Morning Health Habits – Episode 161

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[00:01] Welcome to the Prosperity Podcast, fresh alternative personal finance talk for independent thinkers who prosper outside of Wall Street. Here’s your host, bestselling author, Kim D.H. Butler and No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Prosperity Podcast. This is No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel. Once again, we have bestselling financial author Kim Butler with us today and my co-host. And today we’re going to be talking about morning health habits. And I know those of you who have tuned in have tuned in for financial advice. And I promise you that by the time we get done today, we’re going to show you how health habits and money habits are directly related. Welcome, Kim.

[00:50] Oh, thank you, Todd. Boy, is that well said. Now, we do need to make clear we’re talking about morning as an M-O-R-N-I-N-G, like good morning, happy day, not an M-O-R-N-I-N-G. Yeah, yeah, thank you. The other spelling of morning. You know, maybe sometime we’ll have to do a podcast. I mean, that would be an interesting one. We’ll add that to our list. Do a podcast on the grieving process and like what do you do when you get your life insurance death benefit and that kind of thing. Well, we’ll make it as positive as we can because there are definitely times when, can I say it? Can I say that there are definitely times when death can be a good thing? OK, I said it. All right. So, yeah, morning habits.

[01:36] I’m sure you’ve got some awesome ones. You know, we talked a little bit ago about the book, The Tools of Titans by Tim Ferriss, shared some of the things that was in that 600 plus page book. I absolutely loved that book. And as Tim said, there’s probably a third of it that I hated. Like, I will never do some of the things that he recommends. So we encourage you to be open minded in this realm as we talk about our morning habits just for fun, you know, just to share some things, because I really do believe very firmly that what you do in the morning does set your day. It makes a big impact on your day and your health habits absolutely impact your financial habits and vice versa. You know, the things that you spend money on impact your health.

[02:29] So, Todd, do you want to start? What are one or two of the cool things that you like to do in the morning to really just make sure your day is as good as it can possibly be? You know, I think back and the one thing that I look back on in my life and I think of I’ve always sought out mentors and one of the first mentors that I ever said, said, Todd, the average person spends the first half of their life spending their health to attain wealth, and then it turns around and you spend your wealth trying to regain your health. The second half, you know, at the time I’m 20 some year old kid and I mean it went one ear and out the other and it’s amazing how much those words have have rung true. I mean, you know, how many 19 hour days and how many airport to airport

[03:23] to airport to, you know, sometimes you weren’t even, you know, somebody would call and say, hey, you know, there’s a chance to be on stage here and you were heading home and you jumped on another plane and went to a city you didn’t know you were going to and spend another night in another hotel. And, you know, it just all of it just piled up and you were willing to sacrifice or at least I was. You know, I thought I was building something and sacrificed relationships and sacrificed health and all of these things, thinking it was the right thing to do while at the same time I was out of balance and that out of balance affected my performance then and is affected later in life even more now. So I think, you know, I probably come at this more of a perspective

[04:09] of I’m finally learning through punishment the mistakes that I’ve made and you’re coming at it from the perspective of trying to do it right the first time. So boy, and aren’t both things valuable. The other book that I wanted to throw out that our social media expert recommended to me is called Miracle Morning. And this gentleman, the author is Hal Elrod and it’s got a neat forward by Robert Kiyosaki. So Hal had a amazing car accident and I won’t say any more. You got to grab the book or at least look up a blog post if you’re interested in a summary on it. But it is an amazing story about how he chose to take control. And as our listeners know, control something we talk about around our money all the time.

[05:04] In this case, Hal chose to take control over his health rather than listening to some of the naysayers that were the doctors, supposed experts telling him what was going to happen and not happen. And so he has a great little mnemonic device for talking about his morning time and what’s important to him. And there’s another one that we’ve spoken about in our blogs I think on a podcast as well, which is Mae McCarthy’s book, A Path to Wealth. And so isn’t this interesting? All these health and wealth things totally, totally combined. And just your comment about the first half and the second half of your life. So I just thought we’d have some fun sharing some of our favorite things. And you’re right, I believe that I am very grateful to my parents

[05:53] because they are the ones that helped me set my morning routine. And one of the things that both my parents diligently did is have some Bible study time every single morning. And it was very evident, like it was out in the public, like it was in our living room or is at our dining room table or, you know, my mom had a desk in the kind of family room area and it was there. And the Bibles were open and the time was quiet and my sister knew to come and go and be quiet while they were having that time. So, of course, as we know, kids pay more attention to what parents do than what they say. And so that is something that I have just adopted and work in my life in a variety of ways. Now, thankfully, because of phones and iPads and things like that,

[06:42] I choose sometimes to have my Bible time in a little different format. But I think it’s a, you know, whatever the book is, it doesn’t need to be the Bible, but something spiritual, something inspirational, reading, even five or ten minutes of something inspirational is so important for people in the morning. And I’m just always really grateful that I had that in my life as a habit to adopt. In good heavens, I’m not perfect at it. I don’t do it seven days a week. I don’t even necessarily do it five. Of course, sometimes I’m better at it on Sundays than other days. But it’s just something that I strive for. And we’ve talked a lot about habits and how important that they are. Any inspirational or spiritual book or habit you want to throw out?

[07:26] I have just started this in the last two weeks. And I got a postcard from I don’t even know who to credit this to. But they said to lay a Bible in the kitchen because when you’re waiting for something in the microwave is a time that you could read a passage. That’s right. I did that. And I’ll just flip open to whatever page and the 90 seconds or a minute and a half or whatever the microwave is going. I’ve incorporated that as Bible study time. And I cannot take credit for it. But those little it’s like nibbling is what it’s like. It’s Bible nibbling is what they call it or something like that. I love it. That’s a fabulous idea. I think we may install that on our kitchen counter, too. Yeah, what a great thing to do.

[08:18] Something that I do if I’m waiting for anything like that is just play the gratitude game. Just start listing off things that I’m grateful for. And what I notice and everybody’s heard this numerous times, but I’ve had fun notching it up one like stepping it up one. And that is rather than only being grateful for the physical material things like the fact that we have a microwave or the fact that I’m going to get hot food that morning or whatever, I add into it the spiritual or the inspired aspect of that. So rather than just the hard physical thing, what is the spiritual attribute of it? So maybe it’s fuel. And maybe that’s providing my strength for the day to get started well, or the mental nutrition word that you coined that I think is so fabulous or what have you.

[09:10] So that’s a fun thing with the gratitude game is to just step it up a notch. And then two, on the financial side, it’s always important to be grateful that we have the money to pay the bill, to have the electricity, to turn on the heat in the home and the microwave and buy the microwave to begin with, and et cetera, et cetera. Always, always adding a financial component to our gratitude, I think actually ups the inspirational and the spiritual approach as well. Something that I just strive to do every morning is get outside. And obviously it’s cold sometimes or it’s hot sometimes or it’s raining or I’m in a hotel and it takes quite a bit of work to actually get myself, my body physically out the door,

[09:58] because of course they don’t let you open windows in hotels these days. But to have some outside time, ideally some fresh air. And of course, when I’m here at the farm, it’s easy because I just walk out to the barn. That’s about a quarter mile walk or so up to our barn, which means down the hill, across the lake on the dam, up the hill again, feed the alpacas, back down the hill, across the dam, back up the hill, et cetera. So I get some awesome exercise in there as well and just some great quiet time. And I either use that to, occasionally I do listen to something called My Bible Lesson is my chosen item on the phone. It’s MyBibleLesson.com. But sometimes I’m just quiet and I just let that space be there

[10:47] and really try to still my mind while I’m walking to the barn and enjoying the alpacas and petting Emma the Great Dane and doing all those outside things. And obviously not everybody gets a chance to walk to the barn, but probably a lot of people are really glad they don’t because having alpacas means scooping the poop on Saturdays as well. But getting some outside time, I think super important. You got another one you want to add? I was privileged enough to get to go and speak at some of the events that are for the trainers, for the NFL teams. They’re the medical people that are on the field for NFL teams. And they believe in something that’s called A, D, I, O. And it’s called above, down, inside, out.

[11:37] Meaning that healing comes from above, down, inside your body out. Whereas in Western medicine, believes that healing comes from the outside in through medicine. And that quiet time allows you to connect and experience that I, D, I, O. Where 15 days into January, as you record this, I already have well in excess of $100,000 in hospital bills. And I was given an eight month, an eighth to 12 month goal to try to correct some of the things in my body. And I’ve just been focusing on that quiet A, D, I, O. And my blood test came back in seven days and I’ve hit the eight month mark. So I’m telling you, it works. Awesome. Holy cow. What a great story to support that message. Yeah. Very, very cool. Thank you for sharing that.

[12:38] So something else that I strive to do every morning is get food. Just put fuel in my body. And I mentioned it earlier, you know, hot, sometimes helpful. Sometimes people have a different belief about that. That’s fine. Protein is something that I absolutely seek out. I had to learn through trial and error and a variety of things that for me, protein in the morning is super critical. And I like to do that. I have my current favorite brand of protein powder. I just mix it with water as a doTERRA brand. My daughter sells doTERRA essential oils. So if anybody’s ever curious, they’re welcome to reach out to me about the brands of the various things that I use. But just something super simple. Sometimes I’ll mix it with almond milk.

[13:22] I don’t make it all fancy in a blender or anything. I just shake it up and drink it down real quick. Something that my husband, a lot of our listeners know, Todd Langford, and he has gotten into bulletproof coffee. I forget if we talked about this on a blog before, but do you know about this with butter? No, I’ve never heard of bulletproof coffee, but I’m a coffee fan. Okay, well, let me share something super fun with you. It sounds like we haven’t talked about it on a podcast. So there’s a gentleman in the California area, I believe. His name’s Dave Asprey, and he was in Tibet and enjoyed the tea that he had all the time. And he always felt really good in the morning and really throughout the day

[14:08] after having this tea that he would have. And he got back to the States and just couldn’t get it together and really added a lot of weight to his body and just had some bad health habits. And he went back to his time in Nepal, I believe, and tried to figure out what was it that was going on there that made that tea so good. And he realized that it was yak’s milk, which has a really, really high butter content. And so he calls himself a little bit of a health hack, and he dug in and tried to figure out how he could integrate that into his US-based system. And so what he developed is bulletproof coffee, which is regular, well, no, he does have special bulletproof coffee itself. So either regular coffee or the actual bulletproof brand

[15:01] blended with grass-fed butter. And so I’m not a coffee drinker at all, but my husband loves this stuff. So you take a regular cup of coffee, hot, like liquid, ready to go, you put it in a blender, and on a low speed, you add a tablespoon of butter. It seems like a ridiculously high amount. Now, again, grass-fed butter that you have to get at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s or your local greenery grocery store, granola grocery store, if you will. And what it does is it mixes in. I don’t really know how to describe it very well. Mixes in the fat content very, very thoroughly. You don’t even know it’s in there when you drink it. It’s not like it tastes greasy or feels greasy at all. I did have a sip, and it phases out,

[15:52] I think is the word that I want to use, the impact of caffeine on your body so that instead of giving your body this jolt and then kind of having the crash afterwards, the high butter content, the fat content, good fat, sustains that caffeinated high, if you will, and develops better mental clarity and helps you, et cetera, et cetera. He has also some special protein that he puts in there as well that’s the Bulletproof brand. So check it out. I know it’s so hard to believe, but check it out on the web. You can get regular Bulletproof coffee on Amazon. You can get the instructions on the web for the butter. You can get the Bulletproof protein on Amazon and it mixes in real easily. Again, you wouldn’t even really know it’s in there

[16:39] and that’s a great way to really step up your game if you’re a coffee lover because it’s going to make it so much more healthy. So that’s Emma Dogg adding her two cents as well. The one other thing I’d like to add real quick, which I learned from you was, you know, just to drink enormous amounts of water. Yes, and your body in the morning, it hasn’t had water for eight hours or six or however long you’ve been asleep or, you know, since dinner last night whenever you drink water. So I always try to drink water a little bit before I go to bed and absolutely first thing in the morning. That’s awesome. And the other thing I would like to add is, and this has worked for me, is to make sure that you laugh at least 30 minutes a day.

[17:26] So go on your television, find yourself a stupid sitcom or watch stupid videos on whatever that YouTube is or whatever, but you need to laugh 30 minutes a day and it releases unbelievable chemicals, healing chemicals in your body. Awesome. Yes. I am grateful for Emma Dogg to enable me to have some laughter in my life because I don’t do so well with the sitcoms and the YouTubes, but that’s a great suggestion. I appreciate you making it. Super. Well, I hope that this has helped some of our listeners. Again, we’re looking forward to kicking off 2017, both healthy and wealthy and we’re giving it all we’ve got. We appreciate all of your questions. We’re here. Hello at partners for number four, prosperity.com

[18:14] is how you can contact us with any questions or comments. Just know that we appreciate you and look forward to having a great year. This is No BS Money Guy, Todd Strobel for the Prosperity Podcast. Take care. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit us at partners for prosperity.com. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review. For me, it was important to think about where we would be in the future. All the tools to analyze sales, such as inventory management, are right there on our dashboard. Start your free evaluation at shopify.com.