Ben: 0:07

Welcome. Could the noise wellness simplify? This is episode 42. I am very professional and my name is Ben Hack and I am here with the delightful Lindsay.

Lindsay: 0:18

Well, that was an interesting introduction to us today. Hello, welcome to another episode. We're super excited to have you here, but we are again. You know, I actually quick note on this. I feel like there are times when we talk about the unpopular opinion.

Ben: 0:35

They're the episodes that nobody listens to.

Lindsay: 0:38

That people ignore or skip over because they don't want to be called out themselves.

Ben: 0:43

They're like shit that sounds confronting. Let's pick another one.

Lindsay: 0:46

Let's move forward. So today is going to be one of those episodes. So I'm going to put a little notice on the front of this. Basically, we're going to talk about the elephant in the room.

Ben: 0:56

Oh which one.

Lindsay: 0:57

It's going to piss some people off.

Ben: 0:59

Which one?

Lindsay: 1:05

And just again remember, we always come from a place of love and most of the time we bring these things up because we see them happening with our clients.

Ben: 1:10

You know I hate to say it this way, but like you're not alone, right? Like these things are common, there's trends. We face the same challenges. I'm not talking about life, I'm just talking about when it comes to prioritizing our health and getting fit and eating healthier and moving our body. Like there's some common things that we see. That's not necessarily unique, your circumstances may be a little bit different, but this is definitely one of those that we see all the time and, honestly, you can share what it is, but I always find it interesting because, well, share ahead and we can talk about it.

Lindsay: 1:45

All right, so I did mention elephant in the room. We are going to actually even take that further and be the elephant in our relationship.

Ben: 1:52

Oh, what do you mean by that?

Lindsay: 1:54

So we are talking about the saboteur, and we're actually going to talk a little bit about the different types of people within your journey, but one of those, as a negative saboteur, which could potentially be and we're not calling anyone out here, but could potentially be your spouse- Right you wrote down is your partner a support or a saboteur in your health journey?

Ben: 2:17

Yes, that's the elephant right there. Now, you guys, Now you know, if you're listening to this without earphones on, maybe now is the time to pop those earbuds in and listen privately, because we don't want to upset anybody.

Lindsay: 2:30

We don't want to upset anyone, but we have to really understand the different types of people in this journey, because they do help, support. They also do hinder and sabotage. So we're going to talk about that. So there are four types of supportive roles within any health journey so give us them, just give us the top line.

Ben: 2:50

What are they called each of them? And then then we'll break into going into detail.

Lindsay: 2:55

Image for sure. So the first one is your cheerleader, number two is we call it in the game or ride or die, number three is the coach and number four is the saboteur.

Ben: 3:08

Yes, do you, do you have a percentage for each of those, like a saboteur, like 95 percent of those personalities?

Lindsay: 3:15

I wouldn't say 95. I wouldn't say 95, but I definitely feel like there are all of these people in your life and actually we are going to talk about how to identify them and and what that look like, but let's just go into a little bit of detail about what each of them are and I think, to take the sting out of it a little bit, what we have to recognize is when we're trying to adapt and improve our habits and our routines right, we're dealing with a number of characters.

Ben: 3:39

We're dealing with ourself and the changes that we have to find a way to create. The other thing that we talk about a lot is actually our environment. Our environment conditions that as well. So if our environment mimics our old way of living, you're going to really struggle to change. You need to change your environment as well as changing yourself, and you think about that. One of the people that sits in your environment for many, many hours is your partner or family member or mom or work colleague. I mean these, these roles, these support roles around a partner, can extend to, like your person you sit in the same office with absolutely, and I was going to say we're using partner as an example.

Lindsay: 4:24

but as we go through this, I'm going to we're going to kind of talk about all of those options, but so, so let's just really quickly talk about what each of them are. So a cheerleader.

Ben: 4:33

Cheerleaders.

Lindsay: 4:34

Yeah, it's your rah-rah. It's your person who is on the sidelines clapping you on, cheering you celebrating your milestones, but they're not necessarily in the trenches with you.

Ben: 4:44

I need to speak to this because, working with a lot of women and being a guy myself, it's really interesting to have a guy's perspective when I see this often and I'll often turn around to clients and say who's your number one fan? And they'll say to me, or my husband, and I'll say, okay, well, what is he doing? And they're like, well, what do you mean? I'm like so, what is he doing? And they'll say he's supporting me and I'm like, well, what's he doing? It's like, well, he encourages me and he says encouraging things and he's kind of got my back and I'm like, okay, so what is he doing? And they're like, well, nothing. He still has his junk drawer in the kitchen and he still orders all of the food that he likes. So it's interesting when we talk about the cheerleader, because even in the cheerleader, I think there's an element of saboteur within that.

Lindsay: 5:33

Absolutely so interesting in that far. I was just going to say so. The strength of the cheerleader is they're encouraging words. Repeat they're encouraging words could boost your morale. They could make you feel good, right. They could be the ones that I always say Ben's a really good cheerleader for me, because on the days where I'm like I don't want to and all I want him to do is say yeah, don't worry about it.

Lindsay: 5:52

He's like no, you got this, you know. Show your kids that we can do this hard things. Great, it's encouraging words. We appreciate that. I say it differently and to be honest with you, lindsay, and I don't mind swearing on this podcast, but there's a limit. I don't think I would say what I say to you no, you would not, you would not. But here's the weakness of the cheerleader is that if they're not involved, their support might feel very passive or disconnected, and that's something that Ben had just commented on and we're going to talk a little bit more about that.

Ben: 6:20

It is passive. I mean, it's great to have a cheerleader, but you know you have to overcome your cheerleader sometimes.

Lindsay: 6:26

And think about, even just like a very basic football game, right High school football game You've got the guys playing on the field doing the football, and then you have the cheerleaders who are you know, rallying the crowd and getting people excited, but they aren't doing the work, they're not winning the game. Now I take anybody who is a cheerleader and I know how great that is. I'm not taking that away from what you do but they're not the ones winning the football game.

Ben: 6:47

But I think the most important thing in that sense is you've got to identify what you've got, because once you know what you've got, you know what you're dealing with Right.

Lindsay: 6:54

And we are going to talk about that in a minute. So, let's move to the in the game or the ride or die partner. Okay, this is. This is the person. They're meal prepping with you. Maybe they're meeting you at the gym. You know they're swapping their own netflix binges for evening walks. You know they're the ones who are saying let's go for a walk instead of going out for dinner. You know, they're the ones who are committed to their own journey, then it fuels your experience yeah, no, for sure.

Ben: 7:18

Definitely, ride or die is good, but you know they're good when they're good, but what happens when they're not feeling it? Yeah, we've been.

Lindsay: 7:26

We've been in this situation in the past and I have been in this situation many, many times, where one of us is like ready to go hardcore, like let's go, let's go, and the other one is kind of dragging their feet and let's get pizza let's go.

Lindsay: 7:38

And the thing is and we've talked about this before ben and I, we are good for each other when it comes to supportive in certain times, but then we also know exactly what to say to encourage said person to not, you know, eat right or get pizza or have a burger last night, benjamin.

Ben: 7:57

I know this. I know I had a burger last night everyone. It was absolutely delicious. Actually I'm not even sure it was delicious, it just felt like I don't even know what it felt like it was.

Lindsay: 8:06

It actually wasn't that good okay, so this is a whole other podcast. We can talk about that, but this is the thing, right. So so the the strengths of your cheerleader is it's a shared effort. It reinforces your consistency. You know, when we go for a run on a saturday morning and I don't want to get out of bed, ben's like, yeah, let's get out of bed, let's do it. But when sometimes we're on a, on a food you know space, and I'm like I'm not having a burger and he wants one yeah, that's, that's the cheerleader, though we're in the game, right, that's.

Lindsay: 8:32

That's what we're thinking about now, like the in the game part of things but what I'm saying is that when you're ready to go consistently, we're good, because the weakness of that is that if you're in the game or your ride or die loses momentum, they can pull you down too, and so you know all of these characters, or you know players of the game. They do have strengths and weaknesses, and so that is why we're going to go through all of them and really talk about them. But the idea, of course, is that there's really great positives for the cheerleader and the in the game or the ride or die, but there's also negatives.

Ben: 9:06

Well, let's talk about number three, which is the coach.

Lindsay: 9:08

Right. So a coach, of course, is a partner that takes the role as a strategist.

Ben: 9:12

Anybody who?

Lindsay: 9:12

works with Ben and I we're the coach. Okay, hopefully if you're listening to this podcast regularly. We can help you and support you and strategize with you, have systems sending you motivational articles calling out, you know, miss a miss a workout. They see the bigger picture and they help you, push you towards it. So the strength, of course, for that is, provides accountability and structure.

Lindsay: 9:32

But there is a weakness too, because it can come off yes, we know it can come off sometimes as intense and critical, right and and naggy, and and I know that as myself, as a coach, and even though ben's arguing, I know it can be for him as well, because this is the thing.

Ben: 9:47

I'm not arguing, I'm agreeing.

Lindsay: 9:49

I just don't think I'm naggy, okay, I just think people would describe me as an asshole sometimes well, that is true, everybody listening who's his client are like shaking their head right now in a big old yes. But so, of course, the strengths as a coach is somebody to really help you. I mean, we've talked about outsourced discipline before. We've talked about accountability before, but there are some weaknesses to that, because you can get really annoyed.

Ben: 10:10

It's really. I mean, obviously, this isn't necessarily. You know, you could be the coach in somebody else's life as well, and I think the challenge is and we've all been there is finding the balance between pushing and the balance between pushing and pushing too hard right. If you push enough and encouraging, it feels positive. If you push too much, it can turn people off right, and we've talked about that.

Ben: 10:34

I'm not necessarily greatest coach in the world for Lindsay, because she tends to hate on me when I'm trying to help her correct correct yeah, you know like there's been some times where I'm like whoa, calm down, lindsay, I'm just here trying to love you, to become a better person of yourself, and even right now I'm like just shut up.

Lindsay: 10:54

But but this is the thing right, and we say this often. You know, ben and I are not everybody's cup of tea. Some people really like to have sugarcoating. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, ben's not going to sugarcoat it. We're here to support you. We care so much. We want it to be done. However, um, that might not be for everybody, and we're not, and that's okay too, so so.

Ben: 11:12

So if you want hard truths and be able to make progress, this is what we're all about. If you want to somebody to talk bullshit and tell you're doing everything great and making no progress, then there's people out there for you as well all right, so let's move on to the saboteur which is obviously the elephant in the room.

Lindsay: 11:26

So this is the person who is, unintentionally sometimes, or intentionally sometimes, undermining your own efforts. Okay, so they might bring home junk food, they might dismiss your goals as a phase or guilt you into skipping your healthy habits to make them feel better. So let's talk about that for a second Strength. None, okay, let's be real. There's not a strength.

Ben: 11:51

It's all damage.

Lindsay: 11:53

The weakness, of course, is their influence can derail you faster than anything else.

Ben: 11:59

You know, we could do a whole episode on the saboteur by itself. In actual fact, it might be interesting to do a whole episode on the saboteur itself, because we actual fact it might be interesting to do a whole episode on the saboteur itself, because we can talk this one around and not necessarily the theory of it, but the reality of it, because when you think about it right, this is, this is, from a human psychology perspective, like messy, right, this one's super messy, because often the saboteur it's not just about you, it's about them and more often it's about it is about them and if you're trying to improve yourself, if you're trying to eat cleaner, if you're trying to exercise more, if you're trying to do some of the things to live healthier, that can be threatening yeah, really.

Lindsay: 12:36

So actually, let's do. I think we do. We should have a conversation more about the saboteur, but let's just go over the three main reasons.

Ben: 12:43

Research states. These are the three main reasons why saboteurs happen.

Lindsay: 12:47

Okay, number one is what ben just said insecurity. Your success might highlight what they're not doing and triggering their own self-doubt, and I'll give you a really good example of this. It's not weight loss specific, but alcohol related, right? Neither better. I drink when, if we ever go out which, to be fair, isn't very often the first thing somebody hears. When you don't want to have a drink is why you're no fun, you're no fun, just have one.

Lindsay: 13:10

And all of those is has nothing to do with in my cup and everything to do with what's in their cup well, you know, and again and again, I don't necessarily think this maybe it is relevant.

Ben: 13:21

Obviously, if you've been listening to this podcast, you know, for my own reasons. Well, I don't even know what it is like three years ago, two and a half years ago, that I decided to to give up alcohol to focus on fitness and health, and all of those reasons we did a very unpopular podcast on it.

Ben: 13:37

Like two people listen to it, like two people listen to it and the rest were just like no, I'm passing on that one, but and still, well, not so much now, but actually, yes, it still happens. When I say that, yeah, I decided to give up alcohol for two and a half, two and a half, three years ago, people have a tendency to tell me and justify all the reasons why they drink and like it's got, my decision was just about what I felt was best for me at the time and still do. This isn't about you, but people feel threatened by that decision when they shouldn't. It's their decision to, to, to do what they want to do absolutely well, I think so.

Lindsay: 14:22

I mean, we talked about insecurity, so that's the first thing. The second one is comfort zone. Right, so change is uncomfortable and really growth can challenge the comfort that we have in shared routines. So partners are a really good example of this. So if all of a sudden you're changing the way you eat and now you're putting priority onto your movement and they're not it's a change for them and nobody likes change, right?

Lindsay: 14:42

They really don't feel comfortable there. So that comfort zone is being pushed and it might not even be by their choice. Most people have a conversation with their spouse to say, hey, I'm thinking about changing, changing my routines, I'm looking to get a little bit healthier. But they may not be like, yes, so do I miscommunication is one of those elements that you talk.

Ben: 15:00

You talk about with this and it's so interesting. I came across this with a client where they were tracking their food, photographing their food, sharing their food with me just to me get a sense of where they were at. This was at the very beginning of when I first started working with them and one day they showed me, effectively, a box of pastries and I asked the question I'm like tell me more about this box of pastries, just because I was curious. And they said to me my partner brought it home. They know that I really love these pastries. And my first question was do you have a saboteur on your hands? Yeah, I mean, I said a little bit different to that realize well and interestingly enough.

Lindsay: 15:40

So if you're not on our newsletter, that we'll put the link into the show notes on this. But the newsletter that I just released this week was I had a client. She has lost 80 pounds over this last, this last year, and her husband for christmas last year bought her a cookie subscription. A cookie subscription which.

Lindsay: 15:58

Of course he was thinking she loves cookies. Wouldn't that be lovely? And her first thought was why are you doing this to me? You know, I'm trying to do this. I've lost this weight, I'm really trying to. You know, stay on this. But he wasn't thinking about it in the sense of a cookie subscription every month with a new box of cookies would do anything. But of course, as her point of view, she was like why would you do that?

Ben: 16:20

you know that's so much so common. Like I know, people let their parents bake and drop off cookies and it's a love language.

Lindsay: 16:28

Unfortunately, it is a love language, and again, we'll get into that in another episode maybe, but I think this is the thing that we want you to kind of take away from this episode is how do you navigate and define these roles within your life? Okay, so the very first thing that you want to do is, as we were going through cheerleader, you know, ride or die, saboteur or coach identify the people in your life.

Ben: 16:47

I think that's the biggest thing. The first step is you can just sit here and say what that person fit.

Lindsay: 16:54

Where does my?

Ben: 16:55

partner fit.

Ben: 16:56

But I wanted to say and I'm interested in your thought on this, lynn so, like when you're reading, so like we often, as not just as we do, but as we do as like a, as a group when we look at research and we look at studies, we tend to categorize things right, which we know is a useful way of understanding them.

Ben: 17:12

But not all of these things happen in isolation. So what I'm trying to say is you know you're going to look at these and your partner's probably going to have some of bits of all of these traits, right? So you've got a cheerleader that's a saboteur they might be more of a cheerleader than a saboteur so you might recognize bits and pieces in these roles with your partner. So, like I know, when I look at you, you can be my biggest cheerleader, right. I also know that you can be in the game with me and I also know that you can be the coach, right? I don't necessarily think you've ever been an actively a saboteur, but I'm sure we've been saboteurs of each other, unknowingly or unwittingly, at different times.

Lindsay: 17:53

Right. I think that's a really important thing to understand. In when you're sitting here, making this list of people in your head or on a piece of paper is, most of the time, it's not thinking about it, right? My client whose husband did the cookie subscription. He wasn't like oh my gosh, I can't wait to add 80 pounds back to her. No, it wasn't like that. It was even like and I use the example of the burger last night um.

Ben: 18:13

I was like okay, let's have dinner.

Lindsay: 18:14

We'll order. The girls had a sleepover. Let's order them that and we're gonna make the chicken why you keep going back to this burger, because it's just the example that's recently in my brain and it's the recency effect.

Lindsay: 18:24

I've eaten perfectly apart from that, correct but that's the beauty of of life anyways. But I just think that you know when you think about who's in your life. That's the first thing. The second thing is to define what support looks like to you and this is interesting because Ben's made this comment and probably before in passing is that him and I are not the best coaches for each other.

Ben: 18:47

We're actually. No, let's be honest. We're not coaches good coaches for each other, like we really aren't good coaches for each other aren't coaches good coaches for each other, like we really aren't good coaches for each other.

Lindsay: 18:58

So when I think about what support looks for, for what support looks like from him, it's very different than what support looks like from my actual coach, from the people that I want around me, to the people that are, you know, supporting me. It's different. So you need to define what support looks like to you before you start asking people what they're doing.

Ben: 19:12

You know it's an interesting exercise. While you're doing that and you're thinking about your partner or that person that's super close to you in this context, think about the role that you play for other people as well, because I would turn around and say that when it comes to you, I absolutely am the cheerleader. I'm not necessarily in it with you because I'm doing my own thing, but I am supporting you and I think it's interesting. What role do you play or have you played for other?

Lindsay: 19:36

people Absolutely, and you know that even goes to the quote or the idea of you know you. You don't know who you are. Even you know supporting other people by if they're watching you do things or if you're you know anybody who has kids know this they're watching you. So, even though you may not be actively supporting somebody, if they're watching you and they're inspired by you, that's a huge thing too monkey, see monkey, do monkey see monkey do.

Lindsay: 20:01

But here's the thing too, when it comes to the saboteur and again, if we're going to do another um episode on this, I'm not going to go into too much detail about it, but this could be anybody, from aunt sally, who's at christmas dinner this christmas, to your spouse, to your co-worker who's like, oh, I see you brought your lunch, but we're all going to go to taco bell. Can you just come with us, like, don't worry about your lunch, right? So in multiple areas, in multiple ways, that co-worker, who was the person who would go for walks with you at lunchtime, is now asking you to go to taco bell. So there are different people in different areas of your life to to at. And again, when we're talking to them and when we're calling them out about this, this isn't about anger, okay.

Lindsay: 20:39

This isn't about grumps or they're doing this on purpose, but it is about having that moment to your spouse or to your coworker and just say I don't appreciate that or I don't need that in my life, or thank you so much for the thought. Like I said with my client, she thanked her husband for the cookie subscription and then explained why she didn't want it.

Ben: 20:58

I think it's you know, I think you can kind of tackle it like that, and I think that's super important, but I think sometimes just communicating this is what I need from you, right, and it doesn't have to be tied to something that they've done. It's like this is what I'm trying to accomplish, so you're sharing your goals and objectives clearly. Don't assume that they know. Yeah, don't assume that they know.

Lindsay: 21:16

You have to communicate that, even if you've talked to them multiple times or you had the conversation. Let's say you decided to do a coaching program with either Ben or I and there's money involved and obviously there's conversations. Don't assume they know anything about it, right?

Ben: 21:28

So, first of all, don't assume they know anything. Secondly, communicate your goals and Tell them how they can help you Right how they can help you, and there's actually a fourth one. It's tell them what they can stop doing. That isn't helping you.

Lindsay: 21:42

Yes, I love that. I think it's so important because this is the thing and I always say like you know, we just said that Ben and I aren't the best for us, for each other, when it comes to coaching.

Ben: 21:52

We did an adventure race God years ago now 20 plus years ago, and it 20 plus years ago and, uh, it was a canoe, a mountain bike and a run, I think, wasn't it? Oh, it was a bike, wasn't it canoe?

Lindsay: 22:06

it was a canoe, orienteering, orienteering, oh my god, orienteering anyways. Um, I'm not gonna lie, I'm surprised we made it out of that jungle by ourselves and still married. Those were the two big things, but we realized very quickly that that's not something that we would do very well together which, again, when people know us and they're like that that's not something that we would do very well together.

Lindsay: 22:20

Which, again, when people know us and they're like oh, that's funny, you guys communicate so well, not in a new orienteerium world, just putting it out there but did we not decide we?

Ben: 22:27

decided never again to do a race like that together I think we were more specific than that, even a canoeing orienteering. I think we turned around and said, nope, we would. We'd never do a race that didn't have signposts again.

Lindsay: 22:43

Yeah, anyways, it was a nightmare, but we had to actually have that conversation afterwards because during the race.

Ben: 22:49

It wasn't that bad.

Lindsay: 22:51

Oh, it was, Do you not remember? My brother-in-law did it with us and the other boy was just shaking his head, being like would you guys shut up?

Ben: 23:00

Anyways, it's a conversation it wasn't our finest moment.

Lindsay: 23:03

It's a conversation we had to have after the fact because we knew what we didn't want to do again I just think we just knew that we weren't ever going to do that again together yeah, we didn't, definitely have not since then, but but here's the thing.

Lindsay: 23:16

So, when you're talking with your spouse, your aunt, may, your co, whatever it's exactly that it's what you want to see from them and what you want them to stop doing. So, if you want them to stop bringing home pizza and you, you know, are in a situation where you're really trying to avoid pizza, you know you have to have that. You know, maybe you're eating at the restaurant, or you're eating at work, or you're eating in the car, whatever is going to help you, support you along the way. And that may be a bit of an issue for them because, again, going back to what we talked about, you know change is hard, stepping out of your comfort zone is hard, miscommunication is hard and definitely insecurity is hard on their part. So you have to also know that it's going to be challenging for them and they'll probably muck it up and they'll probably screw up a few times, but continue to remind them on how they can support you in your journey.

Ben: 24:05

Right, and going back to what we were saying at the beginning, right, like, this change is a challenge for you, right? This change that you're looking to undergo requires a change in your environment. This change also requires you to communicate what you need and what you're looking for your partner's support with to do and to stop doing. And there is some conversations to be had, right, because, as much as we all like it, it's not all about you making your change, even though it is. And now that you're a cheerleader, you also have to respect the fact that they might not be ready yet. You might want them to be, but Lindsay and I are here to tell you that if someone's not ready to make the change themselves, there isn't anything you can say to them that's going to change that. The only thing that you can do is to be that role model and to actually show them for your actions, right?

Lindsay: 24:56

And we have said this before and your spouse is not responsible to be your coach. They're not. They're not responsible to the be the person who's going to cheer you on the whole time. The big thing to keep in mind is that you know, obviously, if you're together and you're living together, and eating together and doing these things, then it will make a change to your lifestyle.

Lindsay: 25:15

And so be very open about that and, honestly, just continue to have those conversations. You know, I have said to a few of my clients who have said I've told them so many times that's okay, tell them again, tell them again it's okay, and just again, don't make it in in a fuss, don't make it angry, just just have that conversation with them and I think, honestly, the best thing that you can do, if you want, we'll take the hit for it.

Lindsay: 25:39

Share this podcast with them. Hi guys, we appreciate you. We don't mind, because that's where we're coming from.

Ben: 25:45

We're coming from a place of love.

Lindsay: 25:47

We're coming from a place of caring and we want you to be successful.

Ben: 25:50

Right. Typically and again, this is just top of the top thinking Typically, people are either helping you. Your spouse is either helping you or hindering you. I really don't think there's too much in the middle. Neutral, right.

Ben: 26:03

It's difficult to be neutral in a situation where you're changing habits and routines. They're either helping you to accomplish that or they're staying stuck, and when they say stuck, that's hindering you essentially. So it's one or the other, and I think that's the key piece in terms of like communicating that you are going to need their help, right? You can't do this by yourself, even though the fire of intensity and desire has got to come from you and your goals, and we're going to provide that support. If you're working with us or if you're working with a coach, they're going to bring that. But at the end of the day, you got to find it within yourself. But the last thing you need is people trying to trip you up, you know, on purpose or accidentally along the way, because it's going to be difficult enough even without all of that shit yeah, absolutely, absolutely, all right.

Lindsay: 26:49

So let's wrap it up this week. This was really, really as we said. This will be one of those podcasts will get downloaded like three times and passed over, or you can share it with the people that you feel could have a great conversation about it oh, you know, you could just leave it passively, aggressively playing on the loudspeaker over christmas when your mom's trying to give you that second helping of christmas pudding oh yeah, and and hopefully we can help uh support some people along the way.

Lindsay: 27:16

As always, we appreciate you being here and uh have a fantastic week and we will speak again next week absolutely speak to you soon bye.