What blocks your desire to change? with performance coach Nick Pags

This week on The Less Stressed Life Podcast, Nick Pags joins me. Nick is a growth mindset expert, certified behavioral change specialist and inspirational speaker. I had the pleasure of meeting Nick and hearing him speak. He has a beautiful way of captivating a room! Today we talk about how Nick got started coaching, his perspective on what coaching is, and how he creates a safe place for his clients for self-discovery. One resonating thing Nick says in this episode is, "...when they release the stress by becoming the water, rather than resisting it, their whole life shifts." 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Coaching is designed to hold space for somebody else to grow & expand
• Coaching is being in a exploratory phase with your client
• What do you want to create for yourself?
• What is the mindset needed for success?
• Coaching is waking someone up to things they already know
• The opposite of telling is asking
• Listening vs. active listening
• Ask yourself, what do I think that thing that I'm after is going to get me?
• How people view work as their worth

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ABOUT GUEST:
Nick Pags, Growth Mindset Expert, Certified Behavioral Change Specialist and Inspirational Speaker, understands the desire to change, why you don’t, and the mindset shifts needed to find success – in any and all areas of your life.

Applying the motivational skills he’s used as one of NYC’s top personal trainers and group fitness leaders, with his behavioral change training, he has inspired thousands of individuals – from peers in the coaching space to executives – to unlock their own potential.

His gift? He naturally provides a unique mix of high-energy coaching and empathetic listening to create a safe space for self-discovery that is as profound as it is exciting.

Throughout his private and group coaching, live-events and corporate speaking, he’s afforded his clients the opportunity to break through their old ways of being, rewrite the mental patterns, and truly embrace their limitless potential to live out their most abundant lives.

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://nickpagsllc.com/
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/iamnickpags/
Telegram Group: Lighthouse

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife
Leave a review, submit a questions for the podcast or take one of my quizzes here: https://www.christabiegler.com/links

SPONSORS:
A special thank you to Christian Healthcare Ministries for sponsoring this episode. Check them out here: https://chministries.org/lessstressedlife

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Nick Pags: What you're doing is you're taking away empowerment. If I am the only way you're going to have success in your life, because I'm your coach, then you're always going to need me. You're always going to need me in order to get where you want. And I don't think that's what we're designed to do.

[00:00:16] Christa Biegler: Stress is the inflammation that robs us of life, energy, and happiness. Our typical solutions for gut health and hormone balance have let a lot of us down. We're over medicated and underserved. At The Less Stressed Life, we're a community of health savvy women exploring solutions outside of our traditional Western medicine toolbox and training to raise the bar and change our stories.

[00:00:43] Christa Biegler: Each week, our hope is that you leave our sessions inspired to learn, grow, and share these stories to raise the bar in your life and home.

[00:01:00] Christa Biegler: All right, today on The Less Stressed Life, I have Nick Peggs, who's a growth mindset expert, certified behavior change specialist, and inspirational speaker who understands the desire to change, why you don't, and the mindset shifts needed to find success in any and all areas of your life. Applying the motivational skills he's used as one of New York City's top personal trainers and group fitness leaders with his behavioral change training, he's inspired thousands of individuals from peers in the coaching space to executives to unlock their own potential.

[00:01:29] Christa Biegler: His gift is that he provides a unique mix of high energy coaching and empathetic listening to create a safe space for self discovery that is as profound as it is exciting. And he's also married to the lovely Beatrice Boas. If you have enjoyed her interview on the podcast around theta breathwork, or if you've been exposed to theta breathwork, she is the brains behind that.

[00:01:52] Christa Biegler: So I'm sure you wanted that as part of your bio as well. Welcome to the show, nick. 

[00:01:56] Nick Pags: I absolutely did. It wouldn't feel right if it wasn't. 

[00:01:59] Christa Biegler: Yeah, exactly. 

[00:02:00] Christa Biegler: All right. I always like to get a little origin story on how some of this happens, especially after reading the second paragraph of your bio that I didn't know that you were a personal trainer before I read your bio this morning.

[00:02:11] Christa Biegler: And so tell me about the transition. There's a natural surge about where I can see coaching coming to life there. And so I know we want to also kind of define coaching, but let's talk about your transition into kind of what you're doing now what was the catalyst, the turning points, et cetera?

[00:02:25] Nick Pags: Yeah. I spent 13 years in the fitness industry. I owned a gym in a fitness studio in Manhattan and one in Westchester, New York, and really loved the energy of the fitness world. I came right out of college having gotten my degree in counseling and human services and went straight into the personal training space, which had always kind of been my side job throughout school.

[00:02:50] Nick Pags: And I just fell into it. And within a very short amount of time, like a couple months, I was working with 50, not 50 clients. 50 clients a week, which doesn't even make sense. I mean, I was like chopping clients into 30 minute sessions and there were people in my local gym that I was working at that were struggling to get clients.

[00:03:14] Nick Pags: I'm not saying that to boast. I'm saying it because it was the catalyst to what you're asking, which is like, what is working so well here? Because I'm not really that knowledgeable in the fitness space, like about wellness and actual exercise. I learned a lot, but there were definitely people in the room who were smarter than me and more intelligent than me and had better skills in the fitness space.

[00:03:35] Nick Pags: So that was the beginning of this, like something's working here. That's different than just fitness. And as that continued over the years, and I moved into my own business, separated from the big box style of the personal training stuff, I did personal training on my own, separated from the gym, and then ultimately opened up the group fitness studio, or it was opened when I got there.

[00:03:56] Nick Pags: And I became partners with the owner and the founder and. I started to do the same thing and implement the same stuff in the group fitness training space. And what I found that was really interesting is that people were coming and getting these really profound results in a very short amount of time.

[00:04:13] Nick Pags: And I didn't think I was doing stuff much different than most other fitness professionals in terms of fitness. I really didn't think I was doing anything that different. So it was shocking to me that people were getting such profound changes, not only in their physical wellness, but mentally they were walking in and saying, I feel like my whole life's different.

[00:04:34] Nick Pags: I feel like I have so much more opportunity. I feel like my energy is peaked. I feel so positive. I just, these classes are so special to me. So I really started to study what about it. Was so different than what I was seeing. And the short of it is that this founder of this company that I had walked into, he asked me at one point, I think I was 23 when this first happened, he said, I want you to read this book.

[00:05:02] Nick Pags: It was called a till of the Hun. I still have it over here somewhere. And it was really a pointless book, but it had some, you know, motivational. quotes in or whatever. He said, write down some of these quotes and say them in class. I mean, it's literally every class participants worst nightmare is a 23 year old kid who read like a thousand quotes and wants to come in and preach them to you and tell you how to live your life.

[00:05:23] Nick Pags: So that's exactly what I did. I walked in to class one day. And it was like my first prime class. And I was so fired up about all these people coming in and hearing me speak and do my thing, which I was terrified to do, but I trusted the guy that was telling me to do it. And I dropped all these quotes and it felt super uncomfortable.

[00:05:44] Nick Pags: And this dude walks out of class and he taps me on the shoulder and goes, Hey, maybe just talk a little less next time. And it stung. It was so embarrassing. It just killed me. And I said, I'll never do that again. What was so wrong about that? And I checked in on that, sat with that for a few days. And what I realized was that it was me telling people how to live their lives, telling them what to do and how to be.

[00:06:10] Nick Pags: That felt so off and wrong for me. So the question became, okay, what's the opposite action here? What is the opposite of telling? And the answer that came to me was asking. So I went into the next class the next week. I said, okay, I have all these things in my head, but I'm going to come from an asking space, not a telling space.

[00:06:32] Nick Pags: And that same dude walked up to me after class and goes, now that was something that's what I'm talking about. I talked the same amount, but everything was rooted in questions. Who do you want to be today? How do you wanna show up? What would excellence look like for you on this treadmill today? What does pushing yourself to the extreme really mean to you?

[00:06:51] Nick Pags: Do you want to go to that level? What could it look like if, how would you feel if dot. So there's a lot of questions which opened up possibility for people to ask questions of themselves. To ask different questions. And I really believe whatever this is now, almost 10 years later, I'm really seeing that the quality of our questions create the quality of our life experience and like really getting 

[00:07:17] Nick Pags: it.

[00:07:18] Christa Biegler: Yeah. That's funny. Cause that's what I was going to talk to you about a little bit later on. 

[00:07:22] Nick Pags: Let's do it. 

[00:07:23] Christa Biegler: Okay. So I was going to ask you, what was the stuff that you were implementing, but it was questions asking questions instead of telling, this, your story, your origin story reminds me of what we were talking about before we hit record, which is, I was telling you how coaching was one of the most profound things that had hit my nervous system when I did it, but describing it to people in a nutshell, sounds kind of lame, right?

[00:07:48] Christa Biegler: Or it might, I mean, coaching sounds lame and you were describing there's a dark side of coaching. And let me tell you what worked for me. And then there's the asking questions and discovering your own answers. So that's like a very brief way to maybe describe it in one aspect. But what are some ways that you would describe what coaching is, or even can you draw lines between that and therapy perhaps?

[00:08:12] Christa Biegler: Because I've heard you talk about this and it makes me laugh. 

[00:08:16] Nick Pags: Yeah, so I'll say this. This is all my perspective. I don't think I'm not going to be able to read to you like the, what is coaching based off of the definition from, you know, the dictionary. so here, my thought is this, is that coaching is a space that's designed to hold space for somebody else to grow and expand.

[00:08:39] Nick Pags: I think it's less about, there are parts of it where as the coach you're delivering information. Like this is what I've learned, this is what I know, this is my skill set and I want to deliver that to you. That's part of the coaching experience depending on what realm you're in or what industry you're in.

[00:08:54] Nick Pags: For sure. I think more of the success of the coaching industry or the success that somebody can have working with a coach comes from somebody who's willing to not be stuck. I'm talking about the coach. The coach willing to not be stuck in the way that they have it, their righteousness. Like, listen, you need to do this way.

[00:09:14] Nick Pags: More being in an exploratory phase with your client. Like really exploring and starting to understand what is it That you want to create for yourself. What can we do say, think, generate in order to get you there and let's explore that not, I know the exact path, which I think a lot of coaches do. And they put a lot of pressure on themselves to make their client's dreams a reality.

[00:09:42] Nick Pags: And it is such a crappy way to go about it, because what you're doing is you're taking away empowerment. If I am the only way you're going to have success in your life, because I'm your coach, then you're always going to need me. You're always going to need me in order to get where you want. And I don't think that's what we're designed to do I guess humans. 

[00:10:05] Christa Biegler: I have very strong feelings about this. This is once upon a time. Someone asked me what word I wanted to use. And the word was empowerment. But some people use . They use high vibe or high frequency or high vibration. To me, the word is empowerment to mean those same things.

[00:10:23] Christa Biegler: This is how I interpret this. So I like to work. I like to view you. The world from like an empowered, disempowered lens. And exactly what you just said there is looking to someone else for the answers and asking I've spent so much time thinking about this high quality question situation, because the low quality questions are the most disempowered.

[00:10:44] Christa Biegler: That's your most disempowered when people are asking these very low quality questions, like, literally, will you just tell me the answer to this? And so higher quality questions, as you said, are this empowered state. So moving people into asking high quality questions is kind of the real, is the real ask for me.

[00:11:02] Christa Biegler: It's like, oh, how do you help people find the high quality questions to ask themselves? So maybe let's unpack that a little bit. 

[00:11:13] Nick Pags: Oh, that's a good question. And I don't even know if I have a straight answer for you. What I find is that My gift is to be completely present in that space, and this is going to sound a little woo because I think it actually is.

[00:11:25] Nick Pags: There's a certain energy that happens between two people, between a practitioner and a group, an audience and a speaker. There's a certain energy that happens when the leader or the two people involved or the group is involved and everybody's present there. letting what comes up direct the conversation.

[00:11:48] Nick Pags: Like, I'd challenge you to think about this, listener. Think about a moment when you were trying to think of the next thing to say. While listening to somebody and how confusing or uncomfortable that conversation actually was instead of when you're captivated by a conversation, you're deeply connected with somebody, you're going back and forth and just jamming.

[00:12:12] Nick Pags: And it feels so natural. I believe that coaching really is that it's holding a space where I'm actively in this. I think I was initiated in this. A, through my parents, because they're just great listeners, but B, through Counseling and Human Service degree that I got in school, like, they really talked about the difference between listening and active listening, being fully present, and letting the conversation create.

[00:12:39] Nick Pags: The next question, not like, Oh, here's my list of questions. And whatever you say, I'm kind of listening, but really, I just want to get to my next question. That's your agenda. And that's you just trying to keep yourself safe. It's really diving in when you're open and prepared to let whatever comes up, come up and then just be with that, take that pause and then feel into it.

[00:13:01] Nick Pags: Like for me, I just feel into my gut, into my heart. And I'm like, okay, what does that question bring up for me? It's why I love doing podcasts. Like I love to just be in curiosity with you and not know. I have no idea what I'm going to say, what we're going to talk about. One of my favorite things is when we get on a call and you're just like, All right, you ready to rock?

[00:13:20] Nick Pags: You know, like it's just the best feeling because we get to co create something that never ever existed ever before from two unique human beings that have never been created on this planet before in a time that's never happened before with completely unique perspectives because of our life experiences and our filtration systems and the way we see the world and our perspectives put together, it's creating something that has never existed.

[00:13:47] Nick Pags: That is divine. That's true divinity in My experience of the word. 

[00:13:52] Christa Biegler: Yeah. 

[00:13:53] Nick Pags: I believe that if we allow that in a coaching experience, magic comes through. 

[00:13:58] Christa Biegler: Yeah. I like the word divinity. I was going with opportunity. I was like, this feels like opportunity, but it's also divinity. So that's cool. All right.

[00:14:05] Christa Biegler: Let's continue to circle around asking high quality questions and filling that in. Because I think that is, as you stated at the beginning, that's what life really is. And I would say that is the single catalyst of why I'm happy in my current business is. I got asked the right high quality questions at the right time.

[00:14:24] Christa Biegler: That stopped me from going down a rabbit hole of me just creating something that I thought someone wanted, right? It was like more of a question on how do you provide the best service to someone? I actually have two high quality questions I use to define all decisions in my business. One is, What's in best service to my clients.

[00:14:40] Christa Biegler: How do I create the best possible experience? But the second filter is without burning myself out because the first doesn't happen. If the second happens, right? So like that one, that's the contingency piece of it as a human back to your 50 clients a week, which, like doctors see maybe 15 people a day, maybe more.

[00:14:59] Christa Biegler: Right. And so I think time is always the interesting piece of like. How do you actually show up in a present state? And I think when you are really burned or pulled between lots of people, I think that takes a lot of for me, a chronic over scheduler person, my personality is like, Oh, chronically overfilling the plate.

[00:15:17] Christa Biegler: It takes a lot of experience and failing forward to understand like what's the limit of being really present for someone and not overdoing it. So that way you're like feeling really kind of scattered and lots of places. I'd be curious how you handle that. 

[00:15:32] Nick Pags: Well, I have a question for you, if you don't mind, cause I think this is fascinating.

[00:15:35] Nick Pags: First of all, I love how unique, I mean, maybe there's generic pieces to that question, but the unique combination of who, or what does it look like to best serve my clients or who are those people? And then how do I do that without burning out is such a unique combination. Like it's an equation that fits perfectly for you and where you were at when you were starting your business.

[00:15:57] Nick Pags: I think that's the beauty of these questions is that somebody could hear those questions and be like, that's not that high quality. Like it just sounds like a basic question, but the power is that whoever you were working with had the awareness of where you were at really listened to you enough. To understand.

[00:16:14] Nick Pags: Okay, she needs to be asked this question because she's not seeing this. It's a blind spot or she's just kind of going over it. So my question for you is, do you think you could have came up or you would have came up with those questions on your own? Or was it a huge service to you to have somebody who was looking at you and analyzing and then reflecting back and offering you powerful questions?

[00:16:35] Christa Biegler: I think context is helpful to help this sink in. And in true transparency, I don't think my coach gave me both questions. I think I had the second one. Okay. So what the situation was, is I was already in business for a long time and. Experiencing the thing that happens when you're in one on one care where it's like, I love doing this, but I am also really teetering on burnout, right?

[00:16:56] Christa Biegler: It would be a weakness to say that I was dealing with burnout. So I wouldn't say that even though that was probably the reality, but I knew it was an issue and I think it's an issue for most providers and practitioners that pour out. Right? It's like, if you're pouring out, you're often pouring your whole cup out often, unfortunately, because you're maybe a giver.

[00:17:16] Christa Biegler: I think that can happen pretty easily. So I remember I was trying to figure out what changes or structures needed to happen in my business to make it sustainable, right? Let's just say it like that, like literally make it sustainable. So I was looking at reconfiguring how I was serving clients in a program and there was, and obviously the thing that comes up in businesses is like, Oh, well, how, you go to group coaching.

[00:17:41] Christa Biegler: We'll. To be perfectly honest, I don't always think that is the most valuable. And she caught that statement. She said, Oh, I hear what's going on. You think that if you do some group element, it's much less valuable. So the question you must ask yourself is, you don't have to think about these details.

[00:17:59] Christa Biegler: You just simply just need to think about what is the most high value thing that you can give to this client that solves their problem. And at that point, it became a game. So for me, I like to gamify things. And I mean, this is knowing your strengths, weaknesses at that point. Everything became fun and became a game.

[00:18:19] Christa Biegler: Like, oh, I know the exactly how to do that. You know, I know exactly the steps to follow to potentially like help this and that. Like, if I had this person come up with this and this condition, I know that generally following this framework will help. Now, that might work for me. Give you some friction based on what we just said, right?

[00:18:37] Christa Biegler: And that's where the challenge is because there's, I think there's a huge opportunity for coaching, no matter where. So I think about health from a triad. That is the nutritional angle, which is where I hang out. Right, that's gut health, deficiencies, toxicities and deficiencies. Let's say it like that.

[00:18:52] Christa Biegler: There's the structural angle, what's going on in the environment, the actual structure of the body, et cetera. Like that could be multiple things, the integrity of the skin, external things. And then what's the emotional, overall emotional component, but try as I might. It's pretty hard to stay in just that corner because your emotions, Nick, you know, think about if I think about you and personal training, I would think about that being the structural component, right?

[00:19:17] Christa Biegler: Like actual muscular muscle development, right? But you couldn't stay out of the emotional piece. It was not possible. Not even possible. So for me, I am teetering between in my business often. Can I lay out a plan and customize it to you and you understand the framework because I want you to be empowered.

[00:19:35] Christa Biegler: I don't want you relying on me. I want you to be able to understand how to answer your own questions based on understanding a general framework. You can apply to your certain situation. But then the challenges. When there's some kind of emotional hang up, right, of like self sabotage of sorts, right, that's really what it boils down to.

[00:19:55] Christa Biegler: And so, I got kind of far from your question, but it was essentially a game on how do you create the best possible outcome for your client. Cool, let me just map that out, and then I added on the, but not burning out. Because, and this came up when I was doing breathwork certification with BIA, there was a guest speaker, a business speaker in the program.

[00:20:16] Christa Biegler: And she said, I always ask people, you know, feedback on how to change. Absolutely. Wonderful. Like that's how you improve things. The reality is a lot of people want you to spend, to be their only Provider, like, you know, it's being a wedding photographer, every bride wants you to make her feel like you're her only, she's your only clients.

[00:20:36] Christa Biegler: And so, that's a true reality. Anytime you work with one on one, it's just the human nature of it. And so I had to come up with that second lens and I don't know exactly know where it came from, but it's like, because it would be very easy for a lot of people to mistakenly say that the best way to serve my client is to give them as much like.

[00:20:54] Christa Biegler: You know, to see them constantly. And I mean, I do, I can access every person every week if they want to be accessed, right. If they want to ask questions or have coaching. But the reality is that's actually a pretty disempowering place because then you don't get the opportunity to answer any of your own questions as well.

[00:21:11] Nick Pags: I love that. Great story. I think it's really important because again it's giving context to the power of the questioning and the importance of the space that was created for you to not only hear the first question, but bring up, okay, because I was asked that question, I also need to add the what's burning me out or what does it look like to not burn out?

[00:21:31] Nick Pags: You know, so I think it's really powerful. 

[00:21:33] Christa Biegler: Well, and I think the other thing that helps through that was kind of going through core values and identifying mission, which I think has to happen in business. Otherwise you get a little convoluted and just the mess of like, Oh, this isn't like, you know, I think we're all looking for a lot more purpose in life, right?

[00:21:48] Christa Biegler: The emotional piece. And so understanding what the mission, the purpose, and our mission is that everyone deserves a less stressed life. And so it's like totally in misalignment with what I'm called to do in the world. If I'm burned out, like, I mean, no, one's a good practitioner if they're burned out, to be honest right. Of course. 

[00:22:04] Christa Biegler: So that's always a challenge of any clinician trying to support other people. It's like, everyone's actually just a human at the bottom. So on the note of being human. As we continue to circle around, how do you continue to ask high quality questions? I want to talk about a problem that is really challenging for me in practice, which is unrealized stress.

[00:22:30] Christa Biegler: High performers very commonly view certain words as The opposite of a badge of honor, right? As a weakness. You heard me say like, Oh, probably couldn't have said I was burned out. It looked real weak. And I would imagine if you're working with high performers, you see this sometimes and you probably don't, you know, for me, I'm looking at the downstream physiological effects of stress.

[00:22:51] Christa Biegler: And so having people have self awareness is really important to me. But sometimes people are like, well, I know there's stress, but I don't see any way around it. So I'd love to talk a little bit about your feelings about this, about unrealized stress, about helping people see. I think the real question is helping people see when they're kind of like the bottleneck or self sabotage, which is kind of, I think one of your fortes, right?

[00:23:11] Christa Biegler: Like how do you help someone wake up to the stuff that they know? 

[00:23:16] Nick Pags: Yeah, I just recently, it took six years to put together a website. I mean, it took three minutes actually, and 24 hours to put the thing up, but six years of like avoiding it and not doing it. And recently after I sat and I was just kind of connecting with myself and looking for some awareness of like why I was asked to put together a website for an event and this idea came up.

[00:23:45] Nick Pags: that really helped me clarify what it is I do for people that I think applies to what you're talking about here. And this sentence came to me, which said, I help people get off their own mental merry go round and wake them up to the possibility that lives in every breath through profound connection and conversation.

[00:24:02] Nick Pags: And I was like, Oh, okay. I've been waiting for this. Like, what the hell do I do? Statement for quite some time. And that really registered with me because I think what has to happen for people is there needs to be a true paradigm shift if they want it. And the more that I work with high performers are a byproduct.

[00:24:25] Nick Pags: I mean, this is a history conversation. Because when I look at my parents, and my parents, and the group after that, there's a reason why each generation is the way they are. And of course there's outliers. My grandma died recently, two years ago. A little less. 

[00:24:45] Christa Biegler: I remember. 

[00:24:45] Nick Pags: And, yeah. And my mom, it was my mom's mom, my mom did part of the eulogy, and she said in that eulogy that the thing that she admires most that, that my grandma taught my mom was to work hard.

[00:25:05] Nick Pags: To just buckle down and work hard. Now, my grandma, my grandpa, on my mom's side. We're just hard workers. My grandpa was in the Marines. My grandma was a trailblazer woman. It worked in IBM for years. Absolutely killed it. Built one of the first community theater programs in New York. Like just really powerful, kick ass woman.

[00:25:28] Nick Pags: And she worked really hard. And she taught my mom that. And it's interesting to watch. The beauty that comes from hard work sometimes and the danger that it creates for most people and that people have received from parents, work hard, you get success. That is just simply not a true statement all the time.

[00:25:56] Nick Pags: Like, ask the question. This is one of the most powerful questions you can ever ask. This is very similar to Byron Cady's The Work. She asked the question, is it true? Just ask that question. Now when I say is it true, I'm not talking about like, do you think it's true? I'm asking fact versus your thoughts on what you think is true.

[00:26:18] Nick Pags: A fact is a non negotiable, like it's proven, this isn't Kind of maybe sorta subjective thing. This is like objective realities. And when you start to realize how many of your quote unquote truths are just stories or things you've told yourself, like money doesn't grow on trees, like hard work makes you money.

[00:26:41] Nick Pags: Like the story that I often tell, and I get a lot of backlash for this and I get why, but like the same cleaning people, my parents hired a cleaning service with this company when we were like six. And they were amazing. Still are same company. They've never even asked for more. They don't get paid more other than the inflation that has gone up in those last whatever, 25 years than they did on day one.

[00:27:09] Nick Pags: And they work the same effort in the same house, just because you work harder doesn't mean you get more results. It can mean it's possible that it can mean, but it doesn't always mean it's not a fact. It's a possibility. So what I invite people to, specifically high performers, is that potentially the way in which, and this is super triggering for a high performer, by the way, so I'm open to all the backlash with it because all I want to do is open space for a new perspective.

[00:27:40] Nick Pags: My offering is that. Maybe, even though your whole life has been defined by harder work, or more effort, or less sleep, or more grind, that was a taught system that you embraced from a very young age. That school taught us. Same with failure. Why are we all so shitty at failing? And not getting up and just trying again?

[00:28:03] Nick Pags: Well because at some point in school, when you got an F, what happened? You got in trouble. And then the teacher called your parents and then your parents put you in time out or whatever. You created this system that an F, a fail, a not getting an A means you're bad. And then we're wondering why people are scared to start businesses, or we're wondering why people are scared to go into relationship or scared to say, I love you or be seen and be vulnerable.

[00:28:29] Nick Pags: Well, because if they get seen and it doesn't work out, they failed and failing is bad. And this happens in all different domains of our lives. So very big question as condensed as I can make it is that when I sit with high performers, I often, I'm often the first person in their entire life. That gave them permission to safely be in a space where they can ask the question, Do you want to work harder?

[00:28:55] Nick Pags: Does working harder actually create what you say you want? Is that the lifestyle you want to live? And I give them permission to just step outside of the box they call life, and look almost as an observer of the experience of their life. It's like them looking at the frame of their life rather than being in it.

[00:29:17] Nick Pags: And when they have that first taste of that, This is when performers go from, I'm making, a million dollars a year and my business is killing it. And I'm miserable on the verge of suicide. I lost my marriage or my kids hate me or money like I'm thriving in my marriage, but I make no money and I'm miserable or whatever.

[00:29:38] Nick Pags: There's like these very high peaks, very low lows. When I take that high performer and I start to ask these questions that take them out of their current paradigm, they start to explode. But they do it like water down a stream. Not like hiking up the stream trying to push the rapids out of the way. They just become the water.

[00:30:03] Nick Pags: They start to flow with life. They make more money. They have better relationships. They feel healthier. And their gut health, by the way, almost always improves. Like their stomach issues. It's almost always. It's like 97% of the time. This is my story too. That these gut issues are a byproduct of the stress that they're under.

[00:30:24] Nick Pags: And when they release the stress by becoming the water, rather than resisting it, their whole life shifts. 

[00:30:31] Christa Biegler: That's a very attractive analogy, to become the water instead of pushing against it, as I literally was. In all senses of reality, walking up a stream yesterday, and I have a bruise on my back from it pushing me back.

[00:30:46] Christa Biegler: So I was in pursuit of a waterfall, and you know, as a total side note, I posted in my stories some lyrics from TLC. Do you know how few people appreciate it? They did not pick up on, don't go chasing waterfalls. Apparently I got the wrong generation. Okay, I want to unpack some of what you talked about. And I'd like to be a little devil's advocate as well as being supportive, and I think context is important.

[00:31:11] Christa Biegler: You work with high performers and I work with a lot of high performers and high performing looks like a lot of things. It's like having a perfect home, children, career, whatever. And you talk about getting that F in school. And that was something I learned from my coach as well. And I have to witness all the time.

[00:31:29] Christa Biegler: It's like all experiences are good experiences because you're going to learn from every single one of them. And no one wants to, I would say, as I continue to just kind of sit back and watch the human experience unfold as people are going through healing journeys, no one wants any more pain. They don't want to fail.

[00:31:46] Christa Biegler: They want to know the future because of safety, right? This is like a duh for you, right? But it's like, okay, very interesting. And so unpacking why people don't want failure and what that creates, it creates perfectionism, which creates a lot more stress because we're trying to be perfect all the time. 

[00:32:02] Christa Biegler: And so the devil's advocate is when you're working with high performers. Usually, they're working really hard already, right? And so they may need to look at it from a different space, because they're like, eventually, and I've been at this juncture in my own business, where someone's like, more, and the world, as you look around, will often make you feel like you never have enough.

[00:32:22] Christa Biegler: And there was this catalyst that was like, what the hell is the point of this? I, this is not fun, right? Like, I do not want to be walking up this stream. This is not, as you described, it's like, if you are doing really well in one area, there's probably another area of your life that is struggling. And I can be the first to admit that I'm like this year, I'm working on all of my relationships with my kids and husband.

[00:32:41] Christa Biegler: Cause I'm like, I've just been like, had my nose down. Cause it's easy to work back to hard work. What happened? So the situation that as you know, right. Is that People view their work as their worth, right? And so when that feels like your purpose, all of a sudden life starts to feel kind of empty and like, Oh, that's actually not my purpose.

[00:32:59] Christa Biegler: And so it's like this big midlife crisis at any age. Right. 

[00:33:04] Nick Pags: Yep. 

[00:33:04] Christa Biegler: But you asked, there was a really beautiful high quality question there. I think the even higher quality question is, does working harder create the life that you want? 

[00:33:12] Nick Pags: Yeah. 

[00:33:12] Christa Biegler: And is that true?

[00:33:14] Christa Biegler: I'd like to really reflect with that for a moment. I think that's a really good one. 

[00:33:18] Nick Pags: Yeah. I mean, I'd invite anybody who considers themselves a high performer or not. Like, maybe you don't see yourself as that, but really ask that question. Is hard work the answer to the problem that I'm facing or the challenge that's coming up?

[00:33:32] Nick Pags: Because it's not always the case that working harder is going to get you better results. There are moments where that will fit. There are also moments when sitting and spending more time in Quiet or meditating or connecting with yourself or turning the computer off will actually get you better results in work, but you won't allow that to be because you're so committed to your story that the only way to get better results is to work harder and again, so much of this just goes back to it.

[00:34:04] Nick Pags: The reality of what I learned in fitness, like the technical of it. And you talked about that triad before. And we said this in the beginning with coaching, there are moments when it's like, here's the science behind this thing. So I'm going to teach you the science because a plus B equals C type of thing.

[00:34:20] Nick Pags: Then there's the emotional side, which gets a little more ambiguous. It gets a little more creative. You can start to mold it. There isn't just a right answer. And I think the spot of the coach is to know when it's like, Hey, this plus this equals this versus what are you feeling about this? Let's work through this.

[00:34:35] Nick Pags: And I think that in the fitness industry, I learned that if you work out six hours a day, lifting, there was a time in my career when they called me the booty master. I was really good at helping girls build glute muscles because that's what girls wanted. It was a great avenue to like, make money, interestingly enough.

[00:34:52] Nick Pags: And I would do these lower body movements. And the biggest challenge I faced is that when a girl was really committed to getting a stronger butt, she would try and do the butt exercises every day. And I said, in order for you to get the results you feel like you want. I need you to not do anything tomorrow other than go for a walk or other than, lightly walk on a treadmill or other than stretch and mobilize your body or do Pilates or whatever.

[00:35:20] Nick Pags: We can't just keep breaking down and expect to build up. And I think that high performers live in this same mentality where they think that if I wake up every day at 4am and I grind and hustle and don't do anything but that until midnight, and then I do it again the next day that I'm going to break through.

[00:35:39] Nick Pags: And the truth is you might break through. You might get to a point where you reach a certain level of success, and that's a really scary place to get to. Because when you think you're going to have what you're actually after, this is another massive question. Ask yourself, what do I think that thing that I'm after is going to get me?

[00:36:01] Nick Pags: If it's money, if it's a big business, if it's that relationship, what's the need under the need? So people say I want to make a million dollars a year. Why? So I need the million dollars. Why? To pay my bills. Okay. Why? So that I can build another business. Okay. Why? So that I can have more money. Why? And you just keep asking the why, what you will always trickle down to is a word.

[00:36:29] Nick Pags: And the word is something like peace. Or, I want freedom. Or, I want to be joyful. Or, I want energy. Like, there's always a word if you just keep opening. So I think that the more that I can get that out of people and understand what you want is peace. The money isn't gonna get you there. And the scariest thing in the world It's the Robin Williams of the world who think that making enough people laugh will make him feel a certain sense of peace or freedom or fulfillment or joy.

[00:37:05] Nick Pags: And he gets there making the entire world laugh nonstop and he realizes that never gave him what he actually was looking for. He thought he was going to travel through the journey of all this stuff, open that final door and it wasn't in there. It was at the first door the whole time. The peace you want, the joy you want, the money that you think, stuff that you think money is going to give you or fulfillment or financial success, business success, relationship success, whatever you think it's going to give you, it already exists right here.

[00:37:39] Nick Pags: Why not just receive it and then go on that journey to whatever you want to create with that already a part of your life. That, I think, is the eye opening, jaw dropping, oh my god moment for a lot of these high performers that felt like they had to give up so much of all this stuff to go get all this stuff when it's been here the whole time.

[00:38:01] Nick Pags: And that's where the backlash comes from because it's an identity thing and now I'm attacking their identity. Like, a lot of people who 20 years hustling and grinding for their family with the right heart and the right mindset and the right intention. Are pissed at what they're hearing and thinking I'm an arrogant jerk for saying what I'm saying because I'm attacking their identity and I get it.

[00:38:26] Nick Pags: I get it. I went through this with myself, like really having struggle identifying who I was because for the first time I gave myself permission to say, Sleeping three hours is not going to get that piece that you think you want, or it might not. And the moment I started to just play with that idea, life started to just look a little different.

[00:38:49] Nick Pags: It was painful, it was confusing, I didn't know who I was, I'm still in that process in a lot of ways of stripping old identity patterns. But I just invite you to look at it from the space of, not Nick is right, or this guy is right or wrong or whatever. Just ask yourself the question, what do you really want under the need?

[00:39:08] Nick Pags: I need the money, why? What's under there? And then can you just be that thing, peace, joy, freedom, fulfillment, can you just be it now? That's a choice. And I think we all have that choice and we can make it in this present moment. 

[00:39:26] Christa Biegler: I wanted to ask you what kind of questions you're asking yourself as you're unpacking your identity, which I feel like is for sure a journey.

[00:39:35] Christa Biegler: Maybe not a destination that you just arrive at forever. And I know you just gave us one, but since you're still unpacking that yourself, can you think of any 

[00:39:47] Christa Biegler: hard questions you've had to ask yourself as you work through identity?

[00:39:48] Nick Pags: I think the most important thing is that you're using the word really well, which is unpacking.

[00:39:55] Nick Pags: You're not packing. You're not packing the stuff, you're unpacking the stuff. That is the context shift that really needed to happen for me, was that I'm not trying to create an identity. I'm trying to unpack the identity I've created for myself. And this happens for a lot of us. Once we go through the stage, isn't it crazy?

[00:40:14] Nick Pags: Like beginning of our lives, at least for me, I spent most of my life, and I think most of us do, in the beginning, trying to fit in, become a part of the tribe. Is that good? Yeah, be accepted. 

[00:40:28] Christa Biegler: Not make people angry, which I would think would be kind of hard in your situation. 

[00:40:31] Nick Pags: Yes, it happens quite often.

[00:40:35] Nick Pags: Yeah, like I think that I spent all the way up until post college, most of my life, trying to find a space that I can fit into. And I would consider myself, according to like, what society would say, a pretty confident guy, more of a leader type. And I still was like, how do I fit in this group? How do I feel love in this group?

[00:40:59] Nick Pags: How do I mean something in this group? And it was always about fitting in. And then there's a point, I think for most of us, where what we want to do, Is now we want to stand out. We want to be someone different. We want to have that money that most people don't have. We want to stand out in the realm of relationship, in the realm of our health.

[00:41:20] Nick Pags: We want to be outstanding. Literally the word is to stand outside of the regular population. But we've trained ourselves for so many years to be a certain way. To fit in. To be in the group. So I think as I'm working through this identity thing, it's more of a stripping away what I think is me. More than it is trying to figure out what is me and what I would ask Myself on a regular basis and continue to is who am I not that I'm currently being?

[00:41:55] Nick Pags: Yeah, who am I being right now? That isn't What I authentically want to be that isn't me at my heart and at my soul opens up a lot of doors. 

[00:42:07] Christa Biegler: All right. I have one more that's challenging. So I think that sometimes you are in rooms coaching individuals that don't realize what's coming to them. Maybe that's always coaching, but I think you work behind the scenes in a business program, which means that people are signing up to X, Y, Z, grow their business.

[00:42:25] Christa Biegler: And then you're going to be over here helping them work through their crap. So. I imagine that you would encounter some hardness, some walls. And so I think this happens a lot anytime you're coaching women. I think that this question comes up all the time. Like, well, what if my husband isn't on board? Or if the person is just resistant in general to unpacking that, right?

[00:42:48] Christa Biegler: Or they're like, this doesn't apply. It's like, well, that sounds nice. Or they're maybe they haven't felt open to it before. How do you navigate some of that hardness? 

[00:43:00] Nick Pags: In the beginning, I thought that it was my job because I was hired in a position to like help these people. And this is in multiple different facets where I've been called into to work specifically with entrepreneurs, business owners.

[00:43:16] Nick Pags: My thought was that it's on me to get them there. Unfortunately, and this is where it gets tricky with business, like people pay you to do a job, right, and I make a commitment to giving it everything I can to be present for those people, but I am not so confused that I think I'm going to get this person anywhere.

[00:43:38] Nick Pags: It is that person's willingness to show up and see themselves and the stuff that they're walking, the limitations that they're walking in. that offers an opportunity for change. So a lot of times the sad part for me was, it's not sad anymore, it was that I couldn't change this person and I couldn't shake them out of their shit and I couldn't move them into the next season of their business or their life.

[00:44:05] Nick Pags: And what I learned was that I get to meet them where they're at, not try and get them where I am or where, you know, that we want the business wants them to be. I just want to meet them where they're at. And the more that I did that, the softer the experience has become over the last few years, the more patient and loving and transformative the experience has become.

[00:44:33] Nick Pags: Because now, again, it's just the questioning. People walk themselves into a corner in the work that I do. They just walk themselves into the corner of their own BS. And as they back up and back up, and, no, this is this way, this is this way. I'm like, okay, and if that's this way, then what? And if that's this way, then what?

[00:44:51] Nick Pags: The next thing you know, you've walked yourself into your own cage. And then I ask, very simply, This is all fine. I'm not fighting you. Do you want to stay here? Because your current paradigm says this is where you're going to stay. Says you, not me. I don't have an opinion. You just told me all these things that put you in this corner.

[00:45:12] Nick Pags: Do you want to keep that? Or are you willing to see something different? And this is not where I start dropping knowledge. Because I don't have any knowledge for them. This is where I start asking a question and say, Are you open to seeing this differently? Are you open to trying a new way? What could a new way look like?

[00:45:30] Nick Pags: Not, here's the new way. Let's do this for the next week. Here's what you need to do. I don't do that. Because in my line of work, I'm sure like I said in that triad, there's certain things that you have to tell. Like, we're going to do this. My line of work has very little of that. My line of work is constantly opening space for exploring a new way.

[00:45:51] Nick Pags: So my hope is that people, the more that they ask questions of themselves, they back themselves into their limitations where they're either just going to sit there and live in those limitations or because they've gotten clear on what the blockages are. Now they get to make a choice, stay in them or move forward, try something new, be someone different.

[00:46:11] Nick Pags: I think that's where the freedom lives. And when it comes to the business coaching stuff, it really gets tricky. Because people want money, they want a big business which offers freedom and whatever and when I can get them clear that there's a need under the need, and they get it, that what they're after is joy, and that the business isn't going to get them joy, they may feel joy with the business.

[00:46:36] Nick Pags: But the business isn't the reason for the joy. It's that they've associated the business with joy. This is the craziest part. If they're waiting for the business to show up to feel joy, then the business is never going to show up because what's going to attract the joyful business is being joy before the business exists.

[00:46:56] Nick Pags: So be it. My theory is be, do have, this was taught to me years ago. And It was just like the most eye opening, duh, awareness. Just be at first. And then do the things that align with it. You want a joyful business, a business that brings you all the joy in the world. Be that joy with zero dollars in your bank account.

[00:47:16] Nick Pags: Be that joy before a business has ever started or an LLC has ever filed. Be that first. Just be it while you're starting it. you will start to attract that joyful business just by being in the space of it. 

[00:47:29] Christa Biegler: It's a beautiful thing. And actually what's kind of fun for me is since my focus is right now relationships and family, I'm going to go have some of these conversations with my kids, which will be cute because with entrepreneurs, when you ask them if they want to live in that space, they're probably like, no.

[00:47:46] Christa Biegler: And when you ask an 11 year old, if they want to live in that, They'll be like, yes, I'll let you know how it goes. Yeah. All right. Nick, where can people find you on the internet? 

[00:47:57] Nick Pags: Well, now I have a website. 

[00:47:59] Christa Biegler: It's about time, I've been looking for about a year. 

[00:48:02] Nick Pags: Yeah. It's only taken six years. My name, Nick Pags, P A G S L C. com. Has my stuff there. I've got a free telegram group on there, which is my favorite thing to send people to. It's just like voice notes every day with these types of conversations and like the insights that I'm having every day. I just drop them in there. And it's a really great way to expand your consciousness to ask yourself the right questions.

[00:48:23] Nick Pags: So that's on there. You can find me on Instagram at I am Nick pags. I haven't posted in a year and a half. I've been on pause for quite some time, but. I got a lot of content over there from the last few years. So there's plenty to go enjoy. And I still access DMs in there. So people write to me all the time.

[00:48:39] Nick Pags: So feel free to reach out. We're going to be at the Summit of Greatness coming up very soon. I don't even know if this will air before that. September 7th in Ohio. Speaking there, be able to do a theta breath work there. And we got a lot of events and retreats and all that. And that's just once you're in our community there we'll keep posting to you guys and sharing all our stuff.

[00:48:59] Christa Biegler: Cool. Well, I'm off to join your telegram group. It's like threads without any distractions. 

[00:49:04] Nick Pags: Just great because it's a broadcast. There's no back and forth. It's just me. You can't write in it. So it's just like getting a little message every day. Your phone's not going to blow up. It's not going to be all these people responding.

[00:49:15] Nick Pags: It is just a message every day of love to be able to receive and ground yourself. 

[00:49:19] Christa Biegler: Yeah, a little cup, feeling joy, feeling yes from Nick. Cool. Thanks so much for coming on today. 

[00:49:26] Nick Pags: Thank you. Thanks for having me. 

[00:49:26] Christa Biegler: See you in October. 

[00:49:28] Nick Pags: See ya.

[00:49:28] Christa Biegler: Sharing and reviewing this podcast is the best way to help us succeed with our mission to help integrate the best of East and West and empower you to raise the bar on your health story. Just go to review this podcast. com forward slash less stressed life. That's review this podcast. com forward slash less stressed life.

[00:49:50] Christa Biegler: And you'll be taken directly to a page where you can insert your review and hit post.