January 17, 2023 • 46 mins
Today we are digging into shifting your mindset to achieve self-mastery and live your best life through things like identity, habits, productivity, and of course as always on this show, how those tie back to your fitness and health.
My guest is Monica Ricci. Monica has been facilitating positive change for over 20 years. She founded Catalyst Organizing, LLC in 1998, working with individuals, business owners, and business teams to help clarify priorities, achieve goals, create organization, and improve productivity.
In the world of productivity, Monica has been an author, blogger, speaker, radio host, and frequent TV guest on many local morning shows as well as Fox & Friends, CNN.com, and HGTV.
Today, she uses her experience and talents to facilitate positive change and transformation through coaching, speaking, and social media.
Monica lives a nomadic life, coaching via Zoom while traveling the country. When she isn’t moving to a new city, she enjoys strength training, cycling, baseball, rock and roll, and high-quality butter.
You'll learn all about:
- Monica's personal story and how you got interested in coaching
- Why "Day Thirteen" was pivotal
- How someone develops a skill or habit over time to create positive outcomes (the Law of Accumulation)
- The science of habit building and making progress
- Micro-stepping to create new habits
- The Exercise Myth and the right approach for someone trying to lose fat
- How identity drives behaviors
- The courage to be an outlier
- What self-mastery looks like
- The identity-to-behavior transformation
- How you help people create significant shifts in mindset
Episode resources:
- Find Monica on Instagram - @remakingmonica
- Find Monica on Twitter - @monicaricci
- Monica's website - monicaricci.net
- Watch the episode on video here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:08):
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, where we
discuss getting strong andhealthy with strength training
and sustainable nutrition. I'myour host, Philip pape, and in
each episode, we examinestrategies to help you achieve
physical self mastery through ahealthy skepticism of the
fitness industry, and acommitment to consistent
nutrition and training forsustainable results.
(00:31):
Welcome to another episode ofWits & Weights. Today we're
digging into shifting yourmindset to Achieve Self Mastery
and live your best life throughthings like identity, habits,
productivity, and of course asalways on the show how those tie
back to fitness and health. Myguest is Monica Ricky Monica has
been felicite facilitatingpositive change for over 20
(00:52):
years. She founded catalystorganizing, LLC in 1998. Working
with individuals, businessowners and business teams to
help clarify priorities, achievegoals, create organization and
improve productivity. In theworld of productivity. Monique
has been an author, blogger,speaker, radio host and frequent
TV guest on many local morningshows, as well as Fox and
(01:16):
Friends cnn.com and HGTV. Todayshe uses her experience and
talents to facilitate facilitatepositive change and
transformation through coaching,speaking and social media.
Monica lives a nomadic lifecoaching via zoom while
traveling the country. And whenshe isn't moving to a new city.
She enjoys strength training,cycling, baseball, rock and roll
(01:36):
and high quality. Butter. Yum.
Monica, I'm so glad you can comeon the show. How are you?
Monica Ricci (01:42):
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me,
Philip. I'm great. I am inConnecticut at the moment, as I
mentioned are you as youmentioned, I live this beautiful
nomadic adventure. And so Ihappen to be on the northeast
part of my road tour. And it isreally lovely being here. Yeah,
we were talking about thebeautiful fall because we're
recording this in November. AndI'm also in Connecticut. And
(02:04):
it's so awesome to hear aboutyour ability to travel. And when
you say the North, you know,this is just where I'm from, but
the country is huge. So I'mreally excited to talk to you
because you have thisbackground, not only in health
and fitness, but in personaldevelopment and mindset. And so
what is your personal story andhow you got interested in the
type of coaching you do today?
Well, you know, sometimes, Ithink I know for myself, I can't
(02:28):
even see the beginning of when Istarted to get interested in
personal development it if Ifollow the line back, it's
almost like you can't reallytell where it starts. Because
it's it starts so smallsometimes. But I've really been
hitting it hard, probably thelast, I would say probably the
last 10 or 15 years in justreally exploring opportunities
(02:49):
to learn,to grow to take advantage of the
resources that are out therethat help us do things like
cultivate our own self masteryin terms of you know, coaching
and courses and books and youknow, all the things we hear
about the people you surroundyourself with. And so as I was
building my business back in thewell, it was really the turn of
(03:13):
the last I mean the end of thelast century, which is the 90s
It's amazing. It's been it'sbeen that long. But I started
that business in 1998, with theidea that one of my strengths is
helping people to get to thecore of issues and simplify
things. And I translated thatinto physical simplicity, organ
(03:35):
organization, and decluttering.
And so that was kind of thebeginning of this of the
personal development work that Idid, because organizing
someone's environment. Andindeed organizing your own
environment. And building theskills to do that is definitely
an exercise in personaldevelopment. Because it takes
(03:57):
discipline, it takes learning,it takes a certain skill set a
certain habits set, right. Inever connected really to
personal development way backthen I just kind of recognize
that it was a need in themarketplace. And I had a skill
for it. And so I just jumped inand started doing it. And it
grew so really organically. I amoh I shouldn't even say this. I
(04:20):
am that business owner who neverhad a business plan or never
planned at all. I just kind ofleaped right in and literally
never did a day of marketing inmy whole life and my whole
career for 20 years. I justdidn't and and in some ways I
think that's great. And thatsays hey, you know, like, you're
onto something right? If youdon't, right, if you don't need
(04:42):
to put your energy in that tocome to you Sure. Yeah, right.
And it really did opportunitiesjust came it was such a
beautiful existence and, and itwas really, it was probably
about four years into it, that Ireally started to get a grasp on
on how important the work wasthat I was doing. For the people
that I was doing it for, itwasn't about the spaces it was
(05:03):
about the people. And there weretimes when, when I realized that
just the conversation we werehaving was the important piece
that it wasn't about remakingthe closet, or, you know,
remaking the office or whateverit was we were working on. It
was the conversation thathappened in that space. That was
transformative. And that's whatI latched on to. So many years
(05:27):
later, when I began to feel likeit was time for me to exit that
industry. In that specificcapacity. I still, I still am in
the service of productivity.
It's just that I'm not doing itexactly the same way sort of a
different channel now with thecoaching and the masterminding
and such. Right, but but thatwas, I guess, really my foray
into into working in thepersonal development space, it's
(05:49):
started way back, then. And itcontinues today. As you
mentioned, I travel and I dozoom. And it's a really
beautiful existence, because itallows me to reconnect with
people in my life that I haven'tseen in a long time. And it also
allows me to continue to workand contribute in that way. And
it allows me to see places I'venever seen before and meet
(06:11):
people I've never met.
Philip Pape (06:15):
You know, it's amazing, your story, how you,
you, you engage in passionsalong the way that eventually it
kind of converged into somethingyou didn't expect, right? You
tell me about how you focus onproductivity and organizing. But
now it's the organization ofyour life, right? It's the
development of things andorganizing things. And now the
development of yourself and yourand then the nomadic life prop,
(06:38):
I'm assuming the whole pandemicand everything moving online,
and technologies flourishinglike that, also, maybe
facilitated the ability to dothat. So what what Tell me a
little bit more about thecoaching that you do today in
terms of personal development.
And also maybe I don't know ifyou want to tie that into day
13, that you mentioned before wetalked today, I don't want to
give it away.
Monica Ricci (06:59):
The the coaching that I do today is I do a
combination, I do privatecoaching, and I also do group
group coaching and business teamcoaching. And what we work on is
is sort of a mixed model. Andwhat I what I mean, as a mixed
model is we work on things thatare very tactical, in some
cases, very granular. But wealso work higher level like we
(07:21):
work on things like who are youbeing right? Who do you need to
be in this situation? Who haveyou been in the past that hasn't
worked? And how do you embodythis new identity moving
forward, so that you can createthe habits you want to create,
to create the outcomes you wantto create? Right? So there's
this all this kind of higherlevel, a little more esoteric
(07:43):
stuff. But when it comes down toit, those things translate
actual specific actions, you gobroad, to narrow, and that's
where we focus our attention isin the everyday habits, actions
and disciplines that reallybuild a life.
Philip Pape (07:58):
Yeah, and that that's so aligned with a lot of
what I do as well, withnutrition coaching, like you
said, it's not not necessarilywhere you've been or where you
are today and what you embodytoday, it's the future, you,
right? Act as if that's whereyou're going to be. And now
what, where's the gap? And Ilove that approach. Because
yeah, it is up here. But itdrives down, down down down to
today, in the moment in front ofus, when we get
Monica Ricci (08:21):
a little bit weak, give some real really granular
and concrete examples, because Iknow, folks who watch podcasts,
they watch for a reason theywant information, swamp
takeaways, they want to be ableto go I want to do something new
now. Yes. And we can absolutelytalk about how the higher vision
of who you want to be and whoyou strive to be translates into
a singular action every day. Andthat is really the powerful part
(08:44):
of this kind of this kind ofcoaching is that it involves not
only that instructive part, butalso it involves the community
and the accountability piece,which is so supportive, they're
kind of like the guardrails inlife, you know, he's having that
community, and then he also theaccountability, so that you're
not alone in this journey of ofchanging mastery.
Philip Pape (09:04):
Great. Yeah. And I'm all for the listener getting
as much value and strategies outof this as possible. So do we,
do we start there? Do we startup at, at maybe, you know, a lot
of people know what to do.
Right? And maybe not, but a lotof people have sort of the
education or they listen to alot of podcasts. And they may
personally know what they needto do. But they get overwhelmed
taking that first step of beingconsistent day in day out,
(09:25):
right. That's the overarchingchallenge for a lot of people.
So how does someone develop thatskill or habit over time and
create those outcomes? I thinkyou refer to that as the law of
accumulation. Hmm.
Monica Ricci (09:37):
I love the law of accumulation, which essentially
just says that small changesapplied consistently add up to
great results. I mean, it'spretty, it's pretty
straightforward, right? Andduring my fitness journey, my
fitness transformation. Istarted my fitness
transformation in 2019. And Ididn't intend for it to be a
transformation. Frankly, I hadno idea what was gonna happen,
(10:00):
but it's it set off this cascadeof events and changes in me that
was that led me to where I amtoday. But during my fitness
transformation, I just showedup, I just showed the heck up
every day. And I didn't know theend result. But what I what I
knew was that if I showed upevery day, something would
change. What I didn't realizewas that I would change in the
(10:22):
process was that I would becomea new person. And when you
mentioned the what, why and theor the what people know what to
do, sometimes they do, sometimesthey don't. But let's assume
that people know what to do. AndI love using the container of
health and fitness. And thereason I love using it is
because every single person canrelate to it. Every single
(10:42):
person has had this conversationwith themselves around their
health and fitness, it's notsome magical thing that only a
few people can understand. Somost people know what they need
to do. What they miss, though,is the why they want to do it,
and who they have to become inorder to do it. And that's where
the coaching comes in. Right?
That's where you dig a littledeeper, because the thing is,
(11:03):
and I have said this in speakingengagements I can remember, I
was it was probably I don'tknow, mid 2000s. And I was
speaking to a group of ArmyWives at a base called I want to
say it was Fort Thomas Georgia.
And I actually have video ofthis piece of my of my
(11:24):
presentation, we were talkingabout this exact thing. And I
said, information is justinformation. Unless you apply
it, it means nothing. Forexample, I know what I need to
do to lose 15 or 20 pounds. Am Idoing it? No, I'm not. So that
(11:45):
was me, like in the past sayingexactly what I'm saying now,
right? Which is the informationisn't the magic, the knowing
what to do is not the magic.
Because if that were the magic,everybody would be everywhere
they want to be right now. Yeah,it's the getting yourself to do
it. And that's what self masteryis. And it's very nut, it's very
core and the essence, selfmastery is the ability to get
(12:06):
yourself do the thing you needto do whether you want to or
whether you don't. Regardless ofhow you feel acting. That is
great.
Philip Pape (12:16):
And I love it. You also put it earlier as showing
up. If you don't show up, youcan't change. And you can't
become that future you whetherit's the lighter, stronger,
fitter, happier, whatever youwant to call it version of you.
And that term, physical, mentaland self mastery really
resonates with me because Ithink I think my podcast
description actually has thatexact term. So you really
resonate with me there. Oh,mine. So yeah, yeah, no, I love
(12:40):
that that phrase right? Of thefuture you so let's dig into the
habits then a little bit more.
Because like you alluded to thatthis is kind of the missing
skill, we often know what to do.
And we don't know what to do. Ithink people are people know how
to seek out information andeducation. But if people could
grasp and develop habitbuilding, right, it would
(13:00):
cultivate the consistency wetalked about in the small
results we talked about. So isthere something about the
science of habit building thatwe're all missing? Or don't
understand something you can letus know? And that's actionable
where I could, I can learn moreabout habit building itself, so
then I can apply that skill.
Monica Ricci (13:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's so much on habits thatis out there right now. BJ Fogg
talks about habits in his book,I think he's the one who wrote
tiny habits. And James clear Ilove I love his content and
atomic habits as well. And solike, for example, the James
clear model of the habit loop,which is the cue, the craving,
the response and the reward,it's the circle all the time,
round, and around and around, wego right. And we don't even
(13:39):
realize how much of our livesare habituated. But they are and
that's our brains way ofconserving energy in our brains
way of getting us through theday without being completely
exhausted. Is that anything wedo repeatedly? The brain just
goes okay, duly noted. Boop,boop. And it puts it in the back
for like, you know, just Okay,now it's second nature. But the
good part is, good habits canbecome second nature. But the
(14:02):
bad part is unconscious habits,just kind of easy default ways
of being also become secondnature and very ingrained and
entrenched, as well. So we breakdown the habit loop and we look
at the cue, the craving, theresponse and the reward, there
are certain things we can do tointerrupt that loop to either
add new habits we want toincorporate into our lives, or
(14:24):
stop existing habits. And TonyRobbins will say, you can't just
stop an existing habit, you haveto replace it, replace it. So I
find that that's probably truebecause stopping something
leaves a vacuum for somethingelse to come in. So you want to
be able to choose what thatthing is, right? We've often
heard that folks who stopped onebehavior like for example, and
(14:46):
addictive behavior of any timeoften will just substitute a
different addictive behavior orit right it may switch they may
go from, you know, beingaddicted to one substance to
them being addicted to food, forexample, or gambling or whatever
it might be. Right. So the waythat we interrupt that habit
(15:08):
loop is, is by looking at thehabits that we, that we want to
change or replace, I should say,and making those habits
difficult, making theminconvenient. Right? So if, for
example, your habit is thatyou're constantly checking your
phone at dinner, and that'simpacting your relationships,
and I gotta believe that's thething. You got to ask yourself,
(15:30):
Okay, if the habit I want toreplace is that I want to stop
checking my phone at dinner,because it makes my spouse or my
partner or my kids feeldisconnected from me, how can I
make that difficult? Okay, well,how can we let's look, you can
put the phone across the room orin a drawer or upstairs, right?
(15:53):
So again, you're puttingbarriers between you and that
automatic behavior, right. Andthen similarly, you want the
habits that you do want to beeasier. So you design your
environment, around making theresistance as low as possible
between you and your new habit.
(16:14):
We always hear this, put yourgym shoes at the outlet, right?
By your bed or pack your gym bagthe night before or sleep in
your gym clothes, or whatever it
Philip Pape (16:23):
may be. I've had those myself, yes.
Monica Ricci (16:26):
Removing the friction and the barrier to the
ones you do want and putting inbarriers to ones you don't want.
That's your friend, think about.
Philip Pape (16:37):
Right. So somebody could take a somebody can
inventory their day, right? Andthink about those things that
get in the way or cause frictionor like you said, the the phone
at the dinner table that I knowit's causing a problem again,
people people know this stuff,it's not like they're clueless
about, it's just they get into aroutine and day after day, they
come home from work, they'retired, it's like, they don't
want to think about it. Do youjust you take a piece of paper
(16:59):
and kind of write down the topthree or four for the day? And
then right next to it, eitherthe replacement? Or how to make
it harder? I mean, depending onwhich direction want to go, is
it that simple?
Monica Ricci (17:09):
It's, I would say do one or two at a time, one or
two habits at a time, right? AndI would say to ask yourself
questions, ask yourself, don'tjust tell yourself, but actually
ask yourself and inquire.
Because what you're askingyourself, you're consulting,
your Higher Self, your innerknowing. You're not just
(17:29):
thinking it's kind of a littlebit of a shift. Because if I
look around the room, and Iasked myself, what needs to be
done in this room today, I'mengaging that part of myself.
That is sort of the the, I guessit would be that yourself that
can see things through adifferent lens than I got like
Philip Pape (17:49):
a Socratic. Yeah, and you know, what needs to be
done
Monica Ricci (17:53):
today? Same thing, how can I make this harder? Or
how can I make this easier. Andalso, asking someone else is
helpful to getting differentperspective can be helpful in
that in that process. And also,we, if we look back at the ABCs
of habit building, which is anactual behavior in celebration,
(18:15):
which I'm pretty sure as BJFogg, the acknowledgement of
every time you do or don't dothe thing is really also an
important part of it. Right? Youget that celebration of Look at
me, look what I did. I left myphone in the drawer, and I
didn't die, right? At dinnertime. Or I went to the gym, and
(18:37):
I feel so great about myself.
Yes, that high five, like,that's totally who I want to be
today. And that ties into theidentity, right? Who do we want
it to be? It's not just the whatare we doing? We are integrated
beings, we are Mind Body, Soulspirit, right? So moving the
body is really important to getthe head to follow, right? And
also integrating the head in theacknowledgement. What makes the
(19:01):
body want to move more. So inthis sort of spiral, it's, it's
like a cycle. It's reallylovely.
Philip Pape (19:08):
Got it, who do we want to be? And I guess we can
stack that onto getting oursteps pacing around the house as
we reflect on that. So so as oneother technique comes up, I want
to ask you about and that'shabit stacking, where you're
combining something indulgent,it may not be the best habit in
and of itself, but you'recombining it with a good habit,
like the common the commoncommon example is like watching
(19:31):
Netflix while you walk on thetreadmill or something. What do
you think of that concept?
Monica Ricci (19:36):
I think habit stacking is wonderful, because
you're already in the habit ofdoing something. And so, using
that as your cue, like if we goback to the clear model, the
queue, which leads to thecraving, right and so, you
already have a queue in place.
So when I do this, I will alsodo this, or after I do this
which is solidify Do I alwaysuse brushing teeth, because
(20:01):
there is nobody that I've everspoken to who has a problem
remembering to brush their teethin the morning and at night,
we've been doing it since wewere tiny babies, right. So
that's one of the most ingrainedhabits that we have, or taking a
shower or anything else that youcan do without thinking, if you
can attach and stack a new habitonto an existing one. It's like,
(20:22):
it's like a little link, right,and it connects it. And so
eventually, you begin to viewthose things together. When I
get up in the morning, I willbrush my teeth, and then I'll
meditate. For example, I'm justmaking that up, right? If you're
not in the habit of meditating,because otherwise, what you do
is you try to squeeze meditatingin somewhere during the day when
(20:43):
you have time. But when youattach it to something you're
already doing, you're carvingout a little piece of time for
it, and then it happens everydayat the same time. And then once
those two are solidified, youcan actually stack another one
on top. So by the time you're,you know, six weeks in, or
however many weeks in, you'vegot a stack of little morning
(21:03):
things that you do that create asuper foundation for you to set
your day upon.
Philip Pape (21:12):
Yeah, that's awesome. And for people who
think they don't have enoughtime, that that sounds like a
great technique to because someof these things are done, you
know, simultaneously, right? Sothey're more efficient.
Actually, I was just talking toa client who likes to drink a
lot of coffee. And we're talkingabout getting enough hydration
not getting dehydrated. And sowhy don't we, every time you
pour a cup of coffee, pour aglass of water, put some, you
know, put some lemon and saltand make both together. And then
(21:33):
when you're done with thecoffee, now you have the water
to kind of last you until untilthe next coffee, you know.
Anyway, so I watched yourYouTube video about micro
stepping, which is sounds alsoin this realm of creating
change. Can you explain thatconcept, I don't know if it's
different than what we've beentalking about, or we're not
going,
Monica Ricci (21:51):
it's not really different. It's just a matter of
shifting your mindset fromtaking huge, massive actions all
at once to taking tiny littleactions and recognizing that
those are incredibly valid, andthat they are the way to get to
big changes. I saw a really coolgraphic not long ago, and it was
just a little pencil drawing.
And on one side, it had apicture of a ladder, a really
(22:12):
tall ladder and a little stickfigure guy at the top. And on
the other side, it had a pictureof a really tall ladder. And
there were only about a quarterof the number of steps. And the
steps were really far apart inthe lawn guy was on the bottom,
because he couldn't reach thefirst step. So the whole point
was every step is important. Youcan't get to the top if you
(22:36):
can't reach the first step. Andso it's that idea. We've we've,
we've so conditioned ourselvesto believe if we're not going to
the gym for an hour, five days aweek, you know, hard driving
that we that we're failing. Butthat's not how you get there.
You don't go from zero to 100.
(22:56):
You don't go from the standardAmerican diet to carnivore in
one day. But don't do it, youstep your way there, right, you
change in slow incrementalparts. Same with any habit, you
step your way there, because inthe small steps, you create
wins. And every time you createa win, your brain wants another
(23:18):
win. And that's why it'simportant. The micro steps are
important because you setyourself up to succeed multiple
the day.
Philip Pape (23:26):
That's so motivating. Monique, I love your
energy, by the way, themicrostepping it is a nuance in
this discussion, because youknow, up till now we've been
talking about habits andreplacing things. But if people
realize that also if, if theyfeel that new habit or
replacement is kind of a bigjump, how do you break that back
down to a much smaller jump,like if you're, if you're
(23:47):
getting five hours of sleeptoday, you're not gonna get
eight hours of sleep immediatelynext week, but you might get
five and 15 right are five and30. So I love that concept for
people. Hey, this is PhilipPape. And if you feel like
you've put in effort to improveyour health and fitness, but
aren't getting results, I inviteyou to apply for a one on one
coaching to make real progressand get the body you desire.
(24:11):
We'll work together to figureout what's missing so you can
look better, perform better andfeel better. Just go to wits &
weights.com/coaching, to learnabout my program and apply
today. Now back to the episode.
Monica Ricci (24:24):
Absolutely, yeah, you know, and the other thing
too is if you if you look at howif you look at how you would
approach teaching a child how todo something, and and then you
look at how you approachteaching yourself how to do
something new, very often it'svery different. Why? Why would
we Why would we expect a childto go from not being able to
(24:45):
ride a bike to being able toride a bike with no training
wheels? Who wouldn't? Wewouldn't we would never set our
kid up for failure like that,would we? Yet we set ourselves
up for failure all the timeevery day.
Philip Pape (24:55):
Yep. You don't go from counting coins to algebra
in one day. It's Six years ofschool, right? Yeah. Okay,
awesome. So I guess I want totalk a little bit about fitness
specifically. And then also someof the you mentioned, like very
actionable strategies we can getinto. And we love to talk about
fitness and body compositionthrough muscle building and fat
(25:16):
loss on this show. Many peopleare trying to lose weight,
right? And the traditionalformula is, eat less, move more.
You see people doing tons ofcardio, constantly restricting
themselves through dieting. Tellus what about something you call
the exercise myth and what theright approach might be for
someone trying to lose fat,maybe we get tied into all the
habits we just talked about?
Monica Ricci (25:37):
Okay, well, the first thing I need to share with
you is that I am not a personaltrainer, and I am a health
coach. Among my other coaching,I also am a certified health
coach. So I just like to putthat out there because I am I
just not in my wheelhouse tocreate training plans or
anything, but what I will sayabout the exercise myth, which
is people put their attention onthe wrong process, or the wrong
(25:59):
part of the process when theywant to lose weight and get in
shape. Most people that come tome for health coaching are
frustrated. And when we have ourinitial conversation 99% of the
time, one of the things thatcome up that comes out of their
mouth is I should be what?
exercising more Yes. And 99% ofthe time, they're wrong. What
(26:20):
they should be doing is shiftingthe attention from the lack of
exercise to the power they haveover what goes in their giant
hole in their face. For sure,right? Yes, so one of my one of
my aunts, dropped 70. Now, notquite 70, she dropped her first
(26:43):
40. And in about three months,and I specifically said to her,
do not worry about exercising,do not your knees are not gonna
be able to take it right now atthe weight she was at. And she
was astonished that she could,you know, created this result in
her life. And that was justreally proved to her the
(27:04):
exercise is wonderful as anadjunct. But it is not the magic
that you're not doing. So manypeople have this belief in
themselves, about themselvesthat if they could just get to
the gym more, that would be thething. And it's not, it's just
not, and they don't often wantto hear it. Because what it
means is they have to change thething they do all the time all
(27:27):
day, which is the way they eat,it's actually easier to blame
your lack of exercise than tolook at what you have to do
every day, we just make harddecisions every single meal. But
that's part of self mastery. Andthat's part of an identity
shift, right that we weretalking about earlier is coming
to grips with what is true andloving and accepting what is
(27:49):
true. You don't have to like it.
But you do have to accept it.
Philip Pape (27:55):
Right. And so related to that mindset shift. I
know, I've heard you mentionedthat identity drives behaviors,
and vice versa. So So what doyou mean by that? And how does
that apply to what we were justtalking about? Well,
Monica Ricci (28:09):
every behavior that we do is a direct
reflection of what we believeabout ourselves of who we
believe we are, right? It's ouridentity leaks out of us in our
actions. And so if we can changeeither one of silos, it's like
an equation, right? If youchange one, you begin to change
the other. Or if you change thisone, you begin to change this
(28:32):
one. Ideally, you change themboth at the same time. And then
you have really start thinkingmoving. So if I believe that I'm
a healthy person, if my identityis an athlete, if my identity is
a focus, business leader, right,if that's my aspirational
identity, then I get to askmyself, well, what would an
(28:52):
athlete do? Or what would ahealthy fit person eat? Or what
would have focused businessleaders show up like in this
conversation, having thoseidentities those aspirational
identities as touchstonesinforms the granularity, and
that's what we talked aboutearlier about going from broad
to narrow. If my identity is uphere on the top line, it
(29:15):
trickles down into day to day today actions and reinforce that
yes, that is who I am. In fact,I just had a moment that I'd
like to share with you. About ahalf an hour ago.
Philip Pape (29:28):
Oh, you mean you just had them? Okay. Yeah.
Monica Ricci (29:30):
It's not a moment, an identity moment. About a half
an hour ago, I finishedrecording a one minute promo
video for a speaking engagementthat I'm doing in March at a
conference. And I had to recordit a few times because, you
know, it's, you know, it's notperfect and polished. Yeah,
right. I want it good. And I soI recorded it, I finished it.
(29:53):
And as I was walking down thestairs, I said to myself out
loud, man, I nailed that and Andthen I said, because that's what
I do. I nail things. I amawesome on camera. And it just,
I'm just reinforcing theidentity that I am awesome on
camera. And that that is mywheelhouse. And of course, I
(30:15):
nailed it. That's what I do.
Right? It's incredibly powerfulto acknowledge yourself in that
way, the same way that you wouldacknowledge your best friend,
you know, high five, or meetslap on the back, or you do
whatever, man, you nailed thatthing. Why don't we not do that
for ourselves? We got to do thatevery day. You nailed that? Oh,
yeah. Love it. It's just likeyou to do this, just like you to
know that thing. Whatever it is,it's just like you to get up and
(30:38):
work out in the morning. It'sjust like you to choose this
incredibly healthy meal andreally enjoy it. Like that's who
you are. Yeah, that's howbehavior and identity swirl
together. One reinforces theother.
Philip Pape (30:55):
Yeah, I love that.
And and it's, it's, it's a formof visualization. But it's very
powerful, right? Because then itleads to you saying, Okay, what
do I need to do to get there?
And I know, when I work withclients, we talk about a vision
for the future, what do you looklike in a year, one of my
clients, and I want to, I'mgoing to be devastatingly
gorgeous. Next year, I'm goingto be devastating and gorgeous.
I'm like, that's what that'swhat we're gonna do, then that's
(31:15):
what you are. And we just needto close the gap to get there.
Love that. So there's anotherthing you talk about in terms of
being an outlier. And I don'tknow if you mean that in a. So
for example, we talked aboutresearch based fitness and
evidence based fitness here. Andyou know, most research is done
and you have, most data pointsfall in a normal curve, right,
(31:36):
like a bell curve that peopleare familiar with. And mostly,
very few people fall at thetails of those curves. But the
people that do tend to be theones that are more successful,
like the fact that only 5% ofpeople keep their weight off,
you know, after five years, andthey lose it. And so almost
being weird, in that sense ofbeing an outlier is often a good
thing, I would say, and youtalked about the courage to be
an outlier. So I'd love to hearyour perspective on that.
Monica Ricci (31:59):
Well, um, as of today, let's just say, almost
90% of the American populationis metabolically unhealthy. That
is some scary stuff. So if youdon't want to go down that road,
you got to do somethingdifferent than the vast majority
of people are doing, which willmake you an outlier. And that's
(32:22):
all well and good on paper. Butwhat does that look like day to
day, that's where the coachingcomes in. That's where the
understanding that if you wantsomething different, you got to
do something different. And whenit becomes difficult to do is
the most important time to doit. That's where you show up as
(32:44):
an outlier socially. We have gotto as individuals, embrace the
fact that no one is responsiblefor us, but us, and that it is
up to us to protect what we wantfor our lives, because no one
else will protect it like wewill, if I go to a social
situation, whatever it is, youknow, we have in November, what
(33:06):
do we have coming up theholidays, holidays, right? So
many people are going to show upat holiday parties, whether it's
office parties, friends,neighbors, whatever, there are
going to be a group of peoplewho go with the flow, and who
use the excuse. It's theholidays, I didn't want to be
rude, I gotta have a cocktail, Igot to this, I couldn't turn
(33:29):
that I couldn't I had to as ifthey're as if someone else is in
control of their actions. Andthen there is a group of people
who will say internally, I cancome here and I can choose to
only eat the shrimp, and thesausage, and the egg, the
deviled eggs. And I can have aDiet Coke or seltzer water, or
(33:51):
half glass of wine instead ofthree glasses. I choose to have
this Yes, I choose to have thesethings. And the reason that I
choose to have these things isin service of my future self,
who I love. And I love my futureself more than I love what
anyone at this gathering thinksof me. That's it right there.
That's it. I love my future selfand my present self more than
(34:16):
what anyone else thinks of me.
Yeah, if you can embrace andhold that in your hand and your
heart and your mind and yoursoul and your spirit, becoming
an outlier and doing somethingthat is different, strange or
unfamiliar to other people is apiece of cake.
Philip Pape (34:32):
And that's often what if you are doing the right
thing it often is it does makeyou an outlier, doesn't it? I
mean, there's so much pressurefrom friends, society, family,
social media, and usually thenorm is not what you have to be
doing and what you have to bedoing as hard as you said. It's
hard and there's kind of aconverse, converse to that.
That's maybe all just asinsidious. You're talking about
(34:54):
the going to a social outing ora holiday party. And it's saying
that I let's say you're on adiet and you tell you yourself.
I can't I can't I can't that'salmost the same thing. Right, as
opposed to saying I choose notto. That's just what I was
thinking of. Yeah, that's,that's great advice. Monica.
Monica Ricci (35:09):
We, you know, I love this whole conversation,
Philip about, about balance. Andso so there's this thing that I
use in my coaching, and I'velearned it, I learned it through
the heroic coaching program thatwe're in now. And I rely on it
so heavily, almost every day.
And it's what Aristotle callsthe golden mean. Or the virtuous
mean, and it's being in the,it's being in the middle. So
(35:30):
there's the the idea of extremeson each side, which is, I can't
write. And then over here is Ican, or I will do whatever I
want. And, but then there's themiddle, which is I choose, so I
can do whatever I want. I chooseto do whatever I whatever I
(35:52):
choose. So if I choose toabstain, that's great. But if I
choose to have a slice ofcheesecake, that's great, too,
as long as I'm choosing it, aslong as I am mindfully,
deliberately choosing it. Andthen along with choosing it
comes the ability to say, Ichose that I will not feel bad
(36:14):
about choosing it, I will notpunish myself, I will not beat
myself up, I will not go downthis road. Because when we go
down that road, it's because wedidn't choose it. It's because
we fell into it as a victim.
Right? Yeah,
Philip Pape (36:30):
yeah, for sure. No, I love that balance. And I was
thinking of, you know, hedonismon one side. And what's the
opposite of asceticism orrestriction on the other side,
right? What about something elsecame to mind there with
regarding to choosing? Oh, so alot of people have trouble
trouble choosing in the moment,I think that's a struggle that
people face when they'reespecially dealing with
(36:51):
ingrained habits related to foodand their relationship with
food. And if they went to aparty like that, just being
thrown into the party and say,Now go make choices may may be
difficult for somebody who hasstruggled with this their whole
life. Is there a pre planningthat goes on to kind of develop
the habit of knowing that youcan choose if that makes sense?
(37:12):
Absolutely. So there's
Monica Ricci (37:13):
this thing, again, I'm referring back to the heroic
coaching program that I'm inright now, which is about to
wrap up. So that'll be anotherfun certification that I'll have
under my belt. But there's thisthing that we talked about in
heroic, which is, it's a fourletter acronym called whoop,
whoop, and it is W O P. And thisis exactly what you can do to
prepare for almost anything,whether it's a project or
(37:35):
whether it's just going to aholiday party. W is what is the
outcome? Right? What what are wewhat do we want the outcome to
be? Well, I want the outcome tobe that I want to feel great
after I leave this party and notfeel like I've completely
abandoned myself. Okay, great.
What is the what is the firstOh, is? Oh, actually, sorry? W
is what? Oh, is the outcome?
(37:57):
What is the wish? What is thewish that I want to do this
party and feel great? What isthe outcome? Which is, which is
why do I want to feel that way?
Okay, well, because I likemyself, mastery, I want to stay
on and maintain the progressthat I've already made. Okay,
great. What's the obstacle?
That's the next oh, what's theobstacle that you're gonna
(38:17):
encounter? And the P is how doyou plan for it. So if you can
anticipate what's coming uparound the curve, you're not
going to get surprised by it. Ifyou're driving along at night,
and you're around a curve, andall of a sudden, you run that
curve, and there's a bearsitting in the middle of the
road, that's a split seconddecision that you are not
prepared for, and you'reprobably going to crash. But if
somebody told you, hey, about amile up the road, you're going
(38:39):
to hit a curb, and there's goingto be a bear around there. What
are you going to do, you'regoing to drive differently, it's
the same thing. So if I knowthat my weakness is what up
sweets, or whatever it is, I'mgoing to prepare in a different
way to go to that party, I'mgoing to fill myself up in
advance with the things that Iwant fats and proteins, right,
(38:59):
I'm going to go there nothungry, so that my resolve is
higher, I'm going to makechoices mindfully in the moment
to do proteins. And if I feel Ican, I'm going to mindfully
choose to have a little bit of acookie or one cookie, instead of
completely losing it losing allmy control, and then feeling
terrible about myself. Soabsolutely, seeing around the
(39:21):
corners of your life gives you atremendous amount of agency in
the way that your life playsout.
Philip Pape (39:28):
This is so awesome.
Like I love this model. And I'mgoing to use that and I'm gonna
throw your name and when I talkto clients about the many ways
to do this, because managingrisk, I think of it as managing
risk or having a food plan orhaving a strategy going in. But
the way you put it of hey, we'rein control, we know things are
going to happen. We've beenaround the block, you know, for
those of us who've been on theplanet for three, four or five
(39:48):
decades, we know what's going tohappen at a party. It's like not
like you know Christmas iscoming. So did you save up to
buy the gifts it's going tohappen? What are you going to do
about it to take total controlof your situation, because it is
up to you, even if it's a littlehard, but eventually becomes a
habit. Awesome. Okay, goodstuff. So, I know you do the
Self Mastery coaching, we'vebeen talking about self mastery.
(40:10):
And this really helps people, Ithink you call it upgrade their
life experience, which isanother I like that visual
upgrade their life experience.
You talked a little bit aboutthe coaching, but earlier you
said we're gonna get into somemore maybe strategies, are there
other models or details you wantto get into on that?
Monica Ricci (40:29):
Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about what we
touched on earlier, which isone, which is the three
components of the identity, theidentity to behavior sort of
line, right? When you connectidentity to behavior, there's a
thing in the middle, which isthe the attribute, and I'll give
you a very concrete example, ifyour identity, your aspirational
(40:52):
identity, let's say is, let'sjust use athlete because again,
it's relatable, is athlete, andthe behavior that an athlete
would do would be to strengthtrain three times a week and do
a little bit of cardio two daysa week. Well, in between those
is our ways of being ourattributes, right? So an athlete
(41:18):
might have attributes ofconsistent, that's an attribute,
right? That that would be greatthat would that would support
those behaviors, and anattribute of positive and
attribute of hopeful anattribute of, let's say,
courageous, right, you get toyou get to assign to your
(41:40):
identity, athlete, all theseways of being so that you show
up in those ways to execute onthe actual action.
Philip Pape (41:49):
It's not that you necessarily have these strengths
to begin with, we're againlooking in the future like we
will, and we will embody thesethings, okay?
Monica Ricci (41:57):
Yes, but here's the thing we get to embody, we
get to have any attribute wewant, just by claiming it today,
I will be calm. Today, thismorning, I will be strong.
That's one of my attributes thatI select every day. Because
under my identity of athlete,strong, consistent, disciplined,
(42:18):
those are attributes which lendthemselves to supporting the
execution of the strengthtraining the cardio though,
whatever, it's going to be thebicycling or whatever, right? So
I wish I could remember whosaid, assume a virtue and it is
yours. If I if I say to myselftoday, I am strong, confident,
disciplined. That's what I'mgoing to embody today. That's
(42:41):
who I want to be today. Thathelps me to remember why I'm
even in this endeavor of selfmastery. Right? Am I being
strong right now? Am I beingdisciplined? Am I being
consistent? Or because? Becausethose things are a tangible way
to embody the identity of anathlete, for example. And then
(43:02):
they translate down to well,what would a consistent strong
discipline athlete do right now?
Get out of bed? Right. I havethis conversation with myself
almost every morning. Yeah, whatwould it what would a courageous
champion do right now, eventhough it's warm in this bed?
Right. greatest champion wouldget up right now? Why? Why would
she get up because she'scommitted to being courageous
(43:25):
champion for who? for herself?
Okay.
Philip Pape (43:32):
Yeah, I love that.
The
Monica Ricci (43:34):
conversations we have with ourselves are the very
most important ones.
Philip Pape (43:38):
Yeah. And we have total control over them, right.
I mean, I don't know if it wasthe Stoic philosophers or Mother
Teresa or somebody who said Ilike no matter how everything,
no matter how bad everything isaround you, like the one thing
you control is what's in yourmind. Right. It's your thoughts.
Monica Ricci (43:53):
Absolutely. And you know, it's interesting that
you said the Stoic philosophersbecause I keep referring to this
coaching program that I'm aboutwrapped up with and, and it is
based on stoic philosophy andmodern science. Okay. So just to
be clear, and you know, MarkDevine and David Goggins and all
these, you know, kind of modernheroes, combined with Aristotle
(44:17):
and Socrates and Epictetus andSeneca
Philip Pape (44:19):
cheetahs. Yeah, Marcus Aurelius all those guys.
Good stuff. Yeah, I love I lovestoicism. It's great. I mean, if
anything is is worth inspiringyou, you know, to think about
how to take control and be inthe moment what you're talking
about. It's that. So we'vecovered a lot of this. Is there
anything else we're like relatedto creating these significant
(44:39):
shifts in mindset that come tomind that we haven't discussed?
Monica Ricci (44:43):
I don't know if there's anything we haven't
discussed? Probably a lot wehaven't discussed in what we
wanted to cover today. I thinkwe have been covered. But I
think if I would, if you wereasking me for closing remarks, I
would say I would say that totoday. And indeed not today even
but in this moment is the onlyplace that you have any
(45:05):
influence over over your futurein this moment, and and every
choice you make in this moment,gets you closer to or farther
away from the person that youwant to be. And that's a really
great reminder to kind of carrywith you during the day,
Philip Pape (45:20):
in this moment, and Today's a new day. Don't worry
about what happened in the past.
Let's do it. Let's get up andmake it happen. Awesome. Thank
you so much. Well, Monica, wherecan people learn about all this?
Great information and you andyour work?
Monica Ricci (45:34):
Well, Twitter is my social media boyfriend and I
am at Monica Ricki on there.
And, and Instagram, I am atremaking Monica. And so I would
love to connect with anyone whowants to reach out.
Philip Pape (45:47):
Awesome, so I'll include that information in the
show notes. When the episodecomes out, and people can can
take go click on that. It wasawesome having you on I love
talking all this mindset. Youinspired me. It's great because
I want to be thinking aboutthese things and my clients and
everyone listening. Thanks againfor coming on the show. Monica
Monica Ricci (46:03):
was a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Philip.
Philip Pape (46:07):
Thanks for listening to the show. Before
you go, I have a quick favoriteask. If you enjoy the podcast,
let me know by leaving a fivestar review in Apple podcasts
and telling others about theshow. Thanks again for joining
me Philip Pape in this episodeof Wits & Weights. I'll see you
next time and stay strong.
Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, where we
discuss getting strong andhealthy with strength training
and sustainable nutrition. I'myour host, Philip pape, and in
each episode, we examinestrategies to help you achieve
physical self mastery through ahealthy skepticism of the
fitness industry, and acommitment to consistent
nutrition and training forsustainable results.
(00:31):
Welcome to another episode ofWits & Weights. Today we're
digging into shifting yourmindset to Achieve Self Mastery
and live your best life throughthings like identity, habits,
productivity, and of course asalways on the show how those tie
back to fitness and health. Myguest is Monica Ricky Monica has
been felicite facilitatingpositive change for over 20
(00:52):
years. She founded catalystorganizing, LLC in 1998. Working
with individuals, businessowners and business teams to
help clarify priorities, achievegoals, create organization and
improve productivity. In theworld of productivity. Monique
has been an author, blogger,speaker, radio host and frequent
TV guest on many local morningshows, as well as Fox and
(01:16):
Friends cnn.com and HGTV. Todayshe uses her experience and
talents to facilitate facilitatepositive change and
transformation through coaching,speaking and social media.
Monica lives a nomadic lifecoaching via zoom while
traveling the country. And whenshe isn't moving to a new city.
She enjoys strength training,cycling, baseball, rock and roll
(01:36):
and high quality. Butter. Yum.
Monica, I'm so glad you can comeon the show. How are you?
Monica Ricci (01:42):
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me,
Philip. I'm great. I am inConnecticut at the moment, as I
mentioned are you as youmentioned, I live this beautiful
nomadic adventure. And so Ihappen to be on the northeast
part of my road tour. And it isreally lovely being here. Yeah,
we were talking about thebeautiful fall because we're
recording this in November. AndI'm also in Connecticut. And
(02:04):
it's so awesome to hear aboutyour ability to travel. And when
you say the North, you know,this is just where I'm from, but
the country is huge. So I'mreally excited to talk to you
because you have thisbackground, not only in health
and fitness, but in personaldevelopment and mindset. And so
what is your personal story andhow you got interested in the
type of coaching you do today?
Well, you know, sometimes, Ithink I know for myself, I can't
(02:28):
even see the beginning of when Istarted to get interested in
personal development it if Ifollow the line back, it's
almost like you can't reallytell where it starts. Because
it's it starts so smallsometimes. But I've really been
hitting it hard, probably thelast, I would say probably the
last 10 or 15 years in justreally exploring opportunities
(02:49):
to learn,to grow to take advantage of the
resources that are out therethat help us do things like
cultivate our own self masteryin terms of you know, coaching
and courses and books and youknow, all the things we hear
about the people you surroundyourself with. And so as I was
building my business back in thewell, it was really the turn of
(03:13):
the last I mean the end of thelast century, which is the 90s
It's amazing. It's been it'sbeen that long. But I started
that business in 1998, with theidea that one of my strengths is
helping people to get to thecore of issues and simplify
things. And I translated thatinto physical simplicity, organ
(03:35):
organization, and decluttering.
And so that was kind of thebeginning of this of the
personal development work that Idid, because organizing
someone's environment. Andindeed organizing your own
environment. And building theskills to do that is definitely
an exercise in personaldevelopment. Because it takes
(03:57):
discipline, it takes learning,it takes a certain skill set a
certain habits set, right. Inever connected really to
personal development way backthen I just kind of recognize
that it was a need in themarketplace. And I had a skill
for it. And so I just jumped inand started doing it. And it
grew so really organically. I amoh I shouldn't even say this. I
(04:20):
am that business owner who neverhad a business plan or never
planned at all. I just kind ofleaped right in and literally
never did a day of marketing inmy whole life and my whole
career for 20 years. I justdidn't and and in some ways I
think that's great. And thatsays hey, you know, like, you're
onto something right? If youdon't, right, if you don't need
(04:42):
to put your energy in that tocome to you Sure. Yeah, right.
And it really did opportunitiesjust came it was such a
beautiful existence and, and itwas really, it was probably
about four years into it, that Ireally started to get a grasp on
on how important the work wasthat I was doing. For the people
that I was doing it for, itwasn't about the spaces it was
(05:03):
about the people. And there weretimes when, when I realized that
just the conversation we werehaving was the important piece
that it wasn't about remakingthe closet, or, you know,
remaking the office or whateverit was we were working on. It
was the conversation thathappened in that space. That was
transformative. And that's whatI latched on to. So many years
(05:27):
later, when I began to feel likeit was time for me to exit that
industry. In that specificcapacity. I still, I still am in
the service of productivity.
It's just that I'm not doing itexactly the same way sort of a
different channel now with thecoaching and the masterminding
and such. Right, but but thatwas, I guess, really my foray
into into working in thepersonal development space, it's
(05:49):
started way back, then. And itcontinues today. As you
mentioned, I travel and I dozoom. And it's a really
beautiful existence, because itallows me to reconnect with
people in my life that I haven'tseen in a long time. And it also
allows me to continue to workand contribute in that way. And
it allows me to see places I'venever seen before and meet
(06:11):
people I've never met.
Philip Pape (06:15):
You know, it's amazing, your story, how you,
you, you engage in passionsalong the way that eventually it
kind of converged into somethingyou didn't expect, right? You
tell me about how you focus onproductivity and organizing. But
now it's the organization ofyour life, right? It's the
development of things andorganizing things. And now the
development of yourself and yourand then the nomadic life prop,
(06:38):
I'm assuming the whole pandemicand everything moving online,
and technologies flourishinglike that, also, maybe
facilitated the ability to dothat. So what what Tell me a
little bit more about thecoaching that you do today in
terms of personal development.
And also maybe I don't know ifyou want to tie that into day
13, that you mentioned before wetalked today, I don't want to
give it away.
Monica Ricci (06:59):
The the coaching that I do today is I do a
combination, I do privatecoaching, and I also do group
group coaching and business teamcoaching. And what we work on is
is sort of a mixed model. Andwhat I what I mean, as a mixed
model is we work on things thatare very tactical, in some
cases, very granular. But wealso work higher level like we
(07:21):
work on things like who are youbeing right? Who do you need to
be in this situation? Who haveyou been in the past that hasn't
worked? And how do you embodythis new identity moving
forward, so that you can createthe habits you want to create,
to create the outcomes you wantto create? Right? So there's
this all this kind of higherlevel, a little more esoteric
(07:43):
stuff. But when it comes down toit, those things translate
actual specific actions, you gobroad, to narrow, and that's
where we focus our attention isin the everyday habits, actions
and disciplines that reallybuild a life.
Philip Pape (07:58):
Yeah, and that that's so aligned with a lot of
what I do as well, withnutrition coaching, like you
said, it's not not necessarilywhere you've been or where you
are today and what you embodytoday, it's the future, you,
right? Act as if that's whereyou're going to be. And now
what, where's the gap? And Ilove that approach. Because
yeah, it is up here. But itdrives down, down down down to
today, in the moment in front ofus, when we get
Monica Ricci (08:21):
a little bit weak, give some real really granular
and concrete examples, because Iknow, folks who watch podcasts,
they watch for a reason theywant information, swamp
takeaways, they want to be ableto go I want to do something new
now. Yes. And we can absolutelytalk about how the higher vision
of who you want to be and whoyou strive to be translates into
a singular action every day. Andthat is really the powerful part
(08:44):
of this kind of this kind ofcoaching is that it involves not
only that instructive part, butalso it involves the community
and the accountability piece,which is so supportive, they're
kind of like the guardrails inlife, you know, he's having that
community, and then he also theaccountability, so that you're
not alone in this journey of ofchanging mastery.
Philip Pape (09:04):
Great. Yeah. And I'm all for the listener getting
as much value and strategies outof this as possible. So do we,
do we start there? Do we startup at, at maybe, you know, a lot
of people know what to do.
Right? And maybe not, but a lotof people have sort of the
education or they listen to alot of podcasts. And they may
personally know what they needto do. But they get overwhelmed
taking that first step of beingconsistent day in day out,
(09:25):
right. That's the overarchingchallenge for a lot of people.
So how does someone develop thatskill or habit over time and
create those outcomes? I thinkyou refer to that as the law of
accumulation. Hmm.
Monica Ricci (09:37):
I love the law of accumulation, which essentially
just says that small changesapplied consistently add up to
great results. I mean, it'spretty, it's pretty
straightforward, right? Andduring my fitness journey, my
fitness transformation. Istarted my fitness
transformation in 2019. And Ididn't intend for it to be a
transformation. Frankly, I hadno idea what was gonna happen,
(10:00):
but it's it set off this cascadeof events and changes in me that
was that led me to where I amtoday. But during my fitness
transformation, I just showedup, I just showed the heck up
every day. And I didn't know theend result. But what I what I
knew was that if I showed upevery day, something would
change. What I didn't realizewas that I would change in the
(10:22):
process was that I would becomea new person. And when you
mentioned the what, why and theor the what people know what to
do, sometimes they do, sometimesthey don't. But let's assume
that people know what to do. AndI love using the container of
health and fitness. And thereason I love using it is
because every single person canrelate to it. Every single
(10:42):
person has had this conversationwith themselves around their
health and fitness, it's notsome magical thing that only a
few people can understand. Somost people know what they need
to do. What they miss, though,is the why they want to do it,
and who they have to become inorder to do it. And that's where
the coaching comes in. Right?
That's where you dig a littledeeper, because the thing is,
(11:03):
and I have said this in speakingengagements I can remember, I
was it was probably I don'tknow, mid 2000s. And I was
speaking to a group of ArmyWives at a base called I want to
say it was Fort Thomas Georgia.
And I actually have video ofthis piece of my of my
(11:24):
presentation, we were talkingabout this exact thing. And I
said, information is justinformation. Unless you apply
it, it means nothing. Forexample, I know what I need to
do to lose 15 or 20 pounds. Am Idoing it? No, I'm not. So that
(11:45):
was me, like in the past sayingexactly what I'm saying now,
right? Which is the informationisn't the magic, the knowing
what to do is not the magic.
Because if that were the magic,everybody would be everywhere
they want to be right now. Yeah,it's the getting yourself to do
it. And that's what self masteryis. And it's very nut, it's very
core and the essence, selfmastery is the ability to get
(12:06):
yourself do the thing you needto do whether you want to or
whether you don't. Regardless ofhow you feel acting. That is
great.
Philip Pape (12:16):
And I love it. You also put it earlier as showing
up. If you don't show up, youcan't change. And you can't
become that future you whetherit's the lighter, stronger,
fitter, happier, whatever youwant to call it version of you.
And that term, physical, mentaland self mastery really
resonates with me because Ithink I think my podcast
description actually has thatexact term. So you really
resonate with me there. Oh,mine. So yeah, yeah, no, I love
(12:40):
that that phrase right? Of thefuture you so let's dig into the
habits then a little bit more.
Because like you alluded to thatthis is kind of the missing
skill, we often know what to do.
And we don't know what to do. Ithink people are people know how
to seek out information andeducation. But if people could
grasp and develop habitbuilding, right, it would
(13:00):
cultivate the consistency wetalked about in the small
results we talked about. So isthere something about the
science of habit building thatwe're all missing? Or don't
understand something you can letus know? And that's actionable
where I could, I can learn moreabout habit building itself, so
then I can apply that skill.
Monica Ricci (13:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
There's so much on habits thatis out there right now. BJ Fogg
talks about habits in his book,I think he's the one who wrote
tiny habits. And James clear Ilove I love his content and
atomic habits as well. And solike, for example, the James
clear model of the habit loop,which is the cue, the craving,
the response and the reward,it's the circle all the time,
round, and around and around, wego right. And we don't even
(13:39):
realize how much of our livesare habituated. But they are and
that's our brains way ofconserving energy in our brains
way of getting us through theday without being completely
exhausted. Is that anything wedo repeatedly? The brain just
goes okay, duly noted. Boop,boop. And it puts it in the back
for like, you know, just Okay,now it's second nature. But the
good part is, good habits canbecome second nature. But the
(14:02):
bad part is unconscious habits,just kind of easy default ways
of being also become secondnature and very ingrained and
entrenched, as well. So we breakdown the habit loop and we look
at the cue, the craving, theresponse and the reward, there
are certain things we can do tointerrupt that loop to either
add new habits we want toincorporate into our lives, or
(14:24):
stop existing habits. And TonyRobbins will say, you can't just
stop an existing habit, you haveto replace it, replace it. So I
find that that's probably truebecause stopping something
leaves a vacuum for somethingelse to come in. So you want to
be able to choose what thatthing is, right? We've often
heard that folks who stopped onebehavior like for example, and
(14:46):
addictive behavior of any timeoften will just substitute a
different addictive behavior orit right it may switch they may
go from, you know, beingaddicted to one substance to
them being addicted to food, forexample, or gambling or whatever
it might be. Right. So the waythat we interrupt that habit
(15:08):
loop is, is by looking at thehabits that we, that we want to
change or replace, I should say,and making those habits
difficult, making theminconvenient. Right? So if, for
example, your habit is thatyou're constantly checking your
phone at dinner, and that'simpacting your relationships,
and I gotta believe that's thething. You got to ask yourself,
(15:30):
Okay, if the habit I want toreplace is that I want to stop
checking my phone at dinner,because it makes my spouse or my
partner or my kids feeldisconnected from me, how can I
make that difficult? Okay, well,how can we let's look, you can
put the phone across the room orin a drawer or upstairs, right?
(15:53):
So again, you're puttingbarriers between you and that
automatic behavior, right. Andthen similarly, you want the
habits that you do want to beeasier. So you design your
environment, around making theresistance as low as possible
between you and your new habit.
(16:14):
We always hear this, put yourgym shoes at the outlet, right?
By your bed or pack your gym bagthe night before or sleep in
your gym clothes, or whatever it
Philip Pape (16:23):
may be. I've had those myself, yes.
Monica Ricci (16:26):
Removing the friction and the barrier to the
ones you do want and putting inbarriers to ones you don't want.
That's your friend, think about.
Philip Pape (16:37):
Right. So somebody could take a somebody can
inventory their day, right? Andthink about those things that
get in the way or cause frictionor like you said, the the phone
at the dinner table that I knowit's causing a problem again,
people people know this stuff,it's not like they're clueless
about, it's just they get into aroutine and day after day, they
come home from work, they'retired, it's like, they don't
want to think about it. Do youjust you take a piece of paper
(16:59):
and kind of write down the topthree or four for the day? And
then right next to it, eitherthe replacement? Or how to make
it harder? I mean, depending onwhich direction want to go, is
it that simple?
Monica Ricci (17:09):
It's, I would say do one or two at a time, one or
two habits at a time, right? AndI would say to ask yourself
questions, ask yourself, don'tjust tell yourself, but actually
ask yourself and inquire.
Because what you're askingyourself, you're consulting,
your Higher Self, your innerknowing. You're not just
(17:29):
thinking it's kind of a littlebit of a shift. Because if I
look around the room, and Iasked myself, what needs to be
done in this room today, I'mengaging that part of myself.
That is sort of the the, I guessit would be that yourself that
can see things through adifferent lens than I got like
Philip Pape (17:49):
a Socratic. Yeah, and you know, what needs to be
done
Monica Ricci (17:53):
today? Same thing, how can I make this harder? Or
how can I make this easier. Andalso, asking someone else is
helpful to getting differentperspective can be helpful in
that in that process. And also,we, if we look back at the ABCs
of habit building, which is anactual behavior in celebration,
(18:15):
which I'm pretty sure as BJFogg, the acknowledgement of
every time you do or don't dothe thing is really also an
important part of it. Right? Youget that celebration of Look at
me, look what I did. I left myphone in the drawer, and I
didn't die, right? At dinnertime. Or I went to the gym, and
(18:37):
I feel so great about myself.
Yes, that high five, like,that's totally who I want to be
today. And that ties into theidentity, right? Who do we want
it to be? It's not just the whatare we doing? We are integrated
beings, we are Mind Body, Soulspirit, right? So moving the
body is really important to getthe head to follow, right? And
also integrating the head in theacknowledgement. What makes the
(19:01):
body want to move more. So inthis sort of spiral, it's, it's
like a cycle. It's reallylovely.
Philip Pape (19:08):
Got it, who do we want to be? And I guess we can
stack that onto getting oursteps pacing around the house as
we reflect on that. So so as oneother technique comes up, I want
to ask you about and that'shabit stacking, where you're
combining something indulgent,it may not be the best habit in
and of itself, but you'recombining it with a good habit,
like the common the commoncommon example is like watching
(19:31):
Netflix while you walk on thetreadmill or something. What do
you think of that concept?
Monica Ricci (19:36):
I think habit stacking is wonderful, because
you're already in the habit ofdoing something. And so, using
that as your cue, like if we goback to the clear model, the
queue, which leads to thecraving, right and so, you
already have a queue in place.
So when I do this, I will alsodo this, or after I do this
which is solidify Do I alwaysuse brushing teeth, because
(20:01):
there is nobody that I've everspoken to who has a problem
remembering to brush their teethin the morning and at night,
we've been doing it since wewere tiny babies, right. So
that's one of the most ingrainedhabits that we have, or taking a
shower or anything else that youcan do without thinking, if you
can attach and stack a new habitonto an existing one. It's like,
(20:22):
it's like a little link, right,and it connects it. And so
eventually, you begin to viewthose things together. When I
get up in the morning, I willbrush my teeth, and then I'll
meditate. For example, I'm justmaking that up, right? If you're
not in the habit of meditating,because otherwise, what you do
is you try to squeeze meditatingin somewhere during the day when
(20:43):
you have time. But when youattach it to something you're
already doing, you're carvingout a little piece of time for
it, and then it happens everydayat the same time. And then once
those two are solidified, youcan actually stack another one
on top. So by the time you're,you know, six weeks in, or
however many weeks in, you'vegot a stack of little morning
(21:03):
things that you do that create asuper foundation for you to set
your day upon.
Philip Pape (21:12):
Yeah, that's awesome. And for people who
think they don't have enoughtime, that that sounds like a
great technique to because someof these things are done, you
know, simultaneously, right? Sothey're more efficient.
Actually, I was just talking toa client who likes to drink a
lot of coffee. And we're talkingabout getting enough hydration
not getting dehydrated. And sowhy don't we, every time you
pour a cup of coffee, pour aglass of water, put some, you
know, put some lemon and saltand make both together. And then
(21:33):
when you're done with thecoffee, now you have the water
to kind of last you until untilthe next coffee, you know.
Anyway, so I watched yourYouTube video about micro
stepping, which is sounds alsoin this realm of creating
change. Can you explain thatconcept, I don't know if it's
different than what we've beentalking about, or we're not
going,
Monica Ricci (21:51):
it's not really different. It's just a matter of
shifting your mindset fromtaking huge, massive actions all
at once to taking tiny littleactions and recognizing that
those are incredibly valid, andthat they are the way to get to
big changes. I saw a really coolgraphic not long ago, and it was
just a little pencil drawing.
And on one side, it had apicture of a ladder, a really
(22:12):
tall ladder and a little stickfigure guy at the top. And on
the other side, it had a pictureof a really tall ladder. And
there were only about a quarterof the number of steps. And the
steps were really far apart inthe lawn guy was on the bottom,
because he couldn't reach thefirst step. So the whole point
was every step is important. Youcan't get to the top if you
(22:36):
can't reach the first step. Andso it's that idea. We've we've,
we've so conditioned ourselvesto believe if we're not going to
the gym for an hour, five days aweek, you know, hard driving
that we that we're failing. Butthat's not how you get there.
You don't go from zero to 100.
(22:56):
You don't go from the standardAmerican diet to carnivore in
one day. But don't do it, youstep your way there, right, you
change in slow incrementalparts. Same with any habit, you
step your way there, because inthe small steps, you create
wins. And every time you createa win, your brain wants another
(23:18):
win. And that's why it'simportant. The micro steps are
important because you setyourself up to succeed multiple
the day.
Philip Pape (23:26):
That's so motivating. Monique, I love your
energy, by the way, themicrostepping it is a nuance in
this discussion, because youknow, up till now we've been
talking about habits andreplacing things. But if people
realize that also if, if theyfeel that new habit or
replacement is kind of a bigjump, how do you break that back
down to a much smaller jump,like if you're, if you're
(23:47):
getting five hours of sleeptoday, you're not gonna get
eight hours of sleep immediatelynext week, but you might get
five and 15 right are five and30. So I love that concept for
people. Hey, this is PhilipPape. And if you feel like
you've put in effort to improveyour health and fitness, but
aren't getting results, I inviteyou to apply for a one on one
coaching to make real progressand get the body you desire.
(24:11):
We'll work together to figureout what's missing so you can
look better, perform better andfeel better. Just go to wits &
weights.com/coaching, to learnabout my program and apply
today. Now back to the episode.
Monica Ricci (24:24):
Absolutely, yeah, you know, and the other thing
too is if you if you look at howif you look at how you would
approach teaching a child how todo something, and and then you
look at how you approachteaching yourself how to do
something new, very often it'svery different. Why? Why would
we Why would we expect a childto go from not being able to
(24:45):
ride a bike to being able toride a bike with no training
wheels? Who wouldn't? Wewouldn't we would never set our
kid up for failure like that,would we? Yet we set ourselves
up for failure all the timeevery day.
Philip Pape (24:55):
Yep. You don't go from counting coins to algebra
in one day. It's Six years ofschool, right? Yeah. Okay,
awesome. So I guess I want totalk a little bit about fitness
specifically. And then also someof the you mentioned, like very
actionable strategies we can getinto. And we love to talk about
fitness and body compositionthrough muscle building and fat
(25:16):
loss on this show. Many peopleare trying to lose weight,
right? And the traditionalformula is, eat less, move more.
You see people doing tons ofcardio, constantly restricting
themselves through dieting. Tellus what about something you call
the exercise myth and what theright approach might be for
someone trying to lose fat,maybe we get tied into all the
habits we just talked about?
Monica Ricci (25:37):
Okay, well, the first thing I need to share with
you is that I am not a personaltrainer, and I am a health
coach. Among my other coaching,I also am a certified health
coach. So I just like to putthat out there because I am I
just not in my wheelhouse tocreate training plans or
anything, but what I will sayabout the exercise myth, which
is people put their attention onthe wrong process, or the wrong
(25:59):
part of the process when theywant to lose weight and get in
shape. Most people that come tome for health coaching are
frustrated. And when we have ourinitial conversation 99% of the
time, one of the things thatcome up that comes out of their
mouth is I should be what?
exercising more Yes. And 99% ofthe time, they're wrong. What
(26:20):
they should be doing is shiftingthe attention from the lack of
exercise to the power they haveover what goes in their giant
hole in their face. For sure,right? Yes, so one of my one of
my aunts, dropped 70. Now, notquite 70, she dropped her first
(26:43):
40. And in about three months,and I specifically said to her,
do not worry about exercising,do not your knees are not gonna
be able to take it right now atthe weight she was at. And she
was astonished that she could,you know, created this result in
her life. And that was justreally proved to her the
(27:04):
exercise is wonderful as anadjunct. But it is not the magic
that you're not doing. So manypeople have this belief in
themselves, about themselvesthat if they could just get to
the gym more, that would be thething. And it's not, it's just
not, and they don't often wantto hear it. Because what it
means is they have to change thething they do all the time all
(27:27):
day, which is the way they eat,it's actually easier to blame
your lack of exercise than tolook at what you have to do
every day, we just make harddecisions every single meal. But
that's part of self mastery. Andthat's part of an identity
shift, right that we weretalking about earlier is coming
to grips with what is true andloving and accepting what is
(27:49):
true. You don't have to like it.
But you do have to accept it.
Philip Pape (27:55):
Right. And so related to that mindset shift. I
know, I've heard you mentionedthat identity drives behaviors,
and vice versa. So So what doyou mean by that? And how does
that apply to what we were justtalking about? Well,
Monica Ricci (28:09):
every behavior that we do is a direct
reflection of what we believeabout ourselves of who we
believe we are, right? It's ouridentity leaks out of us in our
actions. And so if we can changeeither one of silos, it's like
an equation, right? If youchange one, you begin to change
the other. Or if you change thisone, you begin to change this
(28:32):
one. Ideally, you change themboth at the same time. And then
you have really start thinkingmoving. So if I believe that I'm
a healthy person, if my identityis an athlete, if my identity is
a focus, business leader, right,if that's my aspirational
identity, then I get to askmyself, well, what would an
(28:52):
athlete do? Or what would ahealthy fit person eat? Or what
would have focused businessleaders show up like in this
conversation, having thoseidentities those aspirational
identities as touchstonesinforms the granularity, and
that's what we talked aboutearlier about going from broad
to narrow. If my identity is uphere on the top line, it
(29:15):
trickles down into day to day today actions and reinforce that
yes, that is who I am. In fact,I just had a moment that I'd
like to share with you. About ahalf an hour ago.
Philip Pape (29:28):
Oh, you mean you just had them? Okay. Yeah.
Monica Ricci (29:30):
It's not a moment, an identity moment. About a half
an hour ago, I finishedrecording a one minute promo
video for a speaking engagementthat I'm doing in March at a
conference. And I had to recordit a few times because, you
know, it's, you know, it's notperfect and polished. Yeah,
right. I want it good. And I soI recorded it, I finished it.
(29:53):
And as I was walking down thestairs, I said to myself out
loud, man, I nailed that and Andthen I said, because that's what
I do. I nail things. I amawesome on camera. And it just,
I'm just reinforcing theidentity that I am awesome on
camera. And that that is mywheelhouse. And of course, I
(30:15):
nailed it. That's what I do.
Right? It's incredibly powerfulto acknowledge yourself in that
way, the same way that you wouldacknowledge your best friend,
you know, high five, or meetslap on the back, or you do
whatever, man, you nailed thatthing. Why don't we not do that
for ourselves? We got to do thatevery day. You nailed that? Oh,
yeah. Love it. It's just likeyou to do this, just like you to
know that thing. Whatever it is,it's just like you to get up and
(30:38):
work out in the morning. It'sjust like you to choose this
incredibly healthy meal andreally enjoy it. Like that's who
you are. Yeah, that's howbehavior and identity swirl
together. One reinforces theother.
Philip Pape (30:55):
Yeah, I love that.
And and it's, it's, it's a formof visualization. But it's very
powerful, right? Because then itleads to you saying, Okay, what
do I need to do to get there?
And I know, when I work withclients, we talk about a vision
for the future, what do you looklike in a year, one of my
clients, and I want to, I'mgoing to be devastatingly
gorgeous. Next year, I'm goingto be devastating and gorgeous.
I'm like, that's what that'swhat we're gonna do, then that's
(31:15):
what you are. And we just needto close the gap to get there.
Love that. So there's anotherthing you talk about in terms of
being an outlier. And I don'tknow if you mean that in a. So
for example, we talked aboutresearch based fitness and
evidence based fitness here. Andyou know, most research is done
and you have, most data pointsfall in a normal curve, right,
(31:36):
like a bell curve that peopleare familiar with. And mostly,
very few people fall at thetails of those curves. But the
people that do tend to be theones that are more successful,
like the fact that only 5% ofpeople keep their weight off,
you know, after five years, andthey lose it. And so almost
being weird, in that sense ofbeing an outlier is often a good
thing, I would say, and youtalked about the courage to be
an outlier. So I'd love to hearyour perspective on that.
Monica Ricci (31:59):
Well, um, as of today, let's just say, almost
90% of the American populationis metabolically unhealthy. That
is some scary stuff. So if youdon't want to go down that road,
you got to do somethingdifferent than the vast majority
of people are doing, which willmake you an outlier. And that's
(32:22):
all well and good on paper. Butwhat does that look like day to
day, that's where the coachingcomes in. That's where the
understanding that if you wantsomething different, you got to
do something different. And whenit becomes difficult to do is
the most important time to doit. That's where you show up as
(32:44):
an outlier socially. We have gotto as individuals, embrace the
fact that no one is responsiblefor us, but us, and that it is
up to us to protect what we wantfor our lives, because no one
else will protect it like wewill, if I go to a social
situation, whatever it is, youknow, we have in November, what
(33:06):
do we have coming up theholidays, holidays, right? So
many people are going to show upat holiday parties, whether it's
office parties, friends,neighbors, whatever, there are
going to be a group of peoplewho go with the flow, and who
use the excuse. It's theholidays, I didn't want to be
rude, I gotta have a cocktail, Igot to this, I couldn't turn
(33:29):
that I couldn't I had to as ifthey're as if someone else is in
control of their actions. Andthen there is a group of people
who will say internally, I cancome here and I can choose to
only eat the shrimp, and thesausage, and the egg, the
deviled eggs. And I can have aDiet Coke or seltzer water, or
(33:51):
half glass of wine instead ofthree glasses. I choose to have
this Yes, I choose to have thesethings. And the reason that I
choose to have these things isin service of my future self,
who I love. And I love my futureself more than I love what
anyone at this gathering thinksof me. That's it right there.
That's it. I love my future selfand my present self more than
(34:16):
what anyone else thinks of me.
Yeah, if you can embrace andhold that in your hand and your
heart and your mind and yoursoul and your spirit, becoming
an outlier and doing somethingthat is different, strange or
unfamiliar to other people is apiece of cake.
Philip Pape (34:32):
And that's often what if you are doing the right
thing it often is it does makeyou an outlier, doesn't it? I
mean, there's so much pressurefrom friends, society, family,
social media, and usually thenorm is not what you have to be
doing and what you have to bedoing as hard as you said. It's
hard and there's kind of aconverse, converse to that.
That's maybe all just asinsidious. You're talking about
(34:54):
the going to a social outing ora holiday party. And it's saying
that I let's say you're on adiet and you tell you yourself.
I can't I can't I can't that'salmost the same thing. Right, as
opposed to saying I choose notto. That's just what I was
thinking of. Yeah, that's,that's great advice. Monica.
Monica Ricci (35:09):
We, you know, I love this whole conversation,
Philip about, about balance. Andso so there's this thing that I
use in my coaching, and I'velearned it, I learned it through
the heroic coaching program thatwe're in now. And I rely on it
so heavily, almost every day.
And it's what Aristotle callsthe golden mean. Or the virtuous
mean, and it's being in the,it's being in the middle. So
(35:30):
there's the the idea of extremeson each side, which is, I can't
write. And then over here is Ican, or I will do whatever I
want. And, but then there's themiddle, which is I choose, so I
can do whatever I want. I chooseto do whatever I whatever I
(35:52):
choose. So if I choose toabstain, that's great. But if I
choose to have a slice ofcheesecake, that's great, too,
as long as I'm choosing it, aslong as I am mindfully,
deliberately choosing it. Andthen along with choosing it
comes the ability to say, Ichose that I will not feel bad
(36:14):
about choosing it, I will notpunish myself, I will not beat
myself up, I will not go downthis road. Because when we go
down that road, it's because wedidn't choose it. It's because
we fell into it as a victim.
Right? Yeah,
Philip Pape (36:30):
yeah, for sure. No, I love that balance. And I was
thinking of, you know, hedonismon one side. And what's the
opposite of asceticism orrestriction on the other side,
right? What about something elsecame to mind there with
regarding to choosing? Oh, so alot of people have trouble
trouble choosing in the moment,I think that's a struggle that
people face when they'reespecially dealing with
(36:51):
ingrained habits related to foodand their relationship with
food. And if they went to aparty like that, just being
thrown into the party and say,Now go make choices may may be
difficult for somebody who hasstruggled with this their whole
life. Is there a pre planningthat goes on to kind of develop
the habit of knowing that youcan choose if that makes sense?
(37:12):
Absolutely. So there's
Monica Ricci (37:13):
this thing, again, I'm referring back to the heroic
coaching program that I'm inright now, which is about to
wrap up. So that'll be anotherfun certification that I'll have
under my belt. But there's thisthing that we talked about in
heroic, which is, it's a fourletter acronym called whoop,
whoop, and it is W O P. And thisis exactly what you can do to
prepare for almost anything,whether it's a project or
(37:35):
whether it's just going to aholiday party. W is what is the
outcome? Right? What what are wewhat do we want the outcome to
be? Well, I want the outcome tobe that I want to feel great
after I leave this party and notfeel like I've completely
abandoned myself. Okay, great.
What is the what is the firstOh, is? Oh, actually, sorry? W
is what? Oh, is the outcome?
(37:57):
What is the wish? What is thewish that I want to do this
party and feel great? What isthe outcome? Which is, which is
why do I want to feel that way?
Okay, well, because I likemyself, mastery, I want to stay
on and maintain the progressthat I've already made. Okay,
great. What's the obstacle?
That's the next oh, what's theobstacle that you're gonna
(38:17):
encounter? And the P is how doyou plan for it. So if you can
anticipate what's coming uparound the curve, you're not
going to get surprised by it. Ifyou're driving along at night,
and you're around a curve, andall of a sudden, you run that
curve, and there's a bearsitting in the middle of the
road, that's a split seconddecision that you are not
prepared for, and you'reprobably going to crash. But if
somebody told you, hey, about amile up the road, you're going
(38:39):
to hit a curb, and there's goingto be a bear around there. What
are you going to do, you'regoing to drive differently, it's
the same thing. So if I knowthat my weakness is what up
sweets, or whatever it is, I'mgoing to prepare in a different
way to go to that party, I'mgoing to fill myself up in
advance with the things that Iwant fats and proteins, right,
(38:59):
I'm going to go there nothungry, so that my resolve is
higher, I'm going to makechoices mindfully in the moment
to do proteins. And if I feel Ican, I'm going to mindfully
choose to have a little bit of acookie or one cookie, instead of
completely losing it losing allmy control, and then feeling
terrible about myself. Soabsolutely, seeing around the
(39:21):
corners of your life gives you atremendous amount of agency in
the way that your life playsout.
Philip Pape (39:28):
This is so awesome.
Like I love this model. And I'mgoing to use that and I'm gonna
throw your name and when I talkto clients about the many ways
to do this, because managingrisk, I think of it as managing
risk or having a food plan orhaving a strategy going in. But
the way you put it of hey, we'rein control, we know things are
going to happen. We've beenaround the block, you know, for
those of us who've been on theplanet for three, four or five
(39:48):
decades, we know what's going tohappen at a party. It's like not
like you know Christmas iscoming. So did you save up to
buy the gifts it's going tohappen? What are you going to do
about it to take total controlof your situation, because it is
up to you, even if it's a littlehard, but eventually becomes a
habit. Awesome. Okay, goodstuff. So, I know you do the
Self Mastery coaching, we'vebeen talking about self mastery.
(40:10):
And this really helps people, Ithink you call it upgrade their
life experience, which isanother I like that visual
upgrade their life experience.
You talked a little bit aboutthe coaching, but earlier you
said we're gonna get into somemore maybe strategies, are there
other models or details you wantto get into on that?
Monica Ricci (40:29):
Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about what we
touched on earlier, which isone, which is the three
components of the identity, theidentity to behavior sort of
line, right? When you connectidentity to behavior, there's a
thing in the middle, which isthe the attribute, and I'll give
you a very concrete example, ifyour identity, your aspirational
(40:52):
identity, let's say is, let'sjust use athlete because again,
it's relatable, is athlete, andthe behavior that an athlete
would do would be to strengthtrain three times a week and do
a little bit of cardio two daysa week. Well, in between those
is our ways of being ourattributes, right? So an athlete
(41:18):
might have attributes ofconsistent, that's an attribute,
right? That that would be greatthat would that would support
those behaviors, and anattribute of positive and
attribute of hopeful anattribute of, let's say,
courageous, right, you get toyou get to assign to your
(41:40):
identity, athlete, all theseways of being so that you show
up in those ways to execute onthe actual action.
Philip Pape (41:49):
It's not that you necessarily have these strengths
to begin with, we're againlooking in the future like we
will, and we will embody thesethings, okay?
Monica Ricci (41:57):
Yes, but here's the thing we get to embody, we
get to have any attribute wewant, just by claiming it today,
I will be calm. Today, thismorning, I will be strong.
That's one of my attributes thatI select every day. Because
under my identity of athlete,strong, consistent, disciplined,
(42:18):
those are attributes which lendthemselves to supporting the
execution of the strengthtraining the cardio though,
whatever, it's going to be thebicycling or whatever, right? So
I wish I could remember whosaid, assume a virtue and it is
yours. If I if I say to myselftoday, I am strong, confident,
disciplined. That's what I'mgoing to embody today. That's
(42:41):
who I want to be today. Thathelps me to remember why I'm
even in this endeavor of selfmastery. Right? Am I being
strong right now? Am I beingdisciplined? Am I being
consistent? Or because? Becausethose things are a tangible way
to embody the identity of anathlete, for example. And then
(43:02):
they translate down to well,what would a consistent strong
discipline athlete do right now?
Get out of bed? Right. I havethis conversation with myself
almost every morning. Yeah, whatwould it what would a courageous
champion do right now, eventhough it's warm in this bed?
Right. greatest champion wouldget up right now? Why? Why would
she get up because she'scommitted to being courageous
(43:25):
champion for who? for herself?
Okay.
Philip Pape (43:32):
Yeah, I love that.
The
Monica Ricci (43:34):
conversations we have with ourselves are the very
most important ones.
Philip Pape (43:38):
Yeah. And we have total control over them, right.
I mean, I don't know if it wasthe Stoic philosophers or Mother
Teresa or somebody who said Ilike no matter how everything,
no matter how bad everything isaround you, like the one thing
you control is what's in yourmind. Right. It's your thoughts.
Monica Ricci (43:53):
Absolutely. And you know, it's interesting that
you said the Stoic philosophersbecause I keep referring to this
coaching program that I'm aboutwrapped up with and, and it is
based on stoic philosophy andmodern science. Okay. So just to
be clear, and you know, MarkDevine and David Goggins and all
these, you know, kind of modernheroes, combined with Aristotle
(44:17):
and Socrates and Epictetus andSeneca
Philip Pape (44:19):
cheetahs. Yeah, Marcus Aurelius all those guys.
Good stuff. Yeah, I love I lovestoicism. It's great. I mean, if
anything is is worth inspiringyou, you know, to think about
how to take control and be inthe moment what you're talking
about. It's that. So we'vecovered a lot of this. Is there
anything else we're like relatedto creating these significant
(44:39):
shifts in mindset that come tomind that we haven't discussed?
Monica Ricci (44:43):
I don't know if there's anything we haven't
discussed? Probably a lot wehaven't discussed in what we
wanted to cover today. I thinkwe have been covered. But I
think if I would, if you wereasking me for closing remarks, I
would say I would say that totoday. And indeed not today even
but in this moment is the onlyplace that you have any
(45:05):
influence over over your futurein this moment, and and every
choice you make in this moment,gets you closer to or farther
away from the person that youwant to be. And that's a really
great reminder to kind of carrywith you during the day,
Philip Pape (45:20):
in this moment, and Today's a new day. Don't worry
about what happened in the past.
Let's do it. Let's get up andmake it happen. Awesome. Thank
you so much. Well, Monica, wherecan people learn about all this?
Great information and you andyour work?
Monica Ricci (45:34):
Well, Twitter is my social media boyfriend and I
am at Monica Ricki on there.
And, and Instagram, I am atremaking Monica. And so I would
love to connect with anyone whowants to reach out.
Philip Pape (45:47):
Awesome, so I'll include that information in the
show notes. When the episodecomes out, and people can can
take go click on that. It wasawesome having you on I love
talking all this mindset. Youinspired me. It's great because
I want to be thinking aboutthese things and my clients and
everyone listening. Thanks againfor coming on the show. Monica
Monica Ricci (46:03):
was a pleasure to be here. Thank you, Philip.
Philip Pape (46:07):
Thanks for listening to the show. Before
you go, I have a quick favoriteask. If you enjoy the podcast,
let me know by leaving a fivestar review in Apple podcasts
and telling others about theshow. Thanks again for joining
me Philip Pape in this episodeof Wits & Weights. I'll see you
next time and stay strong.
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