Ship's Log 12: Always Shipshape, Mind & Body with Laura Banks

“Real change happens when the motivation fades away, and devotion starts to appear.”
- Laura Banks

Episode Summary:
In this episode of Project Candor, host Jeannie Anderson sits with Guest Name

Guest’s Bio:
Laura Banks is a Holistic Nutrition Health Coach, helping women build healthy habits they can actually stick to. Laura focuses on helping her clients to heal their relationship with food and create day-to-day routines that make healthy living feel easier. Through health education and mindset shifts, Laura’s clients stop yo-yo dieting and finally feel in control with food.

Links:
Social media links:
● Instagram: LAURA B. | Teacher turned Health Coach | Podcaster️ (@laura.b.healthy) •
Instagram photos and videos
● TikTok: Laura B. | Health Coach (@laura.b.healthy) | TikTok
● YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@laura.b.healthy
● Isn’t She Powerful Podcast: https://isntshepowerful.buzzsprout.com/
● Website: https://bhealthyhabits.com/

Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Email: info@projectcandor.com

Website:   https://www.projectcandor.com

Social Media

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/

LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/

YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

Transcript

Jeanne 0:02

Our guest today is Laura Banks, a holistic nutrition health coach helping women build healthy habits they can actually stick to. Her goal is to help women by healing their relationship with food and creating realistic day-to-day routines. Hi Laura, welcome to Project Candor.

Laura Banks 0:20

Hello, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jeanne 0:23

Oh, great. I think your business is a wonderful goal and mission, and I'm really thrilled that you're here to talk about it. So, first, what we I'd like to do is start with some questions. Are you up for them?

Laura Banks 0:34

Of course. Yeah, let's do it.

Jeanne 0:38

Okay. So, question number one, Laura, after looking at your website and everything, I want you to take us back before the version of you that feels grounded and confident today. How would you describe your relationship with yourself back then? Not just food, but how you move through the days?

Laura Banks 0:56

You know, I actually love this question because I was just thinking about it yesterday of how our relationship with food and our relationship with ourselves are very much the same, right? Like it the relationship that I have with food where I was completely out of control and frustrated by my actions and just felt really lost and confused. That's also how I felt in my day-to-day life. I was really mean to myself, always beat myself up, whether that be about the food choices that I was making, about the way that my body looked, about the fact that I couldn't stick with anything, my mindset, whatever. Like I was just always really negative, really down on myself, very low self-confidence. And I just really lived in like a very honestly sad state of being. Like I was not the happy person that I am now back then.

Jeanne 1:43

Yeah, that doesn't resonate with me at all. Because I and knowing you just a little bit recently and meeting you at some events, that's hard to believe. You're such a bubbly and happy and positive personality. But I guess that's what people go through.

Laura Banks 1:57

Yeah, I think there was like the reality probably was on the outside, I probably always did look this way. You know what I mean? Like people who met me probably always were like, oh, Laura's a happy, nice person. But on the inside, I did not speak to myself that way. And I think that's another thing to note here is like you never know what's going on in somebody else's head. You never know how they're feeling, what they're going through on the inside. And so, yeah, I love that you say that because people probably always have thought that I was a happy person. And I, in a way, have always been like a nice, happy person, but I was really not very nice to myself for a long time.

Jeanne 2:35

Right. I liked what you said just a minute ago. That's not how I spoke to myself. I think I struggle with that myself. I don't speak to myself with positivity or encouragement. I think a lot of times I'm looking for the faults that I have. So I really like that. Um, let's go do another question. Before things started to change, what were you avoiding, like consciously or unconsciously, because of your relationship with food or your body?

Laura Banks 3:02

Wow, that's a great question. What was I avoiding? I think that I was avoiding discomfort. I was avoiding putting myself, getting uncomfortable, right? Like going to the gym and pushing my body past the point of comfort. Like I just wanted if it got too hard, I quit. If any diet that I was on, if it started to feel uncomfortable, if I walked into a room where I didn't feel like I fit, if I put on an outfit and I felt uncomfortable in that outfit, like if anything pushed me outside of my little comfort zone, I was like hard past. Like I would back away immediately. And so I think for a long time I wanted to avoid that feeling of discomfort because to me, that discomfort meant that something was wrong with me and I was displeasing to others. I think it always came back to like I want to be good for other people. I want their approval, I want people to like me, and I wanted to please other people, right? And so I think for a long time I sat in that discomfort out of fear. And so, in order to become the person that I am now, I just finally one day was like, I'm gonna push my body past the point that I think it's able to be at. I'm gonna continue to learn about nutrition even whenever I feel like an idiot because I don't know any of this stuff that I feel like everybody else knows or that I should know, I'm still gonna push myself past the point of that. Because the only way for me to grow into the person that I'm trying to become is to push myself past that point of discomfort.

Jeanne 4:23

What do you think about like your circle of friends and the peer pressure and you know your loved ones? You all of a sudden feel they're not doing the same thing I'm doing. And so that's where you start to slide or start to back up and say, this is too hard.

Laura Banks 4:40

Yeah, I think that's a really good point to make. I started my journey at a natural transition point in my life. I had graduated college like a year and a half prior and was moving to a completely different state. And so I it was already a natural transition in the sense that like my old people I was kind of leaving behind. And I didn't really, I only knew one person in Florida. It was the person that I was moving there with. And so, yes, the people that I had been friends with before, I would say that the people that I was friends with weren't really my biggest issue. They supported me, they were encouraging of the new lifestyle that I was working on living, never made me feel bad about it. Family sometimes did kind of give me a little bit of grief about it and made fun of me a little bit for the eating habits that I was taking up, or not necessarily that I was taking up, like some of my parents, for example, would always say, if it's not made out of cauliflower, Laura's not gonna eat it. And that just simply wasn't true. Like they just decided that for me and they believed that to be true in themselves, even though that wasn't the truth. But I think I had to kind of let some of that slide a little bit and be like, you know what? Like, if that's the mindset they want to have, that's the way that they want to view it, then that's on them. But for me, I'm gonna keep doing me. And I think the fact that I did have like this natural physical barrier between a lot of people, like I was living two states away, then most of those people, and so it that did help me to be able to, you know, kind of block some of that out a little bit so that I could continue on with the habits that I wanted to have.

Jeanne 6:14

I like that answer. That's very good and positive too, because I know a lot of times having a spouse that wants to do something different, or friends that you want to go out with, and they always want to hit these spots that have the worst food. Like, let's go out and eat at I'm just gonna call the name Junk Food Alley. Yeah, it's like eating off a food truck or something. Not that there's anything bad with all food trucks, but you know what I mean. It's like your choices, you're trying something new and you're trying to be positive for yourself, but it doesn't always fit with the worldview, I guess, or your circle of friends. They're in a different mindset.

Laura Banks 6:56

Yeah.

Jeanne 6:57

So that leads to another question. There's usually a subtle moment where life starts to widen again. So what began to feel possible for you that happened before, even before your habits fully changed?

Laura Banks 7:09

I think it's whenever I got consistent with exercise. So for me, my my weight loss journey, it didn't all start from a place of wanting to lose weight. I mean, that was the underlying motivation, but mostly I started during COVID. Like two months into COVID, I was just bored of sitting around. And so I was like, I'm gonna start exercising. What else do I have to do? I've been saying for years that I was gonna start doing it. I'm gonna actually do it this time. And so I started to do it and I started to notice, like, oh, I can squat lower than I could squat before. I can lift a little bit heavier than I could lift before. And I started to get really excited about the fact that my body was able to do things that a couple months prior it hadn't been able to do. And so that was the like first glimmer of hope, I think, where I was like, this actually matters. I'm not just doing this to do it, like my body's actually changing because of this. It's positively impacting me in some way. And then from there, you know, it was just like anything else. There were valleys and there were hills, and you know, I reached the peak of some other areas, and there were also areas where I was like, what am I doing? I couldn't see past, you know, the current obstacle that I was facing. But there was always something that was giving me that little glimmer of hope where I was like, if I just keep going, you know, it was like I said, I could squat a little bit deeper, and then I started to see a little bit of change on the scale, and then I started to notice that those voices in my head about food were starting to go away a little bit. And all over time I started to see all of these little things that kind of compiled into me now being truly a completely different person.

Jeanne 8:41

Well, I love your energy. I'm just sitting here watching you while you're talking, and you're just so happy about everything that has come out of this journey. I just think that's wonderful. So if you could sit across from the version of you who was stuck and frustrated, what would you tell her about change that she wouldn't have believed back then?

Laura Banks 9:02

I think I would say change is a good thing. It's funny because I just recorded an episode from my podcast about change, and I talked in that episode about how our brains, they don't like change because change is uncomfortable, and our brains only have one job, and that is to keep us alive. And what we're doing right now, even if it's like the most unhealthy version of us, the most unhappy version of us, we're totally uncomfortable with the life we're living right now, and we don't like it, still we're alive, and that's all our brain cares about. And so as soon as we start to make some change, then our brain is like, whoa, you're like we're threatening our survival in a way. Even though logically we know it's gonna make us live a better quality of life, we still our brains don't want to hear that because they're like, but what we're doing right now is keeping us alive, and that's all we care about. So to go back to the question, I think what I would do is I would tell her change is going to feel uncomfortable. You're gonna get some pushback from your brain. Your brain is gonna give up really quickly because it doesn't want to face all of this uncomfortable that you are about to embark on. But trust me, girl, it's good. You'll be fine. You have to, you know, relax your nervous system, remind yourself that change is a good thing and that you are going to be just fine and that you're actually going to be so much happier and healthier and have a better quality of life if you just get uncomfortable a little bit and allow yourself to make some of these changes.

Jeanne 10:23

Yeah, that's a really good point about your brain doesn't like change. I got stuck in a a job that I did for years, and it sometimes wasn't healthy at all. But the thought of leaving that job, the change would have been too dramatic. And I finally did. And I'm so glad. But why was I so stubborn about it? I kept coming up with reasons not to do it. So I think I want to go back and listen to your podcast on that way, and I'd love to hear more about the brain and how to make that shift and let it help you move forward and not hinder you. So very good points. Very good.

Laura Banks 11:03

Thank you.

Jeanne 11:04

So if you coach in a lot of different ways, like for people that come to you. What strict plans, rules, and pressures do you put on people, or do you not go by strict rules and pressures to get people to change or that you're working with?

Laura Banks 11:19

The way that I approach coaching is I want to you to build habits that support your lifestyle and your needs, and that you can actually stick to long term. So the thing about it is, is all of these diets that we've been on in the past, they've told you eat this amount of protein, eat this amount of carbs, eat this amount of vegetables, eat it at this time per day, eat this, you know, eat it in this portions, and all these things have given us all this strict rules. And then the second that the diet ends, we don't know how to continue on. And that's why we lose weight and then gain it back, and then lose weight and then gain it back, or we can't stick to it at all because it's too strict. For one, it doesn't fit your current lifestyle and your needs. And for two, you're not actually learning anything about how to maintain it long term. So my goal with my coaching is to help you learn what to do so that you can stick to it for the rest of your life. And so I don't do anything that's like, hey, you're gonna eat this amount of vegetables, you're gonna eat it at this time per day. Like my coaching is not really strict in that way. I do challenge you, and I challenge all of my clients to shift their mindset and to look at things in a different way. I do a lot of mindset coaching with my people, and I challenge them to challenge themselves, you know, like it's really easy for us to not want to get uncomfortable, like I've said so many times in this episode, but I challenge them to push themselves outside of their comfort zone, go a little bit further than they think they can go, but in terms of telling you what to eat and telling you when to eat it and how to eat it and all those things, that's not my main objective. My main objective is to teach you what you should be eating for your goals, why you should be eating that way, and how to stick to it long term. So I'm teaching you more so the overall how to be healthy and what that can look like day to day. And I do a lot of group coaching, I do a lot of like day-to-day and in my coaching. We talk through like chats and things like that. And so through that, my people are learning, hey, okay, I'm kind of taking their hand and guiding them through it, but guiding them through applying it to their life so that it's not we're all eating the same exact thing, and then whenever it's over, you go back to doing what you don't know, you know, I'm teaching you how to build that so that you know how to do it forever.

Jeanne 13:33

That's a great concept. I wonder how you, when you're working with your um clients, what do you do when they also are struggling and looking for answers and they're going to the YouTube channel to find every different doctor or every different coach out there that says, fast 36 hours. No, don't fast, do all carbs, no, don't eat any meat. Then another one's eat meat, and then another one is walking is perfect. Walking like Thai cheese walking is gonna make you lose a million pounds. I mean, what do you do with all that? Because this is stuff's just swimming in your head, and you see these and you kind of click on them and say, Oh, that sounds like a good answer. What do you tell people? Like, put it all away, turn off the excess noise. What do you do? Because I think I've experienced that a lot myself.

Laura Banks 14:28

Oh, yeah, so normal. We are literally like bombarded with options, right? And so I remind people of a couple things. Number one is put your blinders on. I think about a horse whenever it's getting ready to start a race. What do we put on their eyes? We literally cover their eyes so that they can't see the other horses. They're not worried about what everybody else around them is doing, they're racing their race. And that's what I teach my clients to do too. Put your blinders on. Don't worry about what your neighbor's doing. Don't worry about what the girl on Instagram said. Worry about you and your race. You're here in my program with me for a reason. This is it. You didn't come to this program and you weren't giving me on your Instagram feed or whatever. You I didn't pop up to you for no reason at all. You're here for a reason. So let's stick to this and just give it a fair chance, right? Like that's one of the problems is so often we start something, and then two weeks later we're like, well, this isn't working fast enough. Let's start this thing. And then two weeks later, well, that's not working fast enough. So let's try this thing. We don't give something a fair chance enough to work. So one thing is put your blinders on and give it a fair chance. The other thing is a bioindividuality. What works for you is going to be different than what works for this person and what works for this person and what works for the next person. And so, sure, walking might be the thing that's gonna help you lose a million pounds. And weightlifting might be the thing that helps this person lose a million pounds. And eating only meat might be great for this person, and this person might really hate eating meat and need to have a bunch of plant-based options. So everybody is different. And so that's another thing that I teach my clients is it's not about us all following the same thing and doing exactly the same thing when it comes to our health and wellness. It's about finding what works for you and making sure that you are doing what you can stick to through enjoying it for one. If you hate walking or you hate weightlifting, you're not gonna stick to those things. So we have to find what you enjoy, and we also have to find what works for you because again, you're different from your neighbor. So what works for her is not gonna work for you.

Jeanne 16:30

That's wonderful. I like the way you're approaching things. And this is this is just enlightening that you know I'm gonna use some of your advice to put the blinders on because that's a put the blinders on in a lot of different aspects, not just in your health and wellness, it's just some of the things you see. It's like, how do I decipher from all of this stuff that's I'm bombarded with? I love the word. But yeah, this is fantastic. Well, I I know that there's so much we could talk about. You're doing such a great job with your business and your coaching, but I really want to move forward with the next segment, which is our normal Two Truths and a Lie. It's one of my favorite parts of the show. And I have to say that you have given some really good headlines and stories here for us to discuss. So, for those that are watching or listening, here's how we play Two Truths and a Lie on Project Candor. The guest has already given me their stories. I have looked at them and I know which one I want to pick as the lie. I don't know if I'm right or not. Um, but we won't know until after our guest has gone through all of the stories and we've asked some questions or I've asked questions. Uh, but play along with us, please. And then at the end, then Laura will reveal which one is the live, and I will see if I'm right or not. But are you ready?

Laura Banks 17:54

I'm ready. Let's do it.

Jeanne 17:56

All right. This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts. Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, Life can be different. Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story. And now, as we open the door to our second sponsor, we're stepping into the world of tech. Simple socket print, the lightweight blazing fast label print solution designed for those who need reliability without the bloat. With version 1.5, you get instant printing in milliseconds, fully maintained print sequence, and automatic base 64 decoding all without needing print driver installs. If you're running SQL Server 2016 or newer, SimpleSocket Print 1.5 drops right in and gets the work. Keep your workflow simple, keep your label printing fast with Simple Socket Print. Thank you to our sponsors. So the first one was, ew, eyeballs. Laura's biggest phobia in life is eyeballs. After learning about eyeballs in the fourth grade and throwing up in front of her whole class, Laura has had a deep fear and disgust of eyeballs. Your eyeballs look good.

Laura Banks 19:29

It's one of those things where being around eyeballs, I'm just like, if somebody is like, hey, I have an eyelash in my eye, you know, I'm like, please don't bring it up near me. I can't look at it.

Jeanne 19:41

All right. Number two story hit by a car. Really? During college, Laura traveled to Paris for a 10-day study abroad trip. Within an hour of getting off the plane, Laura found herself lying on a sidewalk in a busy street in Paris. Uh just having been hit by a car. Wow. And the last one, number three, eight people. In 2003, Laura left teaching and started her own business as a health coach. She decided to start a group coaching program all about getting rid of your sweet tooth. She posted about it online, shared it with friends, and did all the right things. And eight people signed up, which was validation of your career change. Those are all great stories. Thank you. You're welcome. Now I get to guess. I'm gonna guess that you weren't hit by a car. Number two is a fault. So don't tell me yet, but I'm gonna guess that's the one. So now I want you to go through all the stories and give us your best recount.

Laura Banks 20:43

Okay, okay. All right, so number one is you eyeballs. So yes, third grade or no, fourth grade, I was in my teacher's class. She had her desk set up in like a square in the classroom, and we so we were all like facing each other, and she was teaching us about eyeballs, talking about all the inner workings, all everything about it. And she brought out her great-grandfather's glass eyeball and was passing it around the classroom, and it got to me, and I literally leaned over the desk into the center of this circle of all of these desks in the classroom and threw up in front of everybody. So, yeah, after learning about that, I was like, I want to have nothing to do with eyeballs. That is disgusting, and I will always be, and it's not a fear, it's not a phobia, it's just a disgust. Like, I just think that they're nasty. So that's the first one.

Jeanne 21:40

So have you ever seen that movie Minority Report?

Laura Banks 21:43

No.

Jeanne 21:44

Oh, you have to go. It's got Tom Cruise in it. You gotta go watch it.

Laura Banks 21:47

Okay.

Jeanne 21:48

Because in the middle of it there's a Swedish guy. Oh, I wish I could remember his name, but I can't. And a Swedish nurse. And the the reason why I know they were Swedish was because my husband is Swedish. And I learned some of the words that they were saying, and they are taking out Tom Cruise's eyes. So you have to watch it.

Laura Banks 22:08

I don't think I need to watch that.

Jeanne 22:11

It's a good movie. It really is. That's kind of gross. I actually did not develop a phobia, but I remember that. It was not fun. Okay. Next story: the hit by a car. This one I don't believe.

Laura Banks 22:25

Okay. It was my junior year of college. I went on a 10-day study abroad trip with a small group of students from my school. We'd like taken an English class together, and then we were going to Paris and Venice, France, to visit museums and see the places where some of these, you know, people had written these books that we had been reading and all these things, right? And so we get off the plane, we go to our hotel, drop off our luggage. It was like early in the day there, even though it would have been late here. Uh it was early in the day there. So we drop our luggage off, they keep it in a room for us, and we go out to get lunch. I was with a couple other girls that I had been friends with and made friends with in the class. And we were on one side of the street. We had to cross to the other side of the street because we found a little deli that we wanted to eat lunch at. And we crossed to the other side of the street. And I had stopped because, okay, so the road was just a one-way road. Nobody was coming down this one-way road. There had been a car that had just passed, and we were going to cross the one-way road. I stopped in the middle of the road. No cars were coming. And I took a picture of, I mean, I it was Imperial, right? Like everything's beautiful. So I stopped to take a picture of the middle of the road. And the car that had just passed put it into reverse and literally hit me. It hit my back. And then I turned to the side. It hit my side and I fell onto the sidewalk. And uh my friends were like, Are you okay? Are you okay? And I was like, I can't believe I just got hit by a car in Paris, like 10 minutes after we got here. So that's that story.

Jeanne 24:01

Oh, wow. How fast were they going?

Laura Banks 24:03

They couldn't have been going that fast because, like, maybe I don't know, between five and ten miles per hour. Like they couldn't have been going that fast because they just had put it in reverse just like a couple of seconds prior to that. So they couldn't be going that fast, but I will say they never stopped. And so I'm like, like, if I had like actually fallen down and they would have like ran me over, I don't think I'd be here today because they never stopped. Like they never were like, This it's this girl, and I just did okay. They they just kept on going.

Jeanne 24:32

Well, even at 10 miles an hour, that's a big machine hitting you, and you're not aware that it's coming. So yeah, and you and then they backed up and did it again, or they went forward and hit you again on the side. Where were the cops?

Laura Banks 24:45

I know. Well, I I wish they would have been there, but either way, I was like, I'm already getting hit on by Parisian guys.

Jeanne 24:55

That is a great line. Oh my gosh, Laura, I love it. Oh, that's so funny. Okay, well, I don't know. I might be wrong. Okay. So let's go to story number three about eight people. That one sounds this eight people sounds logical. So I mean, I'm not sure which one. Maybe I got it wrong. Okay, go ahead.

Laura Banks 25:16

It was the last year of my teaching. And I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna go all in. I'm gonna make a group coaching program. I called it Reduce and Revive. Reduce your energy or reduce your cravings and revive your energy. And uh I had like taken my people behind the scenes and was teaching them about how I was creating this and what all the things were gonna be. And by the end, I started posting about, you know, it's open for enrollment. It was around this time of year that I was doing all of this, and then January came around. I was like, it's open for enrollment, and I started just seeing people after people sign up, and I ended up having eight people join that program.

Jeanne 25:56

Well, that was probably just a wonderful surprise starting a new year off with your coaching program going and a whole group ready for you. That's wonderful.

Laura Banks 26:05

Yeah.

Jeanne 26:05

See, that sounds logical. All right, well, now we get to the point. Let me ask another question about this um number two, the one I think is a lot. So, what do you call police in Paris? So was anybody screaming like, help, help? I mean, you just get up and walk away. I mean, you just got hit by a car.

Laura Banks 26:25

I just got up and walked away. We went into the deli, we got our lunch, and then we went back and went to the hotel, and we were telling all the other people who were there, like that were from were from our school with the same trip. We were telling all of them, like, yeah, Laura got hit by a car a few minutes ago, and we were just eating our sandwiches, and I have a video still for that my friend had made where she was like, Laura, what just happened to you? And I was like, I just got hit by a car in parents.

Jeanne 26:52

So yeah. Oh, and you're like, didn't you have like professors or some, you know?

Laura Banks 26:59

We had one with us. She wasn't with us then, and she was honestly kind of MIA for the whole trip. Actually, we didn't see her that much. She was like, Y'all go do whatever you want to do. We had like certain things that were scheduled, but otherwise, she was like, just don't die in Paris.

Jeanne 27:14

Oh, that's certainly comforting from people that are sending their kids off on trips.

Laura Banks 27:20

Wait, I made it back. I got hit by a car and made it back. We're good.

Jeanne 27:23

Oh, yeah, that is insane. Oh my gosh. Okay, well, and the eyeball thing, all right, going back to that one, one more question there. So, why would this lady bring a false eyeball to how old were you again? Fourth grade? Why does that age?

Laura Banks 27:39

That's nine, twenty or ten, yeah.

Jeanne 27:42

Yeah, that's not cool. Because an eyeball study, I mean, I remember we got uh told about germs, and then I became one of those obsessive compulsive, not long term, just for a while. After we'd heard about germs and that you need to wash your hands, and you know, every time you touch something, there's a germ that might get on it, and every I came this kid, and I was like, washing my hands, wash my hands, wash my hands. My mom, like, what are you doing? I was like, wash my hands. You slap the tenth time you've done that. And then uh I would touch the door knob to come out and then of the bathroom, and then I'd say, Oh no, I touched something, a germ's on me. So they have to be responsible for weirdos like me that just get this imprinted on on myself. And so why would you bring a glass eyeball? That's that's too much.

Laura Banks 28:33

It felt like too much on my end too. I was like, this is just very nasty. I can't believe I'm seeing a glass eyeball right now, and I thought it was disgusting, and since then have very much thought it was disgusting.

Jeanne 28:46

So when you're if we're right on the age, you're around ten nine or ten, and then that incurs the thought that somebody lost their eyeballs, so that's something you were thinking about. Like, why is there a false one? So they had an empty socket.

Laura Banks 29:01

I know.

Jeanne 29:02

I mean, all of those images. So I'm glad it wasn't in that kind of classroom. So all right, so tell us the truth. Which one is a lie?

Laura Banks 29:11

The third one is a lie. Yeah. Oh I actually had zero people sign up.

Jeanne 29:19

Oh so did it deteriorate from moving forward? Obviously didn't, but what did you do next after that when nobody signed up?

Laura Banks 29:28

I think that for me, you know, it did discourage me a little bit. I was like, what the heck? Why didn't nobody want to sign up for this? Um, but then it also allowed me to do like some better understanding of the way that I market myself, the way that I talk about my offers, my confidence in the way that I talk about them. It did often, when I look back at the way that I talked about that program, I it was kind of like, I sounded like I was begging people to sign up, or I felt like, you know, you could just feel people's energy sometimes. And so my energy was definitely off. And so in the way that I approach, you know, whenever it's open enrollment time for my programs now, I definitely go into it from a really solid place emotionally. I go into it knowing, you know what, I had zero people sign up before. And if that happens again, I'll survive, just like I did last time. Like I go into it with a really solid mindset. And I think that I'm glad that that happened to me in the very beginning because one, I probably wasn't ready for that kind of commitment. I probably wasn't ready to be a group coach yet. You know, I needed to do one-on-one work with people, better understand myself as a coach, better understand how to coach people. I needed to grow a little bit before I got to that point. For one, and for two, you know, I probably did need to have that experience so that next time, whenever I'm going through my open enrollment times or whatever, I have a much more positive head on my shoulders. So I'm glad that it happened, even though it sucked in the moment. It was a really good and valuable lesson for me.

Jeanne 31:05

Oh, great. Well, you said a lot of the people that you were sending that information to were friends and you know, people that you already knew, and you did some marketing, but I think sales is a numbers game. That's what I've always heard. So maybe you didn't have the numbers seen the opportunity, and then you also have friends and they might be friends, like I didn't tell ya, and they still are, but they also have that what is it called? The jealousy factor. I don't know.

Laura Banks 31:34

Yeah.

Jeanne 31:35

Like, oh, what's she doing? What does she think she's gonna do? So I tend to not tell my friends and families a lot of times what I'm doing until I move forward because it's it's that jealousy factor. And then, you know, I could be wrong. It could just be that it was trying to teach you a lesson. Life was teaching you a lesson. So very good. But now you have lots of people signing up, so that's a great. I do, yeah. So I wanted to let people know how they can get in touch with you. So it we'll have links on how to contact Laura after the podcast, and she's got a lot of opportunities you can find her, but I love this quote from you. The real change happens when the motivation fades away and devotion starts to appear. I love that quote. Do you want to talk about that at all?

Laura Banks 32:28

Sure. Yeah, it's one of the things that I often share with my clients is motivation is only gonna get you so far. You're gonna start a new program, or you're gonna start a new diet, or you're gonna start the new year, and you're gonna say, I'm gonna do it. This is it, this is the time. Your motivation's gonna be really high. And then over time, that motivation is gonna fade away. And that's only gonna get you so far. The real change happens whenever you start to practice from a place of devotion. And I always like to use the word devotion instead of something like discipline, because when we think about disciplining someone, that sounds really negative, right? Like we discipline children whenever they do something they shouldn't have done. I, as a teacher, would discipline my students whenever they, you know, did something they shouldn't have done. Devotion comes from a place of love, right? Like I'm devoted to myself, I'm devoted to my spirituality, I'm devoted to X, Y, Z, right? So I'm doing this from a place of love. When I'm gonna continue to show up for myself because I love myself, because I'm worthy of this change, because this change is gonna make me happier and healthier version of myself. And so we can rely on motivation to an extent, but that can get us started, right? The motivation can be what jumps us off. But then we have to be devoted to ourselves and to the journey if we want to actually change.

Jeanne 33:44

Okay. That's fantastic. So I I really hope that folks will take these links and get reach out to Laura and get her to help coach you and whatever else you need from her. But I think it probably just her positivity and what she's doing would be a great answer for a lot of people, even if it's not just coaching on healthy habits and food. I think it would be healthy habits and what you mentioned earlier about not talking negative to yourself. Totally. I loved that. So thank you so much for spending time with us today, and I really hope that you'll come back again in the future.

Laura Banks 34:23

Thank you so much. I really enjoyed this episode. I appreciate you having me on your show.

Jeanne 34:27

Thanks again. Talk to you soon. Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real. If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew. Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck. I'm Jeanne Anderson, your Admiral of the Unexpected. See you on the next Voyage.