How To Optimize Your Health from the Inside Out with Nicole Vienneau

You're listening to the PT Proffit podcast, episode number 109. Today I'm sitting down with Ms. Nicole Vianno to talk all about how to optimize your health from the inside out. Are you ready? Let's get started. Hi, I'm Beverly Simpson, former fitness manager turned online personal training business owner. And this podcast is where smart fitness professionals, including trainers and clinicians, discover how to increase client performance in movement, package and position their products and services and get out of their own way so that they can increase their revenue to live a life that they love without sleazy sales. Welcome to the PT Profit Podcast. What's up coach? Thank you so much for pushing play on another episode of the PT Profit Podcast. I'm your host, Beverly Simpson, and if this is the first time you're hanging out with me today, welcome. Thank you so much much for being here. I am so grateful for you and really excited to get this interview to you. So I sat down with Nicole weeks ago and honestly, you know when you have that moment when you really sit down and you talk to someone for the first time or maybe the fifth time, tenth time, and you just love talking to this person, that is what it was like sitting down with Ms. Nicole. I mean, she is such an incredible human being. I loved this conversation and honestly, I think I said this a couple of times. I could have literally talked to her for 10 hours. What she has done in her life is nothing short of extraordinary. After two decades as an intensive care nurse caring for the sickest of patients, Nicole left the one size fits all health care industry that has lost the ability to see the unique individual needs of each human seeking help. Nicole knew that she needed to stop the cycle of disease and created the Blue Monarch Health PLLC. Here she partners with the active aging population, those 50 plus and beyond, helping them turn overwhelm into courage by teaching them to be the authority of their own health and vitality through actionable wellness plans they can really do in their life. Nicole achieved a Master's in Nursing Science from the University of Arizona and a board certification in Nurse coaching from the American American Holistic Nurses Credentialing Corporation. She is a personal trainer, yoga teacher, group fitness instructor and retired Reebok sponsored fitness athlete and enjoys healing in nature while hiking the Pacific Northwest trails with her husband or lounging in the sun with her crazy cat babies. And we talk about it all inside of this episode. So without further ado, let's go ahead and roll the that interview. Nicole, thank you so much for Joining me on the show today, how are you doing?

I am fantastic. How are you doing, Beverly?

I'm doing great. I'm super excited for today. It's going to be a lot of fun. So, as always, I like to start off nice, easy and casual and just ask a little bit about who you are, who you serve and how you got there.

Great. Well, my name is Nicole Vienno. I am a registered nurse, Master's prepared. I started off my career way back in the. I won't even say the year. I'll just say When I was 17, my mom was asking me what I would like for Christmas. And I said, you know, Mom, I would really love to have a membership to the local ymca. I had no friends who were doing it. I was just really interested in what was going on in that building. I walked by it every day on my way to school. And so she said, of course you can go there. So she hooked me up with a membership, and off I went into the world of the ymca. I started taking group fitness classes. I started to discover weight training. I just was really interested in the community that was surrounding the ymca. And I loved step class. Remember step way back in the day? Maybe you don't remember step, but I remember Stephanie.

I do remember stuff. I remember, and then I feel like it's like, come back around. Like, I feel like I still see some of it sometimes, but okay, yes.

Yeah, it is still around. In fact, sometimes I, like, I'll just show up at a gym if I'm vacationing somewhere, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, there's a step class. Yay. Jump into the step class. So I took the step classes religiously. I loved it. I loved what was going on with music and movement. I was gaining a real innate sensation in my body I didn't. Had never really known before. And I was just loving it. And one day the teacher came to me and said, oh, Nicole, you come to these classes all the time. You obviously love it. You move really well. And we're having a group fitness instructor training, and I think you should take it. And, you know, at 17, you're like, what? Stand in front? Like you do. I can't do that. But I thought about it. I talked to my mom. My mom has always been really supportive of me and whatever I do. And she said, you should do it. So I signed up. I took all the training. I became a group fitness instructor when I was 18. At that time, and I will admit, I was horrible. I was a horrible instructor in the Sense that I couldn't hold a beat. I had no idea about musical flight phrasing. I had, you know, the beginnings of understanding exercise physiology and connecting those pieces together. So I didn't really know how to program. Back in the day, we didn't have the playlist like we have today. So I made my own cassette tapes, recorded them on the radio.

Me too. When I was a kid, you'd like, wait all day and then you're like, it's on, it's on. Hit record.

And then inevitably the announcer would talk at the beginning of your song and you're like, no, I waited. So anyways, I didn't know I was horrible. I only look back now and I laugh. But I saw that as the beginning. It is the beginning of my fitness journey and I just loved it so much that it continued on. I took every workshop I could. I figured out musical phrasing, I practiced. I became stronger and stronger, more effective in my cueing and exercise physiology. I became a personal trainer, and then I discovered nursing. My sister was a nurse. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just knew that I loved people. I loved connecting with others and helping them find the best version possible that they could for themselves. And so I took nursing. I went to nursing school and my first job, I moved all the way from Canada to Las Vegas, Nevada and worked in the intensive care unit of one of the local hospitals there. And, you know, it was 24 years old and discovered nursing.

Insane. Okay, so just real quick before we go to that pivot, I'm just curious, you know, now you, you, you're this, you're this group fitness awesome person. Even though you're like, wait, back then, but you know now and you're, you've become this trainer. Like, did you feel like you just hadn't landed your calling? Were you tired of personal training? Like, what brought you to, you know, decide that you didn't want to make a career out of this?

Yeah, you know, that's a really interesting question, Beverly. And I haven't really thought about that. I just knew that I could keep doing my fitness as like a side gig in a way. I never really thought of it as a full on career, a career opportunity that I could really make a living in. And I'm not sure why I didn't think of that back in the day of 23, 24. Now I see this whole collective of all of my skills being brought together in the work I do today. I have 18 years of critical care experience in the ICU and different types of critical care. So from neurotrauma to cardiovascular to surgical to medical icu, I was a manager. I was in quality and risk management. I did all of this stuff in the critical care world. Alongside all of that, I was a personal trainer, group fitness instructor, national trainer, Reebok sponsored fitness athlete. I did all of this stuff alongside my nursing career. I just felt it was a beautiful parallel. Here I am working with super sick people, and then I have this fun, super fun job where I can help people stay healthy. But the only thing with doing all of that at the same time is you can become pretty burned out and not even know it been.

My jaw is dropped. I mean, first of all, nursing school on itself or just on like doing it itself in addition to working full time, I mean, or even part time, like, that is just so intense.

Yeah, really intense. You know, as a critical care nurse, I. And you see it on the news now with all that's going on in the world with this horrible, horrible illness going around and, you know, you see these. These very sick people. I mean, that's what I dealt with every day. I saw a lot of suffering, a lot of pain, a lot of turmoil, a lot of illness, a lot of death. And I dealt with that internally. And I didn't realize that there was this thing, the sickness. I called it sickness because I was really ill at the time. That's called burnout. It's called compassion fatigue, where you care so much about the other people that you forget about yourself. And I think a lot of women fall into this burnout category, you know, because we're caring for people so much in our lives that we can tend to put ourselves at the bottom of the list. And as I was doing all of that work for others, I forgot, you know, I was tending to my physical side. Right. I was definitely doing that. Running, working out, lifting weights, teaching group fitness. But I didn't realize at the time that I also. And we, all of us have this. Our spiritual side, our emotional side, our minds, our relationships with others, our environment and the environments that we put ourselves in with each other. And then also the external environments, like the air we breathe, the food we eat, all of that kind of stuff. And I didn't realize that I was not tending to myself as a whole being. And that's when I became burned out.

Yeah, I mean, it's so, so powerful. Can you just explain a little bit, like, if you don't mind sharing, like, what happened when you realized, like, what was, what was happening when you Were going through this experience because I can only imagine that feeling of like, I'm doing all the right things, I'm eating well, I'm working out, I'm taking care. Why am I feeling like garbage?

Yeah. And yeah, that's a real strong word, that garbage feeling. Because that is what I felt like. Like, I. So I'm a type A personality. I'm a go getter, they call us. I like to do things very well. And I was a nurse and still am a nurse who. Who wants to do the best for all the others. Right, all the others. So when you do lose the focus on yourself you are trying to do for others, but you don't have enough energy to do that at the time. The things that I was feeling as a nurse who took on the sickest patients, who was trusted so much by the manager to here you take on this really difficult family because I know you can do it. All of those things were great because I did thrive in that environment. But I started to feel really, like. I started to feel disconnected. So I started to feel apathetic, like, yeah, whatever. Not in the sense of like my patients, but myself. Oh, yeah, don't worry. You can do that later. Don't worry about that. Oh, you don't really have a decision about that. I also started to think that I just was a bad nurse, which is. It's not that I was actually, like, suppressing all of the suffering and sorrow that I really felt inside. I was suppressing it. I didn't have an avenue to get rid of it. I didn't have an avenue to express any of that. And I just thought that I was a bad nurse. So you know what I did, Beverly? So crazy. I left the bedside, I left nursing, and I took a job at the YMCA as the. As a health and fitness director. And through that experience, I realized, oh, my gosh, Nicole, you're burned out. You need a space from that environment, but you also need to start caring for yourself through that whole experience as well as, you know, working at the ymca. I did to that for a very short time. I discovered nurse coaching and nurse coaching as I read this article about nurse coaching written by one of my mentors, Barbara Dossey, who is a holistic nurse. She was writing about the role of nurse coaching, which is nurses who are doing health and wellness coaching. And health and wellness coaching is like being with another person on a deep level where you can share and they can feel a safe space so they can share whatever it is that's on their heart and mind about their health and the health components. When I was speaking of all those things that are creative, this facet, all the facets of us, that we nurses are doing this work. And nurses are really positioned to do the work because we have all of this medical knowledge behind us. The science of nursing, you know, we understand the physiology, we understand the way the bodies work, the systems of the body, we understand the healthcare environment in its space. We understand the relationship between human and human. And the cool thing is that nurses are the most trusted. An ethically sound profession out of all professions rated 18 years and counting in the Gallup polls. So what that says is that people trust us. People trust nurses. They know that they can be in this vulnerable space to share their thoughts, to share their ideas and not be judged about them, but instead to allow them to express what has been potentially squashed down. Like in my case, I was squashing everything down. So I discovered that world. And that is when I feel like I have really opened up and found my calling because I'm able to like add all of the fitness components and the nutrition side of things, the spirituality of meditation, awareness practices and really having meaningful conversations with someone instead of like in the critical care where you can't. Because nurses have to do so many things are tasked with keeping someone alive. That's a whole different world in nursing. This world is where I can be with, really feel that connection with another soul and help them to see what's important to them. So hopefully they never even get to see a nurse like me in the icu.

Oh my gosh. I have so many different directions. I want real quick on the clarifying, just a clarifying question for you was when you reached this moment of burnout, were you still in Nevada in the icu or had you transitioned or were you still there?

Yeah, I actually was what's called a travel nurse. So I went around to different areas. So I lived in San Diego, I lived in Seattle, I lived in Nevada. I was all over the place and learning different areas of icu. So that in itself too is very stressful to go into different environments. But you're still. I feel like that was what makes me who I am today because I. You can put me in anti into any situation and I'm going to make it work. You can give me two toothpicks and I will figure out how to use them to save your life.

I did not know that. I mean, why would they have a travel nurse? And I hope that question doesn't sound offensive. I just never thought that that position would exist. What would cause someone to hire a travel nurse versus not?

Yes, unfortunately, nursing is one of those professions that is that there are not enough nurses for. So you can have a hospital and have 100 nursing jobs, and maybe only 80 or 70 of those jobs are actually filled by people who are in your community. So you would contract a travel nursing company who would fill those positions from someone like me, who's an external person, maybe doesn't live there, but wants to check out that area. So it's a bonus for somebody like me coming in, getting to see what San Diego is like and then working in their hospital for a shorter term. So maybe, you know, a couple of months time where I can fill a void. So could be, you know, they don't have enough people. Maybe they're seasonal. Like in Florida. Like, there's an influx of, you know, active agers going to Florida, and maybe they. They need extra nurses at that time. So that's kind of like how. How the travel nurse role works.

Okay, so you then left to do the stint at YMCA and then. Yes, nursing coaching. Okay, so now where are you now.

Living or where am I in my business?

Both. But are you. Are you living now?

Yes. Oh, so now I am in transition again, Beverly.

You know, so funny. It's so. And the reason why I'm laughing is because I was called to be an actress when I was, you know, younger. And I kept. One of the things I kept saying is I don't want to live this bohemian lifestyle. Come to. Like, that's just not true. I do live a bohemian lifestyle. Doesn't matter. Wherever you go, there you are.

So it's just.

That's why I'm laughing.

Anyway, we have that connection. Yeah. So right now I'm in northern Washington. I live in a very small community, which has been a godsend during this time of COVID But it's also been a godsend for my business too. And I am transitioning to move to Tucson, Arizona over the next few weeks.

Oh, that'll be different. That'll be a different experience. Quite different climate.

Yeah, quite a different climate. But I'm looking forward to it because I really see the need for what I'm presently doing in that community as well. So.

Great. So now please share with us a little bit. So you're. Now you went to nursing coaching where you taken a holistic approach. And one of the things I'm curious about, which you can expand on, is that for me, when I look at hospital life, and this is just my personal Opinion. But there's this sense of reactive care. Everyone's just trying to, you know, keep you alive, especially in the IC world. Right. And then you've got the fitness side or, you know, the what you were doing, which lives in a more of a preventative care. Not always, but oftentimes will live in a preventative care. Now it sounds like you've combined this world of prevention and also, you know, helping serving in that, in reactive. So I'd love for you to just share a little bit more about what you do now.

Yes. Oh, yes. I too feel like the healthcare system is somewhat of a rat race. We do focus on disease care. For example, I look at the cdc, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics on chronic disease. We know that six out of ten Americans have at least one chronic disease. We know that four out of ten Americans have two or more chronic diseases. Chronic disease meaning renal failure, congestive heart failure, hypertension, high blood pressure. They could have dementia, Alzheimer's, diabetes, obesity. All of these disease processes, all of these disease processes are chronic. Like, they evolve over time. So the healthcare system was designed, I think, originally to help people in acute processes. If you had a heart attack, you want to have care. If you have a real sick illness that can be treated with antibiotics and so forth, you want that care. But in a chronic disease state, the disease will continue to evolve, potentially leading to disability, like inability to be active, inability to stay independent, inability to travel like you want to ending up in a nursing home. In its worst case, and its really worst case is, of course, mortality or death. And so I look at our healthcare system and I think, oh my gosh, we have created this monster where we will try to take care of people. Yes, of course that's what healthcare wants to do. But what we're seeing is all of these people are coming with chronic illnesses. These are things that, you know, it's taken potentially decades for these disease processes to show up. It's not like one day you wake up and you have diabetes, or one day you wake up and you have dementia. These things have been brewing for decades, and then they come to surface at some point. So health care steps in healthcare is focused on slowing down a symptom or treating a symptom. And usually it revolves around some kind of medication to give to a person. So we also know that prevention of illness is a very, very small component of what we do in health care. I look at like, okay, how much does chronic disease cost? Well, CDC says it's cost like $3.3 trillion to take care of people with chronic illness, and yet we spend 1% of that money towards prevention. And that is like, whoa. To me, I'm like, hey, Nicole, you saw so many sick people, and if they could talk to you in the critical care environment, if they were able to heal and get better from whatever illness they were in, When I asked them, what brought you to this state, what happened to you in your life that that brought you to this point where you became so ill? And. And what they oftentimes would say to me is like, I don't know. I don't know how I got here. I don't know what brought me here. And every time I would hear that, it would just be like a chip off my heart, because I know and I still know and I live this is that there are ways for people to prevent illness. One second, if you have an illness, you could mitigate it, you could slow it down. You could become the authority of your health. So you could take charge of what's important to you, what your values are related to your health. Has anybody ever asked you that in your life? Right. No, we don't do that in health care. But this is what nurses are doing. We're having these conversations so that, yeah, you can say, okay, if I have high blood pressure, I know that there are certain things that my doctor will tell me to do. Okay, that's great. You'll go to your doctor's appointment, they tell you, xyz, you leave the doctor's appointment, and you're like, now what the hell am I supposed to do? I've got all these things I'm supposed to do, but I don't know how to do them. I don't even know how even, like one of smidgen of those things is going to fit into my life. And so this role of nurse coaches helps people talk about how they're going to do it. How are you going to reduce salt in your diet? Could you reduce salt in your diet? Is that even a priority to you? So this kind of. The vision of nurse coaching is to step aside and work in partnership with the present healthcare system because it is imperative that we have it. But how can we slow down people from getting to the point of having to utilize that chronic disease healthcare environment.

That is so powerful? Now, you said something that I really think is important that people hear, especially personal trainers and other coaches to hear this, is that when you talk to patients and you ask them, you know, how do you get there? They often will tell you, I don't know, and that I don't like. My husband says it all the time. He'll be like, I just, I woke up and I realized I was here. So many people are living their life on automation and not really fully in tune with how they got there. And in addition to having no tools to know how to get out of there. And so what happens to a lot of personal trainers and clinicians is that they don't realize that the value that they bring to people because what is so innate to us is not innate to everybody. And people forget that. So I just think it's so important to, to remember, as we are helping facilitate these transformations for people, is that what is easy for us is just not easy for everyone.

It's so not easy for everyone. It's not easy for me. I think of some things that I work on in my own life to maintain my health, my vitality that's important to me. Vitality. Living with, living in a state of ease. I call it, it's ease where I flow through my life. A type A personality can have a stress level that will continue to build if I don't do my own internal practices of coming down from that. So for me, one of my struggles is. Okay, Nicole, you need to do, or you have wanted to do, your meditation practice. So how are you putting that into your life? What are the steps that you need to take? Whether that be just organizing my office space or whatever that might look like for me to actually think of those steps and then to do those steps so you can think about them, they got to do them. And then you have to try to somehow sort it out to then turn it into a practice that you could continually do, just like a habit like brushing your teeth.

Okay, great. So now I'd love for you, if you wouldn't mind, to just expand a little bit more on now. What are some of the things like, you know, and I know that every person is different depending on whether they're preventing, you know, we're in prevention or we're mitigating, you know, the how to get out of their illness. But you said that there are some things that people can do. I'm curious and I, and I've heard you mention meditation. So I'm just curious if you wouldn't mind expanding on some of the things that people can do in their lifestyle to manage some of their, you know, their chronic illness.

That.

That's not what you're going to hear from a doctor.

Yes, and let's just put it out there that our Healthcare providers are working their butts off and they're really working in a system that is designed as a business. And so you think of a provider, your doctor, nurse practitioner, they have like 15 minutes to have a one to one visit in a doctor's office.

And also to say too, because I sometimes feel like doctors do get a hard. They're people too. And our brain is designed to automate and to take the fastest, most efficient way possible. So as a doctor who's seeing hundreds of people, it is hard to press that reset of like this is a new soul that I'm engaging with.

It's hard, absolutely hard. This is a little caveat to this because in the nurse coaching curriculum, I'm also faculty for the Integrative Nurse Coach Academy and I teach nurses how to do this nurse coaching thing. But we do talk about how we as clinicians can insert these styles, these tools and tips of actually coaching of health coaching into say a 15 minute session with a client in a fast paced environment. It's a different way of communicating and it's a skill that you have to learn. It's not a skill that you'll ever learn in school. It isn't, it's just not. It's just an additional way of being able to communicate with, with another human being. And resetting every time, like you say, resetting every time you come to speak with someone new. Yeah.

I'd love for you, if you wouldn't mind, can you explain a little bit on, you know, how you do that? What should we do?

Sure. So should I answer the other question about the benefit of some of the things people can do or some of the things clinicians can do?

Yeah, can we, can you actually answer both?

Okay, sure. So I'll actually answer the last question first, which is to help people to reset. And really in any, any environment in which you're, you're providing a service, these things could be potentially useful. I think of personal trainers, right. Like we're going from client to client sometimes. And how do you reset yourself so that you are fresh, that you are ready for the next person to come so that they feel that you are with them rather than being at them, doing that to them. So for me, I'll talk to about myself and what I do. I have to take a breath and I know people are like, oh, take a breath. This is how I thought before. When I became burned out, that's how I thought breathing, whatever. I don't need that. I just got to go, I just got to press on and do the work. But stopping for even just a 22nd or even a 10 second deep breath. Like, let's do this together, like you and I. Beverly, let's just reset for a minute and just take a breath. Like just you and me. Okay. How do you feel?

Great. I feel great.

Yeah. When I take a breath, what I feel is like I slow down.

Calm.

A calm. Yeah, calm. I like imagine when I take a breath that. And I practice this a lot because I need this. This is one of my tools. I slow down and I can actually focus better. I feel like I expand. Like I almost. Like if I had wings, they could go up. And I imagine like my blood vessels opening so more blood flow comes in. And I imagine that I am connecting to my innate, my wisdom. And when I can feel that, then I feel like I'm more authentic to my personality, to me. And then I feel like I could connect better.

That's interesting. I love that. So I'll share too. For me, because I'm also, you know, full transparency. People who've listened to me know this, that I'm fast paced, fire hose, type A into. And so I have. It has been a huge effort of mine to incorporate meditation and breathing into my daily practice. And so what breathing does for me and what I. And. And a lot of people that I work with focus a lot on breath in terms of core management. Like, this is how you're going to build a resilient core through the breath. And for me, breathing has been a way for me to stay present because most people live their life in the future or in the past. And so when I take that moment to breathe, it's what helps me stay in the now. And so that will also mean when I'm staying in the now. Like for example, right in the moment of us taking that breath together. My husband was leaving and he was like trying to say goodbye to me, but I completely just. I could see it. But it's easy for me to be like, no, no, no, that's. I don't need to be now. And he's gonna come. It'll be fine. Right. And then after that moment's gone, I was like, okay, bye, see you later. Right. So that's what breathing does for me.

It allows you to be present in the now.

The now. Yes.

Yeah.

One at a time.

One moment. Yeah. When I think of what you just said about living in the past or living in the future, that is how a lot of us live. Yeah. And that brings a state of anxiety for some people. Think ahead Ahead, Ahead. Ahead or back? Back, Back, Back, back. And it stops. It actually keeps people just in one spot. Like jumping up and down, like.

Yes, I love that. I love analogy because it's so true. Because it's like you are. You're not stuck because you're moving and using a lot of energy, but you're not in momentum.

Yeah.

Just moment jumping up and down.

Yeah. And the breath, like taking, just even we took. What did that take us? Like, it took us like five seconds to take a deep breath and. Yeah. So that's one thing I definitely recommend for others to try. You could try it, see what happens. I mean, what's the best that could happen?

I love that. I love that. I love that. So that's one thing. Take a breath before you go into. See your new person.

Yes. The other thing I'm going to. I'm going to show you one thing I have right beside me. I have a few of these. They're all around there, actually. Some are in my pocket, some are around. But this is. This is a heart. It's a stone. Someone gave this to me. Someone gave this to me too, because they know these things are important to me. They're actual physical things that bring me back to touch, like the kinesthetic awareness, the somatic sensation. So touch, I call them totems. Things that I can grab onto, put in my hand, feel them. So for example, it's heavy, cool, smooth, one side is rough. I put it in my hand, I know who gave it to me. I think of them, it brings me back to me. And then I can be more present and be with. Versus at the next person. And so I have these all around. Like, like I said in my pocket, I could. Oh, I see. I feel myself like in a conversation. And I feel myself moving ahead, faster, faster. I can put my hand in my pocket, touch it, reconnect, move, move with the person versus ahead of the person or behind them. So that's another tool.

So how do you pick a totem?

Oh, well, all the. The ones that I. Well, I live on the ocean or live not in the ocean, in a sound. And I. I often walk on the beach, so I look for stones. I've got a whole bunch of. Here's a stone I picked up. I don't know why I picked it up. I just thought it was cool. So then. But that also then reminds me of what I like. Like who. What are pieces of me that I think I just trying to reconnect to who I am, my authenticity. Because when I'M authentic. I can be with someone. I can be sure that I'm not. I don't have to perform. I don't have to. I don't have to tell them everything I know. It doesn't matter. I mean, you know, it's just being with someone instead of having, like, what's that saying? Teddy Roosevelt said, no one, no one cares about how much you know until they know how much you care. And just these little things I just pick up. Or people said, hey, Nicole, like this one, you are loved. Because I always say this. I tend to sign my, like, email communications or Facebook sometimes. You are loved. And they found that for me, and I got it in the mail. I was just like, oh, my gosh. And I'm crying, you know, like, oh, my gosh. You know? Or just little things. I have a couple things from when I was a kid. I have a couple things like shells. I don't know. I just find them, and that's what I use.

That's amazing. So it's so funny because my kids bring me things like this, right? My kids. Abby is, like, really into, like, rocks, right? Children always inspire me because, you know, it's funny because they. I want to be more like my kids, but because they just remind me that, like, they are so present. Like, I just want to be more like my children. Even though we're told that our. Our kids are trained to aspire to be like us. So Abby finds me these, like, weird things, and she's like, I just want you to hold this. This is for you. And I keep it. Like, things like. And for those of you who can't see, and you're listening to the podcast, it's this giant. Abby's obsessed with rocks. This giant, like, rock thing that I just keep. It's always by me because she told me she wanted me to have it. That's my toe nub.

I love that. And also the connection to the child. The child in all of us.

Yeah.

Instead of trying to be this, the super straight and serious adult, we can play, remember?

And I don't know if you're anything like me, but I used to be, like, when I was 12 or 16. 12 to 18. And I'll even stretch it to 22, where it was like, I am like, I know. I know it all. I know everything. I like, you cannot make me grow up anymore. Right? You just feel like you've reached your peak. So funny because it's the masters, right? It was Buddha who said, you know, I became a master when I Discovered I know nothing, right? And it's like, as I get older, I just want to be more. Like, not youth as in, like, I want to be young, but I want to be more. I want to have the wisdom that my children have. And I spend my life feeling like, don't. Don't take that away from them. Let them keep that as long as possible.

Love that.

Okay, totem. That's so breathing totem. What else?

Oh, a healing ritual. So healing rituals. Barbie Dossey, my mentor again, she coined this phrase in one of her textbooks for nursing and holistic nursing. A healing ritual, like, you know, a ritual birthday, anniversary party, you know, something you do, you celebrate. Healing ritual. For me, one of them is hand washing. As a nurse, we have to wash our hands a lot. As personal trainers, we wash our hands a lot because, man, you hold weights enough and you touch people and you need to wash your hands. Especially now, we're washing our hands a lot. When I've had either a difficult conversation or perhaps it's just an interaction with that person that was amazing, I make the intention to wash my hands with purpose. So pumping the soap, and I smell it. I smell it, I see it, I look at it on the hand, on the hands, with my eyes as I put my hands in the water, what's the temperature? As I rub my hands together, the sensation of the hands as I'm feeling that. And then I'm thinking about that interaction, whether it was a good one or a bad one, I'm thinking about it, what happens? I am giving myself kindness, grace. As I think about it, I'm also sending that to the person I was talking to as I'm washing my hands, you know, and as I put my hands, soapy hands under the water, all of what that interaction was goes down into the drain with the suds, with the water. And I can let that go instead of holding on to it, which is what I was doing when I was a critical care nurse. I was keeping those difficult situations. I was keeping that sorrow, that anger sometimes. I was keeping. I was holding onto it. I was keeping stories that I heard from families that maybe they didn't have the best relationship with their family member. And I held onto those. And those are not mine to keep. None of the stories that I hear from another person are mine to keep. It is them sharing them because they're in trust with me. And so when I do this hand washing purposefully and let it all go, I am then complete from that situation and I can move forward into the next situation. Holding on to my sense of individuality.

That is so cool. Now, we talked about these practices or rituals in terms of, from a clinician to another clinician. Are these similar to what you would tell a person who was healing or working on their own health? Are they different? Are they different?

They, they would be different in the sense of, is that really what that person wanted from me? So instead of me giving that to them, like you asked me what I, what I would do or what I would share, and so that's what I did. I did. But if I was working with someone, as in the health care space, I wouldn't just give that to them if they didn't want it. Does that make sense? So if we, if we, If I saw, I could sense, and I use my wisdom, my innate wisdom. We all have wisdom, our life experience, the things that have happened to us. We have this strong wisdom that we can draw on. We can tell when another person may need something. But I wouldn't just give it to them, like, here's the stuff, because that's what I did. That's what we do in health care. Here's the things you need. Take this, this, this. Instead. I'm, I may see. Is this an educational deficiency? So does somebody need the education? If I do see, like there's an education deficiency, I could ask that person, I noticed that there may be some missing information. Would you like some information? And that's a big step, because I'm used to, here is the information, whether you like it or not. And this transformation of how I communicate with people has made a big difference because I could offer them those tools. But if they are not ready to receive them or if they don't want them, then I just feel like that's lip service and it's time wasted because they could then focus, they could tell me what they want, they can say what they need, and then we move in the direction that they are ready to move in, not what direction that I'm ready to move in. So does that make sense?

It makes perfect sense. But I'm curious how you navigate the nuances between. Between providing, you know, there's a difference between giving them what they want versus giving them what they need. And sometimes they're not even aware. Like they're not even aware of what they need yet. So how do you. And you did mention that you use your sense, but do you use. To navigate that conversation? Like I think of my kids, right? For a tangible example, if I said to them, what do you want for dinner? They would Tell me every single day I want ice cream for dinner. Right. I'm exaggerating. But also, no, not really. So I know that they're gonna feel like garbage if I just gave them ice cream all the time.

Right.

So for me, when I'm navigating, you know, and I'm using ice cream, but let's get. You know, it's really actually Mac and cheese, because I do ask them, what do you want for dinner? So there are times I'll say, okay. And there are times I'll say, I'll give you some Mac and cheese and some broccoli. Or I'll say, we're not having Mac and cheese tonight. Do you. This or this? Right. So I'm curious how you navigate the nuances of those conversations with your. Your patients. Yeah, these are.

This is great. Because what's interesting about having learned the tips of the tools, the coaching tools of motivational interviewing and appreciative inquiry and nonviolent communication and all the background, the stuff that shifts the way we communicate, I think of your children, and it's tough. Right. I know. I've seen on Facebook stories of kids who would only eat carrots and they turn orange, you know? Right. So it's like, wow, you have to have a balance. Right. So for children, it's a little bit tricky. Adults is really tricky, too, because they have their own agendas, but children have them too. So I think it's knowing that, knowing yourself, knowing what you know about yourself, you have to use yourself in this as well. Your skill of what your knowledge is. And it could be in the way that you phrase a question instead of saying, kids, what do you want for Christmas? What do you want for Christmas? That's a whole other thing. Kids, you know, what do you want for supper? And they say Mac and cheese. Of course, you already know that. So you could say, okay, guys, I know you love Mac and cheese, but if you could have any other food, what would it be? And see what happens? May not work.

Right? Sure.

Right. And I'm not giving parenting advice, by the way. I'm so not doing that.

But it's like an analogy. Right? But it's just like I was saying earlier, is I learned so much about how to exist in this world from my children, so they're such a gift. But, like, these interactions that I'm having with these small humans are very similar to the interactions that I'm having with adults. Right. Like with my coaching clients.

Right. And. Yeah.

And so. And I love it. I think that's the, like, it's just such a gift. Right. So. So that's why I used my kids as an analogy. But many times people be like. Like, I, you know, just tell me what to post. And I'm like, but we gotta find your voice. It doesn't matter. Right?

Yeah. I think of like, someone who. Who. So part of a coaching session is this conversation. And we create the safe space so that I'm not interrupting. I just listen. And I am taking notes in my mind sometimes actually. Right. Little jots of one, one or two words down just to kind of keep me focused on the person. And I. And I. And I'm listening for themes. I'm listening for things that they're saying. So it's not usually like a yes and no kind of situation. It's more like we're opening up a big conversation about a topic, and it could be multiple topics, and we're trying to streamline things. But many people get stuck in the sense of barriers. Or they. For example, I'll just say, like, one common thing is people want to lose weight. People want to lose weight, but they have behaviors like they love a bag of chips. I mean, who doesn't like a bag of chips? All that in a bag of chips. So. So if I am hearing this, it's like a scale, right? I want to lose weight. I eat a bag of chips every day. And they share that. They are trusting me to listen to them. So I hear that and I say, okay. It's called developing discrepancy. I hear you say you want to lose weight, but I also hear that you eat a bag of chips every day. Can you tell me more about that? And I just shut up. And that's fascinating. But they're like, oh, my gosh, she heard me. You're right. If I eat a bag of chips, I'm not going to lose weight. So they may acknowledge that or they may not, because they're just not ready for that yet. And so that's kind of coming back to the kids because they may not be ready yet to move forward with picking something different yet. However, the conversations that we have within a coaching session are almost like planting a seed. Sometimes they're not planted, sometimes they are. But it could be something that you move towards in the future so that, yeah, you eat a bag of chips, you want to lose weight. That's not working for you. You could be like Dr. Phil. So how's that working for you? Yeah. Or. And. Or that conversation around that, yeah, I eat a bag of chips. That's not going to help me lose weight. Now we're having a conversation about it. Now that person goes home, they think about that conversation. Usually they do. They contemplate that. They see how that fits in their life. And then they may decide that they want to move forward with something related to the chips or maybe something different. And the job of a coach is to really listen and to develop discrepancy, to figure out the decisional balance. Is this something. Is the change that you're wanting to make going to be worth it for you, or is it easier and better to stay the same? You're using these tools all the time. Yeah. You want to stop eating those chips. Well, how serious are you about eating those chips? On a scale of 0 to 10, 10 being hell yeah. And 0 being there is no way in heck I'm ever going to give up my chips. And so you're. You're offering them these discussions, that self evaluation so that they can start to look at themselves. You're, in essence, you're like a mirror. You're trying to mirror them and show them back some of the behaviors that they're doing.

That's it. It sounds so like, of course. But then yet when people put it into practice, it's. They struggled to do it. It's hard to do. Right. Especially for me. Also, I'll share just for me and for my experience. Right. It's funny because I'm not a hover parent, but I'm a. But I am with my clients. Like, there's this sense of, like, wanting to, you know, save them from the lesson. Right. I want them to win first. So there's a. There's this desire in me to be like, no, no, no, don't do it this way. Do it this way. But checking in with yourself as a coach is just. And how effective you are into bringing them to their own decision is powerful. Hard to do.

Hard to do. I constantly remind myself I have to let go of the outcome. I mean, Beverly, you know when you talk to somebody and you're like, they're telling you the story and you're like, well, geez, all you gotta do, like, you know, in your mind, all you got to do is do this, this, and this. Well, that's different, right? That's like girlfriend talk. Like, if you're talking with your friend, your friend's asking you for advice, that's different than, of course, coaching. But we can see that. We can see it, like, plain as day. If you just do this, this, and this, you totally can do that. But that's what gets us in trouble, is when we offer that kind of stuff, because sometimes people are just not ready for that yet. And so I feel like I sometimes, at the beginning, when I was learning this, I felt like I could sometimes go in circles. Like, so I would work with a client. I'd say, okay, I have all this information. Here's a handout on how to eat whatever it could be. And then they would take that handout because they didn't want to hurt my feelings and say, I don't want it. Or they thought they might read it. And then we follow up the next time, and I ask them about the handout, and they say they didn't read it. And then I think, oh, I wonder what happened? And then I have to think to myself, oh, you know why that happened? Because that was my idea. That was not theirs. However, if that was their idea, they would have read it, maybe, right? Maybe they would have read it. Maybe they wouldn't have. And then I have to say, if they read it, then, yay. What did you gain from that? And then the conversation ensues. But then if the conversation is the other way, like, oh, I asked for that. I wanted that. That was my idea. I took that. Then I didn't do anything with it. Okay, what happened around that? Because that's obviously a barrier. So let's talk about that and see how that is used and see if there are trends of that in your daily life that are stopping you from really achieving the goal that you want to.

So good. Okay. I definitely want to be mindful of your time, and I do have, like, some, like, other big questions. I could talk to you for, like, 10 years. But wait.

This would be so fun. 10 years later.

I am curious. No, now you're moving into Tucson. I do want to close this loop. As you're moving into Tucson now, are you primarily teaching other nurses how to be a nursing coach? Is that primarily what you're doing now? And. And then I'll also caveat that conversation is to. Because I feel like this is a whole nother episode in. In terms of, you know, getting people on board with a holistic approach. Because I feel like we tend to be dogmatic in the way we think in terms of, like, no, no, no. West coast medicine. No, no east coast medicine. Like, I feel like we tend to. It's hard for people to live in the end.

Yes. So going to Tucson. Tell me the question again. Look, I wasn't even listening. I was thinking and listening at the same time I wasn't present. See? Okay.

Like really, like two really big questions at the same time. I should work on that, but I could not. What is your main. What are you doing now in Tucson career wise? Like this loop. What is bringing you to Tucson? Are you primarily working with nurses? Becoming a nurse coach.

Got it, Got it. So yes, I will continue with the faculty, senior faculty for the Integrative Nurse Coach Academy to teach nurses how the skills and tools of nurse coaching, which also has a beautiful parallel of self discovery, of own self care, of understanding self. Before you can ever work with someone else, you can only go as deep with someone else as you've gone with yourself. We have this beautiful parallel of learning the tips and tools of nurse coaching, but then also adding an element of self discovery and self awareness. So I'll continue with that. But my business, like, you know, my history is like, Nicole, you can't just do one thing. So I have my business as well, which is called Blue Monarch Health. Blue Monarch Health focuses on the active aging population. So we're talking people who are 50 plus who are looking to find a way to age and soar gracefully through the trajectory of aging. So what I've discovered through this work of working with my active aging population is that people want of this age 50 plus, but mostly I tend to work with even a little bit higher age range or more wisdom, age 65, 70, 75 year olds who want to regain confidence in how their body feels, regain confidence in how their mind is being engaged, regain confidence in their spirit as they actively age. We're discovering and rediscovering really what's important to this population. For example, this population can tend to see a person in a white coat, excuse me, See a person in a white coat and think they have the answers for them. It's different in this role because I'm not telling them the answers. I may have a lot of ideas for them and I may not even share those ideas. I'm really just trying to connect them to themselves so that they see what their personal values are, what's important to them in their life as they age, and then how to utilize the lifestyle strategies, the things that don't require a medicine or a physician, the things that we can do every day because we're living our lives by ourselves. Like I don't have somebody following me around telling me everything that I need to do every day. I'm doing it on my own. So how can I utilize some of these skills and tips and lifestyle strategies? Lifestyle strategies Meaning moving more, sleeping better, reducing stress or stressing less, positive socialization, continuous learning, nourishing food, and oh, gosh, I have one more gone. Oh, checking your environment, reducing toxic exposure. So that could be like relationship. Or it could be like things in your environment, like the stuff you put on your skin or the makeup you wear. You know, all of that kind of stuff. And looking to see. Okay, I have a. If you were my client, Beverly, you're not in my age bracket, by the way, but if you were my client, we would have a basic baseline discussion, see where you're at. What is it that you're interested in? It would be poor of me as a healthcare professional to talk about better sleep. If you didn't think. If you thought you were sleeping, great, why would I ever give you that information? So it's like, we see, okay, if you think you're sleeping well, but you want more information about sleeping better, hey, we'll go in that direction. So it's looking at all of those lifestyle strategies and then creating that baseline. Where are you at now? Looking ahead to see what is the vision that you would like to go to. Not that you're not already perfect, because you are perfect the way you are, but it's also a sense of looking at self and seeing that I could potentially do more or do something different. Not that you're not already awesome, because you are. But looking at that, looking ahead despite barrier, despite the things I can't do that I don't know, all the other stuff, looking ahead just to look at the vision, where is it that I want to go? If everything was perfect and then looking. Okay, what are the steps that we need to do to get you to that point? What do you need to do? Because who cares what I think you need to do? Doesn't even matter what my opinion is in truth. But what really matters is what your opinion is. And if you need some ideas and support and some tools and some reading and some research and the science and the other stuff that I know, then we can talk about those things if you're ready for them and if you want them.

What is so incredible to me about your work as I'm watching my parents go into this phase of their life, into this demographic that you serve, is that I'm watching them. We were talking earlier about living in the past or living in the future is I'm watching them forget that they have life now. Like, we're. They're constantly saying things like, oh, I'm in the end of my life. Like, this is going to work. You know, they're living in the future as if they're not there. And me reminding them, you have tons of time. Even though I know that that could, you know, time is not promised. I'm aware. But the idea is keeping them present. So I think so important for as people go into making the best, you know, the second part of their life. The best.

Yeah. I think of, you know, all of the conversations that I've had in the work that I do. So I do like physical stuff. You know, we're working and we're doing all that. What I discovered as I learned nurse coaching is that my personal training business results skyrocketed once I added coaching into the mix. So that is like a huge thing for professionals to think about in this fitness industry is like, how are you going to actually help people sustain their goals? But the thing that really popped out to me with what you just said about your parents and our parents, all of us, as we age, we have all of this wisdom that we've got accumulated through our life. If I am a CEO, I am the CEO of Blue Monarch Health. Just because I retire, it doesn't mean that I lost all of that. I still have that skill. What I strive to do in a lot of my programs are groups. So a lot of my programs are having people come together to share the power that they have. So the wisdom that they have accumulated over time helps create an even more powerful environment when you can be with others to share that. So not only are you sharing the information, but because you're sharing that, because you're part of a community, you're reducing isolation, which is a very big problem in the aging population. I think of isolation as a cause of all of an all cause mortality, meaning people die because they're isolated. Because there are risk factors associated with isolation, like depression, like loss of purpose, like inflammation happens when you're isolated is perceived kind of isolation. So all of these things can lead to disease processes if we're isolated. So groups bring people together. And then when you're part of a group and they know that you had this past experience, then you become an important piece of that group because others are there with you. They are similar in the sense of they're at that same life stage. Not similar, they're unique people, beings coming together, but the same life stage, it creates purpose again because now you're able to use the skills that you've had all your life in this space. And you know, people just want, as they age, they want to Feel like they have life purpose. I can't tell you how many times they're like, oh, Nicole, you don't want to hear that story. I'm like, yeah, I do, because I'm going to learn something from that. Because you have been through stuff already and I haven't been through that. But older people feel like, oh, my story is too long, or they don't want to tell the story. And I was like, gosh, we've got to get your stories out, because those are what really creates this environment. And that connection prevents illness. It prevents falls. Getting people together to discuss, like, falls are a big problem. People break a hip, debilitation, nursing home, loss of independence, death. I mean, that is really, like, people can see that progression and you see that at the end of life. And we don't want that. We want vitality, energy, contribution, purpose, ability to stay active, travel, good sex, whatever it is you want. That's what we want, too. And having this space for people to come together really helps create that. Not, you know, I was going to say some joke about better sex, but, you know, leave that for another day.

Independence.

Independence.

Independence and freedom that people are afraid they'll lose as they age.

Yes.

Oh, my gosh, what you do is extraordinary. So, you know, I also want to just. I'll leave. I know we. I'll leave you with this last question, I swear. But one of the things we speak through a lot of co. You know, I work with a lot of coaches, and I'm a coach myself, and I think that a lot of times, just to close out our conversation about, about coaching specifically, is that sometimes people think that if they're not pouring enough information into people, that they're not providing value. And so I'm curious, as you are navigating these, you know, experiences of cultivating breakthroughs of self discovery, are you. And you also talked about being detached from their outcomes. How do you navigate those feelings of, like, am I putting enough? Am I doing my job?

Yes, being enough. This is a. This is a topic, I think, that we all struggle with. Like, am I enough? Well, the truth is we all know that we're enough, but we don't know that we're enough. It's like a dichotomy there, isn't it? Because the more that we know, the more we realize we don't know. And I love the quote that you gave from Buddha, similar to that, but different, because there's a difference. So people come to services for different reasons. Right. When I go to get my hair cut, I want to get a cut. I want to get it cut. I don't want to go to have a haircut. And then the haircut person will ask me, well, what is it that you would like? We have all of these choices. You know, it's like sometimes you just want to get the stuff taken care of. That's different than coaching. So you want a service, you're going to copay for it. You want McDonald's, you're going to get French fries. You know what you're getting, right? There's another section of information giving, and that's education, Right? We want to learn about something. So, for example, if you're starting a business, you don't know how to create a lead magnet. You need to know. So that's different. We want to give information and teach me how to do xyz. Then there's coaching. Coaching is. I know I want to get somewhere. So somewhere in health coaching, I know I would like to have my blood sugars controlled. I have no idea how to get there. Okay? So there's those. Those components of I need education, I need. I want to get an end result. I'm paying you money, so I want a result, right? But I can't do any of this stuff on my own. And I need some support around that because otherwise I'd be doing it right. Otherwise nobody'd have diabetes because they'd be doing all the things. But we're missing this piece of, like, helping people find a way that works for them in their unique life to follow the processes of helping them mitigate diabetes. So I can't go into someone's life and see all of them. Even talking to them for six months, I couldn't see their full capacity of life. I don't know what they do every day. I don't know potentially, you know, in some cases, a lot of cases, I wouldn't know right away what somebody's kitchen looks like. I wouldn't know what their bedroom looks like. You know, like, these things are not my information. I could ask questions surrounding that. I could gain more information, but that takes time. But that person that I'm talking to knows. They know what's going on in their life. They know themselves. And my job as a coach is to have the conversations and ask powerful questions so that I can mirror back their behavior, mirror back their ideas, mirror back their contemplations, mirror back their discrepancies so that they can then see for themselves and reflect back what they said to me, see for themselves what it is they're really saying and doing so that then they can say, oh, now I see what you're talking about, or now I see what my barrier is. Now that I know my barrier, let's see how we figure out how to keep awareness of the barrier and add it into my life so I know that that barrier exists. So now when I go out and be in the world by myself, actively living, I know the barrier. I can address it and I can see it and I can choose whether or not I say, barrier, you suck, get out of here. Or I can say barrier, I didn't see you and I made a mistake. And so, okay, now how do I move forward from that? So it's a difference in the stuff. The final thing I will say is that what I really learned, and I mentioned it already, is like if I give people stuff they're not ready for, becomes a waste of time. It's a waste of my time and my information, which I don't care. That's not a big deal. But it's really a waste of their time. If it's a waste of their time, they will not see the value in the service you provide. It will just potentially be overwhelming. Too much information, don't know where to go from here and it's just too much. So if we can pare back what we're throwing at people or pushing on people and instead focus on what it is that they really need at that time, then I feel like, especially in health coaching, we would see more success with clients and with patients and with our communities.

That is brilliant and I'll say it again, you are extraordinary and what you do is extraordinary. So thank you so much for your time and pouring into me and my community. I really appreciate it. So for those of you who want to come learn more about you and want to come hang out with you, where are the best places that I can send them?

Yes. Okay, so I have a Facebook group. It's called Aging with Grace and Balance and that is for our 50 plus community that want to come into a discussion just about active aging and things that they're going through in their life. You can find me at bluemonarchealth.com you can email me at nicolemonarchealth.com I write blogs. I have a lot of information on my website you can pop into and I also have a free gift for your listeners. It's just go to bluemonarchealth.com freegift and it will give you those tips and tools about lifestyle strategies that we kind of talked about at the beginning of this so that you can see a brief snippet of what some of those things are and maybe how you can incorporate some of the tips into your life. And of course, I'm available anytime anybody would just like a conversation about how and about how they can really discover what's important to them about their health.

I love that. We'll make sure we link all of those up, all those links that you mentioned. We'll put them in the show notes.

Thank you so much, Beverly. I loved our time together. I feel like I have a kindred spirit now.

I love it. I really love it. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the PT Profit podcast it. If you like this episode, chances are your friends will too. So it would be a huge service to us if you would please leave us a review and share with your friends on your social media channels. When you leave us a review, be sure to take a screenshot of it and email that screenshot to my team@info simpsonfitness.com and we'll send you a very special Instagram podcast that will will show you how to create compelling content so that your ideal clients come to you and you go from wanting clients to a wait list of clients ready for your services. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you on the next episode.