The Gap Between Who You Are and How You're Living

We share the biggest mindset and identity lessons we brought home from a recent retreat, from reframing hard seasons to learning how to show up with more courage and honesty. We also break down core values and environment shifts that make discipline easier, growth more contagious, and joy something we practice on purpose. 

• Reframing challenges as life happening for us rather than to us 
• Choosing ownership over victim mindset and using pain as fuel 
• Why lived experience lands harder than tips and tactics 
• Appreciating the current season to unlock the next level 
• Guilt versus shame and how identity gets stuck 
• Fear of success, people pleasing, and learning to be seen 
• Handling online backlash and letting go of others’ perceptions 
• Taking messy action instead of waiting for perfect conditions 
• Defining core values that guide daily choices and discipline 
• Using environment change to influence habits and relationships 
• Reading, reflection, and integrating lessons into real life 

Apply for 1:1 Health Coaching

Transcript

Welcome Back And Quick Catch-Up

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello guys, welcome back to the podcast. I am so happy to have you here. I'm so happy to be back recording on my camera and posting this to YouTube. So let's just do like a little live catch up, why don't we? Because I feel like we need to make these kinds of things lightheartedness before I actually like dive into the deep stuff. So a little brief catch-up. This past week, I actually went to Austin, Texas because my business mentor puts on a almost like a retreat that they call it a retreat, but it's kind of like conference style twice a year. And I've gone to these ever since I joined the program back in December or November of 2024. So I've been in the program for quite a while now. And each time I go, I have different takeaways. And so I just want to share a couple of them. But I just got back from that on Sunday night. I was there Wednesday through Sunday, and I just have a lot of really, really good takeaways when I go. And so I wanted to kind of just share some of the things that I learned. While it is like my quote unquote business mentor, we do talk a lot about it's a lot of more like personal development, identity work because these things are ultimately is what's going to move the needle forward in business entrepreneurship. Whenever you can actually like work on yourself and developing yourself, then every other facet of your life tends to increase tenfold. And so that's why they do put a lot of emphasis on the leadership, the self-development, growth type of thing. So a couple of things that I wanted to share from my experience.

Life Happens For You

SPEAKER_00 1:56

So there was how many? I took a couple pages of notes. I didn't take as many notes as I usually do just because I was trying to be a little bit more present. But a couple big things that stood out to me is that life is happening for you. Life does not happen to you, life happens for you. And my takeaway from that is we cannot control what things come at us, come to us in life. And I do truly believe that every single thing, every single trial, tribulation that I've gone through has led me to this point. And I think a lot of people get sucked into the victim mindset, the victim energy of this happened to me, so therefore X, Y, Z, yada, yada, yada. Instead of being like, okay, this happened to me, and what am I going to do? What am I going to use that for in my story or in my next phases of life that are going to help me help somebody else, if that makes sense? So another big takeaway that I also took a that I also got from it was information is not the same thing as experience. And a lot of the times whenever we're seeing things online now, it's we're kind of straying away from like, here's information, do this, like follow this, XYZ value. And people are starting to gear more towards experience in story, they want to be able to get the wisdom from you from your lived experience, not just here's three tips to do this. And that really hit me because while I do love to serve and give so much value and be like, these are the tactical things you need to do because I love hearing that. I also have to remember that whenever I see people post things, I love whenever they're giving me their wisdom through things that they've experienced. And honestly, if that's hitting me, I know that's what's going to hit my audience. And so my goal for myself is okay, how can I share more of my stories and my experiences and turn these things into wisdom, into things that are going to help somebody see that if they were in a similar situation, we're just getting value from experience instead of value from information. Another thing that I wrote down was I need to appreciate where I am now

Experience Beats Information Online

SPEAKER_00 4:30

in order for me to grow more. I think a lot of the times, as young people, maybe you're an entrepreneur, maybe you are just working hard in a business, whatever it is, in a in your job, maybe, and it's like, oh, I'm but I want to be here, but I want to be here, and then we have no real appreciation for where we are. I think I oftentimes am like, okay, what's the next task? What's the next task? What's the next task? Instead of just sitting here and actually having gratitude for where I am at and how far I have come. This is something that I genuinely struggle with. Okay, let's see here. Oh, a big thing that we did was kind of like a guilt versus shame type of thing, and I really, really like this. So guilt means I did something wrong. It's an action, it's correctable. Shame is I am the thing that is wrong. And so then we identify with it, and this is a lot more self-destructive. So basically, what we did was like wrote down our shame story and our guilt story, and then we were able to kind of like talk amongst other people with what we kind of talked about. And I feel like that was really helpful just to hear that we are all so much more alike than we could possibly think. I think a lot of the times we get in our heads of like, oh, I've gone through this, so therefore I'm more superior, I've had more struggle X, Y, Z. When actually a lot of these things that we have gone through or experienced or things that we fail

Gratitude For Where You Are

SPEAKER_00 5:56

feel shame and guilt about, we are all really interconnected and they all kind of stem from the same type of things. We all carry things with us, whether your thing may be a little bit different than mine, but at the end of the day, we all still have these feelings inside of us, and it's important to know that we really are way more alike than we think. And we try to we try to make ourselves seem so different to put to put what's the word I'm looking for, to put these that's not what I'm trying to say. We try to make ourselves seem so incredibly different because we want it to not work for us. We want to be the outlier, we want to be the exception when in reality we are all dealing with our own things in just different manners. And if you sit there and if you try to make your circumstance the reason why you're not able to lose weight, you're not able to make more money, grow your business, whatever, there's somebody else out there that's using that exact same circumstance as their wife or doing what they're doing, and they're actually able to see the result. So I love this because a lot of the times we think like, oh, like they have it good, they have it all figured out. No, they don't.

Guilt Vs Shame And Identity

SPEAKER_00 7:10

No, they don't. They're just using what they've gone through to propel them forward, whereas you're using what you've gone through to hold you back, to keep you in a victim, to keep you in a small-minded place. Let's see here. Oh, another, like this is like another topic was how is it possible that a rose can go through a can grow through a crack in the sidewalk? And I really love this because this kind of goes back to what I was saying is we all have our own, our own crap that we've dealt with, but it's our responsibility to grow and rise through those cracks, those things that have maybe broken us down. Let's see what else. Ooh, this is a big one that I really resonated with. A lot of us are not actually afraid to fail. We're we're actually afraid of success because we are scared that if we actually go all in, we're scared of what could happen. And what really happens whenever we do decide to go all in is that we lose and we shed people and things and I old identities when act whenever we start to see the, whenever we start to reach the goals, whenever we start to level up, we leave and we shed all of these people. And that's really what we're scared of is letting go of these past identities that have kept us comfortable and safe for so long. One thing for me that I kind of took away from myself is I still am dealing with people pleasing tendencies. When I show up online or when I show up for other people, a lot of it is I don't want to be the person that is like breaks the piece, or I don't want to hurt somebody or step on their toes. But in reality, is like I my what I have to say is so valuable, and I need to stop being afraid to be seen and be heard, and like I have a lot to say, and it's okay that I say those things, it's okay for me to have a voice, use my voice, and this is just something that I'm continuously striving to work on. And maybe you're watching and you think, oh, but I feel like she's really good at that. Okay, you might see that from an outside perspective, but I still feel like I have a lot of work to do in the department of putting myself out there even more, and just realizing how much I'm actually worth because I do feel like I kind of like bring the value that I have down when I know I have so much more to give, so much more information, value, wisdom. I just know that I have so much more enemy out there to give, and I just feel like that I'm putting putting like a a block on my potential whenever I know that there is more out there for me. I need to stop being afraid to fully be seen. If I never go all in, I can't fail. So what else a question that you could ask yourself is what else do you have to lose? You've already gone through the hardest losses. And this was tipped, this was like the biggest thing for me is like, I've lost my dad. I've gone through all these things. Like, I've already gone through some of the hardest losses. Like, what else is there to lose by me putting myself out there, by me being even more over the top, by me raising my standards? What is what else is there to lose? And a lot of

Fear Of Success And Being Seen

SPEAKER_00 10:30

this kind of ties back into my faith of like I I'm fearing that I'm going to lose the lose the business. So it's a relationship, like lose all of these things, but that's because I've lost something that's already been so close and deep to me. And I put a lot of my worth and my value in my in my business, in my coaching, in my relationships. And it's like at the end of the day, I've lost the hardest things already. What what worse could happen because I've gone through one of the hardest losses. So when will I give myself permission? Is the question that I asked myself. Who, how, why? All right, here's a little bit more of a reflection. So I guess this episode might just be about my reflections and like kind of things I took away and things maybe you can't implement in. But one thing that I wrote down was ask God to show me what I need to see in myself. I must be willing to sacrifice, I must be willing to forgive and not just forgive other people, but forgive myself for things that I maybe feel shameful or guilty about. And just really learning like what I stand for, like what are my core values? Who am I at my core? Let's see. A really uh a good little quote that I took away was let go of the belief that other people's perceptions determine

Handling Backlash And Speaking Up

SPEAKER_00 12:03

who I am. Let me read that again. Let go of the belief that other people's perceptions determine who I am. I can put myself out there on the internet, I can say what I want to say, I can get so much hate and so much backlash. I actually just posted a video a couple weeks ago, and it was like me eating a kiwi, and it was like, the reason that you poop like a rabbit is because you eat like a teenager, and all these people are like, Well, I'm actually pregnant. Well, I actually have IBD. Well, I actually have IBS. And there's so much just like comments just saying, like, I'm a terrible person. I was putting down the people that have chronic disease because I said IBS isn't real. Well, I genuinely don't believe still that IBS is real. I just believe that it's a it's a blanket diagnosis that we have put on people with gut issues because we have yet to dig further deep into what's actually going on. You could say that I have IBS, but when I do a GI map, it comes back when I have H. pylori candied, all of these things that a regular traditional doctor doesn't test for because that's not something that they have learned to do. But when you get into functional medicine, this is a very, very big thing that is normalized, and this is what you do. And you can actually heal a lot of your gut issues if you actually dig deeper and not just put a blanket statement on it and say, Hey, it's IBS, and people are like, Oh, you're not a doctor, you can't say that. No, but I can tell you from lived experience and from helping my clients be able to do the same thing that it is a real thing. You can actually get to the root cause of a lot of your gut symptoms, and people are like, Oh, but I have Crohn's, I have IBD. That's different. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you have IBS because you're chronically constipated, you're chronically have diarrhea. There's typically something underlying going on. And I know because I've gotten the same diagnosis and I've been able to actually understand what's going on and not just be like, oh, IBS can't do anything about it. No, you really can do something about it. If there's a problem, there's always a solution. And I stand on that. Anyways, all right. I think that's all. Oh, another big one that I have.

Stop Waiting For Perfect Conditions

SPEAKER_00 14:04

A little big takeaway is where are you waiting for the conditions to be for perfect? There, it is never going to be perfect. There's never going to be the right time for anything. And I say this all the time. I tell my clients this, I tell my audience this, I tell everybody this. Like, there is no perfect conditions. Messy action is going to be you having like, okay, oh, I wasn't stressed today. My kids didn't piss me off. My dog didn't piss on the floor. My husband didn't make me mad. The house is clean. The house is in order. Okay, now I can make sure that I eat my meal prep. Now I can make sure that I go to the gym because everything was perfect. When reality, that's not how life works. All right. I think that's pretty much my biggest takeaways from what I wanted to talk about, as far as my little takeaways from that.

Core Values That Drive Actions

SPEAKER_00 14:55

But what I really wanted to talk about today was like core values. And I talked a lot about a lot. Talked a lot. Can I talk? I asked my clients in their check-in questions this week because I like to change, I change the check-in question, like the very first check-in question every single week because I want them to think on a deeper level. I don't want it to just be service level, send your check-in goodbye. No, I want them to actually think about who they are as a person, who are they working towards? Because yes, I help them with fitness, nutrition, gut health, hormones. I help with all of these things. But at the end of the day, if like your mindset is not in a space where it is willing to be able to continue to grow, then like, so I do do a lot of the mindset work and I love incorporating that in there. But I put that in there, and a lot of my clients were like, I have actually not thought about what my core values are, and I can my sticky notes over there what mine are. But core values should be things that drive you on a day-by-day basis. So for example, mine are health, faith, loyalty, joy, strength. I have another one, but I can't think of what it is. But like these things that they should help carry you through your day-to-day actions, if that makes sense. So obviously I prioritize my health so much that is a big driver of my of who I am. It is important to me that I get up and I get sunshine and I eat a healthy meal and I go on walks and I move my body and I get strong and all of the like I have to be healthy in order to make sure that I am able to show up fully at my job, to be able to take care of the people I love, to be able to take care of my home. If I have no energy, if I feel like crap, if my mood is all over the place because I don't take care of my physical body, then how am I going to be able to make my space nice and clean? How am I going to be able to show up every day, come in my office and have this self-discipline? Because I gen I work for myself. And so I have to have such a high level of, oh, that's on mine, I think as well, discipline. Such a high level of discipline to be able to come in here every day, to be able to work for myself, provide for myself, to be able to keep my business afloat, to be able to bring in new clients, to be able to serve my current clients, that takes so much discipline. And that really has to be high up there for me. Because if I don't have that discipline, then everything else around me crumbles. Another thing too is joy. And this one is something that I'm working on because I am very structured. Get this done, do this at this time. And this is something that I'm working on. Is like, how can I find little joys in my day? How can I find joy in sitting and reading my book and going outside on a walk and drinking my matcha coffee? Actually, I haven't been drinking any at home, but like I we don't have any furniture outside on our like our back porch area. And so that makes me like not want to go out there and just sit. But I really, really want to have just like a little spot outside where I can go out and sit and read my book or read the Bible and drink my coffee. We have some spots up front, but I want it to just be like out back, like nice, more nice and like loungy. And so that's something that I'm looking forward to. But like just the little things that bring you joy. Like, how can you find joy in the small things every day? For me, it's like finding joy in like wearing a cute gym outfit or finding joy in making dinner for myself or making dinner for Brock or finding joy in cuddling with my dogs, and just like joy has to be such a big part of my life, or else I get so burnt out. But this is one that I really that's a core value that I'm really, really working on loyalty. I'm very loyal to the people in my life. If somebody asks me to hang out, I'm not going to cancel that. If I, if we've been friends, like I genuinely want to keep that connection for a long time. I'm loyal to the people in my life who have helped me grow, helped me become who I am. And just like to Brock, to my mom, like all of these people in my life that I love. I talked about discipline a little bit. Strength is huge. Like just having the strength to show up every single day, post on social media, post my life on there, be okay with being ridiculed, having the strength to keep showing up whenever clients quit without no reason, the strength to just do hard things even when I don't want to do them. That one really carries me through my day. So maybe this will just help you kind of get your wheels turning of like what your core values actually are. And just think about what, like, what is it that you do on a daily basis and what are your values that help drive that essentially? Ooh, another big thing that I really wanted to touch on. I know this is kind of jumbly, but like just a lot of the thoughts that are going through my head. Because when I did a brain dump, I'm literally just telling you everything from my brain dump, what I wanted to talk about.

Change Your Environment Change Your Life

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Environment. If you don't like the environment that you're in, the simplest fix is to change the environment. And I really wanted to segue into like Brock and I's relationship. So I'll just talk about this for like the next 10 minutes because I feel like it's really important. But Brock and I started talking whenever or started dating whenever he was at a point in his life where he just lived for the weekends. And I did too. I was young, I was only 20, and I was like, oh, I can just party, I can have fun, I can do whatever I want. I lived at home, I was in college. I literally had literally wasn't doing anything, but just gym, hanging out with him, partying, working a part-time job. And in that point in our lives, like we didn't care about, we didn't, we just wanted to have fun. I lived at home, he lived at home, and so every weekend it was like, okay, you work so hard all week, specifically him. You work so hard all week, you get to the weekend, Friday hits, all right, let's drink, let's get drunk, Friday, Saturday, and then you do, you repeat it over and over and over again. And this probably went on for like the first, I would say, like year and a half of our relationship. And then I I start, I had a I had a coach, like a fitness coach, I hired a fitness coach, and I was like, all right, I'm really gonna start to discipline myself. I stopped drinking as much, I stopped smoking weed as much. Well, I wouldn't say in the in the beginning, I was like that because I feel like that was like my thing because I was like, oh I'm not consuming, I'm not consuming calories from the alcohol, but I can smoke weed, that's good enough. And I was doing that. And I was, I would like bring my meal prep to his house if I would go visit him because he lived an hour away every weekend. I was not, I didn't care that I was eating these like my own meals. It didn't bother me at all. And so I was doing that. I was showing him like, hey, this is how I'm eating. Yada yada did it like a like a year and a half of us dating, and then like I don't know what clicked, but he almost like flipped a switch because he saw me not drinking. He saw me eating healthy. He saw me pursuing a business. He saw me working hard. And genuinely, I don't know if it was like a flip of the switch. I can't remember. But like he started caring about what he was eating. He started caring about taking care of his body. He was tired of every Sunday just laying in bed all day because you had no energy to do anything from partying and drinking the whole weekend before. Like we, he started to care about those things because I started to care about those things. And like this just goes back to you, if you don't like your environment, you have the ability to change it. You have the ability to change your actions, to change your habits, to change your beliefs, to change your core values. And you don't even realize how much that will affect the people in your life. When I started eating a certain way, he started eating a certain way. His family started eating a certain way. And it really, really was like a trickle effect. And the other day he actually told me he was like, I don't think you actually realize how much you've changed my life. He started pursuing something bigger than him. He's obviously he still works his job. He's an he's a lineman. But like outside of that, he's like, I want to be a great golfer. I want to compete. I want to go to golf tournaments and compete. And not, I'm not talking about the golf tournaments where you get drunk, you get fucked up.

unknown 23:21

No.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

These are the golf tournaments where you're like competing against people who are like pro level or going to be or trying to be pro level. So that's what he does. He likes to spend his time doing that. Right now, he's literally practicing golf. He will wake up, go to the gym, go golfing, go to work. Every single day he does those three things. And I think it's because he saw me start to pursue what I wanted to do. He started to see me pursue a business, my health. He saw me can be in body, but he was like, holy shit, that takes so much discipline. The things that I was doing, he was like, How can I apply that to my life? And I genuinely think that that is a big why purpose behind what I do, what I do is I want to influence you so much that it gives you the strength to change the trajectory of your life. I don't want you to be binge drinking. I don't want you to be depressed. I don't want you to have to rely on alcohol or all these things to numb. I don't want you to have to live for the weekend. I don't want you to have to eat so crappy that you feel miserable in your body. I want you to be so fully in alignment with a life that you love that's helping you grow that you don't even think about

Build A Bigger Life Through Growth

SPEAKER_00 24:32

these things anymore. I have not drank alcohol in two and a half years. Brock drank wine when we got engaged, and before that, he hadn't drank anything in two years. Like we are so, or I think maybe like a year and a half. I don't really know. But we are so fully bought in on our goals and creating a life for ourselves that is so much bigger than here and right now. And I think a lot of people stay stuck in their ways because they are thinking small-minded. They are thinking like this is just that there's all that all there is for me. So many people get to an age, and I think a lot of people get to the age when they're like in their 20s and they're starting to find their job and their husband and all these things, and they think like this is it for me. Fuck that, respectfully. I'm trying to not cuss, but I just I had to say that there is so much more out there for you. Read a freaking book. Your mind is so limited to the only things that you have ever known. If you would read books, if you would understand what other people have gone through, if you would actually get curious, if you would just stop having surface level conversations, if you would surround yourself with people who want to grow in all facets of life. And I'm not just talking about get healthy, get the body. I'm talking about build the mindset, build the business, create wealth for yourself, increase your faith. I'm talking about people who are going to make you a better human being all around. Stop selling yourself short because this is all you've known. That isn't if I could shake you and tell you that there is so much more for your life. I'm just looking at my bookshelf right now. I have tons and tons of books because I genuinely I'm not okay with this being my life for the rest of my life. And you can call me crazy. You can say whatever you want of like, oh my gosh, all she cares about. It's like I don't care. I care about making my life better. I want to be that person that is inspirational, has wisdom, can teach you things, can help you grow. I want to be the person that's going to elevate you in your life. I'm not going to be the person that's just going to be sitting on the sidelines being like, oh, you're doing great, sweetie. No, respectfully F that. What is there to life if you are not constantly growing and evolving and putting yourself in situations where you're uncomfortable so that you are forced to level up? So many people are stuck in their small-minded ways. There's so much, there's so much more. And like I can just even think of like people that are in their 40s, 50s. And I'm even thinking of clients that I've had that they're like 40s, 50s, and all they've ever known is eat as little as possible for the rest of your life, follow this diet, do this, do this. And then they come to me and they're like, wow, like you've actually changed my life. Because they're open to new ways, to different ways of living. And whenever you can be open to different ways and not the current path that you're on is the only path, that's whenever your life will change. You'll start to be more curious, you'll start to experience more. That's I think I just need to stop right there because I am just like I am so passionate about this and not staying stuck where you are and constantly growing and evolving and just not going through the day-to-day motions all the time and be like, okay, actually, how can I improve myself as a human being? Also, like, how can I have fun and have joy while I'm doing it? How can I be silly and be creative and bring out all these different little things in myself that I didn't even know were there? So that's all I got for you guys today. I know it's a lot, but just things that were rolling off the tongue for me.

Reading Reflection And What’s Next

SPEAKER_00 28:15

I am really, really, really into reading so much right now. But what goes along with reading is like I actually have to like sit there and like reflect on what I've read, or else it'll just like come in and then I'll then I'll totally forget it. So it's not just like okay, read this book, move on to the next. It's like okay, how can I fully integrate what I've just read and provide wisdom and insight through it? So the book I'm currently reading is The Road Less Traveled. So I really love that. I'll probably do a solid podcast episode when I finish that and get my key takeaways from that. So stay tuned for that. But I'm so glad that you tuned in and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.