Welcome to our final episode of 2023. We want to thank you for listening to our weekly podcast, we appreciate our podcast community so much.
In this conversational-style podcast episode, I will be sharing:
Episode Links:
Welcome to our final episode of 2023. We want to thank you for listening to our weekly podcast, we appreciate our podcast community so much.
In this conversational-style podcast episode, I will be sharing:
Episode Links:
Welcome to the Natural Super Kids podcast, where you will discover practical strategies to inspire you to boost the health and nutrition of your kids. I'm Jessica Donovan, a qualified naturopath specialising in kids health, and I want to make it as easy as possible for you to raise healthy and happy kids. Let's get into it. Hello, hello, welcome to our very last podcast episode for 2023. So today in the podcast, I just want to do a bit of a, you know, a bit of a chat. Really, I don't have everything planned out for this episode. I want to share a bit about you know what's been happening, an overview of what's been happening here at Natural Super Kids this year. I'm going to share some of our most listened to podcast episodes and I just really want to zoom out and give you guys a bit more of an idea of you know what it is we are all about here at Natural Super Kids and do a bit of a personal share as to what's been happening for me this year and currently as well. So first of all, I just want to say thank you so much for listening to the podcast this year. We have so many loyal, regular listeners and we really appreciate you taking the time to tune into the Natural Super Kids podcast regularly, whether that is every week, you know, or every now and again. We really appreciate you. The podcast here at Natural Super Kids is a really important part of our overall business. It's where a lot of people actually first find us is through the podcast, and then it's where a lot of people continue to come back to. We really appreciate you know this connection, even though it is pretty much, you know, this one way connection, but we really, you know, I personally really appreciate the messages and emails that you guys send in giving us feedback on the podcast and giving us ideas as to what you want to, you know, hear more about guests you want to hear from. We love that kind of feedback. So if you do want to reach out, you can email me, jessica at naturalsuperkidscom. Let me know how you. You know what you enjoy about the podcast, any topics you would love to hear about and any guests you would love us to have on as well. And, as I said, the podcast is one part of the business here at Natural Super Kids. I mean, I've shared previously that Natural Super Kids started off as just little old me and it has now become so much bigger. It's really taken on a life of its own, you know, and we are now a company, not just a business. So that is, you know, just amazing and I'll share in a bit. You know, some things that have happened recently personally for us, as a result of me, I guess, running this business and growing this business over the years. So, like all businesses, this year we have definitely felt the pinch of the, you know, changing economy and I think we are in a very fortunate position to, you know, be online, not have some of the really big overheads that some, I guess, real life businesses have, you know, rent and all of that kind of thing. We run the business from home, all of our teamwork from home, so that really helps and I think the fact that we over the years, you know, even before that the current economic kind of crisis hit, we were really all about giving parents an option that is really budget friendly to get support from health practitioners for the health challenges that they have with their kids. So in that respect, we have been lucky. But we've definitely ended the year with a bang. We had one of our biggest intakes ever into our membership the Natural Super Kids Club in October, which was really exciting and, I think, a reflection of the work that we have all put in as a team to make the Natural Super Kids Club our primary or I guess I should say our main offer, as good as it can be. So that really is the crux of what we do, the work that we do here at Natural Super Kids. If you haven't heard about the Natural Super Kids Club I know many of our club members listen to the podcast but the club is our membership program we have been running for six years now. It is where we support parents to raise healthy and happy kids and to boost the health and nutrition of their kids, to address the underlying cause of the common health issues that we see in kids these days, whether that is allergies, eczema, adhd, mood behavior, sleep issues, digestive problems, constipation, tummy aches, food intolerances, immunity, constant sickness. These are all the things that we are helping parents with in the Natural Super Kids Club and we provide resources in there. We provide recipes and meal plans and masterclasses and cheat sheets and probably most valuable of all is the support of our team of practitioners for a really affordable monthly kind of price or annual. So we have a monthly option and an annual option in the Natural Super Kids Club. If you wanna know more about the club, you can pop your name on the wait list. We are not currently open and welcoming new members, but we will be in the new year. So if you pop your name on the wait list I'll make sure that link is in the show notes. You will be the first to know when we open the doors again. And it's just the most amazing community of parents and we've really, as I said, focused on making it super valuable for parents. You know, really to help parents raise healthy and happy kids through healthier food choices, through reducing toxins and chemicals, through healthier lifestyle habits and through supporting our family with natural medicines, whether that be nutrition, herbal medicine, homeopathics, essential oils. We are, you know, all about those complementary therapies that kind of fall under that naturopathic care umbrella. So I just wanna take a moment to share more about what our mission is here at Natural Super Kids, just so we can sort of zoom out and so that you can get an idea of you know what it is that our team are really trying to achieve really. So our mission kind of consists of four main points. The first one is to support and inspire families around the world to raise healthy and happy kids with nutrition and natural medicine. The second is to educate parents about addressing the underlying cause of their family's health issues. The third is to make health and nutrition easy to understand and inclusive of their family's health and inspire families to make healthy changes one step at a time. And the fourth is to provide affordable and accessible natural health solutions for families. So we do this through the Natural Super Kids Club, but we also do this through the podcast, through our Instagram, you know, and Facebook, but we are definitely more active on Instagram now. We do it through our blogs and articles on our website and you know. So they're sort of the main channels where we're sharing information and supporting parents and we really do our best to provide a lot of really free, really valuable, free content. But then we also have our membership, which is a paid program where you get sort of that extra level of support. So, you know, as I said, we were really thrilled to welcome a lot of new members to the Natural Super Kids Club in October. And as a business, we, you know, we are numbers focused, so my husband works in the business and he's the numbers guy. So he has sort of really bought numbers, made numbers a priority at Natural Super Kids because within a business, you really do need to know. You know your numbers and what works and what doesn't, and not from a perspective of, you know, bringing in more dollars, but it really is a reflection. We see numbers like the amount of members that we bring in or the amount of income that we bring into the business, as an indication of the impact that we are having. So that's so super important. We are very human focused, you know, and when you're looking at numbers it can. You know that's important. But we don't want people to feel like they are a number or be treated like they are a number either. So you know the numbers in the business are an indication of the impact that we are having. So we track numbers, we're strategic with our numbers to make sure that we are having, you know, the biggest impact that we can when it comes to families' health. So, as I said, you know I am not working in Natural Super Kids alone anymore. My husband is a really important part of the business, more in the background, but we also have the most amazing team here at Natural Super Kids and we've had a bit of a changeover more in the back end you know, team members that you might not see sort of forward facing more in the back end admin, website kind of updates and that sort of thing this year, which has been a big challenge to kind of find the right people. But we are really finishing this year with the most amazing team. So we have Mel, who is really, you know, I think of Mel as my right hand girl. She's an amazing clinical nutritionist. So she does see clients, you know, online with Natural Super Kids, but she takes care of so many aspects of the business as well. She's, you know, very involved in our social media. She does a lot of writing in the business. She supports our members with the questions that they're asking. As I said, she's a qualified clinical nutritionist. So I, you know, just want to shout out to Mel and the other team members here at Natural Super Kids because they've been such an important part of, you know, the year that we've had here. We also have Sarah. Sarah is our naturopath here at Natural Super Kids. You've probably seen her. Some of you see her as a client. She primarily works in a clinical role online seeing clients, but also she is a big part of our Natural Super Kids Club, answering our members' questions and creating some of the content that we share in the club, mostly our cheat sheets, which come out every month. We then have Tris as well. Tris is a nutritionist as well as Mel. Tris is our recipe developer in the club, so she creates our new recipes every month. If you're a club member, you would have you would probably be eating Tris' recipes regularly. Maybe I can camp and get everyone to know me not just myselfCHO If you're making most of the most of our club recipes. And Tris has just been a dream to work with. She came on I think it was earlier this year, maybe it was late last year and she's just a dream to work with. She's creating the most amazing recipes for our members and takes the most beautiful photographs of the recipes as well. And then we also have Jermina. So Jermina is our. She does a lot of the website updates. You know, when you run a membership site, you're continually adding new content to the membership site, so she takes care of a lot of the admin and organization and a lot of the tech in the background as well. Jermina is based in the Philippines and she's come on this year and has just done an amazing job in her role as well. So that's kind of the core team here at Natural Super Kids. We do also have some contractors that do some work for us on and off as well, but I'm so grateful for the amazing team that we have and the amazing work that they do, and I just wanted to kind of run through a brief kind of you know summary of what everybody does. So I personally have had a very big year. 2023 has been a huge year. There's been many ups and downs. It's been a rollercoaster, both professionally and personally. Of course, I've been, you know, working along in Natural Super Kids. You know my main role here at Natural Super Kids is to oversee everything and, you know, create content like this podcast episode every week. I also do a masterclass for our club members. Every week. I go live in our club Facebook group for a weekly Ask the Naturopath session and answer our club members' questions in there as well, and there's a heap of other things that I do. And if that wasn't enough, I decided towards the end of last year that I wanted to help other health practitioners, you know like launch their own online businesses, and again, this was coming from a place of wanting to have more impact. I was having a lot of other health practitioners naturopaths, nutritionists reach out to me because they were seeing the amazing work that we do at Natural Super Kids, asking me questions about how to build their online audience, how to create their online program. So this year I have been doing quite a bit of mentoring other practitioners both, you know, a little bit of one-on-one, but more in some programs. If you happen to be a health practitioner who is listening and you're interested in growing your online business, you can come on over and follow me on Instagram. Jessicadonovanco, I am over on Instagram, but I wanted to share more about that here because I definitely, you know I'm that type A personality. I run with ideas without thinking too much about how I'm going to fit it all in. It's definitely my downfall and my husband's often picking me up on it, and that is definitely what I did, and I had a very busy first half of this year. Towards the end of this year, I've definitely reduced that load. I've let go of some of the things that I was doing in that practitioner mentoring space because I was certainly spread too thin and I just had to make some decisions about, you know, lightening my load so that I didn't end up burnt out. Basically that has been. You know it was a really hard decision to let go of one of my ongoing programs for you know, supporting other practitioners, but it was a really great decision because it has, you know, I'm ending this year feeling much lighter, so that is a good thing. On a more personal note, I've shared a bit about my parenting this year. So my daughter turned 13 in February and my son's about to turn 16. So my daughter's close to 14 now, so I've got a close to 16 and close to 14 year old, and this year certainly has been a challenge. I feel like it's really the first year I felt deep in the teenage years with a 15 and 13 year old, and I know there's a lot of our listeners that aren't quite there yet in terms of teenage years. But I do want to share more about this sort of parent, the parenting struggles and challenges, and also there's so many positive sides to parenting teenagers as well, because I feel like it's not talked about enough, you know. I know we all know that the teenage years are going to be tricky, but I think we think about it more. Well, I certainly did, as in like, the teenagers themselves are going to be, you know, tricky. They go through so many changes, but I really wasn't prepared for the emotional toll that that would have on me. And as I'm sharing more about this and having conversations with people about this, you know I know that I am not alone. So you know, teenage years are so much easier in some ways. You know you're no longer tying shoes, you're no longer getting up, you know, in the middle of the night to, you know see to younger children, you're no longer having to physically do as much for them. But the, you know, the emotional support and the emotional toll of having teenagers, I think is, you know, is much harder than it is with younger children. For sure. And you know, I really do think that it, you know, like thinking about it and I think I've shared this on a podcast episode earlier in the year, and it really is this sort of this grief of letting your younger children go and letting you know slowly letting go of your children. I know Mia Friedman wrote a very popular article, Mia Friedman from Mamma Mia, about her son growing up and talking about it in the light of like the longest and most painful breakup you'll ever go through. And, yeah, certainly feeling that I mean my son's a couple of weeks away from being 16, as when this episode airs he will already be 16. So he'll be driving, and it's just crazy how quickly it all happens and how quickly they grow up and how difficult on your heart it is to let go of the younger versions of them, where you are their number one, because the truth is that when they become teenagers, god, they still need you so much, but you know, in their minds you are not their number one anymore. You know their friends are so important. I mean, my kids don't even have, you know, girlfriends or boyfriends yet, but that will come into play, you know, in the not too distant future, I'm sure. So it is a really tricky, challenging time and I have been, you know, going through that process and I'm still in the process. So I will be sharing more about this because I think parents of younger children, I think it's nice to be prepared for what is ahead and, of course, everyone's children are very different. Everyone's, you know, parenting journey is very different. But I think hearing other people's stories can be super helpful and that's been a big thing for me this year as well, and I think, you know, one of the reasons that I was feeling spread too thin with everything that was going on business wise was because of, you know, the changes that I was feeling in parenting and the told that it definitely has taken mentally and emotionally. Oh my gosh, this parent. You know just when we feel like we've got it under control, we've got it sussed, we're, you know, cruising along. Things change and all of a sudden we don't feel like that anymore. And I do remember, like a few years ago, a lady that was a bit older than me saying to me like, enjoy this time, because it really is the calm before the storm of the teenage years, but also of, you know, aging parents as well. So many of us are dealing with those two things at the same time now that we're having babies a bit later, you know, and throw in the perimenopause and the menopause, and it's a tricky time. So, yeah, I'm definitely in the midst of that. Now what's something really exciting that's happened more recently is that we have bought a new house and we have sold our house, so we are going to be moving very soon, prior to Christmas. Actually it's been bought forward, so that is, you know, super exciting. It wasn't really on the cards. We've been kind of looking. But then we were kind of settled in our place. We did some renovations last year. We renovated our bathrooms and we made some changes to the kids' bedrooms, like knock some walls down and that sort of thing. So we were sort of like, okay, maybe we'll just stay. We love the area that we are in. But this house popped up. It's very close to where we currently live, so we're in the same neighborhood, but it is just a bit of an upgrade in well, a lot of an upgrade in the house. It's in the most amazing location. It's a really beautiful house, so much space and it really does. We just went in and had a look and it's like, oh my God, this is the one. It feels so right. And of course it wasn't that simple. But you know, getting everyone on board and that sort of thing was a bit of a rollercoaster. But we put an offer in and were, you know, really shocked that we ended up getting this house. So then it was this big rush to get ours ready, to put it to market. Ours sold really quickly, thank goodness. And so, yeah, we've just been thrown into this huge change, which is super exciting but has been also quite a lot physically, mentally and emotionally. I mean, you know, the physical labor of getting a house ready to go to market is huge, but then also there's the emotional ups and downs of like, yeah, like you know, just compromising and agreeing and all of that sort of thing and all of the you know, the contracts that you have to sign and the people that you've got to talk to, the real estate agents and the accountants, and the bank, and the conveyances and the stylists. And it's been a big few weeks, but we are keeping our eye on the prize and know that we're going to be moving into this. You know, really beautiful, amazing house very soon, when this podcast is. So that's very exciting and it does feel like this amazing reward for the hard work that we've been doing on our business. You know hasn't always been easy, especially working as a couple. My husband and I have been working in the business together for the last three years and there's certainly amazing things about that and there's certainly a lot of challenges with that as well. Anyone who works with their, with their spouse, husband, wife will know what I'm talking about and I'm sure, even if you don't, you can imagine it can be a challenge to keep work and life separate. We definitely got better at that over the years, but yeah, we've just we've just stuck at it. We've been consistent and you know we've. I think just yeah, it's really that consistency and being really focused on the mission of our business and really being passionate about, you know, that mission that has that has kind of kept us going. So I just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone, first of all, for listening to the podcast. And you know, if you are a club member, you know you are, you are contributing to our business and our mission and you know one of the most rewarding things of running this business is being able to employ other people, as I said, that are, you know, amazing team members for for natural superkids as well. So I would love for you to reach out, say hi. Yeah, like I said, give me any feedback you have on the podcast. Let me know what you like about it, let me know what you'd like to hear more about. Give me you know, tell me what you don't like about it. If there's something you think I can improve. I'm always open to that feedback. And to finish off, I want to share some of our top episodes for this year. As I said, this will be the last episode for this year we're going to be taking a break until mid January but we've got plenty of episodes for you to dive into from this year or maybe dive back into if you've already listened to them. So let me tell you what our top 10 episodes were this year and if you haven't listened to these, then go back and have a listen if the topic interests you. So our top episode for the year was episode 105, which was with a guest. It was with Joanne Kennedy, who is a wealth of knowledge on MTHFR methylation and histamine intolerance. And this is so interesting because when I recorded this episode with Joanne, I kept trying to bring her back because she was talking about a lot of really complex kind of biochemical things that go on within the body relating to methylation and histamine intolerance. But it's really interesting that that is our most listened to episode of the year. People obviously love it and I'm definitely taking that feedback on board that our listeners do like that more complex sharing and complex information. So that was our top episode. Our second episode was episode 115, which was an alternative approach to enlarged tonsils and adenoids in children. My gosh, this topic went absolutely crazy. We shared a lot about this on Instagram as well and there was a lot of interest in this. So that's episode 115. If you missed that, episode 112 was our number, was our number three episode, and this was on MTHFR as well MTHFR anxiety and fertility and that was with Carolyn Ladowski from MTHFR Australia. Again, she is a wealth of knowledge when it comes to MTHFR. Number four was episode 113, iron deficiency in children. I'm not surprised that that made the top 10, because it's such a common issue in kids that we see. Number five was episode 109, which was food and nutrition to support kids with ADHD. Episode 108 was our sixth most popular episode and that was does food affect your child's mood, behaviour and mental health? Of course, the answer is yes. That's a really interesting episode to dive into. Number seven was episode 114,. Does my child need magnesium? Again, the answer is most probably yes. Episode 106 was our eighth most popular episode and that was pyro disorder with Ross Walter. Number nine was episode 107, five common causes of sleep issues in children Our tenth most popular episode for the year was episode 116, answering your questions about enlarged tonsils and adenoids. Again, that enlarged tonsils and adenoids issue came up again and we did a couple of different episodes talking about that. So that will keep you busy over our break. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Sharing a bit more about you know behind the scenes here at Natural Super Kids, behind the scenes. You know of what's happening for me as well. I am really looking forward to a break, but then I cannot wait to dive into some really interesting topics next year. To give you a little hint, hint, clue, clue we're going to be starting the year mid-January with some parenting topics with some guest experts. So stay tuned for those and in the meantime, have the most wonderful Christmas, new Year holiday break. Please make sure you are, you know, taking some downtime If you can, as much as you can. As a parent, I know it's hard to switch off. You know, will we never get to switch off from our parenting role, do we? But I really hope you get some downtime and make the most of that kind of slower, those slower days being out of routine, of, you know, school and kinder and childcare. Hopefully you get some time off of work if you work out of the home and, most of all, focus on being present with your family. That's certainly what I am going to be doing in our new home, so I will be back in your ears next year. See you later. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Head on over to our website, naturalsuperkidscom, for the show notes for this episode, as well as a whole heap of inspiration to help you raise healthy and happy kids. Thank you.