The Big Ask with Jamie Hess

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Hey everybody. Welcome back to Contractor Radio. We've had such a blast doing this show. This show is all about helping people get control of their lives and their businesses so that they can grow in their lives and businesses and achieve personal and financial freedom. And we do a lot of that through execution on our dreams. We've got these dreams that we're chasing, but we tend to have doubts sometimes. Are we chasing the right thing? Is it really who I am that wants to go get that thing? And I have an awesome guest on today. She's been on a lot of stuff. She's a pro. I cannot wait to get her on here and talk about some of the dreams she's had, how she's gotten to where she is today. But before we do that, we got to keep the lights on around here. We're going to hear from one of our amazing sponsors. Get the referral.

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One of my favorite pieces of technology that allows getting referrals to become easy, trackable and reward those people that are your raving fans. And speaking of raving fans, I did a little research on our guest today and I'm a raving fan. She's an on air personality. She's a wellness expert content creator. She has been recognized as one of the top fitness families on Instagram. Her handle is ycfitfam. Please welcome to our show, Jamie Hess. Jamie, thanks for being on today.

Thanks for having me, my friend.

Yeah, it's cool. We just met each other through some mutual friends and we got to talking and I invited you on the show and you said yes. I was, you know we'll get to that whole big you know what here in a little bit and talk about that. But you know this show, we do it for contractors and there's a lot more to being a contractor than just running a business and putting on a roof or putting in a fence or a garage floor and all that other good stuff. We have last as well relationships as well. And it was one of the things I Noticed about a lot of the content you had out there was very family oriented, very health and fitness oriented. Tell us a little bit about your background and kind of how you went from where you were to where you are today and tell the people who you are.

Absolutely. Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me. I am Jamie Hess. You are correct that most people know me as NYC Fit Fam. It's funny how sometimes our handle becomes our entire identity. People are like, oh, your name's Jamie? I had no idea. Well, it is. And NYC Fitbit kind of gave launch to this whole other career. So I'm also an on air personality. I talk about health and wellness and fit mom life hacks, you know, across TV shows like Dr. Oz and the View and the Today show and stuff like that. I'm also on qvc. I'm the face of Zuda, which is their activewear brand. It's kind of like Lululemon. Are you familiar? Do you wear a lot of Lululeggings, Jim?

I feel like my, my, my son in law is trying to convince me that I, as a 50 some odd year old man can wear Lululemon pants. I'm like, I don't know if I can quite pull that off.

Well, I'll give you, I'll tell you this. My husband's 61. He, he wears Athleisure. It's a great trend because it's super comfy, but I do it with qvc, which means we do like the same thing, same quality, but for half the price. So I'm like the luckiest girl on the planet. I get to sell like awesome, you know, Athleisure clothes for a living, which is pretty rad. And, and I have a podcast called off the GR that ladders back to my main mission, which is just living a life with wellness as kind of the North Star. And I'll get to where that eventually led me, which is as a wellness coach. But I want to take a step back first because I do think it's interesting how people got to where they are. And I'll tell you this, this is always my fun mic drop moment. Are you ready? We love a good mic drop moment. Right? Okay. So I was an addict and alcoholic. Yeah. Oh, I love the surprised face. I, I think I, you know, I wear it well. Like, that wasn't part of my, my past.

Oh.

Oh, my friend. Well, who it was.

That's amazing that you're sharing this. It's actually a pretty serious problem in the blue collar home service contractor world. It's something that we deal with. I'm actually a big supporter of a foundation. It's called Roofers in Recovery. We give a lot to those folks and support those folks. So awesome to see. Like, I would have never guessed.

Thank you. And. And, yeah, you know, I. I laugh about it now only because it is such a big part of my story and I'm such an open book that it doesn't seem as dark as it once did. I also think that when you've been in recovery circles for several years, you are able to. To find the levity and the light in your story because it's what made you who you are. I wouldn't trade a minute of it. You know, it's. It's what brought me to really this love of fitness and. And the way that that kind of happened. It's kind of funny, you know, I was just. I love people. I love rhythm and communal energy and vibe and, you know, a room kind of based around the shared, almost tribal beat of music. And that's why the nightclub life was so alluring to me. I mean, it was so alluring. And so when I landed in New York city in my 20s as an. As a publicist, which was my first career for almost two decades, I was hooked, man. I mean, I had arrived. I was like, new York. I know the dj, I'm on the guest list. And then my whole life imploded. But it was fun for a little while, up until the time that it wasn't. But what ended up happening was after I got sober, I found that same tribal energy and communal rhythm on the floors of boutique fitness studios. I started going to these workouts that were like, music driven and endorphins were flowing. And I was like, I found my people. This is actually what I was looking for. This is the high I was looking for. But this. This is without the consequences. So I just fell in love with fitness and it kind of became my new thing, you know, Like, I traded in my dancing shoes for a pair of sneakers, and I found, like, a new passion and by falling in love with FIT Fam, which is the hashtag meaning the people you meet in the fitness world. Like, you make these great friendships, you know, they're built on endorphins, and it's. It's really cool. And I just wanted to share my love of that and how cool I thought it was. And so I started this little Instagram. My husband and I actually coincident, so we got engaged on a treadmill at Barry's boot camp. Yeah. And we just from there. And because of just this shared love, we started sharing our fit journey on Instagram, never intending to be influencers. Let me tell you something. I'm 41, he's 61. We're not millennials. I was not looking to be an influencer as a job. I had a job. I was a very high level executive, you know, for two decades. And when you have lightning in a bottle, you go with it. My Instagram something clicked. People started following my journey and it built a platform for me where I was able to share a message around something I really friggin loved. And so I finally left my corporate job. It was time to pick a lane. And I did. And I never looked back. In the four years since I've been on this road to entrepreneurialism, I have been building this brand as an influencer, but also as a media personality, as a podcaster, as a brand ambassador, as an experiential event planner. You know, all the things that you do when you're building a brand based off of an ethos, which is for me, it's fitness, wellness and health is my North Star. And how do you integrate that with your family? And then I figure out all of the tangible kind of, you know, business avenues from that. And eventually where it led me and how I met you is I'm now a coach. So where it eventually led me, after many years of just being a B2B girl and a media centric girl, I was like, I've never been a B2C business. I never worked with actual humans. I don't even know if I like it. I don't even know if I like people that much. As it turns out, when you're actually in the trenches with your people and you're hearing their stories, and by the way, it's your story that they're telling you and you've found a way out of the pain that they're suffering in. Feels really good to help them. So I am now a wellness coach. I have a program called the Big Ask. I say the the K very strongly because sometimes I say it too fast and people doesn't sound like that. But it's the Big ask with a K. And I really do help people across the country find their voice to ask for the help that they need around their health and wellness goals.

So North Star family, fitness, wellness, is that fair to say?

Absolutely.

So you know the world today, especially in America, we are, we tend to be running a thousand miles an hour all the time. There's a Thousand decisions hitting us. Business is a big thing. We're trying to, like, get it, make our way in the world. We're trying to achieve the American dream and all that other good stuff that everybody hears. And sometimes it's one of the things we actually sacrifice is like, hey, do I work or do I go work out? Anything there? Like, do you see that commonly? Is that something that you see in a lot of people that you work with? Is it. Am I off base there?

It's the number one complaint that people have across the board. Here's the problem. How you do one thing is how you do all things. So if you were treating your body, which is your temple, which is also your business tool, especially if you work with your hands like crap, you're not going to be the most effective professional that you can be. It's just. I don't make the rules. It just goes down like that, right? Like, if you don't feel your best, if you're not fueled properly, if you're not strong, if you're not fit, if you have the. The associated health concerns that come with letting yourself go, the high cholesterol, the bad back, the aching, you know, it's like all of it. Eventually it tumbles and it catches up with you. So what I help people do is figure out these little pockets of time everyone thinks they don't have time to work out. And what I do first with people is I help them kind of unpack their resistance. And I. And I say, I understand you're busy. I promise you, so am I. But let's. I'm like the Sherlock Holmes of people's calendars. I get in there, I help them understand that there are pockets of time. There are ways to prioritize themselves that are sustainable. But the underpinning of it all, Jim, for me, is to ask for help with accountability. Because people left their own devices, you're just not going to follow through. Right. So you need to have, like, a team, and that team needs to be within, like inside your house, you know, like your. Your partner, your roommate, a best friend, a family member.

Yeah. So this is one of those things that I've. So. A little story about me. Before the whole contracting thing, I was in the health club world. I actually owned a couple of health clubs and ran 40 other ones as the director of sales or vice president of sales. And so I have this whole health and fitness background. Made the mistake of marrying an aerobics instructor. Things went the wrong way. Met my current wife. We met 30 years ago. And Moved to Wisconsin and business kind of took over and I ended up getting to be heavier than I've ever been in my life. And then health risk stuff started coming in. So high blood pressure, cholesterol and all that other good stuff. And a lot of that was because I was sacrificing the time that I should have been working out to work. Right. And one of the things I remembered from the health club world was I had a workout buddy. Like every day that guy would come in, work out with me, we'd go to work and we work out again afterwards and we were ridiculous. And we're talking four or five hours a day of working out. That was a long time ago. I obviously don't do that anymore, but that's something I struggle with today. My wife's workout rhythm and my workout rhythm are different. I know I have to do mine in the morning and, and I'm not a morning person, but I have to, I have to set up things to make sure that happens. So I got to go to bed at 9 o' clock so I can be up at 5 o' clock so I can go get it in before the world starts hitting me with all the things that the world hits me with. And the last thing in the world that's going to happen is my wife to go and work out with me at 5:30 in the morning.

This is.

That ain't gonna happen. So that's been a bit of the problem is this accountability, partner aspect of things. And we're in a new city, I don't know anybody, and I've gone to work out a few times, but you don't really connect in this pandemic world anymore. Any suggestions along those lines?

Totally. Well, the thing is, is that she doesn't have to work out with you. You just have to be accountable to her. So what? My husband and I love to work out together. It does not work out nine times out of ten it used to be, but we got kids. We can't be leaving at 5 in the morning. Who's watching our kids? Our childcare doesn't arrive that early, so it's rare that we're able to work out together. However, you better believe that he knows my plan for the week, which we sit down and agree upon on Sunday night. Okay, I got childcare that morning. You got it the next morning. Oh no, you have an early meeting. Okay, okay, I got that morning. Can you get the next morning? We work it out, we come to terms, we figure out who needs the car, who needs the Time, right? We put the pieces together so we both can get it done, and then we have accountability, literally. If the plan is three miles on the treadmill, by the way, we have one in our house that just because I tell them, okay, I'm going down to do three miles, I have to send him a picture of the dashboard of the treadmill that says three miles. Because you know what I'll do? I'll. I'll hop off and I'll scroll Instagram after 2.13 miles. Why? Because left to my own devices, I'm a liar. And I didn't even know that. I didn't even know that about myself. I'll take the shortcut every time. So to hold myself accountable, I send them a picture. That's the kind of simple proof point you can use. And I have a million techniques like that. But these little things literally change your life and make you do the hard things that bring the self esteem and the feeling good.

All right, my wife is not going to watch this episode of Contractor Radio. I'm just kidding. I need to put some of that stuff into my life. I've kind of gotten back into it. Long story. Why I wasn't into it, but.

Those.

Are really good points. And so husband's into fitness and all that as well.

He's extremely into fitness. So he owns a. He's a big music executive. He represents artists in the dance music world. So that kind of keeps him young. And it's also a shared passion of ours. It's, it's, you know, the nightclub used to be our, our home base. Now it's like once every four years. But the fitness thing is definitely a shared love. And, and he loves it, you know, and when we can go together, it's great. We have done running tourism all over the world, meaning we'll sign up for a 5k or 10k or half marathon in Amsterdam or in, you know, and we'll take a trip based around that. What a fun way to, to celebrate life together. It's awesome. But those things are, those are. It's amazing. They're few and far between. But I'll tell you something, he's 61 years old. He's in better shape than he was when he was in high school. So when I have women come to me in my program, they say, oh, honey, I'd love to have the energy you do, but that ship has sailed. I say, how old are you? And they, you know, 57. I'm like, Girl, you can't. It doesn't work. With me. Okay, it doesn't. Because I know. I know it's available. You got to just find your level. I'm not telling you to run a marathon. I'm telling you, find what works for you and put it in your life in a consistent way, and you'll feel better.

Yeah, I mean, it's that time of year, right? It's. I'm already thinking about it. I'm going. I am not starting January 1st. That's. That's new Year's resolution. That's when everybody says, hey, I'm going to lose whatever amount of weight or any of that kind of stuff. And I. I kind of got my mind set on it that I was going to start before that to do some things about my own personal health and fitness. But is that a good idea for people to like, okay, it's holidays, right? It's Thanksgiving, Christmas, and we're kind of like, lying to ourselves. Almost like, I'll get started after because I want to have the fun. Now, how do you manage that type of thing in your business life and your personal life?

Here's the thing. If. If the diet starts on Monday, the diet's always going to start on Monday. I don't know what to tell you again. I don't make the rules, okay? You want to pour garbage into your body for the holidays, because that's your excuse. If that's the narrative you want to tell yourself, like, I can't stop you. But what I can tell you is that there are ways to really enjoy and celebrate life and holidays and food in a way that makes you feel healthy and doesn't set off triggers. Right? Because when we eat a lot of sugar, it follows the same pathway in our brain that cocaine does. So, like, good luck coming out of that rabbit hole. There's something called the hedonistic set point, which is actually, you know, cognitive behavioral theory. And so it's something that they talk about in cbt, where it's something in your brain, once you get really used to doing something that. That really elevates, is euphoric, you know, sugar, drugs, whatever. It takes a while to undo that. So if you think you're just gonna go, you know, hog wild for the holidays and somehow pull it all together January 1st, I'd ask you, how has that worked in the past? Because we know that 80% of New Year's resolutions fail within the first three weeks. So my suggestion is you start whenever you decide you want to take control of your life. There are amazing ways, and I share them every Day on Instagram, on NYC Fit Fam. This is what I do. There are amazing ways to get through the holidays. Not feeling like you're restricting, not feeling like you're deprived, but enjoying life and food in a way that is celebratory. And by the way, if your entire, if all that you equate with celebrating time with family is eating, you might need to reassess your values a little bit. Because I always say to my clients, for instance, let's make a plan around, you know, say, Thanksgiving dinner. We'll plan the things you are going to eat. But let's also remember, instead of going into this stressing out, oh, I can't have that. I can't have that. What about asking, you know, Aunt Dolores how, how she's doing? Maybe ask, you know, Uncle Larry, you know, how's the new hip? I mean, sit down and ask people, how are they doing? Ask your cousin how her new job is? What are her hopes and dreams? How can you really show up and be of service? Because when we go into a situation and it's all about us and all about what we can't do, I would challenge you that you're looking at it wrong.

Wow, okay, that's. I haven't heard that one before. You always hear the set up a plan, know what you can eat and what you can eat. Put in these little mechanisms that keep you away from that particular thing, whatever it may be, you know, smaller portions, that kind of stuff. I never heard of actually connecting with other people to maybe take your mind off of that thing and put it on something else. Do you guys do that? Is that something that's intentional in your own family and how you guys handle the holidays and stuff like that?

100%. And anybody who's listening right now who is in recovery from drugs and alcohol may recognize what I'm saying, because, by the way, it's all the same framework, showing up, being of service. These are things that we do also when we're trying to recover from any addiction because it gets us out of our head. It, you know, I call it, you know, it's not a me centered program. It's a we centered program. So just being able to connect with people, not get out of your head. I say my head is not a place I should go without adult supervision. Okay? It's not, not a good place for me to roam around. Really learning how to connect and just get a little more grounded in your heart and spiritually is a really good approach in any circumstance, whether you're trying to conquer social anxiety or issues around food. It is a great approach no matter who you are, where you're coming from.

Awesome. So we're going to take a quick break. We do have those lights and all that other good stuff. We got to keep on and we love our sponsors. I'm going to come right back and I want to ask you about maybe the top three things that people should consider to have a life of wellness, not necessarily fitness. Does that work for you?

Love it.

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Well you know we talk about, we never say that we're recovered. You're in recovery and recovery is contingent upon a daily maintenance of a program. You know A spiritual program, an emotional program, keeping your own side of the street clean, living a life free of resentments, being a good person, showing up for yourself and your family. So I try to live in line with who I want to be today. Luckily, my husband's in that same kind of path. So we workshop a lot of this stuff together. And we really do strive to be able to get up in the morning, set our intentions, and then put our head on the pillow at night, knowing we did the best that we could in achieving that, you know? So when I say how you do one thing is how you do all things, this is the undercurrent that runs through. This is why you don't just hear me talking about how many days a week you should exercise. I can give you that. You sign up for the big ask, you will get a fitness plan, a nutrition plan. I got you. But that's not your problem. Like, spoiler alert. If it was as simple as figuring out what's better, keto or paleo, that's the part I just can't figure out. It's why I'm 25 pounds overweight. That's not why. That's not why. The spoiler alert is. Any diet works if you stick to it. But we don't. We don't. And so what I try to help people do is come to terms with why and then to get them the help to fix it.

So you mentioned two things there in that that are very near and dear to my heart. One, you mentioned service and this character aspect of things and this alignment with who so many people. There was a great book written, and I don't want to disparage that book in any way. Simon Sinek wrote a book called Start with why, and I love the book. I think, man, that is a cool book. I really get it. That's awesome. But I think the title's wrong. I think it should say, like, why is important or something like that. But we really need to start with who. If we start with who we are, then we can take that talent, that superpower, that thing that is inherently you, and apply it to the world to fill a gap that is needed. And it seems like that's what you've done. Like, you got aligned with who you have always been. Even through your addictive times and the tragic times, you were still this person that was a person that wanted to serve. You just weren't necessarily taking those actions at that time. But now you've got an alignment with that, who you are. And your why is now Hey, I can feel this gap on this fitness and wellness side of things. Would you say that's a fair statement?

Yeah. The emptiness that I was trying to fill with drugs and alcohol, I just didn't know how to fill it. And as it turns out, living a life of purpose and in alignment with who you are and what you care about and then helping other people with that, that's what fills. Fills the hole, right?

Yeah. Every time I talk with somebody, Every time I talk with somebody, they. They don't usually talk a whole lot about the why and the per. They talk about who they are. And I've been. I've noticed this is like one of those observant aspects of me. I'm like, I think people are more about getting figured out who they are, so then they can go chase something. And we tend to go. Some things, whatever those things may be, and some of them can even be pretty good. I want to go put water wells in Africa or whatever that thing may be. But it doesn't fill our soul, doesn't feel who we are. We're doing it because that's what the world is telling us to do. And I think that's a little bit of what you might have been going through. The world was telling you, hey, I'm kind of famous and I get to hang out with these cool people and everybody else is doing it, so I'm going to do it too. And it didn't quite work out, but then you found out who you were and that that piece that you could give back generously to, that was the part I was really like hearing was there's a generosity, there's a. There's a service aspect to you. And it's funny, we work with a lot of what they're described as home service professionals or contractors. And that service part is who we are and what we're supposed to be. I think the more of that that we do, the better we'll be at things. If somebody is struggling with their wellness, and I think that happens in a lot of areas, their mental wellness, health wellness, relationship wellness. Do you work with all of those things or are you more just the physical part of it, or does it start there and you kind of sometimes work into those other things, how does that work out for you?

Well, it's funny, everyone thinks they're just coming to me to lose weight, and then they. Then we start the work and like, we're hardly even talking about that. You know, for. For a few weeks, you know, I had, actually, I had a few Women here. This weekend we were doing a big ask immersive here at my home. I live in Westchester, Pennsylvania and I lived in New York City, by the way, for 20 plus years. I was part of the mid pandemic exodus. Yeah, we moved to Westchester, Pennsylvania because it's close to the studio at where I am on the air. And we thought maybe it would be temporary and we just fell in love. So now we live in this, you know, big beautiful house that is cost the exact same price as my little teeny two bedroom apartment used to cost in New York City. And I was like, oh, this was better. Why was I always doing this? But that's another story. But here I am and I just thought, I have this home, I have this space, I have this program. I need to be bringing people here and working with them one on one. So I brought three women here and day two was the day that they brought their partners in and we made their big ask live. And what's funny, Jim, is that they all started the weekend they thought they were coming here for. Well, I don't know what they thought they were coming here for, but it was probably a big surprise, you know, like a spa weekend. Like, you know, we're going to work out, we're going to do a little nutrition and we did some, we did that. But what we really did was we completely shook up their entire life. Because I'm here to, to ask you the hard questions. If I don't call you on your stuff, I'm not doing my job right. So like I hear a lot of, I'll be happy when I hear a lot of, I can work out when I hear a lot of, you know, just a lack of gratitude, which people don't realize. They don't realize they're playing the victim. They're not doing it because they're bad people. They just don't know any other way, you know, but they're sick. They're sick from it, they're miserable and they're stuck in cycles of food addiction. You know, everyone just thinks, oh, I just, you know, I pick a little here and there. And then when we really get to the root of it, people are really, their brains are hijacked by this stuff in the same way addiction takes hold. And so I really have to help them understand. First you need to admit the severity, the unmanageability of what's going on. Then you need to be willing to get vulnerable with your partner and say, look, I'm not just asking you like I did, you know, Last month and the month before that. Let me stick to my diet. That's not empowering them. They don't even know what to do with that.

You know, like, make sure all the sugar's out of the house. Basically.

Yeah. But then also, like, your husband doesn't necessarily want to hear that. He doesn't want to hear that like his, like powdered donuts are giving you deep emotional pain. Like, he doesn't really want to hear it. And. But when you approach the other person in a way where you're just getting honest and you're like, look, I get it, I get that you like the, the pizza night or the donuts, but I gotta, I gotta really tell you, this has been plaguing me in my mind since I was a teenager. I've struggled with this for 20, 30, 40 years. I'm exhausted. I think about this all the time. I battle with myself. I keep saying I'm going to do better. I slip up and I beat myself up. There's a shame, the self loathing. I want, I want to stop this. Will you help me? That's a different ask. It's a different ask. So I help people get real. And by the way, a lot of the time the food stuff is like a byproduct. So yeah, we peel back the onion and we get to a whole lot of other stuff because oftentimes they're eating, they're eating at him, they're eating at the boss. They're, you know, they're stressed out, they're overwhelmed with the kids, the child care. So you got to just unpack it and help people get better. I mean, look, we're not bad people trying to get good or sick people trying to get well. And food is no different than any other addiction.

There's some things I need to do in my life after that conversation. You're right though. Would you say the key is the vulnerability? Just the honesty aspect of it?

That's the entire difference? Yeah, that's the difference.

I see that so much in what we do. You know, we do something similar where we're here to help people, you know, grow their businesses and achieve great things and make lots of money. And that's kind of what they come to us for. And then they realize that while they stepped into something else, it's more about them as a person, a human being. And I can tell you're a real coach because you, you're asking those tough questions, but you wanted them there. What, what does that do for you? What? Why there? Why? Why with you.

Well, I've done a lot of coaching over the pandemic, and it's really amazing that we can do this virtually, that you and I can do this right now virtually. I mean, you know, it's brought together a whole world. I can now talk to people all over the country, and I have clients in Canada and all different time zones. And we're all here, right? We're on the zoom or whatever. It's great. But there's something about face to face. And I also felt that, again, like, in service of my people, my women, also in my community, I. If I am just running this business and helping people all over the country, but I'm not showing up for the mom at the bus stop that's telling me how much pain she's in, or the woman in my neighborhood who I had coffee with two weeks ago, and she's just telling me how she doesn't eat all day, and then she binge eats a sleeve of cookies out of the pantry at night, and she just hates herself. If I'm not rolling up my sleeves and helping my sisters in my community, literally, what am I doing? You know? So this was cool because I had local women come in. I'm actually doing more workshops like that at the Westchester Country Club here in Pennsylvania in January, February. They're all free. Like, I literally. It was so important to me. I was looking at the data on post Covid. What some are not post Covid, but post lockdown weight gain. And it's so alarming. I mean, we were already tracking towards over 50% obesity in this country before the pandemic. But, you know, the American Psychological association just did a big study of over 3,000 respondents. Over 50% of them said that they had gained weight, and the average amount of weight gain was 29 pounds. And over 10% of the respondents had gained over 50 pounds. So we're looking at people in crisis. And I really, really wanted to help.

What's neat about that is it. It isn't just helping those that look like you act like you, they're your friends or they're people that are directly related. Like, a lot of people go, hey, I want to go help. But then they go, help. Like a very specific type of person, when I can tell somebody's actually aligned with their who and their why. Like, those two things are in alignment. They don't care who it is. You just said it like, the. The mom at the bus stop, the stranger that I don't even know, I'm going to bring them in my house, I want to help them. That is super cool, Jamie. Like, I don't know if you know how powerful of a thing that is, because it's uber rare. Uber. I mean, I have worked with thousands of people and for them to have that who going with their why it is. And you can tell, you're like, patty, like, I want to do it all the time, every day, and I could do it forever. Like, it never stops. Do you see that? Do you see, like, wellness and all that stuff being like what you're after and really more helping from the human vulnerability aspect of it than anything else? Is that what you see for the future?

Yeah. I mean, I started as more of a demonstrator, if you will. I was on Instagram, right? So my thing was like showing people my workouts and showing people what I cooked and what I ate. And like, that's very interesting. But at a certain point I was like, I want people not to just want. I don't want people to only to want to look at me and my pictures, but they need to want to hear from me, you know, because I have a thing or two to say. And it was important. It was important that I was refining what that message was because also I really geek out on this stuff. And I believe very strongly, for instance, as a mother, that, like, my kids, they love being. We're. We're plant. I always say we're plant forward. In my house, we're, we're vegan. But I'm not like a evangelist, you know, I mean, like, whatever. Do you, you know, the women in my program don't have to be plant based, but I do strongly believe that a plant based lifestyle really changed my health. Like, all my bloating went away, all my inflammation. I did it by accident. I wasn't even. I was doing it for two weeks. And I felt so amazing that I was like, well, screw that. I'm never going back. So my kids really think it's so much fun. Fun. I hear mothers all the time saying, my kids won't eat healthy, that my kids would never eat that. Well, they will, they will. You just have to make it fun. So my whole platform is showing people that this does not have to be a chore. It's. Everything needs to be pegged around an attitude of gratitude. So enjoy it. Make it a family thing. I'll tell you, last Thanksgiving, when everybody was bellyaching over not being able to get together with family, and I'm not taking away from how sad that was for a lot of People. But for us, it was the first time we didn't spend Thanksgiving with family. We had the best Thanksgiving ever because it was just me and my little nuclear family and my, my hubby and my two kids, my two boys. We cooked this amazing plant based, you know, feast, right? And the kids helped. Everyone rolled up their sleeves. It was so much fun. You know, we did this like lentil mushroom, you know, fake meatloaf and this amazing. Everything was delicious and fun and in line with how we wanted to eat, we took a golden hour hike with the kids. Just made it around wellness and just a true sense of gratitude. It was the best Thanksgiving of my entire life. So it's all in the lens through which you look at it. And with your kids, I can't stress enough, it's how you present it to them. If it's mommy has to be on another diet, oh, I can't eat that. That's what they're going to believe, man.

Yeah. Instead of I can't, I get to. And this tends to be like the core of it in whatever it is that you're after, whether it's wellness, relationship, business, life in general. It's what's going on in here. You know, negative thoughts are going to come out of negative words which mean negative actions. Positive thoughts, Positive words, positive action. Do you have some advice on how to change that inner dialogue that's going on in our brains?

Well, it's practice, right? So everything is an exercise. And when I say exercise, you know, there's physical exercise and there's mental emotional exercise. You have to flex the muscle. You know, I tell my women all the time in the big ask, you're always either moving away from, you know, your problem or you're moving closer to it. We don't just stay in neutral. We don't just afloat. You know, life has a current. So if you're not actively working to change the narrative in your head, it's not going to magically change. If you are perpetually a victim and everything happens to you, then that's your reality. You have. Yeah.

Are there any devices or tools? Like for me, I tend to be a person that is, I'm self aware, I'm mindful of what's going on in my head. And I learned this quite a while ago that as human beings, we tend to gravitate towards the negative and victim mentality. And in order to get out of that gravity, I got to put something in front of me, for example, on my board over there. I usually will put a Word up. Once a week, some. Some new word that I just want to kind of concentrate. Like mine this week is champion. And not a champion. Like, I'm number one. I want to be the hero champion, the person that serves. Be a champion for somebody. And so that keeps my head in a positive place and on a positive thing. Is there any advice that you give to, like, should we get this app that sends us a positive motivation? Like, what. What should people do?

I mean, yes, there's a million great apps, but honestly, affirmations. Positive affirmations are a big tool that I use. I usually give my women. I want to keep it simple, too, because you look it up and there's so much that it's overwhelming. You don't know where to start, and you just, like, close the tab. You're like, I don't even know what this means. Pick, pick three, pick four. Put them on a, you know, a document on your computer. Go through them once a day. Make it a practice, right? So when you get up in the morning, you take your vitamins, you say four affirmations. You think it's hokey? I can show you the data. There's actually incredible data. There's a data point I wish I could find. I have too many tabs open. It's up here somewhere on my computer. But there's an amazing data point on, like, you know, the neurocognitive response from that. It changes your brain. And so if you want to change your brain, you have just like, if you wanted to change your body, you have to do physical exercises. If you want to change your brain, you have to do mental exercises. But it's changeable.

That would be if anybody gets anything out of this conversation today. That's what I want them to get, that your brain is a muscle. It needs to be exercised, and that's pressure.