EP108: A Coaching Conversation with Jenn Malecha and Sachin Patel

Hey Sachin and welcome to the Perfect Practice Podcast. It's my mission to use this podcast as a platform to help holistic, heart centered practitioners transform the world. I think we can all agree that the world needs more of what we have to offer now than ever before. And I want to take all the information and all the knowledge and experience that I've gained over the years and leverage the community and the contacts and the mentors that I've had over the years and share some of the most valuable nuggets that I've picked up over those years. I also want to bring special guests on so that they can share their valuable wisdom and knowledge with you as well. Each episode is going to be packed with valuable nuggets of information to help you grow both personally and professionally, all while moving you towards more impact and more freedom. I'm excited that you're here. I'm excited that you want to grow and learn. So let's jump right in. Hello my friends and welcome to Perfect Practice. Today we have a special interview with Jen Malaika. Jen and I know each other from a variety of different organizations. First, fdn. She is an FDN herself, a functional diagnostic nutritionist. And we've gotten to know each other more closely through a mastermind that we belong to called Mindshare. And Jen is a truly transformational human being. I mean, she has transformed her life as we'll learn about today. And she transforms the lives of her clients and through mindshare, as a mentor within the Mindshare organization, she's also helping transform other people's practices. So, Jen, welcome. Thanks for joining me today.

Thanks for having me on here. It's incredible to think about how long we've known each other. Just trying to calculate that in my head as you were introducing me and talking about our original connection with fdn, which must have been back in, gosh, I think maybe 2014, maybe 2015 approximately, because that's when I left my full time corporate job to become a functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner to really get out and start building my practice and why I was doing that. I was working part time for FDN doing marketing and affiliate partnerships with them. And I remember connecting with you through there for the very first time and kind of getting to know you from there. So it's been a long time that we've known each other.

Yeah, it's amazing how time flies, isn't it?

It's incredible. I was like, I'm this year in August will be my 10 year anniversary of going through the FDN course, which is crazy to think about what a journey it's been.

Wow. Congratulations.

Thank you.

So you said something there that I like to unpack. You said you were in the corporate world. What were you doing in the corporate world? And then what prompted you to get into the health care space?

I love that you're asking that question because it's so fascinating to look back and as Sam Horn says, connect the dots to see little stepping stones led you to the path that you're on, and then you find your true calling of sorts. I actually studied kinesiology in college with the intention of becoming a sports psychologist. And about halfway through college, kind of abandoned that path to do something more broad like doing personal training, which then led me into the fitness world. And then in the fitness world, I got really burnt out from like the high, like, stress sales environment that lives in there and a very just like men's boys club type of environment. So from there I jumped over into corporate wellness. And that was when corporate wellness was kind of a newer industry, was like the new thing that was going on.

So.

So I worked for a couple of startup corporate wellness companies. And through that experience and that piece of my journey is really when some of my health issues came to a head. And that's when I discovered fdn. And when I discovered fdn, it was like the light bulb went on, on, you know, this whole way of looking at disease, whole new way of looking at disease. It gave me a lot of the solutions and answers to recuperate my own health. And then it really elaborated or enlightened me about this passion that I had about helping others and working one on one. So I was a little afraid at first of leaving corporate. Like, I think a lot of practitioners in the beginning are, like, leaving some of the stability of working for somebody else and making that leap into entrepreneurship and running your own practice. So I drug my feet a little bit. Like, I graduated FDN late 2012, and I didn't really jump out into doing my own practice or putting effort in there until about 2014. And then it just kind of took off from there because the work is so fulfilling and so joyful. And it was like my. My joy line just started to align with everything that I was doing, essentially.

I love that. And, you know, a couple of things that bring us even closer together in this bond of friendship is I'm trained as a kinesiologist as well. So I went to school to study kinesiology. And most people might know this who are listening to this. But it's the study of human movement and there's different ways that we move. We move through life, we physically move our bodies. And it's great to see that your journey has moved you through different opportunities of personal growth and also professional growth. And you said something there that for two years you kind of dragged your feet. And that strikes me as odd because I've always known you as a go getter. So what do you think was holding you back? What do you think was causing you to have that slowing you down from really hitting your success path?

Yeah, I think that the journey of entrepreneurship is one of personal self growth in a lot of ways. So back then, some of the things that came up for me, which I think come up for again, like a lot of practitioners in our space, especially those that are just getting started, is the imposter syndrome. Who am I to help somebody when I'm still working on my own health or I don't know enough yet to help somebody necessarily the kind of overwhelm of figuring out how to run a practice. So what does it really look like to work with somebody? Like once you have all of the kind of clinical, you know, research science education behind you, how do you actually implement it? What's the practical application side of that? And then I would say that money mindset was a really big piece for me too. Just looking at some of my inherited kind of money mindset beliefs that I had the like scarcity factor, the lack of being afraid to fail. I'm also self identify as like a type A personality or a perfectionist in some kind of way. So just the, you know, the thought of failing. And it's really funny that you say that and ask this question because I remember like I've always had kind of that entrepreneur spirit in a way. Like even when I was working back at in the corporate fitness industry, when I was really starting to reach my breaking point of being there, like it was just sucking the life out of my soul. I was starting to get all these creative ideas about how I could leave, like how I could go and start my own like end of independent personal training company. Which that's actually what I branched out and did. Kind of coinciding with some of the corporate wellness stuff as I developed a brand called Travel Fit. I had this grandiose idea of partnering with the hotels in San Diego because I'm in San Diego so there's a bunch of tourism here and that I was going to go train people in the hotels because they already had Gyms. And it would be like a win win for us. And I remember this distinct moment of, like, walking around Mission Bay with my friend in San Diego, one of my best friends, telling her, like, so excited about my ideas. And she like, completely squashed my ideas because she was just like, jen, like, are you crazy? Like, I don't think that you can do that, you know, and that. And so it's really important. I know. I think we're probably going to get to talking about this, about surrounding yourself with people who support you. Right. And, like, are aspiring to do the same things, which is why we love mindshare so much. But yeah, again, I've, like, I guess I've always had that drive, but it just takes some time to overcome some of those fears and, like, build your confidence, work on a little bit of that mindset piece and evolve into this place where you can take confident action. And, you know, I'll be the first to say, and I'm sure you might feel this way sometimes too. Sachin is like, there are still moments where I doubt myself or I question it, but now I kind of have the tools and the ability to, like, push through some of that stuff quicker, like, identify it quicker, push through it quicker so that I can keep, like, moving forward and I'm not dragging my feet for two years at a time.

Yeah, I mean, that's so relevant because I think a lot of people feel that way, including myself. Right. There's. When we're doing something new, when we're challenging ourselves, we might feel like, who am I and how am I going to do this? How am I going to get this done? But who are we not to Is an important way to look at it, especially when we're doing such important work as the work that you're doing, which is helping transform people's health. It's important that we find that inner power and push through or find that voice inside of us that guides us in the right direction. Now, one of the things that you did and where our journeys align in many ways is as you started achieving success in your personal practice, you also started coaching other FDN graduates and perhaps even other health practitioners. Tell us about that transition because you went from dragging your feet, feeling like an imposter, to actually now coaching other practitioners. Maybe you can talk about the mindset shift or maybe share some of the tools that helped you overcome the imposter syndrome, and then now playing a leading role in helping transform healthcare.

Yeah. This is where again, when I look back, I'm like, oh, I can easily connect the dots on how I got to this place. In a sense. You know, looking at my previous experience working in the fitness industry, I mean I was running a multimillion dollar fitness facility on my own, managing profit and loss reports, managing a huge team of staff, driving revenue, doing marketing. And at the time I didn't know like what the purpose of those skills would be coming into the future for me. Same thing with like then working in corporate wellness and helping two startup companies kind of get going and to help them implement systems and procedures and process. And I happen to be very process oriented in a way, which is, I would say a little bit of a unicorn thing to have in terms of a health practitioner. Because a lot of health practitioners are just very like heart centric and like empathic and they want to help people. And while I have some of that too, I have this very strong side that's like systems business process oriented. So I love to lend my skills to other practitioners to help them in those types of ways. So what happened was I just really focused on working on building my own practice and I started to implement process and systems and strategy in my own practice. And then of course was having great success doing that, like was building my practice up and people just started noticing like I never had any intention of becoming a business mentor in any kind of way. And I remember even like when practitioners started reaching out to me and asking me for mentorship, I was like, sure, I'll just kind of like do this on the side. And I would literally verbally tell people like, I have no intention of being a business mentor. Yet here I am years later and that's the primary focus that I have. And I've realized over time that that's actually what I, what I really love doing. I love working with clients on the health side of things. And I will say that I will always have a couple of like health clients like in my back pocket or in my yard because I think it's really important to kind of be boots on the ground, like understand the practitioner experience if you're going to be then mentoring other practitioners. But I actually am getting so much joy out of the business mentorship side of things. And so it just kind of organically started to happen. And I think this is where we're really similar to in our journeys is that I was just building things for my practice and doing things for my practice. And as we were doing that stuff, it was a little bit nuanced and I was like, wow, we just created some really amazing things here. And like, I feel like I would be doing a disservice if I don't share this with other practitioners and give them a quick start guide or a roadmap because it took me a long time to figure out how to do some of these things. And I want to help people get started quicker so that we collectively can help more people across the globe, essentially. Right?

Yeah, no, absolutely. And that's exactly how I feel about what we do is that, hey, we've, I can't say we've perfected the process because we're continuously reiterating it and making it better, but we were just ahead of other people and felt an obligation and a responsibility to share. Because I know, and I'm sure you know the struggles of getting some of those things up and running, the trial and error and the experimentation, and you multiply that by let's say a few hundred or a few thousand practitioners, then we're just delaying the inevitable, which is them getting it done. But it might be three, four, five years down the road until they get it done. And in that meantime, how many people are going to continue to suffer and not be able to benefit from the valuable knowledge that they've gained and the ability that they have to actually help people? And, and so I love that. I love. There's so many parallels in our journeys. Now. Another parallel in our journey is that we are both mentors in Mindshare and you know, going back to the story about your friends kind of squashing your dream, I was listening to Steve Harvey presentation that he was doing and he said, you know, if you want to kill your big dream, tell it to a small minded person. And that isn't to insult people. You know, sometimes people just have, they just live in a different paradigm, they live in a different world of possibilities. And I would look back at myself and I would say the same thing about my younger self right back in the day, we are limited by the people that we hang around with. Jim Rohn says we're the average of the five people we hang around with. And so when we up level our game, part of that is because we're up leveling our community and the people that we're hanging out with. And I can say for certain, being part of mindshare, first as a student myself and then as a mentor, has up leveled my game. And the way I think being part of other networks like Genius Network has up leveled the way I think and what's possible because you realize that, hey, the person I'm sitting next to although their business might be bigger than mine, they're not that much different than I am. And the difference is really in the way they think. So, you know, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what it, what it's meant to, you know, kind of go from where you've been as a corporate employee to a FDN to now a business coach. And now you're coaching people through the mindshare, mentorship and mastermind who are at a whole different level. So what does that feel like and what lessons have you picked up along the way?

Well, to sum it up in one word, kind of it feels like home. It's been very interesting. When I was coming up through developing my practice, I came up through.

My.

First community kind of on the business side of things was back then it was called Holistic mba. Since then they've rebranded to Health Coach Institute. And now it's even a little bit different than it was originally. And I remember first stepping into that community and feeling at home there like that was. I was just felt like I was surrounded by people that were at the same level as me. And then over time what happens is we evolve, right. And so eventually I kind of like outgrew that community in a sense where like I was reaching higher and higher levels in my business, reaching higher and higher levels from personal self growth. And I needed the next thing essentially. And so I was looking for the next thing. And what's I think a little bit challenging sometimes is that other business and marketing communities for other industries don't really fit what we do in functional medicine. Like there's something very unique about the functional medicine industry from a marketing and sales perspective, from a business perspective. Like one of the things that I talk to practitioners about is like, I think that we work in an industry that is probably the most, like the consumers are the most vulnerable consumers out there. Like they've been a lot of times we're attracting or the clientele that we work with, they have been. They've lost a level of trust and confidence in the, in the medical community in general. Like they have a different perspective. They kind of feel like they've been burned. So there is a different way to market to them, to run your business, to kind of rebuild that trust and that rapport with them. For example, it's not the same kind of marketing even as the typical like wellness and like fitness space, you know, the gimmicky kind of stuff or things that work out there for some of the general population. Like we're very unique in our industry, which and who we work with and then in how we work in terms of like the functional labs and all the things that we do that there is, you know, we have to like, consider that. And so I found myself a lot of times taking other business and marketing trainings and having to modify them to apply it to the work that I was doing. So it became kind of hard to find the next level community that I wanted to be in. And then through our mutual friend and colleague, Reed Davis, and working with fdn, he kind of introduced me to the mindshare community. And I remember going to the first, my first mindshare summit and I was like, mind blown, you know, because here I like, you enter a space with hundreds of individuals that all kind of like, think like you in terms of their perspectives and views on how to like, actually help people, like what health really is. And then they're all also focused on the business and marketing space. So, you know, oftentimes will be, you'll find communities in functional medicine that are really centered around a lot of the clinical side of things. It's easy. Like, those are kind of like a dime a dozen in a way, right? Like to go to different conferences, be a part of different networks and communities that focus on that. But to find a community that is solely focused on the business side of things that also has an emphasis in the functional medicine side space is really rare. There's not many other communities that I could even list off at this point in time. So it was just like an embrace of home. And then just like you like, coming in as a student first and being so inspired by some of these people, to see some of the bigger things that they were doing, to realize the possibility of what I could become or what I could do was a little intimidating sometimes at first too. And then it's been just, you know, quite a, like a dream come true to like turn around and be able to mentor, you know, some of these people to help them grow, you know, even bigger in the space so that we can have an impact on the world collectively.

Yeah, I love that. And you know, going back to something we talked about earlier, who you surround yourself with, you know, when you surround yourself with people who think big, perhaps some of them even bigger than you. And I might think it's great to know that they also have challenges, right? That despite how their businesses might look on the surface, the public facing side of things, the backend side of things, they're facing similar challenges that we're all facing. And that makes It. Okay, that's the other thing. I told Carl this. Carl is the CEO of Mindshare. And I told Carl this. I said, the greatest lesson I learned being in Mindshare is knowing that everyone makes mistakes. And some of the biggest brands, you know, some of the people we hold in the highest regard make. Make mistakes, right? And what I learned is how they own those mistakes. That was so powerful for me. And then I wasn't afraid to make mistakes because when we play big, things break and it's okay. Thankfully, nobody dies if you send the wrong link or, you know, like, it's not life. It's not life or death. It's not like we're doing surgery, right? And so it's how I learned how to handle those things, both personally with my team and then also as a company and as an organization. So that, for me was probably one of the best and greatest lessons I've learned, is that it's okay to play big. It's okay for things to break once in a while, but it's how we handle those things that ultimately determines if we're going to get back up and keep, you know, fighting for what we believe in. Right?

It's nice to realize that we're all just human, essentially. You know, that like we talked about in the community, it's like, you know, taking imperfect action is better than no action at all and just getting it out there because no matter, like, how imperfect it is, like, it's going to provide a solution. It's going to help somebody ultimately, and it's an opportunity for you to learn in your business about what works and what doesn't work. Like, I think that, you know, practitioners in this space have a tendency to, like, just want everything. Like, they're all, like, very perfectionist minded in terms of. And that can stall them oftentimes from just getting themselves out there because it has to be perfect. The thing has to be done. Like, they worry about, like, what happens if the wrong link goes out. I mean, this just came up in one of my business mentoring group calls yesterday was like this automatic email kept going, like, keeps going out to this person's client when it's not supposed to, telling them that their results are in. And she's like, I just.

I just.

It's like, I don't want that email to go out. I'm like, it's okay. Like, you can reply to the email and say, oops, didn't mean to send. That went off a little bit too early. Like, it's all right, you know, but there's like this, like, anticipation of everything has to be perfect. And it doesn't have to be perfect necessarily.

I mean, some, you know, there's. There's a mantra that I picked up from the Tao Te Ching, and it says that, and I really like this. It says that in nature, nothing is rushed, yet everything is accomplished.

Right?

So sometimes we want to push, sometimes we want to, you know, kind of sit in stillness, and yet everything gets accomplished. So I love, I love how our friendship has so much alignment and our journeys have so much alignment. You know, going back to the practitioners that you coach and train, what are some of the big challenges that they face? So, like, just imagine that there's practitioners who are listening to this who are facing a challenge in their business. Not only just, you know, perhaps what those challenges are, but where do you think those challenges, you know, from a functional perspective. Let's look at it from a functional perspective. What are, what do you find is the root of, of those problems?

So I think the number one biggest thing that I see that's common, and it's actually even common amongst some of these practitioners that we see that are out there, like some of these bigger brands that we, you know, tend to idolize or like look up to, is that there is a lack of clarity around their niche. And it's very interesting because the niching piece is so important to help streamline your business and to actually help scale and grow it in a lot of ways. And the niche, knowing your niche is critical for your marketing. It's critical for pricing yourself. It's critical for understanding your signature system and what solutions you're going to be providing for people. And it's often the times, like the things that I find with even practitioners, like, they can't figure out their niche, and that stalls them from getting started in a lot of ways. And where I think some of the root of this comes from is that again, it goes to back to being that most health practitioners are very heart centered and so they want to help everybody. There's this grand desire to help everyone. And as the saying goes, when you're trying to help everyone, you're not helping anyone. Essentially, this actually leads to the practitioners that continue on and build their business without a niche. It quickly leads to burnout because they are trying to help everyone. And so when they're trying to help everyone, they're constantly like, creating new things, reinventing things in their business. They can't create standardization and workflow and automation process because everything's so customized for the person that's sitting in front of them and so they reach their capacity, it becomes very hard to scale and then they feel really burnt out essentially, or they feel like they're burnt out because they're creating content and nobody's engaging with it. They're not getting the return on their investment. So the niche piece I find is the most quintessential thing that people need to focus on in the beginning and even repeatedly go back to in their business. Like when practitioners say I'm getting people that are showing up to like discovery calls or consultations that aren't willing to invest or they're no showing appointments. So like the reaction is, well, I want to charge for those appointments in order to get somebody to committed to show up. I say, well, let's go back to the root cause just like you would in somebody's health. Like where is that person coming from? What are you putting out in your marketing that's attracting that type of person? Like are they aligned with your niche? Because when you're aligned with your niche and you're speaking their language and you're speaking in terms of transformation, they already understand that you have value to provide them. They're much more likely to show up and then see the value, what you have to offer and enroll from that point forward. Right?

Yeah, I think, yeah. Just not to interrupt you, but I think that's important for people to realize is the thing that we think is broken isn't what's broken because what ends up happening in a situation like that if you don't change your messaging or the type of person you're attracting, you're just going to get no calls and you're going to be happy. Nobody's wasting your time, but you might eventually get upset that nobody's even scheduling an appointment with you. So, you know, I do think that the knee jerk reaction is to charge. But you know, really what you need to do is get to the root of it, as you mentioned, which is let's, let's focus on the messaging a little bit more. Let's really make sure people really understand what it is that you have to offer and why they're getting on that call. So they're looking forward to the call all week. They can't wait until the call. And they're so grateful that you're offering it, you know, for free, let's say, or at a, at a minimal cost as opposed to, you know, just booking. Because it's, you made it really easy for them to book, made it easy for them to Say yes, but you also made it really easy for them to say no. So we have to create an irresistible opportunity and, and you know, for them to connect with us. I like that.

I agree. And I experienced this in my own business at one point in time. Like there was a point in time where all of a sudden I was. It was when I started to share my thyroid story. That happened like in the middle of like getting my business going and growing. I started like, I realized that I had a thyroid condition going on and I started sharing more about that and all of a sudden I started attracting a lot of people in their discovery calls that had a victim mentality around it and they weren't willing to invest. And so I had to go back and look at like my marketing. What, what was the language that I was using, what was the energy that I was putting out there that was attracting these type of people? And the second that I started to tweak that and come from like the messaging came more from a place of empowerment. It, it instantly shifted the type of people that were showing up on my discovery calls. So the niche part being clear on who your niche is and also what your intention is and the type of. And I think that when I talk about niche clarity, I talk about understanding who the person is, not just the condition that they have. Right. So like there's this. Even if we look at the umbrella of a thyroid condition, there's a huge spectrum of people that are in there. Like we talk about the different stages of change, we can think of it in that scope of where are they in the stage of change or realization that they are ready, willing and able to do something about it. Who are those people? And in your marketing describing who that person is. So in my health coaching business, I describe that person as a busy, health minded professional who's looking for the missing pieces of their health puzzle. So they have this drive already that they want to find that then they're invested in finding the solution, which makes all the difference. That little piece makes all the difference in who shows up in my discovery calls for that type of stuff.

Right? Yeah. It's so important. It's usually the subtle, invisible things and it's not always the thing that we might think it is.

Right, exactly. So I think that that's one huge piece. I think the other really big part is getting some systems in place. And I think this is again where practitioners can struggle in this industry because again, they're so heart centered, so they're really focused on helping people and you reach a Capacity with that when you don't have systems in place. But that may not be your zone of genius as a practitioner. So that was something for me that like, once I got five clients in the beginning of my business, I realized that I was quickly going to hit a ceiling. That the manual process of, you know, tracking a client, like tracking all the things, again, this is very kind of unique to our industry. Like work a lot of these, I think your audience, my audience, like they do functional lab testing, they have like multiple intake forms that they're doing. There's. When you're onboarding a client, there's like multiple things that you're tracking. They need to sign a program terms of service agreement. You know, you have to send them welcome emails. Like you have to follow up on making sure that they're completing certain things and then figuring out when all those things are completed so you can move them on through the program in like the next stage. So, you know, the manual aspects of that was taking up so much time in my business. And this is also where I think practitioners can reach burnout really quickly. Like with some of these higher level practitioners that we mentor in the mindshare community, I see this happen a lot where they're saying that they're feeling really burnt out about working one on one with clients. And when we really get to the root of what's happening, it's because there's so much manual labor that's going on either for them personally or for their team, that they have hit a ceiling cap. And if they were to implement systems and process, it actually would free up a lot of their time where then they could really just focus on what they love to do, which is showing up in the appointment, working with the person, and having everything else being taken care of for them that frees up their time so that they can focus on other things in their business and just focus working on that person that's in front of them. Essentially.

Yeah. Part of being a functional medicine practitioner is all these moving parts, right. And it's easy to see why, you know, and this isn't a shot across the boat, but it's easy to see why conventional practitioners order such minimal evaluations on their clients because there's so much less to manage. And you can blow through an appointment in two to three minutes if you're only measuring a handful of markers. Whereas with us, we've got a, we're maybe a couple, a few dozen markers, if not even a few hundred markers, depending on how many labs you're running. And Then putting it all together, right, and making sense of all of it and taking the patient into account that you're seeing in front of you, but also the environment that they're going back into when they leave your office, taking that into account and then how their body is showing up in terms of the lab. So there is a lot of moving parts and managing that can be very overwhelming. And I think actually would, would estimate that a lot of practitioners don't even get their wheels off the ground and take flight in their business because of the overwhelm that comes with that.

Yes, I would agree. And that's, I think, like when you asked me that question earlier about what I was dragging my feet about, that was part of it was just like, what is the practical implementation of this? Like, what does this look like day to day working in my business and working with clients? Like, what is that process like? And tracking, like, figuring out how to put all this stuff together and tracking all the things that it really takes to help create success in somebody's health. You know, aside from the logistics of running lab tests and like sending emails, there's also the parts of like, how do you actually engage somebody in a program? How do you set them up for success? Like, I love that you mentioned earlier too about just the beginning stages of getting them into a discovery call. Like, what are you doing? How are you setting expectations and setting them up for success to actually show up to that call so that they can get what they need and you can ultimately help them. And so this is where like, one of the things that I like to talk about is like, client retention and engagement. Because your business is only as stable as your client or patient intention and engagement. You know, like, you could be getting a lot of sales or like enrollments and on the front end, but if they're falling out afterwards, that's going to affect the financial stability of your business. It's going to affect referral opportunities for you down the road. And that's actually a lot for, you know, practitioner to think about. It's like, well, how do I actually do that essentially? Right? And again, that's where having systems in place and process can actually really help you understand that. Like, what does it look like to work with a client? And then how do we implement tools that are going to support that process so that you can stay on top of what's going on with them, they can stay on top of what's supposed to be going on with them and nothing falls through the cracks. Essentially, we're guiding them to Success, ultimately.

I love that. This is awesome. This is such a great conversation, and there's so much more for us to unpack. What is your message to practitioners? So whether they're FDNs, health coaches, functional medicine practitioners who are just starting out, what's the advice that you wish you got in the very beginning, that if you can go back and tell your. Your younger self, what would it be?

Oh, gosh. I, you know, when I look back, like, the big lesson that I learned in the beginning that changed everything for me was definitely the niching piece and creating, like, a standard package offering that would have saved me so much time and, like, probably money as a result of it. Because I say, like, the niche piece gave me focus. It helped me focus my marketing efforts. It helped me focus on where I wanted to, like, where I wanted to market myself, who I was marketing myself to, and, and then understanding what clients, like the ones that were showing up in discovery calls were right for me. Like, in the beginning, I definitely took on a lot of clients that weren't right for me that ended up draining my energy and my focus. And so that kind of held me back in a way. And then the other part of it was, is like, creating some standard package offerings. And that really centers around when you know your niche, then it's easy to. Or it starts to guide. I shouldn't say it's easy because there's still some thought and process that has to go into it, but it guides what your package offering should look like, like, what your programs are going to look like, what you're going to include, how much time you're going to work with somebody because you're, you're developing that centered around a specific type of person. And that also then will save you time down the road. Like, one of the things that really hung me up in the beginning was creating custom packages for the person that was in front of me. And so that again, sucked time and energy out of being able to build my business or focus on the right things, essentially. And when I did that, when I finally created standard package offerings like business and marketing trainings, they'll say, like, your signature system or your methodology. Like, then I was able to replicate the process right, create templates, like, create a duplicatable process that saved time and money and freed up, like, gave me freedoms that I could have, like, in my business, which is so incredibly important in a lot of ways. And it just took me a while to figure those things out. But when I figured those specific two things out, it was like Then I started moving at the speed of light through my practice.

I love that. Thank you for sharing. So where can people learn more about working with you? So whether there's two different options, right, if they want to work with you as their business mentor, and then also if they're health oriented, busy professional or entrepreneur, they can work with you on their health. So I'd love to know where we can direct people.

Yeah, you can find me. My brand is Holistic Health Boss. Holistic is with a W, like whole foods, so holistichealthboss.com I'm also really active on Instagram as holistichealthboss over there too. So I love to connect with people. I share all kinds of business and health tips in both of those places. And then of course, in the Mindshare community. The Mindshare community is grand. As we've been talking about here today. I actually do a lot of mentoring over there as well too. We host office calls every month. So you'll see me pop on those calls and get some connection and business mentorship in that space for those that are looking for some of that business support.

Awesome. Well, Jen, we'll be sure to share all that information in the show notes. Thank you for joining me today and shining light on your journey. And it's remarkable to see the parallels, and I'm so glad that our paths have crossed many years ago and have crossed again during this conversation. Thank you once again.

Thank you. Sasha and I look forward to how our paths are going to continue to be parallel as we move forward too. So appreciate you having me here.

It's my pleasure. Have an amazing rest of your day. All right, well, thank you everyone for tuning in today. Please reach out to Jen. She's an amazing human being, and as you get to know her, she provides some valuable content and information. And I'm looking forward to, you know, continuing to work with her through Mindshare and we both learn from each other. So thank you for unpacking today all the experiences that you've had. I know, I know. There's so many more that we can unpack and maybe we'll do a second interview down the road so that we can go down some of those stories and maybe even talk about some of the biggest mistakes you've made along the way. I know that I could do a whole podcast on that, so maybe we can talk about that because that gives permission to other practitioners to do the same, right? To, you know, to play, to explore and to have fun. So thanks, Jen, once again, and thank you all for tuning in. We greatly appreciate it. And here's to building your perfect practice. And here's to learning, exploring, growing, and having fun doing it at the same time. Lots of love. I will talk to you all soon. Sa.