77. Find Your Purpose with Dr. Meghan Walker

Dr. Meghan Walker 0:01

We have all these rules and I'm always really interested in understanding how do I do all of those things I'm supposed to do and understand the essence and spirit of them but do it in my own way. Do it in a way that feels right to me.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:12

Welcome to the your longevity blueprint podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. Today, you get to hear from Dr. Megan Walker, we're going to dive into finding one's purpose this is going to be an episode you do not want to miss let's get started.

Welcome to another episode of The your longevity blueprint podcast. today. My guest is Dr. Megan Walker. She's a naturopathic doctor and anthropologist focusing on the health optimization of entrepreneurs and game changers. As an entrepreneur Megan started and sold her first business while in university and is co founder and past CEO of the digital health media startup right almond. Megan founded and sold her first clinic the Integrative Health Institute after graduation from the Canadian college of naturopathic medicine, and went on to found and sell her second micro practice entre apology performance labs. She's currently the host of the anthropology podcast CEO of anthropology labs, co founder of health hives, the creator of the women's performance supplement line, badass fuel and chief cheerleader at clinician business labs, a platform to assist clinicians scale and amplify their businesses. Megan is an award winning speaker having spoken on international stages and through multiple media outlets on topics related to women's performance medicine, brain health and entrepreneurship. Megan is the host and producer of the annual entrepreneurship conference impact lives, and most importantly, the bedtime story reader to her three young girls. Welcome to the show, Dr. Megan Walker.

Dr. Meghan Walker 1:46

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 1:48

Anthropologist is like difficult to pronounce entrepot

Dr. Meghan Walker 1:52

Yeah, I know. So in hindsight, like when I talk on, talk to clinicians about business, I'm like pick a business thing that people can pronounce and spell but you know, I

Dr. Stephanie Gray 2:01

love it. I just I'm like, wow, tongue twister here on anthropology and then bio. So obviously, I read a little bit about you and your bio, but I want you to tell us about yourself and how you got so interested in this anthropologist and helping specifically women business owners become badasses. I'll be honest, I never swear. So even saying badass, I'm like, Oh, that. But I'll say I'll say powerhouse, how you became interested in helping women become powerhouses. So how did you end up in this field? Which really sounds like is your purpose? And we're gonna get to purpose today? So that's kind of a loaded question. But tell us about yourself and how you landed here.

Dr. Meghan Walker 2:34

Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. So I think I've been an entrepreneur since I was a kid, I grew up in an entrepreneurial household, I was constantly like, coming up with ideas. And you know, when I was when I was still in high school, I got fired from my first and only job. Well, we mutually parted ways. And I was like, What am I going to do? My parents are like, it is not an option for you to sit on your rear end for the summer, like, what are you doing? And so I went work with a friend and she she was cleaning cottages and I went, Okay, this is easy for me to do. Like I had a fanatic mother, when it came to what our house looked like, I can clean and she's like, I don't really want to do this. And I've got a few people I help out.

And I was like, I would love to take over your business. So I took over her business and grow age. I was 18. Okay, so and then I was like, all these people have cottages on islands, I bet they want their cottage clean too. So I would go to the islands. And anyways, so a by three years into this, I had 11 Different summer students who worked with me, we cleaned all these different cottages and I was like, my goodness, I have all sorts of things I'd like to do with my life. But definitely it's going to revolve around the fact that I want to have my own business because one i It was ingrained in me very young, you're unemployable. And for some people that be a limiting belief, for me, that was the most empowering and liberating idea that had come to fruition until I was like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing.

Like, I can actually now sit on my dock during the week and have people who work with me off earning me revenue to pay for school like this was just mind blowing. So, you know, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And then you know, as so many of us have it when we I became a naturopathic doctor, I had my own health issue, and I went to see a naturopathic doctor and he asked me this really intelligent question after I'd seen all these doctors to figure it out. He said, Megan, tell me how your body has always and historically responded to stress. And I don't even remember my answer. And I don't remember what he did. But I was so struck by the intelligence of the question, because it was coming after this pattern that my body was stuck in from a completely different angle than everybody else.

And so I went, Okay, I know I want to be an entrepreneur, but man, I cannot shake this naturopathic medicine thing. It's such an intelligent approach and problem solving and system thinking. And so long story short, I, you know, I went to university did my thing, became a naturopath, doctor, and I was like, this is perfect because not only do I get to work with patients, but I get to be an entrepreneur. And I was really clear early on once I started to see incredible results, I want more and more people to have access to these, this system of medicine, this way of thinking let's let's treat the root cause. And so, you know, the through line of everything I did from there on in was how can I get more people to have access to the system of medicine really quickly, I realized it couldn't be just through me. It couldn't just be through our clinic, like I would tap out in terms of time, I was like, how do we scale this?

And so I had a variety of different business initiatives along the way, but every single one of them served this larger purpose in my mind, which was how do we get more people to have access to these systems of medicine. So any business or initiative that we have taken on has always been in alignment with serving, serving that purpose. And so for me really quickly, I started to realize the power of purpose in my own life, and then started to explore it in my patients who were predominantly entrepreneurs themselves. And we came up with some really compelling approaches to care as a result.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 5:53

I love it. I love it. I love it. So why is finding and living your purpose critical to health? I know, I feel very called to you know what I do. And I think a lot of individuals in healthcare got into healthcare, like for that reason, they knew they always want to be a nurse or doctor, you know, whatnot. So I feel very blessed. But I have a lot of friends who still just kind of feel like they haven't quite found their purpose. And so first, why is finding it so important, even to our health. And then we'll go about talking about like how we get there to finding a purpose,

Dr. Meghan Walker 6:22

I feel for any of these concepts, we could look at it as a continuum. And so if we look at this continuum, there's some people out on one end, we're like, oh, my gosh, I get up and I live my purpose every day, and I bounce out of bed and you're like, oh, my gosh, they got a lot of energy, but they're like, they have total clarity. They're living it, they're monetizing on it, they're like, it's what I'm good at, like good for them. Richard Branson, right? Like there, we used him as sort of the archetype of that individual. On the other end of that continuum, we have those people were Sunday night, they're in a full blown state of anxiety.

They don't want to get up Monday morning, they hate the work they do they resent the people they work with, it is just a paycheck to them, they self sabotage other areas of their life health, in an attempt to avoid what it is that they spend their time on, which is one of your most, if not the most limiting resource you have access to, right as a human being, and they're miserable, their health is failing as a result, their spirituality is failing as a result, their family is suffering as a result of that piece, their work and their lack of clarity around purpose is literally consuming their life. And so if we look at these two pieces as a continuum, and I were just to say at surface value without any markers, who's likely healthier, we're all going to look at the Richard Branson archetype and be like, Oh, my gosh, well, of course this person is.

So you know, at a very superficial level, before we actually get into and we started talking about the science behind it, there is something that happens you physiologically when you have the opportunity to get up and work in alignment with your purpose, every single day. And we can we can talk about what purpose actually is because I think there's some misnomers around what it means to live in and on purpose. But it starts fundamentally, and it's fundamentally important to your health, because it literally gives you a reason to live, it is the why behind why I'm going to go and I'm going to work out why I'm going to take those supplements, why I'm going to go do that cold shower, whatever it is that you're doing as part of this routine right now is because it fuels that purpose in your life. So it gives you access to contribution and something that's bigger than yourself. And that in and of itself is actually a critical element when it comes to looking at health as a whole. And you know, to speak your language to longevity?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:37

Yes, yes, yes. Okay. We know it's important specifically to health. So how does one go about finding their purpose? Right, so loaded question. Yeah,

Dr. Meghan Walker 8:46

no problem. Let me just that's like, with businesses, how do I find my niche? So you know, purpose is, is really a confluence of a variety of different elements. And I'll go into what those elements are. But you know, what I've I've really literally interviewed on my own podcast like hundreds of people and said, What is your purpose? And how do you know you found it, and Overwhelmingly, people describe this notion of purpose as being a feeling, as opposed to having hit a series of objectives. And I actually have found when we look at things objectively and start to look at the markers, the physiological markers that change when someone can identify that they are living on purpose, I've actually found that those markers will start to shift simply by someone making the decision to commit to discovering their purpose, it's actually as critical as identifying the purpose itself.

So I want to make that point because I think a lot of people get stuck, right? Where they're like, Well, I can't find my purpose, or I love that you want me to quit my job, Megan. It's just I have to provide I have to provide for my family. So I'm not in that privileged position. Simply the decision, wanting to look for your purpose is one of those things that is actually just as critical. Secondly, there's two precursors that need to be in place for us to start to explore purpose. The first is you actually have to have the self worth. And that sense of self worthiness that is sufficient to give yourself permission and the self authorization to explore it. So this isn't something where you can go home and be like, I'm going to talk to my partner and see if they're cool with me exploring my life purpose, this is not something that you seek permission for, you have to be in a sufficient state of self worthiness that you are okay saying, guess what, guys, mom is actually going to start to pursue this, and I'm going to need some time for it to happen.

Or guess what work colleagues, I need room to do this, or guess what friends, I'm not getting together with you on Saturday night, because I'm working through something really big in my own life. So you actually have to value yourself enough to want to step forward in this. And I really do feel like I need to say this, because I've stood in front of rooms, of like hundreds of women, and they're all looking at me like this sounds great. But I'm like, I just want you all to know you have permission today to pursue your purpose, literally 50% of the room just burst into tears, they were waiting for permission to do this. So I want you to know that it's a once in a lifetime opportunity that someone gives you permission to pursue your purpose, what you really have to do is walk over the shelf and decide that you want to take it back. So this is a moment of self actualization. So that part needs to be in place.

The second thing that needs to be in place is you need to carve out time to do it. So you literally need to create blank space in your life and in your schedule, in order to pursue and work on your purpose to identify the skill set that informs that purpose, to get clear on what it actually feels like to be in alignment with purpose. That doesn't mean you need two days a week. But it does mean that you need to be able to carve out the time. And I really, when I talk about time, we have a time system that we use, we identify four different types of time in one's life, you really need to be able to carve out time we call it deep work time and these momentum moments that we get access to, you need to carve that time out in order to be able to pursue it.

So you need those two things. You need that state of self worth, and you need to create that time, then we can start to talk about what purposes. And so when I look at purpose, I love the example of IKI guy. So in what would you say iki guy is a Japanese in the Japanese language refers to purpose. And there's a confluence of four ideas. And I kind of modified the fourth. But the first is we have to identify something that we're actually good at. It's quite often that our purpose on our ecosystem, we call it impact powers, work in alignment with things where we have a skill set. So if you're a really compelling public speaker, or you're an amazing chef, or you can just like ask people questions and see into their soul, it is likely that that unique skill for you is something that is going to help inform your purpose on its own. It doesn't. So Andre Agassi is a great example. He's a tennis player, for those of you don't know that amazing world class like World Champion tennis player doesn't like tennis.

So it's amazing that he has the skill, he's like, I'd rather do anything but play tennis. So it's one thing to have the skill, that's one part of it, but it actually also has to be something that we love. So that skill that we have, it's something that we when we're moving towards purpose, something that we're really compelled and good at something that we really love. The third element that needs to be in place with respect to purpose is it needs to provide for contribution. So it needs to be something where you can contribute outside of yourself, it is not your purpose to engage in self centered activities. Living in alignment with purpose is actually it really is self serving in so many ways. But it has to be able to be something that we can contribute towards others.

And then the fourth category, because I hang out in this world, we call on topology, which is the confluence of of mindset, business and health is that we, if you're really lucky, we can take that purpose and we can actually find a mechanism for it to be monetized for you. Okay, and that's one of my favorite things that I get to do with people is help them discover and uncover some of those other elements and now are like, Okay, actually, how can we put this into the world in such a way that it can literally provide an income for you, it can actually become your life's work, which to me is like the ultimate privilege in life to get up every day and actually be able to be earn an income from the work that is in alignment with purpose. So purpose isn't one thing. It's the confluence in my experience of these four elements. And when you start to hit them, it doesn't always have to be the monetization, but certainly the first three when you hit it, it's a feeling and you just can't shake it.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 14:28

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Dr. Meghan Walker 16:31

Everything to me is like an image. So this to me is like a Venn diagram. It's like circle upon circle upon upon circle, but it's really almost like these four quadrants that need to be in place.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 16:40

So did you use those four quadrants? Or did you get those in place? As far as you find in your purpose in becoming successful? I guess that's what I'm trying to ask.

Dr. Meghan Walker 16:48

No. Part of it was working was sort of deconstructing what work for me like I really, and this is an evolution. So it's not like they're done. It, you know, part of it was having this total clarity on this mission, which was to give more people access to upstream medicine, that has been an unshakeable commitment for myself for probably the last 20 years. So the manifestation, the way that that has evolved, has thoroughly changed. But if someone say what is your purpose, my purpose is to put upstream medicine in the hands of millions of people. And I do that through a variety of mechanisms. And those mechanisms have changed over time.

And you know, I probably have more than one purpose, which is also to let people and give people permission, to live their life in a state of purpose, and to teach them and help them be able to monetize on their on the purpose, that gets me really excited. And so I think it's having that clarity that has enabled me to hang out in this in this space, which is outside the box of traditional thinking. And to me, traditional thinking is one of the things that will squash your ability to feel purpose really, really quickly. So when we subscribe to these, these rules of society, the way we have to do, we're supposed to get a job, and we're supposed to have stability, and we're supposed to contribute to our 401k RSP, or whatever country you're coming from. And your retirement savings plan looks like we have all these rules.

And I'm always really interested in understanding how do I do all of those things I'm supposed to do and understand the essence and spirit of them. But do it in my own way, do it in a way that feels right to me. So I've always been interested in that place. But I think what it came down to and I had clarity on my mission, it enabled me to just hang out in this no man's land of courage. And courage, I think is like the only thing you need to be an entrepreneur, you can figure the rest out. That around, we wait, I'm like, when I feel confident I'll pursue my purpose, once I have enough confidence with whatever it is that I'm doing, I'll start to pursue my purpose.

And and in my experience, if we lead with courage, what we develop is competence. And suddenly, what we realize we're carrying around without even knowing is this idea of competence. So I think, you know, if we're like, what's your secret sauce, it was clarity on the mission that I was really driving. And to it was a willingness to hang out in a courageous space, over and over again, in a variety of different scenarios, because the two can affect each other.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:14

Sure, sure. You interviewed me on your podcast, and one of the last questions you asked was something like this entrepreneurship and you will have to rephrase this really, like are we born with it? Or is that a skill that we can develop? Right? And my answer was, I said both I can't that's kind of a cop out. But I said both because I do know some people who like you were just, you know, born into you know, and I was as well into this entrepreneur, family still constantly starting businesses, I think it's in my blood, like, you know, but I also know some individuals that started a business much later in life they they didn't even know any entrepreneurs and here they are, you know, starting a business. So I'm going to flip the script and ask you that question. Now that you're saying, all you really need is courage to be an entrepreneur. So do you feel like we're born with the entrepreneurship in our in our blood? Is it something that can be learned?

Dr. Meghan Walker 20:01

I think entrepreneurs are born. However, okay, I also think we are all born with the potential in the permission to gain clarity on purpose. And when you have clarity on your purpose, you realize that entrepreneurship is a very fast route towards its actualization. And so when I feel like when you're committed to purpose, people sometimes choose to select entrepreneurship as the route in which they are going to live their purpose. And for them, it's going to be a little bit harder and require a little bit more courage to do those traditional entrepreneurial things. But if we can get in alignment with that purpose thing, I think we can get more comfortable with that environment, I really do feel like I was born. Yeah, I was born an entrepreneur, I can't help. I just can't help myself. And I know for my friends, like, I'm using entrepreneurship as the root for my purpose. They don't feel that way. They're like, the last thing I want to do is start more of these things. Like, I want to do the one that's serving my mission. So it's both and love it.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 21:05

Okay, so how did you begin to identify your unique abilities? Obviously, as an 18 year old already starting your own business? I mean, kind of already shared a bit of that. But how did you begin to identify those abilities?

Dr. Meghan Walker 21:17

I was a really insecure teenager, I wasn't confident that I was like, the smartest person in the room, I think I spent a lot of time trying to prove to myself and other people that I could, I could hold my own, I moved around a lot as a kid, like I was constantly thrown in these new environments. So you know, it, this was not me, as an 18 year old kid me like, I'm like the entrepreneur in the room, I'm gonna knock it out of the park. That was not the case, it was very much like it was scrappy, that I would just I would, I was like, I don't have a choice. I guess. Like, I guess I can't be hired, I need to figure this out. And so I figured it out. And I figured it out.

And I figured it out. So, you know, that was one thing I actually I came to be reliant upon was, I realized, at a young age, my parents were divorced, I flew back and forth between their two homes for like, eight years, I had like lounge access at 12, I learned at a very young age that I could at least be self reliant, and I could figure things out, I might not be the smartest one in the room, I might not be the one getting 100% on all my exams, I might like, I was doing my own thing. But I actually had faith at an early age that I would be able to figure it out. And then I realized the other thing I could usually do, I could talk my way in or out of things. So I was like, okay, I can figure stuff out. And I can speak and the rest will let kind of fall into will fall into place. But those were those were two things that when I discovered those, and I could be reliant on those things for myself, it made a big difference.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 22:37

And I think of some of those unique abilities as being a skill set right in skill set as part of this Venn diagram that you're referring to. So how do others also do this? How do they identify what their skill set is, their unique abilities are

Dr. Meghan Walker 22:50

right, this is really hard for people, it's like asking people to write their own bio, they're like, oh, like, it just, it's hard, it's hard to talk about ourselves and pull these things out. So one, we're just gonna step back to step one, which is we need you in a state of worthiness. So that like, if you can't, with your door closed, acknowledge some of the things that you're good at, we need to just start by working on your self esteem, because you are not pulling these things out. And you are definitely not going to put them into the world. If you're like, Well, you know, I think I'm a good artist, meanwhile, like you did half the art in the background, right? Like, do you have to call it out? With that said, I know it's hard for people.

And so ask the people around you, and give them really explicit directions. Say, look, I'm really working to uncover this piece, I would love for you to identify for me, where you feel some of my strongest skill sets are they can be anything from communicating, to cooking to making you feel at ease in the room. Like if someone else were to ask you, what is Meghan Walker good at, I want your set of answers. Don't ask your mom, she's not going to give you the most objective feedback, like ask 10 or 12 people who are going to answer that, and you're probably going to find that there's similarities and commonalities among their answers. And that's usually where I'd get people to start.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:01

That makes sense. All right, how do we tap into our ultimate productivity? I kind of heard you say time blocking already in this episode.

Dr. Meghan Walker 24:08

Yeah, sure. So again, when you can hang out in that purpose state, I think that we can crack a different level of productivity. Because what happens is we're doing work that matters. And so if someone said to me, like, what is the fastest way to grow my business, I would say you need to make it matter. So if your business is something you do for fun, but your income is coming from somewhere else, it doesn't really matter, right? It's like a fun hobby. So we actually need to put parameters in place that start to enable this to matter. The time needs to matter, the money and the contribution needs to matter the return on investment for you putting your energy it needs to matter. So if it doesn't matter, you ever need to up the stakes. So maybe you've just like publicly commit on the PTA that you're going to take on some huge thing. Or maybe you tell your Facebook following Guess what, guys?

I'm launching this in the next year like you Got to make it matter. I think that's one of the secret sauces of productivity. Secondly, behind that is certainly time blocking. So I talk about four different types of time in something we call the, the anthropology time system. So we've got, we still call them lockdown days, but the pandemic has totally changed our nomenclature around those. So we call these deep work days, these are days where we're going really, really deep and getting a significant project move forward. For us, we have stage days or days where you're doing the work that actually earns you that income. So for clinicians, this is when you're seeing patients, we have things called Momentum moments, which are smaller blocks of time, throughout the work week, where we're doing that deep work, we have follow through days where we're doing all of the scrappiness that comes along with the deep work in the stage days. And then we have play days and play days are really about restoration.

And they're actually really critical to how you lay out your schedule and your and your time. And you know, if we don't make time, right, if we don't, yeah, so you need those for the next three months, definitely, I want you to take a take a play quarter. But if we don't respect the restore the body's need for a store, the minds need to restore the mindset to be creativity, it's really hard for us to work in alignment in those other areas. So we can time block all we want, we can make things manner. But the third piece is like playing health, we really need to give the body an opportunity to get up and move and, and rebuild and do the things that are so critical. And for me, that is really where my health background and my interest in business and mindset sort of make this confluence in this in this comeback is because if we don't have our health, you're going to fall short of hitting the goals that you could hit when you're living in alignment with purpose. And what was really interesting when I would work with my patients, and we would start to talk about purpose, like part of my research in this area emerged because, you know, I was had clarity for it for me, but then with my patients, I was like, huh, so interesting.

Those people who are like living their purpose and dream and can articulate that they're in my office less frequently, they have less anxiety, they are less sick, they recover faster, there's like, right, less incidence of like, what is going on here. So then I started to ask people when they would come in to see me, can you identify a sense of purpose in your life, and some people are like, um, I came in for my Zema. Like, what? So they were they were kind of taken back. And then other people were ready to go with that question over and over again, same recovery patterns, people who could identify purpose. So then I went in the literature and I was like, Okay, there's no way I'm the only person who's observed this. Well, there's a huge body of literature, actually looking individuals who can identify a sense of purpose, we see less incidence of cardiovascular disease, we see less incidents of recurring cardiovascular events. And individuals who had previously had experienced a cardiovascular event, we saw a decrease in neurological manifestations, lower cancer rates, increased longevity, like it was compelling what we were seeing in terms of physiological outcomes, with respect to this idea of, of purpose.

So there's this body of evidence that is support. So then I was like, why is this happening? And so then when we go and we're like, people who identify as having a sense of purpose, what we actually see among other things are blunted cortisol reactions. So cortisol being the thing that actually drives stress within your your body. When people are living in alignment with their purpose, we do not see the same dysregulation of cortisol and stress on the adrenal glands as their actions and activities of daily living. So to me, I was like, that's cool. Oh my gosh, like, I not only want you to sleep and eat well, but we have we have to talk we have to talk about purpose, because look at all these compelling outcomes, that we can actually drive with respect to your health, when we help you to gain clarity around this piece. And at the same time, we've got these people remember that continuum at the beginning. These people are like, I have no sense of purpose and hate my work and get up every day engaged in stuff that absolutely brings me negative joy. I don't even know the opposite of joy, but negative joy. Well, of course, their health like of course, their health is going to suffer.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:08

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Now let's get back to the episode Yeah. All right, I want to go back to play. So Oh, that's good, though. I like hearing that. So how do you specifically balance purpose and play? I? Balance is just an interesting word. I mean, it's a beautiful word, but it's hard to achieve. I think it can be defined differently. Its its meaning is different to various people. So like, I don't know, if you've heard of the wellness, we'll have you heard of like a wheel with different spikes on it. Right? Yeah, or spokes, whatever they're called, right. For years, my wellness wheel has been filled with work, work, work, work, work, work work, right. And so then maybe my commitment to relationships or to play or you know, the the other pieces of that we all suffer, right?

And so for me back to you liking your diagrams and whatnot, me seeing this wellness wheel and seeing the pieces of the puzzle that while I'm neglecting? Right compared to how much is spent in work, almost affirms me right at firms that Oh, yes, I do need to play, I do need to increase that, that spoke in the wheel or whatnot. So for me not that there's ever going to be this perfect balance on the on the wellness wheel, right. But for me, I think that helps me understand like if my balance is off that visualization, so what helps you, I guess, what tools do you use? And how do you balance your purpose and your your play as well?

Dr. Meghan Walker 31:18

Yeah, so I used to believe that balance was a myth. And I believe that for a really long time, I was just like, we can't have, we just can't have balance. It's like one or the other. It was this oscillating thing, right. And then what happened, for me at least was that I as again, the more I just believe that the more clear we are and what we want, the easier it is to achieve these elements of balance. And so for me, when I got really, really granular, and really clear around what my ideal life would look like, what I found was, it was just balanced. It wasn't like, oh, I have a play day. And then I have a workday. And then it was all kind of the same. And so I created I don't like rules, I also don't like to get in trouble. So I made rules for myself. So everything else, I'm like, there are frameworks, everything we talked about today is a framework. They're not rules. But I made rules for myself. And so one of the and I reevaluate my rules on a quarterly basis. But for me, I was like, I want to walk my kids to school. So with rare exceptions, and I know what those exceptions are going to be, I get up and walk my kids to school, and then my husband and I do a walk until 930.

I literally don't do stuff until 930 In the morning, which means my health can come first I'm in my podcast studio, but my Juve is right over here, and my peloton is over there. And I was like, these are priorities for me and to make them priorities in my, in my day. So my day starts at 930 in the morning, most days, in terms of, quote, unquote, work. But I've already achieved like, all these huge things that are in alignment with my ideal life before 930 In the morning, so then I do my stuff. And then same thing in the evening. And we really consciously like punctuate our time with what we used to with vacation and actually getting away worse, I'm, I'm in Toronto, it's still in lockdown, you guys are all probably like years away from I would have locked down compared to where we are at. But we used to take vacation and, and you know, then I realized, if I had a big event, I would have this carrot at the end of the event, which would be like, dang, I'm like, Oh, I get to recover in a few days. I'm like, wait a second, I'm way better doing an event if I'm off coming off a vacation. So now I just take a vacation at the front. And at the end of something big that I have to do.

And so I when I got really clear that we have these expectations and these ways that things have always been done, I just started to question the ones that worked for me and didn't work for me. And I realized that when I work in alignment with a purpose, and I'm clear on how I measure the outcomes of my purpose, so for me, I have to deliver results to my clients. Well, what do I need to do in my own life to deliver better results, I need to play more, I need to go for these walks in the morning, I need to take a vacation before I have a big project I'm executing and I get one on the other side. Like I just started to write my own, write my own rules. And I reevaluate those on a regular basis so that I don't get caught in a paradigm. But that's been a game changer for me is creating clarity on what I actually want in my life. And not necessarily making it. what society says is how we're supposed to live our life.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 34:13

And that takes courage to just schedule that vacation on the front of the back end, you know, that it also takes courage to make your own rules. But I love that. I love that. So when we think of women's professional performance, what are three huge areas that you help your clients with? The majority of the listeners are going to be female. So

Dr. Meghan Walker 34:29

yeah, I mostly work with women. It's just kind of who, who we attract. So you know, when I talk about anthropologist, I talk about three core areas. I talk about business, and most of the work that I do with respect to business development is with clinicians. So I help clinicians start to be able to scale a business so that it's serving them and the way that they want to work. I talk about mindset, I love to talk about mindset. I mean, at the end of the day, we talked about this notion of courage. Courage is like to me the thing that is going to drive everything else that you do and it takes a lot of self work and a lot of mindset work to hang out, encourage so hang out in that space. And then thirdly, we help clients and people we work with around that health piece. And how do we actually create optimized health, not the absence of disease, but like optimized health, that helps us drive our purpose forward.

And I really do believe that sort of this infinity symbol the to feed each other in a really, in a really profound way. And the way that I actually start with most people with respect to health is one, we identify purpose. And two, we completely deconstruct how they manage their time. Because I actually find that's the backdoor entry, to getting people to be able to create the space and create the time to make that commitment to their health. And I know that's different than the way a lot of my other colleagues practice. But I'm really interested in what sabotages people's ability to continue to execute and be successful with respect to health. And I actually think it's the mismanagement and the MIS allocation of our time that often gets in the way. First,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:55

agree. I want to we're gonna go go off on a tangent here, but we'll come back to purpose. So you have a women's performance supplement line, is that right?

Dr. Meghan Walker 36:04

Yeah. So it's funny because we're just we're just really working it right now. But we do we focus on four fundamentals. You know, I subscribe to this notion of some kind of daily multi. So usually, when that optimizes, 200 health, I call it a hedge your bets protocol, I'm like, listen, like I want my pantry fully stocked, with all the ingredients I might need at a moment's notice. So we have a multi we have a magnesium, because magnesium naturally causes and helps support the body's ability to relax. We also upregulate magnesium when we're stressed, I know you know, this, I'm just sharing, I'm sharing my please, sleeping on these pieces.

We carry a fish oil, because I really think that we consume a disproportionate amount of omega sixes in our in our diet. So we're looking at restoring that ratio, and it just makes your skin look nice. Your hair look nice. And your nails and yeah, because that's, I want I want those things to and then lastly, green supplement, and I put a greens in there. And I know some people love them. Some people don't. But at the end of the day, when I'm like, Oh my gosh, I haven't eaten well today, or oh my goodness, we like I don't know, we went for ice cream three times or whatever happened to take place on a given day. I'll just load myself in greens, it's like the thing I do that's so easy, low barrier to entry, way of increasing nutrient density and energy within my system. And I usually just subscribe to this idea that if it's the standard I have for myself, it's a standard I'm going to have for other people. So it's the fourth product that we have.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:22

Absolutely. I agree. I agree. Well tell us where listeners can connect with you and find you. And I know you have an amazing free gift that revolves around purpose, which was our topic today.

Dr. Meghan Walker 37:32

Yeah, I love to just share our adventures on my on my Instagram. So it's just Dr. Megan Walker, you can definitely find me there. And there's links off my Instagram to hang out with me on my own podcast, the anthropology podcast. And we have a weekly show that explores those three things business mindset and health and how we leverage them to be able to create our ideal life. Awesome. And

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:51

I will post a link to your free gift in the show notes. which tell us about that again, real quick.

Dr. Meghan Walker 37:56

Yeah, absolutely. So I you know, I alluded to this, that we have a time system, we call it the topology time system, how do we start to break down that time, I really believe that this sort of underscores how we achieve good health, how we create space, and time for purpose and play Stephanie. So that's what we delve, we delve into is you know, topology time system and how to leverage that.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 38:17

Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today and emphasizing why finding our purpose is so important and helping our listeners learn how to find it. But most importantly, thanks for your dedication to female entrepreneurs helping us become those powerhouses to change the world. So thanks for coming on the show. My pleasure. Thanks

Dr. Meghan Walker 38:33

for having me.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 38:38

Dr. Walker is incredible and inspiring. I absolutely love what she said about giving you permission to explore and pursue your purpose every listener you have permission. If you need help with this and you'd like to connect with Dr. Walker. Start by checking out her free gift link of which will be posted in the show notes. And be sure to check out Dr. Walker's anthropology podcast, which I was honored to guest on episode number 214. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time the course is 50% off, check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the Course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. Leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I do read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics guests and for how you're applying what you learn on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. The podcast is produced by the team at counterweight creative as always thank you so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting

the information provided in this podcast is educational no information provided should be considered to be are used as a substitute for medical advice diagnosis or treatment always consult with your personal medical authority

Transcribed by https://otter.ai