[Transcript starts at 1:24]
Hello. Hello. Hello my podcast people and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. So today we're going to talk about embracing seasonality. And I will of course first refer you to, I don't even know what episode it is, but the episode that I did with Emily Reed, she's like the queen of seasonality and are you Veda and all those things.
So you can check out that episode and you can also check her out. And. The Instagram. Uh, another person who's really big into the seasonality thing, uh, and into, um, Aria Veda is my girl, Andrea. And I will, uh, share her Instagram handle, because on top of my name, uh, on top of my name, oh my goodness, on the top of my head, I cannot remember her Instagram name, um, but I will drop that and I'll have Courtney, thank you, drop that in the show notes.
I think her, it's something like seasonal. Living Andrea or something like that. Um, so I will drop that in the In the show notes, she's big into Ayurveda, big into seasonality, but also really big into the menstrual cycle, and that tying into the seasons, which, to me, is hella dope. So, I will get that. I'm actually just gonna look for it right now.
Uh, her Instagram handle is seasonal. Andrea. Seasonal Andrea. You can check out her there. Check her out there. And Emily's is Seasonal Intentions Underscore. We will link both of those in the show notes. And I love being a resource for y'all, which is why I literally just went and opened my phone to find that thing.
Because I like to point you In the direction of people who literally do these things for a living and who are better at them than me. And then I can share my two pennies afterwards. So my two pennies, what we're gonna talk about today, is just embracing this concept of seasonality both from like a macro and a micro perspective.
So from the micro level, which is still not super micro, but from the micro level, I want to talk about it in terms of seasons of the year. And then from the macro level, I want to talk about it in terms of kind of seasons of life, especially as it relates to your business. So let's get down into the micro and that's going to be seasons of the year.
So first off in general, lean in. We know all the fuck to weigh in. We know, we feel different in different seasons. It is summer right now and y'all, this is my favorite season. That's why I kicked it off with that dope ass giveaway. Thank you to all of the, all of you who participated. Shout out to the people that donated stuff.
Uh, we had strong coffee. We had fringe. We had, uh, Vivo. We had anchor and then my maestro stuff. And just, it was awesome. I love this season so much. So much the days are longer. The weather is perfect here. It may be a little bit too much in some parts of the country. It gets a little bit hot, but here we also don't have bugs.
So it's just absolutely perfect. You want to be outside the whole time and people are happy. People are active, tons of beach volleyball. This weekend, I watched all of the beach volleyball for the Hermosa open. It's just, it's fucking awesome. The big picture here, the big point here, is whatever season it is, I want you to lean into it and understand what season it is and how you usually feel in that season and then lean into it.
Alright, so if we're going to take this business approach as well, this business lens, for me in the summer and often what I recommend to people is just rest. Like, chill out in the summer. I did an episode about that maybe two or three episodes ago. Uh, Courtney, thank you, you could link that. But people aren't really buying as much, people are on vacation, they're chilling out, so why don't you do the same?
Why don't you do the same? Just relax. Don't post as much, chill out, get your thoughts together, go enjoy your family, go enjoy your alone time, go enjoy the weather, whatever. Just go and lean into the season. Fall tends to be really good for business, right? It's kind of back to school, back to business kind of things.
September is dope. You can launch something then you can start, you know, thinking about it in the summer, uh, prepping for it. Leading up to it, ramping up to it, but just lean into the seasons, right? Summer, let's chill. Let's chill. Spring can be phenomenal for starting new things. So any of my kind of fitness people, yeah, we know like the January 1st and New Year's resolutions like that, and that's fine.
If you got New Year's resolutions, more power to you. Like, I don't have anything against them. I just, you know, as with anything with goal setting, I think there's a more efficient and effective way to do things. Um, and of course, I will bring my girls, uh, Alex and Meredith of Tactic Nutrition on for our annual beginning of the year podcast episode.
But, beginning of the year can be good for starting things, but especially in the spring. We know that just things are coming back to life. And so it can be a great time to start things and actually stick to them. As opposed to, you start it in the winter and then you're like, oh. It's still cold. Fuck. Like, I started it in January, but guess what?
Like, February is still shitty. So, like, I don't actually want to do this thing. Whereas, if you start something in the fall, excuse me, in the fall, in the spring, suddenly you're starting it, things are actually starting to get warmer, it's getting nicer out, the sun's set, you know, uh, rising earlier, a little bit more daylight, you're like, actually, I want to keep doing this, this is the seasons, the season is agreeing with me.
From a sport perspective, I'm seeing this right now as well. My boy Anthony, I've had him on the podcast maybe two times, and he's got a new goal of dunking by the end of summer. And I was like, yeah, this makes sense, man. Like, lean into the seasonality and what, It feel what feels good in the wintertime.
We're not feeling all springy and elasticy. It's fucking cold. Not trying to be jumping around. You want to be near the heater. So in the winter can be a great time for like kind of your bulking season. It can be a great time for establishing that baseline, uh, for building strength. Are you going to go into strength cycle?
Cool. It could be great in the winter, in the summer, spring, in the summer, you're like, I'm going to be outside. I'm going to run. I want to jump. I'm going to be athletic. Let your programming. Lean into that. I'm pretty sure that actually, um, Emily talks about something like this in the episode that was so long ago.
Um, but just like leaning into seasonality and what may, you know, Instinctually, intuitively, feels better for you. Lean into, the big thing, though, is understanding what season it is, identifying what you're feeling, and then, And the reason I say this, I actually do this. I have every month written down in a note in my notebook.
The note section of my phone and each month I write each day that I can remember. It's not like every single day, but it is I remember or the days that stand out. I will write about that month and be like, what was the weather like? How did the sun come up early? What did I feel? What was I wearing? Was the sand cold?
Is it exceptionally windy? Because this is gonna happen again next year. I don't like to be surprised. I don't want this shit to be like, oh god, so windy. Like it's windy every April. It's windy every single April and you just don't remember. Emily definitely talks about this and how the kind of the cyclical nature of things and the spirality.
And you're like, okay, it's not, it's here again. We just don't remember it. And then we're like, oh, I was surprised again. So it can be incredibly helpful to write this down, write down how you feel, write down what you want to be doing, both from like a movement perspective, from a business perspective, from a life perspective.
Do you want to be hanging out with your friends? Do you want to be staying up later? Do you want to be, do you like waking up earlier? In the summer, because it is light. Like, 5. 30, the sun's up. Maybe, you know, write that down. Because maybe, perhaps, as you're thinking about your new year for the next year, you build that into your schedule and it's like, yeah, I will work out earlier.
Maybe you have to work out earlier, because like, you live in Arizona and it's like 11 billion degrees at 8am. I don't know. But write these things down. Identify each of the seasons. Identify, I like to do it month by month, because the seasons aren't like, you know, black and white. Uh, it's like when it starts, when it stops.
I Even though we have dates, but we know it's like shifting around and stuff. So I like to write down what's going on in each month. For me, it's also like tying into the Jeep. So I don't have the top on. I actually kept it off all year last year for the first time. And I wrote, I wanted to write down like, am I, when is it more likely to rain?
Am I going to get stuck in the rain? Do I have to worry about this? Like, how cold is it? How much dew is there? Like, does this limit what I want to be doing? So things like that are important to me. I like planning and it's going to happen every year, right? Seasonality is a very real thing. So I like to identify it, write it down and record it.
And then as way I can reference it later. And by later, I mean the next year I'm prepared for that. But the big thing we're looking at the, the micro seasonality concept here, the seasons of the year is to lean in, lean in, write it down, identify it, record it so that you can remember it and you're not all like, It's cold already!
It happens every year. Ah! It's windy! It happens every year. Ah, it's so hot. It happens. Every year. That's why you can plan ahead and you can actually enjoy and get the most out of each season. Um, okay, so from the macro level, I want to talk about business and life and the seasons that we go through. So Ramit actually did a good email about this.
I don't know. He sends like a zillion emails. I don't even know how long ago it was. Maybe it was three days ago because he could have sent like five emails in that time or maybe it was. Three weeks ago. I don't know, but he did an email about this same concept Um, but I used a little bit of different terms here, but I think that we have kind of three main Periods in life and they're not necessarily sequential but just you can identify like someone is in one of these three I think we have number one would be achieving and expanding Number two would be experiencing and number three would be pivoting.
So when you're in that achieving and expanding portion of life, it's when you're like, I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm building the business. I'm going to stay late. I'm going to work late. I want to grow this part of the business. I'm acquiring this thing. I'm getting new skills. I'm looking to. Achieve and expand things, right?
We're really in that period of growth. That is what comes first. We're willing to stay up late, early to work longer hours, whatever, you know, this thing is, that is the period of life that we're, that we are in. So whatever we're looking to achieve and expand upon or within, that's the period of life. The second would be experience, right?
Or experiencing. And this is when you're just like, I just want to enjoy this. I don't want to take on more clients. I just want to be able to go and hang out. And now, yes, this could tie into a season of the year as well. Like for me, it's very much in the summer. But there have absolutely been times where like, I want to do more during the summer.
COVID was a great time. A great time. I shouldn't say that. Was a great example. So 2020 was a great example of like, okay, I'm going to do more stuff and business was booming for a lot of people in the summer. So it's not necessarily always hand in hand, uh, but we're looking in this, if we take a step back, we're looking at the macro level here and just this idea of I want to experience, I want to spend time with my family, I want to spend time with my kids, I want to travel.
We're not really looking to radically change our life or expand our life, expand our business, acquire things, it's literally I want to enjoy The fruits of my labor. And then the last one would be the pivot. And this is what we've all gone through this. So if you haven't, it's going to happen at some point where you're like, I don't want to do this anymore.
I want to do this. I'm done with it. I'm going to go in a different direction. So for me, 2020 was big with that. And I was just like, I don't want to be doing movement stuff anymore. I don't want, I don't want to travel for work. I don't want to be teaching rock tape stuff. I don't even want to be teaching my own movement stuff.
I loved it. I'm grateful for everyone that took the courses and I'm grateful for everyone who helped me build this platform. I built it behind movement, but I don't want to do it anymore. And that was the big pivot and the switch into the online business side of things. Do I think that we will go through those?
I think everyone kind of has perhaps a cycle with it. Five years seems to be kind of My nice number for me, uh, I'm thinking about my girl, Allison, my, my mentor, Allison, I've been with her all weekend. It's just, it's been such a good weekend. Her family just, it's been so good kids, but she's on kind of the same cycle of five years where you're like, you get into it, you're doing it, you have a lot of that achievement and expansion, especially in the beginning phase, then you're like, maybe go into the experiencing it.
And then at the end, you're like, and I'm ready to go something else. I'm ready for the pivot. Now, just like with the micro. level of things. I think it's really important to identify where you are at and once you've done that to place more value, more emphasis on advice that you receive from people that are in that phase.
So I, I actually look at Jill. My, she is definitely way ahead of me in terms of business and she's been doing it longer and she, one, she, she, finds value and enjoys different things than I do. But there are certain things that I can see that I don't want to do them right now, but I could perhaps at some point be like, you know what?
I, I don't want to do that. I should say, I don't want to outsource right now. I want to do these things myself. But I could see at some point where you've just done it long enough where maybe you're ready for that pivot or you're ready to achieve and expand and In order to achieve and expand, you have to outsource and not do those things and you have to make these changes and I could see that just watching her do things and I'm like, I could get that where like right now, I'm really happy where I'm at with business.
I'm more than I kind of the experience phase or season of things. And again, this is not like these are not sequential and it's like once you've gone through it, you're done. I think it's very much a seasonality thing. It's a cyclical thing. It ebbs and flows. I think the important thing is to it.
Understand where you're at, and then lean into advice that's given by people who are in that same phase. Because sometimes I think we get advice from people that are in different phases than us, different phases of life, different phases of business, and then we start seeing people just shooting all over themselves.
If someone is in an achieve and expand phase of business, or they just fucking love that, and they're always like, grow, grow, grow, grow, grow, that advice is not going to be necessarily that good for you if you're just like, I'm trying to chill. I just want to experience this. I just want to enjoy I've done my work and I just want to go and hang with my family.
I want to let it, let it rock. But if you're constantly listening to that person that is in that achieve and expand phase, which I'm certain you, you listening to this, you're going to identify with that. I, you understand that is, you've been in there at some point in life where you're like, yeah, I was just like in it and grinding and building and running all these workshops and setting all these things up and just doing the most.
I love it. Good for you. Good for you. I could see it in terms of sports too where, you know, I'm very much into volleyball But like even if I look back kind of in the beginning like I was playing like five days a week like physically I can't do that right now. I'm just like I'm old but there I was definitely in that achieve and expand I'm still I think I'm still in it, but I'm not as in it as I was before now It's kind of like experience.
Let's enjoy this. Let's enjoy some of the Lessons and things that we've, that we've learned to put it into play, look to really solidify these things and then we'll definitely go back into, I think, I will definitely go back into that achieve and expand season of things. And I think there's a very good chance that that will correspond with this season's as well, kind of into the fall where it's getting a little bit short.
Days are getting a little shorter, getting a little colder. You don't want to play as much, but it's a great time to like go over drills and learn and again, build that foundation. I for things. So whole concept here we're talking about today, embracing the seasonality of things, both on the micro and the macro level with the micro level being more of like looking at your year, leaning into the season.
I think it's super important to identify right down recorded. I think it's just such a valuable thing. It takes. So that you can plan accordingly for the next year, especially as it relates to business and things like that. If you know that you like to chill the fuck out during the summer, which is what I do, then you know, you got to work harder, do more.
in the other, in the other seasons so that you can chill, right? You can identify this and plan and prepare, set things up so you can enjoy the seasons that you want. Maybe you're that winter person and you love to go skiing. God bless you. You can ski and snow all up in the snow. Good for you. Maybe that's your shit.
If that is, then maybe you work harder in those other months so that you can have that time and really enjoy the season. your season. And then from the macro level, we're looking at in terms of business and life, those three phases that I think exist, there are three seasons that exist, the achieve and expand season, the experience season, and the pivot season.
Identify where you are at, look to take and heed advice from those that are in that same season. And then, you know, never say never, don't ever say never, because the reality is we go through these seasons and what, you know, you may not want to be doing right now, or you can't even fathom right now could be just because you're not in that season and you give it time and suddenly you're like, Oh, I'm there and I understand and I will take advice from people that are also in that season.
All right, folks, that is all I got for you. I am really loving. This little summer series that we're doing with the two episodes a week a little shorter I'm actually keeping them to shorties. I feel like I'm due for like a fake shorty, but both of these I'm like Oh, this is all I want to say. Sometimes less is more M O A R as always endlessly appreciative for every single one of you until next time friends maestro out
Check out @seasonalandrea and @seasonalintentions_
MOTM #335: Are You Spiraling?
MOTM #383: Celebrating Summer
Catch me on the socials: Instagram | YouTube | Threads | TikTok | Facebook