164 : The 4 Pillars of Healthy Habits with Kirby Smith

[00:00:00] Introduction to the Mindful Fire Podcast
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Adam Coelho: Cord. Always good to remember that. All right, so we'll start in 3, 2, 1. 


[00:00:06] Kirby's Journey: From Google to Habit Harmony
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Adam Coelho: Kirby, welcome to the Mindful Fire podcast. I'm so glad to have you 

Kirby Smith: here. Yeah, it's great to be here. It's been a while since we've caught up, Adam, so super excited to have this conversation today. 

Adam Coelho: Me too. For the audience Kirby and I have known each other for quite a while.

He and I started at Google around the same time, maybe within a couple of weeks of each other, 13 years ago. And while I'm still at Google, Kirby has had quite a few adventures since then at Google and outside of Google. All around the, all around exploring what it means to live a healthy and long life.

And so today I'm really excited to have this conversation with Kirby to discuss what he's learned and specifically about how we can build healthy habits into our life. So again, welcome Kirby to the mindful fire podcast. 

Kirby Smith: Yeah, definitely. Thanks for that introduction, Adam. And yeah we met about 13 years ago and it was around the same time where I really clarified this vision for where I want to focus in my, both my personal and professional life.

And I was fortunate enough at Google, I was able to do a 20 percent project and it really started with the question of, How do you empower people to have a healthy lifestyle? And so I became one of their first full time health and wellness researchers and just started conducting experiments and research to understand not only how do people be, become happy, but also improve their overall health outcome, health outcomes.

And kind of from there I've done research and coaching and personal training for the past, 13 years. And I've recently started my own business, which I launched just a couple of months ago called Habit Harmony. And it's really around these four pillars of connection, movement, nourishment, and rest.

And so that's really my focus, both from a research standpoint, as well as coaching and releasing content and new technology tools to help people in those four pillars of a healthy lifestyle. 

Adam Coelho: Very cool. Well, I'm excited to get into those four pillars. Thank you. 


[00:02:13] Investing in Health and Wellness: A Framework for Life
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Adam Coelho: But I'd love to, start at a higher level, right?

Of just, all of us want to live a healthy life, right? We want to have energy, we want to feel vibrant, but with the day to day challenges of life, all the things we need to do, Ups and downs of life. It's hard to build those things into our life. At least I'll speak for myself. I've wanted to do it for a long time.

It's been my new year's resolution for years and I've made some progress, but there's still a lot to do. And one thing that has helped me slash I'd like to use more as a motivation to do this is thinking about investments and investing in my health and wellness and. In, just my, yeah, investing in my health and wellness.

So I guess, how do you think about health and wellness as an area of investment in creating a life that you love? 

Kirby Smith: Yeah, that's a great question, Adam. And, what's really interesting and having talking to thousands of people and, done surveys of with tens of thousands of people, one of the biggest challenges that people perceive having is not enough time to invest in the given group.

Healthy habit or routine or practice that they want to do. So there's often this gap between in what folks intentions are and what they're actually able to do regarding their health. And so when thinking of a framework of investment, I think one currency that you couldn't think about is time.

There's definitely different dimensions or Perspectives I encourage to experiment with, but time is a great one and really, prioritizing and making your health the top priority, or at least one of the top priorities, and a key thing to remember is that, When we go through our week things, we have these ups and downs.

And so when I encourage people to build new habits, there's three phases to it. So the first phase is around cultivating joy and overcoming challenges. The second phase is building consistency. And the third phase is optimization. And so when you're thinking about investing your time a lot of people, especially folks who maybe are more akin to an investment mindset, they might jump to the optimization phase.

And that actually could backfire because if you're trying to build consistency or optimize for a new healthy habit, but you really haven't figured out the key. the different ways that you could overcome the challenges and circumstances of your lifestyle, for example a great example could be, I worked at an at home fitness company recently for some folks working out at home might be ideal because they maybe don't have time to commute to the gym and those same folks might have like children and be really busy.

At the other, on the other hand, if you're being distracted by kids or family it might be harder for you to work out at home. Really figuring out an experiment, what works for you, what actually brings joy to this type of habit you're trying to build, and what actually enables you to overcome the unique circumstances within your life.

And, having a clear like framing of that and will enable you to invest your time and figure out how to invest your time towards that healthy habit more appropriately. And then you could have that figure out that consistent time of doing it. And then lastly, like optimize the time, maybe you're increasing it incrementally week over week or whatnot.




[00:05:55] Cultivating Joy in Healthy Habits
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Adam Coelho: Yeah, that's really a helpful framework and I was interested and curious about cultivating joy, right? Tell me a little bit more about Maybe in the various aspects of building healthy habits, like how it, I don't, it doesn't seem joyful to me. So well, I have heard there's that Stanford researcher, I'm like blanking on her name now, but like she wrote a book about basically like about exercise and fitness.

And basically her point was like, do things you actually want to do, which is like, Oh, that makes sense. But I guess. And I should probably figure out what her, do you know who I'm talking about? 

Kirby Smith: Might be Kelly McDonald? Mc McDonald. McDonald. I think perhaps, yeah. 

Adam Coelho: Let me look it up real quick and then we'll just redo this.

One second. Kelly Al. Yeah, I think that's her name. Sounds very Harry Potter esque. Books like a Stress researcher, joy of Movement. Yeah. Science of Compassion. Upside of Stress. Yeah. Exercise Happens. Yes. Okay. All right. So let me just we're going to edit some of that out. And I'm going to start again.

That's really interesting, Kirby. I really appreciate that framework. And one thing that you said there that really stood out to me was this idea of cultivating joy. And honestly, when I think of Healthy habits and this could just be an unhelpful story. I'm telling myself and most likely it is I don't really think of joy when I think of going to the gym or eating healthy I think of sacrifice and so I guess I remember thinking of this book Written by a Stanford researcher named Kelly McGonigal and it's the joy of movement and I didn't actually read the book but I heard her on a podcast and she was basically like Do things that you actually want to do when it comes to fitness.

So you'll actually enjoy it. But I guess I'm curious a lot of people think sacrifice when we talk about like building healthy habits. And I know that's sounds it's ridiculous on its face, but I'm curious, like, how do you help people overcome that? And how do you help them tune into and identify the joy that comes from these things?

Yeah. 

Kirby Smith: Yeah. So there's a couple of things there. One is really starting off with. reflection and intention setting. Whether it's through, your own practice or if you're working with a coach or even if you're working with someone, I always encourage folks to have wellness buddies or like someone, whether it's a spouse or a friend someone that you could talk to and have conversations around and really try to clarify what are your mental models when it comes to healthy habits.

Are you telling yourself that It's a sacrifice or it's this huge uphill battle and first question like is the mental model that you have, is that really serving you? Is it, is there a different way of perceiving what you're trying to do? That's first off. And then second off, when it comes to cultivating joy I think it's really important to think about your relationship to joy.

What is it, what enables you to have joy? And a lot of people, even in the framing that we use with the word joy, we often say, what gives you joy or how do you find joy? The thing, the reason I intentionally at least try not to use that type of framing is because one, it really implies that you're, you have to go out to find joy and or something external to you gives you joy.

But really the reason, the analogy I use with cultivating joy, it's being a permaculture farmer. So you could use the best farming technology, like technology and methods out there available. But at the end of the day, you don't control the weather. So there's going to be external factors outside of your control that is going to cause ups and downs, but you could create the conditions for joy in your life that will Increase the probability that you're experiencing joy and secondly, like joy and from my perspective, it's something that really comes from within is really in sustained from within, and there's external factors that increase the likelihood that we will experience that inner or intrinsic joy, and so really finding Like how you actually could cultivate joy on a regular basis is the key I would say to sustaining a healthy habit and that's Why there's a whole pillar around connection.

So that's like connection to self, connection to others, and connection to your physical environment. So that's a great avenue of deepening your sense of connection will help you have more clarity around how you could cultivate joy. 

Adam Coelho: Got it. So it sounds like the one, it's starting to tune into what brings you joy.

Well, how you cultivate joy already in your life and what are the things that you're doing, the circumstances you're in, the people you're with that you feel joy. And then once you have that awareness, then you can start to Kind of notice that when you're doing these healthy habits, whether it be, eating healthy meals with your family because being with your family brings you joy or doing a particular type of fitness, whether it be yoga or surfing or hiking, like if that bring being in nature brings you joy, then you can then you can be in nature while doing this exercise, that's going to make you healthier overall, and then you associate that joy with it and that helps you then with the next stage is that am I on the right track there?

Kirby Smith: Yeah, and another way you could see it is you are the painter, like you're the creator of whether or not you experience joy. You have a blank canvas and you want to put yourself in a circumstance that's conducive for you to be able to create the painting that you want to create.

So you want to, maybe you want to have a, in that analogy, maybe you want like a more of a quiet atmosphere. Maybe you want to be outside in nature. And you're like figuring out what's right for you. But at the end of the day, the way, and this is where mindfulness comes in well, is like the strokes that you take in the painting that you create, whether you're complete novice at painting or master at painting, like that's up for you.

And that's you're driven from within and similar with joy. So like you could take the same activity and there's. Some people who love the same activity and people who dread it like a good example is like running I hear a lot of people a lot of people say like I you know Literally, they use the word hate they hate running other people love it.

They almost get this like high from it You know, there's a variety of different reasons why someone might love one activity and other people might hate it but part of it could be potentially the story that you tell yourself when you're doing it. Another part could just be that maybe your body is conducive to that activity or not conducive.

So the good thing is there's no one right path to wellness, and you get to actually create that path. You get to pave that path and being really attuned to what, enables you to cultivate joy as well as. enables you to overcome the unique challenges within your life. It's that key first phase of building healthy habits.

And almost being more experimentalist with it versus trying to just jump into okay, I have to do this activity four times a week, even if I'm not entirely sure if I really love this activity. And also you're like prescribing it as a need versus a want. So that's like another element.

Like how do you actually end up wanting to do the healthy habit versus feeling that you just need to do the healthy habit? 

Adam Coelho: Yeah, I think there's something key there, and that's what that book was talking about. It's do something you want to do, something that you think back to when you were a kid that you just loved doing for the sake of doing it.

And, for me, actually, after I heard that, I was like, I should get some rollerblades, which is a ridiculous thing to do. But. I did. And I went and, it took Google during the pandemic to be like, Hey, here's 500 bucks to go do something fun. That was a very different time.

That's never going to happen again. But I went and I bought these rollerblades and I started going to the skate park again and like doing it. It was fun, it was really fun and I enjoyed doing it. And I'm actually having this conversation, like I need to get back into that. And so I think, yeah, like going after something that you want, like moving it from a need to a want, I think makes a ton of sense.

And one thing you mentioned there is like just this, Prescription of all four days a week. I have to do this. And I think that gets to consistency. 


[00:14:39] Building Consistency in Wellness Practices
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Adam Coelho: I would love to hear your thoughts on how to build consistency because I'm I personally am the type of person who is currently sets wildly unrealistic goals, fails immediately and feels terrible about it.

For example, always like when I think, Oh, I got to get healthy. It's I'm like all or nothing. I got to work out seven days a week. I got to eat healthy every meal and that feels restrictive and impossible. And so naturally I fail immediately and then never get to the consistency phase. And so I'm curious, how do you advise people to build consistency?

Kirby Smith: And yeah, and let's, I think it's always great to use a specific example so we could stick with and going through these phases, we could stick with the rollerblading, Adam rollerblading or whomever rollerblading example. So let's say, whether it's yourself, Adam, or anyone else you find that you love.

Rollerblading. Or you remember when you were younger that you loved it. So you hypothesize. Sorry, 

Adam Coelho: Kirby. You can just you can just use me. We'll just for simplicity, just use my example. You can start over if you want. All right, cool. 

Kirby Smith: Awesome. So Adam, let's use that example of you rollerblading.

So you, I, I heard you say that. You recalled, at some earlier point in your life, you remember that you love rollerblading, so you took this opportunity to start rollerblading and, it's something that you enjoyed, so you that's the first phase. You're experimenting, you're creating hypotheses of okay, what have I previously enjoyed?

What do I think I would enjoy? What's my instinct telling me that would actually be, interesting? Enjoy it, enjoyable. And then you're trying out different things. You find what you actually do enjoy. And also you're actually able to do at least to some extent on a weekly or whatever frequency basis.

And then once you find that, you try to really carve out that time and like figure out what time of the week is most likely that you're actually going to be able to rollerblade and like how often is that feasible for you to do. And ideally, with the key priority habits we're trying to build, I do like to.

Kind of try to keep ourselves honest where we are like roughly tracking like to what extent are we doing that habit and then, in terms of if you say you're doing it once a week, maybe try to incrementally build it up to maybe twice a week, or like even maybe it's like once a week, but 10 percent longer for each week or each month.

So the key thing is like trying to incrementally increase that. consistency or the amount that you do the thing that you do enjoy rather than just trying to say, maybe you're like, maybe you're rollerblading once a month and then you're saying, going to tell yourself, I'm going to do it four times a week.

Jumping into that could be unrealistic. And then also you might you'll have probably some level of disappointment if you're setting really high expectations and not hitting those expectations. When it comes to building consistency be honest with yourself where your baseline is. And it's always good to work with someone else, whether it be a health coach or a personal trainer or, Even just a wellness buddy, as I mentioned, like a spouse or a friend and have these type of conversations at least, once a month, once a week is ideal, but once a month is also works and just be honest, like, where are you at currently?

What's your baseline? And how could you incrementally build upon your baseline to have consistency as you do that? 

Adam Coelho: Very good. And do you recommend that people do the same type of activity at each time in the week? I, obviously things are unpredictable to some degree it's not always possible, but would you recommend oh Adam, you found that you have time to rollerblade on Monday mornings after you drop your kid off at school so try to do it every week at that time, and you have time after they go to bed to do a little bit of yoga or stretching on Wednesdays, so try to stick with that.

Is that kind of how you recommend, or what do you think about that? 

Kirby Smith: Yeah, so what I'd recommend when you're in that second phase of so you figured out what you actually enjoy. And at this point in time, you're trying to figure out how do you build consistency around that? I would say the key thing is obviously it really depends on the person and the situation, which isn't necessarily like people want a simple answer, but the reality is there's not a simple answer.

And so doing the time that is most probable that you'll be able to consistently do it. And a lot of folks might say okay, I'm not really sure what that is. So the way you figure that out is a key thing I recommend in the consistency phase, and ideally you're doing it afterwards as well. But, when you're really trying to build that consistency.

I recommend having a weekly reflection, like self check in, it could be a quick like set of five questions and keep it really simple and quick no more than five to ten minutes so that you're like more likely to do it on a weekly basis and ask yourself okay what was my like top priority for my health in the past week And how well did I do on that?

What were like the key challenges and what worked well, essentially? And ask yourself those questions, and then you'll be able to figure out, okay I know I really was able to rollerblade the week before, for a few weeks in a row, and I really loved it, it was one of my favorite parts of the week, however, last week I wasn't able to do it because I kept telling myself I would do it after dinner time, I'm just making that up, and, maybe you figure out, okay, dinner time's not a good time for me to actually, to rollerblade so maybe, that was like, my big challenge, so like, How can I like change that up essentially?

So like having that reflection process of what was my top priority for my health? Like number one, last week, how well did I do? Maybe it's like a five point scale. Like actually sustaining that last week, what went well and what were the challenges? So even just those four questions and if you want to throw a fifth in there, just what are you what were you grateful for in general?

Those are like the five key questions that I have the folks I coach check in on a weekly basis, and then also what's my next priority for the upcoming week? So those are like some key questions that you could ask yourself, and that could help you really clarify and have this almost dialogue with yourself around Building that consistency for whatever healthy habit you're working on and that will like change over time the habit But those questions could be like pretty consistent on a weekly basis.

Adam Coelho: Very good. Yeah, that's definitely helpful. I just wrote those down would you recommend? And we're going to get into it in a few moments the four pillars of healthy habits but would you recommend? tackling one at a time, building consistency in one at a time, or because again, I go to this all or nothing.

It's well, it's time to get healthy. So I gotta be working out. I gotta be eating healthy. I gotta be going to sleep, at a good time. And then one falls, then I don't do one and I just let the whole house of cards crumble. So would you recommend one at a time? Like, how do you think about that type of change over time?

Kirby Smith: Yeah, 

Adam Coelho: so 

Kirby Smith: that's a great question. First off We, to some extent, really have to biologically do all four at the same time. With that said, and I think this is really where it comes with mindfulness. And if you look at behavioral change studies, focusing on one thing at a time, on average, is more effective for folks to being able to actually change their behavior.

So behavior change is difficult and when thinking about mindfulness, just thinking about our minds ability to have awareness there's research that shows in a given moment, like this very moment right now, if whomever's listening, if you just think about it, You could only really consciously focus on up to one to three things at a given time, and the more things you try to focus on in a given moment, the more difficult it is.

Generally, the best practice is to focus on one thing in a given moment, and then if you're trying to like, do change new behaviors, build new habits when you have everything else going on in your life. I recommend having one primary focus item. You could have a back, a backlog or a queue of like secondary and tertiary items, but starting off, have one clear primary focus and make sure that you do your best to really have progress on that primary item.

And then you could still have, secondary or tertiary items. But what I do when I start coaching with folks, we always focus on a primary pillar. to start with and do that for at least one to three months. And then over time we could layer on the other pillars. And then in terms of what to focus on first among the pillars is, all four are really key and essential.

So a couple of questions to ask yourself is where do I feel like I'm not, not experiencing the level of, healthy lifestyle I'd want to in a given pillar, whether it's, nourishment, movement, connection, or rest. And then, maybe that area that needs most improvement could be a key area that you focus on.

And, or if you look at the next few months that you have, where do you actually feel like you want to focus on like making progress or where are you actually able to focus on making progress? So those are like a key questions, but to answer more simply i'd say Focus on one as a primary at a time, but always have the others like being in the background as considerations.

And you can think about how they integrate into that primary pillar. 

Adam Coelho: That makes sense, because obviously, if you want to do more movement, you're going to be bene you're going to benefit greatly by having a healthier diet. Getting more sleep and making time for rest to recover and come back stronger.

So it does make sense that they're all related, but to have a primary focus. And so just to close out these three phases is the optimization, right? You had to cultivate joy, overcome challenges as phase one. Build consistency phase two and then optimize. So just would love to, just to make sure we cover off on this, just get your thoughts on what does optimization look like once you have that consistency.

Kirby Smith: Yeah. So a key part of optimization is, I always, this is where I really recommend folks to look into evidence, like evidence based practices in particular. And especially when we're looking at, health, you're thinking about okay, what will actually improve my. life expectancy, what will enable me to prevent injury and, potential like diseases.

But also what kind of enables me to achieve the outcomes that I want. So this is where you could be more methodical and have really clear, kind of performance indicators or success outcomes and like really try to like optimize for those like key outcomes that you're tracking.

And another key element there is having some element of variety, especially when it comes to movement and, what elements of then depending on the pillar, but we'll say movement for now is like a lot of times if you're just doing the same type of movements over and over again, like after you built that consistency, there comes a time where you need to change it up.

You need to make sure you're not having muscle imbalances. You're making sure that you're hitting a wide range of muscle activate activation. So you're getting more into the details of like Throughout my lifetime. How do I, now that I have this practice, how do I enable it to like it for me to achieve my longterm, health outcomes and other key success outcomes I'm looking for.

Really building into the, like the evidence and the science into that phase. The thing is, I noticed a lot of folks, especially like folks who, I'm based in the Bay Area. A lot of folks are very kind of science and like data driven. but and they all want to know okay what's like the best for me to in the best thing for me to do off the bat from like a science standpoint and I think that's a great mindset to have but that's after you figure out what's enjoyable.

What can you do consistently, then approach that like optimization mindset after you like build that joy and consistency.

Adam Coelho: I think that makes sense. It's the it's easy to want to jump right into the latest scientific research and fad and whatever. And then again you're putting the cart before the horse, right? You need to actually build, find what you like to do, build consistency, and then start to optimize around the edges.

Yeah. Yeah. 


[00:27:24] Exploring the Four Pillars of Healthy Habits
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Adam Coelho: All right, Kirby, let's shift gears now and talking about the four pillars of healthy habits. That's what you call it, right? Yeah. Yeah. All right. I'm going to say that again. All right, Kirby, let's switch gears now and talk about the four pillars of healthy habits. I'll let you walk us through them and tell us about each and why they're important.

Kirby Smith: Cool. Yeah. So the four pillars are connection, movement, nourishment, and rest. And these pillars are based upon. the, more than a decade research that I've done, and then also just looking at a lot of different external research on what are those kind of key groups of habits that you need in order to have a long and fulfilling life.

And so starting with the first one, connection. And I think this is the one that maybe is often left out within the overall categories. Connection is really about how you connect to yourself. That's really, thinking about that mind body connection, as well as how you connect to others and your physical environment.

And a lot of research shows that our healthy habits overall, they're driven less by willpower, individual willpower than we think, and they're often driven by the extent that we're able to create Conducive social and physical environments that are more that increase the likelihood of us building and sustaining healthy habits.

So connection is really important. The other pillars are around movement. Some movement is your cardiovascular training as well as your string training. And then also building that flexibility and stability in the way you move your body. It's not only exercise, it's also how you move throughout your day to day life.

So what your posture is thinking about even in this moment right now, like, how are you positioning your body? Is it conducive to your overall health? And then also just, when you're like bending to pick things up and put them down Just how you're going and actually physically moving through the world.

Nourishment is around the three, three dimensions there. So each pillar has three dimensions that we assess and coach towards. The three dimensions there are around food awareness, so like where your food comes from how you actually create your food, what, how you experience your food, so like mindful eating, and then how does your food affect your body and then there's nutrition, which is getting into the the science of macro and micronutrients, and then lastly, there's non food substances, so maybe, minimizing substances that might not be conducive to your health, like tobacco and alcohol.

And then lastly is around rest. So of course that's quality sleep. That's the staple of rest, but also in order to be able to deactivate your body to engage that parasympathetic nervous system, you also have to have like renewal breaks and as well as like deep relaxation time throughout the week.

And renewal breaks is actually in my research at Google. I was pretty surprised of the more than 40 different measures That predicted well being outcomes among employees. That was one of the very highest, was actually the ability to take renewal breaks throughout the workday. And one of my hypotheses for that is because if you look at the research, our biological clocks, there's not only circadian rhythms, but there's also this rhythm within our bodies that usually you know, within about 90 minutes or so, we are, especially like our blood glucose cycles are about on a 90 minute scale.

And so we need to take these little breaks, every 60 to 120 minutes to recharge and reset and create that rhythm throughout our day, which will help us to like rest. Towards the end of the day as well.

Adam Coelho: I see. Okay. So there's a lot there to unpack. Let's dig into each one a little bit more. So this connection piece, how what are the three what did you call them? 

Kirby Smith: Dimensions. Yeah. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah. What are the three dimensions of connection and how can people cultivate more connection in their life?

To themselves and to their environment and to other people. 

Kirby Smith: Yeah. So those are the three dimensions like self, others, and physical environment. And when it comes to self, I really encourage a practice of reflection and intention setting. So ideally doing it even on a daily basis, like very quickly and efficiently, like Even if it's, five or less minutes, but definitely doing it at least once a week.

And this could be for your habits overall. It doesn't just have to be health related but at least on that weekly basis, like carving out time where it is specifically towards your health. So reflection and intention setting, that's a great way of connecting with yourself. But the thing about reflection and intention setting, it tends to be a little bit more focusing on the past, maybe you're reflecting on the past, setting intentions for the future.

So what's really important in terms of connection with self is having time where you're focusing on the present moment connecting with yourself in the present. So there's no Daniel Kahneman. He has this great research about there's the experiencing self, and there's the remembering self and the.

our perceptions of those two are can be quite different. So the way we recall our past self or set intentions for our future self might not actually align with the way we experience ourself in the present. And so having a relationship with all kind of, Reversions of the self, even though it might sound a bit esoteric, is something that is really foundational to health.

And another key data point there is there's a really interesting study. This is quite related to mindfulness, and it actually showed that if you For people who are focused on either the past or the present, even if those are happy memories, people who are focused on the pre or sorry, on the past or the future, even if they're happy memories or happy like predictions, they're, they tend to be less happy on average than folks who are focused on the present.

And so really being able to immerse in the present is a key element. And when immersing in the present, like having awareness of your thoughts, your feelings and your behaviors. That's a, that's key element of building that connection to self. In terms of building connection with others, really clarifying like who's important in your life and how do you want to have relationships with them and having authentic and vulnerable conversations with cadence is a great way of building that deepening relationship there.

And just also making sure you're able to have quality time. with those folks that are important in your life. And then similar with like physical environment there's the framing that I like to think about is that there's this book called Nudge, and there's something called choice architecture. So basically like, how can you design your physical environment in a way That increases the probability you'll actually do the healthy habits and minimize unhealthy habits.

So for example, at Google, we did experiments where we just put M& Ms and like candy in like more opaque jars and put them like at the bottom row. And we found that, we weren't taking away the choice to eat these, types of candies at Google, but by just making that nudge of making it harder to see less visible.

It's significantly decreased the amount people would eat like unhealthy snacks. And we put the healthy snacks like front and center. So that's a way of thinking about designing your physical environment. So those are those three dimensions of connection. 

Adam Coelho: Got it. Got it. Yeah. I I can definitely attest to the Google experiments that you were running on us and they continued to do like it's yeah, all the sodas at the bottom of the fridge, it's behind frosted glass or whatever, a sticker.

So you don't actually see it unless you're looking for it. And yeah, and at the top it's, just like sparkling water and teas and things like that. It definitely makes a difference when you have to work a little bit harder for it. And, this is all very relevant to the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, where he talks about, Make the things you want to do easier and make the things you don't want to do harder to do.

And just in, in terms of the, when you were talking about the connection with self I, I, mindfulness is a huge element of that, right? Being aware of what's going on in your body, your mind, your external environment, and bringing a kind, curious awareness to whatever's happening.


[00:36:01] Deepening Self-Awareness Through Mindfulness and Meditation
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Adam Coelho: And the more that you do that over time, the more you get to know yourself and build self awareness. And that kind of. impacts all other areas of your life positively. So it's certainly in line with what we talk about here. 

Kirby Smith: Yeah, definitely. And in terms of mindfulness, I think there's just so much value that folks could get from that.

And, I always encourage folks to have a regular meditation practice, but I also do, a number of people whom I've, coached or talked to, especially folks who experience ADHD, they say meditation is really hard for them. 


[00:36:31] Exploring Alternative Mindfulness Practices
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Kirby Smith: And so there are other practices such as like mindful walking or breath work.

I've actually more anecdotally I know a few folks who weren't able to meditate, but like by through breath work, where you're actually like, maybe physically manipulating your breath, even though they might have had severe cases of ADHD, they're able to do breath work exercises. And, I guess from my also lived experience, I find that the more I deepen my meditation and breath work practices, the more I'm able to build that deep sense of connection, and I encourage folks, I given The audience for this podcast seems like they'll most likely be interested in mindfulness and maybe meditation if you haven't tried it yet.

I recommend trying a meditation retreat. 


[00:37:17] The Transformative Power of Meditation Retreats
---

Kirby Smith: So I did a 10 day silent Vipassana retreat last year, and that was completely life changing. There's one of the most powerful ways to connect with yourself is removing distraction. And, ideally you could do this on somewhat a regular basis of just moving distraction, either meditating or breath work or any practice that enables you to be in the present moment, but being able to go away to a meditation retreat, they kind of design that physical environment for you, where they minimize any distraction.

And that's a really powerful way to be with yourself, to be with your thoughts and your feelings. And almost re re change the way that you connect with yourself in a pretty quick amount of time. That I think that's, I've found to be the most powerful way to yeah, change my connection to self Let's do these type of retreats.

Adam Coelho: Yeah, that's a great point. I have also done one of those 10 day Vipassana retreats. Was this the Goenka one? Yes. Yeah. I'm doing my 

Kirby Smith: second one in a few weeks actually. 

Adam Coelho: Oh, awesome. Yeah. I did that in November, 2017. So it's been a little bit of time. Not surprisingly that was before my son, first son was born.

But yeah, it's, yeah, it's. Yeah, it's very powerful to have nothing else to do but to tune in to your body and your present moment experience. But yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, I'm curious. Oh yeah, go ahead. 


[00:38:48] Personal Reflections on Meditation Experiences
---

Kirby Smith: Sorry to cut you off, Adam, but I'm curious what was there anything that was, like, surprising?

That came out of that experience for you, Adam. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah. So I really wanted to have a life changing experience. I, and I tried to go in with just like open to whatever was going to happen, but there was a part of me that was like, I want to either have an epiphany or a mental breakdown, that is what I was looking for.

And I remember there was this guy that at, at the end, On the 10th day, you get to talk to everybody because you're in silence the entire time. And he told me that he, when he was leaving the, He told me that when he, when his father passed away, he didn't cry at all. And he thought that was weird because he like had a great relationship with his father, but he told me that when he left the meditation hall one day and he walked back to the dormitory or whatever the housing, he saw the floor mat on the floor.

Of the entrance. And it was the same one that he had at his house when he was a kid. And he just broke down and was crying for an hour straight. And I was like, I want that. I want that experience. But for me, the experience was, a lot of disbelief at how much people were farting. To be very honest, I was like, everyone knows that people are only breathing through their nose right now.

How are these people just farting so much? They don't even care. And so I was losing my mind about that for about four days. And then I subsequently also was completely focused on doing it right. And so that's a big theme for me. It's just this idea of there's a right way to do it. And I couldn't tell you what it is, but I am certainly not doing it that way.

And that's what keeps me from exercising, honestly, and like doing all these things, it's I just don't know what the right way is. And because I don't know what it is, I just keep doing the unhealthy stuff that I do eating fries, for instance, right? And that was a big experience for me, it's just I can't, like a couple times I went to the teachers where you could ask questions and the guy was basically like, I feel like you keep asking me the same question.

And I'm like, yeah I do. And it wasn't until the ninth day that I realized like, those are just thoughts this experience of, Is this the right way to do it? Am I following the instructions right? Is just a thought. And it's me trying to get a specific experience. The epiphany or the mental breakdown.

Rather than just like experiencing it. So that was my experience during the thing, but it was very cool. It was like, it was very difficult and I would do it again, but I have not yet done it again. Cause I have 

Kirby Smith: two kids. Yeah. 

Adam Coelho: And 


[00:41:46] Overcoming Perfectionism and Embracing Trust
---

Kirby Smith: for your question that you kept asking yourself around, is this the right way?

And you alluded that might be some, a question that you still ask is, for you, is there. Do you think there's an element of like maybe that you could trust yourself and if you build that deep connection with yourself, with others, with your environment, like even if you don't scientifically know the right way, is there potential that you could create at least hypotheses of what is the right way by just trusting yourself, trusting your intuition, and also trusting If something enables you to cultivate that joy and overcome challenges, that at least you're on the path of the right way.

Like you might not necessarily have all the data and evidence that you need, but at least those are some like initial kind of first steps that you could build trust that you're on the, doing the right way. 

Adam Coelho: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think also just like letting go of the idea that there is a right way, it's a combination of letting go of that.

And one of the mindsets that I've practiced and tried to cultivate over the years is there's no right or wrong way to do things. There's just learning progress and growth and kind of the two sides of the same coin, trusting myself and cultivating more and more trust with myself is. Essential. And I think it's a lifelong practice and some people start off with more and, but I think over time, it's really about connecting with yourself, knowing yourself through greater self awareness, and then trusting yourself, trusting your intuition, trusting the, where you're at in life and where you're going and the progress that you're making.

And, like a perfect example of that is like the progress that I've made. with this podcast and this business, right? I, there's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of procrastination. There's a lot of what's the right way looking outside of myself for the right way to do things. Ultimately, it's what do I want to do?

I get to create this. I get to do it in my own time, in my own way. And more and more, I've been able to do that, and I've been off work for a couple months now just taking some time off, and I have noticed the full gamut of starting off really intense gotta make this happen, forcing, and then moving more towards trusting the progress that I'm making, the Just the good feeling, the enjoyment of the process.

And so I'm, I hope, and I assume that it will continue. That's 

Kirby Smith: great. It's great. It's great that you have that awareness of the importance of trust and then also like the importance that like maybe that questions that we ask ourself, or the stories that we tell ourself aren't always the best serving and trying to frame those questions and stories in a way that does enable us on that progress journey.

Exactly. 

Adam Coelho: Exactly. 


[00:44:44] Integrating Movement for a Balanced Life
---

Adam Coelho: So let's talk a little bit about the other pillars, the second pillar of movement. And we've talked a good bit about movement, but just, yeah, how can people cultivate more movement in their life? You talked about the three remind me again, mentions the three, you remind you, you mentioned the three dimensions, but just share them again.

And how can people, build more movement into their days? 

Kirby Smith: Yeah, and for anyone listening, like when thinking about these three dimensions I always really encourage folks to be in, in your body. So even taking this moment now, it's be in your body. And the first one is around cardio respiratory.

So just thinking about your your heart beating, the way that your blood is flowing through your body the breaths that you're taking, and the relationship between the two. What's really fascinating is if we slow our breath down, we're able to, all other things controlling for other factors, we're able to slow our heart rate down.

And so there's this really deep relationship between our respiratory system and our cardiovascular system. And that's also like the systems that are most likely to fail at some point, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death, at least in the US and most other countries.

And so really having, again, that relationship with these systems, but also thinking about how can you improve the capacity and performance of these systems? Again, of course, first starting off with finding those, the joy elements. And maybe in terms of like time efficiency from a cardio standpoint, maybe You know, running or rowing might be more optimal from like a scientific standpoint than say rollerblading.

But at the end of the day, if you don't really enjoy running or rowing, but you do enjoy rollerblading, it's a lot better to do some rollerblading for your cardiovascular system than no, just imaginary running or rowing essentially. So you want to, you want to actually, think about cardio.

I think a lot of times when people hear cardio, they have different relationship to it. But a lot of people that I've worked with, they don't like cardio exercise. And, so it's like finding a way of thinking about it is rather than it being a chore or something you have to do.

Think about it as something that like is actually a core part of who you are, a core part of your body. And it's a way of actually supporting and like being of service to yourself, nurturing yourself. And that's the, that key dimension there. And then of course, like strength training, it's really important that we're, at least building muscles to an extent where we're functionally able to navigate through our, throughout our world, especially as we get older in life, it's important to have that strength strength and stability.

There's a, someone I really recommend for folks interested in like the longevity space is Dr. Peter Attia. He wrote this book called Outlive. He also has a po a podcast called The Drive and He has a great framing around like a In addition to preventing like cardiovascular disease, like another key unfortunate area where a lot of older people have issues is with falling.

And so building strength and stability will really help you in older age to like, to avoid having like more difficult falls and potentially really debilitating injuries from that. And so really thinking about Movement is not only a way of finding joy, but also a way of providing health for your current, your present and your future self.

That's a key element. And then the last element is around that, like what I call mobility. And when it goes into both stability and flexibility. So like your ability to like balance and also like to stretch out your muscles. And it's really good to have some mobility.

Like even for about five minutes before and after each strength or cardio training. So you really want to hit all three dimensions, essentially. Like I see those as like similar to the macro nutrients of like fat carbs and protein, like just as you need all three, you need.

Mo mobility, cardio and strength training within your movement essentially. 

Adam Coelho: Got it. Yeah, and again, this is an area where I overcomplicate things, I think. , but yeah. Where would you recommend. It's it's funny. I just overcomplicate all this. It's what do I I either am like going in the garage and like lifting the weights and just couple of pumps here and there, or I'm like, Oh, I got to have a whole workout program that I got to do and commit to.

And, there's no, no middle ground, but I guess what would you recommend to somebody to get started? In strength and stability and inflexibility. I know they're different things, but 

Kirby Smith: yeah, so it's similar to the pillars. So when I work with someone that I coach, like we, we find a pillar and then we also focus on a given dimension.

So it doesn't mean you ignore the other dimensions or the other pillars, but like your primary focus is in one dimension for one pillar. And I know that it sounds rather like methodical, and it's actually meant to be methodical. So like you mentioned James Clear, and he's, his, one of his main theses is that you rise and fall to the level of your systems, not your goals.

And the analogy he uses is that like all Olympians have the same goal. They want to win a gold or some metal. But not all Olympians win a gold, only like one per event per year. And the difference is the systems that they create. And the system that I'm sharing with you, which I call Habit Harmony, is like one system that, you could pick and take from it what you will.

And so I would say, again, starting off when it comes to, pick out a given dimension. So whether you want to focus initially on strength, cardio, or mobility and then once you pick that dimension, start with phase one, start with cultivating joy and overcoming challenges. So figure out be like and when in phase one, I always encourage people to be like an explorer or in a scientist whatever analogy You've resonates most to you and the explorer analogy like you could it's a little bit more intuitive kind of like which imagine you're on you know a hike and you could take whatever path you want You and you at least have a compass so you know how to get back, follow your intuition, like What do you think will bring you the most joy?

What do you actually think will fit in your lifestyle? If you're more of the data driven like science perspective, you could say like you could create hypotheses and then test out those hypotheses And see what You actually find enjoyable and what's actually doable. And then, from there you build that consistency and you optimize and then you start layering in other dimensions and other pillars.

So that's like the process that I encourage folks to go through. That's like the system that I have found to be pretty effective with the folks that I coach and is based on the research I've done. But, Always like pick from, build your own system and pick and choose from different systems that you learn about.

Adam Coelho: Thank you for that. I like how the two things support each other, right? The three phases and the four pillars, right? You pick a pillar and a dimension to start with say strength training, and then. Yeah. You start from phase one. What brings me joy? What are the challenges I'm facing in in doing this and how can I overcome those before I then build consistency and then only then and only then do I start optimizing further on that.

And then once I have that in a good place, I can then focus on another pillar and start building there. 

Kirby Smith: Yeah. And then, yeah, and you. And for each phase you don't necessarily have to get to phase three before you could start on another dimension, but at least get past the first phase where you're starting to build consistency, then you could start being like, okay I have a good momentum here don't, keep that momentum going.

But if you feel like you could keep that momentum going and layer in something else that's great. And ideally you're like hitting all these, all, there's a total of 12 dimensions to this framework. I see all 12 of them as like necessary. Like the way I built the framework is, I asked myself the question, it's like an analogy for a plant.

Essentially a plant needs water, sunlight nutrients, and the right temperature. So there's like those four elements or four like components to like a plant surviving. And biologically, we need we need to eat, we need to sleep, we need to move and then the last one I added in there is just, we also need connection to others and to ourself and that connection piece is the tide that lifts up all the others or the, all the others go up and down based off that, so I try to create the minimal amount of things that are necessary for a healthy lifestyle.

And this kind of framework, essentially. 

Adam Coelho: Very cool. Well, let's spend a couple moments on the other two pillars. The next one is nourishment. 


[00:53:47] The Importance of Nourishment and Mindful Eating
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Adam Coelho: Tell me a little bit about that. 

Kirby Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Nourishment, this is where the first dimension there is really around awareness. Awareness of our food.

And this is something that you don't necessarily have to Go deep into the different, like you mentioned, like what's the right path and the nice thing about awareness of food is it's something that you could. Do in the present moment, actually a practice that I do before most of my meals, especially pretty much all my meals that I eat at home is I it's something called take five where you just take five, you take five moments through five breath cycles and I will literally just I, once I have my food right in front of me, I will for each finger to help me with counting, I'll do a breath cycle.

And I'll think about one specific ingredient in the dish that I'm eating. And, when thinking about that, I'll think about where it came from where, like how it got to me and then the experience of actually eating it and enjoying it. And that kind of helps me create more awareness around my food.

And it also it creates more gratitude and and it is, it's also probably will lead you to be more likely to eat healthier food. It's not guaranteed for everyone, but the more you have awareness of like where your food's coming from, how it got to you, how, what it's like for you to eat it, and then also really importantly, how it affects your body.

So something that this might sound a little bizarre, but also like a, in addition to a mindful moment when you're about to eat. The other key time I recommend folks to do mindful moments is when you go to the bathroom. A lot of times when you go to the bathroom, your mind might wonder or might go to different places, but you're guaranteed to go to the bathroom, at a certain cadence, like for most people, at least once a day, or, at least once every other day, probably multiple times a day for more people.

And that guarantees you will have those mindful moments where you're not lost in your thoughts. And you could also like check in with your body. Like, how is your body feeling? Have you know, is it, and just also like seeing what your, like your stool or your urine looks like, and is it, does it look healthy?

Does it seem healthy? And it's a good way of checking in. Are you getting enough water? Are you eating the right things for your body? Because every body is very different. So there's not a right way to there's not one diet that fits all. And so having this awareness of the food cycle is really important to build and develop.

Adam Coelho: Got it. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I could certainly do with incorporating some of that into my, my, my day. I laugh because my, I read this book intuitive eating and I was like, Oh, this is going to be it. This is going to change my life. And my wife is like, are you kidding me? Like you just eat Domino's pizza until you're stuffed to the brim and you're going to be now an intuitive eater.

But there's a lot of value to it. It's just a, it's a practice like anything else. So I nutrition wasn't my wasn't my strong suit. My wife and I joke that they don't teach nutrition in Florida.

It's true. 


[00:56:57] Enhancing Life Through Quality Rest and Renewal
---

Adam Coelho: Well, let's shift gears to rest. Tell me a little bit about how people can improve their relationship to rest and actually make it more of a part of their life. 

Kirby Smith: Yeah, definitely. And just a quick note just on the intuitive eating element with the dominoes, like that's maybe habituated eating.

And I don't necessarily call it Intuitive V. I would call it like more awareness, aware eating, so like you're if you are maybe having that, the dominoes, that might be like what you're habituated towards, but like having awareness, okay, how does this affect my body, how does it affect my energy levels Is this actually like creating, like increasing my energy, increasing the sense of joy I have like in the long term.

So that's the awareness and just the last two dimensions, we don't have to go into it, but on nourishment is around nutrition and non-food substances. So like the nutrition is where you get into the science of the macro and the micronutrients. But yeah, that's just I think it's important.

with eating that we're not only being intuitive, but we're also looking into the science of nutrition. And so that's why those are two different dimensions there. Yeah. And then when it comes to rest, of course, there's like quality sleep. And I noticed when helping folks with sleep and I'll admit, especially when I was more like in the tech world, working at Google and being younger in the middle of a city, like just having a lot of energy.

Rest has historically been my personal biggest like challenge of a pillar and both through my own lived experience and working with folks on rest and having designed sleep programs at Fitbit when I was a researcher there. What I've come to find is that you can't only look at sleep in isolation.

Of course, connection is a big element there, but also our sleep and the way that we're able to sleep. It doesn't. It's not just a matter of the wind down and like when we're actually in those sleep period basically our entire day and what we do throughout our day is really affecting our sleep later on at night time and so we the that's why there's not only the quality sleep dimension but the other two dimensions are around renewal breaks and relaxation And so within a given day, it's really important to build that rhythm.

A lot of folk, a lot of folks have heard of like circadian rhythm, which is the rhythm within a given day cycle. But there's also our biological systems. They're on a smaller time scale, which is often between, 60 to 120 minutes. In particular, like our blood glucose is typically on around like a 90 minute time scale.

And this is why you'll find like in meetings that people, once you go beyond one to two hour long meetings, you might notice your energy levels start dropping. People naturally have to do, they call it bio break. So they go to the bathroom, they have to get snacks, our body needs that.

And so actually like scheduling it in through the renewal breaks, as I mentioned, like renewal breaks were highly predictive of wellbeing outcomes in the research I did at Google. And I was quite surprised how high came ranked up. And so just having scheduling that in, so if you're having back to back meetings, Maybe try to get, five minutes in between where you're just giving yourself a little bit of a break.

Or maybe if you have a bunch of meetings back to back, give yourself like a 30 minute like break. Like in, in between like renewal break, so things that could be renewal breaks. It's basically at least like moving from where you're at. Like you're not just sitting at your desk the whole time.

It could be like eating healthy snacks. It could be doing like a quick, take five mindfulness or a few minute mindfulness or breath work. So actually like scheduling those renewal breaks are really important and I think often overlooked because if our mind is just running throughout the day and we just expect to turn it off when we go to sleep or like, When we wake up in the middle of the night, it's not really a fair expectation to have for ourselves.

So having those breaks throughout the day is like very essential. 

Adam Coelho: Got it. Yeah makes sense, right? And I think practical advice of schedule into your day, schedule a meeting with yourself where you can just get up. Go for a walk, hit the bathroom, grab a snack and then come back is really important.

Yesterday I had a back to back day of, recording podcasts, having calls with people and it was great, but I was exhausted and I, yeah, definitely didn't feel like I slept great and that I got, woke up feeling refreshed. So it's really cool to think, to understand that like it's happening throughout the day.

All right, Kirby, let's switch gears now into the what I call the fun. 


[01:01:46] The Mindful Fire Final Four: Envisioning a Fulfilling Life
---

Adam Coelho: I'm going to say that again. So Kirby, let's switch gears now into what I call the mindful fire final four. Are you ready? Yeah. All right. So the first question is about envisioning and I am a big believer that we don't need to wait to reach some financial goal or some, milestone of life like retirement to start living the life that we want to live.

And a lot of what we talked about today is all about living a healthy life each and every day and little by little. And so I'm curious for you in your life, what is the big vision that you're building towards and how are you living it right now? Yeah, that's 

Kirby Smith: a great question. So for me, the vision that I'm really.

Building towards is I see success is my ability to empower others to live a long and fulfilling lifestyle. And so I'm just really taking a first principle approach of asking myself every day, I have a, this post fit in front of me, how can I be of service today? And when I think about being of service, it's how can I help people live long and fulfilling lives?

And so I'm just. Every day going through that exercise of what can I do today? What are those three things I could do today? to help people on their journey of a long and fulfilling life. And so the way I've looking at that long term, like what I'm focusing on is being a teacher and being a coach, like taking all the things that I've learned by, Being on this mission for over a decade now and learned so much, how can I share that with others?

How can I teach others? How can I coach others? And how can I continue to generate that knowledge through my research? So that's really where my focus is on. 

Adam Coelho: I love it. And yeah, I think today's episode is a perfect example of you as a coach, as a teacher, and, you're not just making this stuff up.

You've done a decade of research. You've, I'm sure you've read all the research on all of this. And it really shines through. If people want to Connect with you and benefit from your knowledge and your experience and your wisdom and your research. I highly recommend they reach out and in question four, we'll get a chance for you to share where they can do that.

Yeah. So question number two is what piece of advice would you give to someone early on their path to financial independence? 

Kirby Smith: Yeah, I would say that the key thing is clarifying your priorities, like really, what is most important in your life? And really, what is a need versus something that you currently assume to be something you need?

What do you, what, again, helps you cultivate joy? And when you're thinking about creating a budget, or how you're going to invest your time and your money, you're Focus on that priorities through what enables you to cultivate joy. And if you're, if something is, potentially costing a lot of time or money or energy, and it's not really serving you, it's not helping you bring that joy.

And it's not really enabling some other like moralistic requirement, then I would say, deprioritize that and that will help you focus on, having that financial independence. 

Adam Coelho: Yeah. Great advice. The third question is what piece of advice would you give to someone getting started with meditation and or mindfulness?

Kirby Smith: So I would say the biggest advice that I have for someone starting with meditation is I hear a lot of folks say I'm not good at meditation. Like whenever I tried to meditate, I have all these thoughts that come into my mind. And what's interesting about that is. Is that's like the first step.

That's the first insight. We, there's something called the default mode network and essentially our mind gravitates towards thought. And so when you first start meditating, if you notice your thoughts, you're actually making progress, you're actually, you're on the right path. So don't get disenfranchised when you're noticing a lot of thoughts coming up.

But instead accept that thoughts are coming up and also recognize that's actually like the first step on your meditation path 

Adam Coelho: Yeah, that's huge that's a really good advice Kirby because yeah, that's what I experienced when I first started meditating and The thing I hear from Most people is that I'm doing it wrong.

I'm bad at it. I, my mind's all over the place, but what I counsel people is exactly that. Expect the thoughts to come. It's what your mind does. It creates thoughts. So expect it and realize that when you notice your mind has wandered into thought and you bring it back, that is the practice. And that is like doing a bicep curl for your brain.

And so it's not a bad thing. It's actually you making progress. Yeah, definitely. And finally, Kirby, how can people connect with you online, learn more about what you're doing, and, learn more about your offerings, your coaching offerings, and all the things that you're putting out into the world?

Kirby Smith: Yeah, definitely. So we, our website is habitharmony. com, and we have free content on there. We also have a intro to healthy habits course where you could do exercise guided exercises to go through the different pillars that we discussed today. And you could also sign up for a free coaching session as well with myself.

So yeah, habitharmony. com. That's a great place to learn more about how you could build this healthy lifestyle and enjoy a long and fulfilling life. 

Adam Coelho: Fantastic. Well, we'll link all of that up in the show notes. So wherever you're listening to this, you can just pull up the show notes and see the link to go and learn more about Kirby and his offerings and the free course he's putting together.

And then book a free coaching session where you can talk about your specific challenges and goals. Thank you so much, Kirby, for being here. I absolutely love this conversation. I learned a ton. I'm going to go back and listen to it a few times and pick my pillar. I think strength strength training is going to be number one for me.

And I got to get back to rollerblading, but just want to say thank you for being here and sharing your wisdom with the audience. 

Kirby Smith: Yeah, of course, Adam, really appreciate you having me on the podcast and it was really enjoyable experience for myself as well and hopefully folks listening were able to learn something and identify at least one thing they'll take away from the conversation and try to apply to their life today.

Absolutely. Well, thanks again and we'll talk to you soon. Awesome. Thank you, Adam.