Mark Reinisch – The Wellness Ethic - Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Vox Novus, The New Voice, Vox Novus, the New Dimension,
Vox Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from
their experience and offer tools to help us navigate our
rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Furman. Welcome to

(00:28):
Vox Novus, the New Voice. The work ethic has been
glorified as the gold standard for success, but at what cost.
According to author, life coach and former corporate executive Mark Rhinish,
it's an outdated ideal that's burning people out, draining their joy,

(00:53):
and pushing meaning in life to the margins. His new book,
The Wellness Ethic, How to Thrive in an Unpredictable World
where Stupid Things Can Happen, is a smart, funny, and
radically refreshing alternative. Instead of solely prioritizing productivity, he urges
readers to adopt a wellness ethic and prioritize their overall

(01:16):
well being. Mark Rhinish has decades of executive experience in
corporate America, having driven transformation programs to help people and
companies realize their vast potential. His website is Wellnessethic dot com,
and he joins me this week on Vox Novus to
share his path and his book. Please join me in

(01:40):
welcoming to vox Novs Mark Rhinish.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Welcome, Mark, Thank you, Victor, I'm happy to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Mark. Please share with us your path and how it
led to your work in corporate and business transformation.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
Well, I went to school at RPI Rensore Polytech Institute,
and locally, General Electric had a power system's plant there,
and I had studied business, so I was able to
apply and interview and get a job starting out at
GE actually in their benefits area in a call center

(02:19):
serving pensioners and active employees, helping them with their benefits.
And from that I quickly went down the path of
getting into continuous improvement. And they had this new program
called six Sigma and all that was is a statistically
based process improvement methodology. So I became what they call

(02:44):
a black belt, And what that really meant is I
was a project leader, well versed in techniques to improve processes,
lead change adoption to help employees adopt new techniques tools
to do their jobs better. And from there I continue

(03:05):
to advance and ended up joining Bank of America as
they were starting to build their six Sigma continuous Improvement
program and work for a number of companies. Ended up
at Blackboad, which provides software for nonprofits, heading up their
business transformation division, so we would get into things like

(03:30):
partnering with the sales teams to help them find different
ways to sell lead generation to improve revenue, but also
working with the customer service and support areas to help
them improve overall customer satisfaction and retention. So that's been

(03:50):
my corporate career for a couple of decades.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
And then what happened that changed your path dramatically?

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Well, around two and a half years ago, I was
working at Blackboad and thriving. It was going very well,
but you know in technology companies, there was a lot
of downsizing and the rug got pulled out from under me.
I didn't see it coming, so I ended up being

(04:20):
laid off. And what was really fascinating about it is
I was notified through US a zoom meeting basically and
closed the call, walked into my bedroom where my wife
was getting ready for the morning, and I let her

(04:41):
know that She was shocked because just a few months
prior we had been at my leader's holiday party. But
she literally told me, well, now you have a great
opportunity to finish your book because I was writing The
Wellness Ethic, which is a book on wellness and well being,

(05:01):
and that just opened my mind. And within five minutes
of being notified that I was being laid off, we
had made the decision, I'm going to take a two
year sabbatical and focus on finishing my book, marketing it,
building a life coaching business, and see where that direction goes.

(05:22):
So right after we made that decision again we're to
even five minutes, I then pulled up a spreadsheet, looked
at my budget, crunched the numbers, did projections, checked with
my financial advisor to make sure we truly could fund
the sabbatical without radically impacting my retirement plans, and we decided, yeah,

(05:46):
I can actually do this. There's risk involved, without a doubt,
but we were able to mitigate the risk and that
set me on this path.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
That's wonderful. So in essence, this synchronicity of what happened
gave you a new chapter.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Without a doubt. And what was ironic about it is
because I was already two thirds of the way through
writing the book the first draft, I had immersed myself
in spirituality into different techniques around the mind growth mindset,
having a positive outlook, being able to be resilient in

(06:26):
the face of adversity. And because of that and adopting
the principles that I was learning and writing the Wellness Ethic,
we were able to make that decision within five minutes.
It was clearly the right decision that aligned perfectly with
my life purpose.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Wonderful. Now let's backtrack for a second and all the
experience that you had prior to this event. What elements
did you find that were missing in business and how
did you address these.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
With business? In a perfect world, it aligns with your
life purpose. You're passionate about what you do. You find
meaning and fulfillment and even joy. It's never perfect, of course,
you're going to have some ups and downs, but it
feels right. And if you were on your deathbed hopefully
you know, well into retirement, and you look back at

(07:22):
your life, you would think, yeah, that was a life
well lived. I'm glad I spent my time doing that.
And for a number of people that is true and
they're perfectly aligned with their life purpose. But that was
not the case with me. It wasn't my passion to
work for corporate America, though again there's nothing wrong with that.

(07:45):
But what my true life purpose, and you know, I
actually documented it as I was writing this book, is
I exist to improve people's lives through my spirit, to
serve creativity, sense of humor, her ability to simplify the complex.
And when I look at my life, everything aligns to that. Parenting,

(08:10):
working with my children to help them pursue their dreams
in the direction they want to go in helping my
wife pursue her dreams, and she wanted to be a
stay at home mom and open a daycare business. So
I was always very supportive of that. But when I

(08:30):
looked at the nature of the work I did, it
didn't really line up to that. But I needed the
income needed to build a career, pay the bills and
so on. So I did my best to find meaning
in the work, but I needed something more. So what
I always did was I had side hustles going on,

(08:51):
and what I mean by that is in the evenings,
mornings before work, or on weekends, I was always pursue
doing something that would fill the voids. So for twenty
years I wrote screenplays. I finished around a dozen comedic
screenplays and once had an agent on a full year
scholarship to film school, which I didn't accept because I

(09:15):
had just gotten a promotion at GE and then I
got a life coaching certification. After that was a life
coach on a part time basis. Tried to build a
business there. Then one day I had a crazy notion
to build a social media platform, the topple Facebook. Now

(09:37):
Facebook is still around from what I hear, so I
did not topple Facebook. However, I built out a concept
that I thought, Hey, this is going to be very differentiated.
It was a positive approach to social media with a
lot of different features that Facebook, like ten or twelve
years ago, couldn't match. And I found own a partner

(10:02):
co founder to launch the business who had a lot
of it experience building platforms. I didn't have that background,
so it was a perfect match. I could design the product,
help build the business, but I needed someone to do
the coding and have the vision for how to build
out the platform. So we ended up bootstrapping that social

(10:23):
media startup for four years, and it was an enormous
struggle because you know, Facebook's network is very sticky. It's
hard to extract people to join a new platform where
they don't have their friends and family in it, so
that was very hard to overcome. But at the end

(10:44):
of the four years we did find a buyer for
the platform, so we had a nice ending to the
venture that was very fulfilling, and that challenged me beyond,
you know, a belief to grow and be able to
build that out. It met my need to be creative
and to have that purpose. And then after that I

(11:10):
came up with the idea to write The Wellness Ethic
because I always have the dream to write a book,
and that led me to where I'm at right now.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
And the full title of the book is The Wellness Ethic,
How to Thrive in an unpredictable world where stupid things
can happen. Can you give me an example of some
of those stupid things?

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah? And I had a lot of fun with that
title because, first of all, the Wellness Ethic is a
take off of the work ethic, of course, and a
work ethic is a good thing to have. I have
a work ethic, but it's been hijacked to mean something

(11:52):
entirely different, and it's almost like it's a badge of
honor to work yourself into the ground work evenings, work
weekends and give up your personal life, your family life,
and on and on, and it's getting more and more challenging.
So I included on the book title the work Ethic
crossed off and then I replaced it with the Wellness Ethic,

(12:15):
and How to Thrive in an Unpredictable World was based
on the realities of life as it is today. It's
very chaotic, it can be very divisive. There's a lot
of disruption going on, whether it's with the climate or
the economic picture, or certainly artificial intelligence is uprooting a

(12:42):
lot of jobs and driving a lot of transformation and uncertainty.
So I wanted to have the antidote to that reality
of the way life is by presenting an alternative, and
that's the Wellness Ethic. And then when we get to
the subtitle of an underpredictable world where stupid things can happen,

(13:07):
that's the reality again of life. Stupid things can happen,
big or small that you can't control. So getting laid off, yeah,
that's stupid. You know, you can maybe understand why it happened,
but it's still something stupid that has happened to you.
It could be something small like an appliance. Breaking down
that totally disrupts your day, puts you in a foul

(13:30):
mood because you're going to have to pay a lot
of money to get it fixed or replaced. It could
be stubbing your toe. But so I was having fun
with it by labeling all that stuff stupid. But what
it's saying is that life is going to have ups
and downs, ebbs and flows. That's the nature of life.

(13:51):
Impermanence is life, you know, the definition of life change
is constant. Everything has a beginning, middle, and end. And
the better you're able to have tools and a mindset
to be able to go with that flow and at
times even surrender to it and choose how you're going

(14:11):
to move forward with that reality. That's a key ingredient
to thriving in life.

Speaker 1 (14:18):
Now, how do you define the wellness ethic?

Speaker 2 (14:23):
The wellness ethic, simply put, is a devotion to your
well being. So in the book, I break that down
so it can make wellness accessible and actionable, because that
can be daunting. You know, how do you nurture your
well being? So I break it down into mind, body,

(14:43):
and spirit to start with. And you would expect that,
but that's critical it's your the foundation in your life.
If you have a healthy mind, body, and spirit based
on to the level you can control, because there's always
going to be things out of your control, health related
or what ever. But the more you nurture that, it
gives you the source of positive energy that carries with

(15:09):
you throughout your day and it makes the good times
even better. It gives you energy to get to engage
in life, and when something bad happens, it gives you
the perspective. It helps you be adaptable and resilient to
get your life back on track. So that's the foundation.

(15:30):
And then the other components are your relationships, and numerous
studies have shown that the healthier your relationships are, the
more you're connected with your community and so on, the
healthier you're going to be. It actually improves your health
and your well being, your happiness. So healthy relationships, loving

(15:53):
relationships are vital. And then your personal passions and what
you pursue in what you call your free time, but
also your professional life and do you find enough meaning
and joy in your work. And then the last component

(16:13):
is lifestyle maintenance, and what that means is it's the
stuff that you have to do to make life work,
whether it's your financial wellness or all the chores things
you do around the house, shopping, and some of those
things are annoying. They're not necessarily the most fun things
to do, but they're vital and it's a part of

(16:37):
the equation. But the more those elements mind, bodies, spirit, relationships,
personal and professional pursuits, and your lifestyle maintenance, the more
they come together and are harmonious, the more you're going
to thrive in life. And again I always have to
add the qualifier. Nothing's ever going to be perfect. There's

(16:58):
never going to be a perfect balance. So you're like
kind of like an opera singer trying to hold that note.
You're going to fluctuate. But the more you're committed to it,
your wellness ethic, the more it's going to turn out
in your favor, where you're going to be happier and
more fulfilled. So that's the heart of the wellness ethic.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
Is there a way of blending the wellness ethic with
the work ethic?

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Oh? Absolutely, And that's why I said in the beginning
that I have a work ethic. So when I talked
about at the beginning of our interview, I've in my
adult life, I'm working in corporate America and that was
like a job and a half, a lot of traveling
over time, and that's just the reality of, you know,

(17:45):
trying to get things done in the meeting the expectations
of your employer. So I'm working very hard with that.
And I'm always very involved with my family, my wife
and my children, and that always was a red line
for me, non negotiable. So I'm going to be attending
the games, working on the soccer field with my children
to help them achieve their dreams. But I always had

(18:10):
the side hustles going on, and that could take anywhere
from fifteen to twenty five hours extra a week and
usually full time on vacations if I wasn't traveling with
my family. That takes a devoted work ethic to be
able to get all that stuff done. But what the
key was in my book talks about it quite a

(18:32):
bit and offers practical approaches and insights, is you can
design your life where you are working hard in your
professional life your personal life, but you're working hard for
your overall well being. So it requires you to nurture

(18:56):
that mind, body, and spirit. So to give you an example, Victor.
One great technique is to develop healthy habits, so you're
almost on autopilot on some of this stuff. You don't
have to think about doing everything. My morning routine that
I've had for probably the last six to ten years,

(19:16):
and it was vital to writing the book while working
full time before the sabbatical, is I'll get up at
four in the morning, so I'll go to bed early,
and I'll get up early, and I'll have a glass
of orange juice, have a handful of almonds, so that's
some excellent nutrition. Then I'll go on an hour long

(19:37):
walk around my neighborhood and it's dark out. Sometimes you
see the full moon. Sometimes a stampede of deer run
right in front of you. It's beautiful. Sometimes I'll listen
to podcasts. Sometimes I'll just absorb nature and just let
my mind wander. Sometimes i'll problem solve on things i

(19:58):
was writing about was stuck on. But I'll get that
hour in. Then i'll get back and if it's the
day that I do strength training, i'll lift for twenty
to thirty minutes, or if it's a day i'm doing cardio,
I'll then do probably ten to twenty minutes of cardio,
and then I'll have a breakfast and my ritual is

(20:21):
to have soy milk with oatmeal and organic blueberries, walnuts
and milled flax seed, and the nutrition in that combined
with that orange juice and almonds is off the charts.

(20:42):
So then I'll shower and get ready for my day,
whether that's getting in a couple hours of writing and
then starting a corporate job, or just getting into the
corporate job. So no matter how the rest of the
day goes, I've had an outstanding start with my boy,
with the exercise and the nutrition, and with my mind

(21:04):
with that peaceful walk and it's spiritual, so that gives
me positive energy and strength to work hard during the day.
And then I'll have breaks during the day where whether
it's meditation or just walking around, you'll get some additional
exercise and movement. So there's a lot of techniques where

(21:25):
you can work hard but not work hard where you're
driving yourself into the ground.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Are you my long lost brother, because I do the
same thing?

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Oh? Really? If I can ask, what is your routine?

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Very similar to what you're describing, especially the diet aspect
of it, I've learned I actually had a significant weight
loss because I had my knee replaced last year, and
in the process of doing that, I had to lose
a certain amount of weight, and I continued losing weight
after that surgery. I'm now the same weight I was
when I left the Air Force in nineteen seventy nine.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Oh that's outstanding.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Absolutely, I guessed. Is Mark Rhinish his book The Wellness Ethic,
How to Thrive in an unpredictable world where stupid things
can happen. Mark, please share with our listeners where it
can get your book and find out more about you.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Absolutely, if you go to Amazon and just type in
Wellness Ethic, the book's got to come up. It's available
in ebook, softcover, hardcover, or you can go on Barnes
and Noble, basically any online retailer. We'll have the book.
If you want to learn more beyond what's in the description,

(22:35):
because there's a lot of detail there, you can simply
go to Wellness Ethic dot com and you'll see a
ton of wellness content about the book, but just wellness
in general. So there's a number of ways you can
learn more.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
And we'll be back with more of Mark after these
words on The Old Times Radio network.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
The cutting edge of conscious Radio. Ome time yis Radio IOMFM.
Ome Times Magazine is one of the leading online content
providers of positivity, wellness, and personal empowerment. A philanthropic organization,
their net proceeds are funneled to support worldwide charity initiatives
via Humanity Healing International. Through their commitment to creating community

(23:19):
and providing conscious content, they aspire to uplift humanity on
a global scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
This is Kathy Biele, host of Celestial Compass featuring astrology.
You can use Celestial Compass points you to what's going
on in the sky and what you can do with
it down here on Earth. We also explore fun, effective
and cosmic tools for navigating this adventure we call Life.

(23:49):
Join me the first and third Monday of the month
at five pm Eastern Time for Celestial Compass its enlightening,
entertaining and empowering.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Back on Blocks Novus. My guest this week is Mark
Rhinish his book The Wellness Ethic, How to Thrive in
an unpredictable world where stupid things can happen. Mark, how
did your experience in the wellness space help you to
write The Wellness Ethic.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Well, it started all the way back, probably a couple
decades prior, when I always had an interest in the
wellness space, so I'd read self help books and you know,
on my body, spirit and elsewhere. But when I really
started to go down the path was when I was

(24:41):
at Bank of America and I was on an airplane.
And this is sad, you know, in many ways. But
I was very dissatisfied with my life. I had a
lot to be grateful for with my family. I was
pursuing screenwriting and you know, having some success with that,

(25:04):
and I had a good job, a lot to be
grateful for, but I was miserable because I didn't sell
a screenplay, so I thought of myself as a failure.
I wasn't inspired by my job. So I remember I
was on the runway, sitting in my seat on the

(25:25):
plane and had the thought that if this plane crashes
and everyone survives but me, I would be okay with that.
That That realization hit me hard, and I knew that's
not the way you want to think. So I've got

(25:47):
to change something. But I was directionless. I didn't know
where to go. So I get into Chicago and checking
to my hotel room and I go up, you know,
several floors and put my briefcase down. I order room service.

(26:09):
It comes, and I'm eating mindlessly, just getting ready to,
you know, collapse into bed. And I turned on the TV.
Usually i'll watch cable news, but I came across a
PBS show on Wayne Dyer's book, Change Your Thoughts, Change

(26:29):
Your Life. And what it was is he took all
eighty one verses of the dowd to Ching, you know,
which was the spiritual book that it was the foundation
of Taoism written by loud Zoo, you know, several millennium ago,
and he took each of those eighty one verses and

(26:51):
broke it down and made it simpler, accessible and made
it actionable. So he was talking in this seminar on PBS,
and I'd watch it for five or ten minutes. I'm intrigued.
But then I'd flipped the channel watch some cable news,
and I'd found myself coming back to it over and
over again. And I left that show. I turned it off,

(27:15):
went to bed, but I thought, you know, I've got
to remember to buy his book. I hope I remember
to buy his book. So a couple of days in
the office, I go to the airport to fly back
home and I remembered the Wayne Dyer book, so I
went into a bookstore. Thankfully I found it and sat
down waiting for my plane and I read thirty to

(27:37):
forty pages of it, and I was absolutely blown away.
It was a revelation. Concepts like happiness isn't external, it's
already within you, to surrender and go with the flow
of life, and the live life being non judgmental, not

(28:00):
being so outcome focus, but just again, get in the
flow of life, enjoy the moment, you do what you
can do, control what you can control. Concepts like that
that was a sounded my senses. So I quickly called
my wife before I boarded the plane and I told her.

(28:21):
I said, Kristen, I've just read forty pages that is
going to change my life. And I tried to explain
it to her. I probably didn't explain it very well,
but she could tell something was different. So I read
that book and I knew I've got to change my
way of thinking. And that led an exploration of reading

(28:42):
other spiritual books, books on the mind and others, and
then on my next business trip, I'm in the air
and I'm bored. So I pull out the Airline magazine
and just flipping through that and came across an American

(29:04):
Express ad. It was a profile of Larry David, who
is the famous comedian, the co creator of Seinfeld Curb
Your Enthusiasm, just comedic legend, and so it was a
funny profile and asking what's your favorite movie and things
like that. One of the questions was what is your profession?
So he wrote life coach and so you know it

(29:27):
may just smile like, you know, Larry David a life coach.
So I put the magazine down and went out with
my day. But I could not shake that thought of
becoming a life coach. Why not be a life coach?
I love helping people, and I thought, you know, if
I really immersed myself in that, I'm going to learn
a ton that I can apply to my own life.

(29:48):
So I ended up taking a six to nine month
life coaching certification program. It was very intensive and I
ended up getting certified. And the the ironic thing was
I completed my certification in December. It was probably around
seventeen eighteen years ago. So I completed in December and

(30:13):
a month later, I was laid off from Bank of America,
which the first time I was ever laid off, and
I thought, you know that happens to other people. I
perform well, I'm well respected, I'm a positive leader. I'm
not going to ever be laid off. But it was
a great recession was going on, and good people were

(30:33):
losing their jobs, and it was a very bleak job market,
as you would imagine. The housing market had just crumbled,
and I had a mortgage, I had a family to
provide for, and I did not have robust, you know,
savings for an event like this. But I was positive
about it because what I had learned going through the

(30:56):
life coaching and further immersing myself in spiritual had totally
changed my mindset and outlook on life. And I thought,
you know, this is actually a gift that I'm being
laid off. I'm going to find a way to land
on my feet. It may be painful, It maybe six months,
it maybe a year, but I will eventually find my path.

(31:18):
Everyone eventually does. But I'm going to use this opportunity
to go down a path that I'm more interested in,
which was life coaching, but that wouldn't pay the bills.
But I did end up end up finding a position
that was more aligned with my career interests, going back

(31:39):
to my roots and benefits and HR services, And I
found that job within three months and I sold my
house within three months, which I defied the odds on
both fronts. And that was because of the positive mindset
that I had towards something that was stupid that had

(32:01):
happened to me. I had lost my job during the
Great Recession. So that just continued my path with wellness,
and it culminated in deciding six years ago to write
the book, The Wellness Ethic, and it took me six years.
And that book was also not just designed to help

(32:23):
people and make wellness accessible and actionable for them, but
it was also designed to help me close the gap
with how my life was going and true inspired living
because I still had a lot more growth to achieve,
and the book helped me get there. But you know something, Victor,

(32:45):
I still have a lot more growth ahead of me.
So it's just a continuing journey to get the most
out of my life.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Absolutely, Mark, at seventy two, I'm still learning something new
at least once a day, maybe more time. So absolutely, Yeah,
how is the Wellness Ethic different from other self help books.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
There's a lot of really good self help books that
have helped shape my life and my mindset. You know,
I mentioned the Wayne Dyer book. There's a terrific book
called the Growth Mindset, or actually it's called Mindset, but
it's about having a growth mindset. So I can just

(33:30):
go down a list of books, I'll add one more,
Solve for Happy, which is written by Moe Gaudette I
believe that's his name, and he was a former senior
leader at Google. Very moving book. So there's a lot
of good ones out there. But you know, for a
number of people, they can find reading a self help

(33:53):
book to be a chore because it may not really
be engaging. It may not entertain them, it may not
be a page turner. And they may find that they
get through the book and they have a couple of
learnings that they think, oh, yeah, this sounds good, but
they don't know how to put it into action. They're
not necessarily motivated or inspired, or they don't have the

(34:16):
roadmap and the practical steps to apply these learnings to
your life. So when I started to write The Wellness
Ethic at the very beginning, I resolved myself and really
committed myself to make this as simple as possible. So

(34:37):
I used what they call the eighty twenty rule, the
preto principle, and what that basically says is that eighty
percent of the results from something come from twenty percent
of the actions. So how I apply that to this
book is if I took something like spirituality, you know,
you could write a library of books about spirituality and

(35:00):
still not cover everything, and that can be very overwhelming.
So people may not go down a spiritual path because
it overwhelms them. So to simplify spirituality and applying the
eighty twenty rule, what is the essence of spirituality? The
handful of basic concepts that if you can apply them

(35:21):
to your life and just get better and better every
day and move forward in that direction, that it will
give you eighty percent of the benefits of spirituality. So
in the book, for instance, I suggest that the eighty
twenty view of spirituality centers around three concepts. One is
embrace your life purpose, So find out why you're put

(35:44):
on this planet and move forward in that direction. Align
your life to that as best as you can. Again,
it will never be perfect, so then the second concept
is around love, and I call it in the book
love the universe of existence. So love yourself, appreciate the

(36:04):
special moments and the ordinary moments in your life. Be
grateful for your blessings and the negativity that's in your life.
Everyone has some negativity. Purge that from your life, whether
it's you know, the cable news or toxic people. Move
in the direction of more positive, positivity and love. So

(36:29):
take proactive action. Feel connected to people, to nature, So
bring more love in your life every single day. And
then the third concept is surrender. As I mentioned before,
you know, the only constant in life is change. Everything

(36:49):
is impermanent, it's going to evolve. There's a beginning, middle,
and end. So when you think about spirituality, imagine you're
living your life on purpose and things are coming together
in your personal professional life, you're finding meaning and joy
and what you do, and then you're finding ways to
bring more love into your life every day and throughout

(37:13):
the day. Things are good, then that curve ball is
thrown and something stupid happens, because it's going to happen.
It's no matter how perfect your life is, bad things
will happen. But you surrender to that reality, You accept
what has happened, and then you frame it in a
life affirming way. So in my example, when I was

(37:36):
laid off, I framed it as this is actually a
gift that's going to propel me forward in a better direction.
So you frame it in a life affirming way, a
realistic way, by life affirming, and then you choose your
response based on what you can control to move your
life forward. So if you do those three things, purpose, love,

(37:59):
and surrender, you're going to live a spiritual existence. And
then you could always do a lot more and grow
everyday spiritual spiritually and explore other approaches and concepts, whether
that's faith based or other approaches. So that's how you

(38:19):
can make wellness accessible and actionable. So that I applied
that approach throughout the entire book. So when I write
about mind and body relationships, personal and professional pursuits, I'm
breaking it down into its essence and making it accessible
and actionable. But what I also do on top of that,
I want you to be entertained and engaged with the

(38:44):
reading experience. I do want it to be a page turner,
so I include a lot of personal stories to show
you what good and not so good. Looks like you're
going to be laughing at me, you know, with some
of these stories of some of the stupid things I've
done in my life, and I look back and laugh
at it. And at times you're you you may be

(39:06):
crying over some of the suffering that I or my
family have been through and that we had to emerge from.
And I also use a lot of humor, So at
times you're going to be laughing out loud. Other times
you may be chuckling. But I want you to have

(39:27):
an engaging right reading experience, so that those are the
ways that this book is very different than other self
help books.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
In the Wellness Ethic, you introduce the term self actualized
genius or capital s a G lowercase e. What are
the qualities of a sage?

Speaker 2 (39:49):
But a self actualized genius is a playoff of Maslow's
self actualization. So if you look at the hierarchy of
needs that Maslow has, you know, it starts with the
basic needs, the necessities you know, water and food, shelter,
and then it, you know, goes up the food chain

(40:11):
till ultimately you get to this state of being self actualized.
And the best way to describe that I think is
that you're living your true, authentic self. You're not worried
about what other people think. You're living your life purpose.

(40:33):
You're engaged in life, you feel connected to the universe.
You're developing loving relationships. You have a positive, value centered
approach to life. You choose love centered responses to the
reality that happens to you. You also minimize suffering because

(40:55):
you understand that impermanence is an inescapable reality of the
way the world works. And very importantly, you accept the
perfection of your imperfection. And that, I think is a
very important concept. That the universe is designed in a

(41:17):
way that change is always going to happen. There's always
going to be something about you. It could be your appearance,
it could be your profession or how your day is
going that you wish were different. And you may think
that's imperfect. I'm unhappy. I'm never going to be satisfied.

(41:42):
I could think about the wellness ethic and think, you know,
I haven't sold a million copies, I'm a failure. The
book isn't good, but no life is imperfect, but that's
the way it's designed. In reality, it's perfect. So the

(42:03):
fact that I may appear to be imperfect my appearance
or the way I've lived my life. Actually it's a
perfect representation of the way life works. There are ups
and downs, people change, they go in different directions, they

(42:23):
try their best to move forward. They struggle with things
and they try to get better every day. And that's
that perfectly describes life. So I think that's a very
important concept.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
My guest is Mark Rheinish, his book The Wellness Ethic.
We'll be back with more after these words on the
Own Times Radio network.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
Humanity Healing International is a small nonprofit with a big dream.
Since two thousand and seven, HHI has been working tirelessly
to bring help to communities with little or no oh.
Our projects are not broad mandates, nor are they overnight solutions,
but they bring the reassurance then no one is alone

(43:05):
and that someone cares to learn more, Please visit Humanityhealing
dot org. Humanity Healing is where your Heart is.

Speaker 6 (43:14):
More than twenty four million Americans have an autoimmune disorder
and that number continues to grow. I'm Sharon Sailor, and
I'm one of those twenty four million. To put that
number in perspective, cancer effects about nine million and heart
disease up to twenty two million. That's why I've brought
together top experts and those thriving regardless of their diagnosis
to bring you the latest, most up to date information.

(43:36):
Join me Sharon Sailor Friday night, seven pm Eastern for
the Autoimmune Hour on Life Interrupted Radio to find out
how to live your life uninterrupted.

Speaker 7 (43:45):
Hi, this is Bill Mahr. I can find humor in
almost anything, but one thing I never laugh about is
cruelty to animals. If you don't get the joke either, right,
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals five on one
Front Street in Norfolk, Virginia, two three five one oh.

Speaker 1 (44:00):
Box, Novus. My guest this week is Mark Rhinish his
book The Wellness Ethic How to Thrive in an unpredictable
world where stupid things can happen. Mark, How does the
Wellness Ethic approach physical wellness?

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Yeah? When I looked at the body and thought, how
do I break that down into its essence? Did a
lot of research, a lot of insights from my own
personal experience, and I wanted to translate that to make
it accessible and actionable, so very action oriented that I

(44:40):
didn't want to get down into the weeds that it
would be overwhelming, so I broke it down into a
model called the Steer model. Steer so the concept is
that you steer your body to better health based on
what you can control. So it starts with science, and

(45:04):
that's the s in the model, and what I write
about with science is to accept the evidence that is
before you. There's a lot of scientific study, and you
know it can evolve and sometimes a study will come

(45:25):
out and it's disproven a couple years later, but that's
the scientific process. It's constantly learning and evolving. But the
wave of knowledge does move forward. So you want to
I think, be careful not to dismiss it outright, but
use that as a starting point and seek the truth.

(45:46):
So the truth will start with yourself. You're your first
line of defense, so pay attention to your body and
what it's telling you. But there's going to be a
lot of things that you're not able to see or
feel that may be going on, whether it's a nutritional
deficiency or an illness you know, serious or not serious,

(46:09):
and that gets your second line of defense. Have a
primary care physician, go for your checkups, your physicals, and
get those insights and work with your doctors to devise
a path forward if you have opportunities. So that's the
science part and then the treatment part. That's the t

(46:34):
treat It is broken up into two areas. One preventative care,
so whether it's taking a vaccine or if you and
your doctor look at your test results and you have
an IR deficiency, do you change your diet? Do you
take supplements? So there are things that you can do preventative.

(46:54):
But then if you do have an illness, you don't
want to be in denial. You know, it could cost
you your life. The earlier you treat something the better
in most cases, so definitely seek the medical expertise when necessary.

(47:15):
So that's treatment. But then the next step is the
E and I label it as eat. So with nutrition,
I could have went down a rabbit hole very quickly. Again,
there are many, many volumes of books on nutrition. We
could have gotten into you know, complex you know, proteins

(47:38):
and the most esoteric concepts, you know, intermittent fasting, and
on and on and overwhelmed people. But the reality is
for most people who don't have health conditions, if you
do the basics of eating healthy foods, focusing on nutrient

(48:02):
density and gravitating towards healthy fats, unsaturated fats, trying to
eat more plant based protein, or if you do eat
animal based protein, you focus on lean meats, that you

(48:22):
eat more complex carbs rather than simple carbs like sugar,
you eat fiber regularly, you're well hydrated, You try to
gravitate towards more whole and organic foods. So if you
do the basics, and again you control your portions, you're

(48:43):
going to find that you have a healthy, balanced diet
and that is enough for most people. You don't necessarily
have to count calories unless there's a health reason to
do so. Then the next step is exercise, and the
same concept applies there. You keep it simple unless you

(49:04):
have a health reason where you have to make it
a little bit more complex, or if you're training for
ultra marathon or trying to lose weight. There then you
may be very prescriptive in your approach. But for the
average person, it's really about developing healthy habits in three areas.

(49:25):
One is mobility, So do you do stretching exercises for
the major muscle groups. Then you don't have to do
it thirty minutes each day, do it five or ten
minutes a day, do it five times a week and
spread it out, and that's going to boost your health,

(49:46):
your flexibility, it's very vital a part of the equation.
Then do some cardio. And I talked to a fitness
expert as part of the research for the book, and
he owns a gym as every imaginable certification, so he's
very well versed, and he said, for most people, all
you really need to do is exercise cardio brisk walking

(50:11):
five times a week for thirty minutes each session. And
then if you want to do more, absolutely you can
do more. If you want to go on a treadmill,
ride a bike, do swimming. So there's a lot more
things you can do. But if you just did that
basic and got a routine around it, that's going to

(50:31):
give you tremendous health benefits. It's going to improve your
longevity and on and on. And then one of the
most neglected approaches to your body is strength training. But
the studies show that your mortality improves if you do

(50:54):
basic strength training. It's going to help with flexibility, it's
going to help you as you age. Get into a
simple strength routine, and it doesn't have to be going
to the gym exercising for an hour or two. Unless
you love to do that or if you have a
reason to, it may simply be what I do. I
have a set of barbells and I have a kettlebell,

(51:17):
just those three little pieces of equipment. I keep it
in my office and I'll have a routine three times
a week, alternate days, and I'll exercise for around twenty
minutes of strength training and that's all I need to do.
And then the last part of the Steer model is rest,

(51:39):
so working on better sleep, whether that's seven hours, eight hours,
nine hours a night, you'll sort through what works best
for you, but trying to get to the point where
you are going to bed at the same time, waking
up at the same time as much as possible. That
really helps your sleep patterns and avoiding sleep inhibitors, experimenting

(52:05):
with different pillows, mattresses, sleep aids, and you know, scheduling
naps on a weekend or if you're tired, you know.
So there's a lot of different approaches that you can
chip away at developing better sleep habits. So that can
seem like a lot when I just walk through, but

(52:27):
if you take it step by step, focus on one area,
build healthy habits, and I'll show you how in the book,
and then work on the next step, and before you
know it, you're going to find that you're going to
have a lot more positive energy to fully engage in life.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
What would you like readers to take away from the
Wellness Ethic?

Speaker 8 (52:49):
When I look at the insights in the book, and
you know, going through mind, body, spirit, and their relationship,
personal professional pursuits, there's a number of core concepts that
I think are the most powerful out of all of it.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
The first would be to live a spiritual life. Really
zero in on your life purpose and bring more love
into your life. Surrender to the things that you can't
control and choose your response to move forward. Serve your body,
develop those healthy habits one habit at a time, take

(53:31):
it step by step. You can start slow. Definitely surround
yourself with those who bring love into your life. Work
on making your relationships healthier and more loving. Get involved
in the community, volunteer, engage with people. It's gonna improve

(53:52):
your health and certainly your happiness. And then I would
say the last thing is one of the chapters I
talk about a model called the accept frame Respond model
and I alluded to it earlier in our discussion. So
whatever happens in your life, good or bad, start with acceptance.

(54:15):
Accept that what has happened has happened, and don't bemoan it.
Don't you know, you can wish that it didn't happen,
but it happened. So accept that because that gives you
permission and positive energy to take the next step and
frame it. Frame what it happened. How would you want

(54:35):
a friend to frame what happened to them if something
similar had happened. What is your most positive, but realistic
and life affirming framing to your reality that you want
to adopt and work on adopting that frame. And I
offer a lot of techniques in the book, but then

(54:56):
choose your response to move your life forward. Because at
the end of the day, there are two things you
control in life. One your attitude at a given moment,
and secondly, how you respond to your reality. So that's
what I really emphasize in The Wellness Ethic, and I
would want people to take away.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
The wisdom of my guest Mark Rhinish his book The
Wellness Ethic How to Thrive in an unpredictable world where
stupid things can happen. Mark one more time. Please share
with our listeners where they can get your books and
find out more about you.

Speaker 2 (55:32):
Yes, if you go to Amazon dot com or any
online book retailer and just type in Wellness Ethic, the
book will come up in softcover, hardcover, or ebook, so
all three are available. Or if you want to learn more,
visit wellnessethic dot com and you'll learn a lot more

(55:56):
about the book, about the wellness Ethic, and there's a
lot of rules and other insights throughout the website. I
think you'll have fun with it.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Mark, thank you so much for joining us and sharing
this wisdom from experience.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Thank you, Victor.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
I enjoyed it, and thank you for joining us on
Vox Novus. I'm Victor the Voice Furman. Have a wonderful week.

All Episodes

Mark Reinisch – The Wellness Ethic

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

24/7 News: The Latest

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Mark Reinisch – The Wellness Ethic