Hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes get us a.com. Today I have special guest, Kathleen Shredder on the line. We dive all into the Weeds about mindset and habit forming especially when it comes to training and getting on a proper exercise nutrition protocol. Like how do you make that stick? How do you make it into a daily habit? That's something that many people that have not grown up with that or have that ingrained in their daily ritual.
Have a hard time sticking with. So we talked about how to make things that you enjoy. Become a part of your day-to-day routine thoroughly. Enjoy the conversation. We are speaking the same Language when it comes to the books, that we read, the mindset, all that. So I have no doubt that you will take something from this without further Ado, sit back, relax and do a conversation with Kathleen Trotter. And we are live, Kathleen Trotter. How are you?
Oh, I'm fantastic. I love talking about health and wellness and it's a beautiful sunny day. So many pockets of joy and things to be grateful for. I love it. I love it when it comes to health and wellness and like, Fitness and training specifically. I feel like your area of expertise or one of your area of expertise is kind of figuring out how to I guess evolve, or adapt the training Style. Based off the individuals preferences and, you know, their
needs their enjoyment. Cuz I feel like if you're bored with your training regimen, you're probably not going to stick with it. And as you and I both know, being able to sustain it for the long haul is where the magic quote, unquote magic really happens. So, I want to dive into that for sure.
But before we even get into that, I mean, what was, what was your interest for health wellness fitness training that where'd all that stem from to begin with You know, I think that phrase all researchers me search kind of thing. I was not an active child. That sort of has a very, very understatement of this of the situation. So that all start from the beginning. I grew up single mom, we moved around a lot.
I'm 6 feet tall, which is now an amazing thing, but growing up was not and I would go to all these new little towns but my mom was an actress. So we would move right a classical theater actor. So not like television so much is more. Like we would move around, so she go. Two different theaters to act. And I meet new people and I was awkward. And so I just I got heavier and heavier and less and less fit.
And and I would show up at these new schools, that people would think I was a substitute teacher. And you know, I my mom would try everything. She put me in softball, and hockey and dance, and I hated everything. And I would lie to get out of gym class and any way. Slowly, slowly slowly became somebody who just like hated myself, more and more. And I really, you know, I didn't respect myself and I was going through that shame spiral that we all often.
Do which is like every day I wake up and be like, hey this is the day that I'm going to get more fit. I'm going to have more friends, I'm going to be popular. I'm like I said of conflated health, and wellness and being pretty with like having friends and this was this whole mess and then every day, you know, I eat all the sugar and lie together to gym class, and I snuck food a lot because my mom's such a healthy human. So I know what it feels like to be stuck in that trap of wanting.
So desperately to find your fit and then just not being able to get out of your own way. So eventually, what my mom said to me, was okay, Kathleen, I think we're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole meaning like, I'm trying to get you to do all the things that quote normal teenagers and kids do. So why don't we instead of trying to, you know, what makes for everybody else work for you, why don't we try to find what works for Kathleen?
And that's where it all started. And that's why my first book is finding your fit and this is why I'm so dedicated to this idea of, when a Comes in what can I get them to do in that moment? Because it can always spiral upwardly Spiral but you just
have to get going. So what my mom did was she got me a membership to the YMCA because the demographic was sort of over 40 and under five, and I was more comfortable with people older than myself because I'd grown up in the theater with my mom and I started walking on the treadmill.
And I walked for 10 minutes, which turned into 20, I started doing some sort of strength, you know, machines at the gym I started taking some Aerobics classes and then I started teaching some aerobics classes and it just, you know, it
spiraled over years. Obviously this was not overnight and then eventually instead of becoming a lawyer ended up doing a masters in exercise science and you know, became a life coach and all these things but it really just started from my mom saying it doesn't matter what works for anybody else. Like it doesn't matter. What works for your dad, he plays hockey, it does matter. What works for me. My mom does yoga Gardens and she's just like an active naturally. Much more naturally active
human. She's like all Matters is what works for you and so that's what I try to do with all. My clients is, instead of thinking with the perfect workout or the best workout or, you know, even where they want to be in 5 10, 20 years, I think, okay, like what can you do now? Because if we get you going, you can always upwardly spiral into more better more active lifestyle. But if you just don't do anything, then you're stuck there forever.
So I think, yeah, what you said, you know about helping my clients, find find the fun. And find about what's planets about what's convenient, but it's really about what you can do consistently, right? And it's mostly just about doing something like, getting out of your own way and being like what in this moment can I do and then doing it? I don't know. Does any of that kind of land
for you? Yeah. No, for sure it's pronounced that your mom had that foresight early on to like, let you discover that yourself. Cause it's like a lot of parents. They have this idea of what they want their kids to do and become and they kind of push that are forced out of And oftentimes backfires like what she wanted, I mean, and very beginning, was she trying to kind of persuade you to go the route of theater like, like she took or was that ever a conversation?
It doesn't. Okay, so I just want to tell you that. I've done many, many podcasts, my life and no one has ever asked me about that about theater and if my mom pushed me into it, my mom is amazing. Amazing woman, she's definitely an inspiration. She absolutely never pushed me into theater, because theater is a very hard life, especially if it's the, you know, the Theater theater versus like acting in movies and television now she's done that as well, maybe even TV.
But I think what my mom would say to you is if theater and acting is your absolute calling. If it's your thing, then for sure do it. But if it is not your thing then run as far away from it, as you can, like, it has to be the thing that gives you the most joy. And I see that in my mom. So I'm actually when she turned 60, she went back to school and she became psychodynamic Psychotherapy is for like six years. School. And so now she does that as well
as acting. But it's interesting to me because she's so good at the therapy but she doesn't love it in the same way she acts. So you know, when she does act you can just see this joy that lights up in her eyes. And I find that fascinating because, you know, I'm sure I'd
be a very good lawyer. But I don't think I'd have that joy and that whereas with my job like I can have worked a 12-hour day and I can be exhausted but I haven't lost the joy and there's just Something about it that lights me up and it's sort of how I know I'm in the right profession. And it doesn't mean that every day is easy.
But but yeah, my mom always wanted me to have that joy and she knew that that theater enacted gave her something, but I don't think that it ever gave me any of that, like, in any of the school plays or anything like that, and then she could see that. And she's, she's a big proponent of letting me be me. And I think she's really proud of my individuality and my uniqueness but I think being Unique, when you're a kid is hard.
It's sort of slightly easier as you get older but a lot of my mom's philosophy has really inspired My Philosophy with health and wellness and that idea of looking for people's uniqueness like what makes them what is their unique? Why, you know if they have grandkids do they want to get down on the ground and play with your grandkids, okay? So then we create a program around that you know if they want to play hockey like my dad plays hockey.
So you know, we do balance training for him and Ankle strength. Tough. And because that's his why like he doesn't want to do balance and strength that, but if I say to him, you haven't that's going to help you, you know, be on the ice for the rest of your life. He's like, okay, I can do that. So, I try to look at each person
as individual. Like, my mom did for me and figure out, like, what is their thing that kind of likes them up from the inside and then how can I get them to use that to push themselves forward? How long would it take you to figure out what your thing was like what you have in the kind of experiment and with a variety of different Outlets to see if it's stuck or not like how men Progression. Wow, so fantastic question because I think that is something that people get to people's way.
It's like oh well if I don't know, my passion right now, you know, I must be a failure words, you know, Kathleen knows her passion. And why don't I? And again, we just get in her own way so much. No, I would say the answer to that is I absolutely didn't know my passion. In fact, it took years of being, then I was a personal trainer and I was doing it. I went to undergrad Kinesiology but I always said like I'm coming to do this because you can do anything.
In your undergrad and then you can go to law school and I was like well this is a good way to put myself through school to make some money. I'll do kinesiology I'll do personal training but I always was planning to go back a law school or go to law school because I thought that that's the thing. I would want more than anything because I watched lawyers on TV and they all had money and they
looked really stylish. And, and one day, I was training, one of my clients and I was talking about law school and she looked at me, she's like why would you go to law school? You love this and you're good at this. And there is this moment and I was Like I do love this, I am good at this but I actually really truly. Don't think I knew until that moment. And I think that sometimes this is amazing ability for other people to see you clearer than you see yourself.
And yeah that conversation I will never forget that client. Her name is Ava and she just was like you have a unique gift Kathleen, use it. I don't know what a number of my clients have this phrase. They say to me I think it's a Yiddish phrase but in Bush at something. Like you can see a fly on somebody else's shoulder but you
can't see the bear. You can't feel the bear on your own back, and I think there's there's something to that like that client saw saw the bear on my back and saw the fly on my shoulder, and he was like, you know, why don't you try this as
a career. So yeah, it's an interesting, an interesting experience, being a human and just understanding this idea of like you don't have to be great to start, but you do have to start to get great and I think that's Anything, I think that's figuring out what you want to do for the rest of your life, but it's also figuring out fitness. Like I think it's very easy to get in our own way and think, well, I'm not perfect. I don't know exactly what I'm
going to do is my life. I don't know exactly how I'm going to exercise. I don't know exactly, you know how to eat well. So then we don't really do anything and it would have been easy for me to, you know, not go to the Y and not try things, but I think ultimately just have to try a bunch of stuff like throw a crapload of spaghetti on the wall and see what sticks. It's and everything's just a
learning experience. So if you do, try something, like, if you go do it Zumba class and you're like, oh, I hate that, that's not my passion, I don't like that. That's like, okay, well, that's great data as opposed to it being like a failure of an experience and again like I think yeah, I think people just are very scared. They're scared to do it wrong. Instead of thinking like, oh well, I'll try this, I'll go for a run or I'll go for a walk.
I'll try Zumba tribe dance and then just sort of see what I like. What's convenient? What's my joy? I don't do. You have an exercise Joy? An exercise Joy. What what, how do you define an exercise Joy? Well, like something that when you do it with, like physical with your body that you're just like, this feels okay, I'll put it this way. I love to run outside in the pub in nature. It calls to me, whereas I don't
love to swim. I don't dislike swimming but like swimming on a little I get a little bit cold, like I have to push myself more to go for a swim. Whereas, if I see a beautiful Park it's like says to me Kev Clean come run. You'll love it. You'll have so much fun. It's like like something calling to me if you have something that calls to you, but yeah, I love
Bonnie buildings. Like the act of, you know, the weight trainers and that's certainly my forte but like a port from that, that's kind of interesting because it started out as a passion. And now it's kind of become my career and my lifestyle and a lot of times that results in people, you know, losing that passion because it has all this demand that's placed on it and a lot of people lose that desire. Yeah, you lose. Joy and it becomes your life.
Yeah, the haven't noticed that like, I still love Bonnie building that I've been able to shape my life and career path around my passion that stands. But apart from that, I'm also an avid Hunter, and I don't rely on Hunting to provide an income or anything like that, but the act of hunting and like, hiking 60 miles out and, you know, the Western mountains like that that's quite a physical feat. So there's a there's a physical aspect to that that I take great pleasure.
That sounds glorious, the idea of that hiking. So What I love about hearing that. So if you were a client and you came in and you said, okay so these are my two loves and then I would say to you, okay? So there's sort of three pillars of Health and Wellness in the, in the fitness field and in the zone of.
So you got the strength component, you got the flexibility component and you got the cardiovascular component and most people tend to not always but tend to have one of those three that they love more than the other.
So for me it's running that's cardiovascular and so for you the body building The strength of the you get some cardio in the hiking but that's a lot of strength as well and then it tends to be like if you love one of the pillars, more than others, it's harder to make yourself, do pillar, two and three but they all really support each other, right? Like, if you don't have enough ankle Mobility or not being able to squat properly, and then you're going to hurt your back.
If you don't have good shoulder mechanics, you're not going to be able to do a pull-up properly, right? So the mobility aspect really complement the strength aspect of in your bodybuilding. Same thing with the hiking. Like again if you don't have income Mobility, when you're going up a hill, you're going to have to hike up through your hip and you're going to hurt your back.
So I like to use these loves and say to people, okay, if you want to hike properly for the rest of your life without injury or you want to play hockey like my dad, then you have to make sure that your routine is balanced and do the mobility work or do the core work or do the cardiovascular, you know, element of whatever. I decided that three pillared table is not being represented in your in your program. So I use that a lot that idea of like what do you love? What do you want to do for the
rest of your life? And how can we use that to make you do the things that you don't love as much? Yeah, I like that. I like the concept of viewing it through three primary pillars and you kind of have one that you naturally gravitate more than the others, but all benefit the whole. Yeah. I feel like. Yeah. And so go ahead. Oh no. It's going to feel like you see that we're people. Example who like love yoga and they're super flexible so that they actually really don't need as much yoga.
What they need is like to balance out the three pillars and do more strength or do more cardio. So normally we tend to gravitate toward the thing that we're good at, like I have a lot of slow twitch muscle fibers. So running for me is like just, you know, for long distances.
It's not that hard partly just because of my nature of what I was born with, but also, just cuz I do it a lot to them gets easier but normally whatever we do a lot of we tend to be the best at and therefore At the other end parts of the pillar are going to be weaker and eventually it will end up that causes us injury. Yeah, totally green.
I feel like a lot of people, as you said, they gravitate to what they're good at and I think with it was certain that there's a lot of technicalities with, you know, proper running form, proper mobility and flexibility and retrain. There's a lot of like, a lot of people have an aversion to weight training because it's scary.
They don't know how to do the proper technique that worried of you know, risking injury so there's a lot more technicality probably in A training resistance form resistance training form. I feel like that's probably one of the main reasons, many people, you know, kind of step away from it, but I feel like if you get that down, then once you build confidence in it, and once you start seeing a benefit from it, it's much easier to fall in love with it.
I completely agree. And I think the key for me would be to make sure people understand that you can't get confidence and things that you don't do. So when you know people listening, I want them to hear. If you've never done something, you're supposed to be bad at it. Like so many of us, we don't like being bad at things and we try something once and they're like oh I'm not good at that.
I'm not going to do it again. And what I would say is to get better, you just got to do it. Repetition is the mother of all skill and the more you do it the more you teach your brain that you are actually competent at this thing. And the more competent, you feel the more confidence you build, and then it becomes more fun as you do it.
And I think that's a really unfortunate part of our world, like, people are so afraid of being bad, afraid of having that, A beginner's mind and afraid of sort of tripping over their feet and instead of just thinking like, okay well if I trip that means I have to use my balance and my quarter right myself again. So that's actually a good thing and that goes back to that. Sort of like how is this a growth process? What can I learn from Ed?
And also we were all born, not even being able to walk, right? And that doesn't make us failures. That just is like how Evolution occurs and everything is a process, and you start and, you know, starting grade 1 math, and you moved to, you know, grade 12 or whatever, you progress through the game. Grades, you need to go to progress through the grades of everything you try and fitness.
So if you've never done bodybuilding, okay, you're going to probably be bad at it. You're going to feel weird. It's going to feel awkward and that's okay. And not only is it okay? It's like to be very expected and I think that that's one of the reasons why my former self my younger self, you know, wasn't fit because I was so afraid of being bad. I was so afraid of not being perfect of being embarrassed of people making fun of me.
And now I'm so much more secure and just like I go and try something new and I'm like, God, that it is great. I got lots to learn, you know, but again that confidence in being able to be bad at things in motion also just, you know, now be doing this for 20 years and I've been doing therapy for 20 years and but yeah, you got to be able to be bad at things in order to get better and confidence comes through action.
And one of the things I tell my clients all the time is like, you know, if you had if you're anxious about anything, you ask It's like action solves, basically, any type of anxiety or at least softens it and so much of the anxiety is like wanting to do something and then being afraid of doing it and sort of feeling guilty that you're not doing it.
And then you get into this sort of echo chamber of emotion where, you know, you want to do something and then you don't do it. And then you feel a shame that you're not doing and then say, makes you feel even worse instead of just being like, okay, you know, this is the moment I have control over this is the only moment I have control over right now and if I want to impact my future, I Have to take control of this moment. So, you know, got it.
You can't put off till tomorrow what you can do today because then you just end up with crap load of tomorrow's and nothing to show for it and we got one precious life, right? So if you want to learn something, a new language and new score, whatever it is, do it. If you want to be able to go hiking, so you can do hunting, great start training for it. Like just decide what you want and then work backwards and start now. Yeah, and the time is going to pass anyway.
I think like once you realize that the time is going to pass anyways, you can spend that time Worrying about whether people are going to think. Are you just simply make a fool of yourself for One Moment In Time with in progress, really? Yeah, and all those people who are like yeah, all those people who are judging you either the really not thinking about you at
all. Like, that's one of the nice things about getting older is I realized that all the people that I was worried for judging me when I was a kid. They were just worried about themselves. And the only, if they were judging me at all, it was purely as a in relation to how they were judging themselves. So, it's a combination of I get older. I'm like, I don't care if you are judging me, but eat But you're probably not judging me as much as I am.
Actually, judging the fact that I think you're judging me. Like, it's this weird. It's this crazy thing about us as a world like, we're so we, so comparison driven instead of just being like, hey like who do I want to be? What Integrity do? I want, how do I match my actions with my values and then you know, stop with the comparison game and just go and do. Yeah, and the reality is most people honestly don't really
even care. Like, if you, that's exactly a lot of people worry about it, looking like a fool in the gym, like not having the proper squat. Form, that would have been everybody watching them. Like, anytime I go to a public gym, I don't really care what anybody else is doing. I'm there for me, it's like I'm not around critiquing, everybody's forms that like people go in knowing that I just simply do what they can with what they got and then obviously trying to minimize the risk of
injury. Then, they have to worry about people, you know just finger pointing and staring at them. Totally. Absolutely. People are are worried about themselves they're you know, they're carrying much more about us than we think. You know, it's just that our inner world is so large, it's our inner world. Old. So, you know, we are the main event are in our movie, but you know, everyone else is the main character in their movie, right?
And we're only bit players if we even our players at all, you know? And that's fine. We're supposed to be the main event in our movie because, you know, you're you and I'm me, but we have to you know, stop letting our fear of what other people think and do impact what we think and do, right? Like some to a client the other day and she has some hit like a hip replacement and some knee issues and all this stuff and she really should be walking. It walking sticks to keep her posture for now.
Anyway. And you know she's older and she was like I couldn't do that. Coupling people will be watching me and I was like, okay so you're going to ruin your tissues in your body because you're worried people are watching you and they're not actually watching you. But even if they were like, that's worth you.
Not being able to walk properly like this is what you need right now, you're not going to need them in a month or so, but you do need them right now and she kind of looked at me and you She's like yeah, I like but it just in her brain the power of the the gays from the outside was so strong that it was almost going to be enough to completely, you know, derail her goals and and so I really try to encourage my clients to thrive
in their own lane, right? Like fine, like to Circle way back to where we started find something that they enjoy or at least they don't despise so that they can do it. Consistently find something that's convenient. Find something that works for them. And and really work on that like turning your gaze Inward and figuring out. OK, what can I do in this moment knowing that this moment is not going to be the moment 10 years
from now. Like, meaning, I started walking for 10 minutes but I didn't finish walking for 10 minutes. I've done an Ironman. I've done hat, ate half Iron Man's I've done like 10 marathons, so my 10 minutes of walking turned into marathons, but I would never be able to do the marathon. If I didn't do the ten minutes at the beginning. So I think when people listen to
He sometimes they think. Oh, what you're saying is just like let myself off the hook and 10 minutes is fine forever and always and I don't, you know, do my best but best is not really a lot and that's why I love and I'm like no, absolutely not. I'm not saying to just chill with ten minutes for the rest of
your life. What I'm saying is you can't do anything else until you start with the 10 minutes, so start with 10 and then re-evaluate you want to do 15, do you want to do 20 minutes and then progressed up and you'll get to a point eventually where like you know what, half an hour is enough. Cool that's fine. Fine. But you don't have to decide that. Now you just have to take the next right step and you will never get to that 30 minute Mark if you don't start now.
So like stop with the analysis paralysis stop. Like with getting in your own head and just do something. I love the work of James, Clear? His book of as atomic habits and he always talks about this idea of standardized and then you can optimize right? So standardized, the fact that you do move do the 10 minutes at the gym. I'm like I did and then you can optimize it as you go like you could always tweak but if you don't have anything to start with there's nothing to tweak. Yeah.
It's kind of like the whole concept of progressive overload in weight training, applies quite nicely in this situation to any Endeavor. Whether it's training, whether it's nutrition, whether it's just simply movement, you know, you start with where you where you can and then you progressively overload that over time, honestly the same thing with like adversities in mindset like what you're able to deem a you know in sir. Animal diversity.
At one point in time, May totally change over time to the point where it's just a simple inconvenience, but you can't really build that former minimum till you put yourself out there in the first place. So, as regarding yeah, the walking, you know, just start there and then scaling up from that. I feel like to. Once you do that long enough, like you'll recognize internally. That this is no longer taxing on your body or mind. You kind of have this desire to
move the needle forward. It's usually how, it's certainly how I think, like, once I come to the point where it's not taxing on me, Moore's, not really an adversity. I want to push that forward to, to just basically increase that
Baseline starting point. I couldn't agree with more with everything you just said, I think yes, Progressive overload of the body and the mind and building, both physical and emotional resilience is huge, and I do think that the more you are active, the more, hmm, the easier or the lower price of admission, it is to to do the workout, right? Like, I still sometimes want to skip but it's Almost harder for me to skip that it is for me to just do it.
And part of that is that I know I will feel better afterwards. Like, you know, one of the things I say to my clients is the worst your mood, the more important, the work out and I can tell you from 20 years of training that, you know, if I am on a scale of 1 out of 10 of mood, I'm at a one and I work out, I have the possibility of going up to like a for, but if I'm already out of four, no, I might get to like a five. But the difference in mood won't be as great.
And I've spent so much of Of my life fighting depression and I'm so depressed when I was younger. So, for me, it's as I said, it's harder for me to skip a workout because I have 20 years now of experience that I feel better when I move, but again, just how confidence has to be built than earned. So did that knowledge that you will feel better after a workout
and that you will feel stronger? And as you said, and then you feel stronger and you want to get even stronger, but it's hard at the beginning of setting up a workout program because you don't necessarily have That knowledge of oh, I know, I will feel better, like your doctor said you should work out and people have said to you, oh yeah, you'll feel great when you exercise but at the beginning it just kind of feels like crap, right? It's hard. You know your tissues would be sore after.
So I guess one of my main takeaways for this podcast for people listening is if you're just starting out it kind of got a live through the sock of the first couple months, which is why you want to make it convenient and at least somewhat enjoyable to kind of offset that it is going to be a challenge at the beginning. But once you make it through the challenge, it does become slightly easier to push yourself and you get to know your environment also changes, right?
So you might have more friends that are into fitness and then they want they say like oh come play, some softball or go for a run and you just you start to feel better. And my therapist always tells me that desire drives Behavior, right? So the more you exercise, I know that it makes you feel better than you're like, oh, that desired pushes you to move. The more you can stay away from
sugar and you see that. Feel better, then it's like, oh, you don't want that Sugar anymore because, you know, you feel better without it, you sleep more, you feel better, you want to sleep more like, but it's all about starting the habits and doing them for enough time that you can get that emotional data of like, yes, this does make me feel better and it's very easy to quit at the beginning. Yeah. And I feel like in the beginning, especially you really got to be really protective of
your environmental factors. Like if you're starting out you don't have an environment of friend group that is you know also interested in Proving their body mind weight training, getting the nutrition down, then it's going to come so much easier to keep falling into that habit of just doing the unhealthy things because you don't have that built-in internally. Whereas if you yes, you know do have a group of friends that are doing that are trying to pursue
that. It's gonna be much easier to say no to the Temptations. Some easier to sacrifice was things that you know, maybe nice in them in the moment. But certainly aren't Paving the way for long-term, success, and progress. So I feel like really kind of doubling down on your environmental factors your friend group, your peer group, For you have those built-in habits is key. I completely agree. I would call those things systems, and one of the sentences that I say to my clients.
All the time is, we don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our systems. Right? And you know, often you client come in, they're like, oh, I'm gonna lose this metal. Wait, I'm going to exercise and I'm like, okay, great. So what environmental factors? What guide rails are you putting in what systems? So that you don't not go do the workout tomorrow, or what, look, how are you going to make this goal?
A reality based? Locally and they're like, no, no, no. I'm just motivated. I'm gonna do it, I promise. And I'm like, nope, that is not good enough and it just won't happen, right? Because in the moment. Yeah, you feel motivated you go to your trainer for the first time, like I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna kill it, but motivation is akin to an emotion, it kind of comes and goes and what you need is the systems that so when your motivation is low, the system
just carries you through. So it's what you were talking about that is those environmental constraints. So having a friend. So if you have a fitness buddy waiting for you, you're much more likely to Go and do that. Walk of do that run, if you've joined a sports team, you know, if you put money down to see a personal trainer, if you have your clothes, if you leave your clothes out at night.
So when you wake up there, they're like if you have your gym bag in the car so you can go to the gym like whatever you know, if work gives you a break, you just have to have as many systems. So food prep on the weekend. Maybe have a food delivery service.
Whatever. It is an alarm that goes off to remind you to drink your water, especially at the beginning systems are always extremely important but as Especially at the beginning because it's just it's not going to be natural and when you are not as motivated as you are, you know when you start with your trainer on your birthday or January 1st or Monday morning or whatever, it is those Peak motivation times make you feel that you are going to be successful but just
because you stayed a goal of wanting to, you know, start exercising and lose weight. It doesn't mean it's going to happen, you need those systems. You need those guide rails. That sort of be like, oh yeah, you want to skip that workout? Nope, you can't because your friend is waiting for you.
So what's the All that you have in your life that is trapped in a system that's not really as conducive as it should are ideally be towards achieving that specific goal, because it sounds like you've got your your training dialed, and what other goals you have your life in which the systems are not really conducive to returnable. Oh, you are a wonderful
wonderful interviewer. So what I am working on in my life is a little bit more balanced and some time off, it's hard, you know, I work hourly and I love is you can tell I love my job. Job and it's very easy for me to let my work life sort of bleed in to my personal life. And that is not fair for my partner. James, it's not fair for our dog Olive, so we're trying to set up systems. So, one of the things we've been doing lately is just at the end of every night.
We always go for a dog walk. And it just means that James can, I can games that I can chat means that I have to stop work at the time that we decide to do the dog walk. It means that I got some time with olive so things like that. Like I'm just trying to set in more Are in advance. So I'm trying really hard to every month.
Looking at the next month and making sure I have like either a night away with James to like either the city or just like blocked off time, even if it's just for a conference. So I'm learning like a virtual something online. But I think that just like, with exercise for most people they're like oh yeah, it'll happen, don't worry. And I say to them no it can't be just like catch-as-catch-can because it doesn't work that way. You have to look at your schedule in advance.
And book it in. It's similar with me with time off and both the best. And the worst part about my life is that I thoroughly love my job and it's amazing. But I don't want to burn out and I have in my life burned out. So that is definitely a system that I'm working on just that advanced planning of scheduled time time off. And then also making sure that I communicate with James about that too. So it's not just, I'm like, totally my bounds. I have time off but he's Wire.
So he's busy too so we have to coordinate our time off in advance. Yeah and I think I mean I'm pretty much doing the same thing myself have get you know there's a double-edged sword to living your passion with your career because it literally never turns off which is awesome. Like I love that, I wouldn't trade it for the world but like you said, it's it can often times be unfair for the people
in your life. It's almost like kind of unfair for your ability to sustain it long term in certain ways as well. So, I think building those systems in a place where you like legitimately have a An off switch in which trying to step away from it and just pour another things. One thing that I've been doing that, I've found success with is, I've got a Google Calendar, that's what I use for scheduling my podcast interviews, my client
calls, all that stuff. And if it doesn't live in that Google Calendar, just simply does not exist, but I've already blocked out times like dedicated times for, you know, having dinner with my wife, having time with my kid, having these things structure, like having my own unique workout time, having all these things structures that people cannot Is upon those blocked out hours. Otherwise I would just like, move my own stuff around to make things work.
So I'm trying to get better just saying no to everything else. Yeah, it's interesting how so much of health and finding that balance is about sort of stepping back and having that objective View. And that's I think one of the great things about a schedule is, yes, if it's in there, you will do it, but it's also, you get to look at it be like, okay. So interesting how much of what thing am I doing?
And if a day is, you know, 14 hours of clients and no time with your neck, Wife and no time with your child, I've no time for your old work, at your like, okay, this is out of whack, but sometimes if we don't get that objective view with the schedule, we just don't see it. And I think that's for everybody, like we get so in our self and in our head, and it goes back to being able to see a fly on somebody else's shoulder.
Like, if you ask any, one of my clients this sort of idea, okay, is Kathleen's, life balance, they would all say absolutely not. She is the most amazing trainer, we love her but she needs more time for herself. She needs more vacation but Whatever reason it's taken me like 20 years in this line of work to be able to see it in myself. And that's I think one of the reasons why having a personal trainer is good.
It's one of the reasons why talking about your goals with your friends and your family is good to get that objective view as one of the reasons. Why saying things out loud is good because you then get some space from your own thoughts and you can sort of see like, oh wait a second. I just told somebody I was working 10 hours with no break. That's not healthy. That's not balanced. And I think seeing the schedule is just an absolutely.
A fantastic and you can look at you know, your schedule for a year and see. Okay. So do I have larger vacations? And there's this book and podcast actually called the one thing and they always say that you have three things every year that you block off in your calendar, you block off your vacation first before anything
else. Then you block off, like scheduling time, like, literally time where you sit at your desk and you look at your schedule and then you figure out how your life is going to map out from there. And then you figure out, Time for your one thing and that very thing is like this, one thing that you do, that makes everything else less, you know, less challenging less hard easier, more fun that kind of thing, but I like the idea of just, okay. So it's not even that you have
to schedule. You have to schedule in your time that is your schedule in time and you have schedule on your vacation and that comes before anything else. And you know, you and I need to schedule in vacation. Whereas a lot of people there, listening they don't need the schedule in the vacation as much but they need to schedule in the Shouts and the meal prep and you know, if it's not scheduled it's probably not going to happen or what will happen once in a
while. But it won't happen enough to create the balance that we all need in our life. Yeah, I agree. What do you do? Like the beginning and end of each day that you have like an in Camp to kind of like set the stage off, you know, for the did it just finished and for the next debate, how do you typically structure the first 30 minutes of the day in the last 30 minutes? I'm like yeah I love that question. So the end of the day is
definitely dog walk for sure. And then I try to do sort of Inventory of what are one or two things that I did that day. That made me more of my favorite version of Kathleen and how can I replicate that? You know, and it could be something as simple as you know, I drank a certain amount of water and I know that made me feel really good and then I think of, okay, what are one, or two things that you did that?
I did that made me, sort of less of a favorite version of Kathleen. And then I was like, okay, so how can I try not to have those happen? You know, going forward and then I always meditate at the end of the day for sure. So those are The things that I find really set me up also just for a good sleep because, you know, going through the inventory of my day. Also just will help calm me in and sort of put me in a state of
sleep. And then in the morning it sort of depends on the morning because some mornings, I have six am client, so it's pretty much like I do. My first client before I do my own daily sort of wake up and then I, then I would do my sort of 30 minutes of them as an hour of depending on what it is. I do some journaling, I do. Work out and I do my physio stuff because I had a hip injury by the eight years ago and then not and then I go about the rest of my day. So it depends on what I start
with. But I always have in the morning sometime either before my clients are after my first client. I have about an hour to myself where I do a workout and I Journal a little bit just like free-flowing, like morning pages and, you know, take a gratitude moment and have some breakfast instead of just, you know, I like to try to think about how how grateful I am.
I'm the things that I'm lucky to have because it's easy to sort of. I don't let life kind of take over and lose a little bit of perspective. Yeah. Did the, the journaling and the meditation to that come pretty naturally to you? Or was it kind of a struggle to get in the habit of doing that? I'm sorry, I'm laughing because you can't see because we're not.
I've never, but I have this cat very much vying for my attention right now, everybody, listening both at somebody else's home right now because my house was there is massive drilling outside my condo. So I had to discuss. And so, this person has two cats and a dog and their surrounding. It's rather than sorry. Can you the question was meditation and journaling? Those are very hard things for me because I find it hard to be still, so, meditation in
particular. Yeah, my therapist told me that I should try it. And I read a book called true happiness by Sharon salzberg. I that was a very helpful, you know, she sort of has a similar idea but meditation that I do of exercise of just like start with 5.
For 10 minutes, start where you are, her book goes through, you know, like 20 different ways, different types of meditation, everything from like a walking meditation to loving-kindness meditation and her idea is like doesn't matter which of these. You like just do one of them, so I tried that it's hard.
I like, yeah. The idea of sort of with meditation is that, you know, your chair is always going to swivel, like your mind is always Gonna Leave You but like, how quickly can you pull yourself back? It's a lovely concept. It's hard to do for some Like me is very type A and I want to be moving, I want to be like running and sweating and grunting. So the idea of sitting still with my own boss, it's like really why am I not doing something but I'm getting better
at it slowly but surely right. It's a process. Everything is a process. Yeah, I feel like I've failed multiple times at, you know, carving out time for meditation but I've figured out the solution for me at least I'm going to get a sauna and I want to sit in a sauna for 20 minutes and then is going to be when I meditate as if I have the you know, motive to Sit in the sun. It's going to make it much
easier. And with the song like you can't have your phone in there because it's going to be too hot for the fire. It's like, that's going to be like, yeah, Primo time and setting for me to actually exist. It was meditating. Yeah, so I love that because that's an example for every listing of two really wonderful things. The first one is that you can piggyback or Mary something you love with something that you want to do like a new habit with something like a sauna that you really enjoy.
So and that could be with anything. Like you know, if you're having a hard time working out, you know, It was seeing a friend or instead of just taking your dog for like a saunter something that you already do.
And you like, you can add some interval training to that or if you like to hang out with your kids, like the, you know, make it a sporting event, like, oh, you know, throw the ball around or whatever, but marrying sort of habit that you have a desire to create with something you already enjoy an RD. Do can be so useful, but I also just really like the way you said is that you made it work for you, right?
And that's I think the key. With all of this is I say to my clients It's like moving has to be a non-negotiable, but how you move is up to you, right? And and I think for a lot of people meditation needs to be on a non-negotiable. But how you meditate this up to you?
If you want to, as I said, you could do a walking meditation or you could do a sauna meditation, whatever it is like, you know, you can always tweak it. Once you start, as we said it was exercise but I do think you have you ever heard the phrase? Like, if you have time to meditate meditate, you should meditate for 10 minutes but if you have no time to meditate, you need to meditate for three hours but totally true but it's just the thing. Like it's whatever.
We have a hard time. Prioritizing is probably the thing that we need the most. Like I have a really hard time prioritizing time off. I need that more than anything. I need time off much more than I need a ride because I run all the time, but I do not give myself time off, you know?
So it's just, I don't know. Our habits are so based in, you know, sort of your own childhood, like a fertilizer of what we grew up with and are sort of own unique brand of neuroses and unique brand of sort of fears. And you know there's something about it for me of you know
growing up with a mom. That you know, we didn't have a lot of money, single mom and acting is very precarious, you don't always know if you have a job and so I have this thing like I like to know I'm working on I like to make sure I'm making money and I like to support myself and so I get it, you know? So it's uniquely me. And then I have to figure out how to fight those good neuroses that are not serving me, you know? So yeah. Anyway, I love the fact that you
found a way to meditate. Yeah, it's like doing those things that weird least, you know likely are least desirable to do those do. It should likely be done. First, I feel like the, as the day progresses, so much easier to talk yourself out of doing whatever whether that's working out or whatever, the case may be.
But I feel like if you just knock that thing out of the park for very first thing in the day and then your likelihood of actually getting it finished and completed is going to be just exponentially higher, 100%. You need to front-load any of the activities that you're not good at or don't want to do because it's just so easy for life to take over. And then it's like, oh, I forgot to do that. Okay? And forgot in quotes, you No.
Like, you know, either consciously or unconsciously for god, well, I don't have time to meditate anywhere. It's also the don't have time. Write, like, you're doing something for five minutes, everybody has five minutes. You can meditate as you wait for the bus or if you have kids are running late for school, then take a moment and close your eyes and like there's always a way to filter it into like pepper it into your life. You just have to find like find Solutions. That's the thing.
My mom used to always say, to me Kathleen, there's always a solution and that's one of the biggest gift, she gave me Like just that mindset of, you know, I don't necessarily know what the solution is yet, but either you find it, and if you can't find it, you create it. Like, that is the power we have as human beings. What's the biggest time sink that you struggle with? Like, is it social media? Or what would be the biggest thing that just sucks time away.
That is not productive hours. I have a lot of time that's not productive hours which is I actually think part of my problem, like I really think that if my therapist was here which she would say is I need much more time. That is unproductive. Yeah. Not social media unproductive. But like I need to sort of sit and read a book or sit and meditate or just like play more, like more games or that. So productive in another way. That's, you know, fun and joy and but for better and worse,
I'm pretty. The iron fisted with my time. Which I think James, my partner would say that. That's both my best. And also unbelievably one of my most annoying qualities because it's like, okay, this is budgeted for half an hour and we move on. Now, click know what? We always like, what's going on? No, no, yeah, I don't know. I like reruns of Beverly Hills 90210. That's my favorite. One of my favorite television shows and Buffy the Vampire, Slayer. Yeah, you go.
There you go. I feel like, like, for the taipei's like you and I doing something like that is totally quote, unquote unproductive, which in reality is very The is yeah. Contagious. You just have to have the wherewithal to know when you need that and when you need it, you know. Oh my God. You're so wise it's knowing what
you need versus what you want. And that is just so tricky because if you are type A and you get so much of your worth and so much of just everything from feeling, like you're always doing what you need. It's all about balance out, right? Like, if you biased towards the person who sort of sits and doesn't do, you know, plays on their phone or sleeps all the time. Whatever, watching a lot of Netflix.
And yeah, so you need a little bit more like, 15% more like, get up and go. But if you're the type of person who biases to never meditating, to never sleeping to never doing any of that, then you need to sort of redefine. What productivity is. My therapist says this to me all the time, like, joy and fun and all that stuff. It's productive. It's just a different type of productive it's and it's helping you be a better version but better as in like a more calm centered.
Favorite but I like this idea of not my best version of Kathleen but my favorite version of Kathleen like and what feels good in my skin to be Kathleen you know and you know going to the park with the dog and like throwing the ball. It's unproductive and totally productive all the same time because it's just a more Balanced Life. Yeah, no I can totally get behind that.
I've tried to shift my thinking away from this concept of balance because I think often times this imagery of balance involves you know, a teetering tottering? Teeter-totter is one's going up and one going down. I've instead, tried to shift my focus towards this idea, that everything in my life is symbiotic in nature. And there's this concept of ten. Segregate. So tensional Integrity. As I'm pulling one thing other things. Yeah. Yeah. I love chemical. Yeah, yeah. I like that.
Yeah. I've heard that critique of balance before and I think I agree with that on sort of like an intellectual level, I think so much. It's just finding the word that works for you. Like when I think about, I actually don't really think Think of like finding a perfect Middle Ground. I sort of just think of everything always in flux, and I guess, maybe it's just because I'm so skewed biased in One Direction. I don't think about getting
myself to of any perfect middle. I just sort of, think of, it's almost more like, in my brain. My, my life is very much like a light switch. It's like either I'm working all the time or I fear that I'm going to be like, quote-unquote lazy. Like I feel like I'm going to go back to my old version of Kathleen which is like a light
switch. The The direction. And so, when I think of balance I almost think of just like a dimmer switch like just finding ways to be a little bit less skewed in One Direction. Yeah, yeah. More of like an equilibrium may be less than a balance and a being aware of all the different parts of what I want to be in my life that social connection, you know, the friends and the family and the exercise and everything, but I like the tents Equity.
Like, we talked about that a lot in with the body, like the tensaiga T model of the body. Versus just pure like by a mechanical model of the body and I've never really thought about applying that to all of the different aspects of my life. So I'm going to think on that, I'm going to Noodle on that. I like yeah yeah that's worked really well for me because I don't know, I just like I'm an extremist type person but I recognize that I can't be 100% with all things, 100% of time.
It's better to be, you know, it's better to be 90% 100% of time than a hundred percent 10 percent of time. So to say so figuring out, Where that lies and then just doubling down those things that I think are moving the overall needle forward throughout every aspect of my life that I want to excel in. So you're kind of just figuring out and defining what that looks like for me.
But, you know, for me, and for you to it sounds, it's oftentimes, you know, favoring that of the work, or the career, or the clientele. Yeah, so much everything else. And it's unfortunate because, like, like Crystal my wife, for instance, like the people that are closest to, you are willing to put up with the most bullshit's, like you Bruce that total as you can which is not fair but it's just kind of how
we're wired. So just kind of putting systems into place so that that is not the case more often than not. I guess I completely completely agree act just ever. So slightly dialing down that aspect and dialing up other aspects of our life. Yeah, I one of the podcast that
just changed my life. I actually forget, which podcast, it was odd that it was with this woman Kristin, Neff, who does a lot of work on self-compassion and the interviewer was saying, look A lot of Pride shows they now will I just tell my kids to like, you know, do their best? And then I'll always do their best at everything. And I'll and then that's all. That's what counts?
And Kristen just took this pause and she basically said, if you tell your kid, if you tell your kid or anybody to be their best at everything, they will end up in the hospital. It is not possible to give 100% to everything all at once.
She's like instead, tell your kids to figure out the one, two, three, four, five, things that they want to Be their best at and give 100% at that and then be okay showing up for the rest and I thought that was a really sort of what you were talking about of like the, you know, 100 percent versus 90% in 10 and that I thought that was a really interesting just idea. And so I try to think about that in life as well.
Like what today am I going to really try to excel at and then what today is okay, like some workouts it just the point of like just going and doing that's totally okay. It doesn't have to be a ten out. It doesn't have to be in a race. All the time, you know, be races and see races. Like if you're an athlete, right?
Like they have their place to that's where you get practice and that's where you get sort of, you know, as a triathlete that's where you get the practice of like going from swimming to biking and it's they have a different purpose, those times in life where you show up. So I don't, I don't know, like I think for exercise it's just a matter of understanding that the sum of the parts is greater than each individual.
Like it doesn't each workout doesn't have to be a 10 out of 10, it doesn't have to be Your best workout ever, to be extremely worthwhile, like, so much of it is showing up, it's just consistently showing up for yourself. And then eventually you wake up and you're like, oh, I do feel
overall better, you know. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, if you are moving, if your, if you have some for minimum, it's much easier to keep that momentum going as opposed to trying to stop and are just start an immobile object. You know, stuff people that are working at, it's not really a habit like for you. And I working at is as much part of the day as brushing our teeth I could just Happens. Yeah, fault.
But for people, that's not a habit, you know, I kind of like this idea of working at every single day, not necessarily going all-in. Trying to hit PRS every single day. But just simply getting some movement in every single day that way they don't have this like planned, you know, off day or like several off days. Like if you refer to it as like an off day there, it's like for me whenever I take a quote unquote off day, the next day
back is much harder than it had. I never taken off there, you know, so just keep performing and goings is key. Yeah, I think that's very, very true but I also think that what's interesting is that we all have sort of better and worst days, but as you get more fit and as exercising gets more habitual. What you define, as a better and worse day, really changes. So and the better or worse week.
Great. So my quote unquote off days, I'm still walking like ten fifteen thousand steps because I have the dog and we go for walks. And so whereas like 1015 Thousand Steps, 20 years ago would have been a crazy exercise day for me, right? So what I Define as sort of my like a day days at a workouts is very different now than it was before. So I think it's important to sort of realize that everyone is always going to have better and worse days.
You're going to have sort of date like you need recovery day. Do you need, you know, you need those a days and be days and see days. But what you, what you define of those things is going to change. Like, there's always going to be some undulation, but you're going to undulated a higher Paradigm. The fitter you get, so you're never aiming for perfect, you're aiming for progress?
Yeah, so you want your better days to be better and you want your worst case to be like the better than your old worst days? Yeah, 100%. Well Kathleen. What's on the horizon for you like with you having this Progressive overload on your life getting better and all aspects, like what is on the horizon fee? That you're super excited about doubling down on and just improving. Well, I'm very, I offer this five-week group coaching courses called kick your ass with
compassion. So, I'm starting another one November 10th. I really love that because it allows me to connect with a greater number of people and said, Of just one-on-one training its online. It says, umm it's five weeks and it's great, it's coaching. So it's not exercise. You're not, you know, doing squats and lunges. It's really about mindset. It's about connecting the dots between wanting and doing so
goal-setting Court course. So, really like you come in, you learn the science of achieving a goal. So that's great is really fun because it's people from all over the world who joined so that on a professional level, I like helping people kick their own ass but with compassion you know, hold their toes to the fire but do it because they respect and love themselves. Not be As now they hate
themselves. And personally, we actually just booked like an hour ago, a trip to Whistler, which I'm really excited about because my mom she's a movie in the Whistler, Film Festival as Premier, and it's a whisper from Festival. So, my Mom and James and myself were all going to go to Whistler for 5 days and see my mom's movie and have some good food,
and I think will be really fun. I'm very excited and that sort of goes with that bucket of, you know, looking in advance to the month that's coming and saying, like Okay, In that month, when is your time off going to be and, you know, making being very intentional with my time and I think intentionality is huge. Yeah, hundred percent agree. I feel like you know kind of going back to the personal aspect of things.
Your mom knowing what she knows about you and the type of person that you are you making that time, dedicate that time to her and supporting her is going to mean so much more to her than you probably even realize. And I feel like when you have family members and you make that time for them that's like a really Good way to just kind of work that into the system.
Like if you've got all these specific goals and aspirations, you know, when your career path in your business, but you have these times carved out for specific family members, that's like a great way to check that box for for you and Kevin proving that aspect of your life but also it means so much more to them. So it's awesome that you're
doing that. Yeah, I think you're well, I think that, you know, as we have been talking about the more something becomes habitual and the more you can see the positives of doing it right, the more you exercise, you feel good that you want exercise. More and I just think vacation and time with friends and family is a very similar idea like I think partly over the pandemic I was just seeing fewer people.
I wasn't seeing my mom as much and now it's time to sort of get out and do more things and the more I get back in the habit of seeing my mom more and doing more fun things away from my home. I think I will also just remember how much I used to love it and that desire will drive Behavior, you know? So I think it comes full circle
to everything. We've talked about, like, if you want to have a confidence to do something again, you have to do it. First time even though the first time the little bit scary, right? No, I totally hundred percent agree. 100% agree. Well, where do people go to find out? More about you dive deeper into your ecosystem and sign up for this. Kick your ass with a compassion
course. My website is Kathleen, Trotter.com, and I am fit by Kathleen t on all the sort of Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all that kind of stuff. So, I'm always open to people's questions. So if they want to get in contact with me and talked about their fitness journey, I am always around. Awesome. I'll certainly link out, make it easy. Of people to find you. One other thing, we really love the same books.
Like the, you're the one thing Atomic habits, you ought to read discipline is Destiny by Ryan holiday. If you haven't already. I love Ryan holiday. Of course, I've read that book, I think, but I don't know if I've read all of his books, but ya know, I'm a huge stoic philosophy. I often joke to James, but I'm a stoic Buddhist, and he thinks that's hilarious because he's, like, you are neither stoic nor Buddhist.
But, let me tell you, I tried really hard to live the, some of the stoic virtues and also, to be fair They examine and in my approach to life. But anyway, so yes, I love Ryan holiday. So thank you very much for that recommendation. Yeah, no, it's awesome step for speaking the same language for sure. Yes, for sure. And people listening, if they do like any of the books we've chatted about on my website and I do a book sort of reviews, are not really reviews.
They're like, I take the main tip takeaways from the book and apply it to health and wellness. So there's one on Atomic habits. I have one on Carol dweck's growth mindset. I have a bunch of Brené Brown books. I have, I don't have a ton of bugs. Probably have a couple Ryan holiday. I think I did one for Stillness is the key but anyway so you can if you are interested in reading some self development books and you're like which book should I start with?
But you can look on the website and do a deep dive into the books and how they might apply to your health Journey. Awesome, awesome. That's awesome. Resource that you put out there for people. Kathleen has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Like I've learned quite a bit. I will link out to your site, your socials, make it easy people to find you if there's ever anything I could do for you at all, by all means just reach out.
Let me know. This was so fun. Take care. Have a good one. Kathleen has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Like I've learned quite a bit. I will link out to your site, your socials, make it easy people to find you if there's ever anything I could do for you at all, by all means just reach out. Let me know. This was so fun. Take care. Have a good one.