clients, we start with 3 basic principles, and we nail these habits first, and we nail them 1 at a time. That’s the other big thing.

Chris Gooden [00:12:48]:
We wanna do one of these and get to where we’re doing them so well, we’re doing them perfect. The first 3 in order I mean and you can kind of go out of order if you want to, But this is what I would do and this is what I recommend. Number 1 is sleep. Now I know. Leaders look. It’s hard to get a lot of sleep. So we don’t look at quantity as much as we look at quality. Right? Now For demonstration purposes, I’ve got my phone here.

Chris Gooden [00:13:21]:
And a lot of us, guilty, I’m I’m gonna sleep. I’m I’m laying in bed, and I’ve got my phone right up to my face because I’ve gotta check the latest social media or something. Right? What we need to do is put that phone away at least 30 minutes before you go to bed. We need to get those screens off. That’s going to promote higher quality sleep because for most of us, you know, like we mentioned earlier, you’re you’re getting pulled, you’re getting, You know, you’ve got different people tugging at you. You’ve got priorities. You’ve got things that you’ve gotta do. You’re not going to get 7 to 8 hours every single night.

Chris Gooden [00:14:02]:
That that’s just that’s life. Right? So, to maximize what we have. So if you can get, you know, 5 to 6 hours of quality sleep over the long run and make that a priority every night, you’re gonna get a lot of benefit out of that. You’re going to recover better. You’re gonna feel better. You’re going to snack less. That’s a big one. You’re going to crave junk food less.

Chris Gooden [00:14:32]:
There are some Loose studies suggesting that we snack less when we’re more well rested and quality sleep plays a crucial role in that. So that’s step 1. You gotta fix your sleep. We gotta work on the quality. So not only do I recommend putting the phone down 30 minutes completely before you go to bed. Okay? That’s that’s hard. Don’t don’t misunderstand. It’s hard.

Chris Gooden [00:15:03]:
Also, we wanna try to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, not 5 days out of the week, every day. The weekends are still real taste too, and we don’t wanna have to get up at 6 AM or 5 AM or even earlier, Monday through Friday, and sleep till 11 on Saturday and Sunday. That just screws you up. Right. So that’s step 1. Step 2, this goes more into kind of the nutrition realm. So we nailed the sleep. Right? And when I say nailed the sleep, we’ve gone maybe 2 weeks where you’ve made it a priority.

Chris Gooden [00:15:49]:
It’s starting to become a habit, and that’s what we’re doing. We’ve got it. Got it nailed down. Now if it takes you a month, If it takes you 6 months, that’s totally fine. It’s okay because you’re still creating the habit. Alright? So The time frame is not that important. We the the creating the habit, that’s the important part. Number 2 is water, hydration.

Chris Gooden [00:16:16]:
That is step 2 after sleep. In a perfect world, you’re taking your body weight, dividing it by 2, and that’s how many ounces you’re drinking every day. So Easy math. You weigh 200 pounds, drink a 100 ounces of water. You weigh a 100 pounds, you’re drinking 50 ounces of water. For most people, we are grossly dehydrated. And it shows up a lot when You crave junk food. You crave salty food.

Chris Gooden [00:16:50]:
You’ve gotta have the chips. A lot of times, that feeling of hunger, and you know this, The feeling of hunger is actually dehydration. We need to drink more water. So The first step with number 2 is to do an assessment of where you are right now. Because if you’re only drinking 10 ounces water a day and you go to a 100 ounces, we We don’t wanna do that. Right? You’re not gonna get any work done. You’re gonna be in the bathroom all day, so don’t do that. Don’t do that.

Chris Gooden [00:17:24]:
But you do wanna slowly titrate that up. Right? So, again, we’re looking at over the course of 2 weeks to a month to 6 months, which is totally fine, You’re slowly bumping that up, having an extra glass here, extra glass there. Trick that I do is in the morning, I love coffee. Drink coffee. I love it. Big fan. Before I have coffee, I’ll have at least 24 ounces of water. And I set my cup right next to to my coffee, my coffee pot.

Chris Gooden [00:17:59]:
So the coffee pot brews automatically. I come downstairs. I grab the coffee for my wife and I, but I drink that water first. And it’s a habit. I don’t even have to think about it. I just do it. So, it’s an easy, easy 24 ounces every day before my day even starts. You’re gonna feel better if you drink more water.

Chris Gooden [00:18:23]:
And that’s just a given. So, we’re tackling sleep first, and then we go to the hydration. Those are the 2 most important. K? Number 3.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:36]:
Can can I throw in a, can I throw in a funny story that ties in the both of those?

Chris Gooden [00:18:41]:
Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:41]:
So I took on the 75 hard challenge quite some time ago, obviously, as you’re aware. And, And for the listener up there, if you’re not aware of the 5 75 hard 75 days straight of, I think it’s like half dozen tasks. I can’t remember now. You know, 2 workout 245 more workouts a day. Progress pick. Way, progress pick. No alcohol, follow meal plan, 245 read 10 pages, and a few tasks. And and, of course, The water challenge was a gallon of water a day, which it’s a boatload.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:15]:
Right?

Chris Gooden [00:19:16]:
Yeah.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:17]:
But you gotta get it done. So Tying sleep and and water together, I found myself from time to time, you know, late in the evening still into the water challenge. And you know where this is going. So then, you know, I wake up at 2, 3 o’clock in the morning. Needing to use the washroom because I’ve, you know, had down to half a gallon water since supper time. And then, of course, my sleep gets impacted, and I tell you from a per so this is my point to the listener out there. From a performance standpoint, my day was shot because my workout in the morning was garbage. My decision making ability was garbage.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:03]:
My, you know, my ability to regulate my emotions and keep calm for my team with Toast because I didn’t, you know, get my normal routine amount of sleep. So what I tell you, you’re 100% right. My recovery was phenomenal. Like, I was doing 2 workouts a day for 75 days, And, yeah, I was tired and sore, but, since coming off of that and realizing I’m not drinking nearly as much anymore, My recovery, is suffering. And so it’s like a kick in my butt now to get back into draining the water, which now at work and everyone makes fun of me, but I literally have a half gallon jug that I have at work that my goal every day is to drop one of those every day.

Chris Gooden [00:20:50]:
Absolutely. I’ve got a

Scott McCarthy [00:20:52]:
Hold on up his. Have.

Chris Gooden [00:20:53]:
We got one of those gal game bottles. It’s 60 yeah. It’s 64 ounces. And that I mean, that’s a that’s a really good point. That’s a really good point because you find that Just like in business, just like in in our corporate worlds or careers, If we don’t plan appropriately, something is gonna throw us a curveball somewhere And our performance is gonna be impacted. So, it’s really funny how Everything from a health and wellness standpoint that I’m talking about, you can relate back To your work, your leadership environment, you can you can tie all of these things together because they do they tie together seamlessly. But to Scott’s point, You know, that’s why you very, very slowly increase your water intake, and you have to do an assessment first. Do that assessment.

Chris Gooden [00:21:56]:
Take a couple of days.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:57]:
Definitely don’t go to 0 to a gallon.

Chris Gooden [00:22:00]:
Please don’t. I don’t want the hate mail. Please. At, Yeah. That that would not be good. Please don’t do that. Please don’t do that. But tied very closely to that is number 3.

Chris Gooden [00:22:16]:
Number 3 is protein. So Most of us, again, just like with water, just like with hydration, most people Do not eat enough protein in their diet. And that’s just kind of a broad brush. But if you look at the standard diet that most of us eat I’d say most of us, but most people eat, It is very low in protein. If you go out to a restaurant, look at everything that they offer you. It’s mostly fats and carbohydrates. Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those, but what happens is you you overconsume those 2 macronutrients Your proteins, not very high. So once you have your sleep and your water, And those have become habits, then we move to the protein.

Chris Gooden [00:23:21]:
And when it comes to protein, the first question I always hear is how much? How much protein do I need to eat? And most research currently suggests that More is better. But for most people who are exercising, who are resistance training, doing some cardiovascular exercise, 0.7 grams per pound that you weigh all the way up to 1 gram per pound that you weigh of your target body weight is ideal. So that would be 1.41. Maybe 1.4 to 1.6 grams per kilogram, all the way up to 2.2 grams per kilogram of target body weight. And that would be a good place to be. And here’s here’s the end result of that. Right? If you fill up And you’re eating all of that protein, whatever protein that might be, maybe it’s fish, maybe it’s chicken or tofu, eggs, dairy, Protein powders, whatever that might be, you’re gonna you’re gonna find and, Scott, you may you may get tested this. It’s really hard to overeat on protein.

Chris Gooden [00:24:51]:
It is very, very difficult to overeat on protein. If you look at all of

Scott McCarthy [00:24:56]:
by 100%.

Chris Gooden [00:24:57]:
I mean

Scott McCarthy [00:24:57]:
It’s crazy.

Chris Gooden [00:24:58]:
Yeah. Look at look at all the food that is delicious. Like, the the cookies and the The, you know, pastries and the biscuits, they’re all so carbohydrate and fat loaded. There’s but at the same time, they’re very easy to overconsume. Before you know it, You’ve doubled how many calories you need a day and you haven’t eaten protein. So how do we do this? Just like with the water. Okay? You’ve gotta take an assessment of where you are in the protein Spectrum. So downloading there are a variety of apps out there to download to track how much protein you’re eating, but you need to get an assessment.

Chris Gooden [00:25:46]:
We’ve gotta remember, we’ve gotta have that data so we could see where we’re going. So we find that data point. We see how much you’re consuming, then we discover, alright. I can add an ounce or a gram or, you know, A kilogram, if you wanna go that much of food, of protein to a meal, And you do that once or twice a day, and you can see that really will will bump up your your protein intake. But that would be the that would be the 3rd out of 6 total steps that I would take to get you into that health and wellness mindset, to get you on the road to where you need to be. And then when we’re talking about, you know, we’re talking about

Scott McCarthy [00:26:34]:
So we’re Oh, go ahead.

Chris Gooden [00:26:40]:
Oh, I I was just saying when we when we were talking about protein, Yeah. We were talking about recovery earlier. We’re talking about hydration. This feeds rate into it as well. Most people notice when they increase how much protein they’re taking in, all of a sudden, they start feeling better. They start looking better. Their mind starts performing better as well as their body. There’s all sorts of benefits to increasing your protein intake.

Chris Gooden [00:27:11]:
Now, again, we’re not talking about getting up on stage for a bodybuilding Competition. Nothing like that. But, you know, if you want to, you may need to eat a little bit more. But at the same time, we’re we’re not necessarily going down that road. We’re just we’re looking at the health the health benefits of increasing your protein.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:37]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And I and I think that’s probably a, A big point you know, big thing to point out is what you’re talking about is that this is for the average everyday person. Right? You’re not talking about stuff for the bodybuilder, the gym rat, and all this stuff. We’re talking about, you know, me, you, the working professional that’s there. And these things are all crucially important. Sleep is crucially important. Water intake is crucially important.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:07]:
And, you know, eating healthy and including, you know, enough protein, crucially important. So that that’s what I like about it. And I like How throughout this, you need a start point. You need to understand where you’re at. And I talk about this with leaders all the time. You need to know where you are so you can determine where how you’re gonna get to where you want to be. And you’ve literally mentioned that 3 times, with sleep, with water and with with protein. So love it.

Chris Gooden [00:28:40]:
What what’s the old saying? I mean, you can’t manage You can’t manage what you can’t measure.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:48]:
That’s right.

Chris Gooden [00:28:48]:
We we you’ve gotta have something to measure. Right.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:56]:
So no. For sure. So now for the leaders up there, you know, What are some practical tips you got for them to, you know, start start, you know, basically incorporating this into their day lives? You already talked a little bit about, 1, you know, you know, figuring out where you’re at in order, you know, to go where you want to be. But how can we make it a bit easier in our daily lives? Because, again, as we talked about, we have, you know, people pulling on us. We have children pulling on us. Spouses pulling on us. And all of a suddenly, we’re trying to incorporate all these new, You know, it actually instill all these new habits and routines into our our daily lives. So what’s some some tips you got out there for them?

Chris Gooden [00:29:38]:
Sure. So, number 1 is going back to what we said earlier, realizing you don’t have to do it all. So, If these if one of these 3 tips really resonated with you, these habits, let’s pick 1. Pick 1 And let’s really try to nail it. So if it’s sleep, what I would do is take your phone, like I said, and and make it a habit. Every night, 30 minutes before bed, it goes off. You can even set a set an alarm or set a do not disturb on it, put it put it to sleep. So you have to actually input your code.

Chris Gooden [00:30:15]:
Another trick, if you really wanna get If you really wanna really go all in on this, put the do not disturb on with a passcode and then get a friend or a spouse or your your kids, if you have kids, to set the code. So you don’t know the code, And then tell them to not tell you what the code is. So it goes off. You’re not tempted at all. And, you know, obviously, if If there’s an important call or something like that, sure, you’re gonna get it, but you don’t remove the temptation. If it’s water, 1 extra glass before you have your coffee or your tea or your energy drink in the morning. One extra glass. That’s it.

Chris Gooden [00:31:04]:
If it’s protein, increase your serving size by just a little bit. Those are the Real small tip strategies that we can do throughout the day, but it goes back to that first statement, pick 1. I cannot overemphasize that. Pick 1 to do first and realize, look, If we got 7 days in a week. Right? If you nail it 3 of those days, Guess what? You’re in the hall of fame if you’re a baseball player. Right? That that’s a pretty good average. So we can’t beat ourselves up, especially if it’s new and you’re trying. Because a lot of times, what happens is We try to do everything at once.

Chris Gooden [00:31:59]:
We try to be perfect. We miss it one time And then, bam, it’s gone. It just explodes and we beat ourselves up and we go all the way back to the beginning. You know what? I’m never doing this again. And the cycle repeats itself. That’s why we pick 1. Pick one one thing. One thing that you’re gonna do, you’re gonna get it at least 3 days out of the week.

Chris Gooden [00:32:24]:
I think you can do more. But you’re gonna try it every single day. You’re not gonna add the second one until you’re comfortable and you’re hitting that first one all the time. And that’s the next that that’s the other that’s the other component. We can add things too quickly. Think about it this way. Think about, you know, I like to use my children as an example on this. My 2 oldest play the piano.

Chris Gooden [00:32:55]:
My youngest is about to start start learning. And instead of practicing for hours one day a week. They’ll go sit at the piano for 10 minutes every day, just 10 minutes. And now they can sit down and play just about anything on the piano. Now I I don’t I don’t think they’re gonna make playing the piano a career. That’s not my point. But my point is they’re practicing a tiny bit every single day, And it compounds over time. You get better.

Chris Gooden [00:33:33]:
That’s what leads to mastery. So I don’t know. I I it kinda went off on a on a tangent a little bit. I don’t know if that’s exactly what you’re asking, but So many times I get

Scott McCarthy [00:33:45]:
No. It’s awesome. I I I I I I really love the whole How to beat the all or nothing mindset. Right? Because that’s what you’re talking about. It’s the all or nothing mindset that so many people have. That culture we have in this day and age, and this is how you do it. You’re like, okay. I messed up today.

Scott McCarthy [00:34:08]:
No big deal. Oh, I’ll pick it up tomorrow. Oh, I don’t have the the 45 minutes it’s gonna take to do my my full workout today. Okay. You know what? I’m gonna pick The lift that I like the most or the, you know, the aspect I like the most, or if I’m really, like, in for the challenge, The one I’m weakest at, work on that, and then the rest of it, maybe I’ll pick it up later or maybe I won’t. But it’s okay because That’s today, and I got tomorrow. And you just keep working towards that and figuring out, okay, you know, but allowing yourself, 1, the grace to move forward. But 2, what I always say is you gotta learn from your mistakes.

Scott McCarthy [00:34:47]:
So if it’s some kind of mistake that college do not have the time to do your full workout. Then, you know, what was it? Learn from it so you can mitigate it down the line. But you’ve got to be able you gotta be at that point where you can, you know, get past that all or nothing mindset, and you just talked about that. Awesome.

Chris Gooden [00:35:04]:
Yeah. It was just awesome. And it’s not it’s not being weak. It’s not being easy. It’s not about that. It’s about progress. And like what you just said, one one movement, one exercise, or one something is always better than nothing.

Scott McCarthy [00:35:27]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Progress over perfection because We’re we’re just human beings. We’re you know? I I got one last thing I wanna hit before we wrap up here. Obviously, this being a leadership show, You know, team, leaders are up there. They’re in charge of teams. Do you have any tips for the leader up there how to, you know if the team itself is talking about how to incorporate better health and fitness together. Asking how can the leader help, you know, 1, help motivate them or, you know, enable that in their team and get the whole team moving forward.

Chris Gooden [00:36:02]:
Absolutely. So that’s a really good really good, question. So rec public recognition is a really, really big thing. Your your team likes that. If they’re anything like any of the teams that I’ve worked with, they like public recognition. Hey, Tommy or Sally, y’all man, you you were doing great. Look at everything that you’ve accomplished and recognizing them in front of everybody. That’s a huge thing that you can do from a health and wellness standpoint.

Chris Gooden [00:36:36]:
I’ve noticed, man, you’re getting so strong. Look at that. You’re doing really well. So that that’s a that that’s a inside the team atmosphere, you can do that. Couple of other things we’ve implemented, and this is definitely dependent on the structure of, of the environment in which you work, walking meetings, A meeting outside? A meeting where, you know, you could have done it over Zoom, But instead, you’re outside walking. And, yes, maybe 1 person needs to stay behind to take notes and watch it on Zoom while everyone else is walking. There are ways to get around that if you if if you get creative. But something where you’re moving While you’re meeting, maybe it’s a stand up meeting.

Chris Gooden [00:37:32]:
I I have a current, team that I that I’m with, We have a standing standing meeting every week, and it it’s recurring, but the energy, The positivity within that meeting is higher than any of our other meetings, and I suspect it’s because It’s a shorter meeting, but it’s also because we’re standing. We’re able to look at each other in the eyes and get our body language moving a little bit too. So, changing meetings around, getting people moving, getting people outside, public recognition for doing a good job, maybe doing something as a team with families outside of the work environment, maybe going for a team hike or a team walk or maybe the team is going to watch an event or something along those lines to create some camaraderie. Because from a mental health stand standpoint, that is huge developing relationships outside of the office. That’s a really, really big one. Those are some of the ones that I would explore, Because I think those come before mandating exercise or putting a gym in in the facility that everybody always wants, but not everybody always goes to. I would look at it from the mental health standpoint first before the physical standpoint. And then the other thing you can do, honestly, is simply survey your team.

Chris Gooden [00:39:13]:
Send them an anonymous survey that they can respond to, offer them some some some choices. Would you like gift cards or public recognition or t shirts? Not that you’re gonna be able to do it all, But maybe based on their answers, you respond by doing one thing that the majority asked for, They’re gonna feel so validated. They’re going to feel like, oh, my leader actually listened to us. We wanted that. They did it. So then we look at mental health, and that that improves that as well.

Scott McCarthy [00:40:00]:
Love it, brother. I absolutely love it. There’s so much good good in there, like, especially the the walking meetings. Like, Wow. The one thing I would throw probably in there to add, is, you know, when we do Zoom, Phoenix, or, you know, for me, it’s teams, whatever the platform is, Google Meet, Have Avid, there’s 50,000,000 of them. Normalize the ability for someone to be on a treadmill Walking.

Chris Gooden [00:40:27]:
Yes.

Scott McCarthy [00:40:28]:
Right? I I’ve done that in the past with my own on the treadmill or on our spin bike. I just, like, propped a laptop up and just got my legs moving because I was tired of just standing there all you know, or sitting all day in my desk. And it’s like a meeting where it’s mainly me just on on receive, just getting information. I have ability to, you know, stop quickly, take some notes if I needed to, And then carry on. And and I think we normalize that from a remote standpoint. That would that would benefit everyone out there, for sure. But I like the walking ones, standing meetings, and in in the and, actually, random benefit to standing meetings is that they generally go faster.

Chris Gooden [00:41:10]:
Absolutely. That’s a really

Scott McCarthy [00:41:11]:
And because peep you know? Because yeah. They generally go faster. So If you got someone out there who generally brings up random points that, yeah, not really pertinent to the meeting and you just want them to shut up, Well, if you have a standing meeting, they generally go faster because people don’t talk so much. But if you’re trying to have a a meeting where you want people to be open and that that maybe a standing meeting is not the best type. Anyway, I digress. Chris, my man, this has been fantastic. I’ve I you know, I don’t know why it took me so long to get you on here, but nonetheless, home home run. Before we wrap up, I got a couple quick last questions for you.

Scott McCarthy [00:41:50]:
1st one being the question I asked all the guests here at the peak performance leadership podcast. According to you, Chris Gooden, what makes a great leader?

Chris Gooden [00:42:01]:
The ability to ask questions with no ego And no expectation of an answer. I think

Scott McCarthy [00:42:19]:
in a That’s a new one. I’ll I I really like it, but it’s a new one.

Chris Gooden [00:42:23]:
I’ll expand it on on just on it just a little bit. I I think a lot of we ask questions already knowing or wanting a certain answer. And when you’re able to separate yourself from that and be open and vulnerable.

Scott McCarthy [00:42:44]:
Wow. Absolutely love it. Absolutely love it. And then a follow-up question of the show, How can people find you, follow you, be part of your journey, maybe reach out to you, become a client? By the way, I definitely vouch for them. So shameless plug, Chris. It’s all about you now, brother.

Chris Gooden [00:42:58]:
Absolutely. Thanks. Scott, this has been awesome. I’m Chris Good in fitness everywhere, Instagram, Facebook, even TikTok, finally gotten into that. Krisgooden fitnessgmail.com, kriskin fitness.com. That’s where I am everywhere. I’m on YouTube as well. Any questions, I’m happy I’m always happy to help.

Scott McCarthy [00:43:26]:
And for you to listeners always, it’s easy. Just go to lead don’t boss.comforward/ two three five, two thirty five, and the links from the show notes. Chris Buddy, thanks for coming out here today.

Chris Gooden [00:43:38]:
It’s been my pleasure. Have a great night.

Scott McCarthy [00:43:43]:
And that’s a wrap for this episode, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for listening. Thank you for for supporting the peak performance leadership podcast. But you know what you could do to truly support the podcast and know that’s not leaving a rating and review? It’s simply helping a friend. And that is helping a friend by sharing this episode with them if you think this would resonate with them and Help them elevate their performance level whether that’s within themselves, their teams, or their organization. So do that. Help me, help a friend, win win all around, and, hey, you look like a great friend at the same time. So Just hit that little share button on your app, and then feel free to fire this episode to anyone that you feel would benefit from it.

Scott McCarthy [00:44:33]:
Finally, there’s always more. There’s always more lessons around being the highest Performing leader that you can possibly be, whether that’s for yourself, your team, or your organization. So why don’t you subscribe? Subscribe to the show via moving forward leadership.comforward/subscribe. Until next time, weed, don’t boss, and thanks for coming out. Take care now.