Maximize Energy and Focus: Self-Care Insights from Jenny Merchant

00:00:13 - Mike Mills

HELLO. Hello, everybody. Welcome, everyone, to another exciting episode of Mike Mills Mortgage and Finance podcast. I'm your host, Mike Mills, your friendly neighborhood mortgage banker, based right here in the heart of Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex. And I've been in the banking for nearly 13 years, and I am passionate about bringing you valuable insights into the real estate and finance world each and every week. But I've got a question for all you Realtors running around town trying to support your family as we approach a new year. Have you thought about your overall health and well being for 2024? Or at least as much as you've thought about growing your business for 2024? Did you know that the two are very, very connected? So today we're going to explore the importance of fitness, health and wellness. And not just for your personal lives, but also how it can impact your success in the real estate industry. But before we get started, I'd like to ask a small favor. If you enjoy the podcast and find it valuable, please take a moment to hit that like and subscribe button. Your support means the world to me, and it helps me keep delivering quality content to you each and every week. Now, let's get to the main event. So joining me today is a truly remarkable guest, Miss Jenny Merchant. Jenny is not only a full time realtor, just like you, but she's also a master of juggling the demands of a successful real estate career, a family life, and her commitment to fitness and wellness. So Jenny's here to share her secrets, insights, and practical tips on how to find that elusive balance to prioritize your health and set yourself up for success in 2024. So without further ado, let's dive right in. Ms. Jenny, welcome to the show.

00:01:46 - Jenny Merchant

Thank you very much for having me. I'm excited.

00:01:48 - Mike Mills

You got it. All right, so Jenny and I have known each other for a little while and we work together. She is obviously a real estate agent. And so today we're going to chat a little bit about, obviously, health and wellness. Now, she is an avid fitness person. I don't know what the right term would be for that, but you're really into your fitness, right? And not fitness taco in my mouth. That's my favorite T shirt of all time, by the way. But also, you're a vegan, correct? Yes. So dirty vegan. No, I'm kidding. Working out. And if I'm correct, you told me recently you're getting into bodybuilding now, right? Taking it to even another level, not just staying in shape, but actually thinking about competing, maybe. Okay, so she's got a personal trainer. She's very focused on what she eats every single day. Now, we have differing thoughts on what to eat and how often, and we'll discuss a little bit of that. But ultimately, the point of this is that as an agent in this profession, we are always on the go, right? We're always in our car, we're always showing clients, and this is why we're also trying to take care of our family and kids and husbands and wives and whatever else, right? So we're trying to lead these busy lives. And one of the things that typically goes by the wayside when we do that is our health, right? Because we're driving through and getting Taco Bell or McDonald's, and then we're drinking sodas in the car on the way. And we can't possibly work out because I'm too tired all the time. Like, how could I work out? I'm exhausted. I don't have any energy. So we're going to kind of talk a little bit about how to overcome some of this stuff and get Jenny's insight, because she's really become a ninja at fitness. All into her get y'all's. I wanted you to hear her take on how to do this stuff. So, before we get started, first off, talk about how you got into real estate to begin with, and then if the fitness piece of it's always been a part of your life or if it's something that you've developed recently.

00:03:44 - Jenny Merchant

So my background, starting in college, I was always kind of an entrepreneur and kind of on my own. I did pet sitting to raise money. I bought my first house when I was 20 years old, turned around, sold it four years later, marketed it myself, and kind of got the bug at that point. But I got into luxury home building and land acquisition and negotiating contracts and building multibillion dollar homes, families business, actually. So got into that, which I was really looking back. It's all the things that I do now. I wasn't a licensed agent doing it, and I got cancer at the time, I was making a lot of money. I was in my late twenty s, I guess, and I worked 100 hours a week. And I just kind of had this aha. Moment of what's important and not really feeling satisfaction for what I was doing. And so I took a pause for a little while, went to work for another family's business that was in more of swimming pool, outdoor living, construction, and design. But I really wanted to be an agent, and I wanted to do it so bad. But to be honest, I was fearful. I was fearful of how to transition from making a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year to doing that. And really the fear was not really having anybody to go to. I kept picturing these big brokerages where I was just going to be a number and 1000 agents have to start at the beginning, sitting at a desk. And so I didn't do it at that time and I'm glad I didn't. I needed some more space to get into it. So ultimately I took the plunge and best decision I ever made. And it was really meeting the broker that I have. I got introduced through a friend and had the same value system, a great human being. He was starting his own brokerage, reflect real estate. And the minute that I met him, I was kind of dabbling with getting my license. And he said, you can get your license in two weeks, just do it. And so I did.

00:05:48 - Mike Mills

Okay.

00:05:48 - Jenny Merchant

And having that person there that I could see as a mentor that it just made it easy for me. And then I'm taking basically all the skills that I've been doing for all these years, but doing it something that drives me and fuels me every day.

00:06:02 - Mike Mills

Yeah. So did you prior to when you were doing working for the builder and doing your thing there before you got into selling, have you always been kind of into fitness and Wellness? Or is this something that you kind of came into a little bit later or when did you really start kind of getting into it a little bit more heavy? I know recently you've really kind of put a lot into it. But even prior to that, when did it start becoming a place of importance?

00:06:26 - Jenny Merchant

And I think that's where even having the cancer and looking back at it, realizing that, and I think that almost happened because of the level of stress and not putting myself as a priority with my health. Everything was work, work, and I'm always going to be that way. But there was no regular exercise here and there. I got into some pole fitness, which I really loved at the time.

00:06:52 - Mike Mills

Pole fitness?

00:06:53 - Jenny Merchant

Yes.

00:06:54 - Mike Mills

It's like dancing on the pole.

00:06:55 - Jenny Merchant

Yes. But I wasn't a stripper, I was just in hoops, like aerial acrobatics.

00:07:01 - Mike Mills

Yeah, totally. No, I've seen it before. It's funny. Yeah. Okay.

00:07:04 - Jenny Merchant

I found that when I was working in the building industry, so I found that and I really had this outlet of, this is great. I found it was like empowering, it was with a bunch of women who became some of my best friends, but it's dangerous on your body. And I ended up going to a client that was a neurologist. I had to get an MRI. He's like, you got bulging discs. You can't be hanging upside down. You can't be doing this anymore. And so I had to quit. And when I quit, and I was in pretty good shape, my upper body was in good shape. I felt good, and it was a great outlet. And after that, I kind of got lost. Like, what do I do? My thing is gone. I've tried yoga. I tried. And so that consistency. And then also my eating, it was just eat when you could. But I got to get this client back. I've got to call this back. Then the BlackBerry. The BlackBerry was going off, right?

00:07:58 - Mike Mills

Blackberry.

00:07:59 - Jenny Merchant

And it was either going to starvation mode because I wouldn't eat all day to slamming some food in my body and eating, like, this huge meal, then feeling sluggish. So this went on for a long time because my mindset was always work, work. That's the secondary.

00:08:17 - Mike Mills

Well, part of that, I think, become we're in this, especially nowadays, we have this, what they call the hustle culture. Have you heard of this where it's like, you got to go, go all the time? Which I don't necessarily disagree with, per se, but it is, as working professionals, when you think you have to work, quote unquote, all the time, the issue with that is that you get to a place where if you're not working, then you have guilt, right? Because you feel like you should be working. So if I'm doing this thing even, I mean, some people experience it when they're hanging out with their kids, right? You're sitting there having time with your kids, and maybe you're having, maybe businesses slow, maybe money troubles are creeping in a little bit, or whatever the case may be, that adds that extra level of stress. And there you are in trying to enjoy time with your family, and you can't, because the whole time, all you're thinking of, like, I need to be working. I should be working. What am I not? I'm being lazy. I should be out there working. And I think a lot of people experience that.

00:09:14 - Jenny Merchant

Oh, it's very true. I mean, it's the guilt. I still have to. Even today, as much as I talk about how much I prioritize in my health and my fitness on a daily basis, there are still moments where I'm looking at trying to shift an appointment or move something and trying to strategically plan my day, feeling like, gosh, this feels kind of selfish. And then I remind myself, no, it's not. Because if I'm not in the right. I can't be in the right mindset. I can't be good for anybody else if I don't take care of myself. And I really saw that as I look back into my previous working career and I was busy, and I'm busy now, and I'm work, work, work, and I can still hustle. It doesn't mean that I stop, but it is putting that priority. So it really wasn't until these last couple of years and COVID hit and I just felt awful and I put a mask on. I went to four different gyms and tried to find a trainer and got to it.

00:10:11 - Mike Mills

Yeah, well, that's the hard part for anybody that I think anybody tHat's been through a place or been at a time in their life where they did put out, like former athletes, especially high school and college athletes, that went through the grind of working out all the time because they had to. Whether a case, as they get older, then they're kind of like, when they don't have that outlet, they miss it because you know what it was like to have it and now it's not there. But if you've never done that, if you've never experienced that or had that there, then you don't really understand what you're missing until it's gone. Right? Which is like this Catch 22. Because if you've never been a person that goes to the gym often or works out, and we say, go to the gym, you don't have to go to the gym. There's a million things you can do that don't require you to have a gym membership. But if you don't have some level of physical exertion on a regular basis, then you don't know what it's like when it's not there anymore, right? And that's the thing. Until you have the absence of it and you feel run down and you feel like crap in your body and you're tired and you're like, why do I feel like this? And you go, oh, wait a minute. I haven't worked out in two weeks. That's why everything hurts. And people say all the time, why I just don't have enough energy to work out. And that's the part that I think gets lost, is it's this reciprocal relationship between working out and energy. If you work out often, you have a lot more energy, and if you don't, you don't. And it doesn't make sense logically to some people why that works that way.

00:11:38 - Jenny Merchant

That's so true. Growing up, I just wasn't athletic. I've never saw myself that way. So it's even weird now. I feel like I have this impostor syndrome. Like, oh, wait, I have muscles and I can lift heavy stuff. But I was a cheerleader in high school. But to be honest, I was a cheerleader because I negotiated my way on the team. I wasn't any good. I was the captain of the cheerleading squad. I had no idea, offense or defense. It was dancing and looking cute in a skirT. I just didn't have that athletic bone. I was scared of PE. I didn't like to run. I always say I'm only running if someone's chasing me or there's a good shoe sale somewhere. So I grew up with that. And so I didn't know what I was missing. And I had a moment a year and a half ago and some life changes and things and moving and shifting in life, and I pulled back from, and I didn't have a place to work out where I moved. Basically, I dropped the ball on myself and I felt horrible. And that was really the key now, I think, where I've ramped up, and I realized I never want to go back there again. And it's so different, and it's true. If you've never had it, you don't know the difference. And you hear all the time, well, you have more energy. If you work out, you hear that, you're like, yeah, does it really matter? It matters. And I can say what you eat, what you put in your body and movement, whatever that looks like. Consistency on a daily basis of some kind can be transformative.

00:13:11 - Mike Mills

So do you think from it seems like when you were on the pole, I don't know how else to.

00:13:17 - Jenny Merchant

I got you with that one. You didn't expect in that one.

00:13:20 - Mike Mills

So when you were doing the pole exercises, right, and that was something that you really enjoyed, like you liked doing it. So going to it was enjoyable. It was fun. You had a group of people with you that were all there together. You made friendships and relationships. I'm sure it was something that, it wasn't like a dread to show up and go dance on the pole. To anybody that's joining us late, it's going to be a difficult one.

00:13:44 - Jenny Merchant

Upside down, holding on with one arm. I went to camps. We flew to the Bahamas somewhere and did camps. I was training with contortionists. It was crazy. I never thought I could do that in my life. And it was like, look at me hang upside down.

00:13:59 - Mike Mills

But you enjoyed it. You liked to do it. Right. And then because of that experience with it. And how long did you do it before you had to quit?

00:14:07 - Jenny Merchant

Man, I tapered off. I was probably maybe five years.

00:14:14 - Mike Mills

Okay, so that's a long time. So you were after it for five years, really enjoying it. And then stuff happens. You're back, you have issues. Doctors like, hey, you can't keep doing it. And then you fall off the wagon a little bit, so to speak, or the pole, and then you get back into it. But you go through this period of time where it wasn't enjoyable or, I mean, I'm sorry, where you felt like crap because you weren't doing anything and you realized, going back to it, that it was. But the key to it was that your initial introduction into it was something that you like to do. Right. And I think so many people think of going to the gym, quote unquote, or working out that they got to go in their garage and they got to sweat for four and a half hours and have the exact right routine or whatever. Can you talk a little bit about how sometimes just starting something and doing it, whether it's walking around your driveway or going to a poll class or whatever it may be, that little kickoff, you don't have to accomplish everything in one day. Like, it's a slow build. Right?

00:15:14 - Jenny Merchant

Right. And I don't think you should ever go at it personally with throwing everything in the kitchen sink at it, going from zero to. And I think what I see people do is I'm going to change my diet. I'm not going to drink soda. I'm not going to cut out sugar. I'm going to cut my calories. I'm going to go to five hit classes. And they feel like in order to make a difference in maybe their aesthetic or how they feel that they have to do all the things. And I think that's really like setting yourself up for failure at that point. And I think it's finding that thing. And fortunately for me, it just took me a really long time to find my thing and I had to tinker around with it. Like, I liked yoga and I still do. And I need it for some mental clarity. And it has a lot of moving, meditation type and stretching out because it's so rough on my body, so tight and lifting weights. But I kept trying to find that thing that I enjoyed, and I was never a gym person. Scared of the gym, don't really know how to use the weights. It seems like boring, dirty people, sweaty stuff, like there was on the equipment. So it just took me a bit to figure it out. And I don't think it matters what it is, but it's finding the thing that you find some joy. And it doesn't mean that every single day it's going to be butterflies and roses and you're going to be skipping your way into the next hotworks class or whatever it is you do or riding your bike or going to the lake. But it's sometimes just trying something and just trying it consistently. And it doesn't have to be for even an hour. Go and do something for 15 minutes and do it for a week, do it for three weeks and see how you feel. But you've got to find that thing that you connect with on some level. Otherwise you're going to be resentful for it and you're not going to really feel the benefits.

00:17:04 - Mike Mills

Yeah, well, anytime anybody ever asks me about it, and I'm not as nearly religious about it as you are, but especially in the last couple of years, I spend a decent amount of time worrying about it. But I started just, well, not started, but got back on the wagon, I should say, because it's kind of one of those things I've done my whole life on and off, just like a lot of people. But I just went back to walking again. Because if anybody's ever seen me walk around my driveway when I was doing that for a while and videoing myself, that's where all that started was I just wanted to go and I needed to get moving. And that's the thing that I don't think that people that don't regularly put themselves in those positions that they don't understand is that just basic movement, whether it be walking or running or riding a bike or anything, really. If you like playing basketball, go play basketball, go out on the court and shoot around a little bit, or go run routes with your kid and throw football or whatever it is, just movement of some kind. If you do that and get any sort of. I mean, you don't have to work up a sweat, but if you do, the way that you feel after you're done is. Have you ever had a workout where you walked away from? Man, I really wish I wouldn't have done that. Has that ever happened?

00:18:19 - Jenny Merchant

No, other than maybe some little injury stuff that I pushed too hard. But no, it's. Even today I had a rough. I don't know what's going on. Something with my shoulder. I wasn't lifting like I normally lift, and I went in with just having a lot to do today. My mind wasn't in it. But you know what? I went in there and I did something and I left, like, oh, so glad I got that done today. And in walking, it can be something that simple. I also, in addition to the weight training I do, I've started your steps with my steps. So I'm going through a tough time because my steps and my walking was in the evening time and it would be really hot out. And it was my time to either listen to the podcast, catch up on emails, kind of stacking, I call it, with my other tasks that I have to do and getting my steps in. Well, with the time change and it being colder, I've not been successful in hitting my steps. And I kind of thought, not a huge deal. I can feel it. And it's been two weeks, and a couple of days ago I'm like, okay, I got to figure this out because this is affecting me. And I've had it a couple of times, go back up to the gym at night just to kind of get the steps in. So I'm trying to think of how I can incorporate it into my day, like going to my kids school a little early and just walking back and forth in front of the school and just that movement. Because at times, if we're driving around in our cars, we might think we're active, showing houses, driving around, or sitting our computer doing comps. We're not actually moving all our bodies.

00:19:54 - Mike Mills

Well, I've even seen some people. I mean, again, it just depends on how far you want to go with it sometimes. But I know people that have treadmill desks that will.

00:20:02 - Jenny Merchant

I'm looking into that, actually.

00:20:04 - Mike Mills

They stand and they'll have their desk in front of, and they're just walking while they're typing and doing whatever. You got to have a set up to be able to pull something like that off. But plenty of people got treadmills sitting as clothes hangers in their garages and in their bedroom. But I think the key of it is finding something that you don't hate doing right, especially in the beginning, because everything kind of compounds on itself. And what I found is that when I started walking, then I started, okay, well, at what pace do I need to walk? And then I would look into that a little bit, and then I was like, well, how far should you get to the 10,000 steps thing? Okay, well, how long does that take? Well, that takes 30 minutes. All right, well, I can walk 30 minutes. What can I do in that 30 minutes window? Well, then after I'm walking every day, I'm like, okay, I'm feeling better, I can do more. What else could I do? And so then I started looking into bikes and well, do I want to ride a bike? And I tried to ride a regular bike like through the streets, right? I did that with my kids a couple of times. And what I found was that, A, going with my kids is a nightmare because they suck and they are just complaining and bitching the whole time. And then, B, your butt hurts a lot because you're riding on this bike and you got to go through streets and know where you're going and whatever. So that was the thing. And so then I actually bought one of the, I don't know if it's called, it's like a fan bike, the ones where you pull the handle pedal aerodyne bike or something like that. I got one of those, I tried one out for a couple of times and I really liked it and I got on that thing and I rode that thing for like two months straight every day. Now it was 20 minutes, 30 minutes. I started off, I was like five minutes and then I got to ten. And this is with walking too you. And now I've moved into weights and all kinds of other stuff but these things just kind of start to build on each other because once you get in the habit of doing it and you feel comfortable doing it and you like it, then you want to do more and you start looking into more, you start educating yourself a little bit more. Have you found the same kind of deal?

00:21:56 - Jenny Merchant

Yeah, it's just sort of progressed. I mean even with steps it was like I never counted them and didn't really matter. But I had to feel like I had to be strategic about it and go, okay, I'm going to do something and so got to have goal. Let's do 2500. Okay. And paying attention to the fact like, wow, I've only walked 1000 steps today. I haven't moved my body. And then starting with when I started working out and going to the gym and lifting, it wasn't to where I was at now. In fact, the first day and I kind of got back in the saddle like a year and a few months ago and I got with another trainer and I almost threw up at the second exercise. It was horrible. I mean, I was like, oh, this is awful. So you got to kind of start, okay, I start slow. The consistency is what is important for me. So being very strategic about it but consistent but starting small and then you start looking into and going, okay, well, now I'm not just trying to do this for my mental health. And I'm trying to now. Wow. I want to really look at what I could do to change my body composition. What can I do to lift? And I've started researching and listening to podcasts now about bodybuilding and it's just sort of grown and it just takes that first step of finding something to do and then see how you feel about it and maybe you hate it and go, this isn't for me, okay. There's a million things that you can do, but I think being very thoughtful about it and making it a priority and doing it consistently when you set.

00:23:26 - Mike Mills

Goals for it, do you feel like that when you set a goal for something like this? Do you think people make mistakes when they're like, for the next year I'm going to do this versus for a week I'm going to go walk around the block? Because that seems like a more achievable goal in many cases, right?

00:23:42 - Jenny Merchant

Yeah, absolutely. You got to start small, and that's where you start thinking people. You hear a lot about January 1 and I'm going to get a gym membership and I'm going to change my diet and I'm going to do all this stuff going from zero to 100. I think that's just hurting yourself in a way. You just got to start off with and, hey, I'm going to do this for an set a period of time that's reasonable, that's manageable, and then see how you feel. But I think naturally, once you start moving and you start changing your habits, whether that's diet and movement, exercise, or really a combination of both, I think is important, you then will start feeling the benefits of it, but you got to give it a few weeks. But if you start giving yourself some crazy goal, it's just like in real estate. My first year, I'm going to come in and I'm going to sell $15 million real estate. And then you feel like you failed because you didn't accomplish that. Let's go easy here, and let's set small, attainable goals, see how you feel, and then at that point when you feel good, you go, oh, wow, I can do more than, that's what I do with my steps. Even though I was training really hard, I didn't really introduce the step thing until a couple of months ago. And now I'm like, oh, wow, I can do 5000 steps. And then 10,000. Oh, this is really cool. I can actually be listening to this podcast. It actually clears my mind. I thought walking was going to be boring. And I was going to hate it and I was just like, I guess I'll do it. So it's interesting where things can lead you just by trying it in small increments.

00:25:12 - Mike Mills

Well, do you think too, when you're finding stuff that you want to do and that you want to participate in, whether it be walking or whatever the case may be, when you start looking at figuring out a way to program it into your day as being a big piece of that because it's one thing, and we've talked about this before, but the whole idea behind, well, I have this goal, I want to achieve this goal. Well, that's great. Like, you have a goal. Congratulations. What are you going to do to accomplish that goal? Well, then you have to build in some processes or habits that you have in order to make sure that that happens. Because othErwise, if you just wake up, it's like I'm going to walk at some point today.

00:25:48 - Jenny Merchant

It's not going to happen.

00:25:50 - Mike Mills

It's not going to happen. Right. So what have you found and how have you tried to program it into your day that makes sure that you do it first so it becomes a habit for you and it's something that you're not going to skip and what.

00:26:02 - Jenny Merchant

You just said is proof just because my failure just in the last couple of weeks of, oh, no, I got to come up with a plan. So I'm actually now having to figure out how to program to get these steps in because just the timing and the time change and all of that, and I'm just like, oh, I'll figure it out throughout the day. No, it just hasn't happened. I keep thinking in the middle of the day, I'll get up from my desk because it's nice outside and I'll go walk. So I've had to really think about, first off, it's a priority, period, end of story. For me, it's the gym and lifting weights. So I train at least five days a week, sometimes seven, but usually five to six days a week. And then the extra day is like an extra, maybe I'll do cardio or something, but in some form or fashion that is happening, period, end of story. And so I have to think about with all the things I have going on in my day, between being a mom, work, everything that life has, I think of it like when you have a baby and that baby has to eat every 3 hours, you're not going to be like, well, maybe not. This feeding, it just doesn't work that way. Or like, well, okay, if you don't have kids, maybe you don't relate to that, but I don't have time to take a shower today. I've got to go to work. It's automatic. It's just something you do and it's not immediate. I think that you can just snap into that mindset, but that's how my mindset is. So first off is that's the priority. It's going to happen in that discipline no matter what. And then it's figuring out everything else that goes around it and how I can kind of stack things to make it work. So I changed gyms recently, and when I've got my son, like, okay, on the weekends that I have him, I need to make it go to the gym. So I've started including him, and I kind of want him to be to see mom struggle. And this is hard. And the owner of the gym, it's great. He grew up going to the gym with his mom and he's like, it's cool. So my trainer had him pushing the sled the other day with two weights on it, and I've kind of show him what I'm doing, my weight training. So incorporating him, I was also with my steps. I'm like, okay, well, what am I going to do? You can go to the park with me. And we got to walk. This is boring. It's like, well, you can push the stroller. So I try to figure out all the things I need to do. How can I can incorporate him. And then times when I'm booking even closings, for example, a lot of people, they take the whole day off work. They don't really care what time of day that the closing is. I'm not going to blow a deal or do something to upset a client. But if it makes no difference to them, why have the title company dictate that we're going to have a closing at 09:00 a.m., well, that's when I work out. And I used to feel really guilty about that, but now, well, it works. You just have to be very thoughtful about it and plan ahead. Same thing with the eating and the meals and knowing that I was going to be here today and I'm going to be out of the house all day. My meals come with me, they travel with me. I eat five times a day because that's something I do.

00:29:15 - Mike Mills

That's what you do.

00:29:16 - Jenny Merchant

And I know how many carbs and how many grams of protein and it's weighed and it's just part of my existence. And I work everything else around it, and there is time.

00:29:29 - Mike Mills

Can you speak a little bit about why it's so important to every everything else? Because, again, we go back to, well, I got to work, and I feel guilty if I'm trying to go to the gym or I need to spend time with my son, and I feel guilty if I'm not focused on him or whatever. Can you just talk a little bit about why these particular habits are kind of the foundation for everything that you do, and if you don't have them, what that's like?

00:29:54 - Jenny Merchant

It's really become so clear to me in the last couple of years the difference of how I feel. And I feel like if I don't take care of my body, I am toast to anybody else. And having slacked off for that period of time and really seeing my mental clarity, waking up in the morning, how I feel, even though I might still be tired. We all get tired, sure, but there's a difference of just having this low energy, even a little bit of brain fog after working out how much more alert I am. I have matcha tea as my thing, but I'm not a big caffeine person. But having that movement and then also my diet as well just makes it so I can be better at my job and also be able to deal with stress and deal with it in a more calm manner and not be so flustered. I find that it has a huge impact, and I can feel a really big difference why I don't like even taking days off of going and working out, doing something, because it just doesn't feel quite the same. And I feel like if I'm not taking care of myself, then it just gets you into this mindset of this kind of tired, sluggish. Well, I don't feel like doing that today. I can call them back tomorrow. That's just not the way you should be operating your business. You should be on it. And if you're not feeling good, it just makes everything else in life I feel kind of. You can just slide on it, and it affects everything.

00:31:30 - Mike Mills

Yeah, well, it's kind of like, I think I heard somebody talk about or equate it to walking around with this, like, putting a weighted vest on. When you have a 20 or 30 pound weighted vest and you're just walking around with it, you just feel like you're weighted down, like you're just sluggish, and you're like, oh, this is hard. And when you exercise on a regular basis, it's like taking that vest off, and now you're wait a minute. I have all this extra energy and pep to my step because I'm not carrying around this thing all day, and I'm not even talking about weight, like carrying extra weight. I'm just talking about the brain side of things.

00:32:06 - Jenny Merchant

Yes.

00:32:06 - Mike Mills

Your menTal, your mental clarity and your mental focus on what you can do and everything doesn't seem like a huge task. And I catch this a lot with people that have sleeping problems. And there's a lot of people that have a hard time sleeping. They have a hard time going to sleep. They have a hard time staying asleep. And then in the morning when they get up, they're miserable and they're just. And I know that there's a lot of people that struggle with this. And when you exercise and you work out and especially when you get to a point where you're really pushing your body and you're sweating like hardcore. And I'm on a bike for an hour. I ride my bike twice a week for 60 minutes. Now, during that time, I'm watching videos, I'm listening to podcasts. I'm doing all this stuff, too, just like you. But when I'm done, man, I'm spent. And then there's other days where I ride it for 30 minutes, but I'll do sprints. So I'll sprint for a minute, and then I'll ride easy for two minutes, and then I'll sprint for a minute, and then I'll ride easy, and then I'll do that alternate. But when I do those, those nights, man, I sleep like a baby.

00:33:04 - Jenny Merchant

Baby.

00:33:04 - Mike Mills

Yeah. I don't ever have a problem falling asleep. And I've always been. I call myself a night person. Like I'm a night owl. Oh. I stay up late and my brain's busy and you make all these excuses. And I did this for years. I'm just a night person. I stay up late. Not anymore. Now when it's 10:00 or 930 or 1030, I'm like, man, I'm kind of tired. I want to go sleep. Because you've exerted all that stress and anxiety out of your body, and it's gone. And now the worry and the anxiousness that people experience on a regular basis tends to kind of wash away because your body is putting out stress. Because if you did the hardest thing that you had to do that day, right, you live, did weights or you ran or you rode the bike or you did whatever, that was the hardest thing physically that you had to do, it's over with. And so now the rest of everything else is easy.

00:33:52 - Jenny Merchant

Oh, it's so true. And I've lot up so much emotion. I mean, I'm going to be honest, there's times I've been doing squats and crying.

00:33:58 - Mike Mills

Yeah.

00:33:59 - Jenny Merchant

And not just because it hurts, but I think it releases a lot. Yoga poses will even talk about how in certain twists and things.

00:34:07 - Mike Mills

Like if you feel emotional. Yeah.

00:34:09 - Jenny Merchant

And you're like, what's going on? I feel crazy. And that's happened. And there's been times where I've gone through some really tough times in my life and I'm well, that is not the reason to sit home and eat Bon bonds and just get up and go. And when I have that release and that, like you say, you've just got that clarity. Like that spunk, that immediate and right after is where I go home. I have my post workout, my meal, and I'm like, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to do stuff, even if I was tired that morning. I'm ready to take on the day. And it really alleviates and just lessens the impact of the negative things that can come our way. Like you get a call of your closing is about to implode for the next day and yeah, that stinks and you're going to have to deal with it. But if you've just got out all that energy and frustration or whatever it is, you can just have the clarity to deal with it. Be in a calmer place and just be more, I think, more alert, too. In this business, mistakes you make could be catastrophic. If you're filling out this, people think we just sit there and fill out a little form, send it in as an offer. You're dealing with the largest financial transaction in someone's life and you better be on it. And by having yourself taken care of and your health taken care of. And I feel like that working out makes such a difference to be able to handle those things.

00:35:41 - Mike Mills

Well, I see this happen a lot and I think, like I said, I'm kind of a dork on some of this stuff because I do like reading about it a lot. But I think it's impacting kids a lot these days because this is a recent development. Within the last probably 20 or so years, every kid's AdD and ADHD and all this other stuff. And I'm not saying be very clear, there are people out there that have this deficiency. But I think the vast majority of people that are children especially, that think that they are parents, that think their kids are ADHD or ADD or whatever, most of the time, they're not getting enough exercise. Because if you think about how our school system is set up right now, we get our kids to school, and I think it's all backwards, too, because in Mansfield, where we go to school, the younger kids get to school later and the older kids get to school earlier. So in kindergarten through 6th grade, they don't have to be there until 830 or so. Right. Whereas my daughter at 16, is a sophomore. She's got to be at school at like, 645. Okay, well, the problem with that is that teenagers generally require more sleep because they're growing and their body's developing and all that stuff. And little kids. And I'm sure because your son's five, right? Five, yeah. They're up at the crack of dawn, like they're awake, ready to go. Yeah, they're up at four or 05:00.

00:36:55 - Jenny Merchant

A.M. On a Saturday morning.

00:36:57 - Mike Mills

All right, so we take these kids that are awake and ready to go at 05:00 a.m.? Right, and ready to party. We take them to school, and they sit in a classroom with 20 other psycho kids that are bouncing off the wall, and we make them stay in this room for 4 hours. Or maybe they rotate around or something. They get a recess of 30 minutes, an hour, maybe a PE class. So in an eight hour day, they're getting maybe an hour and a half of mild exercise at best. Right. And then if your kids involved in sports, then it's a different thing. You'll take them after school, and they get some of that then. But if they're not, then your kid comes home and he's bouncing off the wall, and then you sit him in front of video game console all day long, and he's just all amped up because you have these reserves of energy in your body that you got to get them out, or they just make you go crazy if you don't. And you see this with kids, and instead of. I used to joke with my son that he was like a little horse that I had to. I had to make him do laps, like, make him run around the house to get all that energy out, and then he would come back in. Now I can talk to you. Okay. Now we can have a conversation, because for sure, all that stuff is out, right?

00:38:04 - Jenny Merchant

Oh, yeah. I mean, I have a very active five year old boy, and he needs to move. And just last weekend, it was. I think it was. Something happens. My car and a car. It was just one of those days. And so we were in the car car more than we anticipated. Everything was going sideways and came back to the house. The alarm was going off in the house. I'm like, I'm sorry, budy, I got to put you back in the car. We got to go back to the car wash because they hit my car. Oh, no. And we came back and now I'm like, we're behind and it's time to, like, I need to cook some stuff. We have dinner. And it was going to start getting a little, like, it's going to be dark in 30 minutes. And I just looked at him and went, we're going to the park. It's going to have to happen because we need to get some of this out. You can't just be sitting for this period of time. And that's why taking him to the gym and having him be active, there's like a turf area where you can push the sled and do different things. And there's like a punching bag at the end. And it's awesome. Like, he runs back and forth and got this exercise ball, and it was Saturday morning and he got up and was ready to go. I did tempt him with some Starbucks, hey, whatever, his avocado bagel toast thing, and said, let's go. And we got there and it's 07:00 in the morning on Saturday, and he's running around and they need that. So if the little ones, we're just grown up versions of that. But it presents itself so much more clearly in kids and we see emotionally how they react in their crankiness.

00:39:34 - Mike Mills

They can't control it. They haven't learned how to control their emotions.

00:39:37 - Jenny Merchant

Right. So it's the same thing in us. We just might kind of hide it a little bit, but internally, we're a little more crabby. The sleep thing, being able to sleep at night, absolutely. That's a huge difference. You got to find time to make it work in some way. I even will meeting with friends. Like, I try to think about socially. I think our society is so focused on food and drink. Food and drink. Let's meet for food and drink. How about let's meet on the Katie trail and go for a walk? And that's what I've started telling people. Like, I don't really eat food. I don't cook. I don't drink alcohol. So let's go do something physical. We don't got to do something crazy. I don't have to go run a marathon. But incorporating that into your life, in your kids life, into your life and finding a way to just be part of your life, I think will just have such a huge impact on the way you go about the rest of your day.

00:40:34 - Mike Mills

Yeah, well, and I think, too an easy way to start because when you try to push everything to the back end of your day, right. When you're like, well, when I get home from work, that's when I'll do my walk or when I get home from this, I'll go to the gym or I'll ride my bike or whatever. And just in my own personal experience over the years, that never works. And I don't know very many people that work out on a regular basis that think that that works because your day just gets in the way. It just happens to everybody. Right. And you're not going to be perfect every single day. But if you can do something in the morning to really, I think that's when I started, noticed the biggest difference is when I started forcing myself to do it early, that's when you notice the energy difference, right. I think so, too, because if it's six or seven or 08:00 in the morning, whenever you decide to get up and you do an hour of 30 minutes of walking or, yeah, that's all you got to do. Just go walk for 30 minutes. Like walk around your neighborhood, walk around driveway, whatever. When you get back into the house, you just have a little bit more.

00:41:35 - Jenny Merchant

Little pep in your step.

00:41:36 - Mike Mills

Little ready to go.

00:41:37 - Jenny Merchant

You're ready to go. You're setting the tone for your day. There's a lot of people that work out at night. I personally can't do that. I hate it. And I think it's because I need that start from my day.

00:41:50 - Mike Mills

It's all the young people that work out at night. Those 20 year olds are trying to meet people at the gym. Those are the ones that are working out.

00:41:55 - Jenny Merchant

There's a lot of people there because I've had to go up there and do my steps lately and I'm like, what are these people doing here? And then to me that can kind of keep me more awake sometimes because of endorphins. Endorphin? Yeah. And it's like, it'll wear you out, but later. So having it in the morning. I used to. When I first started lifting because of my schedule, my life was different. I was there 06:00 a little before six, and I was home before my kid was up and was making him breakfast. And I mean, that would be my preferred way to do it. Just with my life now and my kiddo, I can't really do it that way on most days. But I do it as soon as I possibly can, and it sets the mood, it sets the tone, and like you said, going for a walk, just that in itself. And you come back and you will find, I promise, there will be a different, even motivation, I think, of mentally. Like, hey, yeah, you know, I have this stuff to do today, and I'm ready to do.

00:42:51 - Mike Mills

Yes. Yeah. Because you're not drugged. Um, there's two people that I really pay a lot of attention to when it comes to health and fitness stuff. There's a one guy named Andrew Huberman, which I've sent you a couple of his things, and he's a neuroscientist, a Harvard neuroscientist, who. He has a podcast, blog, and all kinds of stuff. I love his stuff. He's great. And by the way, if you're following doctors or listening to people that are out of shape and overweight, yes. You're not listening to the wrong person or the right person.

00:43:22 - Jenny Merchant

I mean, yeah. Or some influencer regurgitating information about diet and exercise and trying to come up with some. Reinventing the wheel. It's not that hard, folks.

00:43:30 - Mike Mills

So Huberman is jacked. I mean, when the dude takes off his shirt, he looks like the Hulk. Like, he's massive, but he's not like a gym know. He's a very smart guy, and he has this whole routine in the morning, this thing I sent you, and I've done it for almost two years now, and it just makes. And by the way, let me say this. I'm not perfect, okay? And neither are you. There are many times where I miss and I don't do it, and I skip and I do half of it, or I don't do 100% or whatever the case may be, okay? So if you fail, because you're going to, you have to be okay with that. You have to be okay of falling off the horse, but you got to be willing to get back on the horse, and that's the big key. So he has this morning routine where he talks about not drinking coffee first thing in the morning. So anybody that's out there that loves coffee, you're going to be like. But the idea behind it is, he says, when you get up in the morning, you need to go outside. You need to get natural sunlight in your eyes, because your circadian rhythms are designed in such that we've evolved, or whatever you want to call it to, where in the morning when the sun comes up, our body's like, okay, it's time to be awake. And at night, when the sun goes down, our body's like, okay, now it's time to go to sleep. This is just part of your normal. It's ingrained in your chemistry of your body. So when you get up in the morning and you start moving, and the movement is important because he says that having things coming in and out of your vision tells your body, again, we're awake and we're moving forward. The sun's out, I've got movement in my body. So my body wakes up and it's like, okay, it's time to be awake. Whereas if when you wake up the first thing in the morning and you have a cup of coffee, there's this, and I'm going to screw it up. I really should have done a little more, written some notes, and I listened.

00:45:07 - Jenny Merchant

To it, too, so I remember.

00:45:09 - Mike Mills

But there's something that it inhibits in your normal circadian rhythm, that it kind of takes the place of. It wakes you up.

00:45:17 - Jenny Merchant

Artificially jolting yourself.

00:45:18 - Mike Mills

Yes. But then you have this crash later. Right. And then at one or 02:00 in the afternoon, you got to have another two or three cups of coffee to bring yourself back up. He doesn't say, don't drink coffee. He just says, don't drink it for, like, the first hour and a half, delay it, take an hour and a half, and then do your walk, do your reading, get your head in the right place, and then drink the coffee, because then the effects last a lot longer and it impacts you much greater. So just a simple thing like that, very simple. Wake up, go outside, even if it's cold, put your jacket on, put your hood on, and go for a walk in the morning. First thing when you get up, I promise you, if you do that for seven days, you could do it for five days. You will notice a massive difference. I think, on maybe, probably, maybe not day one, but I would say maybe day two or day three, you're going to really see the difference. Would you agree?

00:46:07 - Jenny Merchant

I think so. Absolutely. Especially if it's a little chilly outside, too. It gives you a little bit of a jolt, but just getting out, doing something, having that movement. Wonder what he thinks about matcha tea, because one thing about that, it's got caffeine in it, but it's not like a jolt of caffeine. It's kind of a balanced smoother that has supposed to have a lot of benefits and things.

00:46:29 - Mike Mills

Well, there's a lot of, like, mushroom teas and stuff that are really Chaga and people talk crazy or speak volumes about that kind of stuff. So I think it does have benefits.

00:46:39 - Jenny Merchant

To because it is my go to and I do hit that pretty soon after waking. That is kind of my thing.

00:46:45 - Mike Mills

All right, so speaking of nutrition, since you brought up something to drink there, because we've talked a lot about, and by the way, none of this, we've got into, like you got to hit the gym hard. No, just start, just get moving, do.

00:46:55 - Jenny Merchant

Something and make yourself a priority in that sense.

00:46:58 - Mike Mills

Yes. So diet. All right, now you tell me your thoughts, but I'm a believer of, I would say if you're going to pick one to start with, start with exercise and then go to diet. And the reason for me is I think that if you're exercising to some extent, the Dieting, I don't even know dieting is the wrong word. Eating differently will come on its own because you're like, when you start eating stuff, you start feeling like crap. But if you start to change how you eat before you exercise a little bit, I don't think you get the full benefit necessarily.

00:47:31 - Jenny Merchant

What do you think about that? I never thought of it that way. That actually makes sense because I've always been in this mindset and you can't out train a diet. But that's different. I mean, that's also a different goal. If you're trying to change body composition and you're eating like a slob, but you're going to the gym all the time and you're like killing yourself in the gym, people think that they can outdo it by it and it's really 80%, I think diet and exercise, but we're talking about healthy habits, getting our mindset right, feeling good, which is what I started with. I think you've got something there. I think that does make sense because I think naturally, once you start moving, you're going to feel the effects of that much quicker. There's going to be an immediate impact within a week, a couple of weeks, if you're doing something small and consistent that you're naturally going to probably gravitate towards, well, gosh, I'm doing this and I'm starting to feel better. And then you realize if you're then on the go and grab and take out here and there, I think you naturally will start to want to change that. And I think if you do just start with the diet, it can feel like you're now so food focused and it becomes about the food and not how you feel and the food. I think it maybe takes a little bit longer. To start feeling those effects. I think that makes sense.

00:48:53 - Mike Mills

So what was the evolution of your eating habits and how you went from just, I know you're a vegan. Have you always been a vegan or did you get to that or how did that all work for you?

00:49:03 - Jenny Merchant

I grew up as a kid. McDonald's not bashing you, Mom. McDonald's was awesome. Our parents didn't know any better, right? No, we did. We also didn't even have a seatbelt. ANd I was like sitting on the.

00:49:17 - Mike Mills

Yeah, they were smoking, drinking Coors light with us in the back of the. Yeah.

00:49:21 - Jenny Merchant

Dinners. And a grandma who did home cooked meals, who I was with Grandma a lot. She big part of my life, so made pies every night, so chicken and potatoes, broccoli would make me gag. My mom cracks up to this day that I eat handfuls of broccoli. And so as I got older, yeah, I was just used to cereal for breakfast, that kind of thing. And I always, as an adult anyway, I really wanted to be vegetarian more for just not really wanting to eat animals. Yeah, I have leather. Yeah. I just really didn't want to, but I didn't know how to do it because that's all that I've eaten. Chicken, potatoes, and I didn't even have a wide variety. So it's not that I just ate meat. I just didn't really eat, have a variety of foods.

00:50:11 - Mike Mills

Hamburgers, steaks.

00:50:12 - Jenny Merchant

Yeah. And I had tried different things with weight loss, for example, or like fat loss. And again, it's a diet. It's like some temporary restrictive thing that you're doing. So it evolved to where about 1011.

00:50:28 - Mike Mills

Years ago got somebody from Saudi Arabia saying, hello. Oh, look at that.

00:50:33 - Jenny Merchant

Wow. What time is it there?

00:50:35 - Mike Mills

I don't know. Podcast, I think you meant hard truth from Saudi Arabia. Hello, Ahmed.

00:50:42 - Jenny Merchant

Ahmed. Hi. I know where it started. I forgot about this. So I didn't grow up overly religious. I do have some religious beliefs, but I decided for Lent, I was going to kind of participate in Lent and kind of had a spiritual moment there. Right. And I went through in and out burger in Grapevine, and I was like, okay, I'm going to have this last meal, my last cow, and grew up in California, so loved in and out. So I had in and out burger. And that's why I kind of did it. And it was more of, yeah, that's what I love to eat. And it started with that. And then I did that for that period of time. And I think, man, I kind of feel better. And I really don't want to eat animals, and I got to find a way to not do it. So it started with that. It evolved to being really pescatarian, which is eating just fish. Yeah, fish and eggs. So I was very heavily on the eggs and then ended up getting pregnant. At that point in time, I was still struggling because what was happening is, and I was toying with being vegan. So at home I would say vegan, which is no animal products, no dairy, even things like marshmallows have gelatin in them. A lot of things have gelatin. So whenever I would do that, I was eating horribly, really. And I was actually gaining weight because vegan just means what you don't eat. It doesn't mean anything about you do eat. So I love Oreos. Oreos are vegan, which is awesome. I love cupcakes. There's a vegan cupcake bakery in Dallas. So I was eating white pasta and I was craving those things, which really are.

00:52:28 - Mike Mills

Because they make you those. Yeah, I mean, that's part of the thing is when you eat pasta, you just want to eat more pasta.

00:52:34 - Jenny Merchant

Yeah. So I found myself and then eating out at that point in time, years back, it was harder because there wasn't a lot of vegan stuff. So I did this whole pescatarian. When I would eat out, I traveled a lot, go to Europe, I would eat fish. Then I got pregnant. Still was pescatarian at that point because I was eating a lot of sushi. And then once my son was born, I realized, gosh, I have this great responsibility. I'm not a cook. I've never cooked. When my friends found out I was pregnant, one of the first things they said was, oh, my God, what are you going to do about food? Like, you don't cook. How are you going to feed your child? And I was like, I have no idea. So I realized, well, now I have this great responsibility that I have to be a model for him. And I got to figure out my food, because once he starts eating food, I'm not feeding him what I'm eating. And I realized, and his dad and I realized we wanted him to be able to make the choice as far as eating animals or not, whatever he decides to do when he's able to make that decision. And my pediatrician, who her kids are a vegetarian, said, well, your diet can't be more restrictive than his. So if you're sitting There and you're eating dairy, because that point, I cut out all the meat just as doing dairy. I was sitting there eating cheese. So when she said that, I went, oh, my gosh. So once I got into the bodybuilding and I understood that you need protein, and protein builds muscles, and I started really getting into nutrition and really understanding for me, what I needed, which my goal was build muscles, lose body fat, have different body composition, and all this hard work I'm doing in the gym is going to go to waste. And as a vegan, you have to be very strategic about what you're eating, because protein, yeah, there's some protein and beans, but you'd have to eat bags full of beans, which are really carbs.

00:54:31 - Mike Mills

Right?

00:54:31 - Jenny Merchant

And so I had to learn all, and I really started learning about food and nutrition and really looking at my body as a machine.

00:54:38 - Mike Mills

Well, there's something with bioavailability, too, because it's like, broccoli has a good amount of protein in it, but your body's ability to access that protein to the same degree, like, if it's got 10 grams of protein in it, you can't quite get all 10 grams out of it.

00:54:52 - Jenny Merchant

And the different amino acid profiles. And even in my son, I really started, and it really came from him. And it was really about being very mindful of his nutrition and also him being vegan. It was not about, I didn't want it to look at it as what are we doing to restrict it to diet? It was about, what are we doing to give him the best nutrients? So things like iron. And I had been iron deficient. I've been like borderline anemic. Well, I learned that, okay, you get iron from, say, was it the broccoli? But it actually gets absorbed better if you combine it. So like with pasta? Yeah, like tomato sauce. So like, give him tomato sauce and give him the broccoli. And he grew up, Ethiopian food is his favorite food. That's a treat for him. Parents are taking him to Thai food and then they have tofu. That's his favorite type of foods because he ate raw tofu by the handful in broccoli. And he never had a cheerio in his lifE. And so once I started having, I was forced to, we got to be parents, we got to feed this kid. Then it started changing my own diet, and then it really went down the road of, well, now I'm trying to do bodybuilding and build muscle. And how does that happen? And you have to be very strategic with understanding your protein sources. And once I did that, for me, I felt so much different. So it really isn't about being vegan, because I was vegan, kind of on and off before, but I felt horrible because I was just eating just junk food. And I can have my junk food vegan moments. So it's more about I eat very strategically in my protein grams, high protein, and just the variety of foods that I eat. I get my carbs from sweet potatoes. I have the French fry here and there, but it's getting the carbs and the fats and the proteins from whole food sources and try to eliminate as much processed food as I can.

00:56:47 - Mike Mills

Well, and I think that shows up, too, just like we were talking about earlier with exercise. When you exercise a lot and then you stop, you feel it, and you always want to go back because, you know, the difference between when you are and when you aren't. And it's the same thing with food, is when you cut out. And I think what you said is absolutely 100% spot on. Not just with veganism, with anything. It's not about what you are eating, it's about what you're not eating right. When you take out, because you'll see. And this happens a lot with people, and I'm not vegetarian, vegan. Whatever your quote unquote diet is, what they typically are, is no processed foods, whole foods, whether it's meat or vegetables or whatever it is you're eating. When you take out the seed oils and you take out the sugar and you pull that stuff out of your diet, the difference in how you feel is dramatic after a period of time. And then when you add that back in, and I did it for a period of time, I'm terrible because I love French, French fries so good. But when there was a period of time a while back where I stopped eating fried foods, pEriod, like, didn't eat any fried foods at all for, like, I don't know, 60 days, 90 days, something like that. And then I remember the first time I ate French fries. After that, I literally thought I was going to throw up because my stomach hurt so bad. It was like, what are you doing?

00:58:04 - Jenny Merchant

Yeah, it's like poison in your body. Yes, that's how I feel.

00:58:06 - Mike Mills

And you don't realize it until you completely eliminate it. And then when you add back, because there's a lot of nutrition, when you try to figure out allergies, there's so much tied to what you put into your body as to what your reactions are. And we think we're allergic to this or that. Like autoimmune disorders. Right. They're finding out more and more that people with severe psoriasis and all these different autoimmune disorders that it's about what they're eating. And they have this incredible allergic reaction to these specific foods. And so what they do is they'll make them eliminate everything. Like, they'll go down to eating water and whatever, broccoli or a meat or something, and then they start to slowly add things back in because that's how you figure out what you're having a negative reaction to. You have to eliminate it all and then start to add things back in. Well, that's been a lot of these treatments for people with autism. They're putting them on carnivore diets. Some of them are going straight to vegan because, again, everybody's different. There is no one size fits all on this kind of thing. And what they're finding is that this food that you're putting into yourself is causing all of these other problems that you're having that you don't even realize, because it's just the way we've always eaten or been taught to eat or just how we grew up eating. And your body is so adaptable. It gets so used to things, even bad things. It's like heroin addicts, right? If you're a heroin addict, as long as you don't do an amount that's going to cause your heart to stop, you can do it for so long.

00:59:29 - Jenny Merchant

As long as you don't actually kill yourself and go over the edge.

00:59:32 - Mike Mills

Yes.

00:59:33 - Jenny Merchant

Your body will attach to.

00:59:34 - Mike Mills

It adjusts.

00:59:35 - Jenny Merchant

Sadly.

00:59:35 - Mike Mills

Yes, sadly, it adjusts. But that's how dynamic our internal systems are, is it's going to figure out a way to survive. So if you're just constantly dumping toxics and even alcohol, and this is something nobody ever wants to hear, I know, but there is no amount of alcohol that's good for you.

00:59:55 - Jenny Merchant

No, there's no benefit to it.

01:00:00 - Mike Mills

The one glass of wine for your heart. No, it's bullshit.

01:00:03 - Jenny Merchant

It's really not. It's just for your own pleasure. And I cut that. I don't drink at all.

01:00:08 - Mike Mills

And it's okay, like, have drinks. I'm not saying you shouldn't drink. I have a drink from time to time. But what I also know is I'm putting it in because when I go two weeks where I don't have a drink or a week, and then I'll have one on the weekend, that next morning, I feel like total dog shit.

01:00:22 - Jenny Merchant

Awful I had in six years. And I recently just did. And it was the craziest thing because I was like, I don't know. And I'm like, now I know why I don't do this. And I stopped because I felt like I had a hangover every day of my pregnancy because my pregnancy was awful. So why would I ever want to do that again? So that's really why. But your body being adaptable and feeling so awful, a story about that. So I think it was a couple of Thanksgivings ago is when I started really adjusting my diet while I started working out. And this also came on the heels of I had this weird flare up. It was during COVID where you couldn't even go see a doctor. I've never got it fully sorted out, but I do have some sort of autoimmune issue going on. They actually thought I had lupus. They think I might have rheumatoid arthritis. I have something that's going on. And I had this flare, like, I couldn't move, I couldn't walk. So it's inflammation of some sort, usually caused by food. Yeah. And I have not had a flare up. That has not happened again. That's why I kind of just didn't go back to further investigate it once I basically got on the training and the diet soon after that, and all of that just went away. Where I was going with tHat, well.

01:01:38 - Mike Mills

You would be amazed.

01:01:39 - Jenny Merchant

Oh, the Thanksgiving thing.

01:01:40 - Mike Mills

Yeah, go ahead.

01:01:44 - Jenny Merchant

Okay, Thanksgiving. I'm going to go let loose. Right? Whatever. One meal and I hadn't drank in forever, but I remember what a hangover feels like, because the next day I felt like I had a hangover. And I don't mean to be like, oh, I have a food hangover. Like, you're full. No, I felt literally like I had the flu. Like, awful. And I've had a scenario like that the last few months where I was like, oh, I'm just going to kind of eat whatever. Oh, my gosh, I can't believe I used to eat like this all the time. But you don't know, feel sick. And I even tried a non alcoholic beer. I was like, oh, these are great. And I felt so awful. I realized it was the sugar and the yeast that was in it. It wasn't even the alcohol. So I was like, well, I guess I'm not doing that again.

01:02:31 - Mike Mills

Yeah, well, it's like, okay, I think a good analogy to this to help people understand is like, remember COVID? Everybody had to wear the mask, right? We all had the mask on. Now, could you breathe? Yeah, you could breathe. Could you talk? Yeah, you could talk, right? Was it enjoyable?

01:02:47 - Jenny Merchant

Not really, no.

01:02:48 - Mike Mills

So imagine that you're just walking around your entire life wearing that mask, and you have no idea what it's like to not wear the mask, right?

01:02:57 - Jenny Merchant

You just don't know.

01:02:58 - Mike Mills

You just don't know because you're used to it because you're just like, this is what it is. I wear a mask because I wear a mask all day long. From the time I was born till an adult, I wear a mask. This is what everybody does. This is what I'm supposed to do. And then someone comes along one day and goes, you know, you can take that thing off. You're like, what? Yeah, just take it off. And then you take it off and you're like, wait a minute. You can see? I can breathe. What the hell?

01:03:18 - Jenny Merchant

New world.

01:03:18 - Mike Mills

It's a whole new world. But you don't understand it because you don't know what it's like to feel the other way, right? Because it's just not there. And that's the biggest struggle with all this. And I think the reason that people have such a hard time doing it is because a most people, like you said, in the very beginning, they feel like they got to conquer the mountain on day one, right? They got to eliminate everything. They got to cut all the bad stuff out and work out every day and all this kind of stuff, and they fail every single time, right? The few superhumans that may do it, but I think the vast majority of people fail in those situations. And not understanding that, you got to take it one little step at a time. And those steps compound just like anything else. It builds on itself. You start educating yourself more, becomes more of a priority for you because you feel better, and those things start adding up. But you have to start. You got to start small and do it. And it's the same thing with the diet as well, because if you drink every day, every night before you go to bed, you have two glasses of wine or a glass of whiskey or whatever it is, and then you wake up every morning and you're a little tired and you just overly inflamed a little bit. People don't understand how much inflammation. Inflammation is huge that you carry around with you just based on the stuff that you're putting in your body. You're just walking around swollen, and you don't even realize it until you cut it all out. And you'll see people. I know a lot of people that I saw them, and then, like, six months later, I saw them again, and they just looked dramatically different. And I'm like, what did you do? And I stopped drinking.

01:04:50 - Jenny Merchant

Yeah.

01:04:50 - Mike Mills

I'm like, anything else? No, that's it. I just stopped drinking, and I was like, and they just look healthier. They have better color in their face. They don't look like they're just walking around like a stay puff marshmallow person, like, all swollen up. It just makes such a big difference. But it's hard.

01:05:07 - Jenny Merchant

It is hard. I mean, wine girl, champagne girl, all of it. And at night, for sure, especially the wind down, finding that outlet, because it's true. It's the thing that kind of calms us. There has been moments that, like I said, I'm not perfect. I've eaten my feelings. Like, I haven't drank my feelings, but I've eaten my feelings. And I feel just like I would if I had drank the half a bottle of wine. And it's that swollen. And now that I'm wearing, like, a weight belt when I work out, there's no getting around it. I went to cinch it up and like, oh, no, I am swollen. It is that inflammation. You're holding water retention, and you're just not feeling good. But you've got to have, okay, what are you going to replace with that? Because if that's your routine, and your routine is have a glass of wine before it's such a social thing. I mean, that's a whole nother beast. So I don't say, oh, you shouldn't drink. Oh, I mean, if that's your thing. But also just know that that could be contributing to it. And then also, if you add in some activity and shooting for a good 80%, and then you can have those off times. Even this Thanksgiving, I was like, no, I'm not going to do it. And I did, and I went to this vegan buffet, and I ate myself the buffet, and I didn't feel so great the next day. I'm not used to eating white potatoes and pumpkin pie.

01:06:32 - Mike Mills

Yeah, I have that problem. I do a pretty decent job when it comes to the refined carbohydrates, bread and pastas. I usually don't eat very much of that, but my wife typically makes dinner. When she makes dinner, I'm just going to eat what she made. I'm not going to be an asshole about it, right? But if we have a big thing of pasta, because we don't do it very often, but maybe once every couple of weeks, she'll make, like, spaghetti because the kids like it, and I'll eat it because I'm going to eat it. I almost feel like I have a fever. I walk away and I'm like, am I getting sick. And it takes me a second because I'm just like, why do I feel like crap all of a sudden? Oh, wait a minute. I just ate an entire. Because it's delicious, by the way. I just ate an entire bowl of pasta with a little bit of meat in it. And I'm going to need 2 hours to recover from this because I feel like dog crap until my Body processes it all out. I think the key to all of this is that, number one is you got to start small, right? Start with small little habits that are going to get you to where you want to go. Try to fit them into your day, right. You got to make sure that you can fit it into your schedule. So I don't want to say build your schedule around it. You will eventually, in your mind, you.

01:07:43 - Jenny Merchant

Just sort of naturally will because it'll happen that way. If it's a priority and you can do it, I promise you can do it. Yes.

01:07:49 - Mike Mills

But start with a small thing. If it's taking a walk around the block, if it's stop drinking sodas, if it's only drink on the weekends, whatever. Just pick something that you feel like you can accomplish and do and do it on a smaller basis, and then you will start to add those pieces to it. And as it becomes a bigger priority for you, you will put more time and energy into it. And then as you've demonstrated, I think you'll start to see that it will impact everything else that you do. The interactions with your family, the interactions with your kids, everything. It will impact it in a positive way because you'll be a better version of you.

01:08:27 - Jenny Merchant

Yeah, absolutely. And just really having some thought, because planning, just a little planning ahead makes such a big difference instead of just letting your day go, if you know you've got this big day and you've got our industry, okay, you've got showings, you've got this contracted, right. And, okay. And I'm just going to dash out the door and figure it out later. Well, the chances are you're not going to eat unless you're specifically in a fast, and that's what you're doing and you're being strategic about it. But if you're just going to leave the house and I'll figure it out, you go half the day, then you're hungry. Then when you're hungry, you're just going to grab whatever. You can't think clearly, just like when you're going to go on an appointment and the next day you have a listing appointment and you need to get prepared for it. Don't wait till that last minute because something's going to come along and throw a wrench in it and you're not going to be prepared and you're going to be scattered. So it's just changing. That mindset of the priority is figuring out ahead of time what you're going to do, whatever that is, what your food is going to be, what you're going to eat or wear some idea of it, instead of just throwing it in the air and seeing what happens and just trying to get Task 1234 down, take care of the kid. You've got to make that part the priority and everything else will follow in around it.

01:09:42 - Mike Mills

Very much so. Well, Jenny, we're over an hour, so that went by quickly. I really appreciate you coming in and talking to me about this. This is something I love to talk about. I just don't always get to talk about it on the real Estate and finance podcast. But I do think it's very appropriate for people, especially working professionals, that are always on the go. We have that guilt where we feel like we should be working all the time and we don't want to take care of ourselves because we're taking away from something else. But the understanding that when you don't take care of yourself, it affects your body, it affects your mind, and it affects every other thing that you interact with on a day to day basis. And really and truly, it's not being selfish to make it your number one priority to make sure that you take care of you, because if you don't, then you're useless to everybody else.

01:10:27 - Jenny Merchant

Absolutely.

01:10:29 - Mike Mills

Well, guys, thank you to everybody that stuck around. Next week I will have photographer Landon Day on the podcast. We're going to talk about how to brand yourself for 2024, the importance of listing photos, all that kind of stuff. So he'll be available to. We're supposed to eat between. What do you got? Conrad says we're supposed to eat between showings. That's what I've been doing wrong all this time.

01:10:52 - Jenny Merchant

Yeah, I keep it in my car with a ice pack.

01:10:54 - Mike Mills

That's right. But we're going to talk about branding for 2024, talk about listing photos. So it should be a good conversation if you're interested. And especially with listings being a focus going forward for next year because of all the fun things related to buyer's agents and how that stuff works, this would be a good one to tune in for. So I appreciate everybody that stuck around. We'll be back again next week and we'll see you then, Jenny. Thank you.

01:11:17 - Jenny Merchant

Thank you.