Operating at Peak Performance with Justin Roethlingshoefer – EP 121

Interview with Justin Roethlingshoefer

Operating at Peak Performance with Justin Roethlingshoefer

Featured on This Episode: Justin Roethlingshoefer

✅ What he does: Justin Roethlingshoefer is the co-founder of Own It Coaching, a multiple seven-figure coaching company that applies this health and performance philosophy to clients ranging from NHL stars to Fortune 500 executives to entrepreneurs looking to take that next step and level up. He’s also the creator of the Own It App, which provides simple data collection, meaningful insights, and personalized plans to help users OWN their habits and improve recovery, health, and performance. Justin has spoken at dozens of events, including the TEDx stage. He’s the host of the Sports Science and Recovery Podcast and The Own It Show.

Additionally, Justin is the author of three books (Amazon bestsellers), including Intent: A Practical Approach to Applied Sports Science for Athletic Development and Own It.

💬 Words of wisdom: “Talent will get you noticed, consistency will get you paid.” – Justin Roethlingshoefer

🔎 Where to find Justin Roethlingshoefer:  LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter

Key Takeaways with Justin Roethlingshoefer

• The benefit of rubbing shoulders and learning from people ahead of you.
• How Justin became the youngest performance coach in the NHL.
• To truly help others, learn to love and help yourself first.
• True success and fulfillment don’t come from the zeroes you see on the bank account but from the impact you have on those around you.
• The great things that happen when you change your negative beliefs with ones that empower you.
• Stop living life on autopilot and start living intentionally to get your desired outcomes.
• The key habits to boost mental and physical fitness and promote longevity.

Justin Roethlingshoefer Tweetables

Resources

• Justin Roethlingshoefer
• Justin Roethlingshoefer on LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter
• Own It
• Tim Tebow Foundation
• Hobby Lobby
• Christian Louboutin
• Oura Ring
• Fitbit
• Garmin
• Polar
• Whoop
• Apple Watch

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Read the Full Transcript with Justin Roethlingshoefer

Justin Donald: Hey, Justin, so glad to have you on the show. This is so fun to finally connect and really be able to talk about all the cool stuff that we’re doing, all the cool things that you’ve done in the past, and all the cool things that you’re building today.

Justin Roethlingshoefer: Well, Justin, I appreciate you and I just appreciate the type of person you are, and I’m glad that we’re doing life together in a multitude of different ways.

Justin Donald: Yeah, there’s no doubt. And it’s fun because you and I met in another group called The Wellspring. It’s a new group that we just were part of. We’re both founding members of this group. And what a wealth of knowledge amongst just some high-performing Christian entrepreneurs that are really playing the game of business in life at a high level.

And I chatted about this with another one of the members on his show with Brandon Turner, who’s also part of The Wellspring. And we talked about the impact and the influence that we’re having on Tim Tebow Foundation on human trafficking and really fighting that. And so, it’s cool to see that our money counts there and that we have impact and influence on some pretty big world problems that a lot of people don’t even realize exist.

Justin Roethlingshoefer: It’s funny when you talk about living life on a different level. And once you get into rooms like this, once you get into these places that open your lives or open your minds up to what’s really possible, it’s amazing that we come back and say there really isn’t anything out of reach. If it’s imaginable, it’s possible. And I think that’s the exciting thing, is that you’re continually challenged, you’re continually stretched, you’re continually grown, and you can do so without any ego. You can do so without any sense of feeling bad about the place that you’re in, but rather that it’s a journey and everybody’s on it together and you’re doing with like-minded people that are in search of doing something that has a bigger purpose, a bigger intention, being successful and having a high level of significance in those worldly things that we spoke about, such as human trafficking, such as donating to greater causes, to helping those that are less fortunate, don’t have the blessings that we are also greatly bestowed upon and are able to sow into other people.

So, it’s been a pleasure getting to know you. It’s been a pleasure getting to know everybody else there. And I just really honor everybody for what they bring. And quoting my dear friend Steve Weatherford, your alignments determine your assignments, not the other way around. And it’s a pleasure to be able to be aligned with a lot of people in this group.

Justin Donald: That is powerful. I like that. Your alignments determine your assignments. And by the way, we’re seeing this firsthand. I mean we just had David Green of Hobby Lobby, the founder, an incredible guy, a net worth of over $8 billion. His company has 55,000 employees. They do billions of dollars of revenue every single year. And half of their proceeds of this company, half of their profits every single year go towards charitable endeavors.

And man, that guy is impressive. We’re going to be doing a three-day deep dive with him, with his team. I mean, they talked about what it’s going to look like to build a 150-year legacy plan. And who better to learn from than this guy that, I mean, he’s already a billionaire. This man has given away $500 million while he’s alive, not just doing the pledge that so many of these wealthy people are doing, that when they die, their money can go to good causes, right? He’s doing both. He’s doing it while he’s alive and he’s having a major impact.

I mean, I was blown away with our time there. And I feel so blessed that we’re going to get to do a three-day intensive with him, his team with his family office that kind of establishes the future goals, plans, and direction of the family, of the business.

Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah, it’s three people that are just playing life on a different level, inspire you to make moves. And when you can learn from people like that, it’s amazing because so often in all of these self-help books or all of these self-development spaces, it’s learn from your mistakes, learn from your mistakes. What has your past told you? What had your past told you? But it’s a whole ‘nother thing to be able to learn from somebody else’s mistakes. It’s a whole ‘nother lesson to be able to learn from other people’s successes because you can have some time collapse, everything that exists there, and being able to humble yourself.

And I go back to that word because humility is something that has often in the past coming from the world of sport, it’s something that I’ve kind of struggled with, to be honest with you, and getting out into, I call it the real world, but the world of entrepreneurship, the world of business and outside of the confines of sport. It’s being able to humble yourself and step into a room of people that are all successful on different levels and in different sectors and in different areas. There’s something to be learned, and the moment that you’re able to do that, it opens you up to be able to be helped, to be able to be sowed into.

And for people that are playing the game at another level, they have a deep desire to give back, a deep desire to serve, a deep desire to steward that knowledge and steward those skills. And if you’re not humbled and you don’t go in willing to take the information, you don’t even give them the opportunity. And so, I think that’s something that has just been so cool and unique to see, especially being in this group and being around this level of person and this level of individual that you’re able to take so much information, even though you’re showing up and willing to serve and you’re just being willing to be poured into by other people and that ability to receive has just been so powerful.

Justin Donald: Yeah, there’s no doubt. And it excites me for what is possible, what the future holds for all of us. It’s so cool. And your story is really exciting and I’d love for people to hear about it because you’re an athlete, you’ve worked in professional sports, you’ve trained professional athletes, but you didn’t start there. So, I’d love to hear a little bit about your story, how you got to where you are today. And then let’s dive into the cool stuff you’re doing.

Justin Roethlingshoefer: It’s unique because if I go back to the beginning, and I had somebody ask me on a podcast the other day, they said, “Tell us something about you that nobody really, really ever know.” And I said, “Well, I’m an addict.” And it shot out of my mouth before I even had a chance to think about it. I had never said it before, I’d never said it out loud. And it kind of caught me off guard. And I had to think, well, is that really true?

And when you go back through my story, it all kind of started at like 13 years old where I was playing hockey with 15, 16, 17-year-olds. And it was the first time that I really knew that I stood out and even noticed that I had a gift. And my dad said to me, “Some talent will get you noticed, but consistency will get you paid.” And from that moment on, I wanted to figure out how can I be the most consistent version of myself. What is that going to take? What is it going to be that can drive me to this point?

And I had always been a chubby kid, always been a kid that was a little bit overweight, was teased for it, was always told, was always left out because he’s the fat kid but always just had an incredible athletic gift. And that summer was the first time that I did any type of training, did any type of exercise outside of just playing the sport of hockey, and very quickly transformed the way that I looked, in a matter of four months, dropped about 30 pounds and came back the following year. And nobody recognized me. The parents that I had been with, with their kids, for four or five years had to take double, triple, quadruple takes. And it felt good. It felt good to be recognized. It felt good to be seen. It felt good to be acknowledged.

And I ultimately took that going back to where my dad’s at is consistency gets you paid. It’s why I all of a sudden correlated health fitness, sleep recovery to getting the most consistent output of myself. And so, at 13 and 14 years old, I was wearing heart rate monitors and brainwave sensors to sleep. I was wearing pulse oximeters. I was reading every medical journal you could imagine. I knew the glycemic index inside and out, and my purpose was to just truly understand and obsess over health and performance. And it took me over the edge. It took me to an unhealthy level, which was that first level of addiction that I really think ever came into. And it led to anorexia and this very unhealthy relationship with food and exercise.

And at 16, I still remember, over those two or three years, my parents had been pleading with me to change my habits, change my behaviors, and I was like, nope, this is going to get me to the NHL. This is what I was meant to do. This is the path I have to be on. And I came upstairs one morning when I was 16. I’ll never forget it. I’d had a pain in my back for about a week and I came up the stairs and I saw my mom’s face drop and her chin is on the floor. And I walked around the corner and I looked at the mirror and my face was yellow and my hands were yellow.

And I went to the hospital and the doctor looked at me and he said, “If you don’t change your behaviors, you won’t see 17. I had kidney failure, I had liver failure, and I was basically killing myself. And it wasn’t that statement that struck home. It was what he said second, it was, “Oh, by the way, you’re not leaving here and you can’t go to practice tonight.” And I was like, that didn’t scare me. If I die trying to get to the NHL, awesome. I died doing what I was meant to do, but it was, no, you’re not going to go to practice tonight. That was like, oh my gosh, that’s unacceptable because sports performance, that’s the only way that I have value in this world. That’s the only thing that I get praised for. That’s the only thing I get accolades for. And that’s where my addictions lie.

And so, as I changed my addiction from food and exercise to hockey, it then went from hockey to education, education to girls, girls to sex, sex to drugs, drugs to work. And it was just something that continued to lean across, even though I was very successful going from that 16-year-old going to play junior hockey, coming to the NCAA, getting a scholarship, playing some pro, then all of a sudden, going and being now a Ph.D. candidate, going and being the youngest strength coach in the NHL, working at this level. And on the outside, everyone would think you’ve got everything you could ever want. You’re successful, you’re living the dream, you’re in the NHL, you’re training those guys. You’ve got a great camp going on that you train NHL guys in the summer that everybody’s begging to get into. You’re doing things at the highest level, but I was empty inside. I had everything on the outside, but I had this God-sized hole inside of me that I was trying to fill with everything else.

And I’ll never forget, I came home, and I had just gotten divorced. I was living a life completely out of integrity. And I just felt empty, I felt dirty, I felt ashamed of myself. I didn’t know who I was. And I walked up to the roof of our building and I put one foot on the edge and leaned over and took one step into open air. And I felt a tug on my collar and I fell backwards and I looked up and nobody was around me. And I looked up again and I saw the face of God. And he looked down and he said, “Son, I’m not done with you yet.”

And I ran downstairs into my bedroom, called my mom. My mom’s got one ear to God’s mouth, I swear, and she already knew. And she said, “Just keep looking at him. It’s all going to be okay,” as I was just crying, I hadn’t said anything. And I was in my bedroom. There was just darkness and evil all around. I could just feel it. There was this evil spirit. And I looked up, and again, the second time God spoke to me and he said, “I’m not going to take you out of this. This is your message. It’s going to become your message, but I’m going to be with you the whole time.”

And that was this empowering moment for me to really change this trajectory that I was on. And from that moment, I started to step into this level of ownership, this level of ownership of myself, and changing who it was that I was being. At that point, like I said, I’d just gone through a divorce. I was addicted to opiates. I was just living completely out of integrity with who I was meant to be. And it was a journey. It didn’t happen overnight, but it was something that I continue, had to learn and had to get around the right people, had to create new mentors, had to create change.

And about three years later, I was faced with one of the hardest decisions of my life. And it was probably the 10^th guy I had helped take to rehab in the NHL for opiate addiction. And I started to educate players on ways in which they could go a different route rather than opiates through natural substances, getting to know the inside of their body, different testing protocols they could go through, and educating them on this and challenging the status quo of what existed from player care. And the ownership and management of the team I was at, at the time, didn’t like it. And they said, “Are you on our team, or are you on theirs?” And they had to make a choice.

And that was the day that I walked away from the NHL, the day that I got fired, the day that I gave up what that 13-year-old kid was willing to die for. And I had to really re-establish who I was. And that was the day that Own It started where my mission became to optimize health and wellness for high-performing people in a way that was very personal and holistic in nature. And on that whole journey of being able to understand what my purpose was and what my path was and what my God-given gift was, I think was the biggest lesson. And through those dark valleys, through those dark times that allowed me to truly evaluate who I wanted to be and how I wanted to show up in this world. And all it required was being true to who I was.

And as I left and as I got back, don’t get me wrong, I sat down and was in a major depressive state for about three or four months in trying to figure out who I was because my identity was tied up in that logo of the NHL. And that’s what I knew I was. That was the only value that I knew I brought to the world because as a 13-year-old boy, that was the only thing that I got praised for was your athletic prowess, your ability to play, your ability to perform. And it created this performance, an addictive heart that that’s where I sought my value from.

And it was right as COVID started, Alyse and I had come down to Florida, and I was right in this time where I didn’t know what I was meant to do. I was frustrated every day. I was bitter at God. I was frustrated with the lack of performance that I was having in my life because I had no direction. I didn’t know what I was doing. I really didn’t have a job or even a career at this point.

And I remember taking a kayak out and I cried out to God and I said, “God, just do with me what you were meant to do. Like, make it clear to me.” And all of a sudden, I got this vision of almost like a bullet hole in a piece of glass. And I looked in and I said, again, “God, make it clear.” And I saw this vision in front of me of like this glass shattering. And all of a sudden, I had this download, like a download I’ve never had before.

And I started writing and I started writing and I started writing and I started writing. And three hours later, I went inside with a nasty sunburn on my back. And I came inside and it was a 35-page document that basically was the business plan for Own It. And it was a moment as equally impactful in my life as that night when I had heard God speak the first and second time. And it really created and shaped the last two and a half years of Alyse’s and I’s life. It’s what we’ve dedicated to.

And Alyse at the time was the vice president of Christian Louboutin. And she stepped away to really come and run our business and get behind it and be in this place where we knew we wanted to help optimize other people’s earthly vessels so that they could ultimately realize their God-given potentials. And that’s really been what our journey has been up until today. And it’s just about leaning into what your purpose is, what your mission is, and being willing to listen to those whispers that came through to you.

Justin Donald: Wow. Justin, that’s an incredible story from the advice that your dad gave you, which I love that advice, talent will get you noticed, consistency will get you paid. But it’s interesting sometimes the things that we put on a pedestal, right? And I’m guilty of this. I think most people are where you work so hard to achieve this thing, you get there, and then it’s almost like you’ve arrived. For you, it was the NHL. You arrived when you got there. And it’s almost like, okay, this is where I was meant to be. But sometimes when you’ve arrived, it’s like there’s nothing else, there’s nothing bigger.

And it’s neat seeing you play a much bigger game today, having a bigger picture of what your purpose is and who you can impact. And hence the reason for our group in Wellspring, which is to create a greater impact on the world. You’re doing that in your community. I’m curious, what was it like when you left so many players that you had great relationships with? Like did a lot of these just end right there? Did you have some that continued on? Was it tough to be able to continue to have relationships based on some of the dynamics of this exit?

Justin Roethlingshoefer: So, it’s really funny because the players that I had developed really deep relationships with, and anytime that I think back to that time and I always work for the player. I always focused on the relationship first. I always leaned into that, and that was really what allowed me to do a lot of what I did. That’s where the success came from. It didn’t come from the knowledge I had. It didn’t come from the uniqueness in which I approach things. It came from the true care level. And I always said that there were three things you had to make sure that you could do with any person, is one, do you care about me? Two, can you trust me? And three, can I make you better? And if you can answer yes to all three of those questions, you’re going to create a really great relationship with that person, or in this case, that athlete, to be able to help you lean in.

And so, when this happened, there were two things that happened. One is there was an outpouring of support from the people that I was serving, from the players and the coaching staff. But two, there was a deep inner discontent within me that was continually telling me that it wasn’t just the NHL I had to step away from. It was actually a lot of those relationships because it was holding me back in certain ways from being able to truly lean into who I needed to be and the value system that I needed to operate in and living in integrity with who I was meant to be. And so, I think the hardest part for me wasn’t necessarily even stepping away from the job, but it was stepping away and severing the relationships that I had spent so much time building and pouring into because you start to realize that they were predicated on holding a certain position, having a certain status, having a certain title, and not really on who you were as a person and what you brought as a person, the value that you brought there.

And so, I think that was more of the grieving period for me. And again, being obedient to what I was feeling and being prompted to completely cut that off and open up a whole new segment of people into my life that I needed to emulate, I needed to be like, I needed to get around in order to continue to help me to level up and master myself because physically, I had mastered myself. I’ve been dialed in for 20 years in where I needed to be. But I was so underdeveloped emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

And as I was able to unlock the keys of the emotional and mental components, that last key was really the spiritual mastery of myself. And it was being able to heal wounds that existed from things that I had gone through in the past, from those belief systems that I wasn’t enough, that I constantly was being judged, I was constantly being evaluated on what I did, not who I was, consistently being evaluated on my performance and what I could do for somebody else or how I played rather than who I was as a person. And I only saw myself as bringing value or being somebody of value if I was able to play well, perform well, win something, have a championship, have a trophy. And it was truly something I did need to heal from, and not just learn to love myself, but more importantly, learn to like who I was and get back into that space and get back into that place that I could love myself, like myself, and then ultimately, pour back into other people.

Justin Donald: Yeah. That’s powerful. And it’s great that you were able to step away because the ego is the hardest thing to put in its place, right? And especially the more that we feed it, the more that we allow our environment to curate and grow it. It can be really challenging.

It’s interesting, I’ve got a friend who has battled for years with like how much money they make and what they charge per hour and just all these things that I think are societally, really important and how you can flex your value, your worth. But in the greater scheme of things, it’s so just irrelevant. But this individual had some wise counsel around them that basically said, hey, if all your focus is going here, then it might not be long until you don’t have anything. Like it can be taken away, God can take it away.

And so, I think that there was a heart change for a period of time, but then it kind of crept back in. And then it was interesting to see like just over a period of time that everything was kind of taken away, and the business disappeared and the income disappeared. And everything that they worried about in what they were making was gone. And they were making a lot of money, a lot of money.

And so, that’s just a great reminder that it’s not all about that and it’s about something bigger and more important, and anything that we put on a pedestal that really doesn’t deserve to be, it can ruin us, it can wreck us. That can be the thing that knocks us off track. It could be material possessions. It could be money. For a lot of people, it’s money, right? You talked about addictions that you’ve had. A lot of people are addicted to money or addicted to the feel of what it is to make money or addicted to significance or addicted to being in charge or having control.

And it’s interesting to see long term how these play out because short term, you look at some of these people and you’re like, man, they’ve got it made. They’re crushing it, their life, their business, financially, you name it. Look at the car they drive in and the places that they’re traveling to. But deep down, a lot of these people are hurting. They don’t have it figured out. And when priorities are not in the right place, it will show up. It’s only a matter of time until it shows up.

Justin Roethlingshoefer: 100%. And you go back to these addiction components and its true core. What ends up happening is we have these dopamine sensors and these dopamine releases in our brain, and anybody who’s addicted to something is ultimately getting this heavy firing of dopamine whenever they’re engaging in whatever activity that is. And the reason that they’re leaning into whatever that is, whether that’s sex, whether that’s drugs, whether that’s money, whether that’s video games, whether that’s racing cars, whatever that addiction is, it’s that thing that allows somebody to feel normal again. They feel normal like anybody else, like they fit in, like they belong. There’s that sense of self for the first time.

And so, being able to step out of that and being able to identify that and being able to take ownership over what your different is, we each have this uniqueness about us. We have this unique difference inside of us that we’re meant to lean into, that we’re meant to own. That’s a part of our story that, quite frankly, for a lot of people is what they’ve been running away from for so long. It’s what they have they may be embarrassed about, maybe they’re ashamed about.

But that different is what makes them unique. That different is what makes them special. That different is the story they’re supposed to tell and the story they’re supposed to lean into. And so, when you can own your different, it ultimately gives you this opportunity to take responsibility for others that relate to you, find response, take responsibility for others that ultimately see themselves within you, take responsibility for those that can all of a sudden for the first time feel like they’re seen. As human beings, we just want to be seen, we just want to be heard, we want to be loved, those three things.

And as we’re continually searching for that, searching for a community, searching for a tribe, searching for somebody that we can see ourselves in, we sometimes go down a dark road because the dark roads are ultimately what we see our worth as. And we see somebody down in this side that they’re like, oh, they’re different as well and they haven’t found their tribe yet. They haven’t found their self-worth. They haven’t accepted who they are. And so, I’m just going to put myself there. And that’s when you go down this dark road of things that you’re not meant to be because you’re not actually in the group you’re meant to be in. It’s just the group that you found belonging in because you haven’t found belonging for yourself. And so, that is the uniqueness that comes with this. And when we can lean into our different, when we can accept ourselves and like ourselves for that, it transcends anything else that we could ever kind of figure out on our own.

Justin Donald: Yeah. Justin, you said so much there that resonates. And one thing that I learned from Tony Robbins, which is exactly what you just said. He would always talk about the two things, the two basic needs that every human being has is to be loved, to feel loved, and to be enough just as they are. And that’s exactly like what you had just said. And that has stuck with me for such a long time because in building communities, that’s what I want to do. I want to let people know, (a) you are loved; (b) you are not just the way you are. You don’t have to achieve. You don’t have to do it. You may have shown up with a certain level of success, but that’s not what matters here.

And I’m excited for people that can be on the journey and be willing to learn new things, get outside their comfort zone. But something else that you said really resonated, and that was this whole idea that if you’re not intentional with the peer group you’re picking, you’re going to be in a peer group by default. That doesn’t make it a good peer group. It may be a horrible peer group.

And by the way, for people like human beings need significance. Like we don’t want to have significance run our lives, but we need to know that we’re significant, meaning that we are enough just the way that we are, that we have significance in the world, and that can be done negatively and positively. So, a lot of people get their reinforcement negatively, and that satisfies it when they don’t have the positive reinforcement in life.

And so, you made the statement that is powerful, which is, yeah, if you’re not careful, you’re going to end up in a group of people that influence the heck out of you, whether you realize it or not, but that may not be the group that you actually should be with and should be in community with. And I think to be intentional with the people, the five people that you’re going to spend the most time with, with the mentors and coaches that can help bring you up in the things you want to learn the most about. And obviously, with your future spouse, if you desire to get married and have a family, I mean, those just matter so much, but not by default, by design.

Justin Roethlingshoefer: And it’s funny how when we talk about this, it’s so many people don’t even think about it. They just all of a sudden lift their head up and they’re living this life that they’re living. And the scary part about this and whenever I say this, it brings me kind of like into the twilight zone a little bit, is whether we have intention or whether we don’t, we’re going to get an outcome. An outcome, it happens. Outcomes happen every moment. The world continues to move.

Whether we have an intention of what we’re going to eat for dinner or whether we don’t, we’re going to be eating dinner, and all of a sudden, we end up with a pizza on our plate rather than the salad and the great piece of salmon. Whether we have the intention to go to the gym and work out and we have a plan that we’re going to execute when we’re there, we’re either going to get there and sit in the hot tub for 45 minutes and leave, or we’re going to go and actually work and get the work done that we need. Whether we go and have a plan for traveling and show up at the appropriate time before the plane leaves and getting all this stuff done or whether we don’t is the difference between making our plane and not making our plane. These are all the things that happen, and the intention in which we move forward happens the same with our spouse, happens the same with our family, happens the same with our peer group, happens the same with our network, happens the same with our business.

And so, this life on purpose, this life of intention is so profound to me because we can never overlook what a life by default will bring us. I’ve been exposed to the -95 million times in my lifetime. And any time that I’ve lived by default, it’s always put me in a path that has proven consequential. And the moment that it comes back to this life on purpose, this life of intention, this life of leaning into my different and knowing what that is, it’s always proven rewarding. And I think that is the uniqueness that comes of this.

And we have this mind-body contract, what our mind does, our body feels, and what we do with our bodies ultimately affects our souls. And so, these are the things that we have to start to realize is that everything that happens to us is ultimately something that we will feel at the cellular level, the soul level of our bodies. And we have to be so purposeful and intentional as to what those things are to make sure that we are living truly a life that’s on purpose.

Justin Donald: Yeah, powerful. Absolutely powerful. And I think the danger is people think that they’re going to realize when their life is on default, but you just don’t. It just goes. It’s just autopilot. And hopefully, at some point you realize it, but most people never realize it.

Justin Roethlingshoefer: And quite often, you don’t realize it until there’s something catastrophic or consequential that happened that makes you wake up to what’s going on. And so, you come back to these daily habits and these daily practices of journaling or meditation or breathwork or stillness or reflection or whatever they are. And for a long time, I always thought them to be like, oh, Mom’s doing her meditation or prayer over there. Just leave her alone. She’s in her space or whatever it may be, or somebody was journaling and it’s like, oh my gosh, I can never sit and just write.

But it’s not just writing for the sake of saying, oh, checking a box often saying that I’m journaling or that I’m in prayer or that I’m in meditation or that I’m in a reflection moment. But it’s again, the intention for which you’re doing it. And you’re literally scanning your life, you’re scanning your decision, you’re scanning the moments that you’re in to be able to bring awareness to, you know what? I’m coasting a little bit in my finances. You know what? I’m going by default a little bit. I need to come and put a little bit more attention and a little bit more intentionality to that.

Or maybe it’s in my health or maybe it’s in my faith, or maybe it’s in my relationships, or maybe it’s in my business, and all of these areas that we can now be more intentional to and bring this level of awareness to, we can all of a sudden throw up a yellow flag, an amber flag, instead of all of a sudden having a red flag thrown right in our face when there’s something that needs to be addressed.

Justin Donald: Yeah. This is such a great conversation. I hope that a lot of people find this useful and helpful. And I don’t think that you reach this enlightenment where like all of a sudden, you know. I think we’re all at risk of going into autopilot constantly. And so, it’s like this constant battle of making sure that we’re being intentional in living life and walking life the way that we want and having some checkpoints to reevaluate and reassess. So, I love this.

All right. Let’s change gears here real quick as we wrap things up because you’re a health expert and I feel like it would be a shame if I didn’t grab from you. And for our audience, those watching, those listening to hear, like if you had to pick some of your key recommendations to living a healthy, happy, or healthier, happier life, what does that look like? I mean, I brought you on this show because it’s about lifestyle to me.

You don’t have to be an investor, though you are. You’ve got a bunch of rental properties. You don’t have to be killing it in the game of business, though you are. Your business is exploding. You don’t have to be killing it in all these areas. I want to bring people on, have hacks to life that are winning in life, they’re living a killer life. And some of them are great investors. Some of them are great entrepreneurs. Some of them just have an edge in a certain niche, a certain genre. You’ve got a bunch of edges.

But the thing that you are best at, the thing that your business is based on is health. And you have done this fitness. You’ve done this at an elite level with the best of the best. So, do you have any keys to success in that arena that you can share?

Justin Roethlingshoefer: Yeah. So, quite often, when we talk about it, I say this tongue in cheek, I love the fitness industry, I love the health industry because you have a real opportunity to impact somebody’s life and transform it in a radical way. But I also hate the health and wellness industry because it’s laced with mediocrity, it’s laced with false prophets, it’s laced with empty products and empty promises and false information. And I think that’s what just gives me this massive passion to want to have a voice to lean in and have people have a place that is true information and stuff that can really help and impact them in a powerful way.

And so, leaving here, there’s a multitude of things that I would want to leave your audience with but kind of bring down this analogy. So, there are four things that our body has to have for life – sleep, air, food, and water. Our body cannot operate without those four things. And so, that’s just to maintain cellular life and body operation on a day-to-day basis.

Then there are three things that we have to tap into for longevity. When it comes to longevity, all the science, all the research proved this that the people that have a longer quality sleep per night, so a longer quality sleep average per night, a steady blood glucose level, and a higher heart rate variability average have a lifespan that is about 17% longer than those people that don’t have those in those areas. And so, obviously, when we start to look at that, the three areas that become really key are stress management, food, and sleep.

And so, when we start to take a look at what does this look like in my life, how can I be intentional about these things, and what can it start to drive me to, I come back to this. And so, heart rate variability at its core is our body’s language of how it communicates, how it’s handling stress and strain. So, if we look at a heart rate variability score and any wearable technology has it, whether it’s your Oura Ring, whether it’s your Fitbit, whether it’s your Garmin, your Polar, your Whoop, your Apple Watch, they all have heart rate variability.

And so, having a higher HRV does not mean you’re better than anybody else. You have to compare you to you. But the goal is to increase that number over time. And we increase that number over time by the difference of habits in which we start to establish because remember, the definition of heart rate variability is how your body is adapting to the stress and strain that’s being placed on it. So, if we all of a sudden sit through seven hours of intense Zoom calls or we go for a five-mile run, our heart rate variability score for each the next day in terms of adapting could be the same, it could look the exact same because our body doesn’t know the difference between mental, physical, spiritual, or emotional stress.

And so, we have to have a system. We have to have a pattern. We have to have a routine or a strategy as to how to adapt to those stressabilities. And so, tracking heart rate variability is, number one, we have to have some type of way to track HRV. Number two is being able to look at blood glucose levels and understand what impacts that for us. It could be going and getting a cellular blood test to understand whether you are cellularly dysfunctional in, how does your body absorb protein, carbs, and fats in a positive or negative way. Is it could be having a blood glucose monitor on and taking a look and looking at experiment for the course of two weeks? How do certain foods impact my blood sugar levels? Am I seeing peaks and valleys all the time based on my typical eating habits?

It doesn’t need to be complicated. It can be very, very simple because all of a sudden, we’re running these little experiments to be able to understand what our body needs. It’s no different than running sample marketing funnels and putting a little bit of money into a bunch of different marketing campaigns, and ultimately then, double, triple, quadrupling down on your best performing one. You wouldn’t double, triple, quadruple down on your worst performing one, but yet, we do that with what we put into our bodies because we’re like, oh, I think these cornflakes for breakfast are really good for me. Or oh, I think this oatmeal for breakfast is really good for me, but rather it’s throwing our blood glucose levels for a wonky turn all day long that we just have never realized.

And so, getting down to the nitty-gritties and really understand what’s happening at our body’s level is really, really crucial. So, number one is to track HRV in some way, shape, or form. Number two is identify what your body’s needs are nutritionally from either a blood test or some type of blood glucose monitor to get, again, more information.

And the third is optimizing our sleep. And what does that mean? Because that’s a tough one, all in and of itself. That’s a whole massive category. But it’s creating a positive and optimal sleep environment, making sure that we’re sleeping between 62 and 69 degrees, making sure that we have a dark room, making sure that we are in a parasympathetic state going to bed, meaning a resting state, meaning we’re not eating a massive meal right before we go to bed, meaning we’re not sending emails and working right before we’re going to bed, meaning we’re not watching scary movies right before we go to bed, meaning we’re not watching and playing on our phones and on our devices right before we go to bed, but rather having a cool-down routine from getting a shower into little meditation to maybe a stretch or a yoga or a foam roll or having tea and a great conversation with our spouse.

It’s this downward routine, this downward effect that’s going to put us in the best possible state to be able to get that deep, nice quality sleep, and again, whenever we’re talking about circadian rhythm and optimizing circadian rhythm, making sure that our sleep time and our wake time is as close to consistent as possible. We usually call it within about a 30-minute window to optimize what we call that cortisol melatonin effect. And so, at night, we want to see that melatonin level rise. And during the day, we want to see that cortisol level spike. So, they basically become inverse of one another. And once we start to maximize those habits, we get into those deep stages of sleep.

So, number one is maximize and have a way to measure heart rate variability. Number two is being able to take a look at what does your body need from a nutritional standpoint, either by a blood test or by a blood glucose monitor. And number three is being able to optimize your sleep routine and your sleep habits and your sleep environment.

And so, all of that can be done through a coach. All of that can be done through certain health and wellness companies. But being able to bring it all together and empower you with the information so that you can now make the decisions that mean something to you, are personable for you, and can be adjusted to your lifestyle is the key to making them sustainable.

Justin Donald: Justin, that was an incredible wealth of information and knowledge that you just shared on. This show with all of these listeners, that was really awesome. And I love that you didn’t even mention working out, though, for anyone paying attention, when you work out, that is good for your heart rate variability, right? So, it’s like this is one of the things that you can do to make sure that that’s in the right place.

I’ve got my Oura Ring on. I love my Oura Ring. I’m an early investor in that company. And I think the world of what they’re doing and the technology there, but I think what you’re sharing is so important. I talk a lot about how do you become a lifestyle investor. And yes, there’s a huge component of it that is financial, like how do we have financial freedom? But if you don’t have your health, like the freedom that you want should include this healthy place to be able to enjoy that time and to be able to do the things that you want to do with your family, with loved ones, especially as you age.

And so, I love this combination of fitness and health and longevity being a component of being a lifestyle investor. It is a very integral part of living life on your terms. So, I love what you’re sharing. Where can people find out more about you, Justin, and more about your company?

Justin Roethlingshoefer: Absolutely. I’m very active on social media. It’s just @justinroth. And then, if you just go on to our website, OwnItCoaching.com, you can find everything about what we just spoke about and getting certain testings done or getting certain coaching and guidance and frameworks put in place to really allow you to lean into that, and kind of parlaying what you just talked about there, Justin, is we like to spell wealth W-E-L-L-T-H and making sure that you– you can’t prevent aging, but you can prevent aging well.

Justin Donald: So good. Justin, I really appreciate your time. What an incredible session and so many things to really put into practice right away. I love ending each of my episodes by asking my listeners one question, and that’s this. What’s one step that you can take today towards moving in the direction of financial freedom, towards living a life you truly desire on your terms, not on default, but by design? Thanks, and we’ll catch you next time.