Health for Life with Christian Elliot

george grombacher 0:00
Come on

Bob Leffler. This is George G. And the time is right, welcome. Today’s guest is strong and powerful Christian. Elliot, Christian, are you ready to do this? Yes, sir. Let’s do it. Alright, let’s let’s go Christian is a health, wellness fitness and life coach is the CEO of true whole human excited to have you on. Christian, tell us a little about your personal life SmartBox your work and why you do what you do? Well, I am a husband to my wife, Nina, I have five children ages, about 11 months to 14, we’ve got quite the age spectrum. My wife and I work full time doing what you just said, we’ve been doing that virtually for about four years and full time we even had brick and mortar locations back as early as 2008. We’ve been at this for shoot closing in on

Christian Elliot 1:02
So a lot of moving parts live here in Panama City Beach, Florida, and really happy with what we’re doing and the work that we get to do every day. Awesome. Five kids. Good for you five kids a business. And we homeschool as well. So there’s that as another wrinkle to the mix. So you were doing virtual before doing virtual was cool. And were you also homeschooling before homeschooling became a necessity. Yeah, it definitely we’ve we’ve been homeschooling the whole way through. So my daughter, who’s now in ninth grade started when she was in kindergarten. So yeah, we’ve been doing that the whole way through. And I probably got into the virtual world as it was starting to get cool rather than before. But yes, we’ve been at it full time, it virtualizations 2017. Got it. So we talk about about wellness. What does that mean, can be a lot of different things, the way that we tend to look at it is more through the lens of wholeness. And so we named our business through whole human because the idea was we really want to coach the whole person. And we’ve realized over the, you know, the course of being in a predominantly health, wellness, fitness business, that you can have the best health information in the world. But if you can’t speak to the human heart, if you can’t zoom out and understand the context of the life of the person who’s trying to make these changes, and you can also layer on to that a holistic approach to fitness or nutrition or just health in general, usually, you’re going to miss the mark, and you’re going to be stuck in that, you know, 10% of your clients have good results, and the other people are just bouncing around trying you and everything else. And so, to us, wellness really means what is it? What would it mean to create a breakthrough for this person? What would it mean to transform their life so they become completely unrecognizable to their former self and their health goals then get mixed into what does it mean to live a successful life. And we don’t think of our clients as successful if they’re, you know, they take a great before and after picture with weight loss, for example. And the rest of their life falls apart, or they don’t have success in the other meaningful areas of life. And none of us get to have the pleasure of feeling successful if we’re not successful broadly. And so we really try to look at what is the whole person? And what’s what’s in their orbit, what are their actual goals? What would make all of this hard work, for example, to change their health worth it? Because they help them live that life and how they answer that is different for each person. But that’s probably what’s most unique about how we look at it is we’re really trying to understand every part of their life and how it’s relevant to the bigger goals they have and then shepherd them toward that end.

But I just want to get fit now and I want to do it in two weeks Christian Yeah, I’m probably not the guy for you if that’s what you want. Yeah, he go Google best exercises to burn belly fat or something. I think that doesn’t work either. But yeah, those kind of people are typically they’re usually you know, 35 or younger, they’ve they think they’ve got the world by the tail. They haven’t been faced with their own invincibility yet. And yes, you can make a lot of progress in two weeks, or you can make a lot of progress in two months. But can you sustain that progress? Can you look at your

future and past attempts through the lens of like, Will this be worth the sacrifice or a lot of times people have this idea that if I could just get rid of these headaches or if I could just lose this weight or if I could just get my pick the health condition, then the clouds apart, they’ll be sunshine and rainbows and everything will be great and he’ll be perfectly happy and and it’s it’s really not how it works. We view weight loss or even getting healthy really more as the side benefit of the side effect of a lifestyle that is not incongruent with the health that you’re trying to build. And often it’s the incongruity that you know, sure, okay, that’s I this time is different. I can just really force myself and get in shape for this photoshoot for this wedding for this event.

back to where they were. And they never actually get to a point where they can sustain that kind of health most health programs, we found it, it’s more or less akin to winning a lottery. And then going broke, it’s you get some success, but you don’t you didn’t change who you are, or the things that were coming together the circumstances of your life, that create the slide back down the mountain that keep you from sustaining your health. And we’re really more interested in a slow down to speed up process, let’s see if we can change you on the inside. If we can see this process as an inside job. The outside will take care of itself. But that usually takes a little bit longer, because it’s more methodical. It’s looking at your values and your beliefs and the trade offs you’re willing to make and the timing of different things that you work on. And it’s the approach that’s more thoughtful and methodical, that usually when somebody is ready for that they know what they’ve tried all the things that don’t work, they’re just tired of bouncing from thing to thing. And they’re they’re finally in a place where they’re ready to step back and say, You know what, maybe the way I’ve been approaching this is part of the problem, maybe I don’t know everything, maybe I should just work to be brutally honest with myself, and say, Well, what would it look like if I were to just take the expectations that has to go on my timeline, and I just got curious with the process, and I just leaned into becoming a better human. And that became my area of focus. And I worked to make consistency my superpower, rather than see how long I can last on this willpower willpower diet or willpower workout, and try to change on the inside. And really, that’s the change that lasts. And that’s the fun work we get to do. Awesome. Well, that all really resonates with me. You said a lot of things that I just feverishly scribbled down, because because I wanted to circle back on. I think I I think that, do you think that that this process that you can change most any human behavior with it? You can, the challenge is getting to the readiness part. And usually, there’s a required humbling that comes before that and humans are amazing, like our ability to change is just otherworldly. And if you think of the situation you’re in, it may sound hard to overcome, and I’ve tried everything and every diet or every everything I’ve ever done hasn’t quite gotten me there. We still have this built in resiliency to keep trying and there’s somebody in a worse more difficult situation than you that has overcome that. And so success is going to leave coolers What did they do? What were the philosophies? What were the principles? What are the people they came across? What information did they have access to what undergirded their habits, so they could stay consistent. And there’s a whole million of lifestyle factors of principles they’ve worked through of trade offs, they have made, that some overlap perfectly with your life and some don’t. And so it’s really the will to find your particular path through that process. That gives me the confidence just about anybody can change if they have the driver that makes it worth it if they have the willingness and ability to be introspective and pump the brakes and say, Wait a minute. Okay, maybe I’ve been part of the problem here. But I can change that that. Jim Rohn, quote, If you don’t like your address, you’re not a tree, you can move like, we humans can become so much more than we are. But sometimes it takes a compelling vision. And often it’s somebody similar to what the situation we’re in. And then it is a methodical step by step process. It’s an ability to string together small wins, that really give you the feeling of motivation, like, Oh, it is working, and I don’t, it’s okay, if it takes longer because I feel like I’m getting somewhere. If you can embrace a different way to go through the process and just don’t go into it. I often tell clients hold your expectations loosely. But hold your effort tighter. It’s the effort that matters. It’s that’s where it’s a continual effort that produces the lesson. And the instructive plot points that say, Okay, this is where I get to, and then the wheels fall off, what would make it different this time. And if you go into it with a curious, fascinated mindset, not a judgmental one, but curious to just see how the process is going to unfold, and a commitment to not quit. Humans can overcome just about anything, it’s remarkable how much change we can actually make.

george grombacher 9:19
Well said, what will be different this time? I think that’s a really powerful thing right there. So they need to have faith that what you’re telling them to do is going to work they need to be able to see that person who’s not exactly like me, but they’re similar to me and they’re getting similar results to what I want to have their regular human being they did it and then it’s a function of embracing the consistency and following the program.

Christian Elliot 9:46
Yeah, and what the program looks like from one person to the next can vary but we are all bound by the same biological laws of physics. None of us doesn’t need to sleep we all need to drink water all of us if we have stress that will impact us in nutrition.

And then hydration and emotions are part of the equation and so on. And when we can step back and realize that we are not above those laws, and so we might as well stop fighting with them, we might as well try to work with them. And then we one of the processes we take people through is just to audit the what we call the biological laws of physics, how are we doing at the basics, the things that you know, we need to do, and often that on Earth, some of the clearest path to follow or the next steps, and sometimes it really is the mind and emotion, I probably spend as much or more of my time on that than anything, it’s the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what’s real and what’s not, or the the narratives we have from our past are the rules, we have lived by the stress responses, the avoidance patterns, those are often the things to face. And sometimes it’s just as simple as your digestion is not working. And so we need to get that cleaned up before it will matter how good your nutrition is. Or it may be that you’re trying to do too much, you just have way overestimated your capacity. And less is more. And we have to disentangle from some extra curricular responsibilities, that that may be what moves the needle, but it’s really just the ability to step back and look at the whole puzzle and say, Okay, I have to work within the bounds of nature and physiology. And if I stopped fighting that, you don’t begrudge the fact that this may take a little bit longer, or that I do have to go to bed and get a full night’s sleep, or I guess I should drink less soda. And maybe I can drink more water. Like when you start to become not just okay with them, but you embrace them. And you you’re, you view your change journey, as a partnership with your body rather than this contentious body is always fighting me and it’s this back and forth on the biohacking. I’m going to make it do this thing and work our way through it and force it to lose weight. And that never works, never produces long term success. So to be able to step back from that and say, You know what, let’s just get methodical, let’s just knock out things that without a doubt are going to make me feel better and that are going to move me forward, I can’t make a logical argument that drinking water won’t help, I can’t make a logical argument that getting full night’s sleep won’t make a difference and so on. And so then it’s just the personalization of the rules we’re all bound by and then framed with the undercurrent of here’s the ambitions that derive all humans, somewhere in this matrix of the basics that are part of human nature, are what make us all the same and what drives all of us. And the better we understand that better we understand ourselves, what’s actually getting in the way of our progress. And we can, in an honest moment, step back hopefully with somebody else that can talk it through with you to hold space for those emotions or hold space for that. You know, that didn’t go the way I wanted to, I didn’t see myself here. But what can I make with where I am now and to just remove the judgment and say, You know what, I’m here where I am right now. And maybe I can make something cool out of this. That goes a long way to

personalizing the journey. And then to your point, helping you feel like, this is relatable, this is doable, I can I can see why other people have been successful, because they took a different way to try to change their life. So

george grombacher 13:00
nice. Talks about the mind and the emotion. And earlier you’re talking about values and beliefs. I’ve been thinking a lot about lately, focusing on identity versus achievement. And I feel like that’s pretty similar. Like if I don’t consider myself to be a healthy person. Or if I don’t think that I’m, let’s just say that I think that I’m bad at money, probably gonna have a hard time being financially successful.

Christian Elliot 13:27
Absolutely. And identity is so much of this process, there’s different ways to say you could say my self image or my view of human nature, but who we think we are and the stories we tell ourselves about where we came from what happens after we die. And what makes this life worth it, or James clear, has a great example. He uses the example of smoking and he says you if somebody came and asked you if you’re trying to quit smoking, and they came and they asked you if you wanted a cigarette, he could say you have two responses, you can say no thanks. I’m trying to quit. or No thanks. I’m not a smoker. Right? Both of them are trying to get away from cigarettes, but one steps into the identity that that’s not me anymore, I don’t do that sort of thing. And the more we can take on the identity of the person that we want to become and believe that that’s possible. And our actions begin to reinforce that if you want to be somebody who’s fit, can you take on the the identity of the person who just is consistent going to the gym, and that may mean you show up for five minutes and you walk on a treadmill and you leave but you have reinforced that you are becoming the kind of person who does that kind of thing. And identity is so wrapped into who we want to become the part where people get tripped up for where we’ve missed the boat with identity is that we often we’re trying to divorce ourselves from an old identity without a recognition of the identity we’re trying to step into. And if nothing feels that we’re not this anymore vacuum, but I don’t know what to put in its place. We end up usually just sliding right back into the old habits. So the question Your audience could ponder is like, what? What would it mean? To be a different person? What What would the kind of person that I aspire to be? What would they be doing? How would they be living their life? What kind of choices would they make with their finances? How would they show up in relationships? What kind of parent would they be? What kind of employee or business owner? What would be the key attributes I suspect that person would have? And how can I exemplify a little bit more, because it’s empowering to step into a, I’m becoming this kind of person is one thing to have this positive thinking smear over this massive negativity that not like, everything’s gonna be great, and I can do this and but if your undercurrent belief is that I am not this person, that I don’t deserve to be there, that I am an imposter that I don’t have what it takes, if that’s the big belief under there, and there’s this giant insecurity of your self image. And you’re trying to pretend around the interest that doesn’t work. But when you can be honest and authentic, and you can go to an event or check your speaking on stage, or whatever it is that you’re doing where you feel like you maybe my body doesn’t represent me as well as I could. Instead of saying, I don’t deserve to be here, I shouldn’t or whatever that moment, that thought might be in your head to step back and say, Okay, I, I’m not here to pretend that I’m a finished product. I’m here I’m working on this journey. I know I can get better. But this is how far I’ve taken it so far. And I’m a work in progress, just like everyone else. And I’m going to show up with my best self today. It’s empowering. It’s not pretending that you’re happy, and you feel like you’ve arrived or pretentious, it’s just being honest, and being able to say, I’m working on stepping into a new identity. And that’s honest, and that’s empowering. And it gives you if it’s just 1% more courage to do the action you otherwise wouldn’t have done. That’s where the wind comes from.

george grombacher 16:50
Love it. But super powerful right there. I think. I think that the idea of, we make a mistake by not replacing the old identity with something new and thinking about the person you want to become and thinking about what their attributes are such a powerful thing.

Christian Elliot 17:08
Cool. Yeah, no, I agree. And I’ve, I’ve been the beneficiary of a lot of different people who have taught me many things and so much of I think what keeps me endlessly fascinated with life and feeling like I wake up every day with a sense of purpose is that I’ve somewhere along the lines committed to being a lifelong learner, and to go through podcasts, like yourself to always have a book on my nightstand and always have an audio book or a podcast in my ear. And it’s just what what you realize the more that you study is how much you don’t know, and how much bigger the world is, and how much more exciting things are out there that could potentially reshape your paradigm. Now I’ve become fascinated lately with the questions, just COVID is probably unearth this for a lot of us like what else is kind of major that I’ve been wrong about? Or that I didn’t know? And what other ways has this system or this world been working, where I thought I knew it. And now that I think about it, I was the one that stooped, I was the one that didn’t quite understand something. And when you can approach life, through the lens of there are great ideas I have not yet come across that could dramatically improve my life. And you take away from yourself, the need to continually be right. And you just go into something, say I’m here to learn. I’m here to talk to this person I’ve never met and see what life experience they have had, and how they’ve come to the conclusions they have. And I just get to go ask questions, to refine my own philosophy. It’s much more fun way to go through life because then some of the pressures off of you. You’re not on stage and performing and having to act like you have it all together all of the time. You can just go in if somebody asks, If you don’t know something, you just say no, I don’t know. But tell me what you’ve learned. And you just become fascinated by the knowledge or the life experience someone else has. That has so much potential to continue to endlessly enrich the life that you live.

george grombacher 19:00
Beautiful. I love it. Well, Christian, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? How can they engage with you and true whole human

Christian Elliot 19:09
that you can go to our website, it’s true whole human.com. I also have a blog that I write about also, so things health and fitness and a few articles on COVID on there, you can find that at deconstructing conventional.com If you want to subscribe to our list, there’s a place to do that at the bottom of any blog post. And at true human.com You can request a consultation just to get on the phone for 4560 minutes then we’ll just talk about you your house and the situation you’re in and see if we can help.

george grombacher 19:36
I’d love it. If you enjoyed this as much as I did so Christian your appreciation and share today show the friend who also appreciates good ideas go to true whole human calm and check out the great resources and take advantage of that offer to have a conversation about what you’re trying to get done what you’re working on and see if there’s a good fit, and then check out deconstructing conventional comm you constructing conventional.com For all of Christians musings thanks Christian thanks so much for having me and until next time keep fighting the good fight we’re all in this together

Transcribed by https://otter.ai