3 Degrees of Freedom

Ep 136 - The Foundations of 3 Degrees of Freedom and Lifestyle Alignment with Derek & Sophie Clifford

April 27, 2023 Derek Clifford Season 3 Episode 136
3 Degrees of Freedom
Ep 136 - The Foundations of 3 Degrees of Freedom and Lifestyle Alignment with Derek & Sophie Clifford
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode of the podcast, we have the pleasure of hearing from Derek and Sophie Clifford, a couple dedicated to helping others achieve financial and holistic wellness.

Derek is a seasoned real estate investor, author, and podcast host, while Dr. Sophie is a dedicated integrative medicine doctor with a virtual telehealth practice. Together, they are digital nomads, traveling and have lived in 12 countries in the last 2 years.

The interview covers the foundations of the 3 Degrees of Freedom, exploring how this dynamic duo has transitioned their practice and business from traditional brick-and-mortar to a fully remote model, allowing them to make a profit while traveling. They discuss how they prioritize self-care while traveling, and how Derek’s specialty in burnout prevention can help others, including our listeners, to keep it at bay.

Finally, they explain why pursuing the 3 Degrees of Freedom is fruitless without healthy and strong family relationships.

Tune in to hear the Cliffords’ inspiring story and get the best advice for achieving financial and holistic wellness.

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Introduction:

Welcome to the Three Degrees of Freedom Podcast, where we explore lifestyle engineering with our expert guests to bring you in alignment with your own three degrees of freedom, location, time, and financial independence.

Derek:

Hey everyone, and welcome to the Three Degrees of Freedom Podcast, formally known as the Elevate Your Equity Show. I'm super excited to be able to premier this very first episode of the show with my better half, Sophie. How are you?

Sophie:

Doing good. It's been a while since we've done a podcast together. It's fun to be back on.

Derek:

Yeah, absolutely. So just to set things up for the rest of the season, I wanted to talk with you guys a little bit about like what has happened and why we're doing this. I kind of covered it a little bit in the finale of season two that was released a long, long time ago, probably two or three months ago, back in like January or something. So There's been a lot that's happened, and as we're recording this, it's April and we're actually recording this in Kishu Island in Japan. We're actually in a, in a bath town called Beppu. And we've been enjoying Onsens and continuing to do our work while we've been abroad and has just been having a fantastic time and we're just now getting over the jet lag. So that's why we've had the delay in some of these podcast recordings, but What I wanted to do is I kind of wanted to set the stage here for season three in the right way by making it truly, truly personal because I'm super passionate and so, is Sophie about creating these Three Degrees of Freedom for us and for other people, and then inspiring other people to do it. And what better way to do that than to share with you guys about what, what we're doing and how Sophie, for one, has been able to really make the shift internally over the course of many, many years, which is there's a very much a, an unraveling and kind of a process that we went through to walk these Three Degrees of Freedom. But we've made it and we wanna be here as inspiration for you all. And also give you a little bit of an update as to how we're doing and and what's going on in our world. So that being said, I'm gonna ask Sophie to see if she has any other thoughts to what we've been doing and how things have been going so far, and just the unfolding of our, our lives in the last year.

Sophie:

Absolutely. So, like Derek said, we, we've been here in Japan for about a week now, and our bodies are finally getting used to the 14 hour time difference from the United States. But I think that. It's been a real gift. It's because we had planned to come to Japan last year and the country was so closed due to Covid and so we had to pivot and because of our lifestyle, because of how we one set up our remote work situation and then also designed our lifestyles. We were able to pivot quickly and go to Europe and then of course this year we were able to come to Japan because the country opened up and they're welcoming all foreigners and tourists again. So it's been really wonderful just to get a change of scenery. As Derek likes to put it we, we have this wonderful pattern interruption just to kind of shake things up a little bit and to help us really hone in on what's important to us in our lives right now. I'm about to turn 40 next week. So as part of my birthday gift, Japan is part of my birthday gift, but we're going to a town in Koyasan next week. It's going to be four nights in a Buddhist temple up in the mountains. And it's completely traditional. We're gonna be staying in a ryokan and waking up in the morning to do Buddhist prayers with the monks. So really, really excited for that. And, and I was just telling Derek today that, I, I wanna take inventory and reflect on how I've lived the past 40 years of my life.

Derek:

Mm-hmm.

Sophie:

And just think about, how I wanna. Move forward in the next 40 years. What things do I feel like I, I've accomplished, done well? Have I lived out my values? And, what are things, what, how, in what ways do I wanna live out the next stage.

Derek:

Yeah, I, and I think this is awesome, and, and obviously, both of us we're gonna be asking ourselves these questions and working through it together as a couple. And that's always what this is about. When we embarked on this journey we were looking for the ability to make choices. And what's really, really odd about this whole thing is that. Even while we're here in Japan or when we were in Europe, we were always trying to still strive. And I've just come to the realization that while we're here traveling and while we're setting up this lifestyle, we're in it, we're in this lifestyle that we wanted to design. And it's crazy how it kind of sneaks up on you. And so I encourage you as the listeners. To think about it like that. It doesn't have to be a complete black and white change. It doesn't have to be all of a sudden you're full-time traveling just like us. It can actually be a conscious decision for you to go out every summer, right? Take the kids and go and live in Europe for a month or something like that. It's something like that that becomes part of your lifestyle. And that's again, like what we're really trying to do here is we're trying to live this life of choice and this life of abundance. And so, I think that bringing Sophie onto the show to explain her walk, how things went from her being a practicing doctor with a physical location, to now having a business that's completely online and now us working together on it. And really excited about the future and being surrounded by incredible people to help us get what we need accomplished There. Because I, I've told you my story already before. You guys know it, you've heard it before. It's working a corporate job, investing in real estate on the side. But I really want to kind of take a different perspective and focus on my better half here, because it's more interesting for me to be able to talk with Sophie and then you guys to hear this because a doctor is a quintessential type. Of practice. It's a quintessential thing where that needs to have a physical location in one place, and here Sophie is continuing to help clients and help patients. Across the world while we're here in Japan. And there's no sign of that slowing down almost to the point of us saying, maybe we need to make this like a thing where we just come back to Japan every, every year or something. Or we don't know. We have no idea. But that's the cool thing is that we've enabled these choices for it. So I'm super excited for Sophie and for us, and also for you, the listener. To come on this journey with us. We want you to be a part of this. No matter how far out, these Three Degrees of Freedom go for you, we want to at least get you going in each one of these three buckets, each one of these Three Degrees. We want you to start growing a little bit because the more you do that, the more choices you're going to get. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I just wanted to bring this up just to tell you that like I'm, I'm super excited to have Sophie on the, on the show today and let's do this. Let's go ahead and shift gears. I want to ask Sophie, I. A little bit more about the specifics because she was working a brick and mortar back before Covid started. So again, COVID was kind of like this catalyst for both of us that really, kind of got us thinking and, actually got the whole world ready for remote work. So, here we are in 2023. And for any of you listening to this much later than that, I'm sure remote work is more and more of a thing. So that cannot be an excuse for you to, for you to not do it. So now that we've gone from that transition from before Covid to after Covid, let's, let's ask Sophie how she was able to shift her practice from being a brick and mortar, where you have to drive to the office every day, or the days of the week that you're scheduled to work, see the patients, and then. Do the work there, chart, do everything there, and then turn around and go home and then do it all over again. How did you make that change from brick and mortar to being completely online and how long did that take for you?

Sophie:

Mm-hmm. So prior to, to us being completely remote, I was working at a company actually was a, it was a 55 and over active living community resort community. Essentially I was their onsite doctor, so, If you bought a house in that neighborhood they would do an orientation and they would say, here's your pool, here's your spa, and here's your naturopathic doctor. And so I was kind of just part of the package, an amenity. I was a, an amenity. And and it was, it was a wonderful place for me to work. I, I love the people there. I was able to do lectures there on site and I, I was the onsite doctor for the members there. And. Everybody, like I said, was so kind. And, and it was really keeping people healthy who are retired, who want to live out the latter part of their life with vitality and longevity. So when Covid hit that particular community got hit, of course they were older and so everything shut down faster for a lot longer. My practice was there, had a front desk staff. They, they really gave me everything I needed to run a practice. And so when, when they shut down, I was essentially left to my own, yeah. And so I had to figure things out very quickly in terms of how do I. Take payment. How do I schedule people? Are people even want going to still wanna come to see me virtually? And how is that gonna work with the laws? And, so there was a, there was a lot of things around that. And Derek kind of saw the whole process. Well during that time in California, the laws of course made it. Just, just made it very easy for all doctors in the state to work remotely and see pa and see patients through telehealth. So we found platforms that helped me take payment, helped me do notes keeping everything HIPAA compliant, confidential, so I was able to quickly just pivot and just start seeing patients through Zoom. And even Zoom, acted very quickly and created a HIPAA compliant feature on their website. So again, very, very easy for me to shift to virtual. It was definitely a blessing just in, in terms of, I was able to continue working cuz a lot of people weren't. Mm-hmm. I was able to continue doing what I really loved and enjoyed. And so what I found that was, Pretty easy was that I was able to not only see patients, but it made it easier for them. And it also made it there were, there was essentially like no missed appoints because everybody can just sign on from the convenience of their home. And then, we would, nothing honestly changed. The only thing that changed probably was. I wasn't able to take their blood pressure or I wasn't able to give injections or I love it. You had to, you told me before that you had to teach people how to shoot themselves, which is really interesting. So I would send the syringes and I would send the vials, oh my god, to their homes and essentially walk them through how to give themselves B12 injections and things like that. And so, but people were really open. I, I would say that the clinical outcomes were a lot higher just because people stayed at home. Yeah. They were more they were more willing to try the things because there was really, honestly nothing else to do. They were they were open to changing diet and lifestyle incorporating more self-care. So, we were able to drop ship test kits for hormone panels for Cellular micronutrient assays, a variety of tests. We were able to ship to people's houses and again, just made life super easy. So post covid it, it did take a while for, for the center to open up again. And at that point in time, all of my patients had essentially followed me and decided to see me virtually.

Derek:

Mm-hmm.

Sophie:

So there was really no reason for me to go back to the office. So I. Yeah, yeah, it would, it just was really, really easy for me to continue going virtual.

Derek:

So I know that it's very easy for you to say that it was a brick and mortar business, that pretty much you had a physical location and you also had a facility to provide clients to you or provide patients to you. But now when you're virtual, you're pretty much on your own at this point. So that's something that you had to learn as well. And so maybe if I had to ask. There's other people out there that are facing a similar situation or wanna start a side hustle out. What were the thing, what's, what were some pieces of advice that you wish you had told yourself earlier on about starting a virtual practice?

Sophie:

I would say social media is really important and Derek knows I'm really guilty of this. I have zero, zero social media presence.

Derek:

You didn't need it.

Sophie:

It's number one. It's just not my thing. There's a story that I told myself about it that, I wanted to keep private, things that were important to me. But the reality of it is, is that in order to have a virtual practice or to have any virtual business having a presence online is really important. So what I did have was I had Google reviews, so people who did come to see me, They left reviews, and for the longest time I had no idea that they were leaving these really, really just glowing reviews. And so I was, I was really surprised. And so it just started become, it just started to become a word of mouth practice up until this day, and I still haven't really. Put out any other social media since then, but I, I've just, I've just felt really blessed and lucky just to be able to have a complete practice. That has been word of mouth. And people who come to see me, they, they're already, they already know what I do. They already know what ways I can serve them. So there's virtually no selling on my part.

Derek:

Yeah. Something also to think about too and this is just an aside a side note and then we'll move on, is that, if you go virtual, if you're, you as a listener are thinking about doing something virtually that you. We're doing in person. there's, there's obviously some exceptions to this, but most stuff can be done virtually somehow. You can outsource someone who's local to do the work for you. If they're licensed or like if you're HVAC or a contractor. Obviously things are a little bit different, but for the most part, most people that do any kind of like services, like professional services, you should be able to do stuff virtually and. You'll be running into these same, these same issues. And it takes time to build like this natural, this natural lead network that people are coming in and talking to. They know who you are. And so I just gotta say that I'm really proud of Sophie for building something like this where, people know and she's got a great reputation and people are always. They, they know what they're gonna get when they come and, and work with her. So don't let that discourage you. And the best thing is about this, is that when you set up an online practice now, instead of her being just in the California market or just in like the Bay Area, she basically has the entire world. As a potential client base. And so I would encourage you guys to think about that too. If you're gonna start a services business that, you can, you have way more people to be able to serve and do business with if you go virtual. Because if you're online, then everything can be done online if someone has internet connection.

Sophie:

Yeah, what, what did end up shifting a bit is that When I was practicing in the brick and mortar, it was purely clinical. And so shifting over to more consulting, it's essentially more consulting and coaching. And so I, I do a lot, I give a lot more advice on changing lifestyle nutrition habits looking at functional medicine, testing, things like that versus actually prescribing. Medications or taking people off medications or prescribing hormones so that that had to shift.

Derek:

Yeah. But that's a tweak, right? I mean, it's, it's yes. It's, it's definitely changing your approach to what you do, but it still is something that's within your wheelhouse and your expertise that you can help people with as a service. Then you have to make the change in order to allow it to be virtual. So that's just something, a really important distinction that I'm glad you pointed out for, for the audience there. Alright. I wanted to ask you too as you're building this business up, as we're building our Three Degrees of Freedom. How do you, how do you feel now that you're running a profitable business and traveling full-time or have the ability to travel full-time?

Sophie:

So, it's gonna sound really cliche, but it really does like, feel like a dream come true. I never. When I was doing a brick and mortar, I, there were moments where I just felt like, wow, is this all there is?

Derek:

Mm-hmm.

Sophie:

Although I was helping people, I was, we had a brand new house, just, it, it was almost like we achieved everything that we thought we wanted. There, like I said, there was that feeling of like, gosh, I wish there was a little bit more that was satisfying, if that makes sense. So when the opportunity to go virtual came about again, we just jumped on that. We sold our house and we, like Derek said earlier, we, we started very gradually. I mean, we just drove up and down the West Coast, California, just to start just to, because I think we still had it in our minds that we needed roots somewhere. Like we, our plan was to. Just spend a month or two exploring, doing the digital Noma thing and then finding our way back to the Silicon Valley area and finding a place. I mean, that was really our, our plan. But then we s we went to Salt Lake City, we went to Vegas, we went to Indianapolis Austin, Texas, and all, all of a, a sudden Colorado, all of a sudden we started just expanding these boundaries, these invisible boundaries that we put upon ourselves.

Derek:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sophie:

So when we started to expand and then all of a sudden all of the covid restrictions lifted and we were able to go to Europe. Yeah. And then work there and then test out what it would be like to Just work a few hours and then go explore the the seven different countries that we explored. That just opened my eyes and that feeling that I said about like, wow, was this all there was to life? Like that started to evaporate. Mm-hmm. That started to disappear because it was. Stepping into these different countries, exploring while working, while earning a living. Again, just went beyond anything that I could imagine and to do it together was just yeah, like I said, really a dream come true, and it's one of those dreams that you don't even know that you have until you actually step into it.

Derek:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. What I think what I love about this is that if you have a profitable business or something that you can do remotely while you're out and about I think that being able to have all of these choices so that you have, you can, you can continue to do what you're doing while, while making your lifestyle choices. All at one time is just, it's, it's incredible. Like it's a, it's a really, really cool feeling to be able to have all these choices in front of you. And by having money or your career or something nailed down so that it's virtual and you have control over the time that works. It takes some time to shift because obviously we've both spent a lot of time and energy getting there in like, not intentionally, but it just happened that way. And once we, once we're here, now we're able to kind of play with stuff, right? Not only our work are we playing with, but we're now playing with our life and like what we want to do there. So, Alright. Real quick, I want to ask you what's changed about your workday while you, while you've been on the road?

Sophie:

So it, it's just more adapt, like adapting to the different time zones. So in Europe we are working really late. So consulting, seeing clients, we were up, we honestly never got on European time zone. We were always going to bed like at 2:00 AM and waking up. So, I think just being flexible, really taking care of our bodies and, despite the odd time zone shifts and, the wonky things that it's doing to our circadian pat patterns. Like, it, it, it really hasn't, like I, I think I found. Going back to that level of satisfaction, I found a really great balance because I continue, I love what I do. It's, it's a vocation. It's, to me it doesn't feel like a job. I, I never feel like I'm ever going to retire from it. But I think there is a balance, like for me, if I like the max that I can, Can see clients and do the one-on-one. It's probably like two to three days. Yeah. Like the rest of the days I wanna be doing research looking at lab reports or doing things that require less interaction just because I'm such a big introvert. Mm-hmm. So really listening to what my body needs, I think that's, I've been able to. Adapt to that because before, when you do have a brick and mortar or a corporate job or any place, you have to actually be there physically and drive to, you have to adapt to that context and environment. Whereas, here, We're just allowing the natural adaptation to occur.

Derek:

Yeah, I love it. Very well said. I cannot say it any better than that. So let's talk about something that you are an expert in and that I personally, ironically, have been struggling with up until recently. And even still, I've got my moments. Right. And that's one of the reasons why you're such an important part of my life. It's, it's really, I'm, I'm blessed to have you as, as a, as a wife What would you recommend for people to do with self-care while they're traveling? Or, maybe they're just you, they're just at home trying to build up the side business while they're working really hard to build your Three Degrees freedom. What do you have to say about prioritizing self-care during this phase? Whether you're trying to get your Three Degrees of Freedom or you're already out there?

Sophie:

I mean, I think you said it best. I think, you said prioritize self-care. Yeah, I think. You really, really, really like, without a doubt, without question, you must prioritize. And I think, again, this might be another cliche that we all hear, but it's, it's like what Derek says all the time. If, if you don't address the cracks while when you're, let's say, starting a business or doing anything, if you're trying to scale. Then, those cracks be, become like canyons. It's the same way with our health. So when we were at home and we had everything in one place, did we prioritize self-care? Maybe not. But when we're traveling, I mean, those little cracks that we had, like not staying hydrated, they can become canyons. I mean, when, when you're. Traveling a across the world, it's really easy for your immune system to get suppressed and for you to get sick. And in this day and age, I mean, in Japan, people are still wearing masks, walking outside by themselves or driving in their car like it's They're very, very cautious, especially foreigners coming to the country. So I, I think going back to the self-care aspect, it's, it, it's everything. It is the foundation for for making sure that you can continue traveling, for you to continue doing, working your business, working for you to continue living this lifestyle. I mean, granted, having Three Degrees of Freedom, but. Just any lifestyle like that has to be fully in place. And so if you can take away anything from this particular podcast, it's just, take a look at your self-care routine right now and if the, if the term self-care doesn't land well or sit well change it up. What are some things that you really can do to just create time and honor yourself.

Derek:

So what does what I, I know that maybe self-care is kind of a, an overused expression, but what does that mean to you? Like what, can you tell me what in your mind as a, as a, as a naturopathic doctor, a functional medicine practitioner What does self-care look like for the balance of building a solid foundation so that people can explore and work and do the things that they want to do? What does that look like to you? Like what does a what, what does a solid self care routine look like?

Sophie:

So my preferred term and phrase to use as more foundations of health.

Derek:

Mm-hmm.

Sophie:

Simply because, when we hear the term foundation, it's, you think of having a strong base. You can't build a house on like a cracked foundation. And so making sure that the e the easy things to do of course, is to make sure you stay hydrated. Your body is 70% plus water, so if your dehydrated, all of a sudden your immune system will mount a response and. You're just gonna be more prone to getting viruses and not being able to fight off those infections. Sleep, sleep is also a huge one. There are, there are studies now that show black coffee to be very, very beneficial in terms of extending longevity, preventing dementia a variety of a variety of things. However, Of course, if you drink it too late in the afternoon it can create dehydration. It can prevent you from getting the deeper stages of restorative sleep. So just kind of those really common things. They're, a lot of people are getting like n a D. IV infusions, like really fancy things to try to biohack their health. And I would say that, before you do all of that, it's again important just to check off the core boxes of Yeah. Of, of what really your body needs because your body hasn't evolved. That much to where, infrared saunas or, all of those things are wonderful, but if you do them, if you stack them on top of a deficient body you're, it, it's not gonna move the needle very much.

Derek:

Yeah, I would say the doing the 20% that will get 80% of the results. I think that most of us know what that is inherently. Obviously it helps eat more vegetables in the middle of the day, right? It helps to give yourself some self time for yourself to be able to work on things that are important to you and wake up time and actually make it an appointment with yourself. Even if you have to wake up a little bit earlier just to do that, right? If you have a busy day with kids and school and work and stuff like that, having a little bit of self-care, fitting it in somewhere so it is time for yourself is really going to help amplify all the other aspects of your life and you can do that with hydration, sleep all these other things that Sophie's been teaching me, cuz I am her number one Guinea pig. And I've been learning a lot of stuff about myself and what people need. So One. One last question that I have for you before we start wrapping the show up here is sometimes people get to a point where, I don't wanna say it's too late, but they've really gone far down the path of burning the candle at both ends and they've entered what we know commonly as burnout. You are someone who is an expert at trying to prevent that from happening. That's what naturopathic doctors are good at, is prevention. Because that's usually the best way to help keep diseases at bay instead of having it show up and then try to cure it. Right. Prevention is always the best way to do it. How would you identify burnout? And then how would you try to treat someone that has already kind of burned the candles of both ends and has nothing left?

Sophie:

Mm-hmm. That's a really, really wonderful question because for me it was really hard to recognize burnout properly. Had I not experienced it, had I not seen Derek experience it? Yeah, we both definitely. Went through our, our stages of burnout, for example, we were, if you remember the days when we were working all day and then mm-hmm. After working a full day, we would go to our real estate properties and we would get down our hands and knee and knees, hands and knees and, and lathe flooring. And then we would like paint the walls these 25 foot walls and I mean, we. Definitely burned the candles from both ends. And we did not get adequate sleep. We were not eating well. We were not doing any of the things that I mentioned. Because we were so focused on creating financial freedom, we were so focused on hustling. We were so focused on achievement. And I think when you get to the point where, You don't care about anything and there's no motivation, there's, it's almost like you've just kind of resigned to life that that's kind of the number one sign of burnout.

Derek:

Yeah. Like what are you, like, what are you doing? What are you working so hard for? Right. So what would you do when people have kind of like had this breakdown moment, right? Where they're like, it's too much, I'm done with this. Or motivation starts slowly declining energy levels drop family starts taking notice, your mood starts changing. What what would you recommend for some of these people who are entering this phase and, to kind of reverse some of that.

Sophie:

So a key point is that it's definitely reversible. So, From a clinical standpoint some people who have depleted their adrenal glands, the adrenal glands are the little bean shaped organs that sit on top of the kidneys and they actually release a lot of the stress hormone that help you survive on a day-to-day basis. So, over time, when you're, day in, day out, Burning the candle, what happens is that your adrenal lands just get pushed to the max and you'll start to notice that, you're, you're just tired. There's no, there's no energy, there's no motivation like Derek was saying. So if you start to even feel that, just make sure that you definitely take a break and incorporate those self-care things because if you can identify the self-awareness is number one, you can identify that very quickly. Most people can't. I mean, I don't think we did. We didn't push through the fatigue.

Derek:

Yeah. I mean, people were telling us, but we were just kind of like, yeah, we're, we're gonna blow through that. We're like, it's just, no one needs sleep because, when you get up and do it again in the middle of the day, like it's, it's almost as if Yeah. It, it never happened. So, yeah. I, I I think that like, yeah, the, the awareness is the number one piece of it and noticing that you have an issue.

Sophie:

Mm-hmm.

Derek:

Like it all starts in the head. And then there's a way to kind of like start to rebuild that foundation,

Sophie:

And the body and mind have a very special and strong connection.

Derek:

Yeah.

Sophie:

So if you can really get into that, that's why, creating time and space for you to just listen to your body and to practice breathing techniques or to go for walks or to make yourself go to bed a little bit earlier, take a nice long bath. Really all of those things have a, have a really strong cumulative effect that will help support your, your adrenal glands. And the reason why I've been shifting into helping people with burnout, especially, professionals high performers, executives entrepreneurs, is because I consult for a lot of them, and I've over the past few years, I've, I've seen people do like, nine figure exits like just really, really high performing people. When we get their lab results back, they are depleted. We'll do this one particular test called dural cortisol, where we're actually taking a look at your cortisol levels, your stress hormone, and how the pattern of secretion that occurs over the course of a day. And honestly, everyone, Who works at these high levels, they are just all flatlined.

Derek:

Yeah.

Sophie:

And they're all reporting the same thing. I mean, just yeah, mood swings. The number one thing. And this is something this is an area that I've been practicing for the past 10 years. It's just hormones. Number one thing that we've seen is just hormones are completely shut. Sex hormones. Men come in with just young, healthy men come in with zero testosterone. Women, have irregular cycles. So there's just a variety of things. And so another aspect to the burnout is just that, you're not the fatigue or some of those, some of those very common symptoms aren't going to be forefront.

Derek:

Mm-hmm.

Sophie:

When there's relationship problems because of lack of sexual intimacy or things like that, that's when people start coming to me because that becomes, the forefront again, the prioritization of, well, I. My relationship is on the line, or I am my hair is falling out, or, that kind of thing actually caused people to come see me first. And then as we work through, as they tell me their story, that's when the quote unquote burnout happens. And so, of course, burnout is another, one of those one of those terms that it can mean different things to many people, but from my perspective we, it, we can look at your, we can take a look at the course of how you live your life. Incorporate that, take a look at that context of your your lab results. And, and, and really, I, I can definitely see a difference in how your body's responding and how your resilience is to stress.

Derek:

Yeah. Absolutely. I, I think it's super, super important and, and thank you for that. And, and I hope that those of you who are listening have like, know what she's talking about because I've experienced it before and we've all had it in points in time in our life. But remember, we're, we're trying to pursue lifestyle design here. This is the Three Degrees of Freedom. We're trying to have a life where we can have location freedom, time freedom, and financial freedom. But if you don't have your health, Which is the number one underpinning of all of these things, like what does it even matter that you have all this money with financial freedom? What does it matter to you if you can change your location? If you can't travel because you're unhealthy to board a plane or you can't do it, or you've gotta take too many meds or whatever, right? You can't leave home for too long and time freedom. If you're so unhealthy that you have to continue to go to the doctor or you're sick all of the time, that is no quality of life here. So that's the underpinning of all of it, is making sure that you have, a functional whole lifestyle, right? While we're pursuing with our active work, the Three Degrees of Freedom. That's why everything is all woven together. And why I wanted to bring Sophie onto the podcast to talk about this, cuz she's seen me go through this. She's building a business and actually, we're building her business together. I am her c o o now. And so I'm taking some of her stuff and helping her build operations into social media and all of that great stuff. Now we're able to do that because we have choices, because we've set ourselves up into this path of life, this lifestyle, where we've got these, the ability to choose, right? Because we have those Three Degrees of Freedom. So I just wanted to inspire that into you guys and give you a little bit of a window into our life at this point in time. And I, I, I think that I think that it's, it's a lifestyle that everyone deserves to live and you deserve to have the lifestyle too. Anything you wanna add is final thoughts before we wrap up?

Sophie:

No. Thank you for having me on. And I, I feel like this is a really important topic and I'm glad that we got to share it and inspire the listeners.

Derek:

Yeah. Yeah. And not only like this one other layer that we talked about constantly in season one of our podcast of Elevate Your Equity is the relationship aspect too. So you've got the Three Degrees of Freedom, which is the lifestyle for you and your family. Then you've got the health, and then you have your relationships as well. So all of these things are interconnected. And in season three here we're going to be exploring this for a very long time and talking with great guests and maybe bringing on Sophie again to talk a little bit more about this and our journey as it unfolds, because we're super excited to share everything with you all. And that's what we're looking to do. So we're super thrilled to have you come with us and inspire you to help enable your own Three Degrees of Freedom.

Sophie:

Mm-hmm. And just a plug, so like Derek said we're in the city of Beppu in Japan.

Derek:

Yeah.

Sophie:

And Beppu is a hot spring town, and they're very, very well known for helping people focus on their health. So there's natural hot springs with minerals and, and just people really take care of themselves here. And so they set wonderful examples. It's a wonderful energy to be around. Just a great reminder that there's a good majority of people in the world who don't feel the need to hustle or to conquer or to achieve. Like they're just so at peace with their current life and that's freedom.

Derek:

That's amazing. Yeah, because Sophie and I actually started asking that question too. We started ask, we started wondering to ourselves like, why couldn't we just build a business that creates income constantly and then that's it. We don't need to grow anymore. We've seriously had that thought. We've seriously had that, that, that conversation and it will continue to be a conversation. Or it may be something like, this is the season for us to slow down and just enjoy, the cashflow coming in and then when we're ready we can go back in and rebuild. And again, this comes back down to the Three Degrees of Freedom and having healthy relationships and a healthy relationship with your own body as well, with your health. So anyway, I can't think of a better way to end it. So thank you coming for, coming on the show. I really appreciate you coming on.

Sophie:

Thank you.

Derek:

And dear listener, thank you as well for listening all the way to the end of this podcast. We're super excited to have you here with us on season three and please keep tuning in and wherever you're listening to this, Please make sure that you like, subscribe, comment and check us out online. Right now you can find us at elevateequity.org/podcastgift, and there you'll get the Five Step Blueprint that Sophie and I followed to help get our Three Degrees of Freedom up and out there and moving. So feel free to go ahead and download that and take a look at all of our other content online, on YouTube and social media and everything. It's all on our website at elevateequity.org. And thank you again for listening. All right. Have a great one, you guys. We'll talk to you soon.