412 Mark Struczewski ~ Productivity Gives You the Freedom to Have More Adventures

Transcript

Holly:  Hello adventurers and welcome to the Into the Woods podcast, episode 412. This is your host Holly Worton, and I am back with another exciting guest. I am super-excited to talk to Mark Struczewski. A few years ago, I was a guest on his podcast and now I have invited him to join us here.

I have been following him online ever since I first met him online and I have been particularly fascinated by his running streak, because Mark has been running every single day for 1,382 days, that’s almost four years of consistent running. Now, whether or not you are a runner, there is probably some hobby or activity that you would like to do more of.

So, in this episode we talk about daily running, habit creation, healthy living, how to change your lifestyle (if you want), and, most importantly, the freedom that comes when we become more productive in life. So, I think a lot of people balk at the concept of productivity, it sounds like you need to be productive working in a factory, or some kind of horrible place you don’t want to be. But, in reality, it is just about being more efficient with the limited time that we have: every day, every week, every month, in our lives, so that we can have the freedom to do the things that we love doing.

So, join us to hear how Mark how completely revolutionised his life through daily planning and healthy living and how you can do the same.

Mark is also known as “Mister Productivity” (and you will hear him say that throughout the interview). Mark helps entrepreneurs deal with the overwhelm that disrupts their focus. So please join me in giving a warm welcome to Mark Struczewski.

Holly: Hey Mark, how are you doing today?

Mark: Holly, I am doing awesome, how are you?

Holly: Good! I am super-excited to have this conversation with you, you have been on my mind for ages, and I am super-excited to have you on the show.

Mark: Well, I am glad to be here.

Holly: So, you have been running every single day for the last, what, 1382 days?

Mark: Wow, I wrote down the number here, so I wouldn’t forget, but today, June 10^th, I don’t know when this episode is going to be out, 1382 days ago, I started August 29^th, 2017.

Holly: Wow! That is consistency!

Mark: A little bit.

Holly: No that is huge because I have gotten back into running, I am kind of aiming for distance, so I don’t run every day, because sometimes I have a long run and so I don’t feel like doing anything the next day, but I am so impressed with your consistency, and I find it super-motivating. I loved seeing you, I know you are not on Instagram anymore, but when you would share your runs on Instagram, I would see them and be like, ‘oh he is running again, every day’, it is really inspiring.

Mark: Well, thank you for saying that (I did get off Instagram, Twitter and Tiktok, I am just on Facebook and LinkedIn), and I have not missed a day. Now, this morning, my Apple Watch/Strava gave me incorrect data; so I usually run the same route in the morning, and I know where the mile marker is, and I got there and it said .75 miles and I am like: no way, I know I have run this probably 500 times, and so it said I ran 2.35 miles but I know I ran 3 miles this morning, so it nipped me out of seven tenths of a mile.

Holly: Oh no!

Mark: So, in 2019 I ran over 1000 miles, in 2021 I ran over 1000 miles and the goal for this year is over 1000 miles. So far, as of June 10^th, I have run 467.2 miles and have just 532.88 miles to go. Since I started running in 2015, I have run 5228 miles.

Holly: Wow! I love that you have all the data. I only just started using Strava like last month, because I just got a proper running watch. But I love it, I love having the data, I love seeing where I went, how fast I went, I love it. I think it is just fantastic that you have all that. So why did you start running every single day, what were you hoping to achieve?

Mark: Well back in 2007, August of 2007, Euston was visited by Hurricane Herbert. And, he rained and rained and rained and rained for three days and, my wife and I, where we live, I guess we won the housing lottery because we don’t have a lot of reservoirs or ponds near us. So while the street flooded three feet, we didn’t get any water in our home. So during the height of the storm, when it was pouring buckets for days on end, I read an article on runnersworld.com, that said: what I have learned from running 1 mile a day, every day, for 250 days. And I thought: hmm, I could run that, I could do that. And so, I decided that, when the hurricane left, I would start running for 9/10 minutes to run a mile and I started running and I ran two days, and three days, and all of a sudden it became 50, and 500, and 1000. And people go: oh my gosh, are you still running? That must be a kind of record! And I am like: actually the record, the guy just passed away recently, I don’t know three/four weeks ago, he ran every day since May 26^th, 1969, I wasn’t even four years old when this guy started running!

Holly: Wow!!!

Mark: Yes, it is impressive to have the streak I have but there are people who have been running for way longer than I have and I don’t run for a marathon, I am not trying to impress anyone, I am not married, I am not trying to impress my wife. I run because I like to run. 

Holly: Yes, I love it. So what have you learned from running every single day for almost four years?

Mark: Well, in the early days, I woke up and [thought]: ugh, ugh, I have got to go running! Now, it is like I get to run, I don’t have to have my running stuff set out, because I run, it is part of my routine every day. Now, it is really stinking hot in the morning time, it is typically 90 degrees at 7.00am/7.30am, so needless to say, when you are in the South, you run really early in the morning, you don’t run in the afternoon because that would be unsafe. What I have learned is, no. 1, I can, so those days I go out running and my left knee will go: we are hurting, I am like: we are doing three miles, and it goes: okay and it stops hurting. It’s amazing how it works! I think when you do something so consistently you realise that you can apply it to other areas of your life: if I can run every day, well, maybe I can read every day, because I know a lot of successful people tell you that you have to read for a minimum of 30 minutes every day. So if you can run every day, you can read every day. If you can read every day, maybe you can engage on social media to promote your business brand and your cause every day. If you can do that, maybe you can drink half your weight in ounces in water every day. It just builds habits into your life.

Holly: Wow, I love that. So how else has it changed your life?

Mark: Well, my mother was diagnosed with late Alzheimer’s about three years ago.

Holly: Oh I’m sorry.

Mark: And Alzheimer’s is one of those things where you kind of know something is wrong with the individual but you are not a medical doctor and so, once my mum got diagnosed, I had the opportunity to talk to her neuropsychologist and I said: my mother’s mother died of Alzheimer’s and my mother will die from Alzheimer’s and I am like, is there anything I can do? Is this genetic, is this hereditary? And there are actually things to mitigate you getting Alzheimer’s, if you are running every day, that’s good; if you give up the processed food, get enough sleep…all the common sense stuff. And so, one of the things I run every day, is to keep my heart in good shape and to take care of my body because if there is a chance that, if I take care of myself, I can mitigate ever getting Alzheimer’s, I am going to do it. I will be 56, on June 21^st, and I want to live to 100. I still want to be running when I hit triple digits.

Holly: Oh, I love seeing older runners, I don’t see them on the trails here, but online, on videos, whenever I am watching a race and I see someone in their 60s, 70s, and they are doing ultra marathons, it is like: I want to be that, I want to still be doing this decades from now.

Mark: And what it is, you start with day one, you start with mile one. I mean, I have run 467 miles already this year, well, I started with the first mile. So many people are going: oh my gosh, 1000 miles in a year, that’s a lot. Woah, what about the first mile! It is like in the National Football League they always say, get the first down. Don’t worry about the touchdown, get the first down. If it is three yards, then it is three yards and I think a lot of people unnecessarily make being healthy complicated, it really doesn’t [have to be].

Holly: No it really doesn’t have to be complicated, it doesn’t have to be running! You know find your thing, find a thing that you love and try a bunch of things until you find it.

Mark: Yes, 100%.

Holly: So did you run when you were younger or is this like a brand new habit? Because I didn’t run in High School, I was not athletic in High School, I didn’t do anything and I didn’t start running until kind of my late 20s and I started running for a while and then I DNF’d a marathon and then I was like: oh, I’m not a good runner, so… so what about you?

Mark: I hated track in High School! I’m like, wait a minute you want me to run around this track and jump over these hurdles? Are you serious right now? {Holly: laughing} What are you smoking? No I didn’t do anything physically… I started running in 2015, probably, I bought a nice bike around 2012/2013. I was stupid when I was younger [thinking]: I am going to live forever, I don’t have to exercise, I can eat whatever I want, and when I was about 33 years old, I got an email from body going: dude, we are not working this hard any more! Okay, you can’t have all this crap because we are not going to work that hard. And of course, I am like, I am not going to listen to it and I started putting on a little weight and I started not feeling good, I had trouble walking upstairs and all this sort of stuff and I was like, huh, maybe I should listen to my body? And now, I am on this kick of eating hardly any processed foods, because I read a book that says processed foods, eating out at fast food restaurants, that’s not good for you, it is designed to get you, ‘oh this tastes so good, Big Mac and fries, eat, eat, eat’, and the body’s trying to go: okay, where’s the vitamins and minerals in this, I don’t see it. When you eat real foods, I dropped like 9lbs in a week, because all I eat is fruits, vegetables and meats, I don’t eat processed food. And now my body goes: oh, that’s what we want. For example, one of my favourite meals right now, is, you know those Italian [], I cook two of those and a red, orange or yellow bell pepper, no bun and my body goes: this is what we want. The only thing that really wants the sweets, the candy and the ice cream and Big Macs and things like that is your tongue, once passed the tongue, your body goes: okay what am I going to with this? With fruits and vegetables it goes: ah, this is what I want. And because I am Mr Productivity, when you give your body good food, it doesn’t have to work as hard. When you are eating processed food, your body has got to work so hard to process it but when you give it what it wants, it goes: oh you go here, you go there, you go there. That’s why I only drink water now, because when you drink just water and ambient temperature water, your body goes: this is what I want. Your body doesn’t want the soda, the liquor, and this sort of stuff, it wants water. I can tell you, I never say anything that I don’t live or breathe and I can tell you, since I have changed this, it has made a wonderful difference in my live. Something else I am doing, I listen to a book by Dr Lustig, he wrote a book called, Metabolical, and one of the things he talks about, everyone talks about how in the morning we should always have breakfast,’breakfast is the most important part of the day’, but do you know who came up with that saying?

Holly: Kelloggs.

Mark: Yes Kelloggs, very good! Because he made cereal.

Holly: {laughing} yes.

Mark: So what I started doing, I started about two weeks ago doing TRE, time restricted eating, so I don’t eat until… at 10.30am I have my green juice and at 11.00am I have lunch and then not eat until 8 o’clock at night. And that, and kicking out processed food, I have lost 8/9 lbs, I don’t remember exactly in seven/ten days, because now when I run in the morning it is only burning the fat and then when I am done with my run, at 7.30am, I don’t eat for another three hours. So my body goes, we are hungry, oh, we will just eat the fat. You will survive. It is amazing that I have had older people, my parents, my dad is 80 and my mum is 76 with Alzheimer’s and sometimes they have juice with cereal and a doughnut for breakfast.

Holly: Sugar, sugar, sugar.

Mark: And I am like, oh my goodness, that’s more sugar than I have in three days. And in America, the sugar lobby has got a lot of money, they say that 25% of your diet should be made of sugar when in fact your body does not need sugar, at all.

Holly: No, no, no.

Mark: I never intended to be a health and wellness guy, but the more I learned about productivity and energy in the body the more I started about heath and wellness and I am like: we don’t need sugar, we don’t need soda, we don’t need beer, we need to give our body, if you feed your body what it needs, your body will be very good to you. You will have better productivity, more energy and you will be happy.

Holly: Yes, you will just have more time to do the things that you want to do. I started intermittent fasting about two-and-a-half years ago and I can’t believe how much more time I have, because I am not cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner. I would eat real food, I wasn’t eating doughnuts and things for breakfast, I was eating eggs, but that takes time to cook, and now I don’t do that because if I want eggs I will have them for lunch or dinner, so I can still have the same foods, but just at a different time of day. And I have got so much more time, because I used to block out time for breakfast, lunch and dinner in the calendar. Ugh! Now I just think, I have got more time to do the things that I want to do, whether that is going for a longer run or working on my business or working on creative projects, I don’t have to spend all this time eating, because breakfast is not the most important meal of the day.

Mark: I used to do this thing on Saturdays, I was so proud of myself. Saturday was doughnut day, so I would run three or four miles and then I would get doughnuts on the way back. And then when I gave up the doughnuts, my body just said to me: oh thank you, because we didn’t need all that sugar. Now go and have an apple because apple has got sugar in it but it is not the same sugar as doughnuts because it has got fibre. If you just eat pure sugar, it goes down in your body and your body gets rid of it, but if you have sugar from an apple or a peach, or strawberries, it has got fibre in it so the fibre allows that nutrient to get into your bloodstream. I mean, if I were to go back to myself twenty years ago and say: you know what, you are going to become a health nut in 20 years. [I would have said:] No I am not! But do you know what? It has changed my life. I feel so much better now. I feel, like I said, in a couple of weeks, June 21^st I will be 56, I don’t feel 56, I feel like I am in my mid-40s and I think it is a direct result of taking care of myself.

Holly: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. My health was always pretty good until about mid-30s, my thyroid got messed up and I was just really low energy for about 9/10 years and I got on thyroid meds but they didn’t do anything to alleviate the symptoms, I gained the weight, I had no energy and I couldn’t do all the things that I wanted to do because I didn’t have the energy and it was fasting that turned that around for me. Both things, it helped me lose weight and it gave me the energy that I had been wanting. And now I am going out, doing longer runs, doing hikes/walks and all the things that I want to do because of this way of eating.

Mark: It’s amazing, I am sitting here right now and it is 10 o’clock as we are recording this and my body is going: okay in another 40 minutes you have your green juice and in an hour and ten minutes we get to eat some food! Do you know what? My wife is an intermittent faster and I used to make fun of her, I can’t go that long without eating. And she goes, you know, you don’t eat during the night! Okay that’s seven hours. Okay, you can do it. She actually fasted up to 35 hours before, I am like: that’s nuts! You can do it and I know right now my body is really hungry, but I know it is eating up my fat right now. It is like: okay, he is not feeding us food, so we will eat the fat and that is why you lose weight. I mean, definitely check with your doctor.

Holly: Absolutely.

Mark: I am telling you what works for me, you can go three weeks without food and three days without water, three minutes without oxygen, I don’t know, something like that, I don’t remember the exact thing. I don’t need to eat, there are people who go days without eating, your body is created so that it has got storage. If you have got a little belly on you, your body is okay. There will be food for your body, don’t worry you are not going to die.

Holly: You have got integrated snacks! {laughing} So you’ve had this huge life-changing revolution, you started running every day, you changed your way of eating, it has completely changed your life, so what motivates you to keep consistent with this, do you ever feel like not going out for a run? What motivates you to keep going? Is it just because you feel good? Or?

Mark: Well, I had become addicted to running. I am a data nerd so this morning when Strada, my Apple watch, told me I ran shorter than I did, when I know I ran three miles, but it is okay I still love you guys. But I want to take care of myself, I love the way I feel! I usually go to bed around 9.30pm and by 8.30pm/8.45pm I am exhausted. It is interesting because I can’t believe I am doing this stuff! I can’t believe it. As we are talking about it, I am like: oh my gosh! I take care of myself, I take my blood pressure, I always weigh myself, because, when I go shopping I see people who are 16 years old and they weigh more than me and you look in their shopping carts and there is cheese, doughnuts, there is ice cream and cookies and now I understand that that “food” is not really food. When I have a bell pepper, it is just a bell pepper. When I have almonds, it says almonds and salt, that’s it.

Holly: Yeah, there is no ingredients list.

Mark: Exactly, my peanut butter it says peanuts and oil, that’s it. But when you look at Oreos, or when you look at cupcakes or whatever, look at all the ingredients and all the stuff in there to preserve it, I read another book by a guy called Doctor Joseph Mercola and he wrote a book called: The Truth About COVID-19 and in there he talks about something called linoleic acid and it is found in Omega 6 and Omega 6 is the things they put in food to preserve it. So he says you need to calculate your linoleic acid ratio, you have got to track your gut and track your food (I used an app called Cranometer). And so, what the valuation is you find out what your omega 6 is, of course you have got to log your food, you multiply it x9 because it is 90% of omega 6, and you divide by the calories burned x100. Mine is usually less than 1. About a week ago I had a McDonald’s and my linoleic acid was 6.9.

Holly: Wow!

Mark: If you look at the omega 6 on the cranometer if you tap the omega 6 it tells you what your food is, pepper wasn’t, apples, strawberries, no; the chicken nuggets and the fries, that’s where all my omega 6 was, and they put omega 6 in to preserve the food. The bread I eat has got to be frozen, we eat is Ezekiel bread, it is 100%, wholegrain, there is no preservatives, there is no sugar. But has got to be frozen because there is no preservative to let it sit on the counter, if you leave this at the counter it will go bad. So the reason why the food manufacturers had to put all this stuff in the food, is because, they don’t know how long by the time they make it and they put it in the truck, then they take it from the warehouse to the store, before you buy it it is a very long time, so there are all these preservatives in there. Well they are finding out now that those preservatives are not good for our body, that is why any doctor worth their salt will tell you: eat non-processed foods. Always eat things close to the source, in other words, having an apple is better than apple sauce because apple sauce is processed and has sugar added to it. And I can tell you, I feel wonderful because of this and I know people go, well, do you always eat unprocessed foods. And well, once in a while my daughters come and visit and we are going to go to a steakhouse here in Texas and I will have French fries and I will have desert, but it is okay if you have processed foods once in a while, the problem is for most people in the world, they have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snack and they have the soda. Look, if you want to start, just say: one meal a day I am going to have all whole foods, one day. You see how it is going to make you feel and then you go to two days. Start small, I am not saying throw all the food out of your house, just go shopping instead of buying Oreo cookies, buy apples and then eventually, you can replace everything. Here’s the thing, you know where I am going with this Holly, if you get hungry like Oreos, or apples, who do you think is going to win?   

Holly: Well if your body is addicted to sugar, I think I would go for the Oreos

Mark: And I also learned something else on my show about the gut biome, if you eat non-processed foods, your gut biome will change and then you won’t crave sugar any more. It is amazing. Go to your favourite search engine and search, ‘how do I change my gut biome?’, it doesn’t take that long, we are not talking months or years, if you eat the right foods consistently, you change it. Now I have a rule, my wife and I go to Bible study and church every Saturday night and they always bring us processed cakes and brownies and that is the one treat I get, not the whole day, just the Bible study it is only about 30 minutes, that’s it, so I allow myself that. But you know what, since I have been on this kicking the processed food, it doesn’t taste as good as it used to.

Holly: I know the more real food you eat the worse the other stuff tastes.

Mark: Your brain is going, I remember how that tastes, take a bite… and go, ugh.

Holly: No it doesn’t, it doesn’t taste how you remember it, it is like your brain remembers this really yummy thing and the reality is totally different {laughing}. That happens to me with a lot of American junk food that I kind of grew up eating, like sometimes I will visit the States and I will be like: oh nostalgia, I feel like I want to eat that thing and I will eat it and just be like: have they changed the recipe or was it always that gross? I want to have this nice, nostalgic experience and it is just nasty.

Mark: I remember, a couple of years ago, I had a guest on my show from Australia and she said that she had visited the States and she said: you guys put sugar in everything! I mean there is sugar in bread, sugar in oatmeal, there was sugar everywhere. And I remember, I will admit, when I was a kid, my mum would say: look, we are not going to get sugared cereal, sugared cereal is not good for you. So she would buy cornflakes and I would put 5lbs of sugar on it, so [it was like]: mum you would be better off buying the fruit loops.

Holly: Yeah, exactly, it is the same effect. So you have shown, between your real food eating, and your 1382 days of running an incredible dedication to consistency. So how have you managed to fit this into your calendar? Because eating real food takes more time and running obviously takes time, so how do you get this done so consistently?

Mark: It come downs to priorities, what is important? So for example I am also trying to wean myself off TV. I find I put the TV on and my wife and I have this rule now that when a show is cancelled we don’t replace it with something else. But I think it does down to priorities, do you want to get healthier? Do you want to have more energy? It is easy to eat the crap, it is easy to binge watch Netflix, it is easy to just say, well, tomorrow I am going to go for a walk or a run or whatever, it is really easy. But, if you truly want to have more energy and be healthier, you have got to say: I am going to do this. And the longer you do it, my running streak or giving up processed food, every day gets a little easier but you have to make that decision and I think a lot of people really are like zombies from the walking dead, they are on autopilot. For example, when you wake up, what do you do when you wake up? Wake up and you get out of bed and you put your feet on the floor. You immediately make your bed and you turn all of the lights on in your room. If you are sleeping with someone then you get out of bed, you put your feet on the floor, you make your side of the bed and you go out into the kitchen and put the lights on. That stimulates the body to waking up. If you start doing that on a regular basis you won’t necessarily need an alarm clock. I needed an alarm clock this morning because I had trouble sleeping last night and I stupidly took Benadryl which knocked me out (and I have a Benadryl hangover right now), but you have to build a habit, the same way I did running, the same way I did reading every day. No one is going to do it for you. So you can say, oh man I wish I could be fit like Holly and Mark, well you can, but we can’t do it for you, we can tell you our stories, we can tell you what we are doing, but you have to make the decision and I tell you the best way to do this is, if you are going to start working out, go use an app like Strava, because you get other people cheering you on. If you try to do it yourself, you are going to say, well, I am going to take just today off. You are going to say, two days won’t hurt and all of a sudden it is two weeks and two months. Even if you get a buddy, someone you run with or walk with, you need to have someone holding you accountable because you don’t want to let them down. If you leave it yourself you are going to start rationalising, well I don’t have to go running today. Just over three months ago, we had a winter storm here in Texas, it seems weird as it is 86 degrees now, 85 degree heat index, but we lost power and I had snow in my yard here in Texas for two days; and I remember that Wednesday, it was really cold out, and I am like: you know what, I am not going to run when it is 5 degrees outside windchill, I am not going to do that, this is Houston for goodness sake. And so I am running in my house and then the power goes out. Now, most people would say, well, I can’t run today. But I grabbed a flashlight and I ran my three miles in the house. Because, I want to run every day. Now some people would say it was lunacy, why? What else am I going to do? Sit there and moan and groan about the power being out and it getting cold in the house. The room wasn’t that cold, it was 70 degrees in the house, 68, 65 and by the time the power came back on it was 52, but it wasn’t minus 52.

Holly: And you were warm because you were running.

Mark: Exactly, but most people were like: you had no power and you were running in your house, around the furniture, up and down the hallway with a flashlight? Yeah! And my dog knows when I am running she better stay out of the way because I will bowl her over. So she went into the kitchen with my wife and I got the run in. But my point is, how bad do you want it? Everybody wants to be skinny, everybody wants to be healthy, but what are you doing (d-o-i-n-g), I don’t want you to think about being healthy, what are you doing? See the magic doesn’t come from the dwelling, it comes from the doing and a lot of people are saying: I wish I could run 1832 days in a row. I am like you can, you start with day one, day two… Oh well I don’t have the right shoes, and they start making all these excuses. Well, you know, my neighbourhood is not safe…or whatever. Come on, you know, if you really want it bad enough you’ll find a way, Tony Robbins says, it is not a question of resources it is a question of resourcefulness. If you want to get in shape you will get in shape. If you don’t you won’t. When I heard that for so long when I was in my 30s and 40s, I [thought]: oh, it is a load of hogwash, but now I know it is true. You have got to want it in your heart, nobody is going to give that to you except for you. So you can listen to the motivational gurus, and watch the videos and go and follow me and Holly on Strava, but you have got to get out and go for a walk and go for a run, because if you don’t, nothing is going to change positively, it will certainly change negatively, because you will gain weight, you will probably get some diseases and then your life is going to crater. So you have to choose and if we get one person Holly, who is following this show, to do something, I will consider this a win.  

Holly: Oh me too, me too, absolutely. And I think one of the things growing up as a non-athletic person, or non-athletic kid, I just thought I was born that way and I just wasn’t athletic, but I am going to be 48 this year and you are going to be 56 and we started this fairly recently and we can do, so really? Anyone can do it, you just have got to start with something and you have got to start small. Start with what you can do and then build from there. It is ridiculous how well my body is adapting to long-distance running. I am really shocked. I am recovering better from my long runs, it doesn’t hurt as much, I don’t have to take Ibuprofen, like this morning I went on a six hour run. I got home an hour before our podcast. I feel great! I couldn’t do that a few months ago, but my body has adapted to it.

Mark: Did you say six hours? What the heck? Oh my gosh! Well, you know what, about five days ago, I decided to go running and all of a sudden the humidity landed in Euston and I went running five days ago and I am like: oh my gosh it feels like I am running in a sauna, it was like night and day and this happens every summer, it takes a couple of weeks for my body to go, what in the world is going on right now? And it is so bad, I only run three miles, because I run every day. You don’t run six hours every day?

Holly: No, no, no, no, no.

Mark: So what I do, my normal thing is, I run for a mile, I walk for a tenth of a mile, I run for nine-tenths of a mile to get to two minutes, I run for a tenth of a mile, then nine-tenths for three miles. Last couple of days, I run for a mile, walked for a tenth, ran for half a mile, I shortened it, because my body is going, oh my gosh. It is not that my body is not in shape, it is the humidity. If you have never been in really thick humidity. When I look at my weather app and look at humidity, you don’t want to know. That’s what it tells me, you don’t want to know. It is crazy and I hate this part because I love running, I wore a shirt that is supposed to whip the sweat from my body when I run and it is going…  

Holly: Can’t deal with it!

Mark: I don’t know what I want us to do but I wear a halo because I am bald and to keep the sweat off my eyes and I wring it and I wring it again, it is that hot here, but I don’t say, oh it is soo hot I can’t do it, I just listen to my body and I slow down.

Holly: You adapt.

Mark: Let’s say someone is listening and saying: well I want to start getting in shape, well here is what you can do: start taking a brisk walk, now a brisk walk just slightly elevates your heart rate, okay. Start doing that, do that for 20 minutes a day and then go to 25 and 30 minutes and you need to prioritise your health, because without your health you don’t have a life. So make a priority to take care of your health.

Holly: Yeah, exactly. So I think one of the biggest kind of objections that people have to getting in shape or creating new habits is I don’t have the time, I am just so busy, I don’t have time to run every day, I don’t have time… So what would you say to people that have that very common complaint.

Mark: Well, I am an entrepreneur, I have a daily podcast called the Mark Struczewski podcast and I interview people five days a week, I have coaching clients, I go live on social media to help people, I have a wife, I read for an hour every day, and I have time to run. And I get up at 6 o’clock in the morning and go to bed around 9 o’clock. If you want it bad enough you will find the time. Let me ask you this question listener, for two or three days I want you to write down everything that you do, everything. I don’t want you judging yourself I want you to write everything down. What you did and how long it took you. When you do the list, and I want you to be completely honest, you don’t have to share this with me or Holly because the problem is, y’all keeping the stories up in your head: oh I am not wasting that much time but you are. If you write down everything you do, all day long and I don’t want you to get micro like I went to pee for 30 seconds, I am not talking about that. But: I watched Netflix for four hours, I was scrolling on Instagram for three hours. Write all that stuff down and you are going to see where your time is going. You have 30 minutes to exercise, you do. What is happening is you are so busy doing stuff that doesn’t move the needle, it doesn’t move the needle. I mean, what is binge watching a show on Netflix, how is that helping you in the future?

Holly: And it is probably not bringing you that much joy. Like an hour of Netflix is okay, or half an hour, that is relaxing. But once you get beyond that, is it really making you that happy to watch that? Is it taking you where you want to go in life, probably not?

Mark: Good point but I think the magic is creating a list of what you are doing. And when you write it, don’t do it on your phone, do it in a notebook. Because there is something that happens kinaesthetically when you write, ‘wasted 3 hours on social media’, now it makes the connection in your brown, oh my gosh, you have the time. Don’t tell me you don’t have the time, you have the time. Gary Vaynerchuk, one of the busiest entrepreneurs on this planet, he makes it a priority to exercise every morning. You have the time, the problem is that it is not a priority for you. So you can make the time. I love going through my timeline on Strava and I don’t really give love to the bicycle people, I look for the sneaker icon.

Holly: Yes, yes {laughing}.

Mark: So I will give love to them, and I am impressed: wow these people! I run about a nine-minute mile and I see people running five-minutes and I am like, oh my Lord!, five-minute mile.

Holly: I am slow.

Mark: Some people are naughty like you and run six hours, but I wish I could sort it just by people who run, that would be really nice. You know, get involved in a community, maybe friends at your Church or friends in your neighbourhood, all walk together and run together. You need to get people with you, because when you don’t feel like ,it and they do, they will say: come on, let’s go, let’s go. But if you are doing it on yourself, you will be sitting in bed and it will feel really cosy and you [will think]: it is so comfortable here, just five more minutes…and then all of a sudden you won’t go. So you need to get at least one other person that’s going to do it with you and you don’t have to know them in person you can connect with someone on Strava. And say, look, make sure I run every day. But you have got to move. I have an Apple watch and the best thing about the Apple Watch is that there are three rings on it, there is a move ring, a stand ring and an exercise ring. And so, I close my rings every day for like 600 days in a row. So I exercise for 30 minutes, I stand at least one minute every hour for 12 hours and the move ring is partly exercise, but I walked up from the computer and got some water, it is like 2 calories. So every time you are moving: you walk to your car, you go shopping you get credit for it. So I say, whether you have an Apple Watch or not you need to close your rings every day, which means you need to be standing up every hour and walking around for at least a minute, we were never designed to sit endlessly behind screens on Zoom calls.

Holly: Yeah I know, and I think it is important to point out, if you are hydrating well enough that I can see that you are, you are going to have to go to the toilet at some point to pee. I always have a pint of water and if it is winter a cup of herbal tea on my desk, I am always drinking something and so I have to go to do the toilet on a very regular basis. That is getting me moving, because I have to, it’s a bodily necessity. So building in these baits, like healthy eating, heathy hydration, that is going to help you move and do other things as well. It is such a holistic perspective I think.

Mark: And I am so glad in 2021, health has come to the forefront right now. This whole thing with Covid going on, I have done a lot of research on it, I have done a lot of reading on it, and you know, I am not going to get into should you get a vac, should you not get a vac, but I really believe that our immune system is our protector and you need to boost your immune system. So when it is sunny out here in Houston, if I go at solar noon, which is about 1pm, I only have to sit out there for about 20 minutes to get 6000 IUs, because that is the best way to get vitamin D, don’t eat processed food, you exercise and you get enough sleep, you boost your immune system. So that way you don’t have to worry about getting sick. I work from home so I very rarely go among other people. I don’t wear a mask around my house, or a mask when I am running, I can’t remember the last time I wore a mask, it must have been about six/seven months ago.

Holly: Oh wow!

Mark: Because I take care of myself. I really believe thatMark: Because I take care of myself. I really believe, like Dr Lustig talks about, in this book Metabolical, food is a medicine. It is better not to take the vaccine but eat better. A lot of people what they are doing, they are saying: I am going to take the vaccine but I am still going to eat like crap, I am still going to drink wine, I am still going to have cigarettes and do drugs, well, why did you take the vaccine then, what’s the point? Because you are doing all these other bad habits… They think that the shot, they think it is going to cover all the bad habits, it is not. It is not. 

Holly: No, you are going to have other problems…

Mark: They said the recover[y] rate if you get Covid is 98.9% and only people with pre-existing conditions are the ones that are dying from it, but I would argue that people who are struggling with it are people who either have preexisting conditions or don’t take care of themselves. They are obese, they are morbidly obese, they are not drinking water, or they are having all this processed food and their immune system is compromised. I don’t know a single person, I know a lot of people, who have taken care of themselves, which means that they have a strong immune system, that got Covid. I know people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, 90s, they never got the shot, they work in a corporate office, they take care of themselves. Now am I saying this is 100% the case, no.

Holly: No.

Mark: I can’t possibly ask everyone, but when your immune system is strong it is designed to go, well you may have been exposed, I may have been exposed to Covid, I have no idea. My body goes: oh wait a minute, next time that comes we know how to fight that. And that’s how the immune system does. And I think we know what the immune system does, it is so powerful. But when you take a shot you are telling your body, look we got this. And I am like, I would rather trust my immune system, because my immune system is like the advanced, artificial intelligence. So I don’t want to go down the whole Covid thing because no. 1 your whole podcast maybe get banned from social media.

Holly: {laughing} yeah.

Mark: But I have some very strong opinions and I have got a lot of friends who have the same strong opinions. I don’t think a pill or a shot is the answer, I think taking better care of yourself is the answer. Eating better food, drinking lots of water, exercising, I think that is the solution, not turning to big pharma. Obviously this podcast…big pharma won’t be listening to it and cheering on, but they make money by pushing their drugs.

Holly: Yeah, of course.

Mark: And I believe there is a saying, ‘an apple a day, keeps the doctor away’, I never understood that. And one of my guests told me that the reason why is the second brain is your gut, if you eat an apple, the apple starts breaking down and it changes your gut biome, and if you take care of yourself you are not immune but you are more resistant to diseases because your body can fight it off. If all you do is smoke, and you are overweight, and you never exercise and you do drugs and drink until you are unconscious, your immune system is a train wreck. If someone knows one person who is very healthy, who takes care of themselves, who exercises, they died then let me know.

Holly: I don’t know any of those. So Mark, have you always been a productive person? Or how did you get into productivity? Was it like running, where you got into it later in life, or have you always been super-efficient?

Mark: Very good question. I was born an only child.

Holly: Me too.

Mark: Oh okay, I grew up in a very structured household. I mean we had dinner at 5pm and I was expected to be there at 5pm. If I was out playing with my friends, dinner was at 5pm. So I would come home from school at 3.30pm and my mum would be home around 4pm/4.30pm and I best have my homework done before I went outside and played and I better be washed up and at the table at 5.00pm and when dinner was done I had to clean the table and I remember a time when there was no dishwasher, I had to wash the dishes. I know some people on the podcast go: no dishwasher! But yeah, dishwashers weren’t around since the beginning of time. So I grew up in a structured household so I think naturally when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in my life and one of my coaches said, ‘why don’t you teach productivity?’ I am like, why? They said because you are so naturally productive you could share that with the world. That’s how I came Mr Productivity, this stuff comes very natural to me. I mean when people say, like we talked about earlier: I don’t have the time, I am like, oh yes you do. If Mark [] has time, Elon Musk has time, you have time. And so, when I look at people and I say: tell me what you spend your time on, they just generalise, they always say: well, I do a little this and that. And I say: tell me specifically and they don’t like that. So in answer to your question, I have always been productive because I was raised that way.     

Holly: Yeah, I think I had a very similar upbringing, my mother was very, very, organised, things happened at a certain time, you get there on time, stuff gets done. {laughing}

Mark: My household, it drives my wife crazy, if you say, ‘be there at 10.00’, to me that’s 9.45, not 10.00.

Holly: Me too! {laughing} Me too.

Mark: Alright, virtual high five.

Holly: I have had partners who have not been as timely as I am and it is a source of great stress to me sometimes. {laughing} So for people who want to have hobbies and adventures and they want to prioritise them, what productivity tips or tools can they use to make sure that their hobbies and adventures are a priority.

Mark: No. 1, I would say, come to me as a coach! But, for free, I would tell you that you need to sit down, and I don’t want to sit down with the TV on or people talking. I don’t even want you to have you sit in front of your computer. I want you to go to some place, maybe clear off a table, all I want you have is a piece of paper and a pen and maybe water. And I want to say ok, what are the things I want to do. So you have to work, okay, you have got work. What do you want to do? Do you want to take up a craft? Do you want to learn a new skill? Then write all of this stuff down. Then, okay, now I am going to create my schedule, I am going to start planning, because what gets scheduled gets done. You need to tell your time where to go, instead of wondering where it went. So you open up your planner for tomorrow and you go okay: I am going to work nine hours tomorrow, I will take an hour for lunch, that leaves me four hours. I already have four hours worth of stuff in my schedule, that leaves me four hours, what am I going to fill those four hours with? If you don’t tell those four hours where to go, that’s when you go to Netflix or Hulu or Facebook. You need to say, okay, I want to be on Facebook, I will allow myself 30 minutes on Facebook, you put it in your calendar. Okay, I want to read for 30 minutes, put that in your calendar. Okay, I want to learn this new skill, I will put an hour in my calendar. You put it on your calendar and you stick to the plan. What a lot of people do is they keep everything in their head: well, I’ll do this. But if you put it on paper first, now you can put it on your iPhone later, but put it on paper first, you are going to be able to see… What I encourage you to do is write down the hours you are going to work, and then put lines across so you can see or get yourself a planner and [you will go]: okay now I see, now that works for me. Will it always be perfect? No. But you are going to be light years ahead of other people, light years, if you sit down and say, this is what I want to do tomorrow. Most people don’t do it, they wing it. Don’t wing it.   

Holly: Yeah, my head is going to fall off because I keep nodding at everything you are saying {laughing} but I use Google calendar to run my life and I have everything colour-coded and time-blocked and if I don’t do that, I just do stuff. That era is long gone but if I don’t time block everything and say: okay, I am going to do an hour here of this and an hour of that, I going to spend three hours on that. I have got to work on a client’s book, so that’s going to take me a couple of hours. If I don’t do that I just don’t do anything in the day, I fiddle around with my emails or do some ‘social media marketing’, and I am saying that with air quotes because sometimes it is strategic and sometimes it is just looking at my timeline. I absolutely have to block everything out in my calendar. And sometimes I overestimate and it takes me less time so I adjust that in my calendar and I drag and drop everything around. Sometimes it takes me more time, so I have to shift some things to tomorrow. But I always update my schedule based on how long it actually took me to do that stuff so that I know, next time I have to do that task, it is going to take me an hour, or two hours, or whatever.

Mark: Absolutely. Like I say, tell your time where to go, rather than wondering where it went. You will never get it perfect, there are times where I will schedule different things throughout the day and then I [will think]: you know what, I am in a groove right now, so I am going to move this one to later in the day and I am going to keep working on this, that’s okay!

Holly: Yes, you can change.

Mark: We are not talking about the Ten Commandments here! You can move things around, if you are in the flow, don’t go: oh, it is time to stop. No don’t stop the flow. But that doesn’t happen a lot, but when it does allow yourself grace to do that. A lot of people they just don’t take the time to plan their days and then they get to the end of the day and they go: what did I do today? I have no idea and they sit there and think, I literally have no idea because they weren’t intentional with their time. Just take the time and the more you do it, it doesn’t take you as long.

Holly: No.

Mark: But when you first start it is going to take you longer and then every time you do it, it is going to take you less time.

Holly: It is like building a muscle really, your productivity muscle. So I posted on Instagram asking people questions they had about productivity and no one answered. One person was like: I’m curious where the word productivity came from, was it coined during the industrial era and geared more towards productivity of machines and how much we produce via machines? And I was like, really? For me, it is just about being efficient with the limited time I have available because I have some stuff that I have to do and I want to be efficient with that so I can do the things that I want to do, like go on a crazy 6-hour run on a Thursday morning. Obviously I am going to get my work done later today than I normally would, but I made sure that I got other stuff done other days of the week, so I had the time to do this big block of running. So it’s about being efficient.

Mark: To me, it is all about freedom.

Holly: Yes, yes.

Mark: One of my clients, one of the things she has always wanted to do, she has got a side hustle, okay. But, she never got around to doing her side hustle and she really loved the side hustle, but after I coached her, she has three categories, she has got: personal; she has got work; and she has got her side hustle. Now she has time because she says, this is my personal bucket, this is my work bucket and this is my side hustle bucket and she never neglects the side hustle bucket and if work runs over she goes, no, sorry, this is time for side hustle. And people go, what do you mean? How are you doing that? Well, I heard this guy’s name, Mr Productivity, and he help me set up these buckets and so I set my work hours from 9-5, it is now 5pm I am done. And they are like, really? I have been here at work all day. She is a CEO/CFO but she has been there and she goes, now it is time, I have an hour of personal time, dinner and stuff like that and now I do my side hustle. She never did that, she would just work and work and work until she couldn’t work anymore. So if you want freedom, you have to harness the power of Mister Productivity. If you need help guess what, you don’t have to go it alone, just go to MisterProductivity.com or go look up MisterProductivity on Facebook. I am here to help you, I have been doing this for a long time so if you don’t know where to start then let me help you. You can pay me, not pay me, I am still going to help you.

Holly: Yeah, I think that is really, really, important, working with a coach can help with any area of your life. I have seen business coaches, I have seen writing and publishing coaches, I have seen fasting coaches (when my fasting kind of stopped working, I saw a fasting coach), if there is an area of your life that is not working, like productivity, like freedom, get a coach. Work with someone who specialises in that particular area also, because coach is a general time and usually coaches focus on one area, so see an expert like Mark to help you with this. I mean so many people struggle with time and I really love that you said that productivity is about freedom, because it is about setting boundaries for your time, certain things, as you have just said, this for this, that for that. I have my stuff colour coded in my calendar, as I said, client work is one colour, my creative work is another colour, eating is another colour, everything is a different colour so I can see how much time I am spending on each thing. So that is really helpful as well, well for me, because I am a visual person. So Mark, tell us about your coaching, how do you help people with productivity?

Mark: Well I have two coaching options, one is called Digital Productivity Coaching program and I love that because I actually go live twice a month, the first and third Fridays, except for June, because I actually went to Tony Robbins’ UPW. What I do is I teach for 30/45 minutes and then I answer any questions you might have about productivity. So, I take that recording and I put it in the membership area so that if someone joins they can go and look at the last calls, whatever the case may be. So that is $49 a month. But I have this thing going it is $7 for seven days so you can test drive it, see if you like it, if you like it then you stay, if you don’t, then don’t. I don’t beg people to stay. But some people have 1:1 coaching and I have a 12 week program, which are 45 minute coaching calls. We get on a Zoom and we talk really specifically about your issues. Now I do cover in the 1:1 we still go through the 12 step process to productivity that we go through the group but the difference is, now you have me 1:1, the group do not get me 1:1. Unless you are the only one who shows up for a group coaching call, which is very rare, then you get 1:1 with me but that is also going to go in the group area. So a lot of people they don’t want to talk in front of a group for whatever reason and they want 1:1. So I do offer both of them. I love serving people, I really love helping people and I have had people go to my coaching program, oh my gosh this thing is phenomenal. My number one client, I hate to choose my favourite, but she is like, you have changed my life! And, this Friday, actually tomorrow, June 11^th, my first call of this month, she almost wasn’t going to make it because her company had her do a presentation and the person who was going to make a presentation took a vacation day and so she had to fill in and then she texted this morning, hey the speaker cancelled I can come. You know when people that, you know that you have got something good going on. So I just invite people to go to MisterProductivity.com and check out the program. If you go to the site you can actually get a free 20 minute call with me and ask me any question you want about the Digital Productivity Coaching Program, does it do this? Do I get this? You can ask me all these questions, that’s my gift to you, but I really believe that the people who joined in the beginning, the building wasn’t completely built, and the door stuck, I mean there were parts of the building that wasn’t even built yet and was like outside/open and the rain was coming in. So they have been with me. I have refined it and refined it and now I have finally hit my stride with it and people absolutely love it, I don’t mean to shoot my own horn but you can go to one of my client’s testimonies, on my homepage. She goes: I get frustrated because people ask her, how are you so productive? And she tells them about DPC, digital productivity course, it is only $49 a month and it is lot of money. She goes, you go to Starbucks five days a week, how much are you spending on Starbucks a month?

Holly: A fortune!

Mark: This is $49 a month and it has changed my life. And she goes: I don’t get these people. I am like: you are complaining about how you are not productive, you see how productive I am, I tell you the solution and I am like: $49 a month you spend that two weeks in Starbucks. She goes: I bought the dinner with my boyfriend I spent more than $49. So again, what we already talked about on the show, what is important to you, what are your priorities? Obviously these people who are in awe of your productivity, getting better is not important to them. I accept them, I will be here when they want my help.

Holly: And you know, as you said before, it is about having more freedom to do the things that you really want to do the things that make you happy, the things that bring you joy. Productivity gives you that time and that joy. So Mark, people can find you at: MisterProductivity.com, where else can they find you online? I know you are back on Facebook.

Mark: Don’t forget when you go to MisterProductivity.com it is Mister. Facebook again, Mister Productivity, I have a page and a group there and I am also on LinkedIn as Mark Struczewski and I have the Mark Struczewski podcast. I am just trying to serve as many people as I can. Just don’t expect me to serve you if I am on a run, some people say, hey Mark how’s it going? I am not stoping for you because if I stop I won’t keep on running but otherwise I just want to help people.

Holly: Perfect and can you tell us a little bit about your podcast, because it used to be weekly and now it has moved to daily.

Mark: I don’t know what I was thinking on January 1^st when I said, hey I am going to do a podcast every day and then right away had a guest cancel because she had some health issues, but I have done the podcast every day. It used to be all productivity all the time and now I try to tell people if you are familiar with Joe Rogan, it’s a kind of clean version of Joe Rogan. It’s about having a show that helps the listener, I know that peoples time is so precious and so I very carefully vet every guest, every time I talk on the show I want to make sure that I am giving people value. So I go live once a week, I have a Facebook page and I am on LinkedIn and YouTube and then again on my Facebook Group, which are two different lives, I will take that recording and I will put it as an episode of my podcast because I repurpose it, I want to help as many people as I can. So some people read the transcript on my website, some people watch me live, whatever, I just want to help people and I love the podcasting because it is my own personal radio station and I can do whatever I want to do. I am not reliant on Facebook or LinkedIn, it is my show, I am the boss.

Holly: love it! Thank you so much for joining us today. I have really enjoyed talking with you about running and eating and not eating and…{laughing} and all the good stuff, because for me this is all about freedom.

Mark: Yes it is and while we were talking just now my watch went off and said, hey it’s time to take your green juice because I have to take it 30 minutes before eating. But it is okay, I just set my stopwatch, when I am done, I set the timer for 30 minutes. The green juice used to taste horrible but I have had it four months now, I am used to the taste now and it is all nutrients which is really awesome.

Holly: Great, well thanks again for joining us, enjoy your green juice. I’m sorry it is a half an hour late but it will be good for you.

Mark: No worries. Thank you so much for having me, thank you so much for having me on.

Holly: Have a good day.

Holly: So, I hope you enjoyed that interview. I hope you found it interesting and inspiring and I hope it inspires you to find the things to do that bring you joy and create new habits. If you have any questions please do get in touch with Mark, or get in touch with me, because I think I am a pretty productive person as well. And please drop me a line and let me know what you thought of this week’s episode, you can email me at: [email protected] or you can find me online and get in touch there. As always, remember to visit: HollyWorton.com/412 for the show notes on this episode.