IAM1553 – Fitness Coach Introduces the AntiDiet Nutritional Program to His Clients
Podcast Interview with Paul Lyngso
As the Founder of the Lyngso Fitness Academy, Paul has helped thousands of people across the globe to finally overcome their internal and external blocks to greatness. Paul is exceptional because of his psychological and philosophical approach to health and fitness. I bet you know at least a hundred fitness influencers on social media and have watched a crazy amount of transformation videos through infamous diets.
His approach is the exact opposite. In fact, his signature program is called, “The AntiDiet Nutritional Program.” He works on abundance, not restriction. You can achieve your goals without giving up the things you love. You need to learn how to fine-tune things! He offers a new way of doing things that actually works and is sustainable in the long run. His brand, Metaphysique, has helped hundreds of people live healthy lives without running away from their comfort food.
- CEO Story: Paul got into the fitness industry in 2008 or 2009. He really wanted to be in the fitness business and so he got his certification and trained people out of a corporate gym for a year and then started doing his own business. Having his own gym and when the pandemic hit, Paul pivoted into running courses online and one-on-one coaching.
- Business Service: One-on-one coaching. With a curriculum program and teach the clients how to apply it. With apps easy to follow. Nutrition and exercise programs. Working on the application of the principles, specific to the client’s lifestyle.
- Secret Sauce: Instead of having a generic program that you should do this or that, question it with an innovative way of approaching the solution based on your lifestyle.
- CEO Hack: Tool, reframe. Recognizing the unresourceful, shifting our perspective and changing our filter, changing the story on what we tell of this event, and putting ourselves into a resourceful place.
- CEO Nugget: Taking risks equates to the level of success you want to achieve. Take those by seeing people doing it and you're certainly to produce.
- CEO Defined: Leadership and vision. It's about self-leadership and envisioning your own life. People will follow you and catch your vision.
Website: www.lyngsofit.com
Instagram: paul.lyngso
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Transcription
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00:23 – Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
00:50 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. Paul Lingso of Lingso Fitness Academy. Paul, excited to have you on the show.
01:00 – Paul Lyngso
And good to be here.
01:01 – Gresham Harkless
Yes, excited to have you on. It's great to have you be a part of this. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Paul so you can hear about some of the awesome things he's doing before we jump straight in. As the founder of Lingso Fitness Academy, Paul has helped thousands of people across the globe to finally overcome their internal and external blocks to greatness. Paul's is exceptional because of his psychological and philosophical approach to health and fitness. I bet you know at least one, at least a hundred fitness influencers on social media, and have watched a crazy amount of transformation videos through infamous diets.
And his approach is the exact opposite. In fact, his signature program is the anti-diet nutrition program. He works on abundance, not restriction. You can achieve your goals without giving up the things you love. And you need to learn how to fine-tune these things. He offers a new way of doing things that actually works and is sustainable in the long run. His brand Metaphysic has helped hundreds of people live healthy lives without running away from their comfort food. Paul, excited to have you on the show and everything you stand for. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
02:04 – Paul Lyngso
I am dude, let's do it.
02:06 – Gresham Harkless
Let's make it happen. And so to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock here a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
02:13 – Paul Lyngso
Yeah, man, for sure. It started when I got into the fitness industry in 2008 or 9, I just was unemployable, man. I did not want to have a regular job. And I really wanted to be in the fitness business. And so I got my certifications. I trained people out of a corporate-type gym for like a year, maybe less than a year. And I decided to go out and do my own thing and start my own business. So that was in-home personal training. I drove all around the Chicagoland area for the better part of a year before centralizing everything and getting a sublease situation.
So I rented a little corner of a gym that already existed and ran out of there, ran my business out of there as an independent contractor, grew my clientele, got my own facility in 2013, ran that, and kept going until the pandemic in 2020, in which case running a brick and mortar facility was not an option. And so we moved, we created our anti-diet course at that point, moved everything online, and have been doing everything online since creating courses, one-on-one coaching, the whole deal.
03:23 – Gresham Harkless
Nice. I absolutely love that, especially when you, sound like you kind of identify that early that, you know, you were the unemployed boy and you decided to go your own route and try to blaze your own trail.
03:33 – Paul Lyngso
Yes, but do you just, it's, you know it early on? You know, if you've ever felt that itch where it's just like being told what to do, you would rather go do it the hard way yourself than be told what to do. Like, you know, people listening to this probably understand what that's about.
03:50 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, it's so funny you say that. And I think a lot of times once you kind of go on that path and you kind of dip your toe in that water, sometimes jump straight in, you kind of feel like there's no other way to kind of do it. So it's hard to, even if you want it to, to try to go back.
04:04 – Paul Lyngso
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've thought about that so many times over the course of my career, like, oh man I could just go get a job right now. I could take these skills and I could be valuable to a company. And in fact, I, you know, was interviewed by a big fitness company at one point, a big box gym. When I walked in, it just didn't feel right. Like the energy was off. I'm like, I can't see myself walking in here as an employee. And I walked out and It just reaffirmed what I already knew, which is I meant to do this on my own.
04:33 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of times I'm a big believer in that, you know, those, I'm a big believer in binary. So sometimes those experiences are those that are your emphasis here that catapults you into where you're supposed to be. So if you didn't have those experiences, you didn't go those feelings when you're going to jobs or whatever that is, then you wouldn't, you know, be right where you're supposed to be.
04:53 – Paul Lyngso
That's exactly right, man.
04:54 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I know you drilled down and talked a little bit about like how you work with your clients, but I wanted to make sure that, you know, there wasn't anything that you didn't touch on and get a little bit more of an idea of like how you work it with and serve the clients.
05:06 – Paul Lyngso
Yeah, well, I mean, the bread and butter of what we do is one-on-one coaching. So we have, we have curriculums that we follow to the anti-diabetic, you know, nutrition course, But really what we do is we do one-on-one coaching and guide people through that curriculum and teach them how to apply that to their life. So along with that, yes, there's nutrition. We offer exercise programs as well that go along with that, that we deliver through an app so it's really easy for you to execute on your own. But most specifically, we work with the application of the principles.
So rather than giving you a diet, I'm not like, hey man, eat 3 stocks of broccoli and this much chicken. We teach you the principles about what you need to do in order to attain the physique you want. And then we really work with you on applying those principles to your specific lifestyle based on your preferences based on your experience level, you know, based on your schedule, the whole 9 yards. So that's really the way we coach people is not saying like, hey, eat this much food or this much, you know, whatever exactly this way, but hey, let's figure out how to make this work for your life.
06:08 – Gresham Harkless
I absolutely love that. And it kind of seems like you meet people where they are and you meet them where they are and you even sound like empower them so that they are able to kind of, for one, not just follow it, but as you said, it becomes part of who they are because it is actually connected with everything that they are and what they're trying to achieve.
06:24 – Paul Lyngso
Yes, exactly right. I mean, I tell my coaches all the time, that our goal here is for our clients to not need us. We don't want to keep them dependent on us forever. You know, many of them will choose to stick around. Many of them choose to stick around for the long term because they find value in mindset training and being part of a community. But it is not about creating dependency and holding back some sort of secret sauce from them. Like, no, we're going to teach them how to do this on their own and then go from there.
06:51 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I feel like probably, you know, especially the accountability part, just being part of the community where you see people that are going for their goals, it probably creates that culture, that atmosphere that you want to be a part of, but you know, like you kind of alluded to, that's probably part of your secret sauce is that it sounds like, and even as I read in your bio, that what are the things that you're quote-unquote supposed to do in fitness and in business, sounds like you counteract those and realize that there is another and better way. Do you feel like that's the innovation part? Do you feel like that's part of your secret sauce?
07:20 – Paul Lyngso
Yeah. Maybe my secret sauce is just, how to question conventional wisdom, I don't know. Is saying like, hey man, everybody, you arrived at a certain point in business or in fitness or whatever, and you come up with all these shoulds, I should be doing that, I should be doing that, should be doing this. And it's like, maybe my secret power is just saying, well, should says who, right? And let's look at what actually matters, which is principles.
And then let's look at how to apply them for you because there is no should, you know, there is no universal. Everybody needs to be doing the same thing. That's just not true. You need to be able to pull, you know, question yourself and pull that out, you know, and then decide what you want to do with your life rather than just some generic, oh, I feel like I should do this.
08:03 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you said, you know, questions like what you want to do with your life question, what you want to do with your business or whatever that is.
08:10 – Paul Lyngso
Our whole deal here, like, like it's a fitness program for sure, but it's about creating a life that's meaningful for you. And so in order to create a life that's meaningful for you, you have to question that and decide what's meaningful for you. So yeah, you can't pull that off Instagram. You can pull inspiration from other people. You can certainly compare yourself to other people in a similar boat and get an idea of what's possible. But at the end of the day, if it's gotta be what's important to you, and if it's important to you and you give yourself permission to follow what's important to you, following up on the behavior change and the habits, I mean, that's just easy. The execution's easy. The hard part is getting the vision dialed in the first place.
08:46 – Gresham Harkless
Right, And I almost feel like, you know, I don't know if you've seen this in fitness, but I feel like it's a lot of times in life that we don't sometimes create space or create time or do that work to try to drill down and figure out what that mission vision that why is for us. And a lot of times we end up jumping from thing to thing to thing, largely because we haven't done that deep work for lack of a better term to understand why we're going on that mission, why we're doing that thing or this thing, that job, whatever it might be.
09:12 – Paul Lyngso
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's true. And I think the other misconception is that people think that vision crafting is one-and-done. Like, oh, I have my why now and I just go and pursue it. It is like core values for a company or a mission statement for a company. They just go up on a plaque and nobody pays attention to them. They feel great when you come up with them, but then the company's not actually operating from those things. Employees aren't fired up to be like, I'm operating from a place of integrity and honor or whatever generic stuff they put on those. So crafting the vision is not like that.
It's got to be consistently over and over again, giving yourself permission to change the vision as you grow, as your environment changes, as you change as you navigate the environment. It's totally okay for the vision to change. So it's an ongoing thing. And I think once you accept that, a regular part of your life can just be daydreaming about what you want to make the best part of your day, to make the most out of your day, to continually move towards what you want. And a lot of people get stuck feeling a little bit of shame or guilt around changing paths. So I don't want that anymore, but I'm already on the path. So I got to just keep going.
10:19 – Gresham Harkless
Absolutely appreciate that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
10:31 – Paul Lyngso
Well, this is the skeleton key to all life, man. To be efficient in all areas of life, this is what we use with our nutrition clients. This is what we use in our own lives to navigate business and leadership and everything. And it's being able to control your emotional state. And it's Because your emotional state is going to drive your behavior. And ultimately, like so from a nutrition standpoint, we're in the business of behavior change. If I want you to be fit for the rest of your life, you need to change your behaviors and your habits, right? And your emotional state drives your behavior. Sometimes you don't feel like doing stuff, sometimes you do, sometimes you're motivated, sometimes you're sad, sometimes you're stressed.
And from a business perspective, it's the same thing, man. You don't always feel like doing the boring day-to-day stuff. But if you can control your emotional state to constantly be in a resourceful place. You don't have to be positive and upbeat and cheery, but resourceful and connected. You're going to do much better than when you fall prey to emotional states that aren't resourceful, like fear or shame and guilt we've already talked about or anger. I'm so pissed that I have to do this thing or that this thing happened. And so the tool that we use is called a reframe, which is kind of a broad brush, but it's like this thing happens in the world.
Whatever happens. You know, it's a problem with an employee, a problem with a client, the state of Illinois shutting down your gym. These things happen, right? And you really can't control them. And they cause a knee-jerk reaction, they cause an emotional state to pop up, you know? What we wanna be able to do is recognize when we're being un-resourceful, shift our perspective and change our filters, change the story we tell about this event, and put ourselves back into a resourceful place.
Because everything that happens in the world is neutral. It's not good or it's not bad. It's literally just neutral. And then our brains decide, you know, to tell a story about it to ourselves and create meaning out of it. So if we can find when we're creating meaning that's not serving us, we can boom, pause, and retell the story in a way that is gonna help us move on with our lives and be in a resourceful state.
12:46 – Gresham Harkless
That's extremely powerful. And so what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? You might have already touched on this, but this could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. And often I say it might be something you would tell a client or potentially if you have to do a time machine, your younger business self.
13:01 – Paul Lyngso
Well, I mean, I would certainly say this, from a business perspective, your level of success is capped by your ability to take risks. Okay, so you can't build a billion-dollar business, let's just say, if you're only willing to invest $100, it's very unlikely to happen. You have to take big risks and you have to put yourself out there. And so, how do you become the person who can take those big risks? And it's about seeing other people who are doing it, surrounding yourself. It's about being certain, right? It's about your certainty your outcome to produce and your ability to produce. And so you surround yourself with people who are currently doing it, people who are on the same path and who believe they can do it.
You invest in coaches who have already done it, and you do anything you need to do to build your certainty. Because once you believe you can do it, then you can take the risks, then you can have the reward. But some too many people want the reward, but they're too scared to take the risk. And that's a limiting factor. The risk, your ability to risk is the limiting factor, a period in business. You know, you can do very well with a low-risk business, but ultimately you could do more if you risk more. You know?
14:17 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. So what would you consider to be your answer to my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO? And our goal is to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Paul, what does being a CEO mean to you?
14:29 – Paul Lyngso
I mean, obviously, it's about leadership and vision, Right? I mean, in that's kind of a platitude and kind of generic. But I think what a lot of people miss out on is we see these CEOs, especially the famous ones, and we see them as like powerful and magnetic and all this stuff because they've achieved those things. But what happened, that's not actually how it goes down, is they had a vision and they had congruency within themselves and they developed themselves in the person who was able to achieve those things.
So it's about self-leadership, envisioning your own life first. And when you have that, and you have that alignment, then people will be attracted to you as a leader. People will follow you. They will catch your vision. And then that's actually what helps you accomplish things. You know what I mean? It's very much about, it's very much an internal game, I would say, is what I'm trying to get at.
15:26 – Gresham Harkless
Paul, truly appreciate that definition. And of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get out of you, find out about all the awesome things your team is working on.
15:41 – Paul Lyngso
As far as diving into those topics, I would love it if you listened to my podcast. So if you go to missingpeacepodcast.com, it's got most, well, most, it's got all my resources up there. You can find my podcast right from there. I have a discord community going on links to my socials. All that sort of good stuff. So that's sort of my hub, I guess you would call it missing peace podcast.com.
16:01 – Gresham Harkless
To make everything easier. We're going to have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on. Of course, subscribe to the podcast and I hope you have a great rest of the day.
16:12 – Paul Lyngso
All right, man. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Gresh.
16:14 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
00:23 - Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
00:50 - Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. Paul Lingso of Lingso Fitness Academy. Paul, excited to have you on the show.
01:00 - Paul Lyngso
And good to be here.
01:01 - Gresham Harkless
Yes, excited to have you on. It's great to have you be a part of this. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Paul so you can hear about some of the awesome things he's doing before we jump straight in. As the founder of Lingso Fitness Academy, Paul has helped thousands of people across the globe to finally overcome their internal and external blocks to greatness. Paul's is exceptional because of his psychological and philosophical approach to health and fitness. I bet you know at least one, at least a hundred fitness influencers on social media, and have watched a crazy amount of transformation videos through infamous diets.
And his approach is the exact opposite. In fact, his signature program is the anti-diet nutrition program. He works on abundance, not restriction. You can achieve your goals without giving up the things you love. And you need to learn how to fine-tune these things. He offers a new way of doing things that actually works and is sustainable in the long run. His brand Metaphysic has helped hundreds of people live healthy lives without running away from their comfort food. Paul, excited to have you on the show and everything you stand for. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO Community?
02:04 - Paul Lyngso
I am dude, let's do it.
02:06 - Gresham Harkless
Let's make it happen. And so to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock here a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.
02:13 - Paul Lyngso
Yeah, man, for sure. It started when I got into the fitness industry in 2008 or 9, I just was unemployable, man. I did not want to have a regular job. And I really wanted to be in the fitness business. And so I got my certifications. I trained people out of a corporate-type gym for like a year, maybe less than a year. And I decided to go out and do my own thing and start my own business. So that was in-home personal training. I drove all around the Chicagoland area for the better part of a year before centralizing everything and getting a sublease situation.
So I rented a little corner of a gym that already existed and ran out of there, ran my business out of there as an independent contractor, grew my clientele, got my own facility in 2013, ran that, and kept going until the pandemic in 2020, in which case running a brick and mortar facility was not an option. And so we moved, we created our anti-diet course at that point, moved everything online, and have been doing everything online since creating courses, one-on-one coaching, the whole deal.
03:23 - Gresham Harkless
Nice. I absolutely love that, especially when you, sound like you kind of identify that early that, you know, you were the unemployed boy and you decided to go your own route and try to blaze your own trail.
03:33 - Paul Lyngso
Yes, but do you just, it's, you know it early on? You know, if you've ever felt that itch where it's just like being told what to do, you would rather go do it the hard way yourself than be told what to do. Like, you know, people listening to this probably understand what that's about.
03:50 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, it's so funny you say that. And I think a lot of times once you kind of go on that path and you kind of dip your toe in that water, sometimes jump straight in, you kind of feel like there's no other way to kind of do it. So it's hard to, even if you want it to, to try to go back.
04:04 - Paul Lyngso
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've thought about that so many times over the course of my career, like, oh man I could just go get a job right now. I could take these skills and I could be valuable to a company. And in fact, I, you know, was interviewed by a big fitness company at one point, a big box gym. When I walked in, it just didn't feel right. Like the energy was off. I'm like, I can't see myself walking in here as an employee. And I walked out and It just reaffirmed what I already knew, which is I meant to do this on my own.
04:33 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And a lot of times I'm a big believer in that, you know, those, I'm a big believer in binary. So sometimes those experiences are those that are your emphasis here that catapults you into where you're supposed to be. So if you didn't have those experiences, you didn't go those feelings when you're going to jobs or whatever that is, then you wouldn't, you know, be right where you're supposed to be.
04:53 - Paul Lyngso
That's exactly right, man.
04:54 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I know you drilled down and talked a little bit about like how you work with your clients, but I wanted to make sure that, you know, there wasn't anything that you didn't touch on and get a little bit more of an idea of like how you work it with and serve the clients.
05:06 - Paul Lyngso
Yeah, well, I mean, the bread and butter of what we do is one-on-one coaching. So we have, we have curriculums that we follow to the anti-diabetic, you know, nutrition course, But really what we do is we do one-on-one coaching and guide people through that curriculum and teach them how to apply that to their life. So along with that, yes, there's nutrition. We offer exercise programs as well that go along with that, that we deliver through an app so it's really easy for you to execute on your own. But most specifically, we work with the application of the principles.
So rather than giving you a diet, I'm not like, hey man, eat 3 stocks of broccoli and this much chicken. We teach you the principles about what you need to do in order to attain the physique you want. And then we really work with you on applying those principles to your specific lifestyle based on your preferences based on your experience level, you know, based on your schedule, the whole 9 yards. So that's really the way we coach people is not saying like, hey, eat this much food or this much, you know, whatever exactly this way, but hey, let's figure out how to make this work for your life.
06:08 - Gresham Harkless
I absolutely love that. And it kind of seems like you meet people where they are and you meet them where they are and you even sound like empower them so that they are able to kind of, for one, not just follow it, but as you said, it becomes part of who they are because it is actually connected with everything that they are and what they're trying to achieve.
06:24 - Paul Lyngso
Yes, exactly right. I mean, I tell my coaches all the time, that our goal here is for our clients to not need us. We don't want to keep them dependent on us forever. You know, many of them will choose to stick around. Many of them choose to stick around for the long term because they find value in mindset training and being part of a community. But it is not about creating dependency and holding back some sort of secret sauce from them. Like, no, we're going to teach them how to do this on their own and then go from there.
06:51 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I feel like probably, you know, especially the accountability part, just being part of the community where you see people that are going for their goals, it probably creates that culture, that atmosphere that you want to be a part of, but you know, like you kind of alluded to, that's probably part of your secret sauce is that it sounds like, and even as I read in your bio, that what are the things that you're quote-unquote supposed to do in fitness and in business, sounds like you counteract those and realize that there is another and better way. Do you feel like that's the innovation part? Do you feel like that's part of your secret sauce?
07:20 - Paul Lyngso
Yeah. Maybe my secret sauce is just, how to question conventional wisdom, I don't know. Is saying like, hey man, everybody, you arrived at a certain point in business or in fitness or whatever, and you come up with all these shoulds, I should be doing that, I should be doing that, should be doing this. And it's like, maybe my secret power is just saying, well, should says who, right? And let's look at what actually matters, which is principles.
And then let's look at how to apply them for you because there is no should, you know, there is no universal. Everybody needs to be doing the same thing. That's just not true. You need to be able to pull, you know, question yourself and pull that out, you know, and then decide what you want to do with your life rather than just some generic, oh, I feel like I should do this.
08:03 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. And I love that you said, you know, questions like what you want to do with your life question, what you want to do with your business or whatever that is.
08:10 - Paul Lyngso
Our whole deal here, like, like it's a fitness program for sure, but it's about creating a life that's meaningful for you. And so in order to create a life that's meaningful for you, you have to question that and decide what's meaningful for you. So yeah, you can't pull that off Instagram. You can pull inspiration from other people. You can certainly compare yourself to other people in a similar boat and get an idea of what's possible. But at the end of the day, if it's gotta be what's important to you, and if it's important to you and you give yourself permission to follow what's important to you, following up on the behavior change and the habits, I mean, that's just easy. The execution's easy. The hard part is getting the vision dialed in the first place.
08:46 - Gresham Harkless
Right, And I almost feel like, you know, I don't know if you've seen this in fitness, but I feel like it's a lot of times in life that we don't sometimes create space or create time or do that work to try to drill down and figure out what that mission vision that why is for us. And a lot of times we end up jumping from thing to thing to thing, largely because we haven't done that deep work for lack of a better term to understand why we're going on that mission, why we're doing that thing or this thing, that job, whatever it might be.
09:12 - Paul Lyngso
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's true. And I think the other misconception is that people think that vision crafting is one-and-done. Like, oh, I have my why now and I just go and pursue it. It is like core values for a company or a mission statement for a company. They just go up on a plaque and nobody pays attention to them. They feel great when you come up with them, but then the company's not actually operating from those things. Employees aren't fired up to be like, I'm operating from a place of integrity and honor or whatever generic stuff they put on those. So crafting the vision is not like that.
It's got to be consistently over and over again, giving yourself permission to change the vision as you grow, as your environment changes, as you change as you navigate the environment. It's totally okay for the vision to change. So it's an ongoing thing. And I think once you accept that, a regular part of your life can just be daydreaming about what you want to make the best part of your day, to make the most out of your day, to continually move towards what you want. And a lot of people get stuck feeling a little bit of shame or guilt around changing paths. So I don't want that anymore, but I'm already on the path. So I got to just keep going.
10:19 - Gresham Harkless
Absolutely appreciate that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
10:31 - Paul Lyngso
Well, this is the skeleton key to all life, man. To be efficient in all areas of life, this is what we use with our nutrition clients. This is what we use in our own lives to navigate business and leadership and everything. And it's being able to control your emotional state. And it's Because your emotional state is going to drive your behavior. And ultimately, like so from a nutrition standpoint, we're in the business of behavior change. If I want you to be fit for the rest of your life, you need to change your behaviors and your habits, right? And your emotional state drives your behavior. Sometimes you don't feel like doing stuff, sometimes you do, sometimes you're motivated, sometimes you're sad, sometimes you're stressed.
And from a business perspective, it's the same thing, man. You don't always feel like doing the boring day-to-day stuff. But if you can control your emotional state to constantly be in a resourceful place. You don't have to be positive and upbeat and cheery, but resourceful and connected. You're going to do much better than when you fall prey to emotional states that aren't resourceful, like fear or shame and guilt we've already talked about or anger. I'm so pissed that I have to do this thing or that this thing happened. And so the tool that we use is called a reframe, which is kind of a broad brush, but it's like this thing happens in the world.
Whatever happens. You know, it's a problem with an employee, a problem with a client, the state of Illinois shutting down your gym. These things happen, right? And you really can't control them. And they cause a knee-jerk reaction, they cause an emotional state to pop up, you know? What we wanna be able to do is recognize when we're being un-resourceful, shift our perspective and change our filters, change the story we tell about this event, and put ourselves back into a resourceful place.
Because everything that happens in the world is neutral. It's not good or it's not bad. It's literally just neutral. And then our brains decide, you know, to tell a story about it to ourselves and create meaning out of it. So if we can find when we're creating meaning that's not serving us, we can boom, pause, and retell the story in a way that is gonna help us move on with our lives and be in a resourceful state.
12:46 - Gresham Harkless
That's extremely powerful. And so what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? You might have already touched on this, but this could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. And often I say it might be something you would tell a client or potentially if you have to do a time machine, your younger business self.
13:01 - Paul Lyngso
Well, I mean, I would certainly say this, from a business perspective, your level of success is capped by your ability to take risks. Okay, so you can't build a billion-dollar business, let's just say, if you're only willing to invest $100, it's very unlikely to happen. You have to take big risks and you have to put yourself out there. And so, how do you become the person who can take those big risks? And it's about seeing other people who are doing it, surrounding yourself. It's about being certain, right? It's about your certainty your outcome to produce and your ability to produce. And so you surround yourself with people who are currently doing it, people who are on the same path and who believe they can do it.
You invest in coaches who have already done it, and you do anything you need to do to build your certainty. Because once you believe you can do it, then you can take the risks, then you can have the reward. But some too many people want the reward, but they're too scared to take the risk. And that's a limiting factor. The risk, your ability to risk is the limiting factor, a period in business. You know, you can do very well with a low-risk business, but ultimately you could do more if you risk more. You know?
14:17 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. So what would you consider to be your answer to my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO? And our goal is to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Paul, what does being a CEO mean to you?
14:29 - Paul Lyngso
I mean, obviously, it's about leadership and vision, Right? I mean, in that's kind of a platitude and kind of generic. But I think what a lot of people miss out on is we see these CEOs, especially the famous ones, and we see them as like powerful and magnetic and all this stuff because they've achieved those things. But what happened, that's not actually how it goes down, is they had a vision and they had congruency within themselves and they developed themselves in the person who was able to achieve those things.
So it's about self-leadership, envisioning your own life first. And when you have that, and you have that alignment, then people will be attracted to you as a leader. People will follow you. They will catch your vision. And then that's actually what helps you accomplish things. You know what I mean? It's very much about, it's very much an internal game, I would say, is what I'm trying to get at.
15:26 - Gresham Harkless
Paul, truly appreciate that definition. And of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get out of you, find out about all the awesome things your team is working on.
15:41 - Paul Lyngso
As far as diving into those topics, I would love it if you listened to my podcast. So if you go to missingpeacepodcast.com, it's got most, well, most, it's got all my resources up there. You can find my podcast right from there. I have a discord community going on links to my socials. All that sort of good stuff. So that's sort of my hub, I guess you would call it missing peace podcast.com.
16:01 - Gresham Harkless
To make everything easier. We're going to have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on. Of course, subscribe to the podcast and I hope you have a great rest of the day.
16:12 - Paul Lyngso
All right, man. Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, Gresh.
16:14 - Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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