How do you spend the first hour of your day? Right now, Adrienne Herbert starts her days with energy and courage.
“I wake up in the morning, and before I look at anything I go to the bathroom, I splash cold water on my face, and I do some deep nasal breathing. As I’m doing that, I repeat words in my mind, recently these words have been energy and courage” shared Herbert with a big smile.
“I think about what’s the energy you want to put into the world today. Courage because if we have big ambitions, and if we want to make big changes in the world, then we have to have courage. Those are my words, but they change all the time.”
adrienne herbert
I had the pleasure to acquaint myself with this incredible powerhouse that is Adrienne Herbert over four years ago – the actual whereabouts are blurry, but it’s most likely at one industry event or social media (where all cool kids make friends these days).
The Many Hats of Adrienne
If you have never met Adrienne, she is a leading wellness professional, international speaker, podcast host and Director of Innovation and Performance at UK’s leading fitness app Fiit. She shares her passion and her expertise on her podcast and social channels, she is a voice of inspiration, encouragement and motivation.
Over the last few years her love for running has taken her around the world and she has completed 19 road races in different countries. She is also a mum to her 9 year old son Jude and is about to release her book based on her popular podcast, the Power Hour.
The Power Hour is a popular weekly podcast, which features a variety of guests, such as Fearne Cotton, James Clear, Dame Kelly Holmes & Trevor Nelson. Adrienne Herbert finds out their daily habits, routines, rules to live by and what they have learnt along the way.
“I get so many different guests, and some are 10 years into their career. Some are 20. Some people are 10 steps ahead of you, but maybe others are one step ahead. I think that’s really valuable as there’s universal lessons that we can all dive into. Things like work ethic, resilience, fear of failure, risk taking. Those apply to everybody.“
adrienne herbert
The Power Hour achieved a noteworthy recognition. In 2019, iTunes placed it in the “Best For Motivation” category. Not only that, but it’s been downloaded over 1 million times. Its quality is also unquestionable, as it holds a stellar 5-star rating.
Embracing the Journey
Reflecting on the impactful lessons from The Power Hour, Herbert has some cherished memories. One that stands out is her time with DJ Trevor Nelson.
In their shared episode, Nelson opened up about young aspirants reaching out to him. They sought his advice on how to navigate the music industry. Herbert highlighted how Nelson would take a step back, viewing his own journey in retrospect.
She remembers his analogy vividly. Nelson likened his early journey to being at the start of an underground tunnel. He felt as if he were armed with nothing but a pickaxe, constantly chipping away in the darkness.
His line of sight was hindered. He wasn’t sure of his direction, but he persisted. He kept chipping away, facing the uncertainty head on.
Adrienne Herbert underscores that such relentless perseverance isn’t always desirable. However, she posits that it’s this mixture of turns and tumults that render the journey valuable.
“People often glorify the end of the journey,” she recalls Nelson saying. But he emphasised the importance of appreciating the journey itself. People long for a clear view through the tunnel and aim to reach the end as swiftly as possible.
Herbert, a self-confessed impatient person, found this visual analogy quite impactful. It resonated with her own experience. “Currently, I’m in the tunnel, steadily chipping away. That’s where my focus should be,” she muses.
Of course, this doesn’t mean it’s all smooth sailing. Herbert recognizes that the journey comes with real challenges. There will be times of exhaustion, moments covered in sweat and mud. There might even be a desire to quit chipping away.
However, despite these hardships, the hope persists. Hope that eventually, the effort will pay off. “I’m now more focused on the journey within the tunnel, rather than the end goal,” she concludes.
How to Set Better Goals
The concept of goals and achievements often leads us to the myth of overnight success. Adrienne, however, sees things differently. She staunchly believes that setting intentional goals and planning has been crucial to The Power Hour’s immense success.
Adrienne is a planner at heart. She thrives on learning from business narratives, entrepreneurs, and future trends. “I was very deliberate,” she asserts. Reflecting on the show’s inception, its motives, and launch methods, she explains the detailed steps she took.
Adrienne approached podcast producers with a comprehensive idea. She presented them with a bulletproof, 14-page PDF deck.
This meticulously crafted document delineated her target audience, the conversations she envisioned, and her suitability to lead these discussions.
She was particularly careful about her guest lineup for the initial 10 weeks. She aimed to position the show just right. “On the surface, success might seem like planting a seed and watching the tree grow. However, the reality is full of competitive noise,” she observes.
Industry research at the time revealed staggering figures. Around 400,000 podcasts were being uploaded to iTunes and Spotify every week. Yet, only a small 8% of the global population was tuned into podcasts, leaving a vast 92% untouched.
Adrienne saw an opportunity. “I believed that the first 10 episodes could demonstrate what the show was about,” she shares. She saw it as a chance to offer a glimpse of the vision and energy she brought to the table.
What’s the intention behind your goals?
“You’ve got to go detailed, with a lot of granular information about what you want to create, because it will allow you to take the right steps towards it. I’m all about dreaming big, I tell people to have audacious goals, but make those goals detailed.”
Adrienne Herbert on Her Book
“I hope that this will showcase to others that whatever your goal is, whatever your current situation, whatever your past circumstance you can still achieve. It doesn’t mean that it’ll be easy. It will not be easy. I wanted to lead by example to show others what is possible”.
adrienne herbert
Going onto her book The Power Hour, which she is clutching in her hands during our Zoom call, she tells me how, once again, she started by asking herself the right questions.
“I asked myself why create a book? Who is it for? Who’s it going to benefit? I thought that not everyone is going to find the podcast, not everybody uses social media and Instagram.”
We live in what she calls “sound bitey world”, where people are looking for top tips, the short version, because we’re all busy, and don’t always have time for the long story: “I thought of giving someone a book that they can take and digest in their own time, the 360 approach from the idea of the power hour.”
By exploring the full concept, readers can answer some truly powerful questions.
What will change in my life doing a power hour every day? How does this impact their mindset? How does this impact movement and daily habits?
On a more personal level, she really wanted to show herself she had the full potential. “This isn’t a way to say ‘oh, I’ll show you’ to others. However, throughout my life, I’ve definitely had a lot of challenges, barriers to overcome. People saying that you can’t do that, or don’t get your hopes up.”
Coming from a single parent household, low income family, without a degree or A levels, she points out how certain opportunities were not afforded to her.
“This book was really about me wanting to lead by example. I mentor some young people, as young as 14 and 15. I want to show people that we all face barriers, we all have things in our lives we could perceive as barriers. You can either focus on those and let them define what you can and can’t do, or you can focus on creating a better future for yourself. You have to choose one because you can’t have both.”
adrienne herbert
Adrienne Herbert finishes off our chat by talking about the importance of resilience and quoting Eleanor Roosevelt.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man (or woman – editor note) stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man (or woman) who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly”.
Daring to Leap
By daring to leap, by daring to create your business, or your brand, or your book, or whatever you are, you are taking action.
“It’s not to say that everyone will applaud you as you do it. Some people might throw stones, but you still have to do it anyway. That’s the thing that I’m really learning in this process with the book”.
adrienne herbert.
Adrienne Herbert is an incredibly positive person, always with a smile on her face, but it doesn’t mean she is bullet proof: “it doesn’t mean that I don’t get jarred by the same things as anyone else when it comes to critics or starting open conversation as well as opinions” she admitted candidly. “I’m just saying, well, that can’t be the thing that stops us from daring to leap”.
Whatever you are daring to try this year, remember that by having the courage to try something new, you are going to be learning so much about yourself and have the wildest and most rewarding experiences: “I get to sit down for an hour, usually in person, sometimes now virtually, and have these amazing conversations and then distilled the best bits from them to share with whoever wants to listen. So I feel really lucky that I get to be that person.”
You can now get your own copy of Adrienne Herbert’s The Power Hour book here and find her at @adrienneldn on social media.
Ready to get started with positive impact marketing?
Set up power marketing systems build a marketing strategy that drives results, when you join our certification.
Develop an advanced set of marketing skills that drive more measurable results to any project and harness the power of psychology, purpose, storytelling, and impact to build trust in an increasingly skeptical world.
Take our certification, build your marketing plan and build your ultimate marketing toolkit.
