How Women Over 40 Should Workout for Best Results, Health & Energy | Liz Bradford

What happens when the labs come back “normal,” but you still feel like you’re falling apart?

If you’re a high-performing woman over 40, an executive, founder, or senior leader who has been told to just push through it, this conversation will hit different.

In this episode of No Hype. Just Standards., Zac Armstrong sits down with Liz Bradford, a former managing director and chief operating officer who spent over 20 years leading teams of 700 plus across HSBC, Bank of America, and other global operations spanning three continents. She is a certified coach, qualified trainer, and this year co-founded Maya Health, built to serve the roughly 1 billion women moving through perimenopause and menopause this decade.

Liz gets honest about her own catastrophic burnout, the slower “point five” burnout that followed years later, and the rebuild that came after. Whether you’re chasing a title or chasing your health, this is a roadmap for leaders who carry weight no one sees, on advocating for yourself in a broken medical system, rebuilding boundaries instead of running away, and working with the body you actually have now.

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Transcript

Auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly formatted. Each timestamp links to that moment in the video.

0:00 There’s a massive trend of of women opting out of corporate life, for example. This is really unfair because it should be the time when they’re reaping the rewards of all of the hard work they’ve done to get to where they are. But they get to a point where between family pressures, aging parents, and then their body is changing. And that’s the key thing. They [music] just feel that they can’t take it anymore. Here’s what nobody tells you about your 40s. You can do everything right. the work, the effort, the discipline that has always paid off. And one day the returns just stop. You feel off, foggy, tired in a way that sleep just doesn’t fix. And you go get checked and then the doctor tells you you’re all normal. That word does a lot of damage because normal is just the average of a population that’s tired, inflamed, and running on empty. Being told you’re normal doesn’t mean you’re well. It means you’re not sick enough for them to do anything yet. That’s not aging. That’s the system playing sick care. My guest today has spent more than 20 years inside that world. Liz Bradford left teams of 700 plus people as a maning director and chief operating officer across HSBC, Bank of America and other operations

1:01 Over three continents. She ran as hard as it gets and she hit her own wall. Then she rebuilt and she turned that rebuilt into the work that she does now. This year she co-ounded Maya Health built for women moving through permenopause and menopause 1 billion of them this decade. Most handed a short appointment and an app trained on somebody else’s data. Liz is a certified coach and qualified trainer, not a physician. We’re going to be straight about that line all the way through. But she works with the exact people this show is about. High performers over 40 who can’t run the same old playbook anymore. Today, we’re going to look at the other half of the room. I’m Zach Armstrong, retired naval commander with over 27 years of service who is now a high performance coach. And this is no hype, just standards. If you want more of these conversations, follow the show wherever you’re listening and leave a rating. It helps to get the right people to find it. All right, let’s get into it. Hey Liz, thanks for joining again. And hey, let’s just get started. Uh give me a little background about yourself. Uh where did you grow up and you know where where have you gone from in life since then? So I grew up uh exactly where I am now in the countryside, middle of nowhere in

2:02 The UK. So imagine all those green rolling hills and the rain that comes with them. Uh I’ve spent most of my life though certainly all of my adult life in big cities. So I moved to London uh when I first started my career in financial services and then made my way around different parts of the world. So, Sydney, Hong Kong, uh, and then now I split my time. So, I split my time between the countryside here and then multiple cities because I run multiple businesses, but I left financial services just a couple of years ago and I now focus full-time on health, well-being, and working with clients across those different continents to try and help them take control of their well-being. Right. And, you know, someone I mean, it’s more than just financial services what you were doing. You were you were a little more than that, right? uh can you kind of maybe go into what you actually did in in that that area? Sure. I used to work um primarily as a chief operating officer for large global organizations for banks um which are not so popular here in the UK, much more popular over in Asia. Uh so the last role that I had was managing director

3:02 For North Asia in HSBC which is a fairly large global bank. It’s a pretty high pressure role and so a lot of the people I work with now are in similar pressured roles where you don’t really switch off. So, minimum 80 hours a week, really high stakes decision-m and it’s quite tempting to just let your boundaries slip and not take care of yourself in those roles. So, so carry on. And human beings, we’re great at letting boundaries just slip unless you’re very well disciplined in uh other arenas. Uh myself, I’m not much better than that with the hours working. But when you’re in that type of environment, you know, after a while, you start going, “Oh man, this is this is I’m getting burned out or these are these are costing me in other areas.” For you, when you started noticing, where do you think you were noticing those areas hitting you most? Uh, after the first 10 years of my career, so I spent the first 10 years of my career working here in London in the UK and I burnt out just catastrophically. I mean, like packed up my life, packed up my husband, moved to the other side of the world. This was before anyone even talked about burnout. We would call it like a breakdown back

4:03 Then, but no one actually talked about it. Yeah. Um and it was long before any of the sort of training came out about physical well-being or mindfulness or any of the resilience kind of things that are very common to talk about now. So the first time around, I had no idea what happened. I just thought, well, I just can’t do this anymore. I got promoted and I just couldn’t face another two years of it. So I just quit uh and then basically ran away. And then uh when I was in Australia, so we spent a few months traveling around Asia, recuperating and just enjoying. And while that happened, I was headunted for a role in Australia, which seemed like an amazing opportunity to me, you know, thinking it’s beaches, it’s Sydney, I’ll be finished by 4 p.m. It’ll basically be like retirement compared to what I’d done before after about um no offense to the Australians because I had no idea how hard they worked at that time. Um but then about 18 months into that job, I could start to see all the signs again. So the physical signs, the kind of emotional withdrawal, everything that you would now typically identify as burnout, I could see starting to creep back in. And uh so I call that kind of

5:04 My point five burnout. So that’s where I realized before it was too late, which is lucky because there are only seven continents. There’s only so many times I could run away. Right. Yeah. At the time I was introduced to a coach and despite being a very cynical Brit, um I sort of kind of became convinced by her way of thinking. She taught me about resilience. She taught me about the pillars of physical well-being, mental well-being, and connected well-being. And I kind of took that fully on board. So, I was able to then rebuild myself while not quitting and not, you know, running away from another job. Uh, but while I did that, I also then started to build businesses around helping other people to do the same, right? That’s amazing. Um, so it sounds like the coach kind of helped you realize like putting all that effort into different places wasn’t going to help you be happy or longer in life or more fulfilled. Hm. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. I think I made the same mistake that a lot of people make where they have like a work persona and this is what it takes to get ahead at work and then a home persona and the two never really met. And you know and what’s funny is is so many people’s identity is tied to the work

6:06 One not the home one. Why do you think that is? because you’re you you’ve been around I mean being like that that managing director at HSBC in you know Hong Kong like that position there alone like that’s probably something people gravitate towards you know a career achievement I think there’s a lot of status it’s really easy to have status and a sense of worth if we have a title or we’re given something like that right so it’s that whole corner office thing you work towards the corner office but then you get there and you realize that actually it doesn’t really mean anything and I don’t mean that it’s not good to be ambitious I think it absolutely is but I think it’s a great thing to be ambitious with purpose So to have a reason for that, right? Cuz if you don’t um like you said, you resigned, right? How many days do you think it took them to replace you? Oh, I gave them six months. It took us a while to replace. [laughter] Well, you’re a bad example. For the most part, most people were pretty replaceable with their job pretty quickly. If I’d burned out, I just walked out the door, then they would have replaced me within weeks. Like, not even that. Yeah. And we then talk about the home

7:08 Life. You know, the people that love you in your life, your family, they can’t replace you automatically if you’re not there or you’re not taking care. But that’s why it’s almost I assume when you started talking to that coach, maybe that was some of the self-realization you started having. Very much so. I mean, it was one of those things of like I was sacrificing a huge amount at home. I was also sacrificing a huge amount in terms of my health. And a big part of that is the relationships you have at home because your connected well-being is very closely tied to where you find meaning. Um, and there’s a lot of studies obviously around that being one of the biggest determinants of longevity now. So, I was absolutely neglecting that with the view of well, once I’m successful in the organization, once I’ve proven myself career-wise, then I can focus on that stuff. But if I hadn’t been caught at that point, I’m not sure there would have been that stuff to take care of anymore because my husband would have left. I was losing touch with the people I cared about. The burnout itself means that you don’t really realize how much you’re pulling back into yourself and not engaging as well. And so it’s a really kind of dangerous place to be in

8:09 Terms of your family life and what happens outside of work. Um, tremendously it is. Um, and it’s always it does like culturally it doesn’t even matter like you see it from all cultures. human conditions are all right once I get to here once I make partner or once I make you know manager director or once I you know make chief operating officer you know whatever it is then I can do this but what’s funny is the cost it takes to get there what do you think are people are missing there because I think something you say is people who feel like something fundamentally isn’t working they’re not broken they’re just optimizing the wrong system I I think we work system is a really good way of putting it so we work in a system that incentivizes these behaviors And you can’t take the person out of the environment and just isolate them. Their behavior is entirely incentivized. And these machines have been going for the best part of 200 years. When I talk at the biggest global organizations, I’m not talking about any institution specifically, but they know exactly how when to use the carrot and when to use

9:09 The stick and how to put this sense of worthiness in front of you in the form of rewards and remuneration and titles and status. And we’re very basic animals really when it comes. So, we look at stuff like social media and we see other people succeeding overnight seemingly. And so, we’re always on this just wheel trying to race faster and faster and faster. And I think that we’re just not we’re not cut out to be able to draw those boundaries and realize that actually you and I and everyone a similar age is most likely to live to more than 100 now. We actually have a lot more time than we’re behaving like we do. So, we kill ourselves in our 20s and our 30s and our 40s and we burn ourselves out. But actually, we should be in it more for the marathon than that sprint. And I think that we lose sight of that and it just means we neglect ourselves until it’s generally too late. Right. And that’s kind of some of the work you’re doing now, right? So the work I do now, I’ve got two different kind of veins of this. So I focus very much with stressed out executives, not necessarily burnt out, but ones who really want to optimize the right things. So focusing on the things

10:09 Around their health, their recovery, their energy, because then they can come back and they can be even better within that working environment. And the second piece is very much focused on female midlife health. So most of my clients are 40 plus uh both genders and my clients are 50/50. But on the female side, it’s become really apparent that there’s a massive trend of of women opting out of corporate life, for example. And this is really unfair because it should be the time when they’re reaping the rewards of all of the hard work they’ve done to get to where they are. But they get to a point where between family pressures, aging parents, and then their body is changing, and that’s the key thing. they just feel that they can’t take it anymore. So, we’re very focused on the physical and mental changes of that transition period so that women can really understand what’s going on and hopefully have a more sustainable pace and then come through that and still maintain that career, that status, that trajectory if that’s what’s important to them. Yeah. And and a lot of people probably and women too because until you go through it, you don’t understand. Obviously, I don’t I have never gone

11:09 Through it or never will, but it’s a full biological change that happens to them. Yeah. In many cases, it feels like almost overnight. Yeah. And the things that used to work, the food you would eat, the workouts you do, or just anything you did to help maintain your level of sanity, working out or mental has changed. Yeah, very much. Everything that we were told we should be doing in our 30s suddenly just is actually our worst enemy, but it’s hard to believe it because we it was working before, right? So, we just punish ourselves. We think, “Oh, we just need to do more or we need to try harder.” But actually it’s just that the whole system is rewiring and we need to be doing different things. And too many people just don’t understand. And it’s part of us human condition, right? We fear change. We hate change. We’re all about hey what is normal or I call it a loop. Like whatever loop we’re in like I wake up at, you know, 3:00 in the morning, I do this. Uh I eat here, here, and here. We stay in a loop. Whether it’s painful or good, we stay inside those loops and we stay with what’s comfortable. So a lot of times what you’re explaining is I

12:09 Would imagine just people being comfortable with what they know worked at one point. Yeah, absolutely. I mean it’s protecting the status quo and then it’s internal internalizing why the status quo isn’t working like blaming ourselves for it as opposed to to your point looking up and maybe thinking well something’s different and maybe I should be embracing that change. Right. And that’s hard for men and women. Right. And then women though, you know, I’m obviously not a woman, but I find that women definitely judge themselves more harshly than men majority of the time. Interesting. I’m not sure I’m allowed to say that, but that’s a really interesting perspective. I I do find so for my male clients, I find the ones who are experiencing andropause, there’s a lot more stigma around that than there. I mean, that’s probably where we were with permenopause and menopause about 10 years ago. Like people just won’t talk about it. And so, you know, decreased energy, decreased motivation, everything else. And actually, that’s very often something that can be managed. And I know you’ve got some fairly strong views on what people should be doing. Intervent

13:09 Interventions are not dissimilar though, right? So, take care of your body, build muscle, like take care of your sleep, work on the foundations first before then getting any other interventions. Too many times we that’s uh and especially in our day and age, uh that quick fix. People want the quick fix. Hey, hey, how what do I need to take pill-wise? Or what what you know what workout or whatever. Like some of it is basic. How many hours of sleep are you getting? I don’t know. How many hours of rim deep sleep? I don’t know. What was your caloric intake the last week? I don’t know. Okay. These are some basics, right? I assume that’s a lot of the coaching you do as well. And then you have a lot of women now, um, which is a big part of what you’re doing now business-wise. Um, maybe they come to you and they’re saying, “Hey, you know, my doctor, I just had my broker. saying it’s normal but I don’t feel good. I don’t feel I feel off. What is some of the things that you will say or may recognize from that? Yeah. So the first thing I would say with this is first of all you asked for the panel the blood panel and most of those tests are not going to find

14:09 Anything wrong anyway because we’re testing for disease and the normal ranges are you know not not requiring medical intervention. It doesn’t mean optimal it doesn’t mean energized. It doesn’t mean you are going to be feeling good if you’ve got those sub ranges. So a lot of the because of some of the concerns around testing on females and the complexities of the female cycles and the fact that that makes it hard to effectively get optimum ranges, those have just not been included in the medical system and in the ranges for optimal for the last sort of 20 30 years. So we haven’t done the testing. We don’t have the data. And so when we’re told something is normal, you really have to, and this is what I say to clients, you have to listen to yourself. like this. You’re talking to someone who has had two hours in seven years of medical training on menopause. Two hours. And these are very tired people as well. I’m not dissing the doctors. Like they do incredible things, but they have no training. They’re not specialists. And so them saying just push through it. And then perhaps prescribing anti-depressants, we need to advocate harder. And so big part of what we’re building as a team and a big part

15:10 Of the app and then the community around the app is that people can advocate for themselves. So the first thing I’ll do is send them back with a list of different tests and a script to be able to advocate for themselves because normally the doctor will push back and just go you don’t need this either you’re too young for this thing or you know don’t worry about that and so I’m like to the point of like I will come into that meeting with you if you need me to because it really is something wrong. It’s um you know western medication and this is not just you know within the United States it’s UK and a couple other places as well. Um it’s amazing how um we put doctors on this pedestal and we just think whatever they say is, you know, what is what it’s supposed to be. You know, I’ve had multiple doctors on the show now who talk about getting less than a day of training through all medical school on nutrition and or fitness. Um you never hear them prescribing um hey, I need you to start working out three days a week, you know, for an hour or nutrition here. It’s always all right, here’s a statin, here’s this. And um

16:12 And a lot of the doctors are overweight themselves. And I had a doctor on the other doctors and nurses are some of the biggest smoking population in the in the world. It was funny. I had a doctor the other day on the podcast and he gave the analogy of would you ever go to the dentist if once he smiled his teeth were brown they were all jacked up and would you go and sit in the chair? Never. into the doctor and he’s like all right this dude is a doctor. I know he’s 70 pounds overweight, but he’s telling me to take the stat and he’s he must know what he’s talking about. But it’s funny how we do that, right? And but you’re talking advocating for yourself how important that is. It’s you don’t get it. And then here’s where you’re going to be. Well, uh menopause gets missed or misdiagnosed in a midlife women greatly. What does it usually get mistaken for at first? So very often someone will just they will prescribe anti-depressants because some of the first indicators permenopause often starts from around mid-30s onwards and it can go from 7 to 10 years before you even hit a a true what we would consider a true menopause

17:13 Symptom in our culture. Uh not in a clinical term. I am not a doctor and so I’m very careful to draw that line and be respectful of doctors. Um but it’s not it’s very often brain fog. It’s a lack of engagement. It’s just feeling like you can’t do things anymore. And so we’ll normally be sent home with an anti-depressant or told to just push through it. Um or this is just part of aging or it’s just part of being a woman. It’s natural to be tired particularly if a woman has children because realistically in many cultures women do have a lot more of the caregiving duties and let’s be honest that’s a full-time job on top of very often another job. So it’s it is exhausting and that tends to be written off a little bit. So anti-depressants. Some of the things are missed though which could be it may not be parameopause at all. Some of the things that missed are things like low iron um low vitamin D and low calcium. And a lot of the symptoms can actually be a cause of that which you know very very affordable supplements and a few weeks and you could be right back on track. But then very often someone will say well it is

18:13 Your age and therefore it must be early menopause as opposed to doing the diagnostics that could very quickly identify that it’s something like that. So it’s a really complex space. Um, and the last thing I want to do is be critical of people not spotting it, but I do think we there is enough information out there now, if anything too much, that we should be able to advocate for ourselves, right? And when you talk about some of the symptoms that could be masked either way or what are those type of symptoms? So, very often and particularly with my clients, so the the women that are in boardrooms or, you know, in in very stressful jobs, the first thing that shows up is brain fog. So, they just lose words or they just can’t seem to function and they just think they’re losing their edge. And I actually find this with men as well. Very often the assumption is, well, I’m just I’m just aging. This is just the beginning of the end. Whereas actually, particularly for women, it’s actually just a rewiring of your brain and the way in which your brain works. So you’re going to come back and you’re going to come back stronger, but your brain needs to do different things from an evolutionary basis once you are past your reproductive years. So your brain is rewiring and that brain fog is just a part of that. We also tend to see a lot

19:14 Of disturbed sleep. So people worry about insomnia, but the waking up in the inversion of the cortisol curve. So rather than waking up with your curve high, and I’m sorry, I know you know all about this, but you rather than waking up with it higher and then it coming down over the day, it can be inverted and flipped. So waking up absolutely exhausted, but then tired but wired by the end of the day. And that’s very often compounded by us going and doing the workouts that were good for us in our 20s and our 30s. So we go to spin, we go to hit, we do whatever, and we’re just dumping more cortisol onto an already overloaded system and then wondering why we don’t feel better. So it’s very often something that can be treated these initial symptoms that can be treated by changing your workout routine, changing nutrition, sleep hygiene. But again, we just don’t talk about that. And to your point, we go to the doctor and they either say push through or they give us something to try and help us sleep. Quick answer. Yeah. And I would say and it doesn’t help with what we’re facing with today as well with the the constant stimulus of you know wherever you look and your phone and then this and the the status of people remaining in this fight

20:15 Orflight um being at all times during the day is just it’s kill them and it goes to a few points of you know the brain fog the cortisol levels. I’m sure you notice this in a lot of the people you work with when you have a high functioning cognitive job and then you wrap that up in with family dynamics and all that. What are you really seeing with a lot of these women and men? So, a lot of it you mentioned Hong Kong earlier as well. Actually, I think it’s worth just touching briefly on that. It is impossible even with blackout curtains and everything is impossible to get a fully dark room in Hong Kong compared to somewhere like here in the middle of nowhere. So that the just the energy and the buzz from the entire ecosystem that you’re in there, it’s very very hard to switch off. One of the one of the challenges I think one of the biggest challenges postcoid and remote work is you mentioned like high cognitive role, come home, do the family stuff. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t log back in if they’re in a senior role. So then you’re logging back in, you’re sat in front of your laptop and probably

21:15 Multiple screens getting stressed as well, right? because you’re get you’re not you’re not there for fun to hang out with your mates. You’re there to fix problems and problems will inevitably up at the end of the day. So you and you maybe log off at 11 p.m. and then just expect your brain to switch off because you go to sleep and it you know and many people will have a glass of wine while they’re doing that to try and wind down. They think that that helps them sleep. It doesn’t help them sleep. So it’s it well it will help them maybe get to sleep but won’t help them. Yeah, that’s the key. It’ll help you get to sleep and Yeah. It won’t help you with sleep. So um so yeah I mean a lot of it is just the the environment that we’ve normalized around ourselves and the habits that we’ve normalized around ourselves and it is everyone doing it. So we therefore and this goes back to what the system rewards. If everyone else is logged on, if everyone else is working, if everyone else is going out for drinks after work, we think that’s normal. But actually it’s not what we’re physically designed to do. No. And you know I have this conversation with all my clients pretty much. Um, not all of them, but majority like at some point like, “Hey, man.” Diminishing returns. It happens. Like if you’re doing that

22:15 Email at 9:00 at night instead of just closing it and going to bed and waking up at 6:00 and doing it right. How many times did you read the email like, “Oh my god, I got to reread that. I didn’t remember a damn thing I just read and you reread it and like that efficiency you lose that point of dim.” That’s a real thing. And but that’s not what we are as a society. Push through it. Get through it. Do more. But if you’re more efficient, you can do more in less time. Sometimes I would read those emails. I’m really sorry to interrupt, but sometimes I would read those emails the next morning when someone replied to it and I’d be going I wasn’t drinking but I sound drunk. Like my even the words blurry like I just clearly thought I was there and on it but I was not at all. I wasn’t clear at all about the art. So you end up creating more work and looking slightly dumb um just because you thought it was the best thing to push through. I I can’t tell you many times I woke up the next day um for some of the jobs I’ve had and you just went you just went at the email like I can’t believe I sent that or you’ll notice like I cannot believe I just misspelled that word or

23:15 Like you know I put there instead of there you know and just it’s it yeah I’ve been there too many times. What about a 12minute appointment problem? Can you walk me through kind of what your thoughts are there? So I think this goes down to the whole challenge of the medical system. First of all, we’re chunked into these tiny appointments and particularly some of Yeah. Yeah, we are. We’re very much like in the UK because it’s the NHS is socially funded, right? So it’s not most people don’t have private healthcare here. So in fairness, like they have to try and get as many people through as possible. I get that. But if you’ve spent however many months working up the courage or finding the time because you’ve got a super busy life to actually get to the doctor and then you have this 12 minutes, you’re told it’s nothing or you’re told to push through or you’re given, you know, a few blood tests that really aren’t going to show that much. Uh like your TSH for example, and you’re told thyroid’s fine, your blood’s okay, maybe there’s an issue here, come back in six weeks. You’re not going for that six week appointment because you don’t feel like you’ve been validated. You don’t feel like you’ve heard at all in that appointment, right? And so it’s a real challenge because then people lose

24:15 Faith in doctors. Then they will go to something like Instagram and then they will start scrolling and they listen to whoever sounds the most authoritative on that which is why here certainly in the UK we have a massive issue with things like GLPs because we’re told it will fix everything and you can pretty much order it through social media now. Yeah. And then one of the biggest challenges around that, and I’m not against JLPs at all. But once the muscle starts to deteriorate, if you’re not still in the gym or if you’re not using that to then go to the gym and build that muscle up, then we’ve got much bigger issues than we had before around sarcopenia, osteoporosis, everything coming down the line. And so actually, some of the issues are being exacerbated because we’ve got this system that gives us 12 minutes but makes us feel dismissed. We’re going to go then to someone who makes us feel heard and that’s where the snake oil people are, right? So, it’s a real listen carrot versus stick like you were saying earlier that that snake that salesman knows how what he’s doing with that. Um, and what’s funny, we we have this the same problem as GP here in the United States. Um, and to your point, people, oh, I just take it and then I’ll lose the weight. Yeah, but you’re going

25:15 To lose a lot of muscle mass there, too. And so, if your protein intake is not high and you’re not working out still, then you’re just deteriorating to other health problems potentially, too. Uh speaking of health problems and tools, you know, a lot of the data is based around men and young men and when we’re looking at, you know, midlife women who are trying to base their data off what inherently just mostly male. How is that problematic? I think it’s particularly problematic now that we have such an a healthy obsession with wearables and a lot of anxiety around that data because many of us do not understand that all of the wearable data and I’m a really big fan myself. I’m not in any way critical of that, but all of that wearable data is based on white middle-aged men. So, it’s not cycle based. Now, all of the big providers in the last few months have plowed into this space. So, they’re all asking us to log different symptoms, make sure that we’re logging our cycles, everything else. And there are a lot of very, you know, very authoritative voices out there about whether we should be training in accordance to our cycle and what the difference of our cycle

26:16 Means in terms of other tests and wearables and even things like HRV. So your HRV can vary wildly depending on the time of the month if you’re female. Um I think the challenge that we have is until we build the data sets and until we do more tests and experiments and really understand some of these implications, we’re going to keep making assumptions and those assumptions have been made on the like erring on the side of caution. But it means a lot of things get misdiagnosed or we do get dismissed because we aren’t actually small men. We work very very differently physiologically and hormonally. Um, I read something over the weekend that said that if uh if male testosterone dropped as quickly um as female hormones drop after child birth, it it it’s the equivalent of 200 years of recovery or something crazy like that. Like it’s that’s just immense. But we deal with that on a you know on an average like female life basis. Most women have 2.3 children on average obviously. But so you go through puberty, you go through childirth and then you go through parameopause and menopause. You’re never

27:17 Consistent hormonally. You’re not consistent dayto-day. And so a lot of the data that we have assumes consistency because male data generally is. Male hormones generally are relatively consistent based on the phase of life. And so most of the advice we’re being given historically has been incorrect or at least not all there. It’s more nuanced. And that’s something you’re trying to do right now, right? With uh your new company. It is very much. Um, so with Maya, which we’re building in Hong Kong and Asia to start with, we’re bringing together wearable data, biomarkers, blood tests, everything else. Um, and then self-reporting to start building that data asset and working with organizations to really start to build that level of authority so that people do have something to sense check against. And what kind of data are you really focusing on with these women here? Uh, so we are focusing primarily on the biomarkers you’d expect around female hormones. those are largely missing from most of the tests and most of the sort of services in this space already. Um so things like estraodile even follicular

28:17 Stimulating hormone that kind of thing. So we’ll see those different variations. If you ever look at the the image of what happens to those hormones during parmenopause they call it the uh the chart of chaos. So we’re tracking a lot of those biomarkers but then we’re also focusing very much on things like recovery. So HIV super important um any of the training data as well and then just mapping the trends over time. So as women are then following protocols around things like lifestyle interventions, so changes in nutrition, changes in strength training, that kind of thing, actually mapping then the implications and the impact of that so that we can build that data asset. And it’s smart too because too many people don’t understand. We’re at a time point in time to where we can do your blood work and you know get information and actually know what food’s advantageous for you. We can know what supplementation is advantageous for you. You don’t have to guess. You don’t have to go watch social media and go, “Well, he said if I took creatin and then I took XYZ, I’ll be okay.” We’re past that. And in your in your opinion, data can help this all around with men and

29:19 Women, but primarily getting this data in front of women because of where it’s at now is going to help improve them over time. I mean, I’m I’m a geek and I come from the financial. So am I. I can’t I spent the whole weekend coding stuff trying to figure some stuff out. [laughter] people would not believe how big of a nerd I was still. So I have a really big bias for data. But I think that and particularly when we are advocating for change, having the data is super important because there is a lot of uh push back around oh just another thing that women are complaining about or another unfair advantage. And I understand I really do understand where they’re coming from. And that’s why I really want to have the data to really lay that out and be able to say these are the numbers. Tell me where I’m wrong. Yeah. it and you and what’s funny too and it’s probably primarily because the type of individuals you and I both work with, but if you can attack it from a logical standpoint and put it in front of somebody and it’s easy with data. There’s no like, hey man, that data is wrong. Well, it could be. If you had two drinks, your HRV and your resting heart rate is going to be different than it

30:19 Was if you hadn’t. But for the most part, it’s hard to argue with logic. And I feel like if when you’re putting in front of these women, not only is it gives them something logical to look at, it probably also makes them feel a little better like, hey, this is this is more than what I thought. It goes back to what you were saying about the status quo. So either they see it in their own data and they see change there and that being a positive thing or they see it in the community and they see the difference. It’s not just me saying I think you should do more weights and less running. Actually, this is what’s happened to, you know, x number of women who are in a very very similar demographic of what was happening. I think that’s a much more compelling thing. If people don’t feel alone and they feel validated, I think that’s super helpful. Goes right back to your 12-minute appointment, right? When you’re not heard, you don’t hear that, right? Or you don’t hear the person, you start hearing like the WW when they’re talking because you’re somewhere else. But when you hear it and you’re hearing heard and you have the logic behind it now, it’s a different environment what you’re working in because your lone line is your the work with your body you have now. you do the work with you have not

31:20 The one you had at 30. What does that actually change about how the person trains and recovers? I don’t know about you and your clients but the one thing my clients hate facing into is the fact that they are aging. They just like such a negative and so getting my clients to see that your 30s were great, they were amazing, fantastic, but you are working with a very different body now. physiology has changed and so getting them to focus on the things that will genuinely set them up for success in their 50s, their 60s, their 70s. I’m a huge fan and I think when you and I first met, I was just getting into this, but I’m a huge fan of thinking about training for when I’m 100 because I spent way too much time on hospital wards taking care of my mom surrounded by people who were not and they were all part of the skinny movement and everything else. And I just think it’s really important that we’re focused much more on the future rather than the past. It’s like not looking back and going, I used to be able to lift this. I used to be able to run this, but what do I want to be able to do? And then what do I need to do today to get me to that point? No. And it not just from a physical

32:21 Standpoint, from a mental standpoint, when we can focus on where we’re going instead of where we’ve been, our trajectory is usually better. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. I mean, statistically, 47 is when women are most unhappy in their lives. We have an inverted happiness curve. So, because it’s when we’ve got the most pressures on our time, but you think at 47, you’re like, it’s all over. It’s done. And actually women’s happiness rates measured on various different scales like they’ve aggregated a lot of these surveys then go up massively afterwards. But that’s because they start to realize there is life after 50. And to your point forward in that mental approach, but then you need to take care of the one asset. We only ever get given one body, right? It’s not like a car. You can’t just trade it in or maybe one day. I don’t know what Elon’s doing in that space. That’s what AI happens, right? Yeah. At the moment, you only get one. So if you want to live to 100, if you want to be able to play with your grandkids, if you want to be able to be independent right up until the end, you need to be doing stuff now and today and acknowledging that, you know, different exercise works better. Alcohol impacts you differently and particularly for women. Like one glass of wine now will give you a three-day hangover whereas

33:22 You used to be able to drink three bottles. It’s just your body is different. It cannot process things in the same way, but it can also deal with things that it couldn’t do before. And so it’s really embracing that change and getting them to face forward rather than regret. Yeah. And that’s just I mean that’s big for anybody in life, but and you you brought it up earlier too. We didn’t dive into it, but modern medicine, you know, even though we might not like the system, it is improving every year and it’s going to keep people alive longer. But, you know, and I had a conversation with this somebody the other day. You can choose your hard. You can choose your hard. You can, you know, three or four times a week you put in 30 minutes and 45 minutes. You pay attention to 80% of what you eat. um your life at 70 is going to look different than somebody else’s life at 70 because you’re most likely we’re going to continue to see that age grow up. You know, average age is going to be in the 80s here shortly. Um you choose your heart though. Do you want it hard then or do you want it mildly hard now to when you progress? Um because and you talked about living your 100. I’ve been, you know, I tell my

34:22 Kids all the time, I’m gonna beat them and the grandkids in a dead ass sprint at 70 to 75 years old. Dead ass sprint. I’m gonna beat them. That’s a goal of mine. I still sprint every week now. the training for it. Um for you, what’s the difference between recovering and u from burnout and rebuilding it so it doesn’t happen again? So when you’re putting these systems in place for these women, I think uh recovery is something where it is so extreme. And I see this very rarely now actually. It’s much more the rebuild. So and maybe that’s just the demographic I’m in or that’s when people reach out to me, but the rebuild is how do I change some of the habits now? How do I start to build boundaries for myself now? Because typically burnout will come from a lack of boundaries or poorest boundaries. How do I start to be in their words more selfish so that I’m still going to be around so I can still show up further down the line? Whereas like allout recovery is I literally have to step back. I cannot do this anymore. And we we see a lot of women opting out of the workforce and people say statistically why is that happening? Because it’s not a good deal for us anymore to have to deal with everything

35:22 Else and that. Um, but I do think and again back to the whole thing of us living to a a very ripe old age that’s really doing it like a dishonor to women because we don’t have the same amount of money. We don’t have the same pensions. We don’t have the same support as we get older. So actually us checking out of the workforce in the in the short term feels like the right thing to go and recover. But longer term, we’re not then going to be able to support ourselves. So rebuilding is much more about how do I build boundaries? How do I start to take care of myself physically? How do I start to take care of myself mentally? and how do I build back with more resilience and I’m able to then still do it. And so my 0.5 burnout happened in 2014. I then worked for another 12 years and didn’t burn out again. So it’s it’s totally feasible to do it providing you are focused on those pillars of well-being and resilience before anything else because that’s what helps you show up. And I’m going to ask you something you probably not don’t get asked very much. um they go from managing director, you know, at a major corporation, um major role and stepping back and going into a

36:22 World now to where your world is helping and coaching others. Um what impact does it have on you as a human being to go and help these other people in that in that fashion? I work just as many hours a week. I wake up every morning excited to do what I do now. I never woke up excited to do what I do. And that’s no secret to the bank, so I can say it in this forum. I never woke up excited to go and really take care of shareholder value and go and deal with the politics and the crises and the everything else. I wake up now and I have way more purpose. And I think that that is so energizing and it’s what a lot of people are missing in their lives because it’s really hard to do that grind for 40 years and not really care other than your paycheck about what you’re doing, right? And the status, right? Um I couldn’t say it any better myself and everything you just said is the same I feel in love too, right? And that’s it goes back to what you were saying earlier when you said one of the biggest things for a longer life is sense of purpose. Um, and everybody has a different sense and finding your own is

37:25 Truly impactful uh to others than which you are. I would, you know, tip of the cat hat to you because um I’ve known you now for a little over a year and I can’t, you know, you’re impactful in my life and so I want to say I appreciate it. I know those other people appreciate it, too, cuz you have to be a a hell of a coach and a hell of a person to to have in your corner. That’s really kind of you to say. Thank you so much. Okay. Um the way I like to end these is um it’s called rapid fire. I’m just going to ask you 10 questions. Um and the idea is there’s no thought behind it. First thing that comes to your mind, you just answer it. All right. You ready? I’m ready. All right. Okay. You studied ICTs at the university and call yourself a geek before it was cool. What was the first piece of tech that you fell in love with? Oh, my iPod mini. Do you remember them? The really tiny ones. I was so in love with that. I could run for hours and it still had battery and I could just listen for days to music. So, I think it was early 2000 when that that rolled out.

38:26 Yeah. And I had a bright It was awesome. Yeah. It was one of the ones you could use your thumb. Yeah. The [laughter] wheel. Uh, all right. 20 years, three continents, HSBC, Bank of America. Uh, which city taught you the most about performing under pressure? Hong Kong. Absolutely. Hong Kong, the hours are just crazy because you you never switch off. If no one’s ever lived in that part of the world, they would never understand the pressure. And it’s not just it’s a it’s a cultural pressure, too. But like it shows up, your hair falls out, your skin is bad, like everyone everyone. So, it’s uh it’s not a healthy way to live, I’m afraid. I love Hong Kong, but it’s not. Yeah, food good food scene. U better uh building better bodies, careers, lives in the whole frame of your coaching. Which of these three do clients resist working on the most? Very often lives. So they don’t want to necessarily facing which is why we start with bodies. It’s tangible. We understand it. We can see the results. Then we focus on career. Uh but very often the lives piece is the bigger piece. So that’s very much where we talk about values, purpose, everything else.

39:26 If you’re if you’ve been doing something for 20 30 years that isn’t necessarily aligned, there can be a lot of resistance there, but it’s also where you’re where the magic happens once you get to that point. Um, yeah. Uh, ALTNBA, ICF coach, qualified trainer. Which of these changed how you think the most or any other training that you’ve had? I think probably the, um, executive coaching purely because it taught me to get better at questions. I most people, particularly people who have gotten to like a managing director role, you you get there by being decisive. You get there by leading and being directive. You don’t necessarily get there by asking questions and being curious. And you don’t you often don’t have time to be curious. So I think once I did that, and that was a few years before I left, that made me much better at my job, but it made me much better then at just general empathy and learning more because my field of vision widened and my reference sort of network widened because I was asking more questions. Yeah, there two big things that I’m big fans of. Curiosity. Um, being naturally curious will lead you down great paths because it makes you

40:26 Question things and then empathy. Being, you know, having empathy for others just makes you a better quality of human being, which obviously you are. So, he would obviously say the same thing I would, right? Uh, you said fall in love with the problem, not the solution. What problem are the most you in are you what problems are you the most in love with right now? right now it has to be the female midlife particularly around the physical side and I think that’s again I just go straight to that as the starting point but the problem that I’m in love with is trying to give women back some control of what they can control in life um and very often that’s how we teach and treat ourselves um and then giving them community so that we’re not doing this on our own that that sense of community I imagine has to be very uh powerful and um at the same time refreshing for them to know them, right? The way women show up for these events and the way in person and everything and just like how ready they are, I am amazed that this hasn’t happened sooner.

41:26 So, it gives me a lot of hope. Yeah. And that support system, I have to imagine, is just invaluable for them. Your coaching circles program has trained something like 40 4,500 coaches. What’s the one thing almost all new coaches get wrong from the start? Thinking that they need to have the answers. So when you first trained people to coach, it’s again it comes down to like I’m I’m terrified because I might not have the answer for someone, but it’s really not. It’s about helping someone find the answer that they already know or that they want to work towards. That’s smart. Um, so you’ve built your your new program because women’s health data was scattered everywhere. What’s the first number a woman should actually be tracking in midlife? Oh, it’s not actually a number. It’s how she feels. So actually like journaling in the morning and the evening of like how she physically feels and going inward a little bit that’s actually the most interesting marker because so much of the data that we collect isn’t relevant necessarily or it’s so massively impacted by other variables. Mhm.

42:26 The the key marker and this is why in the morning we get people to self-report on just a sliding scale of how they’re feeling because I might wake up and my aura ring will say I’ve had a terrible night’s sleep. My whoop will say I’ve had a great night’s sleep and I’m like completely confused. But I know when I first wake up how I feel. I’ve just outsourced that and gone and looked at my screen rather than think about it. Right? Um so a big part of it is actually how do they physically feel? I think we’ve dissociated our head and our thinking from our bodies for way too long. So we need to focus on how we bring them back together. Which will lead me right into my next one. Work life balance or something else. What’s the uh phrase uh you’d put in place? What which one we put in place first? How do you mean? Sorry. Um work life balance or something else? What’s the phrase you’d put in its place? Oh, assimilation, integration, work life seasonality. I don’t believe in work life balance at all. I would be a massive hypocrite if I came here and claimed that I do. Me too. Call me a liar. Um, so no, I don’t believe in work life balance at all. And I I genuinely think that if you are

43:26 Working in something that is aligned with your purpose and your passion, most of the time it really doesn’t feel like work anyway. That is your life. Tell me about it. And you of all people know and I know you too cuz we communicate so much. You’re like, “Zack, why are you what time is it? 2 a.m. 3:00 a.m. You’re tough.” [laughter] Yeah. What are you doing up? Why I got to do this? This happens. All right. Leading 700 people versus co-founding a startup. Which one scared you more? Oh, the startup. There’s nowhere to hide with a startup, right? It’s you and a couple of people like and you have to do everything and there’s no there’s no kidding yourself that the buck stops. So, uh yeah, the startup is way scarier. Not a lot of temp services out there to hire somebody to come take your place for a week while you go on vacation at a startup. It’s [laughter] just not there. Um from seuite to CTO of a healthcare startup, what’s the one skill from banking that you will lean on every single week? Um, it doesn’t sound sexy, but it’s super

44:28 Important in the space we’re in. It’s compliance. Okay. So, I’m responsible for all of the data compliance and the security and everything else. And I can’t think of anything more important when you’re asking people for some very personal data to help them and to help others. Um but yeah the one thing that I’ve you know and I’m grateful for many things from my career in financial services but the one thing I’m really grateful for is just you know first class training in regulation data compliance standards how to really run a business at scale and we have every intention of this being at scale very shortly. So uh so yeah that would be it. Well I appreciate you having on your show and I agree with everything you just said with the compliance there. Um I’m so happy to have you on here. I can’t thank you enough. you I consider you a friend. I consider you uh someone who is one of the shining stars in this space and I can’t think of anybody better to have on here and um just really happy because you’re a great human being and I’m sure you know that. Well, I’m honored. Thank you very much. Every day you brighten my day and I

45:28 Learn something new from you. So, I’m really grateful to be here. So, thank you very much for having me. Here’s what I’m taking out of this. Normal isn’t a standard. It’s an average and the average is tired. Whether you’re a man staring at labs that you’re saying you’re fine while you feel like you’re rotting from the inside or if you’re a woman being told 12 minutes is enough to sort out midlife. The game is the same. Reactive when it should be proactive. Your job isn’t to avoid getting sick. Your job is to perform. Liz did everything right on paper. Hit the wall and rebuilt around the standard instead of the grind. That’s the whole thing. Work with the body you have now. Measure it. Don’t wait until you get sick enough for someone to finally care. Liz, thank you. And you can find Liz and Maya help through the links in the show notes. If this hit home, follow the show. Send it to the person in your life who keeps getting told they’re normal. And I’ll see you next time. This is No Hype, Just Standards.