Eva Gruber is a Habit Coach, Mental Fitness Trainer (mental health, positive mind), Speaker, and International Best-Seller Author. She supports entrepreneurs, managers, and teams who “have too many hats on and by that too much on their plate” to improve their wellbeing, relationships, and peak-performance. How? Through unmasking their mental self-sabotage (negative, hindering thoughts) and establishing easy, good habits.
Eva Gruber, Habit & Mental Fitness Coach
Let’s get to know you first. Tell us, who is Eva Gruber?
On good days – and luckily I’ve thereof many – I radiate with positivity and joy as I love how life transformed, what I do, and with whom I can engage. How come, you might ask?
I show great empathy and curiosity for the needs and interests of others – from my clients to my loved ones. But to do so day-by-day, I had to learn how to show empathy for myself first.
Imagine you boarded a plane, and the steward informs you: “Dear passengers, in case of a pressure loss in the cabin, please put the oxygen-mask on yourself first, before you assist others.”
Having said that, I invite you to learn how to put the oxygen-mask for empathy on yourself first, before you help others. This is like a muscle so many of us – and me included – need to train every day, to not step into people-pleasing too much.
Why do I need that skill? As life happens, my family witnessed a big trauma due to my grandmother’s unexpected suicide. As a 6-year old tomboy-like girl, I suddenly shifted my behavior.
I turned serious, as everyone around me was sad. I turned quiet, as everyone around me was moaning with little to no words. I turned responsible, as I simply thought “From now on, I need to know things upfront and right.” and “I need to step up whenever someone is in need.”.
Doing so, I activated and nourished a self-sabotaging mind and behavior. I started to overuse qualities which lead to (self-)harm. I became more and more people-pleasing. I tried to make everything perfect like a stickler. I turned restless on top to not miss out on anything.
Today, living again in my home country Austria, having explored the world and especially Africa, being in love with Yoga, my bicycle in Vienna, my vegan and zero-waste lifestyle, and my ever-surprising and joyfully loving French fiance, I still need to nourish my self-empathy to keep growing in a healthy way.
On top, I know the stickler and the restless in me by hard and how to manage them when they get prompted on my “bad days”.
Was death the adversity, the pivotal moment that turned you into a Habit Expert today?
For too many of us, life is a cumulation of joyful and sad experiences.
As children, life starts like light, bright colors on a canvas. As we grow into teenagers and adults, darker, heavier colors can start to dominate the picture. If we don’t train our positive mind and respective behavior to detect and master these dark colors, our mind tricks us into an unhappy life.
Having said that, life adversities happened to me too. The sudden suicide of my beloved grandmother was the first. Thereafter, a life-threatening anorexia from the age of 17 till 30, combined with a heavy depression due to my exhausted body as a young woman happened. About 6 years ago, strong burnout symptoms as a first time founder in my mid 30ies can be called another “adversity highlight”.
But as you and our readers can imagine, each of these turned me into who I’m today. These adversities strengthened my awake senses and young wisdom as I took action upon them to heal.
Till today, I’ve been working for 16 passionate years in or with corporates, NGOs, the civil sector, innovative startups as well as impact-driven social startups. The combining narrative is “What resources do we truly need to live our intentions? How can we use resources sustainably, as an individual leader to a team or family?”.
After working in sectors like New Renewable Energy, Financial Literacy for the Youth, Package Free Consumerism in Food Retail, and Young Social Entrepreneurship from Europe to Africa and Asia, I got asked to condense my experience and wisdom.
I finally figured that Behavior Change and the great field of Behavior Design, Habit Formation and Positive Intelligence/Mental Fitness is at the heart of my work. I topped my experience with education e.g. at Stanford University for Habit Formation and with Positive Intelligence for Mental Health and Fitness.
In what way do you offer something unique to your clients?
In simple words: I help people achieve intentions through the power of easy, good habits, routines and mental fitness, a la positive mind, mental strength. But first, they need to discover their true intention for work or private life. And believe me, their initial intentions usually turn 180 degrees to reestablish their wellbeing, healthy relationships and peak-performance especially in peak-times like stress, anger or doubt. But let’s unpack this:
Firstly, many of us attend great events like conferences, workshops and retreats. We get inspired to change ourselves, our business career or our venture. But once we’ve turned our keys to open our front door back home or at work, our many roles, routines and daily operations hit us and take away our time, attention and energy. We literally fail to put intentions from a business workshop into action, and your intentions are dimming away. But we also fail as we don’t get trained how to do so in our individual life-settings, not at school nor later on.
Hence, I help people to create easy, good habits and routines to put their intentions into lasting action. Doing so, we make true use of the (financial, time and energy) investments you did to attend these events.
Secondly, I get asked a lot to “finally break the bad habits” one has, like working too much, moving too little, or eating too sugary food on top. Luckily, we can change these bad habits together.
But even more importantly, I make my clients aware that in order to break bad Physical Habits like binge-eating at work, we need to break our bad Mental Habits first.
For example, if we wish to drink and eat healthier to stay productive at work over the course of a day, we need to become aware of our self-sabotaging beliefs. There are many of them, and we believe in them unconsciously, like “I’m not strong enough for this.” You can replace strong with e.g. smart, patient or confident.
Lastly, as a curious mind myself, I’m not working as a Habit Coach “only”.
Yes, I coach individuals, teams and groups online. I train teams and groups on spot or online as well. But I also activate change through speaking engagements, by being a TEDx speaker or on podcasts.
Luckily, I can also apply my experience as a Habit Consultant, to make impact solutions as e.g. a Health App or an Education Program more applicable, and turn learnings into daily habits and by that social impact. Does your solution need to be a regular habit? Does the retention, engagement and client satisfaction fit to do so? Questions like these make me radiate with curiosity.
What inspires you day-by-day to do this unique work?
Even though I’m trained by some of the leading global experts myself such as Professor BJ Fogg PhD from Stanford University, none of us has “the black belt” in how to cope with our emotions, which are the engine of our behavior. Especially our negative emotions, like fear and its siblings such as anger, shame, guilt, insecurity or doubt, are asking for a lot.
Having said that, I even need to train my habit skills and my positive mind like a muscle day-by-day. By putting myself into my clients’ shoes, I feel how overwhelming and exhausting behavior change can appear. This experience can even make people stop doing what they actually like and are good at.
This is where easy, good habits become the game-changer in life!
As about 6 hours of your awake day are dominated by your habits, and as 40% of your behavior is unconscious to you, you truly should want to learn which habits dominate you, right? On top, do they support your intentions, and how can you nourish them? Or do they hinder or even stop your intentions, and how can you change that to the better?
This is what nourishes my big empathy and curiosity at work.
Who can work with you as a client or business partner?
I started off with defining entrepreneurs, managers and team leaders as well as their teams as my clients. I pitched it like “I work with all of those change-makers who “constantly have too many hats (roles) on” and by that “have too much on their plate”.
But isn’t that almost everyone in striving sectors today?
Today, I still warmly welcome people that deeply resonate with this description. But I discovered two niche audiences in the last years of my work whom I especially support:
Firstly, I support decision makers – from entrepreneurs to managers – that feel introverted at heart but need to step into an extrovert’s shoes. Many CEOs are among them. How does this feel? With an introverted temperament, any over-stimulation is a game-changer for your presence, focus, and productivity. You more easily burn-out over the course of a busy day or week than others. You feel not only physically but mentally exhausted, even have tendencies to avoid meeting your team, clients or at night your family.
There are many more ways introverted decision makers feel, but the upside is: They have beautiful qualities they often don't use and are not even aware of. To use these qualities for their work, venture or loved ones, they need to shift habits and routines, and e.g. a hyper-achieving, restless till people-pleasing mindset.
And yes, sometimes we feel like “we have both temperaments within us”. I feel so too. This is called being “ambivert”, which is a good mix of being introverted and extroverted. Yes, this makes life more complicated at times, hence I also work with ambiverts as the distinction isn’t that easy in the beginning.
Secondly, I support so-called Scanner Personalities or Polymath People. What’s that you might ask?
Leonardo Da Vinci was a Scanner Personality. He had manifold interests, followed loads of his passions, turned many ideas into projects or even jobs which he did in parallel or in a sequence like “a Phoenix rising from the ashes”. Over time Scanner Personalities like Leonardo create valuable talents. These can be turned into gifts and opportunities.
But most Scanner Personalities struggle with having too many ideas in their mind. They turn restless too easily, running for one idea after the other but in the end not even finishing one of them. A feeling of frustration, disappointment, shame or guilt appears frequently in their life. They feel lost at times “with these many hats on”.
I help them discover the many qualities Scanner Personalities have, and how to make use of these especially at work. Doing so, my clients turn into true change-makers as they are great at the interface of innovation and bringing various stakeholders together, speaking all their lingo.
And guess what: As an ambivert and Scanner Personality myself, I can easily step into your shoes if you feel so too.
When it comes to my consulting support, any company that wants to put their solution into a more impactful one – by turning it into a “daily habit” – is welcome. As said, many of them are from the Health, Education and Social Change sector.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years from now?
Uh!!! This question always tends to activate the restless in me, since I applied for my first job, haha!
I don’t want to make any predictions as I have learned “how to ride the waves” in my life. I also know today that riding the waves brings you to good places in the end.
But one thing my fiance and I truly wish for is a healthy child that makes our life even more adventurous. I personally want to discover how life as a mum-preneur can be created with big (self-)empathy and curiosity.
Let’s hit the last question, Eva. What’s the one thing you would like to change in corporate and startup leadership? Why?
By supporting individuals, teams, ventures and organizations, I aim to foster five so-called Sage Powers in the related entrepreneurs etc. Which are they? And why shall you foster them?
I want to level up our capacity of empathy, for ourselves first and then for others. Doing so, we don’t act as a hyper-rational “hammer” but become the empathic, clear-headed leaders and change-makers we would have wished to have in our very own first job.
I want that each of us becomes more curious about life and work, and trains its capacity to explore what’s truly going on or needed to solve a challenge or achieve a chance. We jump too easily and too fast from problem to solution, as strong beliefs like “This is the way we always did it.” dominate traditional leadership. Let’s break up these outdated behavior patterns.
I want us, and especially the decision makers I work with, to find new, better solutions together. Innovation happens at the interface of ideas and people. It’s not an either-or but a yes-and methodology we can train ourselves in to create the needed innovative solutions as a group, team or family.
I want us to navigate with more ease and focus through tougher stages of our life. By using the wisdom we have in ourselves with the help of having a clear head, as well the “wisdom of the crowd” in our team, a group or our family.
Lastly, I want people and my clients to not only ideate. I want them to put their ideas into action. With a clear head, focus and empathy, and with the help of habits and routines if it’s a recurring action in their job or life.
This way, these five Sage Powers lead to a new, trusted and resilient way of leadership in a world of constant change.
How can our readers discover more about your passionate habit and mental health work? By simply chatting with me in person. Choose your free 30-minutes Idea Call here.Or email your question to hi@evagruber.org. Don't miss out on my first TEDx Talk about The Power Of Bad Habits. Listen to some of my guest-podcasts as with a sleep expert. Or read my very personal story "My Sage & I" in my co-authored book Creating Impact – Change makers who overcame adversity to create a positive impact in the world.
