Data Hurdles

Data Hurdles: Rich Williams
===

Chris Detzel: [00:00:00] Hello, data enthusiast. This is Chris Detzel. And I'm Michael Burke. Welcome to Data Hurdles. ~We are your gateway into the intricate world of data or ai, machine learning, big data and social justice intercept. Expect thought provoking discussions, captivating stories and insights from experts all across the industries.~

~As we explore the unexpected ways data impacts our lives. So get ready to be informed. Inspired and excited about the future of data.~ Let's conquer these data hurdles together.

All right. Welcome to another data hurdles. I'm Chris Detzel. And

Mike: I'm Michael Burke. How you doing Detzel? Doing good, man. How about you? Doing really good. Excited. We got my son's birthday party coming up. A bunch of really fun events in the week. This is like the first time we're doing one of those, like bowling things.

They're super expensive, but yeah,

Chris Detzel: I know exactly

Mike: he's in school, so you feel obligated 'cause all the other parents do it. So that's the big excitement coming up next week. And obviously it's Mother's Day and my wife's birthday is also coming up, lots of things that I'm terrible at doing, like shopping for gifts has been, I can't tell you honestly, I've been, I stayed up the last, like two nights till one in the morning last week looking at gifts because it's just stressful for me.

It's not something that comes naturally and I really you know what? You'll have a lot of practice, Mike.

Chris Detzel: You'll have a lot of practice over the years. Just keep trying hard and I think that Neha I would understand. As long as you're putting [00:01:00] some effort in and that's the key, right? You know what,

Mike: and we'll jump into our why we're here today, chat, GPT in large language volumes have actually helped me a lot to shop for gifts.

Fun point. Anyone else out there struggles with gifts? It's a great idea, but that's not why we're here today. We're going to introduce Rich Williams. Rich is the head of data partnerships and strategy at Hex Aware. Rich, how are you today? I'm doing great guys. Thanks for having me. How are you guys?

Chris Detzel: Good.

I'm good, man.

Mike: Couldn't be better. And today we're really, we're gonna jump into Rich's life and his background and talk about a topic that's really interesting to me, which is health. Specifically in a place of leadership. Rich has been in many leadership roles in the past and still is in one today. And how he maintains his work-life balance and his overall health in general.

Rich, to kick things off, do you wanna just give a quick introduction to yourself and your background?

Rich Williams: Yeah, sure. Thanks Michael and thanks Chris for having me. I'm, like I said, I'm super excited to be here today. I'm Rich Williams. I, as you said, I lead data partnerships for hex aware. A big global technology services provider.

And that's how I met Michael, was through [00:02:00] that. I've been in this space for 17 years now. I've been in consulting since 2008. I think my first day on the job was the day that Bear Stearns actually failed. So in March, 2008, I started my career in consulting, spent, six years with a company called Opera Solutions and moved over to Accenture, worked there for five and a half years, went to Treatin for five, and now I'm a hex wear.

And I've been in the data science and analytics and data engineering space for almost that entire time. It's been a great run and I've really enjoyed it. But yeah, I'm really excited about the role I have today too, which is really leading the relationships between my company and companies like Databricks, which is where Michael is.

Yeah, a little bit about me and grateful to be here today.

Mike: And Rich, the reason that we're here today. As you told some amazing stories that we were chatting previously about, about, your transformation from a health perspective. Can you give us a little bit more insight into what does health mean for you today, and when did this all start?

Give us some background about your journey into living a more healthy and balanced lifestyle.

Rich Williams: Sure. Yeah. So health has been. I would say a challenge for me throughout most of [00:03:00] my life. I was a, I would say a chubby kid growing up and I always had to work hard to just even stay fit.

And I always, battled with my weight. I. And once I started my career I was able to manage it pretty well through high school and college up and down a little bit. Once I got into my career though it became harder. I've over the years, I, especially once I got consulting I was relatively fit, I would say, when I left business school in 2008.

But once I got into consulting, it was a slow march up in terms of my weight and a slow decline in my health. Over the years the. Working and consulting is extremely demanding, and if you don't have good, healthy habits, it's very easy to lose control of your health. And that's exactly what happened to me.

I ended up ballooning up to over 280 pounds and and that was over the course of 13 years from the time I graduated, I put on about 85 pounds to late 2021. And, I had some, I had experience, which we'll probably get to today, which caused me to reflect on my health and kind of what am I doing here?

I need to [00:04:00] get a hold of this now, or I'm gonna end up in some serious trouble. And I almost really did. And yeah, it caused me to turn things around and that's why I'm here today. Today I would consider myself a health enthusiast. And I'm very passionate about it and I really try to focus on helping other people become healthy themselves.

And, my belief is it doesn't really matter where you are today that you can always get a lot better. And I'm living proof of that, yeah. So I talk about it a lot. I really enjoy talking about it. So again, thank you again for having me on today to do just that. I've course have so many

Chris Detzel: questions, but I'll let Mike dive in.

This is so interesting. I love it already.

Mike: Look we've been talking about this and I think that anybody who sits in front of a desk as much as we do, it's a silent killer, right? And Yep. I think that. Almost everybody I know in this space has had serious health issues at one point or another in their life, and they either hit this turning point where they try to turn things around or they don't, or they go back and forth between the two.

Let's go in a little bit deeper and talk about, what was that turning point for you? What did it really mean? Maybe some of the feelings that you got. Feeling up to that. I have my own experiences as well, so trying not to think too much about them, but I'd like to go deeper there.

Rich Williams: Sure. Yeah. So it, I [00:05:00] started to develop again, like you said, right? Our career. My career. And especially in consulting. You spend a lot of time sitting at a desk and a lot of time not moving very much, and you, there's a. There's a lot of external forces that come to bear on your health.

When you're in a career like this, it's really demanding, long periods of time, sitting late hours, stressful environments, tight timelines and deadlines. You have to admit a lot of pressure coming from all sorts of different directions. And also as just say in the office environment, it's a pretty unhealthy environment typically.

You have, you don't find a lot of healthy options to eat in offices. If you're working there,

Chris Detzel: boss brings donuts.

Rich Williams: Yeah. Donuts, and donuts and pizza, is what lot. That's right. A lot of fast food or a lot of just munchies. Nothing real healthy. And there's also, the whole sort of, I would just call it the bar culture, right?

When it comes to work as well, right? A lot of dinners and alcohol and bars. This stuff adds up over time and it wasn't like it all happened at once. It was this slow deterioration for me over year. And after a while you hit a tipping point where your health really starts to become an issue.

And that started [00:06:00] to happen for me in the late. 2010s, I would say coming in right around Covid, right around when Covid started 2020, I started to develop some more serious issues. The one that really got me was gallstones had I started to develop gallstones and I would have these gallstone attacks every three months or so.

And if you've never had a gallstone attack, it's, they're not fun. They last a couple days usually. I had I would get those every three months and I just learned to deal with them. I just thought this is just the way it's gonna be. At the time I was probably 270, 275 pounds. I was obese and I had an ex went to the doctor in 2022.

I. February, and they recommended that I get my gallbladder taken out because I had to actually stay in the emergency room. I got admitted to the hospital. It was the first time I'd ever been admitted, and the doctors were like, you should get your gallbladder out, or you might have something more serious happen.

They talked me through what some of the. Potential consequences could be. And I did not take their advice. I left it in 'cause I was like, I don't wanna deal with a removing an organ right now. That was, I was born with. And then nine months later what they predicted would happen actually [00:07:00] happened, which was that I ended up with acute gallstone pancreatitis.

I, I. Basically, I did not take that risk seriously enough. I was more worried about the risk of not having my gallbladder as opposed to the risk of having it. And I underestimated how risky it was to leave it in with pancreatitis as a potential downstream effect. And yeah, on November 1st, I had this experience that just changed my life because, I knew something was really wrong that day because I, the pain I was experiencing on that day was much greater than I had ever felt in my entire life.

And I knew it was beyond my gallbladder at this point, but my entire abdomen was just, I can't even, it was. Pain everywhere. And I knew something was really wrong and I, we went to the hospital on the morning of the first, and I told them, I said, I think it's my gallbladder. They confirmed right away that it was my gallbladder, but also my pancreas.

And my pancreas was in some serious trouble. I had to go into emergency surgery right away and. During that surgery right before I went into it, I started to get concerned that I may not even live through it to be honest with you. I was very concerned just by the doctor's behavior and how urgent they [00:08:00] were, and I just asked them, I said, what are what's gonna happen here?

Am I gonna wake up from this surgery or what? And they just didn't give me a confident answer. We don't know. We're gonna do the best we can, but we are not sure. And it was, that kind of experience was what really changed everything because that it took a minute. I got to think about my life before I was put to sleep, and in that minute you really reflect on.

Your decisions that you made to get there? I put myself there in that position. That's basically what I was thinking while I was laying there, go about ready to go to sleep, and it was just a lot of what have you done? Like you have, what have you done here? You've really messed up and you just hope that, okay, I just hope I make it out of this.

And luckily I did and I had eight days in the hospital to sit there and think about my life and what I was. Doing with it. And, a lot of realizations came up. And while I was there, I decided I was gonna step away from my career for a year and focus on rebuilding my health and getting my health back.

And that's what I did. And I, nine months late, I took nine months before I actually left my work. I had to plan everything. I was a senior leader. [00:09:00] I had to plan everything. And in August, 2023, I left my job. I left my career for 15 months, is what it ended up being. Amazing. I with a intention of completely just rewiring myself and becoming a healthy person.

'cause I just wasn't yeah. I would say it's been a success.

Chris Detzel: So Rich, quickly decision I made.

Rich Williams: Yeah.

Chris Detzel: Yeah. And we will dive into that too. Is the gall gallbladder thing, that is it because you were overweight and that's some of the bad decisions you were making from drinking, eating. Not moving around and all that kinda stuff.

Is that what causes that?

Rich Williams: All the above. Yeah. It's really a food related, my mom had gallstones, she had her gall daughter taken out. It's a pretty common thing. A lot of people do get their gallbladders removed for one reason or the other. It's definitely food related though. It had related to in my diet.

And you know how the drinking, right At the end of the day, it's all related to what I'm putting into my body and or what I was putting into my body. I did get it removed. After that happened, I was like, I'm. Definitely getting this thing out now. And I did, I was very grateful to, to lose the gallbladder, and I realized I, I haven't missed it at all.

It [00:10:00] has never been a single time where I wish I had it. Yeah. Which is again the, my overestimated the risk of not having it and underestimated the risk of leaving it in.

Mike: And the thing is too, people don't realize that. And when you're working in these jobs, if you haven't worked in one, the amount of stress, it's not just the drinking and the bad diet, it's the stress, it's the lack of sleep.

It, yep. You start to develop this mentality of like you can handle it, right? Yeah. And whether it's sacrificing the things around you, your family, your time, your health. It's for the cause and everybody else around you is doing that. I think that's the thing. A lot of people that aren't in these spaces, like why wouldn't you just realize it earlier?

Why wouldn't you take care of it? Yep. But you have this mission of you gotta do what's right to get the job done, and you start putting things aside and not realizing how much you're putting aside. A hundred

Chris Detzel: percent. Do you think that the job piece, so like you're doing all that, eating poorly, all that stuff, but do you think that even the job itself, I mean it's pretty high stressed, high strong, focused job.

Yeah. It seems like part of that, even no matter how healthy you are or doing is, could be [00:11:00] just the job stressing you out.

Rich Williams: I definitely agree with you. I think about this a lot and I talk to, I do too. People all the time these days, who are in similar situations. The work environment is an absolute contributor to poor health.

There's just no question in my mind about it. If on average, I would say most people, at least in these demanding type of careers, the environments are not healthy, even if they're not necessarily negative environments. Which can be extremely unhealthy. Even if you're in a positive but extremely challenging and demanding environment, it can be bad for your health because at the end of the day.

I've realized it all comes down to energy, right? And how much, if you're spending all your energy on your job and you don't have anything left over to spend on yourself, you're gonna, you can run into problems. And if you're not taking care of yourself from a food perspective, if you're not putting good energy into you, you don't have enough to do your job and to take care of yourself.

And so it ends up just being some basic math, right? About what you're putting in and what's going out. And if your job is sucking most of your [00:12:00] energy outta you and you don't have a lot left, if you're not careful about that. You're not really proactive about making sure you're filling yourself with good, nutritious stuff and taking care of this body that you live in.

It's, yeah, it's really easy to fall off the rails and that's exactly what happened to me. And once you get off the rails it becomes, it's a slippery slope there. Things can go fast, they can go downhill very fast. And I have this picture I share with people on my phone the week. The Saturday before that happened, I was in Nebraska at a football game watching a college football game with my friends, and two days later I'm in the hospital like fighting for my life.

It just happens real fast and you don't, you never know when those things are gonna happen, and you never expect it. Nobody's ever ready for that. Yeah I definitely think, Chris, that the work environment for, that most people in our current careers live in is, and is as a negative contributor to their health.

And on the average, I would say. I

Chris Detzel: think that, and we'll get, we'll dive deeper 'cause I'm extremely interested in how you changed your diet, your health and exercise and things like that. But I remember, one of the jobs I was at, it was, accomplished a lot, did a lot of stuff, but it was highly, stressful, let's [00:13:00] just say with the boss and other things.

And my wife was like. You've gotta change. Yeah. I was exercising, I was eating right. And I could go run half marathons and run 40 miles a week. And it still wasn't changing. My mentality because of the stress I was under at work.

Rich Williams: Absolutely. And

Chris Detzel: when I left, she was like, good.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you've left that job because Yeah. My mental health, even though I was eating decently and exercising decently, it wasn't enough. Yeah. And so I think that's why I asked about the job thing. Like I agree. If you're traveling, doing these things and going hanging out after work, going drink beers and nothing's wrong with that in moderation, right?

But certainly if you're not doing anything active, and if you're eating stuff like that all the time, then that's a problem. Totally. And so would love to know more. You had that surgery, thinking about a lot of things. So what was next?

Rich Williams: Yeah, so I, like I said, I made up my mind in that hospital as I laid there.

I was by myself for eight days and that was the best thing that could have happened for me. Just getting time to [00:14:00] think, I'm really grateful. I, the whole thing I'm grateful for, to be honest with you. I'm actually lucky this all happened to me because it was the wake up call that I needed.

I was just, it's a positive spin. It is a very love that my life is love that much better today than it was three years ago. It's unbelievable. And it was a, it was just a wa up call that I needed. I got a glimpse into what it's like to run outta time and that I am so lucky I got that.

It's a, I would just say it's a terrifying experience. It's a profound experience. There's no other way I can describe it to say, oh my God, this might be actually my last minute here. I don't know. That's crazy

Chris Detzel: to think about, man.

Rich Williams: It is. That's so crazy.

Chris Detzel: Like I can't, I think about that every now and it's yeah, what is it like to almost die and not, yeah. And then have to

Rich Williams: think about everything. And that's what you did it, it's amazing. It really is amazing. Yeah. It's, it changed my life and obviously the things that are there, I'll tell the things that were, the thoughts were just like a lot of anger at myself. A lot. There's a lot. It's amazing how much you can think about in one minute of time, right?

Time time. Just I feel like it slows down. It just slows down. It stops. It's really interesting, this amazing kind [00:15:00] of experience. You think about a lot in a very short amount of time, and it's all at once, and so it's extremely overwhelming. There's regret, there's sadness, there's anger, there's everything, and it's all directed at yourself, right?

You're only mad at yourself, and then the lights go out, and then you wake up and you're like, thank God. I woke up and now I got work to do, and so that's when I just, I laid there in that room. I was mostly alone. I had all this time to myself to think, and I just was like, what am I doing here?

This is this is not the way it's supposed to be, and. This is not how I wanna live my life. This isn't happiness. This isn't what I want laying in a hospital bed, have going to the ER every couple months. It's, and so I just like I said, made up my mind to, to leave my career and go fix myself and just become a healthy person.

I did not know exactly how I was gonna do it. I was telling Mike the other day that, I've battled my weight for my entire life. For the most part. I've tried eight different times before this time to lose a significant amount of weight. And by significant a more than 30 pounds. Six of those times.

I actually did lose 30 and then I put I every [00:16:00] time I put it back on and then some, and this time I was like, this has gotta be the last time. I can't keep doing this or I'm gonna die. I will kill myself. That's what I thought. And, 'cause I came so close here and I'm just like I gotta change.

And so I, I spent time thinking about what I was gonna do and how I was gonna do it. I was very fortunate. My, my wife's mom lives in Singapore and she offered up her home. She said, why don't you come live with me for a little bit and just get outta there and. Spend time here, we'll work on, getting you, fixing your diet, giving you some space to think pretty healthy over

Chris Detzel: there, aren't they?

Rich Williams: They're very healthy. Yeah. Singapore's probably one of the healthiest cities in the world. Perfect. It's not the healthy, amazing. That's amazing. That's how to learn. And it's a great place to do this kind of thing too. So I was really lucky. I let my company know I was gonna step down in March of 2023 and right around the time of the SVB crisis, I let him know and then I gave him a kind of a five month.

Runway to say, I'm gonna transition out. You need to, and so on August 1st, I flew to Singapore and I stayed there for six weeks, and that was the beginning.

Mike: Just a quick question on this. Why do you think that it takes to the point where you're laying on a [00:17:00] hospital bed contemplating if you're gonna live or die to make a decision that you need to restructure your life?

And this is not just for you. I think it's for everybody out there. Yeah, everybody. 'cause everyone's putting off these situations in their life. You,

Rich Williams: you think you have more time than you have. That's ultimately what it comes down to. You take for granted. First of all, you underestimate how bad things can get.

Quickly, you underestimate how close you are to some real problems because they, the slide down is fast. It can be very fast. And I think people just assume I did that I'll deal with this later. I had this, I will fix it later. Mindset. My career is busy. I'm busy at work. I've got a lot going on.

I don't have time right now. It's intuitively, to turn your life around like this. It's got, it's a big project. It does. It's not gonna happen overnight. It's gonna take a lot of work and. It's hard,

Chris Detzel: rich,

Rich Williams: Yeah. It's hard. It's hard. Think

Chris Detzel: about, in my opinion. I'm not saying it's, it is on you right to, to change it.

It's that much as obvious. Just to say it's on you. Go make it happen. It's not that easy. You think about the stuff out there that's. It's there to eat. You [00:18:00] have to make good choices, on what you eat, maybe cook more. Do those things that you, maybe you don't have time for, didn't have time for.

It's a chore to change your life, to go and exercise. If I know I'm gonna go run 20 miles a week, I don't know, whatever. For me, it's running for you. It's whatever. But the point is like you have to make a choice to eat healthier, go out in the morning and run, even if it's raining or snowing or whatever, and just.

Making those hardcore changes and making yourself go do it. I'm not saying you can't. You can, 'cause we do it. A lot of people do it. But it's a complete change. And plus you quit your job making crap ton of money. And you're a high, very high level. That's a huge risk on your end. Yeah. But

Rich Williams: yeah,

Chris Detzel: you, it was like a matter of life and death literally.

Rich Williams: Yeah. Yeah. And it was the best investment I could have made with my time actually. It was to go and really 'cause make myself a lot better. It was a big investment, but yeah, like I said, totally worth it. But it comes back to, it's a lot of, yeah you think you have more time than you have when you have a problem.

And I think that we [00:19:00] underestimate just how short life is fragile and it, yeah it can happen fast. I think that's a mistake a lot of people made. I certainly did. And but not

Mike: but yeah, you were on this, you were on this track. You realized that you needed to make a change. You flew to Singapore to go change your life.

What was that road to recovery like for you?

Rich Williams: So it's, I would say it started, it's real, I break it down into three things, even four really. It's, I broke my life apart into different buckets and I said there's work to do in the area, category of food. There's work to do in the category of my body.

There's work to do in my mind, and there's work to do on my sleep. Those are the four buckets of work that I broke it down. Perfect. Yeah. Yep. And I, I. Came up with strategies for each of them. I did a lot of homework and research and I think the. It started getting a lot more active.

That was one when I was, when I went to Singapore, I was 256 pounds still. So I was still really heavy. I had a lot of work to do. I'm 180 pounds today, so I've lost, overall, I've [00:20:00] lost over a hundred pounds just a little bit. Thank you. And, but the big changes I that I made, one was just my food. I cleaned up my food period.

And you start eating like what? So I was a vegetarian already. Okay. But I was, what I would consider my, I would say I was an unhealthy vegetarian. So I ate. Vegetarian, but I had a lot of junk in there. There was a lot. It's basically what I stopped eating that really made the difference. I stopped eating.

I don't eat grains anymore. I don't eat 'em. I cut those out. I cut out all ba. Now, I don't use any sugar, any added sugar, any artificial sweeteners or any processed foods. I've just. I've eliminated all those. I leave everything else. So I basically eat fruits and vegetables and good fiber and dairy products and that's pretty much it.

I'll have a treat once in a while. They're by exception Treats used to be every day and now they're just by exception only, and they gotta be like really good treats, like the best pizza place like in Chicago, not just like average pizza, that was it.

Chris Detzel: What do you do for protein? What's your kind, sorry, I'm just interested.

Yeah, no, that's

Rich Williams: fine. That's fine. I just had a protein snack. It's a bunch of, it's a couple eggs, some cottage cheese. I put some other, some shredded cheese [00:21:00] in there some pistachio nuts. I put some pepper on there and some frank's hot sauce and meshed it all together and it's amazing.

Kind of 80 grams. Yeah. Sounds protein right there. It's really good. Yeah, so it's delicious snack. I do that every single day. I make one for me and my wife. I'm very strict about what I eat now. I have a list of foods that I will I only can eat off a certain list every day until 5:00 PM If it's not on a list, I can't eat it.

And that makes slice simple. And I think to your point, Chris, one of the problems is choices you gotta make. It's all about making better choices at the end of the day. And if you can help yourself make better choices by creating rules around what you eat and what you don't eat, and just follow in the rules.

And I just, that was the big changes I made was just getting rid of the junk understanding too, that I think I just re. I started to reimagine food as it's actually, it actually is energy, right? It's fuel from my body, fuel for my life. And when I reframed it as fuel and energy, I.

It just changed everything because I'm like, I gotta look at this in terms of what is this doing for my, the, what is this doing for me at the cellular level? And I have definitely learned that if I can help my cells thrive, [00:22:00] I will thrive. And if I'm not helping my myself thrive, I'm not gonna thrive in my life because I live that life for a long time.

So I pay a lot of attention to just making sure that I'm getting what my body needs and not necessarily what I want to eat. And that over time it's shifted that. I now crave all the things that are healthy for me and not the things that are unhealthy. It's interesting how that happens. That shift will happen.

I used to crave all the unhealthy stuff and now I don't, and so that's totally possible to make that kind of a shift. That's the big thing I did, obviously exercise and just staying active and that. That's a huge part of it too. And I used to be the kind of person who would just, I needed a gym to work out.

I don't anymore. I've made my, I've made it so that I can do everything I need to do right here in this little space. And I stay very fit. Just working out here in my house, I've made it easy to be healthy. And I think that's one of the takeaways is if it's hard to be healthy. If it's really hard, you're not gonna do it.

It's, you're not gonna be healthy. If it's really hard to be healthy, if you make it easy to be healthy, it's easy to be healthy and you'll, you're more likely to do it and do the little habits and make the best better choices. And something [00:23:00] funny

Chris Detzel: I heard the other day, Mike, is it was David Goggins and some people love him, hate him, whatever.

But I love him,

Rich Williams: yeah. I love Goggins.

Chris Detzel: He was like, you have a floor, don't you get down on it and do some pushups?

Rich Williams: Exactly. He's right. He's so right. He. You don't need a gym. You don't. You absolutely don't. And I think I tell people that all the time. You don't need fancy equipment and gyms and space.

You just need a couple of kettlebells. You need some bands. You need the floor, an exercise mat, and a couple of good routines that you can find on YouTube, and just get to work. Just do a little bit, chip away. Keep con, make it easy. We'll make it. Easier to be consistent, which I think is the, that's the thing, right?

Is just being consistent in your health is how you become healthy and the implementing simple little habits and just doing 'em over and over. So in Singapore, I learned the art of habit making. I studied it a lot. I learned it from my mother-in-law too. She has great habits and just spending six weeks with her was amazing.

And just watching her be healthy and doing the things she does, and I started to feel. That change happening inside [00:24:00] me, but also on the outside it was, you could start, see the weight was dropping. I started feeling better, looking better and gaining confidence back. And that momentum just kept going when I came home.

And then, till where we are today. The other thing that I work on a lot is just the mental side of it. I really understood there that health is really I call it, it's health is a mindset, right? And hundred percent. Healthy people. If you wanna be a healthy person, you need to think like a healthy person is the way I talk about it.

And the big thing that I did too while I was there is I understood the power of an identity shift, right? Shifting. I used to think of myself as an unhealthy person and I, I really understood when I was in Singapore that, wow, I can. I can actually take control of that part of my mind and reframe it and say, I'm actually, even though I didn't look like a healthy person, I start calling myself a healthy person.

I started to shift my identity to a healthy person's identity. And choices become different. Your it. I realize that your actions are downstream from your choices and thoughts, which are downstream [00:25:00] from your identity, which is how you think about yourself. And so I really started to work on. I am just saying, even though I didn't look like one, I started to call myself a really healthy person way before I actually looked like a really healthy person, and that was the most important change I made, I think to keep, I could I could probably have hit my goals.

I, I think sustaining the goals that has all been from the identity and that the main maintenance of those habits has come from telling myself repeatedly that I am a really healthy person and I literally say it out loud to myself every single day to remind myself of that every morning, just in case I forgot overnight.

Then and I, and it helps me implement those little habits every single day. And so that's, which I think that

Chris Detzel: mindset is the key at the end of the day, because almost anybody say anybody, but for the most part, anybody can go lose a hundred pounds. But how do you keep that off and consistently focus in on the health?

Yeah. I think that, that mindset has to be there and it has to stay consistent and focused, and it's all those things that you do at work.

Rich Williams: Yeah, exactly.

Chris Detzel: Focus. You're doing [00:26:00] all these things to try to hit these numbers, to try to hit, I don't know, what, whatever you're doing, build the strategy so that so and so can do.

I don't know, whatever it is. Yeah, it's the same thing, like totally. You're just doing it and gearing that towards your health. Build a roadmap and a strategy for yourself. It's, and your health, not just your work. Yeah. You're more important than the work. 'cause work, I, there's another job tomorrow.

Rich Williams: Exactly. I say the exact same thing. I called it, even the whole thing in Singapore. I called it Project me. And I literally love it. Treated it just like a project. I had a timeline, I had a roadmap. I had strategy like you and you said it. I have all these skills that I've built in consulting that are completely relevant to what do we do in consulting.

We help our clients transform who they are, right? All I'm doing is repointing those same skills on me. I want to transform myself. Use the same skills. You have a vision, you have a roadmap, you have a plan, you have, you execute, you have good habits. It's identical. It's just that the thing that's being transformed isn't the technology platform of a client.

It's your own body. It's your own mind, and every single person has the skills to do this. I think that's important. It doesn't, and it [00:27:00] doesn't matter. You could be overweight today. It doesn't matter. You have the skills. You, or maybe you don't have the skills today on every single aspect, but you can go learn them.

They're just skills. You can, everybody can learn these things. It's not like it's special category. People can do this. No. Anybody can do it. I do think that's an important thing to get out there, that there's nothing special about me. I just went and did it, and anybody else could too. So I think plenty

Mike: of,

Rich Williams: I

Mike: think it's so funny how these little things in life, right?

Like telling yourself something in the morning. For me I like to make my bed. That's like my thing. I make my bed every day. Yeah. It's like the smallest thing that I can be successful at the beginning of the day. I forget where I got it from, it's one of those things that you just. You do it and then your life is on a different trajectory, right?

Yep. Your mind is on a different trajectory. Yep. And you make decisions for the rest of the day based on that reinforcement that you keep telling yourself, this is the direction we're headed, this is what we're looking for in the world. And to me that is such a powerful message. It really is. And not just for your health, for your weight, for your success in your career, anything you wanna achieve in life.

Just those little incremental reminders that you [00:28:00] are on the right track and you're not looking for these other things. I think that's a really important thing to call out is, yeah, you said I have a list of things that I will eat during the day up until 5:00 PM you have totally changed your trajectory just by limiting yourself to a select set of options.

Rich Williams: Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, it is. I think getting I spend a lot of focus just making sure I start my day right every day. I, it's a really, my favorite part of my day is as this, as soon as I wake up, because I have a routine that I go through to, I would say, prime my mind for the day to come.

And get myself in a positive mindset. I try to, I have a routine where I get a lot of small wins right, right out of the gate every morning. And I'm pumped up and I'm like, okay, I've already had a good day and I'm only 15 minutes old and my mind is ready. And I tell myself, and I do think it's important to, I, I say it out loud to myself.

I believe that it's important to do that. Not just think it, I actually say it. And I, there's certain things I say to myself every single morning out loud that help me ensure. That I have a good day. And I would say [00:29:00] since I started doing this, I would say 99.9% of my days have been really good days.

And that wasn't the case before. And so I think the mindset and the, just the creating a positive attitude for yourself out of the gate and not leaving it up to chance, right? Being proactive about making yourself positive I think is really important. And just say, I'm gonna have a good day today.

And how what's a good day look like? What does a great day look like today? These are the three things that are gonna make today a great day, and let's go do it. I think just thinking about it, I used to leave it up to chance and it was ad hoc and I never put a lot of thought into, I wanna have a great day today.

Some days I would, and some days I wouldn't. I would just go with the flow. Changing that to being much more proactive and thinking about it has made a huge difference. And now I'm looking at how can I make, I probably should do something in the evening too. I'm not doing that right now.

But how can I I love my morning startup routine. I think I should implement a shut down routine too that's equally focused and, has a lot of good positive things and recapping the day and also looking ahead to tomorrow. So just these little things make a huge difference.

Chris Detzel: Your dreams could just. All come true. Like I know, yeah. You're shutting down your mind and Right. [00:30:00] You have these beautiful, amazing dreams and you wake up. Oh my god.

Rich Williams: I know. It's what have I got to lose by trying this, exactly. I don't have anything to lose, so it's, might as well try if I can, if things can get even better by trying to program myself to have specific dreams and that kinda stuff, why not try?

I got nothing to lose. But

Mike: it's so interesting too. And what do you think about for people who are trying this, right? Because I think every one of us is trying to get better at something in this way. And one of the biggest challenges is that you have a daily mess up. I

Chris Detzel: don't messed Mike. Are they?

I think some people are, I think maybe some people if think about it, but they don't, they're doing it. No. I think

Mike: even if they're not doing it though, they have something they want. Whether it's losing weight or moving up in your career or spending more time with family.

We're always moving towards balance in one way or the other. I don't think we ever find that true. Pinnacle point of balance in our lives. For you, what happens when you do have a bad day, let's say you mess up and you do something, how do you keep yourself back on course? How do you recalibrate yourself?

I think that's a piece where a lot of people, they screw up one day, then it becomes a week, and then they're off the rails. And they fall back to old [00:31:00] habits.

Rich Williams: Yeah. I think it's really important to have a lot of, that's why it's important to get small wins throughout the day. I think it's important to put a lot of W's on the board.

Throughout the day, and especially early if you can. 'cause, things are coming at you from work and you're gonna make mistakes. There's no question you're gonna have bad meetings. These things happen. I think you all, it's important to remember a couple things. One, stack your day right with little wins throughout the day so that at the end of the day you can still look.

I wasn't perfect, but I certainly had still had a good day, right? I still got a lot of wins today. And so the second is just all don't ever forget your own body of evidence, right? Your own body of work. I think it's really important to look at your own life and say, you know what, it's fine.

I've accomplished a lot. I can get through this. It's just, it's another bump in the road. It's totally fine. And getting uncomfortable, making mistakes. That's how you learn too, right? That's how you get better. And so I, I think it's really important to just constantly reframe some of these negative experiences.

What is the positive in this too? There is a positive to the somewhere go find it. What does that look like? I think that helps, at least me. It's really important to also just. Pay [00:32:00] attention to when you are being negative about yourself. I think one of the, one of the most important things I've learned is just the power of just eliminating negative self-talk.

Find when you find, when you hear yourself doubting yourself, just arrest that thought, right? Say whoa. I hear myself talking negative about myself inside my own head, right? Doubting myself. I always screw this up. I never get this right. Whatever that area of your life is where you've got those negative sort of self thought, talk and just becoming aware of it.

Listening to it for a second, it's like, why am I saying this? And can I start to shift this? Just practicing that move. It's like a wrestling move, right? Or you catch the thought. I imagine it like catching a butterfly. You catch the thought like on a net. All right, I got you now and let me just push you down or put you away and try to convert that thought to something pot and just practicing that motion over and over. And actually you get better at stopping the negative thoughts when they're happening. It's never I've not gotten to the point where I'm, I've got a hundred percent, I still have negative thoughts for sure, but I'm gotten much better at catching them and stopping them and flipping the narrative and honestly saying, no, this, I'm gonna [00:33:00] change.

I'm gonna tell the, I'm gonna tell the exact opposite story right now. Whatever that thought was. And these are old thought patterns that take, time to change. 'Cause you have to rewire your brain, basically. Your brain is rewiring and it doesn't happen overnight. And so I think it's important to just listen to your own internal voice.

And when you hear it talking badly about yourself, just stop try to stop it and try to start focusing on positive things about yourself. And it's amazing how just this little action by itself can be life changing. It really can because I think. A lot of people I know, they hold themselves back from achieving things that they could definitely achieve because they don't think they can do it.

They don't believe they can do it. And Chris, I told you, I know you're into running. I'm into stair climbing. I love bringing people to climb stairs because a lot of people, I. Completely underestimate how much they can do. And you may experience the same thing with running pretty tough, right?

They are tough, but it's I'll people will come in here and I'll climb my building a bunch with them and I have a club I run every Sunday that get guests to come and come climb stairs together. And we climb [00:34:00] 120 floors, it's roughly the same tight as a Sears tower and nobody thinks they can do it when they start.

Nobody, everybody's I'm terrified. I can't do this. And they do it. They're like, see, you could do it, and you could probably go to, you could probably do it twice. And it's pretty mind blowing for them to go through that experience like, wow, I didn't think I could do 20 floors, but I just did 120. And that gap between what they think they can do and what they actually can do is so massive and they realize it's so quickly that it's like, where else am my life?

Am I doing this? Where I'm like limiting myself, but just because of my own beliefs and like my comfort zone is so tight and small that I'm not even trying to get out of it. And so that's been a really interesting thing too. But it a lot of it just comes back to just the mind, right?

And what we think about ourselves, what we think we can do. Everybody can do this kind of stuff. And I would just say, if you hear yourself talking about, I can't, I call these things magical words. There's certain words I say to listen for. I can't is one. If you're saying I can't do something, really?

Why do you say that? I ask people why? Why do you say you can't do that? What's the evidence there? When I hear people say I should do [00:35:00] something, I always tell 'em, you definitely should do that because that's your, I always say that's. That's your future self. Your future self is talking there.

Chris Detzel: My so two things is I used to work with a company called Forster Research, and there's this French guy that came to to the states and I would take 'em all around, like California and some other places and and he would say to all these executives, and we're at this company called Chevron Once by name is Chevron, is talking to some leaders there.

And he goes, the most important thing is. Kindness is the most important strategy that you can put towards your people and things like that. Yeah. And then, I heard him say that a couple times. I was gonna do the French accent but I couldn't. And then then my wife one day she goes, 'cause I was being critical of myself.

And she goes, I. Chris, you need to learn how to be kind to yourself. And some of the things that you're talking about is implement that strategy around not just or not just around other people, which is important, but to yourself. We are our own worst critics. Absolutely. So I'm not saying don't push yourself to be [00:36:00] better.

Don't push yourself. You should. Start eating the right things, start exercising and those things, but we're all gonna make mistakes and eat, some chocolate or whatever, yeah. Just, it's okay. There's times where you know, my running that, maybe I get a little injured and I can't run for a couple of weeks or whatever.

Yeah, it's gonna be hard to get back into it. As a matter of fact, you don't just jump right back into the same thing. You just slowly but surely get back into it.

Rich Williams: Exactly. Yeah. I

Chris Detzel: think that you gotta con, it's a continu you continuously fight it and go after it and you'll get better and better.

So I love that a hundred percent. I think it's,

Rich Williams: it's key. You I actually, I had a couple notes, Chris before I came, just things that I, that I would want to make sure I got across. And one of them is exactly, be kind to yourself. Couldn't agree more. I wasn't always kind to myself.

I started to be kind to myself. I, I think it's important to forgive yourself a lot. About, 'cause we don't know right. We're you're always learning. And I know things I know now that I didn't know then, and I'm very forgiving about the things I didn't know. It's okay. I [00:37:00] didn't know. Now I know.

And I try to help other people too, avoid the same mistakes I made. I. I think if you spend a lot of time beating yourself up and have a negative self-talk you're just wasting time and energy. Just focus that on positive stuff and start getting, making changes. Now, one thing that's also helped me a lot is just I think of myself, and you'll appreciate this in the data industry, I actually think of myself as every day is a new version of me.

I. I wake up in the morning, it's like I got this version has 24 hours before the time's up, and I'm gonna do as much as I can. It helps to clean the slate every day and say, whatever happened yesterday, today's a new day. I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it my best shot to move this project forward.

And I think it helps me to not dwell on things that happened yesterday nearly as much. 'cause I'm like, that was yesterday. That was a different version. That's not this one. I'm a new, I'm a new fresh version today and every day is a new version and. That's helped me a lot to be consistent. And again stay positive.

Let go of this, the little things that happen and it's that's okay, just move on. But, 'cause yeah it's important to just be, I think, consistent and if you are spending a lot of time dwelling on the past of mistakes you've made, or it's, it gets in the way of being [00:38:00] consistent, so

Mike: I feel like you go through these, maturity curves in your life, right?

Where you spend your whole young adulthood. Learning. Learning. And then you get to this point where you're doing and you become hypercritical because you wanna be the best doer possible in everything you do. Yeah. Yep. And then at some point you realize that imperfection is part of life and you have to accept it.

And really moving everything slowly in a direction is better than getting hung up on all these small things. Yeah.

Rich Williams: Yep.

Mike: It is so interesting to me that at least in my stage of life where I am right now and with young kids and seeing the whole life cycle turning, that you start to have to rebalance, right?

Because like you either have to rebalance or you have to sacrifice, and not just like with health, but with work and the people you surround yourself and the influences that you have in your life, and all these things like. Regardless of which direction you pick, they are moving in a direction. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that's something that people don't understand is like if you do nothing, you are moving in a direction still. It's either unhealthy or away from your goals. You're never static. Exactly right. Exactly. And to me, that's always [00:39:00] been a really helpful reminder that I need to be on top of this because if I'm not, and I'm just thinking I'm stationary or taking a break, I'm actually moving in the opposite direction.

Rich Williams: Yeah, a hundred percent. I hear people, again, you can imagine a lot of people that wanna talk to me to get advice and say, how do I'm stuck and I would, can of pick your brain. Here's where I am. One of the things I hear a lot from people is, I don't have time. I'm too busy. I got kids, I take care of my kids.

I got my job and this and that, and I'm just, my, my response to that is, it is even more important than that. You focus on yourself first, because if you're on health, wait till, if you keep letting your health slide, do you think you're gonna be able to be more likely or less likely to take care of your kids as they get older?

You're gonna be less, it's gonna, it's gonna do, it's gonna be even harder. And if you're more or less he, are you gonna be able to thrive more or less in your career? It's gonna be harder to thrive in your career if you're not healthy. And so I think it's really important that people step back and say, wait a second, I've been thinking about this all wrong.

Putting yourself first is totally fine. And that's actually, I think the right decision is to take care of yourself first. [00:40:00] Only then can you really give everything you got. In your career and give your family everything you've got. And that's been a new realization for me. And I think that's one I share with people too, is put yourself first and don't feel bad about it.

You gotta take care of yourself. Then you really be able to support your family and thrive in your career. And I think it's. That's something that I think a lot of people don't, they don't think that way, right? They, I gotta do my job and I gotta, all these other responsibilities, I put myself last.

And I just think that's the exact wrong way to think. That's the way I used to think, and it got me in trouble. And I don't think that way

Chris Detzel: anymore. I think I, I think you're absolutely right. And I think that you start doing that, you'll start integrating the kids, your activities with your kids.

Exactly. I would, I remember. My son Tegan at five years old let's go run a 5K. We'll run it together. Yeah. So you're teaching him her, whatever healthy habits, but then you're out there also doing a 5K with them, or whatever it is. If it's steps, take your kids up some steps.

Exactly. And you just do the things that you know. Yeah. You bring 'em with you. It's harder.

Rich Williams: [00:41:00] Exactly.

Chris Detzel: But that's teaching 'em healthy habits, a hundred percent consistently doing it. Yeah, and I think that is thinking of yourself first, but also thinking of that's what we're gonna do.

My kid needs to do, Nope, they need to do this with me.

Rich Williams: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. No I think that's right. I absolutely do. I think that it too, I think that's a better path to overall happiness. I really think that, I think it starts with taking care of yourself.

Mike: Yeah. And Rich, this has been an incredibly delightful episode.

I really appreciate you coming on the show. Yeah. I know that as we wrap up, you have been helping a few folks. You've been giving talks on this, and I really do think it's something that more people need to understand and be aware of. If you want, we'd be well happy to have you share any kind of contact information if there are folks that are interested in reaching out to you.

We do have a lot of data executives on the podcast, and I think that there are so many people, whether you have a life coach or you're just looking for advice. Yeah, moving in the right direction. And this can be hard. And the more support you have, the better. So thank you again for sharing this. I really appreciate it.

[00:42:00] Yeah, no, thank you guys for having

Rich Williams: me.

Mike: Yeah. And for the listeners on the call, don't forget to rate and review us. I'm Michael Burke. And I'm Chris Zel. Thanks for tuning in to Data Hurdles. Take care. Thanks, rich, everybody.

Rich Williams: Thanks guys. Appreciate it.