The Choice Between Wellness And Burnout with Carrie Petri | Meaningful Revolution Podcast

Anybody can relate on the topic of wellness, right? We all deal with health challenges. We all deal with figuring out what to eat every day and managing our energy and managing stress and sleeping. So there's really no one who you can't have a conversation with and connect actually on those topics if you're interested in talking about it, which not everyone is.

Alright, before we get into today's episode of the Meaningful Revolution, I just wanted to take a quick moment to highlight our commitment community because you guys are so fantastic. And I wanted to say that you can either leave a comment on Apple Podcasts or go to www.community.seanbutner.com to join our community to have your comment highlighted. Like I'm so glad I checked or clicked on this. It's a down to earth yet powerful podcast, promotes much needed inspiration in our lives. From Cedar Colorado, we love to highlight you guys here in the so please again leave a comment on Apple Podcasts if you enjoy this episode or any of the episodes. Community SeanButner.com, links below this episode so that you know hey everyone, welcome to the Meaningful Revolution podcast. I'm again your host, Shawn Butner, Certified High Performance Coach. Today I have my good friend Carrie Petrie who is an attorney turned wellness coach who has a lot of experience working in finance and understanding the challenges of maintaining a really healthy lifestyle while balancing a hugely demanding job. So she's discovered holistic health and functional medicine as tools to transform her own well being and she's passionate about sharing those strategies to help others. So she has a private coaching practice for individuals and corporate clients to support integrating wellness in every area of their lives. She's also received her BA from Duke University and her law degree from Fordham Law School and has coaching certifications from the Institute of Integrative Nutrition Functional Medicine Coaching Academy, the Institute for Coaching Mastery also and she's just recently completed her 200 hour vinyasa yoga teacher training. So with that, Kerry, so good to see you again. Welcome to the Meaningful Revolution.

Thank you, thank you for having me.

All right, so first off I just wanted to ask you a little bit about, you know, what are we going to really be focusing in on today.

In terms of like what I'm, you know, my passion, my passionate about. Yeah. So my passion is around wellness and holistic wellness. So the way that I think about wellness includes nutrition, fitness and movement and also importantly self care and kind of your mental and emotional well being and the practices that you have for maintaining that. And my passion for it I would say comes from the deep belief that when people take excellent care of their health on all those levels, it allows them to show up in the world as the best version of themselves and to really, it enables them to reach their potential. And so that's why I'm so passionate about helping people achieve that.

Right on. So I know we talked a little bit in your intro that you had a lot of challenges managing your wellness with a high powered job. Could you maybe explain a story or a turning point in your life when you realize like, hey, I really need to figure out wellness for just living, I guess, I imagine.

Yeah, sure. So I was a lawyer before obviously and worked in, worked in, in banking and kind of discovered this passion for wellness outside of work while I was in that career. And what I as, that as I kind of continued like I started with nutrition, started learning about nutrition, and then like fell down this rabbit hole of like meditation, mindfulness exercise, all the things. And I just kind of discovered this, this passion I discovered, you know, as I started implementing these things in my own life, I saw the difference that it made for me. And at the same time I really was starting to see how there was a huge discrepancy between, you know, what was, what I was learning in the world of wellness and what was actually being practiced by most people in the corporate environment. There was this huge split between, you know, the practices that I knew helped people and helped me and what was actually going on for most people in their work day. So that was as I started to see that that was kind of a turning point for me. And what, what wound up happening was that I started looking for, so I as, so I was learning about nutrition, learning about all these things, reading all the books, like falling in love with this topic and then wound up getting my first health coaching certification at Integrative Nutrition and started to think about how I might move my life and my career a little bit more in that direction. And what wound up happening was that I, the, the bank that I was at didn't have any kind of a wellness program internally. And so I reached out to them and had to started on this path of building a corporate wellness program within the bank to kind of bring some of these practices to my co workers and employees, not my employees, but my, the bank's employees to help serve them and that, and fortunately that grew into this wellness program that I was able to kind of build from scratch and test ideas out on and see what helped people, what they responded to. So that was, that was for me a turning point was Kind of taking this passion and bringing it into what I was doing at the time.

I love the idea of, I talk about a lot how sometimes our hobbies really can turn into our passions, you know. And like for me I had a 15 year career in software. I actually went to business school. So I had no business. I have zero like computer science training, but was able to work at like Apple at the height of my career just because I was really passionate about computers. So I love that idea of getting passionate about it and then figuring out how to shift slowly into it. So from that journey of bringing into the bank, was there anything that maybe surprised you or created a unique opportunity for you in your career or life from, from doing that? I'm just a little curious about that.

Something that surprised me was like the resistance to it. Like I like, to me it was a, it's a no brainer, right? And I think today, I mean again, that was four or five years ago. I think today people are a lot more kind of versed in wellness. And in the last few years especially, I think companies are beginning to really wake up to the fact that this is something that is not just like a fluffy nice to have benefit for employees. It's something that is really, it makes a huge difference if it's done well in the lives of employees. And that impacts retention and whether or not they stay with a company. It also impacts like their, like wellness. Again, going back to what I was saying before, like wellness at its basic level impacts how you show up every day. Like when you're taking care of your health, you can show up with more energy. If you're managing your stress levels better, you, your performance is, is better. So what surprised me at the time was I started by going to the HR department where I was, and at the time they just, there was no appetite for a wellness program. Like I would prepare these. My whole thing was like, you know, you can build a wellness program with very little financial investment by leveraging the resources within the company, within the bank that you already have and by leveraging like your insurance program and leveraging employees within the organization who are passionate about wellness and have skill sets outside of their 9 to 5. So that's where I started was like, here's how we can do it for free. And eventually. So what surprised me was the resistance. But the way around it that I found was by finding other champions within the organization and leaders who saw the value of wellness and saw it in their own lives and, and coordinating with them to find an avenue to bring it to life. So yeah, that's what I would say.

Oh, right on. So out of like. So it sounds like you were leveraging relationships inside your organization in order to, to make this, this big impact. Was it all people that you knew before or was it people that you connected with as you're trying to build this?

That's a good question. It was both. I would say pretty much anyone who would talk to me about wellness, I would, you know, talk their ear off and you know, sort of to your point of like your hobby kind of coming into your life in other ways and that crossing over. I mean, I just talked about wellness all the time. It was part of my identity and what I was interested in and what I wanted to talk to people about. So I had a lot of conversations with people on my team, you know, people at other events within the, within the organization kind of around wellness. And I think that event eventually led me to crossing paths with the right people who could help me, you know, kind of spread the word more.

Okay, awesome. I'm also wondering too, like, so I. From lawyers that I know, right? That's a very high like work life balance is usually not their strong suit. You know, did you find that it was more appealing to people that were kind of at the edge of their performance, at the edge of the work that they did? And I imagine finance in certain areas too is also kind of that, that same way. Did that transfer over pretty easily? Bunch of questions in there, but yeah.

No. You know, the interesting thing about wellness is like you can at least for me, because I love talking about it. Anybody can relate on the topic of wellness. Right. We all deal with health challenges. We all deal with figuring out what to eat every day and managing our energy and managing stress and sleeping. So there's really no one who, who you can't have a conversation with and connect actually on, on those topics if you're interested in talking about it, which not everyone is. And so I would say there's, you know, there. I related with different people and in different ways. Certainly, you know, I agree with you about lawyers and you know, law firm culture. And I've, I've seen that, you know, I've seen that to be a challenge for a lot of people and, and it's not limited to the law, but it's a good example of it where if a culture or a workplace culture is not, it can be either conducive to good habits and to supporting people and their well being or it can be the opposite where, you know, there's more kind of pressure to perform that doesn't take into account necessarily things like self care and well being. And so the challenge I guess is. Finding ways to help people understand and see how these practices that may seem like nice to have especially for people that have been in the working world for a long time and have been part of kind of legacy cultures where these things aren't valued as often or as much helping them to, educating them to kind of show the benefits of, of some of these kind of practices and values. So I don't know if that answers your question but.

Totally, totally. And I can relate having been in like, you know, seeing friends in startup culture I think a lot. I worked at Walmart Corporate for a while, a little bit more traditional corporation and that, that whole, I mean my, my whole career in coaching got started because I was burnt out and you can't really sustain the long hours the you know, just ignoring your health and ignoring personal relationships to just do work. Like we're social beings and we need to move like those are two truths and you know, if you don't have one of those two, you can't be performant over the long term. You know, as we talk about in high performance all the time. So that's, you know, just want to point that out that that is super, super important. So.

Yeah, and burnout too, just to your point, is a huge thing right now. I, I hear from so many people and for so many different reasons that they feel burnt out and they feel, you know, after the last couple years they're exhausted. Some people in their work, work environments right now are dealing with much larger workloads because of you know, things happening in hiring and people leaving and so yeah, absolutely. And I think there's two things there, there's one within an organization, you know, the importance of leaders recognizing that these are real issues that people are dealing with and they're affecting not only their home life but they're affecting, you know, their performance at work which affects the company's, you know, bottom line and everything else. But also, you know, it's really incumbent on individuals to take responsibility for their own health and well being and to set boundaries and to keep them and to like we have to be the first ones to prioritize our well being and to prioritize self care however, you know, whatever that means to you because you can't always rely on an organization to do it for, you know, to protect it for you.

Right. Have you noticed any common struggles or common I guess strategies to work around that you know, because I, I've been there. I know I've had friends that have been like, I'm just, I have to finish this project. It's, you know, I've been going for two months too long. I'm doing every waking moment, like is focused on this. When I go to sleep, I dream about work and like solve problems. Like how do you get out of that mode of survival? Or how do you get out of that where it's like, it's so stressful that you know. Have you heard of this term quiet quitting? I was reading about this earlier this week where people in jobs are like, I'm going to put, you know, I'm hired for 40 hours, I'm going to work my 40 hours, I'm going to go home. It's family time. And there's a very clear boundary there. And so it's, it's a way, the way that the article is phrasing it, it's a way for people to not go the extra mile outside of the parameters which is actually kind of help. Like there's probably a lot to unpack there. Think that it's, it's good in some regards. I think as a high performance coach. It's also like it's a failure of organizations. It's a failure of people wanting to get really excellent at something. You know, I think when you really are inspired and love a topic, you talk about it all the time. Like you said earlier, you are always working on it, thinking about it and that, that is a good thing as long as you're not burning out by destroying relationships and your body. So I was going to sort of. With that in mind.

Yeah, I just to jump in because I hear the question in there and I, I know exactly what you're talking about and I, and it's, it's, it can be a, it's a good problem to have. Right. You love your work so much. Hopefully that's why you're, I mean for some people it's not that they love their work, they're just so stressed out with their work and they have so many demands on them. That's why they can't stop working on or stop thinking about it. Or alternatively, you love what you do so much and you're so inspired and passionate about what you're working on that.

You.

You'Re tempted to, and I, you're tempted to overstep your own boundaries around health and well being and to overextend yourself, whether it's at the demands of your job. And, and within like the obligations of your job or it's just within like you pushing yourself to perform or to keep going. And it's so important. And that's where I guess it comes back to that element of kind of having personal responsibility over your health and within your mental health, your emotional health, your physical health, all of it. Because you, the problem with it, if you're pushing your boundaries and pushing yourself and is, is you, you, it's unsustainable. And so if your goals are, you know, high performance in the long run and achievement in the long run, you're doing yourself a disservice by not proactively protecting your well being now. Because if you just give everything to work right and you don't keep those boundaries and you let sleep go and you let relationships go and you, whether it's because again, you' so stressed out about your work or you're so in love with your work, eventually those other things that are key components of your life and that support you and the wholeness of you are going to fade away. And when that happens, you're not going to be able to sustain the work piece anyway.

100%. You know, as you know, in my coaching business, I know when I've dealt with people with burnout, like the last thing they want to hear is, hey, what you really need to do is add another ball to what you're juggling. But sometimes, especially for people that are high performers that are striving and have that fire in their belly to really push and we can talk about where we are now in society about that, but when you say, hey, you got to add that extra ball, it's just like, I can't. But inevitably when they start, you know, like to go for more walks outside to take a break during the day, that's just 10 minutes, it's five minutes. You know, the impact to just how they feel day to day is always surprising and always much bigger than they thought. And then that kind of gets them going. I'm not sure. Have you noticed something like that?

Yeah, 100%. I mean, that's what that is like. At the heart of how I work with people is making it seamless. So, so instead of, and I think some people think too, when they think about, you know, wellness or being healthy, they imagine, you know, restrictive diets and intense workouts and, you know, deep meditations that take, you know, take up time out of their day. And so it can feel like, you know what? I don't have time to think about that right now, um, and my whole thing is like, okay, how do we, how do we do this? It doesn't have to be these huge efforts. It's those small steps taken consistently that build those foundations. And it really can be as simple as taking a 10 minute walk, you know, out, getting outside for 10 minutes or. And so I really like those, those little steps that you can kind of build in so that it's not quite as overwhelming for somebody who already has too much on their plate to begin with.

Right on. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. So as you were building this program in your organization and creating your training that you now do and offer, were there any particular, like, huge struggles that came up for you or in the process where you're like, huh, like maybe stopped you in your tracks and you had to figure your way around it?

Funnily enough, when I first started doing both, actually, I was doing. So I started doing three things at once. I had my job still as a lawyer at the bank. I was running the corporate wellness program at the bank, which had been kind of built into my job responsibilities at my request, but my other responsibilities hadn't shifted down.

Yeah.

And at the same time, I was trying to, you know, get my additional training, my certifications, my training, learn about how to build a coaching business. So doing all three things at once. And I got super burned out, like to the point where I got sick and I had wound up being mold toxicity that I was. I was exposed to some mold in my environment and I got super sick for, like, I was sick for about four months and then it took me another four to six months after that to recover. So that was super interesting to me at the time. It wasn't. Didn't feel interesting at the time. It felt like, oh, my God, this is like the last thing I need right now. But in the long run, I learned so much about, I mean, I learned about burnout. I learned that I can't let myself overstep my own boundaries, that I have to be vigilant about, you know, taking care of the whole picture of myself and my health because, like, you know, as I said before, it's just not sustainable to do, to do otherwise. So it did wind up helping me in the long run, I think. I mean, for better or for worse. And I came to understand. I learned a lot about environmental toxins and, you know, all, you know, fun stuff. But that was one struggle that kind of came up early on.

Right on. Did that accelerate you leaving your main gig or was there a plan there I, you know, I'm curious about that.

Yeah, the. I, I knew I wanted to do it for like, I, I knew it was going to happen at some point. And what actually was the turning point for me was so we, we moved to work from home in, in 2020 and this past spring, we, we were, they were beginning to call everyone back to the office. And I kind of knew that to me was just okay, if I'm ever going to do this, this is the right time. I have all the training. It's like it was time for me to make a leap. And I think too probably similar to what a lot of people are thinking about and going through after the last couple of years has been, you know, having that, that kind of huge, huge break from normal routines and a huge, you know, this kind of like traumatic event in the, in the sense of like having to process a version of reality that I don't think most of us ever expected to live through. Yeah, you know, for me that, that gave me a sense of urgency, I think more about how spending my time and so, so all those things kind of combined. It was just time to make the leap.

Gotcha. Yeah, I noticed. So I went full time coaching in the middle of 2019, right before everything went sideways. And I noticed the people that I was working with, there was a shift of where it felt like so many people were just in like, go, go, go, go, go mode. Never any time to like stop take a breath and reflect on like, is what I'm doing day to day kind of crazy? You know, the, the two and a half hour commute each way to work is going to take a toll on you and people like, you know, my whole identity was tied to my work. I was doing that 80 hours a week. And now that that's gone, like, where are my friends? Where are my fa. Like all these type of like your human, I like to say, your humanity kind of caught up with you and you're like, oh, I'm not a robot in a lot of ways. And so this great, I called it the great reflection doing that. And then I still believe that it's fundamentally changed how people think about what they want to do and how they work. And so I want to honor you for following that inspiration because I know that that's not an easy thing to do, especially when times are not certain. You know, I think there were people that were like, okay, things are super uncertain. I'm gonna like hunker down and just not try to change, try to control for as little change as Possible. That's. I always wanted to phrase that. And there are people that are like, everything's upside down. Like, why not? You know, so that. That's super cool. I just want to honor that. That jump, because it's. It's a big deal.

Thanks.

All right, so would I guess for the next couple of questions I have for you, would you consider yourself, like, do you work more individually or do you work more with corporate entities building wellness programs, or how do you view yourself? Because that'll.

Yeah, it's a mix right now. It's both. And I like the corporate piece because I have done it, and I understand kind of the issues, you know, that the employees face in terms of balancing, you know, trying to build balance in. And so I very much relate to that environment, and I have done it, you know, for a few years now. So I. It's something that I know I do love working with people one on one, that's, like, really where my heart is at. To be. To be totally honest with you, there's just. Yeah, I just. There's. There's something so special about the coaching relationship, you know, where somebody is, like, willing to open up about their life to you, and you have this opportunity to hold space for their vision and for their dreams and. And to be the person who's cheering them on and helping them strategize is like, to me, there's nothing better. Like, I. So that. So I would say that's my favorite, but I am doing. Doing both.

So then when you're looking for someone that's like a top tier in the wellness space, like, what does that look like? What would you look for in someone? And maybe we'll get into some influences that you've had in wellness.

You mean, like. Like, who do I. Who do I look up to as, like, a. A leader or what do I. So.

Okay, let me clarify. The first question is more of, like, if I had to find a wellness specialist for my business, or I'm looking to connect with someone as, like, a wellness coach, like, what should I look for in someone that's, like, at the top of their game? We'll start there.

Okay. Yeah. Great question. So I think. I think that it's important that. To work with somebody that is not just looking at physical health, but looking at mental and emotional challenges as well. You know, again, I think the. I think the. The thing with wellness is that it touches every aspect of our life, and it's impacted by so many factors within our life. And so you really need somebody who's looking at the whole picture with you. Whether that's, if it's in a medical context, you know, a doctor who has an understanding of, you know, the lifestyle piece and how that works with things or if it's a team, you know, where the doctor is doing some parts but you have, whether it's a coach that's with the doctor or a team so that you're, so that somebody or everybody is looking at the whole picture and then you know, but just for individuals like, you know, I think my whole focus within my coaching is, is within a framework that I created that I call Eat, Move and Breathe. And so eat is like nutrition, healthy eating, healthy cooking, everything to do with your relationship with food, emotional eating, food cravings, all of that falls under Eat Move is fitness, exercise motivation, doing the right workouts for your that align with your goals and also building in plenty of movement throughout the day outside of workouts. So making sure you know, you're counteracting kind of a sedentary lifestyle. And then breathe is like self. I don't already walk through this before, I don't know.

No, no we haven't yet.

So talk about this all the time. Breathe is like self care, stress management, the quality of your sleep and your mental and emotional environment internally. And so and the reason that I think and everything kind of falls under those three and the reason I think looking at all three is so important is that you can't really have complete and whole well being if any one of those areas is not addressed. And so like for example, you could be eating like the perfect diet for you, working out every day. But if your stress levels are off the charts and you're not managing your stress, you're not going to be the healthiest version of yourself. So and additionally, any step that you take in one of those areas is going to have positive impacts on the other. So if you start eating well, you change your diet and start making better choices around food, you are going to have more energy to show up to your, to a workout, you know, and then the more you and when you're building in more exercise and more movement, it helps to process stress and release stress. And so that's how I see those three things working together. So in answer to your question, in terms of when you're looking to make a change or work with somebody around your health, I would look to make sure that they're supporting you around all of those elements instead of just focusing on food or just focusing on workouts. Because I really think you see progress, sustainable Progress faster when you incorporate all three aspects.

I 100 agree with you on that. And like, years ago, right when I was out of college, I was like, super stressed with student loans and like, financially I was just on like rice and beans. Like that kind of like living like a college kid and your first part of your career, which is always fun. And I was so stressed, like, I signed up for the Chicago Marathon and like, and I couldn't run for 15 minutes, you know, straight when I signed up. And I'm like, I need something that's cheap and something that I can do. And the, you know, trying to get the amount of getting to the point where I could just think about, like, oh, finance is just a math problem, really. And so. But you have a lot of emotions that might get caught up there. And like, to just burn that off, to be able to focus on like, okay, what, how do I cut, how do I, you know, add an extra couple bucks here? What do I do to kind of really, you know, hit my student loan balance so that I could start to pay for, you know, living expenses and not have to juggle bills. Like, is super powerful.

So that clarity came out of your, out of your, like during your runs and out spending that time running.

Yes. You know, after about mile three, everything would just kind of like flush out and like, okay, like, I can, you know, I felt like a human again, you know, like, okay, that's burning out. And now to distract myself from the pain of running, let me try to, like, you know, figure out what I can, you know, do. And so that was it. It fed into each other, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love movement for that. I, you know, I think movement in any form is one of the most powerful things you can do for your health. For exactly that reason, you. You're releasing stress, you're releasing, you know, endorphins within the body. You're oxygenating the body. You're. You're taking care of your body in a way that is immediately impacting your mental health.

Yep.

So it's super powerful. Did you end up running the marathon?

I did. So that first year was the year when it was like, it's like at 6 o' clock, it started at 80 degrees and they ended up canceling it. Cause it got like, awfully hot and they ran out of water for everyone that wasn't in the first quarter of the race. Like, they.

Oh, my goodness.

So then next year I went and finished. So I got 60 miles in before they called it. And that's a whole other Crazy story of, like, people opening up like fire hydrants on Michigan Avenue, so all the runners, oh, my God, cool down and stuff. Yeah, it was nuts. Anyways, for another day, I can tell more stories about that. Excuse me. So, all right, so looking at someone who approaches it holistically, which I think is really important and relates to coaching work, I do, too. And the high performance research that we base that on. So is there anything else to look out for other than that holistic approach.

In terms of looking to work with somebody?

Yeah. Yes.

Let me finish my question. I would say, you know, a big part of working with a coach is there's so much that come, especially if it's over a period of time. Right. If it's three months or six months, however long you're working with somebody, there's a lot. First of all, you need somebody that you can deeply trust because you want to be able to be as open and transparent with them as possible. Ideally, they become somebody that you can talk to about anything because having that trust and that relationship within that container is part of what's powerful about working with a coach. And I would say having somebody that understands how to navigate mindset and emotional issues as well. Because there's two pieces. There's the strategies around, you know, what to eat, how to improve your diet, how to motivate for exercise, how to, you know, improve your sleep, all those different kind of tangible pieces. But where the rubber hits the road is really around what comes up when you begin to make changes to your lifestyle and begin to try to change your behavior. And all of the blocks that immediately come up, which are the reasons that you haven't done those things in the past. Like. Right. So for most people, when it comes to wellness, they have a general idea of what they should be doing. Like, should be eating more vegetables, you know, they should be drinking more water, and they should be moving their body and, you know, turning off their phone at night. Like, most people know the things that they should be doing. And so the work is really around to the extent that you haven't been doing it, those things. And as you start to work with a coach and you have somebody holding you accountable, that comes much more into light. Then it's like unpacking what's really under the surface there, like what. What's really going on within your. Within your thoughts or within your emotions. Or maybe it's tied to things from the past. Maybe it's tied to fears about the future that's keeping you from being in consistent action. And that's where having a coach who knows how to kind of navigate that with you is, I think, also really important.

I can't agree with you more. Yeah, I had a client last year whose son had a. He's in kindergarten and had a sticker chart. And he was like, I just want to get back to consistent workouts. And he came up with the idea of using a sticker chart that he could play stickers with his son at home. And that was the weird thing that really worked for him and had the validation of the family kind of supporting him. And like, there's so many good things that kind of rallied around that one strategy. But yeah, yeah, it's those weird psychological things you need to know about yourself in order to follow through.

Yeah. And it's different. Like, it's different for every person too, you know, like, what motivates one person sort of like with. With workouts. Right. And actually, like, every aspect of wellness is completely unique to the individual. Right. Like, a diet that works for. For one person is not. Is going to be like the worst. The best possible diet for one person is the worst possible diet for somebody else. And a workout that is like, you know, somebody's favorite and gets great results for them is going to be the workout that somebody else can't in there, can't motivate themselves to do. So my dog is snoring in the background, you know, and so I totally lost my train of thought, but. Oh, yeah. So it's like discovering for yourself around all those areas, but also psychologically, like, what are my. What motivates me? What, you know, what triggers me? How do I, you know, so what's.

My plan when that happens? Yeah. Awesome. So, okay, so, all right, holistic approach. You know, having a model like your eat, move, breathe, you know, someone that you trust, and then navigating those mindsets and mental things that pop up in a way that helps you get into action. That's kind of like four things I'm picking up here. So okay, with that said, like, where did you find influencer? Who do you follow that you think is really good in the field that other folks might want, if they're interested in this topic of wellness, might want to pick up or follow other than yourself, of course.

Yeah, so I think so. My one. One of my coaching certifications that I did, it was the second one. The second health coaching one was through the Institute for Functional Medicine, and it's their coaching program, which is the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy. But functional medicine, I think the most I. I Think it's a super interesting area of medicine. Functional medicine doctors are western trained, like traditionally medically medical, medical school, medically trained doctors. And then they also do this additional curriculum on top of it around functional medicine. And the idea behind functional medicine is that it looks at the body as a, as a system. Right. It looks at all of this, all of the, the different aspects and components of the body as interrelated. And so instead of being. Whereas a lot of medicine is, looks at, you know, that treats a particular symptom or a particular part of the body, a particular area of the body, functional medicine looks at the personal. And so when, for example, when you go to work with a functional medicine doctor for the first time, they very often will sit down with you and do a deep dive of, you know, an hour to 90 minutes around your entire health history. You know, things that happen to you in childhood, your, your diet, your parents, you know, and their medical history. And in addition to that, so they get this, they pair that, that kind of like deep dive around your health history with like cutting edge diagnostic tools around in terms of like blood work and looking at what's happening in your gut. And so it's this, I, it's this really beautiful combination of like cutting edge modern medicine and also looking at lifestyle choices and how that impacts things. So to me it's like, it's this again, like very holistic view of medicine and of health. And so I really look up to functional medicine doctors that are like a lot of them are, you know, like Mark Hyman is a, is kind of a leader in the field. And my own functional medicine doctors practice parsley health. They're fantastic. Will Cole is another functional medicine doctor who's, who's pretty well known. Yeah. So I would encourage, I always encourage people to look up at functional medicine practices and like when I, and I work with, you know, to the extent that I work with somebody and there's a medical issue that comes up or they need to work with a doctor, I'm constantly referring them, oh, my doctor. Yeah.

Awesome. Yeah, I imagine that, that getting into history. Right. So there's the person in a system and then there's the body as a system. So you know, you have a lot of like sore throats. But maybe it's a gut health thing of like it's not, you know, go to a throat doctor and then throat doctor's like, yeah, I don't know. You know, so. Right. Yeah, it's more like, oh, you have this gut thing that's impacting your Throat and your sinus, you know, your allergies. And so.

Yeah, and because they're looking at the whole picture. They're looking at your hormone levels, they're looking at what. What, you know, what your diet is, what are you eating. They're looking at, like, they just. They. They're able to take a bird's eye view of things. And. And, you know, when it really was valuable to me was when I got burned out and I was getting sick and I couldn't figure it out. It was my functional medicine doctor who asked me about mold. She was like. And I would never in a million years have it. It would never have occurred to me that I. That these symptoms that I was having, which ranged from nausea to ocular migraines to dizziness to respiratory, like, first of all, it never occurred to me necessarily at first that they were all related. And it would never have occurred to me that it was because of an environmental toxin. I had no idea. And so it took. But that's like a perfect example of a functional medicine doctor because they are looking at the whole picture and not just. And I had gone to other doctors before I talked to her, and none of them had ever asked that question. So they're my heroes.

Awesome. Awesome. That's. Yeah. That's really heartening to hear. Okay. Is there any other influences other than, like, functional medicine and the folks, Mark Hyman and Will Cole that you had mentioned or Parsley Health, like, functional doctor groups that you admire or look to for wellness?

Yeah, I would say more. More around, you know, people who are teaching great things around mental and mental. Mental health and how to kind of think. How to. How to understand the mind. So, like, there's a. There's a book called the Tools. It's written by Phil Stutz and Barry Michaels, and they have another doctor who works with them now, Kristen Sargent. And it's this beautiful. I. I read the book years ago and. And have since gone to their workshops and. And done different things in groups with them. And the. The concepts in that book are all around there. It's this. It's the first time I ever saw this combination of psychology and spirituality. And it's presented in a methodology that is super easy to use and very. So they break down. They break down these, like, concepts, I guess, or. Or they provide these strategies for dealing with difficult situations in life, whether it's anxiety, whether it's a bad mood, whether it's rage and anger. And they. They have these tools that they've designed, these mental tools that you Use to move through those emotions and to, to move. And they're all about, you know, enabling people to reach their high, their highest potential. So I love them and I love that book.

Okay, awesome. The tools.

The tools.

Okay. Any other influences or we can move on? I feel like we could probably like, dig here for quite a while.

I'm like, let me just look at my bookshelf with like. But if I think of anything else that I. That feels worth mentioning, I'll pop. I'll let you know.

Sounds good. Okay. Then getting ready to. To start wrapping it up. So I love these set of questions that I asked everyone these questions. The first question is if someone were to. There's a complete newbie in wellness would be like the first one to three things a beginner should really look into and do to get momentum, to get started.

Love it. So three things. If I was going to pick three, I would pick an eat, a move and a breathe. Right. So, okay, eat. I would start with. The first thing I always have clients do is to keep a food log and to do it for anywhere from three to seven days. And the, the things that I have them track are what they're eating and at what time of day, as well as any, as well as their energy levels throughout the day around those times and anything to do with their mood around those times. And the reason that I start there is because very often we're. We think we have an idea of what we're eating, but when we actually put pen to paper, we start to see pattern. We start to see things a little bit more clearly in terms of what we're actually eating every day. And when you have a log over anywhere from three to seven days, you can start to identify patterns. Patterns. And you start to notice. I also have them track the hours of sleep from the night before and how much water they're drinking.

Okay.

And so as you start to track all of that information, you can begin to pick up on patterns like, okay, when I don't get enough sleep the night before, I wind up having sugar cravings the next afternoon. And so that's something I need to look out for. Or on the days that I'm skipping breakfast, I'm overeating at. At night. And so it can provide a lot of insight just by keeping track of what you're already doing. So that would be one. Let's see a move. One would be, you know, tracking your steps is a hugely powerful tool for a lot of people. It's so simple. You know, you can. Most people's watch or phone can do it for them. Or you can get a simple, you know, pedometer for like $10 on Amazon. And if you're somebody who is struggling to fit in workouts or you're struggling to move enough throughout the day, having that, using a step tracker can help you become very aware during the day of when you need to be moving more. And it can be motivating to go outside for that 10 minute walk, to park your car a little bit further, to take the stairs instead of the elevator. And those, you know, those steps, no pun intended, like, add up over time.

Right.

So it's kind of a good place for people to start. And then finally with, with breathe, you know, a lot of people have trouble. Have trouble. Self care is not necessarily high on most people's priority list. And I think many, many people think of it as a nice to have. But the reality is it's really important that we are taking care. Like to me, self care is about checking in with your own mental and emotional states and checking in with your body and yourself and becoming aware of what you need in a given moment. And so what I challenge people to do when I'm first starting working with them, if self care is not something that they're practicing or if they have some issues with boundaries or with stress, is to, to assign them homework of 20 minutes of self care every day. And that can sound like, oh my God, 20 minutes every day, like, how am I going to do it? But all it is is carving out 20 minutes of every day where, and there's where the only thing that you have to do during that time is whatever feels good to you in that moment. So that can be take a nap, that can be go for a walk, can be call a friend or read a book, could be watch tv. Like whatever it is you need in that moment, like, that's your only, that's your only job. It can't be something that you do for somebody else or something that's like checking a box of responsibility. And what happens over time as people do that is they build that muscle of understanding that, that there are benefits that come out of listening to themselves for, you know, for 20 minutes and taking just that little bit of time to give themselves what they need kind of fills their own cup.

Awesome. Yeah, I, I love that in my like coaching practice, I call it wellspring habits. So playing music, writing, journaling, sitting out and just staring at the trees or playing with animals, whatever, whatever it is, you know, whatever fills your cup up, you know.

Yeah, it's so important.

100%.

Okay.

So I love. So you have the food log, the tracking steps, the 20 minutes of self care, you know, prescribed. So this next question that I also really love is, so if you're in a wellness journey right now, like generally are there one to three things that you look at that tend to bump people up or push them more into their wellness? If they have like a yoga routine or they do a little bit of working out, they can help them manage stress more, I guess. Or all the things that, that you, you teach more intermediate folks.

Yeah. So like how do you, what's the next level kind of once you've. That's a great question. I mean it's very individual. Right. It depends on what, what everyone has kind of their different problem areas. One thing I would say, so when I, one of the things I have clients do when I first start working with them is do what's called like a, you can look it up online. It's like a like 360 wheel or the Wheel of Life. There's like different names for it, but it's this tool and it's just, it's like a circle on a piece of paper and then there's all these lines across it like spokes on a wheel. And then next to each one, you know, is a different, each one represents a different area of your life. So it could be finances, it could be friendships, could be diet, you know, career, all the different areas of your life. And I have people and then you. On that each spoke is like from 1 to 10, you kind of mark, mark off 10. Being like this area of my life is best of the best one is like I really need a lot of improvement in this area and you kind of score yourself on there. And what I find like, like mid to end of a coaching container where like we've is very often like, okay, we've, we've nailed down like the strategies around, you know, eating and, and movement and sleep. They've got all these things going. And then what you might notice is that there's, there's always like one area that, that the, that the person or the client is like, it always somehow drops to the bottom of the priority list and it's like always kind of the last thing they really want to talk about and sort of like. But if you look, it's like one of the areas that they marked as needing improvement right in the beginning and that can be very telling. And so like I guess a question to ask yourself if you're looking if you're like, okay, I feel like I'm doing these things pretty well, is like, what's an area of your life that, you know you should be doing something differently, or an area of your health, you know, what you should be doing, and yet you're not doing it. So, you know, you know it needs to be improved. You have a strategy that, you know would probably work, and yet you're not taking action. And I would spend time there, I would. I would do some reflection, I would do some journaling and ask yourself, you know, what. What am I getting out of not taking action in this area? How am I benefiting by, you know, what am I avoiding? What do I fear would happen, you know, if I started looking at this area or creating change here? And very often, you know, it's like there's a. There's something deeper. There's something, you know, that they associate with creating change in that area that's actually negative. And so there's some. While they want to change, there's some part of them that actually doesn't want to create change in their life, or they have on some level that they're not thinking about every day an association with creating change or in that area or with that area that is negative or that holds pain from their past or holds pain from watching a parent go through something. So that slowing down and spending the time to try and get a little light in there would be. That would be my tip.

Yeah, that's. That question, I think, can be summed up in is, what are you avoiding in your life and why? Like, it's such a powerful coaching tool because like you said, there's usually so much that comes up for folks when either they don't realize they're avoiding it, you know, but just by saying, like, what are you? And you're like, oh, yeah, and we.

Have very good reasons most of the time for doing what we're doing, including avoiding doing something that we know we should be doing.

Yeah.

And so it's like, you know, I think the, The. The key there is giving yourself permission to give voice to those parts. Give voice to the part of you that doesn't want to create change. Give voice to the parts that. Give voice to the part of you that feels afraid or associates it with past pain. And just. Because until you unearth that and kind of air it out a bit, it's just going to sit there and it's going to keep you from doing the thing, but you're not going to be necessarily understanding why Yep.

And you can do all the focus on what you will gain from it. But if you don't know what weight you're carrying in the backpack as you go forward, like, you're just going to, it's going to be tough to take those steps to, to move forward.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Awesome. Okay, so last question for you, unless you have any other, like, tips for intermediate folks. You know, I think that was assessment and then avoiding.

But yeah, no, let's do it last. Let's do the last question.

Okay. Do you have any habits that help you keep connected to the work that you're doing, the really good wellness work that's getting put out in the world by you? Do you have any habits that are daily, weekly or monthly that help you keep on purpose or on mission or remind you when stuff gets tough that this is important?

Yeah. You know, I think a big part of being a wellness coach is like walking your talk. And you know, I can't be, I can't be, you know, supporting my clients in eating healthy meals and making good choices and moving their body and telling them to do all that if I'm not in good fit, you know, doing it myself. Which is not to say that, you know, I have to be perfect or do it perfect in the same way that my clients don't. But it feels out of alignment to me, certainly if I'm not, if I'm not living the things that I'm teaching, you know, my clients to do. So, you know, for me that's like, you know, making food choices in a balanced way. So not necessarily following a perfect diet, but making choices that I know are going to help me feel my best and take care of my body in the right way, moving my body consistently. Like I, I really believe that exercise and moving your body is one of the best things you can do for your mental health, as I said before. And so that's a really important part for me, whether it's doing my actual workouts that I like to do or just getting out for a walk, getting my steps in and same thing with sleep and self care as well. So I would say walking my talk is, is one, one thing I'm noticing lately too is that as I continue to push myself as a new business owner and, you know, you know, doing the things that challenge me within that context of creating content and, you know, being on social media and putting my self out there into the world and all that, the more I push my own growth edges, the better able I am to encourage my clients to do the same. You know, the more I'm working on my own growth and development, the more inspired I feel around getting other people to do the same thing. So that's important.

Right on. So I'm loving the constantly being reminded that you're the role model for the work that you're putting out. There is another way to phrase it.

Yeah, yeah. It's like if I'm in it with integrity, be saying, here are the things you should be doing to feel good about your health and to take care of yourself, and here's why it's important. Then I like, I have to be doing those things myself too. And again, not perfectly because I wouldn't expect that of anyone, but, you know, with consistency and with it as a part, a real part of my identity I think is important.

Right on. I love that. And I know that when since we're the meaningful revolution, so many times people find meaning in service to other people. So it's clients. Maybe you have family member. A lot of people have family members. They're also. I want to be healthy to role model for my kids. I think that's a huge source of keeping that purpose and I just want to honor that too. That, that integrity. I know from talking about you are talking with you about this topic that that shines through and your knowledge and the energy that you've put out. So thank you so much. Real quick, how can people follow up with you or support you or check out your wellness programs out there on the Internet?

Thanks. So my website is just my name. It's carriepetree.com and I have a free mini course that's up there on Eat, Move and Breathe. That's like a three part course you can download for free or my Instagram is my name too. Just errypetrie. Those are the two places.

Okay, I'll have those in the show notes below the episode. Carrie, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I really enjoyed our conversation. I hope everyone was taking notes. I have a whole note or a whole page of stuff to come circle back. So again, thank you. It was really quite the honor.

Thank you. This was a blast and you're a great interviewer. So I'm so glad you're doing this podcast and thank you for having me on. Of course.

Anytime. All right, with that, we'll see you guys in the next episode, the Meaningful Revolution. And until then, go out there and try to add a little bit more meaning to what you're doing in your workouts and see how that changes how you feel with some of the great tips that Carrie gave us today. Okay guys, until then, take care. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Meaningful Revolution podcast. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I hope you took as much notes as I did, as many notes as I did in particular about about the three takeaways that Carrie talked about for helping us self care more. Because when we can take care of ourself, we can feel like we are making strides towards the things that are important to us and not burning out, which is as a high performance coach myself, something we always talk about. How do you beat what's normal in your life without destroying your health and relationships as you go along? So it ties really, really greatly to the the work that we're doing here in the Meaningful Revolution. Again, before I get sidetracked, three takeaways were doing that food log for seven days and marking how you felt energy wise, sleep wise, water intake and whatnot, tracking your steps every day and just naturally trying to beat what your score was yesterday and then you know, doing 20 minutes of self care, whatever that is for you, reading, book, playing music, writing a song, gardening, you know, whatever lights you up inside a little bit can go a lot ways and we often neglect these basic things that I think everyone, most people are like, yeah, this is a no brainer but you get lost when life happens. So if you guys have any other takeaways yourself, Please go to community.seanbutter.com or watch the link below this podcast episode wherever you're listening to it and join us for free. Share what you learned. If you want to discuss anything or you are clear on something, definitely let us know. We can cheer you on. We can, you know, help suss it out for you and, and really just build a community around adding a little bit more meaning to our lives every day, connecting with people and, and really progressing our lives. So hope you join us there again the links below this episode or go to community.seanbutner.com and we'll see you guys on the next episode.