Episode 88 - Overcoming Burnout and Boosting Wellness with Dr. Mel Krug
Episode #88 | Dr. Mel Krug | Overcoming Burnout and Boosting Wellness
In this enlightening episode of "The Curious Builder," Dr. Mel Krug joins Mark Williams to dive deep into managing burnout, the power of breathwork, and the importance of vulnerability in business. They explore boundary-setting, embracing authenticity, and scaling businesses by delegating tasks effectively. Plus, don’t miss their chat on cold exposure benefits and upcoming retreats focused on holistic personal growth.
Listen to the full episode:
About Mel Krug
After spending years in and out of doctor’s offices, Dr. Mel started to feel like just a number in her health journey. Pills, restrictive diets, and numbing emotions just weren’t cutting it anymore.
Upon discovering the powerful healing benefits of Network Spinal Chiropractic Care in 2014, Dr. Mel has radically overcome her own personal health challenges, moving from menstrual cycle dysfunction and emotional trauma to more power and strength in both her body and mind. Dr. Mel then founded Inspire Life Chiropractic Center in 2017 in which she now helps thousands of women and families every year overcome chronic health challenges including anxiety, indigestion, trauma, sleep, mental health, nervous system regulation, and so much more.
Additionally, Dr. Mel works with clients in the realm of private, 1 on 1 business mentorship and entrepreneurial start-ups as well as mindset, embodiment, and breakthrough coaching. She is dedicated to helping women (and men of course) reclaim their power, navigate stress naturally with more ease, and ultimately live a life filled with empowerment and inspiration from within.
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Dr. Mel Krug [00:00:00]:
I have a free training out there where I talk about how to align your business with your biology. And I have learned how to create my day to follow the cortisol curve. And so your cortisol is highest in the morning, which is where you're most creative, or doing things like this. And then it dips and then you get a Little Peak between 4 and 6 and then it goes down. So I've learned how to create specifically. I kind of live and die by my Google calendar. I put these things in. Not just meetings, not just podcasts, not just client calls, but I literally put zone of creation or workflow, or I put these things like, I'm going to go to yoga later today and I'm going to treat that like a standing appointment, as though it's a client and I'm not going to miss it.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:00:36]:
And I think it's so easy for entrepreneurs to just let everything pile up and not take care of you. And guess what? That's where we go back to the burnout conversation.
Mark Williams [00:00:52]:
Today on the podcast we had Dr. Mel Krug, and she's from Inspire Company and just a fascinating discussion really about, you know, wellness, how business owners can combat stress through breathing. And she's going to be a facilitator at our upcoming sauna camp here in Minnesota. So if you're interested in understanding, really getting in touch with yourself as a business owner, as a person, and really understanding how you can combat stressful situations and how you can really empower yourself and take back your own time, this is a really powerful episode and I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to Curious Builder Podcast. I'm Mark Williams, your host. Today I'm joined by Dr. Mel Krug from Inspire Company.
Mark Williams [00:01:29]:
Welcome, Mel.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:01:29]:
Thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me.
Mark Williams [00:01:31]:
Pretty excited. We met through sauna camp, so we're hosting the Curious Builders hosting an event in January at Lake Minnewashta right here, probably just five minutes from our office. Actually, we're recording right now. And I really just want to celebrate wellness and bring our building community together and basically go through this approach that we're going to talk about. The Sonic Camp individuals introduced me to you and said, I think Dr. Krug would be a great facilitator. And the way the camp is going to work, it's a half day in January where it's. You're going to lead us through somatic breath work.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:02:04]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Mark Williams [00:02:05]:
And then we're going to go into the water and I call it the WIM HOF method or whatever method you teach us about Breathing through cold exposure to regulate your breathing, and then go from cold to sauna and back several times, have a meal together. And that's really the short version. I want to dive into it because I don't really know what somatic breath work, other than I'm really open to anything. And then maybe towards the end of the podcast, we'll talk more specifically about your business, how it operates. But right now, since a lot of people have asked me, what is Sonic Camp? I want to bring you on and talk about it. So why don't you tell us just briefly who you are, what you do, and then let's go into how you facilitate this because you've done it for other business retreats as well.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:02:44]:
Yep. Thank you. Honored to be here to serve your community. So, as Mark said, somatic breath work, it's a way of connecting with not only your breath, but your body. Somatic, at the core of the word is means body soma. And for those of you who maybe don't know, I'm, I am a chiropractor, and a lot of people don't understand that your nervous system is at the foundation of how we regulate our breathing. It's one of the only functions in our body that we have both conscious and subconscious control of, and that all comes back to our nervous system. So I actually became a breathwork expert because I first started as a nervous system spinal expert.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:03:17]:
So that's my day job. And on the side, I work with a lot of healers, leaders, and entrepreneurs of helping them be embodied in their entrepreneurial journey. And a lot of that is teaching them how to breathe. Because if you're not breathing correctly, if you're not breathing fully in your body, your brain goes into these fight or flight modes, and we're not able to function, do our daily tasks, run our businesses, navigate our teams. So during sauna camp, I'm going to teach you all how to really dive into your body using your breath, using connection to your body. It's more than just breathing, y'all. It's a total body, mind, spirit, experience.
Mark Williams [00:03:49]:
So it's interesting because a lot of people, and I'm pretty open to, they use the word, but it's like, I'm very open to that. And I think, I think of all the things that we do as humans that we're not even aware of that already do, I would imagine some breath work. So, like exercise, I'm a huge comp. Proponent of exercise, but if you're sprinting or exercising deeply, you are inhaling your Lungs to a full degree. And I know exercise does a lot of other things like cycle blood through, but your lungs are an incredible thing. And I, I recently had someone on from Everest for your, Jonathan Kramer. We were talking about that we spend 90% of our life indoors, which I was blown away. That's why that statistic.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:04:22]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:04:22]:
And we're talking about indoor air quality. And I'm just, and I'm just, I marvel at our lungs.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:04:28]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:04:29]:
And I don't think we spend enough time in the construction industry talking about air quality. That's going to be a separate podcast. But in some ways it's. Our lungs are the H VAC systems of a home.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:04:38]:
That's a very.
Mark Williams [00:04:39]:
And so I'm curious, you know, I've had great success with just through exercise or being aware of your body by breathing how you feel. Walk us through a little bit about what, what is. It's going to be, what, a half hour, 40 minutes before we go into the water? How, what are you going to teach us that we can use that quickly to sort of combat the fight or flight, I assume, of being in cold water?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:05:02]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:05:03]:
And how does that translate to, you know, business situations and in stressful situations.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:05:07]:
Yeah. So one of the first things that changes when we become stressed. Right. And stress isn't necessarily a good, bad thing. It is what it is. There's distress and there's eustress. And one of the first things that happens when our nervous system perceives that there's a threat, whether it's a true saber tooth tiger or maybe it's an angry email from a client, our breathing changes. Instead of breathing low and slow and feeling relaxed and at ease in your system, your breath goes high.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:05:31]:
And so first I'm going to start with, okay, why does this happen? How does this happen? And how do we start to change our breath patterns in our body to come back to that state of ease and balance? And one of the things that people don't understand with something like somatic breath work or even holotropic or. You guys have heard of Wim Hof, right? Is it's increasing your capacity for stress. It's. We call it widening the window of tolerance. I don't know if you've heard that, but it's, it's a somatic practice where really what people don't understand is with breathwork, it's not about oxygen deprivation, it's about increasing your tolerance to the carbon dioxide. And so I'm going to teach you all how to expand your capacity in your body to deal with a little bit of discomfort so that by the time you get into the water, you're already going to be there. You're going to have expanded your window of tolerance. You're going to feel connected to your body and increase blood flow, increase oxygen to the brain, where going into the water is a hormetic stress.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:06:25]:
Right. And when we say water, you guys, it's going to be very, very cold. So going into that, you're already going to be connected to your body where we're teaching your nervous system how to deal with stress even better. And so the breathwork I'll guide you through is going to be preparing you for that experience so it feels less of a threat and you can sink into that discomfort. And the way that I see that translate to business Mark, is how many times are we maybe putting out fires or dealing with challenging clients or in the building industry? I'm sure you guys are putting out fires a lot. Sometimes things don't go as planned. And as much as you can meditate on that, the first thing that's going to change is your breath. So what if you could regulate your breath in your body when those things show up on your day to day basis in your business, with your team, et cetera.
Mark Williams [00:07:09]:
It's funny, I have three small children and my middle one, Simon tends to be more prone to anxiety as well as just flying off the handle within reason. But I often will tell him like, Simon, breathe through your nose. And he's like, I'm trying to slow his breathing down. And, and he, he's a child so he doesn't really listen. But I, I think of, as adults, I think the first step is realizing your stress exactly how, Because I want to talk a little bit about the actual practical application of what you're talking about. But let's take, how does one know that they're stressed? Obviously walking into cold water, we know what we're seeing. It, we, it's almost, yeah, we almost like psychologically psych ourselves out totally by going into it. So we're aware of it in a different way.
Mark Williams [00:07:45]:
But I think a lot of times you've ever been at the end of the day and, or you get off a call and you sweated out your shirt because you were stressed, you didn't realize it or you come home and like you sit down and like your body, literally you can feel your shoulders like come down and you didn't realize you were even holding on to tension. And so how would one even know to use the breath work if they can't identify if they're even stressed.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:08:07]:
That is a fantastic question. So a lot of it is subconscious. And the more that you want to become connected and aware of, your body's going to start to give you cues because your body and your nervous system is intelligent. It's always trying to keep you in equilibrium. Homeostasis. Right. So the first feedback loop you're going to get is often some physical symptom. It could be tension in your body, it could be tension in your chest.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:08:26]:
For, for everyone, it's different. For me, I often feel this little bit of tension in my lower neck. For some people, it's their gut, they get, you know, gut dysbiosis. For other people, it's a headache. But the first feedback loop that you are more in the distress st distress state than the EU stress is a physical.
Mark Williams [00:08:44]:
Can you. What. What do those two words mean? I'm not familiar with.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:08:46]:
Yeah, so EU stress is good stress. So stress that helps you grow. You've probably heard of post traumatic stress syndrome. Well, there's also post traumatic growth. And so eustress is positive stress. So, like working out hormetic stress, like going into the sauna, going into the cold plunge. As long as your heart rate variability is balanced, which we can talk about that. But eustress is what helps your body build the ability to navigate challenges in a way that's aligned with your vision and your mission.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:09:12]:
Distress is where your brain perceives, this is bad, I can't tolerate this. And we shut down and we collapse. And so in that distress state, our body, our posture literally starts to change. So you may notice at work your posture starts to collapse. So that's one thing is like, oh, wow, I'm slumping, my shoulders are forward, my heart's closed off, my neck is forward. So even repositioning to open up your diaphragm, that's number one. Number two, you might notice symptoms in your body like pain, tension all the way to headaches, migraines, maybe you're not sleeping a lot. If you don't listen to the physiology, then it starts to become emotional.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:09:47]:
And so when you notice emotionality, specifically, maybe you're snapping more, you're snapping at your kids, you're angry with your clients, you're. You're not in that state of harmony. And maybe for me, I, I get a little frustrated, I get angry, and maybe I'm less relaxed or patient with my clients. And so that's another feedback loop. If you're like, oh, I'm being a little Jerk right now. So first is physiology and then second is emotionality. And then eventually it can get big. The big catastrophic events that happen is really feedback loop saying, hey, you're out of balance, you're stressed out in your life.
Mark Williams [00:10:19]:
So two quick thoughts on that. One is at the end of the evening, I'm a, at base nature a pretty pleasant person. Thank you, mom for that genetic personality disposition. Like in the evening, I'm tired.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:10:30]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:10:30]:
I've used up a lot of my patients on my clients or just throughout the day, even if it's not. And as you get tired, I assume you have less ability to cope. That's the words I'm using. I'd love to know what it means physiologically. But then when I'm kids. Your point? You said snapping. So why do I lose my patience with a five year old in the evening while they're not brushing their teeth? When I've held it, I've held my patients all day long. Walk us.
Mark Williams [00:10:53]:
Walk me a little bit. I know I'm not unique in that and all parents, it's a little bit of a parent guilt thing, but I think we all.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:10:58]:
Or even partners. Right? Partner?
Mark Williams [00:10:59]:
Oh, for sure. And it's almost. Then the second part of this question, sorry, it's going to be a complicated one, is that it seems like the people we love we have less patience for. And it's sad. There's times like I'm really close to my parents, but yet sometimes after I interact with them, my wife will say, you weren't very nice to your mom and dad. And it's funny, like it's almost where maybe someone we never have met before, we're much more polite and cordial to. And I'm not saying I'm disrespectful to my mom and dad, but it's maybe when we get really comfortable around people, we don't exercise as much pace patience as we do with someone. Anyway, that's a big question.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:11:30]:
So I'll start with the second half of the question because that is a nervous system phenomena where we see kids who come into my office because I'm a pediatric chiropractor and they're great with us. And then when they get home from school or they go home, they just melt down. And the reason is because they feel safe to be all of who they are. When you're brand new with someone, we have this thing called our social nervous system, which is the ability to connect with people. And when we're brand new, we want to be liked. It's part of our, you know, primitive reflux is to be like, hey, I want to be accepted into the tribe, right? But with people who, you know and who you've grown up with, you can be all the range. You can be angry, you can be kind, you can be patient, you can be mad because at the end of the day they're still going to love you. And so that's number one, that's part of it.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:12:10]:
Whether it's kids or parents. Number two, we only have so much energy in the day to make so many decisions. And so as a business owner, if you work with or have kids, you've made so many decisions, which is energy in your brain ATP, you fired all these neurons. As much as we try to biohack our way into being like superheroes, you're human and so that's know your cortisol is down at the end of the day, your energy is probably lower and you only have so much energy to adapt. And so it is, I mean, I deal with that when I have a stressful day at the office. I'm maybe not as patient with my husband and we just get that, you know, so it is a physiology thing, it is an energy thing and it's a social nervous system thing. We often feel like we can be all of ourselves of people who at the end of the day are going to love us regardless.
Mark Williams [00:12:54]:
Is there a way to combat that? Towards the end of the day, stop.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:12:58]:
Focusing on low priority tasks. And I, I'm sure you get this. I know it's hard when you're first in business, but if you can delegate low priority tasks and stay in what I call your zone of genius, which breathwork can help you access that, you're not going to feel exhausted at the end of the day. You're going to be able to focus on things that inspire you rather than things that despire. You and I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who are in startup mode, as I call it, and sometimes you are the one woman or one man show and you're doing a bunch of things that maybe aren't inspiring to you. And so if you're focusing on things that don't inspire you to your vision and your mission, you're naturally going to get depleted. And like I said, you only have so much energy in the tank at the end of the day. So I would offer to entrepreneurs, if there's a way that you can learn to love what you do through delegation, even if it's the small things, maybe it's not super costly.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:13:44]:
But get rid of the stuff that doesn't actually matter so that you do have more energy reserves in the tank at the end of the day. And I would say take breaks, go for walks, do a 2 minute breath work exercise, fill up your cup. You know, something I do between coaching calls is I go on a two minute walk, I get some sunshine, I reset my nervous system, I get out into nature. And that I think makes me less of a jerk to my husband at the end of the day.
Mark Williams [00:14:09]:
That's great advice. What about. I'm blanking on the deal. There was a great little quippy little limerick for it too. But basically it was like fast action responses, five deep breaths. Sometimes like I pull into the garage and I know as soon as I go in and I'm really excited, the kids are going to bombard me, which I actually really enjoy. But the point of it is a lot of time. Business owners, we're taking all of our busy day into the home and it's hard to.
Mark Williams [00:14:30]:
Sometimes a commute actually helps. I know some people that live like I would love to live five minutes away from home either to a, work more efficiently or be able to run to the office or things like that. I'm about a half hour each way. However, that does allow for some decompression time. It's not all bad. But where I'm going with this is if you went into the garage like taking five really deep breaths before you go in, what would, what would a practice like that do?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:14:53]:
It's a very simple thing, super simple. And I, I love that, I love that strategy, Mark and I would say if you want to get really specific, in through the nose, out through the mouth, exhale longer than your inhale. That specific type of breath work is going to activate what's called your parasympathetic nervous system, which is the part of you that's rest, digest, balanced at ease, in through the nose, out through the mouth, also tells your body you're safe. And it's really wise to do that between transitions. So from the car to the house or from the house back to the car in the morning. You know, our nervous system does well when we have those moments to be present in the moment of transition versus just thing to thing to thing to thing. I gotta go to the sports and now I gotta go to the grocery store. It's like pause, breathe, reset.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:15:40]:
Even that two minutes is gonna help you feel more balanced, more regulated and be able to respond rather than react. But it's those transition moments that can make all the difference. Even if it's too brus in through the nose, out through the mouth. Game Changer.
Karen Steckel [00:16:02]:
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Mark Williams [00:16:58]:
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Mark Williams [00:17:47]:
Yeah, and how would you also, and I've done it a number of times before I go into a distressful meeting. Yeah, I've mentioned this a number of times on the podcast. It's a verse in Proverbs where it says a soft answer turneth away wrath. And what I do is to frame that in my mind. Sometimes if I'm going to go into a contentious situation with a client or just a difficult situation, I I think that like, if you lead with softness, this is a physical or, sorry, this is a mental manifestation of the physical thing that you're telling us to do. I think I often not even thinking about it, when I think of that verse, it causes me to take a deep breath and be like. Before I get out of the car, I'm usually only doing one. I'll just be like one really big breath and then I get out the door.
Mark Williams [00:18:25]:
I guess I gotta do five. Now I gotta come up with four more verses to go with them.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:18:30]:
One can be good, one can be good.
Mark Williams [00:18:31]:
I guess where I'm going with this question is what are some simple things we can teach others so that they. I'm very open to a personality based but for kids, obviously as a parent standpoint, what are some simple things I could teach my kids that would have an impact? And then after this, I want to talk about as business owners, are there ways that we can help our employees and our subcontractors without telling them? Or they're like, okay, what is this guy talking about here?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:18:53]:
Yep, I love that you asked that. Because that's a big thing we teach parents in the office. And it's that you are the master co regulator of your family unit. And what that means is depending on the age of your kids, they're going to learn from your behavior. And so the teaching comes through mimicking rather than actually verbally telling them something. Again, depending on the age, maybe if they're above the age of 10, you can have a little bit more dialogue. But kids are going to pick up on your energy. And that's not a woo woo concept.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:19:20]:
They tune into your nervous system. And so if you're in a state of balance and regulation, their nervous system is going to feel that. Because generally in the first five, five years of life, through development, they are learning and picking up. I'm sure you parents know, they say things, you're like, wait, you heard that right?
Mark Williams [00:19:39]:
Totally, totally.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:19:40]:
And so it's more than just a consc thing. It is a subconscious thing. And their nervous system is going to feel regulated the more that you feel regulated. So depending on the age, I would say zero to five. There's nothing necessarily to tell and teach. It's more embody the behavior that you want your kids to start to embody and they're going to start to pick that up. And then eventually as you get older, you know, we teach older kids like, hey, put your hands on your heart or where do you feel discomfort? Okay, hands here. Breathe into that.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:20:05]:
What's that like to breathe in and connect with your body. And kids get it so quickly. You know, they're more open.
Mark Williams [00:20:11]:
They're more open for. Right.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:20:12]:
And I think that this should be curriculum in the educational system. Honestly, like, most of the time, again, before the age of five, kids are way more somatic, they're way more in their body than they are in their head. And I think we try to force kids to get so cerebral, but then they don't feel safe in their body. So back to your question. The more that you, as the parent or the leader, the more that you can regulate yourself. Emotional mastery, mental mastery. Right. The more people around you are going to start to pick up on that.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:20:38]:
So it's. It's less of like telling them and more just embodying it yourself, which I think is way easier.
Mark Williams [00:20:43]:
I mean, it goes back to a basic principle. Live what you preach.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:20:46]:
Exactly. So thank you.
Mark Williams [00:20:47]:
I think it's interesting because I have tried specifically with children, like when they're out of control or they're sick or they recently, for whatever reason, I tell my kids they must be sweet like honey, because all three of my kids have been stung by bees lately and they've just completely lost their mind. And so I'm trying to be like. And so you're right, because they're not listening. So I'm basically, I'm doing the action. Like now. They're not. I get frustrated because they're not actually doing what I'm trying to do. But it's helpful to know that if you just embody and practice it.
Mark Williams [00:21:13]:
And you're right. I'm thinking now, from a business standpoint, there are several business owners that I really appreciate that are just very calm and they. They walk into a room and you just feel. It's like chamomile tea. You just feel. You just feel like it just relaxes. So anyway, that's something for me to think about going back to. Going into the water or actually before we go back to the sauna camp and some of those tricks that we're going to talk about.
Mark Williams [00:21:35]:
Well, I'm sorry, what were the two types of stresses? The positive stress and the negative stress?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:21:39]:
You stress, you stress. So literally eu stress and then distress. Okay, so that's why when people say, oh, I'm so stressed, I'm so stressed, it's like, well, which one? Not all stress is bad.
Mark Williams [00:21:48]:
Well, because what I was going to go with this is like, I was. Or sometimes when I'm stressed, I'll tell my wife, like, hey, when I Get home, I've got to go for a run.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:21:55]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:21:56]:
And I didn't. I mean, it's like you feel that stress. And obviously, having been a lifelong athlete, like, I know that if I go for a run, I'll be able. I didn't realize that I was combating the negative stress with positive stress.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:22:06]:
You're balancing it out.
Mark Williams [00:22:07]:
And so that's a coping mechanism. Without realizing it, you're.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:22:11]:
You're transforming the energy, right? So if you have, let's say, built up muscle tension in your body from the day, which is why I'm a huge proponent of don't sit at your desk for eight hours. I listened to this research study where two minutes every half an hour is better than sitting for eight hours and waiting for an hour of movement at the end of the day. So two minutes every half an hour. Because what happens is as we sit, human beings are not designed to sit. They say it's the, you know, smoking to the spine as chiropractor. As we sit, we build up energy and store tension in our body. When we're navigating things in the computer, we're seeing things rapidly through our visual system. And so as that tension builds in our muscles, that energy has to go somewhere.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:22:49]:
So that's why sometimes when you get home, you're like, man, I just need to go for a walk, or I just want to go for a run. Because you're transforming the distress into eustress. And we call that a nervous system discharge, meaning you're moving the energy that's bound in your musculature, which that's what you're going to start to feel. When we do the somatic breath work, you're going to feel all these sensory changes in your body because it's moving energy. And I don't mean woo woo energy. It's. It's ATP. It's tension in the muscles, it's tension in your fascia.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:23:15]:
So we'll get into that at Sonic.
Mark Williams [00:23:17]:
I mean, that's really interesting because I think in the construction field now, as an owner, I'm not doing work in the field, Right. But a lot of. Obviously we can't build a house without someone actually swinging a hammer or literally moving.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:23:28]:
So.
Mark Williams [00:23:29]:
But it is interesting because it's one of the things that I. We talk a lot about business ownership, and I think a lot of people that listen to the podcast own businesses. I don't know how many of them are strapping on the bags, as they say, to do the actual work, but I would say Our field is probably more prone to activity and movement than a lot of others because we're on job sites, we're doing walks, and I think. Yeah, I guess I don't. It's just more of an observation that I think the construction field, even if you are not doing the physical work, you probably are moving more so than a lot of other businesses.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:23:59]:
Office workers.
Mark Williams [00:24:00]:
Yeah.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:24:00]:
So there's benefits to that. For sure.
Mark Williams [00:24:02]:
For sure. And you're outside.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:24:03]:
Y.
Mark Williams [00:24:03]:
Obviously sometimes you're outside when you don't want to be. It's really hot in the summer. Or I have a buddy of mine down in Arizona, I was giving crap, 120 degrees. Oh, it sounds terrible. And up here it gets negative 20. So it's like, man, I'd rather put on clothes. You can only drobe so far on a robe. So anyway, you melt back to sonic camps.
Mark Williams [00:24:21]:
We're talking a little bit about the business application of it or just really understanding our bodies to decouple stress and how to combat it. So water is so interesting. And I've done. There's a cold plunge at our. At our club. And so I've done it enough. But not to know. I just know that when you sit in it and you.
Mark Williams [00:24:36]:
Like once you make it past the first minute or two, like, it becomes really easy. Now, late. Cold is obviously a whole. Another level. Yeah. In January it's going to be cold. And it's. It's less about time than it is.
Mark Williams [00:24:48]:
I think sometimes people think that. Oh, you know, it's really this machismo thing. You gotta. Who lasts the longest. It's not really about that. It's really about regulating. And it's like this deep breathing and. And I can.
Mark Williams [00:25:01]:
I don't know how to explain it. It's. It's. Your mind is trying to tell you to quit.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:25:05]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:25:05]:
And I always laugh because there's a clock at the cold tub. And if there's someone else I'm talking to, it's so easy to stay in the cold tub.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:25:11]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:25:12]:
But if I'm alone and I'm looking at that clock, I mean, it looks like a sundial. It's taken forever. I'm like, man, it's only about one minute it's been in here. But as soon as you make it past two minutes.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:25:20]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:25:20]:
I mean, five minutes is not that big of a deal. Seven minutes. Anyway. Why is it that our. That our brain and our body are so disconnected? And why after those first couple of minutes, do we sort of regulate and become sort of synergetic Great question.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:25:34]:
So when you go into cold water and usually it's anything below 55, and I know 55 is cold, but you, you don't need 35 degree water. 55 or below is great, but you're intentionally putting yourself in a fight or flight situation, specifically activating the vagus nerve which comes from your upper neck and goes all the way down to your core. So for those of you who have never done a cold plunge, you don't need to go all the way up to your neck. You can simply even go up to your belly button. Your vagus nerve is going to sense that cold stimulus. And what happens is we're shunting blood from our extremities all the way to our core because our body says, whoa, this is way too cold. And we literally are going into a little bit of a freak out mode intentionally. And so we recognize, okay, we're not going to die.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:26:20]:
There's no saber toothed tiger, there's no bear to run from. And so if we're choosing to put ourself in that distress, it gives us an opportunity to regulate our breathing to rather than like. Right. If you do that, that's, you're going to be out, you're hyperventilating.
Mark Williams [00:26:35]:
So that's exactly. So let's just walk us through that for a second. Let's say you do do that. What, what happens? Like what's happening to your body, in.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:26:42]:
Your mind in that moment as you, you're in a, so this motion. And if you guys are watching the camera, I'm, I'm raising my shoulders, I'm widening my eyes and I'm inhaling through the mouth. That's a flight response meaning, oh my gosh, this is a stressor. I need to run away. Okay, now when we stay in the distress and we choose to breathe through our nose, that activates more of a healthy fight response. And not that you're like, I'm gonna fight through the water, but like I'm gonna stay present. Like I've got this right? So rather than oh my gosh, right. And maybe you've had those moments in business.
Mark Williams [00:27:20]:
It's funny, I'm just thinking because we're coming up on Halloween, thinking about like horror, right? Like the gas, it's a gasp.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:27:26]:
So as we inhale through the mouth, what's physiologically happening is your brain is perceiving threat. If we break this down micro moment to micro moment, your brain is perceiving stress. When we inhale through the mouth, it's the largest amount of oxygen that we can take in, because oxygen is at the core of our survival, cellular respiration. So if your body is perceiving, oh, my gosh, I'm going to die. You're not going to die. I promise you we won't let that happen at sauna camp. I'm going to die. I need energy now to run away from this threat.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:27:59]:
Now, it's not a true threat, though, because we can stay in cold water for a decent amount of time. As human beings, we've got enough adipose tissue, we've got enough blood flow. So in that, right, our body goes into hyperactivation, it goes into sympathetic response, fight or flight. And then you realize, okay, this is uncomfortable, but I've got it now. If you're approaching a bear, you better flight and run. Like you want to be able to do that. But then I bridge the gap here where I'm like, how many moments in your life or in business are you having? These many. Like, oh, my gosh, like the client didn't follow through, or like, we didn't make the sale or like, you know, whatever.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:28:36]:
This person is uncomfortable with the way I responded to this email. Right. And so in that moment, we're taking in oxygen, we're kind of activated, our eyes get wide. I'm sure we'll see that happen to some people. And in that moment, you have a choice. And as a human being, we're not. We're not rodents, Right. We have choice.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:28:51]:
In our prefrontal cortex, you can choose to stay in it, and then you're like, oh, wait, it's all good. This is uncomfortable, but it's all good. So hopefully that helps, like, break it down.
Mark Williams [00:29:04]:
No, that's. I think this is fascinating. I don't know if anyone's still listening, but I could. I could talk to. I could talk about this for hours. This is really fascinating to me how so related to. And I only. I should actually probably watch some more stuff of his stuff.
Mark Williams [00:29:16]:
So Wim Hof has essentially made a lot of these ancient practices very famous just because of his ability. For those that aren't familiar with Wim Hof, I mean, my limited knowledge is basically, he's made very popular Iceman. I mean, he can go into a cold river for incredible amounts of time. I've heard that he can actually raise his core body temperature. Yeah, I mean, they're. I mean, it's just really fascinating. So you're. Let's go back to the water.
Mark Williams [00:29:36]:
So you're in the water, you're breathing, you're basically just regulating your body.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:29:40]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [00:29:40]:
And so then you get out, you go in the sauna. So now that we're in the sauna, it's this relaxing feeling. Of course we feel warm and. But then you start to get hot after a while. You actually kind of want to go back in the cold because you're so walk us through the heat. Like, why asana? I mean, sauna is having its moment right now, I'd say for the last four or five years.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:29:57]:
Popping.
Mark Williams [00:29:58]:
It's just everyone want. And especially being in Minnesota, we have a strong Finnish culture as well. But I feel like just in general, I mean, I have people all over the country that don't have the cold and they're cold tubs and saunas are definitely having their moment. And we see in the home space, I mean, as you know, home designers, you know, we are obviously asking these questions to our homeowners and it's becoming more and more common that asana and or a cold tub is making into home design. So I think it's important for us to obviously understand this not only from a personal level, but also from a. And health and wellness, but also from a designer standpoint because our clients are asking for it.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:30:30]:
Totally.
Mark Williams [00:30:30]:
So going into the sauna, what's happening?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:30:32]:
Yep. So let's say you've done. And by the way, as Mark said, you don't need to be like Wim Hof and stay in there for an hour. They say anything over 11 minutes a week can often cause more damage. Unless you're Wim Hof and you know, you've done years of training, so all the blood has gone to your core. Right. And that's an intelligent response to the cold because it wants to protect your vital organs and glands. Your heart is more important than your fingers.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:30:55]:
Right. So now you've hit that point, you come back into the sauna and your internal core temperature starts to heat up, which you're like, okay, this feels really good. By the way. We're warm blooded animals. I think most of us learned that in school. Right. So we do way better in warmth than we do in really, really cold. So as our core temperature starts to heat up, blood flow starts to get back to the extremities to a point where now we're tipping it over the edge the opposite way, where this is a same, same but different experience of hermetic stress.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:31:25]:
So hermetic stress, for those of you who don't know, is stress that helps you grow. It's like the EU stress. Right. So as our core temperature increases, our body starts to sweat, which is an intelligent response, because, again, all of this is equilibrium. If we didn't sweat, we would overheat and die. So the sweat is an intelligent response. Some of you, if you choose to stay in the water a little bit longer, you might start shivering. The shivering is actually, you know, a lot of people say, try to get to that point because it's your body trying to heat up your core temperature.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:31:54]:
It's uncomfortable, but it's your body's intelligent response. So back in the sauna, then we start to sweat. You're going to hit that threshold. Everyone's going to have a different threshold. I recommend breathing in the sauna too. You know, maybe less through your mouth if you can, because that's not going to feel really good on your mouth with the heat, but in through your nose, because, again, all of it is telling your body, hey, this is uncomfortable, and I can stay with it. Hey, this is uncomfortable and I can stay with it. So we've got the blood pumping almost to a point where it's.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:32:21]:
It's not too much, but your body starts to sweat. Your body starts to, you know, say, okay, now I gotta cool down. And like you said, Mark, you almost crave the cold. I know I do. I just did sauna cold plunge last night. And I'm like, okay, I gotta go dip in the cold, and then it's cool. Because I am sure you notice this. That second time I go into the cold, I'm able to stay longer.
Mark Williams [00:32:40]:
Oh, way longer.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:32:40]:
And I'm able to stay longer.
Mark Williams [00:32:42]:
So obviously, and we won't dive into the practices of a Joe Rogan or whoever, a lot of people will go into the cold first, which is. Talk about mental disability plan. I'm a more of a wimp. To me, I would rather go in the sauna and get really hot and then go in and you're right, the more you do it, the easier it gets on both fronts.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:32:58]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:32:59]:
And then I think it's also, you mentioned I'd heard that 11 minutes a week was enough as well.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:33:03]:
I think there was a Huberman lab, like they've done actual research, where over 11 minutes, it can. It doesn't have any more benefits. So if y'all are. I go a couple times a week, so I might be in the cold one to three minutes every session. I go throughout the week. And I don't know how much time we have today, but something to monitor is your heart rate variability, your hrv, which is basically your adaptability so it's. Have you heard of these, like whoop bands or. Yep.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:33:29]:
And I've got the aura.
Mark Williams [00:33:30]:
Right. Six years.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:33:31]:
Yep. And so if your HRV is low, it's actually recommended that you don't go into the cold, but just the warmth. So that will be something for people to understand and you don't need to track it before you come to sauna camp. But. And especially as women, you know, we have different cycles, we have different rhythms, and so that's important to know as well. But maybe that's where it's a podcast.
Mark Williams [00:33:50]:
Oh, that's not sounds that fascinating, actually. This episode is brought to you by Adaptive. For over two years now, I've been using Adaptive. It's an incredible game changer. It's AI technology based, it helps you with bill pay. And as a builder, there's very few things that anger our subs more than not being paid on time. Well, those days are gone. Not only do you know exactly where you are, but you can pay people through your ach channels.
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Dr. Mel Krug [00:35:03]:
Congrats. Wow.
Mark Williams [00:35:04]:
And I've noticed that for how much I run, I feel like my HRV number should be much higher.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:35:09]:
Right.
Mark Williams [00:35:10]:
And so it's interesting because I think a lot of us, we look at stats, or let's say Whoop or Garmin or whatever you're looking at is if the numbers favor what you want to do, you're like, great. And I've come to the point, like, if my recovery says I'm at 26, I'm like, I'm still gonna do a five mile run today. I don't care what it says. So it's like you take the good and you leave the bad. Yeah, it's. But like the hrv, it's an I'm actually Like in a three week low of our hrv. And I've been sick which obviously was a huge impact. I don't know if it's a mild strain of COVID that I had a couple weeks ago.
Mark Williams [00:35:37]:
I was actually up in the boundary waters shivering and the whole chills thing was, which is, which was great. But I've noticed just looking at it like if I sauna I'll see like a 20% boosted recovery.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:35:48]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [00:35:48]:
I haven't noticed because I know like obviously cold fights inflammation and I know from let's say just because of all the running I did this summer after a long run or let's say I do a 20, 30 mile run, I'll go find time to get into a cold tub that time just to try to get out soreness. But I was talking to some bodybuilders in the gym and actually the opposite is true. They actually there's a spike in testosterone if you go in the cold tub before you lift. Because they don't actually want, they want inflammation for muscle building. It sounds funny but it's flexing your muscle inflammation. But I. Have you heard that as well?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:36:21]:
Yeah, I actually did bodybuilding for a year. Yeah. And they recommend doing the cold plunge before and not after because you've pumped all this blood flow into your muscles. And so if you go into the cold plunge right away, which may feel really good, you're actually taking away all that nutrient dense blood that you've pumped into into the muscles when you go into the cold plunge because it's going to go all to your viscera. They say wait about three hours if you're going to do a cold plunge after you do like a bodybuilding session or more weight training to go into a cold plunge. But you know, sauna would be great because again you are pumping blood into your muscles and it is a form of inflammation. But again not all inflammation is bad. It's more of we want the ratio.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:37:00]:
Right. You guys have probably heard. Well maybe you haven't. But six to one ratio, you know, got omega 3 fatty acids which are anti inflammatory, good fats and then your omega sixes which are the pro inflammatory. So you want 1 to 1 to 6, essentially 3 to 6 omega 3s to omega sixes.
Mark Williams [00:37:17]:
Are you, are you so. And we will close the conversation of this part of it and transfer to more of the business side. This whole. No, I think this is fascinating and I know a lot of builders that listen, they do exercise. I. One of the things that I want Mabel to speak to, why I'm doing this a camp. So other than I've often used myself as a litmus test of if I like it, maybe someone else will. And if they don't, then I guess they don't.
Mark Williams [00:37:37]:
We have this thing called these curious collectives. So we have one for builders, we have one for designers, we have for architects. We're going to launch one for trades here next year as well. And my dream is that the, that Sonic camp can hold up to 60 people. I think we've got 10 registered, but we're still four or five months away. Lots of time to sign up. But the whole goal of it is I would love for just the collectives to be there and create this community of people because not everyone's going to want to do this. I hope people listening are willing to stretch themselves a little bit and do something new.
Mark Williams [00:38:05]:
And I just love, even as a kid, it's funny how so many things come back to you. But I had my dad on the podcast a year ago. I'm going to bring my mom on because she was an interior designer and. But she used to always say broaden horizons. And I think as a society, as a business owners just being open to different things, maybe this isn't for you, that's fine, just try it and if you don't like it, great, don't do it again. But the goal is to have all these business owners and you're talking, maybe you're talking about business, maybe you're talking about life. And I feel like building is such a male dominated industry. I love seeing more and more women get into it because I feel like it opens up this predominantly male culture to just being more open and shocker, all of our clients are women.
Mark Williams [00:38:41]:
If you can't relate to women like, you're probably not going to be a very successful business owner, especially in the construction world, much less life. And so I just feel, I don't know, I just want to get the community. I just love getting people together to try new things. And so I'm hoping that the sauna camp, actually the majority of people that have signed up so far are not even from the state that's. They're flying in from Georgia. I've got someone coming from Arizona, someone from Colorado, someone from Canada. I'm like, wow, this is amazing. I'm.
Mark Williams [00:39:06]:
I did not anticipate that many people would fly in for this and I'm flattered about it. And then we're doing in May, we haven't talked a lot about it. It is available, it's called boot camp. And basically we're going out to design national park for three days. And this I was really inspired because every year I go to the boundary waters or I try to do a camping trip with no phones, just get away. Because I find as business owners, you need to check out to check back in.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:39:29]:
Totally.
Mark Williams [00:39:30]:
And I feel like sometimes you need to force people. It's like a little bird. You got to kick them out of the nest in order for them to fly. And I feel if I can help people realize how helpful that is. There's only room for 20 people. You get off the airplane, you have to check in your phone. So there's no phones. I'm going to put it in a plastic box.
Mark Williams [00:39:44]:
We'll have one emergency contact at the camp and then no alcohol. And basically we're going to do hikes. Those that want to run, can run. We're going to have some group physical activities. We're going to have some positive stress and then just time with other business owners. And I feel like being away from constantly checking your pocket for that phone is more helpful than people. It seems like a simple thing, but honestly, I just. I ran with someone the other day and they said that last weekend they actually turned their phone off, left it in a drawer for a whole day, just one day.
Mark Williams [00:40:11]:
And they were just like, I can't believe at how de stressing it was.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:40:16]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:40:16]:
And so anyway, it's things like this that I feel like as business owners, yes, we're in the construction field, but we're business owners. We're entrepreneurs that happen to build. We need these types of things. Just be our best self.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:40:27]:
Reset, right? Yeah, I'm all about that.
Mark Williams [00:40:29]:
Now tell us a little bit more. Let's switch to the business side. You know, inspire. Co it sounds like you're doing some retreats as well.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:40:35]:
Yeah, I've been doing retreats now for a number of years. And I like to say, you know, the word retreat means to run away. And like you, Mark, I'm big into like, okay, rather than escaping and just having a spa day, which I think is important, you know, really face yourself, put the phone away and say, okay, how am I doing life? And yes, rejuvenate, reset. But look at what are some patterns in your life that you feel like you're ready to complete and be done with. And I think sometimes we got to get. We have to pattern interrupt our own life and get out of the. Whatever this is and come over here and to have that reset and say, okay, how can I create from this space and not just run away, but really face, like, what's going on internally, what's happening in your life that maybe is something you can start to let go of and start to build that capacity from within. So I've been doing, I call them inspire immersion experiences.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:41:22]:
And we've done ones for one day, we've done ones for four day. I've taken a group to Costa Rica for seven days, and it's a really great time to just learn about yourself and like you said, reset and refocus. And I tell people, hey, like, put your phones away, right? Like, connect with you. This your body, it has the best technology you need. And I think we forget that we get caught up in the daily grind and, you know, working with clients and as business owners. So it's really nice to come back to, like, you are the center of your life life. So why not take care of you? Even if it's once a quarter or once a year, you do these things. And I was.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:41:54]:
I was actually looking at your retreat online. I was like, this looks amazing.
Mark Williams [00:41:58]:
I think you might have to come. Yeah. What? We'll talk about that at Sonic Camp. Who is being attracted to these events? Was this geared towards business owners? Anyone can come or who are you? Because you've done it for now a couple years.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:42:08]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:42:08]:
So how big is the group and what are you finding that people are saying and why are they coming and what are they learning?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:42:14]:
Yeah. So I often see anywhere between 10 and 20 people. I like to keep it intimate. I think beyond that, it gets a little bit. Not as intimate as I'd like, but I often work with healers, leaders and entrepreneurs. So you don't have to be a business owner. But I do actually work with a lot of other chiropractors because they're helping so many people. They're holding space for so many people.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:42:32]:
And I ask the question, who's healing the healers? Right? Who's helping these people fill their cup when they're serving so many people or they're serving their family and they feel like they don't have time for themselves? So, number one, it's time for you. Right? Time for you to get taken care of. We take a very nervous system, embodied approach. So I teach a lot on what you've heard today on the podcast. I go deeper into it. I also do a lot of breakthrough and mindset coaching of how we get out of our own way. And I really like to go into the deep, what I call root experiences, which is things that have happened to us when we're younger and we don't realize how much it's blocking us. You know my personal story, I grew up, my parents divorced.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:43:12]:
I, I dealt with my own trauma and saw when I opened a business how much that really hindered me. And so I did a lot of kind of inner child work to really resolve that and become the leader I knew I was always destined to be. So we go deep into stuff and we do a lot of breath work. We do a lot of, we do like fire ceremonies and all that.
Mark Williams [00:43:29]:
Is that where you like write something down and burn it? How. Let's talk a little bit about that. I was just at a retreat recently and some of the business owners were going through potential divorce and life is stressful business owning a business and stress is stress. My wife often says it's not really appropriate to compare your stress to other people's stress because stress is stress. And if I could, if I could look at it from a physical side, the guy who can run a five minute mile versus the guy who can run a 20 minute mile, they might both equally be putting out the same amount of effort. If you're 350 pounds, a 20 minute mile I guarantee is not going to be easy. And if you're, you're the, you're elite marathoner, you're running a fourth 4:30 marathon from Kenya. It's no joke.
Mark Williams [00:44:08]:
He's running fast. But I'm guessing the stress on their bodies might be.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:44:11]:
It's all relative.
Mark Williams [00:44:11]:
It's all relative. And so I don't think, I think it's important not to compare our stress to other people. I think that's hard because we do often sit in a place of judgment. That doesn't stress me out. Why is it stressing you out? And then of course and I, even though I know this, I fail so many times. You're stressed out? Relax.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:44:29]:
Yeah, relax.
Mark Williams [00:44:30]:
I tell that to my wife all the time when she stresses out. And I'm telling you right now, I'm O for 1 million and saying relax. But I just, it's what I say, I'm like, and even my kids, I'm like, I don't know why I always tell people to relax when they clearly are not ready to relax.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:44:44]:
One that I, you know, I joke us chiropractors when they people come in and you know, maybe the shoulders are really tense and telling a practice member to relax, it's like hello, that's why I'm here. Like I would if I could. And that is where. Where the breath work comes in is to. I don't want to say hack, but I say boost that subconscious programming to rewire it. Rewire it and re pattern it.
Mark Williams [00:45:06]:
So, yeah, let's go back, you know, your journey into chiropractic care. So, you know, talk us a little bit how you started your business and how long you've been practicing and, yeah, you know, let's talk a little bit about the business side of things.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:45:18]:
Yeah. So I opened Inspire Life chiropractic Center in 2017. I did not grow up with chiropractic here. I received my first chiropractic session in my. My early 20s after a rugby injury. So I played rugby for 10 years. And growing up, you know, my mom.
Mark Williams [00:45:32]:
What part of the country are you from?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:45:33]:
Minnesota.
Mark Williams [00:45:34]:
Are you really?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:45:35]:
Yep, Born and raised.
Mark Williams [00:45:36]:
Oh, interesting. I said y'all a few times in the beginning. I thought you were going to be from the South.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:45:39]:
No, I know people say that. And I'm like, 75 Scandinavian.
Mark Williams [00:45:43]:
Okay.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:45:43]:
So I did not grow up with chiropractic care. My mom was also not one to, like, rush us to the doctor. She's like, ah, rub some dirt in it. You're fine. You know, whatever. So relax, relax, chill out. Right? So early 20s, I suffered a AC tear of my left shoulder playing rugby. And I went from feeling like I was on top of the world to feeling like I was 80 years old.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:46:05]:
Couldn't sleep laying down, had to sleep in a recliner for two weeks.
Mark Williams [00:46:08]:
Where's your ac?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:46:08]:
Your AC is your acromial clavicular. So it's, like, right up here. So it connects your clavicle to your humerus.
Mark Williams [00:46:15]:
We're gonna have to talk. I fell on my road bike three weeks ago, and it's. It's. It's right up there. I know I didn't tear my rotator cuff. I got full range of motion, but it's really painful right there. Yeah.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:46:24]:
So your clavicle and your scapula and your humerus, there's a ton of little ligaments in there that connect everything together.
Mark Williams [00:46:29]:
So do you operate on it or.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:46:31]:
Do you just let it heal so that it was. Think of. It was a sprain. It wasn't a tear fully. So it does take time to heal for sprains, as we know. But thankfully, the chiropractor helped me out. And at the same time, they said, you know, we've done all we can. We still notice there's some stuff going on.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:46:47]:
You should go see this other chiropractor. And I said, okay. And again, I didn't know what chiropractic was. I thought it was just back pain and neck pain. So I go to this other chiropractor and mind you, I'm playing high level rugby, which if anyone knows rugby, it's a pretty wild sport. And before he even touches my spine, he talks about the vital importance of the nervous system and getting to the core wounds and how your nervous system runs literally everything in your life. And so I start seeing this chiropractor, mind you, I'm a college student, I'm paying cash, I'm, you know, playing high level rugby and just start to notice all these changes. My menstrual cycles got better, my mental emotional health got way better.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:47:22]:
I started losing weight like I used to be, way heavier than I am now. And it was like the lights just turned on and I said, whatever this is, I want to learn how to do it. And so from then I went to chiropractic school, graduated and opened my practice four months later.
Mark Williams [00:47:36]:
Oh, that's amazing.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:47:37]:
Here we are.
Mark Williams [00:47:38]:
Wow. Yeah. How big is the practice?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:47:42]:
So I have a doctor underneath me. Yep. We're for chiropractic hours. We're actually pretty part time just because I do a lot of coaching. But we probably see anywhere between 100 and 200 visits a week.
Mark Williams [00:47:53]:
Oh, that's a lot.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:47:54]:
Yeah. And our style is very different. It's not 32nd in and out. It's much more of a process of care. So for the type of work that we do, we see quite a few people. Specifically we see a lot of women, we see a lot of families. We do see a lot of like entrepreneurs, you know, people who want to keep their opt. Their human nervous system or their, as I call it, human operating system, as optimal as possible.
Mark Williams [00:48:16]:
Where's your office or where?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:48:17]:
In Mendota Heights.
Mark Williams [00:48:18]:
Okay.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:48:19]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [00:48:19]:
Okay. Yeah, well, we'll have that in the show notes as well.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:48:21]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:48:22]:
From a coaching standpoint, are you coaching those that care for others, as you mentioned? Are you coaching like people like myself or what? How are you coaching?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:48:29]:
Some of my clients do one on one work with me. So some of my practice members in the office who still have nine to five jobs, but they just have stuff they want to work through. But I do work with a lot of entrepreneurs, specifically chiropractors or other healers, people who again, are caring for a lot of people and they want to work. You know, I think I've had a coach all my Life. Since age 5, I've been an athlete. So I think coaching can just help us get out of our own way and be the unbiased. Honestly, calling us out at times when we get in our. In our own stuff.
Mark Williams [00:48:55]:
So how, you know, stress and burnout is real. And I feel like for myself, I've talked about this on the podcast. Honestly, the podcast has been something that, that's helped me avoid stress and burnout. I really enjoy people. I get energy from people as a classic extrovert would. But I love listening to people's stories. I love learning. I was just talking to a builder this morning on the way in and they asked, how has this last year been? And I'd say, you know, from the custom home side, it's been a.
Mark Williams [00:49:21]:
It's been a very rough year. We had to let a few people go last year. It's been kind of just a downtime for us specifically. However, I've had a lot of space to devote a lot of energy to the cur builder platform. We've got about seven or eight building platforms, you know, the Sonic Amp, the Bootcamp, in just community. And I. And, and I'm thriving from an emotional standpoint and a satisfaction standpoint. It's been something that's helped me sort of pivot.
Mark Williams [00:49:42]:
I've been building for 20 years and now I feel like I've sort of armored myself up with like a clear direction. What, you know, it's called the back 40. The next 20 years, what is it going to look like? And I feel much more re. Energized to do so, to be there for my clients. And that's why I'm so passionate about talking about these things, because I've experienced it. What are you seeing in terms of, you know, stress and burnout for business owners and how can, how can they help themselves?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:50:08]:
Yeah, that's. I love that you're one reigniting that within yourself. I think, number one, it's if you feel uninspired by what you're doing, if you feel a lack of inspiration and motivation, if you feel apathy. A big thing I see with chiropractors is because it's. It's such a physical, giving, intimate experience, they often feel honestly, some level of resentment towards what they're doing. And I tell people, I say, look, it may not be the core of your profession, like you may still truly be inspired by chiropractic as an example, but it could be the way that you're doing it, or it could be you feel like you're people pleasing all the time and you don't know how to set boundaries. It could be that maybe you're not charging enough. Maybe you've been in practice for X amount of years and it's time to raise your prices.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:50:51]:
Like, that's okay if you become more of an expert in your field. So I always tell people, you know, burnout is not necessarily because you don't like what you're doing, but how you're doing it and how you're structuring your day. And like you said, Mark, you know, there's maybe ways that you can serve the building community, for example, but in a different form. And so that, I think is part of the evolution of an entrepreneur is it may just be that there's, there's a next step for you where you can take back some time and ownership and energy, where, you know, you can't be given 24 hours a day. Right. You're going to lead to, like, resentment, I think, is one of the number one emotional things to become aware of that is telling you you're probably burnt out where you, you don't like your clients and you don't like what you're doing. And again, it may not be what you're doing, but how you're doing it. But I would say, yeah, resentment and apathy are probably the two core indicators that I see.
Mark Williams [00:51:41]:
That's interesting. I'd like to talk more about that. I've mentioned this a lot as well, and it's, you know, there's three phases of your business journey. I'm sure there's lots more, but for this analogy, it's the three, which is earn or Sorry? Learn, earn and return.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:51:55]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:51:56]:
And I joke that I missed the earning phase. I got to go back to that one. But I think for me, specifically the curious builder platform, it feels that I'm able to give back in a way because you, you have these conversations and you see the light and the sparkle in people's eyes is like, oh, there's a community. You know what? Sometimes not. Sometimes being a business owner is very lonely place to be.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:52:16]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:52:17]:
And you can have great teams. And it's not that you don't, you don't share with your team. There is a certain stress that comes with having your shingle on the door and having other business owners to relate to. And sometimes I have this builder friend of mine and he'll call me and I'll be like, do you need me to listen or do you need me to solve your problem?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:52:32]:
Right, right.
Mark Williams [00:52:33]:
And which is funny because I'm sure my wife wishes I had learned that 11 years ago when we were first married. Because I still fail at that. It's funny how the answer. But somehow I don't know. We have our own patterns, these own patterns. And I just finally figured that out with my sister. Or she'll call me and say, hey, I want to talk about this or whatever. And I'll say, do you want me to solve the problem or do you just want me to listen? That is 90% of the time.
Mark Williams [00:52:53]:
Guess what? She wants me to do.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:52:54]:
Listen.
Mark Williams [00:52:55]:
Yeah. And I, and I'm a terrible listener.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:52:57]:
But anyway, that I know. I love that you said that because I, I teach that to my clients. I'm like, look, your share is sacred. And just because someone is, maybe I don't want to say dumping, but just because they are expressing something doesn't mean that you necessarily have to come in and fix it and solve the problem right then and there. Honestly, majority of the world just needs to be heard and seen and acknowledged and listened to. And in that when they feel seen and heard, everything starts to shift. But I think sometimes we get this dopamine hit of trying to be the hero and solve the problem. And it's like, I believe that humans are intelligent and they have all the answers from within them.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:53:35]:
And I think coaching just allows it to come out with the right questions. So I'm, I love that you mentioned that. Because that's a big thing I teach.
Mark Williams [00:53:41]:
On is like, look, I 100% agree with you. I think when we are open to, when we ask for help. I've mentioned this so many times and I, I fully believe it that I think that the word help is the most underused word in the English language in the sense that if you ask people for help. I've never, honestly, I can't think of a single time where I've asked someone sincerely for help and not been helped. And if you are the person that is, is asked for help, it is a powerful cape of dopamine because you get to help somebody else. And I'm talking on a human to human level too. And so working through that, it's really a, it's a beautiful thing.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:54:20]:
It is.
Mark Williams [00:54:20]:
And I think there's a vulnerability. I think that's the key thing is that when people can't be vulnerable or can't be authentic or they don't even know how or I think that's where you. I think that's where people trip up, honestly. Because I think, I think the word, you know, asking for help, there's a Few. There's things that have to happen before they get to that point.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:54:37]:
Yeah, yeah. Vulnerability. I think I'm out to shift. That is a strength that doesn't mean you're weak. The ability to lower your armor and say, hey, I'm struggling and I'd love some support. That. That requires so much strength and courage to ask for that.
Mark Williams [00:54:50]:
We had a episode. It'll air well probably a week before this one airs. And we were out in Boston for the contractor coalition, and I was hosting what we called Build Buzz. So we had Morgan, Brad, Nick, and Tyler, the principals from there. And we got into some pretty personal stuff in front of the audience, and someone came up to me after and they said the thing that we appreciate the most was when we got real about this. And so I. It's. That wasn't why we said it, obviously.
Mark Williams [00:55:16]:
It just came out and it was a really nice moment. And it's just funny. As humans, I think as business owners, we feel like we have to have it all together. It's in social media. Everything is marketing your best foot forward. But honestly, we're all hot. A hot mess. A big dumpster fire.
Mark Williams [00:55:30]:
And I think it's really important to just talk about it. No, it's really hard. It's really struggling. In fact, we're going to come out with something at some point because, like, everyone loves a good blooper reel. You watch a comedy movie and at the end the blooper reels are just hilarious. And so I need to figure out a way to do a blooper reel.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:55:45]:
Like on the podcast.
Mark Williams [00:55:46]:
Yeah. Which. Because when you do ad reads, not so much in the interview because they tend to just be natural conversations. So you don't have probably as many of them. But I have a couple of people that all said, hey, I'm doing an ad read for whatever company, and if you tell me what I have to say, I'm terrible at it. It.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:55:59]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:55:59]:
If I can just say it in my own words, obviously. No problem. And so you're just like, stumbling. You cannot get your tongue to do what it wants. And they're really quite funny.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:56:06]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [00:56:07]:
And so anyway, the whole point is to sort of just shine a light on kind of the humorous side of it all.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:56:11]:
We all have that. We all have the blooper reels in our life.
Mark Williams [00:56:13]:
Oh, for sure. How I think from a work life balance, what are some things that you've seen either in your own life or with people you coach? I'm a huge proponent of boundaries. Create free freedom and I talk about it all the time. For me specifically, it's wake up early in the morning, I'm home every day by 7am to get the kids up, get them to school. So if I'm going to work out, it has to be whatever time before that. And then in the evening I'm home every day at 5. And I've talked about this so much. I keep talking about it because I.
Mark Williams [00:56:40]:
It's a important for me to remind myself how important it is. But I think it's also important to let other business owners know that you can have a successful business by prioritizing. It's not that you're not prioritizing work or whatever. It's just like you're creating a boundary and will actually help you.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:56:55]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [00:56:56]:
Anyway, how have you with the kind of that framework, how have you seen that with people that you've coached or even experienced in your own life time?
Dr. Mel Krug [00:57:03]:
Own your time. Right. Own your day. And that's, you know, prioritizing the high, high priority tasks. I'm like you, I'm very regimented with my time. And for what I see in younger entrepreneurs is they have this fear of setting that boundary because what will this other person think? Or are they going to think I'm a jerk? Or are they going to think all these things? And it's like, what if it's. Instead you perceived it this way and said how does me setting a boundary actually serve my clients? How does me being regimented with my time and my energy and putting myself first in the beginning of the day, whether it's movement or breath work or whatever, how does that actually benefit my business? And I think the, the way that you do grow in scale is you've got to be so disciplined with your time and also being disciplined with your white space on your calendar, which is for me a moment to create where I've got got nothing planned. There's no meetings, there's no clients and I just have space to create whether I'm out in the woods or I'm on a walk.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:57:58]:
That to me is where I get my best ideas. And I call it like the million dollar insight. Right. Where something can drop it, drop in. And that's one thing that shifts the entirety of my business.
Mark Williams [00:58:06]:
How do you practically do that? Are you actually creating time in your schedule that says like every from 2 to 5 o'clock you've booked it as like appointment.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:58:15]:
I can show you my phone right now, Mark. And it's, I call it my zone of creation. And it actually is On Tuesdays in the afternoon. Because, you know, I have a free training out there where I talk about how to align your business with your biology. And I have learned how to create my day to follow the cortisol curve. And so your cortisol is highest in the morning, which is where you're most creative. Or doing things like this. And then it dips, and then you get a Little Peak between 4 and 6, and then it goes down.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:58:38]:
So I've learned how to create specifically. I kind of live and die on my Google calendar. I put these things in. Not just meetings, not just podcasts, not just client calls, but I literally put. Put zone of creation, or workflow, or I put these things. Like, I'm gonna go to yoga later today, and I'm gonna treat that like a standing appointment, as though it's a client, and I'm not gonna miss it. And I think it's so easy for entrepreneurs to just let everything pile up and not take care of you. And guess what? That's where we go back to the burnout conversation.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:59:08]:
And so I've learned how to own those times. Yes. Even the white space. I literally call it zone of creation. You guys can literally look at my phone, and that's what it says does.
Mark Williams [00:59:16]:
We'll get a picture of it.
Dr. Mel Krug [00:59:17]:
Yeah. Put it on Instagram.
Mark Williams [00:59:19]:
How do you. How have you. I mean, I have certain things. I call it think on the business or I tend to be a very laissez faire thinker. Mainly it's through exercise. As I'm running or as I'm biking or whatever. I get all these ideas and my team knows because I call them. And I'm like, breathing heavily.
Mark Williams [00:59:35]:
You know, I really need to figure out how I can trigger AI and just have AI take all my notes for me while I'm running, because that. And then send it in a bullet list. I'm sure it's out there. I just got to work on that somehow. Anyway, where I'm going back to this is. And I don't think I'm alone in this. I have these spaces on my calendar, and I do. I'm not going to.
Mark Williams [00:59:51]:
I do. Okay. Job. Not a great job, but inevitably a client or something will come up and be like that. Like. Because nothing makes an entrepreneur happier than a canceled meeting. But then. But then, guess what happens? You fill it.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:00:02]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [01:00:03]:
And it's like we. It's almost like we're airlines. We overbook our capacity by 30% and we plan on things being canceled. And if it doesn't Cancel. It keeps building up and then we, we just, we have to start canceling. And I tend to prioritize communication over almost any other thing because I, like, if I'm going to say something, I want to do it right. What have you seen both from yourself or from seeing other business owners? You, the step one is to create this time. So you create the time, but then something comes up and you just slide it in there and it just keeps sliding there, sliding in there, sliding in there.
Mark Williams [01:00:33]:
Before you know it, it shows up in your calendar. But you've never actually kept it for a year, so what's the point of it? Even in your calendar?
Dr. Mel Krug [01:00:38]:
Totally.
Mark Williams [01:00:39]:
How do you reset that thought? How do you take that back?
Dr. Mel Krug [01:00:41]:
Yeah, well, I, I will also admit that I, I am not perfect. Right. I think it's important to break our addiction to perfection. That's number one, our addiction to also control our addiction to working all the time, which it's easy to do as an entrepreneur if you get super inspired by it. But again, I think it comes back to the pattern recognition and awareness. And I, I probably speak to that a lot because it's so easy. For me as a chiropractor and a coach, I'm looking at these patterns all the time. But I try to have a rule of three.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:01:09]:
Like, if this has happened three times, then. And this takes time to become even self aware of it. But for your listeners, if you've noticed that something's happened three times, I start to ask like, okay, why is this happening? Where do I have responsibility in this? And I often say, okay, do I keep rescheduling because it's on this person's end or do I keep rescheduling because I actually don't really care about it? And that can be a hard thing to face. It's like, oh, this actually isn't. So I always filter things through my values. So knowing my top values, if something's coming in but it's not actually being fulfilled upon, it's probably not in alignment with my values, which can be a, a sobering experience, but also give you your power back.
Mark Williams [01:01:53]:
So I'm not gonna have to look at my calendar again. And I mean, silly stuff, like I'm just thinking of it, right? Yeah, just. Anyway, just a matter of importance. Like if it's not, if you keep, keep, if you keep avoiding it, is it really that important?
Dr. Mel Krug [01:02:03]:
Exactly.
Mark Williams [01:02:04]:
And you know, clearing out your schedule. It's interesting because I've talked to some people that are, you know, have scaled. I haven't Done a great job of scaling my business, but the one advantage of scaling your business is that you can buy back your time.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:02:14]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [01:02:15]:
And I think I have looked as a business owner at people the wrong way. More money, more problems, more people, more problems. You know, kind of this concept that, yeah, now I have to go sell a couple more homes to justify their salary. And as business owners, I don't want to hire someone only to, to fire them. So it's not that you are being conscientious, but what if I was thinking about it differently is like this person does something I can't do or even like you said, delegation. And every time I've hired someone and then they do a great job, you're like, it relaxes me, like, oh, I don't have to deal with that.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:02:43]:
Yep.
Mark Williams [01:02:43]:
And a good friend of mine, his company has exploded. He's had 31, 31 people now that's a huge company. And where. And he's, yeah, I didn't get a single email in the last couple days or he said he showed me his phone. He's oh, we just hired somebody. Like he didn't even know about it. And that seems like a very far off place for me to even be or even if I want to go there. But I do have to say that seeing that from a balance standpoint now you essentially replace yourself totally.
Mark Williams [01:03:08]:
And it's taken me a long time to realize that if I'm going to sell, let's say Mark Williams Custom homes, I'm going to have to scale it and I'm going to have to, I'm going have to replace myself.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:03:17]:
Yeah.
Mark Williams [01:03:17]:
Because if you end up being the bottleneck, then you don't have an asset. You're working in the business, not. And yeah, you're an employee.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:03:25]:
Yep. You're not an owner. Yep. Yeah, that's a big thing I teach people, you know, especially chiropractors. I think they can get so much of their heart in it. And sometimes as entrepreneurs our ego can get involved. It's like, wait, replace me. But like I started this thing, it's like, yeah.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:03:38]:
And like time is priceless. You know, do you want to have more time with your kids? You want to have more time to do this? I mean, hiring a doctor underneath me, it's allowed me to step out of the practice. I mean I only, I'm only in the office 11 hours a week of hands on and our practice does very, very well. But it's allowed me to step out and say, oh, it's not about me anymore. It's about the vision and the mission. Right. So.
Mark Williams [01:03:59]:
Well, I appreciate you coming on. We could talk for. For hours, three hours maybe. In parting. I haven't asked this question in a while on a parting. What, what are you excited about coming up this year and maybe a good book or two recommendation.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:04:14]:
What I am excited about is I have been invited to a lot more speaking engagements and facilitator engagements. I' really hard to up level my game there. And I'm actually having people reach out from other countries to have me teach them, you know, what I'm doing, which is really cool. Which means my mission and vision is going from countryside to international, which is really cool because I do have a mission of, you know, touching the lives of people in all different countries and all different continents. So that's happening specifically on my YouTube channel, which. It's funny how you put stuff out and where it lands, as I'm sure you've experienced books. Gosh. I have been on my own personal healing journey.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:04:55]:
Right now I am reading the Reclaimed Woman and I know you mentioned connecting with women, Mark. So for those of you who you know, I don't think you have to be a woman to read it, but it's very powerful to connect to the feminine side. Dr. Kelly Brogan, she's a doctor, she's an entrepreneur and she talks about the masculine, the feminine energy in the dynamics of relationships and all that. And then, you know, I'm, I've been really liking Alex Hormozi stuff. So I don't know if, you know, I'm not familiar with, oh, Alex Hormozi. If you want business, okay. Don't listen to anyone else but him.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:05:25]:
No, he's got million dollar offers and million dollar leads and it's the, it's the most basic stuff in business, but it just makes sense. So right now I'm working through his million dollar offers.
Mark Williams [01:05:36]:
So he said million dollar offers and million dollar what?
Dr. Mel Krug [01:05:38]:
Leads.
Mark Williams [01:05:39]:
Leads.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:05:39]:
So you've got. He's got two books, him and his wife, and they, their content is so simple, so basic, so human, people oriented. Like do good work for people and your business will grow.
Mark Williams [01:05:50]:
And that's a book or a podcast.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:05:51]:
He's got a podcast and he's got two books which almost look like textbooks. Like the business textbook you never got in.
Mark Williams [01:05:57]:
Right.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:05:57]:
In undergrad.
Mark Williams [01:05:58]:
Right.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:05:58]:
So those are my two that I'm liking.
Mark Williams [01:06:00]:
All right. That looks like I got some reading. It's funny, I keep asking this question and my list of things I'm gonna have to go on a year sabbatical just to get through all the books and whatever. I will have everything in the show, notes for people that want to reach out to you. Obviously if they want to meet you in person, we'd love for them to camp and can be our facilitator. Are you going to be in the sauna as well with us?
Dr. Mel Krug [01:06:18]:
Oh yeah. I mean, if you want me to hang out, I'm down.
Mark Williams [01:06:20]:
Oh well, we got the Mediterranean meal at the end.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:06:22]:
Yeah. So it sounds delicious.
Mark Williams [01:06:23]:
It sounds great. Well, I appreciate your time and we'll see you next week.
Dr. Mel Krug [01:06:27]:
See ya.
Mark Williams [01:06:30]:
Thanks for listening to the Curious Builder podcast. If you like what you listen to, please give us a five star rating and write us a review. It really means a lot. It's a great way for us to just understand what you like about the podcast and what we can keep doing. So like and review and please share with your friends and family. Find out more@curiousbuilderpodcast.com.
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