Polly Mertens: 0:22

Hey superstars.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:23

Welcome back Polly here and Sam coming to you from in studio today how y’all doing.

Polly Mertens: 0:28

What are we going to talk about today? We’re talking about our five to thrive Woohoo! Our everyday awesome health essentials. So I look at this. You know when we thought about this topic and we think about. You know what’s most important to us? It’s our daily rituals, like how do we build an everyday awesome life? Yes, it’s building that human Like, and what does it take for that human to feel good, look good, thrive, you know all of those things so that out in the world we are achieving our everyday awesome.

Samantha Pruitt: 0:59

So building that human called you, I call them the five non-essentials or non-negotiables. Non-negotiables, that’s what I meant. Yes, totally essential. Non-negotiable.

Polly Mertens: 1:09

Exactly. So let’s start out. So you thought about prioritizing these. I just was like, okay, these are my five, but I love how you prioritize them. So do you want to start with your list? Totally.

Samantha Pruitt: 1:19

And it’s so fun because we didn’t know what each others were and we didn’t write these together or script any of this kind of stuff. But we have three of them that are totally jiving and then two that are super unique, and it’s one of the things I love about the nature of our relationship the yin and the yang, but then also these really high-vibre commonalities, Absolutely.

Polly Mertens: 1:41

And I think, because we share a passion for our health as a foundation of what it takes to be a thriving human being, to have awesome in your life is if you’re not feeling good, then you’re not going to have awesome. So I think it makes a lot of sense that ours would be similar and overlap in the health area. So tell me your first priority, what’s your?

Samantha Pruitt: 2:04

number one. My number one highest priority is a daily sweat at varied intensities or heart rate zones. If you’re a training person, so every day I need to do some kind of sweat. But again, it’s not the same thing every day and it’s not the same intensity every day, but daily sweat for me is a critical aspect to be feeling good.

Polly Mertens: 2:26

Okay. Well, some people would say well, samantha, you live near Palm Springs or in the desert, that’s pretty easy for you, that’s an easy one, but explain that. What does that mean?

Samantha Pruitt: 2:38

For me it means some type of body movement. Some call this exercise I know the exercise name gets a bad rap so moving my body in a variety of ways. So I do do a lot of different things. Running is kind of my mainstay at this point in my life, but I also do swimming, biking, I do hiking, I also do CrossFit and sometimes I do things like yoga or other lower and higher, you know, different types of activity, a little lower intensity, but my mainstays are definitely running, cycling, hiking and CrossFit.

Polly Mertens: 3:15

Yeah. And why is that important? Why that’s your number one.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:19

Why.

Polly Mertens: 3:22

And why do you look at it from the sweat perspective? What is that for you? Or how is that different than non-sweating? Some people would say, well, I do, I don’t know some activity and I don’t sweat.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:33

What is it about the sweat that you?

Polly Mertens: 3:34

think is valuable or helpful for you.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:38

Yeah, so physically, there’s a lot of benefits to producing a sweat, so getting your heart rate up.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:45

You definitely want to be taxing your aerobic system again at a variety of intensities, so there are benefits to each of the heart rate zones or intensities.

Samantha Pruitt: 3:53

So there’s a whole physiological reason that we train at certain intensities and I’m fascinated by all of that, how that impacts your body’s health, your metabolic health, all the systems within your body, but then additionally, your skeletal system, muscle system and, critical, your brain chemistry. How does that impact the health of your brain and your brain function? So these are really complex things that I’m slightly obsessed with, as you know, but all of those things I have a tremendous amount of value in, and so I strive to get a sweat that allows me every day to work on those various systems of the body. And then I like how sweat feels emotionally, because it does feel also like a cleansing, like a rinsing off or a detoxification, if you will, of all my crazy thoughts and you know, the stress of the day or the pressure of the project or whatever I might be up to in the rest of my life. It allows me to process all of that, move through it and ultimately think clearer and feel emotionally relieved through that sweat experience.

Polly Mertens: 5:08

Love it. That’s why I do it, you know, and I think there’s so much value. You obviously have had a long time health and fitness journey, right? So I know we can’t in this one session go into the depths, but I’m so curious about those heart rate zones and like should I do 15? You know, I’m sure people are like should I do 15 minutes at you know max zone or whatever. So maybe we’ll link to some show notes to help people, you know, find some more information about that, because you know we could go deep, dive into just the benefits of that.

Samantha Pruitt: 5:39

So obsessed with all that. What’s your number one?

Polly Mertens: 5:43

Well, as I said, I didn’t prioritize these, like you know, first and foremost if I, but I do want to say that I share the movement one. Okay, so what I think, like you have talked about what’s unique to each of us are ying and yang is. So mine movement, it’s not based on sweat, it’s more about how I feel in my body. So, while sometimes I sweat, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes, like this morning, I was at the gym, I felt like like a he woman. I was like, were you lifting heavy shit? I was lifting some heavy. I mean, I wasn’t like, I mean I’m definitely not a, you know, olympian or something like that, but strong for me, you know, and that is definitely evolved and I think you know, as we both, you know, peaked into our fifties and you know some people would say, oh, you know, menopause and women get less strong, whatever.

Polly Mertens: 6:39

I’m like hell, no, like I am stronger than I was in my twenties, thirties, forties, you know so anyway. So mine it varies but it’s about, um, I’ve, you know, and some of the things I’ve done. You know I haven’t done as much endurance that you have done. I have done some of that. I’ve done some of the adventure racing. It’s fun, you know. It’s about enjoying the things and I mean I was a volleyball athlete, peak athlete, for 20, 30 years, you know, whatever it was, I figured out long 25 years and then, you know, done a little bit of triathlons and a little bit of venture racing, done some in a lot of five years dedicated to Spartan racing, doing elite in that. So it varies and I’d say today it’s.

Polly Mertens: 7:22

I look at it as staying strong, being strong for life, like, like I love that, you know, as a solo woman, especially when I go on solo adventures, um, you know I can do things on my own. I don’t need people helping me with this or that. And you know, having a 32 foot motor home and a motorcycle and the things that I’ve had, you need some strength for that, right. So it’s building my body for my life, whatever that I think that looks like if it’s. You know, sometimes it’s for fun and you know I love doing that. You know I’m thinking I’m gonna do an Iron man with you next year.

Samantha Pruitt: 7:58

Yes, girl so.

Polly Mertens: 8:00

I’m finding movement, not necessarily for just the purpose of sweat, but for feeling what feels good in my body.

Samantha Pruitt: 8:07

It allows you to say yes to your life. So when you say adventure if you do not feel healthy and strong in your physical body and your friend calls you up maybe crazy friend like me, I don’t know. We’ve got some friends like this and they say let’s go do this epic physical adventure of whatever magnitude, we say yes. We don’t even allow a moment of pause or consideration. We say yes and then we figure out how to get that done because we know physically we’re prepared.

Polly Mertens: 8:39

Yeah, Like you and I, you know one thing I think about about a year ago I took seven weeks, seven weeks and traveled backpacking through Asia, right, and I’m carrying a pretty heavy backpack, you know.

Polly Mertens: 8:50

You’ve lived out of your pack, I lived out of my back and it’s like it wasn’t something I had to ramp up for. I didn’t ramp up for that for six months Like, oh, am I gonna be able to walk around Asia with a you know 40, 50 pound, whatever it was backpack, it was just like, yeah, I’m just gonna backpack and you know, you and I went on a backpacking weekend, and it wasn’t something that we trained for for six months, for I was like I mean we didn’t do outside of our, let’s say, comfort zone, but we were.

Polly Mertens: 9:15

We had a good base right. And I think that’s how I look at it is I want to have a base in my life of strength, endurance, flexibility, able to go up mountains, able to jump on a bike for two hours you know, whatever it is yeah.

Samantha Pruitt: 9:28

So daily movement number one, number two for me yeah, Sleep. And that’s me too, Like whew mama. That’s critical. I did not used to be good at this piece of it and we talked about this many, many times.

Samantha Pruitt: 9:43

Yeah, especially when I was a little bit younger, and also then when I was going through my health crisis, of course, and then when I went into menopause at last repair menopause that lasted about 10 friggin years. My sleep was horrible. So postmenopause now and just finally figuring out, maybe over the last two or three, four years, I’ve understood that that’s a high priority. Gotten damn good at it. Eight hours for me, non-negotiable, must have the eight hours. Still, the quality isn’t exactly where I’d like it to be, but I commit to being in bed and being rested for that time. How about you?

Polly Mertens: 10:24

And I think and I just want to echo that, so I think we both have had a mixed journey and relationship with sleep as entrepreneurs and hustlers and you with the parenting and stuff like that. There’s hours you give up sleep through your life. You gave up years raising kids. I don’t want to make that a small thing. That was a large thing, but running a business too.

Samantha Pruitt: 10:47

You think about it all the time.

Polly Mertens: 10:48

Businesses. Yeah, when I was in the Silicon Valley days and it was like people are working crazy hours and I think what I just want to call out here to people that I think we both recognize and it’s not from a like, it was a breakdown, like our sleep was the screaming element. It wasn’t like the thing that was raising its hand and saying I mean, yeah, we were tired, I’m sure, but I mean, for me, when I started learning about, like the house, not getting enough sleep takes years off your life.

Samantha Pruitt: 11:18

I was like you’re talking to me now. Brain health, how it affects each of the different systems of the body and how it’s correlated to disease.

Polly Mertens: 11:30

And well being, you know so I would just say the way that people categorize. If you want to do any research further on this and we’re happy to share more, people call it sleep hygiene.

Polly Mertens: 11:40

That’s like a practical word that people are using these days. So getting good sleep hygiene and in my hypnotherapy practice, one of the things I help people with the sleeping is like having a going to bed routine and having a waking up routine. People are great at like, oh, I get up in the morning, have my coffee, I haven’t brushed my teeth, whatever, but they don’t often have a going to bed routine. That’s as ritualized as well. And so, people, if you’re struggling with sleep, if you’re not on a routine, there’s definitely some things that you can look into with sleep hygiene on how to improve that. You know small and big way, so and I have a priority.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:16

Oh yeah, you were that.

Polly Mertens: 12:18

And I pay for the premium version so that I can get my numbers. Every morning I look at it. I’m excited.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:25

And you’re like you should get one of those, I go. I can’t look at that. That’s okay, yeah, it’s all good, we’re on the journey, we’re on the journey together and yet different. Okay, number three. For me this has been a radical change in the last year. Ish Super fan of Dr Stacy Samson, all of her work.

Polly Mertens: 12:47

Yes, shout out.

Samantha Pruitt: 12:48

Yeah, pre and post exercise nutrition. So, being a health and fitness coach for a very long time and having an autoimmune disease and, you know, healing from that, I understood the effects of nutrition on my body and brain and I paid the price dearly and, of course, corrected that. But I never really double clicked on the pre and post nutrition element related to the exercise I was demanding my body to do and I do quite a bit of exercise, of course, and it’s one of the things I love, but I wasn’t properly fueling. So that is now a top. Third priority for me is pre exercise and post exercise sports, not sports nutrition. Real nutrition, sorry to be clear, not sports nutrition.

Polly Mertens: 13:36

whole food- nutrition, real food, and tell them because I love when you shared it with me. Like you, when you read her book, you were like texting me like like a crazy person and I was sending out messages to all of my female friends in the space.

Samantha Pruitt: 13:50

Like you got to read this you guys are nuggets, nuggets, nuggets, nuggets.

Polly Mertens: 13:53

Give me that nugget because I remember you told me and I don’t know if we’ll have the number, but maybe we’ll have it in the notes about pre and especially menopausal women how much protein before a workout and how much after. Do you remember that it’s?

Samantha Pruitt: 14:06

super individual, to the size of the female and also the exercise routine and so forth. So I don’t want to give those numbers, but we can definitely drop in the show notes a link to that information. She’s got tons of stuff. It’s all free online but you should buy her books. Her books are great, but the fact to even be doing protein and branch chain amino acids pre workout and then again post workout I’m sorry you can’t see this, but it blew my brain.

Samantha Pruitt: 14:36

Like I was of the old school mindset A. I had been heavier at times in my life. During my ex couch potato to iron woman and then ultra woman journey I lost 50 pounds, right. So I came from the mindset of exercising also to lose weight and that really old programming that I’ve carried with me since I was a teenager and into my womanhood would always put me in a place of starvation because in my mind me being thin or losing weight was a higher priority than my performance or how I felt. And that is completely opposite. Now my lowest priority is that scale number I don’t even care. I don’t weigh myself anymore. Like it’s taken me a long time to get to this place. I understand it’s complicated, but my highest priority is how do I feel in this body, how am I performing right now? That is the critical element, and so that has really. It’s just. I can’t even say enough about how much that’s changed for me. What’s your story there?

Polly Mertens: 15:45

No, I just want to echo. So I’ll describe how I look at it. I’ll just call food intake and I’ll make that a big bucket. But you sharing with me about Stacey Sims, stacey Sims work and going and listening to her on multiple podcasts and she’s just amazing. So follow her legends, love her, and she’s really changed the game. I think, and we’ll continue.

Polly Mertens: 16:06

I think she’s on a huge trajectory, thank God, because I mean, when I went through the pre-perimental pause phase, I was like why are more women talking about this? I want to talk to as many women about female hormones as possible, like I was talking to women in their 20s and their 30s and when I started studying all this. So you sharing it with me helped me on my journey and I absolutely one of the things that I started shifting, because I’m like you. So I love a great workout in the morning. That’s when I feel my best. I get the body going, get the metabolism going, because, like all the functions you know brain, all of it, all that good yummy chemicals that come out of exercise. But I wasn’t fueling either. I loved working out on an empty stomach.

Polly Mertens: 16:45

I was like oh, I feel better, I just you know nothing, heavy on my stomach and once I read her stuff I was like are you kidding me? The other thing I want to add to this just as a little sidebar so I’m a huge student of the past three years of the microbiome.

Polly Mertens: 17:00

Right and so I finally learned of something called Zoey, which is this app and test and all this stuff that had to do with being able to test your microbiome, and I was like, oh, I want to do that. So earlier this year I did the Zoey protocol, tested my microbiome, got all the results from that, but also added they had a little add-on for blood sugar monitoring. I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. Yeah, why not do that? At the same time. So for two weeks I wore a blood sugar monitor in my arm which we can show pictures of that, whatever, it’s easy and it had an app.

Polly Mertens: 17:34

So in the moment, moment by moment I could see what was happening in my blood, life change, and you were telling me about Stacey Simps work, so I was adjusting, when I ate, what I ate right before or whatever, and I could see not only how my blood was doing, I could see your performance and stuff like that. But and we’re not, and I just want to make the distinction so like, even though you and I are very athletic, you know we’ve been lifelong quote athletes, whether it’s peak athlete, whatever, endurance, whatever, we’re just women too, normal women. So this isn’t I’m not saying, the things that we’re recommending or we’re talking about here. Oh, it’s just reserved for us, because we, we run a lot, or you do, iron man.

Samantha Pruitt: 18:17

You know who it’s reserved for? Anyone who’s a human.

Polly Mertens: 18:19

Yeah, that means you that cares, or should care, about their well-being. That’s right. Thriving, you know this is five to thrive, so yeah, so that Zoe was amazing, and so the pre and post. So now I think what she said is like fuel for the session.

Polly Mertens: 18:32

Oh, that’s one of my theories that I picked up from her and I do that. So I don’t eat after I mean. Yeah, sorry, I do eat after I work out, but I think about and I put food before I work out, like you said as well. So, but for food intake, I just want to say a couple things. So I’ve been, you know the mixed vegetarian, vegan, different things, but I would say eating for the session is one thing, timing when the food can be processed that was definitely something I learned from that Zoe period of watching my blood sugar is how fast food goes, you know, depending on the food goes into your bloodstream. I was amazed and what each one does. So looking at low glycemic as something to take a look at, you know, not everybody. You know there’s all kinds of ways to slice and dice your what you want to pay attention to, but I think understanding and knowing how many people are diabetic and the stress that the body has all the people right now that are pre-diabetic.

Polly Mertens: 19:26

Yeah so, and it’s not hard to live a low glycemic diet in today’s world.

Polly Mertens: 19:32

It’s just being aware of it and studying it and, you know, caring about it. And then I would say I really look at vitamin, mineral and protein rich foods and how can I get that? And that goes in line with, I would say, low processed and as close to nature as possible. So, as a student of the microbiome, one of the things I learned I think it was from Zach Bush love his work as well is you know, basically you have this life, all the I mean truans of you know, viruses and little guys living in your back belly bugs and they are either thriving or dying off based on what you eat and when you eat foods with preservatives.

Polly Mertens: 20:15

So the way it was described to me is, if you eat something with a lot of preservatives you know chips and things that are meant to sit on, you know Twinkies sit on a shelf for a long life, which most foods are doing these days it’s preserving things from going back like like not like it keeps things preserved and like it like a beef jerky or something. Well, that’s also like killing off dead food. Yeah, yeah. So I’m like wow, it never occurred to me. So the more of those processed long shelf life foods we eat, the more we destroy our gut microbiome. So, and the other thing I would say for my years of eating disorders and coaching is people sometimes get it like you were talking about that thinness you know going for a vision.

Polly Mertens: 21:01

So I would say 90-10.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:02

Fasted exercise. I did all those fasted exercising and fast, but I say my Fat adaptation protocols. It just killed my hormones. It was a disaster for me.

Polly Mertens: 21:12

We’ve got a whole other show.

Samantha Pruitt: 21:13

Whole other show I’m gonna menopause and the yeah.

Polly Mertens: 21:16

So one thing I just want to get in here is 90-10. So give yourself goodies, you know. Don’t go 100%. Take everything off the table because it will destroy your quality of life. I would say. So okay what else you got?

Samantha Pruitt: 21:31

Okay. Number four for me is on the daily. I need to put myself in a high-vibre human connection environment. So I seek out daily a high-vibre environment where humans are at so I can connect. Generally for me it’s my coffee shop experience. As you know, that is my drug of choice espresso and good people in those places and I build relationships in those places and I love to be in those places. If I can’t access that, for whatever reason, I still seek it out. So on the daily, a human connection with a high-vibre person or groups of people, it is food for my soul. It is absolutely critical to my mental health to be in a space like that once a day, especially if I’m in a funk. But no matter what, I get fed there deep in my soul level. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. It’s not just the coffee you’re going there for.

Samantha Pruitt: 22:30

No, it isn’t, that is just the you know extra benefit.

Polly Mertens: 22:33

That’s nice, but, yeah, the smiles and the energy, for sure, yeah. So the vibe, yeah, high vibe. What about you? So it’s fine, we talked about this and you know I have more of a hermit personality.

Polly Mertens: 22:47

I’ll admit it, I enjoy my quiet time, my solitude. Something that I was introduced to probably 10 years ago with Abraham Hicks, is morning routines. They’re so popular now so I started learning about these before they were and anyway. So morning rituals right, and for me, the biggest part of what makes a morning ritual valuable you say connecting with humans Mine is, I would say, connecting with something higher than me you know, and so take that how everybody wants. But your high vibe is with the universe Pretty much.

Samantha Pruitt: 23:21

You have a direct line, you got a direct line.

Polly Mertens: 23:23

Yeah, you do, and you know you’ve worked hard to develop that, yeah yeah, one of my favorite lines from Abraham Hicks is like she says you know people go through life and it’s kind of like you know, you know getting things done. You can go through life and you can get a vacuum and, just you know, rub it around the. You know the carpet, but if you don’t plug the thing in, you’re going to get a lot of movement but it’s not going to get the job done. You might say Turn that desk.

Polly Mertens: 23:50

Yeah, yeah. So I think that’s how you and I both you know connect ourselves, like plug ourselves in so that we can. It’s food for your soul and spirit.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:01

Yeah, yeah, right, and my morning ritual and we’ll do that in another episode your morning ritual is next level and I have almost none, so we’ll do a whole show on that, because I think, yours is freaking fascinating. Well, what’s funny is?

Polly Mertens: 24:16

I think about you and the time that you take at the coffee shop. I’m like, oh, she’s driving off to the coffee shop and then you’re waiting for your coffee and you’re having all those conversations Like it’s a thing for you.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:26

So you oh, absolutely it’s not, it is next level.

Polly Mertens: 24:29

Yeah, that’s true, it is a it’s. You know part of it, the anticipation. I’m sure if you’re going there like you’re looking forward to it, you enjoy it. Something you appreciate feels like a treat, yeah, and then you walk into the space and you’re transformed in a little mini uplift.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:44

If you will. Yeah, yeah, it is a very grounding part of my routine. That’s a good point.

Polly Mertens: 24:48

Yeah, absolutely so. Mine just looks like alone time and yours looks like high fives, totally All right.

Samantha Pruitt: 24:56

So what else you got? And then and then this is number five, but it’s so, so important. So for me, I need to move one inch forward towards my purpose every single day. One inch forward towards my purpose. That’s it Not going backwards and not being stuck or stagnating. So as long as I have done something in the course of the day, no matter how micro it may be, moving towards my purpose, I feel a sense of accomplishment and fulfilled and I feel grounded in me, even being here in this body, on this planet, you know, with a purpose and aligned with that.

Polly Mertens: 25:39

Purpose meaning fulfillment. So can you share a little bit or a sneak peek into what is your purpose or how would you describe it? What encapsulates it? Is it connection?

Samantha Pruitt: 25:48

with humans.

Polly Mertens: 25:49

What is it?

Samantha Pruitt: 25:49

It is definitely contributing to the betterment of society, of humanity, so changing other humans’ lives for the better, and that’s their body, their brain and their lives. That’s why I’m here on this planet in this time, and so any little thing I can do over the course of the day, moving closer to fulfilling which that’ll never happen, by the way, till the day I die. So I got a lot of work to do, still right towards that purpose, and I’m good I can put my head on the pillow at night, knowing, you know, not only a sense of accomplishment but just really feeling grounded in who I am, in my connection, here in this lifetime.

Polly Mertens: 26:30

Yeah, you know, I mean there’s. There’s a lot of busyness that I think a lot of people replace purpose with you know, like job professional goals, relationship goals, financial goals, so I think those are not purpose.

Polly Mertens: 26:47

Yes, and that’s what I just want to shine a light on for you and like helping people understand, is you know, when we get lost in pursuing dreams or goals or outer looking good kinds of things, life can be empty and meaningless. And what you’re saying is. What you’re saying is I have this as one small thing I do every day to give or to bring meaning to my life, and so you’re like every day, you’re like counting those chips. You know you’re not going to sleep unfulfilled.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:20

Yeah, yeah, and sometimes it literally is a penny in the jar, you know, and that’s great, that’s absolutely great when you share like a couple of things.

Polly Mertens: 27:30

Just if people you know, I share your same purpose and passion for helping other people and I have a feeling a lot of people who are listening to this what are like one, two or three, like what are the little ways that you can be moving towards that purpose. Like I mean, I see, I mean this is a huge thing. I mean this is your huge contribution. You know sharing our huge contribution.

Samantha Pruitt: 27:53

So like I mean, sometimes I weave it into my work, so it’s not like it is excluded from. I have chosen at this point in my life to be as integrated as possible. So when I move around in a professional way and I do life coaching, personal coaching, business coaching, and I work on projects and create events for people to transform their lives, right. So when I’m doing all of those things, it could be that I’m in a business meeting. But again, what am I delivering to that business meeting? Right, I’m not just delivering the business strategy in that space with those humans. I want to make sure I’m having a bigger impact than that. So it’s bringing that purpose into the different spaces, in relationship, into workspace, into community. If it’s in an event, production, my highest priority, being part of producing an event, is how are the humans experiencing this event? There’s plenty of other things that are going on that are also important, but my highest priority is what is happening with the human in that space and what is their experience.

Polly Mertens: 29:04

And I just want to, you know, underline what you’re saying by reminding people that when you know your purpose, or at least you’re close to knowing it or you have a hint at it, you know, because not everybody’s like what’s my purpose, right, but when you can have that front and center in your life, like you said, you have opportunity to guiding life everywhere.

Polly Mertens: 29:23

Yeah, it’s not extra. It’s not like oh yeah, I got to carve out extra time, necessarily because a lot of people go I’m not living my purpose or I’m not doing it yet, and I think what you’re sharing is it’s already in the life you know, you’re fulfilling it or you’re pursuing it as a part of an expression of you in your life You’re filled into you like your values are.

Samantha Pruitt: 29:46

And I would say, if people don’t have clarity in those arenas, either I don’t know what my values are, so how can I live by my values, or I don’t know my purpose. Could they please call us, because we’d be happy to help them figure that out, because I really don’t want another individual to go through another day, week or year of their life not being connected to those things. They’re so critical to our existence and feeling fulfilled as humans. I mean, yeah, I just yeah. We need to have that. That’s got to be happening. What about for you?

Polly Mertens: 30:22

though. Well, I would say the one thing that we had, so we had sleep together, morning rituals, yours is the time with people and whatnot. Movement. We shared food. You know we had a little bit different, I think the one that you have, but you called yours living with purpose, I’d say mine is outdoors. The other thing that I love, and so I look at it as just oxygen, you know, just getting outside and getting oxygen, like fresh air, not being always indoors.

Polly Mertens: 30:51

Sunshine is a big one since studying podcasts of Dr Andrew Huberman if you haven’t watched his podcast, amazing, and he had an interview with Jack Cruz, who I didn’t know of Dr Cruz, and they talked about the importance of sunshine and sunlight and our eyeballs and a gazillion other things. So sunshine connection to nature, like if I’m not looking out at mountains or trees or flowers or grass or sunlight, I might as well be underground Like it’s. You know it’s got to be me out in it or looking at it as much as I can if I can’t get out in it.

Samantha Pruitt: 31:25

That thing about the sun is like. I guess I just take it for granted. I do live in the desert, so there’s that. And I am outside every day because I have chosen to live in a place and build a lifestyle, that that is a normal part of my everyday activity, understanding that that’s not the case for everybody. So why is it so important to be out in nature daily? What is in nature waiting for them?

Polly Mertens: 31:52

There’s scientific. I feel like I’ve listened to a lot of people talk about the benefits, just like you were saying in the beginning all the health benefits of the sweat and the cardio. And you know your ranges and why and how you mix it up. And, for me, I’ve studied a lot of people talking about the benefits of nature, one of them being when the human eyeball can see in a horizon, it feels its expansiveness. And so it feels its enormity and when it can’t, it just feels small.

Samantha Pruitt: 32:23

And it was funny, I was in that speaks to isolation, loneliness versus connection and unity.

Polly Mertens: 32:31

And when I was in and you see this a lot, I’m sure, in other places I love Asheville. I’m in Asheville, North Carolina, for the first time recently. Fantastic city, Big kudos, Love it. But I felt very claustrophobic because you had to work kind of hard. I felt to see a lot of trees there.

Polly Mertens: 32:53

Yeah, a lot of trees it was like I can’t just see over the neighbor’s house and into the vastness or whatever and where we are here and in places that I’ve lived, not being enclosed by all those trees so that just for me, even though you’re in nature, that lack of connection to the horizon, the skyline, the sun setting, the sun rising, the cyclical nature of our moon and sun.

Polly Mertens: 33:22

That’s my goo-woo girl over there and people probably write about this. I mean, there’s a huge deficiency. I remember when I was diagnosed with low vitamin D and I was like what, what?

Polly Mertens: 33:35

And I had no idea how important that little vitamin is to our body, and so I started taking a lot of vitamin D and I was like why am I taking this? Why don’t I just get my butt outside more when the sun is shining? Like you know, I mean for decades of living in the technology fields and high pressure roles and whatever, and being indoors and not allowing myself to go out for a lunch walk.

Samantha Pruitt: 34:00

Like there’s so much research that’s been done in the last five years. I read a great book called the Nature Fix and they’re doing it in some countries just phenomenally taking this and actually implementing it into. There’s things called forest bathing and all this stuff where people are leaving the offices, all the people who are having those type of jobs in the cuticle, cuticle goal, in the office, behind the screen, which is a majority of the population, and, of course, the mental health crisis, the physical health crisis. So just trying to solve for those two things taking people outside into nature and it is the most powerful non-pharmaceutical agency for not only chronic disease but mental health. It’s proven, the science is there.

Polly Mertens: 34:45

The limiting beliefs I had when I worked in offices for decades and decades sitting at a computer screen, not allowing myself. From the moment I walked in at 7am, whatever the time was, I left to step outside the beliefs that I had, like the have to work hustle. What will people think? Oh, everybody else is working through lunch Been there, done there.

Polly Mertens: 35:09

Right, and going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark and not seeing the sun I mean seeing the sunshine through a window, let’s say, but it’s not the same, and I would absolutely turn that upside down. Right now I would say, as I have a team, get outside, like don’t know, you are required to get outside, required of myself and other people, exactly, exactly, very fun, very fun. So I think this has been super helpful for me to hear yours and me, yours, and to hear our overlaps and stuff, and I hope that people will. If nothing else, if you take nothing else from this episode, remember one thing from this segment Please, we beg of you, prioritize your well-being, get clear on your five non-negotiables and write those puppies down.

Samantha Pruitt: 35:59

I want to see Post-it Notes on mirrors. I want to see Post-it Notes in cars. I want to see Post-it Notes on your computer screen.

Polly Mertens: 36:07

People need to understand these are non-negotiable, whatever their unique ones are, and we’ve just shared ours, but we expect people to have different ones.

Samantha Pruitt: 36:17

Just like ours are different, whatever it is.

Polly Mertens: 36:20

However you define it, but understanding and getting in touch with what creates your well-being. So, if nothing else, understand that you need to prioritize your well-being. First, get clear on your five, write them down, put some Post-it Notes and then put them into action. And then check in with yourself. How are you doing on them?

Samantha Pruitt: 36:36

And remember people, my beautiful people.

Polly Mertens: 36:39

How your life feels is way more important than how it looks, and every day is a new opportunity to find your awesome. Alright, we’ll see you out there.