Oct 9, 2026 · 37 min · 10 segments
On this episode of Author Hour, gym owner and former schoolteacher Carrie Cox joins us to talk about her new book, *The Self-Care Dare: 25 Habits for Lasting Wellness*. What started as daily text…
So I define five factors of wellness as mindset, nutrition, fitness, sleep, and connection, and I, I think they really all work together.
And I think when, you know, if you're really weak in one area and really strong in another area, if you can play on your strengths, you can bring that weakness up.
And I think that we really reach maximum potential as far as health and wellness is concerned when we optimize all five.
And I think when one is out of balance, then it's very important to try to use the strengths to bring up the other.
And so if a person is struggling to work out, every, ev- everyone knows at this point you should work out.
I think the statistic is 25% of Americans, or maybe 20% of adults are working out on a regular basis, and that's, it's not because they don't know that they should work out.
E- either sleep is lacking or motivation, which would be mindset, uh, discipline.
Mental toughness would be doing what you don't wanna do because you're supposed to do it, because you have, because you understand long-term goals.
And I believe that that is a factor for why people don't do something they wanna do.
It's that they haven't developed this practice, this mindset of big-picture thinking.
"No, I wanna, I, I don't wanna do this now, but I understand that it's gonna get me to a place that I do want to be." And so it's not that they can't work out, it's that their mindset's not there yet.
And so if we can first adjust mindset, then the other factors start to fall into place.
Or maybe someone really is locked in, and very disciplined, and a, an early riser, and they eat well, but their schedule is jam-packed, and there's just truly- A lack of time.
Well, then we, we start talking, okay, now how can we fit in maybe small snacks of exercise? And we, we talk about that in the book, and we talk about, you know, if you start at the top, who do we wanna be? And then we work down, how do we get there? What does it take to be...
What does it take to be whatever? And then we can plug in how to get there, kind of reverse engineer how to get there.
And of course, my specialty is obviously fitness, but the more I've done in fitness, the more I see it's so connected to all of the other factors in, in wellness, truly.
Yeah, I can imagine, not that I can imagine, I know that for a lot of people, fitness and nutrition and mindset are huge, and they understand that, but I'm super interested in the principles of sleep and connection.
How did we get to those?
To answer your question about connection, it's a really good question, and I, I'm, I'm gonna roundabout kind of answer your question with a question.
So I define five factors of wellness as mindset, nutrition, fitness, sleep, and connection, and I, I think they really all work together.
And I think when, you know, if you're really weak in one area and really strong in another area, if you can play on your strengths, you can bring that weakness up.
And I think that we really reach maximum potential as far as health and wellness is concerned when we optimize all five.
And I think when one is out of balance, then it's very important to try to use the strengths to bring up the other.
And so if a person is struggling to work out, every, ev- everyone knows at this point you should work out.
I think the statistic is 25% of Americans, or maybe 20% of adults are working out on a regular basis, and that's, it's not because they don't know that they should work out.
E- either sleep is lacking or motivation, which would be mindset, uh, discipline.
Mental toughness would be doing what you don't wanna do because you're supposed to do it, because you have, because you understand long-term goals.
And I believe that that is a factor for why people don't do something they wanna do.
It's that they haven't developed this practice, this mindset of big-picture thinking.
"No, I wanna, I, I don't wanna do this now, but I understand that it's gonna get me to a place that I do want to be." And so it's not that they can't work out, it's that their mindset's not there yet.
And so if we can first adjust mindset, then the other factors start to fall into place.
Or maybe someone really is locked in, and very disciplined, and a, an early riser, and they eat well, but their schedule is jam-packed, and there's just truly- A lack of time.
Well, then we, we start talking, okay, now how can we fit in maybe small snacks of exercise? And we, we talk about that in the book, and we talk about, you know, if you start at the top, who do we wanna be? And then we work down, how do we get there? What does it take to be...
What does it take to be whatever? And then we can plug in how to get there, kind of reverse engineer how to get there.
And of course, my specialty is obviously fitness, but the more I've done in fitness, the more I see it's so connected to all of the other factors in, in wellness, truly.
Yeah, I can imagine, not that I can imagine, I know that for a lot of people, fitness and nutrition and mindset are huge, and they understand that, but I'm super interested in the principles of sleep and connection.
How did we get to those?
To answer your question about connection, it's a really good question, and I, I'm, I'm gonna roundabout kind of answer your question with a question.
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