Special Guest Expert - Alison Katschkowsky: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

Special Guest Expert - Alison Katschkowsky: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
How many times have you said to yourself, I'm going to succeed? And yet you keep coming up short? You probably noticed that high achievers with heart do things differently, but you just can't put your finger on it. You're curious about why high achievers accomplish more and have more satisfying relationships. It's because success is the result of your mindset and the consistent actions you take. This show is designed with your success in mind. By revealing these powerful patterns of our dynamic individuals and guest experts, you can model what they do and apply it to your future success. Now let's roll up our sleeves and get started. My name is Brigitta Hoeferle and this is the Success Patterns show. And you are here at the right place at the right time. And here's the golden nugget. Success patterns are more valuable than ideas. Let me explain. Ideas, while very powerful, require trial and error and a lot of time to put into action. Just think about manufacturing. First you have this grand idea, then the proof of concept, then a working prototype, then a small production batch, and then.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Finally full scale production.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
This takes months, maybe even years. And you may have met some folks that are collectors of great ideas, but they do little else. Forget everything you've heard about ideas because you're not looking for ideas. You are looking for success patterns. Success patterns are different than success patterns are better. Why? Well, success patterns are proven. Have a logical sequence of steps to follow. Have an action imperative and deliver consistent results. In today's content rich success patterns show you're going to learn these valuable patterns as we have a swimmer amongst us, and that is not what she does anymore. We have an incredible woman who is a lifelong fitness enthusiast. She is a successful entrepreneur in the health and fitness industry with over 30 years of experience. And she's founded C.U. fitness, and we're going to learn what Q stands for in a little bit, a unique health and fitness hybrid business that combines in-person and online coaching to promote fitness, mindset and self care. Her expertise extends to organize transformative retreat experiences worldwide, and she mentors other entrepreneurs to develop their own hybrid business models. Additionally, she has been a member of the Exercise and Sports Science faculty at Meredith College for nearly 25 years. She hosts the podcast titled The Ultimate Journey to Self Care of Self Care and Creating the World's Best Client Experiences, available on all of your major podcast platforms, and I am honored to say I have also been featured on her podcast. So without further ado, allow me to bring up Allison Kosowski. Allison, thank you for being here.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yes.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So see you. Fitness. What is the U stand for?

Alison Katschkowsky:
It's so funny when people ask me that. I think they're expecting some grand long name. It's create the ultimate you.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Create the ultimate you. And who doesn't want that? Tell me, who would not want to create their ultimate self?

Alison Katschkowsky:
It's hard for me to imagine. I don't think anybody wouldn't want to. You know, so the question is, how do you do it? Because everybody's a little bit different.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah, I think that's the million dollar question here. How do you create your ultimate self? Especially for the ones I mean. Entrepreneurs are one type of people, right? And then you also have folks that are working in corporate and I don't I wouldn't say that entrepreneurs are not the ones or are not the ones that are constantly moving and on their toes and taking care of themselves, because I know plenty of entrepreneurs that don't do that. Right. But I think in corporate it's falling more into that. Sitting at your desk like I am right now, like you are right now. What does that do with the body?

Alison Katschkowsky:
You know, I'm so glad you brought that up, because sitting is becoming the new smoking. If you can let that sink in for a minute.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Thanks.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Yeah. And the simple fact is, is that our bodies are created to move and move often. And that's the key. The key is always. And the goal is always to move often. Move well and move pain free. Right. And the way we do that is to incorporate what you were so beautifully saying at the intro to your show is to establish that success pattern. Right? And just continue. Continue to do it repeatedly. Right.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So when we continue to do that repeatedly, we're creating a habit.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Yes, absolutely.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Now, you know, you said sitting is the new smoking. Smoking is a habit. So when sitting I would assume is also a habit. The way we conduct business is a ritual and a habit. So all we got to do, Allison, from what I'm hearing you say, is create a habit of going to the gym or going to, um, going to the pool or going to for a walk or for a run. Or is that a habit?

Alison Katschkowsky:
Well, it can become a habit, but I think I think people people are consistently looking for the magic bullet is the word I like to use. They're looking for the next best thing, the quick fix what's going to work. Because people we become conditioned as a society to expect results quickly. And I think what we fail to really think about, and sometimes I have to be honest, even as a fitness professional, I've fallen into this trap before, too, of thinking if we do something a few times, we're going to get the result that we want. But it's only when we do something over and over again and it becomes a habit and really part of who we are and how we live our life on a day to day basis. That's when we see the results that we want.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And when we see the result that we want, we will then be more energized or driven or disciplined. May I say the word motivated to do more of that? So it's like it's a catch 22 though.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Right. Well, it is because I think that we get so focused on looking for a specific outcome that we forget that really the, the, the whole reason that we're doing it is what we're learning along the way. We're literally becoming a different version of ourselves. So if we want to get somewhere that we've never been okay, or if we've tried, if we're trying to work to get somewhere that we've consistently struggled to get to, we're going to have to look at doing things different. And the secret of our success is always in what you do every day. It's always in the little things. It's finding that right rhythm and that right series of things that you can just easily rinse and repeat, and then it becomes a habit. And when it becomes a habit, we don't think about it. We just do it.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Write it. Now we're on auto. So during the pandemic, I think the standing desks, which I have one right here, have become very popular. So now we're going from sitting to standing. Is that better? Is that different. And and how does that break up the pattern.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Well, the the thing about standing and what we have to understand first is from the physical standpoint, when we sit all day, we're not really using our body in the way it was intended. Not only are we not moving, but we're not engaging our muscles. Then on top of that, you think about all the postural muscles that we're not using, because how easy is it just to kind of, you know, slouch? And honestly, I have to remind myself to sit up straight, right? I mean, I think we all do. It's just not something that really comes easy. So when you add a standing desk in, then guess what? Not only are we using more muscle, we're more conscious of our posture. All of that comes through in the energy that we use to present ourselves. Right? And so at the end of the day, we've not only have we expended more energy and burn more calories, but we're doing more to kind of help keep ourselves more physically fit because we're being more physical throughout the day.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. So, so, so to to to come to that point again, breaking up the sitting at the desk, I mean, I went to a meeting yesterday and the woman was literally eating at her desk. Yeah, yeah. No kidding. Not even she probably got it through DoorDash, not even getting up and go out just for a walk. Yeah. So how often, Alison, would you say people that are sitting that have a sitting job, how often should they break it up, and how should they break it up with? One of the.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Things that I always tell people, tell my clients, or when people ask me, this is the easiest thing to do is to set your phone or set some kind of alarm so that you get up at least once an hour. So if you think about it, you know one of the most common one. I don't want to call it an excuse. I guess it is an excuse, but one of the common reasons that people give for why they can't do something. I don't have time. I'm too busy. I'm overscheduled. Right? This is typically what we hear all the time. But if you just took a five minute break every hour, five minutes throughout the day, in an eight hour workday is 40 minutes that you're getting up and you're doing something besides sitting. So at the end of the day, you've created 40 minutes for yourself and activity. When you've tried to tell yourself that you haven't had time for it before. That's the that's the great irony in all of it, is that we say we don't have time. Okay, let's look at that. We take a break once an hour. That gives us 40 minutes right then and there. And that's not even counting if you got a workout in.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Well, and you know, if anyone that has ever smoked is listening to this, they're like, if you're addicted to the smoking, you must take that break to go out and have a smoke. I don't know what that feels like because I never smoked, but it's the same strategy. Maybe not as helpful or definitely not as healthy. Mhm.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Yes. Absolutely.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
The so if someone then breaks it up so five five minutes every hour that adds up to 40 minutes. Does that replace the boot camp or the going to the gym or the additional walking or the additional swimming or whatever?

Alison Katschkowsky:
Well, I'm going to be very careful how I say this, because I don't want anyone listening to get the wrong idea. Um, I'm always in the camp of what I like to call living in the. And I'm always in the camp where let's not choose one or the other. Instead, let's create a schedule and a scenario where it's possible to achieve both. So, for example, for the person who's very time crunched, okay. And today's day and age, it's so easy to get that extra activity in. So if you work the five minutes in once an hour, like we're talking about, and you're looking at a very basic workout routine, maybe it's not even every day that you go to the gym. Maybe it's 2 or 3 days a week. That's still the best of both worlds. So it's it's not really an issue of having one or the other. The question should always be, how can we make both happen, and how can we do it in a way that really works for us? So the what I like to say is you literally have to learn to innovate your workout like you like you innovate in your business. Every successful entrepreneur that I know is an innovator to some degree. We have to learn to do that with how we take care of ourselves too, because it's not a one size fits all, you know, and just because it works for your friend doesn't always mean it's going to work for you.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Right. So it's also very individualized. Now your your fitness program is not just in person. It is also online.

Alison Katschkowsky:
That's correct. That's correct.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And and how do how do folks. Find out about. Like I would assume we have some some listeners and some followers here that are that are realizing that they are sitting at their desk all day, you know, all week, all month, all year that something's got to give. And now Amazon shows up and they're like, okay, how tell me.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Well, we're spending like to your point, let me just backtrack for a minute to your point. If you're if we're really like having that reality check and we're thinking about how long we're sitting, think about it, eight, at least eight hours a day, and most every just about every entrepreneur that I know works more than eight hours a day at some point, right? So we're actually talking about more time than that to sit. So if you're looking for like an in-person and online type experience, what we do here in our fitness and workout channel is that this gives you an opportunity to do challenges your way on your time. So in other words, wherever it is that you go, if it is the gym, if it's home, if it's the office, if it's somewhere else, then you have the opportunity to work in small challenges your way so you make it work for you. The whole point is we want to be consistent, but we also want to be effective. And I'm speaking to the walkers and the runners out there who are just used to doing the one thing. Sometimes the one thing just isn't enough. So we want to we want to give ourselves as many opportunities to be successful as we can.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Switch it up.

Alison Katschkowsky:
That's right.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
So switching it up is a big piece. Is I'm just going to throw this out there because, you know, I get some questions here. Walking the dog is does that is that switching it up. Yeah.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Well it's it's activity. And look what we want to think about is how much activity is activity. Okay. Our body's not going to say oh to your point. You're walking the dog. That doesn't count. That's not real exercise. You're you're washing the car. That's not real exercise. You're doing yard work. That's not real exercise. The point is, is it's activity is activity. The more activity you do, the more energy you're going to expend, the more opportunity your body is going to have to become more energy efficient, which is really the goal to start with.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
You know, so it's like a cycle and you got to enter that cycle somewhere.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Yeah, absolutely. Like one of the things that I do here, even though I'm sitting right now, I've actually just bought a standing desk. I'm just waiting for it to get here to your point. So but even so, once an hour I'll be getting up and I have stairs here in my studio. I'll go run the stairs a couple of times. I'll get up and walk to the restroom and back. I'll walk outside to where I'm parked and back. Sometimes that five minute break, if it's even, that is enough to just refresh your energy and just give you kind of a different perspective on things.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
I love it, yeah, because I have my elliptical. I'm looking at it right now, my elliptical here in my office. And sometimes when I'm just so where sometimes I come to a point, you probably everyone that's listening to this right now can relate. Sometimes I come to a point where I'm, I don't even know what to do next. Of the 5000 things that I should be doing, I don't know what to do next. So I take a timeout, I get in motion. And once this is one of the laws that I teach, is a body in motion stays in motion. And when when you change one modalities, the others will follow. So a modality is something that you think, something that you do, something that you hear, something that you see. Right. And as a veteran swimmer, I'm curious what got. And when you change that modality, it gets you into a specific zone. It gets you into the state of flow. How do you get into that state of flow?

Alison Katschkowsky:
For me, this is this might sound a little woo woo for people listening, but I'm just going to say it for me, it is for me. It is about the way that I'm feeling. And that's one of the things that I love about fitness, because I think we can always find that next level. We can always find that next gear to challenge ourselves, to create a different feeling. Right? And so for me, one of the reasons that I love swimming so much was, is that it allowed me to really focus on the feeling and focus on the outcome that I wanted. And that's one of the things that I still focus on now, regardless of what I'm doing, whether I'm lifting weights, whether I'm walking, whether I'm working, talking to somebody like I'm doing with you right now. It's all about the feeling I want to create. And I know because I know my body so well. When I'm in that zone, when I'm going to actually be the most creative and when I'm going to get the most done, if something feels off to me, it feels off and it's just not going to work. And I know you know what I'm talking about.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah, that feeling of feeling off it is. That doesn't happen in the logic mind, does it?

Alison Katschkowsky:
No, no, it really doesn't. And honestly, and I know you know this too, because this is your wheelhouse. You know, our subconscious doesn't know what's what's make believe and what's real. Right. And so we but what we remember is the way it makes us feel right. So we want to make sure that we spend time there, because that's when we're going to create the things and produce the things that we can really get excited about.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. And I love how you segway now from, you know, from, from the physical body through the mindset or through the subconscious mind into business. Yes. And and you are coaching. You're coaching B2B, is that correct?

Alison Katschkowsky:
That's correct. I do a lot of B2B and and about a little bit of B2C still, but yeah.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Okay. What would you say other than sitting is the number one challenge that you would that people have right now in their business?

Alison Katschkowsky:
I think people get so dialed into doing things one way that they forget that there's a multitude of ways to get to the result that they want. I can't tell you how many people I talk to, almost on a near daily basis, who are almost shut down and resistant to considering doing something different. I think the longer we stay in business, to me, what's becoming much more apparent, especially since the pandemic, is it's not about how successful you can be doing the one thing, right? Because I mean, we always we hear, what's the thing you want to be known for, right? To me, the most successful entrepreneurs and business owners are the ones who can be adaptable. And to talk about using a fitness analogy, you got to be strong, but you got to be flexible too. You got to be adaptable. You got to have agility. You got to have balance. You got to have all of it. You have to be able to really, literally flex those muscles just often. And the more the longer I stay in business. I think that is the secret sauce, really.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
The one of the laws that that we teach here is the law of requisite variety. And it states the person with the most flexibility controls the system. So it's not the flexibility of your physical body, it's the flexibility in your mind. But that flexibility needs to happen on both sides, not just one. Yeah.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Yeah. Well, and one of the things that I teach my entrepreneurs a lot and anyone listening to this that knows me, hears me talk about this a lot. You have to have multiple ways to work with people. Now, look, that doesn't mean you have to have 50 different offers out there, but you have to have multiple. It's not a one size fits all thing. The more successful you are in business, the easier that becomes for you. And once when you learn that that is a meta skill, and if you learn that, that will serve you well.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. How do you how do you motivate? Let me use a different word. How do you find discipline for yourself? Because you strike me as a very disciplined person. How do you define discipline for yourself? And then how do you teach that discipline to your clients?

Alison Katschkowsky:
One of the things that I find, um, that really helps me stay disciplined is I'm consistently making commitments to myself, and anyone listening that's a business owner can relate to this. We we work harder for ourselves than we have working for anybody else. When I think of the jobs that I have before I started my business, I worked hard. I've always had a good work ethic. I've never worked harder than I do since I've been working for myself. And so my I am my own worst critic, right? And so for me, the discipline comes in continuing to strengthen that muscle, to keep showing up for yourself. Right. Because how many days do you not want to do something? There are plenty of. It's not that I don't have any bad days, right? We all have them. But the skill set comes in showing up when you don't want to do the work right.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
And that's what discipline is.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Exactly.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
That's what discipline is.

Alison Katschkowsky:
That's why to me, fitness is such a perfect analogy, just for life in general, because it teaches you that you can do hard things. It teaches you that you can find a workaround that you can. I'm going to figure it out. I'm I don't know what it's going to look like, but I'm going to figure it out. And for me, I work the very best that I can when I'm in that mindset. That's how I stay disciplined, because to me, it's how am I going to feel again if I don't do it, I'm going to feel really bad if I don't do it. And that's just not good enough for me, you know?

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. So again, tapped into a feeling little Allison like way back in the days. Was little Allison already that driven?

Alison Katschkowsky:
Little Allison learned to be very disciplined. I was the oldest of four kids, and anyone listening that's an oldest child can relate to this. You're never told, but it is expected that you'll do it. And for me, it was always. That was always it. It was like it was expected that I would do it. And I got real familiar with what that felt like. And I almost used that as extra motivation. Right. I didn't want to ever. I don't want to ever feel like I haven't given 100% to anything. You know, I've done things before and I thought I probably didn't do my best. And then I'll sit there and I'll think about what could I have done different? Right. So for me now, it's I'm as long as I do, as long as I give 100%, whatever happens is going to happen, right? But again, that's that's the discipline. It's putting forth that effort and knowing that I'm going to leave it all on the table and the chips are going to fall where they may, you know.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Love that. When you when you work with your clients and you help them, you know, put on retreats, you you share your knowledge with them regarding, you know, retreats are something very interactive where sitting at a desk is it can be somewhat interactive with someone, but it's not really being in person at a retreat. What's the number one thing that that is unlocked during those retreats? What happens?

Alison Katschkowsky:
I like to. I like to call my retreats visionary experiences. Um, I think the confusion comes in with retreats out in the business space. People sort of think that it's a I'm going to get away for a few days. That's what I hear. It's a getaway, right? It's a or it's a it's a chance to go out of town with friends. To me, retreats are about change. So what we do at our events is not only is it the visionary experience, but it's it's what the analogy I like to use is you're having you're learning to meet your future self and having a conversation with that future version of yourself. Because I believe every single day our future self is in the same room with us all the time, literally sitting across the room from us. And the only reason that we haven't met them is we haven't completely decided to embrace what our future self is actually doing. Oh, so that was.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
It right there, because that's a decision that we make.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Exactly. And we and it means that we have to not only assume a different identity, but we have to learn to think and believe like our future self is doing. So one of the things that we do at my retreats is we work on what I call a belief plan. It's something that I learned from my own coach and we work on. It's literally like a blueprint, like, what is your future self thinking and believing right now? Because the idea is when you get home, you want to be able to have a conversation with that with your future self and keep it going. We don't want to go home and go right back to what we were doing, right? So it's really fun. It's really fun. It's a it's a lot of talking and interacting, but it's a lot of activities where we have we are having to assume that identity already.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah. Yeah. So it's it's it's being in it and it is acting as if. Yes.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Exactly.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Love it. Yeah. Love it. I like to call it as as Izzy.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Yeah. Um.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Now, I know we're we're coming to the end of this show already. And I know that you brought a gift for our viewers.

Alison Katschkowsky:
I did, I did. I want to invite anyone listening to this that can connect with me on my website to come in and join our special hybrid fitness and workout channel. This is a, you know, 6 to 7 week time period where you can learn simple challenges to help you stay more active throughout the day. And you can do it from wherever you are so you can do it from home, from your own gym, if you're already in a routine, or from your office, if you're someone who works out in your office. So what you want to do is connect with me on my site and just look for the connect with me bar at the top. Send me a note, say, hey, I heard you on Bregeda show and I will gift you a free ticket to that. So we're running one more round. We're running one more round that we're actually starting this week. But you can still get in on this if you're not listening to this and it's Friday or Saturday, say, right, but this is the last time we're going to run this in 2023. So and I promise I make it fun, I make it easy and hopefully so that you can feel successful.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Yeah, yeah I love that. So go over to the Alison kay.com. The alison.com is Alison's website. She took out the gotzkowsky so you don't have to spell it the Alison Kay. It's really simple.com. Go over there and connect with Alison Alison. How else can people get in touch with you.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Well they can obviously go to my site. You can check out either my podcast, The Ultimate Journey of Self Care, which you were a guest on not too long ago. Really. Right. Or if you're in the business of providing client experiences, you can check out my business show Creating the World's Best Client Experience. And both of those are actually on my website as well. You can also see where we're going on retreats, what we've got going on. We've got some amazing trips coming up, including a brand new business summit that we're going to be running next year in the keys. So where you can learn all about the hybrid model. So come and connect with me. Just say hi, at least.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Say say hi to Alison. Make sure that you connect with her. I'm pretty sure you're going to find her on LinkedIn and Facebook as well, but just simply go really easy. The Alison kay.com and just connect with her through that channel. And in the subject line when you send through that channel say saw you on the success pattern show or saw you with Brigitta. Probably easier to write success pattern show than Brigitta for for some.

Alison Katschkowsky:
Right? Right.

Brigitta Hoeferle:
Alison, what a great conversation we had today and so important. My biggest takeaway is sitting is the new smoking. Yep. And you giving us some really good patterns of how to break that up. And I want to invite our listeners, I want to invite our viewers to break up their days and not sit all day to do some more walking, to be in motion so that the mind can also be more flexible. Alison, thank you for being on the show. For everyone else, thanks for tuning in. I will see you again next week. Same time, same place. Until then, see you very soon. Thank you for tuning. In and you. Will notice opportunities to apply success patterns daily, while eagerly anticipating next week's content rich success patterns.

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