The Importance of Self-Care with Fitness Guru, Todd Durkin

1Huddle Podcast Episode #6

On this Bring It In podcast episode, 1Huddle’s CEO and Founder Sam Caucci sat down with Todd Durkin, Fitness Guru, Owner of Fitness Quest 10, author of Getting Your Mind Right, and motivator. After sustaining a career-ending injury playing football, he dedicated his life to properly training other athletes and motivating others to take care of themselves.

On this episode of Bring It In season one, Todd sat down with Sam and discussed the importance of self-care, structuring your day, keeping connections during COVID, and keeping a positive mindset.

Audio available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts. 

TOP 3 HIGHLIGHTS

Below are some of the insights Todd shared during our chat, edited for length and clarity. You can find more Bring It In podcast episodes here.

• “We got this. We will get through this. We will be back again.”
• “The brain needs to be in creation mode as well. It can’t just be in react mode.”
• “It’s really leading from the heart, it’s leading from emotion and making sure I can tap into anyone.”

FULL TRANSCRIPTION

Todd: Sam. What’s up? 

Sam: Hey, Todd, how are you? 

Todd: Good man, you?

Sam: What’s good? So Todd, I’d love for you to share with everybody a little background on yourself. 

Todd: Yeah. Thanks Sam. I appreciate it. I’m out here in San Diego, California. I’m the owner of a Fitness Quest 10. It’s a gym where we train all different types of people; moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas.

I have the privilege of training many professional athletes in the NFL, MMA, baseball. Biggest thing is we change lives, and that’s what I do between my podcasts, my new book coming out called Get Your Mind Right, so that’s what I do. I change lives. That’s my purpose in life, is to change other people’s lives and allow them to live a life worth telling a story about.

Sam: Todd, any challenges you’ve seen emerge in the last few months in your business? Anything different, anything happened? 

Todd: Well, I think if anyone’s listening right now, a lot’s happened, right? Several things. You know, Sam, when I started my business 20 years ago, I built it from this myself, no clients, no money, no business plan and we’ve built it up with 42 people.

Well on March 16th, we furloughed 35 people because of the COVID-19 crisis. For the first time in my life, we literally shut the doors of Fitness Quest 10, my gym, and we had to pivot real quick. And there was a lot of emptiness that comes with having to furlough people and let people down, because I know for me, I take great pride in the fact that we can feed families and change lives.

In furloughing those numbers of people we pivoted and took our entire gym experience for our clients and members and put it online. So the big changes I’ve seen are, how do you continue to connect our community? How do you connect the team and let them know that we’re going to get through this?

My mantra is we got this. We got this. We will get through this. We will be back again. Because part of the whole thing with this is the unknowingness. When are we all going to open up again? When’s life going to get back to “normal” again? And for me, it’s like, you know what? We can’t think too far down the pike.

It’s like win the now. Not win the day, win the now like right now, today. Win the now, what are we doing right now that is actually going to help us get a little bit further down the field?  How can we move the ball a yard, not 10 yards, just little bit, little bit, little bit. 

Sam: What have you learned that’s unexpected sort of in that process? 

Todd: If there’s a few nuggets that maybe someone could hold on to today, it’s this; double down on your personal care. I set some rules for myself right after or a few days after all this was going down, like if this is going to be weeks, I’ve got to set some rules, including mandatory seven days a week of working out.

Yeah, I’m not going for a record setting performance right now. It’s simply about getting my mind right and boosting my immunity and feeling good. Just, it could be a walk. It could be a jog. It could be a run. It could be 15, 20 minutes of swinging some kettlebells and pulling on the TRX.

But you got to double down in your personal care and that includes nutrition. It’s the training, it’s nutrition and also sleep. A lot of people that I’m seeing is sleep, including my own. I’ve got to really amp up the nighttime routine and sleep. I’ve got to have a hard stop right now. I’ve moved it down to eight o’clock because I found myself for weeks, I haven’t taken a day off. It’s like I’m stopping work at 10, 11 O’clock. I’m rolling from my office into bed because I’m pivoting so quickly because I’ve created a digital get yolked program and we’ve got all this online and all these new things.

I was like, I got to stop at eight o’clock and I got to start my nighttime routine.They go to bed by 10 o’clock so I can try to get six, seven hours of sleep because after a week or two, I was shot. So double down on personal care, I think would be one. I’d also say it’s in line with this, Sam, but I’d say structuring your day. You have to have a structure for the day. And, as a leader, by the way, I’m finding I’m calling it output versus input.

I’m trying to do my most creative work that’s going out into the world earlier in the day. From like nine to noon, stuff’s going out. And then later on, I’m scheduling my meetings, doing my emails in the afternoon. To me, the question is when do you do your most prolific output? When are you most creative? 

For me, it’s after my morning workout. And then later on it’s input and that input is like, what’s going into your brain. What’s going on in your thought process, including how much news are you watching? Hopefully not a lot, cause there’s nothing good in the news. Right? So it’s input versus output. Structure your day more than ever before.

It’s not having that because now it’s like Groundhog’s Day. What I’m just gonna say is we literally have to own not the day, we’ve got to own the moment. We’ve got to win the now, right now. 

Sam: Well, I’m a manager who loves to be in the business with every one of my employees, but man, how many zoom calls can you do with each person to try to stay connected?

Todd: That is very difficult. And that’s the million dollar question. We’re doing biweekly team meetings, not every day because I’m asking them to put output out to our clients and members. So texting them though, like when I’m working out, some short messages, texting them messages and just keeping their spirits up because, hey, there’s a lot of fear going on right now with all people, not just your members and your clients or your teammates. 

It’s like, there’s this fear pandemic going on. And what I keep telling our team is like, ‘listen, we’re going to create a positivity pandemic. We’re going to make sure that we own the day we’re going to work out. We’re going to read some good inspirational material. I don’t care if it’s three to five pages a day, find a book, listen to a podcast. And on that podcast, just take in good stuff. We have to take care of ourselves’. The brain, when you say the brain, I love studying the brain, but the brain needs to be in creation mode as well.

It can’t just be in react mode. And many of us feel like we’re drinking out of a fire hose right now. So how do you get into where you’re actually feeding the right side of your brain, the creative side of your brain? How do you do that? I’m going to encourage anyone listening today to make sure you’re going out and getting out in nature, going out on a walk. And get out and have a gratitude walk. 

This is when you’re going to ‘man, I feel good. Let’s go’, and that’s creation and that’s good because then you go back with your ideas to your team about, here’s how we’re gonna get through this or to your members or your clients or your customers. Here’s how we’re going to serve our people in the cloud of this, because connection is crucial.

 Now, I don’t like the term social distancing. It’s not a good term. Physical distancing is. Physical distance is fine. Do that. Social connection is crucial right now because as human beings, we crave connection. So we’ve got to keep that connection with all the people who we influence.

Sam: I like that. Social distancing doesn’t work as a leader, especially. I mean, you can’t be distant from people. You have a lot to share around how you get the best out of somebody who maybe is showing up today and not feeling so good. What would you say to a leader out there that’s sitting at home and feeling like there’s nothing they can do?

Todd: It doesn’t matter who you’re working with, but one of the most important questions is, you can ask somebody and mean it when you ask them, it’s not, Hey, how ya doin’? It’s Hey, how are you doing? How’s life, what’s going on and how can I help you? How can I serve you right now? The question is, how can I help you right now? And truly mean it, like, what can I do to serve you, is crucial because inside there are many people who are crumbling right now and who we see when we get back to work, we may see a different workforce. This may thin us out. 

And maybe that’s a blessing. Maybe we’re going to get rid of some people who shouldn’t be on the team. When you ask, Hey, how are you doing, know this: when you ask that question, the best leaders, level five leaders, lead with emotion. People, they feel you, they sense you.

Someone who asks, how can I serve you? What can I do to help you at this time? And she’s like or he’s like, ‘I’m homeschooling right now. The kids are driving me nuts and I’m having a tough time being as efficient and as productive as I want’. So you’re listening. And then the spirit side is when you listen and you truly listen with your eyes and your ears, not just your ears, but if you’re on a zoom call or something like that, you’re listening and you’re being guided by your energy of like, Hey, this person is really hurting right now, and here’s what I can do to pepper them with some love. 

Maybe it’s a text that I just dropped. One of my teammates had said, ‘Hey, I see all the things that you’re doing on our private Facebook page to help members. You’re making a difference. Thank you so much’. 

So things like that. When you study the best leaders, the best coaches, what do they say? I’m so proud of you. Thank you for helping out, thank you for the job that you’re doing in not so perfect situations right now. So to me, it’s really leading from the heart, it’s leading from emotion and making sure I can tap into anyone, including those athletes who you mentioned. And some of my executives and CEOs who I’m coaching and training right now.

It’s like, listen, I love you. But I know this. We’ve got to make sure that we get our mind right. We’ve got to go out and get our endorphins right. Go out for a walk, go out for a jog. I want you to do these 20 minutes of a circuit because I promise you, you go do that, you come back, you’re going to be better off for it.

Sam: That’s great, Todd. That you make me think about, I had a football coach who used to say to me, ‘be where your feet are’. And this drill, you could be anywhere. But you’re here, and be where your feet are. 

Todd: Well, now you’ve talked about being where your feet are at, I love that and I use it quite a bit, it goes along with control the controllables.

There are so many things we can control and there’s a lot of things right now that we can’t control. And as leaders, we hate it. We can’t control a lot going on. So the best thing we can do, is we can start with ourselves, make sure you’re leading yourself. First thing I say to my athletes all the time is get your mind right.

And there’s a lot of little different things you can do to get your mind right. But one of the things that I do all the time is I use that mantra all the time. Get your mind right. If I start hearing negativity, like you’re too tired to work out now, or you know what? You don’t need to do that, and then some 15 minute lesson on how to increase your email list or whatever it may be. I keep saying, get your mind right. Get your mind right. 

So when you think to yourself, get your mind right,if you could ask yourself this question in six months from now, if you look back at this crazy time of the world and say, ‘man, that was one of the biggest blessings in my life’, what was it that you did in May, June, July, that you actually utilized 2, 3, 4 hours a day working on prolific activities that were actually going to make a long-term distance? I know, by the way, we’re going to look back and say, ‘man, I miss when we were all around the table with my three kids and wife’. 

We’re going to miss this time because what I always hear is excuses for the coaches, ‘I don’t have time to work out. I don’t have time to lose weight. I don’t have time to write a book’. Guess what? You do have time to do what you say you’re going to do in your business or your personal life, your relationships. 

So let’s not let fear run us. Let’s not let fear and anxiety and stress rob us of our motivation. Cause I hear that a lot. ‘Man, I know I should be, but I’m not motivated’. Only way to get motivated is to get up, get vertical, get moving and remind yourself what you gotta do and then get after it and get it done. 

Sam: Awesome man. Hey, if anybody wanted to follow you or connect with you, I know you got a book coming out soon. What would you say? 

Todd: Yeah, the book is called Get Your Mind Right. Believe it or not, it’s called “Get Your Mind Right”. You can follow me on Instagram @ToddDurkin. Go to my website, todddurkin.com. Wherever it is that major books are sold. You can go on there and “Get Your Mind Right” is the name of the book.

Sam: That’s great, Todd. Thanks for joining man. 

Todd: Thanks man, that was great. Appreciate you, man.

Topics Discussed: Mindset, Relationships, Self-Care, Motivation, Structure, Creativity