How many hours a day are you in meetings? How much time are you spending having lunch? Are you working out? Like, get clear on that and that will help you hone in on one What are the things that you enjoy? And maybe you love those meetings, which is great, but this is also going to help you find where you have some room for improvement because maybe lunch isn't on your calendar. What are you going to do for yourself today? Do you need time to take a walk or to
journal during your lunch break? Do you need time to make yourself a healthy, yummy sandwich? Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now you know that I love interviewing experts, thought leaders, influences and people who have insightful things to share with us about our body, our mind, and even our energy and spirit.
And today talking about a theme that is so close to my heart, and I get to talk with one of my favorite favorite people in the world who I am so excited to sit down with. We're talking about our morning routines and I'm sitting down with the one and only editor in chief of Women's Health Liz Plus and talking about her new book, Own Your Morning. You know how much I love mornings. You know how much I love Liz have You've been following me and this book is beautiful. I feel like I'm opening up a
ray of sunshine. Like literally, I just want you to take a moment to just look at how beautiful this is, and every page you turn you just met with real great nuggets of wisdom. So while you're listening, what I want you to do is I want you to tweet. I want you to Instagram and share hashtag on your morning and you can tag me and Liz in your posts as well. I want to see how you're going to start owning your morning after this. Liz, Welcome to
the show. Thank you for being here, Thank you for writing this beautiful book, and I can't wait to dive in through with you. Oh Jay, it is so awesome to be here with you in person two. I feel so lucky and I'm grateful for that amazing introduction and just super grateful for your friendship and your support and for you being a contributor to this book too. It's like it's all happening right now, and I'm filled with love and light and happiness. So it's awesome to be
here with you. You are a powerhouse. You're a leader in the health and wellness space. You're a you know, you're an editor in chief. You have this huge responsibility. But your background wasn't in media or wellness. Your background was that you were an investment banker. Yes, and I love that about you because it's there colliding of two completely different worlds, at least from an external point of view.
But I'd love you to take us back as to Liz at college, trying to figure out what Liz wanted to do, yeah, and how you ended up as an investment banker. I will go back even further and say that an interest fitness and health and nutrition has always been part of my DNA. I grew up playing sports. I got really into running and training for marathons and sort of how fuel could help you perform at your peak.
So that has always been hugely important to me. But honestly, Jay, when I was in college where I was an English major, but I also took a lot of economics classes and really always loved business and learning about it. Even though I was an avid magazine reader back then, like the person who spent all her allowance money at the supermarket buying all the magazines. Like I grew up doing that. It never occurred to me that you could do something you love and get paid for it. Like I thought
work had to be hard. I went through the interview process as a senior. I went to Princeton and sort of the investment banks and consulting firms descended upon campus, and all my friends were going to them. And I had enough background and economics and math courses to get an amazing job offer. Even at the time, I was like, I cannot believe this is happening. You did see that I'm an English major, right, But to their credit, I think they saw value in somebody with a slightly untraditional
background and perspective. And then I moved to New York and it was like my ticket to come to New York City and start my life and be able to pay for an apartment and all those things. And I learned very quickly that it was not my life's passion. And I'm actually in retrospect so glad that I didn't land in some job that I was like sort of okay with it wasn't that bad, it wasn't that great. Like I viscerally knew in my heart this is not
this is not meant to be my life's work. And having that experience and feeling that in my gut really catapulted me to start learning about what do you want to do and like networking with people and asking everybody about their jobs and do you like them? And the further I went down that path, the more this crazy idea of well I love love love magazines, I love health and wellness. Could I explore that? Could I go there?
It's suddenly the more I learned, the more I was like, I think, this is this is where I want to go. So fast forward to today. As you mentioned, I'm the editor in chief of Women's Health. It's literally a dream job. I actually, when I was twenty three years old, had a dream that I would have this job. So it's I still wake up every day and I feel the immense responsibility and just joy and gratitude that I get
to do what I do every single day. But I'm also like really glad that I went down that little rabbit hole of investment banking because I have some quirky skills that actually are quite valuable in my line of work. Yeah, tell us about those, because I think often when people are seeking transitions, we almost have this very binary view. Right, what I'm doing right now is useless. I hate it. It's not what I want to do. It's not my passion,
it's not my mission. And this thing over here is what I want to do, right, And we can be very negative and neglectful of the skills, the learning, the growth. So I was sharing earlier with you my corporate experience at Accenture. Yeah, it wasn't my dream, but what I learned was so powerful, the mentorship I received, the incredible opportunities I got because I was a part of that company, and the great initiatives they had, the relationships and network.
I have yes back at the company and the people that left and are still there, and I look back at that and think that's been a strength for me in living a life that's truly authentic to my passion and my purpose. Totally. So with you, tell us about some of the useful skills you brought along with you that have been intregral to your purpose. Yeah, Well, just as you were talking, I was thinking about my colleagues from my early investment banking days, and I'm still in
touch with a lot of them. They were really proud of me and supportive when I completely changed and just surprised, but also very very supportive. And I was just thinking about how it was a very male dominated group that I was in, as finance can be, but the woman who led our group was a powerful, compassionate, amazing woman,
and she was incredibly supportive. I remember walking into her office and like taking a thousand deep breaths beforehand to tell her I'm going to leave this awesome, amazing group and job to go do this completely different thing. So I will always just have like a soft spot in my heart for the guidance and support and tips that
she gave me on my way out. She was such a like a luminary in my life even at that age, and I have gone on to be so lucky to have so many other women who have been mentors and helped me along the way. So there's that piece of it. On the completely opposite end of the spectrum. When I was talking about the quirky skills, I was thinking about how good I am at excel and building up cell spreadsheets.
I love them. That's not traditionally something that editors and chiefs do very much, but you kind of actually do like I now because I'm in the role that I am. I very much am focused on the content and the creative side, but I also have to look after the business and are we using our resources and our precious editors brains and times in appropriate ways that are good for the brand, not only for our readers, but also
to make the brand flourish and be healthy. So I can pull out a spreadsheet and like run the numbers on something in an instant. I've made a lot of decks, you know, in power Point, back in the day, and I continue to love doing that and love like sprinkling magic dust on them and tinkering with them. I have also found that when people discover what my experience was and where my first job was in my industry, everyone's like impressed and appreciates that I bring a slightly different,
not completely traditional perspective to my work. I think that's something maybe for your audience to keep in mind wherever they are in their journeys. Is that a diverse perspective, And I mean that in all of the ways that is really healthy and valuable no matter what you do
or where you are. Yeah. I read a really interesting study probably around four years ago now and it was by MT and they looked at employees networks online and offline, and they found that employees who knew people who knew people who knew the same people had less innovative ideas and we're able to bring less creativity to the table that employees who had a network that was more diverse, where you'd be confused by how they know both those
types of people. Yeah, And so I often say that when I have ideas or thoughts, I often think, well, what would a tech giants say? So, what would Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs or someone like that think about this? And then what would the Dalai Lama think about this? And to me, that posite spectrum of thought is where I try and work from. So I'm always trying to combine strategy with sincerity or assertiveness with affection. And I feel like the more polar opposites you can put together,
the more interesting your work becomes. And so when I hear you say that, I love that. I am terrible at excel. So even after I'm being a consultant. I avoided excel at accentia like the play Yeah, I did never did it. I stayed away from it. I stuck to my strengths and skills and I did a lot of powerpoints and all that kind of stuff. But what gave you the courage to make that shift and transition?
Because you went to an incredible institution, you're almost trained to go off and do something in a particular way. How did you disconnect from any expectations, any opinions, any noise, any thoughts that people would have had, like you're probably gonna make less money, you work so hard, all these things that you would hear Did you hear them? And if you did, how did you deal with them? And if you didn't, how did you deal with it for yourself?
I love all of this and it's it's fun thinking back on it because it's been almost twenty years now. So for starters, I shared my dream literally my dream with a group of strangers who I met training for a marathon. I did a marathon through team in training. We would get together in Central Park. You know, people from all over New York City, all different ages, all
different careers, but you make great, great friendships. I believe when you sweat next to somebody literally and when you have ten miles to run together, you've got a lot of time to talk about all the things. So this group already knew that I was struggling with my happiness
in my career. But when I remember, I had this dream about being an editor at a health and wellness publication, and we had a fifteen mile long run that next morning, on Saturday morning, and you know, a couple miles in, as we'd started warming up, I shared it, and I think maybe in my heart I knew that these people knew me well enough by now that they would be honest and open with their feedback. And I am so glad that they were, like, you should do that, Like
I could totally see you doing that. So this was a group of people who knew me through running, but they just got it instantly with my personality and they thought it. They gave me sort of the courage to take the next step, which was then to start investigating and talking with people. And like we were talking about
educating and myself and learning more about the industry. There was plenty of pain and struggle, and you know, dozens of interviews that didn't pan out, and people that were not willing to take a chance on an investment banking analyst. And finally it did work out, and it was through a ton of hard work and networking and also jam I'm going to be honest, it was a lot through like some privilege and luck because of where I've been
in my life. So I don't take any of that lightly, and like I own it that I made the trend position. And then it was like terrifying, like Okay, I've literally put everything on a limb. You know, I'm going out on this limb, Like what if I don't like it? If? What if it's not all I think it's going to be. And it was awesome, like from day one, and this is day one when I was like fetching coffee and like processing contracts for freelance writers, but just like the
energy of creating. So my first job in this space was as an editorial assistant at Self magazine in the fitness department, and it was just amazing. From the story, like sparks were flying. I was happy. Yes, I was doing a lot of grunt work, but I was learning so much and I was willing to roll up my sleeves and be the one who didn't know and hadn't
gone through the internships and all of that. One last thing I'll say is that you've heard me talk about my husband Matt before, and we have a crazy, chaotic life. He's got a big, full time job, we have three children, we have a puppy at home. Like rewind back to twenty three ash year old Liz who was called compleating this change, and Matt and I've been together since our senior year of college, so he's we've known each other since we were eighteen. We were in Latin one oh
four together on day one of college. Matt was very much of the mind that like, don't think about the salary. If you love this as much as I think you're going to, and you think you're going to, that's all going to work out eventually. So having the support of a partner who loved me and knew me and cared about me and was like, you've got this, you can do this. I know it's scary, I know it's a lot less money, but take the next step. That was
hugely impactful and helpful. Thank you for sharing that with us. Yeah, I love hearing that it's I think it's so refreshing to hear about that where we can hold space for our partners, and we can create space for people to become who they want to be, rather than feel pressured to or shoehorned into something else. And even though you mentioned privilege and luck, I do also believe that you know there is a lot to be said for doing
the grunt work. Often if there's privilege, there's a feeling of I shouldn't be doing this, But it sounds like in your journey you've actually done a lot of that and being okay with that. Let's speak about that for a second, because I feel the same way that there isn't a substitute for that. And often our dream job or passion is on the other side of some grunt work that feels beneath us, even though I don't think anything's beneath anyone. But often that perception is actually what
limits people. And I feel that more and more today than ever before, where there is a certain disconnect. Tell us about how you made that fun or how you made it meaningful, or how you felt at the end of a day of getting coffees and doing contracts, But how did you keep going because now you're at the top of the chain, but you started at the bottom. So how did you keep feeling that momentum at every stage because you don't get to the top in a year or even five now, so now it takes a minute.
It was very much about feeling the vibes and the energy of that office. And I was fortunate enough to work at a place that the most junior of editors were allowed to come into the brainstorm meetings and see and hear things that it is. And I was just sort of like so bold and courageous of like pitching stories. And I remember waving my hand like six months in saying I haven't I you know, I have this feature story idea. Those are the big, long stories with lots
of pictures in the middle of the magazine. And I know it's crazy, I know I'm brand new here, but I actually want to be the one to write it, and my boss let me do it. I mean it took a ton of handholding. And by no means did that mean I was like ready to be promoted to senior editor because I'd pinned a feature. But working toward and having those moments or opportunities was enough to keep the ark and the energy alive, and so to kind
of bring it full circle. Since now I'm at a different point in my career, I try very hard to keep that in mind with my awesome team members and try to nurture an environment where, no matter where you are on the totem pole or the masthead, that every single one of us has something to contribute and a great idea is like embedded in each of their brains. And also to give them access to things that are interesting to them, even if it's not quote unquote part
of their like you know, little box job description. So I'm trying to pay that forward because that was really helpful to me in my career, and I'm sure you feel this way too. Just because we are where we are in our professional careers doesn't mean that we're not still rolling up our sleeves and doing the groundwork. Like a few years ago, when I started at Women's Health, I was only overseeing the print side of the brand, and we integrated print and digital, and then I began
overseeing the website, social media, video, all the things. And I had experience in the digital space from my previous few jobs. But when that formally went into effect. I actually asked to like build stories in the in our CMS system and go through the SEO training and like get the like one oh one and to experience what
it was like to be in the system. And I'm not like trying to pat myself on the back, but I think it's important to as leaders to remember what like the nuts and bolts are like on the ground level. I think it gives me more sensitivity and compassion for what every single team member is going through every day. And it's also just a good reminder that we all have so much to learn and there's there's plenty of sweat left, you know, no matter where we are in
our careers. Yeah, thank you so much for opening up about that, because I love what you just said. That sweat is in every stage of the journey. There is no substitute forever, forget just the beginning. It's never going to go away. But at the same time, I think for a lot of us, we need to find the meaning in the sweat early on when you feel the
sweat isn't in stuff you care about. So I think you've really gave a lot of people are listening today, hopefully a lot more motivation and inspiration to stick with it because you have to look at it that you have to look at it. You have to play the long game. You have to look at the long term when you're in those situations. Now, I want to talk about your book on Your Mourning, which is what we're
discussing today. I want to before we dive into the book, which I really hope everyone's going to get after listening to this episode, is let's talk about when did mornings become a thing that you thought were important? Because people can be mourning people, and we'll talk about what it means to be a morning person discovering that your mourning is a powerful time to set up a successful day. When did that happen for you and what was it that made you convinced that owning your mourning had to
be important. Yes, So this is definitely been a journey for me and lots of experimentation to arrive at the point where I am now. But I'm actually going to go back in time to that that first job we were just talking about a few minutes ago, in investment banking. That was a job where anything could happen. And I feel like a lot of people can relate. No matter what industry you're in, anything could happen during the day.
A deadline could be thrown on my desk at five pm, a friend would invite me to an event like the possibilities of the day, both good and bad, were endless. And I learned very quickly that so sweat a workout is an essential part of my day, has been since I was a kid. But I learned that if I said, Okay, I'm going to hit the gym on my walk home from work tonight, maybe up to nine out of ten
times something would happen. I would get derailed, I wouldn't be able to get there, and then the perpetual, like cumulative effect of not getting that workout something that powers me up makes me feel clear and calm and confident. I felt like, oh, so blah, you know, within like a week of starting that job. It's not rocket science.
But I was like, Oh, I get it. I have to set my alarm clock for way earlier and get to get myself to the gym and showered, et cetera before I hit the work day, and then I'm so much better prepared for all the twists and turns that are in store for me during the day. And I cannot control what happens during the day, none of us really can. But we can, for the most part, control
what happens in our mornings. And so that was the beginning for me that I when I got in my workout and did the things that powered me up in the morning, the whole rest of my day went a million times better. And I've sort of been hacking this over time and researching it and learning about it, and it's been a life's passion for me, and that's so that's my So now I'm a very early riser. I don't run a marathon every morning, but I do have
little microactions. I take that nod to the things that are most important to me, and I'm a much better human the rest of the day because of it. I love it. I love and now the first chapter. I love the title. When I first saw this, and you very emphatically say to everyone you are a morning person, yes, And I know a lot of people hear that and go, no, I'm not, because there's such a cynicism around or not even a cynicism, there's just a pessimism around our own
selves of like, well, I love staying up late. And I me and my wife here this all the time. My wife wakes up at five am every day. Yes, I wake up at six am every day. When we're with our friends. A lot of people say to us, well, but we sleep at like two am or one am, and you know I'm going to be waking up at like eight or seven or whatever it may be. And this isn't about better or worse. This isn't about comparing. This isn't about oh, we're more healthy, or it's not that.
It's a conversation about what do you want from your life? When you tell everyone emphatically, anyone can become a morning person, tell us what are the side that someone's a morning person? And then what are the steps we can take to become one. If we're sitting here going, Liz, I'm really not a morning person. Yes, I hear you, and I'm so glad you brought this up because you are exactly right. I am also an early riser. You know this about me,
but I wake up at five seventeen. But this book is not about like you need to be waking up at five seventeen. There is no judgment whatsoever if you are in the camp of I actually want to wake up at eight am, and that works for me. I'm I am with you. My goal is to help you make the most of the time you spend after you get out of bed, to set yourself up for the best day possible, and to be honest, Jay, And what I hear a lot from people is they actually wish
they could wake up a little earlier. But like your friends, they're night owls and it's just not in their nature. So yea. So two quick things, as I share in the book, I was not a morning person. I very much love to sleep in, especially as a teenager. There is a lot of signs that suggests that we have a chronotype. So you might be more predisposed to enjoy popping out of bed in the morning or to staying
up late at night. So early birds night owls. Some people get their rush of energy in the middle of the day. The cool thing is it's constantly changing over time, So even if a couple of years ago that's how you are, or you are there right now, it might change just naturally, which is I think interesting. I feel
like that's partially what happened to me. But secondly, there are a lot of things you can do if you do want to wake up earlier, to set yourself up the night before, and also like what you do when you get out of bed, exposing yourself to light making Like this is what the book really breaks down. If that is your goal to wake up earlier, and you think you would be healthier and happier for it, this book can help you do that. It really is possible.
I think also when people think about becoming a morning person, they think they have to sleep less, right, And that's not the thing. That you can still sleep as much as you want. You're just going to try and sleep earlier so that you can still have that amount of sleep. And so I think a lot of people struggle with the idea of being a morning person. So I feel like I've always been a morning person, but I'm also someone who really appreciates sleep. Sleep even though people are like, oh, Jay,
but you're a monk, can you wake up? And I'm like, yeah, but I love sleep. And sometimes I wish I wasn't a morning person because sometimes I'm like, I wish I could wake up past seven am, Like I can never wake up past seven am, and so I wake up naturally I haven't used an alarm clock for a very long time, and my body will wake me up, usually between eight hours to eight hours fifteen minutes of sleep,
and I'll naturally wake up. When you talk about people becoming a morning person, what are some of the things that we need to stop doing in order to help us become morning people? Is there some of the techniques and tools you can share with us. Absolutely, so, you're exactly right. As much as you wish or want to become a morning person, it's not just like you wake
up and oh here I am morning person. So for starters, let's talk about the night before, which I know is a little bit counterintuitive in a book about mornings, but I devote a couple of chapters to it. First of all, you're exactly right. It's important to know how much sleep you need, and that can help you back into what time you need to go to bed. I know everybody is sick of hearing this, but the truth is, there's so much science about exposing yourself to blue light, which
we get from our devices in the evening. It is going to amp up your melotonin production, which makes it harder to fall asleep and harder to stay asleep. So right there, if you want to have an awesome morning tomorrow, you want to have a good night of sleep, So like, do yourself a favor, pick up a paper book or stop scrolling on your phone. You know, ideally at least an hour before you hit the sack. I also talked
in the book about sleep rituals. I interviewed all sorts of sleep experts and looked at all the latest and greatest research on this. And there's simple things you can do, such as making your room I'm a little bit cooler that helps you sleep more soundly. Personally, I like to take a shower before I go to bed, just I have this vision that it's like rinsing the good in bed energy off me and kind of creating a clean slate for me to get all the restoration that my
night of sleep has in store for me. Let's talk about alarm clocks for a second too, So I'm sure you know this because you're also super into sleep. The later phases of our sleep cycle are called rem sleep, and that's like where the magic happens and all the restoration happens. So if you're the type of person who snoozes your alarm button for like an hour or even just a time or two, you're actually disrupting that really powerful,
sacred time of sleep. So I am really encouraging folks to think hard about what time do you have to get up, Like what's the latest you can get up and set your alarm for that, like that is your sleep spot and sweet spot, and then back into what time you need to go to bed. Those are just a few examples, but they will all help a lot. They will help tremendously. I love that that's such a great piece of advice because often we hear like, oh, yes, set your arm half an hour before your ideal time.
And actually, what you just said is we're disrupting our own sleep. Yes, And so I couldn't agree with you more. I think it's unhealthy to set up too many alarms, and also the repetition. What we don't realize is we're creating a pattern where we don't listen to our alarm. And so now that alarm is becoming less and less useful because you're so used to just suppressing the snooze button, and so it's losing its impact because you reject it.
It's like someone giving you advice and every time they give you advice, you're like, Nope, don't want it, Nope, don't want it. No, don't. That person's advice becomes less and less useful over time. So now an alarm becomes less and less meaningful. Whereas if it only rings once, and it rings at the time when you know you want to be up, you're going to respond hopefully yes. And actually a note on alarm sounds, because rings tend to be what we choose, or like that angry bleeping sound.
And so one other tip or suggestion for folks who want to get up earlier just have a more graceful entry into their day. Pick a sound that you like that makes you happy. I use the chimes on my iPhone, but it could be anything. It could be a song you love. Start your day with something that makes you happy.
It doesn't have to be like a loud, annoying Really, what I love about this book list is that it's so practical, and I want everyone to see that because often when we hear about books on health and wellness, there's good ideas and maybe a couple of good thoughts and pointers. But Liz's book is full of exercises and takeaways and I really appreciate that when I see that in a book list, because I just find that sometimes we're even like, oh, I've heard that idea before. Oh
I know that, but that's never been the issue. Yeah, we know we need to sleep earlier and wake up earlier. We know that we need to put our phones down right, but we need activities and exercises to actually help us do that. And I'm really glad that you put some in. Are there any favorite activities or size they're in the book that you're just like this one really worked for me, or this one really worked for a friend. Could you share one with us? The chapter about learning what your
personal core values are? That one is near and dear to my heart. I think it's sets this book apart from other publications or books that have dabbled in mornings because to your point when we first started this conversation, my goal is not to get you up at five seventeen am like I do. My goal is to make
your morning more magical. And what I learned is that when you are really clear on what your values are and what fills you up and lights you up, and then when you can actually take little microactions nodding toward them every single morning. You are just prepared in ways you cannot even imagine to be a better parent, employee, pet, parent, like, sister, brother, friend, all the things. So there's one exercise in that core
values chapter. I mean, I take you through several activities to sort of hone in and on what they are for you. But the one I think is simplest and fastest you could even open up your phone right now or your computer right now and do it without having to put pen to paper is to take a calendar inventory and look at where you're spending your time. How many hours a day are you in meetings? How much time are you spending having lunch? Are you working out?
Like get clear on that and that will help you hone in on like one, what are the things that you enjoy? And maybe you love those meetings, which is great. Maybe that means collaboration and teamwork or one of your core values. But this is also going to help you find where you have some room for improvement, because maybe lunch isn't on your calendar, And what are you going to do for yourself today? You know, do you need time to take a walk or to journal during your
lunch break. Do you need time to make yourself a healthy, yummy sandwich. So anyway, that's one exercise that can help you get clear about what your personal core values are. And then the rest of the book is really like choose your own adventure, or you could read the whole thing and get ideas. But say, fitness or meditation, which I know is so integral in your life, are things that you want to add to your morning and they align with your core values, then there's advice for how
to actually bring those to life every morning. Yeah. I love that. I want to ask you this because I get asked this a lot, and I'm always conscious of it when I'm answering the question. And now I get to ask you to someone who's actually dealing with this. So you're a mother, you're an editor in chief, your wife, you play a lot of roles in your own life. And I find that, in my opinion, mothers, especially with young children, have the hardest mornings. I look at my mother,
and that's where I remember it from. My mom used to wake us up, get a stress for school, me and my younger sister. She'd make our breakfast, she'd make our lunch, she'd then drop us to school, and she was an independent financial advisor at the same time, so she was also had her own mini company that she was setting up, so my mum was and then she'd pick us up from school, make us dinner, and help
us with our homework. So I'd lived in a house with a superpower powerhouse mom that I love in the door, and I just saw now when I think about them, like how does anyone do all of that? Like how is that even possible? And today life's supposedly become easier and we have more support and we have more help here and there, or we have tools in technology. But as a mother, as a experienced professional, as a successful professional, how are you getting through your morning? How are you
still waking up at five seventeen? Or how did you manage it when your kids were slightly younger? I want to hear about the messiness, yeah, because I think often mothers also are the ones that end up judging themselves the most about not being there for their kids and then not feeling like they can perform, and then feeling
like all the responsibilities on them too. So glad you asked about the messiness because I also want to be very clear that although I've got a good thing going with my mornings, that does not mean that every morning goes as I envisioned that it would without you know, a little tornado here, a little disasters filled milk there. I'm also kind of chuckling because here we are, it's fall. My kids just started the school year again, which is awesome.
So all three of them murdered. They are yes. So for the first time in a long time, on Monday, the school bus, you know, it pulls up at eight o four am, and I'm like, oh this, I have to like get everything together, Like this is no joke because for a long time they were doing school from home. And you know, if I went to my first work meeting wearing leggings, so be it. So I knew I was going into my office. I had some reasons to
be there, so I commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan. So honestly, Jay, it was like I had to put all the stuff I talk about in Own Your Morning into practice, like practice what you preach, Liz, And for that meant doing a lot of prep the night before, pulling out what my outfit was going to be, having my children do
the same, having them packed their backpacks. I made the lunches the night before, because oh, it's just like one more thing, and everybody has opinions, you know, they don't want the whatever they with my kids, they're very picky jelly sandwiches that I can't believe I'm admitting that. But despite it all, despite it all, it was like a morning of madness. And I did get them to the bus. Everybody got to school, they had lunches in their backpacks.
But when I got to my desk, my hair was still wet, like I was slightly disheveled and frazzled, and I did not feel like I wanted to that morning. And that's okay too. I knew in that instant if I hadn't done the stuff the night before, if I hadn't been trying all the tips and tools that I write about in the book, this morning would have been like, you know, if it was a seven on a scale from one to ten, it probably would have been a two or three. And that's no fun. And I have
a job to do that. I love to help women live their healthiest, happiest lives, and I have to like show up and be ready for that. So my mornings are not perfect. I just posted on my Instagram recently a reel that was sort of like Instagram versus reality, Like you know, me like sipping my coffee, and the reality version is like my giant Bernese Mountain dog puppy is like tumbles in and knocks it over and I have to clean it up so I get it where we all that's real life like that that's going to
happen to each and every one of us. How do you make and prioritize time for yourself You're leading a team with the kids, a company, Like, how do you actually even prioritize and make space for that time. I know you woke up at five seventeen as much as you can, which is incredible, But how do you make sure that that's a priority when you are serving so many other people? Yes, it goes back to the heart of this, which is mornings are the only time I can can really control and to have space to fill
myself up and to take time for myself. And I think it's a lot like what you hear on airplanes about how you have to put on your own oxygen masks before you can help the person next to you. I one thousand percent believe that is true. It's sort of counterintuitive, like, wait, what, I'm going to leave the apartment and go to the gym and do this Liz thing. I'm going to take the time to journal for ten
or fifteen minutes. I'm going to do all this Liz stuff when I have like life and career and people pulling on me in every direction. But the reality is, once you start doing that, you very quickly see the benefits and that you are able to give so much more to everybody else and everything else you do when you've you've stopped and filled up your own your own tea cup first. Yeah, yeah, I remember. I used to
just keep giving and going and giving and going. And then I asked myself this question, do I want to give people my best or do I want to give them my leftovers? And I realized I was just giving people my leftovers. Yeah, but these were people that I love. You don't give the people that you love you leftovers.
And that's when I started realizing that self preservation was so important, and my morning was the most important time to preserve because it was the only time that was truly sacred in mine and I could carve out, and I found that even recently this week, I've been thankful enough to have a beautiful morning routine. It's almost back into flow again. Yes, and I'm feeling all the benefits
of it. And I'm prioritizing going to bed earlier, saying no in the evening, and there's parts of me that want to go out and do this thing, and I have to keep pulling back what happens. See, here's the challenge. When we talk about morning routines, A lot of people think, oh, yeah, they must wake up every day. At the same time, like we talked about the messiness, how do you get
back on track? Yeah, because I feel like we all get on track, maybe for three days, maybe we even do the twenty one days, and it's meant to be a habit, it was, say forever, but then we fall off. I get on and fall off all the time too. How do you get back on once you fall in off? I'm very glad you brought this up. This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, which full disclosure, I don't know who said it or where it came from, but it's really stuck with me over time. And the
quote is, let's make better mistakes tomorrow. That was like my mantra on Monday, as I arrived at work with slightly damp hair, was like, Okay, okay, we're gonna learn from this, Liz. But I too get off track, or I have something happened in the evening and it means I can't wake up at the hour I want to.
I'm always looking for reasons to reset, and the beautiful thing is it doesn't have to be a huge life transition like starting a new job or moving into a new home, or you know, a change in relationship status, though those are all awesome reasons to have a reset. It could be as simple as the changing of seasons. But also, Jay, I think it could be as simple as like it's a new week or it's a new day tomorrow. You don't have to wait for January first, or the changing of the season or a huge massive
shift in your life. You have the power to choose that tomorrow is going to be better and different. And I would recommend embracing those moments of like, oh, that morning did not go like I wanted it to, or I stayed up way too late last night, nothing went like I like I hoped it would have a moment and reflect on that, like sit with that, and now now you get to do something about it, and you
get to make tomorrow better. Yeah. I love that. I think what you're saying so true that judgment and guilt don't get you anywhere. When I when I judge myself for I guilt myself because this has been such a bad week. I'm now just creating more guilt and creating more judgment, and then now I'm feeding worse. Now I don't feel like getting up tomorrow. It's it's like a death spiral. So you're just going to get its cycle
and it just keeps going. And so I find that actually me saying, yeah, I gave myself a week off last week, but tomorrow is going to be different. It's such a healthier way to move and make progress. One of the things I think I love that you talk about in this book is power breakfasts. I love talking about practical things to actually do eat in the morning.
I'd love to hear the signs about it. I struggled for a long time with bloating in the morning, and so for a lot of time I would wake up and I'd eat really well at night, I don't eat late. I consider myself to have a really good diet, but I think over time I haven't necessarily been mindful, and so things have happened. But I remember waking up feeling bloated. I remember waking up feeling no matter what I ate in the morning, I would end up feeling, you know,
just not good. And then finally, and the very recently, the two things that solved it. It was celery juice and cheer seed pudding. Cool. So cheer seeds in the morning and celery juice has transformed my life. I feel the celery juice is almost like a cleansing. I feel completely clean and internally and fresh. And then the chees seat pudding is really grounding. And so to me, that's
really worked for me. I wanted to hear what you've found through the signs of breakfast because I think so many people skip breakfast or they grab a bagel on the way, or they're eating on you know. I mean, we're not commuting anymore, but I think breakfast is an untalked about meal or unheard of nowadays. Yes, I love the breakfast chapter in the book, and I love actually the morning Magic essay that was penned by this woman,
Kate Merker, who oversees food for Women's Health. There's a morning Magic essay and every single chapter but Kate talks about the ritual of making toast for her family and her kids, and she talks about how it fills them up, the smell of it, the ritual of it. They put cilantro on it. Sometimes it's with avocado. It can be all these different things. And to me, what's so beautiful about that story and about your chia pudding is that
it's going to look different for every single one of us. Yeah, That's why I asked, because I was like, I don't think everyone's EASi no. And I get asked this a lot as the editor of Women's Health, like oh, do you intermittent fast or do you skip breakfast? And should should I be eating before my workout or right afterward? And Jay, there's like there's a study for everything, and what it really comes down to is what works for you.
And you felt ikey in the morning, you felt off, and so you probably tried all sorts of different things, and that's what you have to do. You have to experiment. I will never say to somebody, yeah, you should do your workout fast in a fasted state, which, yes, there is science that suggests you'll go into the fat burning
zone more quickly if you do sweat without eating first. However, if you feel weak or you can't give one hundred percent in your workout because you didn't put any calories in your body, then who cares what that research study said. It's not going to make a difference. But maybe you're like me and I actually I feel like I get stomach cramps and I feel off if I eat right before I workout. But it takes trial and air and experimentation, and it might take trying some different some different foods
and just seeing what works best for your body. But like you, over time, I've experimented with all sorts of different meals and the timing of them, and what works best for me is making myself a smoothie right when I get home from the gym. So this is like while I'm making my kids their breakfast, which might be scrambled eggs, it might be cereal and apples. It could be a little different. Every day. For me, I like to have a banana with some peanut butter powder and
some whole milk. And ice, and sometimes I'll add cinnamon or some other anti inflammatories like that. But it's it fills me up, it's satiating, it feels refreshing after I've moved my body and gotten all hot and sweaty, and I feel like energized and ready to tackle the day. But it took me a long time to arrive at that meal that to learn that, like this is what helps me really perform at my peak and all the
hours that follow. I'm so glad you made that point and hearing the editor in chief of Women's Health say that it is so refreshing and helpful, because I think that's exactly it. That none of us are the same, right, none of us have the same goals or core values as you said, right, and therefore fat burning may not be your priority. Your priority may be feeling good, right,
Your priority may be getting energy. Your priority maybe losing weight or gaining weight, whatever it is, Like, it's just your core values and your priority has to be and we have to be able to experimenting. I think that's what I'm hearing from you. It's just how many different types of things have you tried. I remember trying oatmeal. I remember trying cereal, I remember trying avocado toast, I remember trying just dates and nuts, and finally I found a win with this and I feel so good about it.
And again I don't go around saying, hey, everyone should do this. I think you should try these two things that I've found to be beneficial, and sealery uses lots of benefits. But at the same time, you may have it and be like Jay, I feel terrible after that, right, And I love that you're just giving us permission to say, do you try stuff? Yes, and stop thinking that it has to be this way. Yes, well, that is very much.
The ethos of Women's Health is that we are determined to help our readers live healthier, happier lives, and our job is to give you science backed, expert based, soundly researched ideas and tips and suggestions. But the truth is, the magic happens when something resonates for you and you decided to try it, and then it unmocks a whole new part of you. You feel better, you feel happier, and it's going to look different for every single person. Yeah. Absolutely.
You talk a lot in the book about obviously your journaling practice too, We've spoken about this before, and I am such a big believer in journaling. I think it's such a powerful practice. My wife as well, oh's journaling. She talks about journaling in the same way as you do. She feels so connected to it. Yeah, and she will often do a lot of free journaling, which you just let everything out and everything go. And I want to hear, how can someone start a journaling practice if they feel
scared by it? Yes, And I identify with those people because it seemed like just one more thing to take on. But I have aspired to journal for many years and I this summer it really clicked, like as a non negotiable ritual that I do every single morning. And the way I wrapped my head around it was by giving myself permission to stop after two sentences if I didn't have anything else to say or just wasn't feeling it.
And that was like the game changer for me. And I think you can apply that to a lot of different areas in your life, like even workouts. I've told people just go to the gym or start the workout for a few minutes and if you feel just oh, I'm not feeling it today, you can stop watch four minutes Where did you come along? So four minutes there's actually very cool sign. It's about four minutes physiologically, that's how long it takes for our body to acclimate to
the work of a physical exertion. Your oxygenation changes, your joints and muscles lubricate you. Essentially you warm up. So it's the difference between being warmed up and coming in cold and nine times out of ten, when I make it to the four minutes point. On those days, I just am not feeling motivated and don't feel like it. Buy four minutes in, I'm like, but I feel like a new person. I've got this, and I go ahead
and do the whole workout. Same thing with journaling, though some mornings I'm like, I don't have time, I don't have anything to say. It's okay, Liz, just two sentences is enough? How did you figure out too? I literally pulled it out of thin air. It felt like short enough, like I gave it some effort, but also short enough that it didn't overwhelm me and Jay. I have never stopped at two sentences. It always goes beyond that once you get going. I love those two pieces of advice.
I think it's so important. We always set like a target, but what we need to do is set a minimum. M yes. Right. It's like the office is like we're always used to saying that this, I want to write a page a day, but we don't just say, well, let me just write two lines. Right, it's like a
reframing of that. Yeah, it's a reframing. And actually you're so right that you develop more confidence, more excitement, more enthusiasm when you break what you thought you were going to do, rather than when you fall short of a target. So if you even wrote nine lines out of ten, that would feel worse. Yeah, then if you stopped at two. Yes, I love that. One of my favorite studies is about the power of accomplishments and taking a moment to reflect
upon them. It's a psychology principle, the psychology of momentum. When you accomplish something that propels you forward to accomplish another thing, and it over time, it raises your expectations, but you gain that momentum. So if you are able to reframe and say I did it, I did four minutes, I did two sentences. Actually I blew that out of the water and I did ten minutes and ten sentences.
Whatever it is that that little perspective shift will be extremely powerful and everything else you tackle the rest of the day. Absolutely. Yeah. I was watching a video recently where one of my friends, Jason Goldberg, he was talking about his study in the Olympics, and he was saying that people who get bronze are happier than those who get silver because people who got silver were so close to it, so fascinating that that pains us so much that we feel less happy. Was when you got bronze,
you're kind of happy because I made it to the podium. Yes, And so I feel like every day we need to just make it to the podium and not try and aim for this number one, because when you aim for that number one, you kind of just set yourself up for I'm not saying we shouldn't aim high, that's That's not the point I'm making. I'm just saying that on a daily basis, you don't need to be number one. You just need to make it to the podium. This is going to become a new Los mantra. Make it
to the podium. I'm obsessed with that. Yeah, it's from that study that he shared in a video, and I thought that was fascinating. One of the things that I love in this book that you talk about also is winning your weekend. Yes, And when I read this, I couldn't agree with you more because I think I think about that every week where I'm like, the quality of my week is based on the quality of my weekend, and the quality of my weekend is based on my week.
And as monks, we were taught that the quality of your day is based on your two hours of meditation, and the quality of your two hours of meditation is based on your day, and so they're symbiotic, and often I think we look at our weekends as a way of making up for the week. How do you win your weekend and how does that transform the week? Definitely, weekends are so powerful. And I'll just speak for me personally, weekends or the time when I actually I do not
set that five seventeen alarm. I'm going to sleep as late as my kids and dog let me. But I am also in many ways bringing to life those core values that I bring to life every single weekday morning too. I want to spend quality time with my kids. I like to go to a farmer's market and take the time to you know, like pick up the fruits and veggies and meet some of the farmers who are there, and think about what do I want to cook this week? Get excited about putting all the fall apples into a
beautiful bowl on my kitchen countertop. And the other thing is jay for me on weekends, I have to be clear about all the plans and invitations and things that could come my way. And it's so easy to be like, well, that sounds like fun. You know, this party or this event or this dinner, and that stuff can be really fun, and being social and being around people is wonderful and
can have tons of health benefits. But I also try to be really careful about not over extending myself and making the weekend like a new different form of hustling. I have to build in time to just chill and relax, and sometimes that means saying no to going out to dinner with friends, you know, just being honest that what my body and heart and soul need are just some like alone time, watching the latest Marvel movie with my kids and my husband, I'm petting my dog. How have
you got better at saying no? I think that's something that so many of us struggle with. And when you talk about owning your morning, winning your weekend, saying no is such a big part of that because the night before, like I know, me and my wife, because we've found o morning groove. Right now, we're making sure that we're in bed by nine thirty in the evening because that's really important to us. But we're saying no to so
many things. It's it's so true. I think a lot of us feel like to live fuller, happier lives, we need to add things, And you're exactly right. Removing some
things and decluttering is just as powerful and important. So I, as a lifelong people pleaser who squirms at the thought of somebody being mad or upset or disappointed, it's taken me a long time to learn this that the hindest and most authentic thing to do is to say no quickly and not let the invitations sit there in fester where it's occupying your brain power, probably stressing out your friend who invited you and is like, what's up? Why hasn't Jay responded to me? Like can he come? Does
he want to come? You know, and you don't have to go into the the paragraph long reason why you can't be there, You can just simply say thank you so much for the invitation, I'm really sorry that I have a conflict and I can't come, but like I'm looking forward to seeing you blah blah blah your version of that in your own words, in an authentic way.
But that's been very powerful for me is rather than letting it sit and thinking about it and then there's like more more drama and internal like oh, I can't say no now that's been you know, just handle it in the moment, and that that does require that you get clear about what your weekend is going to look like.
Are you going to have like one social commitment is next weekend one where you actually just need to lay low and not have any and then when the invitation comes in or the thing pops up, you're more prepared to answer in the moment and imagine like the amount of space that that will release in your brain and the emotional energy it unlocks for you to not have that sitting around hanging over you. I love that. I
love that. I want to encourage everyone who's been listening and watching today to make sure you grab a copy of own your Morning will have the link in the caption and everywhere else. And of course I really want to see what you're all learning from this session, So I want you to tag me and Liz, and I want you to hashtag own your Morning. Liz, You've been
so generous with your time. I want to end, as we do with every on Purpose episode, with the final five or the fast five okay, which the rapid fire questions where you have to answer every question in one word or one sentence maximum, so you have a bit of flexibility. I I like a challenge good. I know you do. So the first question that I have for you is what is the best piece of morning routine
advice you've ever received? I mean, I literally wrote a book about making me say one word one Okay, I'll say one word, one sentence. Okay, Light light Light. Do you want me to expand for a sentence? Yeah. It is scientifically proven that exposing yourself to light a sap after waking naturally makes you feel more energetic and alert. I love that, beautiful. I wake up at six am, so and you wake up at five seventeen when it's
not very light. I mean, this is getting more challenging as we're moving into wintertime and it's dark morning, but light like even a bright light from a lamp. M that's good for you too. Yeah, I love that. Question number two, what's the worst piece of morning routine advice you've ever heard? The worst piece is that there's one right way to do it. It's gonna look beautifully different and unique for every single one of us. Yeah, that's a great answer. Thad question, how would you describe your
current purpose service? I'm going to leave it at one word service. And question number four, what's the most recent thing you've been tinkering with or playing around or experimenting within your morning routine. I love listening to music to set my energy, and I'm having a lot of fun tinkering with different types of music. I love that and using it to go where I want to be energetically and to take me down a notch when I'm a little overly or journalized and hyped up. That's brilliant. I
really like that one. That's so awesome. I think we all listen to the same songs again on the same playlist. It's so important. I love that. Okay, fifth and final question, if you could create one morning routine habit that everyone in the world had to do. What would it be? I think we could change the world if everybody began their day with gratitude. I personally write a gratitude list. It can be short, it can be long, but that is some incredible energy to begin your day with. I
love that. Liz. Plus for everyone the author of Own Your Morning, and make sure you get the book. Make sure you tag us. Please please please, I think, Liz, there's so many awesomely insightful things today and I want to see everything that resonate with you. So you can tag Liz on Instagram tag me as well, and please please please share the hashtag on your morning so that we can follow along and see all of your insights. Liz, is there anything that I didn't ask you that you
want to share that you want to tell my community? Oh, you're the most awesome interviewer, and it's super fun to talk to somebody else who loves mornings. And yeah, I just want to say that you don't have to be a morning person to read this book. It will have some tweaks and ideas to elevate your morning to help you level up, but it's also for those of you who think you're a night owl and that you can never change your morning, I promise you. I promise you
you can. I will help you. Jay will help you. And I can't wait to see everybody's hashtags because I'm inspired by how different everybody's mornings look, and that's that's the fun part. I'd love to share them and inspire more create a little morning movement. Yes, morning movement. I love that hashtag on your morning tag us while you're doing your weird, funky, interesting, curious morning routine in practice. I can't wait to see it. And Liz, thank you
so much again for coming on on purpose. And I can't wait to share this with my community. It was wonderful to be here with you. Thank you so much, Jay, Thanks lu