Managing Stress: 7 Ways to Use Your Advisory

September 16, 2021
Eric Chang

On our last blog, I introduced the idea of having a board of advisors.

Today – I’m going to share with you HOW to leverage these people in your life.

As mentioned on the previous blog –

My faith includes my spiritual life as well as my mindset.
My finances represent my freedom and future.
My family represents my actual family, closest relationships and inner circle.
My fitness represents my health, longevity and quality of life, present and future.

The first step is to actually acknowledge and realize that these people that take care of the big pillars in your lives are effectively your coaches and teammates. Whether its your spiritual/mental health, your financial health, your relational health or physical health/fitness – my personal advisory has helped me in these 7 ways. These will all be shared from a coaches perspective.

Your advisory will give you structure, systematic planning, and long term goals.
One of the most important things I get direction on is actually not daily inspiration or motivation. It is a process with long term goals that are clearly defined. My advisory helps me set a goal, dig deep into macro, meso, and micro goals within my big picture. It creates periodization for my process and gives me clear purpose to define my efforts and structure for my action.
Your advisory will focus on optimization, not competition.
Competition drives us and it can be fun or even motivating, especially in a fitness setting. But while i’m focused on being competitive in life and in the gym, my coach focuses on me. Their goal is not to aid me in competing with others, but optimizing my actions and output on a regular basis. The truth is, we are really only competing against ourselves.
Your advisory fixes your positions because they’ve been there.
When it comes to CrossFit – there is tons of specific skill work that leads to be learned. It can seem unending. It is valuable to have someone coach us through positions, giving us feedback, adjusting our bodies, assigning us mobility work etc. We need someone to offer solutions to the problems they identify. Much like in life or other arenas outside of the gym – having advisory give us feedback gives us space to fix what isn’t working.
Your advisory allows you to focus.
My coaches take away my thinking. One of the most underrated things in life is how much our emotional space is worth. Have you ever heard the phrase “Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live in your head rent free”. There is so much that we have to focus on day to day. I’ve been told by multiple people in the Reason community that one of the things they love most is that the can show up, look at the whiteboard and not have to make a decision about which workouts would feel nice today. They only need to focus on the execution of them. I meet quarterly with my financial advisors, every Wednesday with my nutrition and fitness advisory and currently i’ve been doing marital therapy with my wife once a week.
Advisory stops me from myself.
To this day – when I get into heavier sets in weightlifting (80% plus), i’ll almost always ask a nearby Coach at Reason to look at my form. I could easily make a video and review it later – but there is nothing like getting feedback in the moment. In these moments, the advisory can stop me from hurting myself. Advisory stops us from making irrational financial purchases. Advisory can help us manage saying what we actually mean versus something we don’t. Advisory can prevent us from having a back spasm on the workout floor.
Advisory is honest. Advisory is third party. Advisory is not emotional.
My Coaches will never say it’s okay when it isn’t. They also won’t let me quit on myself, let me dig myself into a hole or tell me i’m not good enough. They always help me adjust. Because i’m worth making the adjustment. And so are you. Great coaches acknowledge my strengths first, what you are doing well but also present weaknesses that I need to work on. I always ask for radical candor so that I can be most transparent myself.
Advisory celebrates your wins.
Setting goals with your Coach also means celebrating the results and achievements. As a coach myself – there a few things that match the opioid hit i receive from my clients reaching their set goals. Their wins feel like my wins. And when they hit milestones, many of their milestones rival the feelings I get when I had a first kiss, got my first paycheck, bought my first car, got my first muscle up. So I know first hand how my coaches feel when the mission we set together is officially accomplished.