Welcome to the Undiet Your Coaching Practice Podcast

Every time a woman makes peace with food and her body and breaks up with dieting for good, the world feels a little brighter – and you as a coach can be part of the solution.

In this podcast, you’ll learn all about coaching using a non-diet approach, intuitive eating & body image coaching, ethical business & marketing strategies and more, along with business growth tactics.

Coaches, listen up

Whether you’re a nutritionist, a personal trainer, a therapist, a nurse, a life coach, a body image coach, a intuitive eating coach or anything in between, one truth is constant: diets are draining the life out of the women you serve. In a world that wants us all to be the same, you have the power to be the difference that changes lives for good. All you have to do is undiet your coaching practice – and this podcast will give you all the advice and inspiration you need to nail it.

Hosted by Clinical Nutritionist and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, Stephanie Dodier, this podcast distills a combined 25 years of undieting knowledge and experience into 60 minutes or less in each weekly episode. If you want to develop your coaching skills in the fields of women’s health, intuitive eating, body image, and mindset and grow your business along the way, this is the place to be.

Health professionals, listen up

Whether you’re a nutritionist, a personal trainer, a therapist, a nurse, a life coach, a body image coach, a intuitive eating coach or anything in between, one truth is constant: diets are draining the life out of the women you serve. In a world that wants us all to be the same, you have the power to be the difference that changes lives for good. All you have to do is undiet your coaching practice – and this podcast will give you all the advice and inspiration you need to nail it.

Hosted by Clinical Nutritionist and Certified Intuitive Eating Counselor, Stephanie Dodier, this podcast distills a combined 25 years of undieting knowledge and experience into 60 minutes or less in each weekly episode. If you want to develop your coaching skills in the fields of women’s health, intuitive eating, body image, and mindset and grow your business along the way, this is the place to be.

Our Most Recent Episodes

91-Common Copywriting Traps for Non-Diet Coaches with Shawn Mynar

91-Common Copywriting Traps for Non-Diet Coaches with Shawn Mynar

Common Copywriting Traps for non-diet coaches

 The word copywriting alone is an anxiety trigger for too many coaches.

And it doesn’t have to be this way.

In this podcast episode, Shawn Mynar will share 3 simple steps to turn your copywriting skills to pro level  so clients find YOU instead of you spinning your wheels trying to find THEM.

Common Copywriting Traps for non-diet coaches 

Shawn Mynar is a business coach and connection-based copywriter helping coaches and practitioners build burnout-proof businesses. 

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on common copywriting traps for non-diet coaches:

  • The top 3 mistakes to avoid when writing copy for your website
  • What is “practitioner speak” and what to do instead
  • How to make copywriting easier for you

 

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Training & Resources 

Connect with our guest:

Instagram – Shawn Mynar

Facebook – Shawn Mynar

Shawn’s Free Masterclass – 3 Secrets to a Website that Stands out and Sells

 

Transcript:

Undiet Your Coaching Ep 91-Common Copywriting Traps for Non-Diet Coaches with Shawn Mynar

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Hey, welcome back to the podcast, my dear colleague. Today we’re going to talk about a topic that is really important to Creating sales in your business and working with more people and having more impact in your world, which is copywriting. Now, copywriting is this thing that we make up to be really complicated and needing a lot of training when in fact, Copywriting is the simple act of writing words about your offer, about yourself, about your program.

Copywriting is just writing words. That’s all it is. Now these words that you’re writing on your website, on your sales page, on your social media caption are all copy writing words. Now what I have seen to be the most challenging aspect of copywriting is switching our mind as practitioner and coaches to go from writing words. for ourselves to writing words for our ideal client.

Because that’s what copywriting is. Copywriting is writing words so that we can connect with our ideal client, explain to them the work that we do and how we can help them solve their problem and presenting them with the way they can work with us.

That’s what copywriting is, so we’re writing words. For our ideal client, not for ourselves. So I brought an expert on the podcast, a very close friend of mine. She’s a personal friend and she’s a business colleague as well. Her name is Shawn Miner. She’s been in the health coaching spheres for over 10 years.

We have known each other for over eight years and It’s someone that have a high level of trust for her teaching, specifically around copywriting, and we have the most Insightful interview that you’re going to listen to in just a few seconds here about copywriting. So get your pen and your paper out or your iPad out and take lots of notes.

Copywriting is something that can be easy and that’s what Sean does. on a daily basis in her business. Now, she also have an offer, like a free webinar, that she’s going to propose to you during the interview. And if you’re starting in your business and you’re new to this concept of writing words, aka copywriting, I would highly recommend that you take her up on that free training class on copywriting because I think it’s going to get you started in writing words for your ideal client, not for yourself.

And if you want to take it to the next step with Sean. Highly recommend to work with her as well. So, without any further ado, let’s deep dive in the world of copywriting with my friend, Sean. Let’s roll the interview.​

Shawn: Stephanie: Welcome to the show, Shawn.

Shawn: Thank you so much for having me, Steph. Always so much fun talking with you, my friend.

Stephanie: I’m so excited to have you as our copywriting expert. We’ve never talked about this topic in 87

Stephanie: show.

Shawn: That’s a long time to not talk about the words we’re using.

Stephanie: So when I heard that you were doing copywriting and you had. Knowledge to impart us with. I’m like, we got to talk about copywriting. So I’m going to start with the most basic question, if you can entertain me. What the heck is copywriting?

Shawn: Yeah, well, it’s a good question, actually. And I think it’s not one that’s even talked about enough as business owners.

Shawn: But the thing is, if you have a business, if you are a business owner, You are writing copy every single day of your business life. So kind of important. The easiest definition that I use is that it’s really any words that you are using in your business for your business. That doesn’t necessarily mean like the sales words like in the sales page or anything you’re doing when you’re talking about.

Shawn: having someone buy something from you. It’s everything. It’s in your social media posts, your social media captions. It’s on your website, on your homepage, your about page. It’s, in all of your emails, any email that you are writing for your business. That is copy. So it’s, I think technically a marketing thing, but you know, if you’re in business, everything you do is marketing, even if you’re not directly selling in something you are still selling yourself, selling the idea, selling the transformation.

Shawn: And all of that is done through. Your words, you know, you can’t like mime what you want people to do. You have to use words and they’re so important. And quite frankly, over the course of my time in business and, more specifically working with coaches and practitioners on their business. It is the most undervalued and underutilized skill out there. And that’s why I really set out to change this by learning and sharing and talking about it openly in a way that’s very approachable. Like it can sound scary to be like, Oh God, now I have to pay attention to every single word I’m using. All of it matters. It can really be overwhelming and then you kind of fear doing it at all.

Shawn: But instead I want to have a conversation of like how to just sound like yourself and share openly. And, really connect with people because that’s really what it is. It’s just about creating connections.

Stephanie: So, what I hear you say is copywriting is kind of a, it’s normal writing, but intentional writing.

Shawn: Yes, it is normal writing, but it’s an intentional writing. And, It’s not what I think is so important is it’s not professional. Like you have to be this amazing writer writing. It’s just you being you. It’s almost like really the best way to describe it is you talking how you speak. Like it, because when you think about it that way, we all have different nuances, different ways we say things and how we say things.

Shawn: And that’s what makes you and in today’s world, when you are a business owner, you have to set yourself apart. There’s a lot going on. There are a lot of businesses and business owners out there, coaches and practitioners all doing something similar. So how can you set yourself apart? Well, you do that by being you.

Shawn: And the best way to do that is through your words. And if you can really shift away from this is what I’m supposed to say, this is how I’m supposed to sound. This is how it should sound. I need to really talk as a professional, and really be this amazing writer and really put a lot of thought and energy into it.

Shawn: Yes, you do, but coming from a place of just being you and really showing yourself through your words. and so you don’t. You don’t have to be a good writer. You don’t have to have gotten an A plus in your grammar class or anything like that. it’s actually breaks a lot of the traditional writing rules when you write good copy.

Shawn: But it’s something that people can connect with and really get to know you and your personality through just by a few words. Cool.

Stephanie: So it’s intentional writing, not deforming. your personality to fit a box of a style of writing. Yes. But it’s creating a message, a very intentional message. In your way of speaking and the way of writing.

Shawn: A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, really the pre work to good copy is good messaging. You know, it’s and it goes hand in hand. So messaging is your message. It’s what you want to share with the world through your work. It’s a combination of a lot of different ingredients, but mainly thinking in terms or getting into the head of your dream client.

Shawn: And what they need to hear in the way that they need to hear it. So how they need to hear about their problem that, you know, they have, they may know they have, but how can you really connect with them and communicate with them about their problem? How can you connect and communicate with them about the solution, which.

Shawn: You’re going to be a part of probably right? and your work is going to be the solution. or what you can do with them, the transformation, you know, their dream state, where they’re going to be at the end and how can you connect and communicate with them about that? So that’s messaging. That’s where you really figure out what you want to say.

Shawn: And then your copy is how you say it.

Stephanie: Oh, brilliant. So, messaging is what I’m going to say and copy is how I’m going to say it. I’ve never heard anyone explain it so simply.

Shawn: To be honest, I’ve never said that until just now. Okay. It just came out. It came to me. Okay. this is like your new message.

Shawn: I like created a new tagline here. Yeah.

Shawn: That’s brilliant. We’re marketing your business.

Stephanie: Okay. Perfect. So, copywriting and messaging is clear. Now, you help people write their copy, you teach copywriting and messaging to people. Once they understand what it is, what do you see as being the, the mistake that people make? the most common error or wrong turn in the road that people take with their copy and messaging?

Shawn: Well, and this is specific to, and I know we were talking to a lot of coaches and practitioners. Yes. So, very specific to this. I call it practitioner speak. There is an actual phrase that I use for this. And it is this place where kind of like I was stating before, we are trying to be really professional.

Shawn: We’re trying to share everything that we know and what an expert we are in this particular thing, because of course we want people to know, we get it. We can help you. We are your people, come work with us. Right. And so we get into this very like professional speak where we lose our clients because they are not there.

Shawn: You are talking from your brain instead of taking yourself out of the equation and speaking in their brain, speaking from where they’re at, from their place, using their words. So for example, just randomly, your dream client may not know what gut dysbiosis is. And so you talking all about how you help people with gut dysbiosis and bloody, bloody block means nothing to them.

Shawn: You’ve completely lost them. It’s over their head. But if you say, Hey, you know how you always are bloated after you eat your meals. You know, how you always have to run to the bathroom for no reason at all. That is that they get that they understand, oh my gosh, yes. How did she know? and so, so the practitioner speak, I see so often.

Shawn: And what I want to do is just I want to take off this veil and just see you as a human and have you speak, like I said, just how you would talk if you were talking to a five year old. Trying to explain what you do just really and I don’t it’s not dumbing it down. It’s just taking it to a different level.

Shawn: It’s taking it. Out of that practitioner mode and into a real just humanness mode, just being a human connecting with another human and offering to help.

Stephanie: So, I just want to make a parallel to what you said earlier, copywriting is intentional writing on how we write our message. And so, yeah, we use the word gut dysbiosis, whatever the thing is. And when you speak to our colleague, but when we copyright. We don’t use that certain terminology. We use a terminology our clients are using.

Shawn: Yes. Yes. We, you talking to your colleague or your colleague talking to you is not the same conversation as you talking to your dream client. The only thing they know is that they’re bloated all the time and they need help with their bloating.

Shawn: They don’t know that it’s got diab dysbiosis. They don’t even care. They’re just like, can this person help me? Yes. And so you have to get on their level. It is not about your level. It’s their level. That is when you build that connection and, you actually get people to read and interact with your work.

Shawn: So, you know, if you’re posting on social media and you’re not getting a whole lot of interaction or engagement, you have to look at your copy. are you using that practitioner speak, kind of level and how can you adjust that to be? to where your dream clients are at. That’s

Stephanie: brilliant. And I’m going to translate that for people that are in the non diet space.

Stephanie: For me, this is when I hear people sell a program about intuitive eating, which the client doesn’t know what intuitive eating is. People just want to stop restricting food. They want to stop feeling guilty about food. They don’t know what it, they don’t know the name of the solutions. They just want to have a normal eating pattern.

Shawn: Yes. Yes. That’s it. 100%.

Stephanie: And what is eating is practitioner speak.

Shawn: Yep. Exactly. Yeah. so that is what you do. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is What’s going to happen? This is the problem I’m having now. This is where I wanna be. Talk to me there.

Stephanie: Amazing. So that’s the most frequent Yes. Challenges that people have with copywriting is using practitioner speak.

Shawn: Yeah. Just because you have a business doesn’t mean you need to be all like zipped up and professional. You know, it, it can be just flowy and free in what you would actually say if you were talking to a human. Amazing. Yeah, so that’s the biggest mistake for sure by far that I see specifically in this area.

Shawn: What’s the next one? I would say the next one is talking about deliverables versus. What I think of as like valuables like we get really into and this is kind of specifically when you’re talking about an offer you have or a freebie you have or something that you want people to take action on and purchase or sign up for or something like that.

Shawn: We talk all about all the things they’re going to get. Like the deliverables, like you’re going to get 10 coaching sessions. You’re going to get four modules. You’re going to get a Facebook group. You’re going to get all this stuff. Cool. That’s great. And there is a place for that, but nobody cares if you haven’t first talked about why they should care.

Shawn: You know, like why they even need this, what this is going to do for them, how they’re going to experience this transformation, where they’re starting out, where they’ll, there will be the journey you’re going to take them on. You have to really set the stage first. And so I call that the valuables because it’s creating that value of why they should care about how many coaching sessions they get.

Shawn: You know, if you start with that stuff too early, you’ve lost them. You know, because you haven’t built up that environment for them to find value in what you’re about to share. or what they’re going to get. So. I think it’s,something that kind of comes from this feeling of needing to quote unquote sell, but you’re not selling the deliverables, you’re not selling this package, you’re selling the reason why they need that package. The reason why they need to work with you. The transformation they’re going to be going through when they do.

Stephanie: You’re not selling the number of page in your workbook. Yeah. Right? That’s not why they’re listening to you. You’re selling the transformation once they’re finished a workbook.

Shawn: Yes, exactly. And it’s if you do a good job of creating that environment, no one cares how many pages are in the workbook.

Shawn: No one cares how many coaches sessions they get. They just are like, Oh my gosh, this is what’s ahead for me. Sign me up. Where’s the button to click? I’m in. They don’t even need to read that. Now it’s good to still put that on your sales page or whatever you have. For sure, it’s still talk about that because there are those kinds of people that really are analytical, want to read every line, want to know exactly what’s going on.

Shawn: But like I said, they, nobody’s going to care until you create that environment ahead of time.

Stephanie: And it’s almost, for me, it feels when you lead with the, what you call the deliverable, you overwhelm people. Mm hmm. Yeah, especially when like what I call a regular person to know that they have four modules and they have videos and they have workbook.

Stephanie: They’re like, Oh, fuck. I don’t want to go back to school.

Shawn: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. nobody too much. I’m

Stephanie: already busy. I’m I have a problem with time. Do I really want four module and 25 page workbook?

Shawn: Yeah, nobody wants Of course, nobody wants a coaching program. Nobody wants a coaching package. They want what’s going to come of that.

Shawn: And so if you said here, I can give you this coaching package, that’s eight weeks long, or I can give you this magic pill. Both will do the same thing. Which one do you want? They’re going to take the magic pill, right? So your job is to make it seem like that coaching package is a magic pill. It’s easy, it works, it’s this, it’s that, it’s fun, you’re gonna get so much out of it to the point where they’re like, cool, I’m in, where’s the button?

Stephanie: Amazing. And it will make people feel light, feel like they’re getting a ton of value coming in and working with you instead of being hesitant and overwhelmed from the Get go.

Shawn: Yeah, it’s not. It’s like a lot of times there’s this list of all these things you get, and it’s like a 500 value, 1, 000 value, all this stuff, like really making it very appealing, but that’s not where the value is. Nobody cares if your five coaching sessions are 1, 000 in value. They care about you. And really you should have already created this feeling of value ahead of time in how you talk about. Where they’re at, how they’re experiencing things right now, where they want to be, where they’re going to go, and the process that they’ll take to get them there, you know, like how you’ll be there for them and that kind of thing.

Shawn: Is

Stephanie: it possible that we do this because we don’t know how to describe the

Shawn: value? Yes, I think it’s. Honestly, talking about the deliverables is like the easy thing. It’s okay, I know I just created this program. I know there’s four modules. I can say that. And that is something that can fill this space on this page.

Shawn: But what I think is happening is kind of reversing to what we were talking about earlier, that messaging piece that comes before the copywriting. No one’s doing that. You’re not taking the time to do that. And so when it comes time to fill this whole page, let’s say a sales page with, words, you’re like, I don’t know what to say.

Shawn: I have no idea what to say. So I’m just going to say what I know, which is this has four modules. But if you actually do that messaging work before, then you have a ton, like basically, you know, I have a whole work at workbook. That’s a messaging workbook. And it basically just creates your whole sales page for you.

Shawn: Like, all you’re doing is transferring it over because Cocky pace and cocky pace. Yeah, because you’ve created this scenario already. You did it in this, non sales page environment, which feels a lot less, intimidating, if you’re just kind of working through some questions. But then you then have Basically your sales page created because you’ve gone through the process of figuring out where they’re at and what they need to hear in their language, figuring out where they want to be, what their dream resolution is in their language.

Shawn: And that is the whole, essentially the whole like path of your sales page. And then we get to the deliverables. So I really think it’s yes, it’s an easier option simply because you haven’t gone through the entire process and we’re not. You know, I say this all the time. We’re coaches. We’re not marketers. We’re not salesmen, you know, salespeople. So it doesn’t necessarily come naturally. It’s something you have to learn. It’s something you have to kind of, do the work to figure out. Like coaching comes very easily for a lot of people in our worlds. Marketing, not so much.

Stephanie: You got to build the skills.

Stephanie: Yes. There’s so many amazing coaches that do not have a full time business coaching because they have not built the skill set of copywriting and selling and messaging.

Shawn: bazillion percent. That’s so many coaches because like I said, coaching, cool, could do that all day. Getting people to want my coaching. I don’t know how.

Stephanie: Yeah, because we don’t have the skill set that needs to be built over practice and practice and practice.

Shawn: Yes. And we can both attest to this after years and years and years of doing it. It just takes practice. It’s not, you’re not immediately great at it from the beginning. You just keep going. You keep doing it. You figure out what works, what doesn’t. And go from there and you just can’t give up on it.

Stephanie: Okay, cool. What is the next thing we need to avoid? The next mistake to avoid?

Shawn: Yeah, I think, this one is, has a little nuance to it. But it is really important to talk about. And I think this, again, comes from not knowing any different. And that is talking about yourself too much. So your copy is not about you at all. There’s nothing in it about you now. Yes. This is where the nuance comes in. Yes. You have an about page on your website. You have to talk about yourself. You have to share your story, but even the about page on your website is not about you.

Shawn: It’s about you as it relates to them. same thing with you know, there’s a little about sections on your sales page or on your landing pages. Yes, there is a section where. You talk about yourself, but again, as it relates to them, why do they care about you? Why should they care about you? It’s not like this big, huge spiel to talk about your accolades and your education and everything you’ve done and list all these things out.

Shawn: It’s not a resume. It’s a place for them to connect with you. So I think, really the biggest and best thing and easiest thing you can do here is start looking at. What you have written potentially in your business, like from website to social media captions, everything. And see how many times you say I or me and see if you can just switch that sentence a little bit, take out the I and me, and make it more about them like it’s their thing.

Shawn: This is what they can do. So like it’s simple things like I’m so excited to share this thing that I created for you after all my years of experience. This is what I now have for you. There’s a lot of, I in there, like I created this thing. I’m so excited. So instead of that, you know, what can you do to just excitedly share this thing for them, make it about them. So that’s one of the kind of, like I said, I think it just comes from not knowing any better. It’s you don’t really know what else to say. So you’re going to naturally speak to how you’re feeling and what you’ve done and, how it affects them. We want to just keep it towards them. All about them.

Stephanie: I was reviewing a sales page in a coaching call recently. And the formatting of the sales page was like the name of the program and the visual. And then the story of the, of in this case was a practitioner, was a social worker, like her story for seven paragraph.

Shawn: Yes. Is that bad?

Stephanie: Okay. That’s not what I told her. I’m like, did I coach her right? I’m like, doesn’t feel right. this is not about you. It’s about them. they should have the answer to their question when they land on your page. They don’t want to know about you. Right.

Shawn: They want to know about you, but later. Yes. They want again, they want to know about you, but only in this Way of like, why are you the person to help me? Why should I care? You know, that kind of thing, but still keeping it in their realm. Like why? This matters to them. Your story is great. I think there is a ton of space within like your emails and even in your about page and things like that to share your story and people do love a good story. They do like to know more about you, but it has to be again going back to that world where it intentional.

Shawn: And, in the right time, in the right place, and again, bringing it back to why they should care. Right? So still making it about them at the end. So always a good practice. That would be a great opportunity to be like, Hey, let’s look at how many times in this seven paragraphs you’ve said I and me and my.

Shawn: And you’ll see it’s like a lot if it’s all about their story. And so then you can start seeing okay, how can I Either incorporate this story and make it about them, or how can I create another scenario that’s focused on them and their story, and then use my story down below when it’s more appropriate in the about section,

Stephanie: what I find, and this is where, I don’t do copywriting coaching. Obviously, that’s not my thing. I have some high level knowledge. But what I find from a mindset perspective is that the level of confidence of the coach will be expressed through how the copy is written. So if the level of confidence of the coach is Low or quite not there yet, then that’s when the story about them trying to prove themselves with their copy.

Stephanie: Do you see the same thing?

Shawn: Yes. A hundred percent. And that’s also where that practitioner speak comes in too, because it’s I have to prove that I know what I’m talking about. I have to prove that I have this education and this experience and I can help. And that just completely goes over your people’s head. They do not care about that

Stephanie: because what I say when I see that I’m like you’re making the copy. To fulfill your needs, which is to prove yourself instead of fulfilling the people who are going to read it needs, which is this is the problem. This is the solution. This is how I can help you. You’re making yourself more important than your future client.

Shawn: Yeah, right. And they can feel that, you know, you can absolutely feel that when you see that. And you can also feel someone’s lack of confidence. Just through their words, even if you’re trying to prove it that you feel that, you know, every of course, getting into the side of things, every word has an energetic expression. So. You can sense the energy of you through your copywriting, right? So if you truly are confident, like you’ll be able to tell, even as you start interacting and start kind of noticing other people’s copy, which I do always recommend, like now that you’re in tune with how important copy is in your business, start looking at other people’s copy and you’ll be able to tell how you can feel the energy of the person through their copy.

Stephanie: Totally. I was reviewing social media of a person recently, and all I could feel was anger, anger, anger, anger, because it was like, I’m right, they’re wrong. And in the case of diet culture, and I see that a lot, I’m right, diet culture is wrong. And it’s the tone use made me feel like, I don’t want to read anymore, because it’s just anger everywhere.

Shawn: Yes, absolutely. I mean, that’s just infused in every word that you say or write, you know, it’s just infused the energy.

Stephanie: Amazing. Okay. So we’ve got three mistakes that we can avoid. Do you have any tips on things? We should focus on when we write copy. I know you do have a, an amazing offer and please explain to people like how they can get more training from you.

Stephanie: But what would be a couple tips you have for people?

Shawn: I think going back again to what I said, but, talking about a little more. In just writing how you speak, like keeping it very casual and something that people actually want to read, think about how you talk, like the certain words you say a lot when you’re talking or how you speak or different nuances and things that you do and see if you can infuse that into your writing and really your personality to like, don’t forget about your personality.

Shawn: it’s so fun to read people’s. Even if it’s an email that ends up selling me something, if it has personality, I’m reading it. You know, instead of it just being this like kind of boring, like thing that, Oh God, they’re selling something now, you know, we don’t, no one wants that. So how can you infuse your personality and who you are and your energy, your vibe, of course, all of that stuff.

Shawn: But, really. Keeping it casual and fun and easy to read. we don’t have to go by any of the traditional, things that you may have learned. Like I said, just really see, and you’ll see this, in the stuff that I write. The emails and stuff that I write, every sentence is like a different line. And I’m really breaking things up and making things easy to read. Some of them aren’t even full sentences. But it keeps it flowing. It keeps it easy to read. And it’s just my vibe. so, that’s something to look at and go, that goes to another tip. And like I said, is to really look at other people’s copy and see what you’re drawn to and what you want to read.

Shawn: I mean, I do this for everything in my business and always have, it’s like. What kind of work are you drawn to what are they doing that you could do to in your own way and kind of making your at your own just really focus on that and you’ll notice now that I pointed it out, you’ll be able to notice who’s using practitioner speak.

Shawn: Versus who’s just talking like they’re talking to another human and you’ll be able to point that out. So just start noticing, start seeing how you can maybe change some things, start kind of auditing your own copy, anything that you do have written for your business. And, see where you can make some tweaks and see where you can maybe have things flow a little more, create more personality, take out those eyes and knees and make it more about them.

Shawn: Take people on a journey. You know, this is really your time to, express yourself and to really connect. Like it’s all about connection. And when we do that, we don’t have to worry about being salesy. We don’t have to worry about being like annoying or anything like that. When it comes time to sell our stuff, because we’re just creating a connection and we’ve been doing that forever.

Shawn: Yes, that’s all it is. Human to human. And the more humanness you can create for your people, the more likely they will to purchase.

Stephanie: So find somebody who’s listening to all of this Oh my God, yes, like they’re speaking in my term. the next place where people go is this is going to take forever.

Shawn: You, you would think that, except you will be surprised at how easy it is once you really tap in. And like I said, do that messaging work first, because even if you’re not, you don’t consider yourself a good writer, you don’t find writing easy, as soon as you understand, oh, all I’m doing is just, Like having this heart to heart with my client right now in everything I write, you’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to write this than it has been to try to write something for your business up until now.

Shawn: Try to follow rules. Yes, exactly. When you can just let those rules go and just be a normal person talking to another person.

Stephanie: So do you have a tool, you have a free masterclass that can take people to the next step after this conversation and start practicing some of this copywriting?

Shawn: Yes, I think the best and easiest place to start that almost also has the best bang for your buck in your business is on your website. So I think because once you’ve really developed good copy on your website, that translates into everything into your social media posts, your emails, your sales pages, everything.

Shawn: So really starting with your website is the best place. To get, a good grip on your message, your copy, and then, let that translate. So I have a free masterclass going on right now. Seanminor. com slash web class is the place to go. And, it really shows you the three strategies to use on your website to transform it from like potentially boring, blah, basic into something that people actually want to read, want to stick around.

Shawn: It creates connection. And it gets people to want to take the next step with you, want to learn more from you, want to, you know, become a paying client. How cool would that be? Your website has so much power in your business. If done well, you know, it can really be this place where no one goes, no one cares, not getting any traffic or doing anything for your business.

Shawn: Or simply by changing the words you use can be this place that really creates connection and trust with your community. And can create sales in your business. So, three strategies. Totally free to learn them. I teach them all there and, you can get started with your website.

Stephanie: And I love that you’re going to the website first, because here’s what I see.

Stephanie: I see people spending a lot of money on photoshoot, trying to offset the lack of clarity because their website is not converting. And we are overspending on visual, instead of spending the time to craft. A message that will make the visual a lot less important. Not to say that a good professional photo is not important, but you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a photo shoot if you have good wording.

Shawn: Yeah, well, and if you do spend thousands on a photo shoot, it’s going to be all for nothing when you don’t have the copy. it’s not going to matter. And like I say with the website, because so many people, when they think about their website, they’re like, Oh, I have to go get this beautiful template and these photos and all this stuff.

Shawn: Yes, and branding in this amazing logo and like sure that stuff all is good, but, you know, having a good looking website will potentially get someone’s attention, but good copy keeps their attention. I mean, how many websites, social media posts, again, like literally out of thin air was to talk to you to get all this stuff.

Shawn: but yeah, no, it’s true. It’s it. How many websites do you click off of as soon as you’re like, wait, what is even going on? yeah, this is got my attention. Like it looks cool, but they have no idea what they’re talking about, or this has no flow, or I don’t even know what they do. But then, same goes for being on a website that has good copy, that keeps your attention, that wants, you know, you want to keep reading, you want to go to their about page, you want to see what services they offer.

Shawn: That’s what your website can do with the right words.

Stephanie: Amazing. Okay. The link for your, masterclass, the web class is in the show notes as well. This has been Brilliant. So much value and resources for people like just to get started with the podcast and then take the free classes and then move on to the next step. But I think this is what’s missing in once you’ve gone through the basic, like you’ve gone through the basic, like of knowing what you do and being good at what you do. That’s the next step to convert more client.

Shawn: Yeah, being able to put what you do into words that people get.

Shawn: Yes, that people connect to.

Shawn: Yep. Exactly.

Shawn: Thank you, Sean.

Shawn: Thank you for having me. It’s so fun. I always love being here. I think it’s been a couple of times now, but, yeah, this has been great. Thank you.

.

Common Copywriting Traps for Non-Diet Coaches

Hey, welcome back to the podcast, my dear colleague. Today we’re going to talk about a topic that is really important to Creating sales in your business and working with more people and having more impact in your world, which is copywriting. Now, copywriting is this thing that we make up to be really complicated and needing a lot of training when in fact, Copywriting is the simple act of writing words about your offer, about yourself, about your program.

Copywriting is just writing words. That’s all it is. Now these words that you’re writing on your website, on your sales page, on your social media caption are all copy writing words. Now what I have seen to be the most challenging aspect of copywriting is switching our mind as practitioner and coaches to go from writing words. for ourselves to writing words for our ideal client.

Because that’s what copywriting is. Copywriting is writing words so that we can connect with our ideal client, explain to them the work that we do and how we can help them solve their problem and presenting them with the way they can work with us.

That’s what copywriting is, so we’re writing words. For our ideal client, not for ourselves. So I brought an expert on the podcast, a very close friend of mine. She’s a personal friend and she’s a business colleague as well. Her name is Shawn Miner. She’s been in the health coaching spheres for over 10 years.

We have known each other for over eight years and It’s someone that have a high level of trust for her teaching, specifically around copywriting, and we have the most Insightful interview that you’re going to listen to in just a few seconds here about copywriting. So get your pen and your paper out or your iPad out and take lots of notes.

Copywriting is something that can be easy and that’s what Sean does. on a daily basis in her business. Now, she also have an offer, like a free webinar, that she’s going to propose to you during the interview. And if you’re starting in your business and you’re new to this concept of writing words, aka copywriting, I would highly recommend that you take her up on that free training class on copywriting because I think it’s going to get you started in writing words for your ideal client, not for yourself.

And if you want to take it to the next step with Sean. Highly recommend to work with her as well. So, without any further ado, let’s deep dive in the world of copywriting with my friend, Sean. Let’s roll the interview.​

Shawn:

Stephanie: Welcome to the show, Shawn.

Shawn: Thank you so much for having me, Steph. Always so much fun talking with you, my friend.

Stephanie: I’m so excited to have you as our copywriting expert. We’ve never talked about this topic in 87

Stephanie: show.

Shawn: That’s a long time to not talk about the words we’re using.

Stephanie: So when I heard that you were doing copywriting and you had. Knowledge to impart us with. I’m like, we got to talk about copywriting. So I’m going to start with the most basic question, if you can entertain me. What the heck is copywriting?

Shawn: Yeah, well, it’s a good question, actually. And I think it’s not one that’s even talked about enough as business owners.

Shawn: But the thing is, if you have a business, if you are a business owner, You are writing copy every single day of your business life. So kind of important. The easiest definition that I use is that it’s really any words that you are using in your business for your business. That doesn’t necessarily mean like the sales words like in the sales page or anything you’re doing when you’re talking about.

Shawn: having someone buy something from you. It’s everything. It’s in your social media posts, your social media captions. It’s on your website, on your homepage, your about page. It’s, in all of your emails, any email that you are writing for your business. That is copy. So it’s, I think technically a marketing thing, but you know, if you’re in business, everything you do is marketing, even if you’re not directly selling in something you are still selling yourself, selling the idea, selling the transformation.

Shawn: And all of that is done through. Your words, you know, you can’t like mime what you want people to do. You have to use words and they’re so important. And quite frankly, over the course of my time in business and, more specifically working with coaches and practitioners on their business. It is the most undervalued and underutilized skill out there. And that’s why I really set out to change this by learning and sharing and talking about it openly in a way that’s very approachable. Like it can sound scary to be like, Oh God, now I have to pay attention to every single word I’m using. All of it matters. It can really be overwhelming and then you kind of fear doing it at all.

Shawn: But instead I want to have a conversation of like how to just sound like yourself and share openly. And, really connect with people because that’s really what it is. It’s just about creating connections.

Stephanie: So, what I hear you say is copywriting is kind of a, it’s normal writing, but intentional writing.

Shawn: Yes, it is normal writing, but it’s an intentional writing. And, It’s not what I think is so important is it’s not professional. Like you have to be this amazing writer writing. It’s just you being you. It’s almost like really the best way to describe it is you talking how you speak. Like it, because when you think about it that way, we all have different nuances, different ways we say things and how we say things.

Shawn: And that’s what makes you and in today’s world, when you are a business owner, you have to set yourself apart. There’s a lot going on. There are a lot of businesses and business owners out there, coaches and practitioners all doing something similar. So how can you set yourself apart? Well, you do that by being you.

Shawn: And the best way to do that is through your words. And if you can really shift away from this is what I’m supposed to say, this is how I’m supposed to sound. This is how it should sound. I need to really talk as a professional, and really be this amazing writer and really put a lot of thought and energy into it.

Shawn: Yes, you do, but coming from a place of just being you and really showing yourself through your words. and so you don’t. You don’t have to be a good writer. You don’t have to have gotten an A plus in your grammar class or anything like that. it’s actually breaks a lot of the traditional writing rules when you write good copy.

Shawn: But it’s something that people can connect with and really get to know you and your personality through just by a few words. Cool.

Stephanie: So it’s intentional writing, not deforming. your personality to fit a box of a style of writing. Yes. But it’s creating a message, a very intentional message. In your way of speaking and the way of writing.

Shawn: A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, really the pre work to good copy is good messaging. You know, it’s and it goes hand in hand. So messaging is your message. It’s what you want to share with the world through your work. It’s a combination of a lot of different ingredients, but mainly thinking in terms or getting into the head of your dream client.

Shawn: And what they need to hear in the way that they need to hear it. So how they need to hear about their problem that, you know, they have, they may know they have, but how can you really connect with them and communicate with them about their problem? How can you connect and communicate with them about the solution, which.

Shawn: You’re going to be a part of probably right? and your work is going to be the solution. or what you can do with them, the transformation, you know, their dream state, where they’re going to be at the end and how can you connect and communicate with them about that? So that’s messaging. That’s where you really figure out what you want to say.

Shawn: And then your copy is how you say it.

Stephanie: Oh, brilliant. So, messaging is what I’m going to say and copy is how I’m going to say it. I’ve never heard anyone explain it so simply.

Shawn: To be honest, I’ve never said that until just now. Okay. It just came out. It came to me. Okay. this is like your new message.

Shawn: I like created a new tagline here. Yeah.

Shawn: That’s brilliant. We’re marketing your business.

Stephanie: Okay. Perfect. So, copywriting and messaging is clear. Now, you help people write their copy, you teach copywriting and messaging to people. Once they understand what it is, what do you see as being the, the mistake that people make? the most common error or wrong turn in the road that people take with their copy and messaging?

Shawn: Well, and this is specific to, and I know we were talking to a lot of coaches and practitioners. Yes. So, very specific to this. I call it practitioner speak. There is an actual phrase that I use for this. And it is this place where kind of like I was stating before, we are trying to be really professional.

Shawn: We’re trying to share everything that we know and what an expert we are in this particular thing, because of course we want people to know, we get it. We can help you. We are your people, come work with us. Right. And so we get into this very like professional speak where we lose our clients because they are not there.

Shawn: You are talking from your brain instead of taking yourself out of the equation and speaking in their brain, speaking from where they’re at, from their place, using their words. So for example, just randomly, your dream client may not know what gut dysbiosis is. And so you talking all about how you help people with gut dysbiosis and bloody, bloody block means nothing to them.

Shawn: You’ve completely lost them. It’s over their head. But if you say, Hey, you know how you always are bloated after you eat your meals. You know, how you always have to run to the bathroom for no reason at all. That is that they get that they understand, oh my gosh, yes. How did she know? and so, so the practitioner speak, I see so often.

Shawn: And what I want to do is just I want to take off this veil and just see you as a human and have you speak, like I said, just how you would talk if you were talking to a five year old. Trying to explain what you do just really and I don’t it’s not dumbing it down. It’s just taking it to a different level.

Shawn: It’s taking it. Out of that practitioner mode and into a real just humanness mode, just being a human connecting with another human and offering to help.

Stephanie: So, I just want to make a parallel to what you said earlier, copywriting is intentional writing on how we write our message. And so, yeah, we use the word gut dysbiosis, whatever the thing is. And when you speak to our colleague, but when we copyright. We don’t use that certain terminology. We use a terminology our clients are using.

Shawn: Yes. Yes. We, you talking to your colleague or your colleague talking to you is not the same conversation as you talking to your dream client. The only thing they know is that they’re bloated all the time and they need help with their bloating.

Shawn: They don’t know that it’s got diab dysbiosis. They don’t even care. They’re just like, can this person help me? Yes. And so you have to get on their level. It is not about your level. It’s their level. That is when you build that connection and, you actually get people to read and interact with your work.

Shawn: So, you know, if you’re posting on social media and you’re not getting a whole lot of interaction or engagement, you have to look at your copy. are you using that practitioner speak, kind of level and how can you adjust that to be? to where your dream clients are at. That’s

Stephanie: brilliant. And I’m going to translate that for people that are in the non diet space.

Stephanie: For me, this is when I hear people sell a program about intuitive eating, which the client doesn’t know what intuitive eating is. People just want to stop restricting food. They want to stop feeling guilty about food. They don’t know what it, they don’t know the name of the solutions. They just want to have a normal eating pattern.

Shawn: Yes. Yes. That’s it. 100%.

Stephanie: And what is eating is practitioner speak.

Shawn: Yep. Exactly. Yeah. so that is what you do. But that doesn’t really matter. What matters is What’s going to happen? This is the problem I’m having now. This is where I wanna be. Talk to me there.

Stephanie: Amazing. So that’s the most frequent Yes. Challenges that people have with copywriting is using practitioner speak.

Shawn: Yeah. Just because you have a business doesn’t mean you need to be all like zipped up and professional. You know, it, it can be just flowy and free in what you would actually say if you were talking to a human. Amazing. Yeah, so that’s the biggest mistake for sure by far that I see specifically in this area.

Shawn: What’s the next one? I would say the next one is talking about deliverables versus. What I think of as like valuables like we get really into and this is kind of specifically when you’re talking about an offer you have or a freebie you have or something that you want people to take action on and purchase or sign up for or something like that.

Shawn: We talk all about all the things they’re going to get. Like the deliverables, like you’re going to get 10 coaching sessions. You’re going to get four modules. You’re going to get a Facebook group. You’re going to get all this stuff. Cool. That’s great. And there is a place for that, but nobody cares if you haven’t first talked about why they should care.

Shawn: You know, like why they even need this, what this is going to do for them, how they’re going to experience this transformation, where they’re starting out, where they’ll, there will be the journey you’re going to take them on. You have to really set the stage first. And so I call that the valuables because it’s creating that value of why they should care about how many coaching sessions they get.

Shawn: You know, if you start with that stuff too early, you’ve lost them. You know, because you haven’t built up that environment for them to find value in what you’re about to share. or what they’re going to get. So. I think it’s,something that kind of comes from this feeling of needing to quote unquote sell, but you’re not selling the deliverables, you’re not selling this package, you’re selling the reason why they need that package. The reason why they need to work with you. The transformation they’re going to be going through when they do.

Stephanie: You’re not selling the number of page in your workbook. Yeah. Right? That’s not why they’re listening to you. You’re selling the transformation once they’re finished a workbook.

Shawn: Yes, exactly. And it’s if you do a good job of creating that environment, no one cares how many pages are in the workbook.

Shawn: No one cares how many coaches sessions they get. They just are like, Oh my gosh, this is what’s ahead for me. Sign me up. Where’s the button to click? I’m in. They don’t even need to read that. Now it’s good to still put that on your sales page or whatever you have. For sure, it’s still talk about that because there are those kinds of people that really are analytical, want to read every line, want to know exactly what’s going on.

Shawn: But like I said, they, nobody’s going to care until you create that environment ahead of time.

Stephanie: And it’s almost, for me, it feels when you lead with the, what you call the deliverable, you overwhelm people. Mm hmm. Yeah, especially when like what I call a regular person to know that they have four modules and they have videos and they have workbook.

Stephanie: They’re like, Oh, fuck. I don’t want to go back to school.

Shawn: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. nobody too much. I’m

Stephanie: already busy. I’m I have a problem with time. Do I really want four module and 25 page workbook?

Shawn: Yeah, nobody wants Of course, nobody wants a coaching program. Nobody wants a coaching package. They want what’s going to come of that.

Shawn: And so if you said here, I can give you this coaching package, that’s eight weeks long, or I can give you this magic pill. Both will do the same thing. Which one do you want? They’re going to take the magic pill, right? So your job is to make it seem like that coaching package is a magic pill. It’s easy, it works, it’s this, it’s that, it’s fun, you’re gonna get so much out of it to the point where they’re like, cool, I’m in, where’s the button?

Stephanie: Amazing. And it will make people feel light, feel like they’re getting a ton of value coming in and working with you instead of being hesitant and overwhelmed from the Get go.

Shawn: Yeah, it’s not. It’s like a lot of times there’s this list of all these things you get, and it’s like a 500 value, 1, 000 value, all this stuff, like really making it very appealing, but that’s not where the value is. Nobody cares if your five coaching sessions are 1, 000 in value. They care about you. And really you should have already created this feeling of value ahead of time in how you talk about. Where they’re at, how they’re experiencing things right now, where they want to be, where they’re going to go, and the process that they’ll take to get them there, you know, like how you’ll be there for them and that kind of thing.

Shawn: Is

Stephanie: it possible that we do this because we don’t know how to describe the

Shawn: value? Yes, I think it’s. Honestly, talking about the deliverables is like the easy thing. It’s okay, I know I just created this program. I know there’s four modules. I can say that. And that is something that can fill this space on this page.

Shawn: But what I think is happening is kind of reversing to what we were talking about earlier, that messaging piece that comes before the copywriting. No one’s doing that. You’re not taking the time to do that. And so when it comes time to fill this whole page, let’s say a sales page with, words, you’re like, I don’t know what to say.

Shawn: I have no idea what to say. So I’m just going to say what I know, which is this has four modules. But if you actually do that messaging work before, then you have a ton, like basically, you know, I have a whole work at workbook. That’s a messaging workbook. And it basically just creates your whole sales page for you.

Shawn: Like, all you’re doing is transferring it over because Cocky pace and cocky pace. Yeah, because you’ve created this scenario already. You did it in this, non sales page environment, which feels a lot less, intimidating, if you’re just kind of working through some questions. But then you then have Basically your sales page created because you’ve gone through the process of figuring out where they’re at and what they need to hear in their language, figuring out where they want to be, what their dream resolution is in their language.

Shawn: And that is the whole, essentially the whole like path of your sales page. And then we get to the deliverables. So I really think it’s yes, it’s an easier option simply because you haven’t gone through the entire process and we’re not. You know, I say this all the time. We’re coaches. We’re not marketers. We’re not salesmen, you know, salespeople. So it doesn’t necessarily come naturally. It’s something you have to learn. It’s something you have to kind of, do the work to figure out. Like coaching comes very easily for a lot of people in our worlds. Marketing, not so much.

Stephanie: You got to build the skills.

Stephanie: Yes. There’s so many amazing coaches that do not have a full time business coaching because they have not built the skill set of copywriting and selling and messaging.

Shawn: bazillion percent. That’s so many coaches because like I said, coaching, cool, could do that all day. Getting people to want my coaching. I don’t know how.

Stephanie: Yeah, because we don’t have the skill set that needs to be built over practice and practice and practice.

Shawn: Yes. And we can both attest to this after years and years and years of doing it. It just takes practice. It’s not, you’re not immediately great at it from the beginning. You just keep going. You keep doing it. You figure out what works, what doesn’t. And go from there and you just can’t give up on it.

Stephanie: Okay, cool. What is the next thing we need to avoid? The next mistake to avoid?

Shawn: Yeah, I think, this one is, has a little nuance to it. But it is really important to talk about. And I think this, again, comes from not knowing any different. And that is talking about yourself too much. So your copy is not about you at all. There’s nothing in it about you now. Yes. This is where the nuance comes in. Yes. You have an about page on your website. You have to talk about yourself. You have to share your story, but even the about page on your website is not about you.

Shawn: It’s about you as it relates to them. same thing with you know, there’s a little about sections on your sales page or on your landing pages. Yes, there is a section where. You talk about yourself, but again, as it relates to them, why do they care about you? Why should they care about you? It’s not like this big, huge spiel to talk about your accolades and your education and everything you’ve done and list all these things out.

Shawn: It’s not a resume. It’s a place for them to connect with you. So I think, really the biggest and best thing and easiest thing you can do here is start looking at. What you have written potentially in your business, like from website to social media captions, everything. And see how many times you say I or me and see if you can just switch that sentence a little bit, take out the I and me, and make it more about them like it’s their thing.

Shawn: This is what they can do. So like it’s simple things like I’m so excited to share this thing that I created for you after all my years of experience. This is what I now have for you. There’s a lot of, I in there, like I created this thing. I’m so excited. So instead of that, you know, what can you do to just excitedly share this thing for them, make it about them. So that’s one of the kind of, like I said, I think it just comes from not knowing any better. It’s you don’t really know what else to say. So you’re going to naturally speak to how you’re feeling and what you’ve done and, how it affects them. We want to just keep it towards them. All about them.

Stephanie: I was reviewing a sales page in a coaching call recently. And the formatting of the sales page was like the name of the program and the visual. And then the story of the, of in this case was a practitioner, was a social worker, like her story for seven paragraph.

Shawn: Yes. Is that bad?

Stephanie: Okay. That’s not what I told her. I’m like, did I coach her right? I’m like, doesn’t feel right. this is not about you. It’s about them. they should have the answer to their question when they land on your page. They don’t want to know about you. Right.

Shawn: They want to know about you, but later. Yes. They want again, they want to know about you, but only in this Way of like, why are you the person to help me? Why should I care? You know, that kind of thing, but still keeping it in their realm. Like why? This matters to them. Your story is great. I think there is a ton of space within like your emails and even in your about page and things like that to share your story and people do love a good story. They do like to know more about you, but it has to be again going back to that world where it intentional.

Shawn: And, in the right time, in the right place, and again, bringing it back to why they should care. Right? So still making it about them at the end. So always a good practice. That would be a great opportunity to be like, Hey, let’s look at how many times in this seven paragraphs you’ve said I and me and my.

Shawn: And you’ll see it’s like a lot if it’s all about their story. And so then you can start seeing okay, how can I Either incorporate this story and make it about them, or how can I create another scenario that’s focused on them and their story, and then use my story down below when it’s more appropriate in the about section,

Stephanie: what I find, and this is where, I don’t do copywriting coaching. Obviously, that’s not my thing. I have some high level knowledge. But what I find from a mindset perspective is that the level of confidence of the coach will be expressed through how the copy is written. So if the level of confidence of the coach is Low or quite not there yet, then that’s when the story about them trying to prove themselves with their copy.

Stephanie: Do you see the same thing?

Shawn: Yes. A hundred percent. And that’s also where that practitioner speak comes in too, because it’s I have to prove that I know what I’m talking about. I have to prove that I have this education and this experience and I can help. And that just completely goes over your people’s head. They do not care about that

Stephanie: because what I say when I see that I’m like you’re making the copy. To fulfill your needs, which is to prove yourself instead of fulfilling the people who are going to read it needs, which is this is the problem. This is the solution. This is how I can help you. You’re making yourself more important than your future client.

Shawn: Yeah, right. And they can feel that, you know, you can absolutely feel that when you see that. And you can also feel someone’s lack of confidence. Just through their words, even if you’re trying to prove it that you feel that, you know, every of course, getting into the side of things, every word has an energetic expression. So. You can sense the energy of you through your copywriting, right? So if you truly are confident, like you’ll be able to tell, even as you start interacting and start kind of noticing other people’s copy, which I do always recommend, like now that you’re in tune with how important copy is in your business, start looking at other people’s copy and you’ll be able to tell how you can feel the energy of the person through their copy.

Stephanie: Totally. I was reviewing social media of a person recently, and all I could feel was anger, anger, anger, anger, because it was like, I’m right, they’re wrong. And in the case of diet culture, and I see that a lot, I’m right, diet culture is wrong. And it’s the tone use made me feel like, I don’t want to read anymore, because it’s just anger everywhere.

Shawn: Yes, absolutely. I mean, that’s just infused in every word that you say or write, you know, it’s just infused the energy.

Stephanie: Amazing. Okay. So we’ve got three mistakes that we can avoid. Do you have any tips on things? We should focus on when we write copy. I know you do have a, an amazing offer and please explain to people like how they can get more training from you.

Stephanie: But what would be a couple tips you have for people?

Shawn: I think going back again to what I said, but, talking about a little more. In just writing how you speak, like keeping it very casual and something that people actually want to read, think about how you talk, like the certain words you say a lot when you’re talking or how you speak or different nuances and things that you do and see if you can infuse that into your writing and really your personality to like, don’t forget about your personality.

Shawn: it’s so fun to read people’s. Even if it’s an email that ends up selling me something, if it has personality, I’m reading it. You know, instead of it just being this like kind of boring, like thing that, Oh God, they’re selling something now, you know, we don’t, no one wants that. So how can you infuse your personality and who you are and your energy, your vibe, of course, all of that stuff.

Shawn: But, really. Keeping it casual and fun and easy to read. we don’t have to go by any of the traditional, things that you may have learned. Like I said, just really see, and you’ll see this, in the stuff that I write. The emails and stuff that I write, every sentence is like a different line. And I’m really breaking things up and making things easy to read. Some of them aren’t even full sentences. But it keeps it flowing. It keeps it easy to read. And it’s just my vibe. so, that’s something to look at and go, that goes to another tip. And like I said, is to really look at other people’s copy and see what you’re drawn to and what you want to read.

Shawn: I mean, I do this for everything in my business and always have, it’s like. What kind of work are you drawn to what are they doing that you could do to in your own way and kind of making your at your own just really focus on that and you’ll notice now that I pointed it out, you’ll be able to notice who’s using practitioner speak.

Shawn: Versus who’s just talking like they’re talking to another human and you’ll be able to point that out. So just start noticing, start seeing how you can maybe change some things, start kind of auditing your own copy, anything that you do have written for your business. And, see where you can make some tweaks and see where you can maybe have things flow a little more, create more personality, take out those eyes and knees and make it more about them.

Shawn: Take people on a journey. You know, this is really your time to, express yourself and to really connect. Like it’s all about connection. And when we do that, we don’t have to worry about being salesy. We don’t have to worry about being like annoying or anything like that. When it comes time to sell our stuff, because we’re just creating a connection and we’ve been doing that forever.

Shawn: Yes, that’s all it is. Human to human. And the more humanness you can create for your people, the more likely they will to purchase.

Stephanie: So find somebody who’s listening to all of this Oh my God, yes, like they’re speaking in my term. the next place where people go is this is going to take forever.

Shawn: You, you would think that, except you will be surprised at how easy it is once you really tap in. And like I said, do that messaging work first, because even if you’re not, you don’t consider yourself a good writer, you don’t find writing easy, as soon as you understand, oh, all I’m doing is just, Like having this heart to heart with my client right now in everything I write, you’ll be amazed at how much easier it is to write this than it has been to try to write something for your business up until now.

Shawn: Try to follow rules. Yes, exactly. When you can just let those rules go and just be a normal person talking to another person.

Stephanie: So do you have a tool, you have a free masterclass that can take people to the next step after this conversation and start practicing some of this copywriting?

Shawn: Yes, I think the best and easiest place to start that almost also has the best bang for your buck in your business is on your website. So I think because once you’ve really developed good copy on your website, that translates into everything into your social media posts, your emails, your sales pages, everything.

Shawn: So really starting with your website is the best place. To get, a good grip on your message, your copy, and then, let that translate. So I have a free masterclass going on right now. Seanminor. com slash web class is the place to go. And, it really shows you the three strategies to use on your website to transform it from like potentially boring, blah, basic into something that people actually want to read, want to stick around.

Shawn: It creates connection. And it gets people to want to take the next step with you, want to learn more from you, want to, you know, become a paying client. How cool would that be? Your website has so much power in your business. If done well, you know, it can really be this place where no one goes, no one cares, not getting any traffic or doing anything for your business.

Shawn: Or simply by changing the words you use can be this place that really creates connection and trust with your community. And can create sales in your business. So, three strategies. Totally free to learn them. I teach them all there and, you can get started with your website.

Stephanie: And I love that you’re going to the website first, because here’s what I see.

Stephanie: I see people spending a lot of money on photoshoot, trying to offset the lack of clarity because their website is not converting. And we are overspending on visual, instead of spending the time to craft. A message that will make the visual a lot less important. Not to say that a good professional photo is not important, but you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on a photo shoot if you have good wording.

Shawn: Yeah, well, and if you do spend thousands on a photo shoot, it’s going to be all for nothing when you don’t have the copy. it’s not going to matter. And like I say with the website, because so many people, when they think about their website, they’re like, Oh, I have to go get this beautiful template and these photos and all this stuff.

Shawn: Yes, and branding in this amazing logo and like sure that stuff all is good, but, you know, having a good looking website will potentially get someone’s attention, but good copy keeps their attention. I mean, how many websites, social media posts, again, like literally out of thin air was to talk to you to get all this stuff.

Shawn: but yeah, no, it’s true. It’s it. How many websites do you click off of as soon as you’re like, wait, what is even going on? yeah, this is got my attention. Like it looks cool, but they have no idea what they’re talking about, or this has no flow, or I don’t even know what they do. But then, same goes for being on a website that has good copy, that keeps your attention, that wants, you know, you want to keep reading, you want to go to their about page, you want to see what services they offer.

Shawn: That’s what your website can do with the right words.

Stephanie: Amazing. Okay. The link for your, masterclass, the web class is in the show notes as well. This has been Brilliant. So much value and resources for people like just to get started with the podcast and then take the free classes and then move on to the next step. But I think this is what’s missing in once you’ve gone through the basic, like you’ve gone through the basic, like of knowing what you do and being good at what you do. That’s the next step to convert more client.

Shawn: Yeah, being able to put what you do into words that people get.

Shawn: Yes, that people connect to.

Shawn: Yep. Exactly.

Shawn: Thank you, Sean.

Shawn: Thank you for having me. It’s so fun. I always love being here. I think it’s been a couple of times now, but, yeah, this has been great. Thank you.

 

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90-Asking For Money as A Woman with Michelle Leotta

90-Asking For Money as A Woman with Michelle Leotta

Asking for money as a woman with Michelle Leotta

Asking for money as a woman is unfortunately too often difficult for us as women. 

Think of the last consultation you had and come time to talk about pricing… How did you feel ? Confident? Scared?

Asking for money as a woman in the coaching industry

Michelle Leotta is a certified health coach who has helped 1000’s of clients around the world over the past 14 years and has to learn for herself to ask for money and teach woman how to ask for money that feels good

What you’ll learn listening to this episode: 

  • Why we struggle for asking for money in the context of our business
  • Michelle and I share our story of how we struggle with asking for money in our consultation.
  • How to ask for money in consultation that feels good for both people.

 

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Training & Resources 

Connect with our guest:

Instagram – Michelle Leotta

Facebook Community for Coaches – Michelle Leotta

 

Transcript:

Undiet Your Coaching Ep90 – Asking for money as a woman with Michelle Leotta

===

Hey, welcome back my dear colleague. Today we’re going to have a hot conversation between two confident women. We’re going to talk about Asking for money as a woman, and I have a guest, who’s been in the coaching, health coaching industry like me, in her case for 14 years, in my case for 10 years, and we started with no business and built a business, and now we mentor other women to build their own business.

So the conversation and the coaching opportunity around becoming. comfortable and confident around money is one that we’ve had for a long time. And we both bring two different perspective to this conversation. So I invited her on the podcast to have this conversation. It’s one of the few women in our industry that I knew I could have an inspirational conversation for you on how to think about money differently. Why we struggle. As women, as coaches to ask for money and how we can think about it differently. How we can think about money, about selling, about consultation differently in order for us to create ease in asking for money. Michelle is a friend, a colleague. She specialized in helping health coaches. build businesses in that very specific niche. And, I hope you enjoy her. As much as I do, and I know if you listen to this conversation about asking for money, you will come out change as a woman from this conversation. So let’s roll the interview with Michelle.

Welcome to the show, Michelle.

Michelle: Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here with you.

Stephanie: I’m excited to talk with my partner about topics that no one else talks about. So I was on Michelle’s podcast not so long ago, we hit some hot topic. And today I want to talk about asking for money as a woman.

Stephanie: Let’s do it. I coach on that all the time in my mastermind struggling with doing the ask struggling about the conversation around money on the console determining our price like let’s go to the basic why are we struggling as women to ask for money what’s your thoughts on that

Michelle: I think that what if they say no, what if I am rejected? Is very much at the heart of it. And for women being rejected, I mean, this is shocking to me. There’s like studies, there’s. Statistics out there about how the greatest fear that a woman has is being essentially a bag lady, you know, it’s kind of an old term. Yeah, like in, you know, various studies that they’ve done like this comes across like we are afraid of being destitute. We are afraid of having no Money no one to take care of us not being attached to a man often comes along with that right a provider. So hearing no, you’re not worth the money because that’s what we hear in our head, or no for whatever reason I’m not going to give you money, I think, is very triggering for women who I mean. My mother’s generation could not even open up her own bank account without a man signing for it. So this is, we’re really like the first generation of women who are facing this head on.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it goes along to my world why women want to shrink their body is because they don’t want to be rejected. So, in the business setting on consultation women don’t want to be rejected with a no.

Michelle: Well, yeah, because if your body isn’t what you think it should be and you’re rejected, what does that mean? You’re not gonna marry that man who then provides for you because know, yeah, right Like it’s like a real primal fear

Stephanie: I think it’s really I think the first step is Acknowledging the context of it and where this fear comes from and why this fear is there And it has to do with our socialization as women.

Michelle: It’s been going on for Generation upon generation, you know, my grandmother. Got a secret job when I was little, yeah, she worked at the bakery while my grandfather was off at work, but it was a secret. He didn’t know about it because he would not have liked it, but she wanted to have pocket money to do with what she pleased.

Michelle: So she went ahead and got herself a job at the bakery anyway, and just told everybody to shut up about it. You know, the fact that just that’s. my own grandmother two generations ago had to sneak around to even just make a little pittance that she’s getting paid at the bakery. you know, it runs really deep.

Michelle: So I think you’re right.

Stephanie: it’s totally normal for us to be uncomfortable. Now that we understand why, like, how do we change that? How do we become more comfortable? I guess?

Michelle: Well, you know, okay, what happens? I’m sure you been in this industry a long time. So have I so I’m sure you’ve had a consultation or conversation with someone at some point and they said, No, I don’t know work with you.

Michelle: How was that?

Stephanie: It feels shitty. It feels rejected. There’s a lot of shame around this as well. Like I should have priced it less, I should have added more value to it. we look at ourselves as the problem, right?

Michelle: Yeah, I can feel really crappy for days. And sometimes I mean, I would be crying in the shower in the early days of my health coaching business because what did I do wrong?

Michelle: But interestingly, Just an hour ago, I was on a call with someone perspective student for one of my programs. And, you know, this is a health coach who’s looking for help with her business. Okay. But as I’m talking with her, I’m getting the sense that I don’t think it’s a good fit. Like I could have forced it.

Michelle: I could have tried. Yeah. And I decided in that moment, I didn’t want And so I did not offer my program to her. I never actually named a price or told her anything about it. I just listened to her story for about 15, 20 minutes. And, you know, I gave her some next steps and told her we could always have a conversation again later. And it felt so good because I knew that I could be. You know, back in the day when I started my business, I felt more desperate. I had to try to get that money. I had to, even if it went against my gut, even if it went against, I don’t say my value systems, I wouldn’t go that far, but it could, right.

Michelle: Sometimes it could, when you feel desperate. and so we need to be able to elevate ourselves to a position of, I mean, and same with how our bodies look and how we interact with, you know, men and marriage and everything, like I make the decision. You know, I’m interviewing you. If we get to the point where I decide that I’m going to offer you something, you’re lucky, you know, and not everyone’s going to get that bar. What do you think?

Stephanie: Yeah. And we are entering in a relationship together. And also, if you know, for me, if you know that your service Is not the right fit for them right now or could be in a year from now or like it’s not what’s going to help them if you’re coming at asking for money from a place of service, then it’s also your duty to not make the offer when you open up the space that you can make or not make the offer, then you are not. I have to you get out of despair and you’re like, this is a choice that I’m making to invite somebody to work with me.

Michelle: Exactly. And you’re right. If we’re coming from a place of service, there are many times that there’s a better direction somebody needs to be going in, you know, maybe they really need. Mental health professionals at this point, maybe they really need, you know, fill in the blank here and I start my consultations that way. I’ll say, listen, you know, we’re going to talk about this and this today. If I feel like my program can help you. I’ll tell you all about it. If I think you would do better with something else, I’ll point you in a different direction.

Michelle: How does that sound? And everyone’s like. That sounds amazing. That sounds so low pressure, like it really sets the stage for this to be an authentic conversation. And sometimes it really is hey, got a different idea for you.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it’s about this become then instead of a sales call, it becomes a conversation between two human if we are the right fit to work together from both sides.

Stephanie: Can I as a practitioner or coach see myself work with you? And can you see yourself work with me? So let’s have a human conversation. And so is it really about asking money? Because I know the title of the podcast is asking for money as a woman. But when you like, Entertain the selling conversation from a place of service, then is it really about asking for money?

Michelle: Right. you’re right. We use the term sales call. That’s what these things are called or discovery call or whatever. It’s a sales call. But yeah, as coaches, I just feel like the coaching relationship starts now, you know, it starts with that call sometimes before that call. And let’s just figure out what the right thing is Let me help you figure out what the right thing is for you.

Stephanie: And can we think about it from an exchange of money as opposed to asking for money? an energy exchange, for sure. An exchange of value. I’m going to give you value by helping you solve your problem. And in turn, you’re going to give me value in a form of currency, in a form of money. It’s an exchange of value.

Michelle: Now, how about this question again? You’ve been in this industry a long time. Have you ever taken on a client? And maybe you had a hunch up front or maybe you didn’t, but along the way, you realize there is no amount of money this person could have paid you that would have made the exchange equal.

Stephanie: Absolutely.

Stephanie: and I would say not so much now. I think it’s because I have been doing this long enough, like I’ve been selling the same thing long enough. Then I got really good at explaining the thing and making like clear who this is for. That people that land in the container with me are more and more refined to be the ideal person to be in that container.

Michelle: Agree. So it’s not a matter of having avatar that’s 40 to 50 who lives in the country. It’s a vibe, right? Yeah,

Stephanie: it’s more than just the age bracket is the for me in my world is the value of the individual that their value system match mind is the Place they want to go match mine, do the process to get there match mine. and I’ve said that so many, I’m not for everyone. Like I am for a very small percentage of the population, and that’s who I’m the perfect fit for. I’m not for everyone.

Michelle: And can we be comfortable with that?

Stephanie: How can we be more comfortable? And I think When you can be comfortable with that, that’s when asking for money doesn’t become a big deal.

Michelle: Because the people who do fit in that vibe with you, like you said, in your container, and you’re speaking the same language, I find that they already have their hand half raised, to pay you. Yes. You know, it’s not a big ask. It’s very different from if you just put up a billboard on the highway, you know, with a price tag, come work with me to anyone who drives by, you know, if you really reserve that ask for the people that are halfway there, I have found that takes a lot of the trepidation out of it improves closing rates, like crazy gets you off some of those other calls a lot faster.

Stephanie: Yeah. And you get. Yeah. Less people on the call, but much more aligned and those call don’t feel like a sales calls. They feel like a conversation between two human.

Michelle: Yeah. You know, once I implemented an application process ahead of my calls. My closing rate went to 90 to 100 percent. Tell me more about that. It was shocking. I mean, there’s so many problems that happen with these calls in the first place, right? You get no shows, reschedules, you know, whatever. Somebody’s on the call, but they’re actually in a restaurant having dinner with their family at the same time, and you’re like, what? What? So I created an application, that basically let me vet potential clients before even talking with them.

Michelle: So there are some things that any of us need to know and depending on who you are and, you know, What perspective you’re coming from, you might have different questions, like what’s something that you might need to know from a client right away to know if they’re even remotely going to be a fit for you

Stephanie: for me, in my case, like it is still on the pursuit of losing weight. That’s still their goal. Like,I want to lose weight and that’s what I’m ready to pay money for. Then I’m not your person because I cannot support you in that journey. Yeah, that’s a no go for me.

Michelle: And I know health coaches maybe who, follow a primal or paleo dogma. And so if someone were to fill out their application and indicate that they were a vegan and they wanted to remain a vegan, it’s great, you know, fine.

Michelle: Here’s somebody else that would be better to help you with your issue because I can’t get behind that. So, yeah, so asking about like their. Their views, their dogma, their desires, like that can be really helpful. you can ask questions about why they want to work with you. It’s an interesting question.

Michelle: Sometimes people have no idea. They just kind of stumbled upon your page or somehow they got to you yesterday. Other people will tell you, I have listened to every podcast episode you have ever recorded. I memorized them and relisten to them. And I have attended every free training you’ve ever had. And I know now’s the time to work with you.

Michelle: I’m ready. This person goes on the calendar and the other one not so much.

Stephanie: It avoids people wasting their time, too. Yes. Right? It’s not just our time and it’s their time. Like, why come on the call when you’re, like, some basic value or completely misaligned? you’re wasting your time and I’m wasting my time.

Stephanie: And, can I, we talk about this, too, if people are not willing to fill up five or six questions. Are they really going to say yes to your offer in a consultation when they can’t even invest five minutes to fill in an application?

Michelle: And you can learn so much by how they do it, because even if they do it, some people will just write like a dash where they’re supposed to fill in a blank, you know, they don’t fill it in, they just do something so that they can submit the form. Or maybe there’s a lot of misspellings, or maybe it’s just nonsense. Gibberish that they type in and you can even from that point. No, I don’t think we’re on the same page here. So it’s wild. The amount of psychology that goes into it, but it really it is in service. Yeah, saving everybody time. I honestly believe that. So big fan of having that process. there are other steps that I’ve played with inserting, you know, have people listen to a couple podcast episodes before the call, have people watch a certain video before the call, read case studies, you could send them things and let them know, I need you to complete this before our call. Because again, if they’re serious, they’re going to be very happy to do that.

Stephanie: Yeah. And I’ve even seen somebody, one of my coach, she wasn’t even doing the consultation. The consultation was just done to videos. if she would send you a video and if you said yes to this, they would send you the next video. Like the consultation was completely automated from video to video. I ended up buying because every video was what I needed to hear.

Michelle: That’s pretty amazing. That’s cool. Yeah, that

Stephanie: I have not read. When we think about asking for money, if we make it the right fit for both party, then there is less, I don’t want to say guilt and shame, but there’s less, worry about asking for money because you know, you’re both the right fit and it makes sense to both of you. And they’re going to get as much value as you.

Michelle: People will really surprise you. I have found because sometimes, you know, we burn our own money story. Can we talk about that? Yeah. I mean, I, was raised, I mean, my mom was single. she went to school at night, you know, to get a degree so that she could earn more, you know, we always had enough, but let’s just say most of my clothes came from Kmart, you know, so I, you know, I have a money story that came with that for sure, but sometimes I’ve now learned in 14 years of. offering services as a coach. Other people have very, very different view of money. Like it’s so amazing when I’ve had clients who were just like, yeah, sure. When can we start? Here’s my credit card number. And I just named like the highest price I’ve ever asked for from a client. In fact, here’s a funny story during quarantine.

Michelle: A couple of years ago when, you know, I was taking care of my boys, they didn’t have school. They were schooling at home, blah, blah, blah. It was very crazy time for everybody. And I decided I did not have time to take on any more private clients unless I said, well, if they paid me double, then I probably could figure it out.

Michelle: So I doubled my prices during that time. And, I had a consultation with someone who was an. Perfect fit. I mean, I really wanted to work with her and I felt so bad because like her husband had been furloughed and I just knew everyone was struggling. And so I did something I never do. And I never recommend. And I offered her two options. I gave her two prices, that big doubled price. And then I offered her a smaller package at a lower price. And she said, Michelle. I believe in you. I love everything you put out there. I want to work with you. I’m making plenty of money right now, and I’m gonna, I want to buy your biggest package and support you. Hot damn, that woman blew my mind.

Stephanie: Yeah, because you, she did clearly did not have the same money story as you were the past experience with money.

Michelle: She was abundant, you know, she felt her own abundance.

Stephanie: It’s so critical for us to understand is thought projection, how we’re projecting our own story, our own thoughts on people. And we think, well, everybody’s going to think it’s too expensive because I think it’s too expensive.

Michelle: Yup. And the way people think about their money is just wildly different. Anyone who has ever had a spouse or a roommate who didn’t pay the bills and you could not understand how they could not pay the bills, you know, right there, two different money stories. And it’s really wild. So when we’re Afraid to ask for money. I think that’s important to understand that person is not us. They might think that the 2000, $3,004,000 that we’re asking for is. Pocket change. Yes.

Stephanie: And it’s also how do we look, let’s think about that. Let’s talk about that. How do we look at our client? Do we look at our future client as being limited? Or do we look at our clients on the lens of what’s possible for them? And often it starts with how we look at ourself. if we look at ourself and we’re constantly looking at everything that’s not working and our limitation, we’re going to look at our future clients from a place of limitation instead of possibility and abundance.

Michelle: That’s so interesting. You’re right. I mean, it’s not just about money. Money is like the conversation that represents all the other conversations, right? Like how you do money is how you do everything.

Stephanie: I think it’s. So true. Think about that. if you think money is hard because it’s hard for you right now, because for whatever reason, like whatever money you have in the account, it’s even irrelevant to how money is easy or not.

Stephanie: You’re going to think like right now, there’s the word like, people are talking about recession, right? Like we’re in a recession. So people who constantly watch the news and are inundated with the recession, and perhaps somebody in their family has lost their job, they’re going to think everybody is living from that reality, unless they really check themselves and say, this is my reality, where in fact there’s people who do not have I’ve not been affected by the recession and the money’s still flowing in the same way it was before.

Michelle: Yeah, very much. They’re out there. I mean, yeah, the economy has certainly changed over the past, whatever, four years now, but it’s not everybody there. There are plenty of clients out there that are still ready, willing and able. I was thinking. The whole idea of I don’t want to ask because I’m afraid that they’re going to say no.

Michelle: Another aspect of that is very real, which is if you’ve thrown yourself into coaching you don’t have a source of income, otherwise you’re going to need to make every damn sale, right? You are honestly. You are strapped. And the solution to that is to not put yourself in that situation.

Stephanie: Oh, yeah. Talk about this, because that’s my perspective. yeah, I realize we don’t have the same opinion as most business coaches, quote unquote, right?

Michelle: Yeah, I do not ever want any of my health coaches to be in that kind of financial position. I do not want anyone to, you know, take out A high interest loan to afford any of my programs. You know, you don’t want to put yourself in that financial place because you’re going to make decisions that reek of desperation. So I am all on board with staying with your full time job. If you have a good salary, finding a, an exit strategy that works for you over time, finding a part time job, a couple of days a week, also changing the way you live. Like when I. Left my job in advertising. I had just been married and we bought a condo and we bought something that we could afford on one salary. So the pressure was not there. And I think that is incredibly important, especially for our younger coaches and our single coaches to hear, you know, if you don’t have another salary supporting you. You got to have your own back first.

Stephanie: Yeah. And it comes how the way we feel like about our money in that case, like if you’re in despair mode, because you’ve got to make that 2, 000 to pay the rent, your own rent, how effective is that relationship with your clients going to be? It’s going to be terrible because like you’re in despair mode from the start of that relationship.

Stephanie: And we have to bring that part job.

Michelle: Yes. you know, in the relationship, like we have to hold the space, right? It takes a lot of energy and this like internal spaciousness, but we’re, if we’re all like gripped up inside about our own situation and our own sense of safety, how can we safely hold the space for somebody else? There’s so much of that we think a lot of it in terms of what we’re eating or how we’re our self care practices, but I think taking care of our money situation also greatly impacts our ability to be a good coach

Stephanie: to your point. Well, it’s today’s society. We live in a society where all your basic needs transit via money, like shelter, food, like everything is money. We can’t be like ignorant to say, well, it has nothing to do with money. No bullshit. You can’t pay rent, you have a problem and that’s going to not going to put you in a good position. let’s talk about pricing because that’s another place that parallels to that. I often hear the complaint, but how do I decide, well, how determine my pricing so as many people as possible can work for me? And I see people underpricing themselves in order to help as many people as possible. What are your thoughts on that?

Michelle: well, insurance models. Are in place to do that, right? Insurance models are there so that people can go to a practitioner and pay a 20 copay. And then what kind of care do they receive? You know, do they get 6 minutes of a doctor’s time? Do they wait in a waiting room for 2 hours? You know, what is that experience like? So that those practitioners can be reimbursed the amount that they are from the insurance companies like doctors. And any provider that takes insurance are struggling and they’re cramming in as many patients as they possibly can to make that model work.

Michelle: And I don’t think that’s in service of anybody. So I don’t think we should aspire to help as many people as possible because most of us are single person shops over here. You know, we don’t even have a front desk. We don’t even have a waiting room. So we have to keep it manageable. so we don’t burn out. We have to earn enough. So that we don’t go under financially ourselves, because if we burn out, if we are not able to sustain our business, then we help absolutely nobody.

Stephanie: Yes.

Michelle: And then nobody wins. Then we’re going back to corporate America to get that job we hate. And it’s just, it all went nowhere.

Stephanie: friend of mine, her name is Kelly deals. She’s a feminist business coach. And she said, there’s no feminist business that the feminist business owner is not taking care of. First. Like owning that we need to take care of ourselves first in order for us to provide amazing service to people is the foundation. So, if you can’t pay your rent, if you can’t buy the food you want, if you can’t work. 35 hours a week and you have to work 75 hours a week to see as many people to make a baseline minimum. You will not be of service to people and you will burn out. You have to take care of yourself first. But again, I think as women, that’s hard to embody.

Michelle: It is, but you’re right. That model just cannot work. It can’t. So I’ll suggest a different model. This is one where you are charging higher prices. You’re pricing high ticket and when you make enough money because you have, you know, enough clients paying you enough money, now you can take on other types of clients, pro bono, reduced scholarships, things like this.

Michelle: it, this happens in every industry. And I know a lot about the advertising industry having worked in it in my first career. In the ad industry, every agency I worked at always has a bank client. So we had Bank of America, and I was an art director. The creative department hates working on the bank client because the bank does boring ads.

Michelle: Yeah, really boring. And there’s always an insurance client. Same thing. Boring stuff. Nobody wants to work on this account, but boy, do they pay well. And that’s how the agency can afford to take other clients and sometimes to even take on pro bono clients. So like I got to work on the Boy Scouts account one time and we did an anti smoking campaign one time that was incredibly creative and very cool paid. nothing. So in our industry, it’s the same, you need your bank clients first. And then you can have passion projects. And you can have pro bono clients and you have the freedom to do other things. But you got to find your bank.

Stephanie: No, I agree with you. Because in my field in the social justice world, people want to help everybody. So we got to first take care of ourselves and get That’s in the mind of our coaches, but then there’s so many different business sliding scales than their options, right? Where you like offer different prices for a certain program, like there’s so many ways of helping people without you being the bearer of the suffering.

Michelle: Right, because again, then no one wins. Nobody wins. And you can’t help. Obviously, you just can’t help everyone. here’s an example. So, in my own business over the past 3 or 4 years, I’ve given away over 30, 000 in scholarships to the BIPOC community, and I’m very proud of being able to do that. This has been an initiative that was important to me.

Michelle: It takes time. It takes effort, right? Any initiative in your business is going to take time and effort. You have to figure it out. How are we going to do this? The admin, the, you know, working out the kinks. Fine. So we got this going. Well, I’ll get emails or I’ll talk to coaches and let’s say, well, do you have any scholarships?

Michelle: and they don’t fit. They’re not part of the BIPOC community, so the answer is no. And I feel bad. I had someone ask me recently, she said, well, I’m a single mom of three kids. Do you have any scholarships? And I thought, gosh, I’m a single mom with kids. I should probably have a scholarship like that. And it’s even on my heart. I’ve handicapped all kinds of different reasons people ask for a scholarship. as a small business owner, I can only have so many initiatives. I can only administer and figure out like so many things, right? One woman show over here. So, so for now the answer has to be no, only because I don’t have a system in place for that. I can’t, I just can’t, you know, you have to have boundaries. You have to have policies. It’s like having a refund policy. You know, you just need something in black and white. And if I don’t have it figured out yet, Oh man, no, but maybe in the future. But for right now, no, we just have the BIPOC scholarship. So there’s an example of, you can’t always help everyone. You can only do what fits within your resources. we time your money and your energy

Stephanie: as we’re working towards the end of the podcast. This is a perfect place to circle back to the beginning, right? When you’re talking about having to say, no, you don’t have a scholarship for this, but you have 1 for this particular group of people comes back to that resiliency, that capacity to be told. No.

Michelle: Can you say no. Yeah. You have to say it in order to hear it.

Stephanie: Because if you can say it, and you can quote unquote reject people, then likely your tolerance of hearing no for good reason from a client perspective, I don’t have the money, it’s not the right fit for me at this time, there’ll be a better understanding of it.

Stephanie: And you know, it’s not about you. It’s about their current personal situation right now. Exactly. Thank Exactly. Because often it’s not about you. Can we just say that when people say, no, I don’t want to work with you? It has nothing to do with you as a human being.

Michelle: I’m not saying no to that single mom of three kids because I don’t think she’s got a good reason or story. It has nothing to do with her. I want to give her everything, but it has to me what’s going on over here on this side.

Stephanie: Voila. And the same thing in the consultation. When a client says no to you, it has nothing to do with you as a human coach behind has to do with whatever it, she doesn’t have the money. It’s not the right fit. It’s not her goal. Like we have to stop making it a sign of our words. Does that make sense?

Michelle: And I think that’s respect to a person to understand that they got a whole life going on over there, you know, we’re always the main character in our own story, but this person, you know, they don’t just exist to be on this call with us.

Michelle: They have a whole life of family and friends and circumstances. And if they have to say no right now, I’m good. I understand. You know, you’re managing things. You’re going through stuff. That has nothing to do with me. Right?

Stephanie: Yeah, it has nothing to do with my worth as a person or as a coach. It’s just right now explaining the program and it’s not the right fit for you. So, Michelle, how can people learn more about you and what you do?

Michelle: Sure. Well, we have a free Facebook group. Yeah. Health coach power community Facebook group, which is a great place to drop in. You’re in there. We have a lot of like industry, you know, like names that are part of it. Cause I’ve been running this group for 10 years. 10 years. Yes. I started it before my youngest was born and it was mostly because I was so tired of working alone as a coach, you know, in my house at the kitchen table, I wanted like a water cooler and it has grown and it has grown. And now of course we have programs and things to support resources and a podcast and everything to support this community. But this is how it all began. So anyway, that’s open to all health coaches and nutritionists and, you know, related. wellness professionals at health coach power community. com. We’d love to see you there.

Stephanie: What I like about your group is all the events that there is training events and life like there’s a ton of resources and you’re very, I guess, because of your advertising and marketing background, like you’re really good, like at being specific in your event, like solving specific problems. So I think it’s a great offering and it’s free.

Michelle: And it’s free. Thank you. We do a lot of things in there, right? We have a lot of fun. Yeah,

Stephanie: there’s a constant flow of event. Maybe that’s another podcast topic for the future. Like, you’re very good at creating events, like solving one specific, like, if you guys want to learn about creating marketing event or eventing, like she is the bomb. And clearly it’s because of your marketing background.

Michelle: Yeah, just come hang out and watch. See how people do it. And then I’ll teach you how. Yeah, good time over there. It’s always been about, you know, the rising tide, like rising tide lifts all boats. And that’s what it is. We’re all in this together. And so if I can teach you what I know, you can teach what you know, like the whole industry gets better.

Michelle: And I’ve seen that since the start. Of, of my career as a health coach, right? Like the whole industry has really elevated, but you know, we got a ways to go.

Stephanie: But it’s all because you’re coming from a place of service.

Michelle: Always. I think we all would gotten into like banking or something, right?

Stephanie: Yeah, or insurance. Medical insurance. Thank you Michelle for the beautiful conversation. Anytime.

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Asking for money as a woman with Michelle Leotta

Hey, welcome back my dear colleague. Today we’re going to have a hot conversation between two confident women. We’re going to talk about Asking for money as a woman, and I have a guest, who’s been in the coaching, health coaching industry like me, in her case for 14 years, in my case for 10 years, and we started with no business and built a business, and now we mentor other women to build their own business.

So the conversation and the coaching opportunity around becoming. comfortable and confident around money is one that we’ve had for a long time. And we both bring two different perspective to this conversation. So I invited her on the podcast to have this conversation. It’s one of the few women in our industry that I knew I could have an inspirational conversation for you on how to think about money differently. Why we struggle. As women, as coaches to ask for money and how we can think about it differently. How we can think about money, about selling, about consultation differently in order for us to create ease in asking for money. Michelle is a friend, a colleague. She specialized in helping health coaches. build businesses in that very specific niche. And, I hope you enjoy her. As much as I do, and I know if you listen to this conversation about asking for money, you will come out change as a woman from this conversation. So let’s roll the interview with Michelle.

Welcome to the show, Michelle.

Michelle: Thank you so much. I’m happy to be here with you.

Stephanie: I’m excited to talk with my partner about topics that no one else talks about. So I was on Michelle’s podcast not so long ago, we hit some hot topic. And today I want to talk about asking for money as a woman.

Stephanie: Let’s do it. I coach on that all the time in my mastermind struggling with doing the ask struggling about the conversation around money on the console determining our price like let’s go to the basic why are we struggling as women to ask for money what’s your thoughts on that

Michelle: I think that what if they say no, what if I am rejected? Is very much at the heart of it. And for women being rejected, I mean, this is shocking to me. There’s like studies, there’s. Statistics out there about how the greatest fear that a woman has is being essentially a bag lady, you know, it’s kind of an old term. Yeah, like in, you know, various studies that they’ve done like this comes across like we are afraid of being destitute. We are afraid of having no Money no one to take care of us not being attached to a man often comes along with that right a provider. So hearing no, you’re not worth the money because that’s what we hear in our head, or no for whatever reason I’m not going to give you money, I think, is very triggering for women who I mean. My mother’s generation could not even open up her own bank account without a man signing for it. So this is, we’re really like the first generation of women who are facing this head on.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it goes along to my world why women want to shrink their body is because they don’t want to be rejected. So, in the business setting on consultation women don’t want to be rejected with a no.

Michelle: Well, yeah, because if your body isn’t what you think it should be and you’re rejected, what does that mean? You’re not gonna marry that man who then provides for you because know, yeah, right Like it’s like a real primal fear

Stephanie: I think it’s really I think the first step is Acknowledging the context of it and where this fear comes from and why this fear is there And it has to do with our socialization as women.

Michelle: It’s been going on for Generation upon generation, you know, my grandmother. Got a secret job when I was little, yeah, she worked at the bakery while my grandfather was off at work, but it was a secret. He didn’t know about it because he would not have liked it, but she wanted to have pocket money to do with what she pleased.

Michelle: So she went ahead and got herself a job at the bakery anyway, and just told everybody to shut up about it. You know, the fact that just that’s. my own grandmother two generations ago had to sneak around to even just make a little pittance that she’s getting paid at the bakery. you know, it runs really deep.

Michelle: So I think you’re right.

Stephanie: it’s totally normal for us to be uncomfortable. Now that we understand why, like, how do we change that? How do we become more comfortable? I guess?

Michelle: Well, you know, okay, what happens? I’m sure you been in this industry a long time. So have I so I’m sure you’ve had a consultation or conversation with someone at some point and they said, No, I don’t know work with you.

Michelle: How was that?

Stephanie: It feels shitty. It feels rejected. There’s a lot of shame around this as well. Like I should have priced it less, I should have added more value to it. we look at ourselves as the problem, right?

Michelle: Yeah, I can feel really crappy for days. And sometimes I mean, I would be crying in the shower in the early days of my health coaching business because what did I do wrong?

Michelle: But interestingly, Just an hour ago, I was on a call with someone perspective student for one of my programs. And, you know, this is a health coach who’s looking for help with her business. Okay. But as I’m talking with her, I’m getting the sense that I don’t think it’s a good fit. Like I could have forced it.

Michelle: I could have tried. Yeah. And I decided in that moment, I didn’t want And so I did not offer my program to her. I never actually named a price or told her anything about it. I just listened to her story for about 15, 20 minutes. And, you know, I gave her some next steps and told her we could always have a conversation again later. And it felt so good because I knew that I could be. You know, back in the day when I started my business, I felt more desperate. I had to try to get that money. I had to, even if it went against my gut, even if it went against, I don’t say my value systems, I wouldn’t go that far, but it could, right.

Michelle: Sometimes it could, when you feel desperate. and so we need to be able to elevate ourselves to a position of, I mean, and same with how our bodies look and how we interact with, you know, men and marriage and everything, like I make the decision. You know, I’m interviewing you. If we get to the point where I decide that I’m going to offer you something, you’re lucky, you know, and not everyone’s going to get that bar. What do you think?

Stephanie: Yeah. And we are entering in a relationship together. And also, if you know, for me, if you know that your service Is not the right fit for them right now or could be in a year from now or like it’s not what’s going to help them if you’re coming at asking for money from a place of service, then it’s also your duty to not make the offer when you open up the space that you can make or not make the offer, then you are not. I have to you get out of despair and you’re like, this is a choice that I’m making to invite somebody to work with me.

Michelle: Exactly. And you’re right. If we’re coming from a place of service, there are many times that there’s a better direction somebody needs to be going in, you know, maybe they really need. Mental health professionals at this point, maybe they really need, you know, fill in the blank here and I start my consultations that way. I’ll say, listen, you know, we’re going to talk about this and this today. If I feel like my program can help you. I’ll tell you all about it. If I think you would do better with something else, I’ll point you in a different direction.

Michelle: How does that sound? And everyone’s like. That sounds amazing. That sounds so low pressure, like it really sets the stage for this to be an authentic conversation. And sometimes it really is hey, got a different idea for you.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it’s about this become then instead of a sales call, it becomes a conversation between two human if we are the right fit to work together from both sides.

Stephanie: Can I as a practitioner or coach see myself work with you? And can you see yourself work with me? So let’s have a human conversation. And so is it really about asking money? Because I know the title of the podcast is asking for money as a woman. But when you like, Entertain the selling conversation from a place of service, then is it really about asking for money?

Michelle: Right. you’re right. We use the term sales call. That’s what these things are called or discovery call or whatever. It’s a sales call. But yeah, as coaches, I just feel like the coaching relationship starts now, you know, it starts with that call sometimes before that call. And let’s just figure out what the right thing is Let me help you figure out what the right thing is for you.

Stephanie: And can we think about it from an exchange of money as opposed to asking for money? an energy exchange, for sure. An exchange of value. I’m going to give you value by helping you solve your problem. And in turn, you’re going to give me value in a form of currency, in a form of money. It’s an exchange of value.

Michelle: Now, how about this question again? You’ve been in this industry a long time. Have you ever taken on a client? And maybe you had a hunch up front or maybe you didn’t, but along the way, you realize there is no amount of money this person could have paid you that would have made the exchange equal.

Stephanie: Absolutely.

Stephanie: and I would say not so much now. I think it’s because I have been doing this long enough, like I’ve been selling the same thing long enough. Then I got really good at explaining the thing and making like clear who this is for. That people that land in the container with me are more and more refined to be the ideal person to be in that container.

Michelle: Agree. So it’s not a matter of having avatar that’s 40 to 50 who lives in the country. It’s a vibe, right? Yeah,

Stephanie: it’s more than just the age bracket is the for me in my world is the value of the individual that their value system match mind is the Place they want to go match mine, do the process to get there match mine. and I’ve said that so many, I’m not for everyone. Like I am for a very small percentage of the population, and that’s who I’m the perfect fit for. I’m not for everyone.

Michelle: And can we be comfortable with that?

Stephanie: How can we be more comfortable? And I think When you can be comfortable with that, that’s when asking for money doesn’t become a big deal.

Michelle: Because the people who do fit in that vibe with you, like you said, in your container, and you’re speaking the same language, I find that they already have their hand half raised, to pay you. Yes. You know, it’s not a big ask. It’s very different from if you just put up a billboard on the highway, you know, with a price tag, come work with me to anyone who drives by, you know, if you really reserve that ask for the people that are halfway there, I have found that takes a lot of the trepidation out of it improves closing rates, like crazy gets you off some of those other calls a lot faster.

Stephanie: Yeah. And you get. Yeah. Less people on the call, but much more aligned and those call don’t feel like a sales calls. They feel like a conversation between two human.

Michelle: Yeah. You know, once I implemented an application process ahead of my calls. My closing rate went to 90 to 100 percent. Tell me more about that. It was shocking. I mean, there’s so many problems that happen with these calls in the first place, right? You get no shows, reschedules, you know, whatever. Somebody’s on the call, but they’re actually in a restaurant having dinner with their family at the same time, and you’re like, what? What? So I created an application, that basically let me vet potential clients before even talking with them.

Michelle: So there are some things that any of us need to know and depending on who you are and, you know, What perspective you’re coming from, you might have different questions, like what’s something that you might need to know from a client right away to know if they’re even remotely going to be a fit for you

Stephanie: for me, in my case, like it is still on the pursuit of losing weight. That’s still their goal. Like,I want to lose weight and that’s what I’m ready to pay money for. Then I’m not your person because I cannot support you in that journey. Yeah, that’s a no go for me.

Michelle: And I know health coaches maybe who, follow a primal or paleo dogma. And so if someone were to fill out their application and indicate that they were a vegan and they wanted to remain a vegan, it’s great, you know, fine.

Michelle: Here’s somebody else that would be better to help you with your issue because I can’t get behind that. So, yeah, so asking about like their. Their views, their dogma, their desires, like that can be really helpful. you can ask questions about why they want to work with you. It’s an interesting question.

Michelle: Sometimes people have no idea. They just kind of stumbled upon your page or somehow they got to you yesterday. Other people will tell you, I have listened to every podcast episode you have ever recorded. I memorized them and relisten to them. And I have attended every free training you’ve ever had. And I know now’s the time to work with you.

Michelle: I’m ready. This person goes on the calendar and the other one not so much.

Stephanie: It avoids people wasting their time, too. Yes. Right? It’s not just our time and it’s their time. Like, why come on the call when you’re, like, some basic value or completely misaligned? you’re wasting your time and I’m wasting my time.

Stephanie: And, can I, we talk about this, too, if people are not willing to fill up five or six questions. Are they really going to say yes to your offer in a consultation when they can’t even invest five minutes to fill in an application?

Michelle: And you can learn so much by how they do it, because even if they do it, some people will just write like a dash where they’re supposed to fill in a blank, you know, they don’t fill it in, they just do something so that they can submit the form. Or maybe there’s a lot of misspellings, or maybe it’s just nonsense. Gibberish that they type in and you can even from that point. No, I don’t think we’re on the same page here. So it’s wild. The amount of psychology that goes into it, but it really it is in service. Yeah, saving everybody time. I honestly believe that. So big fan of having that process. there are other steps that I’ve played with inserting, you know, have people listen to a couple podcast episodes before the call, have people watch a certain video before the call, read case studies, you could send them things and let them know, I need you to complete this before our call. Because again, if they’re serious, they’re going to be very happy to do that.

Stephanie: Yeah. And I’ve even seen somebody, one of my coach, she wasn’t even doing the consultation. The consultation was just done to videos. if she would send you a video and if you said yes to this, they would send you the next video. Like the consultation was completely automated from video to video. I ended up buying because every video was what I needed to hear.

Michelle: That’s pretty amazing. That’s cool. Yeah, that

Stephanie: I have not read. When we think about asking for money, if we make it the right fit for both party, then there is less, I don’t want to say guilt and shame, but there’s less, worry about asking for money because you know, you’re both the right fit and it makes sense to both of you. And they’re going to get as much value as you.

Michelle: People will really surprise you. I have found because sometimes, you know, we burn our own money story. Can we talk about that? Yeah. I mean, I, was raised, I mean, my mom was single. she went to school at night, you know, to get a degree so that she could earn more, you know, we always had enough, but let’s just say most of my clothes came from Kmart, you know, so I, you know, I have a money story that came with that for sure, but sometimes I’ve now learned in 14 years of. offering services as a coach. Other people have very, very different view of money. Like it’s so amazing when I’ve had clients who were just like, yeah, sure. When can we start? Here’s my credit card number. And I just named like the highest price I’ve ever asked for from a client. In fact, here’s a funny story during quarantine.

Michelle: A couple of years ago when, you know, I was taking care of my boys, they didn’t have school. They were schooling at home, blah, blah, blah. It was very crazy time for everybody. And I decided I did not have time to take on any more private clients unless I said, well, if they paid me double, then I probably could figure it out.

Michelle: So I doubled my prices during that time. And, I had a consultation with someone who was an. Perfect fit. I mean, I really wanted to work with her and I felt so bad because like her husband had been furloughed and I just knew everyone was struggling. And so I did something I never do. And I never recommend. And I offered her two options. I gave her two prices, that big doubled price. And then I offered her a smaller package at a lower price. And she said, Michelle. I believe in you. I love everything you put out there. I want to work with you. I’m making plenty of money right now, and I’m gonna, I want to buy your biggest package and support you. Hot damn, that woman blew my mind.

Stephanie: Yeah, because you, she did clearly did not have the same money story as you were the past experience with money.

Michelle: She was abundant, you know, she felt her own abundance.

Stephanie: It’s so critical for us to understand is thought projection, how we’re projecting our own story, our own thoughts on people. And we think, well, everybody’s going to think it’s too expensive because I think it’s too expensive.

Michelle: Yup. And the way people think about their money is just wildly different. Anyone who has ever had a spouse or a roommate who didn’t pay the bills and you could not understand how they could not pay the bills, you know, right there, two different money stories. And it’s really wild. So when we’re Afraid to ask for money. I think that’s important to understand that person is not us. They might think that the 2000, $3,004,000 that we’re asking for is. Pocket change. Yes.

Stephanie: And it’s also how do we look, let’s think about that. Let’s talk about that. How do we look at our client? Do we look at our future client as being limited? Or do we look at our clients on the lens of what’s possible for them? And often it starts with how we look at ourself. if we look at ourself and we’re constantly looking at everything that’s not working and our limitation, we’re going to look at our future clients from a place of limitation instead of possibility and abundance.

Michelle: That’s so interesting. You’re right. I mean, it’s not just about money. Money is like the conversation that represents all the other conversations, right? Like how you do money is how you do everything.

Stephanie: I think it’s. So true. Think about that. if you think money is hard because it’s hard for you right now, because for whatever reason, like whatever money you have in the account, it’s even irrelevant to how money is easy or not.

Stephanie: You’re going to think like right now, there’s the word like, people are talking about recession, right? Like we’re in a recession. So people who constantly watch the news and are inundated with the recession, and perhaps somebody in their family has lost their job, they’re going to think everybody is living from that reality, unless they really check themselves and say, this is my reality, where in fact there’s people who do not have I’ve not been affected by the recession and the money’s still flowing in the same way it was before.

Michelle: Yeah, very much. They’re out there. I mean, yeah, the economy has certainly changed over the past, whatever, four years now, but it’s not everybody there. There are plenty of clients out there that are still ready, willing and able. I was thinking. The whole idea of I don’t want to ask because I’m afraid that they’re going to say no.

Michelle: Another aspect of that is very real, which is if you’ve thrown yourself into coaching you don’t have a source of income, otherwise you’re going to need to make every damn sale, right? You are honestly. You are strapped. And the solution to that is to not put yourself in that situation.

Stephanie: Oh, yeah. Talk about this, because that’s my perspective. yeah, I realize we don’t have the same opinion as most business coaches, quote unquote, right?

Michelle: Yeah, I do not ever want any of my health coaches to be in that kind of financial position. I do not want anyone to, you know, take out A high interest loan to afford any of my programs. You know, you don’t want to put yourself in that financial place because you’re going to make decisions that reek of desperation. So I am all on board with staying with your full time job. If you have a good salary, finding a, an exit strategy that works for you over time, finding a part time job, a couple of days a week, also changing the way you live. Like when I. Left my job in advertising. I had just been married and we bought a condo and we bought something that we could afford on one salary. So the pressure was not there. And I think that is incredibly important, especially for our younger coaches and our single coaches to hear, you know, if you don’t have another salary supporting you. You got to have your own back first.

Stephanie: Yeah. And it comes how the way we feel like about our money in that case, like if you’re in despair mode, because you’ve got to make that 2, 000 to pay the rent, your own rent, how effective is that relationship with your clients going to be? It’s going to be terrible because like you’re in despair mode from the start of that relationship.

Stephanie: And we have to bring that part job.

Michelle: Yes. you know, in the relationship, like we have to hold the space, right? It takes a lot of energy and this like internal spaciousness, but we’re, if we’re all like gripped up inside about our own situation and our own sense of safety, how can we safely hold the space for somebody else? There’s so much of that we think a lot of it in terms of what we’re eating or how we’re our self care practices, but I think taking care of our money situation also greatly impacts our ability to be a good coach

Stephanie: to your point. Well, it’s today’s society. We live in a society where all your basic needs transit via money, like shelter, food, like everything is money. We can’t be like ignorant to say, well, it has nothing to do with money. No bullshit. You can’t pay rent, you have a problem and that’s going to not going to put you in a good position. let’s talk about pricing because that’s another place that parallels to that. I often hear the complaint, but how do I decide, well, how determine my pricing so as many people as possible can work for me? And I see people underpricing themselves in order to help as many people as possible. What are your thoughts on that?

Michelle: well, insurance models. Are in place to do that, right? Insurance models are there so that people can go to a practitioner and pay a 20 copay. And then what kind of care do they receive? You know, do they get 6 minutes of a doctor’s time? Do they wait in a waiting room for 2 hours? You know, what is that experience like? So that those practitioners can be reimbursed the amount that they are from the insurance companies like doctors. And any provider that takes insurance are struggling and they’re cramming in as many patients as they possibly can to make that model work.

Michelle: And I don’t think that’s in service of anybody. So I don’t think we should aspire to help as many people as possible because most of us are single person shops over here. You know, we don’t even have a front desk. We don’t even have a waiting room. So we have to keep it manageable. so we don’t burn out. We have to earn enough. So that we don’t go under financially ourselves, because if we burn out, if we are not able to sustain our business, then we help absolutely nobody.

Stephanie: Yes.

Michelle: And then nobody wins. Then we’re going back to corporate America to get that job we hate. And it’s just, it all went nowhere.

Stephanie: friend of mine, her name is Kelly deals. She’s a feminist business coach. And she said, there’s no feminist business that the feminist business owner is not taking care of. First. Like owning that we need to take care of ourselves first in order for us to provide amazing service to people is the foundation. So, if you can’t pay your rent, if you can’t buy the food you want, if you can’t work. 35 hours a week and you have to work 75 hours a week to see as many people to make a baseline minimum. You will not be of service to people and you will burn out. You have to take care of yourself first. But again, I think as women, that’s hard to embody.

Michelle: It is, but you’re right. That model just cannot work. It can’t. So I’ll suggest a different model. This is one where you are charging higher prices. You’re pricing high ticket and when you make enough money because you have, you know, enough clients paying you enough money, now you can take on other types of clients, pro bono, reduced scholarships, things like this.

Michelle: it, this happens in every industry. And I know a lot about the advertising industry having worked in it in my first career. In the ad industry, every agency I worked at always has a bank client. So we had Bank of America, and I was an art director. The creative department hates working on the bank client because the bank does boring ads.

Michelle: Yeah, really boring. And there’s always an insurance client. Same thing. Boring stuff. Nobody wants to work on this account, but boy, do they pay well. And that’s how the agency can afford to take other clients and sometimes to even take on pro bono clients. So like I got to work on the Boy Scouts account one time and we did an anti smoking campaign one time that was incredibly creative and very cool paid. nothing. So in our industry, it’s the same, you need your bank clients first. And then you can have passion projects. And you can have pro bono clients and you have the freedom to do other things. But you got to find your bank.

Stephanie: No, I agree with you. Because in my field in the social justice world, people want to help everybody. So we got to first take care of ourselves and get That’s in the mind of our coaches, but then there’s so many different business sliding scales than their options, right? Where you like offer different prices for a certain program, like there’s so many ways of helping people without you being the bearer of the suffering.

Michelle: Right, because again, then no one wins. Nobody wins. And you can’t help. Obviously, you just can’t help everyone. here’s an example. So, in my own business over the past 3 or 4 years, I’ve given away over 30, 000 in scholarships to the BIPOC community, and I’m very proud of being able to do that. This has been an initiative that was important to me.

Michelle: It takes time. It takes effort, right? Any initiative in your business is going to take time and effort. You have to figure it out. How are we going to do this? The admin, the, you know, working out the kinks. Fine. So we got this going. Well, I’ll get emails or I’ll talk to coaches and let’s say, well, do you have any scholarships?

Michelle: and they don’t fit. They’re not part of the BIPOC community, so the answer is no. And I feel bad. I had someone ask me recently, she said, well, I’m a single mom of three kids. Do you have any scholarships? And I thought, gosh, I’m a single mom with kids. I should probably have a scholarship like that. And it’s even on my heart. I’ve handicapped all kinds of different reasons people ask for a scholarship. as a small business owner, I can only have so many initiatives. I can only administer and figure out like so many things, right? One woman show over here. So, so for now the answer has to be no, only because I don’t have a system in place for that. I can’t, I just can’t, you know, you have to have boundaries. You have to have policies. It’s like having a refund policy. You know, you just need something in black and white. And if I don’t have it figured out yet, Oh man, no, but maybe in the future. But for right now, no, we just have the BIPOC scholarship. So there’s an example of, you can’t always help everyone. You can only do what fits within your resources. we time your money and your energy

Stephanie: as we’re working towards the end of the podcast. This is a perfect place to circle back to the beginning, right? When you’re talking about having to say, no, you don’t have a scholarship for this, but you have 1 for this particular group of people comes back to that resiliency, that capacity to be told. No.

Michelle: Can you say no. Yeah. You have to say it in order to hear it.

Stephanie: Because if you can say it, and you can quote unquote reject people, then likely your tolerance of hearing no for good reason from a client perspective, I don’t have the money, it’s not the right fit for me at this time, there’ll be a better understanding of it.

Stephanie: And you know, it’s not about you. It’s about their current personal situation right now. Exactly. Thank Exactly. Because often it’s not about you. Can we just say that when people say, no, I don’t want to work with you? It has nothing to do with you as a human being.

Michelle: I’m not saying no to that single mom of three kids because I don’t think she’s got a good reason or story. It has nothing to do with her. I want to give her everything, but it has to me what’s going on over here on this side.

Stephanie: Voila. And the same thing in the consultation. When a client says no to you, it has nothing to do with you as a human coach behind has to do with whatever it, she doesn’t have the money. It’s not the right fit. It’s not her goal. Like we have to stop making it a sign of our words. Does that make sense?

Michelle: And I think that’s respect to a person to understand that they got a whole life going on over there, you know, we’re always the main character in our own story, but this person, you know, they don’t just exist to be on this call with us.

Michelle: They have a whole life of family and friends and circumstances. And if they have to say no right now, I’m good. I understand. You know, you’re managing things. You’re going through stuff. That has nothing to do with me. Right?

Stephanie: Yeah, it has nothing to do with my worth as a person or as a coach. It’s just right now explaining the program and it’s not the right fit for you. So, Michelle, how can people learn more about you and what you do?

Michelle: Sure. Well, we have a free Facebook group. Yeah. Health coach power community Facebook group, which is a great place to drop in. You’re in there. We have a lot of like industry, you know, like names that are part of it. Cause I’ve been running this group for 10 years. 10 years. Yes. I started it before my youngest was born and it was mostly because I was so tired of working alone as a coach, you know, in my house at the kitchen table, I wanted like a water cooler and it has grown and it has grown. And now of course we have programs and things to support resources and a podcast and everything to support this community. But this is how it all began. So anyway, that’s open to all health coaches and nutritionists and, you know, related. wellness professionals at health coach power community. com. We’d love to see you there.

Stephanie: What I like about your group is all the events that there is training events and life like there’s a ton of resources and you’re very, I guess, because of your advertising and marketing background, like you’re really good, like at being specific in your event, like solving specific problems. So I think it’s a great offering and it’s free.

Michelle: And it’s free. Thank you. We do a lot of things in there, right? We have a lot of fun. Yeah,

Stephanie: there’s a constant flow of event. Maybe that’s another podcast topic for the future. Like, you’re very good at creating events, like solving one specific, like, if you guys want to learn about creating marketing event or eventing, like she is the bomb. And clearly it’s because of your marketing background.

Michelle: Yeah, just come hang out and watch. See how people do it. And then I’ll teach you how. Yeah, good time over there. It’s always been about, you know, the rising tide, like rising tide lifts all boats. And that’s what it is. We’re all in this together. And so if I can teach you what I know, you can teach what you know, like the whole industry gets better.

Michelle: And I’ve seen that since the start. Of, of my career as a health coach, right? Like the whole industry has really elevated, but you know, we got a ways to go.

Stephanie: But it’s all because you’re coming from a place of service.

Michelle: Always. I think we all would gotten into like banking or something, right?

Stephanie: Yeah, or insurance. Medical insurance. Thank you Michelle for the beautiful conversation. Anytime.

 

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89-Making Money and Achieving Your Goals with Kim Hagle

89-Making Money and Achieving Your Goals with Kim Hagle

Non-Diet Coach Making Money

A Non-Diet Coach Making Money and achieving her goals in an interview with Non-Diet Fitness coach Kim Hagle.

A Non-Diet Coach Making Money

Making Money and achieving your goals is possible as a Non-Diet Coach.. in fact it’s more than possible it’s happening everyday.

Now does it happen overnight? No

Does it take time? Yes

When you learn to create money versus making money because you went viral, you keep on making money for the rest of your life.

You become someone who knows how to create money no matter the circumstances. You possess the skills that create money.

Making Money and achieving your goals with Kim Hagle 

In this interview with Kim Hagle she walks you through the steps she took during our coaching and mentorship to become someone who knows how to create money

So many great takeaway and honest truths of what it takes to be successful as a coach.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on Non-Diet Coach Making Money:

  • Then roadmap that took Kim from starting a new business to achieve her financial goals.
  • What aspects of herself she had to transform to create these results.
  • Her learnings through the last three years of coaching together.

 

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Training & Resources 

Connect with our guest:

Kim’s free guide 

Instagram – Kim Hagle

Transcript:

Undiet Your Coaching Ep89 – Making Money and Achieving Your Goals with Kim Hagle

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Hey there colleague, welcome back to the podcast. Today I have a guest Kim Hagel. She’s a non diet fitness coach. I’m going to talk about money. I’m going to get it out there. We’re going to talk about money. We’re going to talk about making money. We’re going to talk about income goal.

We’re going to talk about achieving our goal. And we’re going to do that In a respectful way, in an ethical way, in a way that we both feel comfortable talking about goal and money. And I want to be honest with you, and I want to be transparent with you that I am trying to figure out my way in. talking about money in the context of business in a way that feels aligned in a way that feels good to me.

And again, to be quite transparent, I have not talked about a lot about money. If you go scroll back through the feed of the podcast, there’s no like any income goal claim. And this person made 50, 000 months and 10, 000 months. And this person is making six figure like I barely talk about my own amount of money I have in my business because I haven’t find a way yet to do it in a way that I feel ethical.

So maybe you’re listening to this podcast a year after. It was recorded and you’re like, what is she talking about? She’s been talking about money for the last six months non stop. Well, if that is the case, it’s because I figured out a way that feel good to me to talk about money and that is ethical. But as of today, November 2023.

I haven’t figured that out. So me and Kim being a student of mine, I’ve mentored her for almost the last, at that point we recorded the podcast for the last two years for sure, and maybe even longer. we started, Her business from nothing to where she’s at right now, where she’s meeting all of a goal.

And funny enough, I’m recording this introduction to the podcast. And just a few weeks ago, I got this text via Voxer. From Kim and I’m trying to find it as I scroll through I just found the text and she sent me this picture of her beside a Brand new car that she had bought and I’m gonna share Not the voice member when I share the story because and only because Kim herself has shared this story on her public profile because I don’t want to divulge any confidential information.

But anyway, she sent me this picture of her beside this brand new car with a bow on it and a very powerful and emotional voice memo that for the first time in her life, she had bought a car because of her income in her business, but mostly because of the inner work and the self belief work that she had done that she didn’t resort to giving the decision of buying a car to the men in her life.

So Kim shared on their public profile that since she was in an age of driving and she’s now in her 40s, every single car she had honed, she She did not buy, she did not make the decision of it. She always passed that decision. And in some cases, the decision was made for her of what car to buy. And the work we have done over the last three years in building her business and building her confidence has landed her in a place where she owned the decision of buying the car.

All by herself. It wasn’t about the car and the value of the car and a brand on the car. It was about the person she became in the process of buying that car and all the self belief and all the story and to some degree the trauma that she had to overcome to become that version of herself. And it was a reflection of the work she had done because she built a business. And to me, That’s worth millions of dollars. And that’s why I do business coaching work. Because when I approach business coaching with my client, I don’t approach it about making it about the money, but about who you need to become in order to create that money and that work. That these attributes, these skill set that you are building to become the version of you who can create money in your business, that will secure your future because these skill sets will stay with you for the rest of your life.

They’re not a fluke. They’re not you becoming viral in a post. You know how to create money and you become someone who creates money. And the story of Kim you’re going to hear next is the perfect example of that. And that’s the work we do inside of the coaching program. When we work together, 75 percent of the work is in your mind, in your body, in your emotion, in your nervous system, the tactical work, the strategy work. Yeah, it’s there. But that’s not the main feature of my coaching. My coaching is about you and you becoming the version of yourself who can create money no matter what the circumstance. So with that in mind, I’m going to roll in the interview with Kim. I hope you enjoy and I’ll see you in the next podcast.

Stephanie: Hey, Kim,

Kim: welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Stephanie: I’m excited for you to have this conversation with me about making money. And right away when we say that people are like, Oh, talk about making half a million dollars and 2 million. And that’s not what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about meeting our goals, we’re going to talk about making money, but probably in the perspective that you haven’t heard people talk about it. So Kim, the point of conversation, I just want to set the tone for people. Kim texted me and said, I’m in my goal. Right? You texted me saying, I’m in my goal. I’ve already like halfway through the year. I made my goal. I’m really like, I’m really proud of myself. So I’m like, let’s have this conversation publicly and let’s record it. And let’s share it with the world to normalize making money and being proud of what we do. without being a million dollars. Yeah, it’s not a major goal. You made your goal halfway through the year.

Kim: Yeah. And I actually made it a month early. Like I set a goal for the first half of this year and I achieved it by the end of May. So it was a month ahead of schedule. I was so thrilled.

Stephanie: Contextualize your business for people. How long have you been in this rendition of your business and what was the past? And then we’ll go from here and. How you got there?

Kim: Sure. So I am a size inclusive, a personal trainer and body image coach. And I’ve been doing this version of my business since March of 2020. Like I always remember the date because I opened my doors. The date that the prime minister gave the stay at home order, it was really great timing for starting a business.

Kim: so I have been working as a non diet coach for that length of time. But I have been a personal trainer since 2012. So I have 11 years of experience under my belt. The first half of my business was Done the old school, not non diet way. and I actually left the industry for a couple of years in between because it wasn’t working for me anymore.

Kim: I was no longer able to maintain the physique and the image that I thought that a personal trainer. Had to have to be good at their job. so I left, I had been taught that my body was my business card. So I left for a while and it was sometime during there that I was doing my own work and healing my body image that I came across your work and it blew my mind. And I was like, this is what is needed. I have to go back to fitness. I really did miss it, but I didn’t think I could. So that gave me the permission to kind of relaunch my business.

Stephanie: So. experience trainer in the diet culture way. I like this expression, like body is my business card. Love that. Not that I support it. But I love like the no pain, no gain that goes along with that. Yeah. And then so from March 2020 to June 2023. So three years in a brand new business, new format, new product, new everything. And it took three years for you. To be able to make your goal, give me more behind what does that mean for you making your goal?

Kim: Yeah, well, it’s unpacked that yeah, there’s a lot to unpack and I’m sure we’ll dig into a lot of this, but, I had a lot of stories about money, but one of the big ones that I internalized from following different business coaches and being in the entrepreneurship world was that making a hundred K as a coach was.

Kim: a sign of success. Like that indicates you’ve made it, you’re good at what you do, and You know, that’s what every entrepreneur or coach should be striving for. So for the first, I don’t know, year or two in my business, that was the benchmark. Like I was trying to make a hundred K and I was like, Striving and creating all these things and working my buns off and like trying to get there, never getting close. And about this time last year. I realized like how that number 100 K carried the same kind of connotation as just lose 20 pounds and like all of your problems will be solved. Like I saw the parallels between diet culture and business culture. And we talked about this a number of times in your coaching program.

Kim: And that just hit me like a ton of bricks. Like I had a hundred K as. The thing that I had to achieve to be defined as successful and worthy and valuable and good at my job and all of this. And I, and so I just fully rejected that. And for the second half of last year, I just gave up on money goals. I like just forgot about money and like really worked on creating safety and my nervous system around my value and my inherent worth and not needing to tie my success to a certain number. So there was a lot of work, which we can talk about in a bit, but basically last year, I just didn’t even think about money.

Kim: And then in January of this year, in our mastermind retreat, you coached us on setting a goal and you encouraged us to set a money goal. And I felt ready at that point. I had done a lot of work. I felt safe in doing that, but it wasn’t going to be a 100 K number. I was like, I’ve never gotten anywhere near to that. It feels unrealistic, but there was. Like I had a threshold in my business every year, actually, for as long as I’ve worked as an adult, I’ve made a certain number annually, which is kind of interesting. I knew there was something about this number and I was like, I just want to make more than that. Like I just want to get a little bit higher than that number because there seemed to be a block around it.

Kim: It’s 30k. If we want to put it up, there’s 30k. So I was like, I’m going to likeshoot for a little bit higher than that. and you told us to set a goal that was uncomfortable, but, you know, I wanted to stay in the realm of reality. So I set a goal somewhere between 30 K and 50 K for the first half of the year.

Kim: And,Yeah, so by the end of May, I had achieved the number that I had set out in January. So it was a real testament to like the nervous system work that I had done, all of the safety I’d created, like the beliefs that I unpacked and learned to rewrite around my value and success, things like that.

Kim: And. Yeah, it was a really, it was a really, proud moment when I kind of did my books at the end of June and went, oh, my gosh, like surprise. I’ve done that.

Stephanie: What’s interesting is that it was a surprise. It wasn’t something that you were like monitoring all along. It was just, Oh, it happened. And I didn’t even know.

Kim: That was really cool to me too, because in the past, like having 100 K as the benchmark, I was very closely monitoring, how close I was or how far away rather I was from that number. And. Yeah, like this year I held on to that goal. I was focused on the goal, but I didn’t like, I wasn’t hyper vigilant about it. I wasn’t always looking and checking and like measuring everything. I just, I kind of had an idea, but I was like, I’m just going to keep on doing my thing here. And that’s what happened.

Stephanie: Talk to us about, you said the word money stories. I don’t know that many people understand. The stories that they have about money and if they do, how it plays a role as an entrepreneur and a business owner, because it’s one thing to have money story when you’re working with someone else and you’re getting a paycheck versus when you’re trying to create money.

Kim: Yeah. And I don’t think I was aware of a lot of my money stories either until you coached us to really dig into it. But one of the big ones that I had was even around creating money, like being an entrepreneur. That was something that wasn’t valued in my upbringing. Like it’s, it wasn’t considered honest work. It was almost like being a business owner and selling products. is about ripping people off. Like in order for me to make money, I have to take money from other people. And that’s not honest. so that was a big one, right. That I had to look at and examine other things were like, money is hard to make money is scarce. there’s never enough of it. what else was there?

Stephanie: Oh, you said money was your worth. Yeah. how much you make meant something about your quality as a professional.

Kim: Yep. Especially as a business owner, right? Like I, in my past, before I got into the fitness industry, I was a nurse. so I had a good paying professional job, which I left.

Kim: So I had stories about that too. you know, you left a job where you were paid well and all that. And now you’re doing this and you’re not making as much money. Like I had that tied to my value. Like I, maybe I’m not as good at this or I should not have done that. Or I’m not supposed to be here. There, yeah, a lot of stories around, what the amount of money I make means about me as a person and how good I am at my job.

Stephanie: Yeah, and for people listening to this is very similar to the size of your body or the you ness of your skin and your look and what it means for you. as a woman, so it’s, it, what I have seen over the years is your story, my story, we think it’s just about the body and the looks. And then when we become an entrepreneur, we’re like, it’s in our face that it’s money also.

Kim: Yeah. it’s everywhere. Yeah. Like you say, you always say how you do one thing is how you do everything. Right. So I was, I found I was very confronted with all of this when I like healed my body. I mentioned my relationship with food. It was like, okay, let’s just shift all that perfectionism and like scarcity mindset and lack of belief in myself to the business side of things.

Stephanie: So I’m curious to hear you reflect on Let’s talk about the the day to day action in your business, like either creating product or selling or doing consultation because you do one on one personal training. So you do consultation. How does. Doing the day to day business activity are different. Today, then they were when you started.

Kim: That’s a good question. I think that I think the biggest change is that because I’m less concerned about. Making money, I’m more concerned about providing value. So, you know, when I’m having a consultation, my goal on that call is one to help them like get to the root of their struggle and help them give them a quick win and to feel out if I’m the right coach for them, right?

Kim: Like to, so it means knowing that. Like being secure in my value and what I can offer, what I’m skilled and able to offer and do well. And if that’s a good fit, if that will provide the value that they’re looking for, right? So if it’s a good exchange of value, and if it’s not, then I’m okay to refer them out or to send them to someone else or, you know, offer them some resources to start with.

Kim: But where in the past I would have really tried to make that sale, no matter what. Yeah,

Stephanie: making the sales. Yeah.

Kim: And I was good at that. I could make the sale. But then I would, there was a lot of clients I worked with that I kind of regretted. And that was the downside, right?

Kim: Where now it’s if it’s just about exchanging value, then I can tell, if this is not going to be a good fit, if we’re not going to work well together, I can send you somewhere else. And I feel fine about that. I’m not worried about that contract not being.

Stephanie: Not being sold. So you’re detached, more detached or unattached to the outcome.

Stephanie: How does that feel in your body differently being detached from the outcome versus before when you were having the money story and wanting to make a hundred K? How the doing your day to day work felt then versus now?

Kim: Yeah, how it feels in my body, it’s just, it’s a whole lot more relaxed. There’s a lot less pressure.

Kim: There’s a lot less anxiety. There’s a lot less, people pleasing, like trying to impress the person on the call where it’s more just, let’s have a conversation about your struggles. Let’s figure out if I’m the person to help you with that. And then I don’t take it personally if they choose to say no, or if I send them somewhere else or, you know, if they choose to say yes, even it’s just it’s all just neutral.

Stephanie: And you mentioned earlier in the conversation, I was creating all kinds of product trying to make money, where now it’s different. You have less product in your portfolio. Is that what it is?

Kim: Yeah, and I know you’re gonna you’re gonna be biting your tongue and wanting to say I told you so, because I know.

Stephanie: But tell people the background so they understand.

Kim: Stephanie’s coached me probably a thousand times on shiny object syndrome

Stephanie: because we’re going people. I had no idea where we were going. She knew, but I had no idea. Shiny object

Kim: because I had this thing about I have to make 100 K and I wasn’t making it.

Kim: So I was like, well, I must need to have a different product or I must need to do something different or better. And I was constantly creating and trying out new things and making new offers and beating my head against the wall and. None of it was working, right? or

Stephanie: not working. Classify that.

Kim: Well, I shouldn’t say it wasn’t to a hundred K, right?

Kim: Yeah. And that’s the, that’s what I had to evaluate. You’re right. It’s not that none of it was working. Like I was able to sell everything that I created. But it was spreading me really thin for one, and it was confusing to me. Like I, I even got to a point where I was confused about what the heck I do. So I’m sure my audience was confused too.

Kim: so, and I’m pretty sure you coached me on that as well. so I scaled everything back. Like I just. Burned a lot of things right down to the ground and not to say that they’re gone forever. Like I’ve created a lot of really valuable content that I can pull from and use in other ways. But as far as what’s forward facing and what I’m offering right now, it’s scaled back really like I have my one on one personal training, one on one coaching.

Kim: I have a group program and I teach group fitness classes. Like I feel like that’s all you get. And it’s so much easier.

Stephanie: So it’s so much easier and you make the same amount of money volume wise, is that it? Well, more. Oh, you make more. Look at that. Why do you think you make more? What’s your assessment of that?

Kim: Well, I think it’s clear. I think it’s clearer what I do and how I help people. I think I’m clearer. On my zones of expertise and I, you know, I’m staying within that and really leading with value as opposed to just constantly throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to be the best at everything. I’m like, I really shine in a couple of areas.

Kim: So like, why not just hone in on that? And the funny thing is, I haven’t done an official launch. Since, June of last year, it’s been a whole year, like, and I, I’ve been intentional about, sharing what I do, but as far as a, structured launch. Yeah, I haven’t done. And so that’s been really helpful too, because I used to get really stressed out about.

Kim: Launching and putting programs out there in the world. I really had a lot of meaning attached to that and what it meant about me if people didn’t sign up or did sign up. so I kind of rejected launching at the end of last year. and this year I had fully intended to launch in the spring, but. A good friend had passed away and so that happened right as I was starting to launch and I just knew I didn’t have it in me to push through where a past version might have.

Kim: So I opted to not, but even without launching, I managed to create consistent revenue, which has built a lot of safety in my nervous system too, to know that even if I don’t launch, I can be successful. And if I do launch and it flops, it’s okay because I know that I can continue to create money like things will continue to flow.

Kim: I, I believe a lot more that I offer value and that I’m in demand and that people want what it is that I’m offering.

Stephanie: That’s really powerful. Let’s talk about this thing this statement as not working. I hear that a lot like things are not working. And when I get under the hood. They’re working, meaning that one or two person will buy it, but our assessment is it’s not working.

Kim: yeah, because we’re told that we have to sell out our programs and that, you know, if we’re, if we do a good job of launching or marketing, we should be able to get like 20 people in our group program or, you know, some, Yeah, there’s a lot around like what working means, right. But everybody makes it look like they’re, they’re making a hundred K and they’re pulling in like dozens and dozens of people and turning people away all the time.

Kim: Right. And that just wasn’t the reality for me, but that doesn’t mean that things weren’t working. Right. I think I had to really peel that back and take the beginner’s mindset. But I’m. Still 3 years in fairly new at this, I’m still experimenting and figuring out what works

Stephanie: and who says you’ll maybe you’ll never make 100 K

Kim: and it doesn’t matter. Right. It doesn’t matter. It’s okay. Yeah. But I’ve also learned like working. It’s less about how many people sign up and more what are the results they’re getting from. Doing the work with me. Right. And when I look at that and the transformation that my clients have all achieved, I know that it’s working.

Kim: I know that they’re getting the results that they want. I know that I’m delivering value. So, you know, maybe I don’t have a zillion signups, but it’s working.

Stephanie: That’s exactly what I was hoping to get from you. When we say it’s not working is because we think of success only in money. Yeah. We don’t think of success in.

Stephanie: impact my quality of life based on how I want to live my life. We’re only equating working with money. Because that’s what we’re told business is about money. Yeah, we need to put food in the fridge and we need to be paying rent. But do we all need to make a million dollars?

Kim: No, we don’t. And that’s something I really had to sit with because I really believed for the first couple of years that I needed to make money.

Kim: And I remember a coaching session with you where you were like, if you need to make a certain amount of money for your safety, for your survival, go get a job, like just go get your safety needs met. so that your business doesn’t have to be about surviving, right? You can enjoy your business. And I was like, Oh, I don’t want to get a

Stephanie: job.

Kim: Right. And that was a wake up call for me. Cause I was like, well, I guess that means I don’t need to make this money. if I did, I, I could go get a job. I would go, you wouldn’t have a choice. Right. Right. And that’swhat kind of the light bulb went off is this is a choice. And I feel very privileged that I have that choice, but like in our family, my money, like the money I make in my business is not needed to pay the bills.

Kim: It’s more for discretionary spending and things like that. So it’s not like I need the money. So then I had to think about, well, then why do I have this fixation over a hundred K and what is it that I’m here for? If not to need money and not to make money. Why do I choose to do this every day? Why do I choose to get up and show up?

Kim: And that was a really powerful, like awareness. it’s nice to have money. And that was another belief I had to work on. It was like, it’s okay to want money, but you know, I don’t need it. I’m here because I want to be here because I want to make an impact on the world because I want to add value.

Kim: I want to help people. And, you know, yeah, if I happen to make. A good income. While I do that, then that’s great.

Stephanie: It’s interesting because for some odd reason in the coaching industry, the norm is to make a million dollars and more we can talk about, 10 figure and 8 figure, the norm is making a million dollars, to reach that and to make 100K and 200K and 250K.

Stephanie: Yeah, and there’s no other industry that is like that.

Kim: They kind of sell it as a get rich quick scheme, don’t they?

Stephanie: Yeah, nursing wasn’t like that. For me, the retail industry wasn’t like that. we paid our supervisor and our manager 50, 60, 75k, and they were happy. They’re living their life. Life was good.

Stephanie: Why do we need a million dollars?

Kim: Yeah, I don’t have an answer for that and I don’t, I, I don’t know why this is being sold to us as there’s so much marketing around that about

Stephanie: It’s really like the 10 ideal, like weight loss, like your body is your business card. That’s the very first thing you said in the interview, like the amount of money is your business card of how successful you are.

Kim: Yeah. Like you can have this amazing life by being a coach and achieve, like having an unlimited income ceiling, but you can have an amazing life right now. Just like you can have an amazing life in whatever body you have, you can choose to make your life and have an amazing life. Anytime.

Stephanie: And what amazing means to you is different than me, and it’s different than the next person. Right? So, if for you, you’re raising kids, you have kids in the house, and having an amazing life is spending more time with your kids, that means working less than, I don’t know, making 75k a year is like total happiness for you.

Kim: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I’m not someone who needs like Prada bags and designer clothes and you know, 50, 000 vacations. you know, I don’t, that’s not a value I hold, right. I just, like you say, I want to spend time with my family. I want to like make a contribution to the world and to my family. I don’t know enough for you. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie: It’s interesting becauseI see the same pattern again when we put the focus on the money and when we say we make money and we make it equal like six, seven figure, it actually is very counterproductive to the quality of action we take in our business.

Stephanie: Mm hmm. We don’t show up. We go into on and off cycle. We disappear for two months and then we come back for two months. And then here’s something very interesting. I just, I, it came out of me the other day in a coaching session. When we do that, when we like, and many of you will, identify with that, you show up for two months on social media and then you disappear for a month.

Stephanie: But he’s been there and then you show up when you need to make money. Yeah. Right? When like you need to make money or you’re launching something and realistically, it’s like taking our clients like an ATM machine. Think about that. Like when you go away and you only come back to sell things, what kind of relationship do you have to your audience? Yeah.

Kim: Which kind of feeds into that belief I shared at the beginning about how entrepreneurship is dishonest, right? Like for, in order for me to make money, I have to take from you, right? And that’s not, it’s really icky. It’s not a fun way to do business.

Stephanie: and it’s only because of the 100k and what it means to you, if you didn’t have that, or if it was neutral, you would show up every day naturally.

Kim: Yeah, and I found that’s really shifted for me since I’ve had a more neutral mindset about money. a belief I adopted is,

Kim: I help people at every stage of their relationship with me So whether I’m writing a social media post or writing an email or creating a podcast or launching a program or working with a client one on one, like I’m there to support them. I’m there to provide some sort of help. So. That’s really changed.

Kim: I struggled with social media at the beginning too, but I think that’s because I thought that they’re supposed to convert. When you put up a post, it’s supposed to convert. People are supposed to click the button and like book a call with you and they’re, no, I’m just there to serve. I’m there to add value.

Kim: I’m there to help. So, you know, it’s not about whether they click the button or whether it’s not a transaction. Yeah, I want to just show up and serve.

Stephanie: I want to talk about it’s been 3 years in business, right? You said you began in March 2020 and it’s now 2023. So it’s been 3 years in the making I want to have this conversation also to help normalize the time that it takes to be in a.

Stephanie: Call it steady business, no matter how much amount is just steady income comes in regularly. You have like your processes, like it’s just like going to work every day, but you have your own business and it’s not normalized. yeah. People think they’re going to start a business and then boom, six months later, they’re going to make the same income as their work before. It’s not like that. Do you agree with me?

Kim: I agree. I mean, I, maybe it’s like that for some people. There might be the lucky few and they’re the ones who go on to promote all this toxic business culture. But don’t think that’s normal. And like of all of the entrepreneurs and coach friends I have, that’s not been any of our experiences. Like it’s takes. Time it takes dedication and commitment and a whole lot of inner work like and commitment to keep doing that inner work over and over as long as it takes.

Stephanie: Yeah, I was showing that before we start to record, but the pendulum is starting to swing the other way, where the people who made the million dollars doing the whatever the toxic business culture and are realizing, I don’t know, they’re burning out, or they’re realizing that what they were doing wasn’t right, and now they’re starting to Come back to the other way now people are looking at them and saying, Oh, look, they don’t do anything all day long.

Stephanie: That mean I can have a successful business. Me too. Just walking around and picking mushrooms.

Stephanie: I’m like, why, like now we’re swinging way to the other side, you’re going to have to show up in your business to make money to build an audience to build trust, trust is not going to fall off the sky neither.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. We don’t see how much work went into making that million dollars and how much hustling and burnout and like blood, sweat and tears.

Stephanie: Right. Yeah, to have that audience that you can now sit and just Make it a regular income, but you got to build that.

Kim: Yeah, and also I’m sure there, I don’t have evidence of this, but I’m sure there are a lot of like entrepreneurs who make that million dollars who still end up burning it all to the ground because they burn out and they hate it.

Kim: And you know, like you coached us on if you have money problems. Making 10K a year, you’re going to have money problems making 10 million a year, like the same stories are going to follow you. And just because you have a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re going to feel better or be able to manage it better.

Stephanie: It’s how you make the money. It just popped into my brain. As you were saying, that is, it’s not the amount of money you make. It’s how you learn to make it. You can make ten thousand dollars and it’s going to be exhausting. You can make a hundred thousand dollars, it’s going to be exhausting. You can make a hundred thousand easy and you live the life of your dream and make a million living the life of your dream and easy.

Stephanie: It’s how you do it. and I want to say, I want to take this further. It’s not just how in a tactical, it’s how in a mindset.

Kim: Yeah, I think that’s my biggest learning this year is that, I’ve made significantly more money than I’ve made in previous years. And it’s been really easy. I really haven’t.

Kim: Put a lot of intentional effort into trying to bring that revenue in, but

Stephanie: it’s probably the same number of posts or the same number of revenue, but you’re

Kim: doing it feels different. It feels, it feels easier. It feels lighter. It feels like, I can just show up and I can do it. It’s not like pressure and grinding and hustling and is it enough? Did I do it right? there’s not that level of doubt

Stephanie: and so I want to say and it’s making more money It’s because of the mindset work you did to not attach certain emotion to the action and just do a webinar neutrally and be detached from the outcome. That’s what makes it easy. It’s the mindset work behind the webinar. Not how you do the webinar. Exactly.

Kim: I wanted to ask, maybe you can coach me on this part too. But 1 thing about that, I feel like there’s a lot of toxic messaging out there about, like the think and grow rich kind of stuff. if you get your mindset, right. Then you’ll make the money and while I agree that, yeah, the thoughts that I’m thinking now and like the nervous system work that I’ve done have allowed me to do my business with more ease and more revenue is coming in with more ease. Part of me hesitates because then the flip side of that is if my business is slow, like it is right now, like the summer months in my industry tend to be quieter months. I’m not going to now turn around and make that mean, there’s something wrong with the way I’m thinking, or my beliefs must not be good enough because I’m now seeing a dip in my business. Do you know what I

Stephanie: mean? Yeah, so what’s the question exactly? Does the thinking grow rich or manifesting money? Is that where we’re going with this?

Kim: yeah, I guess I hesitant. Tate and going, like, my thoughts created this money, because then if I’m not making money, then I’m thinking,I’m inclined to think I’m doing something wrong.

Stephanie: So to that, I would say it’s a basic thought error and black and white, all or nothing thinking. Right. The other thing I want to add to this is when we think about thinking, grow rich, manifesting money, it’s not. I think we’re programmed to have a paycheck coming in every week, like money is going to come in consistently, right? When you think about thinking GrowRich, could it be making 50, 000, I don’t know, in the launch and not making money for 4 months? Right. And making 20, 000 and not making money, and the whole year you made 70, 000, but it came in too lonesome. Does that mean the 10 months out of 12, you didn’t think thoughts?

Stephanie: Right. Yeah. so now I’m going to go to the tactical, your business is structured to bring in big sums of money.

Kim: mine isn’t, no. No, but I’m

Stephanie: saying like, if this is what’s happening, you just have a structure that, that flows the money into you like this. And then we got to talk about privilege.

Stephanie: Thinking grow rich is like the, I don’t want to say the epitome, but it’s like privilege on top of privilege on top of privilege, right? It’s like I met a coach recently coming out of life coaching who came out of certification and then she launched a six month program for 10, 000. her networking circle is all doctors because her husband is doctors and neurosurgeons and wives of neurosurgeons and so forth.

Stephanie: So everybody can afford 10 grand like this. So she made a hundred K in two months, right? By selling 10 packages, you probably sold more packages than that. In a year and didn’t make 100k because you don’t have the audience that can afford 10k for six months.

Kim: And I guess that’s where I, I feel like some of the messaging is kind of toxic around well, if you just think thoughts, you can earn a million dollars. Well, like, no, like, so does that mean her thoughts are better than mine right? No, I don’t believe it.

Stephanie: I think that if you think about the messages as being a circumstance, you can give it the interpretation that you want, right?

Stephanie: So. You’re giving it the interpretation of good or bad versus me. I’m like, what’s the circumstance around it? Yeah. Right. What’s the privilege of the person versus the other person? Yeah. what’s their past experience versus the like, there’s so many things, what environment they’re in right now, we’re in a trend where life coaching for women, like sales exorbitant amounts, right?

Stephanie: of pricing that we don’t see in any other industry. And a lot of people who are coaching millionaire come from the life coaching industry where it’s normalized to pay 10 K for six months. And that’s a low ball pricing. But if you are a fitness coach and you don’t have the quote body for the business card, are you going to be able to charge people 10 K if you don’t sell weight loss?

Stephanie: Probably not. It’s contextualize a lot different than just taking the thought and saying what’s applicable to everyone. That’s how I would see it. Yeah. What do you think?

Kim: That helps. That clears it up. there is a lot of black and white messaging out there in the. in the business world.

Kim: And that’s what we end up internalizing is it’s just this simple. Think these thoughts, you’re going to make a million dollars. Well, no, there’s like a whole lot more to it. And I guess the first thing is is that even the goal is making a million dollars as we’ve talked about. Right.

Stephanie: But what is the life that you want?

Stephanie: at the end of the day, if you want to make 100k in a normal industry, quote, unquote, are you willing at the beginning to work a lot? Yeah, not to say that the hour is going to be exhausting if you have a good clean mindset. But are you willing to not pick mushroom four days a week?

Stephanie: And instead. Try posting every day and writing in different way until you figure out which way you need to write for your people to connect to you. Like,are you willing to put those efforts? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I think that’s more where it’s at. Yeah. And you were a worker, quote unquote, you had a job and a business. Where did you work the most?

Kim: Oh, in my business, a hundred percent. Like, in fact, my job that I had before this was 20 hours a week. Like I left a job that was 20 hours a week to trade it in for, well, at least at the start of this business, I don’t know, it was probably 60 hours a week at the beginning. Right. But yeah. But I found that job to be too stressful at 20 hours a week and then

Stephanie: more exhausting, more physically, mentally, emotionally demanding. That’s the other thing when we go into business. Do we calculate the value of living the life that we want in the freedom of expression and the freedom of time and schedule? How much does that work to you?

Kim: It’s worth an awful lot and an awful lot.

Stephanie: Yeah. Right. For me, it’s worth traveling wherever I want in the world. And when I say to people what I do, they would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to do what I do. They would let go of that, of their job to be able to do what I do. That to me is worth a lot of money.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah, it is to me too. And I think about I get to work with amazing clients, like who I really enjoy showing up. And talking with every day and I get to have the flexibility to be there for my kids after school every day, or to give them rides to hear they’re going on their school field trips or and create, I get to create whatever I want, whenever I want.

Kim: Right. Like that to me is worth an awful lot. Like I’m going to confess. I never really loved having a boss and having someone else tell me what to do and having to like, use my brain power to achieve their goals. I want to do what I want to do. And this is The ultimate, creative expression.

Kim: It’s fun.

Stephanie: So what’s in the future for Kim?

Kim: Oh, that’s a really good question.

Stephanie: Now that she knows how to make money with ease, and she doesn’t equal making money with hundreds of thousands of dollars, her goal, she knows how to make money enough to, live a good life. What’s in the future?

Kim: I think more of the same for right now, you know, I’m.

Kim: Having cleaned up a lot of the stuff,I’m at this place where I’m really enjoying what I’m doing in my business. I’m going to continue working 1 on 1 with people. I have a group body image, intuitive eating, program. I love to offer that, you know, 2 or 3 times a year. Group like for right now, I’m just going to kind of keep doing what I’m doing.

Kim: I haven’t thought too far in the future. I’m just enjoying.

Stephanie: And for now, for you, based where you are in your life with your family, with your kids, you can probably do the same thing for what the next five years. I think so. And be happy at home and like having the whole thing well settled and where life is good all the time.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. I think at some point I would like to transition away from. Personal training and teaching fitness. Like I’m getting to a point where I just kind of want to, at some point, I will want to do my own movement practice and, get away from teaching fitness, but that’s where, you know, having the cognitive behavioral coaching skills really comes in handy because I’ll never work myself out of a job.

Stephanie: You can coach anything. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was really nice having this conversation with you.

Kim: Well, thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

Stephanie: I’m hoping that people listening to that will normalize making money and just the title making money what that means and how easy it can be and it can mean anything to you.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have really hope that people find this helpful.

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Non-Diet Coach Making Money and Achieving Your Goals with Kim Hagle

Hey there colleague, welcome back to the podcast. Today I have a guest Kim Hagel. She’s a non diet fitness coach. I’m going to talk about money. I’m going to get it out there. We’re going to talk about money. We’re going to talk about making money. We’re going to talk about income goal.

We’re going to talk about achieving our goal. And we’re going to do that In a respectful way, in an ethical way, in a way that we both feel comfortable talking about goal and money. And I want to be honest with you, and I want to be transparent with you that I am trying to figure out my way in. talking about money in the context of business in a way that feels aligned in a way that feels good to me.

And again, to be quite transparent, I have not talked about a lot about money. If you go scroll back through the feed of the podcast, there’s no like any income goal claim. And this person made 50, 000 months and 10, 000 months. And this person is making six figure like I barely talk about my own amount of money I have in my business because I haven’t find a way yet to do it in a way that I feel ethical.

So maybe you’re listening to this podcast a year after. It was recorded and you’re like, what is she talking about? She’s been talking about money for the last six months non stop. Well, if that is the case, it’s because I figured out a way that feel good to me to talk about money and that is ethical. But as of today, November 2023.

I haven’t figured that out. So me and Kim being a student of mine, I’ve mentored her for almost the last, at that point we recorded the podcast for the last two years for sure, and maybe even longer. we started, Her business from nothing to where she’s at right now, where she’s meeting all of a goal.

And funny enough, I’m recording this introduction to the podcast. And just a few weeks ago, I got this text via Voxer. From Kim and I’m trying to find it as I scroll through I just found the text and she sent me this picture of her beside a Brand new car that she had bought and I’m gonna share Not the voice member when I share the story because and only because Kim herself has shared this story on her public profile because I don’t want to divulge any confidential information.

But anyway, she sent me this picture of her beside this brand new car with a bow on it and a very powerful and emotional voice memo that for the first time in her life, she had bought a car because of her income in her business, but mostly because of the inner work and the self belief work that she had done that she didn’t resort to giving the decision of buying a car to the men in her life.

So Kim shared on their public profile that since she was in an age of driving and she’s now in her 40s, every single car she had honed, she She did not buy, she did not make the decision of it. She always passed that decision. And in some cases, the decision was made for her of what car to buy. And the work we have done over the last three years in building her business and building her confidence has landed her in a place where she owned the decision of buying the car.

All by herself. It wasn’t about the car and the value of the car and a brand on the car. It was about the person she became in the process of buying that car and all the self belief and all the story and to some degree the trauma that she had to overcome to become that version of herself. And it was a reflection of the work she had done because she built a business. And to me, That’s worth millions of dollars. And that’s why I do business coaching work. Because when I approach business coaching with my client, I don’t approach it about making it about the money, but about who you need to become in order to create that money and that work. That these attributes, these skill set that you are building to become the version of you who can create money in your business, that will secure your future because these skill sets will stay with you for the rest of your life.

They’re not a fluke. They’re not you becoming viral in a post. You know how to create money and you become someone who creates money. And the story of Kim you’re going to hear next is the perfect example of that. And that’s the work we do inside of the coaching program. When we work together, 75 percent of the work is in your mind, in your body, in your emotion, in your nervous system, the tactical work, the strategy work. Yeah, it’s there. But that’s not the main feature of my coaching. My coaching is about you and you becoming the version of yourself who can create money no matter what the circumstance. So with that in mind, I’m going to roll in the interview with Kim. I hope you enjoy and I’ll see you in the next podcast.

Stephanie: Hey, Kim,

Kim: welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Stephanie: I’m excited for you to have this conversation with me about making money. And right away when we say that people are like, Oh, talk about making half a million dollars and 2 million. And that’s not what we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about meeting our goals, we’re going to talk about making money, but probably in the perspective that you haven’t heard people talk about it. So Kim, the point of conversation, I just want to set the tone for people. Kim texted me and said, I’m in my goal. Right? You texted me saying, I’m in my goal. I’ve already like halfway through the year. I made my goal. I’m really like, I’m really proud of myself. So I’m like, let’s have this conversation publicly and let’s record it. And let’s share it with the world to normalize making money and being proud of what we do. without being a million dollars. Yeah, it’s not a major goal. You made your goal halfway through the year.

Kim: Yeah. And I actually made it a month early. Like I set a goal for the first half of this year and I achieved it by the end of May. So it was a month ahead of schedule. I was so thrilled.

Stephanie: Contextualize your business for people. How long have you been in this rendition of your business and what was the past? And then we’ll go from here and. How you got there?

Kim: Sure. So I am a size inclusive, a personal trainer and body image coach. And I’ve been doing this version of my business since March of 2020. Like I always remember the date because I opened my doors. The date that the prime minister gave the stay at home order, it was really great timing for starting a business.

Kim: so I have been working as a non diet coach for that length of time. But I have been a personal trainer since 2012. So I have 11 years of experience under my belt. The first half of my business was Done the old school, not non diet way. and I actually left the industry for a couple of years in between because it wasn’t working for me anymore.

Kim: I was no longer able to maintain the physique and the image that I thought that a personal trainer. Had to have to be good at their job. so I left, I had been taught that my body was my business card. So I left for a while and it was sometime during there that I was doing my own work and healing my body image that I came across your work and it blew my mind. And I was like, this is what is needed. I have to go back to fitness. I really did miss it, but I didn’t think I could. So that gave me the permission to kind of relaunch my business.

Stephanie: So. experience trainer in the diet culture way. I like this expression, like body is my business card. Love that. Not that I support it. But I love like the no pain, no gain that goes along with that. Yeah. And then so from March 2020 to June 2023. So three years in a brand new business, new format, new product, new everything. And it took three years for you. To be able to make your goal, give me more behind what does that mean for you making your goal?

Kim: Yeah, well, it’s unpacked that yeah, there’s a lot to unpack and I’m sure we’ll dig into a lot of this, but, I had a lot of stories about money, but one of the big ones that I internalized from following different business coaches and being in the entrepreneurship world was that making a hundred K as a coach was.

Kim: a sign of success. Like that indicates you’ve made it, you’re good at what you do, and You know, that’s what every entrepreneur or coach should be striving for. So for the first, I don’t know, year or two in my business, that was the benchmark. Like I was trying to make a hundred K and I was like, Striving and creating all these things and working my buns off and like trying to get there, never getting close. And about this time last year. I realized like how that number 100 K carried the same kind of connotation as just lose 20 pounds and like all of your problems will be solved. Like I saw the parallels between diet culture and business culture. And we talked about this a number of times in your coaching program.

Kim: And that just hit me like a ton of bricks. Like I had a hundred K as. The thing that I had to achieve to be defined as successful and worthy and valuable and good at my job and all of this. And I, and so I just fully rejected that. And for the second half of last year, I just gave up on money goals. I like just forgot about money and like really worked on creating safety and my nervous system around my value and my inherent worth and not needing to tie my success to a certain number. So there was a lot of work, which we can talk about in a bit, but basically last year, I just didn’t even think about money.

Kim: And then in January of this year, in our mastermind retreat, you coached us on setting a goal and you encouraged us to set a money goal. And I felt ready at that point. I had done a lot of work. I felt safe in doing that, but it wasn’t going to be a 100 K number. I was like, I’ve never gotten anywhere near to that. It feels unrealistic, but there was. Like I had a threshold in my business every year, actually, for as long as I’ve worked as an adult, I’ve made a certain number annually, which is kind of interesting. I knew there was something about this number and I was like, I just want to make more than that. Like I just want to get a little bit higher than that number because there seemed to be a block around it.

Kim: It’s 30k. If we want to put it up, there’s 30k. So I was like, I’m going to likeshoot for a little bit higher than that. and you told us to set a goal that was uncomfortable, but, you know, I wanted to stay in the realm of reality. So I set a goal somewhere between 30 K and 50 K for the first half of the year.

Kim: And,Yeah, so by the end of May, I had achieved the number that I had set out in January. So it was a real testament to like the nervous system work that I had done, all of the safety I’d created, like the beliefs that I unpacked and learned to rewrite around my value and success, things like that.

Kim: And. Yeah, it was a really, it was a really, proud moment when I kind of did my books at the end of June and went, oh, my gosh, like surprise. I’ve done that.

Stephanie: What’s interesting is that it was a surprise. It wasn’t something that you were like monitoring all along. It was just, Oh, it happened. And I didn’t even know.

Kim: That was really cool to me too, because in the past, like having 100 K as the benchmark, I was very closely monitoring, how close I was or how far away rather I was from that number. And. Yeah, like this year I held on to that goal. I was focused on the goal, but I didn’t like, I wasn’t hyper vigilant about it. I wasn’t always looking and checking and like measuring everything. I just, I kind of had an idea, but I was like, I’m just going to keep on doing my thing here. And that’s what happened.

Stephanie: Talk to us about, you said the word money stories. I don’t know that many people understand. The stories that they have about money and if they do, how it plays a role as an entrepreneur and a business owner, because it’s one thing to have money story when you’re working with someone else and you’re getting a paycheck versus when you’re trying to create money.

Kim: Yeah. And I don’t think I was aware of a lot of my money stories either until you coached us to really dig into it. But one of the big ones that I had was even around creating money, like being an entrepreneur. That was something that wasn’t valued in my upbringing. Like it’s, it wasn’t considered honest work. It was almost like being a business owner and selling products. is about ripping people off. Like in order for me to make money, I have to take money from other people. And that’s not honest. so that was a big one, right. That I had to look at and examine other things were like, money is hard to make money is scarce. there’s never enough of it. what else was there?

Stephanie: Oh, you said money was your worth. Yeah. how much you make meant something about your quality as a professional.

Kim: Yep. Especially as a business owner, right? Like I, in my past, before I got into the fitness industry, I was a nurse. so I had a good paying professional job, which I left.

Kim: So I had stories about that too. you know, you left a job where you were paid well and all that. And now you’re doing this and you’re not making as much money. Like I had that tied to my value. Like I, maybe I’m not as good at this or I should not have done that. Or I’m not supposed to be here. There, yeah, a lot of stories around, what the amount of money I make means about me as a person and how good I am at my job.

Stephanie: Yeah, and for people listening to this is very similar to the size of your body or the you ness of your skin and your look and what it means for you. as a woman, so it’s, it, what I have seen over the years is your story, my story, we think it’s just about the body and the looks. And then when we become an entrepreneur, we’re like, it’s in our face that it’s money also.

Kim: Yeah. it’s everywhere. Yeah. Like you say, you always say how you do one thing is how you do everything. Right. So I was, I found I was very confronted with all of this when I like healed my body. I mentioned my relationship with food. It was like, okay, let’s just shift all that perfectionism and like scarcity mindset and lack of belief in myself to the business side of things.

Stephanie: So I’m curious to hear you reflect on Let’s talk about the the day to day action in your business, like either creating product or selling or doing consultation because you do one on one personal training. So you do consultation. How does. Doing the day to day business activity are different. Today, then they were when you started.

Kim: That’s a good question. I think that I think the biggest change is that because I’m less concerned about. Making money, I’m more concerned about providing value. So, you know, when I’m having a consultation, my goal on that call is one to help them like get to the root of their struggle and help them give them a quick win and to feel out if I’m the right coach for them, right?

Kim: Like to, so it means knowing that. Like being secure in my value and what I can offer, what I’m skilled and able to offer and do well. And if that’s a good fit, if that will provide the value that they’re looking for, right? So if it’s a good exchange of value, and if it’s not, then I’m okay to refer them out or to send them to someone else or, you know, offer them some resources to start with.

Kim: But where in the past I would have really tried to make that sale, no matter what. Yeah,

Stephanie: making the sales. Yeah.

Kim: And I was good at that. I could make the sale. But then I would, there was a lot of clients I worked with that I kind of regretted. And that was the downside, right?

Kim: Where now it’s if it’s just about exchanging value, then I can tell, if this is not going to be a good fit, if we’re not going to work well together, I can send you somewhere else. And I feel fine about that. I’m not worried about that contract not being.

Stephanie: Not being sold. So you’re detached, more detached or unattached to the outcome.

Stephanie: How does that feel in your body differently being detached from the outcome versus before when you were having the money story and wanting to make a hundred K? How the doing your day to day work felt then versus now?

Kim: Yeah, how it feels in my body, it’s just, it’s a whole lot more relaxed. There’s a lot less pressure.

Kim: There’s a lot less anxiety. There’s a lot less, people pleasing, like trying to impress the person on the call where it’s more just, let’s have a conversation about your struggles. Let’s figure out if I’m the person to help you with that. And then I don’t take it personally if they choose to say no, or if I send them somewhere else or, you know, if they choose to say yes, even it’s just it’s all just neutral.

Stephanie: And you mentioned earlier in the conversation, I was creating all kinds of product trying to make money, where now it’s different. You have less product in your portfolio. Is that what it is?

Kim: Yeah, and I know you’re gonna you’re gonna be biting your tongue and wanting to say I told you so, because I know.

Stephanie: But tell people the background so they understand.

Kim: Stephanie’s coached me probably a thousand times on shiny object syndrome

Stephanie: because we’re going people. I had no idea where we were going. She knew, but I had no idea. Shiny object

Kim: because I had this thing about I have to make 100 K and I wasn’t making it.

Kim: So I was like, well, I must need to have a different product or I must need to do something different or better. And I was constantly creating and trying out new things and making new offers and beating my head against the wall and. None of it was working, right? or

Stephanie: not working. Classify that.

Kim: Well, I shouldn’t say it wasn’t to a hundred K, right?

Kim: Yeah. And that’s the, that’s what I had to evaluate. You’re right. It’s not that none of it was working. Like I was able to sell everything that I created. But it was spreading me really thin for one, and it was confusing to me. Like I, I even got to a point where I was confused about what the heck I do. So I’m sure my audience was confused too.

Kim: so, and I’m pretty sure you coached me on that as well. so I scaled everything back. Like I just. Burned a lot of things right down to the ground and not to say that they’re gone forever. Like I’ve created a lot of really valuable content that I can pull from and use in other ways. But as far as what’s forward facing and what I’m offering right now, it’s scaled back really like I have my one on one personal training, one on one coaching.

Kim: I have a group program and I teach group fitness classes. Like I feel like that’s all you get. And it’s so much easier.

Stephanie: So it’s so much easier and you make the same amount of money volume wise, is that it? Well, more. Oh, you make more. Look at that. Why do you think you make more? What’s your assessment of that?

Kim: Well, I think it’s clear. I think it’s clearer what I do and how I help people. I think I’m clearer. On my zones of expertise and I, you know, I’m staying within that and really leading with value as opposed to just constantly throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying to be the best at everything. I’m like, I really shine in a couple of areas.

Kim: So like, why not just hone in on that? And the funny thing is, I haven’t done an official launch. Since, June of last year, it’s been a whole year, like, and I, I’ve been intentional about, sharing what I do, but as far as a, structured launch. Yeah, I haven’t done. And so that’s been really helpful too, because I used to get really stressed out about.

Kim: Launching and putting programs out there in the world. I really had a lot of meaning attached to that and what it meant about me if people didn’t sign up or did sign up. so I kind of rejected launching at the end of last year. and this year I had fully intended to launch in the spring, but. A good friend had passed away and so that happened right as I was starting to launch and I just knew I didn’t have it in me to push through where a past version might have.

Kim: So I opted to not, but even without launching, I managed to create consistent revenue, which has built a lot of safety in my nervous system too, to know that even if I don’t launch, I can be successful. And if I do launch and it flops, it’s okay because I know that I can continue to create money like things will continue to flow.

Kim: I, I believe a lot more that I offer value and that I’m in demand and that people want what it is that I’m offering.

Stephanie: That’s really powerful. Let’s talk about this thing this statement as not working. I hear that a lot like things are not working. And when I get under the hood. They’re working, meaning that one or two person will buy it, but our assessment is it’s not working.

Kim: yeah, because we’re told that we have to sell out our programs and that, you know, if we’re, if we do a good job of launching or marketing, we should be able to get like 20 people in our group program or, you know, some, Yeah, there’s a lot around like what working means, right. But everybody makes it look like they’re, they’re making a hundred K and they’re pulling in like dozens and dozens of people and turning people away all the time.

Kim: Right. And that just wasn’t the reality for me, but that doesn’t mean that things weren’t working. Right. I think I had to really peel that back and take the beginner’s mindset. But I’m. Still 3 years in fairly new at this, I’m still experimenting and figuring out what works

Stephanie: and who says you’ll maybe you’ll never make 100 K

Kim: and it doesn’t matter. Right. It doesn’t matter. It’s okay. Yeah. But I’ve also learned like working. It’s less about how many people sign up and more what are the results they’re getting from. Doing the work with me. Right. And when I look at that and the transformation that my clients have all achieved, I know that it’s working.

Kim: I know that they’re getting the results that they want. I know that I’m delivering value. So, you know, maybe I don’t have a zillion signups, but it’s working.

Stephanie: That’s exactly what I was hoping to get from you. When we say it’s not working is because we think of success only in money. Yeah. We don’t think of success in.

Stephanie: impact my quality of life based on how I want to live my life. We’re only equating working with money. Because that’s what we’re told business is about money. Yeah, we need to put food in the fridge and we need to be paying rent. But do we all need to make a million dollars?

Kim: No, we don’t. And that’s something I really had to sit with because I really believed for the first couple of years that I needed to make money.

Kim: And I remember a coaching session with you where you were like, if you need to make a certain amount of money for your safety, for your survival, go get a job, like just go get your safety needs met. so that your business doesn’t have to be about surviving, right? You can enjoy your business. And I was like, Oh, I don’t want to get a

Stephanie: job.

Kim: Right. And that was a wake up call for me. Cause I was like, well, I guess that means I don’t need to make this money. if I did, I, I could go get a job. I would go, you wouldn’t have a choice. Right. Right. And that’swhat kind of the light bulb went off is this is a choice. And I feel very privileged that I have that choice, but like in our family, my money, like the money I make in my business is not needed to pay the bills.

Kim: It’s more for discretionary spending and things like that. So it’s not like I need the money. So then I had to think about, well, then why do I have this fixation over a hundred K and what is it that I’m here for? If not to need money and not to make money. Why do I choose to do this every day? Why do I choose to get up and show up?

Kim: And that was a really powerful, like awareness. it’s nice to have money. And that was another belief I had to work on. It was like, it’s okay to want money, but you know, I don’t need it. I’m here because I want to be here because I want to make an impact on the world because I want to add value.

Kim: I want to help people. And, you know, yeah, if I happen to make. A good income. While I do that, then that’s great.

Stephanie: It’s interesting because for some odd reason in the coaching industry, the norm is to make a million dollars and more we can talk about, 10 figure and 8 figure, the norm is making a million dollars, to reach that and to make 100K and 200K and 250K.

Stephanie: Yeah, and there’s no other industry that is like that.

Kim: They kind of sell it as a get rich quick scheme, don’t they?

Stephanie: Yeah, nursing wasn’t like that. For me, the retail industry wasn’t like that. we paid our supervisor and our manager 50, 60, 75k, and they were happy. They’re living their life. Life was good.

Stephanie: Why do we need a million dollars?

Kim: Yeah, I don’t have an answer for that and I don’t, I, I don’t know why this is being sold to us as there’s so much marketing around that about

Stephanie: It’s really like the 10 ideal, like weight loss, like your body is your business card. That’s the very first thing you said in the interview, like the amount of money is your business card of how successful you are.

Kim: Yeah. Like you can have this amazing life by being a coach and achieve, like having an unlimited income ceiling, but you can have an amazing life right now. Just like you can have an amazing life in whatever body you have, you can choose to make your life and have an amazing life. Anytime.

Stephanie: And what amazing means to you is different than me, and it’s different than the next person. Right? So, if for you, you’re raising kids, you have kids in the house, and having an amazing life is spending more time with your kids, that means working less than, I don’t know, making 75k a year is like total happiness for you.

Kim: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I’m not someone who needs like Prada bags and designer clothes and you know, 50, 000 vacations. you know, I don’t, that’s not a value I hold, right. I just, like you say, I want to spend time with my family. I want to like make a contribution to the world and to my family. I don’t know enough for you. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie: It’s interesting becauseI see the same pattern again when we put the focus on the money and when we say we make money and we make it equal like six, seven figure, it actually is very counterproductive to the quality of action we take in our business.

Stephanie: Mm hmm. We don’t show up. We go into on and off cycle. We disappear for two months and then we come back for two months. And then here’s something very interesting. I just, I, it came out of me the other day in a coaching session. When we do that, when we like, and many of you will, identify with that, you show up for two months on social media and then you disappear for a month.

Stephanie: But he’s been there and then you show up when you need to make money. Yeah. Right? When like you need to make money or you’re launching something and realistically, it’s like taking our clients like an ATM machine. Think about that. Like when you go away and you only come back to sell things, what kind of relationship do you have to your audience? Yeah.

Kim: Which kind of feeds into that belief I shared at the beginning about how entrepreneurship is dishonest, right? Like for, in order for me to make money, I have to take from you, right? And that’s not, it’s really icky. It’s not a fun way to do business.

Stephanie: and it’s only because of the 100k and what it means to you, if you didn’t have that, or if it was neutral, you would show up every day naturally.

Kim: Yeah, and I found that’s really shifted for me since I’ve had a more neutral mindset about money. a belief I adopted is,

Kim: I help people at every stage of their relationship with me So whether I’m writing a social media post or writing an email or creating a podcast or launching a program or working with a client one on one, like I’m there to support them. I’m there to provide some sort of help. So. That’s really changed.

Kim: I struggled with social media at the beginning too, but I think that’s because I thought that they’re supposed to convert. When you put up a post, it’s supposed to convert. People are supposed to click the button and like book a call with you and they’re, no, I’m just there to serve. I’m there to add value.

Kim: I’m there to help. So, you know, it’s not about whether they click the button or whether it’s not a transaction. Yeah, I want to just show up and serve.

Stephanie: I want to talk about it’s been 3 years in business, right? You said you began in March 2020 and it’s now 2023. So it’s been 3 years in the making I want to have this conversation also to help normalize the time that it takes to be in a.

Stephanie: Call it steady business, no matter how much amount is just steady income comes in regularly. You have like your processes, like it’s just like going to work every day, but you have your own business and it’s not normalized. yeah. People think they’re going to start a business and then boom, six months later, they’re going to make the same income as their work before. It’s not like that. Do you agree with me?

Kim: I agree. I mean, I, maybe it’s like that for some people. There might be the lucky few and they’re the ones who go on to promote all this toxic business culture. But don’t think that’s normal. And like of all of the entrepreneurs and coach friends I have, that’s not been any of our experiences. Like it’s takes. Time it takes dedication and commitment and a whole lot of inner work like and commitment to keep doing that inner work over and over as long as it takes.

Stephanie: Yeah, I was showing that before we start to record, but the pendulum is starting to swing the other way, where the people who made the million dollars doing the whatever the toxic business culture and are realizing, I don’t know, they’re burning out, or they’re realizing that what they were doing wasn’t right, and now they’re starting to Come back to the other way now people are looking at them and saying, Oh, look, they don’t do anything all day long.

Stephanie: That mean I can have a successful business. Me too. Just walking around and picking mushrooms.

Stephanie: I’m like, why, like now we’re swinging way to the other side, you’re going to have to show up in your business to make money to build an audience to build trust, trust is not going to fall off the sky neither.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. We don’t see how much work went into making that million dollars and how much hustling and burnout and like blood, sweat and tears.

Stephanie: Right. Yeah, to have that audience that you can now sit and just Make it a regular income, but you got to build that.

Kim: Yeah, and also I’m sure there, I don’t have evidence of this, but I’m sure there are a lot of like entrepreneurs who make that million dollars who still end up burning it all to the ground because they burn out and they hate it.

Kim: And you know, like you coached us on if you have money problems. Making 10K a year, you’re going to have money problems making 10 million a year, like the same stories are going to follow you. And just because you have a lot of money doesn’t mean that you’re going to feel better or be able to manage it better.

Stephanie: It’s how you make the money. It just popped into my brain. As you were saying, that is, it’s not the amount of money you make. It’s how you learn to make it. You can make ten thousand dollars and it’s going to be exhausting. You can make a hundred thousand dollars, it’s going to be exhausting. You can make a hundred thousand easy and you live the life of your dream and make a million living the life of your dream and easy.

Stephanie: It’s how you do it. and I want to say, I want to take this further. It’s not just how in a tactical, it’s how in a mindset.

Kim: Yeah, I think that’s my biggest learning this year is that, I’ve made significantly more money than I’ve made in previous years. And it’s been really easy. I really haven’t.

Kim: Put a lot of intentional effort into trying to bring that revenue in, but

Stephanie: it’s probably the same number of posts or the same number of revenue, but you’re

Kim: doing it feels different. It feels, it feels easier. It feels lighter. It feels like, I can just show up and I can do it. It’s not like pressure and grinding and hustling and is it enough? Did I do it right? there’s not that level of doubt

Stephanie: and so I want to say and it’s making more money It’s because of the mindset work you did to not attach certain emotion to the action and just do a webinar neutrally and be detached from the outcome. That’s what makes it easy. It’s the mindset work behind the webinar. Not how you do the webinar. Exactly.

Kim: I wanted to ask, maybe you can coach me on this part too. But 1 thing about that, I feel like there’s a lot of toxic messaging out there about, like the think and grow rich kind of stuff. if you get your mindset, right. Then you’ll make the money and while I agree that, yeah, the thoughts that I’m thinking now and like the nervous system work that I’ve done have allowed me to do my business with more ease and more revenue is coming in with more ease. Part of me hesitates because then the flip side of that is if my business is slow, like it is right now, like the summer months in my industry tend to be quieter months. I’m not going to now turn around and make that mean, there’s something wrong with the way I’m thinking, or my beliefs must not be good enough because I’m now seeing a dip in my business. Do you know what I

Stephanie: mean? Yeah, so what’s the question exactly? Does the thinking grow rich or manifesting money? Is that where we’re going with this?

Kim: yeah, I guess I hesitant. Tate and going, like, my thoughts created this money, because then if I’m not making money, then I’m thinking,I’m inclined to think I’m doing something wrong.

Stephanie: So to that, I would say it’s a basic thought error and black and white, all or nothing thinking. Right. The other thing I want to add to this is when we think about thinking, grow rich, manifesting money, it’s not. I think we’re programmed to have a paycheck coming in every week, like money is going to come in consistently, right? When you think about thinking GrowRich, could it be making 50, 000, I don’t know, in the launch and not making money for 4 months? Right. And making 20, 000 and not making money, and the whole year you made 70, 000, but it came in too lonesome. Does that mean the 10 months out of 12, you didn’t think thoughts?

Stephanie: Right. Yeah. so now I’m going to go to the tactical, your business is structured to bring in big sums of money.

Kim: mine isn’t, no. No, but I’m

Stephanie: saying like, if this is what’s happening, you just have a structure that, that flows the money into you like this. And then we got to talk about privilege.

Stephanie: Thinking grow rich is like the, I don’t want to say the epitome, but it’s like privilege on top of privilege on top of privilege, right? It’s like I met a coach recently coming out of life coaching who came out of certification and then she launched a six month program for 10, 000. her networking circle is all doctors because her husband is doctors and neurosurgeons and wives of neurosurgeons and so forth.

Stephanie: So everybody can afford 10 grand like this. So she made a hundred K in two months, right? By selling 10 packages, you probably sold more packages than that. In a year and didn’t make 100k because you don’t have the audience that can afford 10k for six months.

Kim: And I guess that’s where I, I feel like some of the messaging is kind of toxic around well, if you just think thoughts, you can earn a million dollars. Well, like, no, like, so does that mean her thoughts are better than mine right? No, I don’t believe it.

Stephanie: I think that if you think about the messages as being a circumstance, you can give it the interpretation that you want, right?

Stephanie: So. You’re giving it the interpretation of good or bad versus me. I’m like, what’s the circumstance around it? Yeah. Right. What’s the privilege of the person versus the other person? Yeah. what’s their past experience versus the like, there’s so many things, what environment they’re in right now, we’re in a trend where life coaching for women, like sales exorbitant amounts, right?

Stephanie: of pricing that we don’t see in any other industry. And a lot of people who are coaching millionaire come from the life coaching industry where it’s normalized to pay 10 K for six months. And that’s a low ball pricing. But if you are a fitness coach and you don’t have the quote body for the business card, are you going to be able to charge people 10 K if you don’t sell weight loss?

Stephanie: Probably not. It’s contextualize a lot different than just taking the thought and saying what’s applicable to everyone. That’s how I would see it. Yeah. What do you think?

Kim: That helps. That clears it up. there is a lot of black and white messaging out there in the. in the business world.

Kim: And that’s what we end up internalizing is it’s just this simple. Think these thoughts, you’re going to make a million dollars. Well, no, there’s like a whole lot more to it. And I guess the first thing is is that even the goal is making a million dollars as we’ve talked about. Right.

Stephanie: But what is the life that you want?

Stephanie: at the end of the day, if you want to make 100k in a normal industry, quote, unquote, are you willing at the beginning to work a lot? Yeah, not to say that the hour is going to be exhausting if you have a good clean mindset. But are you willing to not pick mushroom four days a week?

Stephanie: And instead. Try posting every day and writing in different way until you figure out which way you need to write for your people to connect to you. Like,are you willing to put those efforts? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I think that’s more where it’s at. Yeah. And you were a worker, quote unquote, you had a job and a business. Where did you work the most?

Kim: Oh, in my business, a hundred percent. Like, in fact, my job that I had before this was 20 hours a week. Like I left a job that was 20 hours a week to trade it in for, well, at least at the start of this business, I don’t know, it was probably 60 hours a week at the beginning. Right. But yeah. But I found that job to be too stressful at 20 hours a week and then

Stephanie: more exhausting, more physically, mentally, emotionally demanding. That’s the other thing when we go into business. Do we calculate the value of living the life that we want in the freedom of expression and the freedom of time and schedule? How much does that work to you?

Kim: It’s worth an awful lot and an awful lot.

Stephanie: Yeah. Right. For me, it’s worth traveling wherever I want in the world. And when I say to people what I do, they would pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to do what I do. They would let go of that, of their job to be able to do what I do. That to me is worth a lot of money.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah, it is to me too. And I think about I get to work with amazing clients, like who I really enjoy showing up. And talking with every day and I get to have the flexibility to be there for my kids after school every day, or to give them rides to hear they’re going on their school field trips or and create, I get to create whatever I want, whenever I want.

Kim: Right. Like that to me is worth an awful lot. Like I’m going to confess. I never really loved having a boss and having someone else tell me what to do and having to like, use my brain power to achieve their goals. I want to do what I want to do. And this is The ultimate, creative expression.

Kim: It’s fun.

Stephanie: So what’s in the future for Kim?

Kim: Oh, that’s a really good question.

Stephanie: Now that she knows how to make money with ease, and she doesn’t equal making money with hundreds of thousands of dollars, her goal, she knows how to make money enough to, live a good life. What’s in the future?

Kim: I think more of the same for right now, you know, I’m.

Kim: Having cleaned up a lot of the stuff,I’m at this place where I’m really enjoying what I’m doing in my business. I’m going to continue working 1 on 1 with people. I have a group body image, intuitive eating, program. I love to offer that, you know, 2 or 3 times a year. Group like for right now, I’m just going to kind of keep doing what I’m doing.

Kim: I haven’t thought too far in the future. I’m just enjoying.

Stephanie: And for now, for you, based where you are in your life with your family, with your kids, you can probably do the same thing for what the next five years. I think so. And be happy at home and like having the whole thing well settled and where life is good all the time.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. I think at some point I would like to transition away from. Personal training and teaching fitness. Like I’m getting to a point where I just kind of want to, at some point, I will want to do my own movement practice and, get away from teaching fitness, but that’s where, you know, having the cognitive behavioral coaching skills really comes in handy because I’ll never work myself out of a job.

Stephanie: You can coach anything. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was really nice having this conversation with you.

Kim: Well, thanks so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

Stephanie: I’m hoping that people listening to that will normalize making money and just the title making money what that means and how easy it can be and it can mean anything to you.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have really hope that people find this helpful.

 

 

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88-Become a Non-Diet Coach

88-Become a Non-Diet Coach

Become a Non-Diet Coach

Want to get an inside view of what happened in Stephanie’s most recent free training – How to Become a Non-Diet Coach? Get listening!

Become a Non-Diet Coach

This is a live audio recording of the training class – How to Become a Non-Diet Coach held on November 8th, 2023.  If you want to the visual of the class and see the slides and other visual cue you can SIGN UP HERE for the video replay for free.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode: 

✔ Gain clarity on what the Non-Diet approach to health for women is … and what is not. 

✔ Four mistakes people make when coaching women with health and how to avoid them

✔ What makes the Non-Diet Coaching Certification unique and why you will stand out after graduating.

✔  Plus you’ll get to hear from a few of our incredible students on how their practice has been transformed by coaching through the lens of the Going Beyond The Food Methodology

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

How to Become a Non-Diet Coach video recording

Free Client Assessment Forms

Free Training & Resources 

Transcript:

88-Become a Non-Diet Coach

Hello, my dear colleague and welcome back to the podcast today. I’m going to have a short intro for you because we’re going to put next the recording of how to become a certified non diet coach. It’s a training that I did. I recorded it last week, November 8, 2023. And it’s the ABCs. It’s everything you want to know about the non diet coaching certification.

So you’re going to gain clarity on what is a non diet approach and what it is not. This is so important because I get professional all the time asking about the non diet approach and being quote unquote dangerous for health. So we’re gonna clarify that. And I’m going to share with you the three mistake that I see people make when coaching women with health and how to avoid them.

And lastly, I’m going to talk about what makes our non diet coaching certification unique, and why you will stand out after you graduate. Now, I want to be honest, We’re the only health coaching certification that teaches body neutrality, intuitive eating, and cognitive behavior coaching. There’s nothing else that I know of in the world.

So few are someone who want to Bring the anti diet model into your practice. We are the place you want to be. You want to be training and learning and embodying with us. So without any further ado, we’re going to roll in the recording, the audio recording. If you want to see the visuals, the slides, go to the show note and register to receive the recording.

Also, one last thing, In the training, I talk about the assessment, the bonus of assessment forms. Again, if you want to get your hands on this, it’s totally free. There will be a link in the show notes for you to get just the form. But if you’re going to register to receive the video recording, including in the video recording will be the non diet.

assessment for. I can’t wait for you to listen to this recording and send me any question you may have. Enjoy! Welcome to How to Become a Certified Non Diet Coach. I am your host, Stephanie Boudier. I am a clinical nutritionist, a certified intuitive eating counselor, a coach, and a reformed dieter of 25 years. I live in a fat body as well because I spent 25 years dieting literally my life away and I hit rock bottom in my late 30s and for the last 11 years been undieting my life regarding and investigating all the things that I was taught around who I am, my body, my health, the way that I eat, what I can and can’t do in life, and I changed my career, and I am here now as a fat, non diet nutritionist helping women and men. Undiet their life and teaching professional how to switch from the traditional model of health nutrition to a place of non diet approach using a methodology that I created called going beyond the food, which I will talk to you about today in this class. I have founded something you may have heard of called Undiet Your Life Coaching Program. I have been running this program for the last six years. And from there, and the demand of professional and people wanting to help other women, I created Undiet Your Coaching Practice and the Undiet Coaching Certification which is a global training platform for professionals and coaches to learn to do their own healing and then learn how to move their practice to the non diet approach. I am looking forward to spending the next 60 minutes with you and teach you a revolutionary process to coach women when it comes to health, nutrition, And even life coaching.

This workshop is for you if you have your own journey with dieting, restrictive eating, disordered eating, body dissatisfaction, and you are on your healing journey and want to know how to help other women discover the same life after diet culture that you are now Discovering for yourself, this is for you if you are a. active provider, a nutritionist, a therapist, a social worker, a fitness professional, and you want to integrate the non diet coaching approach in your own practice. And perhaps you just graduated from a An education in a very traditional sense of health and nutrition. And you know that is not how you want to practice this workshop is for you. Now I’m going to have put a disclaimer here to say that this workshop is not for you if you coach or teach people how to intentionally lose weight and want to continue to promote intentional weight loss tactic. Now, many of us, me included, have taught, coached, consulted with people on dieting. That’s how I started my career as a clinical nutritionist for the first three years. And I’m very transparent with that.

But then I discovered that I was harming people and it came very abruptly realizing how I was causing my patients and client serious harm with the kind of care I was providing. And then I discovered back then intuitive eating and the non diet approach, which later came to be called the non diet approach. And I changed. So there’s a lot of us here that were at some point and perhaps you are right now. Coaching intentional weight loss, but you want to change if you want to change and you want to learn something different and you want to do different. This is for you, but if you’re not. then this is not the meeting for you.

During the workshop here, I am going to help you gain clarity on what is the non diet approach and what it’s not. The three mistakes I see people make when coaching women with health. And how to avoid those mistakes and what makes our non diet coaching certification unique and why you will stand out after graduating. Plus you will hear from a few of our incredible students who are graduate from our certification. So without any further ado, let’s get started. I’ve got 60 minutes of packed information for you. You probably with benefit from having a pen or a device. To take note, if this is your first encounter with the non diet approach, I guarantee that I’m going to knock your socks off. You ready for this? I’m going to move with shared screen because I have some pretty cool slides to share with you. And then I’m going to come back at the end if you are live with me for question, and if you want to submit your question at the bottom of the screen, you can use the Q& A box and I can also coach you live.

And if you’re watching this in a recording or on our podcast because we have two podcasts are going to be on the food show and on diet you’re coaching You can send your question to info at stephanie dode Z8 comm and it will be our pleasure Answer all of your questions. Okay, let’s start with a quiz because what else is better than a quiz Are you under the influence of diet culture? That’s what we’re going to try to determine with this quiz. So you’re going to need a pen, a paper, your iPad with your digital pen. I’m going to ask you five questions and you’re going to tabulate the number of yes and the number of no and then I’m going to give you a result after that for that quiz. You ready? Let’s do this. Okay, first question. Do you secretly feel, in your own head, without saying it, do you secretly feel that you are better than your client because you know more about health and about nutrition and about your field of specialty? Yes or no? There’s no in between. It’s yes or no. Question number two. Do you believe in the concept of some food are healthy, some food are unhealthy, or that there is a right way of eating and a wrong way of eating? Yes or no? Question number three. Are you, quote, watching, end of quote, your personal weight because you are afraid of gaining weight? Now, I’m going to be more precise on this question. If you are weighing yourself with a scale at home, if you are tracking, Macro intake or calorie intake, you are measuring body fat or measuring with the tape parts of your body, then the answer is yes. It’s an automatic yes answer to that question. So are you quote watching your weight because you are afraid of gaining weight?

Now, it could also be you are measuring the size of your clothes, and you know the answer for this. Like, are you personally concerned or afraid of gaining weight? That was question number three. Yes or no. Do you believe, question number four, do you believe that at some weight level or BMI level or health status, one must and need to lose weight?

Yes or no. Last question. Do you secretly, again, without saying it out loud, think that people that are, quote, fat or live in larger body are unhealthy and that perhaps it’s their fault? Yes or no? So tabulate the number of yes, tabulate the number of no, and I’m going to give you the scoring here. If you answered any of the five questions with a yes, You are under the influence of diaculture.

The more question you answered by yes, the more influence Diaculture has over you. So there’s a question now. What the heck is diaculture? Diaculture is a system of belief. It’s a set of custom. It’s a set of social messages. It’s a set of acceptable social behavior that place value and focus on body weight, body shape, body size.

over and above health and well being. It’s also a culture that worship thinness, and that also equates it, the thinness or the non thinness, to health and moral virtue. What does that mean? That means that you can spend your whole life thinking you’re irreparably broken just because you don’t look like the thin ideal. So I shared my story at the beginning. For me, that’s what I did for 25 years, right? I spent 25 years pursuing thinness because I thought I wasn’t good enough. And then later on, I pursued optimum health when I gave up on the weight thing, I fell over to wellness culture and then pursue optimum health, again, as a way of being good enough.

A third aspect of diet culture is that it promotes weight loss as a mean of attaining that higher status. Remember that The thinness is centered as moral health virtue and that the pathway, the tool to achieve that thinness is weight loss, either with restricting food, food group, overexercising, toning.

All the method known to lose the weight. Now, this means that you feel compelled to spend a massive amount of your resources, your personal resources, like time, energy, money, trying to shrink your body. Even though, even though the research is very clear that there is not one diet that is known to work long term. But you continue, like you feel like there’s just has to be a way. And in fact, for me, that’s why I… When my health collapse and my life collapse at the end of my thirties, I decided to go back to school to finish my health science degree and I got the nutrition degree. And to be honest, and I’ve shared this many time on my podcast.

I did that because. There had to be a way for me to control my weight and if nobody out there knew how to do it, because I had seen all the specialists and all the gurus and I tried all of that and the thing was working, I was going to find my unique way of weight. I was going to find the answer. That’s what this means, like being compelled to spend all of your resources. Aspect number four of culture is that it demonized certain way of eating while elevating others. This means that 20 years ago, everybody, gurus, science told you that low fat was the right way of eating. While today, Research, science, guru, everyone is telling you that the right way of eating is low carb.

This means that you’re forced to be constantly hypervigilant about your eating and ashamed of making certain food choices that actually you enjoy. distracts you from the pleasure associated with eating. In fact, it makes it shameful for you to have pleasure in eating. And the last aspect of diet culture that’s very important for all of us to understand as professionals, diet culture oppresses people who do not match the thin ideal and the supposed picture of health, which disproportionately arms women, femme, trans folks, people in larger body, people of color, people with disability, and has ripple effect on mental and physical health.

Now, that’s diaculture. Why is that a problem? I think it’s pretty clear why it’s a problem. But let’s take it a step further and answer that question. Why is it a problem? The problem is that diet culture blames women, in our case, because my methodology is specialized for women, it blames women, it blames their resources, their effort, as the problem.

You haven’t tried hard enough. You haven’t. Place enough of your resources of your time of your money. You haven’t invested enough In order for you to be thin so it blames the women their resources their effort Instead of the actual problem, which is the process And the system, and this is what we are changing in the non diet approach, the non diet approach, and the way that I’m teaching, it’s specialized for women.

We go under the principle that women, that their body, that their body weight are not the problem, that the problem is systemic. And that the solution is. Within a liberative process to unlearn socialization, we believe that women can be trusted with their eating and their health decision. Women’s body can be trusted with their ability to manage health, to manage weight, to manage food choices.

We believe in a weight neutral approach to health that focus on promoting health behavior, not weight number. And we believe ultimately in women’s agency over their body, their health, and their life. And in order for us to facilitate a non diet culture approach, we use cognitive behavioral coaching to unlearn the socialization from the system.

We use intuitive eating to change and alter eating behavior. We use a weight neutral approach to health. And we use body neutrality for body image. We live in a patriarchal society that is steeped in diet culture. Therefore, trusting our bodies, trusting ourselves as women, is a radical act. Claiming our autonomy and our agency.

As women in face of food, weight, health, the size of our body is an uncomfortable process. Very uncomfortable. And that’s what we are here for as non diet coaches. We support our client in the process of claiming their autonomy, their agency, and building up their skill set. That’s what we do as non diet coaches.

My program, the non diet coaching certification, our purpose is to reinvent how we coach women with their health. We believe as an organization that it can be easy for women to care for their body and their health. We believe that women can be trusted with their nutritional needs, and we are changing how coaching is facilitated by trusting women. In their health, focusing on developing health, promoting behavior from a place of ease using gentle nutrition practices. Women deserve to feel good in their body, no matter what their body size, their looks, their age, their abilities. Here’s are the three mistakes that I have observed over the last and a half years, almost five years now, training and coaching health professional provider coaches from All background.

These are the three most common errors that I see people make when coaching women around any topic with health, eating, self acceptance, confidence. And I want to teach you how to avoid them. What’s the solution to those mistakes? We’re going to get started with number one. Mistake number one, I kind of hinted at this at the beginning.

Co opting diaculture without knowing so we did that test. Remember, and I explained to you what diaculture is without you sharing or without you having to tell me it’s likely. I’ve been doing this presentation for many years. face to face and digitally. And, uh, everywhere I go with this presentation, people are shocked.

That they’re co opting diet culture until they met me like, oh, my God, like. Made me realize something that I didn’t know I had been doing for 10 years in practice. So it’s likely your situation right now. You just realized a few minutes ago that you were co opting diaculture without knowing. So it’s not your fault.

Because you’re here, so you’re likely self identified as a woman, therefore you are the target of diaculture just like your clients are. You are not an exception and you’re not supposed to know better as a professional person. You are likely entrenched in diet culture in your own personal life, so it’s absolutely no surprise that in your practice, it is the same thing.

Now, question I often get at this point is, okay, I understand diet culture. I understand that, although it’s not my fault, I’m co opting it and I want to change this, but Why is this even present? Where does this come from? And this is where I want to introduce you to fatphobia. Fatphobia is also named weight bias, weight stigma, sizeism, these are all meaning the same thing. It’s the fear of fatness. Now this fear of fatness also shows up as negative attitudes, stereotype, and oppression that people who are not in the. Thin ideal body people who live in a quote larger body than the thin ideal are exposed to. There is three form of fat phobia of fear of fatness that are present in our current society.

There’s the intrapersonal one, also known as internalized fat phobia. Which is the one that’s most common is when we have internalized the message that will go globally, fat is bad, fat is unhealthy. If you are fat, you are lazy, right? These messages we have internalized them and we are We are telling them to ourselves in our own head, secretly in our own mind.

We repeat the message we’ve heard. We shame ourselves. We criticize ourselves. We put ourselves down, right? We constantly think we are not enough. We have internalized these ideology, these biases, and we oppress ourselves. We become our own oppressor. The second form of fatphobia is interpersonal, which is How other in the world view us and respond to our body weight, shape, and size. So as a woman who lives in a larger body, I live approximately in a size 20, American size 20 body. I live that every day. If I enter a room with people that I don’t know, I can see it in people’s eyes. I can see people scanning me up and down. Right? And then I can almost see their thoughts in their brain.

Right? That’s what we mean by interpersonal. And sometimes it’s even vocal. Now that doesn’t happen a lot to me because I carry myself with a lot of confidence because of all the works that I’ve done. With my body image over the last eight years, but I hear it from my client all the time. People will comment on their body because they haven’t yet done the work.

They haven’t set up boundaries. They don’t carry themselves with confidence. People will comment on their body. So that’s interpersonal fat phobia. And then the last one is. Institutionalized fatphobia, which is part of your practice, is where we have structured our approaches as providers to reinforce the message of diet culture.

So when we sell intentional weight loss, when we sell meal plan, ways of eating. When we have weight loss program, we are institutionalizing within our practice a system that says to the world, being fat is terrible. Come here, I’m going to solve your problem of why you can’t get smaller because being fat is terrible.

Now I know as I’m saying that, it may be hard on some of you, and I fully recognize that. And I want you to practice self compassion right now, right? If you’re selling any kind of restrictive plan and plans that are associated with weight loss, and you’re hearing that like this whole last 15 minutes.

Could be a shock to you. So I want you to put your hands on your heart and I want you to Take a deep breath and say repeat after me. It’s completely normal for me to feel Shame now that I understand what diet culture is what fat phobia is It’s totally normal for me to feel triggered by what I’m hearing in this webinar.

It’s totally normal. And it’s totally normal because I was educated as a professional to be fat phobic. I was trained to deliver weight loss. So it’s completely normal that I’m doing exactly what I was trained in until today, until I hear this very important message.

Meet yourself with compassion. It’s not your fault. The purpose of this training is not to blame you, to shame you, but it’s to be that moment. In your life in your professional life where you are being thought a different approach.

I want to put it all together for you. Where does that culture come back at the root of it? All one of the bigger system that. takes away our autonomy and our agency as women is patriarchy. Patriarchy is the structural system by which society is built to favorize, to put in position of power people identified as men.

And in order to oppress women, To keep women doubting themselves and not claiming their power. About 200 years ago, we invited, we invented the beauty standard, diet culture, weight loss, gym supplements, diets, and that became a thing called diet culture. And combined with that, we Created on voluntarily the fear of fatness, what we know as fat phobia, and that is what drives in ourselves and in our client the desire to change our body to make it smaller, to make it look younger, to get cosmetic surgery, to put creams, makeup, right, all that stuff.

And that leads to dieting and dieting is. recognized by science to cause side effects such as binge restrict cycle, body dissatisfaction, poor mental and emotional health, low self esteem, and weight cycling. That’s the full picture here.

So when you did the quiz at the very beginning of this presentation, You didn’t know maybe that what diet culture is, or perhaps if you knew what diet culture is at the highest level, you didn’t understand the intricacy of it and how it plays in your profession. And again, it’s not your fault. That’s how you were trained.

And in fact, I’m going to go a step further to say this is why I created the non diet coaching certification, because there was Nothing out there training provider coaches and professional in an anti diet culture approach to help. Even me, when I was looking to get trained on cognitive behavioral coaching, I found one school that was teaching it.

And alongside to that, they were teaching a weight loss program. I couldn’t partake in a school that taught values. That were completely against everything that I believed in and lived in my own life. I had to go find an individual to teach me cognitive behavioral coaching who lived in the fat body herself because there was nothing out there.

That’s why I created the non diet coaching certification to offer a solution. And because I target women. professionals and providers that themselves work with women. I make my approach very unique to understand how bioculture very specifically affect you as you found out in that quiz and me. So what’s the solution to that mistake?

It’s to evaluate your personal socialization to diet culture and fat phobia and how it impacts how you give an interpretation to your field of specialty and how you teach for an example, health and nutrition and fitness to help you with that in the replay email. Or if you’re watching this on the replay page.

There will be at the bottom a button that says, download the tree assessment form. I want you to take those assessment. Those are our official assessments that we use in the non dietic coaching certification to assess our practitioner and that our practitioner uses with their client. I want you to do every one of those three assessments.

It’s gonna take you probably 20 minutes. And I want you to sit with that and I want you to think about how your personal relationship to food, to body and health impacts. Your clients and your patients, which leads me to mistake number two. Once you’ve done that Not healing your own relationship to food to body and to health is the second mistakes You cannot you will let me just say another way you will teach fat phobic program fat phobic Coaching fat phobic counseling session.

If you are fat phobic towards yourself, it’s just inevitable. In fact, it is so well known that there’s a research. There’s an international study that was conducted in 2012 in 14 countries. And the result were astonishing a whopping 77 percent of nutritional student felt that disordered eating behavior and even eating disorder were a concern among their peers.

Now, that study was done in nutritional university that teach dietetic.

Now, the reason behind why so many students of Dietetic present disordered eating behavior is complicated. It’s not just one thing, but for sure, their own entrenchment in diet culture as students, their own exposure, their own socialization to diet culture and the Theta ideal is a huge motivator. For them to first sign up and get accepted in a dietetic program and even for health coaches, I see that over and over.

It’s the same thing. The reason why there’s so many health coaches these days is the, these are the people with disordered eating behavior. That want to take it a step further and go get a certification or go get a degree in it. So there’s no choice for those individual if they don’t do their own personal work of liberating the way they think about food for themselves and their body and health that they will teach.

and counsel their client with diet culture influence. That’s what we do inside of the non diet coaching certification. We help you as an individual unlearn diet culture. You do your personal work. It’s a private container where you get to do your personal work. And that’s the testimonial you’re seeing on the screen here from one of our students who halfway through the program.

So this was a six month cohort, and she was at the three month mark. and we as a group had evaluated our relationship to food, our relationship to our body, and how it had changed over the three months of us doing our personal work. And that’s what she’s sharing, how different her personal life was no more binging, no more restriction, feeling relaxed for the first time in her life.

And we’re talking a lady that is in her early 40 here. For the first time in her life, she was relaxed around food. And she said, quote, with my body, I don’t hate it anymore. I actually have. Respect, gratitude and compassion for my body and I actually live with a high level of integrity with myself and my value in my practice.

She’s no longer putting on a show in front of her client, she’s actually embodied. That is the number one goal in a non diet coaching certification is that you become an embodied intuitive eater and embodied. Body neutral person and somebody who embody weight neutral health, because once that happens in your life, and I’m clicking my finger once that happened in your life, it will automatically impacts your client, you will not be able to sell weight loss, you will not be able to tell people to restrict food.

Because it will be in complete misalignment with how you live your life and your own personal value. That’s the most. Impactful part of the certification. And I know once I get you there with my program as a professional, it will change your practice right away. And I know by doing that, by impacting one of you as a professional, thousands of women will be impacted in years to come going through your practice.

The last mistake. Professional thinks that coaching health and nutrition is about intellectual knowledge. And that’s me. There’s no study, like air quote here, on that. This is me. I’ve been doing this gig for Eight years now, having spoken in front of people, have been hired by diabetics department in university to speak, and having people raise their hands, what is the solution to your clients struggling with food, study, research, meal plan, structure, discipline, right?

And people think that. And again, it’s not your fault, if you went through a nutrition degree like me, you were taught to do that. I became, through my training, an expert in doing meal plan, because that’s what I was told, right? That the way to change people is to give them facts and structure. But the truth is, the act of eating is not the outcome of intelligence and a possession of a Data point. It’s a behavior and behavior are the outcome of Emotion.

What? I know. I will get you there. Just a minute. So if it’s not intellectual knowledge, then what is it? Let’s take a client case. Let’s take a study case. A client’s come to you with one of those behavior and they want your help. Emotional eating on and off of exercise routine.

I’m struggling with cooking food at home. I’m struggling with getting enough sleep. I got a broad range here because I’ve got a broad range of people who are listening to this presentation here. What do you do? Before provider works with me, here’s what typically they do. They’ll send their client a study of the most recent article in hope to convince them with data points. They’ll offer a meal plan. They’ll offer deep breathing. Macro tracking. They’ll give them a lesson on increasing self discipline. And even these days, what I’m finding is Apps, they’ll get their clients to use an app and reporting all of their health metrics and they will follow up every day with their clients in hope to create compliance.

Does it work? Well, it’s like dieting. Diet works until they don’t work. That kind of health coaching works until it doesn’t. When the clients stop working with you, when the package ends, a year later, you’re no longer there to follow up on them, to unknowingly shame them for their lack of compliance. They don’t have the guru slapping them on the butt.

So what happened? The whole behavior comes back. That’s actually what happened to me. When I started my practice after graduation, I actually, I was so gung ho that I actually started my practice before graduating. I started doing health coaching, and by the time I graduated with my degree, like, My business was up and running the building was built the inventory was in the had a ton of supplements And like I was like in full practice mode and a year and a half later I tell the story on the podcast on dietary coaching year and a half later I started to see was a local business right back in the days Digital online world did not exist.

So it was a locally in Toronto, Canada, and I was going in a grocery store and I saw a former client of mine who had done a three month package with me, a year ago. And that client, when she saw me, she ran away from me. Like she literally changed aisle in the grocery store and kept avoiding me in the store not to see me.

And by coincidence, we ended up in the same aisle together 15 minutes later. And the first thing that came out of her mouth was, I’m so sorry, Stephanie, and she kept looking at the floor. I’m so sorry, Stephanie. I’m so ashamed. All the work we’ve done together is wiped out. Look at my cart. It’s full of junk food.

And then she went on and on. And that event marked me. And I went back home that day. And I’m like… There’s a problem, Stephanie. Like, the way you’re practicing nutrition, you’re creating in people what you so desperately want to change for yourself. And that’s when my practice changed. That’s when I started to take training and discovered intuitive eating and The non diet approach and coaching and I actually closed my practice in Toronto and went online and I changed the way I dealt with people.

So here’s, I have a question for you. Since we’re so trained and adept of science, right? What does the world of science have to tell us about human behavior, right? Eating behavior and health behavior and all of that. What does it have to tell us? Well, the world of Behavior is primarily the field of psychology and neuroscience and there’s something that some of you may be aware of. It’s called cognitive behavioral therapy. It’s a field of research. It’s a field of practice. Some of you may be training it. Whereby we have traced back how you men create the behavior that they have, and it’s a model of practice. It’s the gold standard of most human behavior change and transformation practice.

this is it. This is Stephanie’s simplified version. So we don’t teach therapy, we teach coaching. So me and other coaches have taken the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and simplified it to make it a coaching model that explain behavior. So there’s a trigger, there’s an event, there’s a circumstance in people’s life that they have to respond to.

And How you men create the response to that circumstances by going in our brain and our data point and looking for the quote right way of making a decision or choice. So we look at our belief system, our past experience, our assumption, our various identities, and then. And this happens within milliseconds, and then poof, we have a thought, an opinion, a decision, a choice is made, and poof, it’s communicated to the rest of the body via the central nervous system, and it shows up in the body as sensation, gut feelings, emotion, and then we poof, have a behavior, a reaction to that emotion, the sensation in the body, right?

That’s how we create behavior. All the behavior we have is created under that same model. So when we’re thinking about what we do for a living and helping people change their behavior, are you using that model to help your clients with their behavior with food, with their body, with health, with their fitness? And the answer in most cases is no. Why? Because you’ve never been trained on this in school. I know I wasn’t, and all the professionals that come to my training were never thought this. So the solution is to learn a cognitive behavioral coaching model, and then apply it to the things you do. So I’ll take a classic example of eating behavior, the classic binge restrict cycle, right?

So we have the circumstance of eating, and then our data point in our brain are diet culture, right? Good and bad food, healthy and unhealthy. And so when we have to make a decision, the typical… Women in transgenic diet culture will have these thoughts that I’ve listed there. I can’t trust myself with food Carbohydrate or bad food.

I can’t eat too much. I’ll gain weight I don’t know what to eat how much and when to eat Let me go to my tracker and I’m like slapping my wrist because today’s where their tracker is on their watch and these thoughts create frustration Shame guilt restriction in the body and then women act from these feelings with overheating behavior, binge, rebellious eating, using food to cope with all those crazy emotion that are going on because of all much they’re thinking about their culture and that creates the binge restrict cycle.

That’s what I have illustrated here. That is the traditional model of how we as practitioners have been trained to coach women. We create the red box there is our intervention. We intervene after the emotion and we say, More willpower, more discipline, more structure, numb your emotion so that you override the rebellious behavior response to frustration.

You numb the frustration and instead using willpower and discipline, you eat the right way. And that’s where you act as the bearer of willpower and discipline and guru and they want to please you. But when you go away, and that red box is removed, the old behavior comes back in an instant. And that creates people who suppress their emotion, who limit their eating, who don’t know what to eat if you’re not there, if they don’t have a meal plan or calorie counter.

They become really good at obedience to rules and they have no agency, no autonomy, no self trust.

So what do we do instead?

What do we do as a non diet coach if we’re not going to do it the old way? What do we do in face of emotional eating on enough exercise routine? I don’t take time to cook and lack of sleep

So what do we do instead? So when the client comes to you with problems around emotional eating and on enough exercise routine and They want to take more time to sleep and to cook at home, our response is not to give them tactics and meal plan. Our response as non diet coaches is to investigate why to investigate our clients thoughts.

about eating behavior that creates the emotion that drives the behavior. So we first step, it’s a three step process, a cognitive behavioral coaching model. The very first step is we help uncover how they create the current behavior. can only help our client heal what we know how it’s created.

It’s the damn root cause model that we use in functional medicine. Right? We use that in functional medicine and we bypass it when it comes to eating behavior. It’s so interesting when you start looking at what is being taught and how professional practice. So step number one is we help our client uncover how they created the current behavior.

We show it to them. We say, okay, it’s because you believe that there’s good and bad food. You think you can’t be trusted with food because you’re fat and you believe that fat is unhealthy. And that makes you feel really anxious. And you use food you’re emotionally eating because you’ve so much anxiety created in you because of all those diet culture teaching.

And we show it to them and we say, do you want to change this? And we go to step number two, which is consent. We don’t tell people what to do. People decide. That’s the whole agency and autonomy angle of non diet coaching. They decide if they want to change their beliefs. And we tell them that you have to change your belief in your thinking around food in order to change the binge restricted behavior. And then if they say yes, and they consent into changing their belief, we help them find the new belief. We help them with intuitive eating and weight neutral approach and body neutrality. And we coach them to become the person who believes that all bodies are good bodies. And we coach them And that’s the biggest part of coaching is we help them form that new belief and we hold their hand while they’re struggling, believing that all bodies are good bodies.

And we support them in that process. That’s what non diet coaching is about.

vastly different from the traditional eating health and body coaching that we’ve all been trained for. So we work at the belief system instead of suppressing emotion. So when we work at that changing the belief what we do is we help people adopt new belief that creates new thoughts. Like, I can trust myself with food, I can trust my body to guide me with my food decision, I can trust my body with its weight, I’m innately worthy.

And that leads our client to, instead of feeling anxious around food, they feel at peace. They feel that the first time in their life, they can trust themselves. That their body is not their enemy, their body is their ally. People feel liberated. And now from there, from these new feelings and these new way of believing, they eat following their eating cues. They focus on health promoting behavior that have nothing to do with their weight. They learn to move their body, not to reshape their body. But to be stronger, right, they learn to process their emotion, they learn gentle nutrition, and that changes their eating pattern for the rest of their life. Just a quick note on the different framework that the non diet approach use, one of them being the intuitive eating framework.

The intuitive eating framework was created by Evelyn Triboli and Elise Roesch based on the field of research in eating disorder. That’s what we teach inside of the non diet We teach the intuitive eating framework. With the lens of the cognitive behavioral coaching model. So if you read the book of intuitive eating, or perhaps, or even an intuitive eating counselor, the difference is that we then teach you the cognitive behavioral model, and we teach you how to coach intuitive eating from the human behavior angle.

Instead of giving people, because I’ve trained so many intuitive eating counselor who thought that by giving people the 10 principle of intuitive eating or getting their client to read the book, that would change their behavior, but it’s not. We got to deal with the emotion, we got to deal with the belief system, and that’s the power of combining intuitive eating and cognitive behavioral.

This is why coaching health behavior according to the traditional model is never the solution and why the dieting industry is consistently growing because it doesn’t work. People keep coming back over and over with the same problem because it doesn’t address The human behavior portion, so why does the non diet coaching work?

Because it addressed the root cause of the behavior, the health behavior, the eating behavior, we address the thoughts and the belief and most often, it’s all linked to body image. If you coach women. If you counsel women with anything to do with food health and you do not address body image, body dissatisfaction, guaranteed that whatever transformation you’re getting is going to be temporary because women will go back to their whole behavior because of internalized fat phobia and externalized fat phobia.

This is why the non diet approach works is because we go at the root level. We move women from not enough to I am enough. I can trust myself with food. I can be safe in my body. It’s easy for me to take care of myself. We have the tool to create that belief and thought level changes in our client.

This is an extract of one of the class that I teach in coaching and I wanted to share it with you. When people change their belief, they see the world differently and their world change. When we change our self belief, our self image change. Therefore, how we engage with the world change. When we change how we see ourselves, we show up differently in the world. We feel different. We take action differently. And we create results that we never thought possible, simply because we could never see it before. That’s what we do as non diet coaches. Now I want to take a few minutes to walk you through our certification, the non diet coaching certification. And often people will ask me like, What is different about your certification versus a traditional health certification or intuitive eating counseling, right?

Difference is that coaching of the thought and the belief level because you do the work on yourself. You become more confident as an individual. You change your self image and you show up in your practice differently with a greater level of confidence and you can help your client with anything that has to do with thoughts and feelings.

related to food, related to health, and sometimes beyond the food. That’s why I created the Non Diet Coaching Certification to change how coaching is delivered for women because we, as women, deserve highly skilled coach that can help us change our socialization to diet culture. and change who we are. Our coaches understand that the non diet approach must be coached vastly differently from what we previously have been taught and certified in.

All the diet culture approaches in order to create lifelong sustainable results. Our coaches are courageously leading their client to go deeper, brush off the surface. We don’t do surface shit. They go deeper in their self awareness to develop a greater level of self trust at first with food. And beyond the food to create safety in all part of who they are.

Our coaches become leader in their community. We train people from all vast niches. We train people that are therapists specialized in. Women counseling. We train people in the fitness industry. We tried people in nutrition and those are coaches because they have changed their own belief system, their self belief about themselves go back in their community and their niches and their specialty and they become global leader thought leader who changed their own coaching spaces.

And then we teach you about business because we cannot sell the non diet approach in the same way that we used to sell our services with diet culture. So we teach you a new way of engaging with your business as well. As I mentioned earlier, in the replay email or around the video here, you will have our non diet assessment tools given to you for free.

And I urge you To do these assessments on yourself so you can get a clear picture of where you are in your socialization to diet culture personally And then how it interface with your clients So the non diet coaching certification Take a few minutes and i’m going to entertain any question at the end of that The non diet coaching certification is a six month container where I Personally coach you and Teach you how to first embody intuitive eating, body neutrality, and weight neutral health coaching, in yourself.

So I take you through all the module, we unpack what it is for you, we help you embody it in your own life, and then I teach you how to use it in your practice. That’s what I call the going to beyond the food method. It has 3 pre component to it at the center of it is a cognitive behavioral coaching model.

That’s what we learned. 1st, we spend 2 months learning. All that there is to learn about human behavior and emotions and thoughts and we teach you a whole bunch of tools to be able to coach yourself and then coach other human using cognitive behavioral coaching and then we take that framework and we apply it to intuitive eating.

And then we take the cognitive behavior, and then we apply it to self esteem and body image work. That’s the going to be on the food method. That’s what we teach you coach you and help you embody and then professionally serve other people using these methodology. So, our training curriculum is quite extensive.

We have two, two aspects of it. We have the professional training and the business training. In the professional training, we teach you, as I mentioned first, the cognitive behavioral coaching model. And if you choose, we can certify you and you can become a certified cognitive behavioral coach. Our certification process for, All of our certification is quite extensive.

We have exams and we have practice logs that we require from you and you have to attend all the life class with me and participate. So I can see your level of understanding and embodiment. And that’s the certification process. You can choose to do the certification without taking on the certification. We have a number of people who choose to do that for personal development, but if you’re a professional and you want to be certified, then you’re going to do the certification process in month 5 and 6 of the certification.

So, the 1st certification we offer is the training on cognitive behavioral coaching. We have a number of classes, I’m not going to read them all to you. It is all found in our syllabus. It’s a PDF document that will come along with the replay and you can also find that on our website. For each track of learning, I teach the vast majority of the class, they’re pre recorded, so you can watch them at your convenience, and then we have live calls to practice and answer any question you may have, or particular application in your specialty, but we also have guest expert teaching that fill in the blank of my own knowledge of my own specialty, so I brought, I think we’re having 12 different guest expert teacher that have created and curated content specifically for this certification.

and you have access to that in our website as well. I mentioned a few times that we go beyond the food. So, we have a number of resources in class and training on life coaching skills. Because you very quickly, when you start working at that level of thoughts and beliefs, you quickly start unpacking, needs for boundaries, needs for goal setting and like, all kinds of different things that we were never trained in.

So we give you teaching and training on that. And then we have our certification for eating culture. So we have the intuitive eating track. I teach it based on my learning from Evelyn Triboli and Elyse Roersch, but this is not the same thing as the intuitive eating, certified counselor training.

That’s a different thing. For me, it is more about how to use the cognitive behavioral coaching in the 10 principles of intuitive eating. Plus, we have a number of guest experts in that field as well that can come and supplement. all the angle of eating that, varies. so that’s part of our eating certification.

Then we have our body image certification, which I teach you the framework I created called the Body Neutrality Framework. Plus, I have supplemental guest expert teacher that come in and teach different aspect that I cannot teach. so that’s a body image code. This is a sample. Of our guests expert teacher, you can find a full listing on our website and then we also have a module on how to do business ethically with integrity.

As I mentioned, we cannot sell our services that are anti diet culture, that are anti oppression in the same way that diet culture is sold. So we have to rethink the way we do business. So we help you with that as well. We have a five step process to rethink your business or to create a brand new business. From the get go, we help you create an aligned business strategy. We help you create a marketing message, a compelling offer, how to do marketing authentically with integrity, and then we help you sell with integrity. as well. So the big question for you here today is how can you learn the non diet approach on your own and implement it in your practice?

Can you do it on your own? Absolutely you can. And there’s a ton of resources for you to do it on your own. But there’s also choice number two, which is the option of skipping all the research and the reading all the books and listening to all the podcasts and come to a place where all the resource have been pulled together for you that you’ve been given step by step process.

And that is the non diet coaching certification. So I’d like to share with you. At this point, before the video starts, a few thoughts, some videos and some thoughts that our former student, people who’ve graduated with us, I asked them to share their thoughts about our program with you. That’s the video.

I’m going to share with you right now. Okay. So it’s going to be a few minutes and then I’ll come back after the video to answer all of your questions. So these are all graduate from. Okay. Our program, which is now entering its fourth and a half year, so we’re going to be enrolling at the time of recording this, our tenth cohort.

I once was asked if you could spend five minutes with someone who would tell you something that would change your world, but it would cost you a million dollars. Would you do it? Hi, I’m Jolynn Martin. I’m Jolynn Martin Fitness.

Start with that analogy because I found the value for my money within the first two weeks of Stephanie’s program. Stephanie starts with mindset work and challenges you to discover the limiting beliefs that have been holding you back in your life and in your business up to this point. Not only does Stephanie challenge you, with Your mindset with food and body image, but also within your capability in your business.

Stephanie sprinkles her magic on everything, and I mean everything. So what I love the most about working with Stephanie is just her no fuss approach to nutrition, especially a non diet, approach to health and wellness. She is very passionate and committed to seeing you succeed as a client. Before I joined the mentorship program, I was It’s clear that I wanted a non diet approach to nutrition and wellness as a framework for my business.

I just wasn’t clear how to get that foundation as well as how to apply what I had learned through some of the non diet trainings that I’ve had already. And this is where the mentorship program came in and was very helpful as well. I was able to manage my mindset as a business owner and also gain friendships with other women.

Who share the same values that I do. Hey there, friends of Stephanie. My name is Kim Hagel from Radiant Vitality Wellness, and I am a member of Stephanie’s Non Diet Pro Mentorship Program. And I just came on here to tell you how happy and thrilled I am that I said yes to taking this program. I am a personal trainer and holistic nutritionist.

And, in my line of work, I see a lot of ways that the diet industry… influences the fitness industry and how that really fills my clients. So I was looking for a program that would help me to help them make peace with exercise and feel confident in the body that they have. So I signed up for Stephanie’s program, looking for something that would give me the knowledge base and the business training that I would need to create a signature coaching program to help people heal their relationship with exercise in their body.

And, my expectations have been. Far exceeded. I’ve been blown away. the knowledge base and confidence that I have working with clients now has grown because of the high quality education that Stephanie’s provided. And I know that the things that I’m teaching are changing lives and it feels so amazing.

The moment was, just deciding that I was really just making a decision for myself that, this is something I know I can do. And when I decided to make that investment. there really was like no turning back. and I think also just realizing the food freedom and the overall freedom and joy that I started to feel in my life, I knew that I was far enough ahead that I can now share this with other women.

She’s just embrace your afraidness. It just tells you something that you really want something. And I know it’s scary, but it’s just a discomfort and you have just learned to have all the emotions. And that’s something so beautiful that you can give to your clients. So if you can learn to. Go with the fear and not struggle with it.

It’s so beautiful that you can give your clients. Talk about what you’ve done for me, because I feel like had I met you and started consulting with you three years ago, number one, I would have saved so much money. And number two, I would have been so much farther ahead in my business. I have, I’ve worked with so many people who said they knew what they were doing.

You’re the only person I can say I’ve worked with who really knows what she’s doing and I mean I’ve gotten referrals from you know, I didn’t dig them out of a yellow pages they came well highly recommended, but they don’t have the business acumen the incisive knowledge about this particular business and the ability to Function in the online space that you’ve had so I have felt My confidence coming back and working with you and my hope that my business will take off and working with you. And I just can’t thank you enough, Stephanie, honestly.

So I’m going to stop sharing my screen, and I’m going to take questions. I hope that some of you are listening to this will join us in the next cohort of the non diet coaching certification. And if you choose to do that on your own, please use our podcast, the going to be on the food, the undieter coaching practice as resources. And perhaps some of the training classes, the smaller training classes that we have. but I know many of you, I will see you in the future.

 

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87-Practitioner Burnout, Compassion Fatigue & Moral Injury with Jess Serdikoff RD

87-Practitioner Burnout, Compassion Fatigue & Moral Injury with Jess Serdikoff RD

Practitioner burnout, compassion fatigue & moral injury

Practitioner burnout, compassion fatigue & moral injury is the reality of too many practitioners and coaches.

Practitioner burnout, compassion fatigue & moral injury 

If you feel exhausted and perhaps this is “too hard” or “i’m just not cut out for this career” I hear and I recommend you listen to this interview with Jess.

Jess Serdikoff Romola is a registered dietitian and supervisor helping practitioners say FU to hustle culture to diffuse stress, build confidence, and reconnect with their passions and purpose as a human first, and dietitian second. 

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on practitioner burnout, compassion fatigue & moral injury:

  • Why it’s you the problem but the system
  • Why moral injury could be the “real” problem
  • The parallels between diet culture and hustle culture

 

Mentioned in the show:

How to Become A Non-Diet Coach Masterclass

Non-Diet Coaching Certification 

Free Resources 

Connect with our guest:

Instagram – Jess Serdikoff

Facebook – Jess Serdikoff

The Empowering Dietitians Grounding Journal

Transcript

Undiet Your Coaching Podcast Episode 87

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Hey, my dear colleague, welcome back to the podcast. We are halfway through the enrollment for the next cohort of the non diet coaching certification cohort number nine. And We had the virtual class earlier today, how to become a non diet coach. If you want to grab the replay for that. You can go to the link in the show note or how to become a non diet coach on Mr. Google and grab the replay. It’s a totally free class and inside of that class I go through does it mean to become a Non diet coach, what it is and what it’s not, and also the most common mistakes that I see people do when they want to become a professional coach in that particular field.

And I go through exactly what’s in the syllabus and the curriculum of the non diet coaching certification. So if that’s an interest of yours. Go grab that replay, and you can also book a consultation with me once you’ve watched, the class and read the curriculum. If you still have questions, it’ll be my pleasure, to go on a Zoom coffee chat with you to answer

any question that remains for you now, today’s topic is in alignment with the foundation that we set in an online coaching certification, which is safe. coaching. I brought on an expert today to talk to you and to unpack with me compassionate fatigue, moral injury, and burnout for people in our field.

That you are a licensed professional, a provider, practitioner, or coach, and You coach behavior, you quickly realize that what’s behind the behavior of eating, for example, or health, a body image is not a lack of knowledge, it’s emotion, right? It’s people feel terrible and that influence their behavior and people feel anxious and people feel sad.

sad people feel grief because of what happened to them because of the way they’re thinking about themselves. And very quickly when you coach behavioral health situation, you uncover that it’s not about the behavior. It’s about the real problem. And it’s if you don’t know how to. coach at that level, that stuff gets really heavy fast.

And unfortunately, when you’re not equipped professionally as a coach to deal with that, you take it on yourself and you end up with burnout and you end up with fatigue. Compassion fatigue is a real thing. and I want to teach you today how to avoid that. And that’s why I brought Jess Serticoff, a dietitian and a supervisor of dietitian because that’s what she talks about day in and day out with her clients on how to unpack that and how to prevent it, most important.

And we’re also going to talk about hustle culture and how it impacts our practice with our client. Not necessarily from a business standpoint, we’re going to talk about it a little bit, but more about how hustle culture. impacts how we think we should coach. It’s a brilliant episode. save it and come back to it if you feel fatigue and you think you’re on your way to burnout.

So without any further ado, I’ll get my team to roll in podcast.

Stephanie: Welcome to the podcast, Jess.

Jess: Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: I’m so excited about this conversation.

Jess: Me too.

Stephanie: We’ve not talked about that before on my podcast.

Jess: Ooh,

Stephanie: I made a podcast a few years ago around the parallel between hustle culture and diet culture,

Jess: yeah.

Stephanie: but I kind of never talked about it again.

Jess: And this is a beautiful opportunity.

Jess: So First, I think that burnout. Is becoming a bit of a buzzword, especially in the health care field, especially in our kind of like Harry post pandemic world. However, you want to look at it, it often gets boiled down into an individual capacity problem. You know, I’m not handling things. Well, I need to take better care of myself.

Jess: I’m burnt out and a lot of the solutions are therefore focused on. More self care, more resilience, you know, what can we be doing as individuals? And I find that to be a At best gross oversimplification of what’s really going on. and we’re really glossing over some of these more systemic problems that are contributing to burnout and other related phenomenon field.

Stephanie: So what are those things we don’t talk about, but we need to talk about?

Jess: Well, when you look at some of the research, particularly with burnout amongst healthcare professionals, and you look at the different factors that researchers associate with burnout, they tend to list external versus internal factors. First of all, the external factor list is Much longer than the internal 1 and the internal factors that they list, including your own capacity, your time management, things like that.

Jess: a lot of those are also societally conditioned and the reason we’re struggling with them. Individually or internally is because of the system that we’re working in. So, the, the biggest thing that I really like to drive home when I’m talking about burnout is that this is not like a you problem that we really need to be talking about.

Jess: We need to be talking about how our health care system, how our coaching system really, how our society is set up.

Stephanie: Yeah, and I’m gonna, by all means, you can use me as an example, but I’ve burned out when I was in the corporate world. I was in the classic sales structure, corporate world burned out. Didn’t listen to myself, just crashed and burned. But right now in this second phase of my life in the coaching world, I’m starting to feel hired, not physically, not as much, but I’m starting to feel tired because there’s too much access to me.

Stephanie: If that makes any sense, does that, is that part of your view on the problem?

Jess: Absolutely. So think about just the way that our society functions. We’re kind of always on. And I see a lot of practitioners who I work specifically with dietitians. So I work primarily in that area, where they’re kind of sold this message of like, quit your clinical job and go into private practice to fix your burnout.

Jess: And so, We’re seeing a lot more dietitians that are leaving and working for themselves and starting coaching businesses and starting, you know, private practices and they’re realizing my burnout isn’t going away and it’s because. There are pros and cons to working for someone else, but one of the things is when you are working yourself, there aren’t inherent boundaries and there are certain expectations, the way that you’ve set up your coaching packages, the way that you’ve set things up, that there is a lot of access to you, whether that is access to email, access to social media, access to messaging, whatever it is, and you don’t have the space to be a person outside of your work.

Stephanie: Bang on, because when I was in, I’ll call it classical practice, it was like one hour appointment in and out. That’s it. Now, the way the coaching industry has imagined the services, it’s like, it’s the coaching session, then it’s the group coaching session, and then it’s the Facebook group.

Jess: And we have to really question if the way that we’re doing business is truly right for us. And if it is, we have to make it work for us, and if it’s not, are we just copying and pasting what someone else told us we had to do? Are we still living according to someone else’s view of what is quote unquote right?

Stephanie: I think it’s, that, that is, because what I just described to you as the structure is what our formatted to be.

Jess: And we get these kind of gold standard things, whether it comes to how you launch a new service or how you conduct your packages or what you charge or how you talk about what you charge, there is kind of this pervasive messaging that there is one correct or best way to do it. And so we wind up being these like. Round pegs trying to fit ourselves into a square hole or vice versa, and it doesn’t feel like it’s working. We wind up feeling more and more disconnected from ourselves, and that’s not going to help us, and it’s not going to help the people we’re trying to serve.

Stephanie: It’s very interesting because this morning I was coaching a group of professionals and we had this conversation.

Stephanie: Where we were talking about how these, like, Facebook group on top of the 101 may not actually be helping our clients. Because they’re not learning to live on their own. They’re like always leaning in to the group and the group coaching and this. And it’s almost like a co dependency thing.

Jess: and are times and places for that, where we have a little bit more handholding, a little bit more of that immersive experience, and that can be appropriate. And then there are also times where we have to be able to trust ourselves too, and go off and trust ourselves. Try something and see if it works, and if it doesn’t, then we do have a landing pad, a support system, a call at some point, but that we don’t, I don’t know, I think sometimes we are so afraid of making a mistake or choosing the wrong thing that we, instead of acting, we try to get everyone else’s opinions and perspectives first to try to cushion the blow of potentially, quote, unquote, making a mistake,

Stephanie: And it all comes down to socialization and thinking like, that’s the way, and especially can we talk about this. How we are socialized as women and how we show up in our work leading to burnout.

Jess: Yes. So when it comes to burnout and how gender norms intersect with that, there are a lot of different layers to consider. There are things like, we are taught from a very young age to be the caregivers and to put our needs On the backseat compared to making sure that everyone else is okay. And we often kind of self sacrifice to make that happen.

Jess: That’s that’s conditioned to in us very, very early on. that gets compounded. Then if you are also a helping professional, because. You are also taught through your schooling then that your job is to help other people. You have to not necessarily sometimes they’ll say like, yes, take care of yourself, but, what they say and then what they actually do or what they teach you is sometimes different.

Jess: but you kind of get this mindset of almost like you’re here to be a martyr. You’re here to. Give and give and give, and you just have to be resilient and do better. And that leads to a form, a form of burnout, a spinoff of burnout called compassion fatigue, which can be distinct from burnout and it can also lead to burnout, if we don’t address it.

Stephanie: So, let’s talk about what is compassion fatigue versus burnout. Is there different types of burnouts? Is that what I’m hearing?

Jess: Generally speaking,it depends on who you ask. I think we’re still really early in our studying of burnout as a phenomenon. The way that I look at it is that burnout is distinct from compassion fatigue, but that compassion fatigue can contribute to burnout compassion fatigue, or sometimes viewed as like caregiver fatigue or caregiver.

Jess: Stress happens when we are in that helping role and we are giving and giving and we’re holding space for other people. We’re taking on other people’s emotions. If you happen to feel like you’re an empath or a particularly, Emotionally aware human. You can sometimes take on that even more. I don’t know a lot of helping professionals are.

Jess: So, we wind up with that issue and it just starts to feel heavier and heavier. as your needs aren’t being met.

Stephanie: And that leads to the burnout, which is on a scale and it’s a different representation by individual.

Jess: there’s one study is specific to dietitians. but I, I would expect that it was pretty similar across all healthcare professionals.

Stephanie: I bet you the same thing with

Jess: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.it found that over 2 3rds, or almost 2 3rds of dietitians reported double or triple duty caregiving duties, which means that in addition to being a caregiver professionally, they were also maybe a parent.

Jess: They were taking care of Their own parents, they were maybe in that sandwich generation where they’re doing both. and dietetics is a predominantly female field. I believe therapy is as well. yeah. so. We’re more likely to find that because again, how we’re socialized, we kind of default under patriarchy to be the caregivers, whether we choose to or not.

Jess: And moreover, the study found that the more those roles conflicted with each other, the higher the rate of burnout. So the more remember, you’re a human, right? So you don’t just stop being a parent. You don’t just stop being a caregiver when you show up at your job. Those stressors carry into it and it impacts your capacity for caring for other people and caring for yourself. So the more those conflict with each other and pile on top of each other, the more likely you are to burn out.

Stephanie: You talked about earlier, you repeated a few times, disconnection to self, disconnection to self. could we say that’s the underlying root cause of burnout to some degree?

Jess: I like to say that exploitative systems are the root cause, but I would say that probably a, a undercurrent in terms of symptoms and maybe precursors. Yes. it is hinged on you being disconnected from yourself and your authenticity. And it’s supposed to kind of make you feel like you don’t really have authenticity autonomy, right? Like you just have to do the things the way that they are. so yes, it very much is often one of those initial Stages that we wind up in that leads and domino effects to these worsening symptoms.

Stephanie: I’ll make the parallel to diet culture because that’s my zone of genius. And then you can, like, carry on the story and hustle culture, but that’s what diet culture does, which diet culture is an oppressive system, it disconnect people from their body, self, in order to satisfy the standard of diet culture.

Jess: Well, diet culture is hustle culture, because when we’re talking about diet culture, when we’re talking about hustle culture, these are just like more comfortable ways of calling out systems like patriarchy, capitalism and supremacy culture. if they’re just cutesy names that sound a little bit more palatable to us,

Stephanie: call them the

Jess: Yeah, yeah. So we’re talking about the same thing. It just, it just matters. Are we talking about food and body? Are we talking about our work. Exactly. They’re really the same thing.

Stephanie: So. So, when we’re talking about liberation from those systems in order to heal, the first step is to reconnect with ourselves.

Jess: I absolutely believe so. If we back it up a little bit, it’s probably flagging the thoughts that we’ve internalized that are not actually authentic to us. So starting to question whose values we’re living by, Thank you. Where we learned them, and if they continue to serve us, and once we start to recognize what we’re holding onto that is no longer ours, or that isn’t ours, or was never ours, then we can start the process of getting back in touch of with who we actually are.

Stephanie: Can you give us a few of those thoughts a dietician slash caregiver perspective to give us a flavor of what we’re looking

Jess: Yeah, absolutely. So, you’re going to notice some themes around things like perfectionism. and imposter thoughts are going to come into these 2 of like, I have to get X certification before I’m. Worthy to do this work, or, I have to prove myself by having X number of clients before I’ve really made it.

Jess: or I’m not good enough compared to this other coach or other dietitian because look at them putting out 6, 000 reels a week or tick tocks a week or selling out and making 6 figure months or whatever it is. Right. so it’s, it’s always this rat race of I have to do better. I’m not good enough. Everyone else is farther along than me and I’m behind.

Stephanie: And it’s funny, I was laughing as you were saying that if you’re watching the videos, because I put out, I had this brain, my brain crack one day when I started to look at business culture. And I put the parallel between business culture, six months, a six figure, and like, versus that culture. I’m like, it’s the same fricking

Jess: It’s the same thing. It’s just these crazy promises, external validation, and the benchmark, the target always moves. So you’re, you never actually. Hit it. If there’s six figure months, or, you know, you hit six figures, then you have to figure out seven figures. if you do master, fill up your one on one slots, then it’s time to figure out group coaching.

Jess: so we never actually, the same thing with diet culture, you know, that’s why the beauty standards change. You have to be curvy, you have to be twiggy thin, you have to be whatever. It’s always going to move so that you are never.

Stephanie: So what’s the solution? Or what’s like, where do we even begin?

Jess: Yeah,

Stephanie: From your perspective.

Jess: think that that phrasing where do we even begin is the appropriate one because it’s so much more comforting to think that the problem is us because we can do something about that.

Stephanie: we control

Jess: when I start saying the problem is capitalism and patriarchy and supremacy culture, it’s like, well, what am I, what am I supposed to do about this? Right? It’s overwhelming. So the way that I explain it, I like to talk about a three tiered approach because I don’t think that there is 1 solution to this. They’re certainly not. 1st of all, part of it is rejecting that there’s 1 anything that’s part of supremacy culture is part of hustle culture is part of diet culture to convince us there’s 1 right way to do X. there is not, but we have to take it. Yes, from an individual standpoint, and sometimes that’s the easiest place to start because. We are more within our own control. So I think very first step, just starting to recognize it the same way that we would do with diet culture. Recognize it when what someone else says is really a reflection of that hustle and that never good enough scarcity space. Recognize when that thought is coming up for you. And we can use some of those same coaching techniques, therapeutic techniques, whether it’s cognitive behavioral techniques, whether it’s mindfulness based techniques, whatever it is that that works for you to start not judging them and reframing them. so, so starting with yourself can be a comforting, more like realistic doable place. It’s, it’s not going to end there because it can be just as easy to burn out when, you know, you start working, realizing that the system is completely antithetical to what you believe in and yet you still have to exist in it. So we do have to go extra layers and extra steps. But starting with yourself can be helpful.

Stephanie: Well, I think it’s, you gotta, to some degree say, strengthen yourself in order to like re imagine the system plays on you.

Jess: I think strengthen and soften ourselves. yes, we need resilience because this is not something that’s going to be fixed by 1 person. And it’s not going to be fixed anytime soon or changed anytime soon as maybe a better way of phrasing that. and so we do need some resilience and coping skills and the ability to withstand the stressors and the injustices and the frustrations.

Jess: And. We also need the compassion and the softening and the not again, I think we get in this hustle mentality of there’s something wrong. I have to do something about it. There’s something wrong. I have to work. I have a goal. I have to move into it. We’re always in this future oriented. Action oriented, goal oriented space. So part of the healing is understanding when we need to pace ourselves. Understand when we’re not going to do it well, or, when we are going to fall back into hustle mentality. Right? when we need to take breaks and be kind and gentle. Right? so I think it’s, it’s both of those things.

Stephanie: Well, as you’re saying that, what I’m seeing is the ultimate goal, I guess, of nervous system kneeling, which is the capacity to be flexible, right? To take the highs and the lows and to come back to

Jess: yeah. And we also have to recognize that it’s same thing with like social justice warriors and all of these things. You are one person and you are trying to address centuries of the world operating under certain assumptions and with certain people in power who are not going to want to give up their power. And so we have to know. When fight quote unquote, and when to just exist as a human, right? Like we can’t fight every battle. And I think, especially if you are someone who lives with privilege, sometimes there’s a lot of like layered guilt and shame. And like, I have to always correct someone. I have to always say the right thing. I have to always be acting towards this because for so long, people like me didn’t say anything and that’s going to burn you out. In and of itself, right? Again, it’s that always on. So being very aware of how sneaky that hustle mentality is and how it slips into our own self care work, our own self development work, right? That we have to constantly be doing better. No, sometimes you can coast. Sometimes you can drop the ball, right? Sometimes you can just like chill and be an imperfect, messy person.

Stephanie: So one of the ways you help people is supervision. So I want you to explain, because in the coaching world and even to some degree other counseling world, supervision is not, is not present or not that understood, but I know it’s very well inbred into dietician. So what is supervision generally?

Jess: I will say it’s not very well ingrained in dietitian. Oh, I wish that’s my dream reality. it’s not there yet. I see it more prevalent in therapy spaces, but it is all about holding space. So it’s not about telling or teaching or guiding. It’s about being a constant in someone else’s life where they’re not here to be your therapist, right? Like I’m not qualified to do that, but I understand being a dietitian. I understand the specifics that my colleagues are going through in particular, and I am here to validate. And hold space and let you show up and be vulnerable because. There’s a lot of pressure to show up and have the answers and be the expert and have it all figured out because, you know, you, you want to make sure that you’re well cared for and that your clients aren’t worried that they have to attend to your needs while, you know, you’re trying to help them so supervision is the space where that happens. Can be case consultations of like, Hey, this is happening with one of my clients and I don’t know if I handled it well, or it’s bringing up these uncomfortable feelings in me. What do I do with that? So it can be that it can be I’m feeling really burnt out. I’m feeling like I’m losing my mind. I’m feeling like things are spiraling out. Can we talk about it? Right? so it’s not. It’s not very goal oriented all the time, or like, fix it oriented, it’s more learning how to sit, and be, and regulate, and just have someone who sees you and hears you for who you are.

Stephanie: So I’m seeing a midpoint between therapy and

Jess: yes. Yes.

Stephanie: It’s like it’s the midpoint between goal oriented and full on counseling world.

Jess: I’m not going to go into past trauma that you have, right? Like, that is beyond my scope. I might suggest, if that’s going on, that you pair this work with therapy. so I’m not going to unpack all of that with you, but I can help you develop compassion for yourself. I can help you get in touch with your values. I can help you see the toxic systems that you’re working in and remove some of that self blame and, and doubt. so that’s more of the, the supervisor’s role.

Stephanie: And do you supervise beyond dietician

Jess: I personally haven’t. I have had therapists and, other kind of allied health professionals in group supervision calls before. But I haven’t one on one, primarily because, you know, I, I, again, I think that it can be very beneficial to have someone specifically in your field.

Stephanie: in your

Jess: exactly. Because again, Everyone’s a little different. Like, if I taught, I have a therapist, and I can talk to my therapist about the stressors in my work, and I do, but she’s not aware of the exact culture of dietetics. Whereas, I don’t have to, like, no one has to explain that to me. I get it. I live in it. And while there are so many parallels across, helping professionals, where there’s a lot of cultural similarities, There are going to be distinctions in each one, so I would love to see it where we have supervisors in all health professions. That being said, I wouldn’t be 100 percent opposed to it. but I, I think that the end goal is to have people who really, really get it intimately with where you’re coming from.

Stephanie: Yeah, I think the word get it, this is the thing about supervision.

Jess: exactly. because it’s not this top down. I have the answers and I’m giving them to you. It really is that, like, we’re sitting on a level playing field. I’m just here to bring things out in you to ask you the right questions to get you thinking about things. So, while I can do that with any. Profession. I’ve got the experience in dietetics personally.

Stephanie: Okay. That’s been a very powerful conversation. when we talk about burnout, is there any angle of it that I missed that I didn’t ask you a question about that you would like to bring forward?

Jess: The only thing that I will say that I haven’t, we haven’t really discussed is, and it’s a big one. So it might just be like a, Hey, you might want to look into too on your own. In addition to compassion, fatigue and burnout, there is a concept called moral injury or moral distress. And it is by far the thing that I think we mistake for burnout the most, or we call burnout, and it’s originally coined with, war veterans with PTSD and witnessing or participating in immoral acts that conflict with your values. More and more, they’re studying it with healthcare providers. Particularly if you provide health care within, for example, like the U. S., very capitalist based system, where everything is based on the bottom line and ROI, and it almost feels like we become disconnected from being able to truly help people the way that we can. Thank you. Want to help them. It happens a lot with weight inclusive providers as well who are working in weight centric environments.

Stephanie: Yes.

Jess: So I want people to understand that these influences happen. And if you’re feeling that way, you’re not crazy. You’re there’s not something wrong with you. This is us existing in a system. That isn’t really well suited for the work that we are so passionate about doing.

Stephanie: Or that is misaligned with your personal value. Because as you’re like, you’re saying that it’s like the flash are going up in my of all the people, particularly in the non diet space. Like I was just coaching a fitness professional, it’s like work for like a big label gym. And she was asked to do things that she’s like no longer aligned with. She was at some point, she’s no longer.

Jess: it’s it’s even the same as people making assumptions about what you do when they hear that you’re a dietitian or a nutritionist or You work with body image or relationship with food They make assumptions about the work that you do and constantly having to explain it or introduce people to the concept. and feeling like again, nobody else is like. Getting it, or it’s so foreign to them. So that creates its own source of stress that isn’t discussed enough. And I would highly encourage anyone listening who is feeling that disconnect or feeling that frustration to look more into that concept as well because it, it adds an extra piece to the puzzle.

Stephanie: it names what it’s happening within you that you haven’t put a name on it. You just feel it, but you haven’t intellectualized it yet. But that’s exactly what it, that’s a lot of my

Jess: Exactly. And again, I think that when we talk about moral injury, moral distress, we start to more easily recognize that this is not a personal failing, this is a systemic failing, or at the very least, a systemic misalignment.

Stephanie: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. How can people get more of you or experience you more?

Jess: You can check out any of my offerings at my website. Empowering dietitians dot com. I do have self paced courses and classes. They offer continuing ed for dietitians specifically, but they’re of course open. I have, physical therapists, all, all different types of individuals who, to participate in those. So they’re available. and then I have my own weekly podcast. So if you are listening to podcasts and like that, I come out with episodes for the most part on a weekly basis and they’re most of them are very reflective. I do speak to dietetics. Issues, but again, I have a lot of listeners who are not dietitians who. Very easily see the connection to what they’re doing as well. So I ask a lot of open ended questions offer a lot of thinking points for you to spend more time and kind of chew on throughout the week.

Stephanie: Think of it uh, self paced supervision session.

Jess: I try to give that similar vibe with a lot of those episodes where I’m not sitting here. Sometimes I sit here and tell you my opinion on things, but a lot of the episodes are more, let me help you think about this in a different way.

Stephanie: that’s brilliant. And because there’s not a lot of you in different

Jess: Yes.

Stephanie: there’s not a lot of us thinking that way in each of the profession.

Jess: Yeah. So, in the meantime, I’m happy to serve that gap. and I encourage you within your own professions, start these conversations, start looking into what supervision is in other professions and how we can incorporate this and, and really make it more accessible for all of us.

Stephanie: and have that systemic conversation, that misalignment of value conversation in all the profession because it’s happening

Jess: Absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.

Stephanie: Thank you very much Jess for being with us

Jess: Of course. It was my pleasure.

.

Practitioner Burnout, Compassion Fatigue & Moral Injury with Jess Serdikoff RD

Hey, my dear colleague, welcome back to the podcast. We are halfway through the enrollment for the next cohort of the non diet coaching certification cohort number nine. And We had the virtual class earlier today, how to become a non diet coach. If you want to grab the replay for that. You can go to the link in the show note or how to become a non diet coach on Mr. Google and grab the replay. It’s a totally free class and inside of that class I go through does it mean to become a Non diet coach, what it is and what it’s not, and also the most common mistakes that I see people do when they want to become a professional coach in that particular field.

And I go through exactly what’s in the syllabus and the curriculum of the non diet coaching certification. So if that’s an interest of yours. Go grab that replay, and you can also book a consultation with me once you’ve watched, the class and read the curriculum. If you still have questions, it’ll be my pleasure, to go on a Zoom coffee chat with you to answer

any question that remains for you now, today’s topic is in alignment with the foundation that we set in an online coaching certification, which is safe. coaching. I brought on an expert today to talk to you and to unpack with me compassionate fatigue, moral injury, and burnout for people in our field.

That you are a licensed professional, a provider, practitioner, or coach, and You coach behavior, you quickly realize that what’s behind the behavior of eating, for example, or health, a body image is not a lack of knowledge, it’s emotion, right? It’s people feel terrible and that influence their behavior and people feel anxious and people feel sad.

sad people feel grief because of what happened to them because of the way they’re thinking about themselves. And very quickly when you coach behavioral health situation, you uncover that it’s not about the behavior. It’s about the real problem. And it’s if you don’t know how to. coach at that level, that stuff gets really heavy fast.

And unfortunately, when you’re not equipped professionally as a coach to deal with that, you take it on yourself and you end up with burnout and you end up with fatigue. Compassion fatigue is a real thing. and I want to teach you today how to avoid that. And that’s why I brought Jess Serticoff, a dietitian and a supervisor of dietitian because that’s what she talks about day in and day out with her clients on how to unpack that and how to prevent it, most important.

And we’re also going to talk about hustle culture and how it impacts our practice with our client. Not necessarily from a business standpoint, we’re going to talk about it a little bit, but more about how hustle culture. impacts how we think we should coach. It’s a brilliant episode. save it and come back to it if you feel fatigue and you think you’re on your way to burnout.

So without any further ado, I’ll get my team to roll in podcast.

Stephanie: Welcome to the podcast, Jess.

Jess: Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: I’m so excited about this conversation.

Jess: Me too.

Stephanie: We’ve not talked about that before on my podcast.

Jess: Ooh,

Stephanie: I made a podcast a few years ago around the parallel between hustle culture and diet culture,

Jess: yeah.

Stephanie: but I kind of never talked about it again.

Jess: And this is a beautiful opportunity.

Jess: So First, I think that burnout. Is becoming a bit of a buzzword, especially in the health care field, especially in our kind of like Harry post pandemic world. However, you want to look at it, it often gets boiled down into an individual capacity problem. You know, I’m not handling things. Well, I need to take better care of myself.

Jess: I’m burnt out and a lot of the solutions are therefore focused on. More self care, more resilience, you know, what can we be doing as individuals? And I find that to be a At best gross oversimplification of what’s really going on. and we’re really glossing over some of these more systemic problems that are contributing to burnout and other related phenomenon field.

Stephanie: So what are those things we don’t talk about, but we need to talk about?

Jess: Well, when you look at some of the research, particularly with burnout amongst healthcare professionals, and you look at the different factors that researchers associate with burnout, they tend to list external versus internal factors. First of all, the external factor list is Much longer than the internal 1 and the internal factors that they list, including your own capacity, your time management, things like that.

Jess: a lot of those are also societally conditioned and the reason we’re struggling with them. Individually or internally is because of the system that we’re working in. So, the, the biggest thing that I really like to drive home when I’m talking about burnout is that this is not like a you problem that we really need to be talking about.

Jess: We need to be talking about how our health care system, how our coaching system really, how our society is set up.

Stephanie: Yeah, and I’m gonna, by all means, you can use me as an example, but I’ve burned out when I was in the corporate world. I was in the classic sales structure, corporate world burned out. Didn’t listen to myself, just crashed and burned. But right now in this second phase of my life in the coaching world, I’m starting to feel hired, not physically, not as much, but I’m starting to feel tired because there’s too much access to me.

Stephanie: If that makes any sense, does that, is that part of your view on the problem?

Jess: Absolutely. So think about just the way that our society functions. We’re kind of always on. And I see a lot of practitioners who I work specifically with dietitians. So I work primarily in that area, where they’re kind of sold this message of like, quit your clinical job and go into private practice to fix your burnout.

Jess: And so, We’re seeing a lot more dietitians that are leaving and working for themselves and starting coaching businesses and starting, you know, private practices and they’re realizing my burnout isn’t going away and it’s because. There are pros and cons to working for someone else, but one of the things is when you are working yourself, there aren’t inherent boundaries and there are certain expectations, the way that you’ve set up your coaching packages, the way that you’ve set things up, that there is a lot of access to you, whether that is access to email, access to social media, access to messaging, whatever it is, and you don’t have the space to be a person outside of your work.

Stephanie: Bang on, because when I was in, I’ll call it classical practice, it was like one hour appointment in and out. That’s it. Now, the way the coaching industry has imagined the services, it’s like, it’s the coaching session, then it’s the group coaching session, and then it’s the Facebook group.

Jess: And we have to really question if the way that we’re doing business is truly right for us. And if it is, we have to make it work for us, and if it’s not, are we just copying and pasting what someone else told us we had to do? Are we still living according to someone else’s view of what is quote unquote right?

Stephanie: I think it’s, that, that is, because what I just described to you as the structure is what our formatted to be.

Jess: And we get these kind of gold standard things, whether it comes to how you launch a new service or how you conduct your packages or what you charge or how you talk about what you charge, there is kind of this pervasive messaging that there is one correct or best way to do it. And so we wind up being these like. Round pegs trying to fit ourselves into a square hole or vice versa, and it doesn’t feel like it’s working. We wind up feeling more and more disconnected from ourselves, and that’s not going to help us, and it’s not going to help the people we’re trying to serve.

Stephanie: It’s very interesting because this morning I was coaching a group of professionals and we had this conversation.

Stephanie: Where we were talking about how these, like, Facebook group on top of the 101 may not actually be helping our clients. Because they’re not learning to live on their own. They’re like always leaning in to the group and the group coaching and this. And it’s almost like a co dependency thing.

Jess: and are times and places for that, where we have a little bit more handholding, a little bit more of that immersive experience, and that can be appropriate. And then there are also times where we have to be able to trust ourselves too, and go off and trust ourselves. Try something and see if it works, and if it doesn’t, then we do have a landing pad, a support system, a call at some point, but that we don’t, I don’t know, I think sometimes we are so afraid of making a mistake or choosing the wrong thing that we, instead of acting, we try to get everyone else’s opinions and perspectives first to try to cushion the blow of potentially, quote, unquote, making a mistake,

Stephanie: And it all comes down to socialization and thinking like, that’s the way, and especially can we talk about this. How we are socialized as women and how we show up in our work leading to burnout.

Jess: Yes. So when it comes to burnout and how gender norms intersect with that, there are a lot of different layers to consider. There are things like, we are taught from a very young age to be the caregivers and to put our needs On the backseat compared to making sure that everyone else is okay. And we often kind of self sacrifice to make that happen.

Jess: That’s that’s conditioned to in us very, very early on. that gets compounded. Then if you are also a helping professional, because. You are also taught through your schooling then that your job is to help other people. You have to not necessarily sometimes they’ll say like, yes, take care of yourself, but, what they say and then what they actually do or what they teach you is sometimes different.

Jess: but you kind of get this mindset of almost like you’re here to be a martyr. You’re here to. Give and give and give, and you just have to be resilient and do better. And that leads to a form, a form of burnout, a spinoff of burnout called compassion fatigue, which can be distinct from burnout and it can also lead to burnout, if we don’t address it.

Stephanie: So, let’s talk about what is compassion fatigue versus burnout. Is there different types of burnouts? Is that what I’m hearing?

Jess: Generally speaking,it depends on who you ask. I think we’re still really early in our studying of burnout as a phenomenon. The way that I look at it is that burnout is distinct from compassion fatigue, but that compassion fatigue can contribute to burnout compassion fatigue, or sometimes viewed as like caregiver fatigue or caregiver.

Jess: Stress happens when we are in that helping role and we are giving and giving and we’re holding space for other people. We’re taking on other people’s emotions. If you happen to feel like you’re an empath or a particularly, Emotionally aware human. You can sometimes take on that even more. I don’t know a lot of helping professionals are.

Jess: So, we wind up with that issue and it just starts to feel heavier and heavier. as your needs aren’t being met.

Stephanie: And that leads to the burnout, which is on a scale and it’s a different representation by individual.

Jess: there’s one study is specific to dietitians. but I, I would expect that it was pretty similar across all healthcare professionals.

Stephanie: I bet you the same thing with

Jess: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.it found that over 2 3rds, or almost 2 3rds of dietitians reported double or triple duty caregiving duties, which means that in addition to being a caregiver professionally, they were also maybe a parent.

Jess: They were taking care of Their own parents, they were maybe in that sandwich generation where they’re doing both. and dietetics is a predominantly female field. I believe therapy is as well. yeah. so. We’re more likely to find that because again, how we’re socialized, we kind of default under patriarchy to be the caregivers, whether we choose to or not.

Jess: And moreover, the study found that the more those roles conflicted with each other, the higher the rate of burnout. So the more remember, you’re a human, right? So you don’t just stop being a parent. You don’t just stop being a caregiver when you show up at your job. Those stressors carry into it and it impacts your capacity for caring for other people and caring for yourself. So the more those conflict with each other and pile on top of each other, the more likely you are to burn out.

Stephanie: You talked about earlier, you repeated a few times, disconnection to self, disconnection to self. could we say that’s the underlying root cause of burnout to some degree?

Jess: I like to say that exploitative systems are the root cause, but I would say that probably a, a undercurrent in terms of symptoms and maybe precursors. Yes. it is hinged on you being disconnected from yourself and your authenticity. And it’s supposed to kind of make you feel like you don’t really have authenticity autonomy, right? Like you just have to do the things the way that they are. so yes, it very much is often one of those initial Stages that we wind up in that leads and domino effects to these worsening symptoms.

Stephanie: I’ll make the parallel to diet culture because that’s my zone of genius. And then you can, like, carry on the story and hustle culture, but that’s what diet culture does, which diet culture is an oppressive system, it disconnect people from their body, self, in order to satisfy the standard of diet culture.

Jess: Well, diet culture is hustle culture, because when we’re talking about diet culture, when we’re talking about hustle culture, these are just like more comfortable ways of calling out systems like patriarchy, capitalism and supremacy culture. if they’re just cutesy names that sound a little bit more palatable to us,

Stephanie: call them the

Jess: Yeah, yeah. So we’re talking about the same thing. It just, it just matters. Are we talking about food and body? Are we talking about our work. Exactly. They’re really the same thing.

Stephanie: So. So, when we’re talking about liberation from those systems in order to heal, the first step is to reconnect with ourselves.

Jess: I absolutely believe so. If we back it up a little bit, it’s probably flagging the thoughts that we’ve internalized that are not actually authentic to us. So starting to question whose values we’re living by, Thank you. Where we learned them, and if they continue to serve us, and once we start to recognize what we’re holding onto that is no longer ours, or that isn’t ours, or was never ours, then we can start the process of getting back in touch of with who we actually are.

Stephanie: Can you give us a few of those thoughts a dietician slash caregiver perspective to give us a flavor of what we’re looking

Jess: Yeah, absolutely. So, you’re going to notice some themes around things like perfectionism. and imposter thoughts are going to come into these 2 of like, I have to get X certification before I’m. Worthy to do this work, or, I have to prove myself by having X number of clients before I’ve really made it.

Jess: or I’m not good enough compared to this other coach or other dietitian because look at them putting out 6, 000 reels a week or tick tocks a week or selling out and making 6 figure months or whatever it is. Right. so it’s, it’s always this rat race of I have to do better. I’m not good enough. Everyone else is farther along than me and I’m behind.

Stephanie: And it’s funny, I was laughing as you were saying that if you’re watching the videos, because I put out, I had this brain, my brain crack one day when I started to look at business culture. And I put the parallel between business culture, six months, a six figure, and like, versus that culture. I’m like, it’s the same fricking

Jess: It’s the same thing. It’s just these crazy promises, external validation, and the benchmark, the target always moves. So you’re, you never actually. Hit it. If there’s six figure months, or, you know, you hit six figures, then you have to figure out seven figures. if you do master, fill up your one on one slots, then it’s time to figure out group coaching.

Jess: so we never actually, the same thing with diet culture, you know, that’s why the beauty standards change. You have to be curvy, you have to be twiggy thin, you have to be whatever. It’s always going to move so that you are never.

Stephanie: So what’s the solution? Or what’s like, where do we even begin?

Jess: Yeah,

Stephanie: From your perspective.

Jess: think that that phrasing where do we even begin is the appropriate one because it’s so much more comforting to think that the problem is us because we can do something about that.

Stephanie: we control

Jess: when I start saying the problem is capitalism and patriarchy and supremacy culture, it’s like, well, what am I, what am I supposed to do about this? Right? It’s overwhelming. So the way that I explain it, I like to talk about a three tiered approach because I don’t think that there is 1 solution to this. They’re certainly not. 1st of all, part of it is rejecting that there’s 1 anything that’s part of supremacy culture is part of hustle culture is part of diet culture to convince us there’s 1 right way to do X. there is not, but we have to take it. Yes, from an individual standpoint, and sometimes that’s the easiest place to start because. We are more within our own control. So I think very first step, just starting to recognize it the same way that we would do with diet culture. Recognize it when what someone else says is really a reflection of that hustle and that never good enough scarcity space. Recognize when that thought is coming up for you. And we can use some of those same coaching techniques, therapeutic techniques, whether it’s cognitive behavioral techniques, whether it’s mindfulness based techniques, whatever it is that that works for you to start not judging them and reframing them. so, so starting with yourself can be a comforting, more like realistic doable place. It’s, it’s not going to end there because it can be just as easy to burn out when, you know, you start working, realizing that the system is completely antithetical to what you believe in and yet you still have to exist in it. So we do have to go extra layers and extra steps. But starting with yourself can be helpful.

Stephanie: Well, I think it’s, you gotta, to some degree say, strengthen yourself in order to like re imagine the system plays on you.

Jess: I think strengthen and soften ourselves. yes, we need resilience because this is not something that’s going to be fixed by 1 person. And it’s not going to be fixed anytime soon or changed anytime soon as maybe a better way of phrasing that. and so we do need some resilience and coping skills and the ability to withstand the stressors and the injustices and the frustrations.

Jess: And. We also need the compassion and the softening and the not again, I think we get in this hustle mentality of there’s something wrong. I have to do something about it. There’s something wrong. I have to work. I have a goal. I have to move into it. We’re always in this future oriented. Action oriented, goal oriented space. So part of the healing is understanding when we need to pace ourselves. Understand when we’re not going to do it well, or, when we are going to fall back into hustle mentality. Right? when we need to take breaks and be kind and gentle. Right? so I think it’s, it’s both of those things.

Stephanie: Well, as you’re saying that, what I’m seeing is the ultimate goal, I guess, of nervous system kneeling, which is the capacity to be flexible, right? To take the highs and the lows and to come back to

Jess: yeah. And we also have to recognize that it’s same thing with like social justice warriors and all of these things. You are one person and you are trying to address centuries of the world operating under certain assumptions and with certain people in power who are not going to want to give up their power. And so we have to know. When fight quote unquote, and when to just exist as a human, right? Like we can’t fight every battle. And I think, especially if you are someone who lives with privilege, sometimes there’s a lot of like layered guilt and shame. And like, I have to always correct someone. I have to always say the right thing. I have to always be acting towards this because for so long, people like me didn’t say anything and that’s going to burn you out. In and of itself, right? Again, it’s that always on. So being very aware of how sneaky that hustle mentality is and how it slips into our own self care work, our own self development work, right? That we have to constantly be doing better. No, sometimes you can coast. Sometimes you can drop the ball, right? Sometimes you can just like chill and be an imperfect, messy person.

Stephanie: So one of the ways you help people is supervision. So I want you to explain, because in the coaching world and even to some degree other counseling world, supervision is not, is not present or not that understood, but I know it’s very well inbred into dietician. So what is supervision generally?

Jess: I will say it’s not very well ingrained in dietitian. Oh, I wish that’s my dream reality. it’s not there yet. I see it more prevalent in therapy spaces, but it is all about holding space. So it’s not about telling or teaching or guiding. It’s about being a constant in someone else’s life where they’re not here to be your therapist, right? Like I’m not qualified to do that, but I understand being a dietitian. I understand the specifics that my colleagues are going through in particular, and I am here to validate. And hold space and let you show up and be vulnerable because. There’s a lot of pressure to show up and have the answers and be the expert and have it all figured out because, you know, you, you want to make sure that you’re well cared for and that your clients aren’t worried that they have to attend to your needs while, you know, you’re trying to help them so supervision is the space where that happens. Can be case consultations of like, Hey, this is happening with one of my clients and I don’t know if I handled it well, or it’s bringing up these uncomfortable feelings in me. What do I do with that? So it can be that it can be I’m feeling really burnt out. I’m feeling like I’m losing my mind. I’m feeling like things are spiraling out. Can we talk about it? Right? so it’s not. It’s not very goal oriented all the time, or like, fix it oriented, it’s more learning how to sit, and be, and regulate, and just have someone who sees you and hears you for who you are.

Stephanie: So I’m seeing a midpoint between therapy and

Jess: yes. Yes.

Stephanie: It’s like it’s the midpoint between goal oriented and full on counseling world.

Jess: I’m not going to go into past trauma that you have, right? Like, that is beyond my scope. I might suggest, if that’s going on, that you pair this work with therapy. so I’m not going to unpack all of that with you, but I can help you develop compassion for yourself. I can help you get in touch with your values. I can help you see the toxic systems that you’re working in and remove some of that self blame and, and doubt. so that’s more of the, the supervisor’s role.

Stephanie: And do you supervise beyond dietician

Jess: I personally haven’t. I have had therapists and, other kind of allied health professionals in group supervision calls before. But I haven’t one on one, primarily because, you know, I, I, again, I think that it can be very beneficial to have someone specifically in your field.

Stephanie: in your

Jess: exactly. Because again, Everyone’s a little different. Like, if I taught, I have a therapist, and I can talk to my therapist about the stressors in my work, and I do, but she’s not aware of the exact culture of dietetics. Whereas, I don’t have to, like, no one has to explain that to me. I get it. I live in it. And while there are so many parallels across, helping professionals, where there’s a lot of cultural similarities, There are going to be distinctions in each one, so I would love to see it where we have supervisors in all health professions. That being said, I wouldn’t be 100 percent opposed to it. but I, I think that the end goal is to have people who really, really get it intimately with where you’re coming from.

Stephanie: Yeah, I think the word get it, this is the thing about supervision.

Jess: exactly. because it’s not this top down. I have the answers and I’m giving them to you. It really is that, like, we’re sitting on a level playing field. I’m just here to bring things out in you to ask you the right questions to get you thinking about things. So, while I can do that with any. Profession. I’ve got the experience in dietetics personally.

Stephanie: Okay. That’s been a very powerful conversation. when we talk about burnout, is there any angle of it that I missed that I didn’t ask you a question about that you would like to bring forward?

Jess: The only thing that I will say that I haven’t, we haven’t really discussed is, and it’s a big one. So it might just be like a, Hey, you might want to look into too on your own. In addition to compassion, fatigue and burnout, there is a concept called moral injury or moral distress. And it is by far the thing that I think we mistake for burnout the most, or we call burnout, and it’s originally coined with, war veterans with PTSD and witnessing or participating in immoral acts that conflict with your values. More and more, they’re studying it with healthcare providers. Particularly if you provide health care within, for example, like the U. S., very capitalist based system, where everything is based on the bottom line and ROI, and it almost feels like we become disconnected from being able to truly help people the way that we can. Thank you. Want to help them. It happens a lot with weight inclusive providers as well who are working in weight centric environments.

Stephanie: Yes.

Jess: So I want people to understand that these influences happen. And if you’re feeling that way, you’re not crazy. You’re there’s not something wrong with you. This is us existing in a system. That isn’t really well suited for the work that we are so passionate about doing.

Stephanie: Or that is misaligned with your personal value. Because as you’re like, you’re saying that it’s like the flash are going up in my of all the people, particularly in the non diet space. Like I was just coaching a fitness professional, it’s like work for like a big label gym. And she was asked to do things that she’s like no longer aligned with. She was at some point, she’s no longer.

Jess: it’s it’s even the same as people making assumptions about what you do when they hear that you’re a dietitian or a nutritionist or You work with body image or relationship with food They make assumptions about the work that you do and constantly having to explain it or introduce people to the concept. and feeling like again, nobody else is like. Getting it, or it’s so foreign to them. So that creates its own source of stress that isn’t discussed enough. And I would highly encourage anyone listening who is feeling that disconnect or feeling that frustration to look more into that concept as well because it, it adds an extra piece to the puzzle.

Stephanie: it names what it’s happening within you that you haven’t put a name on it. You just feel it, but you haven’t intellectualized it yet. But that’s exactly what it, that’s a lot of my

Jess: Exactly. And again, I think that when we talk about moral injury, moral distress, we start to more easily recognize that this is not a personal failing, this is a systemic failing, or at the very least, a systemic misalignment.

Stephanie: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up. How can people get more of you or experience you more?

Jess: You can check out any of my offerings at my website. Empowering dietitians dot com. I do have self paced courses and classes. They offer continuing ed for dietitians specifically, but they’re of course open. I have, physical therapists, all, all different types of individuals who, to participate in those. So they’re available. and then I have my own weekly podcast. So if you are listening to podcasts and like that, I come out with episodes for the most part on a weekly basis and they’re most of them are very reflective. I do speak to dietetics. Issues, but again, I have a lot of listeners who are not dietitians who. Very easily see the connection to what they’re doing as well. So I ask a lot of open ended questions offer a lot of thinking points for you to spend more time and kind of chew on throughout the week.

Stephanie: Think of it uh, self paced supervision session.

Jess: I try to give that similar vibe with a lot of those episodes where I’m not sitting here. Sometimes I sit here and tell you my opinion on things, but a lot of the episodes are more, let me help you think about this in a different way.

Stephanie: that’s brilliant. And because there’s not a lot of you in different

Jess: Yes.

Stephanie: there’s not a lot of us thinking that way in each of the profession.

Jess: Yeah. So, in the meantime, I’m happy to serve that gap. and I encourage you within your own professions, start these conversations, start looking into what supervision is in other professions and how we can incorporate this and, and really make it more accessible for all of us.

Stephanie: and have that systemic conversation, that misalignment of value conversation in all the profession because it’s happening

Jess: Absolutely. Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.

Stephanie: Thank you very much Jess for being with us

Jess: Of course. It was my pleasure.

 

 

 

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86-Non-Diet Coaches Success Stories Vol.5

86-Non-Diet Coaches Success Stories Vol.5

Non-Diet Coaches Success Stories Vol.5

Non-Diet Coaches Success Stories Vol.5

The Non-Diet Coaching Certification of Cohort #8 have recorded a video for you….

We chatted about their personal and professional wins over the last five months for student of cohort #8 We discussed  the role of mindset work and learning how to coach professionally in their personal and professional lives.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on Non-Diet Coaches Success Stories Vol.5:

  • Personal and professional learnings & wins over the last  months
  • The role of Cognitive Behavioural Coaching in their success
  • How they coach their clients using CBC
  • They answer submitted question from listeners

 

Mentioned in the show:

How to Become A Non-Diet Coach Masterclass

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Connect with our guests:

Instagram – Kate Stone

Website – Kate Stone

Instagram – Candy Wright

Website – Candy Wright

Instagram – Makenna Laventure

Website – Makenna Laventure

 

Transcript

86-Non-Diet Coaches Success Stories Vol.5

===

Stephanie: Welcome to the special edition of the podcast. I have three wonderful human being with me today. So this is going to be a threesome interview. and I’ve brought these, wonderful human with me to discuss their journey in the non diet coaching certification over the last Nearly five months that we’ve been together so they can share their experience with you. And we’ve got questions that have been submitted over the last couple of weeks of things that you want to know, from them. So I’ll be asking those questions as well. But before we get started, I would love for each. Of these human to introduce themselves. So, you know, who’s taking part in a conversation. It’s okay. Do you want to get us started?

Kate: Sure. Hi, everyone. I’m Kate Williams stone and I’m a non diet health and life coach for perimenopause. Amazing.

Candy: I’m Candy Wright. I am a body acceptance and life coach for, postmenopausal women.

McKenna: Hi, I’m McKenna LaVenture, and I’m a non diet coach with an area of focus on body image and intuitive eating.

Stephanie: Okay, so let’s get started right with the question that I think is going to set the tone for this interview. You’ve been Working closely with me for 5 months, and we’ve been doing a lot of coaching, learning intuitive eating and body image and learning cognitive behavioral coaching. What would you see as your biggest learning over the last 5 months in this journey inside of this program?

McKenna: that’s an easy answer for me. It’s learning to trust myself and know that I do have the answers.

Candy: That’s good. That is really good. Love that. I love questions like this because it always feels like you gotta say one thing and I can’t say.

Stephanie: Say many things and can’t.

Candy: The trust is a huge one. I mean, the whole point of this program is to create our inner trust and inner autonomy. And we start that with the intuitive eating and the body image stuff.

Candy: And it’s. So powerful. So good. And I would just add a couple of things that kind of have been so personal to me. your just background with feminism and helping us understand that this is a collective challenge that women have gone through, making it a collective challenge just. enables, I think it enabled me and I think it can enable so many other women to realize that all these judgments that we’ve had, the not trusting ourselves we had, it’s not a personal problem.

Candy: And that was really big for me. It just understanding that, you know what, we’ve been conditioned this way. What if we just start to kind of give that back and stop making it be something’s wrong with us and then connected to that conditioning always thinking that we have to fix and then going into perfectionism that whole kind of. Mixture has been the biggest piece pieces for me is what if there’s nothing to fix? What if that’s conditioning?

Candy: Right? That’s been huge. I’m sure we could talk the whole hour about what we learned. Those are some of the ones that have really touched me.

Kate: Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think for me, the biggest learning has been the body image and the nervous system piece. Because I was coaching intuitive eating before, but the piece that was missing was the body image piece, right? Like the root cause of dieting is the body image piece, the body image struggles, the wanting to fix their body, change your body. And so previously I was like, so scared to address that with my clients, but I also think with myself.

Kate: And so now having it all interconnected, the intuitive eating. The body image piece and then the nervous system piece that we go so deeply on, in body image has really made a dramatic change for me personally, but also in my coaching.

Stephanie: So I’m going to build on that question for all of you. We kind of globalize what your biggest learning is, but one of the. And one of the thing that I prone is embodiment, right, and how we bring this content to other women to change, as Candy said, the collective. But what have you seen personally changed the most in your life? And please share what you’re comfortable sharing to the public. But how have you changed in your personal life as a result of As you said, Kate, learning about the nervous system, mindset, what have you observed to be the biggest win in your personal journey of embodying this work?

Candy: I’m just going to jump in here because as soon as you started to say the question, I started to get tears in my eyes, to be honest, so I’m just going to be really authentic here. it’s just been really touching to,mentioned in the last 1 to really consider that there might not be anything to fix.

Candy: That really, truly, I, like so many women struggled with judging my body, judging food and controlling my body with food. And I didn’t realize it until I was over 50. And I know I’m not the only 1, and so this big, beautiful, kind of explosion inside of me has been, it’s okay to love the now body.

Candy: It’s okay to not conform. I didn’t realize how much safety of conformity that I had used that I’d relied on all my life. again, I can’t just pick 1. But all I can say is, as you ask that question, my eyes welled up with gratitude because it’s so deep. The change that has happened from the inside out.

Candy: And I think the feeling or the emotion result has been just a different kind of piece that is no longer run by what felt like I’m not good enough, right? I’m not good enough because I don’t fit into the conditioning and then every week that we’re on our calls. I say the same thing. I’m like, I’m getting like, all kinds of neural pathways blown up here. So that’s what I have to say.

Stephanie: Thank you for sharing that and being vulnerable. You’re welcome.

McKenna: Sorry, I’m not, I actually don’t know how to put this into words, but I’d say there’s these feelings of content and just being okay with what is. There’s a newfound sense of gratitude. It’s like I’ve opened up something else inside me or found something and I’ll even share that my therapist commented on it yesterday and told me that She’s noticed there’s been a change in how I feel things in my body and that clearly I’ve been doing somatic work on my own and that I’m really like in tune with myself and she thought it was the coolest thing of how she’s seen me transform over the last few months.

Stephanie: You know, that’s beautiful, because it just shows that it’s not about coaching versus therapy. The magic comes when both come together. Without, I didn’t even know you had a therapist, but clearly coaching helped your therapy work. And your therapy work helped coaching as well. Yes, exactly. It’s not one or the other, it’s both together.

Stephanie: Exactly.

Kate: Yeah. I think for me, it’s this, like Candy and McKenna both shared, but like this, this new sense of peace. Like I didn’t know how much, like perfectionism and anxiety were running the show. I kind of had accepted it as this is just. Like how I am or like my personality or my genetics. I don’t know what I thought it was related to, but I was like, this is just it, you know, and also looking at like role models of other women in my family. I’m like, we’re just a nervous bunch. That’s it. You know, and instead, there’s like a new, sense of like peace and reduced anxiety, but not from, I used to think that reducing anxiety was about like getting it right or like having things in order. And I think that’s the, like having my own back, trusting myself. Knowing that if I make a mistake or fail that I’m not going to beat myself up, like that’s the piece that was missing. So it’s like a whole new approach to the anxiety and perfectionism that I hadn’t, I didn’t even see it before.

Stephanie: As you share that, the thing that comes to my mind is we don’t know what we don’t know. Yeah. So we think. You used to think that anxious Kate was just Kate. Yeah, I didn’t now that you felt different. You’re like, oh, there’s this other place that I can be that what I thought was normal is actually just anxiety. So let me, and I’m going to roll off to the next question. How does that impact the business version of you, the CEO version of you, the marketing version of you? Like how is what you just shared Kate and everyone has shown up in your business? Cause that’s always the question. That I get because people think of business in a very has to be this way, like the bro marketing way, but I believe there’s another way of doing business. Go ahead. McKenna. You raised your hand. Yes. I want to say something.

McKenna: I mean, I’ll like what you spoke on. I thought there was like, a specific way I needed to do things and was constantly looking for, answers or I’m sure myself and I just. Started to trust myself essentially is what happened and didn’t rush myself to, like, try to create things and do things. And honestly, the most engagement I’ve gotten is through telling my story.

Stephanie: So, you just discovered that you can do business differently at your own pace and that’s where success is.

McKenna: Yeah, essentially, I personally don’t think it comes to posting specific times a week or, certain times a day or 24 7. I think it honestly lies with me, being authentic.

Stephanie: Being you. Mm hmm. Thank you for sharing.

Candy: I see my business as a different. Like type of container now, like this framework that you’ve introduced us to as like goals, being a container to become this new version of yourself. So like any marketing effort I make or content creation in my business, it’s like, how can I serve people? And how is this also serving me versus being like a way to rate myself, right? Like I think I used to use my business like I did the scale, right? Like my business is successful if it makes X many of dollars X many clients, like this is how I’m going to be successful. And. And now I’m like, I will meet myself in my business, however, right. And I’m not going to use it as another tool to beat myself up.

Stephanie: That’s profound. Yeah. It’s a whole new perspective. What has been so since you’ve molded this new way of thinking about your business as your output of service been different quality or quantity?

Kate: Yeah, it has been different. I mean, just the shift in mindset from. going into a consultation call, am I a good coach? Will she like me? Can I show her that I’m a good coach, right? Those were the previous thoughts. And now I’m showing up in a way of like, how can I serve her? how can I be of service? How can I be of help? And then trusting the process that this person will hear what they need to hear today, and I don’t like, I don’t need to perform. I don’t need to like over deliver to prove my worth.

Stephanie: And one last question, because I’ve noticed that about you, you’ve been putting a lot more I’m not sure if you’re calling them training or classes or master classes, but you’ve been out putting more to meet people. Does it feel easier than before?

Kate: It does. Yeah, like anything that we practice, the more I do it, the easier it gets. But I also

Kate: am, counting like the success in a different way, right? Like in the past, like I did a webinar last week, right? And in the past, the success would have been how many people RSVP, how many people show up, how many people book consultation calls. And instead I was like, I’m going to host this because I want to do it for myself and how I show up for myself and be brave and meet myself in all those moments where I want to talk myself out of doing it. And I had many of those moments. No, like I told my coach in this program, I was like, I think I want to pretend I’m sick and just cancel it. And I’m like, Oh, I guess that’s fear, so how do I meet myself in the fear and feel that versus pretending I’m sick and canceling or postponing it. And you know, so I met myself in that container and then also just showing up in that webinar, like people are going to hear what they need to hear today. And I’m going to trust that. My perspective on health might not be for everybody and that’s okay. There are other people out there, you know, but just being of service in that hour and trusting the right people will be there.

Stephanie: That’s beautiful. And that’s, that’s why anxiety is reduced. Yeah, it’s not a secret, right?

Stephanie: How about you, Candy? Business.

Candy: I think the biggest shift for me is. And this might sound counter, but there’s no more, survival energy urgency for me. And so, I think I like to compare it to the intuitive eating pendulum process. Right. We go one way, you know, cause the pendulum, when you start the intuitive eating process and you take away your, or you start rejecting diet, rules, et cetera, the brain is like, but there’s only black and white thinking the pendulation process from one side to the other.

Candy: Right. I feel like that was kind of how I, was in my business before it was always just okay. I had all this energy and this momentum and, you know, this determination until I worked out. And coming through this process, it’s really helped me be like, it’s again, the nervous system regulation and, the urgency to produce is no longer there. I think that can also, you know, I’ve been afraid of getting stuck there, but I think for me where I’m at, in learning to trust myself, I needed this, I need this piece of the process. I need to be able to go to 1 side and then to the other. So, for me, the biggest piece is a lack of that anxious kind of Kate was saying that anxious survival, urgency got to do this, got to push, got to push, got to push.

Candy: Right? And so I’ve been giving my nervous system the time that it needs to honestly heal after a five year stint of like pushing, pushing, pushing. And, it’s scary. Honestly, it’s been scary. It’s been scary. This is not, a process for, A lack of courage, right? This is a process that requires courage.

Candy: So that’s probably been the biggest one for me is just allowing myself to have the time to really get to a place where I feel regulated and, and in alignment. Because I can push and I can do the things and be a great coach, but I needed another level of alignment. I needed another level of nervous system regulation. So I’m still going through that process, honestly.

Candy: Stephanie: I love the analogy. Because that’s like the, I don’t want to say the other way of business, but the, I’ll call it the traditional way of thinking about a coaching business.

Stephanie: Go, go, go, go, go. It’s like the restricted side of like eating, like you just got to go, go, go 150%, 150%. You’re going to make three, six figure, and you’re going to make 300, 000 and 400, 000. And you’ve got to go up, up, up, up, up. Like it’s constantly high, high, high energy. And that’s not human.

Candy: No, but I love the parallel that you just drew there. that is totally restrictive. oh my gosh, I can’t eat carbs. Oh my gosh, I can’t eat this. I might even die of diet control. Until you burn out and your body’s girl, we can’t do that. Right?

Stephanie: Yeah. And it’s going to the other side of doing nothing. Quote, unquote, binging. the other side of the pendulum. And now you’re like, well, can I trust myself to not do anything? And want to do something again. Exactly. Right? And you can’t. You just got to build that safety of being able to do nothing and then do something and then do nothing and then do something to the point where you come into a place where your business is just consistent all the time. It’s not on, off, on, off, on, off all the time. But it takes that trust and that regulation to be able to output consistently, safely. Did you want to add anything now you raise your hand?

McKenna: Yeah, I do. I know I keep raising my hand, but that would also be 1 of my learnings of this course is because I clearly was, I was conditioned like, that’s the society we live in.

McKenna: Right? But I thought I had to work. All hours of the day, and then felt guilt if I would only work a few hours and do something else with my time, but there is proof that it works because I can take time away and then come back and find myself being more successful and enjoying myself more and there’s ideas flowing and it just feels right versus forcing myself to do it.

Stephanie: I want to bring you guys to another topic. That’s often. where people, professional and coaches get stuck is that when they discover intuitive eating or body image or the non diet approach or a different way of doing business, there’s this phase where people are resentful from what they learned in the past. Either in their degree or why has nobody told me that I’ve wasted thousands of dollars and getting this master degree and like it doesn’t or I’ve wasted 100, 000 on this coach and this mastermind have you felt that resentment that regret? And how, what would you like to share with somebody who’s there right now? Candy is like all over this.

Candy: I think it’s so important to understand that part of this process can absolutely include a grieving process. And so when you talk about resentment, that’s part of the grief cycle, I think, because the, you know, one of the first stages is Anger and along with the anger will come resentment. And I remember when I first started, the program with you, cause I only found you like, I don’t know, a couple, two, three weeks before the program started. So I hadn’t heard a lot of your stuff. And, and I just went into this, what’s not, I was so angry. I was so angry that I had been conditioned and I felt duped and I went into this just Visceral experience and oh, yeah, there was a bunch of resentment, right? A bunch of resentment and I recognized pretty quickly. Oh, gosh, this feels like a grief cycle. And then the grief started coming in and then just the beauty of the work that we do and how you know, you obviously teach the emotional processing stuff. I trusted everything and the emotions have processed through. I am not angry like I used to be. I’m not resentful. Does it pop up every now and again when I see things online? Yeah. But another beautiful thing that I’ve learned with you is that’s part of it too. More of this acceptance, right? And so I feel like I’m much more closer to this acceptance. And I do want to say one thing just because I know how I am in health.

Candy: Lot of women are this is not about getting to a certain end point. That’s another beautiful thing that I’ve learned with you It’s no like fear of weight stigma is gonna come up fear of this is gonna come up fear that and we’re not trying To eradicate any of it. We’re trying to process through it We’re working to create acceptance and so that’s kind of how I see it is just a grief cycle and getting to more of this place of acceptance so that we can actually learn the lesson so that we are more connected to our inner wisdom, our inner truth, prefrontal cortex, and we can hear the lessons.

Stephanie: Anyone else wants to add?

McKenna: I would just say, I think I processed it like months before I started this Course most of it, like the resentment, the anger because I was on my own journey for a while with body image intuitive eating until I found this for my business and myself clearly. But it, how would I put it? I think for me, the biggest thing that shifted and changed was I eventually came to a place which started happening before I joined the course was everything has brought me to this moment. And it’s all part of the journey for me, I could spend my life resentful that I did these things, but in the long run, it’s not going to help me at all. And it did get me to where I am today.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s the ultimate place, right? Nothing has happened for no reason. Exactly.

Stephanie: You want to add anything, Kate?

Kate: Yeah, you know, I don’t think I had the resentment and anger when I started this program because I had been immersed in the non diet intuitive eating perspective. So that piece wasn’t. New information. And I had actually aligned myself with what I would call like ethical business coaches. So I felt good about that. so I didn’t have to go through that stage when we first started, but the piece, like the reason I made the decision to work with you, I mean, I started binging your podcast, I think like a year, year and a half ago before I did the certification and So I think part of it was wanting to have a greater impact on my clients and like really have the process in, and feeling really confident in knowing how to help them.

Kate: that was my reason for signing up. And I just. I’m the opposite of candy. I take a while to make a decision. So like I needed to listen to hours of podcasts and do one course and then another mastermind and then do it.

Candy: Not always.

Kate: Okay, but I’m a long term decision maker like well, but also I was at the point in my business where I’m like, I’m not going to haphazardly spend money. Trying to fix myself, I’m going to find the right coach for this right season in my business and match us up. So I think that was part of my deliberate researched decision making process. so I felt really good coming into this. Certification

Stephanie: and I just want to guide the listener, even though you’re a professional listening to this and they’re professional talking. We’re still human purchasing a product. So, now you’ve just heard 2 different brain. Thinking about a purchase differently. Guess what? You have that in your business. You have different brain trying to work with you and 1 is going to take 2 years. 1 is going to take 3 weeks. Right.

McKenna: Yeah. or 24 hours if you’re me, who spends,

Stephanie: or 24 hours.

Stephanie: Mm-Hmm. , you know, like, but it’s

Kate: just the proof to a while, but your stuff was just, I had it. It was what my heart was searching for, and so it was ready. And I love that you’re pointing this out. This is so true. People are going to be at different parts of their being when they’re ready to make decisions.

Stephanie: And so, and this is important to understand that Kate talked about why she joined and she outlined the reason why she joined and it’s different for all of you. So, do you mind sharing why you joined? Like, what was your decision and then candy so everybody can see there’s a different perspective

McKenna: for sure. Well, the 1st time I my gosh, I bet you I came across Stephanie stuff like a year and a half ago or something. Yeah, it was at least a year ago because it was somehow a friend actually send it to me, but I did 1 of your core workshops last December and it was in that session that I said 1 day I want to work with this lady. one day I’m going to work with her. When? I don’t know. When will this be recorded? I don’t know, but I was, yeah. And then, well, the spring came around this year, and I finished my degree, and I was like, I’m not too sure what I’m doing. I felt kind of lost, but I knew there had to be another way to do business. And I knew I wanted to shift my business from the beginning. I knew I wanted to help people with food, their relationship. to food in their body. I just didn’t know how and I’d taken things in the past was promised the world It always fell short still didn’t know how to coach people And then that’s when I got pointed towards stephanie After reaching out to another coach and I was like, okay, like I guess I gotta do it Like this is like a sign This is the only option out there for me to change the way I coach

Stephanie: And so I want to say to people listening to this. This is a referral Way, she was referred by one of my former words of mouth, right? Somebody who graduated, like, 2 years ago. She talked to her and then referred her to me. So that’s another model.

McKenna: And I will say I followed that coach and was loving what she was doing and was like, how did you get there? And then she told me and then I signed up within, I think it was 24 hours. I said, yes.

Stephanie: Yeah, so Sherry’s story of your client works. How about you Candy? What made you say yes?

Candy: I had started my business over five years ago I was a health and weight loss coach and it never felt right inside of me and a couple of years ago I started studying nervous system trauma, etc I even did a different certification program around eating psychology, but there was still something missing And I knew it in the core of me.

Candy: I knew it in my, my intuition. And, honestly, for me, my belief system, however you want to put it, like God, the universe, whatever. I don’t know where I found you. Something came up in a feed somewhere. And I went and I looked at it and I was like, Oh, this is the missing piece. Why I didn’t feel aligned.

Candy: So the reason I joined was because something wasn’t right inside. Like I knew and when I started to hear, Oh my gosh, it’s because we’ve been so conditioned and understanding the feminism piece and understanding the history of controlling women’s bodies, I was like, no wonder. So it was just an internal longing for understanding why it didn’t feel aligned for me.

Candy: And honestly, those couple of days I was texting you about this program and about to sign, my heart was like. This is what you’ve been waiting for. I know it sounds a little dramatic, but like this is what you’ve been longing for over five years, the why it hasn’t felt aligned. And so I had a full body intuitive yes, like, ah, yes, you know what I mean?

Candy: It was very quick for me to, because I had been going through this process, I think this, and also I’m a postmenopausal woman and. part of this new transition into the next phase of life is what I want to even like spend my time on. I do not have any more anything, any more, like people like to say F’s to give, right?

Candy: To put energy into anything that doesn’t feel aligned anymore. And so when I came across this, I was like, holy cow, this is why. So that’s why I said yes. And it did connect to helping my people. Absolutely. it was very personal too though. I really wanted to feel that alignment and understand why I hadn’t.

Stephanie: So give the background for people listening. This is a, we’re talking about texting DM conversation, but it’s not me co pitching you. You came to me, you asked very specific question. I took the time to answer your question. I didn’t rush you into a decision. I let it be the way it is. That’s ethical selling. I used the DM conversation, but I didn’t like co pitch you, force you into it. We just naturally human to human had a conversation via text and then you made your decision.

Candy: Exactly. And I really appreciated that. And I really noticed that difference in the way you interacted with me. There’s another reason I was like, okay, she’s doing things differently in business too. So I was like, ah. I got to get on in on this. Yeah.

Stephanie: And I just want to say there’s the reason why we do things differently in business. And the reason why I teach differently in business is because when you’ve. Understood how the system work, not only with diet culture, weight and body, but with how the system interact with women. You don’t have a choice, but to do things differently. And when you’re regulated as an individual, there’s no way. So if you’re listening to this and you’re like, all the things I’ve been taught about business don’t feel good anymore. They feel yucky. I don’t want to do them. It’s probably because you’ve you’ve healed yourself.

Stephanie: You’re regulated and the old way of doing business doesn’t match who you are anymore because you don’t have a choice to show up differently in your business when you’re aligned and regulated. I think that’s what you said. Candy, like the whole pendulum thing, like, the more work you did on yourself, the old way, like the extreme way didn’t work anymore.

Stephanie: 100%. Yeah. We’re going to wrap this up because I committed to keep that. Consumable for people and respecting the listeners time. I just want your parting word to somebody who’s listening to this. Perhaps that were where you were, what would you say to them?

Candy: I’m a different person and I like who I am and I’m so grateful. And if it feels like it resonates for your heart and soul, trust yourself, trust yourself.

Kate: Yeah, similar message. I mean, just listen to your gut, listen to your body, right? That’s the embodiment practice and take a deep breath and check in. And if it feels right, can feel right. And it can feel scary at the same time. But if it feels right, then I mean, I. Have no regrets. I’m so glad and so proud that I said yes, and I’m also glad that I waited the year and a half and found when the time was right, you know, and there’s no scarcity thinking and like doors are open. They’re about to close. You have to sign up now. you know, if right now is not the time for you in six months, maybe it is or a year, you know, and that’s the beauty of how you run your business too. So, yeah.

McKenna: I’ve taken other courses in the past and honestly, they’ve like promised the world or I thought they’re going to be the answer to making my business what I want it to be and it didn’t happen until this course, but my biggest takeaway is I’ve learned to trust myself and I would just like, say to someone, if you’re really feeling that pull towards the course, Then to do it because you’re not going to regret it. I really don’t think you will. Yeah.

Stephanie: Thank you. The 3 of you for sharing your time with me and people who are listening to this today. Tomorrow. 2 years from now. Thank you very much. And for people listening, we’ve linked in the show notes. the name and the links of the individual that recorded the podcast today so you can go to the show note and find them there and how they’re coming out into the world. So, thank you for having sharing this time with us. Ladies. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Stephanie: To our podcast production team, we’re going to end the podcast here. The rest of the recording will be our regular session, so you can end your production of the podcast right here.

Stephanie: And now we’re beginning the one on one session. I have to run to the bathroom. Oh, yeah, you go. The coffee needs to get out, eh? How was this experience, McKenna? That was your first podcast. How did that felt for you? Oh, I liked it. Just conversation.

McKenna: Yeah, someone once told me maybe I’d be, that’d be my route, this is a different business thing, but I was talking about things, they’re like, you sound like someone who would like a podcast, and I was like, Okay, I’m just going to leave that there, let’s pretend you didn’t say that, but I actually really knew I did.

McKenna: I also enjoy listening to them and, hearing a real human

Kate: speak of their experience. Without being scripted. Yes. Yeah, exactly. It takes a lot of, I just want to say it takes a lot of courage to have an open ended conversation like this without scripting what people are going to say about you or your program.

Kate: Yeah. Because many podcasts will only select the people, they won’t invite broadly people, they’ll select their, what they categorize as their best student, and they will script what they want to say. Like it’s all about the control, where for me it’s about letting you speak your truth, and your truth is what other people need to hear.

Kate: Now as far podcast for yourself, It’s really easy these days. It’s not complicated. If you go into the portal under, the marketing section, there is two classes on how to start a podcast. There’s a class on me showing you how to think about a podcast and what to put in it. And then there’s a class from Kim who shows you how to use the tool called Buzzsprout, which is a platform for podcasting that allows you to broadcast your podcast and edit your podcast.

Kate: Okay. So all you need is. It’s a decent microphone that can be bought for a hundred bucks on Amazon. Like it doesn’t have to be complicated because remember our podcasts, there’s two ways to think about a podcast. There’s a income generating podcast that is generating income based on advertiser. Usually the top ranking podcasts on platforms are, income producing.

Kate: That’s a lot more complicated and it takes a lot of lining up sponsors and topics and guests and all of that. And then there’s your podcast being your marketing tool, like me. There’s no sponsors. It’s low cost production and intro music, words, that’s it. There’s no complication. And then that’s a marketing tool.

Kate: It’s you being you and then clients wanting to work with you use the marketing, the podcast as a way of making their decision to work with you. And that costs very little, maybe cost I don’t know, a podcast feed. 20 bucks a month, the cost of your microphone, and your time.

Kate: So, it’s a great marketing tool if you are capable of speaking your truth.

Kate: So, it becomes really easy. You just grab your microphone and you say words. It just takes a lot of ability to be you. And I think you’re there. So it’s just a matter of… And the other thing I want to say about podcasts, before I let you go on this topic, is again, you don’t have to produce all the time.

Kate: Some of the most… Some of my student most efficient podcasts have been, like, 10 podcast episodes, they produce 10 podcast episode, they put it on a feed, and they’re constantly sending traffic there when people make a decision to work with them, they go to the, it doesn’t have to be every week or twice a week, because you don’t work with sponsor, you don’t have production, You don’t have to produce so much, so just make it what you need it to be, not what the industry says it has to be.

Kate: Okay, so we’re here for coaching then.

Kate: Okay, who do I have today for one on one coaching? I have McKenna and I have Candy on the docket for today. Is there one of you that want to go first?

Kate: And we may have, we may not use the full 90 minutes today. I don’t feel you need to talk. did somebody raise their hand.

Liz: Talk about a couple of little things I would like to talk about this pendulation process. then I’m going through, and I also had kind of an emotional thing with family happened this weekend.

Liz: So, as I was talking about it on the podcast just a few minutes ago, the pendulation process, I don’t have a lot of desire to do anything, Stephanie, I really don’t. When you were talking about podcasts right now, I felt a tiny bit of Ooh, that sounds fun. And that’s the first time that something sounded like fun or interesting about business.

Liz: Yeah. And so I’m just kind of, I’m in this present moment right now realizing, well, maybe do that then. You know what I mean? Because I’m really still in this place of, I don’t want to be online,

Liz: but I like the idea of being on a podcast. So, long story short, I have several thoughts of I don’t even know if I want to do this anymore. And, part of it is some of the old programming around everybody in here is like a certified dietician, nutritionist, and I am not, there’s some like less than thoughts in there.

Liz: but there’s also some of what I said on the podcast was like, I just don’t have the energy to do anything that I don’t want to do anymore. Or like I choose to, I don’t want to do anything that doesn’t, that just doesn’t feel good anymore. So I was kind of interested, just as you were saying that two seconds ago, podcast, I’m like, Ooh, that actually sounds kind of interesting.

Liz: So I’m just holding myself in that there’s a lot kind of just all over the place there. But I think right now my brain’s making it a problem that I have no desire and it’s painful.

Kate: So my, my, where I’d like to bring you what you said that’s very interesting is I have no desire to do what I don’t want to do.

Kate: So is there a belief that in order to have a business, you must do what you don’t want to do?

Liz: Yeah, post a lot.

Kate: you know, think about food, right? So, often people, before they come to us, they have this idea of what, not dieting is, which is the fat woman, the typical fat woman eating donut with food coming out of her mouth.

Kate: Right? that’s the visual of not dieting, that they’ve been programmed to think by society. it’s either you’re dieting and you’re working towards losing weight, or you’re eating doughnuts all day long and you’re just disgusted. thing human being like spilling food out of our mouth. Do you get what I’m saying?

Liz: 100 percent 100 percent

Kate: So if you were in the past sold the idea that doing business must be go, is it possible that you don’t know? To your first set. That’s what I got all

Liz: the time. Gotta hustle to your first 100k.

Kate: Yeah, so is it possible that the only way you can think about business is that way you’re like, I don’t want to do this. Therefore, I don’t want to do business. Sure,

Liz: I believe there’s some of that in there for sure. Yeah, I and as you were talking, I noticed just a little bit of emotion of just being fearful.

Liz: this feels so curious. I’m just noticing all these things coming up as I’m talking. There’s fear in there. And I felt also a lack of self trust because I got so good at that other way and it’s what my nervous system knew. And so, I feel almost like a little kid in this new, this new idea of it can be done differently.

Liz: And I’m really afraid. It’s really curious.

Kate: Yeah. So what’s interesting is you just said it’s curiosity, but it’s also fear of doing it another way because I was so good the other way. The question is, were you really that good if you burnt out?

Liz: I mean, that’s the story I tell myself, right? Because I got over 100k and I had all these clients and yeah.

Liz: I hate the sex markers, you know,

Kate: whatever those things. So the question is that it’s also about what is, here’s the other thing. So you don’t know how to do it another way. So you’re kind of don’t know. So you’re like, I don’t want business. Is it that I don’t want business? So I don’t want to do it the way I know how to do it.

Kate: And the other thing is. Why do you want a business? It sound based on what you’re talking that having a business is just about making money. Can there be another why to a business? Yeah. Yeah.

Liz: I mean, I didn’t get into it for that reason. I always wanted to help people with emotions and mental

Kate: health.

Kate: So is it, is having a business, is it possible that having a business can just be the vehicle of service?

Liz: Oh, yes. And I really want to have that feel embodied. That’s the desire. And there’s fear in the way.

Kate: Right. So that means this whole whatever six figure thing gets like completely taken off. Because if the goal of having a business is service, then having three clients, you’ve achieved your goal.

Liz: It’s putting them. Weight loss on the back burner. This is what I’m hearing you say.

Kate: Sure, if you want to see it this way.

Liz: You’d think I was on my period, but that doesn’t happen anymore.

Liz: that’s the thing that just came up. It’s like putting the 100k on the back burner, putting the weight loss on the back burner, we’re just releasing it, right?

Liz: I can see that connection.

Kate: So is that’s the question we need to answer when this is very specific to somebody who’s been indoctrinated in the whole 6 figures, 6 months,more money like this. This is unfortunately the most common way of, Thinking about business and believing about business so if you’ve been indoctrinated into that.

Kate: It’s you have to rebuild your belief system around business completely. Right.

Kate: Is then, if business is not about making 100K, then 200K, then half a million, and then a million, if that’s not why, then is it worth it?

Kate: Is if you think about it another way money versus service in the old paradigm,

Kate: can it move to neutrality and can it move that service is more important than money. And is that a motivator for you to record the podcast to go to the networking meeting to invite people into consultation?

Liz: I think it could be. I mean, that’s what my heart has always wanted to be in dealing with service and I mean. When I was doing it before, I was doing my best to do that because that’s just who my heart is, you know, but I had that kind of toxic other stuff indoctrinated as well. That’s another reason why it’s still aligned.

Liz: Right.

Kate: And so think about like your service got corrupted with capitalism, right? Like you were coming in at it. Well, you were coming at it from service, but this, the normalized capitalism money at all costs corrupted the file of service. So now it’s just about cleaning up the file of service and let it be what it needs to be and what you were meant to serve the world with.

Kate: And if that means 100K, then it means 100K. But if it means 30K, 50K, it takes you four years, It’s also okay.

Kate: No, that’s useful. So, here’s the other question you want to ask yourself. It’s okay to not want a business. So, imagine yourself your next 10 years. For the sake, just to put a number, what would you do with yourself? If it’s not serving and building a business that serves people. Where would you put your resources, your time?

Kate: And it’s okay if you say Netflix, if you want to watch Netflix for 10 years, like there’s nothing good or bad, you know, I need five years of Netflix. Okay, sure. Let’s do five years of Netflix.

Liz: I don’t want to do that much Netflix because I actually don’t feel good. I don’t feel good when I do. I don’t feel like I am being me and I feel shame when I watch too much

Kate: Netflix.

Kate: Oh, that’s another, we need to coach on that. There should be no shame. But do you know what I’m saying? When I’m

Liz: doing it for hours and I would rather be like loving people. That’s why, you know, it feels so good to love people.

Kate: So maybe it’s not a business. Maybe it’s a involvement in your church, becoming a priest in your church, or do you know, there’s so many ways,

Kate: but how are you going to. No matter what it is, we need to contribute into the world. Yeah. Some people contribute with a business and service. Some people contribute with helping in their religion. Some people, I don’t know, leads Girl Scout. I saw somebody posting that they are leading Girl Scout. That’s their thing.

Kate: Like their free time goes into, as a grown woman, to lead little girls. How do we contribute into the world?

Kate: Living a prosperous life, many people think it’s about making more money, but it’s not. It’s like you creating happiness right now in your life, you putting out into the world service, value, and then wealth. Prosperity is just not a million dollar in a bank account. Prosperity is your valuing and prioritizing your happiness.

Kate: Impacting the world projecting value into the world, and then wealth will come and in wealth, maybe 100, 000, maybe 10 million. There’s no numbers to determine wealth.

Liz: I think there’s a thought in there. Oh, my gosh. Okay. If I get it completely right and make the right choice about exactly what I want to do, then I’ll be happy.

Liz: You know what I mean? Or then I’ll be calm. So I see that in there that, grass is greener thinking. I’ll be happy when thinking, but when you ask the question, like, how do I want to contribute into the world?

Liz: I’ve always been a teacher. I’m not going back to the classroom ever again. I will not do that to myself, but I’ve always been a teacher mentor coach and

Liz: I do love talking about business. I like talking to people about what they like to do. I like talking to people about. Yeah, I need to just kind of think on that because that’s kind of where I’ve been. It’s what do I really want to do? What do I really want to be?

Kate: My only other recommendation or prescription for you would be to fill the void of not knowing how to run a business any other way.

Kate: Like before making a decision to say that business is not for me. What if you’re like witness or think about what it could be without. The old reference framework,

Liz: and you know what? That feels good. I want to try that. No, and if I were to be like, okay, let’s go figure out how to be like, I don’t know, a therapist or whatever else I want to, you know, think about do when I don’t want to do that.

Liz: This actually feels okay, yeah, I’d like to figure out how it feels to run a business in

Kate: a different way.

Kate: And 1 last thought before we go to the family thing, this whole ideology of dietitian and nutritionist. I just want to remind you that I’m a coach without certification. I’m pretty good at it. I’m better than maybe many people who have a damn certification on it. So, you can do exactly what you want to do without being a nutritionist or dietitian.

Kate: It actually means nothing.

Liz: Oh, here’s the thought that just popped up. Women in my age group want an expert with a bunch of letters behind.

Kate: Is it? Do you want to work with those people? Usually I do. You want to work with people who only believe in two people who have seven letters after their name? You want to work with these women?

Liz: No. Like the reason I came to you is because you were smart. You had business training. You had a dietitian, but then you had this completely opposite thing. You know what I mean?

Kate: Yeah, but I don’t have a business degree. I don’t have an MBA. I have life experience of business.

Kate: That’s true. I’ve got loads of life experience. I’ve been told many times, by the way, that I’m better than many therapists. Oh, I don’t have no fucking therapist degree.

Liz: That’s

Kate: because

McKenna: a lot of therapists suck and I’m just going to say it.

Kate: Don’t do that. It’s not the degree, do you know what I’m saying? They can have the degree and they suck. The

McKenna: degree means nothing. The degree means nothing in my world now because… I had a therapist who pretty much told me I sucked and I was doing everything wrong last year.

McKenna: So she caused me more harm than good. So I’m just going to say it took a lot of searching and a lot of reading

Kate: bios

McKenna: before I was like, you’re worth going into actually do a session with and I’m a friend who’s a social worker here who is like one of the most lovely counselors you will meet in this city.

McKenna: Who was like, yeah, it’s really hard to find someone who I know will fit with you. They’re like, don’t exist in this city. And I was like, no shocker there. No shocker.

Kate: So it’s a normal thought to have, Candy. Just don’t, just question if you want to put belief behind that thought. Or just You’re there, thank you.

Kate: Yeah,

Liz: you’re right. I wrote down, just focus on my belief. I just wrote that. Okay, got it. I think I’m good. I do want to figure out how to fill that void, like you said, of not knowing how to, of knowing how to run a business a different way. Yes, I do want to focus on that, and I do want to explore this curiosity that just popped up in my heart, oh, actually podcast could be fun, and follow that, that, inner sensation, You know,

Kate: like your life coach for menopause, postmenopausal or whatever you want to call it from the angle of body image and self confidence instead of being from the angle of religion or from the angle of health, like you just have your own spin on this coaching women in that age group.

Kate: Do you want to work on the family thing or you’re good?

Liz: why don’t we come back to it if there is time? Somebody else again. Okay. Thanks.

Kate: First

McKenna: off, questions about the rejecting diet mentality resources. I know there’s the anti diet book. I know we’ve talked about this. I just cannot recall

Kate: resources. So I would, is it for you or for clients? It’s for clients.

Kate: I wouldn’t give them too much books. So just

McKenna: like the anti diet, cause that’s pretty.

Kate: Because what they’re going to get stuck into is intellectualization. Okay,

McKenna: no, I was just curious because the current client who came on she’s read that book so that it she got it just Got me thinking for future like if no one’s ever been exposed to the anti diet mentality at all

Kate: Here’s the other place would be from the same author Wellness culture.

Kate: Okay, that’s what I’m wellness

?: trap. Yep.

Stephanie: Yep. Yep, because it’s the other paradigm. So If it’s not if the client’s okay, I’m accepting that it’s not about weight loss, but then they’re going to swing to, well, it’s about my health. Now we need to talk about wellness culture. That’s what this

?: client, what’s it called?

?: It’s the Wellness Trap by, is it Christy Harrison? Christy

Stephanie: Harrison? It’s the same author for both books. she’s a dietitian who doesn’t work really with people anymore. she’s a journalist and she writes books and articles and do media stuff on. The anti diet world.

?: okay. That’s helpful though, because it’s the, I see it now where this client read anti diet book and it’s it’s not about the weight, but it’s about my health.

?: So now she’s swung to the wellness side of things.

Stephanie: Yeah. So if you listen, I did an interview with Christie, whatever on the podcast recently in January, I think. The reason why she wrote the book is because she’s been through that herself and that we were Have the podcast talking about that’s what I did.

Stephanie: That’s what she did. That’s what our client do So she wrote the book on okay now like it’s no longer about weight loss now It’s about health and then she like unpacked all that detoxes and cleanse bullshit thing with supporting evidence Yes.

Stephanie: the next. Okay. Here’s my thing. And honestly, I forgot it was me who was up today and I’ve just been like, didn’t really think about this. honestly, I’ve just been content. I even shared that with my parents. I’ve just been like content. I was just like, I woke up feeling like, yeah, I woke up feeling like a different person yesterday, but it had to do with, it was my partner’s six months.

?: treatment. He gets it every six months and six months. And there was just like this different sense of gratitude for life. that I just, I think most people look past, like I’ll literally look outside and look at a tree and be like, that’s beautiful. That’s cool. there’s a lot of just like really mudane moments that have started happening over the last year that it’s just who am I becoming?

?: Because I can just tune out what’s happening in the world and be like, See other yeah, see other things, but I started thinking about what has been coming up over the last few weeks and it’s I want clients and I remember in the beginning I was doing a lot of like belief like the clients will come like trusting myself and then I kind of slid away because I started to do more just like I’m going to trust myself, not fear waking.

?: I started going down more that route. But I do want clients. But then there’s this part of me that goes, I’ve been thinking about this for a few months of putting something out there I’m now accepting, five clients because I’d like to just, put a number and, if I could get, five more and work with five for a while and really build up my coaching, that would be great.

?: But then there’s this part of me who, comes in and it’s you’re not ready. You’re, like, you’re not, your life isn’t ready. But then there’s a part of me who’s, You know, that doesn’t work that mindset because life is always going to be happening. And if you wait till you’re ready, you will never be in this place of ready.

Stephanie: So why is it a problem that those old thought comes up? It’s not a

?: problem. I think I just have to act on it and put it out there that I’m accepting clients. And

Stephanie: are you even accepting clients? How does that feel saying I’m accepting clients? Oh, it feels good. Like I want clients. But are you really accepting clients?

Stephanie: Or are you just… Putting yourself out there and whoever needs to come like this whole notion of accepting. Were you ever denying clients? no. So, so just clear on the world on the accepting clients is a really, it’s used to position yourself as somebody who’s got a massive wait list. And now I’m taking client the first come first serve kind of shit.

Stephanie: Do you know? Yeah, no, I get what you’re saying. So, did you ever if you say, I’ve never denied client, then you’re not accepting client. You’re just ready to help people and have people work with you. Is that correct? Yeah. So it’s more. So I’m looking for more clients. Yeah, so here’s the first question is you’re saying, yeah, I’m ready for first time.

Stephanie: And then I have the thought I’m not good enough for more client normal, like nothing has gone wrong for you having this dichotomy. Now, are you going to coach yourself through it or accept the validity of this thought? Oh, well, I’m not going to accept it.

?: If I would have accepted

Stephanie: it, I wouldn’t be here.

Stephanie: Okay, good. So you’re going to expect that thought to show up every morning. Yes. Right and you’re going to meet it with, compassion makes total sense that you were that you brain Lizzie in my case would think I’m not good enough to do this. Thank you very much. Because that’s my whole belief system.

Stephanie: Thank you. But we still going to offer a program out into the world and see who needs it. Does that make sense? Yes. So my advice for you is this is you need. Offer into the world, an opportunity to work with you. Like we want more client, but we need to go out there telling people that we can help them with this, and this and that.

Stephanie: So for an example, without judgment, how many offers, how many times did you publicly talk about you have a program and it can help people with this DME or book a consultation? How many times have you made an offer? In the last say week,

Stephanie: not at all

?: because my last post I didn’t make it as an offer, but that was a personal decision.

Stephanie: That’s okay.

?: I, yeah, it was a whole, it was a whole thought download that I had and I didn’t want it to be, it felt sleazy to me to share something super vulnerable and then try to turn around into a work with me.

?: Just being like a first time sharing such a vulnerable story. I didn’t want to like, and I think part of it is I let thoughts get to my head because I see that in bro marketing where people take some people in my life take vulnerable stories, and then it becomes like the only thing they talk about and then they like persuade people to work with them.

?: So part of it was my thought download and still I guess a bit of like bro

Stephanie: marketing thoughts. And totally valid, right? And is it true that it’s lazy? No. No. But in that moment, you created the feeling of resistance. Because you entertain the thought it’s sleazy to talk about working with me after sharing such a vulnerable event.

?: But then I just was it’s okay. It’ll probably change in time, but it’s just normal and just it’s okay. I don’t have to do it all at once.

Stephanie: Well, exactly instead of thinking I’m not going to do it because it’s sleazy. You could have selected the thing right now. I just want to build safety for being vulnerable online and I

?: feel like that’s the route.

?: I went where I let go of the fact that it was sleazy. And I was just like, it’s okay. right now you don’t feel comfortable doing that. In time, it’ll

Stephanie: likely happen totally. Okay, but you’re not doing it because it’s sleazy. You’re doing it to build safety. Yes, I think about it that way different thought different feeling.

Stephanie: Yes. So, I want to take this example to say, making offer is the same thing you will hear about making offer it from every business program because it’s the foundation of, interaction and exchange. You need to make an offer to receive. And people have to accept an offer to receive from you, like the concept of offer is not a problem, it’s why you’re doing it and how you’re doing it.

Stephanie: Does that make sense? Yeah.

Stephanie: So how do you want to think about an offer? that’s where you want to build your belief and your thought. An offer is what for me? It’s an invitation to work with me. Yeah. It’s an exchange of value. I have value to offer. bing. These are all the valuable things I can offer to people that will truly, in my view at this point in time, really change their life.

Stephanie: And the value I’m asking back to always make an offer fair because that’s a whole, like I need to offer as much because the world doesn’t have money and I need to make my offer, accessible to people. That’s a whole other bullshit socialization crap. You need, you’re not presenting that, but you make, you need to make the exchange of value equal.

Stephanie: You’re going to offer this value that’s going to impact their life. How much money do I want? How much money do I believe this is valued at right now?

Stephanie: So now an offer is an exchange of value,

Stephanie: an equal exchange of value between you and your future client.

Stephanie: How does that land with you? Oh, it lands good. Yeah. I’m just like,

?: I was thinking about different scenarios where, I pay someone for something and value.

Stephanie: But, yeah, it’s value everywhere from the plumber to the therapist to the grocery that you buy is just. It’s always an exchange of value and wherever you fell that you got ripped off is because the alignment of value you believe is not equal between the 2.

Stephanie: Do

Stephanie: you know what I’m saying? Yep, so then if you’ve not been making a lot of offer, the other thing that’s so you need to like, think of it in terms of value and putting it out to help the world. You need to build your belief there. And then the other thing is your nervous system will feel really uncomfortable making offer for the next.

Stephanie: 2 to 3 months, it’s it’s okay to have all the belief in the world, but you all thought will come up. So are you willing to learn to make offers through discomfort? Yes.

?: I mean, most of what I’ve done has been through discomfort the last

Stephanie: few months. So that’s the key for everybody, are you willing to consistently make offer that are aligned with your value in a way that feels good to you and to build up this capacity to make offer in this way, true discomfort.

Stephanie: So, are you willing to say, I don’t know, I’m going to set up a goal of making 3 offer for the next 4 weeks every week. Okay. Yeah. You know, I’m going to take,and I would say your brain’s going to, it’s going to default to making it in a caption of a post buried at the bottom, but big and bold right on the front.

Stephanie: And on video, I want you to speak about, I knew this was

?: coming. I knew this was, I was waiting for you to say all

Stephanie: this. It’s easy to bury it in the caption in the CTA, a call to action.

Stephanie: I’m not saying it’s good or bad. There needs to be some of that. That’s, this is almost like my point of view is I share my life publicly to help people and the way to help people is by them into my program. So there’s very little post that is, does not have a call to action to get into my world. To me, it’s just given.

Stephanie: Why would I make a post if it’s not to let people that they can work with me. Yep. You got it. So that’s to me, that’s easy. Yeah. It’s a whole other level to have a conversation on video embodying, work with me confidently. So you got to practice because the first dozen of time you’re going to do this and your voice is going to be shaking.

Stephanie: You got to build up the capacity to make an offer with your whole body and be confident about it. So are you able to do that for the next four weeks? And be really uncomfortable through the process.

Stephanie: That’s how you get more clients.

Stephanie: How do you feel now? Oh, I already

?: feel the uncomfortableness beginning, but I can’t.

Stephanie: But at the same time, I’m like, I don’t know.

?: I think just the last year and the last few months in this, it’s really just like putting a video on social media. It’s just so minimal compared to everything else that’s going on in my life right now. But it’s just Everyone’s gonna perceive it differently as long as I, I feel good, okay in it and I believe in it.

?: It really doesn’t matter what anyone

Stephanie: else thinks. Bingo, but the old neuropath way will fire up. Oh, yeah. 100%. There just will so expect them to come online and then have to ride the wave and calm your nervous system and like You’re gonna have to practice that dozens of times in order for you to become the version of yourself who?

Stephanie: Makes offer, gets client, has a way of living her life. So it’s no longer, I just want to say to you, here’s the picture. It’s no, for me, it’s no longer, should I make an offer or not? I just make offer all the fucking time. It’s just who I have become.

Stephanie: If that’s what it takes to have a business, but I do it in a way that doesn’t cost me my nervous system health. It doesn’t cost me my mental health. It doesn’t cost me my emotional health. It doesn’t cost me thousands of dollars in Facebook ads, you know, like I do it in the way that’s sustainable for the rest of my life.

Stephanie: Yes, I got. Yeah. Do you want to become that? Yeah. Today is day one of the next phase of creating that version of you. The next four weeks of you feeling like terrible having to make offers on video.

Stephanie: I’ll come to that phase two of your life.

?: I think where he had caught up is knowing how to put in terms that someone’s going to comprehend,

Stephanie: understand. Bro marketing or toxic business culture will tell you how. Give me your email. I’ll give you the PDF on how to formulate the offer perfectly. I will say to you, there’s no right way.

Stephanie: There’s McKenna’s way.

Stephanie: Your brain is doing what brains do. Tell me the right way, so I’ll be safe. And I’m saying there’s no right way. There’s your way.

?: Yeah, it seems simple, but I like it. It’s simple, but then I’m like, sure, seems simple intellectually, but then when I go to speak or think about how to say it is where I get caught up.

Stephanie: That’s where the discomfort shows up. Yeah, that’s where the voice gets shaky. That’s where you mumble and fumble on your words.

Stephanie: What I’m saying to you is the shaky voice the mumbling and mumbling on the words is what will make you find the best way for you. Thank you. Okay.

Stephanie: Well, like for

?: me, it’s I think it’s simple is it’s the options there that you don’t have to dislike your body for your lifetime and you can live free of your body and then you don’t have to fear food like you can enjoy it and you can not have your worth attached to it.

Stephanie: Say that. I have another coach.

Stephanie: Here’s what she’s done over the last 2 years. She’s been doing, consultation. So she bought this cute little journal and every consultation. She’s been writing like the story of the client without their name. And now. Most of her posts are consultation stories. She markets using all the consultations she’s done, and then she shows the world that she’s a coach by telling the story and how she proposed that client to solve that problem.

Stephanie: So people are like, Oh, she’s talking about me and that proposition of solving my problem is great. That’s her way.

Stephanie: What’s your way? For me, it’s been a lot anchored on my story. My marketing is a lot anchored on my story. It doesn’t have to be your way. What’s your way? And you’re going to have to try different ways to find the one that makes you feel the best and that people resonate with. Okay. So try that way you just said.

Stephanie: Go on video, tell a story, and tell that to people. First of all, the next month is not even about getting success. It’s about you getting over being uncomfortable. You know? Fuck the result at this point is just getting your nervous system to seeing making an offer is safe. It’s not about getting clients.

Stephanie: About building the safety of making an offer, non scripted, and not having, to coach your nervous system for two weeks after. Okay. Perfect. You know? Don’t attach it to the number of clients. You’re not ready for that.

Stephanie: All right.

Stephanie: Is that, does that feel good? yes. It feels uncomfortable, but it feels aligned. That’s all. Yeah, I now

?: have a direction to go

Stephanie: with it. Perfect. That’s all I needed. it’s

?: there are all these things going on. I can just jump into that two months ago and bring up this, but now it’s I feel like I’m there.

?: I need to start making offers if I want this to actually

Stephanie: be successful. you need to make offer today to have five clients in six months. Yeah. Yeah. And when you have the five clients, you have to continue to make offer to have your next 10 clients. And when you have 10 clients, you’re like, Oh, I had a full schedule.

Stephanie: Great. I’m stopping marketing. Error. Continue marketing. So you can bring in the next 10 clients. Yes. There’s never an end point to marketing. So you got to fall in love with it. All right. Okay. Yep. Yep. Amazing. We still got two or 40 minutes. I believe. Kate. Okay. This is great. Cause this is like a continuation of this whole conversation.

Stephanie: So

?: I have, a marketing opportunity. I have a networking meeting tomorrow. On zoom with, a woman who connected with me through Instagram, but she’s here local. And I think we could, she sounds really cool. She’s a therapist. She’s a somatic coach. She’s running women’s retreats, like all over the world, like something you would sign up for.

?: Like she’s going to Machu Picchu in the spring. And, three people I know in real life have been on her retreats. So, there’s all these signs, and I’ve reached out to them, tell me about Kim. What do you, what do I need to know? Anyway, she is hosting, in the spring, she’s calling it a women’s leadership retreat here in

Stephanie: town.

?: and she’s looking for speakers. And so that’s how we connected. So that’s what this networking meeting is

Stephanie: about. she’s looking

?: to, I think it’s 90 people is the size of the event.

?: She is asking people to, to pay for the opportunity to speak. So she’s looking for like corporate sponsors and speaking sponsors. So she sent me the information, but I’m also trying, I have questions about it. The marketing speak. So this is like my net, like the internet world feels safe to me. It’s like being public in a room of 90 women who are local, who like, I will run into at the grocery store, you know, like it’s a next level of, Vulnerability and intimacy for me and my business.

?: And it also feels really aligned, so far in just the information I’ve collected. So

?: my, I guess where I want to go with this is

?: I’m really like brainstorming now on like how to really serve this group. like I’d like to come to the meeting tomorrow with her. I’ve here’s a couple of ways, different ways I’m thinking I can serve your audience. yeah, in this women’s leadership. I need some more information about who she thinks like the audiences.

?: are they corporate people or entrepreneurs? It seems like she’s more in the entrepreneurial space.

Stephanie: and also I’m scared. So, what do you need help from me on? Yeah, question there. Yeah.

?: I guess the place where I could use help is like the creative process. Yes. of coming up with a topic and then the content to really serve this audience.

Stephanie: Well, so here’s, this is my thoughts when I hear leadership, right? Yeah. So when I hear leadership, I typically will hear like holder women, 35 plus.

Stephanie: Usually, leadership is sold to this more wiser, older, experienced people. So right away, I’m falling into, it’s women, it’s people, we’ll imagine 35 and over. Right, so they’re in your audience as peripnopause. Yeah. And if they’re a leader, they’re a leader in corporate structure, they’re a leader in business, how, what do they need?

Stephanie: what is their problem? Probably they won’t want to talk about how much they bleed on their period. That’s not going to be a topic. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like I don’t see you going on stage and talking about men’s season periods and all of this together inside. Yes, totally. Typically people in leadership, the word confidence is the thing, right?

Stephanie: Being in your power, right? These are the kind of problems. S that these women have. . So how do you observe that? So then my mind goes to

?: body image, right? Like body image in the workplace?

Stephanie: Or you wanna be careful? I think the roof is body image, but I don’t think that’s how they would speak about it.

Stephanie: Ah, yeah. You see what I’m saying? if you say, pitch to her, I wanna do a body image thing. eh, yeah. it’s not gonna be sellable. Right. To this group of people, but confident, can you sell confidence through body image, but not make it about body image? Do you see what I’m saying? So it

?: just to clarify, so then more leaning into the thought work.

Stephanie: Are you talking about what you’re gonna talk about in your talk or the pitch idea to this woman?

?: okay. No, I was skipping ahead to the content. So, okay, in the

Stephanie: pitch idea. Got it. The pitch idea is solving a problem that her people have. Yeah.

?: So creating

Stephanie: confidence. Yes. Being in your power and all of that.

Stephanie: But I’m going to do it by talking about women, confidence, and body. And I’m going to talk about it from a place of, I don’t know, systemic feminism. I’m going to talk about it from a lens of how, I don’t know, it depends if it’s about business, how women are conditioned to think impacts their ability to make money or to be in business.

Stephanie: Yeah. And I’m going to do it through like how they feel in their body and how they’re like confidence and all of that. But it’s not a talk about Purely body image, right? It’s how to achieve the solution to their problem. But my take on it is different. It’s true embodiment. It’s true being comfortable in your body comfortable with your gray hair.

Stephanie: If that’s our audience and your wrinkles. Yeah, claiming your wisdom, claiming your age. Yeah.

Stephanie: How does that land with you? It lands, yeah.

?: Yeah, it feels really good.

Stephanie: Yeah. When we pitch, it’s always about how can I think the problem they solve and say, yes, I can solve that problem. I’m going to solve it this way, and this is why this is different. I’m going to solve it through the lands of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But I’m still going to solve that problem.

Stephanie: But I’m going to solve it differently. Yep, bitching often people think it’s about, putting myself out there new. It’s not about imposing your idea. It’s about solving your collaborators problem and saying, yes, I’m going to solve it and being confident. You can solve it, but I’m going to solve it differently.

Stephanie: But don’t go to her and say, I’m going to do a talk on body image. She’s going to say no. Yeah. Right,

?: right, but creating confidence through embodiment

Stephanie: owning that time of your life like don’t call it like perimenopause how to handle perimenopause know how to handle your power in your years of menopause.

Stephanie: Okay. Okay. That’s really helpful. Is that helpful? Yeah. So come in and ask a ton of questions in the meeting to make sure you fully understand her problem. And then pitch on solving her problem through the different lenses. And it’s likely going to be something around embodiment, confidence, based on leadership confidence that I’ve attended.

Stephanie: It’s going to be something about being in your power, confidence, owning your space. Claiming your power and a lot of that has to do with body image. Yeah,

Stephanie: yeah. You could also picture think, you know, Kim Eagle. Think about what she’s doing right now. Yeah. She’s associated with this company who does retreat as a coach. And she gets a lot of her client through that way. She’s not trying to take the place of this person. She’s I can coach your people too.

Stephanie: Yeah. you can, I can go on the retreat with you as a coach, facilitating your idea and then I can use CBT to coach your people. That’s a great way of starting into this women who have, your women’s world, being a coach for her. yeah, totally. I mean,

?: I see her, our businesses is very, complimentary.

Stephanie: So make sure that you pitch on CBT and how you’re like a coach who use cognitive behavioral therapy and maybe she’ll hire you to come on those, some of those retreats and being a coach for people facilitating her. Make sure you’re aligned to her value. Make sure that what you teach you’re aligned and if you are, you can facilitate coaching for her.

Stephanie: Yeah. Thank Yeah, I love that. So there’s too many different ways you can go about networking with this person. It’s good.

?: It’s yeah, it’s actually like getting me excited to do like in person networking, which I haven’t

Stephanie: done at all. You know, it’s coming back right now. I’m seeing more and more face to face conference coming back.

Stephanie: Yeah. And big company like Rachel Roger is putting back her conference right now. Like she hadn’t been in three years, but it’s an investment. You have to think she’s investing a million dollar up front to render room, do all the things for this conference. But before, because of the COVID, people weren’t buying tickets.

Stephanie: So there’s a shitload of money that was lost in the industry of people investing up front and losing. Millions of dollars of people not coming to their conference and it sound like now people are coming back. Yeah. Yeah, well, face to face networking, we’ll start going up again. Yeah, I agree. Did we solve the question you had?

Stephanie: Yeah, this is good. It

?: gives me a lot to work with to prepare for this meeting tomorrow. Yeah. Thank you.

Stephanie: You’re welcome. Ingrid, did you have anything you wanted to talk about? Are you good?

?: I’m good. I’m listening. I’m learning.

Stephanie: I know you are, and you have a new background. We have a…

?: Yeah,

Stephanie: it’s a…

Stephanie: Yeah, it’s a curtain. it’s neutral. Neutral. So, last check in, if you want. If not, we can just, I mean, we’ve been together for two hours. We can end it here, or we can continue coaching. Are we good? Kate, you’re good. McKenna, you’re good. Are you good, Candy? Or do you want to work on the family thing? Well,

?: not really.

?: I kind of coach myself and my husband a bit. So, okay. I know what happened. I know what went on in my mind. I know that there was some stuff that was also weird on the part of my family.

Stephanie: I just want to say this. All of you need, depending where you are on your transition, like a lot of you talk on a podcast on how much you change.

Stephanie: I want you to think about how that impacts your partner. I am not a relationship coach, but I know one thing, you CastingWords Impacts the metrics of your relationship, your relationship up to now was built on you being this version of yourself. So, in the case of candy, the weight loss and the thin person and all of that.

Stephanie: So, as you change personally, it will change the matrix of your relationship with your partner.

Stephanie: Mine wasn’t with, it was with. Or your family, it will change the metrics of your family. relationship.

Stephanie: How much space do you hold for the capacity of your family to adapt to this new version of yourself?

Stephanie: Because they up to now have known this version of you and also then you show up with this version of you. They didn’t sign up for that.

?: Good question.

Stephanie: Sorry.

?: I see it the other way too. Because I mean, what I was going through this weekend is I had my brother and his Two, two of his kids and his wife came into town. Maybe I do want a little coaching, sorry. And I, they live in Arizona, so I don’t see them often. But they came in for the F1 race.

?: And my stepson is, let’s just say he’s really, involved and has, he works with the cars. And he has, he had a whole like, set up that you have to be a VIP to get into. We let them go into it last year and they just showed up this year and didn’t, and just acted oh, well, we’re friends with you guys and they hardly talked to me at all.

?: That was just really weird. Their vibe was really weird. They acted like they owned the place. My steps annoyed that they were there and they hardly talked to me and I was like, this is weird. They’ve

Stephanie: changed too. How do you hold space for them changing? Well,

?: initially I was annoyed, but I breathed through it, and I said, Okay, my choice is to love, that’s always going to be my baseline, and I’m just going to hold space for, Okay, this is actually something they all love, and I don’t love it as much, so I’m just going to give them space to, be their thing.

?: but I was really hurt that they hardly talked to me, and the reason that they could even be there, was because of my stepson. You know what I mean? It was his business. He was annoyed because they were coming and eating his food and hadn’t asked.

Stephanie: How does that relate to you?

?: he was kind of getting…

?: He was getting a little annoyed that they had just showed up and, I’m the connection. It’s my family, you know, so it connected to me because they wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for them knowing me and them getting the special permission to go last year and then them having made a lot of friends.

?: Some of his staff evidently said, yeah, come say hi, but they stayed around all day long and ate and drank and stuff and, just has to acted like it was, of course they did. Like they own the place and then didn’t talk to me. It was really weird.

Stephanie: So there’s two things you want to look at is how you’re thinking about your stepson’s business as being part of you. Your thought that if people get into your stepson’s world, they owe you something for it. And it’s like. Why is it hurting you that somebody doesn’t talk to you? There’s kind of two issues that I’m seeing here. forget about your son’s business. why do people owe you to talk to you? Like, why do they owe you and socializing with you? What’s the thought there?

Candy: Well, my two nieces that were there, we’ve always been close. Sure. It was like they were acting like they were teenage girls ignoring me. And I just really hurt. Well, the thought is. they shouldn’t ignore me because we’re friends,

Stephanie: but they chose to, what does that mean about you? What do you make it mean about you? It’d be the right question

Candy: and they did go down that path, which was, they don’t like me anymore.

Stephanie: I feel rejected.

Candy: 100%. 100%. I felt rejected. Yeah. And I did see that this weekend. So I just tried to breathe through it and do my best to, process the hurt. And that’s what I meant by like my husband’s really great at holding space for me and I just kind of did what I had to do. We went for a walk, vomited it out, let myself breathe it through it and I felt better. But I mean, there’s still a little bit of hurt in there,

Stephanie: which is normal, right?

Candy: Yeah, I decided to release it. I was so hurt by Saturday afternoon that, especially after my stepson told my husband that he was really annoyed that they just showed up and didn’t know. I went and asked my nieces. I’m like, did somebody else.

Candy: Say it was okay for you guys to come. oh yeah. And they looked deceived. They looked deceptive because they’d make really good friends with a couple of his staff. Oh yeah. They said, come say hi. I’m like, oh, okay. Cause that’s nice. That son didn’t say that. That they had actually sent the opposite and I just kind of was like, anyway, so I, for my well being, I said, okay, I’m just going to give everybody the benefit of doubt.

Candy: I’m going to take my nose out of this. I’m going to take my hurt out of it and I’m going to just send them a quick little texting. Hey, looks like I may have gotten in the middle of a miscommunication here. I love you. I’m sorry. Have a great rest of your weekend. The end. So I feel proud of that, but I was really hurt.

Stephanie: So do you, here’s a question. So there’s a,there’s a matrix, there’s a circumstance that happened and the way you think about relationship created the rejection and created the behavior, the A line from rejection. Can you see that? Yeah. Thank you. The question for you

?: is they didn’t even act like they wanted to see us at all flying.

Stephanie: Yeah. No, but the question is truly so what if they chose that?

?: It just seems really weird because we’ve always been I’ve always been so close to my niece and my nieces. And they were at our house for four or five days earlier this year. This is

Stephanie: the perfect example of relationship. Something happened in their life in the last however long you see.

Stephanie: How long has it been since you saw them? March. Okay, so roughly six months. A bunch of things happened in their life over the last six months. Which you don’t know about, and that created the model of them showing up at this event with different A Line than before. And one of those A Line was not caring about you as much as they did before.

Stephanie: So their model, their A Line, you took, you observed their behavior of not caring about you or not socializing with you. That’s their A Line of their model. You took that A line and made that mean something about you. You created a thought. That behavior of them says they don’t like me as much anymore. F, rejection.

Stephanie: And then you created action from the rejected model. Do you want me to put this in writing or can you see it? Well, I

?: can see it this weekend. I can see it.

Stephanie: Yeah. The question for you is, You have to think about your belief about relationship. Do you want to continue to have this model happen in your life where you believe people hold you a certain type of behavior?

Stephanie: Or do you want to change your belief system about relationship so you don’t expect behavior? From other people.

Stephanie: I know it’s math. I can put it in writing if you want.

?: No, I get it. I’m just trying to decide really what I want.

Stephanie: You don’t have to decide here. This is deep. This is beliefs about relationship we’re talking about. This is deep. what do you want to believe about relationship between humans?

Stephanie: I’ll go ahead.

?: the way that I’m choosing to get through this is just to release some expectations, honestly. I just have to release some, it’s the expectations that I have that hurt. And I really want to be okay with that hurting, to be honest, because it’s, it’s a, it feels like a slap in the face.

?: Okay. I want to validate that it

Stephanie: hurts. So you got to live through the model today.

Stephanie: And that’s okay. Like you got to think and feel the hurt. But you, if you want to move differently forward, you have to look at your belief system about family relationships.

Stephanie: In order for you to not, in years to come, constantly feel hurt, if that’s what you want, or if you want to keep wanting to feel hurt by your family’s behavior, then keep that same belief, and it will keep producing the same model.

?: Yeah, it’s just challenging when some members of your family treat you more poorly

Stephanie: than strangers do. Is it true? Or is that your perspective?

?: No, I have some family members that are

Stephanie: that way. So, I just want to be clear that this is not a fact that’s unnegotiable in the universe. It’s your way of seeing that relationship to those family members that creates that thought.

Stephanie: I

?: have an abusive sister. I do. Sure. She is. She’s flat out abusive. And it made me really terrified that these guys were going to start being like her. That’s honestly it. And I don’t talk to my sister anymore. And it hurt me because I love these people and we love each other. And I’m like, so I went to worst case scenario.

?: I was like, oh, no. Oh, no, did I do something? Oh, no.

Stephanie: So

Stephanie: what you’re I’m physically or mentally by your sister and what you did is you saw that relationship through the lands of that traumatic experience. No, I didn’t see that. That’s what happened

?: don’t leak it. It felt like that and it hurt really bad.

Stephanie: So. I’m just going to parallel this to make you see it from a non involved story. That is the same pattern that a woman who, for an example, was physically abused by a man. They will, for years after leaving that relationship, will have a traumatic experience to any other male’s relationship because they will relive their new relationship through the lands of abuse in the past.

Stephanie: And the most non abusive men will get portrayed as abusive. yeah. Because that’s the glasses they’re wearing. Men are physically abusive.

?: My brother and his family have changed a lot over the last few years. and it’s just been hard to

Stephanie: watch. So, and,

?: they,

Stephanie: Anyway, so again, tell me when you’ve had enough of being challenged in your thought pattern. They have changed. What if it’s good for them in their model? They’re changing in the way they want to change.

Stephanie: It just doesn’t line up with you.

?: I want to be there. I want to get there. I know

Stephanie: that’s what I’m saying.

?: Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s the path to freedom. I didn’t know and I’m just still a little hurt.

Stephanie: You are hurt because you keep hanging on to the thought that they shouldn’t be changing that way.

Stephanie: We shouldn’t be mean, it’s it’s very interesting because when you talk about family relationship, one of the things that I’m observing is that the coach lens completely goes away. Oh, girl. You see that? Yeah. Oh, right.

?: No, I totally know it because I mean, like I had, it’s a lot of trauma in my childhood and whenever I get around him, I’m like,

Stephanie: you’re like, it’s me.

Stephanie: No, you’re making it mean.

Stephanie: So that’s what coaching is important as a coach is that your coach brings you back in the neutrality of the event. You take in this conversation, you take 20%, you gain 20 percent of neutrality. The next family event comes in, you talk about it with your coach, you gain another 20 percent of neutrality.

Stephanie: Your coach is there just to show you the potential of neutrality, not to make you become this new version of yourself right away. I’m just holding this place. What if? What if? What if? What if? Yeah, that’s all I’m saying.

?: Yeah, the sad story was I’m like, I don’t want to not talk to all my siblings and family.

?: It was like,

Stephanie: yeah, do you have is the black and white? I say, I have to not talk to them.

?: no, I know that I can still I mean, my niece did send a quick text back and say, Thank you. I love you. I love you. You know, but, yeah, I just went to worst case scenario. I was like, oh, no, I hope they don’t turn into a relationship like my other sister.

?: I don’t want to lose another sibling and they’re cute kids and not have a connection there.

Stephanie: And what’s the long term solution? If you don’t want to lose that relationship. And that’s why

?: I sent the apology and said, I think maybe I got caught in the middle of a miscommunication here and I’m sorry.

?: And so I felt good about that, and I love you and have a great weekend and release the expectation.

Stephanie: Yeah, in the context of our relationship, when we fully embody the fact that we cannot control the other person’s behavior, the only solution to remain in our relationship is to change ourselves.

Stephanie: And I’ll come back to the other flipping, the abusive relationship, that’s what women do. Women change themselves and accept the abuse to stay in a relationship. But it’s also true the other way if you’re like no, I want to keep the relationship to my brother. I am going to change in order to maintain that relationship.

Stephanie: Am I okay with that? Or do I want to be who I am and cut them off? No,

?: I don’t want to cut them off. I think that would be silly. That’s not

Stephanie: necessary. Don’t judge it. It’s an option that is as good as the other one. Oh, yeah. Silly. No.

?: Well, in this case, it doesn’t make sense. With my sister, a hundred percent makes sense with them.

?: You choose not to.

Stephanie: I choose not to. Yeah. Perfect. Neutral. It’s not silly. I just choose not to. Then what do I need to change about myself in order for me to remain neutral in that relationship, to not trigger pain, to just remain neutral.

?: Honestly, just release expectations that they’ll want to see me and just let them be

Stephanie: where they’re at. Yeah, so change the belief that they want to spend time with me.

?: Yeah, that was the mismatch. I was so excited to see them. So excited to see them because I don’t get to see them, you know, very often.

?: And

Stephanie: for them, they weren’t excited.

?: Yeah, and it had never been that way before. So, it was really shocking. It was shocking to.

Stephanie: So there’s also I want to, I’ll give you guys the example of me and my brother over the years. There’s topics. We just don’t talk about there’s a category of subject lines that we have just taken off the book.

Stephanie: Because every time we talk about it, our non negotiable differences show up and we end up arguing there’s things like, we clearly taken off the docket in order for us to maintain a relationship.

Stephanie: So, there’s, I don’t talk politics. I don’t think I don’t talk about racism. I don’t talk about all of those things because I know he has dramatically different. views in me and I cannot change it and I’ve accepted that. So the question I have to ask myself is do I want to be in a relationship with a brother who doesn’t think the same way about me as oppression in the topic of oppression.

Stephanie: I for my brother I said yes but there’s other people in my life I say no I don’t want to be in a relationship like you’re not valuable enough to me for me to tolerate this about you. 100%. So what’s the matrix of your relationship with your brother? Honestly, I need to think

?: about I’m just releasing all expectations that they’ll ever want to spend time with me, and I’m just going to choose to love them my way.

Stephanie: When they show up, let me show up. Yeah.

Stephanie: Ingrid, do you want to contribute to ask something? Yeah,

?: just that I do have the same thing with one of my sisters. She does not contact me, she doesn’t want me to call her, and what I have, the way I think about it is I have released her. If she doesn’t want me, then it’s fine. It’s her decision, and I can’t do anything.

?: So it’s, yes, so I have tried to coach my eldest sister because she is hurt by the same situation. She has been acceptable. She’s not anymore. And yes, just don’t engage in it. Release her. That’s…

Stephanie: the only caution I’ll make about that, this whole, it’s not just about this circumstance, it’s this whole world of releasing shit.

Stephanie: In order, from a cognitive perspective, in order to release shit, you need to change the beliefs. Just saying, oh, it’s bullshit, from a nervous system and cognitive perspective, you have to do the thought work to change your belief about this human being. Yeah. Because it’s not true that we can just press a button and release ships.

Stephanie: No,

?: it’s not. It’s, it was, this has been for many years. And in a way,I have accepted that us being sisters doesn’t mean we will be friends forever.

Stephanie: That we’re even talking. From the beginning,

?: yes. But I don’t anymore. It’s, I have my choice of who I want to befriend with, and she has hers,

Stephanie: and that’s it.

Stephanie: But it doesn’t mean anything about you.

?: No, it doesn’t mean anything about me, because, yeah, it’s just her choice. I don’t know why, and I don’t care.

?: And when I just, when I say release, I mean work on releasing the beliefs. Yeah, I do. And the emotions of letting them process through. That’s what I mean by release.

Stephanie: One of the biggest beliefs that I had to change for me was the expectation that my family were, had to be supportive. I had this belief, and truthfully, you would go most places and they would say, yeah.

Stephanie: Like families should be supportive of their children, right? Everybody, you could almost think of it as a fact, but it’s not. Right? But most people are so sold into this. Yeah, it’s true. Like families should be supporting you. No, it’s not. It’s not a fact. I had to let go of the belief that families should be supporting their members.

Stephanie: And once I released that, I was able to have a neutral relationship with my family and their lack of support of me.

Stephanie: But I had to stop thinking about it as a fact. But as something most people choose to believe,

Stephanie: that’s how you’re scratching your voice. You want to say something? Yeah, it’s

?: just helpful. That is something you said earlier. And I already forgot about, but you’d asked a question that was very, that really made me think it was quite powerful, but that is really helpful because I think a lot in regards to business and other relationships in my life.

?: But I’ve never really thought about it, how you can, that way, because you’re so right, everything tells you, your family should support you. And it’s not necessarily, they, we might be able to be in a room together, but they might not support what, we might not support what one another does.

?: This all goes back to me nannying, actually. it’s hard for me to explain to people, but I finally am in a place where even my dad had no idea what the relationship was like with them, and I, he said something, I was like, oh, no, because he’s asking about what they do, and I was like, you know, don’t really support what they do, rather not talk about it, but I love their kids, so I’m going to Phoenix, and that’s that, we don’t need to get into the details.

Stephanie: But that’s the same thing. You can be in a relationship of money with this family without alignment and what how they earn money.

?: Exactly. And for years, I thought for not years, but at one point, I thought I had to be in alignment, right? It’s no, you can coexist as humans. Completely outside of other areas of your life and I think that’s where we as humans get it wrong.

Stephanie: Well, where most human gets it wrong is that, you mean I have to work on me? No, they have to change. Sure, that’s a model, but that model will be a crash collision at some point.

Stephanie: You can choose to, do the work on yourself in order to create the relationship you want and that’s because that’s the only thing you can control. You won’t make them stop selling weight loss. You won’t.

?: It’s interesting that you talk about the self growth because now I’m thinking of a comment I got from someone who said, you amaze me every time you speak, I’m more and more amazed by you.

?: And I was like, Oh, my gosh, that’s self growth. That is 100 percent self growth. And that’s me changing as an individual.

Stephanie: You decided that your circumstance of life weren’t making you happy anymore. You could have say the world needs to change to make room for me. But you said, no, I’m going to change to make me happy in the circumstance of the world I live in.

Stephanie: Exactly. That is exactly it. So take relationship and say, globally, that’s my view on a relationship. How do I need to change to make this relationship neutral to me, or at least neutral? So I don’t feel collapse every time I come out of seeing this human being. What do I need to change about myself? And if I don’t want to change, that’s okay.

Stephanie: Just close the relationship. Helpful.

?: Very helpful. I have one specific relationship come to mind.

Stephanie: Yeah. Okay, folks. I think we’re done for right now. Yeah. See you Thursday. Bye. See you. Take care.

.

86-Non-Diet Coaches Success Stories Vol.5

Stephanie: Welcome to the special edition of the podcast. I have three wonderful human being with me today. So this is going to be a threesome interview. and I’ve brought these, wonderful human with me to discuss their journey in the non diet coaching certification over the last Nearly five months that we’ve been together so they can share their experience with you. And we’ve got questions that have been submitted over the last couple of weeks of things that you want to know, from them. So I’ll be asking those questions as well. But before we get started, I would love for each. Of these human to introduce themselves. So, you know, who’s taking part in a conversation. It’s okay. Do you want to get us started?

Kate: Sure. Hi, everyone. I’m Kate Williams stone and I’m a non diet health and life coach for perimenopause. Amazing.

Candy: I’m Candy Wright. I am a body acceptance and life coach for, postmenopausal women.

McKenna: Hi, I’m McKenna LaVenture, and I’m a non diet coach with an area of focus on body image and intuitive eating.

Stephanie: Okay, so let’s get started right with the question that I think is going to set the tone for this interview. You’ve been Working closely with me for 5 months, and we’ve been doing a lot of coaching, learning intuitive eating and body image and learning cognitive behavioral coaching. What would you see as your biggest learning over the last 5 months in this journey inside of this program?

McKenna: that’s an easy answer for me. It’s learning to trust myself and know that I do have the answers.

Candy: That’s good. That is really good. Love that. I love questions like this because it always feels like you gotta say one thing and I can’t say.

Stephanie: Say many things and can’t.

Candy: The trust is a huge one. I mean, the whole point of this program is to create our inner trust and inner autonomy. And we start that with the intuitive eating and the body image stuff.

Candy: And it’s. So powerful. So good. And I would just add a couple of things that kind of have been so personal to me. your just background with feminism and helping us understand that this is a collective challenge that women have gone through, making it a collective challenge just. enables, I think it enabled me and I think it can enable so many other women to realize that all these judgments that we’ve had, the not trusting ourselves we had, it’s not a personal problem.

Candy: And that was really big for me. It just understanding that, you know what, we’ve been conditioned this way. What if we just start to kind of give that back and stop making it be something’s wrong with us and then connected to that conditioning always thinking that we have to fix and then going into perfectionism that whole kind of. Mixture has been the biggest piece pieces for me is what if there’s nothing to fix? What if that’s conditioning?

Candy: Right? That’s been huge. I’m sure we could talk the whole hour about what we learned. Those are some of the ones that have really touched me.

Kate: Yeah, I love that. I mean, I think for me, the biggest learning has been the body image and the nervous system piece. Because I was coaching intuitive eating before, but the piece that was missing was the body image piece, right? Like the root cause of dieting is the body image piece, the body image struggles, the wanting to fix their body, change your body. And so previously I was like, so scared to address that with my clients, but I also think with myself.

Kate: And so now having it all interconnected, the intuitive eating. The body image piece and then the nervous system piece that we go so deeply on, in body image has really made a dramatic change for me personally, but also in my coaching.

Stephanie: So I’m going to build on that question for all of you. We kind of globalize what your biggest learning is, but one of the. And one of the thing that I prone is embodiment, right, and how we bring this content to other women to change, as Candy said, the collective. But what have you seen personally changed the most in your life? And please share what you’re comfortable sharing to the public. But how have you changed in your personal life as a result of As you said, Kate, learning about the nervous system, mindset, what have you observed to be the biggest win in your personal journey of embodying this work?

Candy: I’m just going to jump in here because as soon as you started to say the question, I started to get tears in my eyes, to be honest, so I’m just going to be really authentic here. it’s just been really touching to,mentioned in the last 1 to really consider that there might not be anything to fix.

Candy: That really, truly, I, like so many women struggled with judging my body, judging food and controlling my body with food. And I didn’t realize it until I was over 50. And I know I’m not the only 1, and so this big, beautiful, kind of explosion inside of me has been, it’s okay to love the now body.

Candy: It’s okay to not conform. I didn’t realize how much safety of conformity that I had used that I’d relied on all my life. again, I can’t just pick 1. But all I can say is, as you ask that question, my eyes welled up with gratitude because it’s so deep. The change that has happened from the inside out.

Candy: And I think the feeling or the emotion result has been just a different kind of piece that is no longer run by what felt like I’m not good enough, right? I’m not good enough because I don’t fit into the conditioning and then every week that we’re on our calls. I say the same thing. I’m like, I’m getting like, all kinds of neural pathways blown up here. So that’s what I have to say.

Stephanie: Thank you for sharing that and being vulnerable. You’re welcome.

McKenna: Sorry, I’m not, I actually don’t know how to put this into words, but I’d say there’s these feelings of content and just being okay with what is. There’s a newfound sense of gratitude. It’s like I’ve opened up something else inside me or found something and I’ll even share that my therapist commented on it yesterday and told me that She’s noticed there’s been a change in how I feel things in my body and that clearly I’ve been doing somatic work on my own and that I’m really like in tune with myself and she thought it was the coolest thing of how she’s seen me transform over the last few months.

Stephanie: You know, that’s beautiful, because it just shows that it’s not about coaching versus therapy. The magic comes when both come together. Without, I didn’t even know you had a therapist, but clearly coaching helped your therapy work. And your therapy work helped coaching as well. Yes, exactly. It’s not one or the other, it’s both together.

Stephanie: Exactly.

Kate: Yeah. I think for me, it’s this, like Candy and McKenna both shared, but like this, this new sense of peace. Like I didn’t know how much, like perfectionism and anxiety were running the show. I kind of had accepted it as this is just. Like how I am or like my personality or my genetics. I don’t know what I thought it was related to, but I was like, this is just it, you know, and also looking at like role models of other women in my family. I’m like, we’re just a nervous bunch. That’s it. You know, and instead, there’s like a new, sense of like peace and reduced anxiety, but not from, I used to think that reducing anxiety was about like getting it right or like having things in order. And I think that’s the, like having my own back, trusting myself. Knowing that if I make a mistake or fail that I’m not going to beat myself up, like that’s the piece that was missing. So it’s like a whole new approach to the anxiety and perfectionism that I hadn’t, I didn’t even see it before.

Stephanie: As you share that, the thing that comes to my mind is we don’t know what we don’t know. Yeah. So we think. You used to think that anxious Kate was just Kate. Yeah, I didn’t now that you felt different. You’re like, oh, there’s this other place that I can be that what I thought was normal is actually just anxiety. So let me, and I’m going to roll off to the next question. How does that impact the business version of you, the CEO version of you, the marketing version of you? Like how is what you just shared Kate and everyone has shown up in your business? Cause that’s always the question. That I get because people think of business in a very has to be this way, like the bro marketing way, but I believe there’s another way of doing business. Go ahead. McKenna. You raised your hand. Yes. I want to say something.

McKenna: I mean, I’ll like what you spoke on. I thought there was like, a specific way I needed to do things and was constantly looking for, answers or I’m sure myself and I just. Started to trust myself essentially is what happened and didn’t rush myself to, like, try to create things and do things. And honestly, the most engagement I’ve gotten is through telling my story.

Stephanie: So, you just discovered that you can do business differently at your own pace and that’s where success is.

McKenna: Yeah, essentially, I personally don’t think it comes to posting specific times a week or, certain times a day or 24 7. I think it honestly lies with me, being authentic.

Stephanie: Being you. Mm hmm. Thank you for sharing.

Candy: I see my business as a different. Like type of container now, like this framework that you’ve introduced us to as like goals, being a container to become this new version of yourself. So like any marketing effort I make or content creation in my business, it’s like, how can I serve people? And how is this also serving me versus being like a way to rate myself, right? Like I think I used to use my business like I did the scale, right? Like my business is successful if it makes X many of dollars X many clients, like this is how I’m going to be successful. And. And now I’m like, I will meet myself in my business, however, right. And I’m not going to use it as another tool to beat myself up.

Stephanie: That’s profound. Yeah. It’s a whole new perspective. What has been so since you’ve molded this new way of thinking about your business as your output of service been different quality or quantity?

Kate: Yeah, it has been different. I mean, just the shift in mindset from. going into a consultation call, am I a good coach? Will she like me? Can I show her that I’m a good coach, right? Those were the previous thoughts. And now I’m showing up in a way of like, how can I serve her? how can I be of service? How can I be of help? And then trusting the process that this person will hear what they need to hear today, and I don’t like, I don’t need to perform. I don’t need to like over deliver to prove my worth.

Stephanie: And one last question, because I’ve noticed that about you, you’ve been putting a lot more I’m not sure if you’re calling them training or classes or master classes, but you’ve been out putting more to meet people. Does it feel easier than before?

Kate: It does. Yeah, like anything that we practice, the more I do it, the easier it gets. But I also

Kate: am, counting like the success in a different way, right? Like in the past, like I did a webinar last week, right? And in the past, the success would have been how many people RSVP, how many people show up, how many people book consultation calls. And instead I was like, I’m going to host this because I want to do it for myself and how I show up for myself and be brave and meet myself in all those moments where I want to talk myself out of doing it. And I had many of those moments. No, like I told my coach in this program, I was like, I think I want to pretend I’m sick and just cancel it. And I’m like, Oh, I guess that’s fear, so how do I meet myself in the fear and feel that versus pretending I’m sick and canceling or postponing it. And you know, so I met myself in that container and then also just showing up in that webinar, like people are going to hear what they need to hear today. And I’m going to trust that. My perspective on health might not be for everybody and that’s okay. There are other people out there, you know, but just being of service in that hour and trusting the right people will be there.

Stephanie: That’s beautiful. And that’s, that’s why anxiety is reduced. Yeah, it’s not a secret, right?

Stephanie: How about you, Candy? Business.

Candy: I think the biggest shift for me is. And this might sound counter, but there’s no more, survival energy urgency for me. And so, I think I like to compare it to the intuitive eating pendulum process. Right. We go one way, you know, cause the pendulum, when you start the intuitive eating process and you take away your, or you start rejecting diet, rules, et cetera, the brain is like, but there’s only black and white thinking the pendulation process from one side to the other.

Candy: Right. I feel like that was kind of how I, was in my business before it was always just okay. I had all this energy and this momentum and, you know, this determination until I worked out. And coming through this process, it’s really helped me be like, it’s again, the nervous system regulation and, the urgency to produce is no longer there. I think that can also, you know, I’ve been afraid of getting stuck there, but I think for me where I’m at, in learning to trust myself, I needed this, I need this piece of the process. I need to be able to go to 1 side and then to the other. So, for me, the biggest piece is a lack of that anxious kind of Kate was saying that anxious survival, urgency got to do this, got to push, got to push, got to push.

Candy: Right? And so I’ve been giving my nervous system the time that it needs to honestly heal after a five year stint of like pushing, pushing, pushing. And, it’s scary. Honestly, it’s been scary. It’s been scary. This is not, a process for, A lack of courage, right? This is a process that requires courage.

Candy: So that’s probably been the biggest one for me is just allowing myself to have the time to really get to a place where I feel regulated and, and in alignment. Because I can push and I can do the things and be a great coach, but I needed another level of alignment. I needed another level of nervous system regulation. So I’m still going through that process, honestly.

Candy:

Stephanie: I love the analogy. Because that’s like the, I don’t want to say the other way of business, but the, I’ll call it the traditional way of thinking about a coaching business.

Stephanie: Go, go, go, go, go. It’s like the restricted side of like eating, like you just got to go, go, go 150%, 150%. You’re going to make three, six figure, and you’re going to make 300, 000 and 400, 000. And you’ve got to go up, up, up, up, up. Like it’s constantly high, high, high energy. And that’s not human.

Candy: No, but I love the parallel that you just drew there. that is totally restrictive. oh my gosh, I can’t eat carbs. Oh my gosh, I can’t eat this. I might even die of diet control. Until you burn out and your body’s girl, we can’t do that. Right?

Stephanie: Yeah. And it’s going to the other side of doing nothing. Quote, unquote, binging. the other side of the pendulum. And now you’re like, well, can I trust myself to not do anything? And want to do something again. Exactly. Right? And you can’t. You just got to build that safety of being able to do nothing and then do something and then do nothing and then do something to the point where you come into a place where your business is just consistent all the time. It’s not on, off, on, off, on, off all the time. But it takes that trust and that regulation to be able to output consistently, safely. Did you want to add anything now you raise your hand?

McKenna: Yeah, I do. I know I keep raising my hand, but that would also be 1 of my learnings of this course is because I clearly was, I was conditioned like, that’s the society we live in.

McKenna: Right? But I thought I had to work. All hours of the day, and then felt guilt if I would only work a few hours and do something else with my time, but there is proof that it works because I can take time away and then come back and find myself being more successful and enjoying myself more and there’s ideas flowing and it just feels right versus forcing myself to do it.

Stephanie: I want to bring you guys to another topic. That’s often. where people, professional and coaches get stuck is that when they discover intuitive eating or body image or the non diet approach or a different way of doing business, there’s this phase where people are resentful from what they learned in the past. Either in their degree or why has nobody told me that I’ve wasted thousands of dollars and getting this master degree and like it doesn’t or I’ve wasted 100, 000 on this coach and this mastermind have you felt that resentment that regret? And how, what would you like to share with somebody who’s there right now? Candy is like all over this.

Candy: I think it’s so important to understand that part of this process can absolutely include a grieving process. And so when you talk about resentment, that’s part of the grief cycle, I think, because the, you know, one of the first stages is Anger and along with the anger will come resentment. And I remember when I first started, the program with you, cause I only found you like, I don’t know, a couple, two, three weeks before the program started. So I hadn’t heard a lot of your stuff. And, and I just went into this, what’s not, I was so angry. I was so angry that I had been conditioned and I felt duped and I went into this just Visceral experience and oh, yeah, there was a bunch of resentment, right? A bunch of resentment and I recognized pretty quickly. Oh, gosh, this feels like a grief cycle. And then the grief started coming in and then just the beauty of the work that we do and how you know, you obviously teach the emotional processing stuff. I trusted everything and the emotions have processed through. I am not angry like I used to be. I’m not resentful. Does it pop up every now and again when I see things online? Yeah. But another beautiful thing that I’ve learned with you is that’s part of it too. More of this acceptance, right? And so I feel like I’m much more closer to this acceptance. And I do want to say one thing just because I know how I am in health.

Candy: Lot of women are this is not about getting to a certain end point. That’s another beautiful thing that I’ve learned with you It’s no like fear of weight stigma is gonna come up fear of this is gonna come up fear that and we’re not trying To eradicate any of it. We’re trying to process through it We’re working to create acceptance and so that’s kind of how I see it is just a grief cycle and getting to more of this place of acceptance so that we can actually learn the lesson so that we are more connected to our inner wisdom, our inner truth, prefrontal cortex, and we can hear the lessons.

Stephanie: Anyone else wants to add?

McKenna: I would just say, I think I processed it like months before I started this Course most of it, like the resentment, the anger because I was on my own journey for a while with body image intuitive eating until I found this for my business and myself clearly. But it, how would I put it? I think for me, the biggest thing that shifted and changed was I eventually came to a place which started happening before I joined the course was everything has brought me to this moment. And it’s all part of the journey for me, I could spend my life resentful that I did these things, but in the long run, it’s not going to help me at all. And it did get me to where I am today.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s the ultimate place, right? Nothing has happened for no reason. Exactly.

Stephanie: You want to add anything, Kate?

Kate: Yeah, you know, I don’t think I had the resentment and anger when I started this program because I had been immersed in the non diet intuitive eating perspective. So that piece wasn’t. New information. And I had actually aligned myself with what I would call like ethical business coaches. So I felt good about that. so I didn’t have to go through that stage when we first started, but the piece, like the reason I made the decision to work with you, I mean, I started binging your podcast, I think like a year, year and a half ago before I did the certification and So I think part of it was wanting to have a greater impact on my clients and like really have the process in, and feeling really confident in knowing how to help them.

Kate: that was my reason for signing up. And I just. I’m the opposite of candy. I take a while to make a decision. So like I needed to listen to hours of podcasts and do one course and then another mastermind and then do it.

Candy: Not always.

Kate: Okay, but I’m a long term decision maker like well, but also I was at the point in my business where I’m like, I’m not going to haphazardly spend money. Trying to fix myself, I’m going to find the right coach for this right season in my business and match us up. So I think that was part of my deliberate researched decision making process. so I felt really good coming into this. Certification

Stephanie: and I just want to guide the listener, even though you’re a professional listening to this and they’re professional talking. We’re still human purchasing a product. So, now you’ve just heard 2 different brain. Thinking about a purchase differently. Guess what? You have that in your business. You have different brain trying to work with you and 1 is going to take 2 years. 1 is going to take 3 weeks. Right.

McKenna: Yeah. or 24 hours if you’re me, who spends,

Stephanie: or 24 hours.

Stephanie: Mm-Hmm. , you know, like, but it’s

Kate: just the proof to a while, but your stuff was just, I had it. It was what my heart was searching for, and so it was ready. And I love that you’re pointing this out. This is so true. People are going to be at different parts of their being when they’re ready to make decisions.

Stephanie: And so, and this is important to understand that Kate talked about why she joined and she outlined the reason why she joined and it’s different for all of you. So, do you mind sharing why you joined? Like, what was your decision and then candy so everybody can see there’s a different perspective

McKenna: for sure. Well, the 1st time I my gosh, I bet you I came across Stephanie stuff like a year and a half ago or something. Yeah, it was at least a year ago because it was somehow a friend actually send it to me, but I did 1 of your core workshops last December and it was in that session that I said 1 day I want to work with this lady. one day I’m going to work with her. When? I don’t know. When will this be recorded? I don’t know, but I was, yeah. And then, well, the spring came around this year, and I finished my degree, and I was like, I’m not too sure what I’m doing. I felt kind of lost, but I knew there had to be another way to do business. And I knew I wanted to shift my business from the beginning. I knew I wanted to help people with food, their relationship. to food in their body. I just didn’t know how and I’d taken things in the past was promised the world It always fell short still didn’t know how to coach people And then that’s when I got pointed towards stephanie After reaching out to another coach and I was like, okay, like I guess I gotta do it Like this is like a sign This is the only option out there for me to change the way I coach

Stephanie: And so I want to say to people listening to this. This is a referral Way, she was referred by one of my former words of mouth, right? Somebody who graduated, like, 2 years ago. She talked to her and then referred her to me. So that’s another model.

McKenna: And I will say I followed that coach and was loving what she was doing and was like, how did you get there? And then she told me and then I signed up within, I think it was 24 hours. I said, yes.

Stephanie: Yeah, so Sherry’s story of your client works. How about you Candy? What made you say yes?

Candy: I had started my business over five years ago I was a health and weight loss coach and it never felt right inside of me and a couple of years ago I started studying nervous system trauma, etc I even did a different certification program around eating psychology, but there was still something missing And I knew it in the core of me.

Candy: I knew it in my, my intuition. And, honestly, for me, my belief system, however you want to put it, like God, the universe, whatever. I don’t know where I found you. Something came up in a feed somewhere. And I went and I looked at it and I was like, Oh, this is the missing piece. Why I didn’t feel aligned.

Candy: So the reason I joined was because something wasn’t right inside. Like I knew and when I started to hear, Oh my gosh, it’s because we’ve been so conditioned and understanding the feminism piece and understanding the history of controlling women’s bodies, I was like, no wonder. So it was just an internal longing for understanding why it didn’t feel aligned for me.

Candy: And honestly, those couple of days I was texting you about this program and about to sign, my heart was like. This is what you’ve been waiting for. I know it sounds a little dramatic, but like this is what you’ve been longing for over five years, the why it hasn’t felt aligned. And so I had a full body intuitive yes, like, ah, yes, you know what I mean?

Candy: It was very quick for me to, because I had been going through this process, I think this, and also I’m a postmenopausal woman and. part of this new transition into the next phase of life is what I want to even like spend my time on. I do not have any more anything, any more, like people like to say F’s to give, right?

Candy: To put energy into anything that doesn’t feel aligned anymore. And so when I came across this, I was like, holy cow, this is why. So that’s why I said yes. And it did connect to helping my people. Absolutely. it was very personal too though. I really wanted to feel that alignment and understand why I hadn’t.

Stephanie: So give the background for people listening. This is a, we’re talking about texting DM conversation, but it’s not me co pitching you. You came to me, you asked very specific question. I took the time to answer your question. I didn’t rush you into a decision. I let it be the way it is. That’s ethical selling. I used the DM conversation, but I didn’t like co pitch you, force you into it. We just naturally human to human had a conversation via text and then you made your decision.

Candy: Exactly. And I really appreciated that. And I really noticed that difference in the way you interacted with me. There’s another reason I was like, okay, she’s doing things differently in business too. So I was like, ah. I got to get on in on this. Yeah.

Stephanie: And I just want to say there’s the reason why we do things differently in business. And the reason why I teach differently in business is because when you’ve. Understood how the system work, not only with diet culture, weight and body, but with how the system interact with women. You don’t have a choice, but to do things differently. And when you’re regulated as an individual, there’s no way. So if you’re listening to this and you’re like, all the things I’ve been taught about business don’t feel good anymore. They feel yucky. I don’t want to do them. It’s probably because you’ve you’ve healed yourself.

Stephanie: You’re regulated and the old way of doing business doesn’t match who you are anymore because you don’t have a choice to show up differently in your business when you’re aligned and regulated. I think that’s what you said. Candy, like the whole pendulum thing, like, the more work you did on yourself, the old way, like the extreme way didn’t work anymore.

Stephanie: 100%. Yeah. We’re going to wrap this up because I committed to keep that. Consumable for people and respecting the listeners time. I just want your parting word to somebody who’s listening to this. Perhaps that were where you were, what would you say to them?

Candy: I’m a different person and I like who I am and I’m so grateful. And if it feels like it resonates for your heart and soul, trust yourself, trust yourself.

Kate: Yeah, similar message. I mean, just listen to your gut, listen to your body, right? That’s the embodiment practice and take a deep breath and check in. And if it feels right, can feel right. And it can feel scary at the same time. But if it feels right, then I mean, I. Have no regrets. I’m so glad and so proud that I said yes, and I’m also glad that I waited the year and a half and found when the time was right, you know, and there’s no scarcity thinking and like doors are open. They’re about to close. You have to sign up now. you know, if right now is not the time for you in six months, maybe it is or a year, you know, and that’s the beauty of how you run your business too. So, yeah.

McKenna: I’ve taken other courses in the past and honestly, they’ve like promised the world or I thought they’re going to be the answer to making my business what I want it to be and it didn’t happen until this course, but my biggest takeaway is I’ve learned to trust myself and I would just like, say to someone, if you’re really feeling that pull towards the course, Then to do it because you’re not going to regret it. I really don’t think you will. Yeah.

Stephanie: Thank you. The 3 of you for sharing your time with me and people who are listening to this today. Tomorrow. 2 years from now. Thank you very much. And for people listening, we’ve linked in the show notes. the name and the links of the individual that recorded the podcast today so you can go to the show note and find them there and how they’re coming out into the world. So, thank you for having sharing this time with us. Ladies. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Stephanie: To our podcast production team, we’re going to end the podcast here. The rest of the recording will be our regular session, so you can end your production of the podcast right here.

Stephanie: And now we’re beginning the one on one session. I have to run to the bathroom. Oh, yeah, you go. The coffee needs to get out, eh? How was this experience, McKenna? That was your first podcast. How did that felt for you? Oh, I liked it. Just conversation.

McKenna: Yeah, someone once told me maybe I’d be, that’d be my route, this is a different business thing, but I was talking about things, they’re like, you sound like someone who would like a podcast, and I was like, Okay, I’m just going to leave that there, let’s pretend you didn’t say that, but I actually really knew I did.

McKenna: I also enjoy listening to them and, hearing a real human

Kate: speak of their experience. Without being scripted. Yes. Yeah, exactly. It takes a lot of, I just want to say it takes a lot of courage to have an open ended conversation like this without scripting what people are going to say about you or your program.

Kate: Yeah. Because many podcasts will only select the people, they won’t invite broadly people, they’ll select their, what they categorize as their best student, and they will script what they want to say. Like it’s all about the control, where for me it’s about letting you speak your truth, and your truth is what other people need to hear.

Kate: Now as far podcast for yourself, It’s really easy these days. It’s not complicated. If you go into the portal under, the marketing section, there is two classes on how to start a podcast. There’s a class on me showing you how to think about a podcast and what to put in it. And then there’s a class from Kim who shows you how to use the tool called Buzzsprout, which is a platform for podcasting that allows you to broadcast your podcast and edit your podcast.

Kate: Okay. So all you need is. It’s a decent microphone that can be bought for a hundred bucks on Amazon. Like it doesn’t have to be complicated because remember our podcasts, there’s two ways to think about a podcast. There’s a income generating podcast that is generating income based on advertiser. Usually the top ranking podcasts on platforms are, income producing.

Kate: That’s a lot more complicated and it takes a lot of lining up sponsors and topics and guests and all of that. And then there’s your podcast being your marketing tool, like me. There’s no sponsors. It’s low cost production and intro music, words, that’s it. There’s no complication. And then that’s a marketing tool.

Kate: It’s you being you and then clients wanting to work with you use the marketing, the podcast as a way of making their decision to work with you. And that costs very little, maybe cost I don’t know, a podcast feed. 20 bucks a month, the cost of your microphone, and your time.

Kate: So, it’s a great marketing tool if you are capable of speaking your truth.

Kate: So, it becomes really easy. You just grab your microphone and you say words. It just takes a lot of ability to be you. And I think you’re there. So it’s just a matter of… And the other thing I want to say about podcasts, before I let you go on this topic, is again, you don’t have to produce all the time.

Kate: Some of the most… Some of my student most efficient podcasts have been, like, 10 podcast episodes, they produce 10 podcast episode, they put it on a feed, and they’re constantly sending traffic there when people make a decision to work with them, they go to the, it doesn’t have to be every week or twice a week, because you don’t work with sponsor, you don’t have production, You don’t have to produce so much, so just make it what you need it to be, not what the industry says it has to be.

Kate: Okay, so we’re here for coaching then.

Kate: Okay, who do I have today for one on one coaching? I have McKenna and I have Candy on the docket for today. Is there one of you that want to go first?

Kate: And we may have, we may not use the full 90 minutes today. I don’t feel you need to talk. did somebody raise their hand.

Liz: Talk about a couple of little things I would like to talk about this pendulation process. then I’m going through, and I also had kind of an emotional thing with family happened this weekend.

Liz: So, as I was talking about it on the podcast just a few minutes ago, the pendulation process, I don’t have a lot of desire to do anything, Stephanie, I really don’t. When you were talking about podcasts right now, I felt a tiny bit of Ooh, that sounds fun. And that’s the first time that something sounded like fun or interesting about business.

Liz: Yeah. And so I’m just kind of, I’m in this present moment right now realizing, well, maybe do that then. You know what I mean? Because I’m really still in this place of, I don’t want to be online,

Liz: but I like the idea of being on a podcast. So, long story short, I have several thoughts of I don’t even know if I want to do this anymore. And, part of it is some of the old programming around everybody in here is like a certified dietician, nutritionist, and I am not, there’s some like less than thoughts in there.

Liz: but there’s also some of what I said on the podcast was like, I just don’t have the energy to do anything that I don’t want to do anymore. Or like I choose to, I don’t want to do anything that doesn’t, that just doesn’t feel good anymore. So I was kind of interested, just as you were saying that two seconds ago, podcast, I’m like, Ooh, that actually sounds kind of interesting.

Liz: So I’m just holding myself in that there’s a lot kind of just all over the place there. But I think right now my brain’s making it a problem that I have no desire and it’s painful.

Kate: So my, my, where I’d like to bring you what you said that’s very interesting is I have no desire to do what I don’t want to do.

Kate: So is there a belief that in order to have a business, you must do what you don’t want to do?

Liz: Yeah, post a lot.

Kate: you know, think about food, right? So, often people, before they come to us, they have this idea of what, not dieting is, which is the fat woman, the typical fat woman eating donut with food coming out of her mouth.

Kate: Right? that’s the visual of not dieting, that they’ve been programmed to think by society. it’s either you’re dieting and you’re working towards losing weight, or you’re eating doughnuts all day long and you’re just disgusted. thing human being like spilling food out of our mouth. Do you get what I’m saying?

Liz: 100 percent 100 percent

Kate: So if you were in the past sold the idea that doing business must be go, is it possible that you don’t know? To your first set. That’s what I got all

Liz: the time. Gotta hustle to your first 100k.

Kate: Yeah, so is it possible that the only way you can think about business is that way you’re like, I don’t want to do this. Therefore, I don’t want to do business. Sure,

Liz: I believe there’s some of that in there for sure. Yeah, I and as you were talking, I noticed just a little bit of emotion of just being fearful.

Liz: this feels so curious. I’m just noticing all these things coming up as I’m talking. There’s fear in there. And I felt also a lack of self trust because I got so good at that other way and it’s what my nervous system knew. And so, I feel almost like a little kid in this new, this new idea of it can be done differently.

Liz: And I’m really afraid. It’s really curious.

Kate: Yeah. So what’s interesting is you just said it’s curiosity, but it’s also fear of doing it another way because I was so good the other way. The question is, were you really that good if you burnt out?

Liz: I mean, that’s the story I tell myself, right? Because I got over 100k and I had all these clients and yeah.

Liz: I hate the sex markers, you know,

Kate: whatever those things. So the question is that it’s also about what is, here’s the other thing. So you don’t know how to do it another way. So you’re kind of don’t know. So you’re like, I don’t want business. Is it that I don’t want business? So I don’t want to do it the way I know how to do it.

Kate: And the other thing is. Why do you want a business? It sound based on what you’re talking that having a business is just about making money. Can there be another why to a business? Yeah. Yeah.

Liz: I mean, I didn’t get into it for that reason. I always wanted to help people with emotions and mental

Kate: health.

Kate: So is it, is having a business, is it possible that having a business can just be the vehicle of service?

Liz: Oh, yes. And I really want to have that feel embodied. That’s the desire. And there’s fear in the way.

Kate: Right. So that means this whole whatever six figure thing gets like completely taken off. Because if the goal of having a business is service, then having three clients, you’ve achieved your goal.

Liz: It’s putting them. Weight loss on the back burner. This is what I’m hearing you say.

Kate: Sure, if you want to see it this way.

Liz: You’d think I was on my period, but that doesn’t happen anymore.

Liz: that’s the thing that just came up. It’s like putting the 100k on the back burner, putting the weight loss on the back burner, we’re just releasing it, right?

Liz: I can see that connection.

Kate: So is that’s the question we need to answer when this is very specific to somebody who’s been indoctrinated in the whole 6 figures, 6 months,more money like this. This is unfortunately the most common way of, Thinking about business and believing about business so if you’ve been indoctrinated into that.

Kate: It’s you have to rebuild your belief system around business completely. Right.

Kate: Is then, if business is not about making 100K, then 200K, then half a million, and then a million, if that’s not why, then is it worth it?

Kate: Is if you think about it another way money versus service in the old paradigm,

Kate: can it move to neutrality and can it move that service is more important than money. And is that a motivator for you to record the podcast to go to the networking meeting to invite people into consultation?

Liz: I think it could be. I mean, that’s what my heart has always wanted to be in dealing with service and I mean. When I was doing it before, I was doing my best to do that because that’s just who my heart is, you know, but I had that kind of toxic other stuff indoctrinated as well. That’s another reason why it’s still aligned.

Liz: Right.

Kate: And so think about like your service got corrupted with capitalism, right? Like you were coming in at it. Well, you were coming at it from service, but this, the normalized capitalism money at all costs corrupted the file of service. So now it’s just about cleaning up the file of service and let it be what it needs to be and what you were meant to serve the world with.

Kate: And if that means 100K, then it means 100K. But if it means 30K, 50K, it takes you four years, It’s also okay.

Kate: No, that’s useful. So, here’s the other question you want to ask yourself. It’s okay to not want a business. So, imagine yourself your next 10 years. For the sake, just to put a number, what would you do with yourself? If it’s not serving and building a business that serves people. Where would you put your resources, your time?

Kate: And it’s okay if you say Netflix, if you want to watch Netflix for 10 years, like there’s nothing good or bad, you know, I need five years of Netflix. Okay, sure. Let’s do five years of Netflix.

Liz: I don’t want to do that much Netflix because I actually don’t feel good. I don’t feel good when I do. I don’t feel like I am being me and I feel shame when I watch too much

Kate: Netflix.

Kate: Oh, that’s another, we need to coach on that. There should be no shame. But do you know what I’m saying? When I’m

Liz: doing it for hours and I would rather be like loving people. That’s why, you know, it feels so good to love people.

Kate: So maybe it’s not a business. Maybe it’s a involvement in your church, becoming a priest in your church, or do you know, there’s so many ways,

Kate: but how are you going to. No matter what it is, we need to contribute into the world. Yeah. Some people contribute with a business and service. Some people contribute with helping in their religion. Some people, I don’t know, leads Girl Scout. I saw somebody posting that they are leading Girl Scout. That’s their thing.

Kate: Like their free time goes into, as a grown woman, to lead little girls. How do we contribute into the world?

Kate: Living a prosperous life, many people think it’s about making more money, but it’s not. It’s like you creating happiness right now in your life, you putting out into the world service, value, and then wealth. Prosperity is just not a million dollar in a bank account. Prosperity is your valuing and prioritizing your happiness.

Kate: Impacting the world projecting value into the world, and then wealth will come and in wealth, maybe 100, 000, maybe 10 million. There’s no numbers to determine wealth.

Liz: I think there’s a thought in there. Oh, my gosh. Okay. If I get it completely right and make the right choice about exactly what I want to do, then I’ll be happy.

Liz: You know what I mean? Or then I’ll be calm. So I see that in there that, grass is greener thinking. I’ll be happy when thinking, but when you ask the question, like, how do I want to contribute into the world?

Liz: I’ve always been a teacher. I’m not going back to the classroom ever again. I will not do that to myself, but I’ve always been a teacher mentor coach and

Liz: I do love talking about business. I like talking to people about what they like to do. I like talking to people about. Yeah, I need to just kind of think on that because that’s kind of where I’ve been. It’s what do I really want to do? What do I really want to be?

Kate: My only other recommendation or prescription for you would be to fill the void of not knowing how to run a business any other way.

Kate: Like before making a decision to say that business is not for me. What if you’re like witness or think about what it could be without. The old reference framework,

Liz: and you know what? That feels good. I want to try that. No, and if I were to be like, okay, let’s go figure out how to be like, I don’t know, a therapist or whatever else I want to, you know, think about do when I don’t want to do that.

Liz: This actually feels okay, yeah, I’d like to figure out how it feels to run a business in

Kate: a different way.

Kate: And 1 last thought before we go to the family thing, this whole ideology of dietitian and nutritionist. I just want to remind you that I’m a coach without certification. I’m pretty good at it. I’m better than maybe many people who have a damn certification on it. So, you can do exactly what you want to do without being a nutritionist or dietitian.

Kate: It actually means nothing.

Liz: Oh, here’s the thought that just popped up. Women in my age group want an expert with a bunch of letters behind.

Kate: Is it? Do you want to work with those people? Usually I do. You want to work with people who only believe in two people who have seven letters after their name? You want to work with these women?

Liz: No. Like the reason I came to you is because you were smart. You had business training. You had a dietitian, but then you had this completely opposite thing. You know what I mean?

Kate: Yeah, but I don’t have a business degree. I don’t have an MBA. I have life experience of business.

Kate: That’s true. I’ve got loads of life experience. I’ve been told many times, by the way, that I’m better than many therapists. Oh, I don’t have no fucking therapist degree.

Liz: That’s

Kate: because

McKenna: a lot of therapists suck and I’m just going to say it.

Kate: Don’t do that. It’s not the degree, do you know what I’m saying? They can have the degree and they suck. The

McKenna: degree means nothing. The degree means nothing in my world now because… I had a therapist who pretty much told me I sucked and I was doing everything wrong last year.

McKenna: So she caused me more harm than good. So I’m just going to say it took a lot of searching and a lot of reading

Kate: bios

McKenna: before I was like, you’re worth going into actually do a session with and I’m a friend who’s a social worker here who is like one of the most lovely counselors you will meet in this city.

McKenna: Who was like, yeah, it’s really hard to find someone who I know will fit with you. They’re like, don’t exist in this city. And I was like, no shocker there. No shocker.

Kate: So it’s a normal thought to have, Candy. Just don’t, just question if you want to put belief behind that thought. Or just You’re there, thank you.

Kate: Yeah,

Liz: you’re right. I wrote down, just focus on my belief. I just wrote that. Okay, got it. I think I’m good. I do want to figure out how to fill that void, like you said, of not knowing how to, of knowing how to run a business a different way. Yes, I do want to focus on that, and I do want to explore this curiosity that just popped up in my heart, oh, actually podcast could be fun, and follow that, that, inner sensation, You know,

Kate: like your life coach for menopause, postmenopausal or whatever you want to call it from the angle of body image and self confidence instead of being from the angle of religion or from the angle of health, like you just have your own spin on this coaching women in that age group.

Kate: Do you want to work on the family thing or you’re good?

Liz: why don’t we come back to it if there is time? Somebody else again. Okay. Thanks.

Kate: First

McKenna: off, questions about the rejecting diet mentality resources. I know there’s the anti diet book. I know we’ve talked about this. I just cannot recall

Kate: resources. So I would, is it for you or for clients? It’s for clients.

Kate: I wouldn’t give them too much books. So just

McKenna: like the anti diet, cause that’s pretty.

Kate: Because what they’re going to get stuck into is intellectualization. Okay,

McKenna: no, I was just curious because the current client who came on she’s read that book so that it she got it just Got me thinking for future like if no one’s ever been exposed to the anti diet mentality at all

Kate: Here’s the other place would be from the same author Wellness culture.

Kate: Okay, that’s what I’m wellness

?: trap. Yep.

Stephanie: Yep. Yep, because it’s the other paradigm. So If it’s not if the client’s okay, I’m accepting that it’s not about weight loss, but then they’re going to swing to, well, it’s about my health. Now we need to talk about wellness culture. That’s what this

?: client, what’s it called?

?: It’s the Wellness Trap by, is it Christy Harrison? Christy

Stephanie: Harrison? It’s the same author for both books. she’s a dietitian who doesn’t work really with people anymore. she’s a journalist and she writes books and articles and do media stuff on. The anti diet world.

?: okay. That’s helpful though, because it’s the, I see it now where this client read anti diet book and it’s it’s not about the weight, but it’s about my health.

?: So now she’s swung to the wellness side of things.

Stephanie: Yeah. So if you listen, I did an interview with Christie, whatever on the podcast recently in January, I think. The reason why she wrote the book is because she’s been through that herself and that we were Have the podcast talking about that’s what I did.

Stephanie: That’s what she did. That’s what our client do So she wrote the book on okay now like it’s no longer about weight loss now It’s about health and then she like unpacked all that detoxes and cleanse bullshit thing with supporting evidence Yes.

Stephanie: the next. Okay. Here’s my thing. And honestly, I forgot it was me who was up today and I’ve just been like, didn’t really think about this. honestly, I’ve just been content. I even shared that with my parents. I’ve just been like content. I was just like, I woke up feeling like, yeah, I woke up feeling like a different person yesterday, but it had to do with, it was my partner’s six months.

?: treatment. He gets it every six months and six months. And there was just like this different sense of gratitude for life. that I just, I think most people look past, like I’ll literally look outside and look at a tree and be like, that’s beautiful. That’s cool. there’s a lot of just like really mudane moments that have started happening over the last year that it’s just who am I becoming?

?: Because I can just tune out what’s happening in the world and be like, See other yeah, see other things, but I started thinking about what has been coming up over the last few weeks and it’s I want clients and I remember in the beginning I was doing a lot of like belief like the clients will come like trusting myself and then I kind of slid away because I started to do more just like I’m going to trust myself, not fear waking.

?: I started going down more that route. But I do want clients. But then there’s this part of me that goes, I’ve been thinking about this for a few months of putting something out there I’m now accepting, five clients because I’d like to just, put a number and, if I could get, five more and work with five for a while and really build up my coaching, that would be great.

?: But then there’s this part of me who, comes in and it’s you’re not ready. You’re, like, you’re not, your life isn’t ready. But then there’s a part of me who’s, You know, that doesn’t work that mindset because life is always going to be happening. And if you wait till you’re ready, you will never be in this place of ready.

Stephanie: So why is it a problem that those old thought comes up? It’s not a

?: problem. I think I just have to act on it and put it out there that I’m accepting clients. And

Stephanie: are you even accepting clients? How does that feel saying I’m accepting clients? Oh, it feels good. Like I want clients. But are you really accepting clients?

Stephanie: Or are you just… Putting yourself out there and whoever needs to come like this whole notion of accepting. Were you ever denying clients? no. So, so just clear on the world on the accepting clients is a really, it’s used to position yourself as somebody who’s got a massive wait list. And now I’m taking client the first come first serve kind of shit.

Stephanie: Do you know? Yeah, no, I get what you’re saying. So, did you ever if you say, I’ve never denied client, then you’re not accepting client. You’re just ready to help people and have people work with you. Is that correct? Yeah. So it’s more. So I’m looking for more clients. Yeah, so here’s the first question is you’re saying, yeah, I’m ready for first time.

Stephanie: And then I have the thought I’m not good enough for more client normal, like nothing has gone wrong for you having this dichotomy. Now, are you going to coach yourself through it or accept the validity of this thought? Oh, well, I’m not going to accept it.

?: If I would have accepted

Stephanie: it, I wouldn’t be here.

Stephanie: Okay, good. So you’re going to expect that thought to show up every morning. Yes. Right and you’re going to meet it with, compassion makes total sense that you were that you brain Lizzie in my case would think I’m not good enough to do this. Thank you very much. Because that’s my whole belief system.

Stephanie: Thank you. But we still going to offer a program out into the world and see who needs it. Does that make sense? Yes. So my advice for you is this is you need. Offer into the world, an opportunity to work with you. Like we want more client, but we need to go out there telling people that we can help them with this, and this and that.

Stephanie: So for an example, without judgment, how many offers, how many times did you publicly talk about you have a program and it can help people with this DME or book a consultation? How many times have you made an offer? In the last say week,

Stephanie: not at all

?: because my last post I didn’t make it as an offer, but that was a personal decision.

Stephanie: That’s okay.

?: I, yeah, it was a whole, it was a whole thought download that I had and I didn’t want it to be, it felt sleazy to me to share something super vulnerable and then try to turn around into a work with me.

?: Just being like a first time sharing such a vulnerable story. I didn’t want to like, and I think part of it is I let thoughts get to my head because I see that in bro marketing where people take some people in my life take vulnerable stories, and then it becomes like the only thing they talk about and then they like persuade people to work with them.

?: So part of it was my thought download and still I guess a bit of like bro

Stephanie: marketing thoughts. And totally valid, right? And is it true that it’s lazy? No. No. But in that moment, you created the feeling of resistance. Because you entertain the thought it’s sleazy to talk about working with me after sharing such a vulnerable event.

?: But then I just was it’s okay. It’ll probably change in time, but it’s just normal and just it’s okay. I don’t have to do it all at once.

Stephanie: Well, exactly instead of thinking I’m not going to do it because it’s sleazy. You could have selected the thing right now. I just want to build safety for being vulnerable online and I

?: feel like that’s the route.

?: I went where I let go of the fact that it was sleazy. And I was just like, it’s okay. right now you don’t feel comfortable doing that. In time, it’ll

Stephanie: likely happen totally. Okay, but you’re not doing it because it’s sleazy. You’re doing it to build safety. Yes, I think about it that way different thought different feeling.

Stephanie: Yes. So, I want to take this example to say, making offer is the same thing you will hear about making offer it from every business program because it’s the foundation of, interaction and exchange. You need to make an offer to receive. And people have to accept an offer to receive from you, like the concept of offer is not a problem, it’s why you’re doing it and how you’re doing it.

Stephanie: Does that make sense? Yeah.

Stephanie: So how do you want to think about an offer? that’s where you want to build your belief and your thought. An offer is what for me? It’s an invitation to work with me. Yeah. It’s an exchange of value. I have value to offer. bing. These are all the valuable things I can offer to people that will truly, in my view at this point in time, really change their life.

Stephanie: And the value I’m asking back to always make an offer fair because that’s a whole, like I need to offer as much because the world doesn’t have money and I need to make my offer, accessible to people. That’s a whole other bullshit socialization crap. You need, you’re not presenting that, but you make, you need to make the exchange of value equal.

Stephanie: You’re going to offer this value that’s going to impact their life. How much money do I want? How much money do I believe this is valued at right now?

Stephanie: So now an offer is an exchange of value,

Stephanie: an equal exchange of value between you and your future client.

Stephanie: How does that land with you? Oh, it lands good. Yeah. I’m just like,

?: I was thinking about different scenarios where, I pay someone for something and value.

Stephanie: But, yeah, it’s value everywhere from the plumber to the therapist to the grocery that you buy is just. It’s always an exchange of value and wherever you fell that you got ripped off is because the alignment of value you believe is not equal between the 2.

Stephanie: Do

Stephanie: you know what I’m saying? Yep, so then if you’ve not been making a lot of offer, the other thing that’s so you need to like, think of it in terms of value and putting it out to help the world. You need to build your belief there. And then the other thing is your nervous system will feel really uncomfortable making offer for the next.

Stephanie: 2 to 3 months, it’s it’s okay to have all the belief in the world, but you all thought will come up. So are you willing to learn to make offers through discomfort? Yes.

?: I mean, most of what I’ve done has been through discomfort the last

Stephanie: few months. So that’s the key for everybody, are you willing to consistently make offer that are aligned with your value in a way that feels good to you and to build up this capacity to make offer in this way, true discomfort.

Stephanie: So, are you willing to say, I don’t know, I’m going to set up a goal of making 3 offer for the next 4 weeks every week. Okay. Yeah. You know, I’m going to take,and I would say your brain’s going to, it’s going to default to making it in a caption of a post buried at the bottom, but big and bold right on the front.

Stephanie: And on video, I want you to speak about, I knew this was

?: coming. I knew this was, I was waiting for you to say all

Stephanie: this. It’s easy to bury it in the caption in the CTA, a call to action.

Stephanie: I’m not saying it’s good or bad. There needs to be some of that. That’s, this is almost like my point of view is I share my life publicly to help people and the way to help people is by them into my program. So there’s very little post that is, does not have a call to action to get into my world. To me, it’s just given.

Stephanie: Why would I make a post if it’s not to let people that they can work with me. Yep. You got it. So that’s to me, that’s easy. Yeah. It’s a whole other level to have a conversation on video embodying, work with me confidently. So you got to practice because the first dozen of time you’re going to do this and your voice is going to be shaking.

Stephanie: You got to build up the capacity to make an offer with your whole body and be confident about it. So are you able to do that for the next four weeks? And be really uncomfortable through the process.

Stephanie: That’s how you get more clients.

Stephanie: How do you feel now? Oh, I already

?: feel the uncomfortableness beginning, but I can’t.

Stephanie: But at the same time, I’m like, I don’t know.

?: I think just the last year and the last few months in this, it’s really just like putting a video on social media. It’s just so minimal compared to everything else that’s going on in my life right now. But it’s just Everyone’s gonna perceive it differently as long as I, I feel good, okay in it and I believe in it.

?: It really doesn’t matter what anyone

Stephanie: else thinks. Bingo, but the old neuropath way will fire up. Oh, yeah. 100%. There just will so expect them to come online and then have to ride the wave and calm your nervous system and like You’re gonna have to practice that dozens of times in order for you to become the version of yourself who?

Stephanie: Makes offer, gets client, has a way of living her life. So it’s no longer, I just want to say to you, here’s the picture. It’s no, for me, it’s no longer, should I make an offer or not? I just make offer all the fucking time. It’s just who I have become.

Stephanie: If that’s what it takes to have a business, but I do it in a way that doesn’t cost me my nervous system health. It doesn’t cost me my mental health. It doesn’t cost me my emotional health. It doesn’t cost me thousands of dollars in Facebook ads, you know, like I do it in the way that’s sustainable for the rest of my life.

Stephanie: Yes, I got. Yeah. Do you want to become that? Yeah. Today is day one of the next phase of creating that version of you. The next four weeks of you feeling like terrible having to make offers on video.

Stephanie: I’ll come to that phase two of your life.

?: I think where he had caught up is knowing how to put in terms that someone’s going to comprehend,

Stephanie: understand. Bro marketing or toxic business culture will tell you how. Give me your email. I’ll give you the PDF on how to formulate the offer perfectly. I will say to you, there’s no right way.

Stephanie: There’s McKenna’s way.

Stephanie: Your brain is doing what brains do. Tell me the right way, so I’ll be safe. And I’m saying there’s no right way. There’s your way.

?: Yeah, it seems simple, but I like it. It’s simple, but then I’m like, sure, seems simple intellectually, but then when I go to speak or think about how to say it is where I get caught up.

Stephanie: That’s where the discomfort shows up. Yeah, that’s where the voice gets shaky. That’s where you mumble and fumble on your words.

Stephanie: What I’m saying to you is the shaky voice the mumbling and mumbling on the words is what will make you find the best way for you. Thank you. Okay.

Stephanie: Well, like for

?: me, it’s I think it’s simple is it’s the options there that you don’t have to dislike your body for your lifetime and you can live free of your body and then you don’t have to fear food like you can enjoy it and you can not have your worth attached to it.

Stephanie: Say that. I have another coach.

Stephanie: Here’s what she’s done over the last 2 years. She’s been doing, consultation. So she bought this cute little journal and every consultation. She’s been writing like the story of the client without their name. And now. Most of her posts are consultation stories. She markets using all the consultations she’s done, and then she shows the world that she’s a coach by telling the story and how she proposed that client to solve that problem.

Stephanie: So people are like, Oh, she’s talking about me and that proposition of solving my problem is great. That’s her way.

Stephanie: What’s your way? For me, it’s been a lot anchored on my story. My marketing is a lot anchored on my story. It doesn’t have to be your way. What’s your way? And you’re going to have to try different ways to find the one that makes you feel the best and that people resonate with. Okay. So try that way you just said.

Stephanie: Go on video, tell a story, and tell that to people. First of all, the next month is not even about getting success. It’s about you getting over being uncomfortable. You know? Fuck the result at this point is just getting your nervous system to seeing making an offer is safe. It’s not about getting clients.

Stephanie: About building the safety of making an offer, non scripted, and not having, to coach your nervous system for two weeks after. Okay. Perfect. You know? Don’t attach it to the number of clients. You’re not ready for that.

Stephanie: All right.

Stephanie: Is that, does that feel good? yes. It feels uncomfortable, but it feels aligned. That’s all. Yeah, I now

?: have a direction to go

Stephanie: with it. Perfect. That’s all I needed. it’s

?: there are all these things going on. I can just jump into that two months ago and bring up this, but now it’s I feel like I’m there.

?: I need to start making offers if I want this to actually

Stephanie: be successful. you need to make offer today to have five clients in six months. Yeah. Yeah. And when you have the five clients, you have to continue to make offer to have your next 10 clients. And when you have 10 clients, you’re like, Oh, I had a full schedule.

Stephanie: Great. I’m stopping marketing. Error. Continue marketing. So you can bring in the next 10 clients. Yes. There’s never an end point to marketing. So you got to fall in love with it. All right. Okay. Yep. Yep. Amazing. We still got two or 40 minutes. I believe. Kate. Okay. This is great. Cause this is like a continuation of this whole conversation.

Stephanie: So

?: I have, a marketing opportunity. I have a networking meeting tomorrow. On zoom with, a woman who connected with me through Instagram, but she’s here local. And I think we could, she sounds really cool. She’s a therapist. She’s a somatic coach. She’s running women’s retreats, like all over the world, like something you would sign up for.

?: Like she’s going to Machu Picchu in the spring. And, three people I know in real life have been on her retreats. So, there’s all these signs, and I’ve reached out to them, tell me about Kim. What do you, what do I need to know? Anyway, she is hosting, in the spring, she’s calling it a women’s leadership retreat here in

Stephanie: town.

?: and she’s looking for speakers. And so that’s how we connected. So that’s what this networking meeting is

Stephanie: about. she’s looking

?: to, I think it’s 90 people is the size of the event.

?: She is asking people to, to pay for the opportunity to speak. So she’s looking for like corporate sponsors and speaking sponsors. So she sent me the information, but I’m also trying, I have questions about it. The marketing speak. So this is like my net, like the internet world feels safe to me. It’s like being public in a room of 90 women who are local, who like, I will run into at the grocery store, you know, like it’s a next level of, Vulnerability and intimacy for me and my business.

?: And it also feels really aligned, so far in just the information I’ve collected. So

?: my, I guess where I want to go with this is

?: I’m really like brainstorming now on like how to really serve this group. like I’d like to come to the meeting tomorrow with her. I’ve here’s a couple of ways, different ways I’m thinking I can serve your audience. yeah, in this women’s leadership. I need some more information about who she thinks like the audiences.

?: are they corporate people or entrepreneurs? It seems like she’s more in the entrepreneurial space.

Stephanie: and also I’m scared. So, what do you need help from me on? Yeah, question there. Yeah.

?: I guess the place where I could use help is like the creative process. Yes. of coming up with a topic and then the content to really serve this audience.

Stephanie: Well, so here’s, this is my thoughts when I hear leadership, right? Yeah. So when I hear leadership, I typically will hear like holder women, 35 plus.

Stephanie: Usually, leadership is sold to this more wiser, older, experienced people. So right away, I’m falling into, it’s women, it’s people, we’ll imagine 35 and over. Right, so they’re in your audience as peripnopause. Yeah. And if they’re a leader, they’re a leader in corporate structure, they’re a leader in business, how, what do they need?

Stephanie: what is their problem? Probably they won’t want to talk about how much they bleed on their period. That’s not going to be a topic. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like I don’t see you going on stage and talking about men’s season periods and all of this together inside. Yes, totally. Typically people in leadership, the word confidence is the thing, right?

Stephanie: Being in your power, right? These are the kind of problems. S that these women have. . So how do you observe that? So then my mind goes to

?: body image, right? Like body image in the workplace?

Stephanie: Or you wanna be careful? I think the roof is body image, but I don’t think that’s how they would speak about it.

Stephanie: Ah, yeah. You see what I’m saying? if you say, pitch to her, I wanna do a body image thing. eh, yeah. it’s not gonna be sellable. Right. To this group of people, but confident, can you sell confidence through body image, but not make it about body image? Do you see what I’m saying? So it

?: just to clarify, so then more leaning into the thought work.

Stephanie: Are you talking about what you’re gonna talk about in your talk or the pitch idea to this woman?

?: okay. No, I was skipping ahead to the content. So, okay, in the

Stephanie: pitch idea. Got it. The pitch idea is solving a problem that her people have. Yeah.

?: So creating

Stephanie: confidence. Yes. Being in your power and all of that.

Stephanie: But I’m going to do it by talking about women, confidence, and body. And I’m going to talk about it from a place of, I don’t know, systemic feminism. I’m going to talk about it from a lens of how, I don’t know, it depends if it’s about business, how women are conditioned to think impacts their ability to make money or to be in business.

Stephanie: Yeah. And I’m going to do it through like how they feel in their body and how they’re like confidence and all of that. But it’s not a talk about Purely body image, right? It’s how to achieve the solution to their problem. But my take on it is different. It’s true embodiment. It’s true being comfortable in your body comfortable with your gray hair.

Stephanie: If that’s our audience and your wrinkles. Yeah, claiming your wisdom, claiming your age. Yeah.

Stephanie: How does that land with you? It lands, yeah.

?: Yeah, it feels really good.

Stephanie: Yeah. When we pitch, it’s always about how can I think the problem they solve and say, yes, I can solve that problem. I’m going to solve it this way, and this is why this is different. I’m going to solve it through the lands of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But I’m still going to solve that problem.

Stephanie: But I’m going to solve it differently. Yep, bitching often people think it’s about, putting myself out there new. It’s not about imposing your idea. It’s about solving your collaborators problem and saying, yes, I’m going to solve it and being confident. You can solve it, but I’m going to solve it differently.

Stephanie: But don’t go to her and say, I’m going to do a talk on body image. She’s going to say no. Yeah. Right,

?: right, but creating confidence through embodiment

Stephanie: owning that time of your life like don’t call it like perimenopause how to handle perimenopause know how to handle your power in your years of menopause.

Stephanie: Okay. Okay. That’s really helpful. Is that helpful? Yeah. So come in and ask a ton of questions in the meeting to make sure you fully understand her problem. And then pitch on solving her problem through the different lenses. And it’s likely going to be something around embodiment, confidence, based on leadership confidence that I’ve attended.

Stephanie: It’s going to be something about being in your power, confidence, owning your space. Claiming your power and a lot of that has to do with body image. Yeah,

Stephanie: yeah. You could also picture think, you know, Kim Eagle. Think about what she’s doing right now. Yeah. She’s associated with this company who does retreat as a coach. And she gets a lot of her client through that way. She’s not trying to take the place of this person. She’s I can coach your people too.

Stephanie: Yeah. you can, I can go on the retreat with you as a coach, facilitating your idea and then I can use CBT to coach your people. That’s a great way of starting into this women who have, your women’s world, being a coach for her. yeah, totally. I mean,

?: I see her, our businesses is very, complimentary.

Stephanie: So make sure that you pitch on CBT and how you’re like a coach who use cognitive behavioral therapy and maybe she’ll hire you to come on those, some of those retreats and being a coach for people facilitating her. Make sure you’re aligned to her value. Make sure that what you teach you’re aligned and if you are, you can facilitate coaching for her.

Stephanie: Yeah. Thank Yeah, I love that. So there’s too many different ways you can go about networking with this person. It’s good.

?: It’s yeah, it’s actually like getting me excited to do like in person networking, which I haven’t

Stephanie: done at all. You know, it’s coming back right now. I’m seeing more and more face to face conference coming back.

Stephanie: Yeah. And big company like Rachel Roger is putting back her conference right now. Like she hadn’t been in three years, but it’s an investment. You have to think she’s investing a million dollar up front to render room, do all the things for this conference. But before, because of the COVID, people weren’t buying tickets.

Stephanie: So there’s a shitload of money that was lost in the industry of people investing up front and losing. Millions of dollars of people not coming to their conference and it sound like now people are coming back. Yeah. Yeah, well, face to face networking, we’ll start going up again. Yeah, I agree. Did we solve the question you had?

Stephanie: Yeah, this is good. It

?: gives me a lot to work with to prepare for this meeting tomorrow. Yeah. Thank you.

Stephanie: You’re welcome. Ingrid, did you have anything you wanted to talk about? Are you good?

?: I’m good. I’m listening. I’m learning.

Stephanie: I know you are, and you have a new background. We have a…

?: Yeah,

Stephanie: it’s a…

Stephanie: Yeah, it’s a curtain. it’s neutral. Neutral. So, last check in, if you want. If not, we can just, I mean, we’ve been together for two hours. We can end it here, or we can continue coaching. Are we good? Kate, you’re good. McKenna, you’re good. Are you good, Candy? Or do you want to work on the family thing? Well,

?: not really.

?: I kind of coach myself and my husband a bit. So, okay. I know what happened. I know what went on in my mind. I know that there was some stuff that was also weird on the part of my family.

Stephanie: I just want to say this. All of you need, depending where you are on your transition, like a lot of you talk on a podcast on how much you change.

Stephanie: I want you to think about how that impacts your partner. I am not a relationship coach, but I know one thing, you CastingWords Impacts the metrics of your relationship, your relationship up to now was built on you being this version of yourself. So, in the case of candy, the weight loss and the thin person and all of that.

Stephanie: So, as you change personally, it will change the matrix of your relationship with your partner.

Stephanie: Mine wasn’t with, it was with. Or your family, it will change the metrics of your family. relationship.

Stephanie: How much space do you hold for the capacity of your family to adapt to this new version of yourself?

Stephanie: Because they up to now have known this version of you and also then you show up with this version of you. They didn’t sign up for that.

?: Good question.

Stephanie: Sorry.

?: I see it the other way too. Because I mean, what I was going through this weekend is I had my brother and his Two, two of his kids and his wife came into town. Maybe I do want a little coaching, sorry. And I, they live in Arizona, so I don’t see them often. But they came in for the F1 race.

?: And my stepson is, let’s just say he’s really, involved and has, he works with the cars. And he has, he had a whole like, set up that you have to be a VIP to get into. We let them go into it last year and they just showed up this year and didn’t, and just acted oh, well, we’re friends with you guys and they hardly talked to me at all.

?: That was just really weird. Their vibe was really weird. They acted like they owned the place. My steps annoyed that they were there and they hardly talked to me and I was like, this is weird. They’ve

Stephanie: changed too. How do you hold space for them changing? Well,

?: initially I was annoyed, but I breathed through it, and I said, Okay, my choice is to love, that’s always going to be my baseline, and I’m just going to hold space for, Okay, this is actually something they all love, and I don’t love it as much, so I’m just going to give them space to, be their thing.

?: but I was really hurt that they hardly talked to me, and the reason that they could even be there, was because of my stepson. You know what I mean? It was his business. He was annoyed because they were coming and eating his food and hadn’t asked.

Stephanie: How does that relate to you?

?: he was kind of getting…

?: He was getting a little annoyed that they had just showed up and, I’m the connection. It’s my family, you know, so it connected to me because they wouldn’t have been there if it hadn’t been for them knowing me and them getting the special permission to go last year and then them having made a lot of friends.

?: Some of his staff evidently said, yeah, come say hi, but they stayed around all day long and ate and drank and stuff and, just has to acted like it was, of course they did. Like they own the place and then didn’t talk to me. It was really weird.

Stephanie: So there’s two things you want to look at is how you’re thinking about your stepson’s business as being part of you. Your thought that if people get into your stepson’s world, they owe you something for it. And it’s like. Why is it hurting you that somebody doesn’t talk to you? There’s kind of two issues that I’m seeing here. forget about your son’s business. why do people owe you to talk to you? Like, why do they owe you and socializing with you? What’s the thought there?

Candy: Well, my two nieces that were there, we’ve always been close. Sure. It was like they were acting like they were teenage girls ignoring me. And I just really hurt. Well, the thought is. they shouldn’t ignore me because we’re friends,

Stephanie: but they chose to, what does that mean about you? What do you make it mean about you? It’d be the right question

Candy: and they did go down that path, which was, they don’t like me anymore.

Stephanie: I feel rejected.

Candy: 100%. 100%. I felt rejected. Yeah. And I did see that this weekend. So I just tried to breathe through it and do my best to, process the hurt. And that’s what I meant by like my husband’s really great at holding space for me and I just kind of did what I had to do. We went for a walk, vomited it out, let myself breathe it through it and I felt better. But I mean, there’s still a little bit of hurt in there,

Stephanie: which is normal, right?

Candy: Yeah, I decided to release it. I was so hurt by Saturday afternoon that, especially after my stepson told my husband that he was really annoyed that they just showed up and didn’t know. I went and asked my nieces. I’m like, did somebody else.

Candy: Say it was okay for you guys to come. oh yeah. And they looked deceived. They looked deceptive because they’d make really good friends with a couple of his staff. Oh yeah. They said, come say hi. I’m like, oh, okay. Cause that’s nice. That son didn’t say that. That they had actually sent the opposite and I just kind of was like, anyway, so I, for my well being, I said, okay, I’m just going to give everybody the benefit of doubt.

Candy: I’m going to take my nose out of this. I’m going to take my hurt out of it and I’m going to just send them a quick little texting. Hey, looks like I may have gotten in the middle of a miscommunication here. I love you. I’m sorry. Have a great rest of your weekend. The end. So I feel proud of that, but I was really hurt.

Stephanie: So do you, here’s a question. So there’s a,there’s a matrix, there’s a circumstance that happened and the way you think about relationship created the rejection and created the behavior, the A line from rejection. Can you see that? Yeah. Thank you. The question for you

?: is they didn’t even act like they wanted to see us at all flying.

Stephanie: Yeah. No, but the question is truly so what if they chose that?

?: It just seems really weird because we’ve always been I’ve always been so close to my niece and my nieces. And they were at our house for four or five days earlier this year. This is

Stephanie: the perfect example of relationship. Something happened in their life in the last however long you see.

Stephanie: How long has it been since you saw them? March. Okay, so roughly six months. A bunch of things happened in their life over the last six months. Which you don’t know about, and that created the model of them showing up at this event with different A Line than before. And one of those A Line was not caring about you as much as they did before.

Stephanie: So their model, their A Line, you took, you observed their behavior of not caring about you or not socializing with you. That’s their A Line of their model. You took that A line and made that mean something about you. You created a thought. That behavior of them says they don’t like me as much anymore. F, rejection.

Stephanie: And then you created action from the rejected model. Do you want me to put this in writing or can you see it? Well, I

?: can see it this weekend. I can see it.

Stephanie: Yeah. The question for you is, You have to think about your belief about relationship. Do you want to continue to have this model happen in your life where you believe people hold you a certain type of behavior?

Stephanie: Or do you want to change your belief system about relationship so you don’t expect behavior? From other people.

Stephanie: I know it’s math. I can put it in writing if you want.

?: No, I get it. I’m just trying to decide really what I want.

Stephanie: You don’t have to decide here. This is deep. This is beliefs about relationship we’re talking about. This is deep. what do you want to believe about relationship between humans?

Stephanie: I’ll go ahead.

?: the way that I’m choosing to get through this is just to release some expectations, honestly. I just have to release some, it’s the expectations that I have that hurt. And I really want to be okay with that hurting, to be honest, because it’s, it’s a, it feels like a slap in the face.

?: Okay. I want to validate that it

Stephanie: hurts. So you got to live through the model today.

Stephanie: And that’s okay. Like you got to think and feel the hurt. But you, if you want to move differently forward, you have to look at your belief system about family relationships.

Stephanie: In order for you to not, in years to come, constantly feel hurt, if that’s what you want, or if you want to keep wanting to feel hurt by your family’s behavior, then keep that same belief, and it will keep producing the same model.

?: Yeah, it’s just challenging when some members of your family treat you more poorly

Stephanie: than strangers do. Is it true? Or is that your perspective?

?: No, I have some family members that are

Stephanie: that way. So, I just want to be clear that this is not a fact that’s unnegotiable in the universe. It’s your way of seeing that relationship to those family members that creates that thought.

Stephanie: I

?: have an abusive sister. I do. Sure. She is. She’s flat out abusive. And it made me really terrified that these guys were going to start being like her. That’s honestly it. And I don’t talk to my sister anymore. And it hurt me because I love these people and we love each other. And I’m like, so I went to worst case scenario.

?: I was like, oh, no. Oh, no, did I do something? Oh, no.

Stephanie: So

Stephanie: what you’re I’m physically or mentally by your sister and what you did is you saw that relationship through the lands of that traumatic experience. No, I didn’t see that. That’s what happened

?: don’t leak it. It felt like that and it hurt really bad.

Stephanie: So. I’m just going to parallel this to make you see it from a non involved story. That is the same pattern that a woman who, for an example, was physically abused by a man. They will, for years after leaving that relationship, will have a traumatic experience to any other male’s relationship because they will relive their new relationship through the lands of abuse in the past.

Stephanie: And the most non abusive men will get portrayed as abusive. yeah. Because that’s the glasses they’re wearing. Men are physically abusive.

?: My brother and his family have changed a lot over the last few years. and it’s just been hard to

Stephanie: watch. So, and,

?: they,

Stephanie: Anyway, so again, tell me when you’ve had enough of being challenged in your thought pattern. They have changed. What if it’s good for them in their model? They’re changing in the way they want to change.

Stephanie: It just doesn’t line up with you.

?: I want to be there. I want to get there. I know

Stephanie: that’s what I’m saying.

?: Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s the path to freedom. I didn’t know and I’m just still a little hurt.

Stephanie: You are hurt because you keep hanging on to the thought that they shouldn’t be changing that way.

Stephanie: We shouldn’t be mean, it’s it’s very interesting because when you talk about family relationship, one of the things that I’m observing is that the coach lens completely goes away. Oh, girl. You see that? Yeah. Oh, right.

?: No, I totally know it because I mean, like I had, it’s a lot of trauma in my childhood and whenever I get around him, I’m like,

Stephanie: you’re like, it’s me.

Stephanie: No, you’re making it mean.

Stephanie: So that’s what coaching is important as a coach is that your coach brings you back in the neutrality of the event. You take in this conversation, you take 20%, you gain 20 percent of neutrality. The next family event comes in, you talk about it with your coach, you gain another 20 percent of neutrality.

Stephanie: Your coach is there just to show you the potential of neutrality, not to make you become this new version of yourself right away. I’m just holding this place. What if? What if? What if? What if? Yeah, that’s all I’m saying.

?: Yeah, the sad story was I’m like, I don’t want to not talk to all my siblings and family.

?: It was like,

Stephanie: yeah, do you have is the black and white? I say, I have to not talk to them.

?: no, I know that I can still I mean, my niece did send a quick text back and say, Thank you. I love you. I love you. You know, but, yeah, I just went to worst case scenario. I was like, oh, no, I hope they don’t turn into a relationship like my other sister.

?: I don’t want to lose another sibling and they’re cute kids and not have a connection there.

Stephanie: And what’s the long term solution? If you don’t want to lose that relationship. And that’s why

?: I sent the apology and said, I think maybe I got caught in the middle of a miscommunication here and I’m sorry.

?: And so I felt good about that, and I love you and have a great weekend and release the expectation.

Stephanie: Yeah, in the context of our relationship, when we fully embody the fact that we cannot control the other person’s behavior, the only solution to remain in our relationship is to change ourselves.

Stephanie: And I’ll come back to the other flipping, the abusive relationship, that’s what women do. Women change themselves and accept the abuse to stay in a relationship. But it’s also true the other way if you’re like no, I want to keep the relationship to my brother. I am going to change in order to maintain that relationship.

Stephanie: Am I okay with that? Or do I want to be who I am and cut them off? No,

?: I don’t want to cut them off. I think that would be silly. That’s not

Stephanie: necessary. Don’t judge it. It’s an option that is as good as the other one. Oh, yeah. Silly. No.

?: Well, in this case, it doesn’t make sense. With my sister, a hundred percent makes sense with them.

?: You choose not to.

Stephanie: I choose not to. Yeah. Perfect. Neutral. It’s not silly. I just choose not to. Then what do I need to change about myself in order for me to remain neutral in that relationship, to not trigger pain, to just remain neutral.

?: Honestly, just release expectations that they’ll want to see me and just let them be

Stephanie: where they’re at. Yeah, so change the belief that they want to spend time with me.

?: Yeah, that was the mismatch. I was so excited to see them. So excited to see them because I don’t get to see them, you know, very often.

?: And

Stephanie: for them, they weren’t excited.

?: Yeah, and it had never been that way before. So, it was really shocking. It was shocking to.

Stephanie: So there’s also I want to, I’ll give you guys the example of me and my brother over the years. There’s topics. We just don’t talk about there’s a category of subject lines that we have just taken off the book.

Stephanie: Because every time we talk about it, our non negotiable differences show up and we end up arguing there’s things like, we clearly taken off the docket in order for us to maintain a relationship.

Stephanie: So, there’s, I don’t talk politics. I don’t think I don’t talk about racism. I don’t talk about all of those things because I know he has dramatically different. views in me and I cannot change it and I’ve accepted that. So the question I have to ask myself is do I want to be in a relationship with a brother who doesn’t think the same way about me as oppression in the topic of oppression.

Stephanie: I for my brother I said yes but there’s other people in my life I say no I don’t want to be in a relationship like you’re not valuable enough to me for me to tolerate this about you. 100%. So what’s the matrix of your relationship with your brother? Honestly, I need to think

?: about I’m just releasing all expectations that they’ll ever want to spend time with me, and I’m just going to choose to love them my way.

Stephanie: When they show up, let me show up. Yeah.

Stephanie: Ingrid, do you want to contribute to ask something? Yeah,

?: just that I do have the same thing with one of my sisters. She does not contact me, she doesn’t want me to call her, and what I have, the way I think about it is I have released her. If she doesn’t want me, then it’s fine. It’s her decision, and I can’t do anything.

?: So it’s, yes, so I have tried to coach my eldest sister because she is hurt by the same situation. She has been acceptable. She’s not anymore. And yes, just don’t engage in it. Release her. That’s…

Stephanie: the only caution I’ll make about that, this whole, it’s not just about this circumstance, it’s this whole world of releasing shit.

Stephanie: In order, from a cognitive perspective, in order to release shit, you need to change the beliefs. Just saying, oh, it’s bullshit, from a nervous system and cognitive perspective, you have to do the thought work to change your belief about this human being. Yeah. Because it’s not true that we can just press a button and release ships.

Stephanie: No,

?: it’s not. It’s, it was, this has been for many years. And in a way,I have accepted that us being sisters doesn’t mean we will be friends forever.

Stephanie: That we’re even talking. From the beginning,

?: yes. But I don’t anymore. It’s, I have my choice of who I want to befriend with, and she has hers,

Stephanie: and that’s it.

Stephanie: But it doesn’t mean anything about you.

?: No, it doesn’t mean anything about me, because, yeah, it’s just her choice. I don’t know why, and I don’t care.

?: And when I just, when I say release, I mean work on releasing the beliefs. Yeah, I do. And the emotions of letting them process through. That’s what I mean by release.

Stephanie: One of the biggest beliefs that I had to change for me was the expectation that my family were, had to be supportive. I had this belief, and truthfully, you would go most places and they would say, yeah.

Stephanie: Like families should be supportive of their children, right? Everybody, you could almost think of it as a fact, but it’s not. Right? But most people are so sold into this. Yeah, it’s true. Like families should be supporting you. No, it’s not. It’s not a fact. I had to let go of the belief that families should be supporting their members.

Stephanie: And once I released that, I was able to have a neutral relationship with my family and their lack of support of me.

Stephanie: But I had to stop thinking about it as a fact. But as something most people choose to believe,

Stephanie: that’s how you’re scratching your voice. You want to say something? Yeah, it’s

?: just helpful. That is something you said earlier. And I already forgot about, but you’d asked a question that was very, that really made me think it was quite powerful, but that is really helpful because I think a lot in regards to business and other relationships in my life.

?: But I’ve never really thought about it, how you can, that way, because you’re so right, everything tells you, your family should support you. And it’s not necessarily, they, we might be able to be in a room together, but they might not support what, we might not support what one another does.

?: This all goes back to me nannying, actually. it’s hard for me to explain to people, but I finally am in a place where even my dad had no idea what the relationship was like with them, and I, he said something, I was like, oh, no, because he’s asking about what they do, and I was like, you know, don’t really support what they do, rather not talk about it, but I love their kids, so I’m going to Phoenix, and that’s that, we don’t need to get into the details.

Stephanie: But that’s the same thing. You can be in a relationship of money with this family without alignment and what how they earn money.

?: Exactly. And for years, I thought for not years, but at one point, I thought I had to be in alignment, right? It’s no, you can coexist as humans. Completely outside of other areas of your life and I think that’s where we as humans get it wrong.

Stephanie: Well, where most human gets it wrong is that, you mean I have to work on me? No, they have to change. Sure, that’s a model, but that model will be a crash collision at some point.

Stephanie: You can choose to, do the work on yourself in order to create the relationship you want and that’s because that’s the only thing you can control. You won’t make them stop selling weight loss. You won’t.

?: It’s interesting that you talk about the self growth because now I’m thinking of a comment I got from someone who said, you amaze me every time you speak, I’m more and more amazed by you.

?: And I was like, Oh, my gosh, that’s self growth. That is 100 percent self growth. And that’s me changing as an individual.

Stephanie: You decided that your circumstance of life weren’t making you happy anymore. You could have say the world needs to change to make room for me. But you said, no, I’m going to change to make me happy in the circumstance of the world I live in.

Stephanie: Exactly. That is exactly it. So take relationship and say, globally, that’s my view on a relationship. How do I need to change to make this relationship neutral to me, or at least neutral? So I don’t feel collapse every time I come out of seeing this human being. What do I need to change about myself? And if I don’t want to change, that’s okay.

Stephanie: Just close the relationship. Helpful.

?: Very helpful. I have one specific relationship come to mind.

Stephanie: Yeah. Okay, folks. I think we’re done for right now. Yeah. See you Thursday. Bye. See you. Take care.

 

 

 

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85-Eating Disorder VS Disordered Eating with Marie Pier The Balanced Dietitian

85-Eating Disorder VS Disordered Eating with Marie Pier The Balanced Dietitian

Eating Disorder VS Disordered eating

 

The difference between an eating disorder and disordered eating is not as easily recognized by many practitioners yet very important to the proper assessment of clients.

Eating Disorder VS Disordered eating

And the very next question to answer as a practitioner or a coach is when is it time for me to refer out a client to a skilled practitioner.

We answer both of these question on this episode of the Undiet Your Coaching with Marie-Pier is a Registered Dietitian with a B.Sc in Psychology. She is the founder and lead clinician of The Balanced Practice, a multidisciplinary team that supports clients in healing their relationships with food and body.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode: 

  • What is the difference between an Eating Disorder vs Disordered eating
  • The different type of eating disorder
  • As a non-licensed practitioner or coach when is it time to refer out a client

 

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Connect with our guest:

Instagram – The Balanced Practice

Instagram – The Balanced Dietitian

Facebook – The Balanced Practice

Eating Disorder Services – The Balanced Practice

The Balanced Program – group program

 

 

 

 

read more
84-Moving Away From Using Weight Loss As a Marketing Tool with Damali Fraiser

84-Moving Away From Using Weight Loss As a Marketing Tool with Damali Fraiser

Moving Away From Using Weight Loss As a Marketing Tool

 

Moving Away From Using Weight Loss As a Marketing Tool

Damali is a compassionate Kettlebell Expert, author, speaker, fitness/nutrition coach and owner of Lift off Strength & Wellness. 

She is known for her unapologetic opposition to diet culture in the kettlebell community and as a passionate educator who will help you learn to train with kettlebells safely. 

Through her course, Coaches Corner, you learn to teach from an intersectional lens that’s size-inclusive, trauma-informed, judgment-free and for every BODY.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on moving away from using weight loss as a marketing tool:

  • How to reclaim what it means to be FIT in diet culture world
  • Defining success without weight loss in fitness
  • How to move away from using weight loss as a marketing tool 
  • How to be a trauma-informed fitness coach

 

Mentioned in the show:

Register for How to coach the desire to lose weight training Oct 13th

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Connect with our guest

Instagram – Damali Fraiser

Facebook – Lift Off Strength & Wellness 

Website – Lift Off Strength & Wellness 

KB Technique Starter Pack

Transcript:

UYC084-Moving Away From Using Weight Loss As a Marketing Tool with Damali Fraiser

===

Welcome back, my dear colleague. Today we’re going to continue on that topic of desire to lose weight and weight loss, but we’re going to talk about it from a angle of marketing and how we can move away. I’m using weight loss as a marketing tool. I have a guest for you today. Her name is Damali Fraser. She is a kettlebell expert, an author. She leads the opposition to diet culture in the fitness and specifically kettlebells community and she trains professional in a. Size inclusive, trauma informed approach to fitness and kettlebell, which makes fitness accessible to all body. And I wanted to have her on the show so we can both share our experience of leading successful business without co opting.

Weight loss or dangling the weight loss subtly in our message and how we create success. And onto that topic, I want to invite all of you in a training that I’m hosting in a couple days, October the 13th, titled How to Coach the Desire to Lose Weight. And I recognize that It’s short notice, it’s only in two days and likely many of you will listen to this podcast and it will be well beyond October the 13th, so No fear, we’re going to make this recording accessible to you all.

So if you go in the show note and click the link, register for How to Coach the Desire to Lose Weight, you’ll access the recording. And this training is so cool. Like I just was reviewing. The slide in the workbook for this training, and we’re going to deep dive into the minutiae of why people want to lose weight. We’re going to talk about dieting. Does it work? What is the research saying? How do people create the desire to lose weight in their mind, in their body? We’re going to talk about the space. spectrum of eating behavior, we’re going to talk about the documented side effect of dieting, we’re going to talk about cognitive behavioral coaching model, and why it’s the gold standard for coaching the desire to lose weight.

And body image, and I’m gonna give you a step by step approach to coach the desire to, lose weight. And we’re gonna talk about also body neutrality, what it is and what it’s not, and why it is, in my opinion. The most powerful tool for women in our current society. Now, maybe in 50 years, 100 years from now will be different. But today it is my firm belief being in this industry for eight years now that it is the best approach to solve and prevent. body image and therefore prevent people being the victim of the weight loss industry and diet culture. And I’m going to teach you by asking you the most powerful question that I use every single time I coach body image. And it’s this one. Why do we have a body? the answer to that question is what fuels the desire to lose weight, what’s fueled people going on and off diets. And truly it’s what fueled my work. Like it’s the misunderstanding why we have a body as women is what creates my business. Once I teach the answer to that question to women and we rewire their brain and their nervous system to think about their body differently, it’s liberation.

So we’re going to deep dive into that question in the training. And I’m going to show you the way that I answer the question, the way I ask it to my client and the way that I answer that question. We’re also, I’m going to give you our body image roadmap, like the workbook itself is loaded with training process framework for you to apply with your client. So I hope to see all of you that are listening to this podcast, either in the recording or live on October the 13th. Okay. Spoke of that training enough. Now we’re going to move into the interview with Damali around how to build a successful business without co opting weight loss. And if you are a body fitness person. I highly encourage you to go and give a follow to Damali because I think she’s going to inspire you in transforming your business in an on diet approach.

Let’s roll in the interview and I’ll see you on the next podcast.

Stephanie: welcome to the show, Damali.

Damali: Thank you. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Stephanie: I am excited to introduce you. To my community, but I’m just curious to get to know you better. So I’ve been following you on social media. I think it’s been six months already that somehow we got together on social media and I’ve been spying you.

Stephanie: So here you are in the podcast. So we were talking just before recording. I wanted to record this. How did you came to the world of fitness? Let’s start with that question.

Damali: Yes, thank you for inviting me and I love it and I love to actually get in community and connect with folks. So, first off, I’ll just say anybody who is out there, you want to talk DM. And, you can come and chat with me anytime. I really appreciate it. It can be, you know, lonely as you try to transverse to a different plane of thought and mindset and having people that we could be a community with is like the foundations of everything I do.

Damali: So for me, fitness is nothing without community care. fitness is just a representation or metaphor for community because all we’re doing is building up that connection within ourselves that we want to see everywhere else and a positive connection and uplifting connection. and that’s why I really believe, you know, fitness is not about, what you’re going to lose.

Damali: It’s all about what you’re going to gain. I love that. Thank you. you know, so I came to. Fitness, as really growing up, thinking fitness was only like, cardio and, you know, pink dumbbells, nothing against pink, but very small dumbbells. And, I was a mother of two who was very tired. I was about 30 and I was already thinking like the world was over.

Damali: That I was exhausted. I was picking up from daycare, dropping off and. My focus was really on finding some fitness for my kids. I wasn’t even thinking about me. and I went to look for martial arts thinking the discipline and commitment would be good and self defense because I have two daughters. And, and I was invited to a Muay Thai school.

Damali: For those folks who don’t know, Muay Thai is the national sport of Thailand. It is Thai kickboxing, where they use elbows and punches and knees and kicks. So quite aggressive. and I was invited to join in on the kids class, and I was really feeling like I needed to like, re find myself, and I hopped in, and I like absolutely fell in love with hitting things.

Stephanie: that’s a good slogan.

Damali: Yes, I fell in love with the movement, and the Thai people, and the culture. what I’ll say is like, you know, I know we have time to chat, I’ll say that I was very much engrossed in how the movement could help me lose weight very quickly. And, I became an amateur fighter. So I was automatically in a sport that is oriented around weight classes.

Stephanie: So you had to meet weight.

Damali: Meet weight. And always, it was always better to be at a smaller weight. As it is in the world. Yeah. Always better. Oh, you finished that one. You know what? You would be better if you were in the weight class down.

Damali: You would have been better, you’d been faster if you were in the weight class down. So I lost 90 pounds, 90 plus pounds. and I was told I looked like a man. I immediately became like uncomfortable in my own skin and realized that what I thought would bring all the joy betrayed me. It totally did not. I was never good enough. I know it’s never small enough. And then, I found kettlebells and as a mature. Mature. Yeah, that’s another name, mature. Well seasoned is what I like to say. I’m well seasoned. Yeah.

Stephanie: I call myself wise. Okay. That’s another way.

Damali: Yes. I needed something to encourage me to try to prevent injury, to build functional strength and I was more of a power athlete. I knew I was never going to be, you know, petite 110, 120. person. So being strong really was like my toolkit and I found kettlebells and absolutely loved it for its efficiency and time when you’re a mom and you have no time, like getting it in 15, 20 minutes, feeling powerful. I hated running and I can get that explosive activity without the high impact. So it really just became something where I was like, how come people don’t know about this, like. where has this been? I started teaching kettlebells.

Stephanie: And that’s why you’re here today because that’s how I met you as a non diet kettlebell coach. I’m like, who is this? And I started digging into your account. So kettlebell came to you as a way of feeling powerful, correct?

Damali: Feeling strong, explosive power, low impact.

Stephanie: you teach kettlebell not from the angle of weight loss.

Damali: Absolutely not. I have been told many times in my career that, you know, if I want it to be successful, I needed to have a results oriented offer. And the results was. Oh, you’re gonna lose 10 pounds in 30 days. Oh, I can promise you, you’ll lose five pounds in the next 15 days. And I said, absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Stephanie: Let’s talk about that because in my program, I get professionals that come to me. Learning about body image and about coaching the mind from a cognitive behavioral world. And I coach a lot of fitness professionals. And one of the hanging point is always, well, in my industry, the marketing tool that everybody uses is weight loss. And it’s true for us as nutritionists as well. We’re taught to use weight loss. So let’s debate or talk about this question. How can we Market our business. Let’s talk about fitness without using weight loss. What’s your words or your thoughts on that?

Damali: well, I mean, there’s a mindset shift because as you said, there’s an industry approach and standard. Which has been tip as the top ranking approach, which is where diet culture has made it the perception that is the priority above everything and it’s making people a lot of money.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it does make a lot of money. I in my industry makes a lot of money and I’m sure it makes as much money in your industry as I would make more money if I sold weight loss than what I do right now

Damali: because it’s destined to fail. Yes, the repeat customer is their ultimate goal. Yeah, not the sustained longevity that we can get through looking at activities of daily living. If we can look at what is the most present thing in our life outside of our awake time is sleep. When I started the process of teaching a person with kettlebells and I have a program called Coaches Corner and I teach them how to teach it in an inclusive manner. The first thing we’re talking about is your breathing.

Damali: The first movement. That we can successfully change and reorient is your breath. Are you breathing into your nose? Why aren’t you? Are you able to open your ribcage? There’s a mechanical function between your ribcage and your diaphragm. What do you know about how you breathe? Are you aware and conscious of it in order to get the most power output, be able to take in that air.

Damali: And I think that we underplay how much of an impact we can have on a person’s life through the entirety of their life. By putting it into 30 days and 10 pounds versus a lifetime of air. That is what I’m trying to achieve. And even as I hear you taking a deep breath, like, what are we exhaling? All the garbage. Yeah. We let it go. All of the garbage that’s taking us down, that wants to see us feel less than. With that exhale, it is such a beautiful thing.

Stephanie: For me, when I hear profound… Thoughts or words. It’s like, it’s almost like bringing joy to my body through my breath.

Damali: Absolutely. I am 100 percent with you.

Stephanie: So how is a professional, a fitness professional listening to this? How do they go counterculture? Because the culture of your industry is weight loss. You don’t market using weight loss. and I know you train other professional. So how do you approach marketing for your students?

Damali: So the first thing I tell people at Coaches Corner is like, we have to start to understand who are you? Who do you know, who you are, where you stand, what your values are, centering your internal internally. And then who are you here to serve? Are you in community? Who are you in community with? So we hear people talking about detox your social media because who you’re in community with, what you’re consuming is more than the food you’re eating.

Damali: So taking some time to really. take nutrition and nourishment to your whole environment and making sure that you’re getting the nourishment you need from your community. So, taking away all the things that, even if they’re people you love, but if the first thing you see every time you open your phone is, I’m big your back, or, here’s my new lean product.

Damali: It is not going to help you move into the direction that you’re trying to achieve. So, who are you? And who are you here to serve? And getting to know those people. And I’m very, specific in Coach’s Corner about it being not about the problem you’re solving. Not everybody feels that way. But I feel very strongly that in the sense of we always are addressing like you are not good enough.

Damali: You need to change your body. We never look at people’s strengths. How can I be of service to you to help to uplift all the good things in your life?

Damali: To you feel more rooted versus how can I take away? How can I remove this weight? How can I sculpt you? I want to change my mindset, so I have to change my language. And then we start to coach in that same manner. How do we talk to people, reframe the way that we express a movement so that it’s not, Oh, I’m going to fix you.

Damali: Because you’re problematic, your movement is not right. Is it safe? Those are questions we have to ask. What does safety mean?

Stephanie: Yeah, because I know you teach about, sorry to interrupt, but the other piece that got me really interested is not only your marketing approach, but also a trauma informed approach to fitness. Tell me more about this because that’s also something we hear a lot in my field of coaching, like trauma informed. How do we take a, or what does it mean in fitness?

Damali: Well, first of all, trauma is something that is very individual to each person. And,what we do to start off the process and coaches corner is consider this. Is a wealth of curiosity to come in and understand that a person brings with them their body and all of their experiences, which includes both conscious and unconscious trauma that they have experienced, and their behaviors, their emotional response their physical response in any one instance is all influenced.

Damali: By what they have experienced, you may know, and you may not know they may be in for able to inform you, but they may not because we’re not entitled to disclosure. So, I need to now make those considerations, each and every time I’m training a person to what they’re responding to, and how can I meet them where they’re at every single day, every single workout.

Damali: I can’t commit to one plan and be like, oh, we have to do it this way today. Because there could be a scent in the air that could have they walk in and they don’t even realize it triggered them. The heart rate goes up, they feel a bit spooked. they don’t not really so how do we get grounded, where are we going to, are we going to go in our movement practice in order for them to be in their body in that moment. And those are important parts of me teaching kettlebells because the kettlebell is very unstable. True. It creates instability by its nature, by its momentum. So, you naturally may feel unstable. And that in itself could be a point of trigger for a person getting used to working with a kettlebell. So if I don’t Take note of that and apply that each time, then I’m missing out on a, like a significant, avenue for helping that person feel connected, helping that person uplift all of their strengths and gain confidence in their body.

Stephanie: I never thought about it that way, but that is exactly because. Trauma in itself is about unsafety and not being able to be safe and stabilizing I am not a professional at fitness, but I practice fitness in my own life and that’s the challenge with kettlebell is like working all your core and your stabilizer.

Stephanie: Because it’s unstable, so that could be very triggering. How do you approach people who come to you, who have used fitness to lose weight and have been traumatized by the abuse that fitness has done because of their desire to lose weight? How do we approach that?

Damali: with compassion, with a lot of compassion first.

Damali: and what do I mean by that? it is a grieving process. And it is, of all the things that we don’t like doing as human beings, grieving is at the top of the list. Yeah, it’s yucky. Yes, nobody wants to feel lost. Right. Deep loss. And there is deep body grief in that experience of trying to achieve this goal or this standard and never meeting it.

Damali: And then having to accept like that you, you may never meet it and maybe you don’t want to anymore, but there’s still loss in that. There’s still a considerable amount of grieving that has to be let go through and movement and grounding can help you. Move through your grief, but we know like that journey never ends.

Damali: It’s not. Oh, I’m healed or I’ve grieved and it’sover. It is an ongoing process that we can build in coping mechanisms that are positive that can help you to learn how to move through that. And to recognize it. I think that there’s equal parts of people who are kind of angry at anti diet culture these days. because of how aggressive people are about rules of you shouldn’t do this and you shouldn’t lose weight and you shouldn’t want to lose weight and you shouldn’t. And that’s exactly as you asked. There’s like so many people. I’ve been there too. Like, the world wants you to be smaller. Of course you want a smiles. Do you want the heads turning and the embrace, and the welcoming that comes with it? A smaller body. Why, why would you judge a person for wanting to feel that, but helping to guide them through the grief of knowing that has something that has been lost it’s left behind. And then just giving it space, right?

Damali: Those experiences, you know, each one will have to be kind of addressed, whether it was like gym environment. people will notice I have mirrors in my space. Lot of people be like, oh, you shouldn’t have any mirrors. I know there’s a rule, right? Yes. These are the rules. You’re not non-diet. But I embrace seeing my own beauty. I also embrace. using it for form. I also embraced it practicing to see myself. Yeah. So there’s a lot of nuance to how we heal through those previous experiences and not getting caught up in the rules, having more compassion and allowing the grieving process. As you use movement as a healing modality, I think all those things have to fit together.

Stephanie: Yeah, there’s so many things I want to unpack here, but I think it’s a specialty, like I work with people with the relationship to food and body image, but often I resource out to people like you and people who do your program to do the work on the relationship to movement, because that’s a whole other sector.

Stephanie: Like, we have to move our body. It’s not about dieting. It’s just human body needs to move now. Understand fitness culture did some damage to that. Let’s repair that, right? Yes. And I like to think of it as a trauma approach. We need to rebuild safety to moving our body when it’s not centered around weight loss.

Damali: Yeah. Safety under load, right?

Stephanie: Yeah. But it’s also interesting when you talk about the opposition to anti diet culture, right? Like now that we understand diet culture, we swung the pendulum to the other side. And now there’s rules on how to do that. Like we’re taking the same lands and we’re applying rules to how to do anti diet culture too. That’s not right in my view.

Damali: Not right in my view at all. And I’ve seen some really like great people feel like they don’t feel welcome and belong in the community either. Right. Then we end up you know, debating on, well, I’m not body positive. I’m not this because of the harm that they’ve now encountered in these spaces.

Damali: And I think we need to address the harm before we dismantle the movement. It isn’t the nature of anti diet that’s trying to disrupt. That’s trying to remove, the boundaries that held people. Outside of their bodies and bring them in. but the harm is coming from creating more hierarchies. Like, what’s the best way?

Damali: What’s the top right? These, this is the nature of it being, truly othering.

Stephanie: Yeah. What’s the nature of oppressive system is hierarchy and power. Yes. And the right way of doing things. Like we’re recreating an oppressive system to try to dismantle another one. Exactly. Exactly. So how do we navigate this?

Stephanie: What’s your advice on this?

Damali: Well, we have to confront the harm and the, and remove the hierarchies. Judgment and shame lives in between those power dynamics. So if we can remove those hierarchies and create more of a path of understanding, we have an opportunity to see. People where they’re at and meet them where they’re at versus assuming that they have to be at the finish like a finish line or some top peak of, oh, I know all the rules I’m perfect I’m healed now.

Damali: I think that when it comes to movement practice, like I use very simple tools when it comes to kettlebells. Tension techniques, again, breath work, carrying the load, holding the load. Like these are all things where when we’re in the moment, if we can give people an opportunity to see like how nuanced it is, how different is from body to body, they can take that back into these conversations.

Stephanie: Into the world, the same, like in yo, I’m a yogi from 12 years of training, but it’s all about taking your yoga off the mat, taking your kettlebell off the gym, I guess, and going to the world with the same principle, right?

Damali: Yes,I always, it’s bringing into the community, right? Right. Yeah. Feel like kettlebells create instability.

Damali: As you train with them, you learn how to bring stability. And as you bring connection into yourself, your body is a community. You’re going to take that connection, extended out to your community, bring more connection and more belonging there. Like, you’re not going to look at my big toe. Well, somebody might, I’m not going to look at my big toe and say, Oh, look, it has a bunion.

Damali: I’m going to cut it off. I don’t like it. Like, you know, it’s like this is a part of me too, I’m going to bring it in, I might want to improve its mobility, I might want to, you know, it may have pain, but overall, if I work on bringing the system together, improvements there will help my knee, it will help my hip, it will help the rest of my body.

Damali: So we want to see it like that too. So a person comes in. They might kind of be a bunion right now. They might not know that there’s some dysfunction in where they are, and we can help them, but not by cutting them off, not by shaming them, not by creating a hierarchy like. Oh, well, look at me, I’m straight and you’re not, right?

Damali: It would never work that way.

Stephanie: Yeah, it’s about building the strength to be in an unstable environment with different opinions and different ways of doing anti diaculture. And feel safe. Is that the right way of seeing it?

Damali: I think so. Safe. And safe to be your authentic self. One of my tenants at Coaches Corner as well is like, we talk about our values going through and it’s like, we’re always going to be unlearning and learning together. But I have to create safety first, meaning nobody will ever be judged for having less knowledge, having less strength than anybody else. Again, remove hierarchies. So, if I’m here, I should feel safe that if I mess up, same way we might be practicing cuing and if somebody uses a gendered language, okay, whoops, fix it, move forward, right? We’re not going to stick in to be like, you’re a terrible person because you did this. Or we’re not going to be there sitting there like, Oh my gosh, like, I am so sorry. I can’t believe, like, Neither place is required for us to unlearn and then learn andmove forward together.

Stephanie: That’s brilliant. So I want to bring you to one last topic as a fitness professional. What does it mean for a fitness professional to be size inclusive? Can you define that for anyone listening this?

Damali: Okay. So. I look at the body when I’m teaching kettlebells through a few considerations, one being, levers. Okay, so everybody’s limbs are going to be different lengths, their torso, their bodies, creating different lever lengths.

Damali: There’s also going to be space. So how much space do you take up? You may be someone who’s thin or smaller bodied, but your hips may be quite wide. And so we talked about thigh gaps, but that might be just naturally how their body is. There’s space between their leg versus somebody else who’s, whose legs are larger. Or set closer together because of their pelvis, and they don’t have that space between their legs, and then there’s dynamics. So, we have breasts, they move, they can be out, they can poke forward, they can hang low, like, there’s dynamics, and as you move, your body moves in kind. It jiggles, it wiggles, it moves, it’s something.

Damali: So we have to make these considerations and create like a little Venn diagram around, is there space? Is there any obstruction? When it comes to the movement and you, right? what are your levers looking like? And then how dynamic is everything? Moving all together. So I’m looking at size inclusion from, again, the whole spectrum from, you can be very small, XXX, very small, or you could be 7X, infinite fat, you can be a very large body, but all of those same things intersect in different ways.

Damali: Then just small and enlarge. You can be small and short. You can be small and tall, right. So size inclusion makes making consideration for bodies along all of those intersections

Stephanie: and it’s the role of the coach or the professional to then modify the movement. To fit the variety of sizes.

Damali: So I always say there’s a variation ten variations of any one movement.

Damali: Okay. And props are not only for regression or making things easier. Props are accessibility to the movement. So it is the coaches, fitness professionals job. If they’re looking at things from a size inclusive lens to make the movement accessible to the body, not to tell the body it’s wrong and that if it fixes, it’ll fit the movement. So we’re creating that mix of what do we need to create a variation, which kind of props. Would be helpful to make the movement accessible, or if in the case of we want to respect the diversity of bodies, not every movement is for everybody. That’s true. Yeah, right. Like, if that doesn’t fit you if there’s an obstruction. If a kettlebell is colliding with your body causing pain. We’re not doing that. We’ll find something else. We will find another option, another variation that is for hitting those muscle groups, soft tissue, movement function that we’re trying to achieve for you.

Stephanie: And am I correct to say that this approach to fitness is not the traditional training of the fitness industry, you kind of have to go look in your own training to find that skill of being diverse, a movement diverse coach, like you have to go find that in another space and regular training.

Damali: I have done so many certifications and I am, I’m always wanting to learn. And I believe that you can learn from everybody and everything. But, in the world of certifications, it’s all very like 1 box, you know, it’ll be Oh, deadlift. Feet are hip distance apart. Set your feet. Nobody’s asking the question, well, does the person now have space between their legs for something to actually pass? That’s the basic of kettlebell. I don’t know a lot about kettlebell, but something’s gonna pass there, right? Something is gonna pass there. So, you know, you tell them, you told them as the coach to set their feet a certain way. And then if it doesn’t pass there, it’s their fault. Because you gave them this form and structure that they had to meet. That was just created for only certain types of bodies, instead of helping them to ascertain what is actually the best form and position for me, for my levers, for my body, for the space that I need, for the movement that’s appropriate.

Stephanie: And that’s what you train professional with in the program coach corner.

Damali: That’s what we do at coaches corner is I’m not going to give you rule book, set your feet on X and Y, make a triangle unilateral. I’m going to help you to make those considerations so that you can coach each individual in their body.

Damali: And then. What we do to implement is every person leaves making their own coaches manual, you create your own manual of movements, what are the cues, the words you like to use, what are the words that you found people were very able to consume and adapt to, what are the other tools that you might be using visual aids might be making record like there’s many ways to teach for many different learning styles. So you come out of it with your own personalized coaching toolkit that is just as unique as you are and just as unique as all the bodies that you’re going to teach.

Stephanie: And that creates safety for you as a coach to then face. Most situation and feel safe in coaching any circumstance.

Damali: Right. And to know and just get curious when you meet, be like, Oh, let me get my coach’s manual. I’m going to learn something today from your body. You’re teaching me. I’m going to put that in my coach’s manual so I can help someone else who maybe has the same. But the number of times we go to a certification, they give you a book. Yes. Regurgitate and say what it is, and there’s never a space for, let me add to the book. Let me add to the book from the bodies I’m learning from.

Stephanie: And that’s, I’m going to circle back to the beginning of the conversation when we were talking about defining success and marketing. When you relearn how to do your work as a fitness professional from that diverse lens, then your marketing message.

Stephanie: Has to change because that’s not who you are anymore. You’re not the cookie box cutter coach that came out of the standard certification.

Damali: That’s it. That’s it. I cannot present myself as like, Oh, I’m just X school certified coach. No, you’re going to get from me is not anything you’re going to experience from any one of the certifications I’ve definitely learned and gone through training to be qualified as a fitness professional.

Damali: I don’t think anybody cares how many bones are in my hands, like, you know, things that we have to absorb. That’s great. But I think that the true experience that comes through Coaches Corner is the fact that it’s personalized, that it is meant for diverse bodies. I’m not claiming that You know, nobody’s ever learned how to do a deadlift before.

Damali: So you’re saying, Oh, you’re going to teach me how to deadlift again. I know how to deadlift. Like I’m going to teach you how to explore with curiosity deadlifts for five different kinds of bottles. Yeah. Have you done that before?

Stephanie: The answer is probably no, I’m guessing. Well, it’s the same thing in nutrition when we’re taught to give a meal plan.

Stephanie: We’re taught to give that cookie approach with white rice and green vegetables. But in fact, the eating behavior doesn’t even come from the meal plan. It came from how you think about food. And that’s where we need to coach that, but we’re not taught that we have to go outside the traditional way to get that.

Stephanie: and I’m working towards getting that. At the roots. So every professional has it. But in the meantime, we have to go outside the traditional way of getting trained to get this diverse approach to fitness and eating.

Damali: Yes, exactly. That’s where I’d really like to see like kettlebells become accessible to everyone. All the big box gyms now, if you go in, you’ll see some kettlebells there, but they’re collecting dust and their personal trainers do not have a clue how to use them or teach

Stephanie: And yet it’s like so accessible. It doesn’t require a machine, like you can take it anywhere.

Stephanie: One, one kettlebell anywhere.

Damali: Buckle it into your back seat. Put it in your backpack, go wrecking, whatever it is, like you can do so much with just one kettlebell and with people who’ve been properly trained to coach for all bodies. We would have like. Just transformation within how people feel about their bodies and in fitness overall.

Stephanie: It’s been a pleasure talking to you.

Damali: And you too. I’m so glad we got a chance to connect. It’s so exciting. And for Canadians everywhere, like, look out, we’ve talked now. Yeah.

Stephanie: So all the information about your program will be in the show notes. And I think the best place, I’m going to say this on my personal choice, but the best place to find you is on Instagram because you’ve got a pretty cool feed. So, Ed over there, it’s Frazer. Molly Dodd Frazer, yes.

Stephanie: Thank you for being here.

Stephanie: Thank you.

 

 

 

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83-How to Coach Weight Gain and Client Wanting to Quit Working with You Because of It!

83-How to Coach Weight Gain and Client Wanting to Quit Working with You Because of It!

Coaching weight gain

Coaching weight gain and clients wanting to quit working with you because of it! As the provider, how do you move through both of these aspects?

Coaching weight gain

I’ll be teaching on the two angle of this circumstance: 

1-How do you move yourself through this circumstance as a the non-diet professional or coach

2-How you help your client with the fact that they are gaining weight.

This is a difficult topic and there isn’t one answer so instead of pretending to have the solution I will help you understand the problem better so you can form your way of coaching weight gain and desire to quit the work with you.

Mentioned in the show:

Register for How to coach the desire to lose weight training Oct 13th

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Transcript:

 

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82-How to Coach Internalized Fatphobia

82-How to Coach Internalized Fatphobia

Coaching Internalized fatphobia

Coaching internalized fatphobia is not as difficult as it may appear. 

Internalized fatphobia, also commonly expressed as fear of gaining weight or fear of fatness, is something most self-identified women are faced with at some point in their life.

This is why many non-diet professional & non-diet coaches struggle with the thought of having to talk about this with their clients let alone help them move through it with coaching.

Coaching internalized fatphobia

Coaching internalized fatphobia becomes a much easier process when you have begun your own journey healing internalized fatphobia in yourself first.

As a non-diet professional & coach, it’s my duty to become great at coaching internalized fatphobia.

Let’s dig into internalized weight stigma aka internalized fear of fatness.

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Transcript:

Undiet Your Coaching Ep82: Coaching internalized fatphobia

Hello my dear colleagues and welcome back to Undieter Coaching Podcast. It’s been almost three months since we ended Season 7 and now we’re back with Season 8, which is gonna take us all the way into 2024. So right now, so we have 14 episodes lined up for you.

That’s gonna take us into mid January. And it’s loaded. That said, it’s possible to expand between 14. I’m going to deliver 14. But there could be a couple of bonus episodes as I get moving into the season eight. and we’re going to tackle both sides of our businesses. We’re going to talk about professional skill sets.

We’re going to start with a two part series for the first two episodes, 82 and 83 on The two most frequent topic I held professional true in the non diet coaching certification. And then we’re going to have some guests also in season eight. I brought in I think five or six guests on really interesting question that I was asking myself.

And I thought I would go out there and talk to colleagues and record a conversation I had with them. So that’s coming for you as well. And we’re going to talk about business, more specifically towards the end of the season, as we get ourselves into 2024. Kind of strategic thinking, planning for the new years and how to approach business.

As a non-diet professional. So that’s what’s in front of us. and the podcast will drop every Tuesday every week from now until next year. And I wanted to highlight that the non-diet coaching certification is a go forward for the first six months of 2024. We’re gonna run our. I think it’s our eighth cohort.

So if you want to join us, be sure to jump on the waitlist. The waitlist, the link is on the sales page of the program. It’s also linked in the show note. The reason why I’m highlighting that for you before we even get started is that we have the extended eight month payment plan that’s going to be offered to people on the waitlist So if your name is not on the waitlist and you want to take advantage of that, you’re likely going to miss out. I’m also going to hold consultation in the first week of October, so in two weeks from now or next week, depending on when you’re listening to this. For all of you who have Specific question about your profession, about the current format of your business. Does it fit within the curriculum of the non diet coaching certification?

Are you the right fit for it? All the question you have in these consultation will go out to folks on the waitlist. So get your name on there. If you want to spend 30 minutes with me, one on one, answering all your questions. Okay, let’s get season eight started with a two part series. I didn’t title it series in the title of the episode, but I think it is a series.

it’s my top two most frequent coach topic with my students. Reminder that my students are professionals like you, and coaches, and therapists, and fitness professionals, people who help other people. And there’s two things that I coach over and over again, is how to help our clients.

When they’re experiencing weight gain and also how to help our clients specifically at the beginning of their non diet journey with the fear of gaining weight, the fear of fatness, the internalized fat phobia. And that’s the one we’re going to get started with today. How to help our clients with the fear of gaining weight, the fear of fatness and what is really behind that.

Let’s get started. And what is the best approach for you to help your client with that? And I have to say this, and I’m gonna expand on this as I go through this episode. There’s a distinctive element that makes the process for professional to help other people with internalized fat phobia is their own journey through their fear of gaining weight and their fear of fatness. We all have it. I mean, I don’t want to speak in absolute term, but I’m pretty sure that all of you listening to this have had the fear of weight gain. Or currently are experiencing some degree of fear of weight gain or fear of fatness or discomfort in your own current body.

And your ability, your journey through moving this fear for yourself is what will create ease. And create proficiency, I have to be honest, in helping others. So that’s what we’re going to talk about in the rest of the episode. It’s a training that I did actually. So mypodcast producing team is going to roll in the pre recorded training that I did for one of my program and that I’m sharing with you here on the podcast, because it was one of my most, I gotta say, brilliant moment.

It was very well done. My brain was just really. Deeply focused on the topic, and I wanted to share that training with you because it was profound. So I hope it serves you well. Next week we’re gonna talk about how to help our client with weight gain and the desire to quit working with us because they’re gaining weight. So stay tuned for next week’s episode. I’ll see you then .

The desire to lose weight in my perspective is only but a symptom. It’s a symptom of a dissatisfaction with who we are. It presents itself outwardly into the world as a dissatisfaction for our like physical body and it’s because that’s how we meet. The world, that’s what our socialization and our system and our belief we live in tells us that we can feel better about our life if we are smaller, we wear sexier clothes, we, somebody just commented on my post, but my life is better because I fit in the sexy clothes.

So this person has this perspective on life because that’s what she’s being reflected on everywhere into the world. It’s 100 percent normal that she would want to lose weight because she is being told repeatedly over and over again that if she looks a certain way, she’s going to be able to finally wear the sexy clothes and she will be fine.

appreciated by the world because she wears the clothes, because she’s in a smaller body, her life will be better. And because that person is not, and I’ll talk in the context of self identified women, because This person is not questioning what she’s being told is the solution to her dissatisfaction in the core of who she is.

She’s not questioning what she’s being told is the solution. For sure, she wants to lose weight. Now, how do we deal with that? Because our whole approach is a non diet approach where we don’t sell intentional weight loss. We don’t. For many of us, we don’t coach people towards intentional weight loss. So when people tell us, but I want to lose weight, how do we react?

Do we, and here’s where I see the major like why in the road is the background of the professional. So I’ve kind of categorized that if I can say, I’ll categorize it based on my own journey. Back 7 year plus ago, 7 plus years ago, when I was just coming off of a traditional nutrition practice, I didn’t have the skill sets that I have today and somebody would come into my office and say, But I need to lose weight.

I would get angry. There’s spirit to like convince them that losing weight is a terrible thing, that is not the way true. But I didn’t have the ability. To verbalize another solution or to help them understand another solution. I didn’t understand what it meant at a deeper level. So I didn’t know what to do with those people.

And in a way I was avoiding attracting those people. I was avoiding having conversation about the desire to lose weight because I wasn’t equipped to do it. Because as a nutritionist, I’ll think. Nutritionist, dietician, fitness trainer, who else have I trained? Doctors, anyone that is not from the field of therapy or psychology or even social work, if you’re not from these fields and you are from the field of healthcare, dietician, nutritionist, health coaches, you have not been trained inIn the psychology of human being, you don’t understand the bigger arcing principle of life coaching of the human relationship with themselves.

So when you’re faced with the desire to lose weight, you feel like lost. You’re like, I don’t know how to deal with this. I just know it doesn’t work. So I’m going to keep telling them it doesn’t work, hoping that they will change their mind. And it doesn’t. Just telling someone it doesn’t work is not going to offer them a solution to their deeper problem, which is their relationship to themselves globally.

Being able to unpack why this person has this desire, being able to present it to them in a way that they can see Solving their problem and living the life that they want is from another skill set. That’s from the skill set of Relationship. It’s from the skill set of coaching. It’s from the skill set of Loving yourself and we don’t have the skill set for that and that’s why it’s such a struggle.

That’s why we become Tiny this thing happened. We want to disappear under the table. I’ve coached many times Professionals says I don’t want to work with people who want to lose weight I want them like further along their journey But let me tell you this if we don’t work with those people if we as non diet coaches are not willing to work with people who still want to lose weight or we’re not willing to Help them through this desire.

Who in the hell will? Certainly not the weight loss industry or wellness culture or diet culture. They want people to keep want to lose weight. That’s what they sell. That’s the product they have. So they’re never going to coach someone on understanding their desire to lose weight and really making a consensual choice.

for what is best for them. and here’s the truth of it all. Many, most of us in the health field have been trained by diet culture. So here’s another reason why we don’t have the skill set to coach people through their desire to lose weight. It’s because the training we’ve received is from diet culture or wellness culture, which sells the desire, sells product for the desire to lose weight.

People that are following me that are from the field of therapy, psychology, social work, all these fields, they know what to do with this. They know they’re equipped to ask the bigger question and coach the person towards getting to the bottom of it all and helping them move towards what is really best for them.

that’s where I fill in the gap with my program. I’m going to host a workshop on Friday called How to Coach the Desire to Lose Weight. and the solution that I offer to the desire of losing weight is number one is coaching, right? Getting a new perspective on your desire to lose weight and then body acceptance.

And if the process of body acceptance, if for me, body acceptance. is about evolving your relationship to yourself. It’s about creating a new relationship with yourself. Because really, when you’re working on accepting your body, you’re working on accepting yourself. that’s what you’re working on. We may say it’s body image work, but it’s really about accepting yourself.

And I get it. As I said again a couple times, most of us don’t have the skill set. To coach relationship to self now that’s on us to take responsibility for that and it yeah, it’s totally true It’s a gap in our industry. That’s why I created the non diet coaching certification so we can have a Training platform that gives you the tool to deal with helping people in a non diet approach.

Training that is created to give you the tools to really help people in all the parts that they need help with. And it’s the only program training certification that I know of. That is not rooted in diet culture and wellness culture that is not fatphobic. And if there’s another one, please let me know.

But most of them all, they all have a tincture of wellness culture, diet culture, and fatphobia. So, that’s what I’m going to try to help you with on Friday. I’m going to try to, first of all, help you understand what do people really mean when they say, But I want to lose weight. What is it that they’re really saying?

I’m going to help you understand that at a much bigger picture level, and a much deeper level at the same time. And then, how to communicate that to the person in front of you. How to have that conversation with someone about their desire to lose weight in a respectful, and I want to talk a lot about consent.

How to have this conversation. And this is when you’re thinking about like respect, when you’re talking about ethics, it’s really about creating an environment where people feel safe. So how do you create a conversation with someone? That they will feel safe listening to you knowingly that you’re not expecting them to change their mind.

That you’re not telling them they’re wrong for wanting to lose weight. How to have this conversation with people. How to position, how to talk about what you do in a way that will not make people feel unsafe to be with you. In a way that will, will people want to hear you. That perhaps they’ll even ask questions. They’ll get curious. They’re like, oh, I’ve never heard this before. Tell me more. and this is a great insight for you if you’re currently a practicing non diet professional and you’re having a conversation about The desire to lose weight, and as soon as you start talking to this other person, they back away, they end the conversation, they interrupt you, they change subject, it’s likely because they don’t feel safe.

So how can you talk about what you do without making it about them being wrong? And them being stupid, and them being… Terrible for wanting to lose weight, because let’s just face it, they won’t change by being made wrong. So, have that conversation, and then, and this is 90 minutes, I’m obviously not going to train you to be a body acceptance coach, but what would it look like for you to create a coaching process, That will ultimately lead people to have a different relationship with themselves.

That’s what we’re going to do on Friday. So, highly recommend that you come there. And if it’s not with me you’re learning, that’s totally okay. Whoever you are learning to coach the non diet approach in a way that will truly change people. That will make them better from after working with you, by all means go learn that from someone, but that’s the work we need to do it and I’ve said this many, many times, we are at the beginning of our industry, 20 years from now, we will look back at today and say, Oh my God, how did we do what we were doing?

20 years from now, we will, our approach will be better known. We will have sturdy research based process. Like, it will be like so much easier than it is right now. And there will be a ton of training program and certification out there. that will graduate people in the health field by the thousand with this approach.

Right now, we’re like… at the grassroots level. That’s why, as far as I know, what I do, I’m the only one doing it professionally and training other professionals because this is how grassroots this is. The one thing I know for sure is that women deserve to be trusted. Women’s body deserves to be trusted.

Women have the right to feel safe in their now body. Women deserves the right to choose. And that’s what we do. We give people an option that’s currently not in their perspective. We come to that desire to lose weight to say, It’s totally normal you desire to lose weight, but did you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you can also do this.

You’re there to give people an option. Women deserve the right to an option. And that’s what we do. That’s what our duty is as a non diet professional is to offer the self safe environment for women to know that they have an option. They have choices. They don’t have to go back on the 12th diet in their life. That’s what we do. But I can put that in a post. I would love to hear from you. What do you struggle with when it comes to having the conversation about the desire to lose weight?

I guarantee you, I’ve missed some perspective, I’ve missed an angle, I’ve missed… A point of view, please let me know what you struggle with so I can give you tools for it and resources.

Undiet Your Coaching Ep82: Coaching internalized fatphobia

Hello my dear colleagues and welcome back to Undiet Your Coaching Podcast. It’s been almost three months since we ended Season 7 and now we’re back with Season 8, which is gonna take us all the way into 2024. So right now, so we have 14 episodes lined up for you.

That’s gonna take us into mid January. And it’s loaded. That said, it’s possible to expand between 14. I’m going to deliver 14. But there could be a couple of bonus episodes as I get moving into the season eight. and we’re going to tackle both sides of our businesses. We’re going to talk about professional skill sets.

We’re going to start with a two part series for the first two episodes, 82 and 83 on The two most frequent topic I held professional true in the non diet coaching certification. And then we’re going to have some guests also in season eight. I brought in I think five or six guests on really interesting question that I was asking myself.

And I thought I would go out there and talk to colleagues and record a conversation I had with them. So that’s coming for you as well. And we’re going to talk about business, more specifically towards the end of the season, as we get ourselves into 2024. Kind of strategic thinking, planning for the new years and how to approach business.

As a non-diet professional. So that’s what’s in front of us. and the podcast will drop every Tuesday every week from now until next year. And I wanted to highlight that the non-diet coaching certification is a go forward for the first six months of 2024. We’re gonna run our. I think it’s our eighth cohort.

So if you want to join us, be sure to jump on the waitlist. The waitlist, the link is on the sales page of the program. It’s also linked in the show note. The reason why I’m highlighting that for you before we even get started is that we have the extended eight month payment plan that’s going to be offered to people on the waitlist So if your name is not on the waitlist and you want to take advantage of that, you’re likely going to miss out. I’m also going to hold consultation in the first week of October, so in two weeks from now or next week, depending on when you’re listening to this. For all of you who have Specific question about your profession, about the current format of your business. Does it fit within the curriculum of the non diet coaching certification?

Are you the right fit for it? All the question you have in these consultation will go out to folks on the waitlist. So get your name on there. If you want to spend 30 minutes with me, one on one, answering all your questions. Okay, let’s get season eight started with a two part series. I didn’t title it series in the title of the episode, but I think it is a series.

it’s my top two most frequent coach topic with my students. Reminder that my students are professionals like you, and coaches, and therapists, and fitness professionals, people who help other people. And there’s two things that I coach over and over again, is how to help our clients.

When they’re experiencing weight gain and also how to help our clients specifically at the beginning of their non diet journey with the fear of gaining weight, the fear of fatness, the internalized fat phobia. And that’s the one we’re going to get started with today. How to help our clients with the fear of gaining weight, the fear of fatness and what is really behind that.

Let’s get started. And what is the best approach for you to help your client with that? And I have to say this, and I’m gonna expand on this as I go through this episode. There’s a distinctive element that makes the process for professional to help other people with internalized fat phobia is their own journey through their fear of gaining weight and their fear of fatness. We all have it. I mean, I don’t want to speak in absolute term, but I’m pretty sure that all of you listening to this have had the fear of weight gain. Or currently are experiencing some degree of fear of weight gain or fear of fatness or discomfort in your own current body.

And your ability, your journey through moving this fear for yourself is what will create ease. And create proficiency, I have to be honest, in helping others. So that’s what we’re going to talk about in the rest of the episode. It’s a training that I did actually. So mypodcast producing team is going to roll in the pre recorded training that I did for one of my program and that I’m sharing with you here on the podcast, because it was one of my most, I gotta say, brilliant moment.

It was very well done. My brain was just really. Deeply focused on the topic, and I wanted to share that training with you because it was profound. So I hope it serves you well. Next week we’re gonna talk about how to help our client with weight gain and the desire to quit working with us because they’re gaining weight. So stay tuned for next week’s episode. I’ll see you then .

The desire to lose weight in my perspective is only but a symptom. It’s a symptom of a dissatisfaction with who we are. It presents itself outwardly into the world as a dissatisfaction for our like physical body and it’s because that’s how we meet. The world, that’s what our socialization and our system and our belief we live in tells us that we can feel better about our life if we are smaller, we wear sexier clothes, we, somebody just commented on my post, but my life is better because I fit in the sexy clothes.

So this person has this perspective on life because that’s what she’s being reflected on everywhere into the world. It’s 100 percent normal that she would want to lose weight because she is being told repeatedly over and over again that if she looks a certain way, she’s going to be able to finally wear the sexy clothes and she will be fine.

appreciated by the world because she wears the clothes, because she’s in a smaller body, her life will be better. And because that person is not, and I’ll talk in the context of self identified women, because This person is not questioning what she’s being told is the solution to her dissatisfaction in the core of who she is.

She’s not questioning what she’s being told is the solution. For sure, she wants to lose weight. Now, how do we deal with that? Because our whole approach is a non diet approach where we don’t sell intentional weight loss. We don’t. For many of us, we don’t coach people towards intentional weight loss. So when people tell us, but I want to lose weight, how do we react?

Do we, and here’s where I see the major like why in the road is the background of the professional. So I’ve kind of categorized that if I can say, I’ll categorize it based on my own journey. Back 7 year plus ago, 7 plus years ago, when I was just coming off of a traditional nutrition practice, I didn’t have the skill sets that I have today and somebody would come into my office and say, But I need to lose weight.

I would get angry. There’s spirit to like convince them that losing weight is a terrible thing, that is not the way true. But I didn’t have the ability. To verbalize another solution or to help them understand another solution. I didn’t understand what it meant at a deeper level. So I didn’t know what to do with those people.

And in a way I was avoiding attracting those people. I was avoiding having conversation about the desire to lose weight because I wasn’t equipped to do it. Because as a nutritionist, I’ll think. Nutritionist, dietician, fitness trainer, who else have I trained? Doctors, anyone that is not from the field of therapy or psychology or even social work, if you’re not from these fields and you are from the field of healthcare, dietician, nutritionist, health coaches, you have not been trained inIn the psychology of human being, you don’t understand the bigger arcing principle of life coaching of the human relationship with themselves.

So when you’re faced with the desire to lose weight, you feel like lost. You’re like, I don’t know how to deal with this. I just know it doesn’t work. So I’m going to keep telling them it doesn’t work, hoping that they will change their mind. And it doesn’t. Just telling someone it doesn’t work is not going to offer them a solution to their deeper problem, which is their relationship to themselves globally.

Being able to unpack why this person has this desire, being able to present it to them in a way that they can see Solving their problem and living the life that they want is from another skill set. That’s from the skill set of Relationship. It’s from the skill set of coaching. It’s from the skill set of Loving yourself and we don’t have the skill set for that and that’s why it’s such a struggle.

That’s why we become Tiny this thing happened. We want to disappear under the table. I’ve coached many times Professionals says I don’t want to work with people who want to lose weight I want them like further along their journey But let me tell you this if we don’t work with those people if we as non diet coaches are not willing to work with people who still want to lose weight or we’re not willing to Help them through this desire.

Who in the hell will? Certainly not the weight loss industry or wellness culture or diet culture. They want people to keep want to lose weight. That’s what they sell. That’s the product they have. So they’re never going to coach someone on understanding their desire to lose weight and really making a consensual choice.

for what is best for them. and here’s the truth of it all. Many, most of us in the health field have been trained by diet culture. So here’s another reason why we don’t have the skill set to coach people through their desire to lose weight. It’s because the training we’ve received is from diet culture or wellness culture, which sells the desire, sells product for the desire to lose weight.

People that are following me that are from the field of therapy, psychology, social work, all these fields, they know what to do with this. They know they’re equipped to ask the bigger question and coach the person towards getting to the bottom of it all and helping them move towards what is really best for them.

that’s where I fill in the gap with my program. I’m going to host a workshop on Friday called How to Coach the Desire to Lose Weight. and the solution that I offer to the desire of losing weight is number one is coaching, right? Getting a new perspective on your desire to lose weight and then body acceptance.

And if the process of body acceptance, if for me, body acceptance. is about evolving your relationship to yourself. It’s about creating a new relationship with yourself. Because really, when you’re working on accepting your body, you’re working on accepting yourself. that’s what you’re working on. We may say it’s body image work, but it’s really about accepting yourself.

And I get it. As I said again a couple times, most of us don’t have the skill set. To coach relationship to self now that’s on us to take responsibility for that and it yeah, it’s totally true It’s a gap in our industry. That’s why I created the non diet coaching certification so we can have a Training platform that gives you the tool to deal with helping people in a non diet approach.

Training that is created to give you the tools to really help people in all the parts that they need help with. And it’s the only program training certification that I know of. That is not rooted in diet culture and wellness culture that is not fatphobic. And if there’s another one, please let me know.

But most of them all, they all have a tincture of wellness culture, diet culture, and fatphobia. So, that’s what I’m going to try to help you with on Friday. I’m going to try to, first of all, help you understand what do people really mean when they say, But I want to lose weight. What is it that they’re really saying?

I’m going to help you understand that at a much bigger picture level, and a much deeper level at the same time. And then, how to communicate that to the person in front of you. How to have that conversation with someone about their desire to lose weight in a respectful, and I want to talk a lot about consent.

How to have this conversation. And this is when you’re thinking about like respect, when you’re talking about ethics, it’s really about creating an environment where people feel safe. So how do you create a conversation with someone? That they will feel safe listening to you knowingly that you’re not expecting them to change their mind.

That you’re not telling them they’re wrong for wanting to lose weight. How to have this conversation with people. How to position, how to talk about what you do in a way that will not make people feel unsafe to be with you. In a way that will, will people want to hear you. That perhaps they’ll even ask questions. They’ll get curious. They’re like, oh, I’ve never heard this before. Tell me more. and this is a great insight for you if you’re currently a practicing non diet professional and you’re having a conversation about The desire to lose weight, and as soon as you start talking to this other person, they back away, they end the conversation, they interrupt you, they change subject, it’s likely because they don’t feel safe.

So how can you talk about what you do without making it about them being wrong? And them being stupid, and them being… Terrible for wanting to lose weight, because let’s just face it, they won’t change by being made wrong. So, have that conversation, and then, and this is 90 minutes, I’m obviously not going to train you to be a body acceptance coach, but what would it look like for you to create a coaching process, That will ultimately lead people to have a different relationship with themselves.

That’s what we’re going to do on Friday. So, highly recommend that you come there. And if it’s not with me you’re learning, that’s totally okay. Whoever you are learning to coach the non diet approach in a way that will truly change people. That will make them better from after working with you, by all means go learn that from someone, but that’s the work we need to do it and I’ve said this many, many times, we are at the beginning of our industry, 20 years from now, we will look back at today and say, Oh my God, how did we do what we were doing?

20 years from now, we will, our approach will be better known. We will have sturdy research based process. Like, it will be like so much easier than it is right now. And there will be a ton of training program and certification out there. that will graduate people in the health field by the thousand with this approach.

Right now, we’re like… at the grassroots level. That’s why, as far as I know, what I do, I’m the only one doing it professionally and training other professionals because this is how grassroots this is. The one thing I know for sure is that women deserve to be trusted. Women’s body deserves to be trusted.

Women have the right to feel safe in their now body. Women deserves the right to choose. And that’s what we do. We give people an option that’s currently not in their perspective. We come to that desire to lose weight to say, It’s totally normal you desire to lose weight, but did you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you can also do this.

You’re there to give people an option. Women deserve the right to an option. And that’s what we do. That’s what our duty is as a non diet professional is to offer the self safe environment for women to know that they have an option. They have choices. They don’t have to go back on the 12th diet in their life. That’s what we do. But I can put that in a post. I would love to hear from you. What do you struggle with when it comes to having the conversation about the desire to lose weight?

I guarantee you, I’ve missed some perspective, I’ve missed an angle, I’ve missed… A point of view, please let me know what you struggle with so I can give you tools for it and resources.

 

 

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81-Scaling Your Non-Diet Business-What No One Talks about with Vanessa Preston

81-Scaling Your Non-Diet Business-What No One Talks about with Vanessa Preston

Scaling Your Non-Diet Business

Scaling Your Non-Diet Business-What no one talks about an interview with Vanessa Preston. 

What does it take to make it happen? What do you need to know that will tremendously move the dial up and grow your business.

I’ll be honest it’s likely not what you think it’s about… 

Me and Vanessa go deeply behind the scenes and share what it really looks like and feel like to grow your non -diet business.

Scaling Your Non-Diet Business 

What you’ll learn listening to this episode:

  • The “behind the scenes” of our personal journey to scaling our non-diet business
  • The failures and how we handle them
  • How we befriend our nervous system
  • Did someone say photoshoot???
  • Real raw conversation about scaling your non-diet conversation

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Connect with our guest:

Website – Vanessa Preston

Instagram – Vanessa Preston

Facebook – Vanessa Preston

Transcript:

Undiet Your Coaching EpP81- Scaling Your Non-Diet Business-What No One Talks about with Vanessa Preston

Hey, my dear colleague, welcome back. I have, or we have a treat for you today because it’s two of us. Today’s an interview with a colleague, former student of mine, Vanessa Preston, and we had this beautiful conversation that we recorded about business growth, about scaling our businesses and what it really takes.

We’re taking you behind the scene and the real raw emotion and thoughts that goes on in each of our brain when we think about our business. And it’s likely not about what you think it is about, because most of us have been sold by business culture, that it takes action, it takes strategy, it takes a lot of complicated things in order to be successful in business.

And this conversation is going to highlight from people in the trenches who are growing their business what it really takes behind all those strategy and what makes both of us successful. So I invite all of you to listen to this conversation. It is one of the longest interview I’ve ever done because the conversation was too good to end it.

So, enjoy it and I would love to hear from you after you listen to this episode, how it helped you, because I know it’s gonna be a tremendous help to many of you.

So give me some feedback on social media, on email, and I hope that it helps you as much as it helped me and Vanessa to have this conversation and record it for you.

So to my team, let’s roll over the interview.​

Stephanie: Welcome to the show, Vanessa.

Vanessa: Thank you. I’m excited to have a chat with you.

Stephanie: I’m excited too. So I’m gonna put a context to this for everybody listening. We literally just jumped on Zoom and I said to Vanessa, I want to have a casual conversation and I wanna record it, and I want everybody to listen to two friends having a conversation and what kind of conversation we’re having. So, that’s the context. She hasn’t said barely anything to me other than you’re doing well and doing well and that is it.

Stephanie: And the second piece I wanna say to everybody, this conversation was triggered by an email I got from Vanessa. So I put myself on her list of future client and I got this email from her and I’m like, holy shit, we need to talk about this.

Stephanie: So here we are.

Vanessa: Yes, and I

Stephanie: You excited?

Vanessa: I’m excited. And the one thing I did say before you hit record was your haircut is so fabulous.

Vanessa: [Sheik] See you, you have on your cute business Kinded jacket and for listeners, I’m in Australia, so it’s like 7:00 AM. So I like, in my hoodie and in my recording closet,

Stephanie: and I’m in the bright yellow jacket.

Stephanie: So it’s been what, a year and a half. When is the last time we got on Zoom? A year and ago when you taught a masterclass for the professional about regulating the nervous system? [Yes. Yeah.] Yeah. I think that’s what it was, right? [Yeah.]

Stephanie: We’ve been conversing over emails and over dms and PMs and all of that stuff, but it’s been a year since we had a conversation. So Vanessa graduated from the Non Indict Mentorship program. She has an extensive background in therapy, complex trauma therapists. She came to us, did her personal work, and then went on to build a business. And when I got this email from you, like you’ve gone all like serious in, serious business.

Vanessa: Stephanie, when I knew we were gonna have this chat, I was like, in my soul. I was like, how honest am I about to be.

Stephanie: Real raw, honest, because that’s the only thing we do.

Vanessa: Cause I’m like, some of what I might share, I don’t know how inspirational it will be at first, but I think it will be stuff that maybe other business entrepreneurs and women are sitting with and might even feel ashamed of. So I can kind of speak to. the reality of behind the scenes and it’s worth it and I’m so excited. [Yes.]

Vanessa: But one of the things I tell my clients is anxiety and excitement can feel the same in the nervous system. So sometimes I’m like, when I’ve taken the next step in, the next step in the business, I’m like, I sit down, I take a breath, I’m like, is this anxiety or am I just excited?

Stephanie: Yes.

Vanessa: But since, since I taught that trauma kind of informed type workshop, which I love doing, I have, I do it for lack of better wording, leveled up. I guess it really had to take that next step in the business. And I’ll tell you a few things that I’ve kind of faced, and when I was thinking about sharing this with you as well, I was like, Stephanie, I did not manage my brain all the time.

Stephanie: You shunt, you’re human.

Vanessa: She was running around like a wild toddler who was hungry and grumpy sometimes. So, where I think the, actually, the growth happened, which I’m certainly not saying this is something that would be the right move for everybody, but I took a total step back from social media. [Mm-hmm.] A total step back.

Vanessa: And that is a decision that I had been kind of ignoring from my gut for a little while. And it was really hard because it’s like, oh my gosh, what’s gonna happen? No one’s gonna know what I’m doing. It’s kind of this massive fomo, like everything I had learned through lots of business coaching was how to show up on social media.

Vanessa: And so, but what I learned from kind of following my gut with that decision [mm-hmm] is I think what you’ve witnessed on my email list is I had been avoiding, like the social media had become an avoidance tactic for me. So it would be, I’ll show up, I’ll record a story. That’s great, nothing wrong with that. But I would do it so I got this short term feeling of being productive while I was avoiding creating a product suite, automating things, hiring a VA who has the skills that I don’t have. [Yeah.] And so it, all of these things, once I listen to that gut instinct, did unfold. And it’s kind of what you’ve been witnessing over the 12 months [mm-hmm] with emails going out and things like that.

Stephanie: Yeah.So all of that, all hell yes to that. But, so from my perspective, so I wanna give a bit of context for people, when we met, you were in private practice for like 20 years, as a therapist with an established practice, with a wait list, well known in your field in Australia, not on social media from a business perspective, not an online teacher, not a podcaster, no, nothing of that.

Vanessa: Nothing. And the thing is, I remember telling you this when I did the mentorship program. That didn’t require marketing. It was just this, it’s a different vibe. It’s just a totally different kind of thing. So yeah, when I came to you initially, it was full-time private practice and I think that’s one of the things that have kind of, has seen me through is that focus. When the anxiety was up or when my perfection is in part, which I’ll share with you, kind of was activated, I really came back to what’s my long term focus. [Mm-hmm] And it is help women make peace with their now bodies and food. Right? [Yeah] I want women to find radical self-acceptance.

Vanessa: And two is, like you said, years and years in private practice. I really have this longing to diversify that. I love the one-on-one work but diversifying that to prevent burnout and kind of just have this different thing. So yes,you helped me start that move in the mentorship program from creating these online groups and programs.

Stephanie: Well, I think it’s in like in, so it’s been two years. I can’t remember when you did the mentorship, two, two and a half years ago. Like, I just want you to think where you came from in those two years. Like, just like I kept reading your email, I’m like, what the fuck? Like, you’re blowing my mind. I hope you’re blowing your own bro.

Vanessa: That is the deepest compliment because you’ll tell it like it is. So it’s like when I get a compliment from you, I’m like, it’s true.

Stephanie: It’s like going from this and I know how difficult it was for you to start crafting this other identity, we’ll call it what it is. You have the well established expertise and therapy, but you had to create from the bottom up, just like a brand new coach. [Yes.] You had to build yourself up from like literary ground zero to start, to get where you are right now.

Vanessa: Yes. And I remember when me and you were talking about starting the podcast, I think I’m in like maybe episode, I don’t know, 69 or 70 next week or something. But I remember me and you talking about that, and I was like, Stephanie, I don’t even have enough to say. [I know.] And I also, this is kind of shows what’s possible when you are supporting your nervous system [mm] and doing the deeper work because I remember jumping on the microphone for that first episode. Stephanie, I recorded it four times. [Yeah.] I was shaking. I felt anxious in my stomach and in my chest. And now I can just jump on it’s second nature,

Stephanie: open the mic and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right?

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. So it’s kinda like, it’s kinda like exposure therapy. It’s like over the two years I just keep taking gradual steps. The thing that scares me, where can I start? That’s like a two outta 10. And then once I’ve done that and I can restabilize, where can I move? That’s like a four or five outta 10. Restabilize. And that’s really the approach I’ve tried to take.

Stephanie: And that’s where you and me agree on like the, that bridge between therapy and coaching, which is really like coaching is about becoming that version of you, of taking that step forward, anxious and scared, but safe. [Yes.] Like if you wanna create, for all of you listening and you want to create that practice or you want to create that business, you’re gonna have to do things scared shit. [Yeah.] It’s just like, it’s a fact.

Vanessa: Yes, but I think though your words has have always stayed with me and I’ll, I’m gonna swear for a second. [Yeah] But you were like, fuck it. Do it scared. [Yeah] And so I’ve really held onto that of, do it scared but not unsafe. [Yes] that’s what I teach my clients with body image work too. I’m like, we’re about to get uncomfortable, but we don’t want you unsafe. So where do we, how do we find that kind of line together?

Stephanie: Where do we find that limit? So let’s talk about this. So you did the mentorship, you started your podcast and we, you went on your way, you came back and taught a class for me. But now you’re at a place where you have a website, you have an online program. You have professionally designed, like online. You had the next step. You’ve ran your program a few time. Now it’s like out there in big time. There’s a photo shoot of you on that sales page. Like people you don’t understand, she did a photo shoot.

Vanessa: Yes, and that’s an example of like, if you look back, Stephanie, what you’ll see is one headshot of me, [mm-hmm] one headshot. After all the work I’ve done around the past eating disorder and the past chronic dieting and the past body shame, I still had this fear of being seen from the neck down type thing, right? [Mm-hmm] Like, and so yes, that pho it’s funny you bring up the photo shoot because I’m like, the VA that I’m working with is brilliant, you know her, Adel.

Stephanie: Okay, yes.

Vanessa: And she has really helped me kind of get so much of this like up and going and our meetings, it kind of got to a point where it was like, Vanessa, we need photos of you.

Vanessa: I was like, but here’s a great headshot. But,

Stephanie: she’s like, no, we need a, like a full body picture.

Vanessa: Yes. And so that even that I, I actually have an episode coming out about what it was like to do that photo shoot cuz it was the next level being seen [yeah] in the business. And when you talk about the thought work that you teach, I will kind of often refer to what criticizes us around our bodies and the mirror and the reflection is that body critic.

Vanessa: [Mm-hmm] And what I find is each step in the business, it’s a version of the body critic that kind of gets activated. But over time, it’s less intense, it’s less frequent. You’re skilled up to manage that in a more effective way and quicker. The spiral isn’t there. And so the photo shoot was something that did trigger the body critic voice, but was equipped to fuck it and do it anyway.

Vanessa: [Mm-hmm] Do you know what I’m saying? And, and it ended up being fun. I started out like such unnatural smile, Stephanie. He was like, just look natural. And I’m like, Grinch, this, that soul Christmas. And, and then,

Stephanie: and stiff in one position, right?

Vanessa: He’s like, just kind of look like you’re speaking to a client on the screen. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I can, I’m too,I’m too uptight right now. But over the time I was able to find like a level of embodiment and by the end, we were at the beach and I was like, splashing water and I, and it felt fun and I didn’t care who was watching. So it was like a really great experience and, and an example of like, when you base it.

Stephanie: Do you find that, so your first professional photo shoot after having done the body image and the way I experience photo shoot these days, it’s almost like therapy. For me, it’s like I’m doing it for the business, but it has so much benefit for me. With every photo shoot, I embody myself better, I flow in my body better, I’m able to look at the photos right there on the spot in the camera, like it’s therapy for me. Did you find the same experience?

Vanessa: Yes. It was so therapeutic and it’s funny that you say this, that I was like,the body image group that you saw is, [mm-hmm] has launched. I’m like, I would love to create like a b fff, body food freedom like photo shoot, with the women who graduate. [Yes.] Because I’m like, there’s something magical about feeling that initial discomfort and having the skills to move into feeling more embodied. And also I looked at the photos, and this isn’t, I dunno, I looked at the photos and was able to see how insignificant the body critic stuff was. And I remember feeling like a giant pimple coming up [for sure] the chin, for Right, right on the chin. And, I was like, I am this strong woman and fuck your beauty standards. And then also I was like, but can I ice this? Will that help make, go away for the photos shoot? So it was also interesting to kind of see the, I don’t like the word hypocrisy, but something about that [yeah] where it was like, I actually do care what this looks like and I’m scared of people’s opinions. And at the same time, I have this part of me that’s like, fuck these beauty standards. I’m allowed to be seen. I’m worthy in this body.

Stephanie: And I’m gonna perhaps hear those comments of this and I’m gonna have my own back. Like for me, I like to say it’s gonna happen and I’m gonna fucking handle this.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yes. And when you, I have you in my ear saying that a lot of, like, and I’ve shared that with clients, have your own back. How do we get you there? And it’s this like, it’s this deeper, it is this like non-negotiable self-trust.

Vanessa: I will not harm my body again, and I will listen to like that internal kind of inner wisdom. I don’t, I won’t always get it right, but there’s a non-negotiable, that’s what I’m aiming to do. So when I think about, I’m like, I’ve invested in a va, I’ve invested in like a platform to start really housing the programs in a more professional way and [mm-hmm] yeah, it’s that. It’s a self-trust thing [yes] where I’m like, even if I do, cuz I think when I emailed you back initially, I was like, I’ve had moments of wanting to burn it all down. Even if that happened, even if that happened, I will still have my own back. [Yes.]

Vanessa: So kinda like, there’s not this circumstance that’s going to happen that changes that.

Stephanie: I have a sentence,an intentional thought. I’m practicing this late summer song from a country singer, Luke Comms. I dunno if you know him. And it’s, he says, even if I wasn’t doing this, he talks about his career as a country singer and how he started in bars and just a stool in his guitar and now he’s on those big stage. He says, even if I wasn’t doing this, I would still be doing this. [I love that.] Like, like it’s for me because it’s my story and for you, because it’s your story, because we’ve healed ourselves and we really build this beautiful relationship with ourselves. Even if we launch something and it’s not gonna work, I’m still gonna be doing this.

Stephanie: Like, I’m never not going to be a coach for women. I’m just, it’s just can’t fathom this place where I would not, it’s non-negotiable for me.

Vanessa: Yes. I love that. And I think though, when you said like, launch the program, one of the things that I’ve been [Yeah] getting really curious about is the program that’s launched, this feeling comes up of being like a child.

Vanessa: This is not an actual memory [mm-hmm] but it’s the embodied feeling of like being a child and you have like everything ready for your birthday party, like streamers and balloons, and you have a cake and no one comes to it. I know that’s like devastating, but I’m like, that’s the fear. That’s the feeling for a minute. [Yes]

Vanessa: Just that’s like, that’s the feeling for a minute of, all this work has gone into this. Let’s just say that, that the first launch doesn’t go well. [Yeah] there’s this inner child part of me [Mm-hmm] and I don’t know, I don’t know where you sit with this, but there’s this inner child part of me and I’m like, so if that were my little inner child sitting there, kind of disappointed,

Stephanie: yeah

Vanessa: I would comfort her. Right. I would sooth her. I would have compassion. And then my adult self is like, okay, let’s reassess what happened with marketing. What’s my plan next? And so that’s how I’ve started to think about it is, cuz I do think launching and then not getting results you wanted can be so vulnerable.

Stephanie: 100% vulnerable. [Yeah] And it’s, it can be devastating. And this is where, for me, compassion, like the relationship I have with myself and the result is two different things. Like I’m the human behind the results. [Yeah] so I’m the human who feel disappointed, sad, rejected. Can we say rejected? [Yes] when you launch something, nobody comes rejected. [Yes] And it’s totally normal. Like the idea that it, we shouldn’t feel this way is insane. Like it’s not understanding the human nature to think that we should not feel disappointed is how, to me, it’s how I meet myself in disappointment and rejection.

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. It’s like that, exactly how you just said that, and sitting with the emotion that comes up.

Stephanie: Yeah. [Yeah] and see, yeah, it’s true. I feel rejected right now and it’s 100% normal. So let’s be with rejection. Let’s make it safe for me to feel rejected.

Vanessa: And then the curiosity of [yeah] what have I made this mean?

Stephanie: Yeah. The first of all, let’s stay with rejection. That’s like this cry and wanna kill everybody, [Yes] wanna quit. What the fuck have I done? All this money went into the shoot and this website page and oh my God, right? [Yes] It all happens to me.

Vanessa: And part of what you’re doing when that happens is like sitting with the emotion.

Stephanie: Yeah. We’re not trying to fix it first. [Yes] This is me as now a coach. That wasn’t me like 10 years ago. Like, let’s just be honest, like this is the skill. So right now we’re just gonna be pissed at the world and angry and rejected and do all the things and we’re just gonna be with that and feel it in the body and do all of, and let’s not try to fix ourselves out of feeling that shit.

Vanessa: Yes. And I think that’s what, like, I see this in other versions in clinical work too. [Yes] But certainly like the women that are in business that I’m connected to, I think, I think there can be this like pressure to, like toxic positivity, right? [Yes] Like pressure to hurry up and fix it and [yeah] positive vibes only and stuff like that where I think, what me and you are talking about is that permission to actually be with the emotion, regulate it, [Yes] regain safety and then you can reason, you know? [Yes]So that, that is something that I’ve done repeatedly. And I almost wonder like if we had a whole room of, especially women entrepreneurs and we said like, you know, the whole scene from Mean Girls, if you’ve been personally victimized by Regina George, I’m like, if you have been personally victimized by this voice that pops up and goes, fuck it, burn it down. [Yeah] Like, I think a lot of us do have that sometimes.

Stephanie: Absolutely. I, I think it’s toxic positivity, especially on social media and business to think it’s not there. But that to me is not the kind of people I want to be with. Like, it’s not the kind of business I wanna do. For me, business is a container for my own development. [Yeah] Right. So every launch and every or every whatever I do, and there’s a failure, it’s an opportunity for me to develop or deepen my relationship with myself. It’s like truly what it is. [Yeah] So when I launch something and it fails and I’m with rejection, what happens for me is with, every time I feel this way, the window of feeling terrible and rejected, just shorten. It’s never gonna go away but instead of being three weeks, It’s three days.

Vanessa: Days, yes. And it’s like that way of building the tolerance in your nervous system for that. [Yes] So it is this, you do get to a point where it is kind of less intense or less, [Yes] it goes for, yeah, it’s less strong, I guess.

Stephanie: And then I can get curious and then I can learn, okay, what’s the problem? Like, was it not enough on this or too much on this? Did I not talk about the right thing? Or like, what is it? But I don’t want to get there too fast. I want to be with the drama and as you said in the beginning, the unmanaged mind, I wanna be with it.

Vanessa: Yes. It’s funny you say drama because I’ve always felt like I have this dramatic part of me, and it’s the part, especially in your mentorship program, that I really started to be like, she is not too much and she is not too loud and she is not taking up too much space.

Vanessa: And so I let that dramatic part of me just join the party for a minute. Right. Like some way, whether it’s just, yeah, just being really dramatic about it, kind of just really sitting with all the messiness of it. But the other thing that I noticed, Stephanie, is the perfectionist tendencies.

Stephanie: Tell me, how did it show up?

Vanessa: They showed up where just everything like being, anything from even I noticed I’m mistaken in an email that went out. [Okay] Right. So I started to kind of notice and these like high unrelenting standards on myself. So it’s almost like I went, you know how we say like healing is like an onion and you kind of, [Yes] ]it’s like I hit and move through the next layer of the kind of perfectionist side. And I think one of the things that helped with that is definitely the compassion, but one of the frameworks that I use in the therapy space kind of talks about that part, that part developing to help us cope.

Vanessa: And so this perfectionist part of me, it’s developed to try to protect me from rejection or possible judgment or possible failure. So it’s almost like the perfectionist part is like, if I ridicule her enough, she’ll stop doing this thing and we can feel safe again. You know what I’m saying? [Mm-hmm. Yeah.]

Vanessa: And so it’s almost like through, through this, that perfectionist part, I’m like trying to almost just approach that part with compassion and curiosity of what are you trying to protect? What do you need to know from me? Well, it’s safe, and this is a launch of a program. If this doesn’t go well, we can reassess. It’s okay to make mistakes better done than perfect. All of these kind of like, how do I kind of reassure, that part of me, and that’s been really important to the whole evolution of the business.

Stephanie: I just wanna say, ask you this, if you didn’t reassure that part of you, if you didn’t know how to reassure it or didn’t believe in reassuring that part of you, if you step back three years to where you are now, would you be where you are today and have launched this product in this website, in this online program and all of that?

Vanessa: No, I don’t think so. I think, no. I think, one of the things that got really clear to me, and this is where sometimes the deeper, making sure as a professional, you’re doing your own work [mm-hmm] on yourself kind of continuously, right? [Mm-hmm] Because what sits under that perfectionist part for me is kind of just some younger child kind of part that learned really early. If you’re perfect and quiet and submissive, you’re safe.

Stephanie: You’re safe from harm.

Vanessa: From harm. You’re safe from harm. So it’s this teaching that part of me, actually you’re safe now. And I see those parts of people come up in the business space, [Yeah] right.

Stephanie: Yeah. So, and I’m not a therapist, but allow me to just give an analogy to people. I obvious say you’re thinking in your business as a grown ass adult today, as a 10 year olds. Like you’re using the 10 year old part of your brain to make decision as a 35 year old in your business. Like even if people don’t like what you do today at 35, it will not be dangerous, like when you attend.

Vanessa: No. And that there’s this whole thing that unfolds in therapy, and it’s honestly one of the most rewarding parts. But I’ve done this myself too, is, you know how you said that 10 year old. It’s yeah] you’re like,no, but you’re like a 30 something year old adult, strong, resilient woman.

Vanessa: It’s these, this reassurance and the showing up for that 10 year old part of us of being like, do you know what 10 year old part, I’m safe now. We’re safe, we’re actually running this. Like, it’s kind of time orienting that part.

Stephanie: Brilliant way of looking at it.

Vanessa: Yes. So the parts work has helped so much and when I’ve wanted to like burn it down.

Stephanie: Tell me when did that happen? Give me an example of what made you want to burn it all down.

Vanessa: I think, maybe like two things come to mind, and this is kind of a little bit of thought work, I suppose [mm-hmm] is I’ve always walked around. I’ve said it in your program for six months. I’m tech challenged. [Okay] That’s the thing I keep saying like, I’m tech challenged. And so I’m going, okay, how do we break that apart a little bit? Like, well, no, I’m not, I’m Vanessa and I’m kind of going, okay, I’m someone who’s learning to get better with technology. Right. So it’s kind of doing that thought work that you teach. [Mm-hmm]

Vanessa: But that definitely came up. So anytime, as I’m working with my BA anytime, it’s like, hey, can you jump into Cajabi and like, just tweak these few things, or I just need you to add this part here. Or I jump on Camba and I’m like to do something. And Stephanie, it happened so quick, but it’s gotten better. But it’s like, if I can’t figure it out in two seconds, I’m done. [You’re too bad.] I’m done. [Quit] Yeah, I’m done. So, so the tech stuff has been a real thing.

Vanessa: The other part is trying to find my voice and how I teach body image and putting it into this 12 week program. [Mm-hmm] Doing that, sometimes I felt this like overwhelm where I would be like, I’m done. Sometimes I would have all the, like the paperwork laid out of what’s happening in each module. My partner’s a psychologist, so I would be like, can you just fix this for me please? And he is like, I actually can’t do that. He’s like, I can like listen to,

Stephanie: I can listen to you, nicki feel better, therapeutic you, but I can’t fix this thing.

Vanessa: Yes, yes. Buthe’s been brilliant through all of this too becausewhen I have walked upstairs and been like, I couldn’t get something to work on Kajabi, I couldn’t get something to work in Canva, something I did failed, I feel like I’m behind on something. Oh my gosh, now I only have this amount of time to do this. The deadline’s approaching, kind of that anxious vibe. I’ll be like, babe, I think I’m done.

Vanessa: He’s like, and he’ll say, he always says something like, let’s just revisit this in about

Stephanie: therapy

Vanessa: I’m like, I’m like, so he is like, you totally like, that’s fine. We can be done, but like, let’s just see where you’re at with it in a few days. And then in a few days I’m like, I love this. It’s gonna be fabulous. I can’t wait to find these women to, so it’s just, so do you Stephanie, when I describe that, do you hear that as like unmanaged, I don’t know, mind, or do you view it as like that’s the phases,

Stephanie: that’s human nature. [Yes] That’s human nature, the illusion. So this is a great question because when people hear the word unmanaged mine and managed mine, they think one is better than the other. Like one is, manage is like, yes, you’re there, iManage your bad. But it’s not the truth. The truth is being a human is both. It’s the black and the white, [Yes] right.

Stephanie: If you study Buddhism, like it’s it, the circle is half black and half white, and that’s what makes being a human. So being a human is having an unmanaged mind and being aware that it’s unmanaged. When I have my drama of rejection, I’m like in it and I’m aware that I’m in it.

Vanessa: Yes.

Stephanie: Like I believe it, but I don’t believe it. But I’m like, yes, it’s true, it sucks, but it’s just an un management. Oh, right.

Vanessa: I love that how you just said that. Yes. It’s like that happens because we’re human, but I, there’s this kind of deeper knowing, observing self, isn’t there? Yes. That’s like, oh, you’re doing that thing.

Stephanie: Yeah, you’re having that. Let’s have that moment together. Let’s make it like all the way to the extreme. So like for me it’s like, okay, let’s be rejected and all the way. Like, let’s feel it in every cell of my body and then this, do I wanna continue? Like this is where the personal work comes in because now I have a choice. [Yeah] Do I want to continue to feel like this? Like I’m not outta control. Oh my God, I like, it’s the end of the world. Like, I’m doom. This is who I am. It’s like, okay, this is happening to me. I feel rejected. People don’t wanna buy my stuff, but I have a choice.

Vanessa: Yes, yes.

Stephanie: This is where personal work, taught work. Nervous system regulation. The gift that it gave me. It’s having a choice.

Vanessa: And that’s the magic. That is another like core kind of value that really strengthened for me through the mentorship program and beyond was autonomy. [Yes.] Especially when we’re yes, like the honoring of choice.

Stephanie: Yeah. You can say, I’m like, you can send rejection. You can like be in your pit of sorrow for the next week if you want to, for the next month forever. Like, you can be there. Do you want, No, fuck that sucks. [Yeah. Yeah.] Like, okay, weve been there for today. Like, let’s move on to something else now.

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. And the last thing when I think about like this evolution right, is, and I, when I do therapy with therapist or with coaches, it comes up every time is, which the thought that, I should know better because I’m a professional. Like I shouldn’t be feeling this, I shouldn’t be thinking this. I should be further along. And this is where it’s kind of normalizing what you just said is actually the importance of the skills you learn, the awareness you develop. And just because we’re therapists and coaches doesn’t mean we’re immune to human normal experience, but it’s kind of what we do with it.

Vanessa: [Yes.] So that was a voice I noticed where I was like, oh my gosh, here I am. I’ve taught the, my group program live three times. I’ve taught workshops and I’m saying I’m teaching women like you are worthy of being seen in your now body. And here I am, like at a photo shoot being like, where’s my headshot?

Vanessa: But it’s just kind of having that compassion [Yes] and that like, just because you’re a professional doesn’t mean you’re gonna magically perfect this. It’s

Stephanie: Let me ask you this. [Yeah] Why do you think that is? Why do you think, to me, it’s a misunderstanding of the human nature that leads certain professional to think it shouldn’t be happening. Why do you think it’s happening? Why do you think they think that? Is it a misunderstanding?

Vanessa: Well, if I can speak from like a therapist perspective for a minute, and maybe there’s like a version of this in the coaching community too. I think there’s this thing that develops really early in university and training and then beyond of it’s kind of us versus them.

Vanessa: We are the experts. We are the healers andthey, the clients are the one with the problem and the issue. So it becomes this kind of, in a way, like a dehumanizing us, we’re the experts and it’s them. Where I don’t view it like that. I kind of go, I view it in like a humanistic way where it’s like, we’re all kind of doing this messy thing called life and we all have our wos or hurts or pain.

Vanessa: We all have our goals and dreams and values, and so I think that might be part of it is even in trainings. As a therapist sometimes it’s like, you can see we role play a lot. So we did this, I did a eating disorder training this year, and they always do it. It’s therapist, client, and then observer. And you can see the discomfort for professionals to get out of their experty space and be the human. And I’m not saying this to criticize anybody. I totally get where it comes from. But it’s funny because when I did the role play, I was the client and I was a teenager and I was dealing with an eating disorder. And afterwards they were like, gosh, you’re like a really great actress. They’re like, you can tell you’ve really worked with a lot of clients. In my head I was like, honey, I just channeled my n Inner teenage Vanessa.

Stephanie: That was my real story.

Vanessa: So I think that might be part of it, is this idea that like, no, no, no,you’re the expert.

Stephanie: As you’re saying now, but the imagery that came up to me in my head is a pedestal, right? Yes. And it’s like an armor that socialization the current system or in for leadership, because I’ve, my corporate background comes in here where they teach you to like position yourself above to show leadership in authority and wear this like, armor to distance yourself and create a persona for credibility that people will buy, that you are perfect, you’re stronger, and probably that’s what’s happening.

Vanessa: Yes. They’re kind of in that part of them, and then it’s like, it’s hard to kind of, resign themselves. [Yeah.] Like, well, how do I make, if I’m that and I’m armored up and I’m in that, how do I kind of admit to myself that actually there’s this healing and these vulnerabilities that I need to be addressing?

Stephanie: Yeah. And for me, I don’t know in therapy, but for me, the way I teach coaching, the way I coach, it’s my humanity. It’s my unmanaged mind. It’s my lived experience that makes me greater at helping other people.

Vanessa: Yes. And it’s, that’s the magic in addressing what’s there because there’s magic in it, in the experience and in the pain or the emotions when you really start to work through it, there is magic because of what you said.

Vanessa: You kind of have this lived experience that you understand, [mm-hmm] that you’re aware of, that you’re taking steps to continue to heal.

Stephanie: And it doesn’t require me to be on a pedestal with an armor. I don’t need to create this persona. I can be who I am and be in that whatever mess and know that people I’m in a mess and totally be okay. I don’t need to be looking perfect on that armor.

Vanessa: Yeah. When I have a client come in and even in the group work, I just kind of spell that out of, yes, I have knowledge. Yes, I have skills and training. Yes, I’m going to be teaching some things, but your lived experience matters. And I kind of view like, we’re walking together in this. It’s not me above you. This is like, we’re walking together and I’ve had clients be like, Vanessa, I don’t wanna work on that. And I’ll go, you don’t have to work on that part. [Mm-hmm] and then all of a sudden the resistance goes down and it does open up something. As soon as you’re not kind of pushing, it’s the autonomy. [Yes] As soon as someone knows they have autonomy with you and you trust them, the resistance to change goes down.

Stephanie: And the change goes, the transformation potential is greater. [Yes. Yeah] But as you’re saying that is because when you walk side by side with your client, when you’re in the position of pedestal and authority, the performance of the person you work with is of the significance to your greatness. But when you’re coaching, at least for me, side by side, it’s not about what the client does or the transformation they have. Like, I’m solid in who I am and my potential and my greatness, and I just landed to you. But what you do with it does not make me greater or less thereof.

Vanessa: Yes. Stephanie, that has been, it’s a process of like detaching your worth [yes] from everything. And what are we doing in body image work? We are detaching our worth from being in a specific beauty body ideal. [Yeah] we’re detaching our worth from the outcome of our launch. We’re detaching our worth from our clients transformation. Do we want all that to go well? Of course we do. [Yes.] Are we cheerleading for our clients to make change? Absolutely. But I get what you’re saying. It’s not like my worth is not dependent on that. That is like a hardcore intentional belief. I did a thought ladder in your program about this. I remember sitting with you going like, I don’t know the core belief,

Vanessa: But now I’m like, my worth is not dependent on anything. And I might have a scared part of me that doubts that sometimes, but like, I had a client say to me, I feel like when I come here, it’s like initially you’re like walking beside me in my brain and I’m being like, these are all the things, this is the thing that my parents left me, this is the legacy from then. And she said, and it’s like you’re sitting there really going like, wow, you live like this, this society. She’s like, I’m just kind of showing you the lay of the land. This is what’s going on. But yeah, I think, I don’t know if I went on a tangent, but I said all that to be like professionals, it’s okay to do your own healing. [Yes.] And it’s okay if you’re not this perfectly manicured like perfect human. It’s just no such thing.

Stephanie: No am and I was gonna say am. The more messy you are and the more you move yourself through that, coach yourself, theorize yourself through this, the greater coach or therapist you’re gonna be for your people.

Vanessa: Yes, and I don’t say this with any judgment, but a lot of therapy training, for example, require you to do your own work and a lot actually don’t. I can tell the therapists who haven’t done anything. [Yes.] And honestly, so can the clients. And so it’s if you want your client to walk the walk, you better have done it too.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it’s interesting what I’ve observed now I’m at my eighth cohort that I’m launching [Wow] of professional. And so I’ve now seen a variety of backgrounds and people, and I have to say that the people with the most traumatic pasts that have moved themself through it, coach themself through it, heal themself through it, are the most potential, the coach with the most potency for their clients. Then they don’t, most of them don’t have a degree on the back wall. They have the degree of lived experience and doing their work and, fuck, they’re so powerful for coaches. [Yes.] Once you give them a structure to coach like, they come with all this live experience and all this trauma work they’ve done and now giving them a structure to coach other people days, like the result they get is brilliant.

Vanessa: Yes, absolutely. That’s what I, when I say like, the magic of it, that’s the magic of it. And I think we’re conditioned to attach our worth to those qualifications on the wall. [Mm-hmm] And that’s part of, you know how you said like that, like expert armored, that’s part of it. Like fix the business suit jacket and like look at my qualifications on the wall. And I’m not saying that stuff, there’s a place for that stuff. But the lived experience in your own work [yeah] helps your client transform, I think.

Stephanie: And so this is where I’m seeing the people who now three and a half years into it, and those that are still in business three and a half years later are the one, I’m gonna say something here, but they’re the one who are still in business today. Those who graduated three and a half years ago to now, those that are still in business today are the one that do their personal work every day in the circumstance of their business.

Vanessa: Yeah. I’ve said to my partner a number of times in the last 12 months, I’m like, whew, this is not for the fainthearted.

Vanessa: [No.]

Vanessa: Yeah. Yeah. But it’s certainly been an interesting evolution.

Stephanie: So where are you going next? Are you still on the path of training therapists?

Vanessa: Yes.Yes. That’s where I feel the calling of the body image program that’s launched now. I see that being a key part of training [yeah] for their body image providers. What I’m seeing in the therapy or in the coaching space as well [Yeah] and I’m sure you see this too as like, I think trauma informed has become like a cool hashtag.

Stephanie: I’m gonna do some breath work and I’m gonna call myself a trauma informed coach. [Yes.] We’ll leave it at that.

Vanessa: Yes, yes, yes. So I’m like the passion that where next is working with professionals who are teaching body image in some capacity and really giving them skills to do that in a trauma informed way. And Stephanie, I’m seeing a real need for that too in the eating disorder space.

Stephanie: Oh, yes.

Vanessa: There’s a lot happening in the eating disorder space that doesn’t actually value client autonomy at all and doesn’t acknowledge that. And this is relevant for the clients your coaches are working with when it comes to chronic dieting. There’s no acknowledgement of the food behaviors are serving a deeper need. If we are not addressing that, at least in some way in eating disorder treatment, it kind of turns into like a power struggle. [Yeah.] So, yes, when you say like, what’s next, I wanna keep running this body image program for women. I have put like my blood, sweat, tears lived experience, clinical experience, all the feedback from the times I’ve run it. [Yeah.] And it’s like, I’m actually really proud of it, so I’ll keep running that. But yeah, I’m thinking professionals, it’s where my heart is calling me.

Stephanie: So I have two things for you. I’m preparing a workshop right now on binge strict cycle and I was reading a study yesterday [yeah] on, I wanted to bring the view of science on binge eating and they had like, wanted the solution to binge eating was a weight loss program. And it just made me cringe to the deepest part of my D n a. I’m like, this is one of the top study on binge eating disorder is recommending a weight loss program on a low calorie diet. I’m like, that’s the state of the eating disorder research.

Vanessa: Yes. And it’s very weight central. [Oh, wow.] The fat phobia is sewn into the very fabric of the treatment space. And I actually, it’s interesting you say that because two days ago I had a psychologist send me an email that went around to her clinic. Stephanie, this is a huge clinic, 20 clinicians maybe. And they were excited because they were partnering with a university here, and they were doing a study, the quote, weight loss injections, right, [Oh] and this is disgusting. And it was, we want to line up kind of therapeutic care for the vulnerable people with anxiety eating disorders and body dysmorphia to support them in their weight loss goals.

Vanessa: So this is the stuff, Stephanie, like you, it makes my blood oil. So I’m like, when I think about what’s next, we have to [that’s your field] interrogate that. We have to absolutely interrogate that.

Stephanie: And this is where the degree on the wall comes in, in that [I know] this is not my place. Right. So I did a talk recently at a university who hired me to talk about body image and every statement I had to make, I positioned from, I’m not a researcher like you, I’m in the application world. That was the only way for me to get through to them because I don’t have the diploma on the wall and I don’t have the fancy degree. But this is where, for you, you need to step into that role because you have the credibility, you have the background, and you can impact.

Vanessa: Yeah, and I’m excited about it. But also, I have to say, the people that I’ve learned from the most are not the people with the qualifications on the wall. They are people with lived experience. I mean, truly, I’m serious. They,that’s kind of where I’ve learned, but I do know what you mean. It’s, it’s a bit of a game.

Stephanie: You gotta play the game. Yeah.

Vanessa: Gotta play the game. So I’m, [the politics] yes. And so remember when we first started working together, my perfectionist part would drive me to get like 25 qualities degree.

Stephanie: Well, when you started with me, you were finishing your nutritionist degree.

Vanessa: The most horrendous experience I’ve ever had because it was just like rampant diet culture. But for the reason that you just said, I’ve started, like I’m almost done with a, like an eating disorder accreditation specific to Australia. But because of what you just said, it’s like playing the game because I wanna get into that space and just

Stephanie: Revolutionize it [down] Butit’s sad. Like people who don’t understand the politics of things, like I’ve played politics in the corporate world for 15 years, so I totally get it. You just gotta play the politics. But you play the politics with all your awareness. You’re like, I’m just gonna do your thing. You’re gonna give me the degree thing, but I’m not gonna do any of it, practice, by the way. I’m just like throwing it out. But now I have the past to go in your world and revolutionize your world.

Vanessa: Yes, yes. And so training professionals is part of revolutionizing that because there’s lots of therapists, psychologists, clinicians, et cetera, who are operating with a weight centric diet culture perspective and they’re causing harm. Make no mistake, that’s causing harm. [Yep.] And some of them don’t realize that.

Stephanie: No, I had a, somebody in one of my program, a professional, I can’t remember which one, but she was shopping for therapists because like I teach all of them like you, you shop for a coach, you shop for therapists, [Yes,] like shop. Interview them, ask them for their live experience and all of that. She’s like, I thought one was good. And I got into my first session and she talked to me six time about a meal plan and exercise. And not one time she talked to me about emotion. Fired. Like because those therapists, those professional are entrenched in diet culture, they don’t match with you. [ Yes.] That’s what you need to go and change.

Vanessa: Yes. And there’s this outdated, oh, Stephanie, I could go on a rabbit hole of who’s doing the research and what politics and powers and not. But there’s this outdated thought too of like if there’s trauma, you just kind of put it to the side and we’re gonna focus on just the food behaviors. And I’m kind of going, there needs to be this integrated approach. We need to be able to go to the source of what’s driving the food behavior. [Yeah.] So yes, I’m ready step,

Stephanie: but that’s very medical, like to see everything in isolation. Right. You’ve got a problem with your foot. I’m gonna go to the foot doctor. I’m not gonna go to the knee doctor. Even though they talk to each other, which is gonna treat that separately.

Vanessa: Yes. And then the more work that happens with clients coming in with eating disorders and chronic dieting and the body shame, lots of body dysmorphia. The more those clients come in, they’ve all been harmed in some way by a professional, to be completely honest.

Stephanie: And this is why the my program, the non diet certification has all these things in it. Yeah. Because you can’t just do food. You don’t need to be the expert in any of it, but you need to understand how they talk to each other. And then if we need an expertise in one field, we’re gonna go and get that expertise in that one thing. But you need to understand how they all play together.

Vanessa: Yeah. And for coaches too, like the relationship, you know how we were talking about walking beside and honoring your clients’ capacity and trust and autonomy and partnering with them and you’re not another source of authority, you are helping them tune in to their own, that relationship is transformational. [Yes.] So, no, you don’t have to be like expert in all of these different things, but that is core.

Stephanie: Yeah. And that’s what coaching is.

Vanessa: Yes. Yeah.

Stephanie: Right. And that’s the difference with coaching and specialty work like your other side of you, which is therapy and nutritionist, if they have a food thing, if they like you, resource out. But you’re the one who holds the space for the human. [Yes, exactly. Yeah.]

Stephanie: So, yeah. So now you’ve launched a fancy program. I not call it fancy, but it’s beautiful and then you’re gonna turn that into professional and you’re gonna go on the, remember we had a dream when you started, when you have goal was to do like retreats and speak in front of people, like you’re almost there. [Yeah.] Realize that.

Vanessa: Yeah. It is helpful to kind of reflect back and [yes] give yourself, give myself credit for the growth cuz it’s easy to stay focused on future goals. [Yes.] But it is nice to look back and be like, wow, I’ve come a long way.

Stephanie: Yeah. And your body of work is laid in now. You’re, you’re admit to methodology’s laid in. [Yeah.] Now you just need to like adapt it for professional, but that core won’t change.

Vanessa: Yes. That’s a good way to say it.

Stephanie: Right? You’re like said like me, they’re going to be on the food method. Is there, is just to who I’m teaching it will have different emphasis and like things I will mention and not mention, but your body of work is created. Congratulations.

Vanessa: Thank you. And I, every time I talk to you, I mean this and I say it, but I would not be here without you in the mentorship program. I truly mean that. Like even Stephanie, I don’t know if you realize this, but I’ve stayed in contact with so many women from that group and they have been like a key support to me. I got like a fabulous personal trainer. I’ve got a fabulous va, it’s just, that was like the, what’s the word for it? The catalyst [yes] for,

Stephanie: well, you’re a brilliant seat to show up in the world

Vanessa: So thank you, Stephanie.

Stephanie: But it’s, that’s what we do with client, right? When you work with your client one-on-one with body image, you’re not the solution. You facilitate them finding the solution and then their brilliant sea shows up and then they go on doing great things in the world.

Vanessa: And that’s, you know how I said I ground back into what’s my why. [Yeah.] That is the why when I, and I’m gonna give a quick tip because this worked so well, is if you ever have like a magic moment, inspirational moment, witness a client transformation. I just started keeping this word document where I would just type it in as soon as I could and you can come back and create such beautiful content from that.

Vanessa: But now also when I’m like, burn it down, I don’t know how much I can do. I can go back and be like, [yes] I’m just making up this name. But I can go back and be like, Katie, this is the why. She is not in her room depressed and isolated. She is out volunteering and working and she just looked a holiday and she is showing up honey and she is now connected to her purpose. So I’m like, that has been a really useful tool for me.

Stephanie: Brilliant. [Yes.] And that fuels your purpose. [Yes.] And that’s why when I say like, even if I wasn’t doing this, I’d still be doing this, that’s why.

Vanessa: I know. It’s like, what does quit even mean? When I’m being dramatic about that, I’m like, what does it actually mean? I’m gonna be doing this.

Stephanie: Yeah. Like, this is my destiny. [Yeah. Yeah.] Right. And one of the things that for me turned the ship around was looking at all that happened to me, all the trauma piece that happened to me because of my weight and food and all of that, and said, damn it, that shit happened for a reason.

Stephanie: Let’s make this purposeful. Let’s make all this shit that happened for 30 years, give it a meaning into the world. And every time I want to burn it down and I feel like I’m the worst person in the world, I’m like this, all this shit happened for a reason. Yeah, let’s give it a purpose.

Vanessa: I think like the grief that can come up in the body image space is big, but I think there’s this whole kind of stage of grief about meaning making. [Oh, there] It doesn’t, yes.

Stephanie: This is where I learned from Vanessa. Like I know, I’m just like, here’s what happened in my life and she makes all these fancy like therapy stuff. Oh, this is what’s happening. Tell me what’s happening.

Vanessa: But it’s, yes, there’s this like meaning making stage of grief and that’s how I view it sometimes is like the grief of the trauma or what happened to the little youth. [Yeah.] Or the weight stigma over the years or whatever the experience is connected to that body story, I do think there’s this beautiful place to get ofthe meaning making. Not that what happened was okay. Right. That [no] won’t be super clear about that. But that you’re going, part of the meaning making is I’m gonna reach women who have experienced similar harm and revolutionized the world in doing that.

Stephanie: So is that the end stage of grieving when you make a meaning out of it kind of stuff?

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. [See] And the thing about grief is sometimes you might cycle back to a little, you might revisit stages. [Sure] Yes.

Stephanie: Sure. But there, there was. I can tell you there was, yes, I’m not there,where I am now, like nine years later, I can honestly say that I don’t have that anymore, but it was there up to two years ago, [Yes] like I would revisit it. But now the other identity is so built into me that I don’t have it [yeah] anymore. Is that possible?

Vanessa: Yeah. And I think just like everything else of, I think when you do revisit it, a different stage of the grieving process, you revisit it with new awareness. [Yes. New perspective, perspective.] A new perspective, a new awareness, and you integrate it and kind of move, move forward. So that’s what I hear a lot with women doing amazing work in this, is they’ve gone through lived experience and their own grieving, and we’re seeing the meaning making of it.

Stephanie: I’ll share an experience because I started to do Facebook ads with video of me in full body. Obviously I’m fat in case you don’t know that. I’m fat. I’m very visibly fat. So I started to do video full body to like completely cold people, meaning like they’re not from the field of the non-AI space. Like they’re just Joe Blow on the street. And the comments on the video were just, as you can imagine, some of them horrifying, right? And then it was very interesting for me to witness me looking at those comments, delete block, and not have shame saying like, this is not me, the problem, it’s them. But two years ago it would’ve been me, the problem for like two to three weeks before it turned into them, where now automatically was like, Block and delete, block and delete without going through the cycle of shaming. So what do you make of that as a therapist?

Vanessa: The way I translate that is I truly believe weight stigma and fat phobia is a body trauma. I truly believe that. It absolutely threatens our,the sense of belonging, the sense of safety, the sense of is the way I report my experience going to be believed and kind of withstanding those assumptions and judgments about your body so that trauma can run deep.

Vanessa: So what I make of what you just said is that you’ve done lots of work to heal, and so you might, depending on where someone’s at in the healing process, that might activate a full trauma response [Yes] and we don’t want to shame that because there’s a lot physiologically going on that they, that’s not their fault. [Yeah] But the work that you’ve done, it’s kind of like,two years ago maybe it would’ve activated more of that trauma response being intense, but the work you’ve done, it’s like, it might activate a bit of emotion, but you can quickly move to this like empowered delete block, you don’t get any of my energy, regulate my nervous system, I’m safe, even if this troll has commented something.

Vanessa: So it to me, it’s like you’ve done the work to teach your body, you’re safe. And that’s how I translate that.

Stephanie: And I thank you for that because I want people to see that it’s a process. Just like building your business is a process, doing your own work is a process.

Vanessa: Yes. Yeah. And does, go ahead. Yes. I always tell my clients when I’m like, and in the groups of that, you know, that whole like, healing isn’t linear. [Hmm, Yeah] We want it to be this like perfect straight line up. And it is messy with curves and ups and downs, so normalizing that. So if a client, for example, did lots of body image work, they get those sort of trolling comments and it activates that response. We don’t wanna shame it, we wanna support them through, well, how do we regulate this? How do we respond to it from a place of compassion? So yeah, I’m sure you, I’m sure you hear that too, but fine. So be like, I took 10 steps back this week and I’m like, this is part of the healing. This is okay.

Stephanie: For me, it’s like the photo shoot we were talking earlier. It’s for me, these Facebook ads that I did was part of resiliency work. [Yes.] I was like, okay, I’m ready now. Let’s put myself into the world of like the terrible fat phobic people and let’s see how I deal with that. And I just blew my own mind of how [and was it like] I responded.

Vanessa: And was it worth it? It was like, totally, and I’m not talking financial, I’m talking about like, was it worth it to put yourself out there in

Stephanie: Totally, [yeah] yeah. It was a $2,000 experience of me, like, you know, a Facebook ad to like troll, but it was, it’s like going to therapy. I just have enough skills that I can jeopardize myself. [Yeah.] But it was like an intense therapy with a very skilled therapist. Now it was Facebook ads and me going to that platform and like feeling it, I’m like, block, delete. Have my own back. Like, this is why I do the work that I do, because there’s all these terrible, fat folic people.

Vanessa: Yes. And I think if I’m allowed to say this, [yeah] it’s a good reminder for all the coaches, nutritionist, dieticians, body image work, people that, and I don’t wanna ruffle feathers here, but for providers like me, sometimes I’m like, Stephanie, where am I on the body spectrum and body size spectrum? I had body dysmorphia for so long, but at the end of the day, I sit with a level of thin privilege. [Mm-hmm.] And I think this is an important kind of reminder that people seeing clients in larger bodies, you’ve gotta remember there is an exposure, a traumatic exposure to that weight stigma [Yeah true] that they need, that, they need support with that. If you’re kind of a thin provider, showing up like you did putting a Facebook ad and you’re not gonna face that [No] in that way.

Stephanie: No, you won’t. Oh, it totally makes sense. And I think this, when I said to you earlier, like, everything that happened to me, like I’m at that point where it happened for a reason, [yes] I’m like, let’s use that body. [ Yes] Like let’s use that body to change something in the field that I’m in and let’s put that fat body out there and let’s challenge people’s perception. They’re gonna be dickhead when they go into comment, but they now see somebody that talks about health in a fat body. I’m planting a seed. It may take 10 years to change, but I’m planting a seed to help them see that it’s possible.

Vanessa: Yes. And I don’t know how many photo shoots you’ve done, but you do look fiercely fabulous because I am loving how you like, the bold colors. [Yes.] How good is that? Because how often do you, I think you said this first of like, dress in the black outfit and hide. [Yes] You are like brilliant bright colors.

Stephanie: It’s where you use your business expense, has therapy with every photo shoot for me. Like I started, and again two years, like this is the next layer in of body image. I started to do photo shoot every three months and every one of them is a business expanse. But honestly you guys, it’s a therapy. [ Yeah.] I just know enough that I can coach myself through it, but it’s a form of therapy that I’m doing to myself by dressing bright colors and photo shoots and [yeah] like the one I did in Cabo in February was my first time at a bathing suit, photo shoot.

Stephanie: [How was that?]

Stephanie: It was, I went through all the spectrum, like [Yeah] I was not in my body before. Like, I was like anxious and I had anxiety and it wasn’t because I was afraid. Like I didn’t have the thought, I’m anxious of doing this. It was literally a traumatic, like it was trauma coming up. It wasn’t because I was thinking it, it was happening to me.

Vanessa: Yes. Do you know Stephanie, I literally remember in the mentorship program we were talking about like what comes first, the thought or the body sensation kind of thing. [Yeah.] And I’ve been, for some reason, thinking about that question for years and I’m going, what you just described, I’m like, I think it can be both. I think we can like have a thought that then, that kind of like then activates the emotion and the behavior. But I think when it comes the other way, it’s like the body is responding to something and then sometimes the thought is trying to make sense of it. So it’s like that.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s, yeah. That, that’s exactly what it was. It was the anxi, like I wasn’t afraid of the baiting suit like cognitively. [Yes.] But my inner guts, my nervous system was fluttering. But again, I have the skill so I just sat with it and sat with it and sat with it and like just felt it and felt it and it just melted. That’s the best way I can explain it. It just melted.

Vanessa: How did you feel once you like saw the photos?

Stephanie: Well, it happened during the photo shoot. Like when I, it melted in the morning of it [Yeah] and then I hired a woman photographer because that makes, like, I knew this was gonna be better for me [Yeah] and then she, we connected right away.

Stephanie: And then when I put on the bathing suit,I just felt an expansion within me. Right. it’s physiological. Like it was just an expansion and I just went with it. And when I saw the photo, it wasn’t like, I didn’t trigger that same sensation in my body. It was just calm, neutral. [Yeah. That’s a amazing thing.]

Stephanie: What do you make of that complex trauma specialists?

Vanessa: Well, I think what we’ve been kind of talking about of, for so many years, especially for and for how many women, like [yes] being exposed in that way has led to, and we can’t guess on ourselves for some of, you know, has led to potential judgment, potential bullying, potential ridicule, potential rejection.

Vanessa: And so it’s kind of, to me that trauma response armors up out of protection and then, but you have the skills to regulate and breathe through it. And then you integrated that experience of, I did a photo shoot in my bathing suit and I integrated that experience like that was I, and I’m safe. And I came out the other side.

Stephanie: Yeah. The whole time, like the three days before was like, I am gonna teach my body that this is safe. Like I was seeing all that flutter inside of me. I was experiencing like, this is not me. This is my old me. [Yeah] So let’s like bundle it up with love and teach it that it’s safe and teach it that it’s safe.

Stephanie: And so this whole three days leading it was a, an experience for me to teach my nervous system how to respond going forward.

Vanessa: Yes. And I, one of my favorite questions with what you’re describing is you’re in tune and you notice that kind of with what I think is a trauma response. [Yeah.]One of my favorite questions is, what does this part of me need? So it doesn’t go to, I shouldn’t feel this. Well, I’ve, you know, that ridicule. It’s like, what does this part of me need? Well, it needs breath, it needs reassurance. It needs to know that I’m a 30 something year old badass woman choosing to do this. So it’s kind of, I love that question. What does that part of you need?

Stephanie: Yeah. And that’s, I did it and just cuddled it. [Yes.] Because it was that, to me it was that like 17 year old going on a trip with friend in ab bathing suit and like totally paralyzed by it and then I was cuddling that version of me. [Yes.] I was retraining myself to react differently.

Vanessa: Yes. And bringing a layer of like safety and compassion and soothing puddling attention acknowledgement to that wounded 17 year old.

Stephanie: Yeah. So, I dunno how we got here.

Vanessa: Girl. We’ve been everywhere. This always happens. I feel like we need a podcast together. This is so fun.

Stephanie: This is gonna be a two podcast by the way, because I, if you notice almost 90 minutes,

Stephanie: I think we’re gonna end it now, for now. We can do a part three and four later.

Stephanie: [Yes. That sounds good.]

Stephanie: Any parting words for people listening? We started to be here about business and the growth and the expansion you’re living through. Any tips on that for people listening?

Vanessa: I think just kind of summing up where parts of our conversation have gone is one, like even if you are a professional in this field, that it’s okay and the healing process isn’t linear. So really trying to meet yourself in those vulnerable moments with curiosity and compassion, I think too, running your business is like the ultimate, oh my gosh, exercise in nervous system resiliency. So kind of what I like to do is like create this list of what do I wanna do and start with the one, like I said, that feels, it’s uncomfortable but not unsafe and build. But yeah, just that you’re not alone, that you’re not the only one out there being like, okay, today I love it, and next week I’m having that burn it down moment. And I think we need to normalize that. It’s not bad. It can be part of the process, you know?

Stephanie: Yeah. Thank you very much for being so transparent, open and vulnerable.

Vanessa: Yes. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: Thank you for doing therapy with me.

Vanessa: Also, can we just like congratulate 17 year old Stephanie? I’m serious. I’m like, honey, [thank you] yes.

Stephanie: Yes, she is. And you know what’s funny is I had a blue baiting suit, which is the photo of me, I use a lot on social media and a blue baiting suit before my first diet. And I realized after that I bought the, almost the same blue baiting suit for that photo shoot. [Oh, the repair.]

Vanessa: I know.

Stephanie: Thank you, Vanessa.

Vanessa: Thank you, Stephanie.

Scaling Your Non-Diet Business-What No One Talks about with Vanessa Preston

Hey, my dear colleague, welcome back. I have, or we have a treat for you today because it’s two of us. Today’s an interview with a colleague, former student of mine, Vanessa Preston, and we had this beautiful conversation that we recorded about business growth, about scaling our businesses and what it really takes.

We’re taking you behind the scene and the real raw emotion and thoughts that goes on in each of our brain when we think about our business. And it’s likely not about what you think it is about, because most of us have been sold by business culture, that it takes action, it takes strategy, it takes a lot of complicated things in order to be successful in business.

And this conversation is going to highlight from people in the trenches who are growing their business what it really takes behind all those strategy and what makes both of us successful. So I invite all of you to listen to this conversation. It is one of the longest interview I’ve ever done because the conversation was too good to end it.

So, enjoy it and I would love to hear from you after you listen to this episode, how it helped you, because I know it’s gonna be a tremendous help to many of you.

So give me some feedback on social media, on email, and I hope that it helps you as much as it helped me and Vanessa to have this conversation and record it for you.

So to my team, let’s roll over the interview.​

Stephanie: Welcome to the show, Vanessa.

Vanessa: Thank you. I’m excited to have a chat with you.

Stephanie: I’m excited too. So I’m gonna put a context to this for everybody listening. We literally just jumped on Zoom and I said to Vanessa, I want to have a casual conversation and I wanna record it, and I want everybody to listen to two friends having a conversation and what kind of conversation we’re having. So, that’s the context. She hasn’t said barely anything to me other than you’re doing well and doing well and that is it.

Stephanie: And the second piece I wanna say to everybody, this conversation was triggered by an email I got from Vanessa. So I put myself on her list of future client and I got this email from her and I’m like, holy shit, we need to talk about this.

Stephanie: So here we are.

Vanessa: Yes, and I

Stephanie: You excited?

Vanessa: I’m excited. And the one thing I did say before you hit record was your haircut is so fabulous.

Vanessa: [Sheik] See you, you have on your cute business Kinded jacket and for listeners, I’m in Australia, so it’s like 7:00 AM. So I like, in my hoodie and in my recording closet,

Stephanie: and I’m in the bright yellow jacket.

Stephanie: So it’s been what, a year and a half. When is the last time we got on Zoom? A year and ago when you taught a masterclass for the professional about regulating the nervous system? [Yes. Yeah.] Yeah. I think that’s what it was, right? [Yeah.]

Stephanie: We’ve been conversing over emails and over dms and PMs and all of that stuff, but it’s been a year since we had a conversation. So Vanessa graduated from the Non Indict Mentorship program. She has an extensive background in therapy, complex trauma therapists. She came to us, did her personal work, and then went on to build a business. And when I got this email from you, like you’ve gone all like serious in, serious business.

Vanessa: Stephanie, when I knew we were gonna have this chat, I was like, in my soul. I was like, how honest am I about to be.

Stephanie: Real raw, honest, because that’s the only thing we do.

Vanessa: Cause I’m like, some of what I might share, I don’t know how inspirational it will be at first, but I think it will be stuff that maybe other business entrepreneurs and women are sitting with and might even feel ashamed of. So I can kind of speak to. the reality of behind the scenes and it’s worth it and I’m so excited. [Yes.]

Vanessa: But one of the things I tell my clients is anxiety and excitement can feel the same in the nervous system. So sometimes I’m like, when I’ve taken the next step in, the next step in the business, I’m like, I sit down, I take a breath, I’m like, is this anxiety or am I just excited?

Stephanie: Yes.

Vanessa: But since, since I taught that trauma kind of informed type workshop, which I love doing, I have, I do it for lack of better wording, leveled up. I guess it really had to take that next step in the business. And I’ll tell you a few things that I’ve kind of faced, and when I was thinking about sharing this with you as well, I was like, Stephanie, I did not manage my brain all the time.

Stephanie: You shunt, you’re human.

Vanessa: She was running around like a wild toddler who was hungry and grumpy sometimes. So, where I think the, actually, the growth happened, which I’m certainly not saying this is something that would be the right move for everybody, but I took a total step back from social media. [Mm-hmm.] A total step back.

Vanessa: And that is a decision that I had been kind of ignoring from my gut for a little while. And it was really hard because it’s like, oh my gosh, what’s gonna happen? No one’s gonna know what I’m doing. It’s kind of this massive fomo, like everything I had learned through lots of business coaching was how to show up on social media.

Vanessa: And so, but what I learned from kind of following my gut with that decision [mm-hmm] is I think what you’ve witnessed on my email list is I had been avoiding, like the social media had become an avoidance tactic for me. So it would be, I’ll show up, I’ll record a story. That’s great, nothing wrong with that. But I would do it so I got this short term feeling of being productive while I was avoiding creating a product suite, automating things, hiring a VA who has the skills that I don’t have. [Yeah.] And so it, all of these things, once I listen to that gut instinct, did unfold. And it’s kind of what you’ve been witnessing over the 12 months [mm-hmm] with emails going out and things like that.

Stephanie: Yeah.So all of that, all hell yes to that. But, so from my perspective, so I wanna give a bit of context for people, when we met, you were in private practice for like 20 years, as a therapist with an established practice, with a wait list, well known in your field in Australia, not on social media from a business perspective, not an online teacher, not a podcaster, no, nothing of that.

Vanessa: Nothing. And the thing is, I remember telling you this when I did the mentorship program. That didn’t require marketing. It was just this, it’s a different vibe. It’s just a totally different kind of thing. So yeah, when I came to you initially, it was full-time private practice and I think that’s one of the things that have kind of, has seen me through is that focus. When the anxiety was up or when my perfection is in part, which I’ll share with you, kind of was activated, I really came back to what’s my long term focus. [Mm-hmm] And it is help women make peace with their now bodies and food. Right? [Yeah] I want women to find radical self-acceptance.

Vanessa: And two is, like you said, years and years in private practice. I really have this longing to diversify that. I love the one-on-one work but diversifying that to prevent burnout and kind of just have this different thing. So yes,you helped me start that move in the mentorship program from creating these online groups and programs.

Stephanie: Well, I think it’s in like in, so it’s been two years. I can’t remember when you did the mentorship, two, two and a half years ago. Like, I just want you to think where you came from in those two years. Like, just like I kept reading your email, I’m like, what the fuck? Like, you’re blowing my mind. I hope you’re blowing your own bro.

Vanessa: That is the deepest compliment because you’ll tell it like it is. So it’s like when I get a compliment from you, I’m like, it’s true.

Stephanie: It’s like going from this and I know how difficult it was for you to start crafting this other identity, we’ll call it what it is. You have the well established expertise and therapy, but you had to create from the bottom up, just like a brand new coach. [Yes.] You had to build yourself up from like literary ground zero to start, to get where you are right now.

Vanessa: Yes. And I remember when me and you were talking about starting the podcast, I think I’m in like maybe episode, I don’t know, 69 or 70 next week or something. But I remember me and you talking about that, and I was like, Stephanie, I don’t even have enough to say. [I know.] And I also, this is kind of shows what’s possible when you are supporting your nervous system [mm] and doing the deeper work because I remember jumping on the microphone for that first episode. Stephanie, I recorded it four times. [Yeah.] I was shaking. I felt anxious in my stomach and in my chest. And now I can just jump on it’s second nature,

Stephanie: open the mic and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right?

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. So it’s kinda like, it’s kinda like exposure therapy. It’s like over the two years I just keep taking gradual steps. The thing that scares me, where can I start? That’s like a two outta 10. And then once I’ve done that and I can restabilize, where can I move? That’s like a four or five outta 10. Restabilize. And that’s really the approach I’ve tried to take.

Stephanie: And that’s where you and me agree on like the, that bridge between therapy and coaching, which is really like coaching is about becoming that version of you, of taking that step forward, anxious and scared, but safe. [Yes.] Like if you wanna create, for all of you listening and you want to create that practice or you want to create that business, you’re gonna have to do things scared shit. [Yeah.] It’s just like, it’s a fact.

Vanessa: Yes, but I think though your words has have always stayed with me and I’ll, I’m gonna swear for a second. [Yeah] But you were like, fuck it. Do it scared. [Yeah] And so I’ve really held onto that of, do it scared but not unsafe. [Yes] that’s what I teach my clients with body image work too. I’m like, we’re about to get uncomfortable, but we don’t want you unsafe. So where do we, how do we find that kind of line together?

Stephanie: Where do we find that limit? So let’s talk about this. So you did the mentorship, you started your podcast and we, you went on your way, you came back and taught a class for me. But now you’re at a place where you have a website, you have an online program. You have professionally designed, like online. You had the next step. You’ve ran your program a few time. Now it’s like out there in big time. There’s a photo shoot of you on that sales page. Like people you don’t understand, she did a photo shoot.

Vanessa: Yes, and that’s an example of like, if you look back, Stephanie, what you’ll see is one headshot of me, [mm-hmm] one headshot. After all the work I’ve done around the past eating disorder and the past chronic dieting and the past body shame, I still had this fear of being seen from the neck down type thing, right? [Mm-hmm] Like, and so yes, that pho it’s funny you bring up the photo shoot because I’m like, the VA that I’m working with is brilliant, you know her, Adel.

Stephanie: Okay, yes.

Vanessa: And she has really helped me kind of get so much of this like up and going and our meetings, it kind of got to a point where it was like, Vanessa, we need photos of you.

Vanessa: I was like, but here’s a great headshot. But,

Stephanie: she’s like, no, we need a, like a full body picture.

Vanessa: Yes. And so that even that I, I actually have an episode coming out about what it was like to do that photo shoot cuz it was the next level being seen [yeah] in the business. And when you talk about the thought work that you teach, I will kind of often refer to what criticizes us around our bodies and the mirror and the reflection is that body critic.

Vanessa: [Mm-hmm] And what I find is each step in the business, it’s a version of the body critic that kind of gets activated. But over time, it’s less intense, it’s less frequent. You’re skilled up to manage that in a more effective way and quicker. The spiral isn’t there. And so the photo shoot was something that did trigger the body critic voice, but was equipped to fuck it and do it anyway.

Vanessa: [Mm-hmm] Do you know what I’m saying? And, and it ended up being fun. I started out like such unnatural smile, Stephanie. He was like, just look natural. And I’m like, Grinch, this, that soul Christmas. And, and then,

Stephanie: and stiff in one position, right?

Vanessa: He’s like, just kind of look like you’re speaking to a client on the screen. And I’m like, oh my gosh, I can, I’m too,I’m too uptight right now. But over the time I was able to find like a level of embodiment and by the end, we were at the beach and I was like, splashing water and I, and it felt fun and I didn’t care who was watching. So it was like a really great experience and, and an example of like, when you base it.

Stephanie: Do you find that, so your first professional photo shoot after having done the body image and the way I experience photo shoot these days, it’s almost like therapy. For me, it’s like I’m doing it for the business, but it has so much benefit for me. With every photo shoot, I embody myself better, I flow in my body better, I’m able to look at the photos right there on the spot in the camera, like it’s therapy for me. Did you find the same experience?

Vanessa: Yes. It was so therapeutic and it’s funny that you say this, that I was like,the body image group that you saw is, [mm-hmm] has launched. I’m like, I would love to create like a b fff, body food freedom like photo shoot, with the women who graduate. [Yes.] Because I’m like, there’s something magical about feeling that initial discomfort and having the skills to move into feeling more embodied. And also I looked at the photos, and this isn’t, I dunno, I looked at the photos and was able to see how insignificant the body critic stuff was. And I remember feeling like a giant pimple coming up [for sure] the chin, for Right, right on the chin. And, I was like, I am this strong woman and fuck your beauty standards. And then also I was like, but can I ice this? Will that help make, go away for the photos shoot? So it was also interesting to kind of see the, I don’t like the word hypocrisy, but something about that [yeah] where it was like, I actually do care what this looks like and I’m scared of people’s opinions. And at the same time, I have this part of me that’s like, fuck these beauty standards. I’m allowed to be seen. I’m worthy in this body.

Stephanie: And I’m gonna perhaps hear those comments of this and I’m gonna have my own back. Like for me, I like to say it’s gonna happen and I’m gonna fucking handle this.

Vanessa: Yeah. Yes. And when you, I have you in my ear saying that a lot of, like, and I’ve shared that with clients, have your own back. How do we get you there? And it’s this like, it’s this deeper, it is this like non-negotiable self-trust.

Vanessa: I will not harm my body again, and I will listen to like that internal kind of inner wisdom. I don’t, I won’t always get it right, but there’s a non-negotiable, that’s what I’m aiming to do. So when I think about, I’m like, I’ve invested in a va, I’ve invested in like a platform to start really housing the programs in a more professional way and [mm-hmm] yeah, it’s that. It’s a self-trust thing [yes] where I’m like, even if I do, cuz I think when I emailed you back initially, I was like, I’ve had moments of wanting to burn it all down. Even if that happened, even if that happened, I will still have my own back. [Yes.]

Vanessa: So kinda like, there’s not this circumstance that’s going to happen that changes that.

Stephanie: I have a sentence,an intentional thought. I’m practicing this late summer song from a country singer, Luke Comms. I dunno if you know him. And it’s, he says, even if I wasn’t doing this, he talks about his career as a country singer and how he started in bars and just a stool in his guitar and now he’s on those big stage. He says, even if I wasn’t doing this, I would still be doing this. [I love that.] Like, like it’s for me because it’s my story and for you, because it’s your story, because we’ve healed ourselves and we really build this beautiful relationship with ourselves. Even if we launch something and it’s not gonna work, I’m still gonna be doing this.

Stephanie: Like, I’m never not going to be a coach for women. I’m just, it’s just can’t fathom this place where I would not, it’s non-negotiable for me.

Vanessa: Yes. I love that. And I think though, when you said like, launch the program, one of the things that I’ve been [Yeah] getting really curious about is the program that’s launched, this feeling comes up of being like a child.

Vanessa: This is not an actual memory [mm-hmm] but it’s the embodied feeling of like being a child and you have like everything ready for your birthday party, like streamers and balloons, and you have a cake and no one comes to it. I know that’s like devastating, but I’m like, that’s the fear. That’s the feeling for a minute. [Yes]

Vanessa: Just that’s like, that’s the feeling for a minute of, all this work has gone into this. Let’s just say that, that the first launch doesn’t go well. [Yeah] there’s this inner child part of me [Mm-hmm] and I don’t know, I don’t know where you sit with this, but there’s this inner child part of me and I’m like, so if that were my little inner child sitting there, kind of disappointed,

Stephanie: yeah

Vanessa: I would comfort her. Right. I would sooth her. I would have compassion. And then my adult self is like, okay, let’s reassess what happened with marketing. What’s my plan next? And so that’s how I’ve started to think about it is, cuz I do think launching and then not getting results you wanted can be so vulnerable.

Stephanie: 100% vulnerable. [Yeah] And it’s, it can be devastating. And this is where, for me, compassion, like the relationship I have with myself and the result is two different things. Like I’m the human behind the results. [Yeah] so I’m the human who feel disappointed, sad, rejected. Can we say rejected? [Yes] when you launch something, nobody comes rejected. [Yes] And it’s totally normal. Like the idea that it, we shouldn’t feel this way is insane. Like it’s not understanding the human nature to think that we should not feel disappointed is how, to me, it’s how I meet myself in disappointment and rejection.

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. It’s like that, exactly how you just said that, and sitting with the emotion that comes up.

Stephanie: Yeah. [Yeah] and see, yeah, it’s true. I feel rejected right now and it’s 100% normal. So let’s be with rejection. Let’s make it safe for me to feel rejected.

Vanessa: And then the curiosity of [yeah] what have I made this mean?

Stephanie: Yeah. The first of all, let’s stay with rejection. That’s like this cry and wanna kill everybody, [Yes] wanna quit. What the fuck have I done? All this money went into the shoot and this website page and oh my God, right? [Yes] It all happens to me.

Vanessa: And part of what you’re doing when that happens is like sitting with the emotion.

Stephanie: Yeah. We’re not trying to fix it first. [Yes] This is me as now a coach. That wasn’t me like 10 years ago. Like, let’s just be honest, like this is the skill. So right now we’re just gonna be pissed at the world and angry and rejected and do all the things and we’re just gonna be with that and feel it in the body and do all of, and let’s not try to fix ourselves out of feeling that shit.

Vanessa: Yes. And I think that’s what, like, I see this in other versions in clinical work too. [Yes] But certainly like the women that are in business that I’m connected to, I think, I think there can be this like pressure to, like toxic positivity, right? [Yes] Like pressure to hurry up and fix it and [yeah] positive vibes only and stuff like that where I think, what me and you are talking about is that permission to actually be with the emotion, regulate it, [Yes] regain safety and then you can reason, you know? [Yes]So that, that is something that I’ve done repeatedly. And I almost wonder like if we had a whole room of, especially women entrepreneurs and we said like, you know, the whole scene from Mean Girls, if you’ve been personally victimized by Regina George, I’m like, if you have been personally victimized by this voice that pops up and goes, fuck it, burn it down. [Yeah] Like, I think a lot of us do have that sometimes.

Stephanie: Absolutely. I, I think it’s toxic positivity, especially on social media and business to think it’s not there. But that to me is not the kind of people I want to be with. Like, it’s not the kind of business I wanna do. For me, business is a container for my own development. [Yeah] Right. So every launch and every or every whatever I do, and there’s a failure, it’s an opportunity for me to develop or deepen my relationship with myself. It’s like truly what it is. [Yeah] So when I launch something and it fails and I’m with rejection, what happens for me is with, every time I feel this way, the window of feeling terrible and rejected, just shorten. It’s never gonna go away but instead of being three weeks, It’s three days.

Vanessa: Days, yes. And it’s like that way of building the tolerance in your nervous system for that. [Yes] So it is this, you do get to a point where it is kind of less intense or less, [Yes] it goes for, yeah, it’s less strong, I guess.

Stephanie: And then I can get curious and then I can learn, okay, what’s the problem? Like, was it not enough on this or too much on this? Did I not talk about the right thing? Or like, what is it? But I don’t want to get there too fast. I want to be with the drama and as you said in the beginning, the unmanaged mind, I wanna be with it.

Vanessa: Yes. It’s funny you say drama because I’ve always felt like I have this dramatic part of me, and it’s the part, especially in your mentorship program, that I really started to be like, she is not too much and she is not too loud and she is not taking up too much space.

Vanessa: And so I let that dramatic part of me just join the party for a minute. Right. Like some way, whether it’s just, yeah, just being really dramatic about it, kind of just really sitting with all the messiness of it. But the other thing that I noticed, Stephanie, is the perfectionist tendencies.

Stephanie: Tell me, how did it show up?

Vanessa: They showed up where just everything like being, anything from even I noticed I’m mistaken in an email that went out. [Okay] Right. So I started to kind of notice and these like high unrelenting standards on myself. So it’s almost like I went, you know how we say like healing is like an onion and you kind of, [Yes] ]it’s like I hit and move through the next layer of the kind of perfectionist side. And I think one of the things that helped with that is definitely the compassion, but one of the frameworks that I use in the therapy space kind of talks about that part, that part developing to help us cope.

Vanessa: And so this perfectionist part of me, it’s developed to try to protect me from rejection or possible judgment or possible failure. So it’s almost like the perfectionist part is like, if I ridicule her enough, she’ll stop doing this thing and we can feel safe again. You know what I’m saying? [Mm-hmm. Yeah.]

Vanessa: And so it’s almost like through, through this, that perfectionist part, I’m like trying to almost just approach that part with compassion and curiosity of what are you trying to protect? What do you need to know from me? Well, it’s safe, and this is a launch of a program. If this doesn’t go well, we can reassess. It’s okay to make mistakes better done than perfect. All of these kind of like, how do I kind of reassure, that part of me, and that’s been really important to the whole evolution of the business.

Stephanie: I just wanna say, ask you this, if you didn’t reassure that part of you, if you didn’t know how to reassure it or didn’t believe in reassuring that part of you, if you step back three years to where you are now, would you be where you are today and have launched this product in this website, in this online program and all of that?

Vanessa: No, I don’t think so. I think, no. I think, one of the things that got really clear to me, and this is where sometimes the deeper, making sure as a professional, you’re doing your own work [mm-hmm] on yourself kind of continuously, right? [Mm-hmm] Because what sits under that perfectionist part for me is kind of just some younger child kind of part that learned really early. If you’re perfect and quiet and submissive, you’re safe.

Stephanie: You’re safe from harm.

Vanessa: From harm. You’re safe from harm. So it’s this teaching that part of me, actually you’re safe now. And I see those parts of people come up in the business space, [Yeah] right.

Stephanie: Yeah. So, and I’m not a therapist, but allow me to just give an analogy to people. I obvious say you’re thinking in your business as a grown ass adult today, as a 10 year olds. Like you’re using the 10 year old part of your brain to make decision as a 35 year old in your business. Like even if people don’t like what you do today at 35, it will not be dangerous, like when you attend.

Vanessa: No. And that there’s this whole thing that unfolds in therapy, and it’s honestly one of the most rewarding parts. But I’ve done this myself too, is, you know how you said that 10 year old. It’s yeah] you’re like,no, but you’re like a 30 something year old adult, strong, resilient woman.

Vanessa: It’s these, this reassurance and the showing up for that 10 year old part of us of being like, do you know what 10 year old part, I’m safe now. We’re safe, we’re actually running this. Like, it’s kind of time orienting that part.

Stephanie: Brilliant way of looking at it.

Vanessa: Yes. So the parts work has helped so much and when I’ve wanted to like burn it down.

Stephanie: Tell me when did that happen? Give me an example of what made you want to burn it all down.

Vanessa: I think, maybe like two things come to mind, and this is kind of a little bit of thought work, I suppose [mm-hmm] is I’ve always walked around. I’ve said it in your program for six months. I’m tech challenged. [Okay] That’s the thing I keep saying like, I’m tech challenged. And so I’m going, okay, how do we break that apart a little bit? Like, well, no, I’m not, I’m Vanessa and I’m kind of going, okay, I’m someone who’s learning to get better with technology. Right. So it’s kind of doing that thought work that you teach. [Mm-hmm]

Vanessa: But that definitely came up. So anytime, as I’m working with my BA anytime, it’s like, hey, can you jump into Cajabi and like, just tweak these few things, or I just need you to add this part here. Or I jump on Camba and I’m like to do something. And Stephanie, it happened so quick, but it’s gotten better. But it’s like, if I can’t figure it out in two seconds, I’m done. [You’re too bad.] I’m done. [Quit] Yeah, I’m done. So, so the tech stuff has been a real thing.

Vanessa: The other part is trying to find my voice and how I teach body image and putting it into this 12 week program. [Mm-hmm] Doing that, sometimes I felt this like overwhelm where I would be like, I’m done. Sometimes I would have all the, like the paperwork laid out of what’s happening in each module. My partner’s a psychologist, so I would be like, can you just fix this for me please? And he is like, I actually can’t do that. He’s like, I can like listen to,

Stephanie: I can listen to you, nicki feel better, therapeutic you, but I can’t fix this thing.

Vanessa: Yes, yes. Buthe’s been brilliant through all of this too becausewhen I have walked upstairs and been like, I couldn’t get something to work on Kajabi, I couldn’t get something to work in Canva, something I did failed, I feel like I’m behind on something. Oh my gosh, now I only have this amount of time to do this. The deadline’s approaching, kind of that anxious vibe. I’ll be like, babe, I think I’m done.

Vanessa: He’s like, and he’ll say, he always says something like, let’s just revisit this in about

Stephanie: therapy

Vanessa: I’m like, I’m like, so he is like, you totally like, that’s fine. We can be done, but like, let’s just see where you’re at with it in a few days. And then in a few days I’m like, I love this. It’s gonna be fabulous. I can’t wait to find these women to, so it’s just, so do you Stephanie, when I describe that, do you hear that as like unmanaged, I don’t know, mind, or do you view it as like that’s the phases,

Stephanie: that’s human nature. [Yes] That’s human nature, the illusion. So this is a great question because when people hear the word unmanaged mine and managed mine, they think one is better than the other. Like one is, manage is like, yes, you’re there, iManage your bad. But it’s not the truth. The truth is being a human is both. It’s the black and the white, [Yes] right.

Stephanie: If you study Buddhism, like it’s it, the circle is half black and half white, and that’s what makes being a human. So being a human is having an unmanaged mind and being aware that it’s unmanaged. When I have my drama of rejection, I’m like in it and I’m aware that I’m in it.

Vanessa: Yes.

Stephanie: Like I believe it, but I don’t believe it. But I’m like, yes, it’s true, it sucks, but it’s just an un management. Oh, right.

Vanessa: I love that how you just said that. Yes. It’s like that happens because we’re human, but I, there’s this kind of deeper knowing, observing self, isn’t there? Yes. That’s like, oh, you’re doing that thing.

Stephanie: Yeah, you’re having that. Let’s have that moment together. Let’s make it like all the way to the extreme. So like for me it’s like, okay, let’s be rejected and all the way. Like, let’s feel it in every cell of my body and then this, do I wanna continue? Like this is where the personal work comes in because now I have a choice. [Yeah] Do I want to continue to feel like this? Like I’m not outta control. Oh my God, I like, it’s the end of the world. Like, I’m doom. This is who I am. It’s like, okay, this is happening to me. I feel rejected. People don’t wanna buy my stuff, but I have a choice.

Vanessa: Yes, yes.

Stephanie: This is where personal work, taught work. Nervous system regulation. The gift that it gave me. It’s having a choice.

Vanessa: And that’s the magic. That is another like core kind of value that really strengthened for me through the mentorship program and beyond was autonomy. [Yes.] Especially when we’re yes, like the honoring of choice.

Stephanie: Yeah. You can say, I’m like, you can send rejection. You can like be in your pit of sorrow for the next week if you want to, for the next month forever. Like, you can be there. Do you want, No, fuck that sucks. [Yeah. Yeah.] Like, okay, weve been there for today. Like, let’s move on to something else now.

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. And the last thing when I think about like this evolution right, is, and I, when I do therapy with therapist or with coaches, it comes up every time is, which the thought that, I should know better because I’m a professional. Like I shouldn’t be feeling this, I shouldn’t be thinking this. I should be further along. And this is where it’s kind of normalizing what you just said is actually the importance of the skills you learn, the awareness you develop. And just because we’re therapists and coaches doesn’t mean we’re immune to human normal experience, but it’s kind of what we do with it.

Vanessa: [Yes.] So that was a voice I noticed where I was like, oh my gosh, here I am. I’ve taught the, my group program live three times. I’ve taught workshops and I’m saying I’m teaching women like you are worthy of being seen in your now body. And here I am, like at a photo shoot being like, where’s my headshot?

Vanessa: But it’s just kind of having that compassion [Yes] and that like, just because you’re a professional doesn’t mean you’re gonna magically perfect this. It’s

Stephanie: Let me ask you this. [Yeah] Why do you think that is? Why do you think, to me, it’s a misunderstanding of the human nature that leads certain professional to think it shouldn’t be happening. Why do you think it’s happening? Why do you think they think that? Is it a misunderstanding?

Vanessa: Well, if I can speak from like a therapist perspective for a minute, and maybe there’s like a version of this in the coaching community too. I think there’s this thing that develops really early in university and training and then beyond of it’s kind of us versus them.

Vanessa: We are the experts. We are the healers andthey, the clients are the one with the problem and the issue. So it becomes this kind of, in a way, like a dehumanizing us, we’re the experts and it’s them. Where I don’t view it like that. I kind of go, I view it in like a humanistic way where it’s like, we’re all kind of doing this messy thing called life and we all have our wos or hurts or pain.

Vanessa: We all have our goals and dreams and values, and so I think that might be part of it is even in trainings. As a therapist sometimes it’s like, you can see we role play a lot. So we did this, I did a eating disorder training this year, and they always do it. It’s therapist, client, and then observer. And you can see the discomfort for professionals to get out of their experty space and be the human. And I’m not saying this to criticize anybody. I totally get where it comes from. But it’s funny because when I did the role play, I was the client and I was a teenager and I was dealing with an eating disorder. And afterwards they were like, gosh, you’re like a really great actress. They’re like, you can tell you’ve really worked with a lot of clients. In my head I was like, honey, I just channeled my n Inner teenage Vanessa.

Stephanie: That was my real story.

Vanessa: So I think that might be part of it, is this idea that like, no, no, no,you’re the expert.

Stephanie: As you’re saying now, but the imagery that came up to me in my head is a pedestal, right? Yes. And it’s like an armor that socialization the current system or in for leadership, because I’ve, my corporate background comes in here where they teach you to like position yourself above to show leadership in authority and wear this like, armor to distance yourself and create a persona for credibility that people will buy, that you are perfect, you’re stronger, and probably that’s what’s happening.

Vanessa: Yes. They’re kind of in that part of them, and then it’s like, it’s hard to kind of, resign themselves. [Yeah.] Like, well, how do I make, if I’m that and I’m armored up and I’m in that, how do I kind of admit to myself that actually there’s this healing and these vulnerabilities that I need to be addressing?

Stephanie: Yeah. And for me, I don’t know in therapy, but for me, the way I teach coaching, the way I coach, it’s my humanity. It’s my unmanaged mind. It’s my lived experience that makes me greater at helping other people.

Vanessa: Yes. And it’s, that’s the magic in addressing what’s there because there’s magic in it, in the experience and in the pain or the emotions when you really start to work through it, there is magic because of what you said.

Vanessa: You kind of have this lived experience that you understand, [mm-hmm] that you’re aware of, that you’re taking steps to continue to heal.

Stephanie: And it doesn’t require me to be on a pedestal with an armor. I don’t need to create this persona. I can be who I am and be in that whatever mess and know that people I’m in a mess and totally be okay. I don’t need to be looking perfect on that armor.

Vanessa: Yeah. When I have a client come in and even in the group work, I just kind of spell that out of, yes, I have knowledge. Yes, I have skills and training. Yes, I’m going to be teaching some things, but your lived experience matters. And I kind of view like, we’re walking together in this. It’s not me above you. This is like, we’re walking together and I’ve had clients be like, Vanessa, I don’t wanna work on that. And I’ll go, you don’t have to work on that part. [Mm-hmm] and then all of a sudden the resistance goes down and it does open up something. As soon as you’re not kind of pushing, it’s the autonomy. [Yes] As soon as someone knows they have autonomy with you and you trust them, the resistance to change goes down.

Stephanie: And the change goes, the transformation potential is greater. [Yes. Yeah] But as you’re saying that is because when you walk side by side with your client, when you’re in the position of pedestal and authority, the performance of the person you work with is of the significance to your greatness. But when you’re coaching, at least for me, side by side, it’s not about what the client does or the transformation they have. Like, I’m solid in who I am and my potential and my greatness, and I just landed to you. But what you do with it does not make me greater or less thereof.

Vanessa: Yes. Stephanie, that has been, it’s a process of like detaching your worth [yes] from everything. And what are we doing in body image work? We are detaching our worth from being in a specific beauty body ideal. [Yeah] we’re detaching our worth from the outcome of our launch. We’re detaching our worth from our clients transformation. Do we want all that to go well? Of course we do. [Yes.] Are we cheerleading for our clients to make change? Absolutely. But I get what you’re saying. It’s not like my worth is not dependent on that. That is like a hardcore intentional belief. I did a thought ladder in your program about this. I remember sitting with you going like, I don’t know the core belief,

Vanessa: But now I’m like, my worth is not dependent on anything. And I might have a scared part of me that doubts that sometimes, but like, I had a client say to me, I feel like when I come here, it’s like initially you’re like walking beside me in my brain and I’m being like, these are all the things, this is the thing that my parents left me, this is the legacy from then. And she said, and it’s like you’re sitting there really going like, wow, you live like this, this society. She’s like, I’m just kind of showing you the lay of the land. This is what’s going on. But yeah, I think, I don’t know if I went on a tangent, but I said all that to be like professionals, it’s okay to do your own healing. [Yes.] And it’s okay if you’re not this perfectly manicured like perfect human. It’s just no such thing.

Stephanie: No am and I was gonna say am. The more messy you are and the more you move yourself through that, coach yourself, theorize yourself through this, the greater coach or therapist you’re gonna be for your people.

Vanessa: Yes, and I don’t say this with any judgment, but a lot of therapy training, for example, require you to do your own work and a lot actually don’t. I can tell the therapists who haven’t done anything. [Yes.] And honestly, so can the clients. And so it’s if you want your client to walk the walk, you better have done it too.

Stephanie: Yeah, and it’s interesting what I’ve observed now I’m at my eighth cohort that I’m launching [Wow] of professional. And so I’ve now seen a variety of backgrounds and people, and I have to say that the people with the most traumatic pasts that have moved themself through it, coach themself through it, heal themself through it, are the most potential, the coach with the most potency for their clients. Then they don’t, most of them don’t have a degree on the back wall. They have the degree of lived experience and doing their work and, fuck, they’re so powerful for coaches. [Yes.] Once you give them a structure to coach like, they come with all this live experience and all this trauma work they’ve done and now giving them a structure to coach other people days, like the result they get is brilliant.

Vanessa: Yes, absolutely. That’s what I, when I say like, the magic of it, that’s the magic of it. And I think we’re conditioned to attach our worth to those qualifications on the wall. [Mm-hmm] And that’s part of, you know how you said like that, like expert armored, that’s part of it. Like fix the business suit jacket and like look at my qualifications on the wall. And I’m not saying that stuff, there’s a place for that stuff. But the lived experience in your own work [yeah] helps your client transform, I think.

Stephanie: And so this is where I’m seeing the people who now three and a half years into it, and those that are still in business three and a half years later are the one, I’m gonna say something here, but they’re the one who are still in business today. Those who graduated three and a half years ago to now, those that are still in business today are the one that do their personal work every day in the circumstance of their business.

Vanessa: Yeah. I’ve said to my partner a number of times in the last 12 months, I’m like, whew, this is not for the fainthearted.

Vanessa: [No.]

Vanessa: Yeah. Yeah. But it’s certainly been an interesting evolution.

Stephanie: So where are you going next? Are you still on the path of training therapists?

Vanessa: Yes.Yes. That’s where I feel the calling of the body image program that’s launched now. I see that being a key part of training [yeah] for their body image providers. What I’m seeing in the therapy or in the coaching space as well [Yeah] and I’m sure you see this too as like, I think trauma informed has become like a cool hashtag.

Stephanie: I’m gonna do some breath work and I’m gonna call myself a trauma informed coach. [Yes.] We’ll leave it at that.

Vanessa: Yes, yes, yes. So I’m like the passion that where next is working with professionals who are teaching body image in some capacity and really giving them skills to do that in a trauma informed way. And Stephanie, I’m seeing a real need for that too in the eating disorder space.

Stephanie: Oh, yes.

Vanessa: There’s a lot happening in the eating disorder space that doesn’t actually value client autonomy at all and doesn’t acknowledge that. And this is relevant for the clients your coaches are working with when it comes to chronic dieting. There’s no acknowledgement of the food behaviors are serving a deeper need. If we are not addressing that, at least in some way in eating disorder treatment, it kind of turns into like a power struggle. [Yeah.] So, yes, when you say like, what’s next, I wanna keep running this body image program for women. I have put like my blood, sweat, tears lived experience, clinical experience, all the feedback from the times I’ve run it. [Yeah.] And it’s like, I’m actually really proud of it, so I’ll keep running that. But yeah, I’m thinking professionals, it’s where my heart is calling me.

Stephanie: So I have two things for you. I’m preparing a workshop right now on binge strict cycle and I was reading a study yesterday [yeah] on, I wanted to bring the view of science on binge eating and they had like, wanted the solution to binge eating was a weight loss program. And it just made me cringe to the deepest part of my D n a. I’m like, this is one of the top study on binge eating disorder is recommending a weight loss program on a low calorie diet. I’m like, that’s the state of the eating disorder research.

Vanessa: Yes. And it’s very weight central. [Oh, wow.] The fat phobia is sewn into the very fabric of the treatment space. And I actually, it’s interesting you say that because two days ago I had a psychologist send me an email that went around to her clinic. Stephanie, this is a huge clinic, 20 clinicians maybe. And they were excited because they were partnering with a university here, and they were doing a study, the quote, weight loss injections, right, [Oh] and this is disgusting. And it was, we want to line up kind of therapeutic care for the vulnerable people with anxiety eating disorders and body dysmorphia to support them in their weight loss goals.

Vanessa: So this is the stuff, Stephanie, like you, it makes my blood oil. So I’m like, when I think about what’s next, we have to [that’s your field] interrogate that. We have to absolutely interrogate that.

Stephanie: And this is where the degree on the wall comes in, in that [I know] this is not my place. Right. So I did a talk recently at a university who hired me to talk about body image and every statement I had to make, I positioned from, I’m not a researcher like you, I’m in the application world. That was the only way for me to get through to them because I don’t have the diploma on the wall and I don’t have the fancy degree. But this is where, for you, you need to step into that role because you have the credibility, you have the background, and you can impact.

Vanessa: Yeah, and I’m excited about it. But also, I have to say, the people that I’ve learned from the most are not the people with the qualifications on the wall. They are people with lived experience. I mean, truly, I’m serious. They,that’s kind of where I’ve learned, but I do know what you mean. It’s, it’s a bit of a game.

Stephanie: You gotta play the game. Yeah.

Vanessa: Gotta play the game. So I’m, [the politics] yes. And so remember when we first started working together, my perfectionist part would drive me to get like 25 qualities degree.

Stephanie: Well, when you started with me, you were finishing your nutritionist degree.

Vanessa: The most horrendous experience I’ve ever had because it was just like rampant diet culture. But for the reason that you just said, I’ve started, like I’m almost done with a, like an eating disorder accreditation specific to Australia. But because of what you just said, it’s like playing the game because I wanna get into that space and just

Stephanie: Revolutionize it [down] Butit’s sad. Like people who don’t understand the politics of things, like I’ve played politics in the corporate world for 15 years, so I totally get it. You just gotta play the politics. But you play the politics with all your awareness. You’re like, I’m just gonna do your thing. You’re gonna give me the degree thing, but I’m not gonna do any of it, practice, by the way. I’m just like throwing it out. But now I have the past to go in your world and revolutionize your world.

Vanessa: Yes, yes. And so training professionals is part of revolutionizing that because there’s lots of therapists, psychologists, clinicians, et cetera, who are operating with a weight centric diet culture perspective and they’re causing harm. Make no mistake, that’s causing harm. [Yep.] And some of them don’t realize that.

Stephanie: No, I had a, somebody in one of my program, a professional, I can’t remember which one, but she was shopping for therapists because like I teach all of them like you, you shop for a coach, you shop for therapists, [Yes,] like shop. Interview them, ask them for their live experience and all of that. She’s like, I thought one was good. And I got into my first session and she talked to me six time about a meal plan and exercise. And not one time she talked to me about emotion. Fired. Like because those therapists, those professional are entrenched in diet culture, they don’t match with you. [ Yes.] That’s what you need to go and change.

Vanessa: Yes. And there’s this outdated, oh, Stephanie, I could go on a rabbit hole of who’s doing the research and what politics and powers and not. But there’s this outdated thought too of like if there’s trauma, you just kind of put it to the side and we’re gonna focus on just the food behaviors. And I’m kind of going, there needs to be this integrated approach. We need to be able to go to the source of what’s driving the food behavior. [Yeah.] So yes, I’m ready step,

Stephanie: but that’s very medical, like to see everything in isolation. Right. You’ve got a problem with your foot. I’m gonna go to the foot doctor. I’m not gonna go to the knee doctor. Even though they talk to each other, which is gonna treat that separately.

Vanessa: Yes. And then the more work that happens with clients coming in with eating disorders and chronic dieting and the body shame, lots of body dysmorphia. The more those clients come in, they’ve all been harmed in some way by a professional, to be completely honest.

Stephanie: And this is why the my program, the non diet certification has all these things in it. Yeah. Because you can’t just do food. You don’t need to be the expert in any of it, but you need to understand how they talk to each other. And then if we need an expertise in one field, we’re gonna go and get that expertise in that one thing. But you need to understand how they all play together.

Vanessa: Yeah. And for coaches too, like the relationship, you know how we were talking about walking beside and honoring your clients’ capacity and trust and autonomy and partnering with them and you’re not another source of authority, you are helping them tune in to their own, that relationship is transformational. [Yes.] So, no, you don’t have to be like expert in all of these different things, but that is core.

Stephanie: Yeah. And that’s what coaching is.

Vanessa: Yes. Yeah.

Stephanie: Right. And that’s the difference with coaching and specialty work like your other side of you, which is therapy and nutritionist, if they have a food thing, if they like you, resource out. But you’re the one who holds the space for the human. [Yes, exactly. Yeah.]

Stephanie: So, yeah. So now you’ve launched a fancy program. I not call it fancy, but it’s beautiful and then you’re gonna turn that into professional and you’re gonna go on the, remember we had a dream when you started, when you have goal was to do like retreats and speak in front of people, like you’re almost there. [Yeah.] Realize that.

Vanessa: Yeah. It is helpful to kind of reflect back and [yes] give yourself, give myself credit for the growth cuz it’s easy to stay focused on future goals. [Yes.] But it is nice to look back and be like, wow, I’ve come a long way.

Stephanie: Yeah. And your body of work is laid in now. You’re, you’re admit to methodology’s laid in. [Yeah.] Now you just need to like adapt it for professional, but that core won’t change.

Vanessa: Yes. That’s a good way to say it.

Stephanie: Right? You’re like said like me, they’re going to be on the food method. Is there, is just to who I’m teaching it will have different emphasis and like things I will mention and not mention, but your body of work is created. Congratulations.

Vanessa: Thank you. And I, every time I talk to you, I mean this and I say it, but I would not be here without you in the mentorship program. I truly mean that. Like even Stephanie, I don’t know if you realize this, but I’ve stayed in contact with so many women from that group and they have been like a key support to me. I got like a fabulous personal trainer. I’ve got a fabulous va, it’s just, that was like the, what’s the word for it? The catalyst [yes] for,

Stephanie: well, you’re a brilliant seat to show up in the world

Vanessa: So thank you, Stephanie.

Stephanie: But it’s, that’s what we do with client, right? When you work with your client one-on-one with body image, you’re not the solution. You facilitate them finding the solution and then their brilliant sea shows up and then they go on doing great things in the world.

Vanessa: And that’s, you know how I said I ground back into what’s my why. [Yeah.] That is the why when I, and I’m gonna give a quick tip because this worked so well, is if you ever have like a magic moment, inspirational moment, witness a client transformation. I just started keeping this word document where I would just type it in as soon as I could and you can come back and create such beautiful content from that.

Vanessa: But now also when I’m like, burn it down, I don’t know how much I can do. I can go back and be like, [yes] I’m just making up this name. But I can go back and be like, Katie, this is the why. She is not in her room depressed and isolated. She is out volunteering and working and she just looked a holiday and she is showing up honey and she is now connected to her purpose. So I’m like, that has been a really useful tool for me.

Stephanie: Brilliant. [Yes.] And that fuels your purpose. [Yes.] And that’s why when I say like, even if I wasn’t doing this, I’d still be doing this, that’s why.

Vanessa: I know. It’s like, what does quit even mean? When I’m being dramatic about that, I’m like, what does it actually mean? I’m gonna be doing this.

Stephanie: Yeah. Like, this is my destiny. [Yeah. Yeah.] Right. And one of the things that for me turned the ship around was looking at all that happened to me, all the trauma piece that happened to me because of my weight and food and all of that, and said, damn it, that shit happened for a reason.

Stephanie: Let’s make this purposeful. Let’s make all this shit that happened for 30 years, give it a meaning into the world. And every time I want to burn it down and I feel like I’m the worst person in the world, I’m like this, all this shit happened for a reason. Yeah, let’s give it a purpose.

Vanessa: I think like the grief that can come up in the body image space is big, but I think there’s this whole kind of stage of grief about meaning making. [Oh, there] It doesn’t, yes.

Stephanie: This is where I learned from Vanessa. Like I know, I’m just like, here’s what happened in my life and she makes all these fancy like therapy stuff. Oh, this is what’s happening. Tell me what’s happening.

Vanessa: But it’s, yes, there’s this like meaning making stage of grief and that’s how I view it sometimes is like the grief of the trauma or what happened to the little youth. [Yeah.] Or the weight stigma over the years or whatever the experience is connected to that body story, I do think there’s this beautiful place to get ofthe meaning making. Not that what happened was okay. Right. That [no] won’t be super clear about that. But that you’re going, part of the meaning making is I’m gonna reach women who have experienced similar harm and revolutionized the world in doing that.

Stephanie: So is that the end stage of grieving when you make a meaning out of it kind of stuff?

Vanessa: Yes. Yes. [See] And the thing about grief is sometimes you might cycle back to a little, you might revisit stages. [Sure] Yes.

Stephanie: Sure. But there, there was. I can tell you there was, yes, I’m not there,where I am now, like nine years later, I can honestly say that I don’t have that anymore, but it was there up to two years ago, [Yes] like I would revisit it. But now the other identity is so built into me that I don’t have it [yeah] anymore. Is that possible?

Vanessa: Yeah. And I think just like everything else of, I think when you do revisit it, a different stage of the grieving process, you revisit it with new awareness. [Yes. New perspective, perspective.] A new perspective, a new awareness, and you integrate it and kind of move, move forward. So that’s what I hear a lot with women doing amazing work in this, is they’ve gone through lived experience and their own grieving, and we’re seeing the meaning making of it.

Stephanie: I’ll share an experience because I started to do Facebook ads with video of me in full body. Obviously I’m fat in case you don’t know that. I’m fat. I’m very visibly fat. So I started to do video full body to like completely cold people, meaning like they’re not from the field of the non-AI space. Like they’re just Joe Blow on the street. And the comments on the video were just, as you can imagine, some of them horrifying, right? And then it was very interesting for me to witness me looking at those comments, delete block, and not have shame saying like, this is not me, the problem, it’s them. But two years ago it would’ve been me, the problem for like two to three weeks before it turned into them, where now automatically was like, Block and delete, block and delete without going through the cycle of shaming. So what do you make of that as a therapist?

Vanessa: The way I translate that is I truly believe weight stigma and fat phobia is a body trauma. I truly believe that. It absolutely threatens our,the sense of belonging, the sense of safety, the sense of is the way I report my experience going to be believed and kind of withstanding those assumptions and judgments about your body so that trauma can run deep.

Vanessa: So what I make of what you just said is that you’ve done lots of work to heal, and so you might, depending on where someone’s at in the healing process, that might activate a full trauma response [Yes] and we don’t want to shame that because there’s a lot physiologically going on that they, that’s not their fault. [Yeah] But the work that you’ve done, it’s kind of like,two years ago maybe it would’ve activated more of that trauma response being intense, but the work you’ve done, it’s like, it might activate a bit of emotion, but you can quickly move to this like empowered delete block, you don’t get any of my energy, regulate my nervous system, I’m safe, even if this troll has commented something.

Vanessa: So it to me, it’s like you’ve done the work to teach your body, you’re safe. And that’s how I translate that.

Stephanie: And I thank you for that because I want people to see that it’s a process. Just like building your business is a process, doing your own work is a process.

Vanessa: Yes. Yeah. And does, go ahead. Yes. I always tell my clients when I’m like, and in the groups of that, you know, that whole like, healing isn’t linear. [Hmm, Yeah] We want it to be this like perfect straight line up. And it is messy with curves and ups and downs, so normalizing that. So if a client, for example, did lots of body image work, they get those sort of trolling comments and it activates that response. We don’t wanna shame it, we wanna support them through, well, how do we regulate this? How do we respond to it from a place of compassion? So yeah, I’m sure you, I’m sure you hear that too, but fine. So be like, I took 10 steps back this week and I’m like, this is part of the healing. This is okay.

Stephanie: For me, it’s like the photo shoot we were talking earlier. It’s for me, these Facebook ads that I did was part of resiliency work. [Yes.] I was like, okay, I’m ready now. Let’s put myself into the world of like the terrible fat phobic people and let’s see how I deal with that. And I just blew my own mind of how [and was it like] I responded.

Vanessa: And was it worth it? It was like, totally, and I’m not talking financial, I’m talking about like, was it worth it to put yourself out there in

Stephanie: Totally, [yeah] yeah. It was a $2,000 experience of me, like, you know, a Facebook ad to like troll, but it was, it’s like going to therapy. I just have enough skills that I can jeopardize myself. [Yeah.] But it was like an intense therapy with a very skilled therapist. Now it was Facebook ads and me going to that platform and like feeling it, I’m like, block, delete. Have my own back. Like, this is why I do the work that I do, because there’s all these terrible, fat folic people.

Vanessa: Yes. And I think if I’m allowed to say this, [yeah] it’s a good reminder for all the coaches, nutritionist, dieticians, body image work, people that, and I don’t wanna ruffle feathers here, but for providers like me, sometimes I’m like, Stephanie, where am I on the body spectrum and body size spectrum? I had body dysmorphia for so long, but at the end of the day, I sit with a level of thin privilege. [Mm-hmm.] And I think this is an important kind of reminder that people seeing clients in larger bodies, you’ve gotta remember there is an exposure, a traumatic exposure to that weight stigma [Yeah true] that they need, that, they need support with that. If you’re kind of a thin provider, showing up like you did putting a Facebook ad and you’re not gonna face that [No] in that way.

Stephanie: No, you won’t. Oh, it totally makes sense. And I think this, when I said to you earlier, like, everything that happened to me, like I’m at that point where it happened for a reason, [yes] I’m like, let’s use that body. [ Yes] Like let’s use that body to change something in the field that I’m in and let’s put that fat body out there and let’s challenge people’s perception. They’re gonna be dickhead when they go into comment, but they now see somebody that talks about health in a fat body. I’m planting a seed. It may take 10 years to change, but I’m planting a seed to help them see that it’s possible.

Vanessa: Yes. And I don’t know how many photo shoots you’ve done, but you do look fiercely fabulous because I am loving how you like, the bold colors. [Yes.] How good is that? Because how often do you, I think you said this first of like, dress in the black outfit and hide. [Yes] You are like brilliant bright colors.

Stephanie: It’s where you use your business expense, has therapy with every photo shoot for me. Like I started, and again two years, like this is the next layer in of body image. I started to do photo shoot every three months and every one of them is a business expanse. But honestly you guys, it’s a therapy. [ Yeah.] I just know enough that I can coach myself through it, but it’s a form of therapy that I’m doing to myself by dressing bright colors and photo shoots and [yeah] like the one I did in Cabo in February was my first time at a bathing suit, photo shoot.

Stephanie: [How was that?]

Stephanie: It was, I went through all the spectrum, like [Yeah] I was not in my body before. Like, I was like anxious and I had anxiety and it wasn’t because I was afraid. Like I didn’t have the thought, I’m anxious of doing this. It was literally a traumatic, like it was trauma coming up. It wasn’t because I was thinking it, it was happening to me.

Vanessa: Yes. Do you know Stephanie, I literally remember in the mentorship program we were talking about like what comes first, the thought or the body sensation kind of thing. [Yeah.] And I’ve been, for some reason, thinking about that question for years and I’m going, what you just described, I’m like, I think it can be both. I think we can like have a thought that then, that kind of like then activates the emotion and the behavior. But I think when it comes the other way, it’s like the body is responding to something and then sometimes the thought is trying to make sense of it. So it’s like that.

Stephanie: Yeah, that’s, yeah. That, that’s exactly what it was. It was the anxi, like I wasn’t afraid of the baiting suit like cognitively. [Yes.] But my inner guts, my nervous system was fluttering. But again, I have the skill so I just sat with it and sat with it and sat with it and like just felt it and felt it and it just melted. That’s the best way I can explain it. It just melted.

Vanessa: How did you feel once you like saw the photos?

Stephanie: Well, it happened during the photo shoot. Like when I, it melted in the morning of it [Yeah] and then I hired a woman photographer because that makes, like, I knew this was gonna be better for me [Yeah] and then she, we connected right away.

Stephanie: And then when I put on the bathing suit,I just felt an expansion within me. Right. it’s physiological. Like it was just an expansion and I just went with it. And when I saw the photo, it wasn’t like, I didn’t trigger that same sensation in my body. It was just calm, neutral. [Yeah. That’s a amazing thing.]

Stephanie: What do you make of that complex trauma specialists?

Vanessa: Well, I think what we’ve been kind of talking about of, for so many years, especially for and for how many women, like [yes] being exposed in that way has led to, and we can’t guess on ourselves for some of, you know, has led to potential judgment, potential bullying, potential ridicule, potential rejection.

Vanessa: And so it’s kind of, to me that trauma response armors up out of protection and then, but you have the skills to regulate and breathe through it. And then you integrated that experience of, I did a photo shoot in my bathing suit and I integrated that experience like that was I, and I’m safe. And I came out the other side.

Stephanie: Yeah. The whole time, like the three days before was like, I am gonna teach my body that this is safe. Like I was seeing all that flutter inside of me. I was experiencing like, this is not me. This is my old me. [Yeah] So let’s like bundle it up with love and teach it that it’s safe and teach it that it’s safe.

Stephanie: And so this whole three days leading it was a, an experience for me to teach my nervous system how to respond going forward.

Vanessa: Yes. And I, one of my favorite questions with what you’re describing is you’re in tune and you notice that kind of with what I think is a trauma response. [Yeah.]One of my favorite questions is, what does this part of me need? So it doesn’t go to, I shouldn’t feel this. Well, I’ve, you know, that ridicule. It’s like, what does this part of me need? Well, it needs breath, it needs reassurance. It needs to know that I’m a 30 something year old badass woman choosing to do this. So it’s kind of, I love that question. What does that part of you need?

Stephanie: Yeah. And that’s, I did it and just cuddled it. [Yes.] Because it was that, to me it was that like 17 year old going on a trip with friend in ab bathing suit and like totally paralyzed by it and then I was cuddling that version of me. [Yes.] I was retraining myself to react differently.

Vanessa: Yes. And bringing a layer of like safety and compassion and soothing puddling attention acknowledgement to that wounded 17 year old.

Stephanie: Yeah. So, I dunno how we got here.

Vanessa: Girl. We’ve been everywhere. This always happens. I feel like we need a podcast together. This is so fun.

Stephanie: This is gonna be a two podcast by the way, because I, if you notice almost 90 minutes,

Stephanie: I think we’re gonna end it now, for now. We can do a part three and four later.

Stephanie: [Yes. That sounds good.]

Stephanie: Any parting words for people listening? We started to be here about business and the growth and the expansion you’re living through. Any tips on that for people listening?

Vanessa: I think just kind of summing up where parts of our conversation have gone is one, like even if you are a professional in this field, that it’s okay and the healing process isn’t linear. So really trying to meet yourself in those vulnerable moments with curiosity and compassion, I think too, running your business is like the ultimate, oh my gosh, exercise in nervous system resiliency. So kind of what I like to do is like create this list of what do I wanna do and start with the one, like I said, that feels, it’s uncomfortable but not unsafe and build. But yeah, just that you’re not alone, that you’re not the only one out there being like, okay, today I love it, and next week I’m having that burn it down moment. And I think we need to normalize that. It’s not bad. It can be part of the process, you know?

Stephanie: Yeah. Thank you very much for being so transparent, open and vulnerable.

Vanessa: Yes. Thank you for having me.

Stephanie: Thank you for doing therapy with me.

Vanessa: Also, can we just like congratulate 17 year old Stephanie? I’m serious. I’m like, honey, [thank you] yes.

Stephanie: Yes, she is. And you know what’s funny is I had a blue baiting suit, which is the photo of me, I use a lot on social media and a blue baiting suit before my first diet. And I realized after that I bought the, almost the same blue baiting suit for that photo shoot. [Oh, the repair.]

Vanessa: I know.

Stephanie: Thank you, Vanessa.

Vanessa: Thank you, Stephanie.

 

 

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80-Being Fat, Fertile and Safe Being Successful In Business with Nicola Salmon

80-Being Fat, Fertile and Safe Being Successful In Business with Nicola Salmon

Being fat, fertile and safe

Being fat, fertile and safe being successful in business with Nicola Salmon. 

In this interview with Nicola Salmon, author of Fat and fertile and host of the podcast of the same name, we explore safety and its lack impacts all of us.

Being fat, fertile and safe

Nicola Salmon shares her origin story and why coaching fat people in their fertility journey is her life’s work.

And what she has done to create safety in the process of building her business.

What you’ll learn listening to this episode on being fat, fertile and safe:

  • Nicole origin story that led her to discover her life’s work
  • The role of safety in all aspects of life and business
  • Being fat and successful as entrepreneur 

Mentioned in the show:

Non-Diet Coaching Certification

Free Resources 

Going Beyond The Food Show podcast Episode 226 – Too Fat to Get Pregnant, Really?

Connect with our guest:

Website – Nicola Salmon

Instagram – Nicola Salmon

Book – Nicola Salmon: Fat and Fertile

Podcast – Nicola Salmon: Fat and Fertile

Transcript:

UYC80-Being Fat, Fertile and Safe Being Successful In Business with Nicola Salmon

===

Welcome back to the podcast, my dear colleague. Today, I’ve got a treat. I’ve got a very powerful interview to share with you. My guest is Nicola Salmon. She is a feminist, fat positive fertility coach. And the breath of this interview, everything we went through has been very powerful for me, and I’m sure it will be for you as well. So I’m gonna stop talking and I’m just gonna have my team to roll in the interview right away. And I hope it inspires you as much that it inspired me.

Stephanie: Welcome to the podcast, Nicola.

Nicola: Thank you so much for having me.

Stephanie: I’m excited to have this conversation and we were just talking the last time we did a podcast together was actually a few years ago, and it was my first threesome podcast.

Nicola: And it was spectacular.

Stephanie: I know. It was actually a kind of a live coaching interview. It’s going to be on the food podcast feed. You guys should go and check that out and I’ll link it in the show note. But we actually were helping, someone who wanted to get pregnant in a fat body and helping them think about that differently, was one of our listener.

Stephanie: But today, it’s gonna be about you. And as I was preparing for this interview, we have been in the same circle for probably almost five years now, we’ve known of each other. I don’t even know your origin story. So please introduce yourself, tell us what you do, and then. Tell us how you came to do that.

Nicola: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m Nicola Salmon. I’m a fat positive fertility coach. And it all really kind of started this journey to this very unique job that I do, when I was 16. So over 20 years ago now, I was diagnosed with a condition called P C O S or polycystic ovarian syndrome. And the doctor told me when they diagnosed me that I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant.

Nicola: So, given this kind of life altering diagnosis without any kind of counseling or support, nothing. In that 20 years ago, we didn’t have the internet, so I couldn’t go away and Google what it was, what it meant. I didn’t know anybody else who had it. So it felt like a really difficult thing to process, especially as a teenager, because I didn’t really have any coping processes. I didn’t have any tools in order to navigate that, what that meant for me. So yeah, I spent my teens, my twenties, thinking that I would never be able to become a parent, which is something that I really wanted to become. The only information that I was given by my doctor about P C O S was that I should go on the oral contraceptive pill because that would regulate my cycles, which I later found out wasn’t really true, and to diet because that would help me lose weight and then that would fix my P C O S. Again, later found out that was total rubbish and absolutely not true. But that’s what I thought. So I spent so much time, when I was an early adult, trying to lose weight, trying to make my body smaller in order to fix it, in order to fix my menstrual cycles, cause they were super irregular, and in order to become a parent, because that is what I wanted to be ultimately. In that time, kind of as I was navigating that, I went to uni, got a job, and then changed directions in my early twenties. I trained to be an acupuncturist because I found it really helpful for me. I went through like a traumatic incident and got a post-traumatic stress disorder. And I found it so supportive and so helpful that I immediately had to figure out exactly what it was, exactly how it worked. So I trained for four years as an acupuncturist. And because of my own fertility stuff, because of my own hormone stuff, I wanted to learn more about hormones and acupuncture. So I ended up specializing in fertility, which is how I kind of got into the fertility world. But all this time I was still very much, weight centric, weight focused, because that was my experience. That was what I was told would help me. And then, what happened was I got pregnant. I married my husband. We decided we wanted to get pregnant, and we did. And it was really quick. It was really easy [oh]. Even though I was like at my biggest way, even though I was expecting to go through this whole process of like a million diets again to get down to this weight to get pregnant, it just happened. And I spent that nine months of that pregnancy totally anxious about something was gonna happen. I thought everything was gonna go wrong, cuz that’s what we’re told, that everybody in bigger bodies’ experiences all these horrible symptoms, side effects, problems during pregnancy, but nothing happened. Totally unremarkable, boring, ordinary pregnancy. But I was so anxious through it, and it was not the joyful experience that I wanted pregnancy to be for me.

Nicola: But at the end of that pregnancy, I decided that I’d wanted to have a home birth. I wanted a waterbirth. I wanted all of these things for me, and I was told I couldn’t have them because of my bmi. And that was the very, very first time that I’ve ever thought, hang on a minute, like this isn’t right. Like I shouldn’t just listen to what the doctors are saying and just, just believe it and go along with what they’re saying. I did a lot more research into it around the risks, the real risks for people in bigger bodies and having home births and water births and found it was totally rubbish that people can have waterbirth, they can have home births, and they can be really safe and really, really helpful choices for people to make. And it was the real, the very first time I knew about what body autonomy was and that I could make decisions about my healthcare. And that blew my mind. I was like, I just couldn’t believe that I’d spent like nearly 30 years of my life just going along with what people had told me and not even questioning it. So I’d had that taster, I’d had that like idea of like, oh my goodness, like I can make decisions about my own body.

Nicola: And then my son was about six months old, I had this moment where I was in the kitchen and we were just, I was talking to my husband about going on your end of the diet or changing my body in some way. And I just had this epiphany of like, I don’t wanna talk about this around my son. I don’t want him to hear the words that I’m saying about food, about my body, about all of this stuff. Like I don’t want that for him. And that was the point for me where I was like, I’ve got to do something different. I have spent so much time, energy, money, trying to make my body smaller and nothing has helped, nothing has been the magic pill that’s gonna fix me and make me acceptable in the eyes of doctors.

Nicola: So, I’m just gonna spin it all. I’m not gonna lose weight, not gonna weigh myself anymore. I’m not gonna lose weight. I’m just gonna be and see what happens. And luckily around this time I was in Instagram and I found all these incredible people, including yourself who were just talking about this stuff, and people in big bodies who were just happy and not dieting and not trying to like find this elusive, thin goal. And I just was like, thank God for that. It felt like such a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Nicola: And as I was doing like fertility, acupuncture, I’d also done a fertility coach training thing. So I was dipping my toe into like how I could support people online, like outside of acupuncture. And I realized how, kind of how much those two worlds collided, like how much talk about diets, weight loss, and how problematic the fertility industry was around food and bodies. And I just couldn’t find anybody that was talking about it. I couldn’t find people that were explaining, like how problematic it is that we tell people to go on keto diets or to lose weight, to get pregnant, and all these barriers that we have to healthcare.

Nicola: So I just had to start talking about it. I had to just say, like, this is not right. Like we should not be denying people healthcare based on this. We should not be denying them the opportunity to grow their families because of their body size and it’s so detrimental to their health that we are telling them to do this diet or out this food group and it’s just making everything so much worse. And then I just haven’t stopped talking about it since then.

Stephanie: It’s been how many years now?

Nicola: It’s been five years now. So it’s been a long time that I have just been talking about this, but it feel, you know, it is so important to me and it’s so critical for me just to keep talking about this because I know there are so many people out there that need it and that are affected so, so, you know, harshly by this and by the way that we treat people through fertility,

Stephanie: That is a powerful story with many trigger event. But what I take from this story is that this is your life’s work. [Mm-hmm.] Like this is your life’s work. It’s not just a gig, a job, a business. It is a business and it is a job, but it is your life work. That’s what fuels you.

Nicola: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It was every single day. It was what gets me out. Yeah.

Stephanie: And that’s a beautiful place to be in as a person to be able to do your life’s work. That’s what I do. That’s what you do. And to pick a sacred cow like fertility, like that’s what it is, that’s why nobody talks about it because it’s still a sacred cow in our society that fat people should, it’s okay to tell fat people that they should be smaller, to have children. Nobody’s picked at it yet, and that’s what your life work is.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it feels, especially at the very beginning, it felt very hard to have these conversations. [Mm-hmm. I’m sure.] I had a lot of pushback from other people in my world that I knew, but the more I research this, the more I speak to people about it, it just becomes more and more urgent to me to talk more about it and to share more about it.

Stephanie: And you have a podcast. Remind the people listening the name of your podcast.

Nicola: It’s called Fat and Fertile.

Stephanie: So, we’re not gonna get into the depth detail of fat infertility, but if we were to sum it up for people listening [mm-hmm] and you had like one to two message to get out to people about fatness and fertility, like two big lies, what would they be?

Nicola: So I guess the two biggest things are that. Just because you’re fat, that doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant or you’re gonna have any fertility issues, like that is a big one that so many people believe, that their fatness will get in the way and it absolutely no reason to believe that it will.

Nicola: And the second one is that you absolutely deserve to get that any fertility care and support that you need. And so many people feel that they have to jump through that hoop of weight loss or dieting before they are worthy in quotes to get that care. And that is absolutely not true.

Stephanie: And it’s beyond, and again, just because I’ve been around you for so long, it’s not just self worthiness, it’s some country. The system will deny people at a certain weight to get fertility treatment. If you didn’t, you’re listening to this podcast and fertility is not your thing, know that it is a fact. People are being denied fertility care because of their weight today.

Nicola: Yeah. And it is still somehow socially acceptable for that to happen.

Stephanie: Yeah. Like we’re gonna re-listen to this podcast. We’re gonna watch your work 20 years from now. We’re gonna say, how could this be? [Mm-hmm.] It’s like segregation of people of color in this state in 1965. [Mm-hmm.] We’re looking back at this, we’re like, how in the hell did we think that was okay? And when I look back at fertility, the fact people will be the same logic. Like, how could we think? [My gosh.] Oh we’ll.

Nicola: That is my dream. That is the whole goal of my work is really just to be like, I don’t need to do this anymore. Like, I want people to have the access, the care, just the respect to be able to make those decisions for themselves.

Stephanie: Well, the same care respect, not more, just the same care and respect as people in quote unquote, body that fits the bmi. [Absolutely. Yeah.] Just equality, not more. [Mm-hmm.] Just equality.

Nicola: Yeah. It’s not too much to us.

Stephanie: We’re just, the work you’re doing is just to bring people back to basic equality, independent of their size. By the way, we call that sizeism, where we judge people based on their body size. And that’s what it is with fertility, we would draw their ability to get service even if they pay like insurance based service in the state, they’re still being denied.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Stephanie: So your podcast and you have a book is filled with all the details on how this is possible. Because I’m sure people are listening to this, you’re like, what? I’ve heard the opposite. Like go in the book, go in the podcast and get the details.

Stephanie: So how do you help people with that? Let’s move on to like, what does that look like, getting support and working with you infertility.

Nicola: So there’s lots of different kind of core ways that we do it [Okay] and most of it breaks down to safety. For fat people who are trying to navigate this, it feels so inherently unsafe because of experiences they’ve had with doctors in the past because of all the messages that we get around what it means to be a fat person navigating that. So the root core of it is really about bringing people into a feeling of safety, knowing that they can trust their bodies, knowing that they don’t have to lose weight or diet in order to feel safe, in order to be able to access that fertility within them.

Nicola: Like we’re told that you have to cut out food groups and massively restrict your diet, and that is just not true. What your body needs is enough nutrition, enough nourishment in order to feel safe so that it knows that when it gets pregnant, you are gonna have the resources available to take care of you and baby. So it’s about really reframing what that means to be healthy and to want to get pregnant in that way. And also we do a lot of work around advocacy. So specifically for fat people, it’s around being able to access that healthcare that you might need. Because whilst we want to change the systems, because those are the things that are at fault, they just don’t happen quick enough for people who want to get pregnant now. So we need to learn the tools of how to advocate for yourself. We need to learn like how we can figure out which doctors are gonna be the best ones to talk to, to refer to who can give you the treatment, and how to support yourself emotionally through that process. Because it is work that you should not have to do, but we’re in a world where we have to advocate for ourselves if we are gonna get the care that we need.

Nicola: So it’s all of these different ways that we are looking at being in a bigger body, how that impacts us, being in the culture that we’re in now, and also really retraining our brains to believe that we are worthy and capable of doing the work that we need to get there.

Stephanie: It’s funny because I interviewed a doctor on OEM PIC last week [Ooh] and we were talking about access to care for all people. And I was sharing with her how difficult it is for people in larger body or any disability form to advocate for themselves. And this is where, to me, coaching comes in because you have, through how society function, you’ve been judged, you’ve been criticized, and very little people have helped you create self-esteem and self confidence. And now you have to stand in front of a doctor. You have to stand in front of fertility clinic and advocate for yourself. [Yeah.] That’s like difficult when you don’t believe in yourself.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. And it’s skills we’re just never taught, right? Like, and very intentionally so. Like, especially as women, we are not taught how to have that power, how to go about creating that change and to have that body autonomy to say, actually, I disagree and it is my lived experience and my voice that is the most important in this conversation. So, it’s really groundbreaking stuff.

Stephanie: Yeah. And like I said, like you can have a, in the beginning, my days as a coach, I used to give like a script to people, [Mm-hmm] Which is nice, right? [Yeah.] Here’s what you can’t say. But people would get in front of their doctor and their had no voice. Like, they couldn’t do, he couldn’t stand up for themselves and they had to build themself up. And again, like you said, it’s work we shouldn’t have to do [mm-hmm] but we have to.

Nicola: Yeah. And it just takes practice. Like most of us are never gonna go into that situation and know what to do off bat. Right. We need to be in a safe place to have those conversations. [For sure.] To practice them coming out of our mouths, saying those things, believing those things about ourselves, and know that we’ve got a support system to fall back on when that big scary thing happens.

Stephanie: I love your, the parallel you drew between activism as a society level and into the legal system, and we shouldn’t have to do this work. And that activism work needs to be done globally at the society level. [Yeah.] But then the work you’re doing is the activism at the individual level. [Mm-hmm.] Do you see it as that?

Nicola: I’ve never seen it quite in that way before, and I love the way that you share, you kind of painted that picture because, yeah, my work is really of two halves. Like it’s the work that I do with people and I love showing up for folks who are navigating this. They get such a lot of reward and benefit from the work that we do together, but, for me, I can’t do the individual work without also having the bigger picture work as well, because, I don’t want, as much as I love working with these people, I don’t want them to have to do this work. And I want to influence and make change in a bigger sense. And that looks like talking to clinics and educating them on the research that I’ve found around how problematic that their policies are and you know, helping them change their policies and, hopefully that will filter up into like, government level and making changes on a wider scale. But yeah, it’s big and it feels,

Stephanie: Well it’s 5, 10, 25 years up there [Mm-hmm.] like I’m pointing out to the sky, but the big machine. [Yeah.] But then there’s the person today [mm-hmm] that wants to have a child. [Yeah.] The work we’re doing in at the highest level ain’t gonna help this person today.

Nicola: No. The machine is slow.

Stephanie: But I love that the work you do does both the activism at the global level society level and teaching people how to advocate for themself, how to do their activism at the individual level.

Nicola: Hmm. Yeah. I think it’s, I think being, doing that is almost like sowing those seeds, right? You’re giving everybody a little seed packet to go away and then sow their own seeds, and hopefully over time we get enough momentum to really make a big difference.

Stephanie: Well, and it gives people the fuel that to get pregnant today, it gives that person the tool to maneuver the unjust system. [Yeah.] Because without those tool that she shouldn’t have to go get, but she has to go get in order to maneuver the current systematic issue that we have with fertility and healthcare and sizeism.

Nicola: Yeah. And these people make incredible parents. Like, ugh, they’re, [I’m sure] it is breaking generational trauma on so many levels because the tools that they’re learning now, they’re teaching to their kids and their kids are growing up knowing how to advocate for themselves, knowing that diet culture is rubbish. You know, it’s just, it’s just beautiful.

Stephanie: It must be very motivating to do the work at the individual level when you see the big picture like this.

Nicola: Yeah, I mean, it’s the individual level that really gives me the energy myself to go for the big stuff like the small wins, the being able to stand up to the doctor, the positive pregnancy test, that stuff is the fuel for me to go bigger and to make bigger, [to do the big work.]

Nicola: Absolutely. And I would not be able to do it without it

Stephanie: Because for people who’ve never done activism at a bigger level, that is energy draining. [Mm-hmm.] Right. Like that requires a lot of energy to work at that level. So getting the victory at the individual level and seeing like the ripple effect [mm-hmm] is what fuels the energy we have to spend on the bigger work.

Nicola: Yeah. Because it often feels like you’re just banging ahead against the brick wall. Like, you’ve gotta try so many doors before one will open and it just, yeah, it really is magical, you know? And these people should be getting this care already. They shouldn’t have to pay me to get it. But I feel so honored to be able to walk along that path with them for a short while.

Stephanie: And what’s the name of your program that helps them lauren at Bolt Safety and Advocacy level?

Nicola: So it’s called Supported. So it’s like a 12 month program where we go through all of the different tools and things that they need, and it’s a really beautiful community container so that they can access support both from me and from other people who are also navigating similar situations

Stephanie: Because when of the side effect of any discrimination or any injustice is isolation. [Mm-hmm. Yes.] You think you’re the only one. [Mm-hmm.] When in fact you’re not, but the way the system works is isolating you. [Yeah.] So being in community like that, just by doing that is healing.

Nicola: Yeah. It’s so powerful and it’s beyond magical because there’s so much more that people get from being in a container like that. And because of the very nature facility, that itself is isolating and because of then the added layer of the guilt and the shame that so many folks feel through this process. They don’t wanna talk to their friends, they don’t wanna talk to their family, they don’t wanna reach out. So it’s like this double layer of isolation. So it’s, yeah, it’s beautiful to watch.

Stephanie: So, I wanna get into, also for people listening to this, because there’s a lot of professionals and practitioner that listen to my podcast. I wanna talk a little bit about you as an individual creating a business like that. Like we’ve talked about, like activism and all of that. But how has been your journey of building that kind of business?

Nicola: Mm, it’s been…

Stephanie: Have you ever talked about this publicly before? This is your first, okay. We’re like revealing the curtain. We’re pulling the curtain people.

Nicola: Oh, it’s been amazing to run a business. Like it has been the quickest, like self acceptance, self exploratory process ever. Like it has been a whirlwind of delving deep into who I am, who I thought I was. And what it means to be a person doing this work. But yeah, I mean I have had many highs and lows. I have a billion different ways I’ve tried to run a business and different, different ways that I’ve used as measures of success and I’m coming to terms slowly with how my brain works now.

Nicola: I have a feeling that I may be autistic, I may have a D H D, and so really leaning into how my brain works and how I like to do things and what works for me over the past six months has been really powerful in helping me get to a point where my business feels not only sustainable, but exciting again, because for a long time, it’s been up and down and like things have gone really well and then I’ve crashed and then my energy levels are super low, and then I feel like I’m gonna have to go and get a job again. And then I feel okay again and then things go really well. And it’s just been this rollercoaster and I’ve been bringing up babies in the meantime. Like my business is as old as my oldest, oldest child now,nine years. So my business has never existed without me being a parent at the same time and navigating that identity and how kind of the patriarchy defines what the role of a mother should look like and how to navigate wanting to work on my business and what that means about me as a person when I’m also being dragged into parenthood. Like it’s been a real interesting ride for sure.

Stephanie: I love that you say it’s been a journey of self-discovery, [mm-hmm] of like uprooting things that you would’ve never otherwise uprooted and faced.

Nicola: I feel so honored and so lucky to have had the opportunity to do that. I feel very privileged and I am privileged to be able to be in a position now where my business doesn’t have to bring in the full money that my family and my household needs in order to run. And I want it to be there eventually. But because I have my husband and he works full-time and he has a stable job, like a proper salary job that gives us the flexibility for me to be able to be, yeah, to follow my dream, to really follow my instincts about what I want my business to look like and how I want it to work and how I want it to run. And that’s, yeah, I know it will come to fruition and be able to financially support me really soon.

Stephanie: You talked about the ups and downs. [Mm-hmm.] Can we dive into that a little bit in the sense like, it has happened to me, it has happened, it’s happening to many people, no matter which business you are in, like your own business. What you sell is irrelevant, but when you’re building your own business, you often have those ups and downs. If you look back, what is one thing that you’ve learned that creates those ups and downs or that exaggerate the ups and downs?

Nicola: I think the biggest thing for me was my expectations of what it should look like. So, [oh,] when I first started my business, I had no real concept of what running a business looked like. So I had the expectations around like revenue, like I should be making X dollars per month. And I didn’t have any real concept of the fact that most businesses, because I didn’t really take myself seriously, a business at first had like capital that was invested. [Mm-hmm] and had you know this like startup fund of thousands, millions of pounds and dollars, and I had no real concept of that.

Nicola: So when I wasn’t immediately out the gate making money, I thought it was a me problem. I thought there was something wrong with the how I was doing things. And it was like my expectation of what that should look like was really skewed because of what we see in this like little bubble of online business of how things should look.

Nicola: So, I think that really exaggerated the lows for me because I thought I should be so much further along than I was, and I was comparing my like chapter one business to people’s Chapter 20. So of course it wasn’t gonna look similar, but I didn’t see behind the scenes of their businesses. I didn’t know what was going on behind the like perfect picture Instagram photos. So it’s been an eye-opener to really understand that it’s okay that I’m not making millions, like I’ve been bootstrapping this from the very beginning. I’ve been resourceful. I’ve beeninvesting in myself. I have been creating this reality of now we’ve moved from the suburbs of London to this glorious house in the countryside, and that is my vision. That is my drive. I’ve created this reality for myself.

Nicola: And whilst my business isn’t where I’ve dreamed it to be yet, that it’s non-negotiable that it’s gonna get there. It’s just a matter of when. And knowing that it’s taken me nine years to get there, now is okay, because I didn’t have millions invested at the beginning. [Mm-hmm.] I have been investing all that time and I’m really proud of what I’ve created and the body of work that I have created because, it’s so much more than just being financially viable. Like I know that the work that I have done has touched thousands of people’s lives in a really positive way.

Stephanie: And it will continue [Mm-hmm. That’s it] because it exists as a body of work for people. Like Body of Work is when you create your own theory or your own methodology, your own processes, like that Body of Work, those podcast episode, that book is gonna help millions of people in years to come. [Mm-hmm. Just, yeah.]

Stephanie: The gap. And I just wanna, because I’m a coach at heart, I can’t stop coaching, but I just wanna point out, you talked about your glorious house [mm] in the suburb, in part, your business offered you that. [Mm-hmm.] Because would you have worked in a office in London, you would’ve not had the freedom to move to the countryside?

Stephanie: [Absolutely.] Can you see that? [ Yes. Oh yeah.] It may not be the traditional Chiche money, money. But it offered you the freedom.

Nicola: Yeah. And it also offered me the, I think the insight to be able to really explore what I wanted and not settle [Yes] for less.

Stephanie: Yes. To design the life that you want [Mm-hmm] In the way that you want.

Nicola: Yeah. Without business building, without going on this entrepreneur journey, that would not even have been on my radar.

Stephanie: No. And, and as you are exploring the current, where your brains are functioning, if you try to fit yourself in what I call like oppressive business culture, you’ll never fit in the mold, in the box. You creating your business and being aware of that and creating the business that fits your brain, fits the way you think, that’s a massive anxiety, stress release for yours to come, [oh] instead of trying to fit yourself into a system that is not made for you.

Nicola: Yeah. And it changes the system, right? Like the more people that, that come in and do things their way, we are changing how it works. [Yes.] And it gives permission for other people to do the same.

Stephanie: Yes, it does. I. I have one more question that I want to get into is the whole concept of coaching. [Mm-hmm.] So you did the acupuncture for four or five years, then you started the online business I’m an advocacy level. And then recently you came to me and you did a training with me on coaching. [Yes.] How has that impacted or has an impacted or changed the way you work with people in your relationship to your business?

Nicola: Yeah, in a huge way. I think the biggest gift it gave me was, whilst I could coach, I had no confidence in my coaching and I had no confidence in the work that I gave to the world. So the very beginning thing that we did was the self coaching, and that has just been transformational for me and for my business because it has given me the tools, which I never even knew that I needed to, to reflect on what’s working on what’s not working, to give me the capacity to be able to make decisions better in my business from a place of knowing, rather from a place of, well, that’s what that person did, or that’s what that person did.

Nicola: It’s just given me so much confidence in my own intuition around that and around what my getting my needs met and feeling safer in my business. And that foundation has just given me a springboard to be able to go and make really good decisions about what’s gonna be good for me, what’s gonna be good for my business and the people that I work with. You know, what’s good for me is good for them because I show up in a, from a place of feeling energized, from feeling confident, from providing that space to feel safe. So it’s just, yeah, it’s transformed how I feel about my business and how I show up in my business, and I know that is just gonna have a huge ripple effect on every other aspect of my business.

Stephanie: I just wanna highlight something again, and just because I’m a coach, you said that your program you’re offering to people is centered around safety [Mm-hmm] and advocacy. [Yeah. ] What you just said that coaching gave you was safety to do the way you wanted to do your business, to advocate through this oppressive online business structure to do it your way. [Mm-hmm.] Do you see the parallel?

Nicola: Oh, I love that. I love how that’s mirrored in that. I think that’s really magical.

Stephanie: it’s mirrored. And people like, I just want people to hear that, that it is your work or not. The people you work with, that you hire to give you something can only give you as much as they give themselves. [Mm-hmm.] Right. So if you were to look at a scale of one to 10, you were at a, I don’t know, five or six, in your ability to provide a safe container for people working through their fertility issue. [Mm-hmm.] But by you making yourself safer through your decision, your thoughts, your feeling, you will amp up the safety you are able to give to people. Can you see that?

Nicola: Yeah. And I didn’t even know that I needed that. Like I didn’t even recognize at the beginning that that was the issue. I thought it was, yeah, I thought I was doing a great job showing up but I was just being really hard on myself. So seeing how that can grow and seeing how that, it just spreads. It just feels really, yeah,

Stephanie: But you were showing up amazingly to the capacity you had two years ago? [Mm-hmm. Yeah.] Do you know you had a capacity of six and you were showing up at six?

Nicola: Hmm. But I didn’t even realize then that I only was at a six. Like I thought that was my 10.

Stephanie: But in the way it was your 10, it was your six outta six. It was your a hundred percent safe that [Yeah] you were able to give people. Absolutely.] You’re just grown your own safety and you will continue to grow your safety [mm-hmm] and that will grow the capacity for you to offer safety to other people even more and at a different level. [Mm-hmm] That’s what I find magical about human product, which mostly are call coaching, counseling, [hmm,] right. We’re not talking about water bottle here. We’re talking about like human product, of working with human being, is that when you do your work from a place of wanting to help other people, you have no choice but to upgrade yourself. [Mm-hmm.] Not because you were broken before, just because you want to be able to offer more to people, and the only way to offer more is for you to be more, not because you were deficient, just because you’re growing and expending yourself.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. And I love that that’s, I feel, for so long I thought I put everybody else’s needs above my own. And I love that putting my own needs first is the thing that will help everybody else, right. It’s that like, [yes,] I get to put my myself first in everything and that will overflow to help everybody else.

Stephanie: For people that are in that pattern right now [Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.] of people pleasing, [Mm-hmm] what is the one thing you would advise them? Like what is the one shift that you’re now able to talk about it this way, to put your needs first and not feel guilty or shame about it?

Nicola: Oh, that is a good question. [Yes.] I think for me, the very first shift that I did that really helped me get out of that people pleasing mode was to notice when I was saying, sorry. Now this sounds, it sounds really interesting, but for the longest time, anytime anything bad happened I would just be like, sorry, sorry, sorry, and assume blame for everything. And then at one point, and I can’t remember when it was, I decided that I didn’t need to be sorry for my existence all the time, and I switched it.

Nicola: So I started, first of all, I started noticing when I was saying it, and then I started to be more intentional about what I was saying. So rather than saying sorry automatically for everything, I started saying, well, if I needed to say anything at all, which half of the time I didn’t because I didn’t have anything to be sorry for, instead of saying, sorry for being late, I’d be saying like, thank you for being patient while I was a little bit late. And I just, it was that change in, instead of apologizing for my existence, it was acknowledging that I am human and that I don’t have to say sorry for everything and I don’t have to make everybody else feel more comfortable at my own expense. And I think that like, that tiny tweak of putting myself, and I know exactly what you’re gonna say, having your own back.

Stephanie: I know

Nicola: That was it. That was the very first time I was starting to have my own back.

Stephanie: And it’s, you know, I wanna highlight that or explain to people, having your own back means being, as an adult, right, when you’re a child, your back is your parent. That’s who are designed to protect you and teach you. But when you become an adult, you have to become your own parent, your own protector. And for so many of us, the more identity your layer on yourself, as a woman, as a fat person, as a person with that is queer, whatever your identity, the more identity you layer on, the more you need to be strong for yourself, for your own self-protection. Otherwise, your safety goes down the toilet and then you start like being a people pleaser to offset your existence. [Mm-hmm.] That’s brilliant. Can we talk about doing business in fat body?

Nicola: Yes.

Stephanie: Okay. So we were doing an exercise recently and I can’t remember what it was, but we’re talking about the possibility thing, we were talking about in terms of how can we see in the future and the possibility, and you said for you, you almost had this thought or this belief that fat women could not be successful in business. [Mm-hmm.]

Stephanie: Can you talk about that? And meanwhile, you’re trying to build your business for eight, nine years at that point. [Yeah.] And you were holding the belief that fat people or fat women could not be successful in business.

Nicola: I held on really tight to that belief for all that time because I think for me, I saw a lot of people around me having, perceived to be having things that I wanted. So people would have traditional book deals, for example, or appear to have really thriving businesses, and I felt like I was just paddling so hard into that water, and I made that belief that because I was fat, because I wasn’t typically the thin ideal of, thin, blonde, beautiful, [beauty] exactly. That, that, that was why, because I was sold that, right, we’re all sold that from a really young age that you get to be successful when you are thin, you get to have success.

Nicola: And I internalize that so hard and so deeply and it was only since that call, since we talked about that, that I really realized that it wasn’t the fact that I was fat that was holding me back, but the fact that I believed that fat people can’t have successful businesses and that was what’s holding me back. So I have been doing a lot of work on that very belief since then.

Stephanie: Yeah. And again, that is your fat or your own, any identities that are oppressed in society. It is more difficult for people with various identity in certain sector but it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be your reality. [Mm-hmm.] You can think about it differently and make it easier for you.

Nicola: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Like privilege is a very, very real thing. Like there’s no way to deny that. We know that fat people get paid less in their work. [Yeah.] We know that this happens, but what was happening for me is that that belief was leading me to make decisions that weren’t benefiting me. [Yes.] So rather than believing that reality, I choose to believe a different reality where fat people have really successful businesses and that helps me make different decisions in my day-to-day life.

Stephanie: Yeah. You were talking about paddling. [Mm-hmm]. A lot of us fall into that, that we have to offset where we’re not good enough because society tells us, because that’s what we believe about ourself. So we work, we we need the art, [Yeah] like really, really hard and we get exhausted. We go the high, the lows, because we’re trying to offset are not good enough for, wherever it comes from is irrelevant, but what it does is it prevents us from accessing success, whatever success looks like to you because we’re paddling too hard. [Yeah.] And I think that’s what you’re reestablishing in your business right now.

Nicola: Yeah. It so many times to me that yeah, that paddle, battle, battle, oh no, I feel like I’m gonna die now. I’m so tired. So yeah, I am making some big changes into how I show up now so that I have that energy sustainable because I wanna keep doing this work, and I can only do that if it’s sustainable, and I don’t want to go into these burnouts anymore, like that’s not enjoyable for me. And it doesn’t have to be like that because I can choose to show up and to do what I need to do and have a really successful business in my body that exists now, which is fat.

Stephanie: Exactly. I just wanna take a minute to talk to this, like at a global level and I’m becoming more and more aware of that. We’re talking about oppressive business culture, how we build businesses and there’s another way to do it, and we’re breaking the paradigm to do that. You’re talking about breaking the paradigm infertility, food or body image for me, like everywhere we’re talking about breaking paradigm and killing the sacred cow. I want people to think about what the circumstance you’re in, that you’re a lawyer, that you’re an accountant, that you’re a social worker, and I want you to think in term of, in the work you’re doing, which paradigm is present that causes you to have to paddle and work really, really hard.

Stephanie: It’s not just online business culture, I’m coaching a lawyer right now in one of my group, and it’s the lawyer culture, it’s the accountant culture. Like those paradigm are everywhere.

Nicola: Capitalism, just right. You can’t escape it.

Stephanie: But you can do it differently.

Nicola: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Stephanie: And it starts with you. [Mm-hmm.] Like yes, there’s a problem systemic, we need to address the systemic issue. [Mm-hmm.] But the way for you to have the strength, the capacity, the resilience to address the systemic issue in your environment is by first starting with you. [Mm-hmm.] And building that resilience and you to first like organize the way you’re doing your career, your work, so it’s safe for you to do it so you then you can go out and change the system or the culture of your industry. Why are you laughing?

Nicola: It’s just so exciting. Like in just imagining all these little people in their lawyer bubbles, [yes] fantasy bubbles, and we’re just all smashing it down on our own little bit. [Yes] We’re all doing it together and it’s just, yeah, it’s exciting.

Stephanie: To me, that’s what coaching is. Coaching is activism at the individual level. [Mm-hmm.] Right. If I can help people gain the resilience, the strength, the confidence, the mental capacity, then they’re gonna go in their own bubble and make changes. And all of us collectively, like you said, are going to blow up and make changes at the systemic level. But for the next five years, 10 years, it’s at the individual level. [Hmm.] A Beautiful conversation.

Nicola: Thank you so much for this. It’s just been, yeah, really nourishing and it really fills me up and makes me excited to do this work.

Stephanie: Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you would like to bring up to, any words of wisdom or anything we skipped over?

Nicola: I think we covered a lot. [Yeah.] I guess the biggest thing for me is to just obviously work with you because this has been transformative. You know, the work that we’ve done together has been huge for me. But yeah, believing that you are worthyto invest in has just been the biggest and best lesson for me in my business.

Stephanie: In every angle. [Mm-hmm.] That you’re a fat person wanting to be pregnant, investing in yourself to go get the resource [Yeah] that I’m not available anywhere through you and to the people working on their way of thinking, their mindset, all of that, you are worthy to invest in yourself and yeah, you shouldn’t have to, but it is what it is. [Mm-hmm.] Like we need to make ourselves stronger individually, It’s from every angle possible.

Nicola: Yeah. You deserve it.

Stephanie: And what is the name of your podcast in your book? Just so people can grab the first layer of you, remind everyone the name of your podcast in your book.

Nicola: They’re both called Fat and Fertile. So you can grab the book on Amazon, and then the podcast is just wherever you listen to your podcast.

Stephanie: And then you start your journey there. And for many women listening to this, it’s referral. [Mm-hmm.] When you hear someone talking about their difficulty or hinting that they’re having difficulty with fertility, send them to those free resources of the podcast to get them started to know that there’s another way.

Nicola: Yeah. And they’re not alone.

Stephanie: But for many women, they think there’s no other, stuck doing that, and it’s not true. So let them make their way through your podcast and then see if they need some help. Thank you very much Nicola for your time today.

Nicola: Thank you.

 

Undiet Your Coaching Ep80-Being Fat, Fertile and Safe Being Successful In Business with Nicola Salmon

Welcome back to the podcast, my dear colleague. Today, I’ve got a treat. I’ve got a very powerful interview to share with you. My guest is Nicola Salmon. She is a feminist, fat positive fertility coach. And the breath of this interview, everything we went through has been very powerful for me, and I’m sure it will be for you as well. So I’m gonna stop talking and I’m just gonna have my team to roll in the interview right away. And I hope it inspires you as much that it inspired me.

Stephanie: Welcome to the podcast, Nicola.

Nicola: Thank you so much for having me.

Stephanie: I’m excited to have this conversation and we were just talking the last time we did a podcast together was actually a few years ago, and it was my first threesome podcast.

Nicola: And it was spectacular.

Stephanie: I know. It was actually a kind of a live coaching interview. It’s going to be on the food podcast feed. You guys should go and check that out and I’ll link it in the show note. But we actually were helping, someone who wanted to get pregnant in a fat body and helping them think about that differently, was one of our listener.

Stephanie: But today, it’s gonna be about you. And as I was preparing for this interview, we have been in the same circle for probably almost five years now, we’ve known of each other. I don’t even know your origin story. So please introduce yourself, tell us what you do, and then. Tell us how you came to do that.

Nicola: Yeah, absolutely. So, I’m Nicola Salmon. I’m a fat positive fertility coach. And it all really kind of started this journey to this very unique job that I do, when I was 16. So over 20 years ago now, I was diagnosed with a condition called P C O S or polycystic ovarian syndrome. And the doctor told me when they diagnosed me that I wouldn’t be able to get pregnant.

Nicola: So, given this kind of life altering diagnosis without any kind of counseling or support, nothing. In that 20 years ago, we didn’t have the internet, so I couldn’t go away and Google what it was, what it meant. I didn’t know anybody else who had it. So it felt like a really difficult thing to process, especially as a teenager, because I didn’t really have any coping processes. I didn’t have any tools in order to navigate that, what that meant for me. So yeah, I spent my teens, my twenties, thinking that I would never be able to become a parent, which is something that I really wanted to become. The only information that I was given by my doctor about P C O S was that I should go on the oral contraceptive pill because that would regulate my cycles, which I later found out wasn’t really true, and to diet because that would help me lose weight and then that would fix my P C O S. Again, later found out that was total rubbish and absolutely not true. But that’s what I thought. So I spent so much time, when I was an early adult, trying to lose weight, trying to make my body smaller in order to fix it, in order to fix my menstrual cycles, cause they were super irregular, and in order to become a parent, because that is what I wanted to be ultimately. In that time, kind of as I was navigating that, I went to uni, got a job, and then changed directions in my early twenties. I trained to be an acupuncturist because I found it really helpful for me. I went through like a traumatic incident and got a post-traumatic stress disorder. And I found it so supportive and so helpful that I immediately had to figure out exactly what it was, exactly how it worked. So I trained for four years as an acupuncturist. And because of my own fertility stuff, because of my own hormone stuff, I wanted to learn more about hormones and acupuncture. So I ended up specializing in fertility, which is how I kind of got into the fertility world. But all this time I was still very much, weight centric, weight focused, because that was my experience. That was what I was told would help me. And then, what happened was I got pregnant. I married my husband. We decided we wanted to get pregnant, and we did. And it was really quick. It was really easy [oh]. Even though I was like at my biggest way, even though I was expecting to go through this whole process of like a million diets again to get down to this weight to get pregnant, it just happened. And I spent that nine months of that pregnancy totally anxious about something was gonna happen. I thought everything was gonna go wrong, cuz that’s what we’re told, that everybody in bigger bodies’ experiences all these horrible symptoms, side effects, problems during pregnancy, but nothing happened. Totally unremarkable, boring, ordinary pregnancy. But I was so anxious through it, and it was not the joyful experience that I wanted pregnancy to be for me.

Nicola: But at the end of that pregnancy, I decided that I’d wanted to have a home birth. I wanted a waterbirth. I wanted all of these things for me, and I was told I couldn’t have them because of my bmi. And that was the very, very first time that I’ve ever thought, hang on a minute, like this isn’t right. Like I shouldn’t just listen to what the doctors are saying and just, just believe it and go along with what they’re saying. I did a lot more research into it around the risks, the real risks for people in bigger bodies and having home births and water births and found it was totally rubbish that people can have waterbirth, they can have home births, and they can be really safe and really, really helpful choices for people to make. And it was the real, the very first time I knew about what body autonomy was and that I could make decisions about my healthcare. And that blew my mind. I was like, I just couldn’t believe that I’d spent like nearly 30 years of my life just going along with what people had told me and not even questioning it. So I’d had that taster, I’d had that like idea of like, oh my goodness, like I can make decisions about my own body.

Nicola: And then my son was about six months old, I had this moment where I was in the kitchen and we were just, I was talking to my husband about going on your end of the diet or changing my body in some way. And I just had this epiphany of like, I don’t wanna talk about this around my son. I don’t want him to hear the words that I’m saying about food, about my body, about all of this stuff. Like I don’t want that for him. And that was the point for me where I was like, I’ve got to do something different. I have spent so much time, energy, money, trying to make my body smaller and nothing has helped, nothing has been the magic pill that’s gonna fix me and make me acceptable in the eyes of doctors.

Nicola: So, I’m just gonna spin it all. I’m not gonna lose weight, not gonna weigh myself anymore. I’m not gonna lose weight. I’m just gonna be and see what happens. And luckily around this time I was in Instagram and I found all these incredible people, including yourself who were just talking about this stuff, and people in big bodies who were just happy and not dieting and not trying to like find this elusive, thin goal. And I just was like, thank God for that. It felt like such a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

Nicola: And as I was doing like fertility, acupuncture, I’d also done a fertility coach training thing. So I was dipping my toe into like how I could support people online, like outside of acupuncture. And I realized how, kind of how much those two worlds collided, like how much talk about diets, weight loss, and how problematic the fertility industry was around food and bodies. And I just couldn’t find anybody that was talking about it. I couldn’t find people that were explaining, like how problematic it is that we tell people to go on keto diets or to lose weight, to get pregnant, and all these barriers that we have to healthcare.

Nicola: So I just had to start talking about it. I had to just say, like, this is not right. Like we should not be denying people healthcare based on this. We should not be denying them the opportunity to grow their families because of their body size and it’s so detrimental to their health that we are telling them to do this diet or out this food group and it’s just making everything so much worse. And then I just haven’t stopped talking about it since then.

Stephanie: It’s been how many years now?

Nicola: It’s been five years now. So it’s been a long time that I have just been talking about this, but it feel, you know, it is so important to me and it’s so critical for me just to keep talking about this because I know there are so many people out there that need it and that are affected so, so, you know, harshly by this and by the way that we treat people through fertility,

Stephanie: That is a powerful story with many trigger event. But what I take from this story is that this is your life’s work. [Mm-hmm.] Like this is your life’s work. It’s not just a gig, a job, a business. It is a business and it is a job, but it is your life work. That’s what fuels you.

Nicola: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It was every single day. It was what gets me out. Yeah.

Stephanie: And that’s a beautiful place to be in as a person to be able to do your life’s work. That’s what I do. That’s what you do. And to pick a sacred cow like fertility, like that’s what it is, that’s why nobody talks about it because it’s still a sacred cow in our society that fat people should, it’s okay to tell fat people that they should be smaller, to have children. Nobody’s picked at it yet, and that’s what your life work is.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it feels, especially at the very beginning, it felt very hard to have these conversations. [Mm-hmm. I’m sure.] I had a lot of pushback from other people in my world that I knew, but the more I research this, the more I speak to people about it, it just becomes more and more urgent to me to talk more about it and to share more about it.

Stephanie: And you have a podcast. Remind the people listening the name of your podcast.

Nicola: It’s called Fat and Fertile.

Stephanie: So, we’re not gonna get into the depth detail of fat infertility, but if we were to sum it up for people listening [mm-hmm] and you had like one to two message to get out to people about fatness and fertility, like two big lies, what would they be?

Nicola: So I guess the two biggest things are that. Just because you’re fat, that doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant or you’re gonna have any fertility issues, like that is a big one that so many people believe, that their fatness will get in the way and it absolutely no reason to believe that it will.

Nicola: And the second one is that you absolutely deserve to get that any fertility care and support that you need. And so many people feel that they have to jump through that hoop of weight loss or dieting before they are worthy in quotes to get that care. And that is absolutely not true.

Stephanie: And it’s beyond, and again, just because I’ve been around you for so long, it’s not just self worthiness, it’s some country. The system will deny people at a certain weight to get fertility treatment. If you didn’t, you’re listening to this podcast and fertility is not your thing, know that it is a fact. People are being denied fertility care because of their weight today.

Nicola: Yeah. And it is still somehow socially acceptable for that to happen.

Stephanie: Yeah. Like we’re gonna re-listen to this podcast. We’re gonna watch your work 20 years from now. We’re gonna say, how could this be? [Mm-hmm.] It’s like segregation of people of color in this state in 1965. [Mm-hmm.] We’re looking back at this, we’re like, how in the hell did we think that was okay? And when I look back at fertility, the fact people will be the same logic. Like, how could we think? [My gosh.] Oh we’ll.

Nicola: That is my dream. That is the whole goal of my work is really just to be like, I don’t need to do this anymore. Like, I want people to have the access, the care, just the respect to be able to make those decisions for themselves.

Stephanie: Well, the same care respect, not more, just the same care and respect as people in quote unquote, body that fits the bmi. [Absolutely. Yeah.] Just equality, not more. [Mm-hmm.] Just equality.

Nicola: Yeah. It’s not too much to us.

Stephanie: We’re just, the work you’re doing is just to bring people back to basic equality, independent of their size. By the way, we call that sizeism, where we judge people based on their body size. And that’s what it is with fertility, we would draw their ability to get service even if they pay like insurance based service in the state, they’re still being denied.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely.

Stephanie: So your podcast and you have a book is filled with all the details on how this is possible. Because I’m sure people are listening to this, you’re like, what? I’ve heard the opposite. Like go in the book, go in the podcast and get the details.

Stephanie: So how do you help people with that? Let’s move on to like, what does that look like, getting support and working with you infertility.

Nicola: So there’s lots of different kind of core ways that we do it [Okay] and most of it breaks down to safety. For fat people who are trying to navigate this, it feels so inherently unsafe because of experiences they’ve had with doctors in the past because of all the messages that we get around what it means to be a fat person navigating that. So the root core of it is really about bringing people into a feeling of safety, knowing that they can trust their bodies, knowing that they don’t have to lose weight or diet in order to feel safe, in order to be able to access that fertility within them.

Nicola: Like we’re told that you have to cut out food groups and massively restrict your diet, and that is just not true. What your body needs is enough nutrition, enough nourishment in order to feel safe so that it knows that when it gets pregnant, you are gonna have the resources available to take care of you and baby. So it’s about really reframing what that means to be healthy and to want to get pregnant in that way. And also we do a lot of work around advocacy. So specifically for fat people, it’s around being able to access that healthcare that you might need. Because whilst we want to change the systems, because those are the things that are at fault, they just don’t happen quick enough for people who want to get pregnant now. So we need to learn the tools of how to advocate for yourself. We need to learn like how we can figure out which doctors are gonna be the best ones to talk to, to refer to who can give you the treatment, and how to support yourself emotionally through that process. Because it is work that you should not have to do, but we’re in a world where we have to advocate for ourselves if we are gonna get the care that we need.

Nicola: So it’s all of these different ways that we are looking at being in a bigger body, how that impacts us, being in the culture that we’re in now, and also really retraining our brains to believe that we are worthy and capable of doing the work that we need to get there.

Stephanie: It’s funny because I interviewed a doctor on OEM PIC last week [Ooh] and we were talking about access to care for all people. And I was sharing with her how difficult it is for people in larger body or any disability form to advocate for themselves. And this is where, to me, coaching comes in because you have, through how society function, you’ve been judged, you’ve been criticized, and very little people have helped you create self-esteem and self confidence. And now you have to stand in front of a doctor. You have to stand in front of fertility clinic and advocate for yourself. [Yeah.] That’s like difficult when you don’t believe in yourself.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. And it’s skills we’re just never taught, right? Like, and very intentionally so. Like, especially as women, we are not taught how to have that power, how to go about creating that change and to have that body autonomy to say, actually, I disagree and it is my lived experience and my voice that is the most important in this conversation. So, it’s really groundbreaking stuff.

Stephanie: Yeah. And like I said, like you can have a, in the beginning, my days as a coach, I used to give like a script to people, [Mm-hmm] Which is nice, right? [Yeah.] Here’s what you can’t say. But people would get in front of their doctor and their had no voice. Like, they couldn’t do, he couldn’t stand up for themselves and they had to build themself up. And again, like you said, it’s work we shouldn’t have to do [mm-hmm] but we have to.

Nicola: Yeah. And it just takes practice. Like most of us are never gonna go into that situation and know what to do off bat. Right. We need to be in a safe place to have those conversations. [For sure.] To practice them coming out of our mouths, saying those things, believing those things about ourselves, and know that we’ve got a support system to fall back on when that big scary thing happens.

Stephanie: I love your, the parallel you drew between activism as a society level and into the legal system, and we shouldn’t have to do this work. And that activism work needs to be done globally at the society level. [Yeah.] But then the work you’re doing is the activism at the individual level. [Mm-hmm.] Do you see it as that?

Nicola: I’ve never seen it quite in that way before, and I love the way that you share, you kind of painted that picture because, yeah, my work is really of two halves. Like it’s the work that I do with people and I love showing up for folks who are navigating this. They get such a lot of reward and benefit from the work that we do together, but, for me, I can’t do the individual work without also having the bigger picture work as well, because, I don’t want, as much as I love working with these people, I don’t want them to have to do this work. And I want to influence and make change in a bigger sense. And that looks like talking to clinics and educating them on the research that I’ve found around how problematic that their policies are and you know, helping them change their policies and, hopefully that will filter up into like, government level and making changes on a wider scale. But yeah, it’s big and it feels,

Stephanie: Well it’s 5, 10, 25 years up there [Mm-hmm.] like I’m pointing out to the sky, but the big machine. [Yeah.] But then there’s the person today [mm-hmm] that wants to have a child. [Yeah.] The work we’re doing in at the highest level ain’t gonna help this person today.

Nicola: No. The machine is slow.

Stephanie: But I love that the work you do does both the activism at the global level society level and teaching people how to advocate for themself, how to do their activism at the individual level.

Nicola: Hmm. Yeah. I think it’s, I think being, doing that is almost like sowing those seeds, right? You’re giving everybody a little seed packet to go away and then sow their own seeds, and hopefully over time we get enough momentum to really make a big difference.

Stephanie: Well, and it gives people the fuel that to get pregnant today, it gives that person the tool to maneuver the unjust system. [Yeah.] Because without those tool that she shouldn’t have to go get, but she has to go get in order to maneuver the current systematic issue that we have with fertility and healthcare and sizeism.

Nicola: Yeah. And these people make incredible parents. Like, ugh, they’re, [I’m sure] it is breaking generational trauma on so many levels because the tools that they’re learning now, they’re teaching to their kids and their kids are growing up knowing how to advocate for themselves, knowing that diet culture is rubbish. You know, it’s just, it’s just beautiful.

Stephanie: It must be very motivating to do the work at the individual level when you see the big picture like this.

Nicola: Yeah, I mean, it’s the individual level that really gives me the energy myself to go for the big stuff like the small wins, the being able to stand up to the doctor, the positive pregnancy test, that stuff is the fuel for me to go bigger and to make bigger, [to do the big work.]

Nicola: Absolutely. And I would not be able to do it without it

Stephanie: Because for people who’ve never done activism at a bigger level, that is energy draining. [Mm-hmm.] Right. Like that requires a lot of energy to work at that level. So getting the victory at the individual level and seeing like the ripple effect [mm-hmm] is what fuels the energy we have to spend on the bigger work.

Nicola: Yeah. Because it often feels like you’re just banging ahead against the brick wall. Like, you’ve gotta try so many doors before one will open and it just, yeah, it really is magical, you know? And these people should be getting this care already. They shouldn’t have to pay me to get it. But I feel so honored to be able to walk along that path with them for a short while.

Stephanie: And what’s the name of your program that helps them lauren at Bolt Safety and Advocacy level?

Nicola: So it’s called Supported. So it’s like a 12 month program where we go through all of the different tools and things that they need, and it’s a really beautiful community container so that they can access support both from me and from other people who are also navigating similar situations

Stephanie: Because when of the side effect of any discrimination or any injustice is isolation. [Mm-hmm. Yes.] You think you’re the only one. [Mm-hmm.] When in fact you’re not, but the way the system works is isolating you. [Yeah.] So being in community like that, just by doing that is healing.

Nicola: Yeah. It’s so powerful and it’s beyond magical because there’s so much more that people get from being in a container like that. And because of the very nature facility, that itself is isolating and because of then the added layer of the guilt and the shame that so many folks feel through this process. They don’t wanna talk to their friends, they don’t wanna talk to their family, they don’t wanna reach out. So it’s like this double layer of isolation. So it’s, yeah, it’s beautiful to watch.

Stephanie: So, I wanna get into, also for people listening to this, because there’s a lot of professionals and practitioner that listen to my podcast. I wanna talk a little bit about you as an individual creating a business like that. Like we’ve talked about, like activism and all of that. But how has been your journey of building that kind of business?

Nicola: Mm, it’s been…

Stephanie: Have you ever talked about this publicly before? This is your first, okay. We’re like revealing the curtain. We’re pulling the curtain people.

Nicola: Oh, it’s been amazing to run a business. Like it has been the quickest, like self acceptance, self exploratory process ever. Like it has been a whirlwind of delving deep into who I am, who I thought I was. And what it means to be a person doing this work. But yeah, I mean I have had many highs and lows. I have a billion different ways I’ve tried to run a business and different, different ways that I’ve used as measures of success and I’m coming to terms slowly with how my brain works now.

Nicola: I have a feeling that I may be autistic, I may have a D H D, and so really leaning into how my brain works and how I like to do things and what works for me over the past six months has been really powerful in helping me get to a point where my business feels not only sustainable, but exciting again, because for a long time, it’s been up and down and like things have gone really well and then I’ve crashed and then my energy levels are super low, and then I feel like I’m gonna have to go and get a job again. And then I feel okay again and then things go really well. And it’s just been this rollercoaster and I’ve been bringing up babies in the meantime. Like my business is as old as my oldest, oldest child now,nine years. So my business has never existed without me being a parent at the same time and navigating that identity and how kind of the patriarchy defines what the role of a mother should look like and how to navigate wanting to work on my business and what that means about me as a person when I’m also being dragged into parenthood. Like it’s been a real interesting ride for sure.

Stephanie: I love that you say it’s been a journey of self-discovery, [mm-hmm] of like uprooting things that you would’ve never otherwise uprooted and faced.

Nicola: I feel so honored and so lucky to have had the opportunity to do that. I feel very privileged and I am privileged to be able to be in a position now where my business doesn’t have to bring in the full money that my family and my household needs in order to run. And I want it to be there eventually. But because I have my husband and he works full-time and he has a stable job, like a proper salary job that gives us the flexibility for me to be able to be, yeah, to follow my dream, to really follow my instincts about what I want my business to look like and how I want it to work and how I want it to run. And that’s, yeah, I know it will come to fruition and be able to financially support me really soon.

Stephanie: You talked about the ups and downs. [Mm-hmm.] Can we dive into that a little bit in the sense like, it has happened to me, it has happened, it’s happening to many people, no matter which business you are in, like your own business. What you sell is irrelevant, but when you’re building your own business, you often have those ups and downs. If you look back, what is one thing that you’ve learned that creates those ups and downs or that exaggerate the ups and downs?

Nicola: I think the biggest thing for me was my expectations of what it should look like. So, [oh,] when I first started my business, I had no real concept of what running a business looked like. So I had the expectations around like revenue, like I should be making X dollars per month. And I didn’t have any real concept of the fact that most businesses, because I didn’t really take myself seriously, a business at first had like capital that was invested. [Mm-hmm] and had you know this like startup fund of thousands, millions of pounds and dollars, and I had no real concept of that.

Nicola: So when I wasn’t immediately out the gate making money, I thought it was a me problem. I thought there was something wrong with the how I was doing things. And it was like my expectation of what that should look like was really skewed because of what we see in this like little bubble of online business of how things should look.

Nicola: So, I think that really exaggerated the lows for me because I thought I should be so much further along than I was, and I was comparing my like chapter one business to people’s Chapter 20. So of course it wasn’t gonna look similar, but I didn’t see behind the scenes of their businesses. I didn’t know what was going on behind the like perfect picture Instagram photos. So it’s been an eye-opener to really understand that it’s okay that I’m not making millions, like I’ve been bootstrapping this from the very beginning. I’ve been resourceful. I’ve beeninvesting in myself. I have been creating this reality of now we’ve moved from the suburbs of London to this glorious house in the countryside, and that is my vision. That is my drive. I’ve created this reality for myself.

Nicola: And whilst my business isn’t where I’ve dreamed it to be yet, that it’s non-negotiable that it’s gonna get there. It’s just a matter of when. And knowing that it’s taken me nine years to get there, now is okay, because I didn’t have millions invested at the beginning. [Mm-hmm.] I have been investing all that time and I’m really proud of what I’ve created and the body of work that I have created because, it’s so much more than just being financially viable. Like I know that the work that I have done has touched thousands of people’s lives in a really positive way.

Stephanie: And it will continue [Mm-hmm. That’s it] because it exists as a body of work for people. Like Body of Work is when you create your own theory or your own methodology, your own processes, like that Body of Work, those podcast episode, that book is gonna help millions of people in years to come. [Mm-hmm. Just, yeah.]

Stephanie: The gap. And I just wanna, because I’m a coach at heart, I can’t stop coaching, but I just wanna point out, you talked about your glorious house [mm] in the suburb, in part, your business offered you that. [Mm-hmm.] Because would you have worked in a office in London, you would’ve not had the freedom to move to the countryside?

Stephanie: [Absolutely.] Can you see that? [ Yes. Oh yeah.] It may not be the traditional Chiche money, money. But it offered you the freedom.

Nicola: Yeah. And it also offered me the, I think the insight to be able to really explore what I wanted and not settle [Yes] for less.

Stephanie: Yes. To design the life that you want [Mm-hmm] In the way that you want.

Nicola: Yeah. Without business building, without going on this entrepreneur journey, that would not even have been on my radar.

Stephanie: No. And, and as you are exploring the current, where your brains are functioning, if you try to fit yourself in what I call like oppressive business culture, you’ll never fit in the mold, in the box. You creating your business and being aware of that and creating the business that fits your brain, fits the way you think, that’s a massive anxiety, stress release for yours to come, [oh] instead of trying to fit yourself into a system that is not made for you.

Nicola: Yeah. And it changes the system, right? Like the more people that, that come in and do things their way, we are changing how it works. [Yes.] And it gives permission for other people to do the same.

Stephanie: Yes, it does. I. I have one more question that I want to get into is the whole concept of coaching. [Mm-hmm.] So you did the acupuncture for four or five years, then you started the online business I’m an advocacy level. And then recently you came to me and you did a training with me on coaching. [Yes.] How has that impacted or has an impacted or changed the way you work with people in your relationship to your business?

Nicola: Yeah, in a huge way. I think the biggest gift it gave me was, whilst I could coach, I had no confidence in my coaching and I had no confidence in the work that I gave to the world. So the very beginning thing that we did was the self coaching, and that has just been transformational for me and for my business because it has given me the tools, which I never even knew that I needed to, to reflect on what’s working on what’s not working, to give me the capacity to be able to make decisions better in my business from a place of knowing, rather from a place of, well, that’s what that person did, or that’s what that person did.

Nicola: It’s just given me so much confidence in my own intuition around that and around what my getting my needs met and feeling safer in my business. And that foundation has just given me a springboard to be able to go and make really good decisions about what’s gonna be good for me, what’s gonna be good for my business and the people that I work with. You know, what’s good for me is good for them because I show up in a, from a place of feeling energized, from feeling confident, from providing that space to feel safe. So it’s just, yeah, it’s transformed how I feel about my business and how I show up in my business, and I know that is just gonna have a huge ripple effect on every other aspect of my business.

Stephanie: I just wanna highlight something again, and just because I’m a coach, you said that your program you’re offering to people is centered around safety [Mm-hmm] and advocacy. [Yeah. ] What you just said that coaching gave you was safety to do the way you wanted to do your business, to advocate through this oppressive online business structure to do it your way. [Mm-hmm.] Do you see the parallel?

Nicola: Oh, I love that. I love how that’s mirrored in that. I think that’s really magical.

Stephanie: it’s mirrored. And people like, I just want people to hear that, that it is your work or not. The people you work with, that you hire to give you something can only give you as much as they give themselves. [Mm-hmm.] Right. So if you were to look at a scale of one to 10, you were at a, I don’t know, five or six, in your ability to provide a safe container for people working through their fertility issue. [Mm-hmm.] But by you making yourself safer through your decision, your thoughts, your feeling, you will amp up the safety you are able to give to people. Can you see that?

Nicola: Yeah. And I didn’t even know that I needed that. Like I didn’t even recognize at the beginning that that was the issue. I thought it was, yeah, I thought I was doing a great job showing up but I was just being really hard on myself. So seeing how that can grow and seeing how that, it just spreads. It just feels really, yeah,

Stephanie: But you were showing up amazingly to the capacity you had two years ago? [Mm-hmm. Yeah.] Do you know you had a capacity of six and you were showing up at six?

Nicola: Hmm. But I didn’t even realize then that I only was at a six. Like I thought that was my 10.

Stephanie: But in the way it was your 10, it was your six outta six. It was your a hundred percent safe that [Yeah] you were able to give people. Absolutely.] You’re just grown your own safety and you will continue to grow your safety [mm-hmm] and that will grow the capacity for you to offer safety to other people even more and at a different level. [Mm-hmm] That’s what I find magical about human product, which mostly are call coaching, counseling, [hmm,] right. We’re not talking about water bottle here. We’re talking about like human product, of working with human being, is that when you do your work from a place of wanting to help other people, you have no choice but to upgrade yourself. [Mm-hmm.] Not because you were broken before, just because you want to be able to offer more to people, and the only way to offer more is for you to be more, not because you were deficient, just because you’re growing and expending yourself.

Nicola: Mm-hmm. And I love that that’s, I feel, for so long I thought I put everybody else’s needs above my own. And I love that putting my own needs first is the thing that will help everybody else, right. It’s that like, [yes,] I get to put my myself first in everything and that will overflow to help everybody else.

Stephanie: For people that are in that pattern right now [Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.] of people pleasing, [Mm-hmm] what is the one thing you would advise them? Like what is the one shift that you’re now able to talk about it this way, to put your needs first and not feel guilty or shame about it?

Nicola: Oh, that is a good question. [Yes.] I think for me, the very first shift that I did that really helped me get out of that people pleasing mode was to notice when I was saying, sorry. Now this sounds, it sounds really interesting, but for the longest time, anytime anything bad happened I would just be like, sorry, sorry, sorry, and assume blame for everything. And then at one point, and I can’t remember when it was, I decided that I didn’t need to be sorry for my existence all the time, and I switched it.

Nicola: So I started, first of all, I started noticing when I was saying it, and then I started to be more intentional about what I was saying. So rather than saying sorry automatically for everything, I started saying, well, if I needed to say anything at all, which half of the time I didn’t because I didn’t have anything to be sorry for, instead of saying, sorry for being late, I’d be saying like, thank you for being patient while I was a little bit late. And I just, it was that change in, instead of apologizing for my existence, it was acknowledging that I am human and that I don’t have to say sorry for everything and I don’t have to make everybody else feel more comfortable at my own expense. And I think that like, that tiny tweak of putting myself, and I know exactly what you’re gonna say, having your own back.

Stephanie: I know

Nicola: That was it. That was the very first time I was starting to have my own back.

Stephanie: And it’s, you know, I wanna highlight that or explain to people, having your own back means being, as an adult, right, when you’re a child, your back is your parent. That’s who are designed to protect you and teach you. But when you become an adult, you have to become your own parent, your own protector. And for so many of us, the more identity your layer on yourself, as a woman, as a fat person, as a person with that is queer, whatever your identity, the more identity you layer on, the more you need to be strong for yourself, for your own self-protection. Otherwise, your safety goes down the toilet and then you start like being a people pleaser to offset your existence. [Mm-hmm.] That’s brilliant. Can we talk about doing business in fat body?

Nicola: Yes.

Stephanie: Okay. So we were doing an exercise recently and I can’t remember what it was, but we’re talking about the possibility thing, we were talking about in terms of how can we see in the future and the possibility, and you said for you, you almost had this thought or this belief that fat women could not be successful in business. [Mm-hmm.]

Stephanie: Can you talk about that? And meanwhile, you’re trying to build your business for eight, nine years at that point. [Yeah.] And you were holding the belief that fat people or fat women could not be successful in business.

Nicola: I held on really tight to that belief for all that time because I think for me, I saw a lot of people around me having, perceived to be having things that I wanted. So people would have traditional book deals, for example, or appear to have really thriving businesses, and I felt like I was just paddling so hard into that water, and I made that belief that because I was fat, because I wasn’t typically the thin ideal of, thin, blonde, beautiful, [beauty] exactly. That, that, that was why, because I was sold that, right, we’re all sold that from a really young age that you get to be successful when you are thin, you get to have success.

Nicola: And I internalize that so hard and so deeply and it was only since that call, since we talked about that, that I really realized that it wasn’t the fact that I was fat that was holding me back, but the fact that I believed that fat people can’t have successful businesses and that was what’s holding me back. So I have been doing a lot of work on that very belief since then.

Stephanie: Yeah. And again, that is your fat or your own, any identities that are oppressed in society. It is more difficult for people with various identity in certain sector but it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be your reality. [Mm-hmm.] You can think about it differently and make it easier for you.

Nicola: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Like privilege is a very, very real thing. Like there’s no way to deny that. We know that fat people get paid less in their work. [Yeah.] We know that this happens, but what was happening for me is that that belief was leading me to make decisions that weren’t benefiting me. [Yes.] So rather than believing that reality, I choose to believe a different reality where fat people have really successful businesses and that helps me make different decisions in my day-to-day life.

Stephanie: Yeah. You were talking about paddling. [Mm-hmm]. A lot of us fall into that, that we have to offset where we’re not good enough because society tells us, because that’s what we believe about ourself. So we work, we we need the art, [Yeah] like really, really hard and we get exhausted. We go the high, the lows, because we’re trying to offset are not good enough for, wherever it comes from is irrelevant, but what it does is it prevents us from accessing success, whatever success looks like to you because we’re paddling too hard. [Yeah.] And I think that’s what you’re reestablishing in your business right now.

Nicola: Yeah. It so many times to me that yeah, that paddle, battle, battle, oh no, I feel like I’m gonna die now. I’m so tired. So yeah, I am making some big changes into how I show up now so that I have that energy sustainable because I wanna keep doing this work, and I can only do that if it’s sustainable, and I don’t want to go into these burnouts anymore, like that’s not enjoyable for me. And it doesn’t have to be like that because I can choose to show up and to do what I need to do and have a really successful business in my body that exists now, which is fat.

Stephanie: Exactly. I just wanna take a minute to talk to this, like at a global level and I’m becoming more and more aware of that. We’re talking about oppressive business culture, how we build businesses and there’s another way to do it, and we’re breaking the paradigm to do that. You’re talking about breaking the paradigm infertility, food or body image for me, like everywhere we’re talking about breaking paradigm and killing the sacred cow. I want people to think about what the circumstance you’re in, that you’re a lawyer, that you’re an accountant, that you’re a social worker, and I want you to think in term of, in the work you’re doing, which paradigm is present that causes you to have to paddle and work really, really hard.

Stephanie: It’s not just online business culture, I’m coaching a lawyer right now in one of my group, and it’s the lawyer culture, it’s the accountant culture. Like those paradigm are everywhere.

Nicola: Capitalism, just right. You can’t escape it.

Stephanie: But you can do it differently.

Nicola: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Stephanie: And it starts with you. [Mm-hmm.] Like yes, there’s a problem systemic, we need to address the systemic issue. [Mm-hmm.] But the way for you to have the strength, the capacity, the resilience to address the systemic issue in your environment is by first starting with you. [Mm-hmm.] And building that resilience and you to first like organize the way you’re doing your career, your work, so it’s safe for you to do it so you then you can go out and change the system or the culture of your industry. Why are you laughing?

Nicola: It’s just so exciting. Like in just imagining all these little people in their lawyer bubbles, [yes] fantasy bubbles, and we’re just all smashing it down on our own little bit. [Yes] We’re all doing it together and it’s just, yeah, it’s exciting.

Stephanie: To me, that’s what coaching is. Coaching is activism at the individual level. [Mm-hmm.] Right. If I can help people gain the resilience, the strength, the confidence, the mental capacity, then they’re gonna go in their own bubble and make changes. And all of us collectively, like you said, are going to blow up and make changes at the systemic level. But for the next five years, 10 years, it’s at the individual level. [Hmm.] A Beautiful conversation.

Nicola: Thank you so much for this. It’s just been, yeah, really nourishing and it really fills me up and makes me excited to do this work.

Stephanie: Is there anything that we didn’t talk about that you would like to bring up to, any words of wisdom or anything we skipped over?

Nicola: I think we covered a lot. [Yeah.] I guess the biggest thing for me is to just obviously work with you because this has been transformative. You know, the work that we’ve done together has been huge for me. But yeah, believing that you are worthyto invest in has just been the biggest and best lesson for me in my business.

Stephanie: In every angle. [Mm-hmm.] That you’re a fat person wanting to be pregnant, investing in yourself to go get the resource [Yeah] that I’m not available anywhere through you and to the people working on their way of thinking, their mindset, all of that, you are worthy to invest in yourself and yeah, you shouldn’t have to, but it is what it is. [Mm-hmm.] Like we need to make ourselves stronger individually, It’s from every angle possible.

Nicola: Yeah. You deserve it.

Stephanie: And what is the name of your podcast in your book? Just so people can grab the first layer of you, remind everyone the name of your podcast in your book.

Nicola: They’re both called Fat and Fertile. So you can grab the book on Amazon, and then the podcast is just wherever you listen to your podcast.

Stephanie: And then you start your journey there. And for many women listening to this, it’s referral. [Mm-hmm.] When you hear someone talking about their difficulty or hinting that they’re having difficulty with fertility, send them to those free resources of the podcast to get them started to know that there’s another way.

Nicola: Yeah. And they’re not alone.

Stephanie: But for many women, they think there’s no other, stuck doing that, and it’s not true. So let them make their way through your podcast and then see if they need some help. Thank you very much Nicola for your time today.

Nicola: Thank you.

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