Andrew Carruthers of Sam Villa: 5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing
Stop trying so hard. This goes against the thousands of memes that tell us we must grind, strive, sweat, bleed, etc… for everything! Don’t get me wrong, reading the story of the human who went from weighing 400lbs to being a super healthy yoga instructor in the course of 60 days by completely altering all aspects of their life is very inspiring. Yet, this is the 1% story.
As a part of my series about “5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Andrew Carruthers , Education Director and Life Coach for Sam Villa,
There’s something noble in having a singular focus of devotion, but Andrew Carruthers believes diversity in focus and experience is the path to true happiness.
Fueled by over 17 years of full-time work in a salon, his experience also includes salon ownership, photographic work, as well as personal and professional coaching. As an educator, Andrew has worked for many national cosmetology brands and is currently the Education Director for Sam Villa, as well as a Life Coach.
Andrew has a great passion for motorcycles, travel, music, nature, and photography because they all connect him to Mother Earth…a connection that creates balance while fostering creativity, empathy, resourcefulness and stability.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the story about how you first got involved in fitness and wellness?
My first touch in wellness was when I was introduced to my Life Coach, Lyn Christian at Soulsalt Inc… It was the first time that someone really showed me how our body, mind, and soul really needed to be integrated for real progress to happen. When I hit burn out in 2006 from way too much travel and no balance at home, I started training as a life coach because I saw first-hand what happens when we don’t take care of all aspects of our being.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
It’s hard to choose one and most I can’t really share in any detail because of client confidentiality. I think the most interesting thing is watching my clients go through their journey… very often, I’m the one learning because their discoveries are so powerful and unique.
Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?
Oh man… it’s probably when I did my first class/motivational speaker gig. I had been teaching hairdressing for quite a while at that point so I could jump in front of an audience with a pretty loose outline and feel really comfortable sharing hairdressing content. And of course, being new to sharing more wellness-based content, I had myself all pumped up to be the next Tony Robbins LOL. Let’s just say, I’m glad it was only a room of about 75 people because I fell on my face and probably delivered the least authentic presentation of my career! My coach was in the audience and in our debrief of the event, she really helped me discover why it went so wrong… it was because I was trying to be someone else. I’m a very calm energy, so me trying to bounce around the room like a cheerleader was as far from authentic as a cat trying to be a canary.
Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority in the fitness and wellness field? In your opinion, what is your unique contribution to the world of wellness?
I’m a certified mBit (multiple brain integration techniques) Coach and mBit Coach Trainer with lots of study and practice in other coaching and wellness modalities… but that doesn’t really make me an authority. I think what I offer to the world is support in becoming their own authority. I do that by taking things that seem complicated, mystical, or esoteric and package them in a way that is digestible. Then, I stand next to them and support them as they take their own journey and find their own answers.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Hands down, my greatest mentor and influence is Lyn Christian. She has been my coach since the early 2000’s, she was my first trainer to become a coach, and she is still my coach and mentor today. More importantly, she is an amazing friend, and, besides my wife Michelle, Lyn has been my greatest cheerleader. Lyn is an incredible wealth of knowledge, but what freaks me out sometimes is how strong her intuition is! I will be rambling along in one of our talks (like I often do) and she will say, “I’m not sure why I need to ask this question, but it just came to me.” I’ve learned to strap on my seatbelt when she says stuff like that because often what follows is a question or observation that shifts everything.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. We all know that it’s important to eat more vegetables, eat less sugar, exercise more, and get better sleep etc. But while we know it intellectually, it’s often difficult to put it into practice and make it a part of our daily habits. In your opinion what are the 3 main blockages that prevent us from taking the information that we all know, and integrating it into our lives?
#1 Is our natural resistance to change that is hardwired into our brain function. We’ve all heard of the Sympathetic response of “Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Apease”, but we usually associate it with some kind of negative external influence like being chased by a bear. Well, guess what, trying to change long held beliefs or habits will illicit the same response from our Autonomic Nervous System! Even if it’s a good change, our body is programmed to sense change and ring the alarm bells to make sure it’s not dangerous. Once we are in that Sympathetic side of our ANS, our logical and rational mind is overthrown by our more primitive brain and that part of our mind is mainly just concerned with comfort and survival… change, even if it’s positive and healthy change, is uncomfortable so the primitive brain resists it.
#2. Unrealistic expectations. When we try to make positive changes, we often set the bar way too high and we judge ourselves harshly when we don’t achieve those lofty expectations. Instead of setting a goal to reduce sugar intake on one meal per day, we go from eating a tub of ice cream to being a raw foodist! Um… yeah… that’s probably not sustainable. Then, when we make a mistake and go back to the tub of ice cream, we decide we’ve ruined everything and there is no purpose in continuing to try.
#3. Attachment to our identity. This one is a tough one for people to accept because we often look at our current or past identity as flawed and this new “dream identity” we want as positive. So, we get excited about this new identity and all the possibilities awaiting us once we achieve this new identity. At the same time, our ego wants to protect our current identity and our body is addicted to the chemicals created by what we eat, what we drink, and even how we feel! So again, on a subconscious level, we resist the change that the conscious mind desires.
Can you please share your “5 Non-Intuitive Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”? (Please share a story or an example for each, and feel free to share ideas for mental, emotional and physical health.)
1. Stop trying so hard. This goes against the thousands of memes that tell us we must grind, strive, sweat, bleed, etc… for everything! Don’t get me wrong, reading the story of the human who went from weighing 400lbs to being a super healthy yoga instructor in the course of 60 days by completely altering all aspects of their life is very inspiring. Yet, this is the 1% story. Guess what, reducing your sugar intake by 10% each week when you never wanted to look at chocolate again is still progress… spending 5 minutes a day focusing on your breath when you wanted to be a meditation master is still progress… going to a yoga class a few times this month when you planned to go three times per week is still progress. Acceptance of this will reduce the stress around change and give most of us a real chance at sustainability. I know this from experience. Perfectionism has been a thorn in my side since childhood so every time I created lofty goals, I’d go full steam ahead. And, typically, I would get pretty close… pretty close doesn’t feel good to a perfectionist so I’d get frustrated and bail only to back slide to my starting point. Now, I still set goals for myself, but they are mostly simple incremental improvements I get to make over time. When I look back at the last few years, they are still a roller coaster of progression and then retreat but as a big picture, I’m more consistent, I’m healthier, and (most importantly) I feel quite happy with myself.
2. Be sad. Another message that leaves us struggling is “don’t let it get you down”… “don’t cry”… “let it go”. Emotion is meant to be felt. Otherwise, why would we have it??? Being present with our emotional state and finding a place of acceptance allows us to process that energy. Bottle it up or cover it up and it gets stored. Don’t believe me? Have you ever had a massage and an emotion was released when they hit a certain point on your body? That is stored emotional energy. Being present means looking at it for what it is, and acceptance means not labeling it as good or bad… it just is your current experience. For many situations, you will find that it moves through you much faster when you are fully present and resist judging the experience because that is all that particular energy needs… acceptance, understanding, compassion, empathy.
3. Eat whatever you want, as much as you want, and whenever you want. Let me preface this by saying this is a little more than a tweak, and I’m oversimplifying at the moment, but this is equally the least intuitive recommendation and ironically, also the most. My good friend and Innergetics Coach, Jan Nieman from South Africa struggled with weight and dieting in the same ways most do… yo-yo style! Constant ups and downs seem to be the story for so many people that work to improve their health through food. Then, Jan found the Innergetics program and they told him he would not be receiving an outlined food plan or even a list of foods that he should or should not eat… what??? Innergetics teaches people that they decide for themselves what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat. It returns us back to trusting our intuition, our compassion, our courage, and our innate wisdom by recognizing the difference between craving and real hunger. Most diet plans turn over the decision-making process to an outside source so of course they are unsustainable. By tapping into his own innate wisdom and intuition, Jan has consistently maintained much healthier weights and yet he still enjoys his favorite foods.
4. Do less. We are a society constantly trying to do more, be more, and have more. And yet, statistically, we are much less satisfied with our life. If there is one thing that COVID is doing FOR us, it’s teaching us that we can be ok with less. And for some of my coaching clients, they aren’t just ok, they are happier with the pace of their life and are currently setting new boundaries around their work schedules to give more time to themselves and their families. But wait, doesn’t that mean less success and less money? Nope. In fact, I know of multiple salons who have been able to maintain the same level of productivity and profitability even with stylists booking less clients. We must shift the paradigm that “more” means better so that we can become happier and healthier. In most Eastern spiritual belief systems, it is very clear that the constant pursuit of “more” will result in suffering, and I don’t think it takes much more than an honest look at our own experiences to find an element of truth in that.
5. Stop using your head. I know you’ve heard many many times to “use your head”, “think it through”, or “be logical about this”. Well, did you know that you have two other brains? Yep, your heart and your gut are infused with the same materials and exhibit the same neuroplasticity that the head brain does! Most of us are pretty darn good at getting stuck in an analytical spiral around every aspect of our day and especially when a critical decision comes along, we tend to tap into only one aspect of our intelligence… logic. Groups such as Heartmath and mBit (Multiple Brain Integration Techniques) have gathered copious amounts of scientific and medical research from every corner of the globe that proves much of what Esoteric traditions have known for thousands of years! We must integrate the compassion and connection of the heart as well as the courage, intuition, and motivation of the gut with the analytical and creative powers of the head to make our wisest decisions. Try this, sit down comfortably and start a balanced breathing pattern of about 5–6 seconds in and 5–6 seconds out. After you find that your nervous system feels more centered (not anxious but also not getting sleepy), start to bring your focus into the area of your heart and focus on a sense of compassion. Continue to breathe and then draw your attention deep down into the gut and find that intuitive part of you… that “gut” feeling we always refer to. Allow your focus to come back to the heart and sense connection with yourself and others. Now you can allow yourself to bring the head brain in to connect to your creativity. Once you can sense those 3 elements, start to ask each area about the decision you have to make. What does each intelligence have to offer you? How do those messages integrate together to create more wisdom in your decision? This is just a quick sample of what the mBit coaching process looks like but it’s something you can tap into on your own to get out of trap of only using the analytical powers of the head brain.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?
Dr Joe Dispenza’s “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself” is a recent mega-standout for me. I noticed in the past few months, many of my tried and true daily rituals that typically keep me moving in the right direction didn’t seem to be having the same influence on my life. I was still meditating, doing yoga, getting good sleep, etc… but it just didn’t seem to be working for me! I just excused it on the “trying times” but I could feel something darker creeping in. So, I started doing more of the same thing. More meditation, more yoga, and adding some Ayurvedic herbs. Nope. Still not working. Something told me I needed to put down the 3 other books I was reading, and Dr. Joe Dispenza kept coming up in conversations, so I followed that guidance. I opened up Audible and downloaded the first thing that spoke to me. Within the first 20 minutes of listening to “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself”, Dr. Joe dropped a bomb on me. I had changed a lot over those 2 months, yet I was trying to use the same paradigms to work with this new “self”. I didn’t have to change my processes; I had to change my perceptions and allow for a new experience of those moments. I can honestly say there was an almost instant shift as I started saying goodbye to the past.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
This is a simple answer. Lead with compassion. This isn’t a new idea, yet we still struggle with it. Every great sage or prophet taught some version of this message, every world religion holds love or compassion as a central guiding principle, and we find ourselves drawn to humans that exhibit this state of being (like the Dalai Lama). This is a very regular intention I set for my day… treat EVERYONE with compassion. Not just the people I like, not just people I agree with, but everyone. Am I good at it? Sometimes but I screw it up on occasion like an imperfect human should. There is an extreme difference in my sense of peace and happiness when I’ve followed through versus the days I forget my best intentions… that’s how the lesson is learned though! We continue to practice and when we screw it up, we take notice and make a change until it becomes more natural.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
It’s not as much a quote as it is a question. “What if everyone is doing the best that they can”? Brené Brown — My wife and I both were listening to Brené speak on one of her audible books and when she posed this question, we had to stop the App for a while. Both of us were kind of struggling with it! What about the person that does horrible things? Are they doing the best that they can? What about the person sitting on the couch all day eating potato chips and never trying to improve their life? Then we realized, maybe that is the best they could do at that moment with what they had… that was the best they could do after being abused their entire life… that was the best they could do after growing up in a home with absentee parents that never taught them their own worth! It truly shaped my judgements of others. Now when I feel that judgement come up, I go back to compassion and wonder what may have happened in their life that “the best they could do” was something horrible.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)
Thich Nhat Hanh or Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche… if Brené Brown wants to hang, that would be pretty cool too LOL!
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Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
