Announcement: Guy Is Stepping Down From 180 & What To Expect Moving Forward

Guy

This is Guy Lawrence and welcome to a special episode of The Health Sessions and of course I’m here with Mr. Stuart Cooke. Good morning.

Stu

Hello mate. How are you?

Guy

I’m very well, very well. We are guest free today. Just you and I.

Stu

Wow.

Guy

You and I.

Stu

[00:00:30] Oh dear. Well this is going to be good. I’m super excited. We got some exciting news and it’s just also a great opportunity for us to talk about 2018, where we’re going this year, what we’ve got planned and yeah, looking forward to having a chat.

Guy

Yeah. Beautiful. Let’s see if we can hold this space for the next 20 minutes without a guest.

Stu

Well 20 minutes is going to be pushing it. I was thinking more along the lines of five.

Guy

[00:01:00] Well, we might as well start with the main announcement, which is I’m stepping down from 180 Nutrition and which has happened for 2018. We wanted to bring it to the podcast and sort of tell everyone, just in case you’ll be wondering where I’ve gone and what I’ve done and I haven’t fallen off the planet.

Stu

Yeah. We didn’t know that Guy was stealing super food. It just came about. I saw it. It was around his lips. We just had to let him go. Sorry mate. You’re super food journey ends here.

Guy

[00:01:30] It’s gone. It’s done. It’s done. Yeah, we wanted to bring that up and discuss I guess where we’re at, where we’re going, the directions we go in. I mean 180 Nutrition is still here. That’s not going anywhere.

Stu

That’s right.

Guy

I’m sure it’s going to go from strengths to strengths without me on the day to day.

Stu

[00:02:00] Absolutely. I think that let’s just set things straight as well before we delve into the details. Guy’s taking a sidestep on the day to day, but Guy hasn’t left the business by any sense of the means. He’s just concentrating on another direction that he’s become more passionate about but he’s still on the board, still an advisor.

Guy

I don’t think you’d still listen to me but I think.

Stu

What was that? Sorry, I didn’t get that.

Guy

[00:02:30] Yeah, look it’s been, what is it, 2010, January, the first week of January we started 180 Nutrition together. It’s been what 2018, so coming into the eighth year, which has been a phenomenal ride. After much discussion of where we’re at, what we’ve done with 180, and that, it was for me personally, I was ready to take on a new project and something that I’ve become more and more passionate about as I’ve looked at the work over the last few years. I just felt the time was right and obviously 180 could cope without me, finally.

Stu

Totally.

Guy

On a day to day.

Stu

That’s right. I’m pleased that you’ve found cross stich and I think that this is going to be wonderful for you and if you can knit me something nice.

Guy

Thank you.

Stu

It’ll be much appreciated.

Guy

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. This is effectively as well our last podcast together because I’ll be stepping down from the podcast as well.

Stu

Yep.

Guy

[00:03:30] I’ll be starting my own under Guy Lawrence because I want to focus on things that are beyond just the health space and look at other aspects as well. I recon that I’m going to bring in, which I’m very excited about. It’s kind of a whole shake up for everything.

Stu

Tell me a little bit more about the direction that you’re taking, because you’ve just said that you want to explore directions outside the health space. What will our listeners expect to see if they dial in to your message?

Guy

[00:04:00] From this point, people have been asking me this question. What are you doing, Guy? It’s quite difficult because even when people ask us what 180 Nutrition was about, it’s not a one minute conversation. There’s so much depth to it and trying to explain, you know what it’s like.

Stu

Yeah.

Guy

[00:04:30] Look, essentially I feel like I’ve been through enough of my journey through growing 180 with you and from the fitness industry and all aspects, because there’s a lot of aspects people don’t see that we have to do, learn from, that go beyond health. There’s obviously running a business. There’s self development. There’s multiple facets that we’re constantly working on. We only kind of cover one area through the health space.

[00:05:00] I’ve got very passionate about some of the other things that I’ve been looking at over the years, mainly neuroscience and mainly things that help us facilitate change, because I’ve kind of found that we see that we can have all the knowledge in the world quite often. We put podcasts out freely, every week, every month. You can listen to them. What’s the driving factor that actions people? What is it that can actually make them change, but not only change, make long lasting change with that information?

[00:05:30]

[00:06:00] You got to say, like in this day and age, I don’t think information is the problem. It’s applying the information that can be quite challenging. I think from our own journey, you know I’ve certainly gone looking down thoroughly down different rabbit holes if you like to figure out what I can do and make change in my life and change for the better and the future and so forth and I’m one of those driving factors. That’s the in a nutshell the area that I’ll be taking it. It’s almost like the analogy I’ve been using recently is that it bridges. Imagine you’ve got the life you’re currently living. You go the life that you probably truly want to live. It’s like almost we’re trying to bridge that gap. By the work that I’m teaching and doing, on what has helped me, it kind of speeds up that process if you like, using direct tools that are based on neuroscience. It’s had a big impact in my life, and I just wanted to get in front of people and share that message. That’s where the passion and the new project is coming from.

I’ve been quietly behind the scenes putting it together but over the last, this year especially, I’ve kind of turned up the volume. It’s been really exciting so far. Already seen some amazing change in people that have been jumping on board.

Stu

[00:06:30] Without wanting to throw you in at the deep end, tell me how what you have learned has changed your life in terms of self application.

Guy

Perception. The way you perceive things.

Stu

Explain that a little more.

Guy

Okay. Ultimately, we perceive the world through our own eyes and through our own lens. The lens on that we look upon life, is greatly influenced by our past experiences throughout our life.

Stu

Yep.

Guy

That’s how it is. We are walking artifacts of our past.

Stu

Sure.

Guy

95% of our day is running off programs that we have habituated and trained within ourselves from the day we’re born all the way up until now. We’ve got a whole belief system operating that we’re not even aware of for a lot of the time. Then, that is actually shaping our perception of the world and what we choose to focus on at already one time. There’s so much information coming at us. It’s up to us if we choose to check an email or take a walk around the block. We have choices everywhere but we get so conditioned and patterns that are running constantly, we kind of feel sometimes limited by those patterns. Then, when we want to change, there’s a lot of resistance that comes around that. It can cause great difficulty so the key is starting to create an awareness around that, an awareness of that hang on may be the way I’m perceiving things is only a belief. It’s not necessarily true, what’s happening right now. It’s just what I interpret to be true.

Stu

Yeah. Got it.

Guy

[00:08:30] Is that right? Once you can start to become aware of that, there are direct tools and practices that you can do, just like any other skill set, just like going to the gym. If you want to get fit, you’ve got to turn up. You’ve got to go through the uncomfortable and you’ve got to come out the other side, but then you enjoy it and then all of a sudden, you enjoy remaining fit and healthy. It doesn’t necessarily you have to run away from a bear every day to stay fit or anything. It just means that you’re in a better state. Essentially if the shit hits the fan and you do need to run, you’ve got your fitness there. You got your health there. That’s what helps us keep us in a good space. Same as warding off disease and stuff like that.

[00:09:00] What matters is when things are against us, now when things are rosy. It’s the other way around. What I’ve learned and starting to understand and finally started to embody from actually understanding it, not just from an analytical process, but from embodying the skill. You can then start to look at situations or look at things and potentially perceive things differently and using different tools that like I say, you practice and learn. None of it’s hard. It just takes practice. Then you can start to change.

[00:09:30] By allowing that change to happen in the moment, because ultimately day to day, week to week, every day is made up of choices. We choose all the time, yes? Really, I think.

Stu

Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Guy

If we can influence what’s driving those choices, we can end up in a whole new trajectory over time.

Stu

Do any of these tools that-

Guy

I know exactly what you’re going to say. I can read your mind.

Stu

Do any of these tools include strapping an electrical device to your head and switching it on at the plug?

Guy

Look if it calms down the mind, then I would certainly try it.

Stu

Yeah. Okay. Okay. I’m intrigued. Give me just a rough example of maybe one of those tools as well, just so people understand. Is it like a?

Guy

Let’s look at it. If we’re running on autopilot for most of the day, that is based on past beliefs, which we know. Science has shown that. I mean, we’ve interviewed enough people to talk about that. You’re running on programs.

Stu

Yeah.

Guy

Then you have to start to become aware and actually become present, conscious in that moment to see that it’s going on. The moment you become conscious is the moment you can actually start to observe what’s going on, because as we trigger a thought, we trigger a feeling and that feeling is always equal to the thought. Okay.

[00:11:00] Then we create that cycle and then because our feeling creates a feeling that’s real to us. It then triggers another thought equal to the feeling. Then, we’re perceiving the moments as they happen and they’re real to us. Now, a simple observation, one of the main tools you would use is mediation. When it comes to the meditation practice, I think most people perceived meditation as just trying to sit in silence, quiet the mind, and then wondering how that carries into your day. The key is to use mediation as like a work, like going to the gym. It’s like a tool that you would train, but then true mediation is actually what you do with your eyes open throughout your day, not what you do in meditation.

[00:11:30]

[00:12:00] Mediation is just a tool to familiarize the body of what it’s like to become aware and slowly change your brain wave states that are from stress to destress to what’s called an alpha state, which is a much more creative, open. Then, when a moment arises, if you start practicing these things enough, when a moment arises where your normal response might be anger, stress, frustration, resentment, whatever it may be, which is what we generally go to, because 70% according to the model of psychology, 70% of the day we are actually thinking negative cycles. That’s human behavior.

[00:12:30] If you can create that awareness in your meditation practice and start to understand the monkey mind and actually start to observe that as opposed to buying into it because the thoughts are not necessarily real, you can then carry that into your day and then as those moments arise, you can actually start to have a moment and defuse the very situation that’s happening and have a different relationship to the circumstances happening in that moment.

Stu

Are you talking a little bit about metacognition then, because you’re talking about-

Guy

Being observant.

Stu

[00:13:00] Yeah. Analyzing the situation right now, which essentially would change your internal chemistry. You’re going to switch on and you’re going to switch off internal responses in terms of you’ve got a flood of cortisone because you’re stressed, and then at the moment you say, well why am I stressed? Then you kind of stop becoming stressed because you’re analyzing that. Is that what you’re talking about?

Guy

[00:13:30] Within reason, but over time, as you embody the feeling from meditation, you start to embody that in the day. Then you start to get more familiar when you’re in and out of these states. When you can feel yourself getting into a stress response, you can start to observe it much easier than you wold as if you just getting caught up in that. Absolutely. As we know, whatever we perceive is real. We’re going to create a chemical response, because the chemical is the end product of the feeling that we produce.

Stu

Yeah.

Guy

[00:14:00] If we can start producing different feelings and emotions, and not to be numb or ignorant to the things that are happening to us in our life, but that’s why stress is such a big one because stress is often perceived as not necessarily real. From the stress responses we have, the body starts to close off or the cells start to close down, and you’re in flight or fight constantly, not in rest and repair. If you’re not in rest and repair, we know over time the damage that can do on the body alone, let alone to what it’s doing to the way we think and the way we feel and the way we are when we’re around other people.

Stu

How would you address perhaps the evaluation of someone’s diet prior to starting this journey because as you know, if they are fueled on Red Bull, a lot of this stuff isn’t going to come easy to them.

Guy

Yeah, not totally but I think you have to question your emotional component to anyone that’s on Red Bull in the first place or why we do what we do. Why do we have sabotage and aspects of our life, include, absolutely nutrition and exercise are massive. I can’t live without those factors in my life, just like this.

[00:15:00] It’s not saying, not one or wrong should be prioritized in any way. You should certainly not put everything into this and neglect your food but when you start looking at it from an emotional component, if you can start getting back to the beliefs a person has made around that. They might have been living their whole life around those programs and beliefs. That might have been picked up as a kid. You just don’t know what’s going on. Then, normally what you find is that the other things start to fall into place because you’re starting to deal with the emotional component as well.

[00:15:30]

[00:16:00] Let’s say if you are fueled by Red Bull and you’re eating take out and nutrition, if you start looking at why that is, what’s feeding that in the first place, if you can start to get to that problem, and that’s why I believe in this work so much, because then as that starts to unveil itself, and if people are willing to go there, then it’s going to have a cascade effect and they’re probably going to want to start making healthier choices. They’re probably going to start to want to start moving more and exercising, get off the chair at work or whatever that is. Then you create this cycle of positivity as opposed to the other way around, where you can create a vicious loop that’s pulling you into a black hole, which can feel awful. I’m sure most people have been there at some stage.

Yeah, it’s an element that I believe doesn’t get addressed enough. I believe it’s also a very powerful element that once you get right, other things start to fall into place.

Stu

Brilliant. Fantastic. Exciting stuff.

Guy

It is exciting. Yeah.

Stu

Absolutely.

Guy

Yeah.

Stu

I think it’s a side of things that many people would never even consider to explore further as a tool I guess for long lasting health, right.

Guy

[00:17:00] Yeah. Massively. I’ve got 53 people who are going through a four week program right now. It’s live. It’s interactive. There’s master classes where I jump on. We have conversations. There’s a community being built around it. Nearly everyone has said that. They’ve kind of come in more on crust but curious. When you start doing the work and it starts unveiling, there’s light bulbs going off everywhere, going, huh. I actually get it. I realized it was within me all along. It was just clouding the fact of it.

Stu

Sure. Yeah.

Guy

[00:17:30]

[00:18:00] It’s very powerful. I truly believe over the next 10 years, like you only have to see things like Headspace and the marketing that’s going on, and obviously the work of Joe [inaudible 00:17:25] and stuff like that. He just had 1,000 people at his last retreat and he’s got them booked up for the next 12 months at 1,000 people at a time. I think there’s definitely a thirst and a hunger and I kind of, my mission is to demystify this whole process and the meditation and I know it comes around. It ain’t woowoo. It’s based on science. It works. You have to do the work. If you want to get fit, you got to do your pushups yourself. You can’t get your personal trainer to do your pushups for you. It’s the same thing. You have to do the work, but if you’re willing to go there, then it’s really powerful. You know.

Stu

Yeah. I think so. I think there’ll be a lot of people out there that would just dismiss this. You mentioned woowoo. I love that phrase too. I do use that a lot. I was skeptical about a lot this stuff until we interviewed I guess it was a whole number of guests. Bruce Lipton was the big one for me.

Guy

Yeah, for sure.

Stu

[00:19:00]
For anybody that wants to find out a little bit more about you’re talking about the programming that we are subject to up until I think it was eight years old, when we spoke to Bruce Lipton, he explained that beautifully and then he also explained how we can literally think ourselves healthy or healthier just by the process of chemical reactions and stem cells and all that kind of stuff. That for me, was a big ah-ha to say well look. I get this now. A lot of this isn’t woowoo.

Guy

[00:19:30] Totally. I think the biggest thing as well is that it’s very easy to dismiss things and we’ve been fortunate enough to do the podcast and speak to some amazing people and challenge our own beliefs but we’ve been open enough to go and look at these things and check it out and so forth. Until you actually experience something, it’s just a belief. It’s like trying to dictate what Spain is like if you’ve only looked at the postcard and you’ve never been there and you’re making all these judgements. Until you actually go there and embody the experience, it’s just theory. Sadly, we form opinions around that without giving them a thought.

Stu

Yeah, absolutely. Good stuff. It’s exciting.

Guy

That’s where it’s at. Go on.

Stu

I was just going to say, tell us where to go and then we can have a chat about where to from here. I’m going to tell you a little bit about what we’re doing and 180 Nutrition this year, because we got some exciting stuff coming up.

Guy

It’s easy for me. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you’re going to hopefully know my name by name. That’s the website, Guy Lawrence.

Stu

Yep.

Guy

Guylawrence.com.au. The podcast is just going to be called Guy Lawrence as well.

Stu

Got you.

Guy

I’m just keeping it really simple so I didn’t have to think too creatively.

Stu

Got you.

Guy

All the information will be on there by the time this podcast goes live.

Stu

Brilliant. Fantastic.

Guy

Yeah.

Stu

It sounds good. As we said before, you’ve taken a sidestep. It’s by no means a closed door, so you’re on the board as an advisor. We are friends anyway so of course we’re going to connect here, there, and everywhere. We know this too.

[00:21:00]

[00:21:30] I’m very excited this year specifically for 180 Nutrition from the perspective of trying to distill a lot of this information that we have at our disposal into more meaningful chunks for our listeners, for everyone out there because I realized towards the end of last year that we’ve had the good fortune of dialing in to so many expert brains. We’ve got so many chunks of wisdom in there and I listen to podcasts all day long. Even if I’m at the gym, I’ll have a podcast playing in my ear as well.

I realized that I love listening to it. I love all the time it’s like a familiar voice in my ears but I don’t generally do a great deal with the information that I’ve got.

Guy

That’s pretty much everyone that listens to podcasts I think.

Stu
[00:22:00]

[00:22:30] I’m keen to find out, to try and distill all of that information, whether we’re talking about Alzheimers and dementia, gut brain health, all of that kind of stuff. What are the chunks that I can take out, that will be more applicable to me every single day. It could be as simple as I spoke to Steph Lowe the other day, the natural nutritionist, and she was just talking about resistance starch for gut health. Everybody is buying all manner of probiotics, prebiotics, guzzling them down but she said resistant starch is going to be massive, and it’s only going to become more popular in the consumer’s eye. They said, what does that actually mean for our customers? Well, she said, “Look. If you eat potatoes,” and you’ll know this Guy, “and if you eat sweet potatoes, white potatoes, these starchy what ever it is, yams,” she said, “boil them up. Put them in the fridge. Let them go cold. Eat them that way.” She said, “That’s a beautiful version of nature’s resistant starch, and it really nourishes your gut.”

[00:23:00] I eat sweet potatoes every day. Now I’m eating them cold. Just these little snippets of information that help people understand how to change some of these little habits that really make a difference to their health.

Guy

Okay.

Stu

[00:23:30] I’m super interested in all that kind of stuff so my focus this year is going to be specifically on the biggies, like gut and brain health, like Alzheimers and dementia. That’s really close to home because I’ve got that issue in the family. I’m super interested in exploring functional medicine at a much deeper level, because there’s so many smarts appearing with functional medicine right now, and it’s becoming more mainstream, which is really, really exciting.

Guy

Just to be clear to listeners, you’re continuing the 180 podcast right.

Stu

Absolutely, yeah.

Guy

It’s not going anywhere.

Stu

No. No, no, no, absolutely not.

Guy

Yeah.

[00:24:00]
Stu

It’s not going anywhere. We got some great guests lined up. We’ve had a provisional thumbs up from Mark Hyman so he’ll be coming on soon. As I said, I recorded two podcasts this week, so we got some good guests coming out as well.

Guy

Beautiful.

Stu

[00:24:30] That’s one thing that I’m very passionate about. Again, just trying to make things more simple for people and that comes over to products as well. We’ve got some really, really great products coming out this year. We’ve been working with an award-winning biologist in the development of a suite of revolutionary products. Revolutionary is a big word.

Guy

It’s a very big word.

Stu

[00:25:00]

[00:25:30] These are literally world first so this local biologist has been working very hard on a system to extract nutrients from plants, all manner of plants. If you think about where all of our natural remedies come so powerful in functional medicine for instance, they all come from plants. A lot of the extracts and ingredients that come from plants are very low on the activity scale. You might be taking say a tumeric and thinking great. I’m going to add my tumeric and my black pepper and you realize that powder tumeric has a very low activity rating in terms of how powerful is that after you’ve extracted that from a plant. You might be five percent active.

We’ve got a suite of products that are coming out that are 100% active. It just means that we’re going to be able to lock into lots and lots of really smart products, specifically targeting inflammation, all antiinflammatory stuff, so much coming up. Really, really excited about that.

[00:26:00] We’re going to be showcasing lot of that stuff at the Naturally Good Expo this year as well.

Guy

Beautiful.

Stu

Yeah, I’m excited.

Guy

Yeah. I look forward to trying them.

Stu

Absolutely, right, yeah. You can be a guinea pig. Just close your eyes and open your mouth.

Guy

Yeah exactly, exactly. Beautiful, beautiful. I mean, that’s pretty much I think the things we wanted to address and cover just to let everyone know where we are both at and where we’re going this year.

Stu

Totally.

Guy

I’m very excited for the pair of us and the opportunities that it’s going to produce and look forward to yeah. Hopefully it’ll carry on the journey. You might have to have to listen to two podcasts now instead of one.

Stu

That’s right. Maybe an earphone in each ear.

Guy

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, look for the time this goes live, my new podcast will be up.

Stu

Yes.

Guy

I’ll be starting from scratch, bare bones.

Stu

Yeah.

Guy

I definitely appreciate people to check it out and subscribe. That will help me get in the new and noteworthy. Obviously we got four and a half years behind us of 180.

Stu

Yes.

Guy

Yeah, and give me some feedback. Now, one of my channels of contact is Instagram so that’s probably the easiest way to get ahold of me as well to let me know what you think and so forth. Just look me up, Guy Lawrence, pretty easy.

Stu

Fantastic.

Guy

Guy is an easy word to spell.

Stu

That’s right.

Guy

Just don’t put an A in the middle. I used to get that.

Stu

Is it G-Y-E? Sounds good. We’ll put all of the details of this podcast will be transcribed. It’ll be put on the blog, so if you-

Guy

Oh actually while I got the listeners, there is one thing I want to mention as well. I completely forgot. I don’t even if you knew about this, but I’m running a trip to Sardinia, a blue zone in September.

Stu

Yes.

Guy

[00:28:00] For 24 people, and we’ve got about 12 spots left as of this will probably go to it. If anyone fancies it, hit us up and wants to join us as we look at longevity. Let us know.

Stu

Fantastic. Is that the home of the sardine?

Guy

That’s it.

Stu

One of my favorite little side dishes.

Guy

Exactly.

Stu

Fantastic.

Guy

It’s beautiful.

Stu

Obviously we transcribe all of this. This goes in the blog as well, so all of the details for that will be nestled in the show notes.

Guy

In everything, yeah.

Stu

Fantastic. Thank you very much.

Guy

Beautiful. Hopefully we were as entertaining without a guest.

Stu

I’m sure we were.

Guy

[00:29:00]
I just will want to close as well. I just want to thank everyone who does tune in on a regular basis that has been with us this whole time. I know there’s definitely people that have been listening straight from the start. It’s greatly appreciated for all the support that everyone’s given myself and 180. I’m part of that so it’s exciting times for me, but there’s certainly a bit of nostalgia there and yeah. I just want to mention that as well because it’s always grateful.

Stu

Absolutely right. If you have any thoughts or want to drop any comments in please, dial into [inaudible 00:29:10]. Leave a comment and feel free to make any suggestions, anyone that you want to come on in the podcast in the future or anything that you want to discuss would be great.

Guy

Beautiful. Thanks man.

Stu

Fantastic. Thank you mate.

Guy

No worries.

Stu

I will speak to you soon.

Guy

Cheers.

Stu

Okay bye-bye.

Guy

See you.