welcome back to Health Coach Radio
I'm Erin Power and today
I wanna talk about something
that should make every health coach
sit up a little straighter
Brian Johnson the tech entrepreneur
spending millions to reverse his biological age
has publicly stated that of everything he's done
all the diagnostics all the supplements
all the blood transfusions
the hyperbaric chambers the full time medical team
the single most impactful intervention
behavior change, not a molecule
not a miracle behavior so let's unpack why that matters
especially for you
Brian Johnson has access to everything
continuous biometric monitoring
full metabolic panels whenever he wants them
precision supplementation
AI driven protocol optimization
not to mention time and money
and yet the biggest needle mover was things like sleep
discipline, meal timing
exercise adherence, alcohol elimination and consistency
in other words the boring fundamentals
and this isn't really shocking
to anyone trained in health
behavior science but it's culturally shocking
because we live in a medical
industrial environment
that over indexes on intervention
and underestimates coherence
so let's zoom out in medicine
medicine is extremely good at diagnosing prescribing,
recommending, advising
and extraordinarily bad at sustained behavior
at adoption. Motivational alignment
identity shifts environmental restructuring,
habit formation, the limiting
agent in modern healthcare is not knowledge
it's execution we've heard this a million times
there's information everywhere,
information is not the bottleneck
it's integration and integration is simply behavioral
so here's where I want you to lean in
a health coach is not support staff
or the accountability buddy or the cheerleader
we are applied behavior change specialists
if behavior changes the intervention
we are the experts and according to tech bro
biohacker longevity guru Brian Johnson
who has millions of dollars
and all the time in the world to devote to
every possible health intervention
you can think of behavior changes
the one that made the biggest difference
I heard this on a podcast
that's why this came to mind
he was on
asked on a podcast what his No. 1 recommendation is
and he said behavior change
and that's us
we are trained in motivational interviewing
understanding why these changes are important
to the client in the first place
self determination theory
a self determined person
who's oriented toward intrinsically motivated goals
will execute more consistently
we're trained on the stages of change
we're trained on identity based behavior formation
values alignment
autonomy support
so when a millionaire biohacker says
behavior was the biggest loser leaver
he's unintentionally validating our entire profession
OK because technology scales data
so technology scales information
but coaching scales integration implementation
execution adherence
that's what we do let's get clinical about this
behavior change impacts circadian alignment
a hormone signaling inflammatory load
mitochondrial efficiency
body mass preservation lean body mass preservation
your cardiovascular fitness
your sleep architecture
and here's the key those variables actually compound
those variables compound
supplements can tweak like a device can optimize
a procedure can kind of like intervene
do you know what I mean like
leaning on those tactics
and jumping over the basics of behavior change
doesn't get us meaningful results
so behaviors compound small
repeated daily actions reshape physiology at scale
good example of this strength training
if you lift weights you know
it is one of the most impactful things you can do
it's also slow we don't get real strong real fast
we don't build a lot of lean body mass quickly
I'm in the fat loss space
and I always joke with my weight
fat loss clients that you think fat loss is slow
you should try building muscle
it's even slower right
it's not a hack it's not a tweak
it is a behavior that compounds over time
and you don't need a 2 million dollar budget
to produce the effect but here's the tension of it all
behavior changes hard slow
unflashy non viral
it's not patentable you can't like trademark
go to bed at 9:30 or walk daily
you can't you can't monetize
drink a little less alcohol
I mean so the market just doesn't glamorize it
but our biology rewards it
if you're a health coach listening to this
I recommend you stop positioning yourself as
helping people eat better
optimize your nutrition supporting healthier habits
encouraging lifestyle change
these sound bites say nothing
and they minimize your skill set
what you are doing
is facilitating neurobehavioral wiring
my friends you're interrupting reward loops
you're strengthening prefrontal regulation
you're reshaping default behaviors
you're building autonomous motivation
this is foundational work
this is your moment
because the longevity industry is exploding
and potentially imploding
quite frankly we have GLP-1s
we have peptides wearables Cgms
epigenetic clocks and yet
every single one of those tools still requires
human behavior change the future is not either or
it's both and tech and behavior
a good example GLP-1s let's just go there
because I'm in the weight loss space
my clients are exploring them
because my clients are exploring them
I've explored them I've tested them out on my own body
to see what they feel like
and what became immediately clear to me is
these don't work unless you change your behaviors
yeah you still have to change the way you eat
the way you move the way you live
does the medicine help it can help
it can help to facilitate those behaviors
but you still have to do those behaviors
in order for it to all work sustainably
we want sustainable outcomes here right
coaches sit at the behavioral layer of this
and if we don't claim that layer well
someone else might try to automate it
but the good news is adherence is not easily automated
intrinsic motivation is not easily outsourced
identity change is not like programmable
this is all very human I
I've said this for years
even before AI hit the scene
before technology really became overwhelming
a health coach is a human working with another human
the human to human connection
the work between humans will never
we hope go out of style not anytime soon anyway
you know
we can get a little doomsday about what happens when
AI technology takes over
it can get a little weird if you think about it frankly
my hunch just a hunch
is that it might force us to become
to return to the humanness of it all
you know if every job is outsourced
and we're getting a universal paycheck
and we're kind of living in communes again
just amongst each other
the human human connection might even become
we might return to it but in the meantime
here we are health coaches
humans
having meaningful human conversation with other humans
I had this question
in my advanced health coaching class
that I teach I teach an advanced health coaching
certification course and
one of the students asked me hey Erin
how do you track all of your clients
like biometric data
the stuff you're getting off of their Oura ring
or their MyFitnessPal
what kind of tool do you use to track that
is there like a client management system that you use
or using a Google sheet
how do you keep track of these things
and I said oh I don't look at any of that
I literally have conversations with my clients
conversations what
feels like the
most important thing for us to tackle this week
why is that the most important thing for you
how does this show up to the bigger picture
health goal you have for yourself
what's going on in your life
that could present a barrier to this goal
this week we are tiptoeing up
the world's most minuscule staircase
step by step by step by step
to the top of the staircase
by executing simple behavior change Manusha
that we can track by having conversations
hey Sally how did that go last week
did we succeed or not no
let's readjust the goal and try again this week
or should we set a new goal for this week
what feels best to you what feels most important to you
like a human having a lived experience is a dynamic
complex organism and
we just can't really just apply
technology and data to that
that's my perspective but hello
this is my sandbox here's my invitation
level up your behavior change literacy
study self determination theory
study behavioral economics
identity based habit formation
this is all the stuff that we teach in our advanced
health coaching course
become so confident in behavior architecture
that physicians functional practitioners
longevity clinics metabolic health clinics
and clients see you as utterly indispensable
you're the expert at behavior change
the most impactful of all the health tech out there
you're the expert and you're the certified
bonafide expert in behavior change
Brian Johnson just proved
something
the most expensive experiment in longevity confirmed
what coaching science has known for decades
behavior is the master lever
if you're in this profession
don't shrink your role you're not the add on
you're not the afterthought
you are the multiplier
and the more technically advanced healthcare becomes
the more valuable
true behavior change expertise will be
so until next time stay curious
stay evidence informed
and keep elevating our profession