Setting The Self-Care Frame

SPEAKER_02 0:08

All right, happy Saturday, folks. Happy Saturday, sweet spotters. You're doing it. You're doing it. This is self-care Saturday here on the Sweet Spot. And wow, I've just been reveling, really, basking. I don't know what other words to use. Joyfully imbibing all of what I've learned this week, and I know you have too, from the interaction, the exchange we've been having with our esteemed guest here, Cam Clark. Cam, welcome back.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Thank you for having me.

Cam Clark On Purpose And Pace

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Absolutely. And I want to thank you one more time for once again just being so full of integrity and giving us such profound answers to the questions we've had here on The Sweet Spot all week. Yes, I'm honored. I'm honored to be here. Well, today we're jumping into self-care. It's self-care Saturday, and we always use Saturday to remind ourselves here on The Sweet Spot that it's about the self, too, that we can't pour from an empty cup. We've got to fill the cup. We've got to pour into the cup. It's about recovery. It's about making sure we put deposits into the bank of our soul so that we can withdraw when we need it. This is true in sports too. Recovery is a big thing. You've got to put back in what you expend. It's a truism in life. It's a principle. And what you put in matters. How you care for yourself matters. So sometimes we say self-care, and people are like, all right, well, I'm just gonna do some bad habit things that just make me feel good and make me feel comfortable. It's a form of care, but one of the things they say is garbage in, garbage out. So you've got to be careful what the inputs are for your self-care. Make sure that it's natural, make sure that it's wholesome, make sure that it's affirming. And another thing we talk about in self-care is that we're not talking about just the spa or the aromatherapy candles or the hot yoga, even though I've just learned some things about hot yoga and breathing that are revolutionary and in my mind about how we reset our nervous system. And I'm hoping to have a guest on who, uh, if she if she will agree to talk us through that. We're talking about whatever makes you happy, what brings you joy, what do you do that resets your nervous system so that you can face making moves Monday and take action Tuesday, so you can be a winner on Wednesday, and that you can uh trust yourself more on Thursday and finish strong on Friday. Uh that all begins right here today, on self-care Saturday, because if we don't care for ourselves, we are not at a thousand percent readiness for the rest of the week. So, Cam, I've seen you work at what I consider a phenomenal pace with the work that you do, not just on the field when you were an athlete in the NFL, but even as an agent. I mean, this you're always traveling, you're always on the road, you're getting it done. And uh you seem so balanced and so even. So we want to know what your secrets are. You said you have no self-care secrets, which automatically as a psychiatrist made me pause to think about maybe we need to dig deeper and find out what the real secret is, because there's something that you do that you haven't shared yet. And I don't know if we're gonna get that today, but whatever it is, I want to know. And I think our listeners want to know what keeps Cam Clark so balanced and focused with all of the pressures and the stresses that he has on him.

Recovery Lessons From The NFL

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Go for it, Cam. Yeah, no, I I love that. I love the topic and I love the question. I must say, I'm I'm blessed because I love what I do. And that's 99% to me of why I'm able to do what I do, how I do it, late nights, early mornings, you know, the phone call, middle of the night, the being able to put oftentimes clients and above my wife, above my family, above above myself at times, right? So I love what I do. I I know that I have a purpose, and I truly believe I'm walking in the walking on the path and in the steps that God has aligned for me. So, and as well as I've this where I am right now was where I dreamed of being two to three years ago. And reminding myself of not even just three years ago, about the little kid, the young cam, elementary school, eight, nine years old, that had dreams, that had aspirations, that wanted to impact the world, and now the world is at my fingertips, and I can do so at a scale that is still hard for me to wrap my mind around. So I'd be misleading by saying that what I do in my career isn't a lot of what drives me, right? Um, but we talk about recovery from a physical standpoint, right? And just to answer your question as an athlete, I am very well immersed in recovery, right? And when you look at an NFL player and their schedule and what their day looks like, NFL players they practice for two hours a day. And outside of those two, those two hours of competition, the other, I'd say 20 to 22 hours is spent on recovering for the next two-hour practice. Right? So if I know a lot of people don't see that, they think NFL guys or or top athletes or anyone that's just at the top of their field, they're constantly acting and doing and performing. That's all they do is perform, perform, perform. No, that's not the case, right? There are guys that we'll see that are going to play on the Super Bowl or guys every single week in the NFL that have to recover from Sunday's game all the way up until they don't start feeling good again until this the next Sunday. Right? So I say that to say is that recovery is one is what's gonna make sure that we don't just that we're just not a flash in a pan, right? There is sustained success. You know, so if we look at NASCAR, look at a pit stop, these are high performance vehicles going over 100 miles an hour, right? Even these guys who were, and in that sport, therefore, the the whole game is to cut down on time, right? So if we could go and not have a not have a pit stop and just perform, perform, perform, those guys would finish those races in record times. But even in a field, in a profession, in a sport that relies on timeliness, even in the middle of the chaos, they still find time to recover. So I think that's something that we could all learn that we could that we could implement in our lives. Um, and understand too, is that what you get in is what you get out, like Dr. Sweet mentioned earlier. And you know, you can't pull from a you can't pour from an empty cup, you can't pull from a jar that you haven't deposited in. So to me, recovery is more so it's like investing, it's making those deposits that you know that you're going to have to pull from. So on this Saturday, on this weekend, I hate to hijack your show, Dr. Sweet, but on this Saturday, on this weekend, it's about setting ourselves up for make for making moves Monday, for taking action Tuesday, right? So, what can we do today that's gonna put us in a position, what can we deposit in ourselves today, right? Whether that's reading a book, whether that's the decisions that we choose to fuel our bodies with, food, drinks, all those different kinds of type things, all of that is gonna determine not only how we perform, but how we feel about ourselves.

Pit Stops, Inputs, And Deposits

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Wow, yeah, man. All I'm gonna say is yes, sir, because that's it. That's it again. I could just stop the we can say thank you, Cam, and and walk away. This is powerful and it's so real. Thank you for being so clear on that. Thank you for being so clear, and it's right. We are future you. I always thought talk about future you. Future you is looking, everybody. Future you is counting on you to do exactly what Cam just said. Future U is counting on us, or future us is counting on us to do the things today that will get future you ready for Monday. And that's true if you're an athlete or performer, if you are at home and you're taking care, you're a caregiver, whatever your role is, there is future you. And future you need energy, future you needs to be balanced, future you needs to feel good and to be ready. If you're an athlete, future you wants to have excellent reaction time, future you wants to be at the top of your game, and future you is depending on you right now, current you, to do what Cam just said. What actions are you gonna take today so that future you could be proud, future you could be happy? Yes. This could even be about money. Future you, 10 years from now or five years from now, wants you to put a buck, a dollar a day away, a rainy day fund or something, so that future you can be okay financially. Future you wants to be able to be healthy, so it's gonna need current you to take on healthier habits. So this is what I'm getting from this idea of self-care. Future you wants current you to care for you now, today. Just like Cam said. Do it right here, right now. Hey Cam, I was telling my listeners the the other day that there was a locker room that I walked into, I can't remember where. And it had written on it on in the locker room right here, right now, in big letters across the locker room. And it stayed with me. Because that's where the action happens. It's not future you can't do what current you can do. It has to wait to become current you. In fact, current you is the result, what used to be a future you. So, whatever decisions we want to make right here, right now, about our self-care, if you decide not to care for yourself today, that's robbing future you of something that future you needs. But if you do decide to do something positive, like you said, read a book, go for a walk, take a uh uh uh a bath, whatever it is that makes sense, do it. Do it. This is not about a lecture on self-care, like you have to um you know buy candles and you know go to the spa. It's much more than that. Sometimes it's just spending time with yourself, sometimes it's about letting go to use your term. What can you let go of today that would increase your self-care? Yes. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Go ahead. And just to be clear, self-care and sports, we call it recovery. It it is the work. It's not you work and then you self-care and then you recover. It's all one. You know, it's uh one hand washes the other. And it's just as important as performance. So just wanted to throw it out there.

Future You And Choices Today

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Brilliant point. Brilliant point. I'm writing this book called Sleeper's Performance Medicine, and part of the recovery part of it, I'm calling it the recovery revolution, is exactly that. The recovery revolution is self-care is not something you earn, to your point. You don't, this is not a reward for working hard. This is part of why you win. This is part of why you stay healthy. It's as important as any other activity you do, to your point. That's the idea of self-care. So today I'm gonna ask our listeners what is your self-care routine?

SPEAKER_01 14:21

What are the top three things you do for self-care? Think that through. Think that through.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

For some of us, we may only have one thing on the list. For some of us, we may have none. And if you don't have anything, don't judge yourself. It's not bad. It's just that this is where we are. And what you can do today is do what we do on the sweet spot all the time. Take a deep breath in through your nose, hold it, and let the exhale be lower than the inhale. Just that brings more oxygen into your brain, it brings more oxygen into your body, it resets your nervous system. And if you do this for two minutes or three minutes, your entire body is going to thank you. If you take one minute for yourself, if you go outside and you just look out at nature. I have this exercise we do at the house, me and Darcell, we say, let's look at something as if we're seeing it for the first time. You would be surprised that when you slow down and you walk around your house, your apartment, you look in your car, and you slow down and you just look at details. How much stuff you miss? How much stuff we miss because we're not paying attention, we're not in awareness. I'll bet you right now, there's something in the room that you're in that if you slow down and relaxed and just inspect the look of it, your brain might say, huh? I've never seen that before. And that's good because you're right here, right now. That makes sense without you've been listening to the sweet spot, it is self-care Saturday, and we've been having a conversation with Cam Clark tomorrow, beautiful soul. We're going to close this amazing week out on Slowdown Sunday. Now, for those of you who are regulars here on the Street Spark, you know we get a little spooky. We get spooky, man. We get spooky tomorrow because we go into astrophysics, we go into the universe, we start digging in on black holes and cosmic rays and and what does the universe have to show to tell us? It's fun. Look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Cam, you up for tomorrow?

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Absolutely. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

All right, see you then.