marketing tips for doctors, health strategies, morning routine

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In this episode, Barbara and Lunide discuss:

How you get up, dress up, and show up every day.
9 actionable items in HitSavers.
Keystone habits that transcend small wins to lasting benefits.

Key Takeaways:

The attitude of gratitude will elevate your altitude.
Your willpower is strongest in the morning – by making your bed, you are boosting your willpower for the day.
You have 90,000 thoughts a day. And 95% of those are the same thoughts from yesterday. Read and learn something new every day.

“Sooner or later, anything you put after the words ‘I am’ you will become

because thoughts become your reality.” — Dr. Lunide L. Louis

TRANSCRIPTION

Barbara: Welcome to another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors. I’m your host, Dr. Barbara Hales.

Today, we have with us Dr. Lunide Louis. She is an entrepreneur, author, professor and podcast host. Her writing and podcast go forth to heal, inspire and elevate the minds and hearts of men and women all over the world. Her book, The Power of a Habit Can Control Your Destiny, is a phenomenal read. Dr. Lunide is the host of the Best Morning Routine Ever! podcast. The podcast is the first of its kind devoting a whole show discussing effective morning routine tips and chatting with entrepreneurs and thought leaders in their appropriate fields on how their healthy morning habits have contributed to their success. Welcome to the show, Dr. Lunide.

Lunide: Thank you, Barbara. It’s an honor and a pleasure to be here with you today.

Barbara: Well, Lunide is a very bubbly person as you can see. But the first thing that I would like you to see if you’re looking at this through video is her decal that’s behind her. Never miss an opportunity to market yourself. For those of you who are not seeing video, she has, her whole wall is a decal with different colors and italics with the title of her show, Best Morning Routine Ever! Love it. So Lunide, tell us about your show.

Lunide: Yeah, absolutely. So, the show is one of a kind. It goes off to talk about morning routine tips. But I don’t go on there talking about my own morning routine tips. I like talk to entrepreneurs and successful doctors and business leaders in their fields to find out what they’re doing in the morning that sets them apart because I strongly believe success leaves clues. And why not learn it from those who’ve already blazed the trail. So that’s what the show is essentially about. We talk about business. We talk about mindset. We talk about personal growth. And at the end of the show, I always ask my guest one question. How do you get up, dress up and show up? And it stops there. And it talks about you know. It gets personal because you go into their bedroom. You go into their sleeping mode. And you get to talk about all these details and the little nuances that they do to actually prime themselves for their day. And that’s what I’m looking forward to sharing with you, some of the things they share with me.

Barbara: Well, that is extremely awesome.

Lunide: Yeah.

Barbara: Tell me, what are the nine actionable items in HitSavers?

Lunide: Yes. Barbara, you’re calling me on such a great day today because yesterday I got the approval from iOS, Apple, iTunes that the app has launched.

Barbara: Oh, yey!

Lunide: Yeah. I’m super thrilled. I have been collecting data for the past year and a half since I started the show and talking to hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs. Well, I’ve captured nine actionable items that they do. And every entrepreneur covers a piece of this app to actually set themselves up for success and prime themselves for the day. And so, the nine actionable items is in the HitSavers app. They are — Each acronym stands for a habit and I can briefly break it down for you. The first one is H and it’s hydration. It’s the power of drinking water first thing in the morning to replenish the body off of toxin buildup overnight but also the brain is 70% water so we wake up parched and thirsty. So, it’s good to drink water first thing in the morning. That’s hydration. That’s H.

I is for, you know, I am grateful. I am grateful for today. I am grateful for my life. I am grateful for the opportunity to have clean running water because I’m from a third world country. It’s not always accessible, right? I am grateful for my family. I am grateful for this home. Just little tiny things you find to be grateful for kind of breeds more things to find gratitude for throughout the day. It’s powerful. Attitude of gratitude will like elevate your altitude. This is what I like to say. It will like take you to a different level.

Barbara: I agree with you completely there because I’ll tell you, you know, gratitude and being grateful really take you from a feeling of negativity to being happy about and appreciative of everything you have. And it really makes you look around and see really how fortunate you are because no matter how deprived you may be, you have something whether it’s just, you know, like cheerfulness or the love of friends or family. You know, it doesn’t have to be anything that is tangible. For me, what I found turned my life around is when I lost a spouse and I was like in the pit of despair and depression which, you know, a person has to do when love is involved in order to, you know, get through to the other side.

Lunide: You have to do it.

Barbara: Exactly. But what enabled me to become human again was, you know, the gratitude, the gratitude that I had for the time that we had together. So I so appreciate what you’re saying.

Lunide: Oh, I love that you shared this with me because it really brings it home, because even in your deepest despair you can actually get to that place where you can — Actually, that’s the fastest way to heal yourself. It’s constantly saying those gratitudes, listing the things that you’re grateful for. So, thank you for sharing that. You are actually correct. Even in your worst time, the darkest hour, say something you’re grateful for and see what happens. It’s magical. So, let’s jump right up to —

Barbara: HitSavers. Yeah.

Lunide: HitSavers. Yeah. So, said it with me. T stands for time is up, get your hiney out of bed and make it in the literal sense, Barbara. It literally means get up, make your bed. Why? If done, you’ve accomplished your first task of the day. It will breed more productivity. And also, you have a clean bed to go into at the end of the night. When the hectic of the day is over, you walk into your room, it’s made, you feel like a king and a queen going into bed because again you’re setting the tone for the next morning. So it really is a full circle. So making your bed. And also, making your bed increases your willpower. I was reading the book by Keller and it talked about willpower. It’s not our will. It’s not at our beck and call. You can’t call on it whenever you want.

You cannot have willpower whenever you need it. Imagine like trying to lose weight and the cookie on the counter for the kids look good. But in the morning, you’re like, you know what, strong willpower, I don’t need that. I’m okay. I’m just going to grab an apple instead. Willpower dwindles down at the end of the day. So at 2 PM, that cookie on the counter is looking mighty good right now because your willpower is not as strong anymore. But it is effective, it is the strongest in the morning. So when you make your bed, you’re actually boosting that willpower so you can have more of it throughout the day. It’s imperative. It’s so crucial and it does wonders. Just making your bed as simple as that.

The next one is S in Savers. It’s silence. And it’s the act of being silent and practicing meditation. And I cannot tell you the power of meditation, Barbara. You know this. It really is a way to calm your mind down. We have ANTs, automated negative thoughts. That one seed in our mind that’s 24/7 growing negative thoughts, negative thoughts. And that’s just simply how we’ve been programmed and that’s just society. We’re socially constructed in that way. That’s okay. But we do have to be mindful of how to change it. And affirmation is another one that’s coming up. But meditation is really the start of it. And it’s just simply quieting the mind, not eliminating your thoughts, not saying I shouldn’t be thinking of this but observing your thoughts because we are a being.

We’re supposed to be observing the thoughts. We are not them. We are not the thoughts. We’re observing them as they come along. So deep breaths. And actually, stay silent for one minute. The beauty of this is you can do each of these items a minute. In nine minutes, you could do it. So if it’s one minute of silence and taking a deep breath, that will help with the meditation and calming down your heart and then improving your serotonin levels so you’re happier. I mean, the list goes on. So that’s the S.

The A is affirmation. I am blessed. I am divinely happy. I am confident. I am beautiful. I’m a great communicator. Versus I suck. Today’s going to be the worst day ever. Like you’re the worst. Just like being mindful again of those ANTs, right? Those negative thoughts that just come up constantly because we are operating at 95% in the habitual mind. And it’s the subconscious mind. That is the programming mind. And that’s the case because the brain finds a way to solve our problems.

The brain finds a way to automate our processes or anything that we learn. Like driving a car, right? The first month of learning, we are vigilant, hands on the wheel, looking at all four mirrors. But after two months of getting our license, it’s one hand. We’re drinking water as we drive. Some of us are putting our mascara on. That learning, that habit has become automatic and moved from the conscious mind to the subconscious mind. And that’s what I mean by we have 95% of the brain in the habitual mind because it’s helping us when we go through life faster, quicker and more efficiently. Correct?

Barbara: Right.

Lunide: There are some things back there that don’t serve us anymore, that don’t belong. And we have to be vigilant and we have to be cognizant on changing them. So that’s where affirmation comes in. And entrepreneurs live by them. So we need to shift this state of mind that you are in because sooner or later anything you put after the word “I am” you will become because thoughts becomes things, you know. They become your reality. So affirmations on a daily basis is very good. Like for me personally when I was working on my self-value and my self-worth, I would listen to 15 minutes of affirmation in the morning that says I am worthy, I am good enough, little things like that. You know, there is no competition. My talent is rare. It’s different. It’s unique to me. And so instead of saying, you know, anything that will belittle me and I’m so bad.

Barbara: Well, you know, that is so crucial because there are certainly enough people in all of our worlds who would be only too happy to bring us down.

Lunide: Oh yeah, yeah.

Barbara: So it’s important that, you know, what you say has no power over me because I know what I’m worth.

Lunide: You got to build up power. You got to know what you’re worth. You got to instill it in your brain, right? It’s almost a transformation that has to take place. You have to reprogram the brain.

Barbara: Absolutely.

Lunide: Reprogram the mind.

Barbara: Absolutely. And that’s why I don’t give power to the cookies because, the ones on the counter, which are not on my counter because I don’t know that I’d have so much power during the day. But when I go shopping, I deliberately do not avoid the cookie aisle. I go down the cookie aisle and look each one in the eye, point at it and go, no, no, you’re not coming home with me. No.

Lunide: Not today.

Barbara: I feel so much better because I did not give them power.

Lunide: That’s a fascinating thing you say. It’s about relinquishing our power. That’s the first mistake we make. We think we don’t have it to begin with. And then we give it away. We give it away to something, an object like cookies. We give it away to other people when they say — To the point you made earlier when you say somebody can say something negative about you, they’re going to. But are you going to let that seep in and like drill into your soul and then you unconsciously start behaving in ways to prove them right?

Barbara: Unfortunately, there are so many people that do.

Lunide: I do. I’m guilty as well. That’s what I’m saying. That’s why we’re not perfect. And that’s why the morning routine is crucial and that’s why the affirmations come in to actually help with that because not every day you’re going to wake up 100%. I got to tell you that. Even you and I who are entrepreneurs, businesswomen who are in this game of like developing our mindset and growth mindset, do we wake up every day 100%?

Barbara: Well actually, I’m a morning person so don’t hate me for that. But morning, when the sun rises is my time to shine. You know, I love the mornings. And that’s my best time of day.

Lunide: Yeah. Your chronotype must be what we call a lion. I don’t know if you’ve read the book, The Power of When. It talks about when you are most effective. And lions are usually the morning person, the morning individual. And I too am a lion. At 4:30 AM, I’m up. And guess what. I’m so excited the rest of the world is still sleeping.

Barbara: Me too. Me too.

Lunide: When it’s 9 AM, everybody is like filing in, rubbing their eyes and stretching, I’m like oh man, I got four hours of work already in. It’s lunch time.

Barbara: I’m with you there.

Lunide: It’s so funny. Okay. Barbara, it’s gone. We’re having so much fun. Savers, we’re in E, right? Savers, V. Visioneering. Visioneering is visualization with a twist. And I love this because it’s been pioneered, used thousands, thousands of years ago. But visioneering is not just visualizing your goal but it’s essentially anchoring your goals with a positive emotion, you know, that feeling, that confidence. And that requires faith. That requires a lot of hope, a lot of belief in your ability to attain this goal because you have to believe that you’ve already received it. You have to picture yourself. It’s something simple as you want a car.

You know, they say visualize the make, the model, the inside, the way it smells and all that. Well, you do the same thing for your life goals and mission statement, what you are designed and created to do in this world. A lot of us are struggling with finding our purpose. What are we here for? How can we add value? Life has tasked us with the — It’s a task with the opportunity to add value to other people’s lives. That’s what we need to ask ourselves.

How can I help another person? And how can I add value to another person? And so that’s our mission. That’s everyone’s mission. And so when we can visualize how we can do that, it becomes closer. It becomes more reachable. It becomes closer. It becomes more of a reality. And so visioneering really just is encompassing, closing your eyes and reliving a moment. To make it easy, reliving a moment that you had a great feeling. Getting married, having kids, graduating, getting a pat on the back. It could be somebody saying congratulations. And you take that feeling with you to your new goal. And that anchor, that positivity, that positive emotion actually brings you at a frequency that is closer to the goal. Powerful stuff, powerful stuff. That’s visioneering. Visualizing the goal and being grateful and heading towards it.

And then we have E, exercising. Every entrepreneur gets up and they move the body. You can do it for one minute. You can do anything to get the blood flow going. And in one minute, you can do 30 to 60 pushups or jumping jacks. Anything to get the heart rate up because that will give you more energy throughout the day. That will also wake you up too. So exercising. I like to run in the morning before I get my day going. And so as you are a morning person, if I don’t do it, I’m lethargic throughout the day. I’m more like dragging myself around versus this like uppity, ready to go and tackle the day person that I am.

Barbara: I know for me also. You know, first thing in the morning, because even if I don’t really feel like doing it that much, I have a little guy who wants to go for a walk.

Lunide: Yup.

Barbara: He’s got his paws crossed and he’s ready to go.

Lunide: Yeah. That’s motivation right there. That’s inspiration. Having a dog really helps you get going in the morning because they are on a time schedule. And so you have to get up with them and do it. So that’s a good one to go with.

So we have reading. Warren Buffett reads — He has a quote that says, I sit in my office and read all day. The man literally reads all the time. Why not copy what he’s doing? Why not copy the entrepreneur? That entrepreneur sits and reads a half hour to an hour a day because you have to stimulate the mind. You have to grow because — Back to those ANTs, back to those negative thoughts. You have 90,000 thoughts a day and 95% of those are the same thoughts from yesterday. Isn’t that scary?

Barbara: It is.

Lunide: Scary because you’re not thinking anything new which means you’re not going to have a different day from yesterday. You’re not going to accomplish different results from yesterday. So just that fact alone tells you you need to read and learn something now so that you can get the neurons firing too. It actually gives you different ideas. And that alone will help with, you know, being silent, quieting down the mind and shutting down social media because we don’t spend enough time in the stillness, in the quietness with ourselves.

Barbara: What is your favorite book?

Lunide: My favorite book is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Barbara: Yup. I love that one too.

Lunide: Yeah. It talks about the thoughts too, just automated thoughts that we do get and how to deal with them. The last one, by far the most shocking to everyone but entrepreneurs have come on the show and they tell me they take cold showers in the morning. Yeah, yeah. I incorporated that into my morning routine and my day is not the same unless I do it. What happens here? It wakes you up. Not only that, it burns fat. It burns brown fat that is like stored in your back. It helps burn fat. It increases your metabolism throughout the day. Athletes do it because of muscle recovery, right?

People are dunking themselves into ice buckets for recovery. But it also helps with blood circulation. Tony Robbins does it every day. He goes to the sauna and then dunks himself into an ice bucket or a pool every morning. And you know his energy level. You know the success level he’s had. And that’s part of his morning routine. So the last one, S is for cold shower. Make the last, at least the last 60 seconds ice cold. And so after you wash yourself, you rinse with warm water. You’re comfortable. And then make yourself uncomfortable because out of that discomfort you will — It transcends to other areas of your life if you catch what I’m saying. It really transcends because you’re being comfortable with being uncomfortable.

That is the HitSavers app. It launched today. It is live on the App Store and Google Play Store but it is all part of the Best Morning Routine and I’ve collected the data from the entrepreneurs that I’ve talked to. Some are really good friends of mine now and they shared with me these great tips and I wanted to get it out to the world.

Barbara: Well, good luck with that app.

Lunide: Thank you.

Barbara: I’m glad there’s no M for makeup there.

Lunide: No. That’s a good point, Barbara, because morning routines used to be about how do you get up. Wash your face, brush your teeth, put on your makeup, do your hair. That was the external part of it, right? Morning routine now has taken a shift to how do you internalize, how do you internally take care of yourself so that you can have more productivity during the day, so you can have more energy throughout the day. So, you can be better to your kids. So, you can be better with these difficult people at the office or in your coworking space. How do you really dress up? It’s not the dress up. It’s how do you take care of you. What do you give yourself the first 10 minutes, the first hour of the day so that you prime yourself for the rest of it?

Barbara: Oh, what you’re pointing out is really so important.

Lunide: Yeah.

Barbara: Would say the habit loop is a neurological loop that governs any habit?

Lunide: Yeah, yeah. Very, very good question. Studies have been done around how brain forms habits. And there’s a study in the early ’90s in MIT where they studied rats. They put rats in a maze and they put chocolate at the end of the maze. And so the rats first smelled, got into the maze. So they’re sniffing around, scratching, trying to get to the maze. And that was the first time doing it. And they eventually made it to the chocolate. But what ended up happening after over 200 times of doing this, towards the end, the useless moving around and sniffing around stopped because now the brain has automated not only just learned the maze but automated the process so that they can get to the chocolate faster.

Now, two things happened. Well, it’s a four-step — Or three things happen, right? There is a cue that triggers a desire. That’s the first part of the habit. It creates a desire or craving. And then there’s a routine. Once they get that craving, then the routine is formed. That’s the action. That’s what you do to get the reward. For the rat, it was the chocolate. So once you get the reward, you’re satisfied. You’ve closed the loop, the habit loop. And the perfect example is I remember as a child, I lived in Brooklyn and we lived on the second floor but we would hear the ice cream truck coming on the corner. And you know the sound ice cream trucks make.

Barbara: Yes, I do.

Lunide: Dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit. It lurks. That’s the cue. The noise, the ice cream noise, the truck is the cue. And the craving now begins. I want ice cream now. I didn’t before. But the noise triggered something. Now, I want the ice cream. So now, the routine is to find money and then I actually walk myself down the stairs to get the ice cream. That’s the act. That’s the routine that follows the cue and the trigger. And then the reward is enjoying that ice cream on a warm summer night.

Barbara: Which ice cream did you like the best?

Lunide: Vanilla. I’m a vanilla fan. I’m a vanilla. The swirly ones. I don’t like the packaged stuff. I got the cone and then put the white vanilla in the cone for me. Keeping it simple. What’s your favorite?

Barbara: Sounds tasty. Well, when I was kid, I liked the Rocket Pop that was like a sorbet. You know?

Lunide: Yeah.

Barbara: The different colors. I just found that very refreshing.

Lunide: Yeah, yeah. That’s a good flavor.

Barbara: So willpower, you know, it is an important habit and it helps us do better in all aspects of life. How can we strengthen our willpower?

Lunide: For sure, for sure. First step is to make your bed in the morning. You got to finish what you start. Let me elaborate a little bit on that. When you go to bed at night, you have a nightly routine. You brush your teeth. You put on your PJs and then you probably drink lots of water and you get into bed. Well, in the morning when you wake up, you don’t, a lot of us, I didn’t use to anyway, we don’t finish the cycle of sleeping. Finishing up the cycle of sleeping is making our bed. And if you can finish what you start, it will increase your willpower long term.

There are about eight keystone habits and I’ll give you a few of them that will transcend. They’re like small wins that will give you outlast benefits, not just throughout the day but throughout your life. And a keystone habit which is in alignment with willpower, which can increase your willpower is the first one, making your bed. Having a morning routine. Eating family dinner. Having family dinner. Planning out your day. Exercising. And tracking what you eat. When you can measure what you’re eating — If you can track it, you can measure it, right? So those are a few of the things that you can do to increase, just by living essentially, right? Having family dinner, simple enough. That will increase your willpower. And also making your bed. Just things that you got to do on a daily basis. We’re not reinventing the world. It’s just pinpointing and honing in and highlighting the things that will increase your willpower.

Barbara: I think those are great tips. Do you have any additional tips for health professionals?

Lunide: Yes. You guys are very busy and I want to thank you especially during this COVID time for all your help. You are the frontliners. You are in the face of what is going on. And you are there serving us. You are servant leaders at best. And I thank you for — You know, I’m very grateful for what you do. You’re very busy. You’re on your feet. You got to support the whole family. And my advice is for you to continue to be at your optimal, for you to continue to be at your prime as you are working to help others get better and get well and be healthy is to actually consider some time for yourselves.

It’s to actually cut out some time for yourself to take care of you so that when you do present yourself, when you do go out to help, you are your best self because that’s why you got into the field of service and giving back to others in the first place. And the opportunity to do that, it’s great to have a morning routine to actually get it going. But time alone, going for a hike, really calming the mind down and actually think is my tip, is really cutting out, carve out that time for yourself. In the morning, give yourself 10 minutes. And pick one of those things to do for 10 minutes. That’s all. I’ll stop there.

Barbara: Yeah. You’re right. It’s so important. How would you say that the power of a habit can control your destiny? That sounds not only metaphysical but, you know, it makes one wonder, wow, the habit is going to actually change my destiny. How do you mean that?

Lunide: Yeah, absolutely. Jim Rohn has a quote that says, you can’t change your direction overnight. You can’t change your destiny overnight. Excuse me. Jim Rohn says, you can’t change your destiny overnight but you can change your direction. And that’s essentially what that means. And it’s looking at how you have certain habits that will multiply. It’s a compound effect. You have the habit of not going to the gym. You have the habit of not drinking enough water throughout the day. And so you get headaches. You get migraines. Your skin is dry. You can’t think properly. You got brain fog in the morning. That’s a habit. Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s like this spiral downward effect of negativity that eventually starts directing your life.

You have the habit of not exercising. You have the habit of not going to sleep early and waking up tired. That’s the meaning of how a habit, it could start small, however small it is but it can just grow to a point of affecting your every decision. Tiny habits will impact your overall life because it’s a casting of vote towards who you want to be. It’s a casting of vote towards a better life or a healthier you, a more productive you. Tiny, tiny little habits.

Barbara: How can our listeners get in touch with you if they want to hear more that you have to say and catch all these pearls that you’re throwing?

Lunide: Absolutely, yeah. Best way to connect with me is lunidelouise.com so spelled L-U-N-I-D-E L-O-U-I-S dot com. And of course, wherever you’re listening to Barbara’s podcast, you can find my podcast called The Best Morning Routine Ever! And also in the App Store, you’ll find the HitSavers app and all that will link you right back to lunidelouise.com. I do have a free giveaway for your audience. And they go on lunidelouise.com, they will get a habit tracker.

Barbara: Oh!

Lunide: They’ll get two things. They’ll get a habit tracker to track their habits because you don’t want to miss an opportunity to stop controlling your destiny. And also, there is a habit scoreboard that can outline — You list out all your current habits and then next to it you put a plus or a minus so you can identify and assess where you are. And then you can move forward in terms of what are good habits, what are bad habits.

Barbara: Well, thank you so much. It really has been an absolute delight having you here today.

Lunide: It’s my pleasure.

Barbara: This has been another episode of Marketing Tips for Doctors with your host, Dr. Barbara Hales. Until next time.

Connect with Dr. Lunide L. Louis:

Website: LunideLouis.com

Book: The Power of a Habit Can Control Your Destiny: Best Morning Routine, Ever!

Show: Best Morning Routine, Ever! Podcast

Twitter: @BestRoutine

Facebook: Bestmorningroutineever

Free App: HitSavers for your Best Morning, Ever!

Connect with Barbara Hales:

Twitter: @DrBarbaraHales