001: Rewriting Your Story with Natalia Kern

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback? On this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who at their worst, learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating everything from nothing. Born in the Ukraine, growing up in post Soviet collapse, civil war and other political economic tragedies, Natalia Kern grew up in a small town without even running water. Natalia had all odds stacked against her for success. Despite this, she had a mom that told her she could accomplish anything she wanted. And thank you. Thankfully, Natalia believed her mom. She taught herself five languages, immigrated to the US and transformed herself into a professional model and then an internationally published writer. And now today, she's a much sought after, successful woman who teaches others how to have it all. She rewrote her past story and now helps others rewrite their story too. Today, meet Natalia on a more personal level while she shares with us exactly how you too, can accomplish anything that you set your mind to and level up. Creating everything from nothing. I'm so excited. I've got Natalia Kern on my show today, and not only is she one of my most amazing friends, but she is such an inspiration to so many. Natalia, thank you so much for being here. If I. If you had told me a few years ago, before I even knew you, that I'd be doing a podcast and having you as a guest, I would have said, no way, it wouldn't happen. So I'm so excited to have you here.

Oh, thank you so much for having me here. I'm so excited.

So you represent somebody who has truly created everything from nothing. And I say that because some people, me included, would have looked at you before we knew you and thought, she's just got this perfect life. She's got the happy marriage, she's got the kids, the nice house, the great. We just say she has a perfect life. She's gorgeous, all of these things. And what people don't know about you is that it wasn't always this for you. It wasn't always this for you. I would love.

No, of course not.

But people assume, right? People assume. So I'd love to know about you before you were such a success.

Wow. How much time do you have? Well, I think like anybody else, you know, I have a story and you know, when people look at the external things. And they assume there is life just the way it looks on the surface. It's a mistake, but it's a human nature to just assume. So I never led with struggle forward. You know, I never led with, well, poor me, this is what happened to me because I never identified with my struggle. It just. It is what it is, you know, you just power through it. And I guess that's what helped me not to, I don't know, stay in that struggle. And until people started asking me questions like, well, how do you live in this perfect life? Or how do you. How do you achieve that? I didn't stop and think about it. Just, you were one of those people. Well, this is what your life is like. Well, not really. And it wasn't. It wasn't like that from the beginning. So. I was born in Ukraine. I spent a good part of my life in the small village of Krasno Okni with my grandparents. And my grandma was a big influence on me. And I grew up in the small town of Dubasari. Not everybody heard of it. That's why I always say that I'm from Ukraine, because, you know, I grew up, big chunk of my life, like I would say 10 years of my life, I spent in Transnistria. And after the civil war there, we moved to Moldova. And that's where. That was my city. I left going to the state.

Tell me what it was like growing up there, because I know it's quite different than United States and where you. You are now. Can you tell us a little bit about what life was like there?

You know, until I left, I left that place, I didn't know that it was a struggle because everybody was the same, you know, everybody was. Well, my friends were living the same childhood, wearing the same type of clothes, eating the same type of food, having the same type of struggle. So I had no idea it was bad or about economy or any type of struggle. I just knew for what it was. And I think that's what helped me to not victimize myself. But it was interesting. It was very different from the way my kids are growing up. And it was the post Soviet collapse where it was anything that comes from any collapse, really, political, economical. And it was a big struggle for my parents. I grew up in a divorced family, and it was a very dysfunctional family, very abusive environment. And you know, looking back at everything, I understand why it was so hard for my parents to keep it together, not just financially, but emotionally, because nobody really taught anybody how to do that. We were in the survival mode. And you know, when people in the survival mode, it's really hard to be connected to your true self, authentic self. You're just in the survival mode, you know, so that was my childhood and parents who didn't really know who they were and they didn't have time to connect with themselves, especially connecting to our, to their children, you know. And that being said, you know, school was my outlet. I knew it was my ticket to life. I knew that my education and everything I would learn in school through teachers and through books would be my way out of the dysfunctional world. Dysfunctional world. I understood it, I just couldn't explain it. And the only thing I could point out is the feeling of guilt. Why I wasn't happy in that environment. But I thought there was something wrong with me where in reality I just didn't like the way it was. You know, I couldn't spread my wings. I couldn't realize myself as a person, as a human being. I just was hard to identify as a kid.

So this is interesting. So as a, as a kid though, what, what did you believe about yourself? So it's interesting that you, you had the insight to say, okay, education's my way out. But what were you being told by your parents? Or what was the beliefs that you were being told about yourself around. Around money or success or being smart? Were you, were you getting encouragement or were you creating that on your own?

Well, you know, nothing is creating on its own. I believe we are the summary of what we are surrounded with and who is teaching us. So the first role model, like my parents and grandparents, they were helping me develop the first layer. You know, we all layered, multi layered. That first blueprint was given to me by my immediate family. So the belief that we're surrounding me is that the way you're born and where you born, this is how you're going to die. And we have, the saying is like literal translation means you have to spread or stretch your legs by the length of your pants, you know, so if you are born poor, this is how you're going to die. And you should take pride in hard labor, manual labor. And this is how my grandparents lived. And you know, you have to understand my grandparents were born in the wartime, you know, so it's a completely different mentality. You can't blame anybody for thinking the way they were thinking because there was completely different generation and different survival skills and different. Well, I think necessity for those survival skills, like we don't have that and our kids especially don't have that sure. So the belief system was hard. Manual labor makes you a better person. Less words, more action, which served me in a way I just looked at it differently, not the way it was given to me. Education was a big deal for my family because not everybody had education in my family. So there was a big deal. And one of the things, you know, what I took from my childhood, just one voice can change your life. And no matter how much negative I had in my life, one voice, it was my mom's voice telling me that I can do anything. And I truly believe that. And that's what stuck with me. And we had a lot of differences with my mother, but one thing she truly gave me as a gift, that I can do anything. I believed it and I went with it. I never doubted it.

That's incredible. And that, that is explaining a lot because sometimes if somebody doesn't have that person telling them they believe in themselves, it's like if they can find that person or if they can start shifting to believe in themselves. That sounds powerful. So no matter what your circumstance was, not having money, being abused, having so much going on wrong and that self imposed, stop that we were poor, we're going to stay poor, that type of thing. Your mom believed you gave you some power to be able to dream and have a vision.

It sounds like I also saw in her eyes when she was telling that I saw hope that I will truly believe that unlike her and will change that life not just for myself, but for my family. And I took that responsibility on. And when I came to the States, this is what drove me, you know, like I really knew that if not me, nobody else. So I really took that responsibility and I kept myself accountable. You know, I think it's really important for people to first of all know that poor mentality and broke mentality are two different things. You know, when we can be broke, but when we think poorly, when we think this is it, this is our destiny, this is our current circumstances, is a verdict. You know, that's a huge mistake and it's a huge limitation that we're putting on ourselves. It's really important to. Yeah, it's really important to remember that we are here for a reason and we need to find that reason. And we are the ones who need to search that reason. Not our parents, not our grandparents, not our teachers. Nobody else is responsible for that but us.

And I love what you just said about being poor and being broke is a different thought. And you can change that. That's, that's interesting. I know coming to the States was also not easy. So you had a vision, you wanted to come here, you were determined, but you didn't speak English and you didn't know anybody. And it's not to move to the United States. So. So how. Talk about that? How. How did that even happen?

Well, coming to the United States, you have few ways of doing that. I was in a relationship, and that developed in my country, and we came here together. I. I got married here when I was 22. It was a very toxic, very abusive relationship that I never really talk about it. And for the longest time, I thought voicing or giving voice to the past relationship would give it power, which is silly of me. It's really, you know, you the one who's holding that power. And remembering things that you are overcoming is very important because it gives you fuel for the future endeavors, you know, in your journey. So coming here, I was just with my ex husband, didn't have any friends. I learned English on my own. That's why I didn't practice it, because nobody spoke it around me. So coming here, I started practicing it. I signed up for school English as a second lesson, got bored in a month and a half. I really wanted to practice it because it was no different from the school I was going to back in my country. And I went to work, I wanted to practice it. I didn't want to waste a minute. So my first job here was selling makeup. Estee Lauder at Deloitte in Florida. And it was fun. It was fun because I was out in the wild, you know, and I was practicing with people. I couldn't. I couldn't stop smiling because I was in a different environment. Something I chose for myself. This is the country, first country I chose to live in on my own, you know, because before I was chosen by my parents and it caused a lot of. You know, anybody who moved as a kid knows how uncomfortable that is, you know, leaving your friends behind and how hard it is. But it taught me adaptability, you know, and flexibility, finding friends, making life from scratch. So I took that skill coming here like, well, that's it. This is my chance. I will use everything that I've learned and I'll make a lot of friends and I'll make my life for myself here and for my family.

Now, were people mean to you about your accent? I've heard that happen. You know, you're learning English, you're. You're trying hard to work. And how did that wear on you? And how did you stay committed with that?

Yeah, I. When I came here. People were sometimes unkind, sometimes I couldn't understand why. And one pivotal moment happened at clubhouse. And they're part of living. I was renting. I was living at the time. And this guy, I think he was just being silly, but I took it seriously. And he was making fun of Russian literature and poetry, which was a big mistake in his part. And I couldn't really argue with him because my English was weak. And he started making fun of my accent. And by defending Russian poetry, I kind of stood up for myself and for Russian language and for the accent that he was making fun of. And I realized in the argument that we had with Hill that I have an accent because I speak more than one language, and I should be proud of it. And the States. You know, this country, beautiful country, is so beautiful because of the melting pot of nationalities, races, different accents that we have here. You know, that's what gives it flavor and this beautiful color, you know, to this country. So I just became one of them. And I took pride in what I was at the time, and I really was committed to improve my accent and speak better English because, you know, you can speak with an accent, but the rest is on you, you know, the correct language.

So, Natalia, I'm curious how you were able to truly stick to what you wanted and keep working towards that versus getting sucked down into what wasn't working. You know, like, I hear that a lot of people get stuck in the. Somebody's talking. They're making fun of me and my accent or. Or. I don't. I don't know English well enough yet. I don't have money. I. How were you able to sort of push those things aside of, like, what you don't have and just completely stay focused on what it is that you wanted?

Yeah, you just ask yourself one question. Is it worth it? Is it worth the struggle? Is it worth the embarrassment? Is it worth the sleepless nights when you make an extra buck for your family? Is it worth the humiliation of not knowing something? For me, it was. I didn't want to go back. I really did not want to go back to the country that was very unequal. And human rights, not just, you know, female rights. I didn't want to settle there and give birth to a daughter and that country where it would be so limiting for her. And I didn't want to raise a son in that world either, you know, if I had one, and I happen to have both here, you know, so for me, it was really important not to go back. And I saw my Family as the lighthouse in front of me. They needed me. I needed to make it happen here. I need to be able to provide for them because I end up helping my family big time. And I was working hard for that. So yes, I was made fun of. Yes, it continued throughout years. It didn't stop, but it just didn't notice because it was irrelevant. You know, my goal was so much bigger than the embarrassment and all the stumbles and you know, if you listen to incredible professors on the radio, online who write fabulous books, you know, the English is not perfect. Most of them speak with an accent. So I think it's just, it's nothing on the large scale. If you look at that. It's the power we give to the excuses, you know, and the power we give to our goals.

And you're truly gifted at this. I see it over and over again. Because what you haven't shared yet, but I'm going to ask next, is that so not only so now you're learning English, you're getting better, you're in the States, you are working, you're earning money and you're in this toxic relationship and you decide you have to leave this. You leave everything. You leave everything, everything you know and you start over again again. So once again you're in this, in a something that could have torn you down. It's fascinating. Then left this relationship, left money, left everything and started over.

Yeah. One thing I've learned from being a kid, that one thing nobody will take away from you, and I've lost quite a few things as a child, is your identity. And everything that you learn so long time while growing up and still being in my country, our family lost everything after the collapsed, you know, like everything, every penny saved, everything for years and years. So overnight our currency was nothing. So we had piece of paper bring it to the store to buy sugar and flour if it was available for sale. So I realized that all that is made up, everything in our life we give value to, you know, power to is made up. It's. We decide what is our value system, we decide what we give power to. So I decided a long time ago to of power to the knowledge I am collecting. And when it's time, I will activate that knowledge. I'll use it, you know, because it's not enough to just learn things to do that knowledge. So coming here, I knew that one day I'll be able to use all the knowledge, all the books that I drilled and skip the playground, skip the nightclubs. I partied a little bit, but not even near to what my peers did. And I knew one day it'll pay off. It was my goal to just escape that world. And, you know, people older than me are much more patriotic because they grew up in a different world. The way I grew up. It taught me detachment from the world I was in because I was seeking something better for me and my future family and my immediate family.

I've watched you over. You are a master at it. You truly represent creating everything from nothing. Like I've watched you do it so many times. So then fast forward even more. And when I met you, a lot of this was behind you. You've moved to California again. You don't know people out here. You're starting over. I met you through fitness, and you decide you have bigger plans in the world, you have a bigger vision, but you've made your name in fitness and in modeling and other things. How did you figure out that next vision? Or did you always have it?

You know, it's a constant work on myself that actually brought me to what I'm doing right now with others. And what helped me is everything that I did before, whether it's modeling, fitness, nutrition. After I coached people in that field, I realized that it's all in the head, you know, and everything that I do right now goes straight to the root. Why people behave in certain way, you know, why. Why people are getting stuck in the rut, why people are giving so much power to the excuses. Why are they so afraid to start something, you know, from scratch? Why are they so attached to things that are not serving them in the mom? So all those questions, once you answer, we end up like, after people would sign up for my fitness training or nutrition training. So whether it was business coaching, fitness coaching, or nutrition plans that I've been working with people on, it was all starting with them. You know, even in business coaching, if they would work, you know, make a lot of money and we would create great strategy and they would start a great business model that would make. That would be really lucrative. If they were empty on the inside, it wasn't aligned with the personal goals. It was not serving them. So they wouldn't continue. They would quit. Like in fitness, like in a good diet, you know, they would quit. And it was always puzzling me, why would you quit? I don't understand. It makes. It makes sense on paper. And that's when I started digging deeper and it would come to myself. You know, the things that we learn about ourselves, we want to help others with, and it's kind of like securing that knowledge and healing over again. So it helped me help others by decoding my own behavior. Why would I procrastinate? Why would I glamorize procrastination so much or excuses or anything that would stop me from where I wanted to be? And that's why I started doing what I'm doing now and working with women. And I resigned. It's not just women that I coach, but this is my main audience and help helping them. I resonate with them more, especially mothers, because we activate. Activate both mothers and inner children and ourselves, you know, by becoming a mother. And there's. It's an entire journey on itself, as you know.

Yes.

So that's what I'm so passionate about.

What do you find? What would you find? It's clear that you've had to overcome a lot of things and stop believing things about yourself that you might have formed to be able to work your vision and work towards it.

Yes.

Do you find any commonalities, especially with women, that they have to overcome or stop believing about themselves so they can break free and start working on a.

Vision greater, big time, Big time. And it's nobody's fault, you know, it's what we are drilled in our heads since we're children. Starting with fairy tales, finishing with the education and everything that we are trying to overcome and make equal in our society today. And we are so blessed to be in our society today, not somewhere else, because it can be much worse. Yes. The first belief is that we are different. You know, we are different. We're all unique in our own way. But not using our female power as power. It's a big mistake.

Can you explain what you mean by that? Explain what you mean by female power.

Because when we enter the Hunger Games, the finance games, when we enter the menswear world, quote, unquote, we are trying to detach from our female power, from our vulnerability, from our intuitive thinking. You basically wearing a pantsuit and trying to march along with men. And it's a huge mistake. We are so strong as we are as women, you know, and if we just stopped trying to defend our strengths and weaknesses, it would just stop. Stop talking about unequal pain. Start creating our own jobs for the pay that we want to get for our work, for our talents, for our service. I think we would make a faster and bigger difference in the world. We just took the power back and used everything that we have from birth.

So what I'm hearing is it's almost like instead of being a victim to it, that hey, I'm not being equal like a man. Own your power and be accountable and empower yourself with that.

Absolutely. I don't want to be a man. I don't want to be a man. I like the multifaceted personality of a woman. We are emotional, we're intuitive, we are so good at planning and looking at safety points because we are natural mothers and caregivers. We like peace. We are not aggressive by nature. Things can make us aggressive. We can be crazy at times. But you know, we are also is so talented. We are great at multitasking and this word doesn't sit well with a lot of people, but we do that well because we just are stronger physically. Pound per pound, we can tolerate a lot more pain and we're way more flexible and it's a huge power that we possess. So I think we need to start thinking more of what we have versus what we don't have in comparison to men.

Yes. And I love what you're saying here because I feel across the board I've really run into this, especially with successful women. The ones that do access that feminine power are way more happier, they're much more balanced, things work better for them. And it's a spot for people that they don't, they don't see that they're not using their feminine power, that they're more in their masculine.

Absolutely. We try to detach from something we consider weak. And I look at it as a strength. And that leads to the second misconception where women think that they need to choose. They need to choose between marriage and career or between having kids and career. And I don't think it's the case. I think it's different for every woman and it doesn't. For instance, I chose to have it all and I help women to balance that, you know, and it's a really fine tuned dance. You know, you have to constantly. It's a day to day journey, you know, it's not my life. As soon as I will achieve this, as soon as I will make these numbers or have this many children, I'm all good. No, it's a fine tuned dance that is a day to day journey. Me.

How do you define success then? How do you define it?

To me, success is when I feel content in the moment and I appreciate the moment I'm in. So it's never been, it's never been labeled by certain dollar sign, you know, dollar number I. To me it's how I feel in the moment. So I feel successful when I am connected with My children. When I spend quality time with both my children, my husband and I am creative at work, where I am at service, I know when I'm recharged, even if it's really hard, because being a mom and wife, as you know, it's not an easy journey. So even good tired makes me really, really creative. And I want to do so much more for my clients because of that. So it's finding the strength and ability to be present in. In the moment when I'm with children, and then a segue into my relationship with my husband. It's very important to stay connected. No matter how busy we are, we both are really busy and finding time for myself. So when I feel like I invested my quality time in all four quadrants, I feel happy. I feel like I'm successful today.

Yeah, that really sounds like balance to me. So if what I took from that is present, when you can be fully present, not distracted, yeah, you can be living in a life of service. So you're giving back, whether it's to somebody else or to your family, your husband, your kids, that life of service. And coming from a place of connection, it sounds like too. And connection and. And being vulnerable, I'm hearing too. All of it.

Yeah, you're just in tune with everything that's happening, good and bad. When you are able to feel and not block your emotions, because a lot of people try to block negative emotions by just getting distracted and pushing it down. Not to feel it today, right now, because, you know, they. They want to focus on positive things and they want to focus on their goals, but not experiencing what needs to be felt right now, just delaying it, you know, and it will stumble them eventually. So I'm a big advocate. I'm feeling what you need to feel right now. If you frustrated, you know, due to whatever reason, just feel it, feel it for 5 minutes, 35 minutes, whatever you need, get it out of your system and move on, you know, so staying connected with myself kind of vibrate that energy to all the important areas of my life, to my children who feel me before they hear me and see me. So I take great responsibility and accountability for the way they behave and feel. Same with my husband. For me, it's very important to be that source of energy and inspiration for him, because I feed off that as well. He reflects me, so I feed off my own reflection, you know, and the same happens with my work. If I don't stay connected with myself, I don't allow myself to rest. I'm not creative. I'm not Good. I'm not good for them at the moment. So it's very important to basically protect that creative environment and stay connected with yourself first and foremost. And in order for you to serve better, everything that you. That matters to you. And serving doesn't mean pleasing. Whoa.

Yeah, explain that, because that's what some people will think. Okay, I get it. I need to focus out. It needs to be. To be in service to others. But then where does my time go to focus on myself and my business? So I would love for you to elaborate on that.

Serving and pleasing are two different things. Pleasing is avoiding conflict as being unconfrontational, not knowing what you want, and maybe knowing what you want, but being too weak to speak up and just basically avoiding the conflict out of fear of not being accepted, not belonging to something. So it's driven from the primal fears. But serving people not. Pleasing is coming from contributing to the world. Contributing and living your purpose. It happens naturally. It doesn't have to be like listed on paper. You know, this is what I do first through 10 steps, you know, in order to contribute. It just happens naturally. Because when you live in your authentic world, it happens naturally, organically. You feel good, people around you feel good. You organize within yourself. So naturally your life is organized. Even in the messy house with the children, you feel content, you know, and you feel like everything is organized the way it should be today. So, you know, when the small things are throwing you out of balance, that means something is not attended within. So just basically making sure that you take care of yourself. Because everything starts with you. Every single thing that you want to start, everything you want to change, everything you want to stop in your life, it starts with you. So we need to attend to ourselves. We need to dig really deep and ask ourselves a lot of why and keep unlayering ourselves and get layer by layer, just really attendant to everything until we figure out what is stumbling us. What is that thing that we believe to be our own voice, where it belongs to somebody else, just somebody else's beliefs.

Yes, and I, and I do want to point out for listeners that because I know some people might be thinking, well, that's easy to carve out the time and do this when you have money, when you, when everything's working for you. But I do want to really point out and land the point that you have had lots of different circumstances in your life. There have been times when you've had no money, when you've had. You couldn't speak English, you were being abused. You know, the patterns that repeated itself and you still lived this. And that is the key. You started living this before it was a reality. And that's what made it possible.

Well, actually it's much easier to overlook who you are and what makes your heart tick when you have money. Because there are a lot of things you can medicate yourself with. Whether it's, you know, things, material, material things, you know, or drugs or anything else that you can afford today, you know, having money. So when you don't have anything, you have nothing left but you. So that's a perfect, perfect time to really reconnect with yourself and ask yourself who you are, what needs to be done in order for you to change the circumstances. Because your circumstances are not a verdict. Your past doesn't equal your future. And just because you messed up in the past, because not everything we have today happened because of somebody else's mistakes, we take active role in those mistakes, especially as grown ups and we learn how to become a victim and we need to learn how to become a victor in our life. And it starts step by step. And by the way, when we feel much better and when we feel balanced doesn't mean that it's always going to be like that. You know, we still need to maintain that attitude. We still need to work on ourselves. We still will have triggers because it's not erased of our memory self. We still will be triggered. And like for instance, somebody does a thing to you and you think it's a red flag and that person shouldn't be in your life. Where in reality it has nothing to do with that person. It has everything to do with what you've experienced in the past and how it made you feel. And you just don't want to feel like that again. So recognizing it as a trigger is very important. For instance, in personal relationship we have a lot of that. Frank and I would talk about something, he would say something or in certain tonality that would put me right back where I was when I was in abusive relationship. Has nothing to do with Frank. He's the most wonderful husband on the planet, you know, but it would put me right back where I was. The little girl being abused by my own dad, you know, and just the tonality, certain tonality. And seeing it not as a red flag that oh, my husband is the same way. No, it's a trigger, it's just a certain tonality. And just really identifying what puts you in that corner of emotional distress is very important. And I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist, I'm not a doctor. This is something I figure out on my own by studying myself and studying psychology, but not being professional at that. And that means that anybody can do that. And I think it's our responsibility to figure it out for ourselves. What makes us us and what triggers us. And what. Because those triggers are prohibiting us to live fully and fulfilled. Yeah, it's very important.

Those triggers can create patterns and we can keep reliving that patterns victim story, or we can gain power over it, have knowledge, learn to shift faster and, and have that mindset that you have.

Which is super powerful because every time we are triggered, we spiral emotionally. Right. So it's important to track a thought. And I feel like that. All right, all right, so that person triggered me, but it's not that person's fault. You see, it's what we've experienced before. So it's very important to identify that and give that person a break and not attack for what we've experienced 10, 20, 30 years ago, you know, and just allow ourselves to feel that. Okay, so I still feel it. It didn't go anywhere. But how do I get out of this emotional distress corner faster? How can I manage that? And I think mastering that is very important because, you know, a memory is very powerful. It doesn't go away. It just stored deep down, you know, and sometimes it's triggered, especially by our children, by the way. Right. Because they trigger things in us we didn't know we had.

Yes, they do.

All of a sudden. Yeah. And. And all of a sudden we're feeling all those emotions as kids, but we're reacting on our children, you know, they become our targets. If we don't heal what happened before when we were children, if we don't heal our inner child, basically without sounding really woo here, but if we don't heal that, if we don't attend to those emotional scars, we basically live it through again through our children and basically putting it on they blueprint, you know, the first layer that we're developing with them. So it's very important to attend to ourselves first and foremost and nourish that, activate our knowledge. Because not everything that happened that was bad is bad. We can use it as a huge power. You know, knowing certain things is really powerful and using them to serve you and loved ones is everything.

You know, I have so, so much admiration for you. And you, you truly live everything that you sing. And I. And I. And I love it. So I have a bunch of random questions for you about your day to make sure you're human. Because these are, it's like you are the essence of what I think so many women want to be able to feel. So I want to know, do you ever have self doubt or feel down? Do you ever have those days?

Absolutely. All the time. You see, like it's something that doesn't go away anywhere. Just, just because I feel confident today doesn't mean I'm not gonna doubt myself in the evening. Especially when my 4 year old is throwing a tantrum. I'm just looking at her like, how do I attend to this issue consciously without carrying her for the rest of her life? Because this is really challenging in the moment. Yes, absolutely. I doubt myself when I approach something new. When I take on a new client, I'm very excited. I know exactly what we need to do. But then, you know, it's normal to doubt yourself. And a lot of times, you know, being nervous means being excited. So our fears, I've been afraid so many times, but you know, I've experienced really dark fears and I've experienced excitement. So anything that is not that dark fear for me is an excitement and I see it as a sign, okay? So it's a chance for me to grow, It's a chance for me to learn. So when I doubt myself a lot of times I just do it. I don't give it self talk inside my head, I just try not to talk. So the first thing in the morning when my alarm go off, usually it's Katya, my daughter, she doesn't wake for alarm. She's probably first. I just get up, you know, when I hear her voice or her little toy with a bow, I just get up. I don't give myself a self talk. Oh, poor me, it's too early. It's 4:30. I could have slept till 7:30. But you know what, I have a blessing of having children and I know what kind of blessing it is. So I do get up whenever they need me, you know.

So it sounds like you shift gratitude, you shift to gratitude and you, you do not let your mind trick you into the negative. That's what I'm hearing. So you don't even go with hired. It's like I have a daughter, I'm appreciative we're gonna do this and you just move.

I get to do this, you know, I don't have to do it. I get to. So once you start using different language, it really, really helps because it's easy to get in the self victimizing role, you know, or poor me. And I have such a huge to do list that I get to do this. Y. I get to make 20 calls today. I get to coach 10 people today. 10 people a day would be too much, but five people a day, you know, or I get to work out. Even if it's really late or really early and really inconvenient based on somebody else's, you know, opinion. I get to do this. I have two legs, two arms. I get to do this. So once you think that way, it really changes your perspective. Yeah.

And I watch energy change. Energy changes. When you say get to versus have to to, it's really works. Could trick yourself into it. I get to. I get to versus I have to. Which has got such a negative connotation.

And that's why it's so important to surround yourself with people who have the same type of energy and attitude because it's draining to be with self optimizing people around you.

Yes. That brings me to my next question. Who's in your circle? How do you, how do you choose who you're surrounding yourself with? And how do you get the wrong people out? How do you do that?

It's tricky. Sometimes some people you can, some people you cannot, and people you can't get out of your circle, you just use them as your teachers. You know, how do you deal with people in your world that are not really serving you and test you every time you interact with them? So to me, it's a test. And I always see it as a topic of conversation, you know, as a topic of just basically analyzing and seeing how can I be bad at this, why that person is triggering me, you know, so why is that still happening? So it just all goes back to what is triggering you and why do you still react to this kind of things, you know, and in my immediate circle is my immediate family, is my husband, my kids, and we have four children. And this year we homeschooling too. So it's a lot of one on one.

Oh, just that you just happen to be adding homeschool to everything else you're doing. Interesting. Oh, yes.

You see, I think I believe in the active participation. Yes, I believe in active role. I don't want to blame the school system that everybody's complaining about. I want to take an active role. I want to actually discuss with my children what they've learned. And it pushes you to learn more because, you know, you forget things that you learned in school and it gives you such a bonding platform with your children and they are interested in your world that way. Even more, they want to Participate in what you do and kind of happen so naturally, you know, it's not easy, but if you organize your time and prioritize things accordingly, everything is possible. And friends, friends like you, friends like, you know, who inspire my clients, you know, because that's a lot of. It's a big chunk of my day coaching. So it's. It kind of. I choose clients only that are ready for work, not the ones that need a whole hand holding and babysitting. I'm not there. I'm not a shrink, you know, I'm there to give practical advice and create strategy that they can apply day to day life. So we're working together and we make it happen. So that motivates me, you know, I can't work on the strategy for my client and not do it myself. So.

Yeah, and I love that you said that because, you know, you hear people complain about their clients or their work environment. And what is important to realize is that you get to choose those people too. Like you can choose your clients. And I. And I feel the same as you. I. People have to also enroll me on why they are a good client for me versus me just accepting and taking everybody as a client because it is. They are part of your circle.

It's very important to remember who you are attracting as a client. So if you're attracting clients that are draining, there's something to work within. Like, why are you attracting those clients? Why are you going for clients that are constantly draining you energetically, you know, and complaining and not not following through? Now, there will be always more people who are not following through than people who are achieving things. That's just a human nature and you're not there to depend. You know, some people really like being in the position of constantly, you know, reminding and constantly pushing somebody and motivating and trying to become that inspiration. But I find it quite draining. And I've been there before and I want to be with people who need a push, who just need that voice like I had as a kid. I just need one. Yes. I just need one. You can.

Yeah.

You know, you can do it. And I want to be that person for them. And I attract. I am very, you know, transparent. When we start working together, this is what I can do. This is what I cannot do. And I won't take a person knowing that I can help her.

Yes. I love that.

Yeah, it's very important.

Okay, I've got some rapid questions for you, like about habits. Are you open to that?

Sure.

How do you start your day? And is it the same every day?

Yes, it's the same every day. My day starts with meditation and I do it in bed because once I open my eyes, my kids take over. So as soon as I'm awake, I just, I meditate and I set myself up for, you know, a good, positive and full of productivity day good intentions. And then I spend my morning with kids. I make breakfast, I drive them to school, I, you know, we blast music and talk about how fun it's gonna be with sing. And on the way back, I connect with my family, my friends, my sister. Just make sure that everybody's in check by the time I get home. I give arrangements to my staff, my assistant, and everything that needs to be done around the house. That's something that took me years to come to. That's one of the habits that changed my life. So a lot of women, especially type A personality, they want to do it all and all by themselves. Otherwise they feel like a failure. And once you start looking at your house as a company, as a business, and you're a CEO of your life, everything kind of falls in place. A lot of moms that are working with, they terrified of not doing housework and not doing catapulting or homework, something not basically delegating to an annual or an assistant. And once you do that, you realize how much more time you have for the very people you love the most and how much more present your you can be once you do that. So I love that.

Yes.

Big breakthrough points for me a couple of years ago.

That brings me to workout. Oh, you. Okay, Go ahead. Sorry. You work out. We're still on the morning routine. I love it. You're. I work out.

I work out in the. Yep. Yeah. I try to sweat every day. It can be 15 minutes. It can be an hour and 15 minutes, depending how I feel. What I go for is just to sweat, you know, And I get very creative while I'm working out. So I usually record right after that or I write right after that because it clears my head so much and I'm creative. And then I'm going basically working with my clients. Depending on the day I have a date with my husband, whether it's the middle of the day or in the evening. And then can they come back and we are having fun. But I tried to do everything before that.

I love that. And it's about putting yourself first, setting yourself up to the wind. I love the meditation part. You're almost grounding yourself in what the day is going to be, and you put yourself First, I have a question about the creativity, because I was going to ask you how do you stimulate creativity? And then you mentioned your workout generates that creative. Those juices. So you do that right after. How do you finish your workout when you start getting creative? I know, and I struggle with this too. So I'm asking personally, sometimes in the moment you get so creative that next thing you know, you're typing notes on your phone and you're distracted from your workout. How do you battle that? Or does that not happen with you?

Sometimes I just type the notes in my phone and then go back to my workout. Yes, I do. And sometimes no. Absolutely. Because you forget. My husband has an outfit you make in the shower because a lot of people get creative in the shower. He never uses it, but he has it. And it just shows you how many people get creative. Like in very peculiar situations, it's either shower on the run, you know, what do you do? I try to just type in few words that will remind me of that, you know, thought or idea. So when I go back, I go straight to writing. Otherwise I'll forget and you lose the thought or record it, you know, so it can be a voice memo too.

Yeah.

Oh my God, yeah. But the biggest though thing is to give your creativity rest. So I get more creative when I go away, you know, when I change my routine. So when I feel stuck, when I feel uncreative, feel like nothing comes to mind, you know, like a blank piece of paper in front of you. Writer's block, basically. I step away from my routine, I change it, I give it rest. I stop forcing it because it's not helping ever.

That's good. That's good. Just like if your body's not getting results from workouts, you give it a rest. Or if you, you. It's giving it those little breaks to recharge it. Oh my gosh. I could talk.

Exactly.

I could talk to you all day with questions. But I do want to really fast. I have a final question that I ask everybody is I want to know, if you were to just narrow it down to three pieces of advice, like three things only. What would you tell somebody starting from a rock bottom spot, like their things are just not working for them, Their business failed, their husband left them, them, they're what? Whatever's going on, they lost their house, things are not working as planned right now, and they're in the victim story of like this happened to me. What would you tell somebody in that spot that needs to level up? 3. Three pieces of advice.

Well, the first would be it all starts with you. And you are enough for everything you're trying to achieve, everything you want to change. It's a really hard pill to swallow sometimes. But it all starts with you. Your past doesn't equal your future. And you can rewrite your story starting today. And as a matter of fact, you can write your story every single day as a new chapter. So your mistakes in the past, your failures, your fears, everything that you've experienced and anchored as a negative thing in your brain can be retrained. Use it as a powerful source of knowledge and something to remember, but just only as an essential, concentrated version of that knowledge, not constantly looping in that behavior or memory. You know, just you leave that house and you move on to the new one. You build a new one from, from the scratch from the ground because you have everything you need, every single thing, everything else is learnable. And you can do it. You know, we all do. That's what humans do. And we have one of the the most powerful tool that, you know, makes us different from the animals. You know, we can create a future, we can use our mind, we can plan, we can remember, we can envision, we can dream. So yeah, it all starts with you. Your past doesn't equal your future. And you can rewrite your story. You can have it all and you should have it all.

I love this. This was so inspirational and so helpful. Natalia, where can people learn more?

Where can they? Well, right now I'm getting ready to launch my, my new workshop so you can find me. I am updating my website as we speak@Natalia Kern.com or just email, email us@Natalia Kern assistantmail.com.

Where can they find you on social media?

Natalia Kern, Instagram or Facebook.

Thank you so much, Natalia. This was really, really great chatting with you. I learned things and I know my audience just absolutely love this.

Thank you. Oh, thank you so much. It was a blast. It was always fun talking to you.

Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review, I appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I. I'm giving you information that you find valuable and come interact with me over on Instagram @nataliejill fit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.