Becoming Undone is the podcast for those who dare bravely, risk mightily, and grow relentlessly. Join me Toby Brooks as I invite a new guest each week to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. Growing up in Germany, Sabine Ehgoetz learned early on what it meant to never be enough. Raised by a physically and emotionally abusive mother who made her believe she wasn't smart enough, pretty enough, and simply not lovable the way she was, she soon internalized these messages. Despite evidence of the contrary, a master's degree in political science in her late 20s, modeling jobs, and a successful career as an editor, herself doubt manifested in eating disorders, and often blind, harmful ambition. Despite her constant drive and commitment to overcome the generational curse passed down through her mother, heal in order to earn the right to become a mother herself, despite years of therapy and personal development, she found herself in a toxic and abusive marriage, repeating the unhealthy patterns and dynamics she'd associated with what love should feel like. But as hard and frightening is breaking free from this marriage was, by now alone in Canada and a single mother of barely three-year-old twins, it was equally liberating and empowering. Having lost everything, Sabina set out to continue her journey of overcoming, and becoming the strongest and best version of herself, driven by the purpose of loving herself the way she always longed to be loved, being the mother she always wanted, and empowering other women to be at their best so they could do their best. Competitive bodybuilding spoke to her ambitious nature, forever driven, he's better, be better, be enough, but by the time she entered the sport, she'd already done most of her healing work, she was able to do so for a place of self love, now with a healthy body image, and a healthy relationship with food. Bodybuilding for her has always been about much more about mental growth and physical growth. It's become her tool to consequently step outside of her comfort zone, face any limiting belief she has left, and to inspire other women to go after their dreams, no matter their obstacles and circumstances. Today, with a successful career in marketing, and in pursuit of earning her pro-card as a bikini competitor in the IFBB, she passionately shares the strength and healing she found on her own journey through her own business as a mindset advocate and fitness and empowerment coach, helping others navigate their own past toward radical self acceptance and bound with self love. Here's Sabina tell her story of early wounds and eventual healing, persistent doubts and harder and confidence in episode 19, Flex. Today we have a special guest joining us all the way from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Sabina Egats is founder and coach of Sabina Egats Mind Body Creations. She's a competitive bodybuilder, and we met as part of a training program that I did, and she has an inspiring story, and looking forward to hearing this, and having her share how failure along the way has laid the groundwork for success. So Sabina, welcome. Thank you for having me, so we are really excited to be here and on it. So I always have my guests start at the beginning wherever that is for you. Gosh, I mean we can start way back up, growing up in Germany. Hey, didn't always have. I didn't have the best childhood looking back at it today. It defined me in a lot of ways in late past. I grew up not sure what I was good at, never quite feeling good enough. I had a teacher that then, I think what we learn about ourselves and who we are at a young age is really defined by what other people see in us. So I always got the feeling from my parents that whatever I did wasn't quite good enough, but I had a teacher who said I had a gift for writing, and he said that is the career you should pursue. And that really ignited my self-esteem in that area, and I did become a news writer, I did become an editor. I often heard from my parents, I should learn a trait because I wasn't smart enough to go to university. So I became a bit of a rebel and I said, no way, and I did get my master's in political science. That was the beginning of a lot of my struggles, but also opportunities. Yeah. I think that's such a fine line for parents to strike between wanting to inspire your kids to do great things and holding them accountable for excellence, but the flip side, the darker side of that is the message that maybe heard is you're not enough, that you don't have the skills. Do you feel like those early lessons kind of soaks down into you to the point that it was something you had to overcome? Yeah. Absolutely, it laid the groundwork for a lot of struts in my life and I'm very open about it because I feel if you don't share with people, you can't inspire them. If you're not open with them, they won't be open with you and people find themselves in your journey the more open you share. And to be honest, yes, I came from an abusive childhood. I did not eat the orders that really manifested as soon as I moved out and went to university in Germany. So in a way, when we look back and it's nothing, nothing where I play a victim story anymore today. I think it allowed me to become who I am today because it forced me to not be a victim. It gave me a choice and I was in my 20s when I was written with eating the orders and I had met my future husband and I felt that if I wanted to be a mother, I could not be a victim of that generational curse that was really going, not just my mother, but her mother and back and back. You have the choice to break that cycle or play into it and I thought if I wanted to earn the right to be a mother, I had to overcome this and I had to take my power back. That was definitely not the end of it. I went from an abusive childhood right and turned in abusive marriage, which of course fell apart. So talk about falling apart. I can give you many instances in my life where things simply just fell apart, but also were and we all know that. It's those really tough times when we grow tremendously and we discover a lot about ourselves if we dare to look and if we dare to not play victim blame, but really take responsibility for our patterns, our triggers, how we view the world, how we perceive reality, all of those things. Yeah, that's tough. I know for myself whether it was things said or things that I maybe thought were meant to be said. Sometimes it's not an overt voice. Sometimes it's an interviewee that's telling me I'm not enough. It's telling me I won't stack up and that can be such a limiter as we try to move forward and move beyond those things. And that's the whole point of this show is failure by the world's definition can really be a springboard to success. Do you feel like those early rocky experiences served a purpose in your life? Did you see that in the moment or was it just hard? I don't think I saw it in that moment. I always looked for what was wrong with me. I think in the end it ignited something in me. I ignited the rebel in me. No, this is not how this is going to go. When I grew up I didn't trust anyone to raise me. So I only trusted myself and I started fighting back and I started for, I started fighting for my life. I started fighting for my future when I heard I wasn't smart enough to go to a university I was like, damn yeah, I'm going to do that. So looking back. I think it made me someone who's very self-aware, who has always been driven to overcome and become, to constantly evolve, who has always believed so much in personal development and personal growth in seeking any opportunity to uncover more layers of myself, to peel back the layers of the onion, to find that what is deep within me that may be minor child that was hurting but made also be that greatness that we are born with, that uniqueness, the way God created us to be. And I personally, I am religious and I do believe that any hardship I was given, I was given to learn about myself but also then pass it on to other people to make a difference in their lives. So thinking back to that time and recognizing, I mean we all have dreams growing up. What did you want to be? What were your goals or your aspirations for the future? Yeah, I think, you know, like at different stages it's what different dreams but I definitely thought I was going to have a career in writing. I thought I was going to be a news writer. Anything I ever put my mind to, I actually achieved. I never thought about being an athlete or a coach. There was the last thing on my mind. Honestly, I was the kid that always struck out of physics for some stupid excuse because I hated it there. I was very active and I was definitely not happy with my body at the time. I always wanted to be somewhat less than more. So, yeah, but I did want to be a writer, I did want to be an editor and I became just that. So tell me, how do you go from growing up in Germany, tough background, to today you're in Ontario, Canada, what are the in between steps? What are your journeys along the way and what did you fail and what did you learn from between point A and point B? Oh man. It's a long journey without aging with a long journey. I came to Canada 2004 with my ex husband and we built a life here and we had twins in 2008, which was definitely the finding point. I think once you have children, you realize that some patterns that you had, especially in your relationship, you can't have them anymore. It was a very volatile relationship, it was very much up and down as a set of rules and view stuff. It was something that I didn't want my kids to witness. It got really bad and we had probably the worst divorce break up. You can possibly imagine. Funny enough, we are best friends today and we are raising the kids together in such a beautiful way and that's probably one of the biggest achievements of my life. The life we had built together as a patchwork family and how we both overcame our patterns because as much as you say, I'm a big to both abuse. It's like I was in that cycle. I was the one who sought out a relationship like that and probably looked for it because that's what I had learned about love. There was a lot of hardship and then I got divorced and I was flapping around on my own with twins and when they're not even three and a few days later I had a complete financial breakdown out of stupid business decisions and trying to make it all work with staying at home and working from home. That was another really tough one. And yeah, through every failure you grow a little bit and you learn more about who you are being in that moment when you take full responsibility for who you are being, not for a case of blame but really from what are my patterns, what are my triggers, what showing up. And in that process I also found God and went from trying to control every situation, trying you know, always think it's always up to me to lean in, to let it go and lean in to faith. Breaking out of my marriage also kind of liberated me. It was a hard move but it was also one where I felt I was taking my power back that allowed me to become me again and where I really promised myself that I will dedicate my life to empowering other women to be at their best and feel their best and believe in themselves and stand up for themselves. Yeah, all these things grew me to who I am today and have a full time job. I have my own business. I'm pretty successful in life in my sport as an athlete which was definitely a huge part of creating this new identity for myself. Yeah, and that's exactly where I wanted to go with this. So having worked with a number of athletes who struggle with eating disorders in their youth and struggle with abusive relationships in their youth, that is a kind of a double blow to yourself a steam and that notion that I'm less than in this unhealthy relationship with food and with exercise oftentimes. And now you find yourself transitioning down this road to fitness and eventually making it not just a pursuit of you personally but also a career pursuit and helping others to do that. So when did fitness come into the equation? When did bodybuilding start to take root in your heart? So I will say and there's something we should maybe talk about because I know a lot of fitness competitors who have this eating disorders and are attracted to the sport as another form to control as another extreme. What looks like a healthier version of what you have been doing before. So that can exist. But luckily for me, I had done a lot of my healing work before that and it actually helped me heal further. My fitness journey started really late in life and out of, to be honest, it was out of heartbreak. I always wondered a third child and I was turning 40 and I had no one to have a child with it. So I thought I got a dog and I thought, damn it, I guess I'll just get into the best shape of my life. So I started training with a coach and prepped for a photoshoot, my first photoshoot. And after I've done that, everybody says, you should just step on stage. You're almost there. And honestly, it was not almost there. It's a long way from a photoshoot to be calling a fitness competitor. But I always look for the next hard thing to do and the next challenge. Maybe that's a way of proving myself to myself. Those are the stories internalized right where you have to be really aware of what's driving you. What I like to do hard things and overcome limits and all of that. So I guess, you know, that's what attracted me to it. But out of that, you know, I also really learned like what it means to be confident in your body, to be happy with your body. What you learn about yourself at the gym when things get hard, resilience, grit, like all of those things, mental toughness, like all of that came out of my journey and all of that. I can pass on its one thing to give people the tools and strategies, how to eat and train at the gym. That is the easy part. But when I created my business, I wanted it to be fitness and mindset because that is where the true transformation happens when I can help women see whether sabotaging, whether holding back what their limiting beliefs are. Those are really the break suits that not just shape their bodies, but they chip their mind and their relationship and how they show up in the world. I teach a sports nutrition class and I came across a quote a few years ago and I've used it in class ever since. And anytime you refer to diet and exercise, you're really setting a patient or even yourself up for failure because those are short term things. Diet almost always has an end point. And exercise almost sounds punitive. Acting up on my sports team, I might have to do extra reps of burpees at the end of practice. And the alternative of that is fuel and training, fueling my body so that I can be more effective and better prepared and better equipped to do the things I want to do and training for that same purpose. If I have a goal of competing in a 10k or a half marathon that's kind of next on my list, I want to train for that. I don't want to have to exercise. That sounds like punishment to me. So how did your relationship with food change as you started to embrace this new subpoena? I think I learned a that it is fuel. I stopped being so afraid of gaining weight and becoming more. I realized you need the food. I still have patterns where I still have to be very aware where I have healed and where I'm masking. And I think we have this, they call it, like two points I think in life where we really get present to what we've been doing and where we heal. And where my relationship with food was just pattern I developed out of believing I wasn't enough. I'm always trying to be less than I was rather than becoming more. And I had a moment in my life and that's very personal, but I like to share it because I think it is what could help other people to it when we stop and listen what was going on in the moment. And I had already started my fitness journey and there was this moment where I was going to my fridge to binge eat and I started from my fridge and I stopped and I heard my and I'm a huge believer in the idea of an inner parent and an inner child and an adult. Much like the Freudian idea of the it and the ego and the uber ego. And I heard my inner parents say, don't do that. You know that's not going to make you feel good. Don't do that. And my inner child who is a bit of a rebel said, don't effing tell me what to do. I do what I please. I am my own boss. You're not going to tell me. And then I would go and eat it and then my inner parent would say, you have no will power. You have no discipline. You're disgusting. And those things I had heard, like those were parental voices internalized. And I stood there and I became the inner adult and I listened to this dialogue in my head play out. It sounds crazy. I'm sitting from my fridge and having an inner dialogue going on. But I got present to the forces inside of me that we're conflicting and fighting. And I swear I realized that what my inner child really needed in that moment. And it really always destroys me to tears when I think about it because I spent the next days talking to my inner child. And I said to my child, you're allowed. You're worthy. You're enough. And in a pivotal moment of clarity, Sabina realizes that she could take control of the inner dialogue that either controlled or shamed her for so long. And I was standing alone in her refrigerator and probably done countless times before. And I never ever had the courage to some great healing that she needed all along. It brought relief and self forgiveness and healing. And that moment she was freed from the chains of binge eating disorder forever. Wow. That's powerful. Thank you for sharing that with such transparency. I really appreciate that. You said something that I wrote down, you said you had to decide whether or not something was healing or masking. And I think that's so powerful. So many times we see people in a gym and I work out alone. I don't like the drive back and forth. It's just I like the solitude of exercising completely alone. But you see the memes and I've got friends at train and they'll put their headphones on and they've got their hoodie up and they're just kind of in this little personal space. And I've got the angry music going and it can be so healthy. It can be a place of healing and of strength and of power. But sometimes I feel like it's a crutch. I'm just going in there to try to make up for what I'm not. And that's not what training is. Training is not about losing. You said it. You hit it right on the head. It's about what I can gain, how I can grow. And for me, the strength is not so much in the PR and the weight set I'm pushing. It's knowing that I can commit to this and staying true to it. So I'm curious, you're training regimen. What's it look like today and how would you describe your discipline and how it's changed over the years as you've continued to get more involved in the bodybuilding space? Yeah. Training for me and we could talk about that too is my comfort zone, right? Because it's the hardship, the drive. Like the hard part happens when I have to let go. When I have to go to vacation and not count my macros or beyond a meal plan, right? So let's be clear. And let's also be clear that bodybuilding is not competitive bodybuilding is not a healthy sport. I don't even like, and that's not what I, what I, you know, teach my clients either I do lifestyle, but it's extreme like any competitive sport. But you can also try to do it as healthy as possible and respect the seasons, respect your off season and go through prep, not holding back, but in the off season, you know, you have to balance your hormones, you have to take up your food, you have to gain the weight back, which is one of the hardest things for a fitness competitor. But yeah, I train, I have a coach, obviously he's in the States, he's in California and coached online and we have Skype calls everywhere. Or so I train weights five times a week right now. I've cardio six times a week in the off season cardio gets fairly short. I know like when you have a fitness competitor, your training is very specific to the physique you have to create. So yeah, it's very specific training. I'm on a meal plan year round, but I have the occasion of free meals in the off season. Right. I'm a big fan of ESPN 30 for 30 any kind of documentary related to sport and I've watched the round a Coleman one, there's been several really good bodybuilding documentaries that have come out in recent years and I cannot for the life of me remember who said it, but I remember it clear as day, the substance of what he said. And he said, you know, if I'm a professional football player, I have to be disciplined for that two or three hours when I'm training. And I can let it slide like I might impact my performance on Sunday. I know I need to eat better more often than not. And if I'm a baseball player, same thing, if I'm a competitive golfer, same thing bodybuilding is the only sport where I have to be true to my sport all the time 24, 7, 365 for the time that I'm preparing. It is the most discipline I've ever encountered. Does that been your experience? Yeah, absolutely. And I will also say it's the only sport where you have to perform at peak while you're preparing yourself because you're literally starving off every bit of sat that you had. I love the discipline. Like again, this is my comfort. So the structure, the discipline, the hustle, like when I'm on a pressure, I'm German, I always say I work like a fine tune BMW M3 engine on the pressure. I love that. So for me, and it's not even, that's not even the hard part. I don't question it anymore, sure I miss certain things, sure there is an impact on my relationship, on my family, when my kids say, hey, let's go for dinner and I'm deep and prep. Oh, my no, we're not going to dinner until November. When someone says, let me take you out for a drink. I say, oh, I'm not drinking. And if you want to take me out for dinner, maybe in four months. So yeah, there is a lot of sacrifice coming with it. I think it works with my current lifestyle. I am a homebody. I don't like to party. So it doesn't impact me all that much, but I will say in the off season, oh my gosh, I love that occasional free meal when I go for a pizza that she's taking. I'm a big, I discovered I'm actually a big foodie. I love food. And as clean as I keep it, I just marvel in this reading some good donuts. Well, that's reassuring to hear because many times in my life, my nutritionists look kind of like, if a 12 year old was given a credit card that they could use anywhere, that's kind of how I shop for whether or not it was what I was eating at a restaurant or in a grocery store. So it's definitely a work in progress for me. I will say bodybuilding has taken that fear away from me. And I discovered, no one eats more crap than a bodybuilder after show. Like for two days, we eat absolutely anything. Our bodies are so depleted, we probably need it. It has taken the fear away to occasionally really enjoy myself and like a kind of wonderful Christmas. As a time off season right now, I had a wonderful Christmas with my family where I just ate what everybody else ate and I certainly didn't bring a scale to the Christmas dinner table. Right. I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier where you talked about this inner voice and this inner adult reading a book right now. It's an old book by Terrence Real. It's called I don't want to talk about it and it's relate specifically to male depression and he talks about how a lot of times depression in general, not just in males, but in general, can be tied to and rooted to trauma that we experience in our youth and we hear those voices. Sometimes it's our parents voice, but as we age and as a parent, that's kind of how generational trauma gets passed down is in that instant of stress, the thing that hurt me most for some inexplicable reason are the words that come out of my mouth. So as a mom, did you find yourself reconciling and after you've had this realization in front of the refrigerator, did it change who you were as a parent or are you still working on that area? Oh my God. Tell me if you are a father to really, you know, that parenting is a work of progress that you never perfect. I think it was something else that really defined who I am as a parent. I did a personal development program in 2015 that was really intense and I discovered two things. When I was told, they said, no matter what you do, you're going to screw them up anyway because they're either going to try all their life to live up to you or they're going to try all their life not to be like you. And in that moment, I felt so much liberation because I'm like, I'm going to screw it either way. So I'm just, well, not worried, but equip them with the awareness of the stories they create, what they make it mean about themselves when things happen in their life. My driver became that. Equip my kids with self-awareness. They don't have to be like me. They don't have to be all different from me. They get to make their choices who they are, but I want them to be aware much sooner than I was, what these stories in their head are telling them. And the other thing I discovered in that program was who I was being as a parent was not my mother. And when you're trying so hard to be not someone else, you don't really have a freedom of self-expression. So I tried to be the cool parent. I tried to be the fun mom. I tried to be the super relaxed mom, the mom that just, I realized when you're strict, it doesn't mean you're cruel. And in that moment, it actually allowed me to become a strict parent. It allowed me to. It just put that whole idea of like, oh my god, if you could be cruel to your children like that. And it kind of eradicated that. So that really shaped my parenting. And I know I grew up all the time with my kids. And I apologize. So when I catch myself because I don't need them to think that their mom is perfect. My kids are teenagers now. You know, I used to be the hero. No, I was just like, you know, mom cringe. I don't even say cringe anymore nowadays because it's not a word anymore. So I'm hearing that. I'm getting the eye rolls, right? But I also tell them, you're a teenager, you're going to hate me some days. You're going to really not like me for who I am to you right now. And it's a face. I'm going to sit it out. I don't make it mean anything about me. It's just what you're going through and becoming an adult and becoming man. And I tell them every day how proud I am of them and how much I love them and how wonderful I think they are. And that the sky is the limit and that their dreams are valid. So, you know, and I'm and I put them with self awareness always. Yeah. That's such a great way to look at it. You were trying to not be someone. You were trying to avoid. And in that process, you weren't fully embracing who you were trying to be. Because I see your profile and you're in a sport where it's not like you can be up there on stage with modest attire on like hearing you talk about your childhood and maybe some insecurities and issues with food. What kind of work had to go on in your mind to be willing to be photographed and willing to be on stage? That requires liberation. You were probably I'm guessing based on our conversation thus far. Really kind of captive to the thoughts and the expectations of others. And I don't see that in the Sabina that I know today. Yeah, I will say that early on I worked as a model on the side. I was really super successful with it, but I was modeling. And even though I had eating disorders and what was happening at the time is like I almost was able to see what other people see when I looked at a photograph. When I stood in front of the mirror, everything was wrong. But when I saw it on like I was able to just remove like my perception and look at it more objectively. So I always had that. I will say stepping out on stage in a bikini on heels has been my biggest challenge. It's not the training. It's not the starvation. It's the hours of cardio. It's not the tough training. It is really that stepping out there and then you know moving a certain way. It must look flowing. It's like that is my biggest challenge. And being judged on your body still makes me nervous. I would be lying to say it doesn't make me nervous. You could put me in front of an audience of 200 people I talked their heads off. I have all the confidence in the world. And put me on a stage with five judges staring at me. I kind of lose it a little. And that has been a process. And luckily I'm stubborn. And the first time I stepped on stage, I could hardly move my needs for shaking so hard. So even that I was like, I'm not giving up. This was horrible. But I am not giving up. I am stubborn. And I will do this until I go out there and I'm comfortable. And I can only become comfortable if I am willing to suck really hard. Because yeah, you first have to suck to get better at anything. And you have to kind of embrace it. You have to accept. Sometimes it better looks stupid. Like the first time I post with a posing coach, you could mean this in these bright lights. And I was off season. I had cellulite everywhere. And I tried for solid two days because I'm like, who am I kidding? This is not me. I want to be here. This shoe doesn't fit. Like I am not a competitor. But then something clicked in as always. And it was like no, no, not really. You will not let these voices win. You're going to put yourself together and put your big bills pants on. And you're going to work until you feel like a bikini competitor. And I can say, like maybe my last show was the first time where I stepped out there and I felt I'd be lying. I have a place here. I worked hard for it. I belong here. I deserve to be on that stage. Yeah. I heard as you were talking several things. But one thing in particular jumped out is the role that fear plays for us. And so often fear makes us stop on our tracks and at the very least frees. But for me, there have been times in my life where it didn't just make me freeze. It made me turn tail and run the other direction. You didn't let that happen. You were afraid and you pushed through. Have you seen benefits from that approach in your life and have you experienced change as you've grown with your relationship with fear? Of course. You know how it is, Toby, like whatever we fear, when we turn and walk away, it will come back. It's things we don't want to experience about ourselves. Looking bad, embarrassment, failure. These are the things we are most afraid of. But you also know the accelerating feeling that having said, oh God, I'm not going to bring up rollercoasters. I really hate rollercoasters. I'm afraid of that man's fear that can stay in place as well as jumping off airplanes. But you know how it is. Like when you have overcome it and you're going down and you're screaming and you walk out the rollercoaster and you're like, I did that. Right? Whatever we do in life. When we break through that self-imposed limit that's over our head, it's almost like a ceiling. And when we face our fear, when we face all our stories and all of our limiting release, it's almost like breaking through the ceiling. You can actually feel it. You break through that ceiling and you reach your next level and you have more space to breathe. That box you were in was too small. It was getting too small. And you can retreat and do the way and it will just always be too small and will not allow you to breathe and grow. And then you break through that next level and there is air and there is room to grow and expand until you reach the next level. That's so much what life is like I feel. I love that visual. The training program that I went through where we met actually taught me the value, particularly in communication, that what I'm afraid of in a relationship, whether it's a leadership relationship at work, whether it's the relationship with my wife, whether it's the relationship even with my kids, anything. The growth I need the most is just beyond that fear. If I stop short and I withhold that last little bit, that last few percent of what I want to say, the relationship suffers. I don't get the benefit of having shared my heart. I just shared part of it. And that was a powerful realization for me and coupled with that, the idea of this amygdala hijack that our limbic system, our emotions are this filter that can totally cloud our perceptions of things. And for me, it was this visual of thoughts are coming in the top. And if I think of myself like a big funnel, my amygdala and my limbic system is kind of sitting in that funnel, like a sponge sitting in the funnel and everything is clouded. They're better or worse, it's going through my emotions. And fear is usually the biggest one of those for me. But I have this visual of this funnel being, I'm going to circumvent the emotion and I want to think about this logically. I'm so upset with how someone said something to me. Let's think about the words that we're used and let's diffuse it of emotion for just a second. And then all of a sudden, now I'm much less afraid to have that honest 100% conversation. So I know you're familiar with that same teaching. How has that idea of going the full 100% transformed your life, your business, your work? There are two things in what you said that I recognized. When we have a conflict, when something is being said to us, these are words spoken, but there's a difference to what's said and what we make it mean. Kind of the idea in the program we talked about impact and intention that it's not always the same. And when I get triggered, I think that's my opportunity for learning to sit back and say, hey, why have this one's been said and done, triggered me? What did I make it mean about myself? Because usually it goes, the filter we have in place, our own limiting beliefs. And when I'm triggered, I easily see a disrespected, used, abused, not enough. And we know from sharing earlier where that comes from, it shows stories. My mind has created about myself that are absolutely not true. And then I can choose not to be triggered because I really get present to that's not what this meant. I just made it mean. That's again personal responsibility. I just made it mean that. And when it comes to honest conversation with people, it's also something I learned years back when I went through this personal development program. Then in 2015, I think it's nice as nasty. When we just say, what's nice, what people want to hear, what our voice God is like, it is so nasty because we don't help people alone. You're not standing for their greatness, which is condone their smallest. And people bring up excuses on complaints. We know that someone comes to us and I get that sometimes people just want to vent. But what serves some the most, if I say, my friend comes and claims about her husband and I go and say, well, he's just an idiot. Is it going to solve the emergency? I'm like, is she going to get more stress? She's going to forget this out. If she wants to figure this out, I'm going to be the one who says, well, how did you perceive this? And what does it actually mean that? Or what are you not seeing? How are you dancing this dance with him? My approach is always I am being brutally unknown to be the one, maybe it's my germ side, to be brutally honest. Sometimes I'd rather be brutally honest than tell sweet lies, to keep peace, to just say what people want to hear. I never believed in that because it just really doesn't serve anyone. It's certainly not our relationship. I love this sentiment, Sabina shares here. If we don't stand for the greatness of those we are trying to lead and inspire and serve, we condone their smallness. The trick is to surround yourself with leaders as well as people you serve who are willing to both give and receive that tough love and that commitment to help us improve. Even when that means sometimes the message may be hard to hear. And one of my favorite Kobe Bryant quotes of all time, and there are a bunch of them, the black mama says this, I can't relate to lazy people. We don't speak the same language, I don't understand you, I don't want to understand you. Now that may seem cold, but the flip side of that is that high achievers do speak the same language. If we listen, others will share with us where we can improve. If they don't, then we ask. Blissful ignorance is fake contentment. I'd rather know what I need to work on so that I can work on it. Likewise, Sabina acknowledges that being nice is actually being unkind when those you're leading and serving are relying on you for the information you need to get better. Yeah, that's such a powerful way, that's an alpha way of saying the nice is nasty. I've heard the Brunei Brown quote, I always tend to regurgitate as clarity as kindness. If I'm going to have expectations of you, then it's being kind to fully explain what those expectations are. I've seen that with my own children. Like, hey, you should take care of your stuff. Well, that's a vague. And then if they fall short of my uncommunicated expectation, now I rail on them, that's really not fair. Whereas clarity is saying, you should take care of your stuff. I want you to wash your car once every two weeks. I want you to keep your laundry picked up off your floor. I want you to take good care of the things that we've bought you and they have a plate. I mean, that's clarity and that's kindness. But I love the alpha way you said that, that nice is nasty. Like, absolutely. So many times we feign this friendly, you know, I'm easygoing, went inside on boiling because people have insulted me unknowingly. So that is so powerful. I wrote a quote today and I'm curious your thought on it. It's from this, again, this parents' real book that I'm reading. And he said, he has descended and he has emerged. That was so powerful to me. The thought that our failures are at the scent. We go to our depths. Sometimes we hit rock bottom. Other times it's a series of setbacks. But in your life, do you feel like you have descended and you have emerged? Absolutely. I think failures really, it's just a word. But we use for when things don't work out the way we wanted to when we got faced with things that, you know, we didn't like the outcome. And we kind of judge it as a negative thing. It's like we judge our rainy days, our bad day and our sunny days, a good day. Like we should really, I think we should all do better at non-judging what's happening. And I always believed it's just a lesson. And I was struggling with something before Christmas, I was really stressed and I said then I was talking to God. And I know people have totally different beliefs and totally fine. But that's just my belief. So I was talking to God and I really thanked him for that challenge and that where I felt I was failing and for the lesson he was teaching me. And I said, please God make this stop. I'm exhausted and tired. God I got you a lesson and I promise I will do this, this, and this. And that's where everything turned around in the next three days. And I was like, wow, you know what? It's really, we have to embrace what we perceive as failure as a lesson we were ready to learn. These challenges only show up when we are ready to deal with them. I truly believe that. I was working with the college football team and we've been through countless strange injuries in a season where high expectations quickly dissolved into a five and five season. What we've anticipated is being a likely conference championship team struggle to win one game once we got into our actual conference schedule. Our head coach, an incredible teacher and a powerful speaker got up in staff meeting one morning and he asked everyone at the table, coordinators, position coaches, our head strength coach, the equipment manager, and me as the athletic trainer, a simple but powerful question. I want everyone in this room to consider this question for the rest of the day. What is God trying to teach me through this? What lesson don't I know that could only come through a disappointing season of failing to meet expectations? He then got up and walked out of the room with full 45 minutes before the end of our schedule staff meeting. Victory tastes sweet and everyone loves to hoist the trophy or cut down the nets at the end of a magical run. But it's bad as I hate to admit it. The biggest growth I ever got the pleasure of enjoying came only after the pain of loss and failure. It's been said that growth doesn't occur on mountaintops and well no one really wants to live in the valley. We need only open our eyes to see that that's where the biggest evidence of life is. For too many times in my life I've wanted that next step or I've wanted that opportunity to improve and I would get angrier. I felt like I was a soul or a pout that I didn't get a chance and you mentioned that word respect and I would feel disrespected. Why would someone else get that chance when I felt like I was deserving of it? It's only through time and healing and work that you realize that it wasn't my season. It wasn't my door. I wasn't ready for that in that time. What I've taken to in this podcast is an example of that. If it's not my time, I don't just want to be flipping the calendar waiting for my time to come. I'm going to be chasing down better every day. I want to grow physically, mentally, spiritually, socially as best I can every day so that when I see another possible door, I'm better prepared next time. What advice would you give a child who is in pursuit of what it is you do today? To follow your dreams. To not stop. To never ever give up. To never ever get it. We get the storage, but to keep going. When I start with a new clienty, when I say this is a journey of success and failure, you're going to fail. You're going to fail hard several times. You have to develop and have it's new patterns. You're not going to be perfect that this. I would be really astonished if you were and really suspicious. And I said, whatever mistake you made, I have made it before. So don't hold back and tell me either because it's nothing new to me. So we have to expect the hardship and we have to just simply embrace it. And if the dream is big enough, keep going. And in order as what you said, like about seasons, right, in order to have something, we have to be that version of ourselves first. A big goal of mine this year is to get my pro card and everything I do. I ask myself, is this what a pro would do? That's like a pro before you become one. And as much as I'm not a big believer and fake, I tell you make it. But be that version of yourself or if he's tried to be that version of yourself who can have the things you want to have. And give yourself grace when you were. Right. I think far too often we can be our own worst critic and we can pumble ourselves with body blows that no one else is throwing. And that doesn't serve our purpose. So again, going back to your idea of that that inner voice, like speak to ourselves the way we wish people had spoken into us. That is a powerful, powerful thing. I want to go back to something you mentioned that just in passing and I think it's valuable to point out, I've been surprised in this season of my life, the people that I aspire to be whether position or influence, they have executive coaches. These are powerful leaders and they have coaches. You have a coaching business, but you mentioned you have a coach. What's been the role of your personal coach and have you ever run encountered someone who question like how can you be a coach and you don't even know how to do it yourself? There's more to it than that I know. But there's two things there. Let me first talk about my coach and I've been with a different coach for four years and I just went to my current coach in May of this year and he's a world-renowned coach. He's one of the best coaches in this fitness. He had like minor Olympians at Olympia this year, which is the biggest bodybuilding show I see men on. And it's been more than anything an absolute mind flip for me because I never had someone who just speaks believe in me every step of the way. He's straight forward. He's tough. But he is there to believe in me. He moved me to tears and the moment before his step-down stage his last response, I could check in like several times a day right in the last thing. He said it is perfect. Now he said now go rock that bad boy and just have fun. And I never heard those things before. I was always so serious and significant about it because that's what I was taught from coaches in the past. And I was moved to tears. I knew it wasn't perfect. But he spoke such believe in me. He would always say you got this girl just go harder. He's like this discrep by his white hair. He's like such a popper figure. But he's most caring and loving men and it's been really just such a huge factor for me to be spoken to like that for someone to speak belief in you. And on the second question, can I be a coach? Honestly, I hadn't so many limiting beliefs around whether I could do this. And people have been telling me for years you should be doing this. I've done all the work. I've done, I had more training than any personal trainer at a fitness studio. I also had more mindset training than most people. And I was still standing there questioning looking at my, you know, what's on paper? Like I have a full-time job in marketing and I have a master's degree in political science and I have, you know, a past as a writer. I'm like, how am I a coach? But honestly, at some point in your life, you have to step back and then I have something to give to the world. I have done the work. I have learned and grown so much. I have done all these ghosts of the past up from the scary basement and I brought them up in daylight and looked at them and watched them and saw. I have something to pass on to and I'm a master coach woman in lifestyle transformation. I have something to give to these women. But it's selfish. It is selfish to play small and not not give that to them with hold what you've learned and been given. Not fulfill on your purpose to make like what's our legacy? We are going to die. The legacy that we made a difference in our lives that we changed lives. I thought of it like yesterday, I had a new client. She's not be long with me and she's like, can I call you and she's haste times me and she starts crying and I was like, oh gosh, it's going on. And she said I had a pair of jeans since 2007 and I've fit into them since and I just put them on and she starts crying again and she says you have no idea the impact you made on me in such a short time. It was really just like, you know, diving and like some exercise and you know, changing so how it's up in a short time. But that is where you feel your purpose where I'm like, who am I to withhold that from people? That gives that I can give them and where I feel, okay, this is my purpose. This fills me with joy. This lights me up and that's what I truly love about it. And so and I learned every day like my coaching how I coach fitness has grown since I had a new coach because I had new experiences, a different way of doing certain exercises. We have never as coaches, if you think you're coaching, you're at the end of the learning journey, you're a bad coach. The coaches and there are so many fitness coaches out there who think they're better than anyone who've learned everything, who's not upgraded their skills in probably the last 10 years. Those are the really bad coaches and you know what it is when you think you're right, you've already lost, be open to the learning and to evolving and look at it and challenge yourself by saying, trigger your like opposite of what you learned, like actually look at it, listen at it and form an opinion about it and think, hey, maybe there's a coin, maybe I'm not going to be right about it. And that's how we always involves and that's how we become better coaches. And also, I think relatable and saying, hey, you know what, like how you failed on your diet. I felt like that before. If you rate your fridge and I'm going to judge you, because I've rated my fridge as you. Right. I think it's folly for us to expect to get new growth if we aren't listening to voices who have accomplished more, whether it's mentoring, teaching, coaching, I view myself and my career as being kind of right in the middle. I need to be speaking into others who are further behind me, who haven't had, maybe it's just time. I haven't had enough time to do or to have accomplished what I've accomplished. But if I don't actively seek out mentors, teachers, coaches who are further ahead, then I'm done. I'm not growing. I'm contributing to the growth of others, but you hit the nail right on the head and said, as I am being poured into, I'm able to pour out even better. And so for any coach, teacher, mentor, out there, it's bidirectional. You constantly need to be giving in receiving. It can't just be pouring out all the time, because eventually your cup gets empty, right? Yeah. And I truly believe we become the five people we surround ourselves with. And I feel very blessed. I'm at my work, how we met. I'm surrounded by people that inspire me who have achieved things on far from achieving, whether it be successful keynote speaker or friends who are pros in fitness and all of that. So we need to be surrounded by these people in order to grow because we learn so much from them. Yeah. Well, last question, and I ask it of all my guests, what for use have been a remains undone? I think we're always a work of progress. So those stories, those limiting beliefs, those patterns, then I'm a stop kickist, they're always part of us. And it's daily work to pull yourself out of that pattern. It's daily work to get present to the limiting beliefs that are just running the show. So there are many things still undone in me and it's not going to be undone until the day I die. I just get faster and better at recognizing it and turning it around. So that big goals and things where I struggle in life, there are areas in my life where I struggle and I know the reason I am not where I want to be is because there are things I haven't learned or I haven't been willing to transform where I'd be in my personal relationships or around financial goals, there are things, you know, I have not really where I'm like, whoa, like you've been working on this for a while. And you're still out there yet. I think we need to normalize that. Life is not a to-do list that I reach the end of and then I just pick my feed up. We always need to have something we're striving toward and that's such a powerful sentiment. So, Vina, how can our listeners connect with you? I'm really active on Instagram, on my fitness journey, my story and I really try to share so open and honestly and vulnerable on there because I think especially like the social media world, we always, you know, we tend to run our highlights real, so it doesn't really do much on anything. You know, we all like to look good, but I also really want to share of my journey and I hope to inspire others. So it's at mind, body, creations on Instagram and that's probably the best way I connect with people on there all the time. So I think that's the best way. Vina, it's been a true pleasure. I really appreciate you and so thankful that you agreed to be on with us today. Thank you for having me. It's been a real honor and pleasure and joy to connect with you today. You're coming undone as a natural hype creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for becoming undone, contact me at undonepodcast.com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn at becoming undone pod and follow me at the Koby J. Brooks. Listen, subscribe and leave us a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, my friends, keep in mind.