Navigating the Intersection of Health and Entrepreneurial Achievement with Tanessa Shears EP222

Unlock the secrets to a sharper, more energised you as health consultant Tanessa Shears joins me, Donna Eade, on a journey to intertwine the vitality of personal well-being with the pulse of business success. With Tanessa's guidance, we explore the transformative effects of optimizing sleep, nutrition, and stress management on your productivity, while also spotlighting the underestimated power of patience and energy alignment. You'll walk away with practical advice on how to revamp your environment and daily rituals to maintain peak performance, whether you're closing a deal or simply closing your eyes for a rejuvenating night's sleep.

Feel the thrill of mastering your body's natural rhythms as we share stories and strategies for turning discomfort and consistency into the bedrock of entrepreneurial growth. Discover how refocusing your day to play to your strengths can lead to increased brain function, improved negotiation skills, and potentially a healthier bottom line. With actionable tips to cut through the clutter of emails and social media distractions, we provide a blueprint for a day structured around success, sustainability, and self-improvement.

Wrap up your day with insights on the extraordinary benefits of REM sleep, where Tanessa underlines its crucial role in sharpening your problem-solving abilities and emotional intelligence—traits every business leader needs in their arsenal. She even lets us in on her personal sleep-enhancing routines, inspired by her kids' bedtime schedules, and how they've turned into a game-changer for her own rest and recovery. Plus, download her FREE Entrepreneur's Playbook with 12 Ways to Biohack Your Energy.

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Tanessa's Free Download Entrepreneur's Playbook: 12 Ways to Biohack Your Energy

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:51

You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast, the place to be to grow and streamline your business. I'm your host, donna Eade. Let's jump into the show. Energy and patience in business are two indispensable elements of success, pt Barnum, welcome to this episode of the podcast. Everybody, today I have a guest, tanesa Shears. She is absolutely fabulous and will help you upgrade your health so you can show up in your business like a boss. She will help you optimize your sleep environment, easily upgrade your nutrition and offer highly effective strategies to optimise your work environment and manage your stress. So today we're going to be talking all about energy. Let's jump into it. I am so glad to have you here today and I am so glad to introduce to you my guest, tinessa Shears. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 2: 1:53

Hey Donna, I'm really excited to have this conversation today. I'm looking forward to it.

Speaker 1: 1:57

So one thing that you won't know about me, but my listeners will, is that I absolutely love a good accent, and when I get somebody who has come from far away and has a wonderful accent, I absolutely love the episode just for the accent alone. So you're already winning already winning.

Speaker 2: 2:15

Oh, I love it. It's so funny because I obviously hear you with an accent, which is great yeah it'll be a delight for both of us.

Speaker 1: 2:22

exactly, exactly. And I just wanted to say before we jumped in, that um Tanessa reached out to me in my emails and I have to say that your pitch was fabulous. I get so many people in my DMs and in my emails asking to come on the podcast and it's quite shocking the way that they approach it, and I just wanted to say thank you for making it an email that was worth opening.

Speaker 2: 2:52

Oh, thank you. That was a labor of love working that one over the years.

Speaker 1: 2:56

But thank you yeah it is, and I think a lot of people don't actually sort of hit the right marks when it comes to applying to guest on podcasts, and as somebody who teaches people how to podcast, I have a big sort of thing for how people approach hosts to guest and, yeah, there's not many that get past the email stage. I have to say so you are a special one, so I'm really excited for this conversation.

Speaker 2: 3:25

Oh, thank you for the feedback. I love it.

Speaker 1: 3:29

So we are going to be talking today about health and how that kind of affects our business, and what really interested me in what you're talking about specifically is the energy, and for me, I think one of the things I've always said to my audience is that health and business go hand in hand, and I don't think you can have one without the other, and I heard you say that on your Instagram. So before we jump into the topic and answer all things energy, do you want to just introduce yourself to my people and let them know who you are, what you do and how you came to be doing?

Speaker 2: 4:04

it. Yeah Well, my name is Tinessa Shears, I'm a health consultant and I work with entrepreneurs to really help them find that energy and focus that goes missing. You know, as we're growing businesses, the easiest thing to slip off the plate is always like oh, I'll get back to working out, I'll get back to planning my meals or eating healthy, I'll get back to sleeping, I'll get back to self-care and me time and just taking care of my energy. And it's one of those things where we keep being like oh, when I get to my first six-figure year, my first 10K month, like we have all these, when then? When? Then I'll get my assistant, I'll do this, I'll do this, then I will have all this time magically show up. I'm going to work on my health, there's never going to be any problems. And that never shows up.

Speaker 2: 4:46

And so what ends up happening is we feel really tired and we get really foggy, and then we get uninspired and then it becomes a grind to show up because we're so drained and tired and we feel like our lives are given to our kids and our partners and our businesses and there's nothing left for us and we're just not feeling the way we want to feel Like we open these businesses for freedom, and this does not feel free. This just feels like a lot of work and I'm tired all the time and when am I going to get out of this rut? And I thought it'd be better than this. So my job is I help entrepreneurs optimize their health, and I actually do it through. It's really cool. You can't see it because you're listening right now, but I'm wearing a ring and it's called an Aura ring, and this ring is like do you have an Aura ring on too?

Speaker 1: 5:26

I'm just getting it. This is my size. I just ordered my size yesterday. Okay, we're going to be so excited.

Speaker 2: 5:33

So if you're listening and you're still like, what are they talking about? This ring is okay. Imagine you have your Apple Watch or your Fitbit and that's good for tracking steps and fitness and exercise and stuff like that. The Aura Ring is the equivalent for tracking rest, resiliency and recovery, and I always think like, if we're talking about showing up in our business and being productive, energy is the currency for how productive we are, for how much we move our business forward, for being able to turn our brains off at the end of the day, and so I use the data from this to help us make decisions. That's how our brains work in data return on investment, one change at a time, using data managing numbers, and so I use this to help, you know, build resilience, to get exercise in place that works for us, to eat the right foods and to get really good sleep at night.

Speaker 1: 6:16

Love it. Yes, I am. I'm obsessed with data, but that's my big thing is. I love stats and I love having competition with myself.

Speaker 2: 6:25

You know it's not emotional. Yeah Right, I can't look at it and be like I don't feel. X, y, z. It's like no, I'm not getting enough deep sleep. No wonder I feel like I've been hit by a truck. I now know exactly what to work on. I'm not wasting my time Like we don't have time to waste. I want to know what's working right.

Speaker 1: 6:42

Exactly that, exactly that, and I loved everything you just said because I think it is so, so true. And there are a lot of my listeners who are mums and I feel like it is a sad state of affairs that still in this day and age, we are the ones that put ourselves at the bottom of the list and everything else comes first. And there has been this kind of movement, but I don't necessarily think it's the the right movement, where it's just like all of these mums going you know me first, me me first, but they're doing it to the detriment of everything else and it's just like, oh no, it's this complete selfishness, whereas putting yourself first for these kind of health benefits is selfless, because you get to show up better as a better mum, as a better partner, as a better business person, a better employer, better partner as a better business person, a better employer, etc. So I'm really excited to dive into this.

Speaker 1: 7:41

So, when we're talking about energy, I think a lot of times and I speak from my own experience, because I feel like I haven't had energy since 2021, when my daughter was born. You know it's a thing. What causes lack of energy, like what you know, I'm constantly waking up feeling like I'm tired and I haven't had enough sleep, or you know, the energy, the mojo isn't there. I can't jump out of bed and be excited about it. So what are the things that really sort of impact our energy levels and can cause that to sort of drop through the floor?

Speaker 2: 8:15

Yeah, it's when we're. There's all this inflammation that's building up in our body and we're not dealing with it and it when I've worked with clients you can clearly see it's usually from one of three places. Place number one is that we're experiencing low level fight or flight on a regular basis, but we no longer have the capacity to shift out of it, because I think fight or flight or stress gets a bad rap. We're entrepreneurs. It's going to happen and it's going to happen regularly and it's going to be unexpected and it's going to feel like the world's falling down half the time. And should I get a job again? And am I really going to be doing that Like it's normal? We all want to shut our businesses down at least once over the duration of this. You're not alone if you thought that you're like, what am I doing? And so it's like you get stuck in this low grade fight or flight.

Speaker 2: 8:57

And what is healthy is you experience fight or flight and then you're able to pull out of it, but we're not able to pull out of it anymore and so we're constantly just rushing around, feeling exhausted, feeling drained all the time, not taking care of ourselves. That's number one. The second one is what we put in our mouths, and we're not really looking at the fact that there's a couple of things. It's A are we eating a lot of inflammatory foods, and I'm talking like things like canola oil, seed oils that are very inflammatory and cause a lot of brain fog. The other way we can look at it is like blood sugar, and when I first heard blood sugar, I was like I don't have diabetes, I'm fine, but we all have blood sugar and it is the stability of your blood sugar which dictates the stability of your energy. And so if we're eating for one, maybe we're not eating, maybe we're skipping meals because we're too busy working, or we're eating these really highly processed or high, high carb meals. Those are going to cause blood sugar swings. We're going to feel really foggy.

Speaker 2: 9:51

So that's the second way, and the third way and which I left it for last because, hands down, it's not just a pillar here, it's the foundation on which we build our entire energy system is our sleep, and I can't tell you how many people I talk to say I'm fine, my sleep is fine and I go well, why are we feeling so tired and drained all the time? And then what I do is. I stick an Oura ring on them and they see oh wait, a second, I'm only sleeping six hours a night. I'm not getting quality sleep. Look how many times I'm awake at night. And there I love to start, because it is free and you're doing it anyways with sleep, so why not start?

Speaker 1: 10:30

there. Oh, that is so good. And I wrote sleep before you even said that I knew it was coming. Sleep is the key to everything. I love it, and it's so true because there are so many people, especially entrepreneurs, you know, busy mums. You know I'll sleep when I'm dead. You know I haven't got time to sleep. You know it's something that doesn't matter, but it is so, so important. So, with those three things in mind, how do we start to shift our energy and move into that? Because you like to double the energy, I've seen this a lot on your Instagram double your energy, and I'm like, I'm here for it. You know, if I could double what I've got, I'd be somewhere. It'll be really good. So how do we shift from being energy, tired, lethargic, ready to just sleep at any moment to somebody who is more energized and bouncy?

Speaker 2: 11:23

Yeah, you know it's funny. I would love to talk about sleep on this, because I think it's the most bang for your buck. Like I think exercise and food are the sexy things where we're just like, yeah, I'm going to get healthy, I'm going to work out and I'm going to eat, and we completely neglect sleep and we wonder why we fall off the wagon. Don't get into it. But I think this conversation has been so potent in my communities over this last week. This is conversation of like when we decide we want to do anything with our health, we don't deprioritize something else and it's like we just add this, this concept of like I want to go to bed an hour earlier and maybe I want to make some extra time to meal plan and maybe I want to only work out twice a week something small, but we don't deprioritize or take something off, and so we add on to a full schedule and we get overwhelmed really fast and we're like, oh my gosh. And so I think with with that conversation you asked around energy without consistency, it doesn't matter what I say. And so we really have to have those conversation around like, why aren't we being consistent? And I think that one part, like I had just mentioned, has a lot to do with the fact that we just think of this as something we can easily add, and I think we need to have real conversations with ourself about why we aren't deprioritizing something else, meaning like do you really have time to add four hours worth of things per week and you're already overwhelmed? And we need to look at like maybe this is a season of less Instagram scrolling and I'm not saying no Instagram. Maybe this is a season of less Netflix, less YouTube, less whatever it is that you feel is not moving you forward until you can really get that experience of like I feel better. Do I really want to go back to not feeling better? Is this a trade I'm willing to make? And I think the answer to that can be yes or no, but I think don't make that decision until you've had both experiences Right. And that second part of that conversation, when we talk about consistency, really comes down to discomfort, and I feel that when we I hear someone say on the wagon, off the wagon, I can't stick to it. I've never been able to. I've always been like this. We have these conversations. Why bother trying? It's who I am Like.

Speaker 2: 13:24

Nothing works for me, it is usually because we have a very low tolerance for discomfort, because anything new, it's an it might be a new, and I don't mean language in the sense of, like we're speaking English right now. I mean a new language, of new. You have to learn how to read Oura Wing data, or you have to learn how to work out and what an exercise is called, or you have to learn how to find recipes, like it's all a language we're learning and it's uncomfortable. You're learning, you fail all the time. You don't understand things. You've got extra time to Google. It's a hard startup energy and a lot of us don't have that capacity to feel discomfort and recognize that nothing has gone wrong. We're like oh gosh, uncomfortable. Grab a glass of wine oh gosh, uncomfortable. Scroll the phone oh gosh uncomfortable. Watch more Netflix Instead of oh gosh, uncomfortable, no, no. This is what's supposed to happen here. I got to keep going and realize that what I want requires a higher level of discomfort, especially to get started.

Speaker 2: 14:24

And recognizing that doesn't mean something's gone wrong, so I think that that's more important. Like I love, let's dive into sleep. But if we can't be consistent with what we learn, what's the point?

Speaker 1: 14:33

Yeah, Right, yeah, exactly, I love that. Learn was the point. Yeah, right, yeah, exactly, I love that. I love that and it's so true because I think in business we're often willing to do those uncomfortable things. You know, we'll push ourselves, we'll. We'll get to those stages like you were saying. In my one of my friends she's been in business now for 11 years and it was only last month sometime she turned around to her other half and went in and went. I think I'm gonna close the business down. I'm done. She was like ready to call it quits, but she's done that so many times over the years. But we push past that discomfort to get the end result. Yet with ourselves and our personal health and goals, it's so easy to go. Oh no, that's a little bit uncomfortable. Let's go back to the comfort zone. Let's just sit in that for a while.

Speaker 2: 15:15

That's why I love working with entrepreneurs because we have the skill set of being uncomfortable for a greater vision, and so it's so much easier for you to transfer that skill set to your health and have to build it from scratch. And that's why I love entrepreneurs.

Speaker 1: 15:29

I love it, I love it. So we are working on these shifts and we know that sleep's important and we could do a whole episode on sleep, I'm sure. But how does shifting our energy make us more money? That is something that you said in your email and I was just like hang on a minute, tell me more about that.

Speaker 2: 15:53

I want. This is a really common example. I want you to picture this. You started your day at eight. It's one 30 in the afternoon. Right now.

Speaker 2: 16:01

Your brain is not working very fast anymore. You got distracted by an email and then all of a sudden you're on Amazon. And why are we in Facebook marketplace searching for treadmills, like? And we're sitting here like, oh gosh, oh no. Back to it, back to it. You get back to it, back to it, and you're just like so slow to think you're distracted.

Speaker 2: 16:21

It's that afternoon energy crash we all know comes. It's like the end of the day. And now you're like I know how to fix this. I'm going to save this part of the day for admin tasks or things that don't involve my brain. And so we start really understand. We just normalize the fact that our brain doesn't work in the afternoon instead of being like why doesn't my brain work in the afternoon? Maybe it's an issue, right?

Speaker 2: 16:43

And so think about this. Let's say you lose three hours in the afternoon to diddling around in low value tasks, just to say you've done an eight hour workday. What if you could fill that with actually like income producing tasks? What if you could create better relationships? What if you could send out a couple extra pitches? What if you could make a couple extra offers? Like what if you were able to create better content and you didn't have to like cram it into the mornings, cause that's when your energy was best? So I really think, like what if you could take your eight hour day and just heck instead of having a productive eight hour day? What if you could just compress it into six?

Speaker 1: 17:14

What would you do with?

Speaker 2: 17:16

those extra two hours, there might be a project or two that you have on your to-do list that you might want to get to in your business, like you know, recording videos for something creating a new program you could leave work and spend time with your family. That could be the perfect time to put in a workout. And so if we really think about how energy affects our ability to make more money, it's you are able to use your brain at a higher capacity through a larger part of the day. And on top of this, I'll give you another example. I just did an interview for a podcast full of sales leaders and we're having this conversation and it was a reflection of something one of my clients had said to me. He said he was on a consultation calls for a hundred thousand dollar job and he was. He works with government contracts and he was getting a lot of pushback on certain things and he's like my brain was so sharp I was coming up with answers Like if you've ever been on a call or done an interview or something and you can feel your brain's like grasping for things and you don't know what to say and it's not fluid and it's like he was, like I was able to just like.

Speaker 2: 18:21

I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I could read their facial expressions. I knew exactly how to answer this objection. And what if you didn't land that $100,000 contract or whatever it is? Maybe it's your $2,000 package, maybe it's your $2,000 package, maybe it's your services? Like, how do you show up differently on sales or consultation calls? How do you show up differently when you're making your offer on Instagram stories? You're like hey, come work with me, I can help you, versus another tired rendition of like I can help you. Nobody wants to work with someone who's tired, and so I think, like it impacts your revenue in so many ways, from productivity to your clarity on sales calls, to your ability to deliver content and attract people that want to work with someone who feels alive and is inspiring and activating Right.

Speaker 1: 19:03

Yeah, yeah, I, I completely agree, and it was. It's so funny that you say that because I was talking to somebody the other day saying how I've shifted my work day round to suit me better. I am not a morning person, never have been. I'm not going to be part of the 5am club, it just isn't me. I love my sleep. I can't wait to get my aura ring and see the stats on things, because I'm pretty sure I don't get enough deep sleep.

Speaker 1: 19:29

But that aside, I decided I don't know maybe the beginning of this year, maybe a month ago, can't remember now, but I decided to start my workday at 12 and have that morning. You know those morning hours where you know all the 5am club are doing all of their journaling and they're exercising and all of those things that they do in the early morning. I was like, well, why can't I just start my day, shift it a little bit and I'll start my day at eight o'clock and I'll have my morning doing my things and I will get into it slowly, because I find that I am more productive around this sort of time. So we're at sort of half past four UK time now and I'm just coming into my own. I'm here with the energy, I'm ready to go, and that's just how I am. So I was just like I'm here with the energy, I'm ready to go, and that's just how I am. So I was just like I'm going to work with the flow of my energy and start my day later.

Speaker 1: 20:20

And I said to somebody the funny thing is is when I used to work a day job, I would go in for 9.30. And the first thing I would do is go in and see my colleague who got in at nine and have a 15 minute conversation with her with my first cup of tea of the morning, and then I go to my emails and faff around in there for a bit and then mid morning I'd go back for another cup of tea and another chat with my friend. And the amount of time that I wasn't working while I was working is incredible. So I'm like so why, when I came home and I started working, was I suddenly working 9am till 9pm and still feeling like I was getting nothing done? Like it's because I was suddenly working 9am till 9pm and still feeling like I was getting nothing done. Like it's because I was following that same pattern, exactly what you said earlier about suddenly reading an email and then suddenly being in Amazon and on Facebook and scrolling.

Speaker 1: 21:05

I did the exact same thing before this call because I wanted to record a different podcast episode one of my solo ones and I ended up opening an email. So no, somebody sent me a text about attending a networking meeting for her and said that she'd send me an email about it. And then I was in that and then suddenly I saw other emails that I needed to answer. So I spent that whole time that I was going to do this podcast episode in my emails, not focused on what I wanted to do at all.

Speaker 1: 21:29

So it's just so interesting to see it and to know that actually, if we work on our energy and get it right, we can condense our work day down. We can make more time. So what you were saying earlier about what are you going to deprioritize you'll be able to do that because you'll have the time to say, okay, well, actually I'm only going to work six hours instead of eight, and then I can fit this in here and then I can actually go to bed at a decent hour and get the sleep in. So I just love how that all came together.

Speaker 2: 21:59

Yeah, kate, you're going to love this then, especially because you're getting an aura ring soon, so I could just love on sleep forever, but while you're sleeping you mentioned deep sleep was a component of it so we also get REM sleep, rapid eye movement. That's why we dream. I view REM sleep as entrepreneurial gold and here is why you ready for this. So there have been studies that have shown that people that get adequate amounts of REM sleep or higher amounts of REM sleep are better problem solvers. What is a business Solving a problem? You solve bigger problems. You make more money. Right, it makes you more creative. I mean, even if you're not in a creative niche like who doesn't want to be more creative for social posts, for content, for podcast topics, whatever it is right? Number two, number three it helps you read facial expressions and body gestures better, like wouldn't it be nice to know if your team or your clients or your customers are like leaning in or they're leaning back, like I want my brain subconsciously to be doing that job for me so that I'm able to adjust my examples? I'm like, ooh, I maybe used a word they didn't understand. I got to go back, like I'm able to see that. And then here's what ties it to what you just said. The fourth reason we love REM sleep is it helps you with long-term thinking and it helps you manage your emotions.

Speaker 2: 23:13

If you've ever woken up feeling irritated and cranky, you're probably low on REM sleep. So when I show up in my business, I want to be in integrity. I want to be emotionally in control. I don't want to see a troll leave a rude comment on my Instagram and spend half the day spinning out about what I could have done differently. Should I delete it? Should I not? Should I comment back? Should I not? Like? I don't have time for that, and so I want my brain to be good at problem solving, for my client's sake and mine. I want to be creative, I want to be in tune with my client, what they're experiencing, and I also want to be really good at being in control of my emotions, and that emotional control is huge for entrepreneurs. We go through the swing of it Like wouldn't it be nice if the amplitude of these experiences was muted just a little bit? And that's REM sleep Like, oh, I love it.

Speaker 1: 24:00

Yeah, and that is so true. In fact, the person who reached out to me today that completely threw me for a leap through what I wanted to actually do with my afternoon. She asked me if I was okay, because a couple of weeks ago I was on my podcast, when I do these mini mindset Mondays, and I addressed, you know, low mood and the fact that I was going through a really sort of rough place and she was checking on me and, uh, I'm feeling much better now. But it's so true. When you're feeling that low, everything, everything, just kind of everything goes and you don't feel productive, you don't want to be at work, you'd rather stay in bed and all of that, and you're not showing up for your clients as you want to, and it can be really tough. And just knowing that actually we have more control over that, I think, than we realize, and that's what this episode is really bringing to my mind.

Speaker 2: 24:54

Right, yeah, that mood is huge, like you want to tie that back into how to make you know money in your business with your energy and your mood, like who wants to work when they're feeling completely anxious or stressed out or guilt about something, or they're in the shame depths of shame or something, or they're embarrassed or they're terrified to post online or whatever it is like that's. That's a hard place to be in, and so much of that can be held with getting really good quality sleep, and I think it does come down to actually putting intention to that and realizing no, it doesn't take time out of your day. It gives you time back in the form of being more productive and effective tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 25:33

Okay, brilliant, right. So one of the things I think is a great sort of starting point for people is their routines, and we've kind of touched on that a little bit throughout the episode. But I would love it if you would go through with us what your morning and nighttime routine looks like, because for me I've always wanted this good morning routine, you know, the 5am club, the journaling, the meditation, the exercise and all of that jazz. And when I started trying to implement that, I realised that a good morning routine doesn't happen unless you've got a good night time routine and my night time hygiene routine mental hygiene that is not physical.

Speaker 1: 26:11

I do brush my teeth, you know it's a tough one sometimes to get around, because we kind of I don't know, we kind of I feel like I kind of end up being like a little bit of a vegetable by the end of the day. So I go through and I work, and obviously I'm working slightly later than everybody else, so I kind of finish my day at 7 pm, then I have my dinner, then I kind of go into sloth mode on the sofa and even though I could quite easily go to bed, I'm like determined no, I'm not going to bed. I'm having a couple of hours just to wind down is the way I trick myself and I'm just on YouTube and then all of a sudden it's half past 12, quarter to one in the morning and my other half's going. Are we going to bed now? And I'm like, oh yeah, let's do that, not great. So I would love to hear what your routine and maybe I can take some inspiration from your morning and nighttime routine.

Speaker 2: 27:02

Yeah, you know, you know a part of it is is like I feel like my night routine has gotten to the point where it is not something I think about anymore because I am so in love with how I feel on a daily basis that there is nothing. I am so in love with how I feel on a daily basis that there is nothing. There's very little that'll get me to stay up, unless I'm like really excited about something on that particular day.

Speaker 1: 27:22

That one year old might might keep you up.

Speaker 2: 27:26

Are they good sleepers? We biohacked their sleep, both of them.

Speaker 1: 27:29

They've been sleeping through the night.

Speaker 2: 27:31

Like everything that we do with us, we do with them. And I'm going to tell you something. And because, if you're listening to this, donna and I were talking about this earlier I have a one-year-old and a four-year-old. My sleep has never been better since having kids, and I'm going to tell you why. It's because having kids has given me an anchor point with which to start my evening routine, whereas before I was like, when it was just me and my husband, it was like sure, 1030. Then it was midnight, then it was nine and it really just depended on if we were really into something on Netflix. That was the determiner of our bedtime. Kids have given me an anchor point at which my night pivots and I've never felt better, and it's partly because we also are very regimented with our kids' sleep as well, because what works for us works for them. It's so weird we have routines with our kids but not routines for us. We know what works for them, but we don't do it with us. Fascinating, anyway. So I'll kind of give you an idea of what our night looks like, but I'll first preface this by saying my bedtime is nine. This is not because nine is the right bedtime. This is what's called my chronotype. My body's clock functions genetically, genetically earlier, and I am part of about 10% of the population that thrives on a 5 am wake up, not every. I have two clients who sleep 12 to 8, wildly successful. They feel great, they are happy with their lives. So do not hear this and say I need to start going to bed at 9. I'm giving you this so that when I give you other times they make sense.

Speaker 2: 28:52

Okay, so our evening routine starts at 5.30. We finish dinner. So we finish dinner way in advance because that is one of the biggest thing that helps with deep sleep, which is interesting because I think you said that deep sleep might be something you're struggling with. Yeah, dinner time great thing to play with, because having dinner within two to three hours of bed can really disrupt deep sleep. So we wrap up dinner by 5.30.

Speaker 2: 29:12

If it is not a miserable rainy Vancouver winter, we go out for a walk. I mean, we'll tolerate some spitting rain, but we'll go out for a walk, usually about an hour, and then we will come in. If we watch TV, netflix has a place in our home. It's not that we're like these, like purist, you know healthy people. No, we watch TV. But the rule is in our house TV goes off at 7.30. Off, and keep in mind this is an hour and a half before bedtime now, so you work backwards with your own time in your head. So 7.30, tv goes off.

Speaker 2: 29:41

During the 7.30 to 8, 8.10 time we are turning down all the lights, we are turning on the sound machines. We will give the kids a bath or a shower every couple of days. We're reading stories. It is a wind down, dim lights, dim sound. Put the kids to bed at about 8.10. At that point I'm usually ready for bed and screens, like I said, have been off since 7.30. From here I will jump into bed and I will read until I fall asleep, which is usually between 8.45 and 9. So the big things to take away in there are I have decided not to stimulate my brain 90 minutes before sleep and I have wrapped up my food at least three hours from sleep. Those are the two big milestones. There's a couple of things I'll do in the evening, like I'll take a magnesium by glycinate that has done wonders for my sleep. But yeah, that's the big crux of my evening routine and how it flows. Does that make?

Speaker 1: 30:32

sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense, and I think that's probably one of the things that I've lost, because my daughter's 23 this May, so I don't have the child Like you've got to go to bed. So now, what am I going to do? Because you can't make much noise once they've gone to bed.

Speaker 2: 30:49

But I think part of it is creating your own anchor points, right Like for us that 8 pm is the pivot.

Speaker 2: 30:54

It pivots from their bedtime routine into mine, because if I didn't have that as a set in my mind anchor point, we could go downstairs and watch TV and then who knows what time bedtime would be. But you don't have to. I've had clients that have older kids and they don't have an early bedtime like that, and so what they'll do is they will have a time that they call pivot time. And I have a client, for example, and she's off all work-related things by 8.30. This is one of the clients that sleeps at midnight. She's off all work-related things at 8.30. And by 9.45, she turns the TV off. From 9.45 until 10.15, she's getting ready, brushing her teeth, getting ready for the next day, gets into bed to read, will fall asleep around 11.30, midnight.

Speaker 2: 31:35

And I think it's like looking at our brains don't turn off and turn on. They go to sleep gradually and the rate at which they do that has to do with how well you wound down your brain, like I have. People say all the time like my brain's so noisy I can't get it to quiet down. Well, are we feeding it constantly before bed, like think about just scrolling through your Instagram feed Every time you see a post you're like do I agree with this, do I not? Do I not? Do I click on it? Do I not? Do I like it? Do I comment? Should I check out their profile? Oh, look at their profile. What are they talking about? Should I follow them? Should I not Like the amount of decisions and input? No wonder our brains can't rest, or that's evening routine. Now, the morning routine is actually super interesting because if we'd have had this interview 10 weeks ago, I would have given you a different answer, and here's why.

Speaker 2: 32:26

So we live in Vancouver, we're on Pacific Standard Time, right. My family just spent the last two months in Panama Like. We went, worked, lived, got out of the winter, went somewhere in the sun, which means everything moved to Eastern Time three hours ahead. My whole business moved three hours ahead. I was now not starting until 11 or noon every day, much like what you've experienced.

Speaker 2: 32:48

Yeah, and I said to myself the slowness in this morning. I can't go back, I have to hold on to this. And so I came back. My whole schedule is now moved, with the exception of literally Thursdays. Everything else starts later because I really like to spend the mornings Like I do, like to move in the morning. I like to get outside a little bit, I like to read or journal, and not like every day, but just I like to do things that light me up for the day. I like to have breakfast with my kids, we like to go for a good hour family walk in the morning, and so it's. It's about the slowness, it's about not having to rush, it's about having no parameters on when I have to be at my desk, and it has been like profoundly changing to move my schedule later, much like, I imagine, what you found.

Speaker 1: 33:30

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. It's just it takes away that guilt. I was finding that at sort of lunchtime for me and obviously you know this is personal to me but at lunchtime because my brain just wasn't ready to get up and go that early, because I go to bed later and then I was forcing myself to get up earlier so I hadn't had the sleep that I particularly needed and I would just find that I would just procrastinate for the whole morning, which is because I also have exercise classes I do Monday and Tuesday, which mean that I'm not actually ready to sit at my desk till like 11. And then I was like faffing about with stuff and then by one o'clock I'm like it's lunchtime and I feel like I haven't got anything done and I was like it was making me feel guilty and I was like I don't want to feel guilt around it. Why don't I just not start until 12? And then I can do my exercise and I can do whatever else I need to do.

Speaker 1: 34:22

Have my breakfast not rush, and on the mornings where I'm not doing exercise, that's more time to do whatever it is I want journal, go for a walk, whatever it is. And yeah, it's working much better for me, I don't feel guilty. And I then don't feel guilty about working, from sort of, when my partner gets home until dinner time because he knows that that's when I'm working he cooks, so it's great. So I work while he's doing dinner and when dinner time that's kind of my pivot point that I could use as my pivot point is dinner time happens and then I start shutting off. You know, I don't come back into the office after dinner time, whereas before, because I didn't do anything in the morning or felt I hadn't done anything in the morning, I would come back in after dinner. I would carry on working till nine o'clock. I'd get messages from him in the living room because he'd be stuck under this cat that sat behind me and he'd be like hello are you coming in.

Speaker 2: 35:17

I think that speaks to what a lot of us lack is very clear work boundaries, and that doesn't mean you have to be done by three or you have to start at five or whatever it is. But I think it's being clear and I get a lot of. I hear a lot of pushback sometimes with, like I don't like working within a schedule. It's restricting, but here's what I love it working within a schedule that's restricting, but here's why I love it.

Speaker 2: 35:41

Like if I know that I'm working 12 to five, I'm in work and when 5 pm hits, I don't have to be sitting there going. I should probably should I be working right now, like I feel guilty sitting down on the couch, or I feel guilty taking a leisurely morning because I should be working, like you even spoke to that when you defined 12 pm is start. I can let go of the chatter, and so I think just saying I'm going to work today is different than being like I work 10 to 2 on Mondays and then this it doesn't even have to be the same day to day like I have four days a week for work and they all are different yeah, right, yeah, I love it.

Speaker 1: 36:12

I love it. Brilliant, okay, this has been a fantastic conversation and I know that we could talk for hours because it was so funny. I actually had a social media post that a friend put up. She's doing this kind of membership around giving ourselves space and giving you know back to ourselves, and so many parallels to what we're talking about, to what I sort of said in her comments under that post that she put out today. But but you know, we've only got so much time, so tell everybody where they can find you, because I think that would be wonderful and I think you've got a free gift that we might be able to put out to the audience as well.

Speaker 2: 36:51

Yeah. So I imagine if you've been listening to this episode and you're like, I hear you the stress thing, I hear you the food thing, I hear you the sleep thing and I get to the consistency part. But what do I do? I put together my I call them my 12 biohacks, or like the things that are going to that you can experiment with and test, and I put them in a playbook called my Entrepreneur's Playbook 12 Ways to Biohack your Energy and in this you're going to find the 12 things that I feel are the biggest needle movers on having more energy and productivity.

Speaker 2: 37:19

And the beautiful thing is, if you're reading one of them and you love it, every one of them is linked to an episode of my podcast, becoming Limitless, where I take that topic and break it down with how it applies to your business and step-by-step application. So you're never going to feel lost and you look at it like a buffet you apply one, you deep dive on it, you get a result, you come back for another one. You could realistically do one a week for 12 weeks. You'd be a different person at the end of the quarter. So that's it. Yeah, it's on my website at tanessashearscom forward slash energy Brilliant.

Speaker 1: 37:50

I will link that in the show notes and where's your favorite place to hang out online?

Speaker 2: 37:54

Instagram. I'm on Instagram just at my name Tanessa Shears brilliant.

Speaker 1: 38:00

Now I like to do a quick, um, quick fire round with my guests, uh, to find out a little bit more about you, um. So if you're up for that, we can do that one, okay. So the first question is what is your favorite podcast to listen to?

Speaker 2: 38:16

it's? I've been listening to it since 2015. It is the life coach school podcast with Brooke Castillo love fundamentally changed how I view the world. Like wow brilliant.

Speaker 1: 38:25

Love a bit of Brooke Castillo, so I will link that in the show notes for you guys. Um, she is brilliant. Uh, go and have a listen. Um, and what's the book that's made the biggest impact on your life thus far?

Speaker 2: 38:38

Oh, I would have to say something that, like this, is a hard one, cause, like I love books, like I'm a big reader, I would have to say something along the lines of like and I've got it on my desk like a psycho cybernetics by by Maxwell Maltz, at this one. Or even breaking the habit of being yourself by Dr Joe Dispenza this one. Or even Breaking the Habit of being Yourself by Dr Joe Dispenza. Both of them are really looking at, like, how your thoughts create your reality. Love it. Love that whole idea of personal responsibility and creating my own results and not letting you know my future be in someone else's hands.

Speaker 1: 39:11

Love it, love that, love that Okay.

Speaker 2: 39:16

What's your go-to snack when you're in a hurry? Oh tea. Even if I'm not in a hurry, tea it's tea, it's loose leaf, organic green tea. Cheers Love that. Yes, Huge tea drinker over here Because you can take it on the go.

Speaker 1: 39:27

So, absolutely, absolutely. And then what's your favorite me time thing to do?

Speaker 2: 39:33

I've recently really loved sound baths. Have you done sound baths?

Speaker 1: 39:36

Yes, I do, but do enlighten the listeners in case they don't.

Speaker 2: 39:41

Yeah, cause I never. Okay, I was one of those people that, like you know, you know you're supposed to do meditation but you never make time for it. Like I'm one of those people and I pushed against it and I'm like, but I'm in this industry, I should love it, hated it, um, and then I synchronicity what you want to call it, my reticular activating system, whatever it is. Sound bath was put in front of me. It's basically a. We have different emotions and they vibrate at different frequencies. So what these sound baths do is they do a progressive guided meditation, but they're playing this. They have these bowls called singing bowls and they rub this like I don't know, my words are probably terrible stick along the top of it and it makes it sings this particular frequency and it's meant to tune your emotional vibration. And so there are ones that I really dug into. Like releasing fear was a big one for December for me, but just it's. I can let 40 minutes go by.

Speaker 2: 40:36

I don't know who I am. I, my clients are laughing. They're like Tanesa, you've gone to the woo. Like I love them. I. I'm not a meditator, but something about these, I feel it in my soul, a difference when I get up from these. So I I mean, there's plenty you can find on YouTube. I am, I have a subscription to Aloe Moves, which is a clothing company and a yoga company, but I anyways, and I found that they have them in there and I'm just like yes, give me the sound bath brilliant I love that that's fantastic, because it's one that we've not had before, so I absolutely love a new, a new option.

Speaker 1: 41:11

So thank you so much for coming on the show today, tanessa. It's been fantastic to have you. Um, thank you so much for all of your information. Thank you for having me. Okay, guys, that is it for today's episode. Uh, thank you so much for listening, and if you haven't yet caught our monday episode, then head over and take a listen to that now. I will link it in the show notes for you as well, and I will see you next week. Bye for now week. Bye for now.