274 How To Upgrade Your Money Mindset, Your Productivity & Your Health Routine As An Entrepreneur
Meghan Walker
Author, Entrepologist, Recovering Naturopathic Doctor
Meghan Walker is obsessed with the intersection between health, high performance and entrepreneurship.
She works with Clinician Entrepreneurs and business owners in the health and wellness space to create the impact and income that aligns with their purpose.
She also hosts the IMPACT podcast, creates programs, and build businesses that align with her purpose and core belief – that when people have their health, they can change the world.
She is here to lend innovative thinking, disruptive approaches and unwavering support to those who are on a mission to leave the world better than they found it.
In this episode, we discuss:
What does High Performance mean to you? What does it mean to be a high-performance entrepreneur?
What do you think enables the best of the best to achieve their dreams, especially as it relates to growing a business of impact?
The entrepreneurial journey is not always upwards - how has that played out in your own journey and what do you do or what skills have you had to cultivate to ride those waves?
You believe that daily dedication towards the mission is when the growth happens - but what about when a new practitioner or entrepreneur doesn't yet feel clarity around their mission or clear on their purpose?
I know that you've talked publicly about being a hard worker and not being afraid to put in the effort, but you also shared that in 2022 you worked really hard and that didn't mean more bottom line or a better lifestyle. (Employee Mindset / Mindset Shift?)
How do you tap into your ultimate productivity?
To connect with Meghan:
Instagram: @drmeghanwalker
TikTok: @drmeghanwalker
Facebook: Meghan Walker
Facebook Group: Impact Money Club
Entrepology Planner: https://meghanwalker.com/entrepologyplanner/
Book: https://www.amazon.ca/Impact-Medicine-Control-Practice-People/dp/154453714X
Access the transcript for this episode:
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You're listening to the visionary life podcast. I'm your host, Kelsey Reidl.
Each week, I'll bring you conversations with the most visionary humans on this earth, in hopes that you'll be able to absorb their wisdom, avoid their failures and feel less alone on the roller coaster ride that is entrepreneurship. This season, I'll be chatting with creative thinkers, masterful marketers, brick and mortar shop owners, brand builders, and people just like you who have a story to share or a vision that inspires.
If I can share one quick secret with you before we get into the episode. It's that we all have a little bit of visionary inside of us, you know, that spark that nudges us to pursue our full potential in this lifetime. But perhaps somewhere along the line, it got covered up, I'm here to tell you that it's never too late to explore that inner voice and access the brilliance deep down inside of you. It's in you, it's in all of us. Let's dive in. Welcome back to the show visionaries. My brain is stretched right now I just got off a podcast recording with Dr. Megan Walker, and I knew the conversation would be good. I didn't realize that it would just plant so many seeds, and have me thinking about everything in a different light. So we really explored the intersection between health and high performance and entrepreneurship and how to really dial in our time management, our money, our finances, especially as entrepreneurs.
So if you're not familiar with Meghan Walker, first of all, go check her out on Instagram. She is a anthropologist, She's the host of the impact podcast, she's a recovering naturopathic doctor. So her journey actually began in one to one practice, but she had a way bigger vision. And she's chased that for many, many, many years. Megan is also the recent author of impact medicine, which is a roadmap for clinicians who are building businesses. And in this episode, she actually goes into what the acronym impact means. And I think you're gonna find a lot of value if you're starting a business, or growing a business this year in listening to what the AI M P, A, C, and T stands for, and reflecting on whether you've dialed in each of those pillars in your own business.
We also talk about whether you are a born entrepreneur or if you can train it, we talk about some of the key traits of high performing entrepreneurs. And Megan shares some really unsexy but practical tips for living healthier for figuring out your time management once and for all. And for navigating financial blocks and getting clear on what type of relationship you want with your money.This is super powerful. I know you're gonna love this episode, be sure to find Megan on Instagram. She's Dr. Megan Walker, she's on Tik Tok and Facebook at the same name. And she has a Facebook group called the Impact money club which I will also link in the show notes. So if you don't have a copy of Megan's book, impact medicine, go pick it up. She also mentioned in this podcast that she has a planner. And I'm like, dang, I actually kind of want to go by it because Megan is dialed in. And I want to know her methodology. So enjoy this episode with Megan Walker.
And be sure to take a screenshot and tag us if you love it. See you next week. Dr. Megan Walker, welcome to the visionary life Podcast. I'm so excited to sit down with you today. And I've been following your work for what feels like almost a decade now I know, we had some chances to collaborate way back when I was actually working for Loblaws as a marketer, and I remember chatting with you about certain entrepreneurial ventures that you had going on. And I just keep seeing someone in you who is dedicated to the craft to evolution to adaptation and to continue following your curiosity no matter what that might be. So really excited to chat with you on these topics and so much more. But first question would be where does this hunger for evolution and high performance come from? Were you born with that? Or is that something you cultivate on a daily basis?
Yeah, thank you for this question. As you're asking this question, I was like, Oh, that is so interesting. Like where does this hunger for this come from? It is literally a hunger and as you said it does. Does everyone not it is everyone longing for this form of of candy.
So you know, I think to answer your question, likely, likely I was born with it. My husband repeatedly needs to Tell me that not everyone thinks like me or wants to do the things that I'm doing. He's like, this is not appealing to most people. And so, you know, I really think that this is this is like, just deeply rooted in, in my personality. And in my essence, I'm a builder. I love to build stuff. And my solution to any problem is, well, let's just build something and fix it. Like I'm, I have never been that person who went up, here's here's the wall on the insurmountable obstacle. I've always been that person that went, Okay, well, we have this thing. And even in our household, I say to my husband, he's like, we have a problem. I'm like, You mean, we have a challenge? Like I, I joke about it, but also it is it is sort of it is a mindset that I think is really ingrained in, in who I am. And it's a lot of fun for me.Absolutely. I love that visual of the builder and the reframe of like, we don't have a problem, we just have a challenge that we get to work through or build a new solution for. And I know your early days were actually spent as a naturopathic doctor, probably seeing one to one clients. Right.
Right. Yeah. So I spent almost 15 years in private practice as an attendee. And I, I always consider myself an entrepreneur first. And so I was really clear that I was going to leave high school and become a fighter pilot. And my plan B was that I would be a litigator. And then I had a summer job. Well, I was fired from that position, and it's the first and only position I've ever held. So I have been like 100% fired from all the jobs I've ever had. And I what I realized, like, really early on, when I was honest with myself is oh, I don't think I'm actually cut out to work for other people. And I mean, I get along well with people, but this idea of like, you know, building things on behalf of others, I was just like, oh, there's there's something energetically off there.
And I had to I had to work in the summer, I was not given an option not to do that. And I remember sitting on my dock and literally going, how do I satisfy this need to be employed and earn an income, while also being able to enjoy the lifestyle of sitting on my dock in the summer as a teenager, I was like, this is the cake and habit to snare and I'm staring out at this lake. Because all of these islands in front of me and all these cottages in the islands, and I went, Oh, how about these people who have spent all this money and invested all this money to have a cottage where they only get to spend two or three months a year would love to have it cleaned by someone? Could you imagine having spend your weekend cleaning your cottage.
And so I literally got in my little tin boat and I started to go around. And I I said listen, I have a cleaning service for summer cottage vacationers. And here's my information. And I was packed. And then the next summer I had more students and by year three, I'd 11 students who worked for me and I took them around my little tin boat, all the places where they needed to work. And then I sat on the dock and I went, Holy smokes, this is what it means to have your cake and eat it too.
And I think I'm going to spend my life doing this. And so long story short, I came across a naturopathic doctor when I was in high school, and I was having some health issues. And I could not take the intelligence of their line of questioning to me, they were just a different type of problem solver with different tools. And I went this is amazing. I can't I cannot be employed. So the military, which to me is like an extreme state of employment. That's not going to work. And this naturopathic medicine thing, this is so cool. I can actually be an entrepreneur, and facilitate massive transformation in people's health. And so that's sort of the long story of how this was a little entrepreneur, sort of through naturopathic medicine in her in her backpack. And that's really a huge part of my focus for the early part of my career.Hmm, that sets the stage perfectly. And I want to stay there for a moment because we have a lot of wellness practitioners, nutritionists naturopaths, who listen to the show a lot of service providers, and they don't actually see themselves as an entrepreneur. And I know you kind of said I'm a born and bred entrepreneur, and you started your first business quite early in life. For somebody who is listening to your story and thinking, oh my gosh, I don't see myself as an entrepreneur yet. I want so much more.
I don't just want to see patients in practice. I don't just want to be in the four walls of my office. What are a couple key, whether it's mindset shifts or actual tools that you would suggest they start to explore in order to create a bigger vision?Yeah, so I love this question, because and I'm really curious around this piece, too, because as I said, at the beginning, my husband's reminding me all the time that not everyone thinks like this. And so I asked every guest on my own podcast at the end entrepreneurship, are we born with it?
Or do we learn to become an entrepreneur? And what's fascinating now that I've asked that question over 300 times, is that I would say it's an even split. 50% of the people go, I was totally born this way. I don't know what else I would do. And I would I would call but at least say I fall into that category. And the other half when I have a mission that is so powerful, and so important, it was worth it to me to learn the skills and risk, the failure to put my mission and my service and my knowledge of my acumen out into the world. And the fastest, most expedited way to do that is through the lens of entrepreneurship. And so I was willing to learn it.And I simultaneously understand and appreciate that people can be born with this way of thinking. And I also believe you can learn how to do it. But one of the things that will make learning how to do it easier and more fun and less risky and less scary, is connecting the work that you want to do to its why to its purpose to its capacity to influence and change other people's lives, we have a really hard time advocating for ourselves. But if that poor little old lady trying to cross the street needs help, or like hold up traffic, like we're gonna get, we're gonna get her across. And, you know, good people don't stop and think about that. I'm not like, Oh, I was worried about what people think of me, they just help the lady cross the street.
And so if you're finding yourself in that category, I'm gonna call it a reluctant entrepreneur, the accidental entrepreneur, the, you know, like all of the above other than I was born to do this, you can start by really connecting with the impact that your work and that your body of knowledge and that your transformational capacity can have in the world. And that will unleash and unlock a whole other layer of neuro chemistry that will have you doing things and learning things you never thought possible.Hmm. As you're saying that I'm getting this vision of a lot of the people that I talked to who are doing great work, and they're in practice, but when I asked them kind of what's your purpose? Or what's your vision? Or how do you want to impact, they keep it very surface level? So they'll say, Oh, I just want to improve gut health, or I want people to feel more vibrant. Do you ever see that level of it's like a lack of specificity, I guess, is actually detrimental to growing the vision? Is there a exercise or a tool, you have to really go a layer deeper and be like, but why do you want to do that? What happens for the person who's still kind of just like hovering around the surface? And doesn't feel truly connected to a purpose?
Yeah, so you this is this is, this is this is a really nuanced conversation. So it to take someone from that level, I mean, listen, most people are going into health or coaching or nutrition at the end of the day, if you went, quick, Kelsey, why do you do this? You're like, I really just want to help people, right? Like, at the end of the day, if you need my quick elevator answer, and I'm not thinking and you catch me off guard, that's going to be my answer. And then without thinking, again, if I said to you, well, like what do you want for people, you're gonna say the same things that you feel you got out of moving through this transmission, I want them to feel empowered about their health, because I felt disempowered, I want them to feel vibrant and radiant, because you went through a period where you didn't feel vibrant and radiant. The truth is, is that most people aren't going to connect or necessarily invest their money to feel vibrant, or radiant, are empowered about their health.
Those are side effects of a transformational process that they will be so grateful for. But it's a truly esoteric concept. If I asked you, how much are you willing to spend to feel empowered, you're gonna say about what and for what reason and compared to who and is it relative to a vacation, I might take or like it, it is a real, it's actually a really challenging broad topic. And you're throwing a lot of responsibility back onto your clients, to have to have to anchor that in a type of experience. And so I like to think of that language as being side effects of the true transformation that you deliver. And when you get very clear on the transformation that you can deliver for a specific group of people, you open up a privilege and the privilege you open up once you've gone deep on something specific is the privilege of having more broad programming.
So when we it is counterintuitive when we're first starting out because we're scared to be like, we want to go I can be everything to everyone I love. I love naturopathic doctors. That's my training. And we literally know how we can be everything to everyone, except our clients do not understand how we can be that. And it's actually incredibly expensive for us to educate people on how we can be everything to everyone. But here's what happens when I decide that I'm going to be everything to those women managing endometriosis who want to have a baby when I give them answers no one has given them before when I can elucidate and clarify blood work that has, you know, left them in a state of complete and utter dis Powerman when I can share with them lifestyle tools and changes that they can make that further increase their chances for fertility.
I am a hero to this group of people. And as my authority builds in that arena, so too does my confidence. And as these two things increase, what happens is you start to broaden your sphere of influence. And so you can take that system that you use to empower women with endometriosis, as an example. And now you can say, actually, the same system holds true for almost any women's health issue. You go from narrow to broad by virtue and by privilege of having created success with a more narrow group.
Now you can from the beginning, decide, you know, I'm going to be everything to everyone. I just want people to know that that's extremely expensive. Like an example of a company that tries to be everything to everyone is Coca Cola, or Walmart. So you diminish the quality of what you are doing. And you have to be able to stand withstand huge financial risks. So as an entrepreneur, I am constantly trying to understand how I can mitigate financial risk and still have influence and trying to be everything to everyone, every alarm bell in my entrepreneurial being is going off, because there's nothing specific I can offer anyone, and there's always someone better offering something specific to the client in front of me when I'm trying to be all the things at once.Hey, visionaries, I'm interrupting this episode, because I heard a really alarming statistic recently. And that's that 98% of business owners don't know how to turn their social media followers into paying clients. That's crazy, right? Because there's all these ebooks and digital courses and marketing agencies that are telling you, we're going to help you grow your following. But what is the point of just growing your following if these courses and agencies and ebooks don't teach you that vital next step, which is how do you turn your follower count into a profit into revenue for your business? And that all comes down to having a strategy and a lead generation funnel? So that, yes, you're getting new people to look at your content at the top. But then what are you doing to nurture them? How are you turning them into paying clients, if you don't know these techniques, if you're like, Kells, I'm posting all of the time, I feel like I'm constantly recreating content.
And I don't even know if it's working. Well, then visionary social media is for you. If you're not familiar, this is going to be a live four week course, starting on Friday, April 14. So we're going to meet for four Fridays in a row for 90 minutes. And there's going to be a ton of live access to me to ask questions for me to review your strategy. And I'm going to be spilling the beans when it comes to all of my templates and tools that I use to sign 1000, multi $1,000 clients simply through Instagram and simply through a few techniques. So if you feel like you want to know everything you need to know to make more sales through social media, then
I'd love to see you inside of this course, the best way to get more info to enroll yourself, and to be part of this four week experience to get in on the party of coaches and consultants and freelancers, and Etsy shop owners and podcasters who are going to be sitting in this room with you head to Kelsey rydell.com. And then click on the big banner at the top. And then you can read all about visionary social media, you can check out and enroll yourself or just send me a DM on Instagram, that's a super easy way for us to connect. So just send me a DM on Instagram at Kelsey Rydell. Again, this starts April 14. So you really don't have too much time when it fills up, it fills up. And I think this is going to be the most powerful 30 days in your business. So we'll see you there. It's so true. And I think the temptation is to appeal to the masses. But we know that that messaging just gets lost. And then we have this tendency of like, well, I just need to form our money into Facebook ads or make these complicated funnels that are still generic messaging to so many people. I'm curious, because I know you recently wrote a book called Impact medicine. Are these the themes that you're touching on in this book?Yeah, so impact medicine is, I would say consolidation of all of my work and observation from the wellness industry. And, you know, how we opened was, what if we're not an entrepreneur by choice? What if this is not intuitive for us to know what to build next? Impact medicine is a roadmap to know what to build next. And the thing about it is, you know, my my sphere of influence.
Let's talk about niching my sphere of influence and my niche is working with health and wellness practitioners. And so that's where I started with this book. I've been at this for 10 years, and I'm still not everything to everyone. The content of the book and the system in the book actually applies to anyone In the coaching space, but, you know, I still chose to, to narrow in on my market. But what I will share with everyone really quickly is impact is actually an acronym.
And it's an acronym you can apply to any business you are looking to start. So just really quickly, it's almost as if it is the order of things you actually need to be aware of and put attention to as you build your business. The first thing in the spirit of have your cake and eat it to The I stands for intention. What the heck do you want your business to do? Is this a lifestyle business? Is this where you're like, I want an excuse to travel four times a year. And by the way, that's one of the things I wanted my business to facilitate for me, is this. Is this a business where I want complete passive income? And that's where I eventually want to go? Is this a business I want to be working on 40 hours a week, 20 hours a week, providing seven figures of income $100,000 in income, if I surveyed at random a room of health and wellness practitioners, because again, that was the focus for my book, but any entrepreneur and said to you right now, what's your income goal for the year 90% of them will look at me with a blank stare.
They literally spent four years of school and over $100,000 on their education, and they still don't know how much they want to. So you can't build a business and know how to spend your time when you don't know what you're working towards. How many new patients do you want to bring in? What transformation Do you want to deliver to them? So the AI stands for intention, you've got to be clear on these things. Otherwise, you are literally just like throwing time out notwithstanding money. But time is the thing I get most worried about. M stands for mindset.
What are some of the mindset traps that we need to be aware of as entrepreneurs so that we we don't, we don't run aground early in the journey late in the journey, there's lots of traps that we hit along the way, we talked about one of them, which is this tendency to be like, Ah, I can do everything you can't, you are like a magical unicorn with a whole lot of luck. If you're finding right now you are successfully doing everything for everyone. And if that's working for you, like carry on as an outlier, and tell us about it later, but for most people, I wouldn't necessarily bet on that on that piece. So the mindset component is really just wrapping ourselves around some of the mindset traps, then we get to P? Well, P stands for people you serve, who are the people you serve, and what is the transformation that you deliver. So one of the things I'm really clear on when I talk to health and wellness practitioners is I really, really strongly encourage that they move away from transactional care delivery. So the traditional health care system is an example of transactional health care delivery, I cut my arm, I go in for stitches, I leave, it gets infected, I go back for antibiotics, I leave someone checks on it, I go back, they take the stitches out a series of transactions and I'm back out the door. And then I say to the doctor will what?
What do I do now to help the scar like decrease inflammation, elbow pain, don't worry, you're fine, you're fine, go go back to life. And so fine is the standard that we leave people at when we're talking about transactional care. And so there's this massive, massive opportunity. It's actually a $4.5 trillion global industry to help people who are all standing along the line of fine going, what do I do now. And so part of the PII and impact is really clearly identified back to again, this idea of needing Who do you serve? And how do you serve them in a transformational manner. And so that's a big part of the book is how do I deliver and create a transformational program, you can charge more for that you can create more innovative offerings, you can reach more people, you can add a leverage, like, there is
I'm going to treat do transactional care for the rest of my life, or I'm going to deliver transformations and transformations easily open up 10 new income streams. Transactional care is one it's just a massively high risk proposition. So P is people you serve, then we get to a A stands for attraction. How do we bring those people in? What's the marketing system that brings people to your work? C stands for sense and sense because we have to talk about money, we have to talk about money, you can't have a business where like, I just want to help people, I just want to help people, I don't care if I make money. That's not fair to the person over here who needs to earn an income. So we have to talk about the money piece.
And T stands for thinking like an entrepreneur. So when you when you are an entrepreneur, by birth or by experience, what are some of the lenses and layers that we look at or look through in order to make decisions? How do we know what step to take next? It is it is really, really ingrained and inherent in me to have a sense of what step to at least explore next. And again, I realize some people can do that and some people really go I can do the work but I don't know I never know what step to take next. And so this is just a lens and conversation and frameworks to help entrepreneurs in training, understand how they need to think about these problems so they have a better sense of where to step next.So juicy and I will definitely write out all of those in the show notes and I think the one that like really resonates and I know my listeners are gonna love it is the think like an entrepreneur because a lot of them are shifting from this employee mindset to oh my god, the vision that I have for my business, or the impact that I want to make is actually so much bigger like they have that seed planted. And it's almost like that now, what conversation, I know one of the things that you had shared publicly on your Instagram was that sometimes when you don't know what that impact goal is going to be, and you're not sure how to get into that entrepreneurial mind frame, you actually need to rest and recoup and maybe get out of your current environment. And I think you were actually recently on a vacation, can you share why that's important to actually schedule that in, especially if you're feeling disconnected from the impact you want to make or the vision that you have for your future?
100%.
And, you know, I'll just share an example from my own life, because I don't think any of us are immune to this. So I spent probably a decade of my private practice working with entrepreneurs, and to really understood how they work. And then I am an entrepreneur, and I'm in it. And sometimes I completely miss the forest for the trees. So the end of 2022, I found myself in a place have deep resentment towards every element of my business.
And, to me, resentment is a symptom, one of fatigue and burnout. But when I start resenting like everything in my life, and I'm angry at everything in my life, then that's usually on me, not everything around me. Now, notwithstanding the fact that the world is a little bit weird right now. I was I was burnt out, and I didn't, I didn't even see it. And so we have a policy within our business, we basically shut down over the holidays. So everybody had two weeks off. And I did my best to do that as well, and really mostly did, and then took a vacation for two weeks on the backside of that I did minimal work for four weeks. And what was so cool about that is I wrote some notes about some of the stuff I wanted to build and have us do at the beginning of 2023. And I finished those two weeks of vacation, and I looked at those notes, and I went, Oh, that is not my best work. And when I really looked at like what is the lens through which those were created, those were created through the lens of fatigue, and scarcity, and resentment.
And not those are not things that drive the greatest degree of creativity in me. And I would venture to guess most people. And when I came back after that break, I had so much clarity on what we needed to build what we needed to cut, I had the energy to make really hard decisions. And most importantly, for me, at that point in time, I had the energy to put in place boundaries and compassionately communicate that to the individuals and the systems within our business that were actually draining me by accident. And so I cannot underscore it's like studying for an exam, when you're like, I can't leave I need every second and then you go for a walk and you come back and be like, Oh, I got this, I don't need to study anymore. Right? We we need to we need to recoup. And I was you know, I was listening to a book this morning, it was talking about the psychology of of money.And they were talking about really the shift of how we earn in the last 50 years. And they said, you know, we used to have jobs where we would go and do things with our hands, we could tangibly see what we finished. And then we walked away from it. I had that experience this morning when I snowboard my driveway, I was like that job is done. And I feel this deep sense of satisfaction because I can see the boundaries of that work. When we are thinking and our work requires so much intellectual capital. There's no clear boundary or sense of accomplishment for how it never ends.
We're thinking about in the shower, we're thinking about it in bed, we're thinking about it, having sex, we're thinking like we're thinking about our businesses all the darn time. And it's really, really draining. And so you know, if I go back to my training, as a naturopathic doctor, and as an anthropologist, someone who studied and worked with entrepreneurs, I caught myself in that pattern. And I deployed all the things I always did with my entrepreneurs, I gave myself rest, I loaded myself and nutrients, I went and had fun and I played, I disengaged from that cortisol cycle. And it didn't take a ton of time. I mean a month is maybe a lot of time. But also, it didn't take a lot of time to put me in a mindset where we could double our revenue and not keep it the same. Like these things have an ROI. It just requires a bit of discipline to do it.And sometimes we have to kind of suffer through a year where we're like pushing, pushing, pushing. And I think you even shared this where you're like, I worked so hard in 2022 and I didn't necessarily see a massive leap in revenue, and sometimes it has to smack you in the face like that to go, what mindset shift do I need to make and then what can I actually implement once I really embody or feel that there is a different way and almost catch yourself in these moments of I'm operating Getting from that employee mindset, right? Which is the harder I work or the more I'm at the factory doing the thing, the more I'm going to earn. And it's like, oh, wait, where did you download that program from? And there's probably so many programs, especially those of us who ever spent time in the corporate world, that we move into our entrepreneurial journey.
And we're still operating from this place of, I just want to hit six figures, I just want to hit, you know, 100,000 a year. Why? Why is that the number because that's what you used to make in your job. You know, like, where are these things coming from? And I know you're so passionate about advocating for setting those lifestyle goals, right, it's like, you don't have to work in the same way that you used to work. But that is just the operating system that you're currently coming at your business from. So I think it's really neat to hear stories like you share of those moments where you catch yourself and say, What am I going to do about this, because you're the one that can actually make the change and shift everything moving forward.And once you get through that initial runway, and the initial runway of starting a business is a lot of work. And what's it what's the transition is not from like working hard all the time, you should start to see that you go through these like fits and spurts. I'm working really hard. And then I'm stepping back.
And then I'm working really hard. And I am stepping back. As you grow as an entrepreneur, if you are caught in a state of I'm working really, really hard all the time, probably what you missed is the balance between working hard and making hard decisions. And so when you're caught in them working hard all the time, we've probably missed a few of the really hard decisions that you have to make with respect to your entrepreneurial leadership.
And I say this all the time with with individuals who are in our programs, not in our beginner programs, but our mid tier programs and they go pagan, you don't have a two hour lecture on each of these business concepts. They're like 10 minute trainings, and then a whole bunch of things I have to do, like, where's the value and I'm like, you're not in school, like, it's a different type of taking your business to the next level is not about five hours of theory, it's about five minutes of tactical strategy. And then you've got to go do the work, and get it done, and make the decision, and then move forward. And so you know, you will go through different seasons in your business. I'm not going to sit here and tell you, you're not gonna have to work hard to have a business I don't I don't buy into that myth. But you shouldn't be like pedal to the metal all the time. It's not sustainable for your health. And it's definitely a red flag in your business.And I think we we need to be careful not to confuse pedal to the metal with high performance, like high performance can conjure up this imagery of the person who just hustles and works and Gary Vee, but I don't think that's what you mean, when you talk about high performing entrepreneurs. It is not always pedal to the metal, it might be seasons. But I'd love to hear like, what is your definition of high performance? And why is it something to aspire towards?
Yeah, you know, I used to tell my patients that my my outcome that we delivered, knowing that my audience was entrepreneurs, is that I'll put you in a place where your body and brain are available to you at a moment's notice.
And having access to your your highest degree of skill and gift, and being able to leverage that to have impact on the world. That is the North Star of high performance to me, there is not a prescription for high performance, I'm not going to sit here and say here's the perfect morning routine in order to high perform as an entrepreneur, part of high performance is knowing yourself well enough to know that you are executing at your highest state of potential and you're pushing up against that growth curve. So to me, performance is always about pushing up against that next state of potential.
And that doesn't mean that we aren't taking time to be grateful for where we are at now. It really is being curious around what we are capable of that is totally different than every financial milestone you hit in your business is never enough. There's a completely different energy to once I hit six figures, I have to hit 300. And then I have to hit 750. And then I have to have a seven figure business and an eight figure business and I'm like, go go go. When we talk about being at the edge of your potential, what we are talking about is is your growth potential, your impact potential and when I start to break those things down, we have eight categories that we tend to look at at an individual and financial is just one of them. It's not going to make you happy on its own. It's not the be all and end all on its own. It's how these different elements all tend to work and come together.And so This notion of high performance and where I'm curious with respect, entrepreneurism is how can entrepreneurship literally be facilitator for growth and for impact in your own life, and your own life and the things that are important in your own life extend way paths and way beyond just the money piece. So there's the like, hustle. So you can be an eight figure mastermind, or there is that I'm in a perpetual state of growth, and I am grateful for each stage, and Holy smokes, have I been able to accomplish a lot in my life and help a lot of people along the way, that's the version of highperformance that I'm interested in exploring the edge of.
Super interesting, and I love what you said, your motto, when you were in practice was I'm going to teach you how to access your brain at a moment's notice was that it?
Your brain and body, I'll give you access to your brain and body at a moment's notice
brain and body at a moment's notice. And, you know, one of the other themes that I see through your work is teaching about this concept of ultimate productivity. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? And like, I think the term is very sexy, but how do we start to explore how we can all inch towards our own ultimate productivity so that I can access my brain and body at a moment's notice when I'm in that creative state? Or when I'm ready to chase a dream that has been planted on my heart?
Yeah. So I think that so much of productivity comes down to having a really strong sense of capacity in three core initial areas, that is your health, that is your financial health. And that is your management of time, these three things are gatekeepers to you working in that state of, of high performance or, or high potential.
And so when I'm starting to look at these in like a super practical way, and I use it as my patients to I moved from being that naturopathic doctor who's like, bring me back your diary, to being a naturopathic doctor who's like, literally, screenshot for me right now your schedule, so I can see what's most important to you. And then what would happen when these executives are sitting my office that I get this, like, Google doc of like, work and meetings, and then they say to me, but Megan, my health is my most important thing, second only to or in conjunction with my family. And I go, No way, Jose, like, not true, because it's not where your time and energy are necessarily flowing. And so I really, I really want to start and I always do start by looking at the relationship between these three, these three things, in any type of a high performer. And when these three things are out of balance, or out of whack, it's really hard for us to be able to start to take things to the next level.Mm hmm. Is there a topic as it relates to either people's health, their time management, their finances that you feel like is under discussed under explored that if more people knew about this, or could have open conversations around it, we could all make way bigger leaps or progress as entrepreneurs or just as individuals?
Ah, it's such a good question. And I would have to give it a little bit more thought. And you're probably like, Megan, I've wanted you to give this thought beforehand. But I'm, you know, I'm just going to, you know, tackling right now, I think that at each phase of one's evolution and growth in these areas, it's actually going to unlock different conversations.
And I actually also think that there's different conversations that happen, depending on our background, how we are socialized with respect to, to gender, you know, one of the examples that comes to the forefront of my mind right now, because I'm finding we're having to do a lot of education and work around this in our own businesses, is women's relationship to money. Yeah. And I think if we could start to shift women's relationship to money, and I don't mean to make this about a single gender, but I do think by and large, as women, we were socialized differently with respect to, to money, it would have a massive impact on our sense of autonomy and freedom, a sense of autonomy, and freedom is actually the number one indicator of what someone's looking for when they start to move around and bounce around. In terms of jobs. It's actually the number one indicator we talk about when we say we want more money, what we're looking for is autonomy and freedom. So I think we would have more women who are able to leave situations where they are not safe or cannot grow, because they have a sense of that financial autonomy. And we know when we look at the social determinants of health, that actually financial fine financial, not necessarily status, but acumen is the number one indicator of someone's health status. So as a naturopathic doctor who's like super obsessed with the root cause I can talk all day about vitamins and high performance nutrients.
At the end of the day, if someone does not have financial resources, it's very difficult for them to get well. So you know, if we're going to break it all down and hang out in the space of like, generalization one thing I want to go all in on, that's actually talking to women about money in the context of growth highperformance and their health.Ooh, that is so, so juicy and a topic that you're right, I feel like is starting to come to the forefront and more people do want to talk about that. But it's also a bit taboo still, and it's hard to have these conversations. So I'm excited to see you bring that forward and hopefully create more conversation around it
was gonna say it's taboo. On one hand, we're like, oh, we don't talk about money.
But at the same time, if you go to Instagram, I think there's this whole other energetic extreme, where it's like, look at my life and have which I am and here's my Stripe account. And here's the and what that does at the other extreme, is it makes us suddenly go Oh, possessions, and gross revenue, that must mean that I'm that I'm rich. And I think sometimes we actually lose the nuance here. The other difference between rich and a lifestyle, and actual true wealth, reliable wealth, reliable wealth is is not something we can take a screenshot of, because the screenshots rarely also show you the expenses that went in to that stripe total, it doesn't show us what you have in your RSP or 401k doesn't show us how you manage cash flow. It doesn't show us how you're working and living within your means and how you're investing into your future. So that's really boring Instagram content. And so I think that the truth of money, like where we started off, is it somewhere in the middle, and we have to be willing with our health to have conversations that aren't like not that exciting, like why you should probably drink more water and exercise.
Like that's not biohacking. That's not the cool stuff that I want to hang out with. But I think we also need to be prepared to have those same conversations with respect to money that you know, accessing a lifestyle like that and a cake and eat it to lifestyle and a say also just has a whole lot of unsexy Enos in the middle and that unsexy Ness, those are usually the best businesses, that's usually where the gold resides, like. It's the mud bath that clears the skin. So I just I wanted to add that that piece onto it. Because I think we have this, like everything in our world right now is like if it's not bright and amazing and dopamine triggering, I don't want it. But I would venture to say most of you would probably want the freedom that comes from true wealth. And I just want you to know, it's going to take a little bit of work.And I know that topics like health and time and money and finances like they are very nuanced based to who's listening. But I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't at least dive into some of the unsexy basics that we could all extract from your incredible wisdom that we could apply right away knowing that a lot of the listeners are in their first one to three years of building their business, they are still trying to dial in their health so they can perform better, they don't really manage their time the best they possibly could. And I don't know that the systems are in place for wealth at this point.
So if you could share since a couple of unsexy tips on improving our health as entrepreneurs, better time management as entrepreneurs, and better financial health as entrepreneurs, I feel like that would be an epic way to leave this show.I'm I'm picturing the title for the show being like the super unsexy way of building your business with mega okay, I wrote a few things down as you were, as you were saying this.
So, you know, let's start with that with the health piece because and in all of these areas, I'm just gonna say through our foundational pieces that if you do these things consistently and listen, like consistency is a theme you will hear when you listen to the world's wealthiest people, men or women. I consistently did this Warren Buffett, he just consistently invested for 75 years he's actually like, he's smart guy. But let's talk about like the number one indicator of success. He just was consistent. So when we talk about your your health two things, one, go to sleep and have a routine. So I don't care if you stay up till three o'clock in the morning, get seven hours sleep and do the same thing every night.
So soon as you create a consistent routine about sleep and adequately restore your body every day because I care about the things you do every day, not once in a while. What you do is you start to blend cortisol on your blood cortisol, you have less anxiety, you have less inflammation, your body starts to work on your side. So if you could just sleep and hydrate, that would be a huge, huge win for you. Yes, you should move and yes, you should eat well. But if we're just going to do two things, go to sleep, hydrate, well, sort of an overlying theme of all three of these things is really connect with your purpose. So it was a huge body of research that I did in my own clinical practice and a massive component what I talked about with with entrepreneurs but again, when you are connected to your purpose, the why behind I just want to help people or the why behind why study naturopathic medicine for eight years.
What happens is when you do think is on purpose and in alignment with your purpose, you again blunt that cortisol curve, you start to do things you never thought you'd be capable of doing. So it's actually a superpower for you as an entrepreneur, to get your neurology and your endocrinology, your hormones working on your side, if you can do things in alignment with purpose. So that's just an overarching lubricant to these three things with respect to your time and your time management. I actually wrote a whole book on this last year and a whole planner, it's called the anthropology planner, you can grab it from my website, which is Meghan walker.com, it was this is what I call a 5am project, it was not of redeeming value in my business, it was not going to make me wealthy, I was just so darn passionate about how people actually allocate and manage their time that I just took my own system and turned it into a tool. So if you want, you can access that. But here's the big tenant of that you have to time block your week, not all types of time are the same, not all types of time that you can produce, carry the same value. And we have really crummy boundaries and understandings of how to deploy different types of time that exist within our world.
So I go through that in the anthropology planner. But at the end of the day, you need to create blocks of time where you are productive and building things that are of value in the world, you need smaller amounts of time to do the follow up work with respect to the things that you do in the world, you need time for play. This is the recharge piece that I talked about when I talked about my own burnout and recovery. That's where you get creative. That's where you differentiate yourself in the market. And so I go into I go into a little bit more detail around these pieces. But I encourage people rather than like scheduling out their tasks every day to start by actually time blocking their week, the last piece that we are looking at, and this is with respect to money, there's so many things that we can say about money, I just want to triage really quickly that if you are scared to go and open your bank account and look at what those numbers are 101, I want you to do that for the next 10 days, every day, I want you to open your bank account, and then be grateful for something there. Check in on the emotions that you have. So denial is a really poor wealth management tool, whether you have a lot of money or have a little bit of money, I want you to just I want you to actually be intimate with your money. So that's the first, the first piece. The second thing that I'll just leave people with super unsexy is pay yourself first. So if you pull money out of your business, take 10% of that piece you just pulled out and put it in a separate bank account. Don't Yeah, but But yeah, but Megan, I have to pay $5 a month for that extra bank account. That's okay, that's $60 a year is fine. Take that money out and put it away and pretend you never had it. And so it is super simple advice. But it's really back to this notion of getting into a consistent habit with how you use your money, how you support your health, and how you leverage your time. And then from there, so many places you can go deeper,so many places, and you share a lot of amazing content, both on your Instagram, which we will link you've got your website programs for clinicians, the planner, which you have also shared the book, aside from that, and we will link all of those in the show notes. Are there any other places that people should come find you maybe work with you or just learn more about your offers? And who specifically do you serve?
Yeah, so specifically, I serve individuals in the allied health space, we've got some really cool offerings for entrepreneurs at large that are going to emerge this year. So I'd encourage you to hang out with me on my instagram and I do have a podcast. So the impact podcast with Megan Walker, we have episodes every week. And this year, I'm really exploring a concept that I call my worth ethic. So what are all the things that I need to do as a leader and with respect to my health and my growth in my mindset, that are actually going to take me to the next level, so I'm just transparently sharing that journey this year, so there'll be a little bit of biohacking, there'll be some mindset work, there'll be all sorts of really cool stuff. But that's what's on tap for 2023.
I'm so excited. I love that concept and thinking that so much of what we're about to create and build with our businesses actually comes back to how we see ourselves how we treat ourselves how we see ourselves as worthy. So that's absolutely incredible. And definitely a concept that I think a lot of listeners will be interested in. So thank you for sharing your wisdom. I knew this conversation would be stimulating, and I'm sure there's a few golden nuggets that everybody's going to be walking away with. So I encourage them to go connect with you follow you and Megan, thank you so much for sharing your story and your tips on the visionary life podcast.
Hey, thanks for tuning in to this episode of visionary life. I love bringing you these conversations on a weekly basis. So it would mean so much to me. If you could help me out by rating and reviewing the show on either iTunes or Spotify, it just takes a second. And if you don't want to rate the show, you could also just take a screenshot of the episode and share it on your social media platform of choice. tagging me at Kelsey Reidl. I'll catch you in the next episode.
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