Welcome back to the podcast!

Have you faced challenges in your life that are shaping how you work now? Are they guiding you and motivating you in positive ways, or are they driving you towards burnout and exhaustion? That's what we're exploring today!

Welcome to the Balance Code Podcast, a place for high achievers to step outside the hamster wheel of day-to-day life and start learning tools for more balance. I'm your host, Katie Rustler, and I will be guiding you on this journey of discovering your balance code.

Katie: Greg, I am so excited to have you on the podcast and to just discuss and dive into how we can start to be a little more careful about how our life challenges motivate us in healthy ways or unhealthy ways, in knowing how to really use them as not a guide, but a way to lead us into our purpose work or into really speaking up and helping others. So, Greg Fearon, thank you so much for being here! Will you share a little bit about yourself, where you are, where you're from, what you do, and um, who you serve?

Gregory: Thank you very much for having me! So, my name is Greg Fearon. I'm a nutrition health coach, and I kinda do a bit of everything, right? So, exercise, nutrition, health, mindset—for me, it's bringing it all together. Um, I generally work with high-performing women who, if kind of ever let themselves go, or just, they know what to do, it's implementing that into their lives. And they've, they've often struggled with looking after themselves. Everyone else gets looked after, but they get, they come last. So I created the Million Dollar Body Method as a way to speak to those high achievers who want to become the best physical version of themselves and to show up better in the rest of their lives.

Katie: That's excellent. Now, Greg, I met you on LinkedIn, and your posts really speak to me. Yes, high achieving woman who loves health and fitness! But it also spoke to me because you do share about your own journey. You share about how easy it is for us to get thrown off by what the world is telling us to do, right? Or um, how we've been impacted by just even what people say to us, what they think about us, their beliefs about us. And you really speak out against that. And there's one particular post I'd really love for you to share, and it was about your experience doing martial arts as a kid. So, would you share that? And then I'm gonna share how I responded, cause I just think it would be great for the listeners and watchers to hear a little about the background.

Gregory: Awesome! Okay. Yeah, so first of all, I preface it by saying, um, being from Jamaican parents, they love those old 70s martial arts films, right? Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, that's what we grew up with, those and Westerns, really. When, um, so that was my early influence. And when I found a Kung Fu class, I was like, "Yes! I'm gonna go!" So, I remember getting my uniform and then, for the first time, stepping out of my house to go to the first lesson. And the kids on my street, we all grew up together, they all just laughed. It was like I came out and they were all playing on the street with their bikes and everything, and they just turned around and was like, "What are you doing? You know, making Hong Kong—"

Katie: Remember Hong Kong Phooey, the cartoon?

Gregory: Yes!

Katie: Yeah, they were doing the, "Yeah, yeah, they make noise here," and all that stuff, and, yeah.

Gregory: "You know, are you, are you, are you black or Chinese?" And I'm like, "Oh yeah." Some of those words were, like, quite hurtful at the time.

Katie: Yeah, yeah.

Gregory: It's a walk down the road. And then to walk down my high street, which I forgot to put in the post, I guess, is people looking at you and being, you know, making faces at you. But I went. It was the hardest thing ever. For about three days after, I nearly died. My body would never move again. But I went back because I enjoyed it. I loved it! And every time my friends would laugh at me, but they would laugh at me less and less over time, till six, seven years later, they would see me maybe practice some moves just while I was with them. "Oh, can you teach me that? How do you do that?" So, these are the same people that used to laugh at me and now asking for my help and my advice. Yeah. Hopefully, that was really a lesson in, uh, people are gonna laugh and people are gonna have an opinion. And what I realized was those things that they would say, with more reflection about themselves, it wasn't about me, per se, but it gave him a voice to say, a bit jealous, maybe envious is not what I understand. So, you know, "Don't do that, Greg!" That's what they would do. And it also shows if you stay in the game long enough on something, you become respected for that.

Katie: That was, like, mic drop moment of that post, and I was like, "Oh, damn! He just really hit that good." It was so powerful to talk about it. When you master it, the respect comes, right? That these guys, you know, neighbors making fun of you, and then wanting you to be their teacher! I just have chills saying that. Like, so my response was, "Thank goodness for those kids, right?" Because, if anything, I don't know how you are, but like when people make fun of me or say things, it almost drives me even more to be like, "Haha! Well, now I'm really gonna do it!" Thank goodness for those kids, right? Who really tested you and your dedication to something that you loved. You mastered it, and the respect comes. So, I just, like, if I could clap without it messing up the microphone, I would so, like, heartily clap, clap for this! Because I think there is something we all can take from that. Of this time, whether it be in your childhood or teen years, even—hip, heck—as adults, we can ridicule each other for the things that we do. But being able to push through and recognize that those naysayers will eventually become some of your fans. Don't listen to them! Don't listen to them! And if you're—

Katie: Raven fans! And it was interesting because, as I started to get into kind of personal training when I was younger, I was—I used to do corporate work, and then I would do my personal training in the mornings and then come out, come home in the evenings after work and do my personal training as well. And those same guys would send their mums to help, for help. "But, Greg, can you just—my mum, you know?" And then they'd say, "Greg, you're teaching my mum too much stuff. She's using some of the moves and stuff. She's getting stronger now." Like, well, yeah. That was my way of showing them, uh, if perseverance, one, is key. And I knew what I was doing was right in my heart, and it, it didn't feel right at the time when everyone was laughing at me, but really hard, the, the fact, like, carried on, you know? My partner will be like, "What are you doing?" as I'm practicing techniques in the middle of the supermarket. But it's a lifelong skill now.

Katie: Yeah.

Gregory: Um, and it's not just the mood for me. It's the medicine. It's the way of thinking. It's the meditation. Sports as well. But it's also what people don't realize, martial arts is a way of life, right?

Katie: It's a lot, as well. Say it's a lifestyle. Absolutely!

Gregory: Well, Kung Fu actually means "hard work and skill." Doesn't actually mean martial arts. So, you know, you have good Kung Fu for playing the piano. You can have good Kung Fu for being a leader in your business or your work. But it's that push through. And you mentioned earlier about people laughing and ridiculing us. Often the ridicule comes from us. We ridicule ourselves based on stories we grew up—we grew up with.

Katie: This is true. I often ask my clients when they talk about, "I don't feel respected," I'll ask them, "Do—well, do you respect yourself?" Because we are a mirror often to the environment that's around us. And when, like you just said, if you're being ridiculed, kind of ask, "Are you ridiculing yourself?"

Gregory: Yeah, well, I, most first of all, it's probably, um, said, "Hey, you should be a lawyer or doctor or accountant, right?" So, if you don't do any of those things, they understand it. "Well, what you doing that for?" So you can imagine as you go through your work and your, or your business, you're like, "Oh, got this little voice that says, 'What you doing?'" It's probably not yours. Is probably carried down from watching your parents, what they said to you.

Katie: Yeah. Well, let's talk about, you know, we all have these stories, right? We all have these challenges we faced. Maybe it was in your home, maybe it was at school, you know, sports teams, or whatever. How do we distinguish between using it as motivation for healthy growth and, and how do we distinguish it from the stuff that's starting to drive us to be unhealthy? You've said it, those voices that we realize, like, "Oh, that's actually not helping me. I'm, I'm headed towards burnout because I'm pushing myself to prove to those kids, to that person, to the coach, to the teacher." How do we distinguish that?

Gregory: But one of the things I use with clients is, um, we have a court case. So when these thoughts come up, I ask them, "Okay, can you provide evidence that this is real, as you would have in a court of law?"

Katie: Yep.

Gregory: And often what will happen is, there will be a something that happened in the past that we've created a whole story around. So if we can get it back to the fact of what happened—"This person said this." "Got it, that's what they said." But now you've created a meaning around it, so that could be changed, right? Oh, yeah.

Gregory: Yes, disarm the story. Get comfortable with the facts of what happened, and then you can go, "Okay, I can change what that meant for me.

Katie: So, shifting all of it, being able to— I love the court idea! I think that's genius. I might steal that, if that's okay. Holy cow! But funny, go—

Katie: You know, "Where's the evidence for this? Present it!" Right? "Come forth to the stand and present it!" And for them to have to question, "Why do I think that? Why do I believe that?" Absolutely! So if you're listening and you're like, "Okay, I'm, I'm a workaholic," right? Like, and you're working and working and working, and you feel a sense of, "I never feel successful enough. I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough. I'm not doing enough." To stop and say, "Where's the evidence you're not doing enough?" Because everyone else would point to how you are, and allowing yourself to reflect on, "Okay, well, what is enough? And who said you're not doing enough? Who said, 'Don't be lazy,' or, 'Don't be lazy,' like that person, or whatever," right? Like, those voices—I think that's genius, Greg. I think that makes a lot of sense. So when somebody comes to you and goes, "Okay, I've got this voice, and I see we need to shift it and change it, but it is so deeply rooted," what are some practices you give them? And obviously from a, um, a fitness standpoint, to help them push through to know, "It's not true, it's not true, it's not true."

Gregory: Well, the first, the first thing is, I wanna understand what your vision for yourself is. So, most of my clients will come to me like, "Greg, I wanna drop twenty-five pounds. I wanna get rid of this medical condition," which is, humans love avoidance. I wanna know what you want to achieve.

Katie: Yeah.

Gregory: Who you want to become, and how is that gonna permeate your relationships, your business, your work, your relationship, kids, your spiritual self, all of those things, because your audience, a vessel full of that. So once we can really get that out, you see the shift straight away, almost, because people start to believe, "Oh, I can have the body. I can have the health. I can have the energy, and look what else it's gonna give me, So then we map it back to, right, so these stories are now in the way of that vision. Which one do you want the most? 

Katie: The vision? Yes! 

Gregory:  And I think it's also having the safe space that, cause you will fall back at times. The neuroplasticity of our brains is really, really tough to deal with. Get it. So for me, it's about creating a safe space where clients can go, "Greg, you know what? Had a really rough day and I fell into a vat of chocolate."

Katie: I hate when that happens! So easy to, right?

Gregory: Very easy to. But I guess my role then is to help them unpick what happened, why did it happen, because often what you think is the issue isn't the issue.

Katie: Yeah.

Gregory: So emotional eating is a big one. Let's just quickly jump—is that very quickly? 

Gregory: People label themselves, "I'm an emotional eater." So I write, "In court," right? "Okay, cool. What does that mean? What emotion did you experience when you had the chocolate?" "Ah, I was sad." "Okay, so over our time working together, I've noticed every Thursday you get sad. So talk to me about what happens on Wednesday night to Thursday afternoon." "Actually, I've got this meeting with the board of directors. This particular person is terrible to work with," right? Okay, got it. So now we know it's some, it's something that's happening somewhere else. We can deal with it differently.

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Katie: It's good that you have them break it down to even see what the trigger points are. I think that's often one of our challenges, is that we'll push ourselves or we'll stress eat, or whatever it might be, and we're not even—we don't slow down and ask ourselves what's our "why" in this. And, and to be able to support your clients in that, I think, is, is probably with the most crucial part of the job you're doing, beyond, like, "Hey, let's, you know, what's the body you want now? Let's—what's the mind you want?" And then the body, uh, because, you know, if we're just working on the body, the mind—I just think about that so often. How many people, they lose weight and they get fit, and then it shifts for them because the mind never came with them. It stayed stuck. And you mentioned that in the beginning, you work with specifically women who use the term "let themselves go," cause that's the term they use, right? "Let themselves go," and are realizing they wanna take back charge and control. And I'm wondering, what are some of the things, the challenges you've heard them face that led them to a place of going, "I'm putting myself last. I'm putting myself last. I'm putting myself last."

Gregory: Well, a really big one, um, exercise is always seen as leisure.

Katie: Hmm.

Gregory: So you think about it, right? You grow up and you get lots of praise often for academia.

Katie: Yeah.

Gregory: Also getting your first job. If you ran track for the Americans, and for the—what European people did athletics—or, it was always a waste of time, or it didn't get the same sort of affection as academia. Or at that point, all you, you almost go into its habit of, "Well, that's not important. Therefore, I'm not important. My health isn't important." So when we track it back to those kind of things, that's one big, big story that happens. The next one is time. Time is such a big—and one of the things I love to do is just review someone's calendar.

Katie: Yeah.

Gregory: I'll sit and go through the calendar and work out what you're doing, because most of the time these women are not working in a scope of genes.

Katie: Yeah, true.

Gregory: Yeah, all sorts of stuff. And I'm like, "Your team should be doing that one. Why—tell me why you're doing this?" Because, again, this need to feel busy means productive, always on. And sometimes it can be almost like a badge of honor because they've seen maybe their mums, you know, kind of do two jobs, whatever, whatever, look after the kids, do everything, and they think they have to live to that. And their world is different.

Katie: Yeah, it makes them feel important to have that business. Yep, even if it's the business that they actually hate.

Gregory: And that's the thing they secretly resented.

Katie: Yeah, I mean, obviously I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have that problem.

Gregory: Kind of resent that, you know, they will do it because it's what they feel is right, but secret, there's a bit of resentment of, you know, "Why is no one else helping me? Why am I doing everything? I'm always tired," etcetera, etcetera. So we go through and unpick, I look at the calendar. "What's that? Why are we doing that?" Yeah. And I think that one is woman's—

Katie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh my goodness! That's a hot topic right now. And I'm, I'm finding more and more women—there's, there's the one side that blame it, or the other side who are in denial of it, right? There's, there's not a lot of people in the middle who, like, "Let me just educate myself and, and, and be smart about this." It's either, uh, this or, "Nope, not me. Never. Not really happening. I'm avoiding it.

Gregory: But I've got brain fog every morning I wake up.

Katie: Right?Yeah.

Gregory: So, like, perimenopause, menstrual cycle is a whole heap of a mess sometimes for women. I can't experience it. I feel it gives me an advantage because I can sit outside it. I don't, you know, I don't have that, so much emotions back to it. So, there's a couple of things. It's like, give yourself grace. So often I'll tell clients, "Have a lion. Don't, don't work out this week," cause I think we're in this thing of always being on, so always in sympathetic nervous system, never in rest and digest parasympathetic zone. "Have a rest. Chill. Eat some more food. It's all good. It's fine." Two, are you doing the basics to support your hormones?

Katie: Hmm, that's a big one.

Gregory: And often when I ask those questions, like I said, the two camps, there's two—one's, "I'll bet it's really hard." And I'm like, "Looks, and I get it's hard, your energy, all of that stuff, but are you doing the basics? Hydrated, slept, moved your body, had some rest," which are different from sleep. Um, "Have you slept? Have you had sex?" Biggest hormone output. But all these things can massively change how our hormones work, react.

Katie: Well, and you're speaking about women, but I'm like, "No, I'm thinking this will affect men, too." Everything you just listed affects a man's hormones, too. So we're speaking to the masses here. Yes, absolutely!

Gregory: The basics work every time.

Katie: Yeah, but this—they're just too easy, Greg. It's just too easy to just sleep and to eat healthy and drink water. Like, there's that feeling I find with, and I don't know if you've seen it, as high achievers, if it's easy, it must not work. It must not really be the thing. It needs to be—they need a sense of, "I had to work really hard to earn this." And so when it's like, you know, "Let's just try good sleep for a week. Just try it, you know? How about just hydrating every day with a certain amount, like, just try it." That's, like, by day two, it's like, "Nah, I don't feel an instant gratification moment of high achieving. I've done this good, um, so it probably didn't work." And there's this marathon mindset, I think, sometimes we have to learn. This is long-term. This is the benefit of the long-term.

Gregory: Yeah, my question is always, "Well, what do you want? Do you want hard work or do you want legacy?"

Katie: Good question! 

Gregory: And women be like, "What does legacy mean?" I mean, legacy means that you perform at your top level ninety percent of the time. Your family feel the benefit, your work, your career, you, partner, whatever. Or we can smash ourselves into the ground with really complex things. And I get it, there is this almost like a, a badge of honor. It has to be really hard. Like, I used to hear in my corporate roles, um, and I used to run a women's health department, um, in NHS and England, so it's always interesting, but you'd hear them even around the friend zone, they'd be talking about how hard their diet was. "Oh, but mine's harder." "But, but no, but mine's harder." I'm like, "Well, who you trying to show off to?

Katie: Right? It's like the mind—we know we were just talking about—the mind needs to come first before the body. If your mind is still in that, like, "Let me prove a point. Let me show. Let me," you know, then it's not gonna work. 

Gregory: The irony is, the people that we look up to who make it easy, to make it look easy but doing amazing things, that people that do the simple things regularly—Taylor Swift, Simone Biles, I'm just giving some random women, right? Who are at the top of their craft, and they do the simple things regularly. 

Katie: We need more mentors like that to watch and see and, and actually believe what they're doing. I think you mentioned so many of us watched our mothers, our family members, women who were pushing themselves and pushing themselves. And this is, I, I think about for men as well, the dads who are always at work, always at work, work first, work first, missing out on things. And now, you know, we're all in different generations of trying to decide what work-life balance even looks like. What is life balance look like? And how do I use what I've experienced in my life to educate me, to be wiser, rather than hold me back as weights or be motivators that go unhealthy, right? Where's that courtroom? Let's really test these things out! Let's see the evidence! Um, so I, you know, you are speaking, again, back—you're speaking to the masses with this, but we need more people out there who can be honest about the journey it is taken together and not, "Look at me! Look what I'm able to do!" Let me see these things and to really go, you know, "I've had to give up these things. I've had to sacrifice the instant gratification of the chocolate, or whatever it," you know, like, and go, "Hey, I need to be more mindful these particular weeks, or I need to be more aware of my needs with sleep and, and food and all of that." My own journey was learning so much about what my body likes with food and not, and it completely shifted and changed how I work, how I am in my relation to everything. I just feel much more clear-minded, and I didn't realize it was the food that was impacting me. So we all have to find our thing, you know, that, that really guides us. But, um, I think, really, you've given us some great pointers of practical ways we can start to reflect on our, our life challenges, helping us become masters in our life, right? That can be respected, or are they pulling us down to just be the victim of the experience?

Gregory: Yeah, for sure. I think the one thing I'd leave listeners with is, you can't separate the body from the brain. Stop trying! 

Katie: Yeah. Again, Greg, mic drop! Oh my gosh! Okay. I so appreciate this, Greg. If people want to connect with you, if they want to find you and work with you and just be in your space, because, again, guys, his LinkedIn posts are on point every time. Where can they connect with you other than LinkedIn? Clearly out there.

Gregory: That's okay. So, Facebook, they can find me, Greg Fearon. I have a podcast which has been closed but is gonna come back with The Greg Fearon Podcast. Um, and I website and gregfearon.co.uk.

Katie: Excellent! I'll make sure all those links are in the show notes. Greg, I really appreciate your time and the energy that you put out there in the world to support women, but everybody, cause I, I see the comments. Everybody's benefiting from what you're teaching. And so you, you really are one of those authentic people who are really here to support people and having better lives, and I'm grateful for that.

Gregory: Thank you! I try. I try. Thank you for having me.

Katie: And, dear listener, here's to finding your balance code. Thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Take a moment to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. That helps other listeners just like you to find this podcast, too. Want to connect and learn how we can work together? Check out the links in the show notes below. Discovering your balance code doesn't have to be a one-person journey. You can have a team, and I'd love to support you. So here's to finding our balance code!