![[ 9 ]- How To Plan Ahead and Achieve Work/Life Balance and Organization using a Color Coded Calendar and Much More With Dai Manuel - podcast episode cover](https://assets.metacast.app/images/episode/artwork/SMlsx7Rr)
many years ago I started running Sunday fun days, which was, uh, Sunday many years ago I started running Sunday fun days, which was, uh, Sunday fun day. It was a community many years ago I started running Sunday fun days, which was, uh, Sunday fun day. It was a community of people where my wife and I volunteered our time to train people for free.
And what I realized was it wasn't so much that people don't know what to do, they really are missing why they're doing it and about how to do it the most effectively. You know, for them to not only experience results, but do it in a way that was sustainable. You know, a lot of people believe that, oh, if I can't go to the gym five days a week, what's the point? And I'm like, well, that's the wrong idea, right? Because
we all know what to do. It's all about we do. And that's why I always talk in the show about I think tracking or having some type of system or some type of thing that supports us because We already all know what we should do. It's clearly there's a missing link between that knowledge and the execution. Yes. Thank you. There's a huge gap there that Thank you. That's what, uh, so tell us what is, here's the gap
filler. Yeah. I'll give you the gap filler. Okay. And so what I put together, I produced a program for people, where they commit 2% of every 24 hours. Right. It doesn't sound like a lot. So every 24 hours, every day of that time. 2% of the day of that time, that's right. It's 30 minutes a day. Okay. That's it. It's just 30 minutes, but it's 2% of every 24 hours. Right? Okay. Well, yeah. Not very much. Not very much at all. In fact, I, I always challenge people.
I'm like, take your phone out, go to the screen time section and, and tell me what your daily screen time use is on various apps. I know already people probably have apps that they're on more than 30 minutes a day. So it's not like we don't have the time, but we don't have the intentional energy to put it in the right thing to produce the right results. So what I did was I wanted to make it easy for people. It's 15 minutes of movement with purpose. So that's moving your body, body weight base.
No, you don't need weights, you don't need a fancy gym. You need enough room to put a towel down on the floor. You've got more than enough room to do a great workout in 15 minutes. At the end of 15 minutes, you do five minutes of mindful meditation. because it, I know a lot of people struggle with meditation. it's a lot easier to focus on your breath when you're coming down from a workout right? Because we're trying to steady our heart. Steady our breath.
So I find it's a wonderful way to introduce the concept of meditation for people, We're controlling our breath to slow our heart rate, to bring our focus in, to turn that focus internal, to calm ourselves. After that five minutes, you then take, with this focus, you input 10 minutes of focused personal development. It. That would be like listening to a great podcast like yours, David. Plug, plug, plug. Uh, maybe listening to a TED talk, like my Ted talk or, or talking to a coach.
Me, you know, connecting with a mentor, reading a great book, or listening to an audiobook. There's so many ways that you can fill your mind with something positive. Mm-hmm. and I'm not saying hours, I'm not saying five pages or three pages. I'm like, just 10 minutes. You might want to go longer. You might feel inspired and keep going, that's fine. But the program is set. It's just non-negotiable. 30 minutes every day where you prioritize your own self-care and that's it.
And I invite people to do that for 28 days straight. And then you take seven days off and then you commit to do it again and you wash, rinse, repeat, And I've never had anybody ever message me to say that they haven't experienced a humongous shift in their life After just 28 days, I have yet to have that conversation. Wow. And, and I'm very proud of this, you know, and, uh, I've had thousands upon thousands of people go through the program. Uh, I give the program away for free.
'cause I don't want costs money to be a block for people to get healthy. I just, I, I believe we all deserve access to health, you know, and resiliency that we achieve through the health. So, um, that's the whole Life Fitness Manifesto.
I love it because one, I had a therapist that she told me, um, and I came to the same conclusion that the biggest problem to people, uh, in terms of not being able to do the things that they wanna do is overwhelm. Yes, you're right. And I, I came to that conclusion, then she said to me, so it was like, whoa. And uh, by doing the 2%, which is 30 minutes, but sounds much less if you say
2%. That's exactly right. It's the copywriter in me.
you basically, uh, Um, it's kind of a way to solve that problem of overwhelm. Like, 'cause everybody's heard, like all these YouTubers tell you, you know, you gotta do this, that David Goggins, like, I ran for a hundred hours straight. It's like, it's too much. Um, so, so it's all about those little steps that are more powerful than the big ones. Like everything in life is almost counterintuitive. So that's one way that we mess it up by, and I've done this for years. It's like so many big goals.
So many days I'm gonna do all these things, then you don't do anything. So it's just like, start small 2%, that 30 minutes a day and that 30 minutes is like consistent. You know, you, it's, it's hard to, like, if somebody tells you go, you gotta run all this time. it's easy to make an excuse, but if you make it small, So I love that. So in terms of the relationship, uh mm-hmm. so tips, like, do you have things that you do with, uh, your wife Absolutely.
That people can implement that you know, you feel that really are, is
important? Well, just like what we experienced with whole Life Fitness Manifesto and that small, seemingly very small deposit of time daily into oneself, we recognize that equally making deposits in the person that we count as one of our, our, our life partner. That should be as good of a priority, if not most important. You, you know, I mean, obviously you gotta look after yourself first so you can look after others. We all know that cliche right?
About the airplane But, but you know, moving past that cliche when it comes to our relationships, I mean, how active are we in constantly wanting to rediscover things about our partner? And I know for myself, I found myself distracted and getting very complacent, but when I went through those internal shifts, I realized that my relationship was really lacking. And so creating intention to make it better was very important to me.
And so the way that we started that was we created a non-negotiable night every week where we would sync up our calendars and we would let anybody and everybody know that if we ever were invited on Saturday nights after 5:00 PM to do something, it was either we're doing it as a couple or we're saying no. We'd set five to 10:00 PM and that was it. It was non-negotiable. One night a week was just for us to connect. And I'll tell you, David,
you planned dates, you planned like a romantic dinner. We
it, well, sometimes it'd Netflix and chill and order ordering Uber Eats, right? Like, again, I think if you get really into the minutia and you're trying to be prescriptive with what to do and how to do it, y yada yada, yada, you create barriers for yourself. Mm-hmm. You know, because then you start to believe that if I can't do it, at least to that extent, what's the point? Yeah, because I, I, and I see this and I found myself thinking that way too.
Okay. And, but that's why I'm not prescriptive. But I do say you've got five hours, maybe you're going to eat, maybe you go for a walk. Like this is, my wife and I will sometimes go for a walk. We'll go grab a coffee. Maybe we'll have a snack or an appie at like a tapas bar. Um, I mean, we just do different stuff. Sometimes we go to a movie it, we're not worried about what the activity is as long as we're together doing it.
Got it. So that's the basic and then whatever comes up, that's like
the extra that is. And, and I will tell you this is something that we do do is we take turns every other week I plan, and then the opposite week she plans. Got it. So that way the responsibility is shared, but also it creates a little bit of intrigue. A little bit of excitement. I don't know what she's got planned for Saturday night. She doesn't tell you until the moment. No, until the night. Right. And Oh, that's cool.
I mean, sometimes we might get some notice a couple days before, but, and sometimes we may not even have anything planned, but we're like, Hey, you know what, it's Saturday morning. I think we're gonna do this tonight. Okay, great. you know, again, you wanna have fun. All right. Do something that brings you closer together. One of our favorite things to do is escape rooms. We love escape rooms. Oh really? And I know some people say, no, no, that's a sure way to get divorced.
But you know, and we've had our moments, oh, trust me, we've had our moments. But we enjoy that. It's a fun activity that you can do with somebody. It only lasts like an hour. And uh, and it challenged you in so many different ways. Right? It's like a little
adventure you went on together, you had to figure out how to Yeah. Escape the room.
It's fun though, right? Like, and again, don't be so prescriptive that all of a sudden, if you can't do it. 'cause I, I see this with people that have morning rituals, you know, like there's so many of those books out there, right? Yeah. And I think that's wonderful 'cause people want a system. But if you've gone from doing zero now you're trying to do 10 things every morning. I mean, that is a big change. Very fast.
And I see a lot of people get frustrated or feel like they're failing because they might do great for a week, two weeks. I. Then all of a sudden, oh man, I only got two of my 10 things done this morning. Oh, geez. And they start to feel bad about that which will ultimately create the barrier to stop. Yeah. And
it's the overwhelm. You put your morning routine, 10 things, you wake up and you're like, oh my God, just to get to start my day, I have to do these 10 things. I'll better not do them. So I also agree that the morning routines are better to keep very simple, 20, 30 minutes. I agree. The complete morning routine. 'cause I've had morning routines that it's like three hours
David, how
the hell you did that? Man, that's awesome. I did like this. I did that. I, and then I finish and it's like, it's 11:00 AM and I just finished my morning routine and it's like, oh my God. So it's just keep it short, you know? Uh, easy If it's, if it's overwhelming, it's, you're eventually gonna stop doing it, so. Correct. Absolutely. It's so, so important to just keep things simple, you know? Um, let's see here. So. In terms of, of your relationship, I'm curious mm-hmm.
um, besides that, you know, everybody has difficult, I mean, times with their partner. Yep. Do you have a way to kind of deal with that? Is there like something that you, you do, uh,
well listen, we, we hear often about, um, okay. Actually, you know what, I'm gonna share a book. There's a book by Gay Hendricks, his first book's called The Big Leap. And I highly recommend that book to anybody. Um, it, it talks about how to work through limiting beliefs, but also how to recognize those patterns where we self-sabotage and, and ways to overcome that.
So it's a really powerful book and it's a, actually for all my coaching clients, it's a required reading before they start working with me. Wow. That's how much I believe in that book. Um, next to that is a re two relationship books that have been instrumental in my wife and i's relationship in our 23 years. The first one's the five Love Languages.
My past, uh, guest just talked about Wonderful. Talked about that. It,
it's awesome. It, it is also been great for us as parents, um, me as a leader of various companies and organizations, whether startups or established, uh, because everyone can relate to those five. Like when you start to understand how to recognize in certain people how they want to be appreciated or how they feel loved or, or cared for, you can start to make sure that you acknowledge that with those individuals, right?
Like I I, my wife as an example, she's very much an, uh, access service kind of person. So this acts of service just, I won't get into it 'cause you obviously probably had the last speaker that you talked to about this going into the details. But my wife is someone that likes active service. So if I help out around the house, I do some vacuum, I do some cleaning, I take the garbages out and I do all that stuff without her even asking. She feels very loved, she feels very supported.
And in fact, uh, we joke around, I call it porn for housewives. Okay. Because she always gets excited when I do that stuff. All right, So if I want to get some, see I just do some house cleaning, right? when she
sees
you with the vacuum, that's kind of a, it's on man. It's on, it's on She hears that vacuum noise and it's on, it's,
we're getting Randy. Yeah. But, um, so there's that as an example, and myself, I'm words of affirmation as you probably have already picked up, you know, me talking about wanting to be validated and all that stuff as a kid, right? Mm-hmm. Um, and, and so she knows that, so she'll be, she's very good and now she's does it sparingly. So, because, you know, if you, you compliment people too much, you acknowledge the good things too much. I mean, it, it just loses its effect. Loses, yeah.
Can you tell us like examples for the woman listening? Like what type of things can they tell their husband that, for example, for you, your favorite type of compliments or favorite type of little comments?
Well, I'll give you an example. So my wife and I, and my kids, we've been very active in, in an organization called Toastmasters. And Toastmasters is a public speaking organization. Also, it helps people develop leadership skills. It's just something I've been a part of going on, I don't know, about 15 years, right around the same time that I stopped drinking. I, I needed new association. I needed to also learn how to communicate without alcohol.
So it became an organization that really helped me with that, as well as dealing with my anxiety when it came to speaking in public. That's what I was saying before, David. Had I not made that change, there's no way I was getting on to do a podcast. I mean, forget that you know? Um, but so these things have supported me in these changes and, uh, my wife, you know, she'd be very quick to say, you know what? I'm really proud of you today.
That speech you gave, I saw a couple people, it really resonated with them. I, I'm really proud of you, you know, or, Hey, babe, I, I, you know, she, my family, I would drag 'em around. I, I compete in CrossFit, so my wife would, and my kids would often come to go do all the competitions with me, and she'd be very quick, you know, she'll, you know, you did great today. I know you didn't win.
And I know you're upset about that, but man, your performance was awesome today, especially when you did this, this, and this. You know, like just reminding me of the things that I can celebrate and I can acknowledge as being awesome. But, you know, sometimes we're very, let's just say, uh, narrow minded or, or shortsighted when it comes to some of our own things and our own perspective on ourselves. So she's really good at acknowledging those. And, um, and it makes me feel good.
It makes me feel more confident in myself, right? Uh, and even just when she sees me down, like when my anxiety gets bad sometimes, David, I just, I shut down. I, I, I withdraw. I I need private time. It's, it's, it's also part of being an introvert, right? I need to recharge. I need some of that solo time by myself. But she'll look at me and she'll support me with that, and she'll say, you know, it's gonna be okay. I see you. I love you, and I'm here to support you. Let me know how I can help.
Just her saying that I feel a weight lifted off my shoulders, even if I don't even ask her for any help. Just knowing that she's there and she said, that is enough to make me feel better. So those are just a few of the examples that are very, very real for me and, and things that I've experienced with my wife that I know has made a big difference. I love that. But you want to be specific to however they like to feel loved and supported, and that's why the Five Love Languages is really good.
I love that. So it's basically trial and trial and error to kind of see which one. Uh, well go
to the website. There's a free quiz, and the quiz I find is like 90% accurate. It's not ever gonna be perfect, but it's pretty damn close. Okay. And it's free. You just go on, you put in your new email and then you're gonna get on their email list. But it's actually, they've got really good emails, so it's, it's, it's worth it. Um, but they'll send you your quiz results and they'll say, this is your primary and this is your secondary language, and this is what it means.
And, uh, it's really helpful. I, I, I do recommend to my clients to always do the quiz with their spouses so they can learn a bit more about how each other feel appreciated and loved.
Well, no, that's awesome. And thank you so much for that. Yeah, you're welcome, David. So you're big on balance,
right? Sort of. I, I, I'll explain only because you know, this idea of, of It's like time management, right? Time management work life balance. There're these terms that we hear and we're like, oh, that sounds so nice, But we all struggle with actually doing it right? And, and so as an example, time management, stop everybody's listening and watching. Stop trying to manage your time and start managing your commitments, right? What are you committing to do? Why are you committing to do it?
And how much time are you gonna commit? To do that thing. 'cause we all have limited inventory when it comes to our time. And listen, life's way too short to do this crap that we don't want to be doing, you know? So, um, my, my encouragement is just start managing your time and practice time blocking so you can start to visualize what those commitments look like on a week-to-week basis. And make sure you're prioritizing the important things. Like you're 30 minutes a day for yourself. right?
Um, so that's one thing. And then as far as work-life balance, this ties into that idea because if we realize, um, wherever our focus goes, our energy flows as, uh, Tony Robbins is well known for saying, you know, where our attention goes, our energy flows, right? And, uh, once we're focusing on one thing, you can't look at anything else. Your eyes are looking over here. You can't see what's going on over here. Oh, I'm gonna turn, I'm gonna look over here.
'cause I'm trying to find balance I'm switching my attention. But now this area is blind. So what I encourage people to try to do is forget trying to find balance or equilibrium. Try to create harmony. Mm-hmm. right? Try to create this harmony where the things sort of flow back and forth into each other because they do, most of our professional and personal are so tightly intertwined.
I don't really know many people where they have complete com compartmentalization when it comes to what they do for work and how they live their life. The two are very complimentary. They may not like what they're doing professionally and it might be affecting their personal fair enough, but regardless of who are interconnected, and we are the connecting factor, right? Us as the human being participating in both sides.
And so if you find harmony, just like music, when you have harmony, it's amazing. That's how you get beautiful music. You get one person or an instrument out of key or Alf, beat It doesn't feel so good or sound so good. Same applies to this idea of work life. So looking to create harmony.
So, uh, walk me through kind of the actual, you know, the way you actually do it day by day. So let's say, let's just say, just for an example's sake, you have three commitments, right? Yep. Well, let's just, let's just talk about an average person. So we got a commitments, family commitments, we got work commitments. Yep. We got what? Like body and health commitments. How do you, how many, how do you do it? Like, do you divide it between, like those categories
goals? being financially responsible is important. Um, and so this, this idea of the finances would be my work and how I'm going to either create money or make the opportunity for future money, right? Mm-hmm. and I block that in, and I use a color for that on my calendar. You, most of the time it's green, right? Green also means money, right? So it's green and I'll block that in throughout the week.
My client conversations, maybe discovery conversations, any keynotes that are coming up, anything that's really involved with my business side. When it comes to family. I use pink for those blocks of time. When it comes to my fitness, I use red. All right. When it comes to some of the other stuff, like maybe an in a, uh, a in-person meeting, like going for a coffee with a friend or is that connection, which I also sort of classify in our family, I might use yellow for that.
So when I look at my calendar, I know, oh, there's a yellow, yellow, yellow. Those are things where I'm actually gonna have to go somewhere that time for that appointment. Mm-hmm. So here's the thing though, because it's one thing to have all these colors and to recognize that I'm blocking in the things that are important to me throughout the week. But if we're not constantly looking and analyzing and also forecasting and reviewing, then we don't really get the full picture nor the full benefit.
And this is what I mean. I look at my calendar on that weekly basis. If I've only got one block of red on there on one day, that means I've only got fitness prioritized one day outta the next seven I. I now know I've got some imbalance, right? Because I've got, oh my goodness, I got like 20 blocks of green. Looks like I got a lot of work happening next week, but I've only put in one block of time for my fitness, my health.
There's a challenge there, and I know if I keep going down that trend, it's gonna create problems for me later. Mental health challenges, because I'm not gonna feel good about myself. I'm gonna feel sluggish. My sleep patterns are gonna be poorer. I'm gonna deal with my anxiety and my stress a lot more because I'm not working out, which helps me offset that. Also, I know nutritionally when I'm not prioritizing my health, I make poorer decisions when it comes to how I eat.
So this is one way that by using this color coding or this time block with color coordination for your values, you can start to understand where the imbalances are in your, your life, and then you can consciously. And purposefully make changes, you know, start blocking in more of those colors.
So if family is something that you're feeling really disconnected on, well you're gonna make sure that you get a bunch more blocks this week of intentional time with family or friends or those deeper connections and so forth. You keep repeating, you
know? I absolutely love it. I love it. One question I have is, yeah, do you have a set amount of time per week or you just kind of No. Intuitively just
stop plotting things now? I've been doing this. Okay. uh, I, I mean, I started doing this actually without really understanding the full impact, right before I made the big changes 15 years ago. So I had started about a year before that, really using Google Calendar, but I wasn't using it this way to sort of find balance, if you will, or harmony more importantly, once I started to look at it that way, it made it much more intentional when it came time to put energy into certain things.
Um, but I'm not so prescriptive that I have to have so many blocks of red, so many blocks of green, so many blocks of pink, you know, pink's for my family, stuff with my girls. Uh, like I'm not prescriptive to say, oh, if I don't get five blocks in, oh boy, I'm failing.
You know, because again, I think when we do that and we set that sort of prescriptive approach, it just creates opportunity for failure because I'll tell you right now, you can have the best plan in the world, best intentions in the world, but then you might wake up in the morning and the car doesn't start. Yeah. And it's like, oh crap, you know, I had this appointment, I had this family thing. I'm, I'm, my whole day's gonna change now. Oh, yeah. Or me. Right? Well, today's a write off.
Forget it. Yeah. Now I, I guess I'll have that pizza at lunch now. You know, like it's, it's amazing. Now we let a little thing, that slippery slope become a big slope. And, and so I'm, I'm very, very critical on this. You know, I invite people, don't worry about how much you'll intuitively know. The more you do this, you're gonna recognize what you need more of and just make sure you prioritize some time for whatever that is, you know? So,
so, okay. So you, it's Sunday, you Sunday you take your time. That's probably, you already have it planned out when you're gonna do it. Yep. You plan your entire week off with the time blocks trying to make it balanced. Correct. Now it's the day, the next day, or whatever day. You wake up, you look at your calendar, and then you start kind of doing that. And then how do you switch? How do you make sure that you're not just stay doing that thing?
Do you put like an alarm to trigger you to do the next thing? Or how, how do you do it in the moment? What's
happening in the moment? You, you could be like, I've got reminders set. 'cause I, I've got everything synced up with my Google calendar, so I'll get the notification on my phone, oh, I've got this appointment at this time. Or I, I'm, I'm really good at honoring my commitments, but also, please note, I, I, I don't paint my calendar all these different colors where it becomes, this is mosaic of colors. I have a lot of empty space.
Okay. Because that free space is opportunity for me to do things that I want to do. Mm-hmm. And it doesn't mean I have to, but I've got space to do things, but also space to allow things to move into the next thing, right? Like if I've got fitness block for one hour, but I'm at the gym, I'm having fun, a friend shows up, I'm halfway through the workout. So we decided to do something else. Well, now I'm gonna stay for an hour and a half, so an extra 30 minutes.
I had space there so I could do that. You know it, even though I allocate the minimum. So you feel it's the brimm,
you don't fill your whole ca calendar stacked?
I used to. So just full disclosure, David, I used to do it that way, Okay. When I first started, and then I would find out, I'd have meetings running into other meetings and that created stress. And you know, you start pushing it and you just, you know, it becomes really hard, right? Because all of a sudden it's like, oh, my whole day's off now. And we're we're, I'm like 20 minutes behind. I'm like, where am I gonna make up my 20 minutes? And it, it becomes overwhelming and, and stressful.
So I, I'm very quick to let people know, don't over commit your calendar. 'cause that's most where most of us run into problems. It's the overcommitting, right?
It's the greed of wanting to do too
much fomo, fomo, and also saying yes to just opportunity. I used to deal with that all the time. I had to learn how to say no and be okay with no. Hmm.
Yeah. I mean, I've tried to do like the calendar thing, but I, I stacked it to the brim. That's tough. And then it doesn't work. And then, yeah. So I love it. So how much, like, let's say in a normal day you're looking at your calendar, um, what percentage of it do you feel, obviously of the waking time mm-hmm. and how much percentage, roughly, obviously, do you kind of let those break those spaces for it to,
well, like today, let's just, uh, I've had, you know, a couple podcast conversations, a couple client calls. Um, I've got a coaching session this afternoon and then I've also got my workout blocked and then I'm having dinner with my wife. But as much as that sounds like a ton that's spread out over, uh, I think it's 11 hour period, you know, between 8:00 AM to, to, to like seven o'clock tonight, you know.
Um, but there's a couple blocks of two and two and a half hour blocks where I'm not doing anything. And, but during those, I've got things that I'm working on. I've got a couple keynotes coming up, so I'm gonna use some of that time to, to, to practice some of that stuff, refine some of my notes, you know, and, but I'm not stressed out because it's not like I had this thing that I had to do in that block of time.
I, I just asked myself, what are, what's, what's taken a lot of brain space for me right now? You know, what am I thinking of? What am I feeling anxious around? I'm like, well, I'm feeling anxious about my talk in two days. Well, I'm gonna go do something to deal with that, right? And so I'll take this free time and I'm going to use it for that. Or I want to go for a walk. You know, it's a beautiful sunny day today.
You know, I don't have anything after this And as I mentioned to you before, I'm gonna go outside and go for a walk or go for a bike ride when we're done today, you know, before my workout later. And, uh, but I've got the space to do that, you know, and, and I think that's important of having space. Like it's, it's, I, I get it. I know there's some people, and especially the younger guys, the younger generation, I see them like it. It's that Gary Vaynerchuk approach, you know?
Hustle, hustle, hustle. I was second of him.
Yeah. Before you say his name, I exactly was thinking of him. Hustle, hustle, hustle. And I fell into that. It's crazy. I fell into that so hard. Me too. And it's like no balance. And you know, balance is bullshit, eh? Yeah. And it's not. And it's not about if it's bullshit or not. It's that anything in life that you don't do, it's gonna catch up on catch up with you. So that was me. I was like, I'm just gonna work my ass off. I don't care what anything else.
Well, suddenly you don't have any friends. Yeah. Suddenly you hate your life. Suddenly you're overweight. Well, that's out of balance. So you should have been being in balance before. Before it got out of balance. Right. So well
said. Oh man. Yeah. That hustle cut your culture's hard, huh?
Yeah. It brainwashes
you, man. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's people your life. I always say it's burnout, man. You're gonna be, you're gonna burn, like you will burn. I, I tell that to everybody that has that sort of mentality. It's like, it is just a matter of when, you know, it's not a matter of if, it's when and, uh, it happened. I, I've burnt out twice, once I had to be hospitalized for it, so.
Wow. Yeah, it was, but I also learned at that time, I have a chronic autoimmune condition, which I was unaware of, which then just showed me how much stress could have a negative impact on my life if it went unchecked, you know, unmanaged. I. Because chronic stress is the pandemic of our life. You know, like our, for our generation, it's, it's chronic stress that's killing us. You know? And, uh, and I, you know, you don't have to quote me on this.
You just go look at the World Health Organization. They are the ones that have been quoted on this. They're the ones looking at the data from around the world. And it's all these preventable conditions, but it's the untreated chronic stress that's really causing a lot of these lifestyle ailments. And, uh, me with an autoimmune condition, um, if I go too long with not checking that stress, my immune system crashes, I get really sick. Or sometimes I need to be hospitalized, right?
So it's just not worth it to me. I'm like, no, I'm gonna keep my life going the way it is. 'cause that's how I can thrive. You know? Yeah.
That's, that's, you know, an asteroid can hit the world tomorrow, you know, you don't want it to be spent. Like for, for example, me, I look at my last six year of my life, I'm like, What did I do besides work? Nothing. You know, it's like, that's not good, you know, and it took me a long time to realize it. And, uh, so I mean, it, it is, uh, kind of unfortunate. So, um, please tell us, um, that work, you know, what is your coaching program? You know, where can people find you?
All, you know, all that you do,
Well, we'll, that's the easy question. No, I, I'm just joking. Um, listen, I have lots of different ways that I serve my communities and, uh, whether personally or professionally, uh, people that know my professional background, I do do a lot of consulting and business coaching. Um, but just through word of mouth referrals and, uh, and again, that's my choice, right? Um, but where I do support a lot more people is on the personal lifestyle side of things.
Uh, especially when it comes to making health changes and, uh, also being a neural change practitioner. I help people really with rewiring the brain as well as the behavior change to make the health leaps and bounds right? And so there's lots of different ways to do that, whether it be my book or different programs, but I always say everything's gotta start with a conversation. And the easiest way to start that conversation is on social media.
You know, and I'm most active on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. It's just my name, die Manuel. You. It's, I know it's a unique name. A little weird, but don't worry, SS e o loves me because I'm the only one with it. Oh, well you'll find me. And also my website has 1800 articles on it. I've been blogging since 2007. All content that's free just there to help people with the, these changes.
Whether it be mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, you name it, I've got some content to help you. And uh, and that's where we can start, you know?
I love that. So people, if you want to connect with you, the best way is go one of these social media platforms. Look at you. Look you up. D a i, Manuel, m a n u l. I mean, some of the title is gonna show notes, but still some people are listening and they wanna be typing it Sounds good. And then they should just message you right on the spot and, you know, start a conversation there.
Maybe just, just tell me, Hey, I heard you and David talking, and this is a change I'm working on. You know, like, I love hearing about what people are working towards. I, I think it's, it's powerful. You know this probably better than anybody, David, is, you know, it's one thing to have a goal in mind, and if we hold onto it, we keep it in our head. Well, the likelihood of us succeeding with that goal is very little. You talk about it even more.
People, you know, you, you, you write about it more people. But if you write and talk and ask someone to hold you accountable to it, the likelihood of you succeeding is extremely high. And I love hearing about how people are succeeding. So I just like you, David. I mean, I just gotta honor you. Uh, it's amazing what you do. Thank you for creating this platform and this podcast because these conversations that you're capturing, my goodness, we need more of it in the world.
So thanks for being a great role model for all of us. And I hope I can follow suit when I launch my podcast. Thank
you so much that No. And I want you also to, can you tell us about your books? I'm really curious, uh oh, sure. Tell us about your books, you know, what are the names of them, what are they about? And then, uh, in Amazon, you know,
how should they look? Yeah. Well, if you're in North America, and even actually there's other parts of the world. I found my books in various bookstore, which is really crazy in India and also in Thailand and, and wow. Core weirdest thing. My god, seeing my book in those, those stores, right. And uh, wow. But in North America, Barnes and Noble and in Canada, indigo Chapters.
Uh, but the easiest way for most just on Amazon and the whole Life Fitness Manifesto is the main book that most people will find when they look me up. Um, but just check it out, you know? And, and the cool thing is, is I've got my new website going live and my new community going live, the Whole Life Fitness Manifesto program is free. It always will be free. So you don't even have to buy the book to do it.
And I know my publisher, she really gets mad at me when I say that, but I don't care 'cause it's my book and I can do whatever I want. So I, um, I, I invite people just come visit my website. You'll be able to sign up there and, uh, it's a 28 day journey that I'll guide you on. And if you don't see some big changes, I wanna know about it. 'cause that means I didn't do my job well enough to help you. And, and I would be very upset if that wasn't, if that was the case.
So, uh, please gimme a chance to make it right, you know.
So your website is not yet up, but still, I mean, today is September, 2023, so if you're listening to this in the future Yep. Which obviously they will, but I mean, way in the future it's gonna be up. So you might as well, uh, you know, give us
the link if you already have it. Sure, yeah. Just diamond well.com, just my main website. And there will be a button in the top right corner that says, join the community. You click on that, follow the steps, and then you're in, you'll be in the community. Lots of great resources, videos, tutorials, access to any and all of my courses, not all of them are free. I've only got two or three that are free. I've got the Sugar Detox program.
I've also got the Discover Your Purpose Program, and then I've got the Whole Life Fitness Manifesto. All of those are free. So I, I always just say, just get in there. Just, you know, even if you just did the free stuff, man, it is a wonderful place to start doing some of the things that we've talked about today, David, on this conversation. And, uh, I, I love just seeing people discovering themselves that potential that they didn't realize they had.
And, and that's what gets me so excited is when I see people go, I can do this. And in fact I did it right. It's uh, yeah. You know, I don't know if you like Nike or not, but, um, I'm a big Nike fan and, uh, I think the slogan just do it is awesome. But you know, what's better than that? Being able to say, I just did it. You know, because that's your, your, you accomplishing what you set out to do. I think that's even better than just do it. It's like, no, I just did it right.
And I know Nike's gonna send me a cease and desist one of these days, you know, But there we go. You know? That's what I'm saying.
No, man, I love it that it's been awesome meeting you. Um, you know, for the people that are listening, you know, die is like, what is your age again?
Sorry. I'm almost 47, almost
46. He, he's almost 47. He looks like, you know, a 26 year old surfer, you know, in Hawaii or something, you know? Uh, he's like full of life. So this guy knows, he knows what he's talking about when he's talking about health. And, uh, gold Day. It's been a pleasure man. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. And all your knowledge. I loved it. And uh, we'll keep in
touch brother. Well, we will. I hope to get down there to see you. And if, uh, worst case scenario you get up to Vancouver, you better come and see me. But either way, I know we're gonna talk again 'cause when I have my podcast come out, you're gonna be on it, man, so, uh, don't you worry. Thank you. Thanks. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll be switching rules very soon.
Alright, perfect. Thank you.