Pathways with Amber Stitt

Fitness, Purpose, & Intention: How to Live Your Best Life with Dai Manuel

• Amber Stitt

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🎙️ Welcome to another inspiring episode of Pathways with Amber Stitt.

💪 Join host Amber Stitt in this exciting episode as she welcomes Dai Manuel, a transformative life mentor and enthusiastic advocate for fitness and wellness. 

🔎 Discover Dai's incredible journey from turning his life around as a teenager battling obesity to becoming a role model in self-improvement and well-being. 

🏊 Dive into his insights on the "struggle with the juggle" of life's demands, the importance of self-care, and how to harness the power of fitness, mindfulness, and positive habits into your daily routine.

🧠 In this episode, Dai shares wisdom drawn from renowned figures like Tony Robbins and Joe Dispenza, unpacking the significance of your attention and where your energy flows.

💓 Get inspired by Dai's tips on managing stress, understanding the pivotal role of heart rate variability, HRV, and effectively using just 2% of your day for personal growth. 

🌍 Learn about the fascinating research around Blue Zones and how lifestyle choices impact longevity and happiness. 

✈️ Plus, hear about Dai’s own experiences and how his family's journey from Vancouver to Bali transformed their lives.

💡 Don't miss out on this episode packed with actionable advice to help you live a more intentional, fulfilling life. 

👍 For more uplifting content, check out other episodes of Pathways.

📽️ To watch this podcast:  https://youtu.be/EQ4xpUkkcco 

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🔗 Connect with Dai:

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🎧 Listen now, embrace positivity, and embark on your pathway to health and wellness!

📻 Thank you for tuning in to Pathways!

🔗 Connect with Amber on Social Media:

📲 Be sure to visit Amber's website:

www.AmberStitt.com

And remember, let's take action today!!!

Dai Manuel [00:00:00]:
This struggle with the juggle, it's not like it's a challenge that none of us are familiar with. We all deal with it to some extent. And let's be fair, our attention is constantly being pulled on. And you'll hear gurus like Tony Robbins and Joe Dispenza, and they'll talk about where your attention goes, your energy flows, right? And so if you start thinking about, and this is where I'd like to begin today is when you start to look at lack of progress, or lack of results in maybe certain areas that you're intentionally wanting to see grow, or develop, be more profitable. I mean, whatever it might be, you have to start asking yourself, "Well, are the actions that I'm doing supporting those outcomes?" Because at the end of the day, if it doesn't, well, you gotta ask yourself, "Well, why am I doing it and what could I be doing differently?"

Amber Stitt [00:00:40]:
Hello and welcome to Pathways. I am your host, Amber Stitt, and today we welcome Dai Manuel, who is a real life superhero. Welcome to the show, Dai.

Dai Manuel [00:00:50]:
Amber, thank you. It's an honor to be here. Honestly, it's just great. I've been looking forward to this. I creep you on social, which most people do nowadays, and I just love your energy and love what you're throwing down. Anyways, I've been looking forward to this, so, yeah, thanks for having me.

Amber Stitt [00:01:03]:
So why did I think you lived in Bali at some point?

Dai Manuel [00:01:06]:
I did. You are absolutely right. My family and I lived in Bali, we went traveling for about five years. The first couple years were spent in North America because my father was ill with pancreatic cancer. And you grew up in Canada? Yeah, from Canada. So we live in Vancouver, my parents were out in Toronto. And so we only traveled around North America, as a family, for the first couple years because we wanted to be able to come back really quickly to be with my dad.

Dai Manuel [00:01:28]:
And we ended up spending the last six months of his life with him. As a family, we were able to move in with them, which is amazing because things happen and you don't realize those choices and actions we make today, how it may potentially make our very near future so much more positive. Because I had left a 17 year career only about a year prior to that and had I not left that career, I would not have had the opportunity to spend those last six months with my father, especially having my own kids and my wife with me, living with them. And so after my dad passed, Amber, my wife and I are looking at each other and we're like, "Well, I guess we can go overseas now." And we picked Bali as a place to go first because it was going to be a great sort of jumping off point for Southeast Asia. But the crazy thing happened, we got to Bali and we're like, after three months, "What if we stayed here?" And two and a half years later we finally left, but we ended up living there, my family was there for two years,

Dai Manuel [00:02:19]:
I was there for two and a half.

Amber Stitt [00:02:20]:
I heard it is so affordable, it's just hard to get to from North America. Is that true?

Dai Manuel [00:02:24]:
It can be. Like I said, I'm in Vancouver, so it's usually two flights. Before when we did it, we'd fly to San Fran and then San Fran would have a direct over to Asia. But there's very few direct flights to Bali, if anything. So you have to usually go to some sort of Asian hub, or Australian hub. And so just when you look at the amount of time to travel, it is a full day commitment. Like 24 hours for us from Vancouver.

Amber Stitt [00:02:43]:
Oh, yeah.

Dai Manuel [00:02:44]:
Depending what part of the state, you're looking at 20 to 24 hours. It's worth it, though. It's worth it.

Amber Stitt [00:02:48]:
Well, my sister-in-law, half sister-in-law is Australian. My mother-in-law is Australian. So they're like, "Bali, just going up to Bali," and it's like, oh, bougie. But they want to be in the US so bad. And I'm like, "Why? You live in Australia!" And they go, "But it's really proper. And it's not so open where we live sometimes" that they like how people are in the US. And I said, "But you're on the beach." It's a different culture. I didn't realize that.

Amber Stitt [00:03:10]:
And then half of that country you can't travel, or go into. It's just there's...you can't go through it. You have to go up and around it, like from west to east coast in the US. But podcasting with people all over the globe, as you know and as you've traveled, you just see so many things and see how people are doing work and obviously having you on the show today, I want to talk about that. So I'm hoping that you can help our audience with the struggle of the juggle, or the juggle struggle. The struggle of the juggle...

Dai Manuel [00:03:37]:
Struggle with the juggle of life. For sure. I'm happy to help.

Amber Stitt [00:03:39]:
So you have some tips, I think, to share. But like, we need to go inside with the guy that's the COO. A multimillion, like multimillion dollar.. Some people don't even know how to get there. So I think you can help manifest.

Dai Manuel [00:03:51]:
Well, at the end of the day, it still takes a lot of action. Manifesting is great. Once we got a vision, at least gives us a little bit of direction. Maybe you got to execute at the end of the day. And to be fair, the success I had in my last company was largely due to the team. It was all people driven, even though it was retail, commercial, B2B solutions, but it was all in the fitness space, which is a space I'm very comfortable in. And I love because it's really helped me at so many pivotal moments in my own life. It's been that constant that's allowed me to get through things, and so I'm a big proponent for fitness and moving our bodies with purpose every day.

Dai Manuel [00:04:26]:
And I don't care how you move it, just move it, you know? But this struggle with the juggle, it's not like it's a challenge that none of us are familiar with. We all deal with it to some extent. And let's be fair, our attention is constantly being pulled on. And you'll hear gurus like Tony Robbins and Joe Dispenza, and they'll talk about where your attention goes, your energy flows. Right? And so if you start thinking about. And this is just where I'd like to begin today is when you start to look at lack of progress, or lack of results in certain areas that you're intentionally wanting to see grow, or develop, be more profitable, I mean, whatever it might be, you have to start asking yourself, "Well, are the actions that I'm doing supporting those outcomes?" Because at the end of the day, if it doesn't, all you gotta ask yourself, "Well, why am I doing it and what could I be doing differently?" And...

Amber Stitt [00:05:10]:
Yeah, because.

Dai Manuel [00:05:10]:
Yeah, go ahead.

Amber Stitt [00:05:11]:
Sometimes if you see a metric, okay, social media can be like that marketing where I'll do X and I should get X, Y and Z right now. People are going to come through the door. Some of my business partners that are older say like, "OK, if you're doing all this work, what kind of sales is there?" And sometimes it's not right there. So with what you just said, maybe double check, is it worth the time or effort? But sometimes things just take a little bit longer, or maybe you need to tweak something. I think that's what I'm picking up with what you're saying.

Dai Manuel [00:05:37]:
You're absolutely correct, Amber. Yes. And I guess it depends also contextually what we're talking about wanting to change. Right. Like obviously I talk a lot about health and well being and mindset and especially because I see so many entrepreneurs, C level executives, founders, and you know, they're amazing, like literally amazing at what they do. However, there's a bit of a disparity when it comes to how they show up for themselves professionally versus how they show up for themselves personally. And this gap, even though it might be something that they can manage very well early on, as businesses scale, we realize it's becoming even a bigger gap because we don't have any intentional actions, or just really rituals, or lifestyle habits to support that growth, especially for us personally. And so it's a matter of looking at what's real for me, like what's actually realistic, what's minimum amount of effective dose that I need to keep myself in my thrive state versus getting to that sort of, "Oh my gosh, I'm barely surviving." And it really just takes intentional focus and don't overcomplicate it.

Dai Manuel [00:06:32]:
Like literally. I see so many people looking at these morning rituals and it's like, "Oh, I gotta do 12 things before 7 AM or else I'm a failure. And I'm like, "No, you're not. The fact that you do one of those 12 things in the morning already sets you ahead of everybody else," And so again, it's building into our lifestyle what's real and what's realistic, but also what's going to help us sustain and attain, not refrain us from getting there. And as you can tell, I like a lot of alliteration.

Amber Stitt [00:06:57]:
So anyways, I don't hear many people talk about Joe Dispenza. So can we go into...

Dai Manuel [00:07:02]:
Okay, yeah.

Amber Stitt [00:07:03]:
"What is real?"

Dai Manuel [00:07:04]:
Yeah, right.

Amber Stitt [00:07:05]:
Give me a little Joe Dispenza. I know I talk too much sometimes. My grandmother, who's 92 this month, is the one that brought me Joe Dispenza. What about five years ago?

Dai Manuel [00:07:15]:
How did that happen? Like how did she come to Joe Dispenza?

Amber Stitt [00:07:17]:
She's so cool.

Dai Manuel [00:07:18]:
Very.

Amber Stitt [00:07:19]:
She loves to read about mind, body, you name it. And so she's always learning. I think that's why she's alive, thriving at 92.

Dai Manuel [00:07:27]:
I mean, she's one of the blue zones, Right?Like I just think about those people that are thriving into their hundreds and...

Amber Stitt [00:07:32]:
But she lives in Nebraska.

Dai Manuel [00:07:33]:
Well, it might not be a blue zone, but her lifestyle habits, it sounds like, might be very Blue Zone-ish, though.

Amber Stitt [00:07:39]:
Yes. And she's been a widow for a long time and she just didn't let that stop her. So what do you think about the energy of Joe?

Dai Manuel [00:07:46]:
Well, I know he's not necessarily for everybody, but that can be said about anybody, right? Like any of these thought leaders. But a lot of what he speaks to is very science founded. He's either been involved, or been at least a privy to a lot of these amazing studies especially around the mind/body connection. And some of the things he's throwing down specifically around the nervous system I think is fascinating. And that's what brought me in originally was really just a lot of the scientific knowledge and statistics and data that he would often share to correlate to why certain things are happening. And what I mean by that is like even his style of meditation is very specific.

Amber Stitt [00:08:19]:
And he healed himself out of a...

Dai Manuel [00:08:21]:
Yes, and again, I'm not going to make claims like that and, of course he does with a grain of salt because I mean depending what market you're in, it's a "No, no," to make some of those claims.

Amber Stitt [00:08:32]:
Disclosure: We are not saying that yes, nothing's guaranteed. But I mean I use some of his fundamentals to prepare for keynotes before I put myself in the room and I visualize the room down to just I didn't even speak much out loud with the practice of it. I visualized it and thought through it very quietly.

Dai Manuel [00:08:50]:
That's so good. That's a wonderful example of the potential with this sort of visualization type exercises. And the nice thing is he's got some great meditations, a whole pile of them. And you can just really download them, or do them on YouTube. But he'll guide you through this very lengthy, very specific way of meditating and visualizing. And all I say to people is, sure, it might not be something that you're fully into, or maybe you're a bit averse to, but just try it and see if you notice a difference. And for the data heads out there that are kind of like me, that like data. I love data to be honest with you.

Dai Manuel [00:09:19]:
Especially when it comes to physical metrics and biological metrics, these data trackers nowadays, these activity trackers are phenomenal. And you can actually see there's something called a heart rate variability, often referred by the acronym HRV. It is literally a window into our nervous system. And this little number fluctuates throughout our day. But it's heavily impacted by stress, especially chronic stress, maybe hormonal, imbalances, right down to just maybe autoimmune conditions like I deal with. And HRV, the lower it is, it's that struggle that we're talking about very much a juggle. And we might feel like we're stagnant in our results, or our progress.

Dai Manuel [00:09:59]:
And I invite people like if you start monitoring your HRV, you'll be able to start to see the trends of how you're showing up emotionally and even I'd go as far as like spiritually.

Amber Stitt [00:10:06]:
Yeah.

Dai Manuel [00:10:07]:
And physically we'll be largely impacted. And the correlation between the two is remarkable. Like I know on days where I have a really low HRV it means I probably didn't sleep well the night before. So I'm under-recovered. The last thing I'm going to do if I'm in that higher state of stress, not rested. I'm not going to go and do a CrossFit or an Olympic lifting workout because it's way too much of a nervous load for me. And I know it's going to make things worse, not better. And so again, I've learned how to really look at HRV and make certain physical changes, or intentional changes on the day-to-day based on that number.

Dai Manuel [00:10:38]:
Joe Dispenza, along with a lot of other thought leaders in this space are really speaking highly of this HRV and becoming much more aware of what it means for us individually. And this is accessible to everybody, right? This is not some magical pill that I'm just trying to sell you.

Amber Stitt [00:10:53]:
And that's what's interesting, do some of this work, you gotta do it yourself and try some of these things. But it's almost like you do blood work. It tells you a snapshot of time that day that you took the blood. HRV could be that baseline to say there's something going wrong. Otherwise okay, I had a full night's rest, my diet's been okay, whatever it might be. But there's still something wrong that it might be a relationship fix, a communication you need to have. There might be something else, then you can go and maybe reverse engineer to figure out how to feel better.

Dai Manuel [00:11:21]:
Well said Amber, that's exactly correct. And the nice thing is that once you start to understand your nervous system and the effect of stress, especially stress that goes unmanaged like that, chronic stress...I mean it was World Health Organization back in, I think it was the, around 2015, 2016, had this huge press conference and they were saying, "The pandemic of our generation is chronic stress." And so it's a very front of mind situation. Now we've heard of it, but do we really understand what that means? And I think that's where there's a disconnect. Unless people start to look at their own systems and monitor their own day-to-day, how their body's responding to the things that they're actually doing or not doing.

Amber Stitt [00:11:59]:
Yes.

Dai Manuel [00:11:59]:
You can become much more self-aware and actually do things with greater intention and confidence that it's actually going to work.

Amber Stitt [00:12:05]:
Okay, so is this why fitness is the first of the five? Because I, I know that you date your wife, but she might say, "Excuse me?" and I don't know the faith, what your faith is, but they might be going, "Hey, no," but I'm teasing you because if you don't feel well, you're not accountable to yourself. Can you talk about was that purposeful?

Dai Manuel [00:12:25]:
If I give you just a short story of how I came to fitness, it wasn't naturally. A lot of people meet me and they're like, "Oh, you've probably been fit your whole life." And I'm like, "Actually, no."

Amber Stitt [00:12:35]:
They're just jealous. They just saw you flex, or something.

Dai Manuel [00:12:37]:
We are quick to judge based on what we see. So I am quick to remind people, no, I mean, I was morbidly obese as a teenager. I was a very unhealthy child and it was all my own fault. I'm not blaming anybody. I was dealing with some emotional issues and I found solace in certain foods, not healthy foods, by the way, as well as TV and video games, which is very passive. And doing that for 5, 6 years, what do you expect? My gut was really unhealthy. And I came to fitness as one of the methods to help me with my change because I really wanted to change physically.

Dai Manuel [00:13:09]:
I got to a place at 15 where I'm like, "I can't do this anymore. I need to change, and more importantly, I want to change." And going through that process of change myself created this really interesting relationship with fitness in my life. I look at it as a way to really self-medicate, if I'm perfectly honest. My family can tell if I'm getting a little moody, my wife's like, "Why don't you go for a workout or just go do something active?" She knows I could be gone for 20 minutes, I'll come back and I'll completely change energetically.

Amber Stitt [00:13:35]:
But that's not just a you thing. I think it's a human thing.

Dai Manuel [00:13:38]:
Right, I agree. Yes. So I do believe fitness is a priority for everyone, or at least it should be. And I hate "shoulding" on people, but fitness is just a method to which you can influence your health both physically, emotionally, spiritually. I know everyone just thinks of the physical benefit, but truthfully, it's so much more than that.

Amber Stitt [00:13:58]:
As we get older, as I get into my mid-40s, I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting there. My doctors assure me that things are gonna change, like eyesight, all these things that are going to happen. Embrace it, have grace and do these things for yourself. But to me, literally, not messing with my sleep, having caffeine end at a certain time of the day, all those things matter, because if I'm over a certain level, I am hungover and I didn't drink. That's the feeling. I feel like it's called aging. But I like how you say that. It's that method and it could be a variation for different people.

Amber Stitt [00:14:29]:
But really, just like you said, we gotta move. And you mentioned Blue Zones. Why don't you talk about what you meant by that? Cause I don't know that a lot of people know that series.

Dai Manuel [00:14:36]:
Yeah. You know what? I'll share another reference after that, too, that I think will bring everything into focus for everybody. I, like yourself, love doing keynotes. In one of my keynote talks, I try to really encourage people that the science, but as well as the methodologies through which we can improve our lives is accessible and it really doesn't cost any money.

Amber Stitt [00:14:55]:
Yeah.

Dai Manuel [00:14:56]:
But it does require maybe changing how we look on the world, but also look at ourselves and getting honest with really, what do we want and why do we want it? So that's sort of the general overview, contextually. But when we actually look at the Blue Zones themselves very specifically, there's these 5 areas around the world that were recognized as having the largest density of population of adults living to be 100 years, or older. My grandma in her 90s, wasn't like your grandma at 92. Okay. She was living in a home, assisted living. And she pretty much, from the time she'd wake to the time she'd go to bed, she basically sit in this chair in the living room and that was really the extent of it.

Dai Manuel [00:15:34]:
She'd move with when she had to go eat or switch seats to see the TV better. And that was it, where it sounds like your grandmother is thriving still. She's living a very active, engaged life and obviously has a lot of meaning in that life, or purpose. And the Blue Zones. When they went and researched, they were documenting these lifestyle habits of these people living to be a hundred plus. And again, it's not like one or two or these little outliers. I mean it's like big population densities, relatively speaking to the rest of the world. And what they found was, and this is so cool, is in these 5 areas, they had 9 things in common in each of them.

Dai Manuel [00:16:09]:
And so Dr. Dan Buettner, who was commissioned by National Geographic to do this research, he classifies these as the power 9. And one of which is moving your body like naturally, not going to the gym and pumping iron, right. Like gardening, or maybe raking some leaves, or walking to store and walking your groceries home. Like just being functional with our movements. Also he talked about having more plants in our diet, so having a plant slants is what he likes to say. For those that do drink, he does mention, wine at 5. And what he means by is, a glass of red wine a day is okay.

Dai Manuel [00:16:45]:
And science has said that. And there's also been some studies that are saying that's not quite correct, but everyone's got an opinion nowadays. But what he found was that that was very common in those 5 areas. They had a little bit of alcohol here and there. But here's the thing, and this is the thing that made the biggest difference was the connection and community and this connection to a purpose. They found that that was the one thing between all 5. And in some cases it was a faith based, maybe a religion. For some of them it might just be just a way of living their lives.

Dai Manuel [00:17:15]:
But regardless, they had this idea of community and family and purpose because those are the things that really help us the most. And we don't realize and give it enough credit, I believe.

Amber Stitt [00:17:26]:
There was a woman that was sick and they didn't let her sit alone. They turned her head towards them and held her. Do you remember that part? There was an older woman. They wouldn't let their aunt who was like widowed, or single, never was married, she was just there when she got sick, she was doing nothing at the hospital and they came in and like there was a physical touch element to it.

Dai Manuel [00:17:45]:
Yes.

Amber Stitt [00:17:45]:
And she kind of healed herself with just the bonding of the community. So picture those old guys playing chess out there, just probably drinking their 5 o'clock wine. But that's the community element there, right?

Dai Manuel [00:17:57]:
It is. And family and purpose. And the food slant is great, but they also don't overeat. So they had this 80% rule they've noticed in all these people that were 100 plus, they never eat to full. They'd eat until they're satiated. And then they just became very mindful and aware of what was enough and didn't over exaggerate that. But all very basic. Nothing here was super complicated.

Dai Manuel [00:18:18]:
It was really just a choice of lifestyle and certain habits and that was it, you know. But on the flip side, there's an Australian woman by the name of Bronnie Ware and she wrote a book called "The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying" and it paints a picture of the opposite end of those people that are living into their elderly states and how they're feeling at end of life. And what she found was, because she was an RN and she was dealing with people at end of life, that was her focus, she was a nurse and she had just a wonderful bedside manner where she would literally create a relationship with these patients that she was tending to.

Amber Stitt [00:18:53]:
Oh my gosh.

Dai Manuel [00:18:55]:
And which would be, I mean, I can just imagine how challenging that is. I remember seeing my dad in that center...I mean, I was just like, I couldn't imagine being around that every day. But yeah, she was a remarkable woman. And she started to document the answers that she would get from one question. The question was, "Is there anything you regret not doing with your life?" And she found that everybody had at least one, if not all 5 of the same regrets. Want to know what some of them are?

Amber Stitt [00:19:17]:
Do you remember? Don't tell me this and not remember.

Dai Manuel [00:19:19]:
I won't tell you all of them, but I'll tell you the one that really...well, I'll tell you a few of them. The first one is "I wish I lived a life that I wanted to live and not live the life that other people expected of me." I mean, I think back to when I went to university that first year I was actually going because, well, one nepotism was driving it. My dad was an animal doctor and I thought, "You know what, this is going to make him prouder if I follow in his footsteps, I know that he would be really happy about that. So I'll just go into the sciences and that would be what my pursuit is." And then I realized after that first year I was like, "I really don't want to do this."

Dai Manuel [00:19:51]:
I love animals. I just don't LOVE animals. And I ended up making a change, and I remember having the conversation with my dad and sharing with him, "Dad, I just, I don't love doing this. I really don't want to do this. I can't see myself doing this anymore." And he's like, "Oh, that's fine." I was like, "What? What?" I wish we'd had that conversation a year ago. We'd have saved a boatload of money.

Dai Manuel [00:20:13]:
But that's one of the regrets that we live lives not for ourselves, but for others. Another one I regret was, "I wish I stayed in touch with my friends better." You know, that lack, or loss of connection, the one that always hits me the hardest, though, is "I wished I allowed myself to be happier," because it does imply that happiness is a choice most of the time, yet we're choosing the opposite, even though it's right there in front of us. So when you look at these regrets and you look at that comparatively to these people that are living into their hundreds and thriving, you start to wonder, "Well, why such a disparity between those two points?" And it largely has to do with lifestyle and some of those other not necessarily measurable aspects that I shared with you, like the community piece, the connection piece, the passion and the reason to get up every morning piece, and those when not there, if we don't have a strong purpose, or a reason for getting out of bed every morning, it just becomes easier not to get up.

Amber Stitt [00:21:03]:
Well, we didn't really completely unpack what you do, but you work with people to help improve...you're helping people through that in a variation, your own way. So let's talk about that life that you lead in your real job.

Dai Manuel [00:21:17]:
My real job? Yeah. Well, I love to try to lead by example. I believe in mentorship and modeling, and most of us, that's typically how we learn best, is through those two modalities. Modeling, though, is so critical for our own development. And I try to model certain things that I see people doing. If I see a good habit that someone's doing, and I'm like, "Well, that's clearly working for them, creating great results. Well, I want to try to do a little bit that too." But you still have to have an overall vision of what.

Dai Manuel [00:21:43]:
What do you want for your life? What kind of person do you want to be? What kind of father, parent? These are things that I think to myself. A question that's guided me the last 15 years has been, "What does it mean to be a great man?" And I ask myself that rhetorically every day. And I just try to live into that. What questions do you ask yourself all the time, Amber? You probably have some questions you ask yourself every day. I think we all do. Right?

Amber Stitt [00:22:05]:
And yeah, I mean, I'm a mother of a 5 year-old and then I have a spouse that works with me. So it's kind of that juggle of not constantly being in that work mode, but then trying to have that time that's just, you drop it all. You don't have that phone in your hands and you don't let your kids see you doing that. And yes, sometimes I don't feel like playing with little toys and pretending ponies are flying around. But you gotta get in that mode because I don't want any regrets there that my daughter didn't have her mom interacting and spending time. And I know you're a big family man. So let's talk about some of the things that are just like must haves for you and your spouse and your children. Because I feel like you have this tribe that moves around.

Amber Stitt [00:22:45]:
Like you obviously have to have some sort of team element there besides you just saying "We're doing this." So is there something that's been working for you, or that you're maybe continuously working on to make sure that that family unit is tight?

Dai Manuel [00:22:57]:
Well, thank you for asking the question. A big part of the success in our family dynamics, I gotta give credit where it's due, and it's my wife. Christie is just a very interesting woman from the standpoint that she was put in a situation where she had to grow up very quickly. She lost her mom in a tragic accident when she was 13. And she also had 5 other siblings at that point.

Dai Manuel [00:23:18]:
She was the eldest. She was sort of thrust into this motherly role and supportive role and also being the big sister still. And so she had to mature fairly quickly based on that. But she is so attentive to everybody else's needs to the point that I actually think it could be seen as a fault at times because she sometimes gives too much of herself. Not enough for herself.

Amber Stitt [00:23:38]:
Yeah.

Dai Manuel [00:23:38]:
But this being said is, her way of living is very wear your heart on your sleeve, but also don't be afraid to get vulnerable, to have the hard talks. And that was something that we practiced with our kids right from the get go. We would talk to them about certain things. We would ask them very specific questions to have them do more internal perspective on themselves.

Amber Stitt [00:23:57]:
Yeah.

Dai Manuel [00:23:58]:
And then lastly, the one thing that I think made the greatest impact on them was a lot of people, and I mean parents in particular, they want to get babysitters. They want to have that time away from family for their own couple to be tighter. And I get that, we have a date night every week and it's non-negotiable, but we would also have lots of other events and activities we want to do and we just always take the kids with us all together. I go to my Toastmasters meeting, my kids would come with me, and so they were exposed to this stuff.

Amber Stitt [00:24:28]:
Yeah, because back to what you said, "I think I need to be a vet." I'm in financial services. I know no kid wants to be an insurance planner as their dream job, or at least when I grew up in it. And I said, "No," for a long time. And then here I am.

Dai Manuel [00:24:41]:
Right.

Amber Stitt [00:24:42]:
I want my daughter to be immersed in seeing the speaking in the community and being introduced to people that might connect with her, to be an asset for her in her own way. But I'm not saying, "Hey, this is a great business line, come over here." But, she can try it, she can be a part of it, but find her own path in that. So I think that's awesome that there's that tribe element you guys have and we only get to do this once, so it's like, I don't really want to miss out on those experiences either.

Dai Manuel [00:25:10]:
But that's very mindful of you and also that level of awareness I think is important. But it's easy to get distracted. Lives are full. They're always full. I prefer using the term "full" rather than "busy." I used to wear that badge of honor. "I'm so busy, don't ask me questions because I'll tell you how busy I am." And then I realized, why do I feel busy all the time? It's because I'm myself busy all the time rather than intentionally doing the things that I actually want to fill my days with.

Dai Manuel [00:25:39]:
So the way I look at it now, life's full, but it's full of the things I want to fill it with and so I'm no longer busy. So that's been really helpful, sort of that shift in perspective. But at the end of the day, we each have to be willing to get honest with ourselves and we have to say, "Listen, are things in my life where I want it to be?" And it's okay if they're not. Most of us will always find areas where like, "No, I know I could be a bit better in that area." I know I could have a better relationship with my youngest daughter as an example. I know I can handle that conversation about her and her boyfriend a little bit more constructively, and so it's just recognizing in us that, yes, I can acknowledge that maybe there's some areas that are not performing where I'd want them to. And that's okay, because at least now you know where you're at and you can start to plot a course to achieve a little bit of progress in those areas you want to see grow. But unless you're that specific and intentional and mindful of what you actually want to change, I mean, yeah, of course we're just going to go through day by day and just live life.

Dai Manuel [00:26:37]:
And there's nothing wrong with that. But I always say if you're not smiling at least once a day, there's room for improvement. There really is, I mean, that's as simple as I can make it. And so I just help people smile more.

Amber Stitt [00:26:50]:
So you seem like a pretty nice guy, but then you say, "Don't be a martyr." Oh, yeah, your health is your health. Own it. So do you ever get really firm with people and just call them out and be like, "Do the work!"

Dai Manuel [00:27:02]:
Amber, you're awesome. Well, what I often joke with people is like, listen, as far as accountability and motivation is concerned, if my size 12 foot hits you in the butt, you're going to get moving, and I mean that very genuinely, but also lightly, because it's that kind of vision and visual I want people to have because they will chuckle, they'll laugh a little bit, you release a little bit of those positive endorphins. And what seemed like you couldn't do it before, all of a sudden it's like, "Yeah, you know what? I can do that." And so I err more on the humorous side, trying to make things more light. I mean, let's be fair. Life's heavy enough. Just look at the current world conditions.

Dai Manuel [00:27:37]:
I mean, there's a lot of things to be concerned about. And yeah, so if I can encourage people in a much more positive way, I find that not only do they adopt it more, but they have more fun doing it. And that's fun.

Amber Stitt [00:27:47]:
You definitely bring the energy to inspire.

Dai Manuel [00:27:51]:
One of my 5 "F's" is "Fun", and there's a reason for that.

Amber Stitt [00:27:53]:
But let's kind of wrap up today now, which is a bummer, but...

Dai Manuel [00:27:57]:
Oh, that's all good.

Amber Stitt [00:27:58]:
2% manifesto. Is there fun built into that model?

Dai Manuel [00:28:02]:
Absolutely. The "Whole Life Fitness Manifesto" is all about just teaching you how to leverage 2% of every 24 hours. And I know everyone's doing the math right now, right? And it's like, don't worry, it's 30 minutes.

Amber Stitt [00:28:12]:
I'm not good at math. Oh, I'm...I gotta go.

Dai Manuel [00:28:15]:
It's okay. I got a dean's letter about calculus after I failed 3 times. He's like, "We won't take your money anymore. You're done." So I literally had UBC, University of British Columbia, tell me, "You cannot take this course again." And I was paying for to fail. Right? So anyways, the longest...

Amber Stitt [00:28:30]:
But they didn't get to go to Bali, so there.

Dai Manuel [00:28:33]:
Yes, there. So this idea of leveraging 30 minutes a day is very doable and people have the time. And when you talk about calling people out, I'm like, "Listen, give me your smartphone for a second. Let's look at the screen tracker. Oh yeah. You spent 3 hours on Netflix yesterday alone."

Amber Stitt [00:28:50]:
Yeah.

Dai Manuel [00:28:51]:
"You can give me a little bit of that back, right?" "Yes, I can." So as long as you can wrap your head around non-negotiable 30 minutes a day, 2% of every 24 hours, with intentional focus on improving yourself personally and professionally, you'll be amazed at how quickly that compounds positively and how quickly change can happen with only 30 minutes a day. And so I like to encourage people, try 15 minutes of movement, 5 minutes of mindfulness.

Amber Stitt [00:29:15]:
What if you're just dancing, like really weird?

Dai Manuel [00:29:17]:
That's great. I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, you're still moving, Amber. And your heart rate's gonna adjust, gonna go up a little bit even you can be sitting in a chair and doing arms back & forth, your heart rate's gonna go up.

Amber Stitt [00:29:30]:
Okay, the geriatric aerobics.

Dai Manuel [00:29:32]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah, that. Chair yoga, right? Totally. My mom does that.

Amber Stitt [00:29:37]:
And I do that when I'm like at my desk, just naturally, too long, I gotta stretch it out.

Dai Manuel [00:29:43]:
Good, but that's exactly what you wanna do. And so that's my encouragement to everybody is, listen, just start to at least create a little bit of space every day for you to intentionally focus on making yourself feel better and do that. Great things will happen.

Amber Stitt [00:29:58]:
Are you saying read a book, meditate, move. It doesn't matter. It's just you get to pick your 30 minutes.

Dai Manuel [00:30:05]:
You can pick your 30 minutes, do whatever you want. However, I do provide a sort of a recommendation to start with. And that's 15 minutes of movement. Like exercise that could be just body weight and weight movement. If you have enough room to put a towel on the floor, Amber, you've got enough room to do a workout and it's all body weight based. You don't need any fancy equipment, fancy clothes, fancy shoes. I mean, do it barefoot.

Amber Stitt [00:30:25]:
Like, you're cutting out all the excuses. You just cut them all out.

Dai Manuel [00:30:30]:
You get rid of them all. You just commit to the movement. It's 15 minutes. After that, you do 5 minutes of mindful meditation. And believe me, it's way easier to meditate when you're trying to bring your heart rate down after a workout and so you start to become much more aware of your breath and your actual control of your breath.

Amber Stitt [00:30:45]:
That's where my head was going, is that can calm your mind. And then your squirrel brain goes bing. Then you go, "Oh." In your class they'll talk about controlling your monkey brain, or whatever, but the breathing can help that. But you would have to focus on that if you're coming down. That's really cool.

Dai Manuel [00:30:59]:
Yeah. And I've found that a lot of people adopt a better...and that was actually the only way I could get into meditation. I really struggled with meditation. And if we ever come back here again, I'll tell you about my passion. I experienced a 10 day silent meditation retreat. Hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But after you do that 5 minutes of mindful meditation, you have 10 minutes left of that 30 minute commitment.

Dai Manuel [00:31:17]:
This is where you'll do intentional inputs that are positive into this muscle between our ears. And so what I mean by that is you're going to listen to a great podcast like yours, Amber, you're going to watch a TED Talk, maybe you'll listen to an audiobook, maybe read a book. Maybe you connect with a mentor, or a coach for a quick pow-wow. But either way, it's intentional. 10 minutes of positive in. Because you watch over time, you keep putting that positive in, you're also going to start to experience a lot of positive out.

Dai Manuel [00:31:41]:
But you have to commit to the frequency and consistency. And so I encourage people commit to just 28 days in a row. And after 28 days, I've never had anybody come back to me after doing the program and ever say that they didn't experience something significant and they were...

Amber Stitt [00:31:55]:
Never mad at you.

Dai Manuel [00:31:55]:
No, I've never...never mad. Never asked you for a refund. It's really straightforward. But yeah, again, I like to make things simple. But simple doesn't mean easy. Yeah, you still got to do the work. Just like we started today's conversation.

Dai Manuel [00:32:08]:
It's like, you still got to have the actions to follow through on. You can have the best of intentions, the best vision, best operations, but unless you actually start doing the stuff, it's just a lot of great ideas, you know?

Amber Stitt [00:32:20]:
Exactly. Well, you're a pleasure, a ball of energy, it's great. And I'm sure people love working with you, so I can't wait to hang out with you and do a little bit more.

Dai Manuel [00:32:29]:
I can't wait either. It's gonna be so good. And I'm gonna get you on my podcast, too. You're all hearing it now.

Amber Stitt [00:32:35]:
Challenge accepted.

Dai Manuel [00:32:38]:
But I wanna say one thing, though. And for those that are listening, what you're doing, Amber, and your podcast, I think, is phenomenol. And I don't know if people are leaving enough for reviews, but keep leaving reviews because that games the algorithm and it allows more people to hear this message.

Amber Stitt [00:32:52]:
Yeah.

Dai Manuel [00:32:52]:
And I just want to put that out there. I know I'm throwing down a big review for you today, and I hope others are doing the same. And because more people need to connect with your platform, you're doing some really inspiring things, and I just appreciate the connection today and the opportunity to be here. So thank you.

Amber Stitt [00:33:06]:
Thank you. Well, how do people find you? Oh, besides, they could Google your name, but...

Dai Manuel [00:33:14]:
Instagram, I love Instagram. Dai Manuel, D, A, I, M, A, N, U, E, L. And that's the cool part about having a unique name. If you know how to spell it, you'll find me really easy.

Amber Stitt [00:33:21]:
Yeah.

Dai Manuel [00:33:22]:
And it's the same handle I have on every social media platform.

Amber Stitt [00:33:25]:
Okay.

Dai Manuel [00:33:25]:
So it's just my name.

Amber Stitt [00:33:26]:
And don't forget to check out your podcast.

Dai Manuel [00:33:28]:
I mean, it's "The 2% Solution." That's what the name of the podcast is. So, I mean, if they're interested in anything I talked about today, I go a lot deeper on my podcast about this. But also, I gave away my book. I basically read the book and recorded myself reading it. So I've got an audio version, and I've given that away on my podcast, so people can get basically everything I talked about today. The full "Whole Whole Life Fitness Manifesto" they can get for nothing. And they can hear me read it to them.

Dai Manuel [00:33:50]:
So it's really easy.

Amber Stitt [00:33:51]:
Where do we find you for that? The podcast and your book?

Dai Manuel [00:33:54]:
Oh, that book. Well, Barnes and Noble, but I always tell everybody, Amazon. Just go to Amazon. Easiest way to get it and then outside of that, though, if you just want to listen to the book and get all the great content and hear me read it to you, just go to "The 2% Solution", which is my podcast, and it's available anywhere podcasts are. And I always say, you just send me a DM and be like, "Hey, when you and Amber were talking about change, this is what I'm working on changing right now..."

Amber Stitt [00:34:17]:
Well, that's the thing. Let's talk about it. We can build that community, and it can be global, there's just no excuses. We can do this and pick your kind of the tribe, the community that will support you.

Dai Manuel [00:34:27]:
Well said.

Amber Stitt [00:34:28]:
We can do that through comments and engagement that way. And it could be part of that, maybe that intentional outreach that you're talking about for part of your sliver is looking for those thought leaders that can support and challenge and lift you up. So I know you're one of them.

Dai Manuel [00:34:43]:
Well, thank you, Amber. You are, too.

Amber Stitt [00:34:45]:
Thanks for being here.

Dai Manuel [00:34:46]:
Yeah, thanks.

Amber Stitt [00:34:47]:
So glad we can finally do it. So thank you for everyone listening. Check out Dai. All right, take care, everybody. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Pathways. For more information about the podcast, books, articles, the blog, and so much more, please visit my website at: www.AmberStitt.com And remember, let's take action today! Thank you for listening!