Own Your Different: A New Paradigm for Health and Leadership Success with Justin Roethlingshoefer

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader podcast and I'm your host, john Gallagher. In today's episode, I'm thrilled to have Justin Rothling chauffeur with us. Justin has forged a path of leadership and performance, from his early days aspiring to NHL glory to coaching some of the world's top athletes and entrepreneurs. Today, we'll explore his philosophy of owning it, a mindset Justin passionately believes in, which emphasizes intentional living and optimizing health to enhance performance. From his father's wisdom on consistency to founding own it, justin has become an authority on creating customized blueprints for success that goes beyond the physical. As an Amazon bestselling author and a specialist in human optimization, justin will give us an insider view on how leaders can sustain peak performance by marrying the latest research with actionable steps. Buckle up as we discuss Justin's journey of transforming health and wellness and dive deep into his integrated coaching approach. Let's get started. Let's get started, justin Rothling chauffeur. Welcome to the uncommon leader podcast. It's great to have you on the show. How are you doing today, john?

Speaker 2: 1:06

it's so good to be. I'm so excited to just spend some time with you and just be have have full attention on what it is we're about to dive into.

Speaker 1: 1:15

No, I'm excited we had a chance to get caught up here before I hit the record button. It was kind of fun. So I know you're busy. You got a lot going on in life and one of the things that I want to ask you first I always ask my first time guest anyway is a question that we're going to jump into your book as well, but tell the listeners a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are as a person or as a leader today.

Speaker 2: 1:37

So I grew up in Canada and not a lot of people know this, but a group in Edmonton, alberta, actually so Northwest Canada. So if you actually go there in the wintertime you're getting about let's call it five to six hours of sunlight a day. It's about average temperatures about minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, so it's, it's a pretty, it's a pretty chilly place. Let's uh, let's talk about that. But, uh, being in that way, hockey it's just you're just born into that right, like you're born, say, you're born with skates on. And so I was always a hockey player and the NHL was always very aspirational to me. That's where I wanted to go, that's where I wanted to play. I just I've got a. My mom, she they just newly did a renovation and they, they looked at everything that I had from like a young kid and she sent me a picture of this, this notebook that I had made in third grade, and said what do you want to be when you grew up? And it was an NHL hockey player, and so that's always been on my mind. And at 12 years old I started to come to my own and start to become pretty good, and at 12 years old was playing with 16 year olds and I had gone through a season where I was just struggling, I wasn't playing really well, and one car ride home my dad put his hand on my leg and he said, son, talent will get you noticed, but consistency will get you paid. And it was at that moment that something clicked inside of me that was like man consistency. What is this thing about consistency? What does this concept of consistency mean? And how can I become the most consistent version of myself? And I realized that what could establish or allow or empower me to become the most consistent version of myself was to control what I could control. Control what was in my control, which was my habits, my behaviors and my lifestyle. How was I showing up? How was I eating? How was I sleeping? How was I supplementing? How was I training? How was I recovering? How was I managing stress? And as soon as I started to do that, I just fell in love with it and that kind of snowballed from there into my undergraduate degrees that I got coming down on hockey scholarship here to the US, Then my master's degree, then my postgraduate research. But at 13 years old, john, I was the guy that was wearing heart rate monitors. To my recovery, heart rate was beating, I was wearing pulse oximeters, was asking all my docs for my raw blood work to understand it so that I could actually start to change how I was eating accordingly, and so I wanted to control these things. I really wanted to know, I wanted to really understand this vessel that I was operating in, because if I could understand the vessel, then I could make more intentional decisions about what I would be doing consistently every single day. Justin, well, first of all, that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 4:42

One thing to move at the Pacific Northwest, where the average is minus 20. Now you're in Miami Florida, extreme southeast of North America. So there's probably a story in that in and of itself. But secondly, very uncommon to be able to, at the age of 12 or 13 around that age, to be able to make that choice that you again, if you were going to be a professional athlete one day, it was going to take something that was going to be different, and I know that different is in a good bit of some of the things that you post on social media. You're a three-time author, going to be a four-time author here real soon and we'll talk about your new book. It's going to be coming out real soon, but that in and of itself is uncommon. So now fast forward to 22,. However many years that's been since that time. How have you continued Because I think this is the part that at least I personally struggle with the time. I know some of the leaders do that listen in how have you been able to maintain that level of inspiration all the time and motivation to continue to own it, as you say, with regards to your performance and controlling what you can control?

Speaker 2: 5:51

Yeah, I think it comes back to that word different, because we're called to be different, and I go through this in the book. If you step back and you the name of the book coming out, it's called the Power of Ownership redeem your health, live life by design and break the aggressive pursuit of normal. And the first half of the book I really put the dichotomy that exists between normal and different. And, as a believer, we know that we're called to be different. Every single one of us was created uniquely, and when you think about a life by design, a life by design is different. Most people don't live intentionally, most people don't live consistently. Most people don't make their decisions based off of their commitments. Instead, they make their decisions off of convenience. And so if we can live a life that's different, it's a life that's set apart. I find the word different is to be on the same layer or the same level with the word holy, and when we think about it, it's an uncommon life. It's an intentional life, it's a proactive life, it's a life based off of your commitments, it's a life based off of your convictions, and that is so different, it's so unique, but yet that's how we've been created, but the world tells us no, just be normal, just be okay, be in common, just accept life through random, reactionary actions. Make decisions off of convenience, make reactions off of circumstance. But we're called to be different. We're called to do something else. We're called to do something in a unique way. And so by being an example of that, all of a sudden you elevate everybody else around you. You become the rising tide, because you set your standards above what the world says. Because, again I go back to Romans 12.1 is do not conform to the patterns of this world, but rather renew your mind. And there are seven words through this verse that are so, so meaningful to me, and that is true and proper worship. And so it's not going to church and raising your hands on Sunday, it's not praying before you eat, it's not reading the Bible every morning. All those are great practices, they're all great things, but it's how are you living? How are you stewarding this thing that you're living in? How are you living differently? Because we've been called to live differently. We've been called to do things in a unique way. We've been called to step into our uniqueness and live according to what our body's actually asking for, and that principle has been the foundation for how we move forward and how we manage and steward our health. When it comes to heart rate variability and cellular testing and custom supplementation and habit and behavior change. Those are really the primary four things that we do within our business and our company of how we help and serve leaders and people in this world is making sure that we can help them build a life by design. We can help them create a time energy shield around them so they're not wasting their time on habits and behaviors that the world tells you is important, that the world tells you is healthy but actually might be holding you back. And so when we get into this concept of living a life by design and being different, that's just what motivates me. It's literally at my core and it makes my soul sing. I often say that your soul knows the truth and we're sold so many bills of lies and manipulations every single day and we know that marketing is just on a whole nother level now in terms of how they're trying to reach consumers and get people to buy into things. But when you hear something of truth, when you hear something that just is different, it speaks to your soul and it's like man that hits differently, man. That makes me feel a certain way that I'm convicted to go and make a change. And that's really what we strive for. When we started to put on it together was we wanted to be different, we wanted to be unique, we wanted to speak to the soul and we wanted to be speaking truth. And the only way you can be speaking truth is if you're rooted in biblical principles, because we know that that's where the truth comes from.

Speaker 1: 10:11

I love that, Justin, Even as you talk through the book in terms of in the word that I really picked on and highlighted here is the word intentional, that you must be intentional because and you use the word standards you know there got there got to be days that all of us have them, where we don't want to do things. But yeah matter of what we want to do. It's that intentional behavior habit discipline system you put in place to be successful. So you talked about that power of ownership again being that the fourth book that you've brought up at a pretty young age. What is the in this book right here? What is the no-transcript story that you're looking to get out there right now? Why is it the right time to write it and bring it out right now?

Speaker 2: 10:54

It's a great question. I think a lot of it comes back to the marketing piece, where, when we talk about health, health to me is your ultimate form of wealth. Time is the asset, but the way you protect it is by optimizing your health. If I was to sit here and say hey, John, when you hear the words performance, when I say performance to you, what comes to your mind immediately? Just throw out some words.

Speaker 1: 11:22

Yeah, if I'm being just as soon as you said that, the word that came to my mind was success right off the bat in terms of winning from a performance standpoint. Yeah, then it probably went into some of the things that well, kobe Bryant came into mind, so he talks about the habits that he had to create to really get there from performance standpoint. Just some things I've been reading recently.

Speaker 2: 11:42

So good I speak. I do a ton of workshops. I've probably spoken to 50,000 people over the last year and spoken just under 100 times, whether it's corporately, whether it's at masterminds, whether it's at annual events. I've asked this question to the audience and I've gotten all the similar words Athletics people often think it's a word for athletes. I've gotten success, I've gotten winning, efficiency, accomplishing goals. These are all words that come up when people hear the word performance. It really came upon my soul to redefine what performance looks like because, after my journey of getting my undergraduate degrees, getting my master's degree, going through my postgraduate research, I went and spent about 15 years as a health and performance director in the NCAA and then in the National Hockey League, really managing the health and performance of the best athletes in the world. In 2020, stepped away after God spoke to me and said hey, at what point are you going to stop serving the audience you want to and serve the audience that I've called you to? It was then that I realized, hey, this health and performance thing is not an athlete problem, it's a human problem. Health precedes performance. Health comes before performance can be realized. When I started to think about this definition for performance, it was the capacity and desire to intentionally and consistently behave at a level equal to your mental, physical, spiritual and emotional potential. The majority of us do not have a desire issue. We know what we want, we know where we want to go, we know what we want to accomplish. We want the energy, we want the clarity, we want the platform, we want the business, we want the impact. But we have a capacity issue. And the reason that we have a capacity issue is because we haven't intentionally and consistently behaved over the course of time, through habits and behaviors, to get us to the level in which we've been called to get us to the level in which we've been prepared for, because we've failed to prepare ourselves. But the moment that we start to become intentional and consistent in our behaviors that are ultimately rooted in what it is that our body's needing, our mind is needing, our soul is needing, at the moment, that's when your outcomes become inevitable. You want to lose 50 pounds. There are certain habits and certain behaviors that, if you do them consistently and intentionally, it's inevitable that your outcome will occur. You want to sleep better. There's a set of habits and a set of behaviors that it will make getting a better night's sleep inevitable. Sorry, I completely spaced on the word for a second.

Speaker 1: 14:37

That's OK, I got you?

Speaker 2: 14:38

Yeah, you want to start being more energetic day in and day out. There's a set of habits and behaviors that, if you do them intentionally and consistently over the course of time, the outcome is inevitable, and so this is really what started to just spur in my mind. Is that the? And why this book is so important is because the world is telling us that there's all of these solutions, and they're being marketed every single day to us, whether it's the supplements, whether it's the peptides, whether it's the hormone replacement therapies, whether it's the energy drinks, whether it's the, the fad workouts, the fad diets, where we see them every single time. You probably will open up Instagram after this hearing this podcast, because there's keywords that have come up that you'll be scrolling. You'll be like, oh, a new exercise thing or a new diet plan or a new course. But the thing is is that the solution is holistic. Our body doesn't know the difference between mental, physical, spiritual, emotional stress, and the crazy part is is that the response to stress is to create inflammation. And so you could be in a fight with your spouse, you could be running a 24 mile run, you could be trying to figure out what you want to do with your business and your kids could be going off to college and all of a sudden you're battling these stressors. You could be moving, and we've talked about that. We moved 18 times in 22 years I did and you were somewhere similar within the same zip code, and so we start to look at all of this. Our bodies don't know the difference between these stressors and so just to maintain a homeostatic level or to maintain life, it has to start adapting and adjusting. But if there's constant stressors, chronic stressors in our life, which, again life has caused that to happen, hey listeners, I want to take a quick moment to share something special with you.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Many of the topics and discussions we have on this podcast are areas where I provide coaching and consulting services for individuals and organizations. If you've been inspired by our conversation and are seeking a catalyst for change in your own life or within your team, I invite you to visit coachjohngallaghercom forward slash free call to sign up for a free coaching call with me. It's an opportunity for us to connect, discuss your unique challenges and explore how coaching or consulting can benefit you and your team. Okay, let's get back to the show.

Speaker 2: 17:08

The body's response is chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation create chronic symptoms. Chronic symptoms that we say are normal Things like headaches, things like energy loss, things like weight gain, things like irritability, things like overwhelm, things like anxiety and we ultimately mask them with bandaid approaches that, again, the world tells us and markets are important. But the downside is, the longer we stay in the space of what I call fake health disease-free but symptom-full I'll say that again disease-free but symptom-full the longer we stay there we earn our illness, we earn our downfall, because the window closes to go from being prevention and intentional to reactionary, which is the way the world has been built. It's the way our medical system has been built. So if we can take ownership of our health, the power of ownership through intentional and consistent behaviors that are deemed for us through testing and data, then all of a sudden we can prevent the chronic stress, the chronic symptoms and the chronic illness. And chronic illness is the leading cause of death in the United States, at 71%, and 94% of those illnesses are all preventable through lifestyle, habit and behavior change. And so that is my mission, the mission of owning it. At the end of the day, is to redeem the health of the world through reaching, teaching and empowering. And if we can do that through coaching, testing and data, we're going to be able to take you from a state of knowing what to do to a new state of understanding what to do. And if I can take you from knowing, where you have to be convinced to do certain things, to a state of understanding, you're going to enter into a place where you're now convicted to do these things, and that's where transformation happens, wow.

Speaker 1: 19:05

Justin, there's, first of all, there's that's a great message within there and things that came to my mind just to talk about. You said early on everybody has the desire to be, you know well, they don't want to be sick necessarily. Yeah, we've got a comment. Or in John Maxwell said I just remember it in one of the first books I read it is you know, I want that, I want health, I want wealth, I want happiness. But the question is, are we willing to do what they've done, what we see to do what they do? And so we have to be there to make that choice, to put the lifestyle in place that you're talking about there, the prevention versus detection, the other side of it, as you talk through, and you talk that right at the very end our health care system in our country is a total disaster In turn in terms of how it's done. You mentioned the market, the demands and what you see on TV, or all the pharmaceuticals that will fix or cover up the problems that we have. That if we could just learn to behave in a way that would prevent those chronic illnesses that you're talking about right there absolutely powerful and be able to John.

Speaker 2: 20:12

Can I speak into that for one quick second? Yeah, sure, absolutely. And I just want to always language check this because I think a lot of the narrative out there right now is that our medical system is awful. And I often come back and I say, in fact, our medical system isn't awful. It's been built to make money and it's been built to fix things that are broken. That's how it was built, that's how it was structured and I think it does a really good job of that. It makes a lot of money. That's what the intention was when they started it. And number two if I have a broken bone, I can go in and I can get my bone fixed. If I need a hip replacement, I can go in and I can get a hip replacement. If I have a sudden have cancer, I'm going to go in and they're going to start treating and a lot of the research and money that's been put into it. There's been a lot of money and a lot of effort and resources put into trying to find cures for things. However, I don't want to spend any time in our medical system because I don't want to go in broken. I want to find a solution that creates prevention, that creates longevity, but that's not what our system's been built for and people are expecting that, and so we need to change our expectations and stop putting the stop process that some white knight is going to show up for us and be our savior, rather than the fact that, hey, we have to take ownership over our health. We've been given this gift of this well-mind, this able body, this temple that's holding this uniqueness. We have to steward this well, but so many of us are just okay, keeping our heads under the sand and not taking ownership and learning about this thing and understanding it. Understanding a simple metric such as HRV that's what I did all my postgraduate research in stands for heart rate variability, and it's a single metric that helps us understand how we're handling stress and strain. And if, all of a sudden, we have this single metric that helps us understand stress and strain, then we can be empowered to take different actions. I call them the eight foundational principles Exercise, movement, nutrition, hydration, self-care, sleep, immune function, environment and mindset. Eight foundational principles, ultimately, are giving us greater capacity to handle stress and strain through the day because we're acting intentionally and consistently in each one of those domains that empower us to take action in such a better, in such a more purposeful way. Then we start talking about the testing. Well, let's understand what you're dysfunctional in at the cellular level. Let's understand how you are operating from a DNA and epigenetic standpoint, so that we can start to change and get more specific in your nutrition. Change. You get more specific in your supplementation change. You get more specific in your morning and night routine. Change. You get more specific in your recovery plan. And that's the learning curve that we want to take people on. That's the level of interest that we need to be at, because that's the recipe for prevention the more you're understanding, the better you can steward it, because what we can't articulate, we can't steward. But it requires us to take ownership of that and oftentimes, pairing or partnering with another company we don't the biggest thing. When we built our company, we did not want to be a crutch, and that's what a lot of companies are. Is there crutches where they're building products for the masses? We want to build a product for you. We want to educate you, we want to empower you. We want to build something specifically tailored for you so that as you come in, you're like man. I know my body better than I ever have before my life. I know how I'm responding to things better than I ever have before my life. Why do I feel so good? Why do I feel so mentally clear? Why is this brain fog gone? Why is my sleeping deeper? Why is my energy not waning throughout the day? Why did I just start losing weight when I've been trying these things over and over and over again? Because you started living intentionally and consistently in accordance to what your body was actually requiring. And the moment that we can start to do that and get people to understand that, that's when you redeem the health of the world. It's not through our medical system, because our medical system is built to do something different. What we require is for you to act differently.

Speaker 1: 24:56

No, you're spot on. I'm with you 100% there, Justin, with regards to how it acts. I'm curious because, as you bring it to your coaching, as you bring the book, the power of ownership, the books you've written that are there to inform, and you have your coaching organization own it. Coaching what are some of when your clients come to you and say I'm ready to change? What are some of the distractions or barriers that are getting in their way, that are preventing them from an essence of seeing success on the other side of this different that you're talking about?

Speaker 2: 25:28

John, it's such a good question and I love this question and I'll try to illustrate it the best I can audio in an audio way, auditorily. I don't know if any of those are words. Yeah, we're going to take it for today To be able to kind of draw this conclusion. So the way the world has told us that we have to show up is we have to address the physical first. You have to get the habits, you have to align the habits, you have to establish the habits, and we do this in all of our coaching, this process I'm about to go through. The problem when you address it from a physical content in a physical area first, is it immediately separates and disintegrates the concept of how we've been built. We've been built as holistic beings mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, mind, body, heart and spirit. These are all things that make up a human being, the human essence. And so when we only focus on this diet plan or this workout plan or this supplementation routine or this night routine, or coal plunging at this time or sauning at this time all good habits, all great habits to establish but when that's the primary focus to get six pack abs or to lose 25 pounds or to finish running a marathon or to get a triathlon done, whatever that is, it ultimately creates a poisoning of our heart and so, emotionally, it creates anxiety. Emotionally, it creates frustration. Emotionally, it creates fear. And because we have that now happening at our heart level, our mind follows suit and we all of a sudden start thinking man, I'm not good enough, man, I'm not consistent enough, man, I'm not far enough along. Man, I'm not seeing progress. Why can't I get this man? I mustn't deserve this man. This is never going to work for me. Which then further separates us from what we've been called to, why we're trying to do what we're trying to do. But when we flip that order on its head and we align with what we're called to do, what's the mission? Why do we want to be healthy? Why do we want to be energetic? Why do we want to be in this place? Why has God put me here? What is this calling on my life? When we get specific to what that is, it ultimately renews the mind. It's like I'm exactly where I need to be. I've got all the time in the world I can be patient in this process. I know that I'm in waiting. I know that I'm in preparation. I know I'm preparing for what's already prepared for me, and I know I'm exactly where I need to be. Thus creates a clearing of the heart, a healing of the heart to know that, man, I don't need to be anxious, I don't need to be overwhelmed, I can be confident, I can step in, knowing that I can step in powerfully, I know that I can be fearless. And when you show up with that blanket, that mindset change. Now, all of a sudden, sustainability is no longer an issue. Consistency is no longer an issue, because any habit or behavior that you're trying to instill, the ones that we talked about a workout plan, a stress management plan, a morning routine, a night routine, a nutrition plan those become easy to follow because you've now got everything in alignment. And the crazy part is is when you get your order right, everything that you've been chasing suddenly starts to come back and start chasing you and the education that ends up happening through this. That's where the transformation happens.

Speaker 1: 29:10

I wish we had another hour to chat and just dive down into that, because what I'm here again, regardless of the performance improvement you can get from implementing some new habit, if here's what I'm here, I'm just trying to feed back, ultimately my simple mind, to go through it to say, if you don't address it from all four components of what you're talking about, irregardless of the disciplines and habits you put in place, it's not going to have the eternal impact and or the long-term sustainability that you're looking for. You've got to be able to play in all four of those spaces. You've got to have that whole person approach and not just the physical side, or it won't be sustainable. I mean, you can do a lot of good things with an exercise program, but in terms of having the impact that you want to have, it's nearly impossible. And let's talk about impact because I want to honor your time as well. I committed to some things the impact of your book, so the power of ownership. You've got it coming out soon. We'll put a link to the book in the show notes so that folks can get to it when it comes out. And I'm curious, I had a guest on about a year ago who talked about the book test. So I'll put the book up on a bookshelf. When I'm done reading it, I'll highlight through it, I'll take pictures of it. I might make one or two different changes, but as that book sits up there in one year and they look back and they look at the cover, they look at the binding of that book and they see it, what do you want them to feel? What do you want them to remember having done as a result of reading, the power of ownership.

Speaker 2: 30:37

I want them to look back and I want them to see how different their life is. I want to see how it has totally changed, how they show up in their life. It's allowed them to leave behind the person that they were for, the person that they've been called to be, simply because they've chosen a life by design and that the life by design that they were desiring was not out of their control, but rather it was in their control the whole time. It was just that they needed a tool to help condense it down and make it easy, simple and practical, and it literally becomes their what I almost say is it becomes their Bible for a life by design. It becomes their blueprint and their reminder, for how do I live in a powerful way so that anything that I'm wanting from an energy standpoint, from a clarity standpoint, from an energy standpoint man, I've got this thing right here.

Speaker 1: 31:35

Thank you for that, justin. I've got two more questions for you. One is really kind of a standard podcast question. As the listeners are going through, they're going to want to know more about you, they're going to want to hear more from you. How do you want them to stay in touch with you?

Speaker 2: 31:48

Yeah, I think there's really two easy, simple ways. Yes, we've got the podcast. Yes, I'm on all social media platforms, but if you go to ownitcoachingcom, you can find everything there. You can find the podcast, you can find my social handles. You can reach out and find more about our programs, more about custom supplementation, more about our coaching, more about our events all of these things. More about the book. There's so many things that we have now and so many different places from. I call it free 99, right, where you can just cut and get free things, free content, all the way to paid engagements. But then the major social platform that I use all the time is Instagram. It's me that responds to everything I love to hear back from people, and that's at Justinroeth, at Justin Roth.

Speaker 1: 32:40

Excellent. Thank you very much, Justin. I appreciate the time you've invested with the listeners of the Uncommon Leader podcast. I'm moving in the midst of your move that's going on right now. I thank you for taking the time out to do that, and I'll finish you up then with one more question. It's the same question. I always ask my first time guest to finish up, and that's I'm going to give you a billboard and you can put that billboard anywhere you want to, as many people as you want to see it. What is it that you're? What message are you going to put on that billboard and why would you put that message on there?

Speaker 2: 33:08

It's very simple, it's three words Own your different. If you can own your different, it allows you to stand out, it allows you to be uncommon, it allows you to live that life by design, ultimately, that you were called to, because different is inside of you, different created you and and different is what you're called to. So if you can really absorb that, if you can feel that, if you can see that, your life will change.

Speaker 1: 33:35

Excellent. Justin Rothlingshofer, thank you again for being a guest on the Uncommon Leader podcast. Wish you the best Hope we can stay in touch.

Speaker 2: 33:43

Absolutely, I appreciate you so much, John.

Speaker 1: 33:49

Well, that's all for today's episode of the Uncommon Leader podcast. Thanks for listening in. Please take just a minute to share this podcast with that someone you know that you thought of when you heard this episode. One of the most valuable things you can do is to rate the podcast and leave a review. You can do that on Apple Podcasts or you can rate the podcast on Spotify or any other platform you listen. Until next time, go and grow champions.