by admin | 29 Jan, 2021 | Andrew's Blog, Wellness
Have you ever been told by someone; ‘stop stressing,’ ‘don’t stress’ or ‘there’s nothing to be stressed about’? When someone says that to you, do you just want to slap them? I know I do! They talk as if it’s not a big deal, right? When actually, for you and for me, it is a big deal. If whatever it is wasn’t a big deal for us, we wouldn’t be stressing about it, so it’s important to validate our stress. Probably more important, however, is to understand why we have it, the damage it’s potentially causing and how we can break the stress cycle.
My latest podcast Feed the brain to be stress resilient, with Dr Delia McCabe has literally blown my mind and given me a totally new perspective on stress and how to manage it. It’s been a long-held belief of mine that we create our own stress with the thoughts we focus on and the perspective with which we look at things. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still believe that, but there is another very significant aspect at play here, which Delia explained to me on this podcast. You can try as hard as you like to have the right mindset, learn new things and deal with stress the best you can, but if your brain isn’t being fed to allow it to function optimally, all the strategies to manage stress, remain calm and stay in control will be much more difficult. She used the analogy of building a house, and that you can’t just build the roof, or even the walls, or even the floor. The most important part of any building is the foundation. Without it, you will end up with a pile of rubble. Many people’s lives are rubble because they haven’t been aware of the proper foundation to build to ensure they are fully able to cope with the demands of life.
Delia has spent many years researching the field of nutritional neuroscience and what she has discovered about the nutritional impact on brain function and hormone production is game-changing. I am going to do a terrible job trying to relay this information, so I strongly recommend you listen to the podcast to get it straight from Delia. However, she explains that stress is very greedy from a nutritional point of view. For the brain to produce the hormones adrenaline, cortisol, serotonin and melatonin it requires us to consume significant nutrient fuel to allow these hormones to be produced in the quantities we need.
The immediate effect of stress on the body is a release of adrenaline and cortisol, the fight or flight hormones. They are useful hormones, but in too much quantity can be damaging, and need to be balanced by more healing hormones. So, if we don’t have a good nutritional foundation, then these two hormones will gobble up all the available nutrients and leave nothing for the body to produce serotonin, which is the body’s calming hormone or melatonin which helps us sleep. Wow! This is mind-blowing information if you really understand it. The stress cycle you may be currently on, can be simply broken by ensuring that your foundation is strong and that your body has the stores of nutrients it needs to feed all hormone production.
If you needed another reason to start eating better, that’s a pretty powerful one. I am not going to bore you with what you should eat, because you already know it, and Delia goes into detail on the podcast and in her books and blogs. What I do want to ask you is, do you want to break the stress cycle you may be on? Do you want to have better moods and stronger relationships with the people you care about? Do you want to be more productive, make more money and live on a beach somewhere? Do you want to look and feel great? Do you want to live your best life, for as long as possible? I am pretty sure you answered yes to those questions. So, are you finally ready to feed your brain and break the stress cycle?
When you eat real foods, natural foods, like; all the colours of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and quality proteins, you will create a stable blood sugar level, which will keep your moods and energy stable so that you can better handle demanding situations. We already knew that, didn’t we? But, now to know that the food you are eating is either feeding or starving your brain and its ability to produce the key hormones that will lead to peace, love, happiness and sleep is the best news I could possibly share with you.
Whilst yes, your mindset is critical to the task of breaking the stress cycle, unless you feed your brain with the right foods, you are not going to be able to focus the mindset on the things that will help you diffuse and solve the issues at hand. This is so easy to do, so please make the decision today to really start eating the way you know you need to eat. Not just to look great, not just to help you maximise your energy and productivity, not just to help your body function optimally, but also to build the foundation that will allow you to break the stress cycle.
by admin | 22 Jan, 2021 | Andrew's Blog, Joyful Longevity
One of the greatest movies of all time and one of my faves is Grease. I’m about to date myself right now, but in 1978, when it was released, I was 14 years old. So, it was made for me and my generation. Watching it made me feel alive, because although a different culture and a fictional storyline, I related to the struggles of teens and I was empowered by the audacious characters. For me, as I’m sure most, the favourite song was ‘The one that I want.’ It was the song that evoked the most emotion for me, particularly the verse:
If you’re filled
With affection
You’re too shy to convey,
Meditate in my direction.
Feel your way.
Obviously, this song and verse are fuelled by sexual tension and emotion, but nevertheless it is a powerful moment in the movie. If you watch the clip, from the movie, you will see John Travolta immediately and powerfully emotionally effected when Olivia sings the line, ‘feel your way!’ This blog is not about Grease, but it is about the power of emotion to move us to great things in life, whether that be romantically, financially, physically, professionally or any other area of your life you are wanting to see happiness and fulfillment. The key, I believe, is to… feel your way!
On my podcast this week, I speak again to the amazing Deborah Stathis. The podcast is called, Harnessing the power of emotion. I urge you to listen to the conversation because Deb describes this far more powerfully than I can. She lived it. After a devastating car accident left her face and brain seriously damaged and disfigured, her future looked bleak. If logical thinking was to prevail, she would not have been at all optimistic about her life ahead. But Deb didn’t act on logic, she felt her way! She looked in the mirror and really studied her face, her damage and her options, and it immediately created fear in her body. Fear of a life well short of what she had planned for herself.
She then used that fear in a constructive way to start thinking about the life she did want, and that vision sparked in her, as she describes it, ‘a relententless pursuit’ of her best life. It was this powerful emotion she felt and harnessed that moved her into action and kept her going until she had overcome every single limiting medical prediction for her life. She is now a gorgeous, fully functioning and inspiring lady making a difference in many lives.
The greatest mistake we make is trying to think our way, when the answer is to feel our way to our best life. If logic ruled, I would never have played professional sport. I was moved by the feeling and excitement of success in that arena. If common sense had prevailed, I would never be an author of eight published books today. It was the desire to change my circumstances and to impact lives that moved me into illogical action that has transformed my life. I am very grateful for the fact that I am a very emotional person and moved far more by feelings and far less that logic.
Here is the one piece of advice I would like to offer you this week; get out of your head quickly, get into your heart and feel your way! When you stay in your head too long, you often talk yourself into and then straight back out of things that if you acted would change your life for the better. Do you know what I mean? When you get an idea, a thought or an impulse, the quicker you can act on the feeling, the quicker you will be in motion. When in motion, things will start to logically unfold, and the path will open itself up to you. I have experienced this time and time again in my life.
Will you make some mistakes? Probably. Will you need to course correct at times? Definitely. Will you end up loving your life? Absolutely. You can’t go wrong if you act on an intuitive impulse. So, right now, as you are reading this, what is it in your life you want to change, achieve, acquire or resolve? Have you got a clear picture of what you want? When you think of being there in that moment, having realised that vision, how does it feel? You may not know exactly how to go about it, but don’t waste that powerful emotion. Get clear, get excited, get moving and… feel your way!
by admin | 16 Jan, 2021 | Andrew's Blog, Mindset
I don’t know about you, but I have spent far too much of my time on this planet worrying, uncertain and anxious because I was unsure how things would turn out in my life. What I didn’t realise, at the time, was that I already knew the outcome of each aspiration before it ever happened. I would worry about something and then when it didn’t happen the way I wanted it to, I would often say, ‘I knew that would happen!’ Have you ever said that? It’s because you already knew the outcome, by the beliefs you had and the words you used about it.
I have used this analogy before, and here it is again as it helps give a clear picture of what I’m talking about to set up the rest of this blog. I’m not sure if you like sports or not, but let’s just imagine you are a little fanatical about your team. You have all the merchandise, paint your face in the team colours and generally act a little crazy! You attend every game you can, but there is one instance you are unable to watch your team play live because you have a commitment you can’t get out of, so you set your machine to record it and watch it later. Throughout that whole day, you are able to successfully avoid any chance of hearing the scores, as you want to watch it as if it were live. Just as you are about to get home to watch it, you get a text message from a friend who gives away the fact that your team won the game. As disappointed as you are that you know the outcome, you are excited that your team has won, so you settle in to watch the game.
Let me ask you this, at the start of the game when nerves would normally be high, how are you feeling? Relaxed, right? Why? Because you know the result. What about when your team plays terribly in the first half and are well behind on the scoreboard? Are you stressed, anxious, angry or frustrated? Of course not, because you know the outcome and that your team wins. In fact, during the whole game you are relaxed and able to enjoy every second, because right from the beginning of the game, you knew the outcome.
So, why am I telling you this story? Because, I want you to start looking at aspirations in your life the same way. If you set your mind to an outcome you want, if you affirm and reinforce that focus and if you take the predictable daily action, then you don’t have to be stressed, anxious, angry or frustrated because you already know the outcome. The outcome will be predictable. When I made the decision to write my first book, even despite the fact that I had no time, no experience, no qualifications and no clue how to go about it, I was relaxed and confident. Why? Because, I knew that if I just started writing, and wrote every day and if I continued to do what I needed to do, the outcome would be predictable. Before I even began, I already knew the outcome. It happened!
In my podcast this week called ‘Headstrong – Keep dancing,’ I talk to the amazing Heather Rendulic about her new book, Headstrong, and her journey with a brain lesion called a Carvernous Angioma. This brain lesion led to five bleeds and ultimately a nine-hour brain surgery at the age of 22. Before the surgery doctors stated that there were a few possibly outcomes; she may die, be paralysed, be unable to talk or may even have a different personality. So, you can imagine the fear that Heather must have experienced as she was put under anaesthetic. But, no, in Heather’s mind, she knew already the outcome, and that was that she would yet again be an independent and fully functioning person.
As she woke from the surgery, her family was around her. Her older sister, who was to be married six months later, was sitting and sobbing for her younger sister. Heather woke from the surgery, paralysed, saw her sister sobbing and, with all sorts of tubes in her brain and half effected by the medication, said, ‘Stop your sobbing, I’ll be dancing at your wedding.’ Amazingly, despite all professional opinions, Heather was dancing at her sister’s wedding. Why? She already knew the outcome. She had decided she would be well and independent, she focussed on it, she affirmed it and she took action every day until it was a reality.
My point is that the outcomes in your life are already known by you. You may not believe me, but they are determined by the words you use and the things you believe. If you believe you can, tell yourself you will, decide to get it done and do what you need to do, there is no need to worry, your outcome is done and the result predictable. If you doubt yourself, tell yourself all the reasons why you can’t achieve something, you won’t even get started and the outcome will be equally as predictable. So, your outcomes in life are known by you because they wrapped up in the words you choose to use.
From today onwards, create the outcomes you want by believing in yourself, affirming success and using the words and statements you want to create. You don’t need a crystal ball, you don’t need a palm reader, you don’t need a clairvoyant, and you don’t need someone telling you the game score. Your results in life are controlled by you, so relax have fun and enjoy an amazing life, as you already know the outcome.
by admin | 8 Jan, 2021 | Andrew's Blog, Inspiration
There are a few certainties in life and one of them is that undesirable things will happen. Or are they undesirable? Hmmm, interesting question! Depending on where you live in the world, you are currently experiencing some level of COVID, which was supposed to be gone by 2021, wasn’t it? You may have experienced loss of a job, a relationship, a level of your health or something else that was important to you? That adversity you experienced or are currently experiencing can be an absolute gift if you choose it to be. So, my message this week is, don’t waste that adversity.
I consider myself an extremely blessed person. I grew up in a loving home and had every opportunity to develop myself and create success in my life. I was able to play professional football, become an author and now am incredibly grateful that I have found and am living my purpose. Sure, I have had some challenges throughout my life, but who hasn’t? What I have learned is that those challenges do not define me, but with the proper perspective, it’s my attitude towards them and the actions I take as a result of them which is what defines me.
I am continually inspired by people who have experienced far worse adversity in their lives than I have, yet have not wasted it. Instead, they have used it as a platform to find their purpose, create opportunities and help many people. In my podcast this week called, ‘2020 – The foundation of transformation’ I talk to two of these people. Stacey Copas, who at the age of 12 dived into a shallow pool, broke her neck, drowned and became a quadriplegic. I think you would consider that adversity! She is now an inspirational author, speaker and coach and is using the gift of her trauma as a platform to help many people. Deborah Stathis, at the age of 19 was involved in a devastating car accident which caused life altering spinal, facial and acquired brain injuries. She was told she would never function normally again, but if you interact with her today, you would never know that her face and brain had been ‘smashed in.’ She not only defied overwhelming odds against her, she has used the gift of her accident and trauma to become a globally acclaimed author, speaker coach who is impacting many lives.
Stacy and Deb experienced adversity far greater than most of us ever will, yet have not wasted it. You and I deal with adversity on a daily basis, at some level or another. It may be as simple as your shoelace breaking, getting a flat tyre or running out of milk, or it may be more significant like a health, relationship or financial crisis. The point is, whatever the adversity, don’t waste it. Author and entrepreneur, Robert Kiyosaki says, ‘Within every problem, lies an opportunity.’ The opportunity may be a lesson we need to learn. It may be a platform to grow and expand from. It may be a test to prove to you that you have what it takes to be the person you want to become. It is always an opportunity for you to believe in your inner strength.
I have experienced this to be true in my own life. Getting sacked as a professional footballer opened the door for me to explore a wellness industry career. Owning a failed café and losing close to $100,000 was the lesson and the moment I needed to decide to write my first book. Losing my mother to cancer, as devastating as an event as it was, moved me to write a book about her and use her life, courage and lessons to inspire people all around the world. So, I hope you can see, every adversity is a gift which, when unwrapped, will offer an incredible blessing in your life, and the life of others. The key is, you need to be looking for the opportunity, platform, lesson or test or you will waste this wonderful adversity that has been presented to you and will continue to be presented to you each and every day.
If you can reflect back on 2020 and see all the things that you may have considered as undesirable, can you see the opportunity, platform, lesson or test that came from them? If not, look harder or you will waste them. And, as 2021 unfolds, just know, without taking this as a negative statement, there will be things occur that may seem to be undesirable, BUT they will be wonderful blessings if you will stop, look, learn, explore, question and discover the opportunity, lesson or test that is there just for you. As you move forward from today, please don’t waste wonderful adversity.
by admin | 2 Jan, 2021 | Andrew's Blog, Mindset
2021 is finally here, but really, what’s changed except the date? I know many people have been saying, ‘I can’t wait until 2020 is over and 2021 rolls around.’ They’ve been talking as if, as soon as midnight strikes on December 31, 2020, everything will automatically and magically change for the better. Well, here we are in the first week of 2021 and the only thing that is going to change, if it hasn’t already, is your attitude about making this day – no matter the date or the circumstances – the one when you stop waiting and start winning.
Many people have described the year 2020 – as if the year has anything to do with it – as; ‘a dumpster fire,’ ‘crappy,’ ‘one to forget’ and many other expletive-laden and negative statements. Can I just say, the year had nothing to do with it? The fires had nothing to do with it, the riots had nothing to with it and COVID had nothing to do with it. We, ourselves, had everything to do with it! Yes, that’s right and as much as I know I am ruffling some feathers, I don’t want anyone to waste 2021 by thinking their success, happiness and wellbeing has anything to do with what’s happening around the world. Instead, it has everything to do with what’s happening between our ears!
I have experienced the same year as everyone, and it has been tough for me, like everyone. However, I have said it before and I will say it again, 2020 for me was the most transformational year I have had in a long time. Going into isolation was tough but what I needed to face my insecurities, then get to know and love myself better. Losing many speaking jobs and significant income was terrifying, but exactly what I needed to transform my business online with a global reach. More time at home being unable to go anywhere was lonely and frustrating at times, but saved me money, helped me focus on what’s most important and allowed me to create new things, like my podcast. I know my experience of 2020 was different to other people, but I do know it was a great year for me because I chose to win, not wait.
Please, don’t think in any way I am diminishing what people have faced or what they have had to suffer through and overcome. But then, that has nothing to do with a virus and everything to with living in a world where challenges happen. There’s no doubt, we are in a season, when fear, anxiety and uncertainty are rife, and it can be tough to navigate at times. In fact, there has been more than one time, over the last 12 months, when I have found myself sobbing and in a fetal position on the floor. I just want to encourage you not to think, just because it’s a new year, that things will magically get better. Let me tell you, things will get better the second you decide to win and not wait.
When I say, ‘win and not wait,’ I mean start today – yes, today – taking action to make your life the best it can be. Forget about what’s happening around the world, forget about the fact that it’s a new year and the pressure is on to make a new year’s resolution, and focus on what’s most important in your life. If it’s your health & wellbeing, which I hope it is, stop waiting for a vaccine, the second you take action, you win. If it’s your relationship(s), stop waiting for someone else to make the first move and act. When you do, you win! If it’s your business, stop waiting for a better economic time and get into action. As soon as you do, you’ll be a winner. Stop waiting for things to go back to normal and start now to create your new and improved normal. The second you do, you are winning.
You see, winning has nothing to do with holding a trophy, getting to the top of the mountain or achieving the goal. Winning happens the moment you take action and start moving in the direction of what you want, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant that movement may be. So, it’s with my greatest encouragement that you stop waiting and start moving today. What stops us all, including myself on a regular basis, is ourselves and our fears, anxieties and insecurities. So, I want to urge you to listen to my podcast this week with Morgan Beard, called ‘Behind the music.’ I guarantee it will help.
2021 can be an awesome year for you. Not because it’s a new year, not because it’s not 2020 and not because things will magically get better. It will be an incredible year the instant you decide to stop waiting, start choosing and start winning. You get to choose how this year will be, so, choose abundance, choose courage, choose action, choose love, choose gratitude, choose health, choose significance, choose legacy, choose fun, choose laughter, choose progress and choose different.
Most of all… choose YOU!
by admin | 25 Dec, 2020 | Andrew's Blog, Joyful Longevity
I’m going to make a bold statement right now. In my mind, the reason there are so many unhappy, unhealthy and unfulfilled people in the world is because they were asked the wrong question when they were teenagers, and they keep asking themselves the wrong question. Honestly, how many teenagers have any idea of what they want to do in life? There may be some, but most, like me, have no idea what they want to do. However, I bet they could describe with clarity how they want to live, if they were asked.
As a teenager, I thought I wanted to do one thing and one thing only, to be a famous footballer. My parents didn’t think that’s what I wanted or needed and would continually ask me, ‘Andrew, what do you want to do when you leave school?’ I would tell them, time and time again, ‘I want to be a footballer.’ They loved me and believed I needed an education and were very persistent until I finally relented. I said, ‘Okay, okay, I don’t really care what I do as long as it has something to do with sport.’ I chose to do a Physical Education degree without any concept of where it was leading, because it sounded like ‘sport’ to me.
Well, after my four years of tertiary education, I ended up a teacher.Yikes! That’s not what I wanted to do, and I lasted about four years! I then started asking myself the question, ‘so, what do I want to do now?’ I thought I might want to get into the fitness industry because I liked being fit and healthy, so off I went, and found myself working in a gym which then led me into a personal training career. When I started personal training, I thought I wanted to be a successful personal trainer. Again, I was wrong! I became a successful personal trainer and had no life, as I ended up working from 6am to 9pm as a part owner of a ’successful’ business for 15 years.
Then, as I had learned a lot about and become inspired by nutrition, I thought I wanted to own a café to sell healthy food and educate people. Again, I was horribly wrong. After two years of trying to combine a personal training career with a hospitality business, and working over 100 hours, seven days per week, I found myself with even less of a life and in almost $100,000 debt. At that point I was feeling disillusioned, discouraged and helpless. It was also at that point I finally realised after all these years, at that time I was in my late 30’s, I had been asking myself the wrong question. I had been incorrectly asking myself what I wanted to do, in every case it led me somewhere I didn’t want to be.
So, as I sat with my head-in-my-hands in the debt-ridden café, with no life and with no idea of how to get out of this situation, I asked myself a different question. I asked myself, ‘So Andrew, this is not what you want… how do you actually want to live?’ Immediately, I could see it with clarity. I didn’t have to think about it, research it or postulate over it. I just knew it, because it was in my heart and it was my destiny. I wanted to be making a difference in lives all around the world, I wanted to be financially free. I wanted to be optimally healthy and in a loving relationship. I wanted to be able to travel, speak and inspire. I wanted to be free to choose how I lived my life and spend my time.
By asking that question, my mind opened up to possibility. In fact, it was at that very moment I made what seemed to be the most illogical decision I could make, and I’ve made a few! I decided to write a book. I had no skills, experience, qualifications or time, so why would I make that decision? Because I could see it being the key that unlocks the door for me to be living a life I love. Well, here we are almost 20 years after that crazy decision, I am about to publish my eighth book and I am pretty much living the life of my dreams, the one I visualised when I asked myself that telling question.
This is a long introduction to a pretty simple concept that I hope you will embrace as you reflect on 2020 and launch into 2021. Have you ever asked yourself, how do you want to live? If you did ask yourself this question right now, would you be able to answer it as quickly and clearly as I did when I asked it of myself? If you were able to create clarity about the way you want to live, can you see whether what you are currently doing will lead you there, or not? If not, would it be worth exploring some alternative options, that may not initially seem logical or possible, to help you live a life you love? I truly hope you ask yourself the right question and that you take the action you need to get to be living the way you want to live.
If I have stimulated or agitated something in you as a result of this blog, I would encourage you to listen to my podcast with week with children’s author Adam Wallace, called, ‘Remember death, live forever.’ It’s a wonderful conversation with a man who is living a successful and passionate life and is all about understanding we are only alive for a finite period of time and that a life of passion and purpose is available for us all. We do, however, need to start living, now.
This is my last blog for 2020, a unique year indeed. For me this year, things that I have learned, things I have been forced to change and things that I’ve done have helped me move closer to the life I want to live. 2021 is a blank page for us all, anything is possible, and I wish for you that you make it your best year yet. All I suggest is, before you set any goals or make any news year resolutions, you ask yourself the question, ‘how do I want to live?’
