Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
Courageous Leadership with Dr. Travis Yates Podcast examines what it means to be a Courageous Police Leader. Join us weekly as the concepts of Courageous Leadership are detailed along with interviews with influencers that are committed to leading with courage. You can find out more about Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates at: www.TravisYates.org
Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates
New Year and New Habits with Adam Boyd
This episode features a discussion on transforming New Year’s resolutions into effective, sustainable goals by focusing on long-term vision and habit formation. Adam Boyd emphasizes manageable strategies for personal health and organizational leadership, encouraging listeners to embrace gradual progress toward their objectives.
• Aligning goals with personal values
• The importance of establishing manageable habits
• Commitment to a consistent routine for lasting change
• Breaking down larger organizational goals into smaller steps
• Setting realistic health expectations based on gradual progress
• The role of nutrition in sustainable fitness
• Combining cardio and strength training for overall health
Join Our Tribe of Courageous Leaders:
Get The Book
Get Weekly Articles by Travis Yates
Join Us At Our Website
Get Our 'Courageous Leadership' Training
Join The Courageous Police Leadership Alliance
Welcome to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates, where leaders find the insights, advice and encouragement they need to lead courageously.
Travis Yates:Welcome back to the show. I'm so honored you decided to spend a few minutes with us here today, and it's 2025, the new year is here and everybody is looking ahead for the goals and purposes of the new year, and I couldn't think of a better guest to have on to launch 2025 than Adam Boyd. Adam has been here before. He's been a guest here before. He's an OG, so to speak, a veteran law enforcement officer and owner of Soleful Training. Adam Boyd, how are you doing, sir?
Adam Boyd:I'm doing great Thanks for having me on again, adam Boyd. How are you doing, sir?
Travis Yates:I'm doing great Thanks for having me on again. So tell us about the New Year's resolutions, right? We all know what the research says. People start them, they stop them. It doesn't work very well. Do you believe in the resolutions or do you believe in something else?
Adam Boyd:I believe in having your resolutions align with your long-term vision. I think that's one of the missing elements people forget about when they set goals. You know, if I say I want to run a marathon in 2025, well, why do you want to run a marathon Like? Why is that significant to you? And if you can attach some sort of significance to your goal, you're much more likely to stick with it.
Travis Yates:Yeah, that's one of the things that I've attempted to do. And I don't do the resolutions, adam, but I do take the first of the year to sort of recommit my purpose and some goals. And one of the things I did this year I'm interested to hear your take on this and maybe it helps others is I got one of these 90-day journals and I know why they sell these because it helps you to build habits, right, and it's basically an accountability faith feature with the journal and you can go and you can Google and find a bunch of these out there. But it makes you write these things down and you do these things for 90 days and, of course, you start with an ultimate goal or ultimate goals. Tell us how you do it. If somebody is wanting to start the year. Instead of doing resolutions, let's talk about how do you form habits. What's the best way to do that?
Adam Boyd:Well, first start off with something that's not overwhelming. You know if you want to, you know we'll keep using the marathon example You're not going to go out there and run a 10 mile run on your first day. You may do 10 minutes and you want to make it into manageable chunks and have a psychological connection with whatever you're doing, if you can make it enjoyable. So if I say I'm going to run a marathon and I go out there and I bust my hump the very first day and I'm sore, I'm tired and everything hurts, I'm going to have a negative association with that activity. Now, if I can do it on a small level to make me keep wanting more, then you're going to draw back to that activity and you're more likely to complete whatever your goal is if you make it manageable and you make it enjoyable.
Travis Yates:Yeah, and of course most people are wanting to get fit right. They talk about losing weight and this and that, and we all know the gyms would be really busy for the first couple weeks of the year and then people fall out of that habit. So building a habit, you're saying make it manageable, make it enjoyable. How long do you have to do something on a regular basis to sort of formulate that habit?
Adam Boyd:About 90 days, which is right on par with the journal that you have. It takes about that long to kind of connect those new neural pathways into saying like this is what I do now, this is my norm.
Travis Yates:Yeah, in the middle of winter, when I see the people out running, when there's ice on the street, you have to think that's those neural pathways you just talked about. They have to run just because it's they have to or they don't feel right. You're an ultra runner, adam. I know people know your background. Is that something that? Am I making sense there?
Adam Boyd:Yeah, you're making perfect sense. It becomes like a have to. Like I don't feel like myself unless I'm doing you know this activity or that activity. Like I don't feel like myself unless I'm doing you know this activity or that activity. And that's the point where you want to get to is where, like the activity that's good for you and the one that aligns with your goals and your vision, you have to do it every day or you just don't feel right.
Travis Yates:Yeah, I'm going to come back to the fitness, sam, but I wanted to transition to leadership in a minute, because you may have leaders out there that have goals for this next year. It has nothing to do with personal goals or fitness goals. It may just be for an organization. Right, I want my organization to do this or do that. Let's attribute and talk about those habits they need to set down and basically write a map of how they're going to get there and have those high points as manageable. Because if you say, hey, I want my department to become accredited, regardless of whatever curse word you put in front of that, whatever it is, I want my department to become accredited Well, you can't just get there tomorrow.
Travis Yates:You have to form some habits and constructively do some things to get there. So what you're saying is they should set manageable goals along that path and then, at the end, you actually get there. I'll attribute this the other way. If somebody wants to write a book and I've been through this you can't think about the end of the book. You can't. This is too much. You think of it page by page, chapter by chapter, little by little, and by the end of the end of the year, the year into that time period, you've accomplished it right, and so if you look at it this way, that's, you know, we're always trying to improve.
Adam Boyd:So let's say you want your, uh, your officer, everybody's writing 30 tickets a month. You know, I know, you know we can't do quotas, but you know, for argument's sake here, well, if 30, 30 exhaust you every month and then you want to improve on that, they're going to look at 35 and be like man, this is just going to wear me out. And then you know, the next month, 40, 45, and it keeps going. And you just keep pushing everybody's limits where if you can start at like 10, and you're like I can do 10, I can do 15, right, you know 10 is not a big deal. And you're like I can do 10, I can do 15, right, you know 10 is not a big deal. And then all of a sudden you're at 40,. You know, six months down the road, because you slowly build up and make it more manageable and psychologically it just feels more attainable.
Travis Yates:Yeah, it makes sense Forming the habit, whether it's fitness or whether it's organizational goals, whether it's trying to write a book, whatever it is, whether it's organizational goals, whether it's trying to write a book, whatever it is, you have to first form the productivity and the habit going into that to actually do it, because we could sit here all day long and say I would have done this or I would have done that, but until you actually put it into work and practice it, it's not going to happen. I'll take it back to the book, because I'm familiar with that. I've talked about a book for years, but it wasn't until I wrote down exactly what I had to do every day to accomplish that that that ended up happening. Right, Because you just have to put it as a priority. And I will back up to fitness, because I bet most people listen to us, because most people have these fitness goals or weight loss goals in the first year. Let's back up and talk about that Same thing.
Travis Yates:You have to form a habit, you have to have manageable goals. Kind of expand on that when it comes to fitness. Adam.
Adam Boyd:Well, you know, one of the other things I really like to do when it comes to goal setting is right next to my goal, I write down what am I truly willing to give up to get that goal? So I want to run a marathon, you know. Am I going to give up family time? Am I giving up friday nights with the boys? Am I giving up and not? And not what it sounds good like. What am I willing to give up? But what are you truly willing to give up to start hitting those goals? Because the behavior you're exhibiting today needs to be different than what you're going to exhibit tomorrow.
Travis Yates:Yeah, that's huge. That's huge. You know I'll go back once again. It's not right in the book, but when I got my doctorate I had to really evaluate is this worth what I'm having to give up? Because I did give up time with family, I did give up time doing recreational activities, and so you have to evaluate, because if you don't and it's competing interest, like if you're constantly competing with other things that's not going to happen right, it's not going to work, and so you have to really evaluate that. So you're saying at the very beginning you have to front load all this information before you start forming that habit yeah, and front load your hurdles.
Adam Boyd:You know every big goal is going to have, not probably not just one, but a multitude of hurdles you're going to have to get over and to be able to plan for those and and that way, when they show up, you have the ability to execute, because it doesn't blindside you.
Adam Boyd:It's just like any. It's like a tactical plan as well. Right, if you're planning for like a several contingencies, you're like all right, we're going to make entry into the east, the East, and then you get there and you realize that the there's something you didn't account for on the East end of that house, but you got to reevaluate on the West end. Well, if you've already planned for both entries, you're just going to smoothly transition. It's going to be the same thing when it comes to your fitness goals. Understand, you're not going to be motivated some mornings to get up and go for the workout. You may not be motivated to eat, right, you may not be motivated after a long shift to do the thing. But if you can plan, have a contingency plan for how, those, how you're going to overcome those feelings, you'll be much more successful.
Speaker 1:One of the other things that go ahead.
Travis Yates:Well, that's huge when you talk about hurdles, because there's going to be hurdles in anything. I'll give you an example. You know, let's say you're on a weight loss journey or you're working out and you're in a habit and then all of a sudden you get sick. Or all of a sudden, one week you weigh and you didn't lose weight. You gain weight or you go on a vacation and it throws your schedule off.
Travis Yates:Those hurdles are going to always happen and that's a huge thing to be concerned about, because if you break that cycle, that habit you're trying to build, that's why you see people that first two weeks of January they're going after it and then maybe they don't go a day or two, then it's a week, then it's two weeks. Everybody I think can listen to this, can kind of identify with this. You get out of that habit. That's why in the first 90 days, like you said, plan for the hiccups, plan for the obstacles and overcome the obstacles. Hey, if you miss a day, get up earlier the next morning and go, or go twice the next day, or whatever it is and be flexible with yourself.
Adam Boyd:You know law enforcement schedule is not easy. You know you may work a homicide or a fatal for 20 24 hours. Uh, give yourself some grace, prioritize some rest as well, and then just get back on it the next day, or maybe it's two or three days later, um, and just give yourself some grace and some flexibility, but always get back to the I gotta do the thing. I got to do the thing I have to do, whatever it is. And I remember when I first ran my first 100 miler I was about mile 80 or so I was completely broken down. I mean, my ears hurt everything, I mean my fingernails hurt, everything hurts.
Adam Boyd:And I remember I think it was a buddy of mine now, you know, I'm sitting in the chair and I'm all kind of broke down he said, uh, he signed up to do something hard. I said, yeah. He said, well, this is what hard feels like. And I think most people, um, romanticize doing difficult things when they really get into the weeds. They have to understand what it actually feels like to do something difficult. And you know it doesn't have to be an ultra and you know it doesn't have to be an ultra marathon. Changing your diet is difficult.
Speaker 1:Starting a workout regimen is difficult.
Adam Boyd:You know, the nervous system always prefers a familiar hell over a familiar heaven or an unfamiliar heaven. And the most minor change in your routine could throw your nervous system off and makes you a little uncomfortable.
Travis Yates:Yeah, that's a great point. I'm not sure how many people can identify with the 80 miles, but they can obviously identify with trying to do something that's hard, right, I'm a big believer in trying to do hard things, you know, and keep it up. You know I've in years past I've started jujitsu, I've started trying to play the guitar, All these things that are hard not 80 miles, not 100 miles but things often get in the way when you're trying to do things hard, because I think your natural inclination is to pull back from that, is it not?
Adam Boyd:It is because you want to go back to that comfort zone I promised myself, no matter what, I would get 20 minutes in a day. I don't care if I had a 20 mile run schedule. If life got in the way I would do 20 minutes of jumping jacks, it doesn't matter. Like I made sure that the non-negotiable for me was just 20 minutes on a training day and I hit it more times than not. I mean, sometimes life really gets in the way and you have to adjust. But if you don't have to make sure to give yourself some flexibility and what you're supposed to do too, um, you know, I don't really feel like doing a 20 mile run today. Well, maybe your body, your mind's not up for it. Maybe that's a new lifting day, or maybe you do a five miler instead, um, and then you'll start to learn over time, like when you need it versus like when you, when you just want a break and you're just not mentally up for a big day.
Travis Yates:So I think we've covered sort of the foundational. You've got to build habits, you've got to build in you know the obstacles. You've got to sort of overcome that. Writing things down it's for the long term. Let's let's transition to what a lot of people are probably thinking, which is health and fitness. So we talk about diet. We obviously I know you and I both don't believe in diets. We don't believe in fad diets. We believe in a lifestyle. So somebody has to truly get healthier and I think hopefully they want to. Um, there's a bunch of miss misinformation out there. Everywhere you look there's somebody trying to tell you the easy way and the quick fix. What are just some top items they could be doing immediately to try to help them get healthier.
Adam Boyd:Immediately. Add protein and fiber into your diet and make your snacks accessible. You know, if you got grapes or nuts out in a bowl or you have candy out in a bowl, we're inevitably going to graze when we're in our house. Right, You're back and what are you going?
Adam Boyd:to do. You're going to reach your hand in the candy dish or the cookie jar, or you can make it something a little bit more healthy. You can put uh, you know walnuts out there, you can put grapes out there, and the same thing for our patrol guys when they're inside their cars. You know, have a. You can get, like a, ready protein shakes that, like Costco or Sam's Club, have those available protein bar. You know something that's reasonably healthy and that's going to fill you up. Have some. I like to pair my protein with a fruit, so I get some fiber, I get some micronutrients and I get my protein and that's a great snack to help keep you full for a little while to get you through to your next meal.
Travis Yates:Yeah, and just like you talked about with goal setting has to be manageable. So if somebody is listening and they got to lose 50 pounds, you're going to have to manage those expectations. So maybe instead of saying I want to lose 50 pounds tomorrow, you go, you know what. Let's try to lose five pounds a month. Let's do what it takes to lose one pound a week. Right, and that's not actually that difficult by doing a few things. What you just said on the diet add water. I believe you know 64 plus ounces on water. It's probably a way to calculate that based on weight. I've always heard every pound is an ounce, but start with. Start with several glasses of water a day and that's going to keep you from being hungry. And then adding that protein, I mean. And then just moving, not having to go do a bunch of crazy HIIT workouts and all cross-fitted out, I mean just moving with that probably gets you on your way to that one pound a week does it not?
Adam Boyd:Yeah, there's some extra movement you could probably add in. Change your diet a little bit and start adding in after dinner walks and you'll probably get there. You know, you'll lose that pound a week. Uh, just by making some minor changes. You don't have to do anything crazy. Uh, in the reality of it, if you get a good workout program, they're boring. Great, great workout programs for performance, weight loss, whatever it is. It's boring because you're doing the same stuff day in and day out. And if you can mentally wrap your mind around that in the beginning that it's gonna suck, it's gonna be boring. I just need to make minor changes and look at, look at the long game. You, you'll be successful.
Travis Yates:I mean, I think everybody listening to this Adam would say I'll take that deal one pound a week. But we have such a short-term memory, we want it fast, we want it now, right. And so you'll see people jump out of a chute. I mean, they'll lose 15, 20 pounds in six weeks and then something happens and they go right back to the old habits, right. That's why it's really important, if you're serious about this, take it slow to go fast, right. Which is, build out exactly what you have to do. Make it manageable. Don't, like you said, don't keep yourself from enjoyment, right. If you want to have Mexican food once a week, have Mexican food once a week, right. I think you talk about the 80 20 rule. That's a really great ideology. Kind of explain what that is, adam.
Adam Boyd:I try to make 80 to 90% of my food intake good quality protein, good fats, quality carbohydrates, and then allow that other 10, 20%. Allow myself some flexibility and it may not be all at once. It's not like I, monday through Friday, I eat 100% clean and then Saturday I go off the rails and then Sunday I'm back on it. It may be, you know, dinner on Thursday is a burger and fries, but breakfast and lunch was a good quality meal, and then Sunday I may have pizza, or I may have a cookie on Monday night and I sprinkle it in. So it's never something that grabs a hold of me where I'm like I have to have this and I just. I just kind of crush those cravings before they start and have just a little bit of indulgence food throughout the week and then focus mainly on the good quality food majority of the time.
Travis Yates:I kind of laugh at some of these so-called gurus out there that will say things like calories don't matter, which is really crazy, because they do matter. Let's talk about the best way to sort of track those calories. And how do you lose weight? Right, because I know we all know it's I believe it's thirty five hundred calories a pound. You could actually do some simple math and figure this out yourself. You don't want to lose too much weight at once because you'll lose muscle mass, right?
Travis Yates:We'll kind of talk to people how, uh, if we've got them thinking on the long-term goal and managing those goals and kind of doing some small things, what's the best way to track what you're eating and sort of even anticipating. I actually have an app that literally tells me, if I eat this way, this is how long it will take to lose this much weight, and it's pretty darn accurate. Uh, sort of even anticipating. I actually have an app that literally tells me, if I eat this way, this is how long it will take to lose this much weight, and it's pretty darn accurate.
Adam Boyd:There's all kinds of that technology out there. Let's talk about calories in calories out. As far as what can help them get more fit? Well, calories in calories out. I mean I could eat nothing but Twinkies and lose weight if I'm in a caloric deficit.
Adam Boyd:Uh, the problem you run into long-term is that you're not getting the, the macro and the micronutrients to help your body run efficiently.
Adam Boyd:So it may be you could do it in the short term, but in the longterm, you know you're you're going to cause yourself to lose muscle mass. You can cause yourself a whole host of health conditions because you don't have the vitamins and minerals to help your body run the way it's supposed to. And a good way to go about it is either get an app to track. You can get a coach to help you out. You know there's a lot of qualified, you know nutrition specialists out there, and a good rule of thumb is about a two to 300 calorie deficit per day will get you about your pound a week. That will also put you in a space where you're not so hungry that you're going to overindulge, but you're not going to lose the weight fast. It's just going to be a little bit and then a little bit and if you do two, three hundred calories a day for 30 days, you're looking at what nine thousand calories or something.
Adam Boyd:I didn't do the math in my head well, that, yeah, about we could be talking about.
Travis Yates:We could be talking about eliminating a two cokes a day, eliminating that candy bar day, right, I mean, and so. But it's important that people know what they're eating. So, just like it's good to write down your monetary spending, to know where you're spending money, it'd be really helpful to write down what you're eating so you can then take a look each week and see, maybe, where the holes were Right.
Adam Boyd:Yeah, it's great to get a baseline. I kind of eat more intuitively where I've learned my body over time. But if you're just starting out, write it down because you don't know where you're at. As far as a baseline goes, what are you eating on a daily basis? Lunch, dinner and snacks but some people may just not have. They just go through the day, you know, throwing food and, um, you know, energy drinks down their throat and have no idea how many calories they're consuming. And most people grossly underestimate how much they're actually eating throughout a day.
Travis Yates:Yeah, that was one thing I figured out. Um, you know, I was tracking this several years ago. I was tracking when I was eating and I figured out that this milkshake that I had was like 900 calories. I'm like that's crazy. You had no idea that I was just throwing down 900 calories like it was nothing right. And, of course, those sugary things that people probably understand they don't quench your hunger, they just give you pleasure. So it wasn't like I was taking the 900 calories and I wasn't hungry anymore. So it's really important to understand that and realize that. And you don't have to go without things. You just have to do, as Adam said, that 80-20 rule. Let's switch over to the workout stuff because we deal. I know in law enforcement, a bunch of type A personalities that it's always the macho, macho, macho and they want to run the ultra marathon in a week and this and that. But when we're talking about just getting healthy, sometimes just moving and walking, and you know, doing things like that can be very beneficial if you're just starting out, could it not?
Adam Boyd:Yeah, I think walking is probably one of the most underrated activities that's out there. You know, if you're already very fit, it's probably not going to add a ton of value to you, but if you're not doing something already, that is the easiest and the most effective way to start improving your health is just get out for a walk 20, 30 minutes every day.
Travis Yates:Yeah, and one of the things that I figured out and I figured it out I took a DNA test and it's very interesting. I don't want to go too deep into it, but they do these DNA tests that sort of tell you what type of fitness, what type of workouts you need to be doing. It sort of honestly predicts how you're going to die. It tries to DNA test and it says you need to be doing this and this. And what it did tell me was I need to be lifting five days a week because I'm prone to losing muscle mass, which is weird. I have over 200 pounds of muscle mass in my body right now, but apparently the next 10 years are going to be doom and gloom for me, according to the DNA gods. And so I've actually lived. I've increased my weightlifting and what I found out was I'm burning calories.
Travis Yates:I didn't really realize, and cutting back on cardio didn't really hurt me that much. The weight lifting itself was sort of the best of both worlds. It was cardio and it was obviously lifting weights. So talk about that mixture people starting out because they may not have access to a bunch of equipment. Right, because you don't want to neglect everybody has seen the sort of not you, Adam, but the marathon. It looks like they're on death's door now. Right, because they're just skin and bones. It's really important as you get older to pay attention to your muscle mass, right, because you lose muscle mass every year past 30, essentially. So you've got to continue to build that up. If you don't, everybody knows what I'm talking about. Kind of talk to them about a realistic way to look at working out when it talks about cardio and weight lifting yeah, so the data is pretty clear on this.
Adam Boyd:Vo2 max and muscle mass are one of the best predictors of longevity. Um, we know, we know your vo2 max tied to your health, so you have lower risk of stroke, heart attack. And when you start hitting about 55 years old, like you said, we lose muscle mass after 30 through a process called sarcopenia. Once 55 sets in, we see a big increase in deaths from falls because we've lost some muscle mass. So we want to make sure that we're training our heart, we're training our lungs, because respiratory illness is another way that can really cause us some harm when we get older. If our diaphragm and our lungs aren't strong enough to handle like a COVID or a respiratory infection, we could be in serious trouble.
Adam Boyd:But we also want to make sure that we're not taking a fall out of the bathtub or down the stairs or you know whatever it is, and that's going to come with building some muscle mass and having strength at an older age. So if we start combining our training modalities to include cardio, which I know everybody hates, you don't have to be a runner, you know, you can cycle, you can swim, you can play basketball, you can do hit workout. There's a million different ways we can get cardio in uh, but making sure that we're coupling that with a good strength and hypertrophy routine to make sure that we have the muscle mass and strength when we get older to function at a high level well and I want to be realistic with people you don't have to go out and buy a bunch of equipment.
Travis Yates:I mean you could do do pushups and use these uh, these workout bands. I mean I've seen some folks get incredible uh workout with bands alone, right, yeah, you don't.
Adam Boyd:you can do a ton of stuff with just body weight. I mean, I have whole programs, uh, just based on your own body weight uh bands.
Adam Boyd:you can, I would, I like. I don't have a gym in here, cause I live in a really small town. We don't have a local gym, so I've just accumulated equipment. You know, one month I'll buy a kettlebell, a couple months later I'll buy a sandbag. So you don't have to spend an absorbent amount of money on machines and you know Olympic weight sets. Just get creative with what you're doing. I bought a 100-pound sandball. It's the most awkward piece of equipment, but you can do I mean so many different things with it to help build your strength routine and my cardio routine that I don't need to go to a gym. I just started accumulating equipment over time.
Travis Yates:Sounds like you're on your way to opening the first gym in that community there, adam. So, uh, man, you know we could go on and on, and obviously there's people listening that maybe you don't. You're sort of beyond this basic stuff, but I think for most people it's just going to be very beneficial to listen to what Adam said here. They can obviously contact you for more advanced things. How can they contact you, adam?
Adam Boyd:Uh, you can email me at soulfultraining at gmail or give us a shout out on our website, wwwsoulfultrainingcom. You know I'm always happy to answer any questions anybody has.
Travis Yates:Adam Boyd, you are the man when it comes to this stuff. We can't thank you enough. You're out there helping law enforcement each and every day. Thanks for being here, thanks for the encouragement. Think of us on your next 100 mile run. If you've been listening, if you've been watching, thank you for doing that. Thank you, adam. Just remember, lead on and stay courageous.
Adam Boyd:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to Courageous Leadership with Travis Yates. We invite you to join other courageous leaders at www. travisyates. org.
