131. Aine Rock On Finding the Space between Hustle and Flow

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Transcription

131. Aine Rock on Finding the Space between Hustle and Flow.

00:00:01 Welcome to the everything Coworking podcast, where you learn what you need to know about how the world wants to work. And now your host, co working space owner and trend expert Jamie Russo. Welcome to the everything Coworking podcast. If you are listening to this on the day that it launches its January 1st 2020 can you believe it? Happy New Year. I hope you're having one last relaxing day with friends and family, and I hope we have an appropriate episode for you. Today's guest is on your rock CEO at Healthy Living with Anya,

00:00:40 she specializes in helping people find the magical space between hustle and flow. She has a really unique background. We get into a little bit of that on the episode, but I thought we would kick off 2020 with a mindset episode and help you kick off the year in the right place and help everyone get ready to achieve. They're big goals for 2020. So thanks for joining us. Here is my conversation with Anya. Thank you for joining me today. I have a special guest on Iraq, basically a CEO at Healthy living with Anya.

00:01:17 Anya and I actually go way back from my days in Chicago when I very first started inner space. We were in, Ah, Moms, that own business group together, and it was a pretty active group. But I got to know Anya and we reconnected in San Diego at an event a few weeks ago. And I said, Anya, you need to come on the podcast because my audience is all entrepreneurs who could use a little healthy living inspiration, especially this time of the year. So we're gonna talk about healthy living mindset and kind of earthy,

00:01:54 softer things. I do a lot of how to use on the podcast, but I love to get into the mind set piece and those of you who list then know that I'm a pretty healthy person, super into CrossFit. And now we'll we'll get into that in a minute on you. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for having me so great to be here. Anya is starting her own podcast soon, and so her audio is fabulous. She hasn't the microphone. Most of my guests have,

00:02:19 like, you know, apple airpods that they're using. So this is a special treat and she is hanging out in Chicago are Do have snow. Is it freezing? There it is. Very cold, but no snow. Okay, Had rain gray, right? You know, the Chicago winter style standard Chicago. Yeah. Okay, so we are gonna talk about a few things today. Tell me we're gonna before we dive into Anya's background, which is super interesting. Tell me, what inspired you to do the work that you're doing today?

00:02:53 Really? Just my own experience and living. You know, I was a yoga teacher and an actress and have been in the health and wellness field for 20 years, and I think it's just at the base of everything we do. So really wanting to connect with more people and share the philosophy that healthy living doesn't have to be drudgery. It doesn't have to be boring. My husband is an amazing chef and Somalia, and you know, I am talking about healthy habits and mindset, and I actually think it all comes together for ah,

00:03:29 holistic, joyful life. And that really is what inspires me to keep moving forward. And so I hope to inspire others to do the same. We should note that if you follow on you on Instagram. She has an excellent blend of on. You're working out with her personal trainer, Honey, eating a big stake in a glass of red wine with with their husband. It's very balanced. I respect that totally well. So you have a unique background, tell us a little bit about you and sort of the evolution of your own entrepreneurial life.

00:04:04 Yes. Oh, I if I said it was a yoga teacher and an actress. And 13 years ago I started a business with our bond, which is the network marketing business in the health and wellness field, as a way to, you know, help fund my passions without a paycheck, which acting and yoga both are. And that was really my mean of the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey. I learned so much about being in business and marketing and continued to go down the path of health and wellness and specifically was really interested in nutrition.

00:04:38 So I do a lot of working with people on our nutrition side, and about a year and 1/2 ago I was certified as a health coach, and I thought maybe I wanted to dive deeper into that and then through just kind of following some tugs, I had been reading and following Brendan Bouchard and had an opportunity to go to his certification to be a high performance coach and really went with the intention of, you know, probably coaching the people in within my organization, but came out Really, I say,

00:05:13 with my head spinning just sort of opened up this whole other side of what I found to be, you know, a really rewarding experience to coach women in particular about the mindset and this blend of high performance meaning, really, that we show up in all the areas of our life with excellence. So if you are killing it at work or you are grinding in your entrepreneurial venture and your home life is crumbling, that's not high performance, really. It is a holistic viewpoint, and from that I began to really kind of bring the two together and figure out who were the people that I want to really impact the most.

00:05:56 And that is really entrepreneurs, specifically women, because that's my experience. But I think some of the you know the conversations are not specific to gender, but many are as mom's balancing the entrepreneur world and, you know, wearing a lot of hats. Just being able to share the insights and lessons that I've had along the way have been really rewarding. So you is a sort of manifested most recently into a program you run called a line and design, which I love. I love the idea of that we design our own lives.

00:06:32 I was introduced to that concept when I first started working with the coach years ago. And, you know, she made this point that, like, 99% of people kind of don't think that way, right? Like think about designing your day or the fact that you can really shape your life and create what you want and spending some dedicated time focusing on that really threw your entire lifetime can be so rewarding,

00:06:55 and most of us don't dedicate that time. So, you know, you're sort of trying to help facilitate this work for a group of folks who want to live,

00:07:06 you know, that kind of aligned life, What does that look like? And what are the kinds of things that you work with them on?

00:07:14 And you also we talked when we're together about kind of this, helping them find this space between hustle and flow.

00:07:20 Like his entrepreneurs, we feel like we have to be in the hustle, but to your point, trying to keep everything together and balance and spend time with family.

00:07:27 And what does that look like in the work that you do and how you help people? Yeah, So I designed this course align and design because I was personally interested and I feel like there is I always think that when something is on my mind,

00:07:40 there must be someone else who is going through it and write, What is personal is universal. We learned that in acting,

00:07:45 and I do really feel that we know sometimes we feel like life is happening to us. But when we take the time to pause and really change our mindset,

00:07:55 maybe change the lens through which we're looking, we realize that life is happening for us, and we do have the time and the energy we can co create.

00:08:04 Really, this experience and the alignment pieces so important. That's why I really wanted to talk about aligning before we designed,

00:08:13 because it's about really listening to our intuition, and we're always were often looking for external validation. Resource is which have a lot of value,

00:08:23 but we all have an innate sense of what's right. And sometimes when we are pushing and we're and there's definitely a time to be,

00:08:32 you know, grinding and hustling and going and stretching and reaching. And then there is a time to be inflow and to retreat and to rest.

00:08:42 And that's really hard for entrepreneurs. It's really hard, so really just giving. You know, these moms,

00:08:50 these entrepreneur women, the permission to take a step back and look and say, What is it I really want?

00:08:56 What's my mission? Why am I doing this business? What you know, why did I create this entrepreneur endeavor that I have started and what keeps me going?

00:09:06 Because sometimes the reason we started business is not the reason we keep it going. And so as we head into,

00:09:12 especially these more demanding seasons of life, what is beneath all of that and when we take a step back and look at the different hats were wearing in the different priorities and the the different I do something called dump delegate and differ where I asked my clients to really take a look at all of their different roles and all the tasks,

00:09:33 and start to create a list of things you can dump and delegate and defer, and that can also,

00:09:40 for I find for entrepreneurs and maybe especially for women. It can be really hard to ask for help and to admit that Don is better than perfect.

00:09:50 And, yes, you could do it all, and you probably would do it better than anyone else.

00:09:55 But letting go of some of that control ultimately allows you to scale in whatever you're doing, whether it's to hire a V a or,

00:10:04 you know, just ask the people who are already in your life for help. It's actually really empowering,

00:10:09 and it creates space. And that's where we start to listen for the limiting beliefs that come up and acknowledge them and maybe rework them and then,

00:10:20 you know, are able to design how we want to live day to day. I love that framework.

00:10:26 It's amazing how stuck we can get on thinking and telling the stories about what we need to dio. I had one this week.

00:10:33 I have a really busy week working on a big project, and I was not using this framework, but sort of desperately in my head on Sunday,

00:10:41 trying to figure out how I'm going to get through this week and how am I gonna sort of, I guess,

00:10:47 looking for things to dump. Like I need to get some things off of my plate. And I tell myself this story about cooking for my family,

00:10:54 like my husband is not a cook. So I do the cooking in my next life. I'm gonna marry your husband.

00:11:00 No. And I have a really high bar for, you know, healthy meals for dinner. Like I don't order out because nothing sort of meats that bar.

00:11:10 And so I cook a lot and cooking takes a bunch of times you plan and cook. And so this week I was like,

00:11:17 I am not going to cook. I will find a way, like sort of the guest delegating. So we have this program called Good Eggs,

00:11:25 and I was like, I'm going into the prepared section. I know it's going to be more expensive.

00:11:29 I am going to order meals for the week, and that's what I did and it's been so much easier.

00:11:35 But it's like I really had to fight with that. Like, No, I spend, you know,

00:11:39 an hour and 1/2 cooking and cleaning up after dinner and, you know, or forced my husband to help with some of those sures.

00:11:46 The delegating, I guess again, a little bit more. But it's funny how we get into these routines that don't necessarily serve us.

00:11:53 And it's hard to need a framework in a little and some outside support, sometimes to get out of them.

00:12:00 Yeah, and sometimes just having some perspective of, you know, someone else to say It's okay to let go of that and it might only be for a season.

00:12:09 That's what I thought I was like, doesn't have getting, can anyone or that I had to talk myself?

00:12:13 Yeah, me and my little voice in my brain. Your family will not fall apart, right? If it's not the healthiest food they've eaten for an entire week,

00:12:21 exactly. Yeah, and we tend to want to put ourselves last on the list. But sometimes doing those things delegating or creating more space really frees up creative space for us to thrive instead of feeling like we're drowning in this,

00:12:39 you know, season of overwhelmed right, which is ultimately a choice. I think overwhelm is you've said yes to too many things and we have to remember that when we say yes to something,

00:12:49 we're saying no to something else, and we just take on too many things and we don't want to disappoint people.

00:12:54 So there it's kind of Ah, a little bit of a snowball. But if we just take a moment and I really again go back to this sense of intuition and I ask my clients and people that I work with Thio really call on their highest self like what is an empowered action that your highest self can do to work through this situation?

00:13:13 Whether it's, you know, not knowing how to manage all of the tasks of home and business. You know,

00:13:19 we've got the end of the decade coming and all these big goals, and we have travel when we have holidays and we have kids and kids get sick,

00:13:27 and we have all the things that can go wrong night. And so how do we navigate that in a really positive way and part of that is just creating space and saying no to some things and being okay with disappointing some people sending a card instead of going to the party because it's OK when you talk about flow is the saying no to things and making those tradeoffs part of that finding the flow,

00:13:54 like what does flow look like? Yeah, I think flow is also a feeling. I think flow is that innate sense of knowing I really believe in this idea of expansion and contraction.

00:14:06 You know, we things move in seasons, the flow being a part of, you know, maybe you have a couple of days or weeks that you're really on,

00:14:12 and then there's this lull, and sometimes we get a little spooked by the low. But if we learn to expect the LOL and maybe even celebrate it,

00:14:20 know that a Sunday at home in your pajamas is exactly what you need. You don't need to be finding things for your kids to do or going to the next thing that we then also know that the next expansion is coming.

00:14:35 And it's a lot about just trusting in the sense of fluidity. Yes, I'm thinking about how It's funny how I get that uncomfortable with the flow.

00:14:44 Sometimes exactly your example. When we have don't have plans on the weekends were hanging out watching a movie,

00:14:50 and you feel like, Shouldn't we be with friends? Should we be running errands? Should we be doing cleaning out the garage like hard to just enjoy that time?

00:14:58 Like from a business perspective? How would you have an entrepreneur think about or the r A. Y of that flow sometimes because I think we we kind of run on this sense of If we're not constantly sort of in that,

00:15:12 like, anxious go go go mode, then we're not doing enough. Yeah, I think it seems counter intuitive.

00:15:18 But if you have, you know you are cross fitter and you know how important rest and recovery is.

00:15:23 Yes, sometimes we don't. It takes discipline to take those days, but you come back stronger and it's really the same thing with the entrepreneur business world is that you know we're when we take time to unplug toe,

00:15:38 let go toe let down to watch some TV or read a book or get into nature. We let the system's kind of slow down and quiet so that when you come back,

00:15:49 you have more energy and you'll probably get more done in a shorter amount of time. Ironically, because you know,

00:15:56 if you know you're running low on gas and you just run it to the bottom, you're anxious and you know it just isn't working for.

00:16:02 You really do have to plug in and or in most of our cases, unplug right, creating. Exactly.

00:16:09 And I'm a big you know. I talk about energy a lot with my clients and in my course,

00:16:13 talk about the habits that are supporting this intuition and this idea of like, how do I know when to hustle and went to flow?

00:16:22 What is that space? And it's different for all of us, and it's different. It's a constantly moving target.

00:16:28 What it requires is us to get tuned into our own innate sense of, and there's a wrong answer and it's okay,

00:16:35 right? Maybe I push and then I think it would be like some I won't or maybe I take a night off and I it's just really sort of trusting ourselves a little bit more and creating or setting up some routines and habits that support the energy that's really at the base of everything we d'oh.

00:16:52 What are some of the routines or kind of interventions that you use or that you suggest for the folks that you work with tryto find that flow or be a little bit more balanced?

00:17:03 So I think I like to talk about book ending the day. So the way that we wake up in the way that we go to sleep or really important,

00:17:12 we know the science and the research has shown us that looking at our screens right before bed interrupts our sleep.

00:17:18 So creating discipline around turning the phone off 30 minutes before bed, reading a book, doing some journaling,

00:17:27 you could have some gratitude or some prompts, and then how you start the day. So again, my goal and I'm not a perfection.

00:17:35 I mean, I am a perfectionist in some ways, but it is one of my life's work to sort of release that perfectionism and know that we are all perfectly in perfect,

00:17:44 and we connect when we just admit that some days it works great. Some days it doesn't. But I have started over the last two years,

00:17:51 a routine of waking up at 5 30 which is an hour before my kids are up and I do a 10 minute meditation and I do three pages of journaling.

00:18:02 So the artist's way was kind of the inspiration for that. It's just brain dumping for three pages, and then I do affirmations,

00:18:10 and I don't usually get time to read. So I instead prioritize just doing a few a little bit of my planner,

00:18:16 just like, what are my three big tasks for the day? And instead of reacting and kind of being,

00:18:22 I say, I used to be like the wake up and keep up. I'm now waking up with intention.

00:18:29 I'm creating the energy, the mood and the purpose for my day. And then I'm ready to receive my kids and start the morning with them.

00:18:37 And it's really been a pool game changer for me, and I think just carving out space for intentionality in the beginning of your day before you check email before you start responding to everyone else's agenda,

00:18:50 you decide what's my energy for the day? How do I want to show up for my family? What do I want to accomplish.

00:18:56 Who do I want to be today and then go forward? That it just that small routine has had a massive shift for me in my life.

00:19:05 Yeah. How do you resist getting out of bed and working? Look, are you pretty consistent with your routine?

00:19:12 Yeah. So I do it every morning, and now my husband gets up with me and I remember we're with friends and I was talking about this idea of owning.

00:19:21 My morning was really important to me to own the morning. And he was like, I wanna own the morning.

00:19:29 It's just a discipline. It's really tempting. And like I said, I don't do it all the time,

00:19:33 you know? Oh, flip on social media, start scrolling. Yeah, jump into an e mail.

00:19:38 But I think if you have enough times, you know what that's like, right when that email lands and you open it and suddenly everything in your body is responding and the brain is going and it's just totally hijacked your day or your morning,

00:19:54 So just leaving it just thing I'm not going there yet, And I definitely have morning for I lie in bed.

00:19:59 Think like I'd rather sleep. I don't really want to get up. Mel Robbins is wonderful author and coach,

00:20:06 and she has a book she wrote about. She just says 54321 Get out of bed. No. And you don't think of yourself like the rocket ship?

00:20:16 Literally. I'd lie in bed and go. 54321 Throw the covers off. Get up. Because once you're in motion,

00:20:22 you're fine once you're out of the way. Yep. Yes, I have one of those this morning.

00:20:26 Just get up. It'll be fine. Yeah, I really am tempted to stay in bed, but more have the like must be,

00:20:33 you know, operating at full speed the second I get up. So I have trouble easing into the day.

00:20:39 It's either work or work out. Most of the time, it's workout. But even that feels Yeah,

00:20:44 I'd like to get to a place where I could warm up to that a little bit more and be a little bit more mindfully intentional.

00:20:50 I think there are a lot of benefits to exercising first thing in the morning, but in some of those air,

00:20:53 mental and physical, But I love the you know, really planned the day and be intentional, and I do have the habit of picking that bone up.

00:21:01 I don't have all of my email accounts on my phone anymore, though that was a big step that I took.

00:21:06 I just said, I can't have the temptation It's gone. I can yeah, which helped a lot.

00:21:12 So, yeah, and having cues for yourself is really again. There's a lot of science and habits that if you have a queue,

00:21:19 so if you think about how much of our life is unconscious, right, we drive our car without thinking about it.

00:21:24 When you were first driving, you were like checking every thing. But now we do a lot of that unconsciously,

00:21:30 and it's because one thing cues the next. And so if you set things up for yourself like I do have a little routine before I go to bed of making sure my cup is out.

00:21:39 My tea is ready right now. The water is full, my headphones air out, and then I really and truly look forward to that time of day.

00:21:48 Now I know meditation is daunting for people. A lot of moms say, like I could never. I'm so tired.

00:21:54 My caveat is always like, if your kids aren't sleeping through the night yet, right? No. Maybe you don't want to add this.

00:22:01 Not a good season for you yet. Yeah, Yeah. Much might not be your time, but you could find that time somewhere.

00:22:07 Still, write this idea that we don't We can't possibly find 10 minutes for ourselves. It's just because we don't prioritize ourselves.

00:22:14 And it's, you know, there are so many APS you can listen to. Now I put on big headphones,

00:22:19 so if my kids do come down, they know I'm meditating. Right, Q? Yeah. Here.

00:22:24 You can't see me. And I just, you know, sit in that tall and I I have my tea ready.

00:22:28 So when my 10 minute meditation is finished, my tea is ready to drink. Like, I just have all these little routines in place that help me to cue the next thing.

00:22:37 So I think setting up and experimenting and knowing, you know, maybe it feels great to do your meditation before you go to bed or your affirmations,

00:22:45 right before maybe for you waking up, getting out of the house to the gym is key and then,

00:22:51 you know, setting some time later before you start your work day. Or I think it could be look different for everybody but experimenting with those early morning habits.

00:22:59 Oh, yeah, I love the cues. And I think maybe it was you who told me to read a Tom my cab.

00:23:03 It's Did we talk about that when we're down? Yeah, I very it's my new favorite book. I talk about it constantly.

00:23:09 Anybody who's listening is probably will you shut up about that? That's I'm moving through it really slowly because it's so useful,

00:23:17 Like the cues I'm like. Okay, I need to study this. Get these set up because it's so right.

00:23:23 It makes so much sense. But I love when he talks about, like, the habits of our day lied to the person we want to be really thinking about.

00:23:32 Almost reverse engineering like I want to be, you know, happier for me. It actually a lot of my meditation and morning routine started because I really felt super aggravated all day and I felt react.

00:23:44 I can't imagine seeing you. It's It's so not aggravated. It's working. I felt like I was always irritated with my kid.

00:23:53 You know that keeping up with what life was throwing at me and I had heard read the five AM club Robin Sharma.

00:24:02 Lots of you know, the Miracle Morning is another about this. You know, CEO is the top performers in the world.

00:24:10 Wake early and have a routine. And finally, I just thought I better throw my hat in the ring and see what happens Total lately,

00:24:16 the game changer for me it and I know look by sleeping on a weekend, not a big deal.

00:24:21 But I know that, you know, on the days that I really want to be on my a game and I'll wake up on vacation,

00:24:26 I do actually wake up on the weekends and still do my routine. I know it well. They say this about writing.

00:24:31 It's like if you create a habit, you should do it all the time. When you're on vacation,

00:24:35 when you're as much as you can, I mean to your point. If you fall off the wagon,

00:24:39 get that gun. But mostly consider it an everyday habit. Don't take time off when you're on vacation and you have gone for a week Then you start to lose those habits,

00:24:48 so try to maintain. I mean, I exercise when I'm on vacation, I guess, and my morning routine.

00:24:54 Like everything I think during this we sort of live in a world of extremes and to circle back a little to the healthy living it is.

00:25:01 All of these small daily habits create a healthy, happy, more joyful, vibrant life. And that is what we all want to live when we're on vacation.

00:25:11 Like you said, you know you can find me on instagram drinking a big glass of wine, enjoying a beautiful dinner.

00:25:17 I'm also moving and finding ways to exercise, and I choose to eat. You can still make healthy choices when you're eating out.

00:25:27 For me, a glass of wine is still. It's an indulgence, but it's as long as I'm not overdoing it.

00:25:34 If we were in Europe, they'd be saying like That's a part of your healthy living. I often ask myself,

00:25:40 You know, if I were to look back and say, you know, Oh, I never touched a glass of wine or I never you know,

00:25:45 did anything. I have an adventurous spirit of me, so I think I feel like it's always about finding the balance and the integration of both sides of knowing that I want to have adventures and I wanna live vibrantly and I want to try things.

00:26:01 And I also want to feel good and have great energy. So finding that for myself and each one of us has to do that,

00:26:07 yeah, I love that. What else about hustle and flow and aligning in designing? Should we talk about before and we wrap up?

00:26:16 Well, we're headed, you know? Well, we're talking in the holiday season. We are, and this is we're heading into January where everybody starts to make New Year's resolutions.

00:26:26 But I think that every day is a chance to start over and just add in the healthy habits that create the kind of person you want to be so that you live the kind of life that you want to live.

00:26:39 And none of us are guaranteed more than today. So knowing and trying to celebrate until live in gratitude and to really enjoy the fruits of the day and also be listening,

00:26:51 you know, for when is it the time to go? When is it the time to push in something and also knowing when it's time to let go of things right?

00:26:59 Everything. People are transitioning, people are pivoting. We're letting go of old things. We're heading into a new decade and sometimes I was just talking to a friend about how hard it is to let go,

00:27:11 even though we know that what's on the other side of that fear is always a greater expansion. And yet,

00:27:18 if we're not living in that intuitive space, if we're not giving ourselves grace, we can kind of buy into the fear in the comparison.

00:27:26 And so really, I think my big messages just at this time of year and always as we head into the new decade,

00:27:33 really trusting that what people are looking to connect with his authenticity and that true authenticity is about really knowing for yourself,

00:27:44 what is the balance of hustle and flow? And that might be different. Tomorrow might be different in January 2nd,

00:27:50 but honoring that celebrating that. And then by doing that, you inspire people around you to also not just grind,

00:27:57 but to know. Yeah, you know what? It's cool. I'm gonna take a weekend, I'm gonna take a day off almost unheard of this time of year.

00:28:04 But it's important it is. Yes, you've given me lots of food for thought about routines and hustle and flow.

00:28:11 So speaking of your instagram feed and your glasses one. If folks want to follow you online and use you for some ongoing inspiration,

00:28:21 where can they find you? So I'm on the gram at Anya, which is a i n e.

00:28:27 It's Irish underscores, it's Anya Underscore healthy living, and I am running a five day challenge in the new year,

00:28:36 and I would love folks to join. If you are interested in laddering on some healthy habits to help you in your most vibrant new decade and you confined niet on your rock dot com forward slash manage the damage I love that will include that link in the show notes and on his instagram handle is well,

00:28:58 in case you're driving around and need to reference it. Anya, thank you so much for joining us and sharing some of your perspective.

00:29:05 I think it's not to overuse the word healthy but healthy for us this time of year to be intentional and think about some of the routines and perspective we want to have going into the new year.

00:29:15 So this has been really helpful. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

00:29:20 Thanks for joining us on this episode of everything CO working. Be sure to click the subscribe button so you can stay up to date on the latest trends and how to until next time.

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Jamie Russo