Rai Cornell 0:02
Welcome to Season Two of the SOAR podcast, the place for creative entrepreneurs who want to build healthier, happier, more profitable, self employed businesses. I’m your host, Rai Hyde Cornell, business mentor at Chiron consulting and CEO and senior copywriter at Cornell content marketing. Get ready to soar.

All right, welcome to the SOAR podcast. Today, we have Raewyn Guerrero. And please correct me if I’m mispronouncing your name, because I tend to trip over my syllables there. Raewyn, tell us all about you and your business.

Raewyn Guerrero 0:44
Well, thank you so much for having me. I’m delighted to be here. Because I do feel like I am on a mission to empower women, and help them go from burnout to all out. And the way that I do that is a little bit differently to the way that you might traditionally think about it. Because I think a lot of people think, oh, it’s about motivation. It’s about mindset. And yeah, totally, that is one element. But there’s this whole other biology of burnout that people don’t necessarily pay attention to and I actually do a talk called the biology of resilience. Because resilience, again, is always thought of as something like we’ve got to think our way through a problem, it’s like no, we actually need to feel, we need to tune in, we need to see what’s going on with our bodies, we need to pay attention to how we are nourishing it.

So I trained as a functional medicine health coach, Functional Diagnostic Nutrition practitioner, I actually led a wellbeing program at Barclays for five years, but I was there for 10 years working in HR. So I got my first hand experience with burnout back then. And started my business in 2017. Because I realized that the solutions that were being offered to me through the conventional medical route, and through traditional therapy, they weren’t enough, and they were not connecting dots. And I feel like that’s something that’s my job. My job now is to help people become aware, like get into that aware phase of like, actually, this symptom isn’t just about let’s say, my headache is not just a headache, like there’s something else going on, there’s something and there’s that whole gut brain connection. So I’ve adopted the moniker of gutsy executive coach because I work with women in business, who are executives. And I do that whole connection between the gut and the brain, and then do the investigative work into that, amongst other things, but primarily, you know, primarily starting with the gut, because Hippocrates actually said, all disease begins in the gut. And I’ve seen like 99% of the time, that’s actually true.

A lot of our hormones are converted in there, we have got most of our neurotransmitters converted in there and created in there. So 80% of your serotonin, which is your happy neurotransmitter is produced in the GI tract, you’ve got GABA, your relaxation one, the one that alcohol mimics, is actually produced in your GI tract. So I spend a lot of time working with people on Yes, their mindset, but also looking at well, how can we help you dress for success and dresses, diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction and supplements. So as much as possible to avoid medication because of the side effects that can come along with that. And that’s a big part of my origin story, because I’d seen my grandfather, you know, he was stuck on on anti anxiety meds for 20 years. And it led to some pretty debilitating side effects. So my whole work is and has been inspired and driven by how do we help people get off of these things.

And then, of course, my own story, personal story of how I crashed and burned in my late 30s. And realizing like, whoa, I’m never going to be able to have kids. I’m never, like all these things, my hormones were so out of whack. My skin was a mess, I just had no energy. It used to take me like two and a half hours to peel myself off of bed. And then I’d have to meditate my way just to be calm enough to get centered enough to get into work, to deal with commuting into central London, and then getting to a desk where, you know, you felt like you were not being valued. My boss was micromanaging me. And I was working all the hours. You know, I did work a really 14 hours a day, sitting at my desk and you know, eating three meals a day at a desk. So not really, it’s not a recipe for health at the end of the day. So when my own health crashed and burned, I had to find another way. And I kept looking and looking and I tried a lot of traditional things. I tried, you know, gastroenterologists, I tried psychiatrists, psychologists, coaches, Reiki healers, acupuncturist, Traditional Chinese Medicine. I’m trying to think of what, Chi Gong, like I’ve done all these different things. I’ve tried like I said, all the ologists like all the traditionals and then I tried all the alternatives.

And then when I came upon functional medicine, which is the study of like these different systems in the body, and how they’re all connected, so that if you think of a car, you go to get your car looked over, just because if it’s not running, you don’t only look at the tires, you’re gonna look at the engine, you’re gonna look at the oil, you’re gonna look at the fuel line, you’re gonna look at all these different aspects of the car. For some reason humans when they go to a doctor, like, oh, I have no energy, the doctors be like, Oh, drink more coffee or get more sleep. And they don’t necessarily be like, Well, why don’t you have energy? Like what’s going on there?

Rai Cornell 5:14
Or sleeping pill

Raewyn Guerrero 5:15
Exactly, sleeping pill. And they’re not saying, well, maybe I should look into what her thyroid is doing. And then we should see how often she’s going to the bathroom. Because that’s a big, a lot of women that come to see me don’t go to the bathroom regularly. And they thinking like, oh, well, I go once every three days, and that’s okay. I’m like, No, that’s a real sign or symptom. And or they’re like, oh, I don’t really get a period, or I get a really horrific period. And it’s awful. And it keeps me in bed for two days. I’m like, these are signs that your body, these are clues. This is your check engine light on the dashboard, right, you need to pay attention, you don’t just turn it off, you know, you need to be like, Okay, this is alerting me to the fact that there’s a bigger problem. And that’s what I loved about functional medicine, it starts putting together all of these pieces, and saying, Okay, this is starting to give me a clearer picture of the puzzle of your health because I know this system is linked to that system, rather than the spot or reductionist approach of take this pill to match that symptom.

So I don’t chase symptoms, I don’t diagnose or treat. That’s one other thing that’s very different about the way that I work. There’s no diagnosis involved. If you’ve gotten a diagnosis from a doctor, great, that’s wonderful. But that’s not something that I would ever do. And even though I work with a traditional doctor who’s also trained in functional medicine, our scope of practice is not to diagnose or treat. We look for healing opportunities. So we look for the weak links, and then look for strength. Yeah, exactly. And we look at, well, how can we strengthen these weak links, because if we sat there picking apart symptom by symptom, we never get anywhere, which is where we look at, okay, well, the labs are showing us that these things in your body aren’t working. So we’re going to start helping them work again, because we know that there’s usually a system involved or a strategy involved in helping them work. So we focus on well how do we get them functioning again, how do we switch on that innate wisdom of the body because ultimately, your cells, they’re doing all the jobs for you without you having to tell them what to do. So this again, to me is the amazing part of it. Like your body’s designed to keep you alive.

And I meet a lot of people with health anxiety, like I’ve had one lady who was every time she had like a palpitation, she’s like, Oh my god, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die and she’d call an ambulance. I had to do some hypnosis work on her to help her understand, like, actually, your body’s working for you. It’s telling you you’re getting a palpitation, I mean, something else is off, and we need to do some work and investigate what’s going on? Of course, we did. And we found like, you know, she had been exposed to mold, had mold illness, and then that was leading to a slow thyroid. And then that was leading to these gut symptoms, and she wasn’t going to the bathroom regularly or detoxifying regularly now. And then that was leading to the brain fog and headaches and anxiety. So I do feel like a detective more than Yeah, health detective, as opposed to I’m not a prescriber. I’m not a diagnoser, I’m just a detective. And I’m putting together clues. And then I’m going to help you rebuild yourself.

Rai Cornell 8:01
Well, and I love that you take this, like, anti diagnosis perspective, because I feel like so often, people accept a diagnosis. And then it’s like they’re are accepting that problem as just something that they have to live with. And then, you’re saying no, every single person is unique. Two people could have the exact same symptoms, but they may have completely different problems. And so you’re not putting that label on it. And you are very solutions focused as opposed to problem focus, which I feel like diagnosed medicine is about

Raewyn Guerrero 8:38
Yeah

Rai Cornell 8:38
Yeah, very problem focused. And the other thing I found really interesting is that you brought up this car analogy, because the very beginning we are talking about, you know, everything originates in the gut. I’m thinking yeah, I mean, that makes sense. If I put shitty gas into my car, well, of course, it’s going to gum up the sparkplug, it’s going to go up this system, and this system and this mechanism and all of these things, and then of course, we’re going to have mechanical problems. And so if our gut is the receptacle to receive the fuel that we’re putting into our bodies, and particularly for entrepreneurs, our listeners, our freelancer listeners, who are in these very fast paced, self driven, high pressure that they’re putting on themselves sorts of situations, they may not be fueling their bodies the way that they need to and so naturally, that is going to cause a ripple effect through your body

Raewyn Guerrero 9:31
And your life like you know, it’s debilitating. I have one lady you know, things are obviously very different for her now, but at the time when she first came to see me she had horrible rosacea, eczema, her skin was a mess, and she couldn’t eat after 5pm. She said if she had anything to eat or drink after five she just have reflux all night. So she hadn’t been on a date for like a decade, she would not go out on a dinner date. So her love life had like flatlined, she wasn’t able to because she’s like, I can’t go out if I can’t eat because I’m just going to be upset and nauseous all night. And then within six weeks of us doing the diagnostics, getting her on the program, she actually forgot to take her supplements because she’d gone on a vacation six weeks in. And she forgot and she was out with friends and family that she hadn’t seen in a long time. She drank two bottles of Prosecco. Not recommended at all. I do not tell people forget your supplements and go horrible. But she had two bottles of Prosecco after 8pm, having dinner late. And she said, Oh my god, this is the first time in like 10 years, I was able to drink and eat and not be sick, like all night, like I had like the best time on this trip. We did it a few nights.

She said, obviously the second I got back, I went back on my supplements. But I think within six weeks, my gut started to turn around. I said, Yeah, that’s usually within two weeks, you should start to see and feel a difference. But I do put people through 90 days, because that’s how long like even you start to feel better immediately. Even if you’re removing a trigger food or something, you might feel better immediately. But it does take a while for your body to heal properly. So you can remove the triggers, and which is a lot. You know, a lot of people come to me at that point. They’re like, Well, I’ve already on like a low FODMAP diet, I’m on this diet, I’m on that diet. I’m like yes, but we still haven’t really figured out what’s causing all these symptoms anyway. So like, that’s why the labs are great. Otherwise, you’re just, you’re literally stuck in a cycle of trial and error, just going round and round. Like I’m going to try and remove this food. I’m going to try this supplement, and people show up with supplement graveyards, they’re like, Well, I’ve tried all these things, but none of them will work. And they say, I’ve tried everything, I’m like, you haven’t really because you’ve been doing it in a really sort of random, non strategic way. And what I love to do is to help them find the structure and go through different phases. And then, you know, gradually win back in certain foods after we’ve done the work on healing and repairing the gut. Amongst other things.

Rai Cornell 11:45
I’m guilty of that, too. I’m like, okay, so I need to figure this out. And I need to figure this out, I need to figure this out. So I’m just gonna, oh, I heard about this thing, I heard about fast, let me try that, Oh, I heard about this diet. I’m going to try that. And you’re right, it’s just totally random. Because we are literally grasping at straws. We’re not putting building blocks in place to build ourselves a roadmap to that healthy gut. And you know, one of the things that I learned from reading your chapter in our book Corporate Dropouts was that even though you eat a vegetarian diet, you are not pushing vegetarianism on everyone. And you know

Raewyn Guerrero 12:22
Oh I did, I don’t do it anymore, because I got really sick eating it.

Rai Cornell 12:26
Exactly. And so you are not one of those health coaches who say, Oh, you have to eat vegan, and you have to do this and you have to do this. It’s veganism works for some people. Maybe the carnivore diet works for other people, maybe an eclectic diet works for other people, maybe low carb works for other people. And that’s your true focus is helping people figure out what works for them. You’re not trying to push one agenda on everyone.

Raewyn Guerrero 12:49
Exactly. No, I’m actually really personalizing what works for them. And there’s, in addition to obviously the elimination side of things, which you kind of get from, you know, if you do lab work, and you see like, Okay, you got food sensitivities to this, this and this, or you have got this level of gut bacteria, and they react to sugary starchy foods, we need to remove those from your diet, too. There’s also something that we do call Metabolic Typing. And we figure out like from an ancestral point of view, like what sorts of foods you’re meant to be eating for your biology, for your individual biology. So like my husband, for example, his roots are Northern European, he does really well on like a lot of fat and protein. I am from the southern Caribbean, you know, corn and potatoes. And those things are great for me, they don’t make me ill, but like him, he’d be exhausted, like, fall asleep within like 10 minutes, if he had the the level of carbs that I would eat. And the same for me, like, if I eat the fat, the level of fat that he eats, I blow up like, you know, I just get so big. So I help people understand, well, what’s your metabolic type?

And there’s a whole, you know, we test hair and all that stuff as well. And then we also do like a self questionnaire and you start to pay attention, like do I feel energized after I eat this? Or does it make me tired. And when I say after, like within four hours, like not like in half an hour, if within the first two hours, something’s making you fall asleep, or you start to get itchy, or you have a headache, or you’re feeling weird, like that’s a sign like, Okay, I am sensitive to whatever it is I’ve just put in, I might need to remove that. And when you remove it, the idea is that, you know, you’re going to remove it while you also figure out like why are you sensitive to it, like what’s causing the sensitivity. So that’s where the other lab work comes in. So we could figure that out, because sensitivities you can heal from and many people have this misconception that a sensitivity is an allergy but a true allergy is something that you are born with, whereas the sensitivity you have acquired, right. So people say I’m allergic to this I’m like you’re probably not like, did you grow up being allergic to that? They’re like, No, I wasn’t allegic.

I say then you’re not allergic like you’ve got a sensitivity, usually down to a damaged gut, which is usually down to alcohol, too much sugar, over the counter meds, prescription meds, they can cause a lot of damage to your intestinal lining. Particularly psyco pharmaceuticals, which I know no one ever wants to hear. Psycho pharmaceuticals can actually really destroy your gut lining and antibiotics, which was my story. I had been on numerous courses of antibiotics throughout my life and did not connect the dots until I was in my mid 30s. That that’s why my immunity was off. Like I was sick all the time, I had no energy. I was always bloating after eating. I think when they did my first gut health test with a nutritionist, he said, You have like zero lactobacillus. He’s like, I’ve never seen this before. He’s like, You have no good bacteria, like zero. So I thought I was like, Is that possible? He said, Well, I’m just stunned that you’re like, he’s like, No wonder you’re sick all the time. Yeah. Because like 90% of your immune systems in your gut, which, you know, you don’t learn that from traditional doctors either. Right? Right.

So a lot of your energy is going to come from what’s going on here. Like you said, the car analogy makes sense to you, if you’re putting in crappy gas, you’re gonna get crappy outputs. And for me, trying to get people to connect those dots and getting them to understand like, you don’t go and DIY your car, you take it to a specialist. So please stop trying all the random things and ending up with a supplement graveyard like, sit down, work with someone who will guide you through a program, rather than like, I’m going to see you for one appointment. And I’m going to be fixed. Like, you don’t go to the gym and see your personal trainer for one appointment. And then all of a sudden, you’ve got abs, this is not how it works. Yeah, you know, you’ve got to be consistent. They build you up to a certain point before you can go off on your own and train by yourself. But you usually go through either a six week or 12 week program, and it’s the exact same thing.

Rai Cornell 16:32
Yeah, exactly. And you’re saying so many things that I feel like so many entrepreneurs, those of us who work for ourselves, we build our own businesses, we have big ambitions, big dreams, big goals, we push ourselves really hard. We can relate to that. And I want to get more into the burnout piece, we’re gonna take a really short break to drop some resources for our listeners. And we’ll be right back.

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And we’re back. Okay, so Raewyn talk to me about this concept that you created from burnout to all out. What is this sort of like connection between gut health and burnout that you’ve noticed with the female entrepreneurs that you’ve worked with?

Raewyn Guerrero 18:20
I think the number one thing that I’ve seen is that they fail, like I was saying at the start, like they really kind of fail to see that what they’re eating or how they’re living, the sort of like the pace at which they’re living is what’s leading them into no energy, not sleeping well, hormones not being great. So which is why I like starting off with investigative work. I’m like the first thing we’re going to do even though it’s not diagnosing, but it is like identifying what are the HIDDEN stressors, right? Yeah. So you look at hormones, you look at the immune system, you look at digestion, detoxification, energy production, and the nervous system. So HIDDEN is an acronym. So that’s what we look at. We identify the HIDDEN stressors. And once we do that, then we can create this personalized plan, like you said, this roadmap that takes them from this place where they are potentially flatlining or flatlined already are just on the verge of it, the exhaustive phase and getting them to you know, where they’re experiencing frequent colds and flus.

You know, lots of weird, sometimes bizarre things like lots of mouth ulcers, like sometimes people say, I’m getting all these mouth ulcers. I’m like, yeah, it’s a B vitamin deficiency, we need to look into why you’re not absorbed. Are you taking B vitamins? Are you eating enough meat, usually, a lot of vegans show up like that, they show up with a lot of allergies and a lot of issues with ulcers and those sorts of things. Again, stuff that you wouldn’t necessarily connect. But I started to piece together all the clues and I start seeing these different patterns that begin to emerge from certain people and how they eat a certain way and they’re not getting enough of what they need in order for them to function or thrive in life. So and thriving can also be lots of different things. And that’s why I love the fact that I can integrate the CBT, the cognitive behavioral therapy and the hypnosis piece into this as well, because I feel like what happens at the start is that we spend a lot of time focusing on food, focusing on supplements.

And very quickly, we can shift past that usually by sort of like the mid point by the third or fourth session, we can shift past that and then start getting into hopes and dreams and how well are you nurturing yourself and your spirits? Are you spending time really doing what you love? Or are you doing things to please other people for approval, and we kind of dig into the why behind why the way people are working, because when you’re working and, yes, you might be an entrepreneur, and you might have a real mission. But if you’re working in a way that’s not sustainable, there’s usually something, a big sort of either imposter syndrome driving that, there’s a ton of stuff that’s going on underneath the surface that needs to be dealt with and explored and investigated.

It could be even a trauma, something that has happened early on in life that needs to be identified too and I have seen that a lot, believe it or not, with my clients, like they don’t start off coming to me saying, Oh, I have been the victim of abuse or whatever. That never comes out at first. But usually by that halfway point, once we’ve kind of nailed the food down, and we’ve nailed the supplements, and they know what they got to do for the next 8-12 weeks or whatever, we get into like, well, what are some of the motivators for you? And like, why are you pushing so hard? And why is this so important? And there’s usually some unresolved trauma, or they’ve tried to resolve it through therapy, but it hasn’t, you know, the thing about therapy, having been through it, and also being a psychotherapist, that and which is why I prefer coaching. I feel like you always spend so much time just revisiting a wound and just reopening it and picking at it. And you come out here just exactly you’re living. Yeah, exactly. you’re wallowing and in victim mode. And I really, really think it’s important for people to move from that and start creating the vision of what they want.

And all my programs begin with, well, you know, okay, you’ve told me how you’re currently feeling. How do you want to feel, and we do a lot of visioning work to begin with, I make them write things down, and then I go back, and then we create, like their own personalized self hypnotic track. So they can use that, while they’re going through this process. And coming back to like seeing themselves healthy, full of energy, balanced, having time and space to do more of what they love, and less time being trapped at a desk or, you know, so there’s that whole mindset piece that comes in, but also like the creating the future, what is the future going to look like for you? And some people, they’re like, I’ve been sick for so long. I’ve been so tired, right? I don’t even know what that would look like.

Rai Cornell 22:39
Yeah, they don’t even know that’s possible.

Raewyn Guerrero 22:41
Yeah, they don’t. So we sit down. And we do a lot of that work in our sessions, where we figure out well, what would it look like, what would ideal look like for you, if you’ve never even thought about it before, you’ve never had the space or the bandwidth? And, you know, it looks different for everybody. But one thing that does come up a lot is freedom. You know, and I talk about that in my chapter in the book, like, becoming an entrepreneur, for me was about freedom, like I had freedom to travel, so geographical freedom, I had freedom in my body where I didn’t have to worry about oh my god, can I eat that on the menu? Can I eat that on the menu? Is it gonna make me sick? Like all of that stuff just goes out the window. You know, freedom to what else? You got geographical freedom. Time freedom, most important thing. Body freedom, geographical freedom, time freedom. Getting back time and creative freedom having time to like, Wait, do I want to paddleboard on a Thursday morning at 8am? Yes, I do. Or do I want to kayak? Or do I want to go in my garden? Do I want to grow my own food? You know, like all these things that people always just like, I didn’t even thought about that.

And the way that the world is going now, I really am rallying my little group, like, you know, I have sort of like 15 active clients right now I don’t take on more than that. 15 active and we we meet group wise, but we also do one to one. So the 12 weeks is like we meet and then we also, we have my one to ones. And then we also meet as a group, which is amazing, that’s actually probably the thing that I love the most. Because when we get together, they’re so incredible how they support each other and that just takes on a life and energy of its own. And everyone’s realizing like well, you know, we need to figure out multiple income streams, we need to figure out how to be self sufficient in the event that the shit hits the fan. I don’t if I can say that on your own show. Yes. Oh, yeah, I can say the shit hit the fan. If the shit hits the fan. You got to make sure you can feed yourself. You’ve got you know, fuel. And I’m not a survivalist. But I’m just paying attention to the world and the way things are headed. And you know, we’re in Mexico, and there’s a place out here if anybody ever gets a chance to visit Cabo, go to a place called Flora farms. And that’s like, that’s like my dream.

That’s what I’m working toward, like recreating my own little Flora farms. So they’ve got their own well, they’ve got their solar and they’ve got their own food and they’ve got their animals and you know, pigs and chickens and everything that you know, they can feed themselves and you don’t have to, you can live off grid. And I’m not saying everybody wants to do that. Because I need a Wi Fi connection in order to be able to work. Of course, but at the same time, you have to think, well, you know, in a couple of years, yeah, things might become different or scarce. And this little group of mine, like we’re all looking at, well, how do we create different income streams? And how do we create sustainability in our lives as well, and how we help other people along the way, which is the big, big driving force, because the more people that we have waking up to living and thinking and feeling this way about the world, and realizing like, look, the only way we’re gonna get through half of this is in community rather than in competition. So working together, exactly, community collaboration and pulling together. And like I said, I love that group, like my well connected group, they are incredible. I love seeing them one to one. But there is something magical that definitely happens when we all get together.

Rai Cornell 25:50
So let me ask you a question that I might not like the answer to. So if you know anything about human design, I’m a generator. And I tend to attract a lot of generators and a lot of manifesting generators. Yes, we are people who can just go Go, go, go, go, go go. And so I’m a little bit of a peak performance junkie, you know, I read all the things, I listen to all the podcasts, I do all the programs, all the trainings, and go into a Joe Dispenza workshop soon, you know, with like, all of these things that are like meant to take you to that next level of your performance. So my question to you is, for those of us who want that busy lifestyle, rich, creating things left and right, and building and, you know, my husband and I are working on a chicken coop, and we’ve got our raised garden beds and all the things, is it possible with what you know about gut health and all of the mindset work and all the psychological work that you do? Is it possible to get to that place of true peak performance?

Raewyn Guerrero 26:52
Yeah, well, that’s exactly what I’m saying. The only way to get to that place is this way, is by being tuned in because otherwise, you’ll get there but you won’t last. Right?

Rai Cornell 27:01
Exactly and that’s burnout, right.

Raewyn Guerrero 27:03
And that’s burnout exactly. You push yourself beyond your limits, beyond your physical limits, which I think we all often forget that we are, you know, we need food, water, air, you know, clean food. Yeah. So you forget these things, because we think we’re like a machine, I can just keep going and like you’re not, and there’s an expression, if you do not make time for wellness, you will be forced to make time for illness. So you might not want it, you’re like, I don’t have time to focus on cooking, I don’t have time to do this, I don’t have time, then there are other ways. Like I help people in my VIP program, I help them find meal delivery services. So like, if you don’t have time to cook, we’ll find you a service that will bring you the food that will be of the quality that it needs to be in order to sustain you. Right. So like I help people figure these things out. If they say I’m really busy, I really don’t have time to sit down and cook all of this stuff or chop up vegetables or whatever, we will come up with a strategy, we’ll find a plan, we’ll find what’s in your local neighborhood, and make sure that you are able to fuel properly, fuel your performance properly.

But fueling it also means taking your foot off the gas. And that’s the thing that you know, formula One. Back to car analogies, Formula One, if you think about what happens on a racetrack, right? If they don’t make pitstops what happens to them? Their tires burnout, exactly, tires burnout, they flip over, they run out of gas, you’re rear ended. You have to make pitstops. It’s the only way that you keep performing at a high level because if you don’t when you’re meant to, when you should, like sleeping. Sleeping is technically a pitstop, right, like you need to get good quality sleep. You skimp on that, your immunity goes down, your hormones go out of whack, your metabolism goes out of whack. Your inflammation levels go up, you’re at risk for heart disease, but your risk for all these things increases exponentially diabetes, all that blood sugar, so I used to wear a blood sugar monitor. I’m not doing it here now because I’m in Mexican and I can’t get it here. But when I was in San Diego, I used to where this blood sugar monitor, and really weirdly, and I talked about this in my, I have a five day course called Get gutsy. So Get Gutsy Reset, and it’s free. Anybody can take it and it’s a way to kind of introduce them to some of these concepts and start making small gradual changes.

But I talked about the blood sugar monitor being the thing that I was wearing it for food to see like, well, what foods are spiking my blood sugar and the thing that was really interesting about it, it wasn’t food for me. Yeah, because I pretty, you know, Paleoish, you know, but when there were a few nights where I was kind of, I had to do some presentations in the UK and I was waking up really early at like three in the morning because I had to do it at lunchtime their time, which was like 4am So my sleep was you know, I was going to bed at 10 waking up at three not ideal. Don’t recommend it. And my blood sugar was spiking on those days even though nothing about my food had changed. But the fact that I wasn’t sleeping. I was like in this really dangerous sort of like it’s just massive, massive peaks in my blood sugar. So sleep is so huge as a regulator and as a pitstop, you know, if you want to recover well, you know, it’s like, you know, you go to the gym and it’s the same thing like if you are exercising loads, and you start lifting and lifting and lifting, but you don’t give yourself days in between or weeks in between to recover and you don’t build gradually what’s gonna happen, you’re gonna tear a muscle, you’re gonna get broken down. So

Rai Cornell 30:20
And you go to the gym for 2, 3, 4 weeks.

Raewyn Guerrero 30:23
Exactly. So resilience is literally about like actually pulling back, yes, about pulling back. So and being able to realize like, in order to be at peak performance and running from one thing to the next thing to the next thing, I gotta have a minute to pause. And I have to remind myself of that, too, because I am a manifesting generator. So you know, in my business, like I have been sitting, you know, I can sit here and go at it for 15 hours. And I’m like, how has that served me in the past? Right? Are you well? And how was it? And I see it happen, how is it serving all the other people who are showing up like, my brain is fried, I can’t hold a thought, I can’t remember anything, I have no energy, I’m like, okay, so clearly the way that you’re living, you’ve lived yourself into the state, like, we got to live your way out of it now. So boundaries, breaks, breathwork, the three B’s.

Rai Cornell 31:11
And you touched on another really important factor, especially for self employed business owners, which is the stress piece. And I feel like even if you optimize your health, you optimize your gut health, you optimize your sleep routines, you get all of these ducks in a row, there still always going to be that battle against stress. And for those of us who are corporate dropouts, and who left that crazy corporate world because of the stress, only to come home to our home offices, and exchange our nine to five for 24/7. That is even more responsibility on our shoulders. We’re not just filling this one role in a company, but we are filling all the roles, wearing all the hats in our own businesses. Stress is a natural part of being an entrepreneur. And yet, you and I are on a mission to remove that stress from people’s lives and to, you know, it sounds like you really work with ways to build that resiliency against stress. And so what are some patterns? Or what are your best tips for people who are, who feel like they figured it out, but stress, the constant presence of stress in their lives, no matter how many, you know, adaptogens and mushrooms and things that they’re taking, that is always a constant pressure in their lives, what would you recommend they do?

Raewyn Guerrero 32:36
Well, I think it’s important for us to identify that there are three types of stress. So you have got, in fact, actually there are five, but we’re gonna for purposes of time today, we’re gonna talk about three. So you’ve got your emotional stress. So I think that’s what you’re talking about situations and things that can drive cortisol. And cortisol stress is the elevation of cortisol right, which is a hormone. And then that causes blood sugar to elevate as well. So those are two intrinsically linked things and it causes melatonin to drop and melatonin is your sleep hormone. So we’ve got like, emotional stress, and we’ve got like biochemical stress, which I was just talking about, and they all play off each other. And then you’ve got like a physiological muscular skeletal stress or like an injury. And again, the emotional stress can create a musculoskeletal stress and the musculoskeletal stress can create an emotional stress and then that can create the biochemical stress. So they’re all intertwined.

So if you’ve got just one and you say, Oh, I’m just dealing with psychological stress, I’m just dealing with you know, a shitty work situation, or maybe it’s not a shitty one, maybe even it’s like a good thing, because sometimes even like getting married, which is a lovely thing. Or having a baby, wonderful things. They are stressful. Very stressful, right? Because you’re losing sleep. Yeah, you are not, your cortisol is going up. And then your adaptive reserves begin to drop. So what you want to do when you think about like, okay, if I’m dealing with stressful situations, how do I manage those? So yes, you can take adaptogens for sure. But you need to also, I keep going back to like find out if there’s anything else going on, because the way that you perceive stress and the way that I perceive stress might be totally different for you like my stepson, he jumps out of a plane and he thinks like, it’s the greatest thing on earth. For me, I’m having a heart attack. I’m like, this is not what humans are supposed to do. We do not fly, if we were meant to fly, we’d have wings. So we do not jump out of planes.

So perception of stress is also another key feature in how we deal with psychological stress. And then the length of time that you’re dealing with your stress is also another big feature. So if you’re living in a constant state of stress, then you’re no longer adaptive, you’re in chronic stress. So when we go through short, sharp bursts of stress, that’s when it’s, you know, that’s healthy, that’s actually good for us. It helps us grow. It’s the same thing, I go back to muscles. So cars and muscles, those are my two analysis. So go back to muscle growth, you have to stress out a muscle a little bit in order for it to grow. So in some ways, that’s not a bad thing. But if it’s constantly under pressure, constantly under stress, then what happens is that you end up having a tear or some sort of injury. And it’s the same thing with our brains. So that’s why I keep going back to saying things like the three B’s, you know, look at where can you figure out to build in your breaks, right, your boundaries and breathwork. The three B’s are so crucial from a mindset and behavioral point of view in order for managing yourself. And then also looking at things like blood sugar.

So your fourth B, right, so your managing your blood sugar is also another key feature there and some people think I’ve got to eat all the time in order to manage my blood sugar. I’m like, No, that’s not what I’m saying. You can actually manage blood sugar. You mentioned intermittent fasting a little while ago. But one of the ways that I sorted mine out, because at one point, this was while I was in Barkley’s, I was eating, I was a grazer, there’s always stuff on my desk, there’s nuts and seeds, and yogurt, and all these things, in addition to meals, and I was constantly like, but I never gave my digestive tract a break. So I’m like, why am I bloated all the time? Why am I in pain, like genius, like all you’re doing is putting extra stress and extra load, and you kind of sometimes need to, I would wake up extremely hungry. I’m like, oh, it’s because my metabolism is firing. I was like, no, actually, it’s because my blood sugar had dropped completely, because it was so accustomed to being fed.

And you know, so the way to balance it for me, I’m not saying this is everybody was that I started intermittent fasting, and I went on a retreat, and they showed me how to do it. And it was very, in a very safe container being monitored by other people. So again, I did not go and just try this by myself, like I made sure I was supervised so that when I started having like, I’m getting a little lightheaded, and they were like, Okay, what did we give you today to eat? Like, What, When was your last meal? Those sorts of things. And like, okay, maybe this is and at one point, they were giving me lentils, which was no good for me, I’m like, that is not working out at all. So lentils did not work, the whole vegetarian thing really didn’t work for me. But the intermittent fasting, you know, going sort of like eating within only an eight hour window for me worked really, really well. And it helped me manage that blood sugar. And I did not wake up like an angry bear. Like, where’s my food, where’s my coffee, you know, all that just kind of mellowed out completely, like really, really mellowed out. So the things that you’re putting in will have an impact, the thoughts that you’re thinking are going to have an impact, and the behaviors that you’re engaging in are going to have an impact, and your perception of the stress as well.

So, you know, when you think, Oh, my God, my business, my business, it’s stressing me out, like, but you get to run a business, you get to define that, you get to design exactly, you get to live your life with intention and by design. How many people on this earth are stuck in doing things that they hate, you know, like, I look back at my parents, and, you know, they just had to slog it out, they didn’t have options to like, and if they did, they weren’t aware of them. And now you get to be in a place where no, I can actually sit down and figure out how to make money online, I can figure I’ve got the time and the space to do these things, I can do all the courses, I’m very familiar with that. Do all the workshops, all the summits, I’m gonna sign up and do all these things, because I can clear my schedule and be like, Okay, this week, I’m not going to see anyone or if I do, I’ll see them on one day. And then I’ve got two days to do my Summit, or the three days or whatever it is. So you get to rather than you have to.

And that’s a big mindset shift that people need to come to as well, that you like, this is actually a gift. This is a privilege that I have, that I have been gifted this time to be an entrepreneur, to manage my day. And maybe if I’m struggling with that, maybe I should seek out a mentor, or someone who can help me figure out how to better make use of my day and how to, you know, that’s why I do like things like masterminds because you’re surrounded by other people who, you know, that’s another community element where they either a little bit ahead of you, or just behind you, or somebody just at the same place of you, is put in place as you and and that’s priceless, because then that gives you a sense of not being alone which humans need, we need to feel connected. And that’s probably one of the biggest, I think struggles for entrepreneurs, that lack of connection, because you probably have done away with some of your older friends, because they don’t really understand well, why are you working 15 hours a day? And why you can’t be like them anymore, why don’t you come into the pub, because coming to the pub is not helping me put food on my table or pay my bills.

So I’m solely responsible for the mortgage, I’m solely responsible for whatever it is, and we don’t clock out. So just going out every night after work, which you know, might have been a thing when you were salaried, and somebody else was worrying about those things. It just is no longer a feature. So you start to lose a lot of your old circle. And then you kind of in a transition phase of I don’t really know who my real people are? Who is my tribe? Who are the people that I can sit down and talk to about the fact that the system I invested in, I’m not really sure it’s working, or you know, like, you don’t necessarily have those sorts of people immediately as you step into this space around you. So it’s really important to find some sort of community or connection. If you have a partner who’s also an entrepreneur, it makes it so much simpler. You know, like my, when I branched off within like a, I went to that retreat in March 2017. So it was five years ago. I graduated from the functional medicine Coaching Academy in June, like June the sixth.

And by the 13th of June, I broken up with my four year boyfriend. Because I just realized like he could not, I think I’d seen it all along. And because I’d had coaching through it, they kept asking me like, Well, why do you feel like you’re stressed, and everything would always come back down to being with him is actually really stressful? What am I doing, like, I have to take on this whole other stress of running a company, I can’t look after someone who wants me to look after them. And you know, he wasn’t prepared to pull his weight. So I couldn’t, I just couldn’t do it. So yeah, you have to really examine like, who’s in your circle who understands you, you need people who understand you. So community and connection, big, big pieces when it comes to dealing with situational stress, particularly as an entrepreneur and practicing those three or four B’s however you want to look at it, you know, blood sugar as part of it.

Rai Cornell 41:02
And it’s a natural evolution, when you start fixing the big problems that are right in front of you that are bothering you every day, and those start to resolve, then you’re going to move on to the next layer of issues, then the next layer issues. So you’re going to, when you start tackling these bigger problems, like the physical symptoms that you’re feeling and that you’re just hoping they’re going to be gone, it starts opening the door for so many other things in your life to change. Raewyn you have given us so much to think about where can people check you out, if they want to work with you, learn more about your work and get that free course.

Raewyn Guerrero 41:37
Well, I’d love everybody to just go to well-works.co/get-gutsy-reset. Pretty long.

Rai Cornell 41:45
We will put the link in the show notes

Raewyn Guerrero 41:47
You will put the link in the show notes. Thank you, it’s pretty long. But that’s where you’ll get the five day mini course. And it will get you thinking and taking some action, some small actions across each of the five pillars, the diet, the rest, exercise, stress reduction and supplements. So even, and again, I don’t believe in random supplements. But these are some generics like, this is what you could do if you want to kind of get started on looking at reclaiming energy, and preventing burnout. So that’s a great place to begin. And then you can also find me on Instagram. So I’m the gutsy executive coach. So it’s just instagram.com/gutsy executive coach, very simple. And I have a wonderful free community on Facebook. Well works world. So the idea is that we’re creating a well world together. So I would love for people to participate in that because that’s where I go live very frequently. I will share videos, I will come in there answer questions, ask me anything.

So you can pop in there if you have questions. And you can, it’s a lot of great energy in there, lots of cool people. Everybody’s dealing with their own thing, like nobody ever gets to, oh, I’m suddenly fixed. And that’s one thing I would love to leave people with, like being alive is a journey, it is not a destination. And being healthy is a journey. So even, you know, like I told you some of my struggles, like they don’t end because like, oh, I fixed this. And I was like well, no, as I’m getting older, as things are happening, I’m in my mid 40s like, stuff starts to change, I gotta be adapting, you know, and that’s why it’s really important. Like, if you look at a tennis star, or a professional athlete, they don’t go through life, with just a life coach or just a tennis coach, they have got a chiropractor, they have got a yoga teacher, they have got a Pilates instructor, they got a rehab guy, they got a mindset guy, they’ve got like a whole team around them to support them as they strengthen their game. And it’s the same thing for people.

Like if you want to be at the top of your game, you have got to have a team around you. And I do pride myself on the fact that I don’t work alone. I’m really lucky that I’ve got the medical doctor, I have got two nutritional therapists in England and two also in the US. And so one of the Colorado ones in South San Francisco and then Nathan is in the UK. And he oversees you know, I run most things past him. I don’t like working unsupervised in that way. Because this is people’s health, it’s really important to me. And I want to make sure that I’m not giving people like the wrong guidance, like it’s actually being vetted and approved by someone who has a ton, like 25 years of clinical experience. I have a lot of personal experience and clinical experience. But I really do like having the oversight of somebody else who, you know, has worked in hospitals, emergency rooms, all the things and is now on this other trajectory because he realized that that model of medicine was not sustainable. It was not helping people get well and he’s really, we’re all very committed to helping people perform at the top of their game. So having a team is so important.

Rai Cornell 44:40
So if you want access to Raewyb and all of her incredible professionals on her team, check her out. We’ll put all those links in the show notes. Thanks so much for being here.

Raewyn Guerrero 44:49
Thank you. It was a pleasure.

Rai Cornell 45:04
Hey Rai here again. Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, please subscribe and rate us in your favorite podcasting platform. Want to be a guest on the show or know someone who has an amazing story of entrepreneurship? Apply on our website at chironconsulting.us/podcast.