(bright music) - And welcome back to "Family Health Matters."

I'm Shelley Irwin.

With me today, Don Kern, Adventurer, Marathon Race Director; Pete Overvoorde, owner of Grand Rapids Sports Massage; and the rows between the thorns, Whitney Dawn Pyles, Somatic Life Coach and Human Design Guide.

All I know behind the scenes, you are all optimizing your personal lives and your professional lives, so we talk about that.

Don Kern, talk about you.

- Well, I kind of started signing up for things a long time ago, and next thing you know, I've run lots of marathons, I started putting on marathons.

Started doing crazy swims, doing some triathlons, and basically also dragging other people in with me if I can.

Throwing a newsletter out there every week, getting everybody involved, keeping people motivated, keeping people excited about getting in the middle of things and making lifeless and making things happen.

- Great, definitely optimizing life, we'll get into that.

Whitney, tell us a little about you and your somatic coaching.

- Yes, so I am a somatic life coach, as you said, and human design guide.

I also facilitate dance, and movement, and do a lot of community organizing.

But at the center of it all is helping people to dance more, stay more present, and worry a little bit less in these short lives that we have.

- Yes, all right, Pete, how important is the art of human touch?

- Oh, that's a huge question.

It's got so many different benefits.

I can kind of go on, and on, and on and list 50 for you, but in stress reduction, in human bonding and connectivity to one another, in endorphin release and just helping us have this sense of calm and wellbeing in our lives.

Massage has been, and has been for ages, one of the first methods of healthcare, ever.

- Hmm, may I ask a question now also to all three of you?

When you hear the term optimizing life, what's it mean?

Start with you, Pete.

- Optimizing life, to me, means finding out who you are uniquely, what makes us tick, what makes us find joy in our lives, what makes us... or just allows us the ability to find what we are created for and to live into that.

Once we can live into what we are created for, we can start sharing, and I believe we just find the most joy when we share that with other people.

- [Shelley] Hmm, Whitney?

- Hmm.

Optimizing life is living authentically, allowing joy to unfold.

And living authentically so that you can attract what is meant for you, the people that want to love you, and see you, and witness you so you attract the work that makes you feel alive, and so that you can engage in the activities that really bring you a sense of peace, or satisfaction, or success, or whatever it is that makes you tick.

- [Shelley] Hmm.

Don?

- Yeah, it's really about the design.

I started out a long time ago, and it is just an attitude.

Find out who you are by sitting down and making a list of 100 things you wanna do.

And just putting, and the next thing you know, you've figured out: What direction do I really want to go in?

And then you set out to develop the attitudes that you need to do and the things you need to do.

And you start just like signing up for something out on your list someplace.

And with enough space to train for it or to get ready for it or whatever.

And going about doing it and then sharing it with other people because we don't want to...

This is not about just me, it's about not only having the experiences, but also kind of dragging people along, and bring them in, and help.

Kind of sometimes kicking and screaming, but the whole idea is like, "Let's get everybody involved in this because we can all do better things for each other."

- Hmm.

You mentioned attitude.

How important is the choice of an attitude?

- Oh, yeah, and that's the thing.

And when you say the choice of an attitude, that is exactly it.

We all get to choose how we feel about everything.

And I have a way of looking at things like, "Okay, everything I do is fun."

Sometimes, I don't realize it was fun until a couple weeks later, but everything I do is fun, and I go into life with that.

Everything I do is successful because sometimes I successfully identify something that didn't work quite the way I wanted it to.

So the whole idea is like get your attitude around, making things happen, and around like, "Okay, even if it felt like a failure..." Some people would say, "It's a failure."

No, it was a learning experience, it was something you did.

You might have failed, but you really didn't, you just successfully identified something you need to work on more or something that didn't quite work right.

So the attitude is a critical element for me.

- Yeah, Whitney, a part of your title is Deals with Human Design.

Expand into that and how can we design an optimized life?

- Hmm, I love that question, thank you.

So human design is actually a self-discovery system, and it has really deep roots in ancient wisdoms, like the Chinese I Ching, and astrology, and the Kabbalah Tree of Life.

And really what it is, is it's a blueprint for who you are here to be.

So what it does is it gives us this really eloquent map of purpose, of how we're meant to engage with the world around us.

And it gives us a deep sense of understanding where we should make our most aligned decisions from.

And in that, really, for most of us, releases the mind from this anxiety because there's this place within the body that we can trust to guide us in the right direction.

- Hmm, Pete, talk to us a little bit about your clients, and who should be visiting you, and is a positive atmosphere important to benefit from your services?

- Sure, sure.

So, like I said, I'm a sports massage therapist, or first and foremost a massage therapist.

So I deeply believe that everybody should be seeing me.

- [Shelley] Before or after the marathon?

- Preferably both.

- Indeed.

(everyone laughing) - But yeah, it's who I generally see are athletes and people who are just active in general.

So folks who do those races like that, but also people who spend excessive time doing other things like gardening and things that we consider really low-level activity.

But people that are active, they come and see me.

I see mostly athletes, probably about 60%.

Another 30, 35% are just active weekend warriors.

They like to jog, they like to work out, things like that.

But the importance of coming to see a massage therapist, I'll just say massage therapist instead of sports massage therapist.

We learn a lot of things about ourselves.

We learn about self-care, we learn about stress reduction.

It's much more than just the physical.

It's a very holistic way of looking at life.

And so they learn different coping mechanisms in life.

A lot of people come with stress that creates physical problems.

And so if they can learn some of those stress reduction or stress management techniques through the help of a massage therapist, all the better for them.

All the way to the physical so we'll help with circulation and muscle tension relief, joint movement and flexibility, all things that enhance one's life.

- Hmm, how do you personally deal with your stress when it comes to ultimate optimization?

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

I'm the type of person, I love to sit in silence.

Some people can't stand that, but give me a couple hours, I can sit and stare out the window for two hours and just kind of think about life.

Not that I get that chance all the time, but I think we all need that time just to kind of decompress, just to kind of feel into our body, feel into our thoughts.

So that's one way I do it.

Another way, I'll probably be in one of Don's races at some point, but I mountain bike, and I love just getting out there and smelling the smells.

Be it the pine needles or the dirt that I'm riding on, hearing the tamping down of the leaves, just being out there in nature.

And that's a huge stress relief for me, to be able to get out there and do that.

- Hmm.

Whitney, what's your go-to stress reliever?

- Hmm, dancing, of course.

Moving my body, and I think especially making space for myself, making space to question where that stress has come from.

Is it really mine to carry?

Has it come from someone else's expectations or the own misaligned expectations I've placed on myself?

So I think really getting nitty-gritty with: Why am I experiencing this?

And then taking time and my own energy to do the things that I love.

And for me, also being in nature and just noticing the world around me, noticing the things around me that help me to feel nourished, and peaceful, and safe, and supported, and inspired.

And then, yes, dancing always is a massive part of my life, and a massive part of shedding, I think, some of the social construction around what really brings the stress into our world in the first place.

- Hmm, hard to imagine marathon Don stressed, but- - [Don] Yeah, I- - If you've got a day that needs a little tweaking, what are you doing?

- Yeah, there's... Well, it's all about the physical activity.

It's like getting out there.

I exercise at least an hour every day because it's just necessary.

But I also sit, but if I replace drinking coffee too, and so it's the whole balance of things.

But getting out there and doing a few laps in the pool, or I hang out at the why a lot.

Upstairs, working on the weights, running around the track, or getting down in the pool, and taking a class and learning how to get better at swimming or whatever it happens to be.

But the idea is just to continually have a little bit of physical activity in every day.

And it's, like, I don't have a lot of stress.

It's a laid back attitude, I think, that I've developed over years.

It wasn't always as good as it is now, but the whole idea is just like, just get the physical activity, get outside and enjoy the fresh air.

I'll sit outside and go out and play in the snow for a while or shovel the snow for a while and whatever you gotta do.

- And what about taking risks?

I'll start with you with the risks you've taken in your life.

- Yeah, you just never know.

I mean, if you don't take risks, you might minimize the number of scars you have.

But you still gotta do stuff.

I mean, sometimes you got to jump in the lake and start swimming across the straits and not knowing if you really got the juice to do it.

But you're never gonna find out...

Probably most people are not gonna let you die when you're out there.

So jump in and get in the middle of it.

And I've done like Ironman Triathlons, and one of the friends ask me, "What if you fail?

Aren't you afraid?"

It's like, "Well, I hadn't thought about being afraid because what if I do fail?

I'll identify something, I'll find out something about myself, I'll learn something."

It took me three times trying to get across the straits swimming before I finally did it the first time.

There's been mountains I've tried to climb and haven't got to the top of.

And those are the kind of things.

So you take the risk.

You might fail, you might have a problem, you might have to have somebody come and rescue you or whatever happens to be, but man, jump in the middle of it because you're never gonna have the experience unless you take a shot at screwing it up.

- Pete, what about the fear of failure?

- Yeah, I believe at some point in our lives, we all have it.

And again, like Don was talking about the risks, a risk is all about a learning experience.

You don't learn without taking a risk.

We take a risk when we take our first steps in life.

We may fall, but we just take that risk.

As we get older, we do tend to have this sense of fear about things only because I think society puts that fear on us.

They ask us, "Are you going to fail?"

Or, "What are you worried about?"

Or, "If you do fail, what's gonna happen?"

Well, if you do fail, you keep on going.

And it's just a learning experience.

Failure's only failure if you don't learn something from it and take something away and do something about it next time.

So take those risks, be willing to learn from them.

If you succeed in whatever that goal is, you still learn something.

If you fail at that goal, you learn something for the next time.

You either try that same thing again or you try something different.

So yeah, I'm not too worried about failure.

I take a lot of risks in life, and Whitney and I are taking a risk right now at another endeavor.

We can talk about it later, but... Yeah, not so worried about it.

- Yes.

Well, let's talk about it now.

You conjoined in a project?

- We are, we are.

So I've been a massage therapist for 20 years, and I've mentored other massage therapists who were going through school.

Through that process, I've understood there's a need for more education, different types of education.

So I've decided to open my own massage school, Synergy Wellness Academy is what it's called.

So I'll be the lead instructor in that.

Whitney, however, is bringing her somatic sense to the school, and she'll be... Well, I can let her talk about how she's integrating that into the curriculum as well.

But we're partnering on this project, a huge project together, and we're super excited about it.

- Wow.

Expand on that, Whitney.

- Absolutely, so I'm very excited to be part of this project.

So I'm developing a curriculum that will exist alongside the Massage Therapy curriculum.

And the point of that is to help the students to regulate their nervous systems, number one.

We're starting with the self so that they can feel regulated.

When we're in this ventral vagal state, our capacity to learn and grow and dive into risk and failure and learn new things is greatly increased.

So that's one part of it.

But the next part of it is: How can they bring nervous system regulation?

How can they bring presence?

How can they bring intuition and sense into the room with their clients?

And then pass that, how can they build a business that helps to keep them regulated in their nervous system and not stressed out?

How can they build a business that really nourishes them using some of these principles?

- Wow, that sounds like prime sponsorship for a marathon or... (guests laughing) Goodness gracious.

Don, talk to me a little bit about some of the foundations.

Yes, you're active, you get out there, but are you taking... To optimize your life, are you a supplement taker?

Are you a vitamin taker?

Are you getting your sleep, everything that perhaps other advice medical experts may request?

- Well, that's one of the things it's like... And one of the things that I like what Whitney says about paying attention to your body because that is a critical element in the whole thing.

And which means that you are going to eat relatively well.

You are gonna drink not a lot.

I drink consistently, I drink regularly, but I don't drink a lot.

- [Shelley] You're talking drink alcohol?

- Alcohol, yeah.

I mean, but the idea is moderate, all that stuff.

Get enough sleep.

I'm blessed to not need more in about six or seven hours a night, but I make sure I get it.

And if I need a nap, I'll take one because the rest and recuperation... To recover, you gotta recover.

You gotta do all that kind of stuff.

And so the whole idea is like get reasonably good food.

A very simple exercise and diet program, okay?

Eat vegetables every day.

I was like, "Just have that in your brain.

Order the carrot sticks instead of the french fries."

And get an hour worth of exercise every day.

And it's those two really simple things.

It doesn't have to...

I'm not a guy that can sit there with a plan that somebody puts together for me and run X number of miles this day and this much at this speed.

It's like, "No, It's too structured for me."

But I can remember to eat vegetables and I can remember to exercise.

And exercise might be moving stuff around, might be shoveling snow, might be running, might be swimming, might be something, but just do so.

Even if it's just going for a walk for an hour.

You can walk three miles, and you got an hour worth of exercise, and it's great.

And so it's a simple thing for me because I can't deal with the complicated stuff.

I wanna do something like that.

So basic nutrition.

Try to be good about stuff, be moderation, make that happen.

- Yes.

Whitney, is the adage that I often hear, "Surround yourself with those who either inspire you or lift you up."

How much of a choice of those that we... Well, you can't choose your family, but how important is that when you do your coaching?

And toxic friends, I mean, expand into that.

- Yeah, I absolutely think there's a lot of truth to that adage.

So for me, a couple things.

One, I think it all comes from a place of authenticity.

When you are showing up authentically as who you are, you're attracting the people that want to witness you in that.

And so I think that we all have people in our lives that take a little bit more energy from us than they give.

And not to say cut these people out, but create boundaries so that you can maintain your energy and your peace.

And so then you can attract those people that do inspire you.

And I'm not gonna use the word push, but there's something about surrounding yourself with wonderful humans.

Pete and his wife are very good friends, but there's something about being in space with folks that are just focused on the right things that increase your baseline of what satisfaction in your life, and what success looks like, and what presence looks like.

So surrounding yourself with those people, I think that's what it does.

It helps you increase that baseline so that you are really living in alignment with who you're here to be and optimizing your potential.

- Yep.

We'll use that word a lot.

Pete, expand on that.

And then where do you find when clients ask you about: How much sleep should I get?

What should I be eating to optimize my best self?

- Expand on who's like surrounding myself with certain people?

- Yeah, hang with the right people to lift you up?

- Yeah, so yeah, I heard, I don't know how long ago, but quite some time ago that we're the average of, I believe, it was the five people.

And it may change, depending who you're talking, the five people we hang out with the most.

And so we have people that kind of pull us up emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually.

Pick an avenue of health and wellness and those that may need a little bit of assistance from you as well.

And so I've tried to do that as much as possible as well.

Some people... Well, I guess in my own practice in GR Sports Massage, I haven't always been just sports massage-oriented.

I used to just kind of take anybody and everybody who came.

And if someone came through the door, I'd still take them if they weren't athletic, if they weren't active, or anything like that.

However, I created a niche for myself because athletes and active folks, this is what I knew, this is what I was comfortable with.

And so in changing that over in the last couple years, it's just drawn that community to myself and to my business as well, and has really helped me thrive in that business and really enjoy it because of that as well.

Yeah, when people come and they're asking about specific things like nutrition, health-related things, I always have to kind of pull back a little bit and just kind of stay in my lane too.

There are some basics that most people understand, and if they don't, they're easy to pass along.

As Don was talking about just your veggies, and your fruits, and things like that, those are really easy things to pass on to people.

Do these three, four, five things, and your health is gonna be enhanced.

Supplementation, I don't get into that at all.

I used to as a personal trainer and that was something I was trained in, but the nutritional environment changes so much and so often; every day, it seems like.

So not being the expert currently in that, I try to stay in my lane, stay away from that, and just basically refer out for those kind of things too.

But some of the basics I know and understand about sleep and just getting enough sleep and what that can do for brain function, what that can do for stress moderation and reduction.

And exercise, and what that can do for us as well, physically, mentally, emotionally.

I do make sure to have that discussion with people every time they're on the table and leaving my office as well, just to make sure that they understand all of the different ways that they can help themselves going forward because I'm really just there as a guide for them.

I know a lot of people come into massage because they want to be fixed.

As massage therapists, as just health practitioners, we're not there to fix anybody, but we're there to guide them along the path to health and wellness.

And so if I can do that for someone in a small way or a large way, then I feel I'm doing my job.

- Hmm, nice.

Whitney, you have a tiny one in your life.

How are we optimizing life in kids?

- I mean, thank you for bringing that up because as we're talking about sleep, these alarms are going off your head, "I have a toddler."

So how are we optimizing our life with children?

So how are children optimizing, or... - How do you wanna make sure your little one's going to have the attitude in a good way?

Or how do you optimize her life?

- Absolutely.

So my approach with her is very similar to my approach with anyone that I would be working with, and it's this assumption that comes from Carl Rogers and humanistic psychology.

And what it is, is that as human beings, we are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole.

And so just always holding her in that empathy, even as a 16-month-old child.

And for me, as a mother, what gives me peace and also, I think, encourages her to start optimizing her life is creating safety while also providing freedom and movement for her to explore and be curious, and really indulging that curiosity in a way that lights her up while also feeling like there's this structure of safety within it.

And it feels a little bit like that's what we all need is this playtime, and this curiosity, and this freedom to move in the directions we feel called to move within the structures and systems that allow us to be safe and help, yeah.

- A little get up when she's 16.

See, I know.

(guests laughing) Looking- - [Whitney] To look very different.

- Looking to start to wind down.

Don, talk a little about your book and maybe your next adventure.

- Well, I did write a book.

I ran marathons on all seven continents in a world-record time at one point.

And it took me three tries to do that because people beat me to it.

But it's one of those things that's like...

It's a way of sharing what's happened, and I've got a lot of stories and a lot of adventures around and I did that, and the book is like 12 years old now and... - [Shelley] Time for a sequel.

- Well, it is, it's getting there.

But yeah, but the idea is like adventures never quit, and I can't run marathons like I used to.

My, I've got both knees replaced.

And they're really strong and they're really nice and everything, but that's why I'm doing more swimming events.

That's why I'm doing some more stuff.

That's why we did... Last year, we did all five Great Lakes in the same day.

We swam for a half hour in each of the lakes in one day.

And we're going to probably do that again this summer 'cause enough people have said, "Hey, are you gonna do that again?"

And they want to go with me.

And so we had 11 people do it last summer, and it's looking like that'll happen.

And there's just...

There's a world of adventures out there, and I haven't given up on running marathons, I'll run a few here and there.

I'm still encouraging people to get out there.

Like I said, I publish my newsletter every week.

I wanna make sure people are out there.

And I mean, I feel like I've had good influence on people, but yeah, the whole idea about adventures is not just me having the adventures, but it's me bringing people along in the middle of it.

You know, I mean, you've been doing my events for 20 years now.

- [Shelley] Yes, yes, and 20 more on the list.

- Yeah, and so I might have dragged you into your first marathon for all I know, but... - [Shelley] Second.

- The second one?

Okay.

- Second one.

Don Kern, how do we find out more about you?

- Okay, well, I'm pretty easy to find on Facebook.

I'm all over the place there.

cooladventures.net or grandrapidsmarathon.com.

You'll find lots of stuff about what's going on and that.

And if you want to get on my newsletter list, you can find that on the Grand Rapids Marathon website as well.

Just scroll down to the bottom and sign up for it.

And maybe you'll be entertained a little bit here and there.

I try to do that, try to inspire people.

Sometimes, I'm just flat, I don't know.

But I try to share something with people that's gonna be a little bit helpful every week if I can.

- More optimizing life.

Whitney Pyles, how do we find out more about you?

- You can go to my website, so that's whitneydawn.com.

My middle name, D-A-W-N.

I'm also Whitney Dawn Pyles on Facebook and on Instagram.

And that's the best way to connect with me.

- Hmm, yes.

Pete, you get the closing comments, please.

- All right, so yeah, you can find out about me and my school at synergywellnessacademy.com.

Same handle for Instagram and Facebook.

For GR Sports Massage, you can go to grsportsmassage.com to find out more and to book an appointment with me as well.

- Hmm, and I'll give you a little plug back to you, Don, with just a a minute left.

There's a Groundhog Day.

- Groundhog Day Marathon coming up, first weekend in February.

And doesn't matter how much snow there is, we will be out there having a blast out at Millennium Park.

- Yeah, it's called Certainly Optimizing Life.

And then your joint adventure begins?

- We are looking for the first class to start January 29th.

So that's coming up really soon.

- Really soon.

- Really soon.

- Great, yeah.

And what's your little one's... What do you think she's gonna be when she grows up?

- Oh, we're thinking engineer.

She loves to watch how things work, and I love watching her watching things work.

And she's definitely going to dance.

- Quick yes or no answer.

Is it ever too late to optimize life?

- Oh, heck no.

- No.

- Not one bit.

- All right, that's how we end this positive spin on optimizing life.

Pete, thank you.

Whitney, thank you.

Marathon Don, thank you to you.

And as always, thank you to you.

Hope you are optimizing your life.

If you're not today, start yesterday.

Thank you very much.

And of course, go get them.

I'm Shelley Irwin.

Enjoy your day.

(bright music)