The Fitness Shaman - "Hack Your Health"

In today's episode I am talking with a good friend of mine Sean McDevitt a.k.a. The Fitness Shaman about his first book "Hack Your Health!!

Sean has been on the podcast before going into his more personal story; in case you missed it I'm going to link it here!

 

We get into the writing process in the beginning of the podcast before we dive into 3-4 main chapters of the book.

Sean talks about how writing a book was, "very much a personification of the journey, not the destination" and how writing a book is an exercise into finding ways to stay consistent with the writing process and not getting bogged down with the stress of finishing the whole thing.

Sean explains how the book idea came to be during COVID when the clients of the coaching business he has with his Wife Dala (DLD Nation) kept asking him similar questions and Sean started to write all them down and keep in a notebook.

One day he took a look at the notebook and thought “we have a book here”. So this book is an expansion of some of the most popular questions that comes up for anyone going through their fitness journey as Sean and Dala have helped coach thousands of clients over the years!

 

As we dive into the writing process one lesson I found valuable in listing to Sean was hearing how well he was able to accept criticism albeit after some bristling with his ego and editors on what should stay and what should go in the book.

Sean points out that “the best writers say the editing process is where books really come to life” and how well we can accept and handle criticism (ie. coaching) is how a book our your life can come out.

 

Next in the podcast we dive into Chapter 1 of the book and a sub chapter that was “Mindset Hacks for Navigating an Injury, and Life in General”.

The reason I wanted to get into this topic is 2 part; one because I thought it would be helpful for a lot of my clients to hear since about 50% of my clients are going through injuries themselves and two because of how valuable I found it when reflecting on my injury this last year.One of the first lessons Sean shares when it comes to navigating an injury is talked about how Kobe Bryant helped Gordon Hayward overcome his broken leg by focusing on gratitude and what you can be grateful for when injured. He also goes on to share how an injury gives you time to now work on other aspects of your fitness outside of the gym such as nutrition, sleep, lifting footage, exc. And lastly Sean talks about how we can prime our brains to start looking for the positives in our injuries and if we can do this it becomes much easier to get through the injury.

 

In Chapter 2 Hacking Imposter Syndrome some topics include:

Why do we even get imposter syndrome in the first place? How can we start to get a hold of our imposter syndrome and quiet that noisy obnoxious roommate that Ariana Huffington talked about in the beginning of this chapter? What is a smile file and the highlight reel we should all have in our phones?

-Hacking the Comparison Game to your advantage

A 2020 study published in the journal of Nature Communication found that humans have around 6,200 thoughts/dayOf those 6,200 thoughts; 12% or 744 of these thoughts involve making comparisons of some kind….this stat blew my mind 😳How can we win this “game” of comparison in our day to day lives so it doesn’t turn into a negative downward spiral?

 

Last chapter of the book we talked about was Chapter 5: Weekday eating vs. Weekend eating hacks

Talk to me about being “that guy” (the guy who takes his health and nutrition seriously) did you take it well? How can others get over the “that guy” stage and not let the external criticism make them stop their journey? How can we help people get over this idea that “planning for the weekend” means I have no freedom to make spur of the moment decisions that are “exciting”.

At the end of the podcast I apologize for Sean’s audio cutting in and out for a couple minutes but at the end his audio comes in nice and smooth so bear with us. 🙏

We close with talking about what the potential future books might be and where you can find more from Sean on social and where you can buy his book!

I hope you guys enjoy this show half as much as I did having Sean coming on, he’s an amazing guest and a fantastic speaker!

Links below to buy his book and follow Sean and Dala’s social media and coaching company! 👇

Hack Your Health on Amazon!

Sean’s social on Instagram!

@fitnessshaman

 

Sean and Dala’s coaching company!

@dldnation