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Gina LaRoche – You have enough
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You have enough. Our guest today is cofounder of Seven Stones Leadership Group and a leading organizational consultant, executive coach, speaker, author, and artist. With no further ado, here’s Gina LaRoche.
Allan (1:00): Gina, welcome to 40+ Fitness.
Gina LaRoche (1:05): Thank you, Allan.
Allan (1:08): The book we’re going to talk about today is called The 7 Laws of Enough. When I got into the book, I was thinking, I’ve lived most of my whole life trying to get more – wanting to be the football star and the baseball star and the track star, and doing as much as I could possibly do in there, and then shifting my emphasis to something else. And then when I got into my career, I was completely singularly focused on more, bigger, better. And that stopped serving me. I just have started making the choices in the last year – some not by my choice, but others definitely by my choice once things started rolling, of what it felt like to let that stuff go. The peace that it’s brought me and the joy that it’s bringing me to not have to worry about stuff.
Gina LaRoche (2:10): Yeah.
Allan (2:11): So I think there’s a lot of power in that word, “enough”.
Gina LaRoche (2:18): Yes. It sounds to me that you’ve taken this journey, what we call from the “scarcity story” to the “story of enough” on your own. And you’re not the only; many folks we’ve come across have been on this journey, whether they use the exact same language as we do or not. And I think we can surprise ourselves when we get to the other side that we find this joy or peace, contentment that we didn’t even know was missing in our lives.
Allan (2:53): You called the book The 7 Laws of Enough. Do you mind going through those seven laws and briefly describing each one?
Gina LaRoche (3:02): Sure. First I’ll say the book does start with a chapter about scarcity, so we understand where we’re coming from. And the laws are this bridge from the story of scarcity to the story of enough. And the seven laws are as follows. Law number one is, “Stories matter”. Essentially we are all shaped by the stories of who we are, where we’ve come from, and where we’re going. And these stories arise from the neighborhoods we grew up in, the religion we’ve practiced or not practiced, the countries we were born in. These shape our context, and we like to say that context is decisive. So that’s law number one, is to really understand the power of those stories. Law number two is, “I am enough”. And the truth is, Allan, you are enough and you do enough and you have enough. I know that you are enough, do enough and have enough because I’m constantly with clients and friends who are so busy that they don’t even have time to have a phone call with me. And if you’re an American, living in this country, even if you are one of the resource-poor Americans living in this country, you have more than most people do in the rest of the planet. Law number three is, “I belong”. And I like to say you belong, period, full stop; regardless of the stories you tell yourself and regardless of the stories of where you come from. So we have, again, those stories that have shaped us as children, could have this belief that we don’t belong. Either we don’t belong because of our gender or our race or our economic status. We believe that. And what we’re saying in this book is, that is not true. Law number four is, “No one is exempt”. Essentially we cannot insulate ourselves from life’s ups and downs. The key to this law is that there is freedom when we stop trying. Law number five is, “Resting is required”. Resting deeply in ourselves allows us to remember really the truth of the rest of the laws. Finding a place in our nervous system for rest and relaxation changes our experience of life. Law number six – you actually referred to it in sharing your story about your journey. Law six is, “Joy is available.” This law reminds us, me in particular, to lighten up and not take things too seriously. There’s a peace, a contentment that we’ve discussed available. That leads us to law number seven, and often times, Allan, I will say it’s really the only law. And that is, “Love is the answer”. So those are the seven laws.
Allan (6:21): I like every single one of them. A few of them are a little bit more top on my list, but in a general sense, as I go through those, I’m kind of struck with this. It’s almost un-American. I don’t mean that in a bad way, but the American dream. The American dream is that you’re working towards that C-Suite. I tell folks that I worked towards the C-Suite, I made it to the C-Suite. And when I got there and I started looking around, I quickly realized that I had left some of the most important things behind. And it was joy and happiness.
Gina LaRoche (7:01): What I would say is, the American dream is at what cost? Not only at what cost to you personally, for your family and professionally, but also at what cost for our society and for our world? So we could hit that on a number of levels, but there’s usually a cost associated with our dreams; all dreams, not just the C-Suite dreams, that we don’t notice sometimes that there is a cost. Or when we see someone, when we compare ourselves to someone who quote, unquote has “made it”, “had it” – we don’t necessarily see what they’ve lost and the costs that they gave up to “arrive” – and I’m using quotations – to wherever they are. But there’s always a cost.
Allan (7:53): How does someone go through, for lack of better words… I’m an accountant by trade, so I’m going to use words that come out in my head – that cost-benefit of, “What I really need to do is find that level, that enough.” What is enough and how do I do the cost-benefit to balance that out?
Gina LaRoche (8:18): It’s interesting. I think that “enough’s” definition is incredibly personal. But if you’re in a relationship or in a family, it’s also a family conversation, and potentially a community conversation. I think if we were willing to have a national conversation and an international conversation, that would be interesting, but let’s just start with the personal. We say that enough is a declaration, it’s a possibility, it’s a truth, it’s an experience. It’s not a single right definition, it’s not necessarily a number even. And it might be a number – you might decide that four pairs of shoes is enough. You might decide that 500 square foot per person a house is enough. And it might be more of a personal definition, like what’s enough dinner. What’s enough dinner for me is not going to be the same as what’s enough dinner for you. So how I think of it is this “enough” line, because what I’ve seen in my life is that I’ve drawn a really narrow line, and then I was constantly crossing over from “not enough” to “too much”. There was this thin place to stand on “enough”. And I joke that I would rather have too much to eat and have too much dinner than have not enough dinner. But there was never this concept of what’s enough dinner. I think “enough” is personal and maybe even a spiritual conversation for some of us.
Allan (10:04): Initially I struggled with my journey and I was trying to flip things around, because I was – the way I call it – the fat bastard. I wasn’t happy and I wasn’t a nice person, because I was constantly fighting with myself. It wasn’t wanting what the Joneses had. It was more of scoring a higher score next year than I scored this year. I remember this point succinctly, and I’ve never told anyone this story before so I’m getting a little out there on this one. But I was breaking up with a girlfriend that I had had for a while, and it was a very toxic relationship. And I hired a mover friend. He and I connected straight away because he had moved me into this house and now I was asking him to move my stuff out and take it back to where I had come from. But he knew I wasn’t going there. He knew she was taking the stuff because I had just told her, “Look, you take what you need. I don’t want any of it. I don’t need any of it.” I said, “You pick what you need and you take it with you.” And she pretty much took it all. So he called me because he’s flagging everything that they’re going to load in the truck and he’s like, “Are you sure about this? Because she’s pretty much taking everything.” He said, “The only thing she’s not taking is your motorcycle.” And I said, “Yeah, that’s probably about right.” If she had said she wanted that, that was off the list. But I told him, “You’re basically removing a cage and you’re setting me free. Because it’s too much.” It was odd to have 1,500 square foot worth of furniture in a 5,100 square foot house, but I had it. I literally didn’t buy light bulbs. I just took light bulbs from the other rooms when I needed a light bulb, until I got to the point where I realized I now have to actually buy light bulbs because I don’t have light in any other part of the house but the part that I’m actually using. Then I was like, “I just need to sell this place because it’s too much.” It was not an easy transition for me to do that, but once I started doing it, it just felt so right.
Gina LaRoche (12:39): That story is so rich, with so many ways I could go. My one thought is, this a simple journey but not an easy one. Simple in that if you follow your own intuition and needs, it’s all we’re really saying. And it’s not easy because society is telling us to keep score, to track, to hit the C-Suite or whatever it is in our industry. Your journey was, I assume, a downsizing, moving from the larger house to something smaller, and for some people it might be moving from a smaller house to a larger house, because that’s enough. I lived in a very small cottage when my children were young, and then I realized I was going to have essentially three men over six feet tall living with me and I thought we probably could use a little bigger space and more than one bathroom. We moved to a bigger place, and then the children left and now my husband and I are in a smaller place. So we’re kind of expanding and contracting with the needs and what’s enough in the moment. The other thing about your story, which I want to highlight is this “keeping score”. We like to keep score. We like to play sports, we like to keep score, whether it’s with ourselves or with others. One of our dear colleagues, Alan Rosenblith, who made the movie called The Money Fix – he said to us this phrase: “We measure what we treasure and we treasure what we measure.” What I like to offer to my clients and I’ll offer to you and your listeners, is if you want to know where your values lie, where you may have too much or not enough, look at what you are measuring. Like you said, you were having this internal score card that you were kind of beating yourself with, and that wasn’t serving you. And I love that phrase, we use that phrase too – “It wasn’t serving you.” And so, you made some important shifts in your life.
Allan (15:04): I think that’s where I went off-kilter early in my life. I was sort of raised in a scarce situation. We never had everything we wanted. We had everything we needed. But once I got set off on my own, I had this drive to get out of what I felt was scarcity. And then I lost the balance when I got into excess. It took me a while to turn that around and recognize that I don’t have to always have more. Sometimes having less feels good; and getting that balance. So, when we’re looking at this scarcity mindset which you alluded to earlier, and then this, I’m going to call it a “drive” towards excess that I think a lot of us have, it takes us away from the joy and what we can have in our lives in other ways, typically. I worked the hours, I moved wherever the job took me. I’ve lived in 13 different states and I haven’t lived in the same state my daughter lives in since, I would say, ‘95. Since she was three, I’ve lived in a different state. And those are choices that I look back on now and wish I could take back in a sense. I know that those lessons were valuable to me for a lot of other reasons and I shouldn’t want that. But how does someone balance that scarcity and excess story that we’re telling ourselves?
Gina LaRoche (16:41): First I just want to say that you did grow up in scarcity in your childhood because you grew up in America. And America’s story is a story of scarcity. I do feel like we have a societal story, that there’s not enough, and that we need to manifest our own destiny by ourselves with no one helping us to achieve, quote, “the great American dream”. You drink that story in from the time you were born, and I know you drink that story in because there are statistics that a two-year-old knows more than 200 different brand logos and icons, and the two-year-old can’t even read. That’s what I mean by “we’re drinking in the scarcity story”, even if we know it or not. One of my mentors and the person who introduced me to this conversation would say to all of us that we are swimming in a sea of scarcity and we don’t even know it. I think what you’ve also talked about, we call the “myth”. Lynne Twist is another colleague and mentor of ours who wrote this book called The Soul of Money, where she distinguished the toxic myths of scarcity. You’ve actually touched on them, Allan. The first is that there is not enough. There are not enough C-Suite jobs. There are so not enough jobs that you moved to 13 different states, right?
Allan (18:12): Yeah.
Gina LaRoche (18:12): Myth number two: “More is better.” More is always better, and quite frankly more money is always, always, always, always, always, always better. Her myth number three is, “That’s just the way it is.” I don’t want to project onto you, but I’m sure at one point you were like, “Well, this is how life is. I got a promotion, I have to move to this next city to get the next job, because I need to get to the C-Suite because that’s what I’m supposed to do. That’s just how the way life is.”
Allan (18:45): Yeah. I remember sitting in California, and I got the promotion. They were initially putting the job out there saying it’ll either be in California or in Massachusetts; they were not sure yet. They made the offer and I said, “Is there any chance this job’s going to stay here in California?” And they’re like, “No, you’re going to Massachusetts.” And I’m like, “I don’t really want to go to Massachusetts, but it’s a 30% increase in pay.”
Gina LaRoche (19:10): And that’s just the way it is.
Allan (19:12): Who says “No” to that?
Gina LaRoche (19:14): That’s right. And the flip side of the myths of scarcity, Jen and I distinguish in the book, is these myths of excess. And you’ve talked about it so beautifully. It’s this flip flopping, I think we all do it. And the myths of excess – number one is, “You can have it all.” Particularly it’s a Western philosophy, where we deserve it all, we’re allowed to have it all. Number two: “Having it all will make you happy.” This myth of excess is my favorite one. Number three: “If you do not have it all or you are not happy, it is your fault. There’s something wrong with you.” I think we all flip flop from scarcity to excess like that. I wrote the book with Jen really to have the seven laws be a bridge to this life, Allan, that you’ve described – this life of peace, of contentment, this life of enough. Unfortunately there isn’t a magic pill that I can give you for you to know what that’s going to look like for yourself. All of us need to experiment, be an inquiry, practice, to see what is right for us. By the way, the vicissitudes of life are going to be hitting us at the same time. I’ll give you an example. My husband just got a new job. On the day he got offered a new job, his father was hospitalized. That happens to all of us – the joy and sorrow. We can’t fight against that; we have to embrace that. That’s really law number four. So that’s what I would say – this pathway is through these laws. And you said some laws resonate with you, and others less so. I have found that there are people who will come up to me and say, “Law number three. I just care about law number three.” And I have other people who say, “Law number five. You wrote law number five for me.” And the truth is, all of those seven laws we have worked with ourselves and our clients, and at different points in my own life have the laws been more or less pertinent, depending on what was happening, as the winds of change were coming toward me.
Allan (21:54): That’s exactly how I would put it. Where I am in my journey today, some of the laws really, truly resonate with me. Some of them I don’t know that I fully need to embrace that or use that today. It’s a great tool. Another great tool that you had in the book, and this was probably one of my favorite ones – you call it “future to future”. It’s a future story. I guess the reason I put it in my head was, if you tell yourself what you want your future to be…. So we’ve told ourselves this story of who we are and being in this scarce world, but if we tell ourselves what we actually want our future to be, in my mind it does a couple of different things. One is, it sets what this future looks like. And then it tells you it’s a story. So you don’t just get it; you have some things that are going to happen. And more than likely, like all stories, there are going to be those ups and downs and the things that happen to get you to that. But I think that’s a very powerful tool. Can you explain how you put that together and how someone can make that work for themselves?
Gina LaRoche (23:04): Yeah, absolutely. First of all, the declaration of “I am enough.” The law of “I am enough” is a declaration. That “enough story” of “How do I get to enough?” can be created, and the key tool to creation is through language. I see us creating the future from the future as a powerful declaration of where we want to be. And we make bold declarations all the time. When you get married and say the words “I do.” Marriage only existed in the language of “I do.” Before you said “I do”, you weren’t married. You said the words “I do”, and then you were married. That’s how powerful language is, and so we’ve really encouraged our clients and the reader to use that power of declaration and language to create this future, whether it’s a future of enough or a future you want to live into. And how I would do that exercise is I would encourage you to sit down and pretend maybe it’s next November, 2019, and you’re sitting at a coffee shop with me or you or someone that you know. And you describe what has happened in your life like it’s already happened. So, if you wanted to train for a sprint triathlon and you’re thinking in 2019 you want to do a sprint triathlon, how you do this exercise is you would sit down and say, “I’ve completed the sprint triathlon in June. I was satisfied with my time, really happy with how I trained, and felt pride when I crossed the finish line and so-and-so was there to greet me.” So you would write that like it’s already happened. And then obviously once you write how you see your life, then you line up your actions and commitments to fulfill on that. So then you say, “If I want to complete a sprint triathlon in June, that means I have to register for that in February. That means I’m going to have to start training and, I don’t know…
Allan (25:35): Learn how to swim.
Gina LaRoche (25:37): Learn how to swim, join a pool. I do happen to live in Massachusetts, so I need an indoor bike trainer or I’m going to join the gym. You’ll start to line up the actions, but not from this place of obligation, but from a place of creation. It’s an exercise we use. It’s the first thing we do with every client that walks in the door. And I often do it with family members, often big corporations. I’ll look 10 years out. But that practice using language to create the future like it’s already happened, is very powerful.
Allan (26:21): It is. I practice something similar to that with my clients. It’s interesting you say the “I do”, because we do take it to the point of a verbal vow, where we say, “Where do you want to be? What does your vision look like?” And once you have that vision in your head, “Why do you want to be there? Why is this important to you?” It might be not just that you want to complete the sprint triathlon, but that you want to do it with your daughter. Your daughter wants to do the race, the race is in June, and you want to be able to do the race with her. That was a lot about my journey, was setting that intention, visualizing what that looks like, what that’s going to be, and then the actions that need to happen between then and there. I didn’t articulate it exactly the way you guys did in the book, but it’s a very similar approach. That’s why I think it resonated with me so well.
Gina LaRoche (27:20): And remember, again, even though it’s a great goal, it will cost you something. You might not be able to go drinking with your buddies, or you might not be able to go on a vacation you wanted to go on. If you’re really committed to this future, you might have to do things that you wanted to do. And that’s okay, but just notice it.
Allan (27:42): Yes. I think that’s another critical point here, because if you have habits that aren’t serving that vision, that future self with the story, you’re going to have to eliminate those habits and potentially encourage new ones. You do talk about that in the book – the three elements of breaking old habits and crafting new ones. Could you go through those three elements?
Gina LaRoche (28:07): Yeah, sure. We’re very big proponents of practice. Just FYI, in each chapter of the book we’ve got several practices. Not to say you have to do them all, but really for the reader to pick and choose what would serve them in the moment. The three elements to breaking old habits are awareness – number one; two – unwinding; and three is capacity-building. So, awareness is noticing that you have a habit. For us, tracking and sensations, thoughts, images that arise in our day-to-day life that we might not even be aware of. And the way to notice is through self-reflection and inquiry. What I always say is ask the people who see you the most of what you might not be aware of. If you went that direction, it can be as simple as, “I’m noticing I’m stuck in this domain in my life. Have you noticed that?” You’re asking your husband or your daughter, “Have you noticed that I’m stuck?” “Yeah, I have noticed you’re stuck.” “What do you see?” “Well, I see that you eat nachos every night. That’s why you haven’t lost weight.” “Oh, I didn’t notice I was snacking.”
Allan (29:37): Or you think, “I’m forgetful.” It’s one of the things I tell people. I found that if I didn’t pack my gym bag the night before – and I used to go to the gym at lunch time – I invariably would get into my gym bag to change clothes and realize I forgot my shorts, and another day I forgot my shoes or socks. I’m not going to wear my black work socks with shorts and tennis shoes; that would look hilarious. I’ll be that guy. I don’t know if I was mentally sabotaging myself by being forgetful. But I didn’t want to say, “Maybe I’m just forgetful. I want to use that as an excuse.” So my self-awareness was, I need to put a strategy in place to make sure that doesn’t happen. So I packed my bag the night before. I’d do a full inventory and I’d leave it at the front door so I would have to trip over it to actually walk out the door to get in my car.
Gina LaRoche (30:38): Right. And some people would say, maybe you even have a checklist, that inventory checklist. So you say, “The shorts, the socks.” And you are basically checking it off. I remember I had this issue a long time ago – mine was leaving the bag. So, I would go out and put the bag in the trunk of the car the night before, because putting it by the door wasn’t even enough for me. But those strategies really help.
The second element to breaking old habits is unwinding and interrupting the behaviors. And that’s what you were doing – you interrupted your normal behavior of just getting up and shoving things in the bag on your way out the door. You interrupted that. What I offer to people, if you want to start a new habit or interrupt a habit, is tie it to a habit that you already are strong. For example, I like to teach people to bring mindfulness and meditation practice into their lives. One of the things I do is I attach that to a habit they have. So if they’re going to meditate at work, I might say, “You get to work, you park the car, and you take the key out of the car. Between the time you take the key out of the car and the time you open the door, sit and breathe, and do three or four conscious breaths.” Or if they have an office, I might say, “Go into your office, but between the door of the office and the computer, put your bag down, sit on the couch, set your timer for five minutes.” So I like to put habits in, I call it a sandwich. Put the new habit in between two habits you’re already really good at. And that’s what you’ve done. You were good at going to the gym, and you had a nighttime routine. So you put this habit of packing your bag like a sandwich in between of your nighttime routine and getting to the gym.
Allan (32:37): Yeah.
Gina LaRoche (32:38): Does that make sense?
Allan (32:39): Yes, it does.
Gina LaRoche (32:41): And then finally it’s capacity-building. And you might need to hire somebody to help you to do the capacity-building. This is more if you really wanted to create a habit of fitness and wellness. Let’s say you were really good at cardio, but you were horrible at strength training. So you were aware, you scheduled the strength training in your calendar and you actually were going, but the truth is, you really don’t know enough about strength training. You might have to hire someone to build the capacity to do that strength training. And that could be a one-time session or for a week or a month, or you might hire someone to work with you over time. But it really takes patience and repetition to produce those lasting results. The capacity-building could also be a buddy. You don’t have to hire someone, but it could also be a buddy, like you meet somebody and you work with them.
Allan (33:49): There is a level of accountability and trust that happens when you either have a workout buddy or you hire a trainer. There were points in time where I knew I wanted to accelerate in one fitness modality or another. When I get in those moments, I’m like, “I’m going to go faster, smarter, and I’m not going to be self-limiting if I hire a coach.” There have been periods where I didn’t need a coach to tell me how to do what I was going to do, but it was really good for me to have that person there.
Gina LaRoche (34:22): Exactly. I’ll use an example from my own life. I started going to yoga. People were doing yoga practice, I went to yoga. I moved and I actually went to a yoga studio. And about two years in, the yoga teacher would be correcting me and saying things. I was like, “Why don’t I hire the yoga teacher for a couple of private one-on-one yoga sessions?” It wasn’t forever, but I realized that I had this interest in this domain of yoga. I was going to it. And I never really had someone take the opportunity to fit it to my body, my shape, my moves, and do some correction and to build my capacity to be a yogi. That was a desire of mine. Actually now I don’t even go to a yoga studio, and at some point in time I’ll probably pick that back up again, and maybe I’ll hire someone else and maybe I won’t. But this is back to how you started our call. It’s like, what is serving you in this moment of your life?
Allan (35:30): Yes. Now, I define “wellness” as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay well?
Gina LaRoche (35:42): Allan, it’s an interesting question. I think I’m going to go a little esoteric on you. I think the first is actually to declare that you deserve to be well. I am a mother, a wife, a business partner, sister, daughter, granddaughter, etcetera. And notice that I often sacrifice my wellness to care for the people I love. I don’t know if it’s mostly in the domain of women, but I know a lot of women who do that. They will sacrifice their own wellbeing for others. So, I would say first just to declare that you deserve it. And then actually investigate what works for you. I notice a lot of times people say, I” don’t like to go to the gym” or, “I don’t like to run” or, “I hate this.” If you hate it, why are you doing it? If wellness includes movement or healthy eating or sleeping – define it for yourself and don’t leave things out. To me wellness also includes intimacy, sleeping, water intake. Start small as you figure out where to go. I never tell my clients to go work out; all I offer for them is, “Maybe you can move.” And movement could be dancing, it could be yoga, Nia, running, walking, biking, it could be an elliptical. Move your body and find out what you love. And then third is what we already talked about. It’s build the capacity slowly, with right action and a support network. I don’t believe any of us are self-made, and we can’t do it alone. Community is really important. So, declare you deserve it, figure out what works for you, and then do it with right action and support.
Allan (37:52): I really, really like those. Gina, if someone wanted to learn more about you and Jen and the book The 7 Laws of Enough, where would you like for me to send them?
Gina LaRoche (38:04): Great. You can come to our website, SevenStonesLeadership.com. We have a scarcity assessment on there, so you can see where you are. And we also have Seven Stones Leadership Instagram and Facebook.
Allan (38:17): Okay. You can go to 40PlusFitnessPodcast.com/354, and I’ll be sure to have the links there. Gina, thank you so much for being a part of 40+ Fitness.
Gina LaRoche (38:30): Allan, you’re welcome. It was my pleasure.
Allan (38:37): I imagine at this point you have no doubt whatsoever that Gina’s message really does resonate with me. We’re going through some things here in the Misner household, with my wife effectively retiring, and we’re going to move down to Panama soon. We’re probably about two, three weeks away from putting our house on the market. We’ve been in the process of selling a lot of our stuff, and it actually feels great. I mean, she can put her car in the garage. How crazy is that? Yeah, we’re those folks. And I still have my gym, so that’s win-win for us.
But anyway, as we look at what “enough” means for us, we’re getting into the season of Thanksgiving. That’s part of the reason why I was really happy to be able to bring Gina on now to talk about The 7 Laws of Enough. We’re fast approaching that time of year, at least in the United States, where we do the Black Friday sales and people are buying gifts for themselves and for others. It’s this very big commercial season. In fact, most commercial brands make or break their season in the next six weeks or so. And so, as you go into this year’s season, I really want you to think about going into it with more of an aspect of gratitude and experiences. I know there are going to be people in your life that need a new TV, or a new blender, or this new doodad or the new iPhone. I get that; I’m not poo-pooing that at all. But really, start doing a little bit of mindfulness and gratitude and thinking about how you can make this season of commercial, a little less commercial and a little more personal. It’s our personal relationships that are a big part of the longevity formula. If you read The Blue Zones and The Longevity Plan and some of the other books that are out there that have really done the deep dive studies into why people live a long time, particularly to become centenarians, it’s because they have connection, it’s because they have these things. It’s not because they have the new iPhone or the newest video game. I know that’s something that’s out there, I know it’s something we do. But really, use this season as a time for reflection of how you have what you have and that you’re very happy to have it. I know that’s what I’m doing. Selling my stuff is kind of freeing and I’m feeling really good about it. I’m feeling really good about this move. Our house is going to go on the market and that’s going to be another thing that’s not there for us to worry about. And that’s a huge, huge stress reduction from us.
So, as you’re thinking about this season, think about your health, think about your wellness. And if you need a guide to help you, there’s no better time than right now to go out and buy The Wellness Roadmap, because I do talk about some of these things, particularly during the Tactics portion of the book. I strongly encourage you to go out and buy it. If you have a Kindle, you can pre-order it right now for $0.99, and all I ask is that you leave a rating and review when it’s available. The book goes live December 4th, and it’s my goal and I’m working very hard towards that goal of having the paperback, hardbound, e-book, and the audio book all available for that December 4th launch. I’m doing my best with that. Immediately, as soon as I know that I’ve gotten all my ducks in a row with Amazon, I’ll be turning around and trying to make this available on some of the other e-readers and audio book vendors. So, bear with me. It may not be available on Apple Books. It’ll be on Audible, but there are going to be probably some places where you get audio books or e-books that it might not be there. Please bear with me. Send me an email – allan@40plusfitnesspodcast.com. Let me know if there’s a particular e-reader or audio book vendor that you use. If you want to go help me do a little bit of research and getting some of this stuff done, that’d be great too. I’m working towards getting that done. I’m finding some vendors that help do that stuff as well. So, I’m doing my research, but I’ve got to get it all in a row with the Amazon platform first, because that’s the big gorilla in the room. Once I get them settled and I know that everything’s in place there, I’ll be shifting. So, if there’s a particular source you need it from, please let me know and I’ll do my very, very best to get it there for you. I really do appreciate you being a part of the 40+ Fitness podcast. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t know I was reaching you and helping you, so thank you for that.
That’s my gratitude going into this season, is you. You listen to this podcast and I can’t say “Thank you” enough for that time, for you giving that time to me, because I know that your time is the most valuable asset you have. For you to spend that with me, it really does mean a lot to me. So, whether you’re from the United States or not, have a Happy Thanksgiving or a thankful period of time, at least for the next week or so. Try to avoid the commercialism and use this time of year for more connection and more personal involvement with the lives of others. You’re going to feel a lot better by doing so. Thank you.
