Andrew Poles is an executive coach, leadership strategist, and ultra-endurance athlete dedicated to helping visionary founders scale their businesses without burning out. With 20+ years of experience, Andrew has coached over 10,000 leaders from companies like NASA, Dell, Schwab, Epic Games, and Netflix. After leading and turning around multi-million-dollar businesses, he left the corporate world to launch his coaching practice—hitting six figures in six weeks and doubling year over year since. Andrew’s approach blends neuroscience, leadership psychology, and storytelling, helping first-time founders navigate the leap from individual contributor to visionary CEO. As an ultra-endurance athlete, Andrew also understands high performance on a whole different level—training for and completing the grueling Telluride 100 Mountain Bike Race at 10,000 feet elevation. His upcoming book explores what endurance sports teach about leadership, mindset, and breaking past self-imposed limits.
Andrew Poles is an executive coach, leadership strategist, and ultra-endurance athlete dedicated to helping visionary founders scale their businesses without burning out.
With 20+ years of experience, Andrew has coached over 10,000 leaders from companies like NASA, Dell, Schwab, Epic Games, and Netflix. After leading and turning around multi-million-dollar businesses, he left the corporate world to launch his coaching practice—hitting six figures in six weeks and doubling year over year since.
Andrew’s approach blends neuroscience, leadership psychology, and storytelling, helping first-time founders navigate the leap from individual contributor to visionary CEO.
As an ultra-endurance athlete, Andrew also understands high performance on a whole different level—training for and completing the grueling Telluride 100 Mountain Bike Race at 10,000 feet elevation. His upcoming book explores what endurance sports teach about leadership, mindset, and breaking past self-imposed limits.
SHOWNOTES:
😴 How do unresolved emotions + conversations quietly sabotage your sleep each night?
😴 What does it really mean to be “complete + present” — and why does it transform your nights?
😴 How can a messy to-do list + calendar create hidden sleep debt you don’t even notice?
😴 Where does being out of integrity + alignment show up in your body and your sleep?
😴 Why do unfinished relationships + resentments keep waking you up at 3am?
😴 How does speaking with truth + intention instantly shift nighttime stress?
😴 How can clear promises + boundaries create more calm in your evenings?
😴 Why does replacing memory with a real system + capture tool improve deep rest?
😴 How does completing your day with reflection + journaling shift your nervous system?
😴 Why does “being complete” increase your presence + peace faster than any gadget?
😴 And many more
SPONSORS:
🧠 If You “Can’t Turn Your Brain Off” At Night…try a quality magnesium supplement that addresses ALL the necessary forms of magnesium that you need to support calming your nervous system and sleeping deeply. https://magbreakthrough.com/sleepisaskill
GUEST LINKS:
Website: www.andrewpoles.com
YouTube: Andrew Poles Coaching
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/andrewpoles
DISCLAIMER:
The information contained in this podcast, our website, newsletter, and the resources available for download are not intended to be medical or health advice and shall not be understood or construed as such. The information contained on these platforms is not a substitute for medical or health advice from a professional who is aware of the facts and circumstances of your individual situation.
Welcome to the Sleep As a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as A Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world. Thinks about sleep.
Each week I'll be interviewing world-class experts, ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health, and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.
Welcome to Sleep and Skill Podcast. Now, I know I say this every week, but I truly mean it. I'm really excited for this conversation. Today. We're diving deep into a topic that hits home for so many of us, how to live, lead, and perform at a high level without burning out, and how that directly impacts our sleep.
My guest, Andrew Poles, is not only an executive coach and leadership strategist who's worked with more than 10,000 leaders from companies like nasa, Netflix, and Epic Games. He's also an ultra endurance athlete who's trained his mind and body to thrive under extreme conditions. What's fascinating is how Andrew Bridges neuroscience, psychology, and storytelling to help visionary founders.
Scale sustainably, and as you'll hear his work offers some profound insights into why so many of us lie awake at night, replaying the day instead of resting from it. In this episode, we explore the concept of completion, what it truly means to end the day with nothing pulled at your attention and how integrity, unresolved relationships, and even our time management habits can quietly sabotage our ability to sleep deeply.
If you've ever found yourself. Stuck in overthinking mode at bedtime. This episode might just shift how you approach your evenings, your mindset, and maybe even your definition of success. So let's get into it with the incredible Andrew Polls. But first, a few words from our sponsors. If you're listening to this podcast, you're likely looking to improve your sleep, and one of the first questions people ask me about sleep is what supplement they can take.
One supplement I've consistently taken for ages is Magnesium, specifically by optimizers, magnesium breakthrough. It's an all natural supplement that helps reduce fatigue, improve sleep quality, and promote peaceful risk. It also strengthens muscles and improves heart and brain function. Most magnesium supplements aren't full spectrum, but magnesium breakthrough contains an optimal ratio of all seven essential types of magnesium.
Now imagine having the strength and energy to get outta bed every morning, face the day boldly, and maintain that energy throughout the day and into the night. If you wanna give it a try, go to buy optimizers.com/sleep as a skill and use the code, sleep as a skill to get gifts with your purchase. And this is a limited time offer, but I think you'll be.
Pleasantly surprised by the results. And welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. I know just about every episode I say that I'm so excited for this guest, but I'm really so excited for this guest. And not only is he a guest that's going to share some really things that I'm excited about for my own life and I really believe are gonna make such a difference for you in how you navigate.
Your sleep and from a kind of a mindset shift, and we're gonna get deep on this, but even beyond that, he is a friend that is also here in Austin, also connected with different personal development groups that I've been a part of and so much more. So Andrew, thank you so much for taking the time to be here.
I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. So thanks for having me on. Yes, this is gonna be great. And so maybe we can start at the beginning, just how you found yourself as an expert in this area. So, you know, as you know, I have a, a long history like you of being interested in personal development and my journey in personal development started way back in the nineties when I went through the PhD program in philosophy at UT Austin.
Um, and then it continued in the early two thousands as I started finding myself getting more and more stuck in life when I had my first business and I had my first child and I was a single dad and just dealing with. The press of all of that. Yeah. And finding that my relationship with my daughter's mom wasn't great, and my relationship with my own integrity wasn't great.
And I was struggling in life and I started doing personal development work that made a big difference for me. Much bigger difference than, uh, therapy, which I had done quite a bit of, and which did make a difference, but of a different kind than, yeah. The kind of work that I did in coaching and and personal development.
And so really when I went through that experience myself, I realized that what I had been searching for in philosophy, which was always some way to reach people and make a difference, I could do through learning how to do. With others, what people had done with me when I was going through my struggles.
And so I started in 2003, getting myself trained to be a coach and a facilitator. And I probably went through tens of thousands of hours Yeah. Of really, really rigorous training in doing that. And I've worked with over 10,000 people now worldwide. Wow. Um, over the. 22 years of my career as a coach. Mm-hmm.
And so one of the things we're gonna talk about today that bears on sleep is just something I discovered along the way in when I started paying attention to my own sleep of how these things correlated. Yeah. Um, and so that's the connection between sleep and what we're gonna talk about. But in terms of my perfect personal development story, there it is.
Yes. That was so perfectly done. And that was part of my question too, was that how did that bridge all together was. Sleep, and you beautifully answered that. And so maybe we can begin there with some of the things that maybe you are seeing when you're coaching people, when suddenly some of the things that they're dealing with in their life are spilling into their nights and spilling into their ability to sleep well, and maybe in your own life and beyond just kind of what you've seen to really make a difference.
Yeah. So I think that the best way to frame the discussion is to talk about this term. Uh, you're familiar with 'cause we talk, well, you, you and I have talked about this, which is a term we call being complete. Yes. And so I wanna just take a minute and talk about what I mean by that so that anyone listening will be on the same page of what we're talking about and not because that, that term can have a lot of meanings to it and we wanna use it in a really specific way.
So first off, here's what I don't mean by being complete, is I don't mean when something is finished, like you are doing a project and now the project is done so it's finished and we call that complete. So that is a, a valid definition of complete, but that's not what we're talking about in the context of this conversation.
Yeah. So what is it that we mean by complete in the context of this conversation? So first I wanna talk about completion, both for a person as an experience and as a state of being. And also for things in the world Yeah. That you're working on, um, as a state that things in the world can be in. That is not the same thing as finished.
So let me start with again, just drawing out this contrast. So let's just talk about relationships. Yeah. Probably everyone listening has had at least one relationship that that was really important to 'em, that they're not in anymore. Mm-hmm. So most people can identify with this ex, this experience of that the relationship is over, it's finished, but you do not feel complete about it in one way, shape, or form.
You think about it all the time. Maybe you still feel angry about it. You have things you haven't even said to the person that you wish you could say. You replay conversations in your mind about things you wish you had said. So that's an example of where something's finished, but you aren't complete in your relationship to the thing that is finished.
And the converse can also be true. You can be in a relationship that's ongoing. Feel like you have nothing unresolved, nothing unsaid, nothing pulling at you. So your, your relationship to something that's ongoing can be that you are in a state of being complete about it, but it's not finished. So whether something's finished or not has nothing to do with whether or not you are complete as a state of being in relationship to that thing.
So what is that state of being? Well, I think. Probably the best way to talk about it is it's, it is a state of being. So not an action, not an object you have, but a, a state of being. So we are human beings as an as. We are constantly in some state of being. We are calm, we are agitated, we are loving, we are resentful, we are angry, we are joyous.
So we are always occupying or experiencing some state of being. It has an emotional component. It has a cognitive component, certain thoughts that go along with that state of being. It has a physical component. We feel that state of being in our bodies in various places. So let's just take the state of being angry, for example, when you're angry.
There's a certain way that feels, so you, some people get flushed in their neck and they feel heat in their chest, their, they feel tense. Um, you have thoughts like, what's wrong with the other person? Or what should they have not have done? Your tone of voice changes. So a state of being is comprehensive.
And it has ways it gets expressed in actions, but it's not just the actions, it's more than that. So when we're talking about a state of being, that's what we're pointing at. And there is a state of being called, being complete. Yeah. And that state of being, the quality of that and what it feels like is your present.
Nothing's pulling at your attention. There's nothing that you're perseverating on. So these are the things it's not like, and it's a state of being in which nothing for you is left unresolved or unspoken, or in that you feel in no way limited or stuck. You are completely free to be here in this moment with whatever's happening with nothing from the past or the future pulling at you.
Hmm. Now that's a very high state. It may be a very idealized state to be there where there is literally nothing pulling at you. And this does exist on a gradient. Yeah. From. You're completely checked out and there's no part of you that's aware of what's going on around you. Yeah. Two, truly being fully present, which you know, some people do experience brief moments of and others maybe longer stretches of time and sort of everything in between.
Sure. So Mollie, you tell me, 'cause this has been pretty philosophical so far. Do you think that's clear? Do you just leave you with any questions I should address in terms of what we mean by being complete or do you think we're good? Yeah. Well one, I think that this is so well articulated. I mean, I think a lot of the people listening can likely relate to this.
I know I certainly can, but many of the people that personally that I'm working with around sleep optimization often have professions, I should say, that have leave for them a lot of room for. Life spilling into like all aspects. Yeah, so do you know what I mean? Like no clear divide. Many entrepreneurs that have this experience where they should always still be working.
And so often there, especially a group, and I don't mean to ostracize, if any, anyone's listening and they're not entrepreneurs. I think many people can get the sense of having. This lack of balance or things bleeding into just even to put into the evenings. Right. So the ability to downregulate have kind of this off time and have a space that's sacred from the rest of the demands of the day.
Yes. And that has been an area that many people struggle with, myself included, of this sense of giving ourselves this permission to be off. Yes. And so one of the things that comes to mind with completion, and then of course it certainly can spill into the rest of our days, one of the things we see too is.
Time management being a, a struggle for people, and it can sound so banal. It's like, oh, time management. Who cares about that? But it seems to really spill into this experience of the challenge to lay your head on the pillow at the end of the night with peace of mind that I did all the things that I need to do and yeah, feel fulfilled and have purpose.
So just some of the things that bubble up for me that. Could be really supportive for people in this area of completion. Not to mention the things that you pointed to around relationships. And those are some of the big reasons why people come our way when divorce, loss of a job, major life changes, and they're incomplete, and now it's spilling over into their sleep.
Great. Okay. Yeah, I think that that's really clear to me how you set that up. I like that. So let's just, let me, let me springboard off of what you said. Sure. Perfect. Um, and I think that although this isn't a perfect. Uh, like one plus two equals three relationship. Yeah. I think most people can, can relate to the experience that the more things that they feel incomplete about.
Yeah. Like, oh my gosh, I forgot to do that email. And that person could be upset with me. And, oh, I don't like the way that I dealt with Johnny, uh, when he didn't do his homework. And I'm upset with myself as a parent about that. And all these things that pull at us tend to. Diminish the quality of our sleep and how, and they make it more difficult to get to sleep sometimes.
We'll even wake up in the middle of the night thinking about those things. Yeah. So there's a relationship, even though it may not be as direct as causal, there's a relationship between how incomplete or how complete you are at the end of your day. Yeah. And how well you get to sleep and stay asleep. Are we good with that?
Beautiful. He said, yeah. Okay. Perfect. So I, I'm checking in with you because you know I am, um, an expert as a coach. Yes. But you are an expert on sleep. So if I overstep or I, you know, yeah. Say something that you disagree with, I just wanna give you plenty of room to correct me. 'cause I don't wanna say anything that's incorrect.
No, that was perfect. So there's that relationship. Okay. Yeah, and I think what's helpful for people in looking at how can I. Create some practices. How can I gain some tools for being more and more complete with my day, with myself, et cetera. Um, so that I can sleep better is that we can sort of break down life and where people get incomplete into a couple of discrete buckets people can look at and then give you tools for how to deal with that.
Sure. And since you started with the time management piece and things spilling over in the domain of To-dos. To dos, yeah. Let's talk about that one first. Sure. Perfect. Um, so. F First disclosure I want to make is that I'm gonna, um, talk about a particular system of, uh, time management that I use, that I don't have any affiliation with.
I'm not an affiliate of theirs. I have no financial relationship with them. I just happen to love it, and I've been doing it for 25 years, and I use it as an example. Okay? And so that I can cite the, the source of where I learned this. I use a particular system called Mission Control Productivity, and uh, you may be familiar with that.
I am familiar with it. I briefly learned about it, but I had not fully brought it into my life. And so I'm very excited to hear more. Yeah. So yeah, please share. So I'm not promoting that, but I'm gonna use it as an example. And I think there are many systems that do this well, that just happens to be the one that I'm familiar with.
Okay. And again. For your audience. I don't have a financial relationship with them, so, um, I'm not promo promoting this, but this is what I like about how they handle this particular thing. So, um, of, of all the things that you have going on in life that you want to either do or accomplish or get handled, the fact is, and this is difficult for people to accept, and this is kind of the first principle of their program, the fact is, is that you are never.
Going to get it all done. Mm. Yeah. If you made a list of everything that you would really like to do, including what's on your bucket list and all of the books you'd like to read, or the books you'd like to write, and you wrote it all down and you really looked at it, what you would have to deal with is, I'm not gonna get all of that done.
I'm certainly not gonna get it all done today. Yeah, right. I'm probably not gonna get it all done, even the course of my whole life. 'cause I have this huge appetite for things and time is finite and I I do need to sleep. Yes, exactly. When you, when you really allow yourself to accept the reality of that, you're not gonna get it all done, then what's next is you have to look at what am I gonna get done and what am I not gonna get done?
Hmm. And with the things I'm not gonna get done, how am I gonna deal with those things in such a way that they don't pull at me at all? Mm. And the things I am gonna get done, how do I set my life up around those things in such a way that not a single one of them relies on my memory for anything. Mm.
Because that's where, yeah, we start losing some peace is when we start to use our memory as a part of our system for managing what we need to do or have promised to do. 'cause our memory was not designed for that. Yes. It's the wrong tool for that job. Mm-hmm. So you need some kind of system that allows you to map out everything that you are going to do in a way that it doesn't rely on your memory at all.
That gives you a real and realistic amount of time to do the things you actually are going to do. So this is one of the places where I see my clients get into all kinds of trouble, which is the calendar they have, the schedule they have is all full of lies. It just lies, okay. Yes. What I, here's what I mean by that.
I don't mean this in a, in a really critical way, it's just, yeah. It's just that people are not good at telling themselves the truth because they live in this fantasy that I'm gonna get it all done, or I should get it all done, or I have to get it all done. Yeah. And no matter what you think you have to get done or what you should get done, here's the fact, you're not gonna get it all done.
Yes, you're only gonna get done what you get done right. And every day there are things that you do or that you need to do that take time that aren't in your calendar or aren't in there honestly. Like what? Like eating Yeah. Takes time, right? Like email takes time. Mm-hmm. Like interruptions and things you don't plan on that happen that you can't control.
Yeah. Take time. So if your calendar doesn't reflect the reality of how much time you do need to spend on email mm-hmm. To account for the interruptions that will happen for the food that you are gonna have to prepare and eat and clean up from. If it's not in there, then your calendar is lying to you about what you're gonna get done.
And what will happen is you'll plan out if you use a calendar a day full of things and you're, I wanna get all these things done, and then you won't get them all done 'cause it was a lie. You are never gonna get them done. Yeah. And then at the end of your day, you'll be pissed off or frustrated or whatever you are.
Yeah. And that will make it harder for you to sleep well. Yes. So one of the things that you need to be complete with a day is a system that doesn't rely on memory, that forces you to tell the truth about how much time you spend on each thing. When you're going to do it, including the things you cannot control for or plan so that you only plan as much as you really have time for.
Right. Okay. So those are the things you are going to do, and then you need a way at the end of the, of each day of capturing all the things that you thought of that you need to do. Yeah. So you don't have to remember them. And then a way to map them out if you're going to do them in your calendar. Of when you're gonna do them and how much time is it gonna take so that you know that you don't have to think about it.
One more time. Because you know, next Tuesday it's in your calendar, you're gonna do that thing that you said you would do, and now it's done. And you don't have to think, oh, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Oh my God. People try to manage this massive amount of work and promises and agreements and expectations in their minds.
In their memories. Yes. And it is insanity. The brain can't do it. So I think the first practical thing I would recommend for people to. Give themself the ability to reach a state of completion about what about all the things they wanna do and all the things they wanna accomplish is to take on some kind of system.
I use mission control that allows them to map out every single thing they are committed to doing in a realistic way so that they're not lying to themselves about what they can get done, so that they have a real honest shot of doing what they say. And then when you have more things that come up, a way of capturing that, that doesn't rely on memory.
I use a pad of paper. Here it is right here. Here's my day. All the things I thought of today that aren't in my calendar yet, which when we get off the phone, I will go into my calendar and I will put somewhere in there when I'm gonna do it. Ah. Then when I'm done with that, I will throw that piece of paper away and when that piece of paper hits the recycle bin and I leave my home office.
None of those things will be on my mind, the peace that comes from that. I love that, and it is not easy to do. It's a discipline, but yes, it leaves me at peace about that part of my life. Mm-hmm. So I think that's a big bucket, right? That time management piece, the accomplishment piece. Yes. Especially for, as you said, the entrepreneurs, which, here's the truth, okay?
Your business will always provide you more things you could be doing than you have time to do. Mm-hmm. That's the way, that's just the way entrepreneurship is. Yeah. And that's true of many endeavors, including anything big and robust. If you're an athlete, if you are a really committed parent who thinks a lot about how you want to, you know, what activities do you want your kids to be in, you know, whatever.
You'll find if you're really into something, it'll out pace your ability to do all the things you think of. So. You know, being able to have that piece by confronting that I'm not gonna do everything and I'm gonna choose what's most important, and then I'm gonna let everything else go or plan it down the road.
That's a big chunk of this. Absolutely. Just confronting the reality of it, right? So that you can say, for today, this is what done looks like. For today? Yes, because I know I'm not gonna get it all done today. So here's what I am gonna get done today, and I did that and that's done and everything else is planned in my calendar.
So I can walk away now and go to my family and not have to worry about any single thing. Okay, so that's a big chunk. Should we pause there and double click on any of that? Yeah, I love that. So for the listener, this goes beyond just like, oh, I should get Asana or Clickup or, so, you know what I mean? It's like beyond just a tool, it's really.
Deriving and generating a true system, a set of procedures, a way that you use the things that you need to use, but put it in existence, and then training yourself to really be your word around. You mentioned the discipline piece to kind of upkeep this and stay connected with this and have a system where you do have that kind of shut down, complete, almost, yeah.
Experience by the end of the day. Yeah. Which just feels so rewarding. And so it's one of the things we find is absolutely missing for so many people to then, yeah. Go into that downregulation second half of the day to Yeah. You know, wind down. Yeah, that's exactly right, what you said. So I think a lot of people get hung up on this because they have some parts of the system and they don't have all parts and they don't know that, so they don't get the power of a robust system.
So maybe you have Asana or Clickup or something and you're tracking everything. But let's think about that for a second. If it isn't mapped out in your calendar, when you're doing it on what day? For what duration of time? Yeah. All you have is a list you need to remember to look at. Yes. And then there's a list of things you need to remember to act on.
And maybe you even have deadlines, but you don't know if you have enough time to get to all the deadlines and time. It's not fully a system. So you need a robust system. So any robust system that handles when are you doing each thing, how long does it take? And also capturing all the new things that come up.
And a way of putting those also in some kind of a calendar system that's in real time. Anything like that will work, but I think people get. Discouraged or resigned because their system isn't robust enough and they don't know that that's the problem. Yeah, absolutely. And so for the people that you're working with, do you help bring in kind of that time management aspect of like a done time, like a time to be done by, or is it flexible?
So I'm asking that just because from a sleep perspective. One of the things that we find is the need for people to have a bit of a runway to that, a bit of a life, you know, beyond just work so that there is that divide. And we really struggle with a lot of people where, and they'll, they'll fight back on this of, well, you know, I work on different time zones or whatever, I need to still be working up until an hour before bed or what have you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, I think, you know, from, from my perspective as a coach, um. My job is a little bit different from, from your job in the sense that you're trying to help people optimize their sleep. And I'm working with people to fulfill their intentions for their business and their life. Sure.
And their relationship to how sleep fits into that can be on a much bigger spectrum probably. Yeah. And so. I tend to think of this like perfection is the enemy of progress. Mm-hmm. And so, um, the way that I work with people is, Hey, look, if we notice that the way you're setting up your day is affecting your sleep in such a way that that's affecting your performance on the things that matter, then we need to deal with it.
Yeah. And then they are naturally motivated to deal with it because I've connected it to what they care about, which is their performance with their spouse or with their business. Yep. And so to that extent, we will then work on what's gonna work for them to improve the quality of their sleep. Yeah. But I don't, um.
Tell people you need to do this, this, or that. Because from where they're asking me to support them, that's not quite the right angle. Yes. So I don't know if I've answered your question well, but I think was perfect. Okay. Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you, you pointed to the connecting it to what's matters to them and then kind of reverse engineering that so that, yeah.
It just lands differently and brings a new level of commitment. That's perfect. And so continuing to strengthen this muscle of completion, are there additional ways? So if people are saying, yeah, I would like to be complete with the breakup I just had, or whatever. Yeah. But a sense of, but how am I gonna stop this brain and you know, any Yeah.
For that. Okay, so let's, so that's, I'm just gonna keep following your lead. This is great. Sure. So let's look at the next bucket. So the first one we talked about was the time management piece and accomplishment. Now let's talk about relationships. Yeah. So, and lemme just kind of outline the bucket so that I think we should try to cover at the time we have, which is we should talk about relationships with others.
Yeah. I think we should talk about, 'cause you brought it up, integrity with people operating with the integrity to do certain things. Sure. And what that means. And let's just see if in that we capture 80% of the stuff Yeah. That would give people this experience of completion. So with relationships, so yeah, we, we all deal with the experience of getting or being in complete, in our relationships, even our very close relationships.
Yeah. So, you know, I'll give you an example. I've been, um, with my, my wife for 25 years. We've been married for 20. Almost 23 of those 25 years. Wow. We have a great relationship, a great marriage, um, and we're very much in love. We're all the great stuff that we've got. There's still these little moments, like the other night.
This is the stupidest thing. Okay. I'm, I'm Love it. Yes. I'm almost a little embarrassed to tell you this, but like we have this agreement Yeah. That whoever cooks doesn't clean. Oh, that's great. Yes. And it's that that works well for us. Yeah. And that means that 99.9% of the time I'm cleaning, 'cause Elizabeth is a former chef and Oh sure.
She's, she's a great cook and you know, that's kind of her, her thing. Yeah. But every once in a while I do cook and so. The other night I cooked dinner while she was like unloading groceries and doing all this stuff. And so I just said, so, hey, you're doing dishes tonight. Right? And I knew, I knew, yeah, she wasn't gonna wanna do dishes 'cause she had this long day and she did the groceries.
But I was kind of like being a bit of a jerk, like, Hey, you know, we're gonna stick to the deal. Like I cooked, you're gonna do the dishes. Yes. Kinda like that without saying that. Yes. Okay. Without saying that. And so, and Elizabeth is a great person, so of course she's like, oh, you know, and she did the dishes.
But I could tell that what she really wanted was for me to say, babe, I got it. I'll do the dishes. And I didn't do that. Yeah. I, that little thing. Okay. So that little thing that I didn't do, didn't say, didn't address, I could have addressed it a million ways. I didn't do it. Mm-hmm. It bugged me. It bugged me for two days.
Wow. Okay. Yeah. So then that's a little thing. In terms of doing dishes or not doing dishes, but here's why it bugs me, and here's why we get bugged by these things, because where it's not a a little thing is I didn't honor my own values. Hmm. And I wasn't being the person that I want to be for my wife. So even though the dishes seem like a little thing, yeah, that piece, that's a big thing.
Not being the person you wanna be in some moment of life registers for us as a much bigger thing than two dishes. It was like two dishes. It wasn't even a big deal. Right. I was just being a jerk. Yes. So, um, these things have a bigger impact than we realize. Yes. So let's talk about relationships. Where do we get incomplete relationships?
Well, we don't have enough time to do this justice, but let's talk about the major ones. Sure. So in that case, you know, one of the things that we could say is that there was something I didn't say that I needed to say and I didn't say it. So that is something when you have something you need to say. You don't say it, then you do wind up feeling incomplete or being, being not just feeling, but being incomplete in that situation or that relationship.
So one of the things that people need to tend to, and this is a hard one, it takes a lot of courage and it takes a lot of practice to be able to say things in a way that they are productive and honest. Okay. This is a really big thing. That's why I said we don't have time to do this justice. Yeah. And on most people will avoid saying these things because on some level they know that the way it's gonna come out is going to be counterproductive.
Mm-hmm. And they're probably right about it because they're gonna say it in a way that actually doesn't move things forward. It moves things backwards. And so not saying it is probably smart and it also leaves them incomplete. Yeah. So it has an upside and a downside. And so if people wanna get interested in how to be complete, part of what this one takes is learning how to say those things that are maybe upsetting for the other person in a way that moves things forwards, not backwards.
Hmm, absolutely. Yeah. So like in the example with my wife, I could have said, for example, yeah. Okay. I'm feeling really petty right now because I really want you to do the dishes to validate the fact that I cook dinner. But I also know that you don't like doing dishes, and that's a lot of why you cook a lot, and also because you just did all this grocery shopping, all these things, and I don't wanna be a jerk, but I still really want you to do the dishes.
But now I feel like a jerk. I could have just like said the whole thing. We would've laughed our asses off, right? Yes, yes. I would've been totally honest in saying all that. And whatever, whoever would've done the dishes. Okay. Yeah. Versus if I had done it in an, in an unproductive way, the way I would've done it, say 20 years ago would've been like, so I cooked, you're doing the dishes, and I know, but when every time I cook, you don't wanna do the dishes, because I could've said it that way.
And that would've been, I, I guess, honest in the way that maybe it reflected some emotion I was feeling in the moment. Yeah. But it wasn't productive. Mm. Yeah. And so the challenge of this one, of saying what you need to say is, how can I say it in a way the other person can receive so that it moves things forward That is very challenging.
It's a skill people have to develop, and if you don't develop the skill, you'll either piss people off. And get in these arguments trying to do what I'm saying, which is say what you need to say. Yeah. And then you'll be incomplete about that, or you won't say it and you'll be incomplete about that. So there's no easy solution here.
You have to work at this one. Yeah. There is a way to say anything. Anything that you need to say. Hmm. With the right kind of framing and the right timing. Sure. So that it can be productive and it can be complete. There is a way to do that. So that's one piece. Oh good. And I love how you demonstrated all of those different versions.
'cause so many people can kind of get things collapsed that in order to be authentic means to just spill out. Yeah. Everything that we're thinking. Yeah. And you know, with the disregard for how that might land, and certainly to your point, not necessarily move things forward. If anything, move things backwards and create all new problems.
That's so beautifully said. I wonder too, I don't know if we define this or not, but. I know you mentioned, maybe it was before we hit record, but about ontology and this idea of being, and in case people are like, what does this mean? Just to kind of have that in the background as we are beginning to practice these skills.
So ontology, this study of being, you know, this is the field in which being complete lives. 'cause we're talking about a state of being Yeah. Versus an activity or versus like an object. And so, yeah, it's a whole field of study and philosophy. It started becoming pretty prominent in the late. Eight 19th and early 20th centuries.
Um, and it's a robust field of study and a lot of coaching and personal development takes place in this field, and the field of ontology and psychology and neuroscience, all these fields are starting to converge. So I think people are probably getting exposed to this because there's certain neurological aspects and physiological aspects to states of being as well.
Yeah. Um, so I'm not sure if I'm answering your question. No, I think that was perfect. But we are talking about an ontological phenomenon that is also neurological, that is also neurochemical, you know, biological, it's a robust phenomenon. It's a real thing. But when we use words like being complete, we're just trying to figure out a way to point at it.
Mm-hmm. But there is something going on really. And that's why it does affect your sleep. 'cause it affects your brain. Exactly. It affects. You know, your, your heart rate, for example, when you feel anger or stress, your heart rate does go up. Your respiration goes up. So these are real physiological impacts Yes, to the ontological phenomenon of being incomplete.
No, it's so great. I feel like this gives a, a new angle for people to, a new language potentially to come from, because everyone can just likely get that experience that you're speaking to of being complete and how that could lay the foundation for a great night of sleep. And then seeing, yeah, the opposite, the juxtaposition of the anger, the anxiety, the stress, the, all those things.
So. But this gives some pathways for action that I absolutely love. Before we shift over to how you're managing your own sleep, any kind of closing thoughts? I know these are huge topics that we only just scratched the surface on, of course. Any kind of boat to put on it. Um, well, dude, we had mentioned the con the, the idea of integrity.
'cause you, you had mentioned that earlier. Do we have time for me to speak about that briefly or Please? Such an important topic? Yes. Okay. So let's, let's, let's just first talk about. A useful way to talk about integrity so that it, it, um. So that it can be separated out from some of the ways it's normally used in common speak, which is to also be the same thing as like morality.
Yeah. Being a good person or ethics, something like that. And so that's a valid use of the word integrity. But in the, in the, in the context in which you and I are speaking and what you talked about earlier about someone's calendar and doing what you said in integrity, let's just give it a unique.
Definition so that people can use it for sleep. Yeah. As opposed to being a good person. Okay. So think about integrity in this context as something being whole and complete. Full stop. So like you could talk about the integrity of an object. Um. The example of this that I think you and I are both familiar with is, is a, is a wheel, like a bicycle wheel.
Now I'm, I'm a cyclist. You can see my, yes, my bike in the background. I've done these ultra marathons, so I love talking about bicycles. So lemme just use this for a second, like a bicycle wheel. It has a certain number of spokes. It has this metal rim, and then it has this rubber tire. It has all these parts to it.
And if all the spokes are there, and if the rim is perfectly round, and if the tire is perfectly shaped and it has the right amount of pressure in, or whatever, that's, we call that it has integrity. Now, if I take out a couple of those spokes, that's gonna have less integrity. It doesn't mean it's a bad wheel or a good wheel, it's just that it has.
Less structural integrity, and that has a consequence, which means when I roll on that wheel, it's gonna have a weak point. And over time that weak point's gonna give. And then it's gonna be less round, and then it's gonna work less well. Yeah. So. It only matters to me if I race. Like if I just use my bike to go a block down the store to get milk, like I don't really care if it goes ka plum, ka plump, ka plump.
Right. It doesn't matter. But if I'm in the Tour de France, I can't afford that. 'cause I won't win. Yes. So the more important something is to me, the more important the integrity of the stuff I'm doing around it. It needs to be to me because there is a connection between Yeah. How well something functions and how much integrity it has in the way we're defining it here.
Sure. Now, all of this, by the way, again, just to point to the sources. This is a great paper about this available online for people through a website called ssrn.org, the Social Sciences Research Network. It's a paper that was put out by Werner Erhardt and us. Steve Saffron and Michael Jensen, formerly of Harvard.
Harvard Business School. And literally just read this just the other day. Did you? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Great. It's a great paper. Yeah. Yeah. So if people wanna read up on this, it's a really dense, dense, dense paper, but it is brilliant work. Mm-hmm. But the idea in that paper we can, we can borrow from for this discussion is that for a person, it's really useful to think about integrity as your relationship with your own word.
Yeah. And where your word is. Um. You know where, where your word is defined in a really robust way is not just being what you promise, but also like the things that you value. Yeah. So let's just use those two. Okay. So like you set up your whole calendar. Of all the things you're gonna do. And then you do what a lot of my clients do, which is you get up in the morning and you go into your office and you look at your calendar and you see the first thing on there and you don't wanna do it.
And so you just call an audible right out of the gate and then you blow off your calendar. You do all these things and look, maybe you had a, a really productive day and you got some stuff done, but you just didn't do what you said you would do. Mm-hmm. Okay. So when you don't do something you've promised.
And the person that I wanna point to on this is a brilliant person named Martha Beck, who wrote up a book on integrity. So good. You know the book I'm talking about. Okay. Yes, yes. She's great. So in in her book, she talks about how the body actually registers, lacks of integrity. So when you lie, it knows.
Mm-hmm. When you break a promise, it knows when you don't live true to one of your values, it knows. So, Martha Beck does a way better job than I could ever do talking about this. But the point is, is that when you break a promise you made and you don't deal with it appropriately, or you don't live true to your value, it affects your body as well.
Yeah. So another domain you need to pay attention to in order to be complete in life is your integrity. And that in this, in this context, means your promises, the things you value, et cetera. And so there is a way. You need, sorry. You need to have a way to powerfully deal with when you break promises, because if you're up to stuff, like if you're an entrepreneur and you're trying to grow a business and you're up to a million things, you're gonna break promises.
You're, you're just, you're going to, yeah. It's not an excuse. It doesn't give you an off the hook. It doesn't mean that you can just go ahead and make promises willy-nilly. You still want make promises thoughtfully and with thinking. You have every possible ability to keep them, but when you break them, then you need a way.
To deal with the promise that you broke. Yes. So that you are left with your integrity restored. There's a way to do that. And most people don't know how to do that 'cause we're just not taught how to do that. Mm-hmm. But you need a way to do that. And just to, you know, one, one powerful way to, to, to do that, just real briefly, 'cause I know we wanna talk about other things, but just to leave people with something practical, huge, right?
Is that okay? When you break a promise. People get affected. Yeah. Like if you promise your spouse you're gonna pick up the kids from school, and then you break that promise, well, now someone else has to go get your kids. And maybe your kids had to stay late and maybe the teacher was annoyed. Now your kids feel bad.
There's all this. Sort of like cascade of consequence. So part of what will leave you with the experience being complete is when you go to deal with the broken promise, is you've gotta talk to all those people who are affected and acknowledge, Hey, I didn't do what I said, and as a consequence of that you had to deal with all these things.
Hmm. What can I do? What can I do to make up for that? Yeah. And I promise you that's not gonna happen. Again. Here's why I broke my promise and I'm handling that. So in the future, you just know that that won't happen again. I'm dealing with that, right? So those are some of the practical things you need to do.
You need to talk to people. You need to acknowledge what you did, you need to deal with how they were affected, and you need to. Give them some reason to think that they can trust you in the future. And then you need to do the work to make sure you don't keep breaking that promise. And I see business owners doing this all the time.
I'm leaving in 10 minutes. Yeah. And then they leave in an hour. Right. And then their spouse is pissed off and it was just a lie. They were, you know, they should just say, I wish I could leave in 10. I know you need me home. I know you're gonna be mad, but I'm not gonna be able to get outta here for an hour.
And I'm probably gonna have to make this up to you somehow, 'cause I know this doesn't work, but that's what I can promise, right? Yes. People need to learn to tell the truth. Truth, yeah. And to do what they say. And, and everyone, when you get good at that, which again takes courage and it doesn't make your life easier, it makes your life harder, but it makes everything simpler.
Yes. Because then that's so wise. You know exactly what conversation to have. Mm-hmm. And then what you need to do to be, and to leave other people complete with what happened. Then you're elevating your state of being complete in life. And what you will find in my experience, and this is with myself and all the thousands of people I've worked with.
Yeah. Is that. Um, you will sleep better. And I wanna leave you with one example before we go into your questions. Yeah. Okay. I worked with a man once who was a, uh, head insomnia, really, really bad insomnia. Years and years and years of insomnia. He, at most was getting like an hour and a half of sleep at night.
His health was so severely compromised that he was. At risk of dying. Yeah. From his insomnia and complications related to lack of sleep. And we worked together over a number, a number of hours. Mm. But after he did all this work to get all these things complete in his relationships and in his life, the next night he got 10 hours of sleep.
The next night you got eight hours of sleep for the first time in about 20 years. What? So I promise you, if you're a listener to this. There is a connection between how complete you are in life with your day, et cetera, et cetera, and with how well you sleep. And so. Even though, Molly, you and I just kind of scratched the surface of this, I hope we've given your listeners enough practical tips to at least move the needle up 1%.
'cause 1% is meaningful, right? 1% is meaningful. Wow. I'm so, so grateful that you. Articulated that piece and also demonstrated just the real world effects and the what kind of shakes out for people measurably with, you know, getting those extra hours of sleep or what have you. But also just the whole experience and people can, I think, hear.
Exactly what you're sharing. It just rings true of what a difference this could make for people in their lives and how uncommon what you're talking about is. And so I just love everything you just shared. That was fantastic. And I think can provide a lot of hope for people. 'cause there are so many people that tune in and hope is, yeah, it's not quite there, you know?
Yeah. So really, really appreciate that So beautifully said. And just to get a sense of, since you clearly have thought deeply about what it looks like to live a powerful life, a complete life, and care about your health. So yeah, I'm really curious to hear how you're managing your own sleep. So every person we bring on, we ask them four questions, and the first one is, what does your nightly sleep routine look like right now?
Okay. So when I am, when I'm being good, this is what it looks like. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And here's my, here's my, here's when I'm being bad, when I'm being bad. I'll watch TV after or during dinner too long. Yeah. To have enough runway. Totally. Um, to get, to, get to sleep well, but when I'm being good. Okay. Um, I take my pad full of things.
It all goes in my calendar before I leave my office. Yes. That's done. That's complete. I'm complete. That's done. Then, um, you know, I usually exercise after work and then my wife and I have dinner together. Then I actually use cleanup as a part of my wind down because just for me, putting things in order is very calming.
I like that. That's a great, and so I like the fact that I get to do the cleanup because it gives me a way to bring some order to chaos, which helps me chill. Then my routine is hot shower. Yeah. To raise. My temperature and, and to entice all my blood to the surface of my skin. Yes. And then I get in bed after a hot shower in a cold bed, which I have a chili pad.
Oh, so good. Yeah. So I get in a cold bed, so my temperature drops fast. Yeah. And I journal, and when I journal, I don't journal what's on my mind. I try to let. The universe speak to me of what message I need to complete my day. And I just write down whatever comes to me that way. Hmm. I read a fictional book, not something that gets me thinking about work, something that's completely fictional and by the time I'm two or three pages in, I'm like out.
And so like, it takes me forever to finish a book, but that's, so that's my routine. I use, oh, and I use an eye mask and earplugs. Yes. To just try to maximize or minimize distractions. Sure. Uh, I love that. And actually in my relationship with Blake, who, you know, I am the cleanup crew and yet you just gave me a nice reframe of that, that could be part of the wind down, that kind of cleanup process.
'cause I don't think I've thought of it quite like that. So appreciate that one. And I love the fiction call out. We had a guest on the podcast too. Referred to her process as fiction after five where she would shift out. Yeah, more self-development or whatever, to more of those fun types of materials. So beautifully, beautifully articulated.
And the chili pad. So good. Anyone listening, cooling mattress toppers are so game changing. So important. Okay. And then the second question would be, what does your morning sleep routine look like right now? And we say morning sleep routine with the idea that how we start our day. Could it turn impact or sleep?
Yeah. I don't let myself get out of bed until I've gotten myself emotionally connected to what my life is about. Ooh. And so I, I have to say it in my mind and say it in words. I sometimes have to remember a particular coaching call where it was really present for me or something. Yeah. But I don't get outta bed until I'm connected to what I'm doing with my life.
That's one thing. Mm-hmm. So I can start off my day intentionally. Um, and then I use the morning when I get up. I have, um. Podcasts that I listen to that are either in the domain of business or in the domain of world events or whatever that I listen to as I'm getting ready in the morning. Because what I find is the universe is always kind of sending me what I need for what I'm working on.
Yeah, so like something, this idea will come up in a podcast or something will come up in a news report. And I also just like to be informed. Uh, and so my morning is for listening to those things while I'm getting ready. Okay. And then I have a stretching routine of yoga I do and a brief meditation that I do before I get to work so that, uh, my body is relaxed, my body is, um, you know, I've gotten over the nighttime stiffness.
Yes. And my mind is present. And then I jump into the first thing, which is almost always working on the final edits of the book I'm publishing this year that I wrote last year. Oh, exciting. Yeah. Okay. What's the book about or to share? Uh, currently the working title is over the Gate and it is a memoir about the journey that I went on to complete a hundred Mile mountain biking race in Telluride, Colorado, which I've told you a little bit about personally.
I know. So good. Um, and it was a very transformative experience because it was something that I knew in my heart I couldn't possibly do, and I took it on to prove myself wrong, and I had so many transformative experiences in actually accomplishing it. Uh, after a year and a half of work, and so I created a memoir to write about the experience, to share with people what I learned that's made a difference for me.
So that book's coming out this year. Oh, I can't wait to read it. Yes. Thank you. You're so supportive. You're so awesome, Mollie. Thank you. I Very good. I know Blake will read it too. So we'll have a little mini book. I'll have two people. I have two buyers. Awesome. It'll spread. It'll totally spread. No story. I mean, even some of the things that you shared with me, I just, some of the insights that they're so powerful for anyone listening.
Definitely. Check that out when it's available. So, yay. Thank you. Okay, so that captured your mornings, I think. So the third question is, what might we visually see on your nightstand or maybe in your sleep environment? So if you look at my nightstand before I go to get ready for bed, there are only an 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 things on it.
Okay. It's a lamp and a box of Kleenex. Nice. There's a chili pad remote and a ceiling fan remote. 'cause I also turn on the ceiling fan. Nice. And then there is a like a chapstick. That's it. Okay. That's all on. I like, I like my space clear and then when I go to bed, what comes out is the book and the journal and the pen and the glasses and all that stuff.
Then I put 'em all away. Oh, that's great. Completion. The cleanup. Yeah, exactly. Chaos. Love it. So good. Okay. And then lastly, what would you say to date has made the biggest change to how you're managing your sleep? Or maybe said another way. Biggest aha moment in managing your sleep. I think it was, it was getting that sleep is a skill, honestly.
So that's why I really, I have so much respect for the work you're doing because when I got that, it was like, oh, because I, we just take it for granted, you know? Yes. Um, as children, it's not a skill, you know, we don't need any skills when we're like three. We just need someone to make sure we actually go to sleep, you know?
Yes, exactly. But as an adult, it becomes a skill. And when I learned that that was the big game changer, then I learned about the temperature pinks, as we've talked about. I learned about having. Sleep hygiene. Mm. So I have this ritual, which I didn't use to have, and I started learning about, you know? So yeah, getting that sleep is a skill, Molly, and what you do.
Honestly, that was the big game changer for me. Ugh. I love that. Even when you get, it's a skill, then you can learn it, right? You can learn any skill. Exactly. No, I think it's so important for people to have agency in this area, especially when people are dealing with things like that client that you mentioned with insomnia and just can really feel like there's nothing that they can do, and for the average individual that's looking simply to optimize certain periods of resignation or just this is how it is for me, when we start to remove that and bring about.
Skillset mentality that can make such a difference. So I love that you in vibe that in your own life, so fantastic. Yeah. And I know that people listening 'cause I mean, I'm just blown away by the depth of your coaching, by the integrity that you bring. I know people are gonna wanna follow you, work with you.
Get your book, all the things. So how can they do all of those? Well, the the best ways to contact me are either on LinkedIn, you can send me a dm. I manage all my own LinkedIn stuff, so that's LinkedIn slash in slash andrew polls. Okay. Or you can contact me through my website, andrew polls.com. There's a contact button on the first page.
Or you can just email me at a polls. A-P-O-L-E s@andrewpulse.com. Those are the best ways to reach me. Fantastic. And when does the book come out, you said? Well, um, I'm, I'm shooting for July. Okay. Exciting. So I'm at the last stages of editing here, so yeah, I can't. Unfortunately, can't say 'cause I don't know.
But that's my goal. July. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, there staging, just, just watch. If you follow me on LinkedIn or whatever, if you follow me on LinkedIn, if you sign up for my newsletter or whatever, you'll hear about it. If you're interested, you can find out about it there. I'll, I'll be letting people know.
Okay, great. Well thank you so much for taking the time and I know that these things are really gonna make a difference for people with their sleep. These topics are big ones, and I know that this, you have so much more to offer too. For people that are struggling and need that support, we're not even struggling, but just wanna live a big life and wanna take things to the next level and have that bleed into their health and wellbeing and their sleep.
So thank you again, Andrew means a lot. Great. Well, I, I appreciate getting to talk about this with you in particular, and thank you for the time because your podcast gave me the, the opportunity to really think about connecting all this up for myself. So, you know, and I, I got the thing about sleep as a skill before I knew about you and knew about sleep as a skill, but when I read the name of your business, I was like.
That's it. That's what I didn't even know that's what I was doing, but that's it. Right? And so I wanna just really also appreciate you for the work you're doing. I know so many people who struggle with sleep, and I know when they find you, they find answers that they desperately need. So thank you for the work you're doing.
I know you have worked really hard to not just build your own skills and sleep, but to build a practice where you can give those away. So kudos to you as well. And thanks for this really fun interview. Oh, fantastic. I had a blast. Thanks, Andrew. You've been listening to The Sleep As A Skill Podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level.
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