Peak Performance with Vinnie Vecchio Transcript

Greg Wilkes (00:01):

The construction industry can be a tough business to crack from cashflow problems. Struggling to find skilled labor and not making enough money for your efforts leaves many business owners feeling frustrated and burnt out. But when you get the business strategy right, it’s an industry that can be highly satisfying and financially rewarding. I’m here to give you the resources to be able to create a construction business that gives you more time, more freedom, and more money. This is the Develop Your Construction Business podcast, and I’m your host, Greg Wilkes.

Greg Wilkes (00:38):

Today’s podcast is something a little bit different for my listeners, and I know you’re going to absolutely love it. Now, often on the podcast we talk about business performance and the best strategies to put in place for helping your construction business thrive, but today we’re going to completely shift tactics because today is all going to be about you. Not so much about your business, but about you as an individual. How can we get you performing at your absolute best? Because if we can master that, if we can get you performing at your best, then naturally that’s going to have a really positive effect on the rest of your construction business. And to help us with this today, I’ve got a guest from all over, virtually from the other side of the world, from the Gold Coast Australia, that’s Vinnie Vecchio. Am I pronouncing your surname right, Vinnie?

Vinnie Vecchio (01:24):

Vecchio

Greg Wilkes (01:25):

Vecchio. Sorry, mate.

Vinnie Vecchio (01:27):

No, you’re alright.

Greg Wilkes (01:27):

Mine’s sounding more Italian. I think mine’s sounded a bit better. So Vinnie, it’s great to have you here with us today. So Vinnie, maybe you could do a brief introduction on who you are, who do you help?

Vinnie Vecchio (01:44):

Beautiful. No, thank you for having me on as well. Yeah, basically I’m Vinnie. I have been health coaching for about five years now. Previously been running my own, well in Melbourne. I was originally from Melbourne running my own in-person training business for quite some time. But then as I moved into interstate, obviously into the Gold Coast now I moved more towards the online space and then eventually prioritizing and primarily coaching tradesmen only with their health, basically with the tradesmen health coaching. It’s quite an interesting, I suppose, start and story, which I will get into though. But basically this started in the unstoppable tradesmen is the program, I run the health coaching program, and that started in August last year. So I think about nine months ago. And then initially, I’ll be honest, initially it was just the idea at first was to bridge the gap or fill the gap more so between tradesmen and health because I found that that was something that was, I suppose, missed and lacking within the industry.

(02:49)
So that was essentially a gap that I just wanted to fill. And I’ll admit at first, it may have started with, let’s just say superficial solutions such as weight loss, looking better naked, for example, increasing energy, all that type of stuff, the simple things that people want. But with the first five people that entered the program, I discovered something quite, I think profound at first, but I’m also extremely grateful for that occurring. And that was with those first five people, they all had five very various challenges that they experienced. One fool opened up to me and said that he tried committing suicide. Another one mentioned that he had suicidal thoughts. Another one was on antidepressants, another one has high levels of anxiety. So that aspect alone, I was like, okay, this is something a lot more than just let’s say weight loss physique stuff. This is a whole another level. And that’s when the program completely evolved into not just the superficial stuff, but also just physique physical health and mental health, which is ultimately providing trades and with something very unique and very special that they probably, I suppose, won’t be provided anywhere else because there’s not much in the market or in the health space specifically targeted for them.

Greg Wilkes (04:06):

That’s brilliant. I mean, that’s why we’ve got you on Vinnie, because obviously it’s a high pressure business being in this industry. I mean obviously all businesses is high pressure, but there seems to be a little bit of a stigma I think in construction particularly. We definitely have that here in the UK. I presume it’s the same in Australia, that people don’t talk about things, they don’t talk about mental health, quite a macho sort of environment where no one will bring stuff up like that.

Vinnie Vecchio (04:33):

It’s weak to speak.

Greg Wilkes (04:34):

Exactly. Yeah. That’s perceived, isn’t it? So there is definitely, I think you’ve definitely hit on something here that’s quite important. So as we go through this, we’re going to talk about mental health a little bit later as we run through the podcast, but there’s five things that I think we’re going to focus on. We’re going to look at strategies to increase work performance. We’re going to look at stress and how we can manage and effectively combat stress with routines. We’re going to look at your daily routines for tradesmen, how that’s going to benefit your productivity. And we’re going to look at developing a winning and successful mentality. And then we’re going to talk about mental health. So we’ve got a lot to cover and I think it’s going to be really valuable for everyone. We have gone live over Facebook. So what I’m just going to do, just make sure I’m logged in, is I’m going to turn Facebook comments on. So if there’s anyone on Facebook today that’s listening and wants to comment, it’s quite early for everyone. So we’re at seven o’clock UK time, so everyone’s probably just setting up sites at the moment and getting things going. But if anyone’s logged on or want to comment later, that’s absolutely great. Maybe first of all, Vinnie, maybe we could particularly talk about, you mentioned how there’s some strategies that you recommend on how we can increase work performance. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Vinnie Vecchio (05:52):

Yes, so first I think with work performance, let’s dissect that and talk about what would be considered lack of work performance or a low work performance. And I think that comes down to two categories. I think energy levels, physically energy levels and mental clarity. And you might agree or you might think there’s something more or less, but I think those two things you can imagine if they’re low, low energy and low mental clarity, the work performance wouldn’t be ideal. And on the other side of the coin, if they’re both high, I think work performance would be high. Would you agree with that?

Greg Wilkes (06:25):

Oh yes, a hundred percent. Yes, without a doubt.

Vinnie Vecchio (06:27):

Cool. So then let’s start with, we’ll go with energy levels first. So I think with energy it comes down to three factors, nutrition, sleep, and stress. Now I think I’m going to touch on all of them today, but I will start with nutrition first.

(06:43)
So look, I think it’s important. The advice I give today, I know this is primarily work performance stuff and performance stuff, but the advice that I do give, I do need to still consider some things in terms of the physique and weight side of things. Just depends on the person. So that’s why I wanted to just clarify that I don’t want to give advice to people that increase their energy levels and then they’ve gained 10 kilos of fat. So that’s why I just want to make sure that we’re saying the right things here. But essentially. So let’s just start with energy, and let’s start with nutrition. So with nutrition, I would think two factors of that will be considered with energy levels, and that’s amount of calories that you’re consuming and the type of food quality, how high-quality foods you’re eating.

(07:25)
So let’s start with the calories. Now with calories alone, it is one of the biggest factors that would influence weight. I know we’re talking about energy, but I just need to say this first, that when we’re eating in a calorie deficit, less calories than we burn, that’s related to fat loss. So if you’re someone that wants to increase your weight performance, increase your energy, but also lose fat, this is my advice, you’d be in a calorie deficit. So eating an amount of calories that’s less than you burn. Now, as you can imagine though, because eating an amount that’s less than you burn, you’ve already what’s actually classified as an energy deficit. So you’re already not as much high energy as you could, which is why food quality and the type of food you’re eating is very valuable here because simply put, I’ll give three examples of food quality.

(08:12)
There’s three types of foods, essentially, there’s unprocessed whole foods, which particularly have the most amount of nutrients from that particular food source. Then there’s minimally processed foods, and then there’s ultra processed foods, which is the stuff that tastes really good essentially. But let me give an example of the same type of food, but going through the spectrum of that. So let’s just say pork. You guys eat pork in UK?

Greg Wilkes (08:36):

Yes, sausage. We love a sausage. Sausage buddy.

Vinnie Vecchio (08:39):

Okay, so with the example of pork, let’s just say a lean pork that you’d get from the butcher. Now nothing’s been touched to that. So that would have the most amount of nutrients from a pork source minimally processed would be like ham because things have been adjusted to it. And then ultra process would be like bacon, for example. So on that spectrum, you would say that the pork would have the most amount of nutrients from that, and those nutrients are vital for our energy, our body’s function, et cetera.

(09:08)
So that’s with, if you’re wanting to fat loss and energy levels just through nutrition, then someone that doesn’t really, that wants, I suppose, maintain their weight and increase their energy, then the same advice would be given just you’d be consuming an amount of calories that is the same as you burn in the day. And obviously food quality higher, the more the better with that. And then obviously if you are wanting to gain weight gain muscle or you don’t really care too much about the weight, you actually just purely care about energy levels only, then I would recommend just eating in a calorie surplus because that alone, you’re already eating more energy than you are expending, which as you can imagine, that’s obviously what we need and what’s good. But then if you combine that with high quality foods as well, then that’s a magic with that. So that’s kind of energy from nutrition aligned. That all covered that pretty well. Do you feel like that?

Greg Wilkes (09:54):

That makes complete sense. So I guess, well, I’m going to make this about me personally because I’m always trying to be in a deficit.

Vinnie Vecchio (10:03):

Go for it.

Greg Wilkes (10:03):

Try to lose a few pounds. But that’s interesting. So what we’re saying potentially here is that obviously you want to lose a bit of weight because that’s good for you and you want to be in a deficit, but that’s potentially going to affect your energy levels. So the only way to combat that is you’ve got to be in a deficit, but you’ve got to focus on the high quality foods to keep your energy levels high.

Vinnie Vecchio (10:27):

Correct.

Vinnie Vecchio (10:27):

So imagine this, imagine if you’re in a calorie deficit and the only thing you’ve eaten for the day is, do you guys have KFC in UK?

Greg Wilkes (10:37):

Oh yeah.

Vinnie Vecchio (10:37):

Yes. Alright, cool. Imagine if you just had a zinger box only for the entire day. Yes, you’d be in a calorie deficit. Yes, you probably would lose weight, but you’d also feel absolutely terrible. You’d feel exhausted. So with that example, I know that’s completely going to a hundred with this example, but I hope that kind of makes sense, that with consuming higher quality foods, you’re actually getting being able to extract as much nutrients as possible from the deficit itself.

Greg Wilkes (11:04):

No, I completely get that. So here’s the challenge in the industry, and I guess this is why this affects trade so much because ever since I’ve grown up, we’ve had this culture of you go down the cafe at lunchtime for a fry up and you’re going in there, you’re getting your eggs, bacon, sausages, beans, chips. Literally when I was younger, we used to eat that every single day. And you used to look absolutely awful. You go back to the site, you just couldn’t work. You just had no energy, just wanted to go to sleep. So I guess the challenge is from a practical standpoint, because we’re busy and whatever else, how do we stop ourselves going down the cafe and getting a fryer pool, going to KFC and picking something up quick, get these energy rich foods in quick?

Vinnie Vecchio (11:50):

Cool, great question. This will probably tie into routines that we’ll talk about later as well, but I’ll still bring it up now. But being prepared is probably the best thing that I can tell you. When you are not prepared, you are just like, okay, what am I going to have for lunch today? I don’t have anything prepared. I don’t have anything in my car or my lunchbox. I’m just going to go to the closest cafe and eat whatever the hell they have. And when you go to a cafe, or sorry, we call it cafe. Did you say cafe?

Greg Wilkes (12:17):

Yeah. No, we’re not sophisticated.

Vinnie Vecchio (12:22):

No, that’s fine. So when you go in there, you’re probably not going to get the healthiest option alone, and even the healthier options probably have things that make it taste good, which isn’t really, you don’t know really what’s in it. But if there’s a choice between a salad and a dimsum, most people are probably going to choose the dimsum, even if they know how bad they’re probably going to feel afterwards. So from a practical standpoint, being prepared is the number one thing. I think you should do something. I give advice, and I suppose plans that I give my tradesmen clients is two little strategies. One’s a very worldwide known one, and it’s not for everyone. It’s very simple tip, but it is preparing your meals beforehand and taking part in some sort of meal prep. Obviously when someone just says, why don’t you just meal prep and you’ll be fine.

(13:07)
I know that there’s so many questions about what to do, but again, that does help. But essentially something that works really well for a lot of my clients is whatever they have for dinner, which is normally a higher quality meal, is their lunch the following day because you’re going to cook anyway. For most people, they’re going to need to cook anyway. You may as well cook two, therefore you don’t actually have to go to the cafe to get that low quality food and you’ve already got a higher quality food. So as I said, this ties into the first thing I said though being prepared is the number one, number one thing here with that.

Greg Wilkes (13:44):

That’s a great little tip. Yeah, thanks for that, Vinnie. So quickly, I’m just going to type something in the comments. I want to do some markets here.

Vinnie Vecchio (13:51):

Yeah, that’s fine.

Greg Wilkes (13:52):

So increasing energy by what were we saying by quality calorie intake. Okay, so that was number one then, was it? Or the first part of number one?

Vinnie Vecchio (14:09):

The first part of number one.

Greg Wilkes (14:11):

Okay. Great. So what’s the second bit of increasing performance?

Vinnie Vecchio (14:15):

So mental clarity. Now mental clarity flows, you know is basically just having a clear head, being able to increase their focus and being able to reduce stress, which probably ties into our second point what we’re going to talk about anyway, but I’ll bring it up anyway though, because as you can imagine, yes, imagine work performance and trying to perform at your best, but you’re overthinking, you’re stressed. What’s that going to lead to? Maybe not as much work as you possibly could, not as much. You’re not focused. You’re probably not doing your job to the best of your ability as you can. That’s just what I’m getting from work experience. So with that, okay, well, I think this is a perfect point to lead into stress anyway. So first off, I think we should talk about why stress even occurs in the first place. Why do humans feel stressed?

(15:01)
And I’ll bring it up back to, let’s just go back to cave mandates. So me and you, Greg, we’ve got our Fred foot zone outfit on. We’re walking out of our TP or tribe. Just imagine the first human that ever existed. Okay, now let’s just say we’re walking and we’ve just seen this animal for the first time. We’ve got now for us, we know that it’s a lion, but back then it’s the first time we’ve seen it. We have no idea what this animal was capable of. So what’s going to happen? What’s going to happen is our stress response, which is our sympathetic nervous system, which is otherwise known as the fight or flight response would activate. Now the fight or flight response is when all our body’s resources and blood flow go straight to our arms and straight to our legs because our body’s thinking we’re actually going to fight this potential threat or flight run away from this thing.

(15:52)
Now this is the thing though about the stress response. That’s how it originated from our body’s detecting threats and saving us in some sort of way. But essentially it’s the stress response designed to prevent us from harm or death that is simply put in a simple way. Now, it was born a long time ago, but now that same response would occur that we might be stressed over, let’s say being five minutes late to a meeting, for example, or we could stress of watching a horror movie. Now this is the thing about our body, it doesn’t know the difference between something real or something imagined. All it knows is there might be a potential threat out there. We get stressed, fight or flight activates, boom, we feel stressed. So acknowledging that, I think I like teaching that to people. It helps me understand that yes, you get stressed sometimes, but it also is your body protecting you simply put. It’s trying to prevent you from harm or death.

(16:50)
That’s basically essentially the stress response. But moving forward onto stress. One big thing I love telling people is no one’s ever stressed over a specific situation. They’re not stressed over a specific event or a specific person. They’re stressed over their perception of that situation, person or event. Now, if you listen to the podcast, rewind that and listen to it again because that’s something huge to understand it’s not a specific thing that you’re stressed about. It’s your perception of the thing, which is why let’s say Greg, me and you right now, this is a very safe environment for us to speak in. But let’s just say for example, that I felt unsafe. Oh, sorry, that my perception of this was unsafe, then I would feel unsafe. On the other side of the coin, if let’s say we were in prison, that’s mostly not just any prison, the prison that’s on that Netflix documentary, world’s toughest prisons, for example. Most were deemed that’s an unsafe environment. But if I felt safe, if my perception was this is a safe environment, I would feel safe.

Greg Wilkes (17:52):

Yeah, okay.

Vinnie Vecchio (17:54):

It’s crazy, but it’s subtle, but it’s good to know.

Greg Wilkes (17:58):

We control our perception of, that’s the key, isn’t it? To be able to step back and recognize that it’s our perception of something. So sometimes I think when we’re stressed, we’re in the moment, aren’t we? And you can’t see past that, can’t you?

Vinnie Vecchio (18:12):

Correct.

Greg Wilkes (18:12):

All about this fear that you’ve got? So that’s interesting.

Vinnie Vecchio (18:16):

Yes, correct. And this is why I’m going to tie into something else here, and this is kind of bizarre at first, but this is why you sometimes can be the creator of your own stress because of your perceptions of things around you that are making you stress. So for example, a lot of people that suffer, let’s say mentally as well, and this could be stress or any way generally comes from sometimes I’m not going to say their own fault, but sometimes it is. So for example, one of the most common things I see with let’s say my clients, is they have a disconnect sometimes between their perceived reality and their actual reality. So basically what that means is what they think should have happened in their life and then what actually happens. And that disconnect creates a suffering in your head because you’re like, “why aren’t I there yet?” Therefore, you create stress and your perception of that has created the stress. I’ll give an example on that though. So let’s just say, your business model is helping construction workers get to a million pounds per year. Is that right?

Greg Wilkes (19:23):

Yes. Exactly that.

Vinnie Vecchio (19:24):

Perfect. So imagine that someone said, I should have made a million pounds this year, but coronavirus happened and I only made 300 K. That disconnect between what they think should have happened and what actually happened is creating their own suffering and therefore because their perception of what they think should have happened didn’t actually happen, then they created their own suffering and then their own stress and then lack of performance.

Greg Wilkes (19:49):

Got that. So how would someone like that combat that it’s reframing the way that they’re talking to themselves? Is it so rather than saying only made 300k, I’ve done really well making 300k even in coronavirus. Is it something like that? Is it reframing them.

Vinnie Vecchio (20:05):

It’s hilarious because everything we talk about today ties into every single thing that we talk about today. So with that, I’m going to jump straight into the mentality part then one of the parts wanted to speak about in mentality for that specific example. I’m actually glad you brought it up because I was going to bring it up anyway. So let’s say for example, it’s good to have goals, have big goals. Obviously, you want to make a million pounds a year, awesome. But something I will consider with that, and this ties into having a winning mentality, is knowing the difference between process and outcome. I’m not sure if people are familiar with this, but there’s two parts of everything. There’s an outcome that you want. So for people listening, most likely getting to a million pound per year business, the process is everything you need to do in order for that outcome to happen.

(20:52)
Here’s the thing though, you can’t control the outcome all the time, most likely never. You can always control the process and what you do in the process to allow that outcome to happen. So the best example is pretend a boxer, for example, a fighter, they in the process will train hard, they’ll train long, many hours a day, many weeks ahead. They can prepare themselves as best they can to achieve the outcome of winning the fight. But at the end of the day, they cannot control what goes on in the ring. Simply put, they can best prepare themselves to get to a point where they can win, but at the end of the day, it’s best man wins in fighting. The same applies anything else, especially with this goal of hitting a million pound a year. And a tool that I give my clients around this, this can apply to anything, it can apply to business, it can apply to health perspectives as well.

(21:43)
Let’s say someone wants to lose 20 kilos, but they’ve only lost five and their outcome is 20 kilos. They know what they need to do in the process to allow that outcome to happen, but sometimes they might feel far. So for the example I gave before about only being at 300K compared to one milion, what I would suggest is to celebrate the hell out of getting to 300K because at least you got to 300K, even if it’s more than last year. What happens if last year you write 200K, maybe 200 to one milion is a big jump, but 200 to 300, that’s a 33%, no, 50% increase. That’s huge. Okay, so there’s a tool that I give people, it’s question one, write down every single thing that your desired outcome that you want to achieve. Two, write down everything you need to do in the process for that outcome to potentially occur.

(22:38)
And we say potentially, because you’ve got to acknowledge as well that it’s not always in your control to get that outcome yet. It is in your control though to do everything you can in the process to allow that outcome to happen. Three, identify every single small win along the way. Yes, I’m at 200K right now. Yes, my branding and profile or whatever the details that you actually go into with the coaching are improving. Then let’s say three months ago, I’m getting more leads, whatever, I’m not sure of the exact business model that you have. So I’m just trying to spit words out here, for make a promise to yourself that no matter what, you will keep working until you get towards that outcome. Because what identifying the small wins does is makes you feel closer, but then making a promise to yourself that you will always never give up and you’ll always do everything you can in the process to let that outcome to happen. What that does is because in the process things can get slow, it can go up, it can go down. You can land two jobs and there’s already half your income for the year, and then what happens for the next four months? You hit crickets, for example. So acknowledging that slumps occur and just making a promise that even through those slumps, you just keep going no matter what. I know we just jump straight from stress to winning mentality, but that there I think is huge, especially for all this.

Greg Wilkes (24:00):

That’s really good and I think that’s really valuable just to break that down. So I think writing the processes down is a big stress relief in itself, I guess, isn’t it? Because you’re actually identifying what steps you’ve got to take. I often give the illustration of, I’ve got it in my book about how people climb Everest and they’ve got this huge goal of getting to the top of Everest, but interestingly on the way to Everest, there’s base camps along the way. You’ve got these mile markers that you’re going to aim for. First of all, for some it’s just an achievement just to get to base camp one, base camp two, base camp three, they all want to get to the top, but they don’t all make it. Then some might get right to camp four and whatever comes in and for the sake of their own lives, their next goal is let me just get down off this mountain, but what an achievement.

(24:43)
They’ve still got to, I mean, who gets to camp four of Everest? So sometimes we can set these goals, but I guess it’s about, I mean, I really believe in goal setting. I believe in the power of it and the goals I set. It’s amazing when I look back and think, wow, look, I never hit all of them a hundred percent. So I do believe goal set’s important, but yeah, I guess you’ve got to be forgiven of yourself sometimes, haven’t you? And think, look, I’m not always going to get there. What do they say? Reach for the stars and hit the moon. So sometimes you going to

Vinnie Vecchio (25:15):

I like that analogy though. I like the analogy of Everest. That’s a good way to look at it. That’s actually, I think both what I said and what you said can actually tie into the same model outcomes at the top process is that the direction to the top and identifying the small wins as a Basecamp, actually maybe use that if you don’t mind.

Greg Wilkes (25:34):

You can add that for free.

Vinnie Vecchio (25:38):

Sounds good.

Greg Wilkes (25:39):

That’s good.

Vinnie Vecchio (25:41):

I’ll go back to stress management because I’ve explained everything, but then I haven’t explained how to relieve stress, which is the main thing. I don’t know how we’ll just jump forward and back, but anyway, let me know if I’m just continuing going on a tangent.

Greg Wilkes (25:55):

No, you carry on. It’s all good.

Vinnie Vecchio (25:58):

With stressed, we’ve discussed how it occurs. Perceptions are huge. We discussed in terms of suffering, some people create their own suffering from their perceptions of things as well. And also having a disconnect between what they think should happen, what they actually should happen. So with actually back to that, as soon as someone says I was supposed to XYZ, that’s as soon as you’ve created a disconnect between where you’re at and what you think should have happened. I was supposed to make a million pound per year, but then coronavirus hit, for example, what’s the main sport that people play in UK?

Greg Wilkes (26:35):

Football and we call it football. We’re not calling it soccer, we’re calling it football.

Vinnie Vecchio (26:40):

No. Okay, cool. I was meant to make the pro football team, but then I got injured and I couldn’t make the team that there’s creating a disconnect between what’s actually happened and what they thought should have happened. Is that kind of making sense? This frame of mind and then that there is linked to creating your own stress and then that there’s creating less mental clarity and then that’s creating less work performance. And we’ve just tied back to everything else from there. But okay, we’ll talk about the magic though, about how to actually reduce stress. There are two primary ways I give my clients for this, one’s a tool, like a bit of a framework that I give them in terms of questions and answers. It’s really powerful. I’ll go through it. And the second one is, I’ll start with the first one. So the first one is a stress management framework that I give and it’s a bunch of questions.

(27:34)
So the first question is write down every single thing that you are stressed about. Now, you might hear me say this a lot about writing down things. There’s a lot of power to it though. I don’t know what it’s, when you think things or when you, it’s just not the same. You’ve got to write it down.

Greg Wilkes (27:46):

A hundred percent.

Vinnie Vecchio (27:46):

So write down everything you are stressed about, whatever it is at the time. Second thing, write down what you think the triggers are that’s causing this stress. This is how you can start becoming aware of perceptions and things like that. Now let me give an example. Let’s say you are stressed that you lost, you’re not getting enough work, for example. What’s the triggers of that? It could be relationship with money, for example, that when you have a lot of money in your bank account, you feel happy.

(28:14)
When you have less amount money in your bank account, you feel sad. So that’s creating an attachment with money. Then therefore money is a trigger. That’s why you’re stressed. Now, that’s just one example, but I hope that kind of just gives some sort of clarity behind it. Three write down, is this controllable or uncontrollable? So for example, if you’ve lost jobs just because coronavirus happened, coronavirus is an uncontrollable force. You cannot control that. There’s nothing you can do about that. So what I would say, if it is uncontrollable, accept the fact that life is unpredictable, uncontrollable, and uncertain. Simply put. But if it is controllable, write down every single thing that you can do to make this a better outcome for you, which can probably tie into the other exercise I gave. The last one’s a funny one, the last question, but there’s a lot of power to it and it’s be grateful for that stress occurring.

(29:05)
Now let me explain. You’re turning a negative into a positive and you ask yourself these questions. What’s the benefit of this? What are you learning from this? And how will you become a stronger, better, smarter, wiser person because of this situation occurring? Now you’ve just flipped a negative into a positive. Now you’re extracting it for what it is and trying to find every single positive and seeing how you becoming a better man or better person from that. And I love going through people. You can see the stress for what it is, and then you can obviously extract the good out of it. That’s number one.

Greg Wilkes (29:39):

Let me put this in. So I’ve never heard that said before. So be grateful for the cause of stress, for what it’s teaching you, yeah?

Vinnie Vecchio (29:48):

Correct. How can you become a better person? Sorry, you are looking at this stress in a way that’s actually teaching you something, that’s making you learn something and that there’s making you become a better person because of that happening. So let’s say that event was to happen again, you are more switched on, you’re more ready for it. And as you can see, you’ve just got more wisdom because think about it, the things you stress about 10 years ago, you probably don’t stress about it now because you’ve learned from it. You’ve extracted wisdom and information from it that’s made become what you are now. That’s just one way to look at it. The second thing about stress, and this is probably the easiest thing that anyone can do. Now, as soon as I say this word, I think people have two mindsets about it, which is fair enough, the words of meditation.

(30:36)
Now I know sometimes I tell my clients that they’re like, I’m not doing that. But then other people are like, I’m all in with it. But let me explain why it’s even important. So before I mentioned with stress that with our fight or flight response, which is what our stress response, that is what’s called our sympathetic nervous system. Okay? Sympathetic nervous system is responsible for fight or flight. Now, what meditation and breath work does is it’s the quickest way to shift you from that to your parasympathetic nervous system. So sympathetic to parasympathetic, which is known as our rest and digest or rest, relax, recover. So think about it like this quickest way to shift you from fight or flight to rest, relax, recover. And that’s in the form of breathing, meditation. A lot of the times people think with meditation that it’s like someone, a Buddha laying on top of the mountain with their arms like this or something. That’s not it. It’s not like that. But just knowing that and there’s so much out there. Go on YouTube, go on Spotify. There’s so many apps out there. Find what works for you. I always recommend that to people because sometimes some people like listening to a specific voice that makes me feel calm. That’s cool, find what works for you. But just know that is basically, that’s the quickest way to shift you from stress to relax.

Greg Wilkes (31:57):

That’s good. I’m glad you said that. Finding what works for you. That’s really important. I know, just practical for my listeners, one thing I used to do, just if I had a really stressful day, yeah, I’m not into sitting on the mountain legs crossed and arms as well, but what really worked for me was taking a walk in nature and just really focusing on the sounds of nature, the sounds of the birds, just being really appreciative of as I’m going through this walk and just not thinking about work, but thinking about the nature and everything else, and literally you just felt your stress levels just drop after that walk. So I guess for me that was my type of meditation.

Vinnie Vecchio (32:34):

Yes well the thing with that, so meditation is basically the act of being present, being in the present moment, not being in the past, not being in the future. So what you just described is another form of being present in the moment and that there is yes, a form of somewhat meditation, another good strategy and the tool that you can use. I think this might be set around, let’s say other mental health podcasts, things like that. But it is simple. And let’s just say if you’re someone that doesn’t want to sit on the mountain, we’ll just say that for now, but go for a walk out into nature. Something that’s really cool is tapping into all five sensors. So five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste. Okay, sorry, I just have to think about the order of that again.

(33:23)
But doing that is tapping into all senses. Again, it’s an act of being present and that’s helped a lot of people sometimes as well, which is quite cool. So just something else that you can use for alleviating stress being present in the moment. Because most people, when they’re stressed, they’re thinking about what they’ve done in the past or what they think might happen in the future. That’s basically, that’s just it in a nutshell. Essentially. The funny thing about fear of the future and being stressed about fear in the future, this is, I love this because it is even I did this to be honest, Greg, I’ll be honest, this is my first podcast I’ve been on before I jumped on, I was scared, not scared, I was nervous just because I’ve never done this before and things like that. But I’m sharing this because

Greg Wilkes (34:10):

You’re a pro mate.

Vinnie Vecchio (34:12):

This will apply to anyone in their life, okay? The fear of future is so beautiful because every single person, the future doesn’t exist. The only place a future exists is in your own creation of it. So you are basically creating your own stress back to everything I’ve just said before. So acknowledging that the future doesn’t exist, it’s just your own creation of it. And let me ask you this, do you know which 100% certainty exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow?

Greg Wilkes (34:39):

No. Who does?

Vinnie Vecchio (34:40):

No, no one does. Exactly. Life is uncertain, unpredictable, and unknown. So why should I go guessing things and seeing what might happen, what not might not. It’s just

Greg Wilkes (34:52):

Completely get that. I mean, I think we do that in the industry. When you’re running a business, you are always looking to the future and you think, what work am I going to have in six months? Am I going to be able to pay the mortgage? Am I going to be able to pay the bills? Can I keep this guy working? Can I pay my VAT bill and tax bill and things like that. When you start going down that rabbit hole, you can just feel it. Your body just starts tensing up, doesn’t it? And you can see how, I guess you’ve just got to stop yourself in that moment, haven’t you? And think, right? Don’t go down here. And I guess that’s what you talk about earlier. The meditation comes in because you’re present and you’re recognizing how you stop yourself and standing back and analyze.

Vinnie Vecchio (35:31):

And back to what you just said, you just said about going down into a rabbit hole from just one thought. As I was saying before, your body doesn’t know the difference between something real or imagined. So think of it like this. If someone was running at you with a machete, for example, that’s a fair enough reason to activate the fight or flight songs. That’s real. But imagined is like, let’s just say we’re watching a horror movie. We’re not in the movie. We know the movie is fake. We’re not even the characters in that movie. But then our heart’s pumping out of our chest. We’re like, do not go in that room. Don’t go in that room. The ghost is going to be behind that door. But we’re scared. We’re fear. We’ve got that stress response. So that’s just something unique to know that your body doesn’t understand the difference between real or imagined. It just thinks that there’s a threat out there. Whether you’ve just thought about this random future event that may not even happen, but that can create your own stress just from that. So realizing that and becoming aware when you do fall down that rabbit hole is huge. Then you can catch yourself out from stopping yourself from doing that.

Greg Wilkes (36:32):

Yes, no, that’s really useful, Vinnie. So appreciate that. So we’ve covered a lot here today, just the point of time. So did we cover, I guess we have touched on it a little bit about mental health challenges. Well, we haven’t really gone into depression, have we? Things like that. So how do you help people overcome mental health challenges particularly?

Vinnie Vecchio (36:56):

Okay, no, cool. So yeah, as I said before, there’s been a number of people that have gone through the program and having all these specific challenges. Now, I will say this, I’m not a registered psychologist. I’m not a registered counselor. So I do tell people that beforehand, that if absolutely needed, obviously go to professional help within that regard. But obviously if I can hand help, I provide everything that I can with that. I think there’s a few factors to this, believe it or not. There is a new growing field called nutritional psychiatry, and I’ve been fully investing myself into that. It’s just so unique. And so I’m not saying this is the absolute cure to things. It is something that helps and this can tie into the high quality foods, back to nutrition again. So understanding this actually as well is our gut brain connection. Now, believe it or not, our gut is our second brain. It’s human, second brain. It’s a crazy thought. I know. But basically our gut and our brain are intimately connected. Our gut will send messages to our brain. Our brain will send messages to our gut. I actually think the percentage is only about 10 to 20% of signals.

(38:12)
Sorry, I just think we cut out again.

Greg Wilkes (38:13):

No, now we’ve got you.

Vinnie Vecchio (38:15):

Alright, cool. All good. So our brain will send 10 to 20% of signals to our gut, but our gut sends 80 to 90% of signals to our brain. So essentially if you are eating low quality foods, not the best foods all the time, then your gut health won’t be optimal. Therefore, that’s send, that will lead to low gut health, lead to a troubled gut. Therefore, that will send the signal 80 to 90% of signals to the brain telling you that the gut is troubled, therefore the brain is troubled. Right? Okay. Now on that more, there’s a hormone in our body called serotonin. Now, serotonin is a hormone that regulates our stress, symptoms of depression, our mood, our focus, our energy, our sleep, a lot of things. I’m bringing this up though because more than 90% of serotonin is actually produced in our gut.

(39:07)
So you can probably understand that when you are eating, your gut health isn’t the best, therefore probably not my serotonin is produced. Therefore, more mental health challenges coming such as, because when you have low levels of serotonin, that leads to high levels of depression, high levels of anxiety and stress. So it’s just something unique to understand. I’m not saying this is the cure for everything, but if you are someone that does, let’s say, struggle with these type of challenges, it may be worth just adding the nutrition aspect to things because then with already what you’re doing anyway. Yeah, obviously I suggest actual mental health strategies as well. I’ve shared a couple of them today about, let’s say stress for example. But just adding this is just a bonus. There’s no point doing all these other things. Let’s say go and see a psychologist and all that, and then just eating KFC. When you get home, you want to do everything you possibly can in every avenue to make sure you’re getting the best thing or the best outcome for you.

Greg Wilkes (40:00):

Yes, that makes complete sense. That’s really interesting. So it’s funny, actually, I did a nutrition plan with someone throughout lockdown, and one of the first things they made me do in the morning was take a, is it a probiotic? Is that what you call it for gut health?

Vinnie Vecchio (40:14):

Yes, I’ve heard.

(40:17)
So he made sure that was the first thing I had to do is just focused on that, is get your gut health right, which I never really thought about before. You just think you just have to eat well. But he was as focused on gut. So yeah, interesting. It’s something quite fascinating there. That’s really good, Vinn. So a couple of things that I just want to quickly cover. So we talked about daily routines for tradesmen. Now obviously the people that are listening to this and my ideal audience are normally really busy business people. So they’re running their own business. They’re probably on-site at seven, eight o’clock in the morning, probably on-site now working through till five o’clock at night. How do they fit it all in the gym and the nutrition and whatever else? What would be a perfect daily routine would you suggest for a trade person or a construction business owner?

Vinnie Vecchio (41:08):

Cool, I love this topic. So a few factors on routine. I want to start with this, is following a, this sounds weird, I’d need to come with a better name, but following a sandwich day routine, I’ll explain. But anyway, it’s at the start of the day, do something that serves you in the middle of the day, serve other people, which is your work, and then finish the day with serving you. Again, I know I need a better answer than sandwich, but let me explain. So let’s just say if you woke up and you just went straight away into serving other people, which is basically waking up, maybe checking your phone, responding to messages, and then rolling into the car and heading to work. Let’s just say with that example, or if you finish a day with serving other people, the last thing you do on the day is actually just checking emails, doing quoting or just working, and then you go straight to bed.

(42:03)
I could probably guess that 99% of people will feel very unfulfilled in those moments. There’s something missing. You’ve just worked and you’ve just gone straight to bed or you’ve just woke up and you’ve just gone straight to work. You need to do something that serves you first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Now, this can come to a number of things. I know you mentioned exercise, nutrition, all that type of stuff. I will get there. But in terms of with let’s just say, start with the morning. Okay? So what I would recommend is in your morning, back to what I was saying before, be as prepared as possible for your morning to win. Actually, I’ll say this as well, if you are someone that wakes up and checks your phone straight away, you’ve already kind of lost, not lost, but you’ve, let’s just say everyone starts their day at zero.

(42:50)
Okay? I’ve actually heard this from another podcast. I highly recommend it. I forgot his name. I forgot his name. I need to reference him later. But it was really good analogy that he brought up that I want to bring up on this podcast that everyone pretty much starts their day at a zero. If the first thing you do is check your phone, you basically, then, let’s just imagine this, actually, this is even funnier. If you are checking your phone, first thing, Greg, would you let a hundred people run into your room the first thing in the morning?

Greg Wilkes (43:18):

Of course not. No, you don’t want to see me when I get out of bed.

Vinnie Vecchio (43:20):

That’s basically what you’re doing when you’re check your phone, first thing, you’re scrolling, you’re seeing everyone’s updates, and then you’ve essentially started your day at a negative three just because you haven’t done something that’s really fulfilled. You haven’t done something that’s served you. So then for the rest of the day, even for the rest of that morning, let’s say you wake up at six, by maybe 10, you’ve finally got to neutral point. Whereas we want to start our day with a win, which is starting at a cost rate, which is doing something that serves you. So to do that, to win your morning, it’s best you might’ve heard win the morning, win the day, yes, that’s relevant, but to win the morning, you have to win the night before. So that is preparing your lunch the next day. That is, there’s one of the best tips I can give to wake up to your alarm in the morning.

(44:03)
If you’re someone that struggles to wake up to their alarm is this is put your phone in, let’s say out of reach from where you are in your bedroom, close enough so you can hear it. If you have your alarm on your phone, but far enough away that you have to physically get up out of bed to pick up your phone. Then once you’re up, sometimes, because what can happen, I’ve definitely done this. I’ve woke up, I’ve done that hack, and I just jump straight in bed. Okay? So what you do is you pack your clothes right next to it. You put your clothes on straight away. I can guarantee if you’ve got your clothes on, you’re not going to jump back in bed and check your phone. You’ve already got to start your day. So that’s one. Huge, huge, huge, huge. Then you’ve already started your day to win.

(44:46)
Now you have those extra five, 10 minutes and you can actually do something that serves you, whether it is, let’s say, listening to a podcast on your way to work. If you’re someone that’s really time strapped, whether it’s doing a workout in the morning, which some people find beneficial. A lot of my clients like to, when their 30 minute workouts first thing in the morning and get it done for the day, I don’t normally do more than 30 minutes because it’s unsustainable for tradesmen. I like 20 to 30 minutes is just there. We just get a lot done and not a lot of time. There’s obviously, because a lot of people are under the impression that you need to train hours and hours in the gym. That’s not true. If you know how to train effective enough, you can cram it in 20 to 30 minutes, and at the end of the day, it is what’s most sustainable for that particular person.

(45:26)
If I tell you you’ve got to work out an hour every morning and you’re just not getting enough sleep, it’s not within your reach to even do, then you’re not going to do it. And then your results are going to go backward. You won’t continue doing it. It’s just too hard, which is why you need to do something that serves you. Of course. I think that’s one of the biggest things with routines is that’s one of the things I wanted to bring up. Obviously, with your routine, there are a lot of things that you can implement depending on your goals, but I think just that standard framework that I just mentioned that can help a lot of people that, for people that I don’t understand exactly what they need, I think that’s perfect that they can just implement daily right now.

Greg Wilkes (46:03):

That’s absolutely brilliant, Vinnie. Yes, I like that. One thing, I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod, brilliant book.

Vinnie Vecchio (46:12):

No, I haven’t, but I will jump on that. That sounds good.

Greg Wilkes (46:14):

Great. Yeah, so he’s all about, yeah, same sort of thing. Winning in the morning or you’ve got the 5:00 AM club is a good book as well. I’m big on mornings. I always get up early, just naturally have. But one of the tips he gave to actually get yourself out of bed, exactly what you said, put the phone, make sure you physically have to get out of bed to turn the phone off. But he said, go and brush your teeth because once you’ve brushed your teeth, if that’s the first trigger, go and brush my teeth. You never get back in bed again. Once you brush your teeth, you’re up there and you’re awake. And he said, have a big pin of water to get your mind working work right, that sort of thing. So I think, yeah, if you can get these little triggers and little routines in place, as soon as you’re getting out of bed, you’re setting yourself up for success, aren’t you, for the rest of the day.

Vinnie Vecchio (46:59):

Correct. And it’s so simple to do. It’s not like you’re taking up hours of your time. It’s not even like you’re taking up hours of your time to prepare for this. Literally tomorrow morning after you watch this podcast, do that set up something. Even have you said brush your teeth, even cold showers. You have to have a real strong mindset to do that. But that’s one thing. I’m not sure if it’s, is it winter or summer over there right now?

Greg Wilkes (47:22):

Well, it’s always winter in the UK. It’s summer at the moment.

Vinnie Vecchio (47:26):

Okay, cool. We’re the opposite. It’s always summer in Gold Coast essentially. So in my environment, a cold shower in the mornings. Okay, because we’re already hot. Maybe not so much for your environment because you’re freezing already, so it’s probably not good. But even just the, after having a shower in the morning, same thing. It’s stimulating you in some way. There’s a lot of things you can implement in your morning. Obviously there’s way too many that I can just tell you right now, but I just think that framework can help a lot of your listeners. Let’s just even just implement right now.

Greg Wilkes (47:53):

That’s really good. And what about, so we covered the front end of the day, the back end of the day. You mentioned you touched on making, preparing your meal potentially so that you can have that the next day. Any other tips for back end of the day?

Vinnie Vecchio (48:07):

Yes, good question. So we actually haven’t touched sleep really as well, which kind of ties into this. So I think with the last hour of your day, it’s very hard. I do understand that a lot of the listeners, they’re probably working as soon as they wake up and working as soon as they finish. So for me to even tell them this, it’s like “Vinn, nah, I don’t know if this is within my capacity to do.” I do get that. Trust me, I’m not asking, obviously start small. Let’s say if you’re working and then go and straight to bed, then work, have 20 minutes spare, then go to bed, then work next day, work have 20, 40 minute spare, then go to bed in the hours. Coming up to bed is very crucial for your sleep quality to be as high as it could, which means you’ll be energized when you wake up in the morning, which means you’ll have as much mental clarity as possible as well.

(48:55)
So with that, I think with sleep, there’s a few factors. One, meditation, again, what I said before, as I said, it’s the quickest way to shift you into a rest, relax, recover mode. So you may as well utilize that in the last 5 to 10 minutes before you go to sleep or as you sleep. There’s one literally search sleep guided meditation on YouTube. Just watch out for the YouTube ads. I’ve done this before where I’ve almost been asleep and then the ad comes up, did somebody say KFC? And then I’ve just been woke up

Greg Wilkes (49:27):

Dreaming about KFC.

Vinnie Vecchio (49:30):

And then I’m dreaming about the chicken nuggets. Oh, sorry, the Zinger box and everything like that. But apart from that, just search a sleep guided meditation again, see what works for you. And also a night routine that I give a lot of my clients is another question and answer thing, but it will help and I will bring it up as well, is writing down. So a lot of the time before we go to bed, we’re thinking, especially if we just worked, we’re thinking about things that we didn’t get done on that day, which means we’re overthinking, which means we may stress a little, which means our sleep quality won’t be the best, which means our energy levels in the morning will be crap, therefore ruin the day. Not rule the day, but you’re starting a day at negative three, for example. So writing down everything, get everything that’s on your mind onto the paper of what you need to do tomorrow, what you haven’t done today, but what you need to do tomorrow.

(50:25)
A really powerful thing. And back to what I said with the stress thing, is writing down, let’s say five to 10 things that you are grateful for. Think about things that money cannot buy as well, because that’s when you, especially maybe the men listening to this podcast, I know a lot of hungry, successful men we’re always in this never ending race of let’s just say with money. For example, when we make $10,000, our goal is to make $10,000, sorry, 10,000 pounds. I’ll use your currency. Once we make 10,000, that’s not good enough. We want to make 20 once that, that’s not good enough. We want to make a hundred then a mill, okay? We’re always in this never ending race of something that’s in front of us because our mind automatically creates that next thing that we need to work towards, which is amazing. So being grateful for what you have right now, because I can guarantee it’s something that you only wish you had for maybe one year or two years ago, and it’s very hard to feel any other emotion other than happiness, joy, freedom.

(51:23)
When you do write down, let’s say the things you are grateful for. Another thing, it’s off my head. Even pre-plan your day for the next day. So at night, pre-plan, your next day at 6:00 AM I’m going to work out at 4:00 PM When I finish work, I’m going to do XYZ. So you’ve already got a bit of a plan. I find doing that is huge because you’re not guessing away through the day, therefore you’re not even making as much decisions that day. There’s a thing called decision fatigue, where the more decisions we make, the more mentally fatigued we get. Therefore, probably lack of performance when that happens. So imagine if you can make all your decisions when you’re already tired the night before. Therefore the day’s going to just be smooth for you, a lot more smoother, for example. I think that’s something that can help a lot before bed.

(52:07)
This is a very generic tip, but it is true trying to limit electronics before bed because electronics like foreign tv, all that stuff, even lights, they what’s called admit what’s called a blue light, which the sun naturally admits blue light. That tells our brain that it’s daytime. So when we’re looking at electronics that are lasting at night, our brains still thinking we’re awake, even though it’s an artificial blue light. So it’s something to understand as well. So I recommend something like the hour before bed, do some meditation or breath work, do that night routine that I just talked about. You’re preplanning your next day. Do something that’s not stimulating. Talk to your partner, for example, or your family. Just try not to do something that’s electronic. Read a book even, whatever, something. It’s not that you can just wind down and you’ve already focused, because normally probably the hour before bed, we’re still thinking about work. Definitely, I know a lot of successful men and that’s their mentality, which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s just something to consider that if your sleep’s not the best.

Greg Wilkes (53:13):

Yes, of course.

Vinnie Vecchio (53:13):

And that’s probably to consider.

Greg Wilkes (53:16):

That’s really valuable tips there, Vinnie. I really appreciate that. So if some of my listeners wanted to get some help with some of this, with the nutrition, with the tips to get a good routine in with the workout routines, things like that, how would they get in contact with you, Vinnie?

Vinnie Vecchio (53:34):

So I’ve got two places. My website, which is www.vinnievecchio.com, just my full name, just very simple, but I’m most active on Instagram as well, which is @theunstoppabletradesmen.

Greg Wilkes (53:47):

Right! @theunstoppabletradesmen. That’s perfect.

Vinnie Vecchio (53:52):

That’s a program.

Greg Wilkes (53:53):

Great. That’s it. That’s brilliant. So if any of my listeners want some extra help there, we’ve got Vinnie here that can certainly help you. The key, obviously if you’re listening to this podcast, you are interested in peak performance in business, but how much more important is peak performance in your own personal life and feeling well in yourself? So Vinnie, that’s been absolutely brilliant today. You’ve been absolute legends, given us some great tips there, so really appreciate that.

Greg Wilkes (54:25):

If you’d like to work with me to fast-track your construction business growth, then reach out on developcoaching.com.au.