Ep. 041 - Client Success Story - Paul's Path from Dark Depression to Optimal Health
Nov 06, 2023SHOW NOTES
Welcome to a truly transformative episode!
Today, I'm share the journey of Paul Korber, a senior IT executive who overcame significant mental and physical obstacles to reclaim his health and well-being.
You'll hear him candidly discuss his struggles with depression, weight gain and injuries in the wake of 2022's challenging events, including the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.
His story underscores the power in acknowledging when we need help—a lesson that many of us can relate to during these unprecedented times.
But Paul didn’t just recognize the problem, he rolled up his sleeves and confronted it. Through therapy and coaching with The Spear Method, he discovered a path to not just survival, but success, and he's here to share key insights from his health journey.
His approach included embracing the power of accountability, intermittent fasting, and the concept of building a 'perfect plate'.
He underlines the importance of a supportive community, and having individuals who understand and share your challenges. If you're seeking inspiration on how to kick-start your own health journey, or simply want to learn how to optimize your health, Paul's story is a must-listen!
Get in touch with Paul
TRANSCRIPT
Craig Spear:
Welcome to man in the Arena, your go-to podcast for all things related to health and weight loss for men over 40. Here we discuss strategies that will get you off the sidelines and into the game so you can achieve your optimal health. It's time to lead a legacy of longevity.
Craig Spear:
My guest today is a person who I've had the privilege of knowing for over 15 years, and most recently in the past year as a client. His name is Paul Korber, who hails from Hamilton, ontario, canada, and he's a longtime IT executive. I'm not going to dive into a big fancy intro here about Paul, because I want you to hear from him what he's all about, where he started, the work he's done and where he is now, but I do want to give Paul a warm welcome. Paul, it's an honor to have you join me in the arena. Thank you so much for being here and welcome Greg. Thanks a lot, I'm really happy to be here. Let's just jump in. Tell the listeners a little bit about yourself. Just a bit of a backstory before you started coaching and going through the transformation that you've gone through yeah, it's been an interesting ride for me over the last few years, greg.
Paul Korber:
Like you said, long, long time career in IT and, probably like a lot of people out there, hit a bump in the road in 2022, ended up needing to push away from work and I ended up taking a mental health break that was diagnosed with depression and really needed to go and deal with that. So, as part of that, engaged with psychotherapy and did the needful things I needed to do to get my life back really progressed through that in 2022. And yeah, it was a challenging situation. I don't want to go into all the details of that part of things, but I think that the probably relevant for this conversation is I saw how I was able to have the presence of mind to say I needed help, I needed to get time away, and I think that's really important aspect Our lives as we're going through peaks and valleys just being able to recognize when you're in a valley, when you need help. So I was able to seek help. Fortunately, I had the structure around me within my company and the people around me to be able to get that support. The support is available out there and it's not always apparent, but yeah, that was the year of 2022. And yeah, not something I'd like to wish on anybody, but certainly something that I think I'm now stronger because I've done the work and understand what I've been through and I've looked at not only the specific incident backwards in my life around other scenarios that maybe were warning sign.
Craig Spear:
Absolutely. I love that you brought up, just to mention that to celebrate getting help right Like we should be celebrating that Obviously it was a dark time for you. But to celebrate that encourage other men, other guys that hey, seek help, find support wherever you can find it, because I think a lot of us tend to isolate in those moments and think that we should just push through and be stronger and all the traditional stereotypes that we've been taught right yeah absolutely.
Paul Korber:
I think we're told to suck it up right. We're told to just get on with it, to bury your feelings, and in my scenario, I would sit in the morning and cry at my desk before work. That's just not right and I think that it's. I like to think, at least in Canada anyways, that the stigma around mental health is starting to abate. We need to do more work on that, for sure, but it is something that there's not one person I've talked to that's not been supportive, it's not offered a hand through the process. Obviously, I need a professional help. Yeah, it's interesting. I think the other thing that I reflected on in some journaling work that I've done and ultimately ended up in an e-book that I've written but is recognizing that when you have mental health issues, we put a face on. I'm on the one talking here, but we put a face on. Most of the people around you don't know that you're going through something, and that's a really important thing. I've done mental health training as a leader, trying to figure to support the staff that I've had, and it bothered me that they weren't able to tell me how do I tell? And the reality is, having gone through it myself, is you can't tell, unless somebody is willing to disclose it to your. Most often than not, like my work, performance was fine. There was nothing that anybody could say. Paul's not getting his work done, but I was a mess.
Craig Spear:
Even personally, we sometimes discount what we are feeling and we're not even aware that we might be having a mental health challenge of our own, until it gets really bad and really dire and you have even more severe symptoms, right. So, being on the lookout for those, being aware if something feels off, just doesn't feel right, you don't feel yourself, then hey, maybe that's the starting point and instead of trying to power through and waiting for things to get worse, maybe I need to look at this earlier, before it does get too difficult.
Paul Korber:
Yeah, yeah, and that's absolutely clear. I think that being introspective and understanding ourselves is really important in that. And when enough is enough, or you have stages of frustration, are you in a rut, are you burnt out, there's all kinds of stages that get you before you get to that true dark place. But and everybody, the other thing is everybody is uniquely different. My situation, your situation, anybody that's listening, they're all different. That's another part, but the recognizing it and being self-reflective is really important to say I need help. Right, right, okay, that's through 2022.
You get to the end of the year and we reconnect. Tell us a little bit about where your physical health was at the end of that.
Paul Korber:
Yeah, as part of the journey. One of the things that happens in depression is that I completely shut down. I stopped working out With COVID, I put on some weight, I'm an avid runner and I wasn't even interested in getting off the couch. You had injuries too, right Like you had some ingrowness, yeah, and I had some injuries I had developed in 2019 when I was running. And then COVID got in the way of kind of managing all of that stuff. And what's interesting and I'm going to use this as a bit of a parallel because you talked about it in our coaching was my psychotherapist. My therapist said to me Paul, just put your running shoes and go for a walk. Just put your shoes on and go for a short walk. That's how she encouraged me to get back out on the road. And it really took until we were fortunate enough to go to Italy in September of 22. It was my wife's retirement goal to go spend the month with family in Tuscany, and I just decided to throw the shoes on the bag. I had no idea that this was what was going to happen with it. And one day I'm just we were in the villa and I just said, hey, let's just go out on the road and see what happens. And there was a funny story. Google said it was a flat road and it turned out to be a, you know, a very aggressive hill. But I came back completely rejuvenated and it was like, wow, that was cool and I started I think I, over the month maybe, ran four or five times, just the short distances and got into exploring the country side and the villages around, which is a fun part of running. And that's when, I think, I reached out to you in the latter part of September and I said, hey, craig, and my mindset was to the point where I wanted to get running again. And you talked about the injuries. I knew that when I did it myself, I was not running properly, I was not training properly and I needed some support. So that's why I reconnected thinking around the training side not really weight loss side per se and that's really why I reached out again and you gave me a gift that I didn't even realize was coming. When you said, hey, you've all my business to something more holistic and I've got you mentioned that you had to come back, come out, and I said, okay, whatever that is, I don't know, I didn't think I had an eating problem, I just needed to lose a few pounds because I had a great vacation and some COVID pounds had no idea. Yeah, so that's how I gravitated to reach out again and explore. I said a better training method so that I could actually enjoy my running long-term, making sure I was avoiding injuries and those kinds of things.
Craig Spear:
And then you signed up for the comeback, not really knowing what was in store. And so, as you get into this coaching, what did you start to learn? What did you start to unpack a little bit, cause it wasn't just about the workouts and the nutrition, there was more to it. What did you start to take away from the coaching?
Paul Korber:
Yeah, it was funny because I think the very first session, as a good coach does, you asked the question of us how much, what's your effort, what are you gonna put into this? I was scale of one to 10 and I went back and I looked at my notes and normally I'm an all-in kind of person. If I'm gonna invest in it, I'm just gonna put it all in. But I actually wrote down that I was gonna be an eighth. I was not sure what I was getting into. But at the same time, by the end of the first session, I said, okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to go all in. So that very next day I implemented intermittent fasting. You had introduced, I think, the protocol on the very first day. That was. That's the foundational element, I think, of the whole thing and for me anyways. So I just said, okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. And I don't think we actually I know we didn't start training side until later in the day in October.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, and that was intentional, because there's a and this is important for guys to hear. They think, oh, I'm starting this new program or this new coaching or whatever it is and let's just do it all. Let's do the workouts, let's do the eating, let's do all the coaching. And it's been my experience, having done this for almost 18 years. There's only so much that we can train our brain to do at one moment right, and we can often inundate the brain with new ideas, new habits, and then it's just too much for us to keep up. So really focus one thing at a time and that was speaking to your running too Like you just started with some walking, started to see what happens. There were real, no expectation, just evolve, and I think that's the healthiest way to approach a sustainable long-term exercise habit or eating habit, whatever it is. We don't try to do everything all at once. We try to do something, learn and build on it from there. So that was your experience, correct? Like you, yeah, absolutely.
Paul Korber:
And I think the other thing that's important in the process is I guess I've recognized from lessons in the past that I needed some support and accountability around me and you had a bigger plan for me than I realized at the time. I was looking at this thing called how to run, but I'm thankful you had a bigger plan because it's been very transformative for me as well. But I looked at maybe I'll sidebar a little bit in terms you and I know have known each other. Like you said, we've known each other for 15 years, so there was a trust factor already there. I think it's important that when you're looking for a coach, that you get somebody that you can resonate with. I had the advantage of having a coach in a way, from through my depression, through my with my psychotherapist, and so that was really important that I can. There's a third part to this, as we'll get into the conversation, but having somebody to support you through your journey is really critical, right, and wherever you are right. I'm referring to another dimension, my business side of things. I've also leveraged the experience of having a psychotherapist, having you as my health coach, recognizing that how important and how successful that has been. And now I also have an executive business coach right. These are important factors in how we are able to excel, to succeed, and, in a lot of ways, deals with the fact that us, as guys, are. We're taught to do it on our own, and that's, I think that's the biggest thing If I look at any of this kids, having a good coach with accountability, some accountability built in your community that you're building, has been extremely beneficial. Even just having those kinds of touch points and people that are going through the same things or similar things that can support each other and encourage each other.
Those are really good points. Fit is important. Whether it's a therapist, coach, you got to have a good fit. I remember I got therapy and the first time I didn't have a great fit with the person, and that was something I realized very early on and ended up finding someone else. So it's nothing wrong if you don't have a good fit with that person. It's just there's different dynamics, personality, shared experiences, whatever it might be. So absolutely fit is important. And then once you find that fit whether it's one person and a coach or a therapist or a community, you know, because the community, fit is important as well. Shared values, shared experiences, shared goals, shared challenges and I think that's what is really important about the arena is we're all men, we're all there sharing unique challenges that we face, and we can support each other through that. So you go through the comeback, you learn different things about yourself, different elements. What are some of the things that you achieved through? Not only through the comeback, because that was only eight weeks, but even after going into the spring and running again and really doing all that? So talk to the people about what you ended up achieving overall.
Paul Korber:
I get a bit of a hit list of things that I've been able to check off and I think, if we look back at the comeback as a health and weight loss kind of objective, I originally so, I think I started the program at 184 pounds. I just really wanted to get to 170 because that's kind of where I hadn't, for most of my adult life, have been. I blew that away I am currently. My normal weight now is about 157. I had no idea that was my ideal weight and it's been phenomenal from that perspective. I went through recently a whole blood screening, just my my noble checkups and some encouragement. I can't remember the doctor you had on, the atropothic doctor you had on one of your podcasts.
Craig Spear:
Oh Dr. Morley
Paul Korber:
Morley yeah, so I took that advice and went through all of that and my trainings are amazing. All the markers are better than the normal averages. And that's important as well from a health span, lifespan perspective is that you need better than what they're telling us that we should be. My eating I eat clean on a regular basis and that's all the teachings that we've gone through of how to build the perfect plate and how to eat properly and those kinds of things. I think that's the foundational success I've had. And just you'll remember one of our one to one one on ones. I said, greg, I'm feeling weird and because conversation is feeling weird, because I'm in a spot where I've never been before I'm actually lower weight than I was in high school and I'm feeling weird. And your comment was a very simple one and saying Paul, this is your normal, so get used to it. That was pretty important. And then, if I turn back to the running side, I've the program's training five days a week and a very good training mechanism with not only running the core and strengths built into it, and that's a really I'm bought into doing that. What's really important for the health span side of our longevity, that if you're not training, if we're not keeping our muscles up and keeping our cardio up and those kinds of things. Those are things that are going to bite us later as we get older. But I think I raced three times this year, set personal bests in all three, and I was actually shocked with that because I was four years older than 2019. I was, yeah, and I thought, oh geez, even if I just get close, I'll be good, and I've destroyed the numbers right. Like you've seen the numbers, greg, like I think my last race of the season was, I beat my personal best by a minute. Yeah, it's wild, so that it's. I can't even it's hard to file them sometimes, but it's putting the work in and the results are coming right.
Craig Spear:
Yeah, I want to highlight too, because someone listening to this might think let's just spend sunshine and rainbows for Paul now, but you've done this, with life continuing to happen right. You're still facing different challenges that life throws at you, whether it's family and relationships. You've started a new business and changed careers, so there's lots of things that you're still dealing with, and one of my favorite words in the English language is and you continue to do this work on top of that. So it's possible we don't have to compartmentalize our lives and our goals. We can do them simultaneously.
Paul Korber:
Yeah, absolutely, it's been interesting as well. We 've done a lot of quick notes for others as well. I got to a point earlier in the year they talked about starting a new business where my health and my family was going really well, but my professional side was the term that I'll steal from Adam Grant was languishing and I really struggled with that. I've had that conversation as well where my IT career 35 years of IT, not enjoying it anymore had an opportunity to get into the travel business which, by the way, I am embracing, but at the time this was going back to June, may, june of this year really not feeling it, and so that, yeah, there's lots of opportunity to continue to develop. And that's where I again leveraged another coach to come in and help me on my business side and that's really starting to take off now and, really, interestingly enough, really focused on travel, but from a wellness perspective. So it's a need. We probably have a whole another podcast that you want to get into.
Craig Spear:
We'll definitely revisit that. Speaking of that, just to give the guys listening to this little bit of a taste, or anything that you want to share that you are working on. That could be your business, could be anything, just something that you could promote. Yeah.
Paul Korber:
I'll share two things. One is my just continued development on the on my physical side and emotional side is my son and I are in February we're heading to Tanzania to hike Mount Kilimanjaro. Yeah, so really looking forward to that, I'm looking for a really good connection with my son. We used to spend a ton of time together through hockey and as he's, as he's gotten older, don't spend the same amount of time together. So I'll be looking forward to that. And yeah, on the business side, the travel. I originally started the travel business focusing it on culinary travel, wine and food, experiencing cultures through wine and food but this experience over the last two years, with depression and other things, have really led me to focus my travel business on wellness travels. I'll be launching a brand here very shortly called govjocom V-I-G-E-O and it'll get to the tagline as wellness inspired travel and really focused on trying to help people like us, men like us it doesn't have to be men, but try to flatten their lives out as opposed to living through peaks and valleys and trying to see how travel can can help people moderate and maintain their performance versus, you know, the boom and bust cycles that our society really drives us through.
Craig Spear:
That's really well said. I love that. Flatten our lives out instead of those peaks and valleys, and certainly we want to perform it our best, but we don't have to sacrifice in order to do that or negate our health or family or whatever it is to do that.
Paul Korber:
Yeah, it's important. I think I had somebody say to me that what's the difference between peak performance and optimal performance? And if you think about spinal tap, it's 11 versus 8 on the dial. So dial yourself in at a consistent 8 or 9 versus I'm at 11, but now I'm at 4. So how do you smooth that out? And I'm a bit the pot falling, the kettle black. I've always been a boom and bust person and I'm trying to mitigate that in my own life and really try to teach people and leverage travel to smooth the curve, if you will.
Craig Spear:
That's fantastic, yeah, and if you have any links or anything like that, we'll share that in the show notes so people can find everyone and connect with you, because I think the guys listening. That would be great. They will resonate. What's one last golden nugget of wisdom that you can share with the listeners, that they can take away and just ponder for the rest of their day? Paul.
Paul Korber:
I'm going to go back to something that's been consistently. Marcy, my counselor, you said it. Lauren, my business coach. There's two things. One is just foot on your shoes. That is so important, just to get started, if there's something that's pulled me up. The other thing that, lauren really the second dimension to that is the same idea but is take your foot off the break. So they're the same point of view but they're different thought processes. But put on your shoes, get started, but you got to take your foot off the break.
Paul Korber:
So that, man, this has been awesome. Paul, Thank you so much for joining me and sharing your story and where you've been and what you've done and where you're going next. I really appreciate it.
Paul Korber:
It's been my genuine pleasure. Craig, Thanks a lot.
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