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How to Live a Better Life Every Day with Bryan Falchuk: PYP 251

From the moment his parents' marriage fell apart, Bryan Falchuk turned into the fat kid. In a world out of control, food was the one thing he could control, and the one thing that could soothe his deep hurts and anxieties.

Every day Bryan woke up and was determined to lose weight, and twenty minutes later he'd be elbow-deep in the foods he'd sworn to give up, or at least moderate. He experienced himself as someone untrustworthy, someone who lacked agency, someone to whom life happened.

Despite all this, Bryan managed to muddle through: got married, got a good job, had a kid. He had turned into enough of an exerciser to slim down from “obese” to “standard American” – 40 pounds overweight, but wearing it pretty well. He might have continued this way indefinitely and lived the typical American decline into chronic disease managed by legal drugs, and just-below-the-surface emotional anguish managed by food, media, and other legal drugs.

Then his wife became gravely ill, and Bryan realized that he might lose her. And that his two-year-old son would experience a childhood trauma possibly even deeper than his own. So on June 30, 2011, when he entered his bedroom and found his son watching his mother suffer, he realized that he had to change himself.

To take charge of his actions. To give up being miserable, always unpleasant and stressed and on a short fuse, getting fatter by the day. To become the father his little boy deserved, and the husband his wife absolutely needed if she were to have any chance at healing.

On July 1, he woke up with a new identity. Armed with only this, Bryan began the long, hard work of remaking himself.

It was an honor to speak with Bryan about his journey, and the lessons learned along the way. We covered:

  • his first failure as “marriage saver”
  • “little kids need to feel safe and secure and taken care of”
  • turning overnight from a skinny, smiling kid into a round little ball of anxiety and depression
  • losing weight in high school – while not addressing the emotional root causes
  • eating until his stomach ached badly, and still not stopping
  • using others as a puppet for his own self-judgment
  • humiliation and heat syncope at a summer camp relay race for the “fat kids”
  • we're looking for “fast food enlightenment”
  • Bryan's wife losing 2 pounds a day, and her physician about to take 6 weeks off
  • “this is not what I ever expected”
  • “are you living your life, or are you an employee of it?”
  • we get rewarded in life for focusing on what's wrong – hard habit to break
  • letting go of willpower and harnessing identity
  • “I'm calling the shots, and these are my choices”
  • acknowledging past scars and choosing to heal
  • the first real workout in years – busting intervals on the elliptical
  • “I'll do the same tomorrow, if not better”
  • reaching goal weight and staying there
  • using Tim Ferriss's “slow carb” diet to discover what really was healthy
  • discovering Rich Roll, and turning vegan overnight
  • dropping our emotional attachment to food
  • it's about life now, not weight loss
  • in coaching, the presenting issue is a gateway drug to the whole human experience
  • and much more…

Enjoy, add your voice to the conversation via the comment box below, and please share – that's how we spread our message and spread our roots.

Links

DoADay.com

Buddhism For Beginners, by Thubten Chodron

Finding Ultra, by Rich Roll

JoshLaJaunie.com

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Gratitudes

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Announcements

The Big Change Program has just reopened for enrollment! The next bobsled run of the program begins February 5, 2018. You have until February 2, 11:59pm EST to register. Go here to find out more and sign up: BigChangeProgram.com.

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Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Disclosure

This post may contain amazon affiliate links. I may receive amazon gift certificates from your actions on such links.

Dr Howie Jacobson

This podcast is a labor of love and a way to give back to the world that has given me so much. That's why there aren't any sponsors (except me :).

My day job is helping leaders and their teams master their mindsets to remove all obstacles to heart-centered high performance.

Here are three gigs that I do:

1. Executive and Senior Leadership Mentoring and Facilitation

I work with high performing executive teams in organizations — and executive teams that need to become high  performing. My focus is mindset mastery, because it’s our mindsets that either support high performance or get in the way.

At this level, everyone’s got the skills and experience to excel and contribute at the highest level. What holds people back is mindset stuff: specifically the triggers that get them out of creative engagement and into fight-or-flight defensiveness.

My practice is all about teaching people to respond differently to those triggers by updating old maps — essentially removing the glitches that the triggers grab onto.

2. Executive Coaching: Quick Wins for High Performance

I work with individual executives and leaders, one on one. The program is called Quick Wins for High Performance, and what we do is, we work strategically on one or two areas that are holding you back and keeping you from performing at your best.

We reverse engineer the presenting problems — too much work and not enough time, underperforming employees and teams, maddening organizational inefficiencies, etc — and identify and rewire the suboptimal mindsets that are behind those problems.

The work is all about updating your mental maps so your actions and responses are always appropriate, proportionate, and strategic.

3. High Stakes Conversations for Fast Growing Small Business Teams

I help small business teams have high stakes conversations with skill, humor, and grace. When people feel safe, they can do their best, most creative, most collaborative work.

So that's what I do. If you'd like any of those results, drop me a line and tell me about yourself.

You CAN Change Other People!

Well, that's what Peter Bregman and I claim in our provocative book of that title.

What we really mean is, you can bring out the best in the people around you. If you think you're powerless to help people change, it's because you've been going about it the wrong way.

Discover our straightforward, replicable process here: You Can Change Other People.

 

Music

The Plant Yourself Podcast theme music, “Dance of Peace (Sabali Don),” is generously provided by Will Ridenour, a kora player from North Carolina who has trained with top Senegalese musicians.

It can be found on his first CD, titled Will Ridenour.

You can learn about Will, listen to more tracks, and buy music on his website, WillRidenour.com.

Gratitudes

Thanks to Plant Yourself podcast patrons – Kim Harrison – Lynn McLellan – Brittany Porter – Dominic Marro – Barbara Whitney – Tammy Black – Amy Good – Amanda Hatherly – Mary Jane Wheeler – Ellen Kennelly – Melissa Cobb – Rachel Behrens – Tina Scharf – Tina Ahern – Jen Vilkinofsky – David Byczek – Michele X – Elspeth Feldman – Leah Stolar – Allan Kristensen – Colleen Peck – Michele Landry – Jozina – Sara Durkacs – Kelly Cameron – Janet Selby – Claire Adams – Tom Fronczak – Jeannette Benham – Gila Lacerte – David Donohue – Blair Seibert – Doron Avizov – Gio and Carolyn Argentati – Jodi Friesner – Mischa Rosen – Michael Worobiec – AvIvA Lael – Alicia Lemus – Val Linnemann – Nick Harper – Bandana Chawla – Molly Levine – The Inscrutable Harry R – Susan Laverty the Panda Vegan – Craig Covic – Adam Scharf – Karen Bury – Heather Morgan – Nigel Davies – Marian Blum – Teresa Kopel – Julian Watkins – Brid O'Connell – Shannon Herschman – Linda Ayotte – Holm Hedegaard – Isa Tousignant – Connie Haneline – Erin Greer – Alicia Davis – Heather O'Connor – Carollynne Jensen – Sheri Orlekoski of Plant Powered for Health – Karen Smith – Scott Mirani – Karen and Joe Crabtree – Kirby Burton – Theresa Carrell – Kevin Macaulay – Elizabeth Rothschild – Ann Jesse – Sheryl Dwyer – Jenny Hazelton – Peter W Evans – Dennis Bird – Darby Kelly – Lori Fanney – Linnea Lundquist – Emily Iaconelli – Levi Wallach – Rosamonde McAtee – Dan Pokorney – Stephen Leinin – Patty DeMartino – Mike and Donna Kartz – Deanne Bishop – Bilberry Elf – Marjorie Lewis – Tricia Adams – Nancy Sheldon – Lindsey Bashore – Gunn Marit Hagen – Tracey Gulledge – Lara Hedin – Meg from Mamasezz – Stacey Stokes – Ben Savage – Michael K – David Hughes -Coni Rodgers – Claire England – Sally Robertson – Parham Ganchi – Amy Dailey – Brian Tourville – Mark Jeffrey Johnson – Josie Dempsey – Caryn Schmitt – Pamela Hayden – Emily Perryman – Allison Corbett – Richard Stone – Lauren Vaught of Edible Musings – Erin Hastey – Sean Owens – Sagar Naik – Erika Piedra – Danielle Roberts – Michael Leuchten – Sarah Johnson – Katharine Floyd – Meryl Fury – for your generous support of the podcast.

Disclosure

This post may contain amazon affiliate links. I may receive compensation from your actions on such links. It don't cost you a dime, tho.

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