Dade Bailey, corporate leader and personal trainer, talks about the importance of balancing work and health
We all know we need to do exercise. There have been hundreds, probably thousands, of studies into the positive effects of regular exercise. It leads to better moods, decreased stress, more mental resilience, more confidence, more energy, and I could keep going on. So, there is no way I could have a site dedicated to happiness and mental health, and not cover exercise.
Unfortunately, when we get busy, exercise is often the first thing we drop!
That’s why this week I’m interviewing Dade Bailey, who has had a very successful career in the corporate world, but he also recently retrained as a personal trainer. I spoke to him about the importance of balancing the pressures of work with health and fitness, and how to bring a bit more balance into your life.
You’ve had a very successful career with some big Australian brands, but there’s more to you than your professional career… Let’s cut to the chase: you’re buff.
<Laughs> Nice, thanks. Yes I’m Okay. So yes, but it took a long time for me to get here.
How much time do you spend working out or doing exercise each week and what do you do?
On reflection looking back, I always wanted to get to this point of being able to look in the mirror and go, yeah, I look good. I feel great. I’ve got a healthy balance, and it took a very big mind shift to get there.
The gym I’ve been with for 14 years called Hiscoes in Surry Hills [Sydney], is such a great gym, I did a strength challenge with them that was the catalyst. They really gave me the understanding of how muscle groups work, how nutrition needs to work, how building good longevity strength really would help. And that helped me set my mindset to where I am now.
Now, I’m at the gym about four or five times a week for my own personal training. I do different things, that could be strength training, high intensity training, but also it could be just something for stress relief – like going to kick the crap out of a boxing bag, or just going to do some yoga for active recovery. I really love Pilates – Reformer Pilates – that’s really good. So, four to five times a week because rest is so important as well. You’ve got to be able to allow your body time to recover.
Is balance something that’s important to you?
I think being in the corporate world for such a long time, exercise is always my outlet and going to the gym in the morning sets me up for the day, to really start my day off well. So from a mental health point of view, it was like, I’m ready. I’m walking in the office ready to take on the day. I’m feeling good. I’ve got all these endorphins happening. It’s great. Fantastic.
However if my nutrition wasn’t balanced and I was then going to eat an egg and bacon sandwich every day, and not really balancing my food, I wasn’t really complimenting my training well. Then then looking at other parts of my life and ensuring I have a balance in those areas.
When I lead teams questions I’d ask ‘are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you sleeping right? How’s home life?’ To see if their life is balanced, and if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t be able to bring their best selves to work. At the start of each week, I used to ask my team “How are you feeling out of 10 this week?” To gauge how balanced they are heading into the week and how I could support them better.
Additionally I included exercise at work, instead of just having a 1:1 in a room, we’d go and have a walk and talk to do some exercise at the same time. Or have team meeting, we’d get out the building, so you were getting away from your desk.
Now I’ve become a personal trainer and I know a lot more about the sciences behind it, so going back into the corporate world is really going to help me as a leader to help my team thrive, so they get the best out of their work and bringing their best selves to work.
A lot of people join gyms and go to one or two classes and never go back. How did you find that spark or that passion to begin with?
As I said before there was a challenge at the gym. It was an eight-week strength challenge and I’m like, you know what, for eight weeks, I will commit. This is a short amount of time. Really commit. And even by week four of the eight weeks, I was seeing so many different changes in my body, how I was sleeping, how I was motivating myself. I changed myself from not being a morning person to being a morning person.
That’s huge!
It’s huge. I never used to be able to get out of bed. I used to sleep in and just go to work, but now I wake up at like 5:30 in the morning, quite happily.
Okay, I need your secret. We’ll get to that in a second.
But I think for me, it was that you’ve got to be able to help yourself and that was the mindset thing. You are the only one who’s going to be accountable here. You’ve got personal trainers that will help you, use them to help build out a program but it’s also “Where’s your commitment in this?” And I had to make a commitment to myself.
The corporate world is relentless, and it’s nonstop. And you have to find those moments to find that balance.
A lot of us are spending long, long hours in corporate world, and it’s becoming harder and harder to say no. What advice would you give to people to make sure they can find the balance in their life to fit in exercise.
Just from a personal point of view, after 14 years of working in an organization of the scale and the complexity that I did, I was really burnt out. And I’ve taken the time out to do some of the things I wanted to do, like become a personal trainer, which is amazing.
The corporate world is relentless, and it’s nonstop. And you have to find those moments to find that balance. As a leader in an organization, it was making sure that people came to work and they had a balanced life outside of work was my priority, because if they were wandering in and they didn’t have that balance, they weren’t able to perform at work. So for me, them making sure that they could do work flexibly if they wanted or being able to prioritize going to the gym classes that they wanted, or “hey, there’s a yoga class at four.” Go for it. You can. I know you’ll work to make up the hours. It’s about not putting restrictions on or being stuck in the old way of working of, “I need to see you at your desk from nine to five, and you need to produce X amount of widgets.”
Instead it’s like, “Here are the outcomes that you need to achieve. I expect you’re an adult and you’re able to achieve them. I will give you accountability to do that, and you work how you want. Giving people that freedom enabled them to be able to bring more of themselves to work and they were honest with me going, “I’m going through a tough time with this happening at home.” Okay, cool, at least I’m aware. But at least that kind of relationship really helped people bring everything they can to the office, and I created teams that thrive. And that’s where I’m always very proud of those moments. Because for me, if I’m running a team and they’re not living their best life outside of work, they’re not going to enjoy coming to work every day.
Absolutely. So obviously we all wish we had a boss like you! Were there any points in your life where you had bosses that didn’t subscribe to this idea? And how did you deal with explaining that you need to take time for yourself in order to be better for the organization or for your boss?
I had a boss who was a micromanager, and he really pushed my buttons. In the end, I learned that to manage the micro manager, I had to manage back. Okay, you want to know everything I’m doing? Here is a task list. Here’s everything I’m doing. You want to see that I’ve done all these tasks? Awesome.
Instead of them controlling me, I had to take control of them. But I also gave them honest feedback. I’d ask, “Can I just ask why you need to know this level of detail?” And sometimes people are just afraid of the boss. So just ask the question, “What was this to achieve? What’s the outcome?” Because for me, that kind of open and honest communication doesn’t happen enough in the corporate world. People need to ask the question “why” a lot more.
Have there been any times since you first started including exercise in your life on a regular basis that you haven’t been able to exercise, and have you noticed any impacts on your mental health or resiliency?
Absolutely. When in high delivery times, if I don’t get sleep and I don’t get to the gym in the morning, I go straight to work, I can sense my productivity levels dropping. I’m wandering in, I don’t feel energized, it would take me about two hours to get going. And people are bombarding me with questions and I wasn’t firing on all cylinders!
So that’s why it becomes so important to make sure you find that time and make sure that it happens, saying ‘this is important to my balance and the reason for that is to avoid two hours of wasted time as I wander in.’ Make sure you have the conversation as to why it’s important with your leaders to go, ‘this is me, this is why I need to do this. This is going to be better for you.’ This could be not just exercise, it could be making sure you’re dropping the kids off or going to swim class with the kids or prioritising a doctors appointment. As long as they let me know, there were ways we could make it work.
One time I noticed it started to affect my mental health was when I was leading the one of the biggest, complex change programs to deliver IT experiences to the whole organisation. It was consuming so much of my time, I started see my drinking habits go up each day, I was working longer hours, I was getting to bed late and sleeping in and not getting to the gym.
So I actually did a checkpoint, a kind of ‘put me at the centre’ activity and what actually makes me happy overall. For me it was flexible working, meaningful work, getting to the gym, making sure I’ve got time for my nutrition and making sure I’ve got time with my friends. When I started to protect those parts of my personal life, I felt the balance returning. I ensured I could cook on a Sunday night for the food for the week, ensured I limited my drinking to weekends, had conversation with my boss to come in a bit later so I could fit in my gym in the morning. I really had to look at and put myself under the microscope and go, what makes you happy on a day to day basis from the outside of work. And what is work affecting of those pillars? And make changes.
I think it’s such an irony that when we’re needed most at work, we let down all the other areas of our life that keep us healthy for work.
But it’s also the ability for a leader to see that in their people. And for me now coming into a personal training side, I think I’m rounding out my skills in a very different way. Because it will be a very much, “well, what makes you ‘you’ outside of work? Is it exercise? Is it nutrition? How are you balancing yourself out? And how as a leader can I help that outside work operate well? What blockers do I need to remove to help free that up so you come into this office skipping?”
Can I ask you since you have been training and doing your certifications, what are some tips for people who are just starting out on their exercise journey?
Ask questions of anyone working in that gym. I’ve had the same personal trainer since day dot (Hi Mac) and he’s just so full of knowledge, like how bodies work, how you sleep, how exercise affects your energy levels – there’s so much knowledge that they have! Learn from them and really ask questions. They want to be asked and if you have a question over motivation, programs, technique or what is best to achieve your fitness goals, ask them. And if they don’t know they’ll know someone who can [help].
A lot of people don’t do the gym because they have a fear that they may look silly, don’t know how to use the equipment or may go “ahh no, they look really fit, I can’t join that class.” But everybody working at the gym is there to help you. And yes, there are some people in gyms that are all there posing in front of mirrors or at the other end of the spectrum where they’re like, “Oh, my God, you had an alcoholic beverage, the world is ending.” But remember most people are there to better themselves. You’re all there for the same reasons, you’re there for health or want to look better for your wedding that’s coming up, or something like that. And there are people in that gym, with so many skills to help you achieve that. Don’t be afraid.
I know I was! I think I first went to a gym when I was 13 or 14 and those machines looked so scary. I don’t know if you remember going, “Oh my gosh, how do these work?” So would you recommend maybe taking a class to get started versus going straight for the weights equipment?
A couple of things that I’d recommend: most gyms overall should have some kind of introduction assessment. They should do a fitness assessment with you as soon as you walk in. Let’s sit down and get a baseline, let’s do some measurements. Let’s make sure you can know what your goals are, what do you want to achieve. A good gym will sit down and help you design a program and not only help you design a program to help you start to achieve that, but also show you how to use that equipment.
Regarding your point on the machines looking scary, they are built to help you ensure you’re doing your form correctly. Most should have a little illustration on them as how to use it properly, if you don’t have the confidence to talk to someone at the gym to demonstrate it to you. Otherwise, ask one of the trainers because they honestly want you to use the gym, use it safely, have correct form and they want their product to be used and for you to get the best results.
Is there anything I haven’t asked you that you want to add before we go?
I think in summary it’s about finding balance overall. If you are completing exercise or want to start, then work with your gym on how to do that and remember your body needs fuel for that exercise. Complement this with great nutrition, getting the sleep you need sleep, ensure you have time for your own mental health and having time for enjoying life – you need to look at what factors of your life are really are important to you, see how you get balance across them and see how you protect them.
After all, we work to live, not live to work!
If you’re in Sydney, you can find Dade at Hiscoes gym in Surry Hills. Visit www.hiscoes.com.au.