The Peering Podcast

Episode 12 - Regulating the Human Operating System for Peak Performance with Dani Alger
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[00:00:36] Mike Richardson: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Peering Podcast. The best way to see the future is to peer into it together. I'm excited about our guest today. I've known Danny Alger and her husband Sean Alger. I don't know Danny. We may end up speaking about Sean just a little bit. We'll give him a shout out right now.

He's a pretty good guy, I must admit. I've known Danny Alger and Sean Alger for, I don't know, maybe 20 years or so, maybe more.

[00:01:03] Dani Alger: Right.

[00:01:04] Mike Richardson: And, uh, as we'll find that in a moment when we, when we, uh, introduce her. Danny's doing some really interesting stuff right now. About the sort of health and wellness side of being a business professional.

And, uh, she came and spoke at one of our San Diego peer community all member meetings a couple of years ago and just aced it. Everybody ate it up. So I had her come back and, uh, do individual sessions with my individual forums. She came and spoke to all of them. And they just loved it. So I wanted to get Danny back here and peer into everything that she does.

So welcome Danny Alger.

[00:01:46] Dani Alger: Thank you so much, Mike Richardson.

[00:01:49] Mike Richardson: to have you here.

[00:01:51] Dani Alger: crazy to think it's been about 20 years. You're right.

[00:01:53] Mike Richardson: So let's go back there. I ca, I mean, I'm fuzzy. How on earth did you and I first meet?

[00:01:59] Dani Alger: I wanna say, uh, Sean was in Vistage.

[00:02:02] Mike Richardson: Yeah. Yep.

[00:02:03] Dani Alger: Right. And you were the facilitator and then Yeah. Yeah, yeah. and then events. We just saw each other at events quite a bit. And then, uh, then I was, you know, I still do some photography, so I had a headshot in brand, or I have a headshot in branding business. And you became a client?

[00:02:22] Mike Richardson: and you came up to my, my house that time and, uh, did a photo shoot with the whole family around the house and we got some glorious pictures, and that was a, that was a lot of gray hair ago.

[00:02:34] Dani Alger: It's been a while.

[00:02:35] Mike Richardson: An updated version of that. It's almost white now. Actually, Danny, for those of you watching on.

[00:02:46] Dani Alger: Oh, you're doing great.

[00:02:48] Mike Richardson: Now, actually, that's not a bad segue, right? Aging gracefully, or even more importantly, Danny, as a business professional, you know, in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, uh, yeah, I happen to be in my sixties. Everybody. Um, you know, what does it take to sort of stay productive, stay energized, stay focused in everything that we're trying to get done?

That's what you are now working on. So tell us about that. What's in your portfolio of things that you now work on? Danny.

[00:03:17] Dani Alger: Great question. Well, you knew me. You met me as a headshot and branding photographer, and so while all of this work seems new, it's actually the OG work for me because I actually studied biology, psychology, and nutrition in college, and I was a nutrition counselor for quite a while

[00:03:39] Mike Richardson: One smart, one smart lady, everybody. Very smart

[00:03:42] Dani Alger: Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah. I, I always thank you. I'm, I'm, I'm a little bit of a closet nerd. I kind of like all

[00:03:48] Mike Richardson: quite why you married short. I do not know,

[00:03:50] Dani Alger: Yeah. Maybe,

[00:03:51] Mike Richardson: I'm sure you'll tell us that story later.

[00:03:53] Dani Alger: Yeah, yeah, yeah. anyway, and so I was always obsessed with all things health and human behavior. And then I, you know, we had three kids in two years. Very, uh. Typical overachievers and uh, and so I start, you know, just being an entrepreneur at heart.

I started photographing the kids because it was just entertaining. And then the neighborhood kids, and then that turned into a business that once the kids were in school, I realized, oh, I wanna. You know, only work while they're at school. So that became the headshot and branding. So I could do like the, the work hours and not evenings and weekends.

But, as time went on, I worked with a lot of Sean's clients because he would go into companies and kind of triage the situation and realized that a lot of the issues were. leadership and the dysregulation of the leaders and, you know, it really caused me to, especially over CID and seeing that most really smart people don't know what it means to truly be a healthy human.

And you had mentioned, you know, my, the DIG method stands for deep internal growth. It is in the category of health and wellness, but it's so much different. And so I'm always trying to find a way to create a concise way to explain how it's different. So here, here I go.

[00:05:24] Mike Richardson: Just one more time though. One more time. Give us, it's the DIG dig method, which stands for what?

[00:05:29] Dani Alger: big, deep internal growth.

[00:05:32] Mike Richardson: Great. So tell us, tell us.

[00:05:35] Dani Alger: It's a process that I created knowing from all the information that I learned and all the life experiences that I had of, you know, doing things oftentimes the wrong way and teaching people how to work with and not against our own biology and our, current. Environment. Our current lifestyle is very much against how we are naturally designed to operate.

So we are seeing so much, disease, illness, uh. Mental and metabolic health. And, and Yes, exactly. So stress is over 90% of what people are dealing with now. Like almost again, way over 90% of all hospital and doctor visits are coming from stress. And this is lifestyle stuff. And you know, we supposedly have some of the best healthcare ever, yet we are sicker than we've ever been in the history of humanity.

And there is something wrong and, and I created the dig method as a way to teach the basics of the human operating system so that people can learn to live in more alignment with how we were designed to function. And we can, we can do that even in our current environment when we know, I always say we are losing right now.

As a society at health and wellness, and I wanna teach the rules of the game because you have to know the rules of the game in order to start winning. And of us know the operating system of our iPhone more than we know the operating system of our, of ourselves.

[00:07:17] Mike Richardson: it. The human operating system, everybody. And you're getting a sense already, everybody, why I was so excited to have Danny come and speak to that old member meeting and then to come to my individual forums and now to have this conversation today to try to go deeper because in my work around agility that I've been doing for 25 years. that's a complex operating system, right? Lots of moving parts, especially if you're trying to do it at an enterprise scale. But actually, when you distill it down, distill it down, and distill it down, you arrive very quickly at what I call agile composure inside of an individual human being. In the face of craziness and warp speed pace that's getting faster and faster and faster, and you are having to juggle more and more and more things to sustain some level of success these days. It really, really, really tests our inner human composure. That's my way of articulating what Danny is helping people with.

And you used a word a little while ago, a few minutes ago, Danny, that I'd love to double click on. You said dysregulation, dysregulated. Tell us about that.

[00:08:34] Dani Alger: just a real quick, foundation of what the dig method is, is it's circadian sinking nervous system regulation. And so that's where that nervous system regulation. We are either in fight or flight, or we're in rest and digest. It's one or the other. And the dysregulation comes from spending a crazy amount of time of our waking hours in a state of fight or flight.

And that sounds dramatic, but it, it's, it's what's happening. And we are, no matter how advanced our world gets, we are operating on caveman software and our, our programming is built not for happiness and success. It's built for us to survive. And until we really understand that and learn again to work with and not against that we are going to be dysregulated.

And when, when we are dysregulated, there's chemical reactions in our brain and body that are happening that, you know, we have so much control over the chemistry that our brain and body produces. If we're aware of it, if we know how to, uh, optimize for it.

[00:09:52] Mike Richardson: Stay

staying in a, in a regulated, balanced state.

[00:09:57] Dani Alger: And we can actually start to feel when we're dysregulated. And like I said, I like to come and teach people ways to instantly calm your nervous system down so you can get back into a regulated state. Because when we're dysregulated, we're operating on cortisol and adrenaline,

which, you know, you know, I like working with high performers.

I, I love. The entrepreneurial brain, the high performing brain, but typically it's a very large generalization, but it's, it's, it's a good one. They are running on stress, chemistry and stomach acid, right? they are so driven and eventually there's repercussions for that. You know, and it starts happening usually mid forties, but right around 50.

They're, you know, they're starting to get things like, oh, all of a sudden high blood pressure, uh, type two diabetes starts showing up. Pre-diabetes, heart disease, I mean, all the things that, that are what they consider to be chronic disease, people are starting to deal with at a much younger age, much younger age now, and it's unfortunate.

[00:11:11] Mike Richardson: Yeah, and you were talking about..

stress, chemistry and performance chemistries, as it were, which are good things. Everybody, when we need to spike, right? When we need to, like, you know, as you said, fight or flight, right? Those are good things,

but not when that becomes the norm and we're in the red zone all the time.

That starts to become very toxic. Does it not, Danny?

[00:11:36] Dani Alger: Right. It. Well, it breaks you down. it breaks down everything in our body because you think about that, yes, you're right. It, we need those mechanisms. If a child runs in front of our car, we want that cortisol to stop us where we can slam the brakes on before it registers even in our brain.

But when we're in that chronic state, cortisol creates inflammation. It creates heat in our body. And when you have inflammation and heat in your body, it's destroying every organ, cell and system. And so learning to get out of that state and get into a more regulated state, you literally bring the heat down in your body.

You really chill out. Like that's a real thing. You know, you, you're able to, you're able to think more clearly. And, and, you know, for, for business people understanding that when you are in a dysregulated fight or flight activated nervous system state. You actually don't have access to your clear, your strategic, your creative thinking, because your brain is prioritizing survival in that mode.

And so that's where I, you know, would encourage people. You have so much more brain power when you're able to be in a regulated state and with the world and technology and things changing, you wanna stay at your peak performance.

[00:13:02] Mike Richardson: Yeah. That, so that's the payoff here, everybody. And we'll double click on, on a moment into the dig method and the, the, the sort of four components that you got, Danny, and kind of give us the speed to, but everybody. That's the payoff, right? Listen to what Danny is saying. If you can stay in a more regulated state, yes, of course when you need to spike, you do, but you can return to this sort of more equilibrium regulated state.

That's where peak performance happens. On a sustained basis, right? and you get your creative faculties and your strategic faculties back. That's why you have great ideas when you're driving the car to and from work or in the shower or when you're doing yard work, right? Because you are, you are, you have more access to all of your creative faculties, and you're not in this red zone state where you might feel like you're being super productive, but actually you're not.

Because blood is draining from your brain and actually your IQ just went down. And that's why when you know after a heated moment in a meeting or an argument, and once you finally calmed down, you, you think to yourself, oh gosh, I wish I'd said this or, I wish I hadn't said that. That's because you got your creative faculties back and all, all of a sudden light bulbs are going on in your mind.

Where you didn't have those faculties five minutes ago because you dumbed yourself down because of the chemistry and all of that toxicity that's happening in your body and in your brain. So that's the payoff, everybody. If

if you wanna have sustained performance, can you stay in this zone that Danny is beginning to describe?

What, what else would you say about all of that? Danny?

[00:14:41] Dani Alger: God. Those were all fantastic examples, Mike, of exactly. I mean, once people understand, you know, and especially leaders, because there's things that are, just biology and the way we're designed is that, you know, you work with mostly leaders. That's who, that's my. Target, you know, clientele as well. And so whether you're leading a team, a company, or a family.

Humans calibrate to their leader. And when a leader is dysregulated and functioning on cortisol and adrenaline, cortisol is the most contagious chemical that we produce. And so not only are weed dis or leader, the leader dysregulated, but they're affecting the entire company and everyone who works with them.

[00:15:30] Mike Richardson: More than you realize. Everybody, more than you realize your mode, your state,

[00:15:38] Dani Alger: Yeah.

[00:15:39] Mike Richardson: condition is oozing through your paws and contagiously infecting everybody else much more than you realize.

[00:15:50] Dani Alger: Right, right. And once people realize that, it's even more motivating to figure it out because they, they can get regulated, which is. Much, much simpler than people, uh, think and, and again, going back to the difference between, you know, most health and wellness programs, which don't always have great success.

And I, and I'm gonna tell you why I use this analogy of building a house on a week foundation. And when you are focusing on mindset and you have the best nutrition and you have the best trainer and working out. But you're not sleeping. Your nervous system is shot, and you're literally marinating in stress chemistry, like cortisol and adrenaline.

Your foundation is cracked. And so the mindset, the fitness, the diet, it's it. That's the house. And I'm not saying that doesn't matter, but we all know what happens when you build a house on a weak foundation. When the storms of life come, which they will, your home is wiped out.

[00:16:58] Mike Richardson: I love the, I love the metaphor of, I love the metaphor of marinating. Stress, chemistry, everybody.

[00:17:05] Dani Alger: It's what we're doing.

[00:17:07] Mike Richardson: you are just wallowing in it. You're soaking in it, you're sponging it up, and it's just not healthy. And, um, you know, you, you, you are causing me to think. You know, Danny, for me it's to some degree back to the contagious idea.

It's, it's kind of everybody as leaders, when we walk into a room full of people, like we're walking into a meeting or something, what aura walks in with us? How does the air change in the room? What's the expectation? Uh, that just changed in the room. The electricity changes in, in the air, in the room.

Because of the aura that walks in with us. And do people have a, an expectation that, oh gosh, this is gonna be a tough meeting. It typically, it typically, you know, gets a bit toxic, or is it No. Yeah, we're in a tough situation, but you know, when he or she walks in. actually this air of calm that sets in that no matter what we are up against, we are gonna figure out how to prevail.

That's called composure, everybody. And.

[00:18:15] Dani Alger: Yeah, that's called good leadership.

[00:18:17] Mike Richardson: And, you know, not that this is a constant work in progress. We, you, I'm still on this journey. You are still on this journey of figuring out how to, how to master all of this. But you know a little bit about my story. So from 2018 to 2021, I went back and ran a company again, a global company.

I became the global president. Of, uh, uh, um, to, to, with the copilot, to the, the, the founder, CEO. And, um, the business has been around for about 20 years. It had grown substantially, has done very, very well, and, um, it turned into a nightmare situation, not least of all, because of COVID.

[00:18:55] Dani Alger: Hmm.

[00:18:56] Mike Richardson: It ended up with me leaving after three years because we needed to really cut costs extensively and it survived.

Um, but we went through the wars. We really went through the wars and you know, I certainly wasn't perfect by any means, but when I left it was a very tearful departure all around. Not least of all for me. Uh, we were still in the thick of COVID, so we had to do it all by Zoom, but we had a few final meetings by Zoom tears all around.

And the number one thing that they all said to me in their own way, shape, or form, but the word that stuck that they said to me, and I get emotional just thinking about it, is I said, Mike, you were a warrior. We, we wouldn't have survived without you. And how on earth you held it all together. And on a good day would walk into a room where we are up against it. And yet somehow or other you managed to find a way to walk into that room with an air of composure and, and, and being collected and, and confidence. And that just infected all of us. And we just found a way. To get through what we were up against. And so that's what was coming up for me. By no means am I perfect and for sure I had lots of toxic chemistry going around my body, you know, on a bad day, but on a good day, not least of all, because you know, I'm, I'm sort of schooled in agility and I'm schooled in composure and it goes all the way back to the start of my career.

we managed to find that. Positive chemistry, that regulated chemistry where we could put our shoulders to the wheel and we could push on through and when, and indeed we did and we survived. So that's what came up for me, Danny.

[00:20:50] Dani Alger: That's a great story because, uh, it, it's everything. And, and what I try to explain to people, because I'm, uh, I'm mostly talking to leaders, but whoever, we're, we're all a leader in some way in our lives, and, and you think about. The person, the most regulated person in the room is actually the one that has all the power.

And as a leader, you want that to be you. And as a parent, you want that to be you. But I can assure you there's households where the most regulated person in the room is the child and they're in control.

[00:21:27] Mike Richardson: Gosh,

[00:21:27] Dani Alger: so that.

[00:21:29] Mike Richardson: teenagers, no, dad.

[00:21:31] Dani Alger: But, but so, so that's a really powerful story, Mike, because again, it's that co-regulation. When someone presents us with solid regulated leadership, we're, we're on board. We're in

[00:21:47] Mike Richardson: So let's

[00:21:47] Dani Alger: we can feel it, and it's so much under, under the surface, right? This, I mean, our nervous systems are so impacted,

[00:21:54] Mike Richardson: So let's double click on that, Danny. So being regulated, being deregulated, I know you have sort of four cornerstone pieces to the dig method. Can you give us kind of the speed tour of those?

[00:22:06] Dani Alger: Sure. So, uh, I would say it's, it's rooted in the three rocks that of what I consider to be the foundation of human health. And like I said before, circadian rhythm. Nervous system regulation and, and biochemical manage our own biochemistry, the management of that. And so I have created the dig method in four lifestyle elements to get you lined up to biology, and that would be what you think.

What you eat, how you move, and how you sleep. Because all four of those lifestyle elements are what, uh, create a chemical response in your brain and body that's either working for you or working against

[00:22:52] Mike Richardson: Think, eat, move, sleep. Everybody give us a, give us a sort of double click on each of those, a little bit, Danny, and tell us more.

[00:23:01] Dani Alger: Okay, so what you think? I, I feel like that's such a great place to start. You know, I always kind of ask people, which one do you think is more important? And many people say sleep, many people, but I think they're all equally important because you gotta have all four tires on the road to get to where you wanna go.

And I think it's our superpower as humans, uh, the ability to think about what we think about. Because every single thought you have is created in a chemical response in your brain and body. And oftentimes 'cause our brain is, is wired for survival. So 80% of what we think about is negative. Oh, that's a bummer because that's just default mode.

And so, um, as much as I teach people how to work with their biology, uh, the way we think is one area where I teach people to override the system, it's that important. And it's not just thinking positively. It's, it's really getting in there. Again, it's a psychology behind. Health, uh, learning. You know what, especially I'll use entrepreneurs and, and leaders as a, as an example, so often they are running from something.

And so that's the subconscious driver of everything, which has gotten them to a point of success. But when you have pushed and pushed and pushed for so long, again, the repercussions, uh, the health repercussions of that. And so kind of turning that into, figuring out what is driving them, really drill down to the psychology of that and the subconscious.

Work, but also switching that to being pulled towards something. It's a whole different energy and it's a much healthier energy, but until you know what is driving you so hard, it's hard to switch it over to understanding it and then, you know, being pulled towards something.

[00:25:02] Mike Richardson: Love that. Thinking about what you are thinking, everybody or sometimes, um, seeing, you know, when, when we, when I do my work around agility, it's all about how you look at things, right? How you are framing things. So you, you are seeing how you are seeing. Um, and, um. I love this idea of of, of thinking about how you are thinking.

[00:25:23] Dani Alger: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:24] Mike Richardson: And, and le raising your consciousness to that level where you are working on your thinking. You're not just working in your thinking

[00:25:33] Dani Alger: Yes.

[00:25:33] Mike Richardson: because now you can be more master of your own destiny. And you know, I, you know, we've all read many books around emotional intelligence and, uh, the art of possibility and all those kinds of things.

And you know, in many ways everybody, it's all made up, right? It's all made up. It's all

[00:25:52] Dani Alger: It's the stories.

[00:25:53] Mike Richardson: So you might as well make it up in a positive way because then you are going to seed your chemistry to remain positive, not toxic. Uh,

[00:26:05] Dani Alger: love that you said that. It's, it's all, they're all just stories that we're making up and so it's like if you're gonna tell yourself lies, tell better lies that are at least gonna give you some good chemistry.

[00:26:16] Mike Richardson: so that's the thinking part. Where are we going next? Eat, sleep, or move Danny.

[00:26:21] Dani Alger: Okay. Uh, think, eat. Let's go eat next. You know, there's a whole new area of nutritional psychology, believe it or not, because what you eat is going to determine the chemical reaction that happens in your body. And you've heard me speak about this before, being in meetings when everybody's got morning meetings, when everyone's got.

Coffee and a bagel. And I don't mean to judge anybody, but I just want people to understand that when you, what you put in your, in, in your mouth on an empty stomach first thing, whatever time your breakfast break fast is, um, will create a chemical response. So you're either going to get an extreme glucose, which is sugar response, that's gonna spike your glucose.

And the higher it goes, the quicker it drops. And so when you start with coffee, which is a big nervous system disruptor, caffeine, uh, which we all love our caffeine. Uh, but, but you know, you eat, you eat a bagel or high carbohydrate breakfast that. Doesn't have enough protein to slow the release of, of glucose into our system.

And you've just now put yourself on a, on a, on a sugar rollercoaster throughout the day. 'cause the, the first thing you put in your mouth start sets the tone. And so just helping people, even switching, you know, I had a client that would start her morning with a smoothie and by. 10 o'clock, she's like, Ugh, exhausted.

And I, I mean, it was such an easy fix, like, oh wait, no, go get your egg white bites at Starbucks instead, and, and, and some avocado and, and your set. And she was like, oh my gosh, what a difference that made. I mean, we're talking little shifts that once people know, it's like, oh, I can do that. Right. And so the eating part is definitely an and when you are having constant glucose spikes and crashes, it affects your mood.

And like we talked about earlier, being in fight or flight, what you eat can put you into fight or flight.

[00:28:12] Mike Richardson: Yep.

[00:28:12] Dani Alger: And it completely disregulates your nervous system, and you're like, wait a minute. I just, you know, I mean, especially in an office setting where there's, you know, lots of treats around and people just walk by the donuts and just cut themselves off one while you're creating your brain power right there, or limiting your brain power.

[00:28:28] Mike Richardson: I remember, I remember you mentioned Vistage and I was a vicious chair for many years. Everybody and, and Danny's husband, Sean Alga was in my group for many years and we had some great speakers come through on this topic and a very famous one came through and um, you know, he explained to everybody that really it's sugar.

That's the problem. It's not fat, it's sugar. That's the problem. AKA carbohydrates. In other words, you know, if you can lean more towards protein, you still need some carbs. But if you can lean more towards protein and all of that kind of stuff, and it was a revelation to me, um, you know, uh, that, you know, bread is a bad thing, Mike.

I mean, it's like, yes, you can have a little bit, but, um, it's not, you know, it's, it is just the sugar delivery mechanism and be by the time that, you know, the bread reaches your stomach. It's just pure sugar. And, um. Uh, so for me it was a, a whole paradigm shift and how can we take charge of that rollercoaster ride and sort of smooth it out so that we don't experience these big highs in these big lows because it is just really inviting the rest of our operating system to be on a rollercoaster ride with it.

[00:29:43] Dani Alger: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:44] Mike Richardson: so I love what you're saying, Danny, and, um, how can we, you know, what I, what I find I'm sure many people do is. I get lazy and when I get lazy, go to bad stuff. I pick, I do go to the fridge and find a bagel 'cause I'm just lazy. I'm in a hurry. And rather than, you know, make myself some eggs and some smoked salmon and you know, a little bit of vegetables, right.

I just, I just reached for the bagel instead. 'cause I'm being lazy and I'm in a hurry. Or, or, you know, slice of pizza or all of that, which yeah, of course I can have anything I want, you know, in moderation. But that's what I find is what, where I derail myself is I just get lazy. And actually one of the speakers used to say, he said, trust me, if it's in your house, you will eat it at some point or other you'll eat it.

[00:30:40] Dani Alger: Yep. Right? Yes. And

[00:30:45] Mike Richardson: So that was eat.

[00:30:46] Dani Alger: yeah,

[00:30:47] Mike Richardson: Are we going next?

[00:30:48] Dani Alger: so let's go to move because that's a good partner with what you eat. So, little bit back on what you eat, you're gonna get an a glucose spike. And so depending on. What, you know, how much you balance that out. You wanna flatten that glucose spike because it allows you access to, you know, your higher level of thinking, your mood and, and emotional reactiveness.

It is really help helping that. So, but. You know, with movement, movement is such a powerful way to activate our chemistry and deactivate some of our chemistry. So when you do eat, you know, we just have a normal meal, you are going to get a glucose response. Uh, unless you eat pure fat, you will get a glucose response.

And so the way to flatten that line and get back into a regulated state is to move. A lot of people think, oh, well I don't have time to go to the gym. No, you need minutes. And I always suggest people, you can flatten that glucose spike by 30 to 70% and, and, you know, without getting lost in the weeds, but understanding how many, uh, over half.

Uh, Americans are either pre-diabetic or type two diabetic already, and those glucose spikes is what causes that because then your insulin has to come in and save the day. Well, if you move, you don't need the insulin to, to, to come and figure out the problem. You, you, the glucose can be sucked in to your muscles to where it can be processed so that the insulin doesn't have to keep coming out.

So eat a meal, go out. I mean, Europeans are quite famous for this. Go for a five to 10 minute walk. That little bit of movement is enough, especially when you're get, when you get your glutes and your booty involved, your biggest muscles in your body. I don't care if you have to stand and do 15 to 20 body squats, it will make a difference if you're standing and working.

Do some cal raises. Your calves are brilliant at pulling in glucose, like all these little things that you think. I could do that, it will mitigate, it will let flatten that glucose spike 30 to 70%. And so not only are you, um, getting back into a regulated state by doing that, you're using less insulin and you clear up your higher faculties much quicker.

[00:33:12] Mike Richardson: Yeah. You know, everybody, I, you know, clearly there's there probably nobody on the planet that's perfect at all of this. Maybe Danny is on a good day, but I'm certainly not. And you mentioned, you mentioned circadian rhythm earlier, and you know this about me already. For me at least, my oversimplification of that is sort of understanding my energy cycle throughout the day.

Right. And I'm a, I'm an early bird. I'm a, I'm a morning person, so I love to get up and, and get at it really early. I mean, in some people's language. Stupidly early, but that's just how I'm wired. I go to bed early so I can still get my eight, eight hours of sleep in on a good, on a good day. Um, and you know, I, I'm at my peak mental performance in the early morning hours, so, so the last thing I want to do is go to the gym and do physical things.

I like to do my. Big exercise at, at the evening or late afternoon because I enjoy my evenings, not least of all, because I go to bed early, so I can't, I can't roll too far into the evening with doing exercise and things and you know, I just love walking. I just love walking because for me. For me, and I've told you this, my mailbox is, is a four mile round trip walk from here.

So I go get the mail every day, every day that I can from four o'clock until about five 15. Text me about an hour and 15 minutes. It's an up and down walk. I'm outside, I'm in the sun. I'm listening to podcasts or just debriefing my day. And that cycle really works for me. But one of the things you said to me was, okay, Mike, I get that.

But, but perhaps as you're coming and going to the coffee machine in the morning, I invite you, especially when the sun has come up, I invite you to turn the alarm off, open the sliding door, close it again, 'cause you've got cats and walk. Get out in the sun and walk around the house. Walk around the yard for five minutes or 10 minutes and then get on with the rest of your day.

So you are really saying that these little micro. Movements can really make a big difference. Is that right?

[00:35:23] Dani Alger: absolutely. And, uh, circadian, I'm, I'm glad you brought it up because circadian rhythm is one of the ways that we work against ourselves most. And the things that can really cause us dysregulation and to be, um, anx have anxiety. You think about how many people have anxiety. I mean, I speak, I volunteer my time at, uh, high schools, mostly juniors and seniors, telling them how important it is, uh, to to be in, in, in as much rhythm with circadian as we can, because.

Um, it's how we are operating and, and you going back to what you said, light calibrates the brain food calibrates the body to the circadian rhythm, and when you wake up in the morning, you naturally have a higher cortisol. That's, that's part of the circadian rhythm. And people are like, oh, you don't want cortisol?

Well. You want. Yeah, you do. You just don't want it all the time. And so you want that cortisol hit in the morning. It's called the dawn effect. It's what wakes us up and gives us energy, uh, and we need that. But the best thing we can do is get up, get outside. I don't care if you live in Seattle and it's gray out all the time, um, it's still, it's still hitting your hi hitting, getting that no glasses.

If you can let that natural light hit your eyes because it's telling your brain it's morning and your best sleep starts first thing in the morning. So it's a, it's a brilliant way to do it. And yeah, you, I love that you keep mentioning these are not huge lifestyle shifts. These are small shifts that you can start adding throughout your day that all of a sudden you're like, whoa.

All of a sudden now you realize like, my sleep is getting better and, and I'm have more energy and it's more consistent. And that's our goal, right? Especially as high performers.

[00:37:03] Mike Richardson: So I hope you caught that, everybody. Um, and we're about to move to the fourth element, which is sleep. But I've heard you say this many times, Danny. A good night's sleep starts first thing in the morning.

[00:37:15] Dani Alger: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:16] Mike Richardson: Use that, use that to segue us to the fourth element, Danny.

[00:37:20] Dani Alger: Yes. So starts in the morning and, uh, again, starting to stay on that circadian rhythm we wanna eat. During light hours, and this is pro, you know, that, that's a, that's a tough one because, uh, we're, we have access to food and light 24 7 now where we used to not. And so, uh, you know, eating during the day, we are most insulin sensitive.

Earlier in the day, which means our body processes, anything we eat so much more effectively than it does later in the day. And with good sleep, I mean, it's not, it's not popular, but I, you've heard me say it a million times, stop eating two to three hours before bedtime because again, going back to that, our biochemistry. When we are digesting food, you know, we are in digestive mode and one process suppresses another. So instead of in the evening when we start to, you know, we stop eating, it starts to get to the nighttime. Uh, we can switch to getting into the mode where our brain knows, oh, okay, we've, we're done eating. Now we can start producing melatonin.

Getting you ready for good sleep. But unfortunately, most people are eating up until bedtime because eating is a coping mechanism for a lot of us, and it's a good one. And it feel, it's fun and it's entertaining and, but unfortunately, when you're, when you're trying to go to sleep, when you're digesting food, you may fall asleep, but it's not, you're not getting into the good

[00:38:57] Mike Richardson: It's a major,

It's a major, problem for me when I'm.

[00:39:00] Dani Alger: It's, it's major for everyone eating, eating late at night. But you know, and, and you've heard me talk about this as well, is that so many people, especially in their fifties and sixties, are dealing with indigestion, acid reflux. Well, because you're digesting food up until you go to bed. So the chemistry to digest your food is terribly intense.

It's all acid. So if you ha stop eating two to three hours, then all of that settles down and it's not perfectly active because when you lay down, of course what happens, it comes back at you. And then what do you do? You take a bunch of Tums or Prilosec or things to mitigate the acid. What? The acid. You don't wanna get rid of the acid.

It's what digests your food. You wanna stop eating food so you have enough time to digest. And then that goes back to movement where digesting movement helps you digest your food quicker. So it all works, in a perfect cycle,

[00:39:56] Mike Richardson: as a, as an operating, a human operating system

[00:39:58] Dani Alger: human operating

[00:39:59] Mike Richardson: that is mutually reinforcing itself in a virtuous cycle rather than a vicious cycle. Right.

[00:40:05] Dani Alger: Yes. I love that. Yes.

[00:40:07] Mike Richardson: And, um, so it's so hard for me when I go back to the uk. I'm English as you know, everybody, you know, on my circadian rhythm, you know, over here if we book a dinner right, we book it for 5 36 o'clock at the latest.

Um, over there, the, the, we're going out for dinner tonight, Mike. Okay, great. What time have you booked the table? Oh, eight o'clock. I'm sorry, what? You've booked the dinner table for eight o'clock.

[00:40:34] Dani Alger: Right.

[00:40:35] Mike Richardson: like, oh my gosh. Um, so this is fantastic. Think, eat, move, sleep, everybody. That kind of adds up to the dig method behind the scenes of which of those three kind of drivers they were circadian rhythm, was it biochemistry?

What was the other one?

[00:40:52] Dani Alger: Uh, nervous system.

[00:40:53] Mike Richardson: Nervous system

[00:40:54] Dani Alger: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:55] Mike Richardson: and everybody. Um. I, I love, love, love having Danny to come into our peer group environments where she, you know, we close the door. It is totally confidential. We're not just talking about business, we're also talking about life. I love it when Danny comes in and we're gonna, we're gonna lean towards the life end of that spectrum, but of course, it plays right back into the business end of that spectrum in terms of our, our productivity, our focus, our energy, our composure, all those kinds of things.

And so we love, love, love having you, um, fueling the fire in our, in our peer groups. Danny, if I may. That's the ecosystem of support that we create for our members.

[00:41:47] Dani Alger: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:41:48] Mike Richardson: ecosystem of support do you have around you?

[00:41:52] Dani Alger: Oh, that's a nice question. Well, I feel like. My life is fully integrated between real life and work life because, I have definitely always said I am client one. So I live in alignment with what I teach. And uh, and I have to say, I. I love it because having children, I realize that, you know, they, they are my, they're also my clients.

Whether, well, I mean, I, I say they're my, they're my clients. Uh, those I live with, live with, uh, they're mostly hostages, but I can tell you, um, they weren't always happy to be always learning about health and wellness and all the things that I wanted to teach them and, and have them live in alignment with.

But I can tell you that now that I, the twins are 22 and my youngest is 20, that they marinated in this. Way of thinking and this way of living. And you're right when it's like it is, it is high performance at work, but it's like you integrate that into high performing health and life and it's just amazing.

So I'd have to say I love now that the kids are adults and watching them living. Life and, and, and, and their default mode is health. You know, one of my favorite things to do is go on, walk and talks and catch up with people. And I actually see clients, oftentimes we do a walk and talk instead of a zoom or instead of sitting in, you know, in an office.

Um, but my, I would say my ecosystem, or gosh, my family, my friends and my clients. Uh, I love, I love what I like, you know, you were mentioning me coming in and talking to your CEO circles, and that's my favorite because to get people that are already high performing thinkers, to be able to take that drive and just point it in a different direction that, you know, again, I love it when they wear.

The wearables. I've got clients that are wearing the aura rings, the whoops, and then even continuous glucose monitors because those are, um, it, you know.

[00:44:05] Mike Richardson: Yep.

[00:44:05] Dani Alger: Entrepreneurs like to optimize their, their business systems. But once they realize like, oh my gosh, I can be optimizing my own human operating system and there's metrics and there's, you know, it's, they can see the benefit that that motivation creates, you know, chemical hit that dopamine to drive for more health, you know, and so that's, my ecosystem.

I love, I love it.

[00:44:31] Mike Richardson: Beautiful. And I even got into the wearables business with, with my, um, Google Watch, uh, a few months ago. And, uh, the thing I, I use it for golf and all kinds of things, but the thing I most like about it is, it, it is, I look at my sleep every morning, you know that I'm up early and, and I'm, I'm getting on that new circadian rhythm for the day.

Um. Uh, I, I recharge my watch, you know, having worn it all night and, um, it doesn't take long to do that. And as soon as it's done, I put it back on my wrist and the next thing I check by that time it's crunched the sleep data and I check my sleep. And I used to be convinced that I always. Didn't have a good night's sleep. And what I now see is, no, actually I do get a good night's sleep. Um, most of the time I'm getting a good sleep score, but I know before I get out of bed when I didn't. And sure enough, I go and look at my watch and, oh yeah, there you go. In the middle of the night you were awake or tossing and turning for two hours and you didn't get much rem sleep.

You didn't get much deep sleep. So I love that because it sort of, it sort of helps de-stress me a little bit. Where I sometimes I'm actually pleasantly surprised that actually I had a better night's sleep than I thought I did. Uh, according to the data, um, you, you've been really, this has been fantastic and the, the word that was coming up for me when, when you were just talking about your ecosystem system was the word regenerative. And earlier we talked about regulated versus di dysregulated or deregulated. And, and, and for me, I was, I, I, I just couldn't help but arrive at the word regenerative. In, in the, if we're surrounded by an ecosystem that helps us regenerate, recommit. Um, resurge as it were. And, and one of the reasons why that, that word came up for me is I'm a bank to go over to Wilson Creek Winery this afternoon.

Um, bill Wilson, the CEO is in my, is in my group. I'm having my one-to-one with him. Yes, we typically time those around four o'clock, especially on a Friday afternoon, so that we can enjoy, we can lubricate matters with a couple of glasses of wine. And I wanna give a shout out to one of my biggest fans of this podcast called Greg Penny Royal.

Uh, shout out to you, Greg. Thanks for being a big fan of the Peering podcast. Greg is the vineyard manager over at Wilson Creek Winery, and he is an expert. Regenerative agriculture and Wilson Creek Winery recently won an award for regenerative agriculture. And most agriculture these days is Dera is dysregulated, right?

We're pumping chemicals into the soil and over time all that is. Doing is it's turning the soil to dirt, which means we have to pump more and more and more chemicals into it, and so it just becomes a vicious cycle where truly we are over time, we are turning the soil into dirt, whereas. Regenerative agriculture uses the natural process of, of, you know, all the organic stuff that happens inside of soil.

We bring in sheep and lambs to poop all over the place, and t trample the poop into the soil. We don't use chemicals. We, we, we, we take the soil through a certain, you know, annual cycle so that. It all regenerates and it gets richer and richer and richer and it deepens. And uh, so that's what, uh, that's what was coming up for me when I was thinking about the kind of cycle and the sort of regenerative aspect of it and how that can spiral upwards everybody to a great place, a virtuous place, not be spiraling downwards to a, to a bad place, A vicious place where you're just hanging on for dear life.

Wallowing in, in toxic chemistry. How can you get yourself out of that and start to wallow in positive chemistry And, uh, what else would you like to say to our listeners, Danny, that you wanted to say to them before we land the plane here?

[00:48:42] Dani Alger: Yeah, I, I, I did, I, that was, that was a great, uh, great way to kind of end it because, you know, it's, it's, it's the whole idea of getting in harmony with nature and biology, and that was a perfect example. It's like the things are not functioning. Optimally when we get away from that. And, and for you to say the, the regenerative nature of, you know, bringing in the animals and keeping that whole ecosystem the way it was designed.

[00:49:15] Mike Richardson: It's back to nature. That's what it is. It is back to nature. That's what it is.

[00:49:19] Dani Alger: Yes. And so that's where, again, I think, so we get in this mode of wanting something on the outside, the peptides, the pills, the this, and it's like, yeah, th those things can be used as extras. And they are, they can be tools, but it comes from we have the best pharmacy if we just connect to nature in our own biology.

[00:49:38] Mike Richardson: That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Just to finish off, it's, it's when we industrialized agriculture, that's when we moved away from nature and we moved to the need for chemicals to do agriculture at scale. And now what we're beginning to figure out is no, how can we do agriculture at scale by going back to our roots and back to nature and as you just said, using the pharmacy that we've already got. The inner pharmacy, not the outer pharmacy. So I love the way you've said that. So Danny, where can everybody find you? If they wanna know more, where do they find you?

[00:50:12] Dani Alger: You can go to dig method.com and there's a little place where you can click on it and connect with me. And other than that, you can reach me at danny@digmethod.com as well.

[00:50:23] Mike Richardson: Beautiful. No doubt you can find Danny Alger, A-L-G-E-R. LinkedIn and you can find her@digmethod.com, DIG method.com and you can use that email address. We'll put all of that in the show notes, everybody so you can find it there. We were blessed to have you today, Danny. I'm so

[00:50:41] Dani Alger: Oh, that.

[00:50:42] Mike Richardson: that.

you were here.

Everybody, uh, think, eat, move, sleep. And, uh, you'll be able to take your game to a whole nother level. We've been peering into the complexities, everybody of the human operating system today, what it takes to have sustained performance over time, not just in business, but also in life. We are blessed, blessed, blessed to have Danny Alger here.

Thank you so much, Danny, and thanks for being here, everybody. We'll catch you next time.