The MEDS you MUST take

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

Welcome back to the show and I really, really hope that you are open to this. I hope that you are open to taking meds. Yep, you heard me right. I hope you are open to taking meds if you don't take them already. Now, full disclosure, I'm not a doctor and I want you to listen before you go rushing to get any pills because these meds are unique. These meds are absolutely available in abundance to you at any point you want. And, and guess what? None of them have any negative side effects. They're also free. Even better. Right? So the reason I want you to think about taking these meds is when we look at productivity and performance, when we look at, you know, mental health issues, when we don't take these meds, things start to stack up in the wrong way. The who, the World Health Organization, said that depression and anxiety disorders alone cost the global economy around $1 trillion per year. Yeah, $1 trillion per year in lost productivity. Mental health problems can affect people's productivity and performance. We know that, but not only that, it affects them in so many other ways. According to a Deloitte study, staff with poor mental health can experience a 35% decrease in productivity. So I want to talk to you about these meds. And you know, I just want you to think about the level of stress and level of burnout. Stress, stagnancy and suffering are the three S's I think about when we don't manage our well being. And let's face it, you are not a High performer. If you don't manage your well being and your relationships. That's not to say everything's going to be perfect, but it is to say that you've got to be focused on it, you've got to be managing it, you've got to have processes in place to manage the important things. In the U.S. the American Institute of Stress reported that 80% of workers feel stress on the job with nearly 50% considering it to be a significant problem. And let's face it, burnout is also on the rise. Massively so. Meds. This is an approach I use with my clients. Whether I'm working with them one to one or if I'm in, you know, doing a large keynote or working with an organization for a leadership training. I always talk about meds and this is a very simple approach that I feel can make a huge difference in your level of joy, your level of productivity, your level of engagement, your level of being connected with what matters most. So I'd love you to get pen and paper. If you're running, just keep listening, take a mental note, but I'd love you to get pen and paper. And we're just going to do a quick rundown of what meds are, four different things. And we're going to get you right now to do a self assessment to see where you sit and see what might be lacking in your life. What we can do in a very short period of time here to actually get your focus on, on what matters most with your wellbeing, with your health. And of course you know, and I know that that's going to impact your relationships, your energy, your productivity, your success or lack thereof. So I really want you to think about the importance of being open to trying these meds. So once a month I'm going to urge you to do this. This is not a one off thing that you've done today in the episode. I want you to, whatever we do in a minute, I want you to do this. Please do this once a month. If you do this once a month, that puts you in a very elite group of people who actually take the time to check in on the most important aspects of their well being. But again, it's simple, it's not complex. You don't need to read a 500 page book on it and have a counseling session every week. No. But I will tell you if you are experiencing deep levels of anxiety or depression or any of those things, please do go and seek help. There is a better help app. It's called Better Help. It's fantastic. I've used it personally in the past myself. So if you're needing any help with some of those areas below the line, so to speak, then I would encourage you to check out BetterHelp, a fantastic app. And they pair you with somebody that's really, really powerful, a therapist that's powerful and can work, make an impact on your life. So, meds, M E D S.

So M M stands for mental training. I prefer to call it meditation. Some people don't like the word, don't like the action of meditation, but mental training, you know, taking time out to focus on your breath, to stop the monkey mind. We've got 70,000 thoughts or thereabouts a day. 70 plus percent of them are negative. To take some time to go, okay, let's focus our attention on our breath. That is mental training. It's going to let you in on something. For many years, I've really disliked flying. And it's not the thought of flying, it's when the plane hits major turbulence. Oh, my goodness. Within milliseconds, my palms are sweating. And I don't mean like just a little bit wet, they're dripping within seconds. And for years I've really struggled with that. So for me, mental training has allowed me to push through, that has allowed me to actually fly with those nerves, fly with that pressure and really manage it. Now, am I perfect? Do I not feel any stress when we're in major turbulence? Well, no, I'm human. But I've used mental training and focusing on breath to allow me to actually operate within that unknown. And so I want you to think about where might that be helpful for you? Is it when the pressure's on and you're a bit anxious and you'd like to get a little bit more focus and flow? Is it when you go home and you're so damn stressed out that you're actually not showing up as the person you would like to show up as. You'd like to be a little more patient, you'd like to be a little more engaged, curious, you'd like to be a little more loving to the people that you should be loving most, but you're just struggling to do it because you're so stressed. Well, look, spending time on mental training, through meditation, through breath work, that's going to do you wonders. It could be as simple as setting aside three minutes a day to put on some white noise and just focus on the breath in and the breath out. And yes, your mind's going to wonder. Of course it is the Mind training and meditation is not about clearing your mind of all thoughts. It's about focusing on one thing and coming back to that thing as you start to move between other thoughts. That's the M E stands for exercise. You know, moving our body. We know that when we sweat we release bdnf, brain derived neurotropic factor. That is one of the greatest things we can release into our systems. Helps us stay healthy, helps with longevity, helps with mood. It's a big mood enhancer. We don't get that from anything else. BDNF can only be released when we sweat. So I want you to think about, you know, what does that look like? For me, the D stands for diet, but I also want this to be liquid diet too. And anything we consume, and that could be inhale as well. You know, what are you putting in your body? Would your great grandparents recognize it as food or would they go, what is that weird thing, you know, are you putting in processed food? Are you putting in whole food? Yeah, it's going to be pretty tricky to eat everything whole food. But. But is 70% of what you eat whole food and the rest can maybe be processed. But just think about the basics of health. You need to be putting in deep nutrients into your system that doesn't happen through processed food. It's whole foods. You know, alcohol, how much alcohol are you drinking? Caffeine, how much are you putting in substances that you're smoking? What are you doing that's impacting your health positively or negatively? And s last but not least, sleep. You know, we know that when we're awake for 18 hours, that's the equivalent of being legally drunk. Yep, you heard me right. That's the equivalent of being legally drunk. So would you operate machinery legally drunk? Hopefully not. Would you drive a car legally drunk? Hopefully not. So I want you to think about, hey, would I then happily go through a day of very little sleep and make important decisions? Hopefully not. So sleep is important, but what gets scheduled gets done. So to me your sleep should be scheduled. You should be saying, okay, at 8:30pm I switch off devices, I stop eating. At 7:30pm Devices are off. At 8:30 I maybe meditate or connect with family or read a book, stretch, yoga, whatever it might be. At 9 I'm in bed, lights out. At 9:15, 9:30, ish, I'm fast asleep. You know, simple stuff like that. Actually scheduling and pre committing to a sleep time is a game changer. Quality of sleep obviously going to be impacted by the temperature of your room. A room that's too hot. You won't sleep as well. Your sleeping partner. If you have someone sleeping beside you, they can greatly impact your quality of sleep. And sleep's not just about closing your eyes and then waking up a number of hours later at all. It's about REM sleep, deep sleep, light sleep. You know, what ratio of sleep are you getting? And the only way you're going to know that is by tracking it. So a couple of things you could do is get a Garmin. Garmin watch does a reasonably good job at tracking sleep. If you want to go next level, you want to be looking at the Oura Ring. Aura Oura Ring. And by the way, Garmin and Aura do not endorse the show. I don't get any kickbacks, so I just know that they're great products. I use Garmin myself. I'm considering getting an Oura ring, but those are things I would encourage you to do. Those are the meds, meditation, exercise, diet, and sleep. And all I'm asking you to do is go. In the last month, what would I rate myself? 1 to 10 for mindset? You know, am I sitting in a beautiful place? Am I really in flow and calm and responsive, or am I reactive and stressed? That might be a 2 out of 10 if you're reactive and stressed. But give yourself a 1 to 10. One really low 10. No room for improvement exercise. In the last month, how much have you moved your body? 1 to 10? 1. Not at all 10. No room for improvement diet. What's it been like? What have you consumed over the last month? 1 to 10. Last but not least, sleep. How have you been sleeping on average over the last month? One to ten. All I want you to do is look at which one was the lowest. And for the next month, just focus on that. Not all four, just for the next month. Focus on that one area that's your lowest. Ask yourself, what could I do to improve my meditation, exercise, diet or sleep, whatever one it is. And just explore your options. There are so many options out there, but you've got to actually pick a horse and ride it. You know, when people are trying to think, which way should I go and what options should I take? And pick a horse and ride it. Go. And I want you to think about the same thing with your meds. Figure out which one it is and then get after it and focus on that. If this podcast episode has been helpful, please share it with one other person that you think might benefit from it. Somebody else that's doing great things, getting after life, but could do with that extra little bit of insight and support around their well being. But please, for now get out there and lead your life on purpose.

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