You're listening to “Financial Advisor Marketing”—the best show on the planet for financial advisors who want to get more clients, without all the stress. You're about to get the real scoop on everything from lead generation to closing the deal.
James is the founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com, where you can find an entire suite of products designed to help financial advisors grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now, here is your host, James Pollard.
James: Financial Advisors, what's going on? There's another episode this week of the Financial Advisor Marketing podcast, coming live to your ears. Well, not live. It's live for you, live for me, we'll see. And I have a very special guest, Stevyn Guinnip.
The reason I wanted to have her on the show is because she is just a masterful source of knowledge about health and how financial advisors can grow “wellthy.” In fact, her website is Grow Wellthy, W-E-L-L-T-H-Y [dot] com, and she brings a lot of topics to the surface that I think can benefit financial advisors, because health is wealth. [01:10.5]
Financial advisors talk about numbers and retirement plans, and doing well with your money through budgeting, and I mean, I could go on with that sort of stuff for days, but they're not as confident with their health and I wouldn't expect them to be. That's why I'd like to bring the expert here to talk about how financial advisors can improve their health and why they should be interested in improving their health, perhaps even more importantly.
So, now I'd like to let Stevyn take the floor. Introduce yourself and let's get started. Thank you for being here. Thank you for doing this.
Stevyn: And thank you so much, James. I'm so glad to be here. I've been following you for a while and I'm thrilled that you are spreading this message, not only by bringing me onto the show, but by living this life yourself, which is super inspiring for me. [01:53.3]
My background, the reason I'm even in this industry is because my dad was an advisor for 32 years. I was a kid growing up inside that household, and I got to see everything good and bad about this industry and this career, and what I do now is part of the reason why I chose not to go into the career. It’s because I saw too many advisors mortgaging their health for their career. I saw too many advisors miserable, broken, unhappy with a huge bank account, and it was over and over.
Then I started seeing people in my dad's office who were diligent, the clients diligent about putting their money in all the right places, and then they would retire and die next year or be very sick and spend all their money on sick care. It didn't sit well with me then. It doesn't sit well with me now, and so I went and became an exercise physiologist, did not take over my dad's business. Maybe in hindsight, I should have, but I wanted to go try to fix this problem and give people the retirements that they really were looking for, which has a health component, and while this career can be amazing and give you so much, it can take a lot from you and one of those assets is your health that it can utterly destroy. [03:08.6]
That's what I do. Six years ago, maybe it's seven now, circled back after 20 years as an exercise physiologist and said I'm only going to serve these people who mean so much to me to help them navigate their career, keep their health intact, and help their clients do the same thing.
James: That is a great story. I think you have a unique vantage point because you are a financial advisor's daughter and you have something that, even if someone is interested in physical fitness and physical health and they come into this industry, they still don't have what you have.
This might sound kind of callous, but for the financial advisors who are listening, I think that the holy trinity of succeeding in life is being healthy, being wealthy, and being wise. The inverse of that is being unhealthy, so, fat, dumb and broke, and you need to get all three. You need to be healthy, because financial advisors can be super smart people and they know a bunch of stuff, and they can make a lot of money in the industry. But what is all that good for if you don't have your health? [04:09.0]
Stevyn: Exactly, and one of the questions I ask advisors all the time is, when is enough enough? When are you going to stop chasing AUM and start cultivating the other crops of your life? Because the research is very clear, we know for a fact what retirees want from their lives. They want happy, fulfilling, active freedom, all of those types of things in their retirement, and when they only have money, they're not successful.
If you ask them, we know that the number one ingredient for a happy retirement is good health. We've seen the study, Age Wave Study. Edward Jones, Merrill Lynch, they've done the studies over the past several years. We know the information. The number one reason for an early retirement, unplanned early retirement, is a health crisis. The number one fear or worry in retirement is healthcare costs. [04:59.7]
Health continues to bubble to the top and it's so integrated into our financial outcomes that sometimes we don't even realize that it's such a big part of the equation and we think, Oh, if we get all of our money in line and we grow our business and our practice, everything else will fall into place, and I'm here to tell you, it does not work that way. If you don't have an intentional strategy around your relationships, around your purpose, around your health, those things don't just happen, just like your money. Your money doesn't just happen.
So, when we look at the four pillars of a happy, healthy retirement, we look at, in this order, they are health, relationships, purpose, and finance. Finance is at the end. It's part of [it]. It's a tool, just like health is a tool, but it's something that we're ignoring. We are not building it into our lives and into our practices’ culture to be able to spread this word to our clients, and when we do that, oh my gosh, it makes the advisor so authentic. [06:00.8]
It makes them like a magnet where they just attract people who want to be like them and have that part of their life in order, and feel that confidence and peace of mind, too, so it should be a part of every advisor's focus for their personal life, but as well as for their business, in my opinion.
James: I didn't even think about that and here I am sitting here thinking, oh, you're just going to help financial advisors get healthier and live a better life. But you're right, they can take that knowledge and use it to help their clients as well, and that's something I try to drill into financial advisors’ heads all the time. It's like, you see the retirees, you see pre-retirees. Put the two together. Tell the pre-retirees, this is what my retiree clients want and wish they had and need, a quarter of a million dollars for healthcare expenses. We can get to that later if we want to. But it's expensive to not be healthy.
Stevyn: Yeah.
James: But, yeah, they can totally do that. I didn't even think about that, so thank you for sharing.
Stevyn: Honestly, I didn't think about it either because I'm like, I'm here to help advisors. That's who I care about. That's who I want to equip and want to make them the hero of their businesses and their lives. But advisors kept coming to me going, “This information needs to go out to my clients. I need to add this value to them. How do we do that?” and I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I don't have any system for that. I don't know. [07:16.8]
For two years, they've been asking, and that's why, this year, in 2023, I launched the “wellth” webinars, and so advisors can actually build wellness into the culture of their client base and open really hard conversations and educate about health and wealth and how that connects, and how to look at your finances through that lens, and it's a referral source. It can add value. It's a business growth tactic that I don't think even I realized how big this could be and how important it could be, not only for the advisor to equip them with their own energy and confidence and longevity, but to infuse their business with the same thing.
James: That's exactly what I would do. I'd do a webinar. I'd do a course. I'd do something, something scalable. So, that's a great idea and I think it'll be a huge benefit, a huge referral source, as you've mentioned. [08:06.2]
But for the advisors, specifically, the people who listened to this show, there's a wide range. There are people in their twenties, thirties, forties, fifties. But I would say that if I had to take a slice of the average financial advisor, it would be someone who is in his forties, and I say that because it’s predominantly males who listen to this show, and in financial services, for better or for worse. For that person, what are some of the biggest health problems you see? Is it obesity? Is it pelvic tilt from sitting all day? What are some problems that the 40-year-old person suffers from?
Stevyn: If I had to rate, name one thing, it would be metabolic dysfunction, and I know that's a big word and probably people don't know what that means, but it's whenever you start to see, after age 40, the waist size starts to kind of increase and get thicker around the belly button, and then cravings and night eating kind of pops up, and then maybe blood pressure starts to go up a little bit. [09:07.7]
You just start to see triglycerides are a little bit high, and these little niggly things that start to creep up and change is the most common thing that it's not a disease, it's not a diagnosis necessarily. It's just a lot of smoking guns that you're like, Things aren't quite right, and there's actually five things in metabolic disorder. If you have three or more, you have metabolic syndrome, which means you are headed toward heart disease, diabetes, and cancers. That's your road that you're on.
People come to me and say, “Hey, now I'm getting-- my weight is as heavy as I’ve ever been. I need some help in my weight,” but really the problem is at a cellular level and we have to go in and kind of correct what's happening and how your body uses and stores its energy, and how it rejuvenates itself and repairs itself. [10:00.5]
So, why do they come to me? Typically, it’s because they see their waist or their weight increasing, but when we dig deeper, we find out that it's a much more systemic issue than just that.
James: I don't want to talk over my audience right now, but we talked a little bit before hitting record, and I'm into this stuff, too, and I'm wondering how much stress plays into that. Just financial advisors can be stressed out of their minds sometimes, and that affects their metabolism, correct?
Stevyn: Absolutely. It's kind of pouring acid inside of your body. It affects every single cell of your body in a physical sense. You think of stress as being just mental anxiety or overwhelm or whatever, but there's a physical response, from a chemical perspective, from a hormonal perspective, from a recovery, from a sleep, all of it. It touches everything, and I’ve interviewed 474 advisors on this topic and I’ve asked them about their stress. The average advisor, on a scale of one to 10, spends most of their time at a Level 7 on stress. [11:07.6]
James: Oh, yeah?
Stevyn: Yeah, and the interesting correlation, James, is that when someone has a lower stress level, let's say, they sit at a two, three or a four on their daily stress, typically, their health is at a seven, eight, or a nine, so there's a converse relationship between stress and physical health. If you're highly stressed and your health is low, on a scale of one to 10, that's kind of a toxic cocktail for a disease that’s headed your way.
James: That's interesting. One of the things that I read, this must have been two years ago, is the scariest movies based on people's heart rate when they were watching it, and it was like the Conjuring and Insidious, and people's heart rates got up into the triple digits when they were watching this movie. And people were thinking, Oh, it's not that big of a deal. We're just watching one horror movie. But your heart rate is so elevated. [12:04.5]
Now imagine watching the Conjuring all day, every day, for years, and imagine the effect that it would have on your body. That's what happens when you're stressed and your cortisol level spike. It's like you're watching a scary movie constantly and your body has that response, and it never gets the chance to calm down.
When it was explained to me that way, I personally started taking it more seriously, because I'm still stressed. I'm stressed all the time, but not as stressed as I used to be and I'm making progress on it. But I think that financial advisors need to take that a lot more seriously. It's just to actively look for ways to destress.
Stevyn: Yeah, it's like taking the trash out of the bathroom and then taking it out of the kitchen, and then at the end of the day, you take all the trash to the big dumpster. That's what we have to do throughout our days. Every hour, couple hours, take the trash out and just go back to settle. Settle the hormones, the blood pressure, the heart rate. Let them all settle. [13:06.3]
You can tell if you're under stress. If you have a tracker and you look at your heart rate, right now, mine is in the eighties. I'm on right now. I'm talking to you, my heart rate is up. But if I stay there all day long, that's a stress response. That's sympathetic nervous system. That's fight and flight. That's action. But if you stay there all day long, it becomes distress and then it starts to tear your body down.
So, I tell people, every hour, get up and move for at least one or two minutes and close some of your stress loops. What's going on? What do you need to address? Think about it. Breathe through. Stretch. Go for a walk. Something, and just close it up, resettle, and start again. Because your body is not meant to be, like you said, in that stress state all day, you have to go into parasympathetic, which is rest and digest. [13:56.2]
Just as an example, no matter how fit you are, no matter how well you eat or how much exercise you do, if there's a constant level of chronic stress in your life, it dissolves all of that and does not protect you. It still will damage your body. It's that important.
James: What are some of your favorite trackers that you like to use or recommend?
Stevyn: There's so many cool ones out there. I’ve looked at them all, I've tried them all, and honestly, I stick with the Fitbit, and the reason I do the Fitbit is because it gives me the most information. Maybe it's not the best of all the information, but it's the most wide range of information.
I like to track sleep, but I want to track REM and deep sleep, too. I want to sleep score. I want to track Active Zone Minutes for cardio. We should have between 150 and 300 a week on those. I like to track NEAT, which is non-exercise activity thermogenesis. It's a fancy way of saying steps, and that are feathered throughout your day. [15:02.0]
Plus, when I coach my clients, I’ve got this HIPAA-compliant portal and the Fitbit link is right up, and so I can see all their data right away, so there's lots of reasons why I like that one, but it gives me what I need. What about you?
James: That's awesome. I use the Oura Ring.
Stevyn: Yeah?
James: The only reason I use it is because I don't like wearing watches in my sleep and having anything on my hands. It just slides right off and it gets all messed up. This stays on, so that's really the answer.
Stevyn: Yeah.
James: What I have noticed from tracking my sleep is, over years, so this did not happen overnight, so, anybody who's listening and just saying, “I'm going to get a quick fix,” this is not true, but by stacking little wins, for example, changing my phone and computer color or light to warm light instead of the cool and the blues, not having any light in the bedroom, by changing the comforter weight—weighted blankets tend to help people by making it cooler in there—so on and so forth, I was able to increase the amount of deep sleep I get and increase the amount of REM sleep. [16:03.2]
What ended up happening was I would get more of the good sleep, so deep and REM, in six hours than the average person gets in nine hours, so I would feel more refreshed. I would feel better by getting better sleep. For anyone listening who wants to model what I did, I have something at TheAdvisorCoach.com/sleep, and I basically spell out the most important things I did to get that.
But I absolutely love the fact that you're using Fitbit and that you recommend it. Having a Fitbit link to a portal, where you can just upload your stats and everything, that's super cool. But for the people who are thinking, Gee, I don't want to spend all this money. I've heard James talk about red light therapy and the BedJet, and that's hundreds of dollars. Is there anything that people can do that's either free or cheap to get started right away?
Stevyn: Yes. First thing in the morning, within the first 10 to 30 minutes, get your eyes on sunlight. Seriously, that is so important. It's like sticking a stake in the ground from your metabolism, your circadian rhythm, and doing that will directly impact how deep your sleep goes that next night. So, eyes on sunlight. [17:15.6]
Huberman said a cool quote this week. He said, “Sunlight before screen light.” Get your eyes outside on sun, not walking directly at the sun -
James: Yeah, of course.
Stevyn: - but just some sunlight, yeah, and that is a trigger inside of your circadian rhythm in your brain, and you've got more clocks in your heart, in your gut, in your stomach, in everywhere. There's all these little clocks, and when they get dysregulated, then you have all this random stuff and your body doesn't work optimally, so we want to sync it all together. One of the best ways is with light.
Like you said, get the lights off at night. Get your eyes on sunlight in the morning. There's two other ways to do it: movement and food. All three of those, light, movement, and food, if you time those correctly, you will re-sync all your clocks and your body begins to work better, and you get into those deeper sleeps. [18:08.6]
Why do we care about deeper sleeps? When you feel more rested, you have more energy. You burn more body fat. You repair your cells. It just is this cascade of good things that happen when you get into that deep sleep.
James: That is an awesome tip. I try to do that. I don't do that every single day, I must confess. What I try to do is get out, get sunlight. I also do something called grounding, which is bare feet.
Stevyn: Oh, yeah.
James: Bare feet on the actual ground. I don't remember why I do that, because I got started years ago and it's just a habit now, but I can tell you it didn't make a difference. I know there are grounding pads that you can put in your house, and financial advisors listening to this are like, What the heck is he talking about? But go to Amazon and type in “grounding pad”, and you'll see what I'm talking about. But, essentially, bare feet to ground, that helps, too. But, yes, the sunlight, I’ve noticed that as well. That is so important. [18:59.0]
What about flexibility? Any basic stretches that financial advisors should know in between? Let's imagine they're at their office and they're sitting, sitting, sitting. In between meetings, they've got 10 minutes. Are there any basic stretches they can do?
Stevyn: Yeah, so chant this to yourselves, financial advisors. “The next position is the best position.” Wherever you are right now, I'm sitting here with my legs crossed, I don't want to stay here more than 30 minutes without changing my position. Your body loves to move. It's made to move. It's like a racehorse. If you lock it in a stall all day, that racehorse is going to go crazy, get weird habits of chewing on the wood, and develop all kinds of pains and die early.
This is the same with us. We have to move, and if we don't move, our joints don't get lubrication in them, which is called synovial fluid, and then they begin to break down and arthritis sets in, so you have to move your joints occasionally. I tell people, top of every hour, take five minutes or between your meetings, if you have to, and just move for two minutes, and you can do some stretches. But if you have a standing desk, stand up for a little bit, but don't stay standing. Sit down for a little bit. Maybe then go for a walk and talk on the phone, if you can. [20:11.0]
But there's this cool little trick you guys can do. Stand up against the wall. Put your heels, your hips, and your shoulders against the wall, and then measure how far, how many inches are between your head and the back of the wall. Okay, that's a postural issue because we sit too much and we're too hunched over, and for most people, it's going to be several inches when they just stand against the wall.
Then you want to get up and do a stretch, where you put yourself on your desk, like in a front support where you're kind of leaning on your desk, and just open one arm and kind of look and twist, and then put the arm back down and go the other side, and open that arm and twist your body. It's magic. It's seriously magic, because your brain is so smart at rebalancing all these structures that if you just do a little bit of movement, go back and stand by the wall again, and that will have reduced by at least half and maybe your head is sitting right on the wall. It's the coolest thing. So, just do stuff like that that's going to help your body rebalance itself. [21:15.0]
James, when we sit too much, we lengthen our glute muscle and we shorten our hip flexor on the front of our hip, and then it throws off the whole structure of our back, and then your hip flexors are so short, it actually goes diagonally through your body and it attaches to your lower lumbar and people are like, Oh my gosh, my back hurts, I need to go sit down.
It actually might be that the front of your leg is so short because you've sat too much, so doing some stretching, like runner stretches, where you can get your leg behind you and open up that hip, is going to be helpful, too. [21:45.5]
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James: You're actually talking about something that happened to me. I made a bunch of money as an affiliate for a program called Unlock Your Hip Flexors. The reason I made so much money with it, and this is the marketing show, Financial Advisor Marketing, I'm good at copywriting and so on, so I had an email sequence and, basically, sold this product called Unlock Your Hip Flexors, because I had that problem.
I had the pelvic tilt because I sat so much, and I had to do the stretches, the squats, and I would have my elbows pushing my knees out and I would do the runner stretch. I don't remember if I had weak back muscles or weak abdominals. One was super strong and one was super weak, and it made the tilt worse and I think that happens to a lot of people.
Stevyn: Yeah.
James: It happens to, gosh, I don't want to say baseball players, but there's a certain profession where it's super common and it's just like their butt sticks out and their gut sticks out, so you have butt and gut sticking out. [23:03.3]
Stevyn: Yeah.
James: Yeah, and that happened to me, and doing those hip stretches and unlocking the hip flexors is what helped a lot.
Stevyn: Yeah, yeah.
James: We talked about the-- that's cheaper stuff or free stuff actually. I mean, stretching is free. Getting sunlight is free. The sun hasn't started charging yet. If someone wants to bump it up—and this is where we're getting more or less into my territory because I’ve invested/spent a lot of money on weird health stuff—if someone is willing to spend like money is no object, what are some of the first things you would go for?
Stevyn: You can willy-nilly, like popcorn, try out a whole bunch of different things. In my opinion, strategy is key. What are you trying to accomplish? Because you can spin in circles and try a whole bunch of things that aren't going to really progress you forward, so what is your goal? First of all, be aware. Assess yourself. Know what your numbers are, your blood work. Do a fitness assessment. Hop on the Renpho. It's cheap, guys. It's, like, 20 bucks on Amazon and it's going to give you your body fat, your muscle mass, and even give you a metabolic age. [24:13.8]
So, know who you are, know where you're starting. Then after that, what are we going to do to work toward those particular goals that you have, whether it's longevity or to get your cholesterol under control, or to climb a mountain or whatever? Then you address it strategically with the physiology, because the last thing we want to do is work against our bodies and fight them, like, I'm going to overcome this. No, it doesn't work that way.
Instead, flow with how your body wants to naturally work and then just put your paddle in and navigate around the rocks, but don't try to walk up the stream, basically. So, I recommend understanding how your body works and then creating a plan just like you would do for financials.
Gather all the data and create your plan. Once you have your plan, then you can go into the behavior change and start working on your habits and do those things, apply them, and that's how I’ve structured what I do. It’s to come in and work with me for six weeks, let's get your plan. What are you even doing? And being strategic and smart, high ROI, low investment of time. That's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck, and then you can go and execute on that plan.
That's kind of my bent and why I created it this way. And hire a personal trainer. You can do that. That's only working fitness. Hire a nutritionist. You can do that. That's only working nutrition. We want to glom it all together in a thing, a plan that works together with what you're trying to accomplish, because if you're lifting heavy weights but you don't have enough protein, you're kind of one step forward, two steps back kind of thing, so it's important that everything you're doing works together. [25:57.4]
That's what I did when I created the “wellth” plan. It's only for financial advisors or financial professionals, and it's taking financial concepts and turning or skill-transferring them to the other asset of your health, and it follows a very similar procedure to what you're already doing. That's what I’ve seen works the best.
James: And I can tell that you're really passionate about helping financial advisors, because you, more or less, speak their language, because you're starting with a foundation and you're building a plan from there, and that sounds an awful lot like what financial advisors do.
One of the things that came to my head, thinking about the foundation, a lot of people don't realize that their local colleges and universities, they have different programs and different sections that will take these measurements for you. They can do it. Now, this is not a recommendation for me because I take the Everlywell Food-Sensitivity Test and I have my own sorts of things that I do. But if you are someone who wants to get this foundation and you want to give it, get it for cheap or free, you can call your local college or university and just ask, “What programs are available, if I am not a test subject?” [27:07.1]
You're not going to be doing anything weird, but they'll get your body fat and your metabolic rate, and they will give some basic recommendations, because these students, both undergrad and grad students, are always looking for ways to apply their skills and to get before and after and get case studies. So, you could even do that, if you're someone who is listening, looking for a takeaway.
Stevyn: Yeah, I was actually that grad student at one time doing all of the body pinch tests and doing that for people, so you definitely can do that. Technology is so advanced, though, that you can do a lot of it from your own home as well, like I said, with the Renpho and maybe it's Everlywell, or maybe it's LetsGetChecked or any of those that you can actually do your own blood work from your own home, and you can pay for it and send it out and get it yourself.
The problem is some people don't want a diagnosis from their doctor, because if they get a diagnosis, then it changes their insurance, and then their premiums go up and then they have this record, right? So, if you want to take things into your own hand, you're going to try to get your insurance to go up or get long-term care or whatever, do this stuff first before you get the record, and then it's going to save you tons of money on your premiums later. So, know your numbers, get them. Make some changes, and then apply for your insurances. That's my recommendation. [28:19.0]
James: And you said it's the Renfro. Is that the thing that you grip and you just hold it for a minute?
Stevyn: This is a scale. It's a $20 scale. You stand on it.
James: You stand on it.
Stevyn: And it's got these electrodes, and then it tests body fat, too.
James: Okay.
Stevyn: As well as weight and all this other stuff, and then it sends it directly to your phone, so you can see a graph of it over time of how things are changing, because a lot of people will try to lose weight, but then they don't eat enough and they end up metabolizing their own muscle. If we're not seeing muscle maintained and we're seeing it start to lose, we know we need to change something because your muscle is your longevity reservoir. That is your nest egg for your future. We don't want to lose muscle. And that information helps us drive what we're going to do, as far as changes go. [29:04.4]
James: Yeah, because I used to have this little thing that you would grip and it would send the electrodes out -
Stevyn: Yeah, same thing.
James: - and I would drink a bunch of water and then the measurement would change. I'd be like, Yes, I'd lost all this body fat by drinking water and gamed the system. It did not work very well, so I'm glad to hear that technology has improved, especially because, we talked at the beginning, the waistline, a lot of the fat will store around the waistline in the hips for men and for women, and just getting rid of that has a huge benefit.
Stevyn: Yeah, guys, if you have growing waistlines, that is a metabolically active fat and we want to do anything we can to start to reduce that, because it's a sign that something is not working, so if that's happening-- In fact, I don't care about BMI. I don't care about what the doctor says you should weigh or any of that stuff. But the waist measurement is the one number that rules them all. That gives us the most information about what's happening metabolically inside of your body. [30:00.0]
Do your height. Then measure your waist at the belly button level, not the pants size, but the belly button level, and then divide them. Divide the waist by the height, and that number should be 0.5 or less, and if it's not, you need to talk to somebody and you need to get a plan in place, for sure.
James: I think I might be almost, I mean, 0.4 something. I’ll have to make that measurement. I'll have to test it for myself. I'm definitely obese in the BMI category. I used to do a lot of powerlifting and stuff in college and eating, and I still lift. We talked about the gym. So, I'm obese according to the BMI, but if I stand up and if you look at me -
Stevyn: I hate that BMI.
James: - I'm not obese.
Stevyn: Right.
James: And I'm sure Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is obese and Dave Bautista, these are obese people, but are they really? So, I'm glad you pointed that out, because I actually have heard from advisors who are trying to get to that weight, and if you're 6’3” and you're super muscular, and you're trying to get to 210 or 205, or whatever it is, it's not a good look and that's not health. It's not health. It's just a number. [31:05.1]
Stevyn: It's just a number, exactly. I mean, it's “a” number and we should know what it is and where it's trending, but it's not “the” number, so, yeah, I hundred percent agree.
James: Some of the routines that I have, one of the reasons why I wanted to dig into if people are willing to get the cool equipment in and all the fancy stuff is because financial advisors or longtime listeners have likely heard me talk about the sleep stuff, the red light therapy, the hyperbaric chamber—and, by the way, people jump too quickly to the chamber and there's too much oxygen for people. I don't want to go down that today, but people who are listening and thinking that that's cool, that’s not cool and that's not something you should do regularly, because I’ve gotten emails from advisors about that.
Stevyn: Yeah. [31:52.3]
James: Are there any quick and easy changes that you see advisors making to their diets that can help them in the long term? Because I know eating healthy, some people say, “Oh, well, that's too expensive,” or “I don't have the time for it,” and I’ve found that to not really be true. I spend the money on pre-packaged meals and delivered meals. I use Fresh N Lean, I use HelloFresh. I use all of these different services, and I will admit, it is 10 bucks, 11 bucks per lunch, per breakfast.
Stevyn: Right.
James: So, it can add up. Is there anything that advisors can do just quickly and easily to improve their diet?
Stevyn: Yeah, it does take a little bit of time, if you don't want to spend the money, right? You're just going to have to put a little bit of effort into it, but create what I call them “money meals” and these are a go-to library of meals that you can have stashed, places like at your office or in your house where you know always have the ingredients and that they meet some basic requirements.
When I say “basic requirements,” I'm like a handful of protein, a deck of cards, a palm of protein at every meal. Healthy, good, high-quality protein, obviously. Then, fiber. Oh my gosh, at least here in the United States, we do not eat nearly enough fiber, and so what that does is it messes up our guts and our sugars, and all kinds of stuff. [33:12.8]
So, when you're creating a meal or looking at a food, look at its carb to fiber ratio, and we want that to be about 5:1. Just as an example, if you pick a bread and it's got 20 grams of carbs and it only has 1 gram of fiber, that's a 20:1 ratio. It's not good. Go for something that's better and higher fibers.
Then download this app called the Daily Dozen. It's awesome.
James: Daily Dozen.
Stevyn: Daily Dozen is free and it's by Dr. Greger of the NutritionFacts.org, and he created this based on his book called How Not to Die.
James: Oh, I’ve read that. Yeah, I love that.
Stevyn: Have you?
James: Yes. [33:57.0]
Stevyn: Yeah. How Not to Die is a thick book full of research, right? But the app just brings it all into a little happy little place, and it's got 24 check boxes that you can do that are in 12 different categories of the healthiest foods that are going to support longevity.
So, that is where you are going to be able to, instead of taking food out of your diet, it's about taking food into your diet, so it crowds out naturally the stuff that shouldn't be there, because you're like, Ooh, can I just get one more servings of beans and one more servings of greens? and then, all of a sudden, you have so much fullness and good nutrition that you don't need the pack of chips tonight. Right? So, it's a really fun way to improve your diet quickly in a gamification sort of checkboxes where it feels really good.
James: I'm so glad you mentioned that. I actually love that book, so financial advisors, get How Not to Die. I'm actually reading through some of my notes here. It says, “Constipation can be considered a nutrient-deficiency disease, and that nutrient is fiber,” so apples, leafy greens get in there. [35:08.5]
There's a lot of interesting research in this book. It says only 3 percent of Americans may even reach the recommended minimum daily intake of fiber, so if 100 people are listening to me and you're thinking, I get enough fiber, you're probably wrong. It's incredible, and this talks about the kale, how Americans don't eat enough kale. Then you have the beans, split peas, chickpeas. There are so many options available to you. It’s just incredible that that is quick, not necessarily easy, you have to find the fiber, but just eat the darn stuff.
Stevyn: Yeah.
Ames: And it normalizes your blood sugar. It's an incredible book. If you haven't read it, get How Not to Die.
Stevyn: Yeah, and then get the app, the Daily Dozen, and when I run my clients through that app as a baseline number, most of them are getting six out of 24 on a daily average, six, and that includes water, so people are not eating nearly as many nutrients as they should be at all. [36:04.3]
Now, should you get all 24 of them? It's almost impossible. I've done it, but it's hard to do. What I’ve noticed is that really great health happens when people are getting about 15 on average on that Daily Dozen list, so give it a try. Do it with your family. Check it out.
The other app I love is called Bobby Approved. It's free also, and you just scan your food, the label on any boxed food, and it will tell you if it's approved or not approved by this guy named Bobby, and if it's not approved, it gives you in red all the reasons he doesn't approve it as a good food for you and then you can make an informed decision if you still want to eat it anyway. But it's a fun way to kind of see how you're doing.
James: When Bobby denies the food, is it because of the ingredients, like it's fructose or high-fructose corn syrup and weird stuff like that, or is it because it's in a box?
Stevyn: No, it's because of the ingredients inside of it.
James: Okay.
Stevyn: It's usually because of natural flavors, canola oils, like industrial seed oils - [37:05.8]
James: Oh, yeah, that’s terrible.
Stevyn: - which are really, really bad for you.
James: Yeah.
Stevyn: Yeah, so if it's got any of those kinds of trigger foods in it, then he won't approve it. There's lots of Bobby-approved stuff at Costco. We shop at Costco all the time, and so we always have that app out. We're like, Is this one? Oh, is this one? And sometimes we'll eat non-Bobby-approved stuff because we don't mind having a little bit of natural flavor because we really like that thing or whatever, so you get to make your choice, but at least it's an informed choice.
James: We didn't even dig into water. For financial advisors who are listening, I do want to have a little side note. We can talk about this after the show or later in a week or two. I tend to eat very well 95 percent of the time, but then the 5 percent just … because I travel and I want to eat this stuff. In Nashville, I want to eat hot chicken, and then if I'm somewhere that’s famous for the cake, like Pittsburgh has the almond torte. That's just ridiculous, but it's terrible for you. And King Cake in Louisiana. That's me, and 5% of the time, if I'm traveling, I eat total garbage. [38:05.5]
Stevyn: Yeah.
James: But when I'm home, I'm super regimented. But back to the water thing, is there a rule of thumb? I hear so many different sources about water, like your body weight or how many ounces, and is there a recommendation that you have for water intake for advisors?
Stevyn: Yeah, the recommendation is half your body weight in ounces. If I weigh 200 pounds, then I'm going to drink 100 ounces. Some people say you don't need to go over 100 ounces, so up to 100 ounces. It's hard, but go by the color of your urine, honestly.
James: That's what I do, yeah. I was going to mention that, if you didn't.
Stevyn: Yeah, that's where you can tell how your body is actually doing. It should not be bright yellow. It should be the color of pale straw kind of.
But the other thing is I am falling in love with the number eight, and I’ll tell you why, because if people can eight, they have great health by doing these eighths, so the eighths stack up so beautifully. [39:05.2]
Get at least 80 ounces of water. Get at least eight hours of sleep. Try not to eat other than from 8:00 to 8:00. That's a pretty basic 12-hour fasting-and-feeding window that most people can stick to. Eight thousand steps, that's the new research I just saw last month that that's where there's an actual plateaued difference between people with chronic diseases and people without. It’s around 8,000 steps a day. Just remember the number eight and try to stick to eighties and eights, and that helps. It's a good framework to work off.
James: Wow. I try to get 10,000, and sometimes I, sometimes I do. I’m going to remember that, eight, eight, eight to have great health. And that's a perfect segue, because if people want to have great health, we are coming up on the time here, how can financial advisors get in touch to learn more about you and what you do to help them? [39:58.0]
Stevyn: Sure. I have tons of free resources. If you just want to dip your toe in, follow me on LinkedIn, hit that little bell. I actually post every day about stuff I'm learning from advisors or new research that's out there, so definitely do that.
But if you're curious about your own health, go over to GrowWellthy.com/quiz and take the little quiz. It's five or six questions. It's going to give you a score of zero to 100, and you'll know if you are in the danger zone and need to take action right away. Then, from that quiz, schedule a call with me and we will brainstorm ideas, and maybe I can give you some quick a-has that you can run with, and maybe we need to do a little bit more and you need to join the six week program, I don't know. But that's where I would start.
Now, if you are super healthy and health is important to you, I would recommend that you build that into the culture of your practice, too. Let that be an extension of who you are and build it in, and that's where we want to probably have a conversation about the “wellth” webinar series and delivering educational content to your clients. So, reach out to me through that as well. [41:01.5]
James: And we already know based on the research, and you mentioned Edward Jones' Age Wave. That's a piece of research that I personally love. Retirees like it. They want it. They wish they had it, which means if you're telling people-- Imagine this in any other area of life. Someone who has been there, done that, comes to you and says, “Hey, you, you should probably do this thing. It didn't work out so well for me,” or maybe “Hey, it did work out well for me.” For you to be naive enough to say, “Hmm, I'm going to ignore that completely” -
Stevyn: Yeah.
James: - it speaks volumes about who you are. So, financial advisors, GrowWellthy.com, that's G-R-O-W-W-E-L-L, so like “I'm living well,” T-H-Y [dot] com [slash] quiz. It is an easy quiz. You're going to see here, you select your age group. Then you rate your current health. Then there's rate your average stress. We talked about that and I'm glad we did. Stress is just something you need to address, if you're a financial advisor.
Then which one best describes your weight goal? This is, if you're someone who wants to lose more than 50 pounds, you can select that. If you want to gain weight, you can select that, and that is a goal for some people. If you want to take mass gainers and stuff, then you'll learn the hard way that that's not the best way to do it. [42:12.8]
Then you have your waist-to-height ratio, which we talked about. All this is great stuff, and then you can get dialed in on your health.
The reason I love the quiz model for helping people is because you can give personalized advice, and that is what Stevyn can do for you. So, thank you so much. I'm going to have to have you back on, because there's a lot of stuff that we didn't even cover, so maybe in the fall, maybe late-summer, early-fall, we can do this again -
Stevyn: Awesome.
James: - and dig in a little bit more. But thank you so much for being here. This has been great.
Stevyn: Thank you so much, James.
Ames: All right, financial advisors, with that said, I will catch you next week. [42:47.8]
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