The Dx2 Podcast
Two sisters discuss what they are learning about having a balanced wheel of life that rolls along as smoothly as possible.
The Dx2 Podcast
How Continuing Education Revives Purpose And Builds A More Balanced Life
A calmer, wiser life starts with two choices: lead with compassion and keep learning on purpose.
Denise unpacks her experience at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, where “nutrition” includes food, relationships, routines, and mindset. She explains how flexible online modules, guest experts, and a coaching-first method helped her support massage clients and teens without telling them what to do. We dig into small, durable practices—breathing for anxiety, eating the rainbow, and using weekly deadlines to stay consistent—that create ripple effects long after a course ends.
Debra shares a different lane: collaboration-driven learning and income through Offer Lab. Whether you’re a creator with something to sell, an affiliate who loves to recommend what works, or a connector who pairs people with solutions, the platform lowers friction so value moves faster. We talk about using replays, VIP sessions, and a short certification to bridge the tech gap, then share real tactics for fitting education into life’s margins—drives, errands, late evenings—without burning out. The throughline is simple: pick one skill that serves your next season, apply it this week, and pass it on.
If this conversation gives you a nudge, hit follow, share it with a friend who’s ready to grow, and leave a quick review to help more curious people find us. Then choose one course, one video, or one chapter today—and start rolling toward a more balanced life.
Institute for Integrative Nutrition
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Welcome to the D Times 2 podcast, hosted by Sisters Denise and Deborah. We are all about finding balance in the various parts of life. Using the Wheel of Life as our guide, we explore how to keep each spoke rolling smoothly. We discuss health and wellness, education and spirituality, as well as mental and emotional growth. Join us for real conversations, practical tips, and a few laughs as we share stories, insights, and strategies to help you create a life that feels balanced, purposeful, and designed by you. Good morning, Deborah. Good morning, Denise. Good to see you today. You two. How's it been going? Pretty good. Well, relatively, I guess. What do you mean? Well, we're recording this on Patriot Day. And it's the day after Charlie Kirk was assassinated. And whether or not you like Charlie Kirk is not the is not the issue. He was a a man who was doing the best that he could. Having a get together at a college to just talk to college students and got assassinated. Didn't wasn't provoking anybody. And the response online, I think, has been mostly positive, but I have seen some people say, you know, like he brought it on himself and he's just advocating for guns, and everybody should have guns, and I think people are missing the point that somebody was gunned down. An innocent person lost their life because somebody didn't agree with them. Yeah. A father, yeah, a husband and father, and like leaders from all over the world are offering their condolences. He wasn't just a small guy. And then I got thinking about in our neighborhood, there are some ribbons up on posts and fences, and there was a young man in our area that died of cancer, a long battle with cancer. They thought he was getting better, and then he regressed and eventually lost that battle. And the comments online were, We're so far sorry for your loss. And he was such a great young man, and we'll always remember him. That's appropriate. That's that's an appropriate response. That's an appropriate response for pretty much everybody who dies like that, right? Yeah. And then I got to thinking it again about the report of the Ukrainian girl that was in Charlotte, that her throat got slashed, and she didn't do anything. She was just sitting on a train. Yeah. And a crazy man took her life for no reason. And I was just thinking about how precious life really, really is. And when lives are lost, innocent lives are lost. It's not something to celebrate or to start bashing or to turn it into some political talking point. It really, it really is sad. This is just my two cents to just remember that people really people are people. People are real people with real families, real loved ones, real lives. Yeah. When they're gone too soon for whatever reason, it's a time to have compassion and empathy and mourn with those that mourn. Yeah rather than say, ha ha ha, I told you so, or make light of it in any way, shape, or form. Yeah. There are truly bad people in the world, for sure. Yet when we see things like what has been happening in the last week in the news, it's just it's really sad that innocent lives are taken. And they're taken all the time. It doesn't matter if you have millions of followers on the internet or you're somebody that just people in your local town know about. Life is precious. And just love those that are close to you. Yeah. Give them a extra love, extra hugs, and then also be uplifting and supportive, yeah. Rather than bashing and condemning. Yeah. Is that how you say that? That's how you say it. Condemning. Like that's part of our whole goal is to like bring light and life and goodness and focus on the positive.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And like if we can do that, even in hard times and help people through hard times like it is right now, and thinking back to what the symbolism of today, the patriot patriot's day, is like it should bring us together, not tear us apart. Yes. We've been calm together right now. Right? Yes. Yes. We are stronger together, and all of us have differences. Yeah. We we all see the world differently. Thank goodness. Oh, no kidding. We see more things the same. Like the same things are important to most people than they are to not. Yeah. That's what I've been thinking about. Thank you for yeah. Those are big thoughts and big feelings and big topics. So thanks for sharing that.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But for today, for our actual content of this episode, we want to talk about education. I want to talk to you a little bit or ask you some questions about some education that you got later in life. You chose to, you actually reached out to me at some point in time and said, I like what you're doing. I want to learn more of some of the things you know. What should I do? And I recommended that you go to this specific school for this specific course. Can you tell, tell, tell us what it was? Let's talk about the immune system. One of the best defenders we know comes from Optimal Health Systems, and it's called Defense. So it supplies your body with researched back ingredients to shown to support your immune system and fight off illness. It also boosts the immune system, providing a potent dose of antibodies for a quick recovery and reduces the risk of viral infection. One of the things I love is that it increases the white blood cell count in your body almost immediately while filling your gut with healthy bacteria. This is one of those things I recommend to my clients to always have on hand. You can take it continuously through, quote, cold and flu season or when you're under a lot of stress, or just pop it in here and there if you feel like you're starting to come down with something. Take it for a day or two, maybe three, and then put it on pause. But it ultimately restores health to areas of your body that are affected by potentially unhealthy eating habits, like during the holidays, and also from overstressing. And it does it by using whole real food ingredients. You can go to optimalhealthsystems.com and use the code D times2, that's DX2, to get a great discount off your order. So the school is called the Institute for Integrative Nutrition or IIN. And it's a pretty cool school. And one, there were a couple of things that attracted me to it. One, it's all online, which was great because they're headquartered back east and I'm not west. So I could do it online whenever in the day that I could. And they also had a holistic view of life. In fact, one of the things that they talk about in their curriculum, the nutritional counselor curriculum that I took, they talk about a wheel. Theirs has more spokes than ours does, but it doesn't, that doesn't matter. But concept is the same. Yes, the concept is the same. And so we talked about all spokes on the wheel. And that I loved that because it wasn't just about nutrition that you intake into your body through food. It was quote unquote nutrition in all of the areas of your life. How to feed all the areas. Yeah, yeah. It was, and I loved it. So you got a certificate in in integrative nutrition counseling. Okay. Counseling, coaching, coaching, same kind of thing, right? And they had other programs, but that's the one that you because that's more like I do nutrition stuff, and rather than me try to teach you everything, like that was a good place for me to send you. They're a fantastic resource. It was. And they are a great resource. They have a lot of different courses that you can take. Yeah. So what motivated you to do that? I was looking for something to supplement or add to my life as a massage therapist to be able to help my people and possibly start changing my course from massage to health coaching. Oh, that sounds familiar. That's a familiar path. It is a familiar path to you. So I was just looking to expand my knowledge to give some credibility through us to the things that I knew, and then expand my knowledge on the knowledge. Yeah, that's awesome. So how did you how did you make it work? Like at the time, you still had, I'm I can't remember, was it one or two children at home? Like you were still being mom, you were still being wife. How did you fit it in? How long did it take you to do it? And like how how did you make the logistics of it work? So I did the six-month program and I did it in the evenings mostly because I did have two kids at home and I was a massage therapist still working. So I've kind of fit it in the pockets of my day. And it took you six months to get through it. Yes. Okay. Yeah, it's a it's not an independent study thing. It was they facilitated it in six months. Gotcha. Okay. So it wasn't completely self-paced, but you could do it on your time schedule. Your schedule. So you had a week of activities and learning and and things, and at the end of the week you'd write a little report about the things that you did and learned. And so you had six months to do it and weekly, and sometimes by bi-monthly. Gotcha. So that's similar to the same nutritional program that I went through, but yours, I sent you to that one because I felt like it was way more comprehensive and they did a better job. It was pretty cool. We had well-known like medical doctors come talk, like Dr. Mark Hyman. He's amazing. He is amazing. He was one of the guest speakers on there. Dr. Will Cole, he was on there. Dr. Carrie Jones, she was on there, and they taught great things. I loved what I learned from them. So you had like the content within the school and then expert guest presenters. Yep. That's cool. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. So when was it you did that? How long ago was it? It's been three or four years. Okay. So you were a full adult. Yes. You were well into motherhood, kids out of the home, grandkids. Yeah, you had grandkids at that time. I did. So you didn't feel like it was too late? No. I never think it's too late to learn. I in fact, in the last year, I've taken a Spanish class through one of the local colleges. And I've taken writing classes and through the local college. I'm I'm always learning. I don't think you're too old to learn anything at any time in your life. Yeah, I that makes me think about like I you're never too old, it's never too late, but it makes me think about the fact that like we were made to grow. Yes. And that's a way to grow, is to continue learning in some way, shape, or form. We weren't made to stay stuck and stagnant, and like we get to a certain point and then we're done. Right. I mean, I know some people who never picked up a book again after they left high school. Well, I think there's that kind of learning, but there's learning uh every day. Like there can be. True. There can be. Well, I think about all the things that I've learned to cook since I left our mother's home. Uh-huh. Yeah. And I've learned to cook so many different things. Not that I went to a cooking class or a cooking school, but the internet has been a great facilitator of expanding people's knowledge. And I'm one of those people. Okay. That's a good point. Yeah. So I think you you're continually learning, whether you realize it or not. I think it's important to do intentional learning. Yes. Find something you want to learn about and find a course or go on YouTube or something. Do something about it. Yeah. Yeah. So from going through the is it IIN, Institute of Integrational Nutrition, going through their program, what has been the result in your life? Have you coached people? Have you seen a difference in your home? Like what happened for you with that? So I didn't actually use it to coach people. I'm gonna disagree. You're doing that right now. I was gonna say, in the in the technical way, like one-on-one paid coaching. Oh, uh-huh. Okay. But I used it in my massage therapy practice when I would talk to people. And it what I learned, one of the things I learned in there was how to coach people and not tell them what to do. So that was really that was really good. It gave me a different approach that helped open people's minds to some things in their own life because they know their life way better than I do. So coaching skills for sure. So I was able to help people in my massage therapy practice coach them through different things that they could do to help themselves in various areas of their life. I also used it as a mom to teach me how to coach my children better instead of tell them what to do. Okay. Because I don't know if you know this or people know this out there. Teenagers don't really like to be told what to do, right? I don't like to be told what to do. So to nudge or try to help help them think about things in a different way, but it showed me how to do that. It also kind of validated things that I knew, like eat the rainbow. Each color of food has different properties, and it's really important that you get them. It taught me good skills in relationships, like how to feed relationships in a good way. And so it was, I've used it a lot in my life. You, I'm gonna say you used some of what you learned in there with me when I was struggling with some like anxiety overwhelm. You taught me some breathing techniques that I didn't ever know about. So, like, I mean, I know lots of stuff, but I don't know everything. But you learned that there, and that's really helped me. And then because you taught it to me, I've been able to share it with many of my clients. That's great. Yeah, so a little bit of a ripple effect that you've had from some like at least one thing that you learned there. So it was worth it. It was well worth it. Okay. Yeah. Was it easy? Was it simple? Was it easy? For me, it was easy because it was building on a foundation that I already had. Gotcha. So talk about the ripple effect. Our dad and his teaching us of all the different things that he did. Right. Laid the foundation for that education. And that built upon that firm foundation that you had. Okay. So you would recommend? I would recommend. It was fantastic. If you're interested in looking at IIN, the Institute of Integrative Nutrition, we have a code that you can put in to learn about this course. Um, if you go to IIN.com and you can find out about their things. And if you want to sign up, we have a code for you. It is Denise Rodell X I N. And we'll put that in the show notes for you with a link that you can just go straight to it. But they have other courses too. They do, they have hormone courses and a lot of different courses that you can learn about. But they I think that gives them a little bit of a discount if they do want to do some education through that. Yes, it gives a pretty good discount. So if that tweaks your fancy, look at it. I'm gonna say go to the show notes, click on the link because that'll take you there. Um and then we'll have the code, the code is there and can get you a discount. So I think it's been worthwhile for you. Yeah, it was great. It helped me a lot. So let's turn the tables, Deborah. Okay. What have you been learning about lately? I you know, I want to talk to you about what I've been learning about this past week. Do tell you're always learning something. What is it for? So I had gotten an email from someone that I respect that he was launching a new, I'm gonna say it's an online free marketplace where people can collaborate. And it just piqued my interest. So I signed up for the like the launch webinar free thing. It was gonna take place over four days, and there were going to be all of these like high-level experts in their industry speakers participating, and it was free. Free. It was free. It was like I was like, why wouldn't I do this? And I was a little bit frustrated because like it was all day Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. And Deb has a business. I had to work, I had clients that I was meeting with. So they had an option to do like pay$47 and get the VIP package. So that allowed me to kind of watch it on my timeframe because I couldn't watch it all when it was live. But it also got me VIP access to like special sessions afterwards where they did like the like more in-depth discussion and in-depth training. So I was learning all about collaboration and different products and courses and like just different things that people do. And every single person who spoke taught me something. Like I learned about AI, I learned I learned about all sorts of stuff that I mean, I'm a grandma. I was born in the 1900s, right? I this stuff isn't in my DNA. And I was absolutely fascinated. In fact, after the first day, I texted you and I said, You gotta watch this. Yes, you did. I'm still so excited. I'm still going, like I'm still re-watching it. I'm still going through the replays because there's so much information. And ultimately it was free, but then I paid$47 to be able to have access and re-watch because it just made it better for me. And what is this class you took? What's it called? It was Offer Lab. Yeah, offer lab was the name of it, and it was teaching about what it is and how it works, and it's free. Like anyone can do a free offer lab account. Anyone, and why would they do that? A couple of reasons. Okay, I'm gonna say to me, there's three reasons. One of them is if you are an affiliate marketer, which some people are, or if you need to do something to make some income, there are all sorts of things on there that are like they're happy to pay you commission to sell. Okay. So, for example, when they were talking about it, I went in and looked, like, there's candles on there, there's menopause nutrition on there, how to deal with motherhood, and like there's all there's just all sorts of stuff on there, like like all sorts of stuff. How to build on social media or how to monetize social media or how to connect on, like there's just all sorts of courses and events and like products, t-shirts. So basically, if you're selling something, yes, anything, thank you, you can put it on offer lab for free. Okay, so that's for the offer people. So for the affiliates, the people who don't like me, I don't have anything to sell. Right. Okay. So if I want to go in there and like I think my clients or I think the people on my email list, or you people listening on the podcast could benefit from something, I could say, here, do this because it's there for me to offer. Nice. So it's amazing. Like there are things that I have wanted to do, there are things that people have asked me to do, and I either don't have the bandwidth or it's beyond my scope of capability technologically, and they're already done there. So I could say, here, I didn't do it, but this one will work. Gotcha. Okay. And then the other reason people would do it is if they have created something, if they have something for sale. For sale, we say it with an A. Yes. For sale. To sell. To sell, regardless of what it is, regardless of whatever platform they have it hosted on, they can put it there. And there's a whole army of people willing and able to sell it for them. And then they split commissions, they pay whatever commissions they want to. The founder, the creator of Offer Lab says, be generous in your commissions because these are people like you would never make these sales without these people on here anyway. Yeah. And then the other thing is, I think a third group is people who like to connect people. I see you want to do this, and I feel like I'm a little bit this. I see you want to do this. This person over here has this. Why don't you come here together on Offer Lab and collaborate? And then you both rise together. Yep. Nice. Yeah. So I really, really love that aspect of it because I see people hustling and shuffling and like trying to do their thing. And this way it's so collaborative and like win-win, there's no reason not to do it. If you like to, if you like to connect people together or you have something to sell, or you're an affiliate, you don't have anything to sell. I'm gonna say if you're a professional affiliate marketer, or if you want to like you, some people just need to make some money, like they just need a little bit of extra income. This is a free place where they can create a free account and put offers together and tell their grandma. Like you can sell it to anyone, it doesn't matter. And do you have to sell it like on Instagram or there are no parameters? It can be on social media, it can be an email, it can be word of mouth, it can be through like yesterday. I was with a client and I literally was like, This is what you need. And I sent him a text with the link for to get him where he needed to go. Nice, like it's everywhere, easy, all the time. So some people have been selling on Facebook or Instagram for years, and the algorithms keep changing, right? And the and it gets more expensive. So this is free. It's free, like it's free, it's free to create in out, like it's free. That's fantastic. Free. So the the guy who created it, his name is Russell Brunson. Russ. Russell Brunson. I love his heart of service, like he's done a lot of stuff, I'm gonna say, over the last 20 years. But in his words, the only reason you wouldn't get on Offer Lab is you hate money. Like that's it because it's free. You can join it for free, you can put your offers on there for free, you can go there and find stuff to sell for free. Like it's free. And it's just upside from there. Yeah. Sorry, you can tell I'm still excited about this. Like, I just everyone needs to do it. There's no reason not to. But there's also like some people are, I'm gonna say, like me, where I see it, I get all the potential, but again, I was born in the 1900s. That makes me sound so awesome. Okay, I was born in the 1970s. I just the all the tech stuff isn't in my DNA like it is in the younger generation. So they have a certification thing. So that's like$497. And Russell Brunson, who is a billionaire, like he's a billion-dollar salesperson, expert in the kindest, gentlest, heart of service way, he trains. He does the training. He'll teach, he is teaching. Yeah. So I signed up for that. I paid$497. It starts today. So I'm I'm taking another class this week, but it's on Offer Lab. But it's how to get like certified in how to be an affiliate. So he will teach me all the stuff I to do if I want to be an affiliate, or all the stuff to do if I have an offer, or if I want to make offers to put on there. Nice. And also how to broker, how to connect the people together. So to me, that$497 is literally, he could have said, take I could, I would have given him all my money because I was I'm so excited to learn what he has to say. And I'm not an online marketer, right? Right. Like it's not what I do, but I see the potential for helping people and for people working together to help each other. Like I have goosebumps right now. It's like it's so powerful. The potential is so tremendous that why wouldn't you like do a free account and do the 497 certification if it speaks to you? Which by the way, he's I just want to put this out there. Russell Brunson, again, that name, like I've I've mentioned it a few times now. That$497 for the certification isn't going to him. He's not making any money off of this, not a penny. Like it's crazy. He doesn't have to do, he's a billionaire, like he doesn't have to do it. Yeah, right. He doesn't need the money. But he wants his heart is on building other people, right? Helping other people achieve things in a way that they couldn't before. Yep. That's what his whole thing has been up till this point. And then he's been working for a couple of years to create this. And like he didn't have to, he didn't need to. He just really wanted it to be fun to work together again and for people to come together instead of compete with each other. Like you have this, I have this. Let's maybe put it together and help more people. Yeah. That's great. So it's just it's amazing to me. And I, you know, I think everyone should do it. You you know that I not stop talking about it. That is true. That is true. So I just want to tell you, I didn't have time. Oh, time to watch the videos, or I didn't have time to do it. And even today, like the training for the certification, like that that portion of it is when I'm working, but I want to learn it. It's inspiring to me to learn it. It's like my husband sees the excitement, like it's literally fills me with life when I get to learn new things. So I am making it fit when and where I can. So some of how what I've learned, some of some of the classes I've like listened to while I was driving here and there and everywhere. Saturday I was listening to it and I was so bummed because like I had stuff to get done and like I had an earpiece in my ear while I was doing the grocery shopping and while I was washing the car so that I could keep learning while I was living my life. Some of it I really wish I had seen because there were visuals too, but I just had to make it work for where I am and the time I have available. I had to turn it off when I had a pair appointment and I couldn't leave my earphones in or anything while I was getting my hair washed and cut. So I picked back up on the replays. And I like the other night, I after work, I came home, dinner, all the nightly stuff. And then I was watching the like the experts or having the experts teach me until midnight. I shouldn't have done it. I should have been asleep. But you were so excited. I was so excited, and what I was what I've been learning is so incredible. Like, and it's across a lot of areas, but it all fits harmoniously under the offer lab platform because they're all working together. That's genius. Yeah. It's awesome. That's great. So you're not gonna regret learning this one. No, no, no, nope. I don't regret. Regretted at all. That's the thing. I've never regretted any education I've got. I've done webinars. I've done like go to the hotel for three days and sit in a classroom or a ballroom. It's like I've gone to college, like all different things. Never once have I regretted learning. I've always gotten something. Sometimes I get more than others. This time I feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose. Yeah. But I've never once regretted. It only helps us grow when we learn. So yeah, that's fantastic. Yeah. So there we have a code for that too. If anyone wants to do a free offer lab account, it's linked in our show notes. You can click on that. You can do your free offer lab account. I think they're also going to offer like some of the certification, the 497 certification thing. So if you want to do that, do it. But look and see what it's about first. Educate yourself. So they'll teach you before they teach you. And then if you want to learn more, you can pay more to learn more. That's cool. You can up-level as you want to. Yes, that's what it is. Line upon line, precept upon precept. That's how we go. Pure a little or a lot. Yes. Yep. Good. So we'll put that link in the show notes too. Yeah. So you'll have two links today. You can go to IIN or Offer Lab. Two things that we've learned about that have helped our lives and have the potential to help lots of lives. Lots of lives. Yep. And that's isn't that the kind of the whole premise of education, lifelong education, past your life, and lots of other people like you talk and share and you get to do better, be better, both. Yeah. You become better and you help others become better. So here's your call to action, right? So choose an area that you want to get more education about. And find a book, a course, a class, a YouTube video, a podcast, something. There are all kinds of ways to learn these days. And then do it. And then and then do it. Yeah. Super easy. And you can start as big or small as you want to. Yeah. But just do it. Choose something and move forward with it. Take take some action on it. It could be something small. It could be learning how to grow your own sourdough starter. That's how I started with my sourdough bread. I watched somebody online and said, Oh, I can do that.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So there are all kinds of things and you can start small or you can jump in with both feet and and run. Yeah. Depends on what your needs are. Yeah. Where you are. Yeah. So take something and do it. So if you have found anything at all useful that we've shared with you today and you think someone else could benefit from it, we invite you to share it with your friend, your coworker, your family member, anyone that you think would benefit. It would help them and it would help us. And we would really appreciate it. We also, if you found this episode helpful or any of our episodes helpful, will you leave us a review and rate us so that we can see how we're doing and others can also find us? Yeah, it helps others find us more easily, but then you can also tell us what you loved. Yeah. What you would like, maybe what you didn't like. Just give us some feedback. It really helps us to help you better. And that's our goal. That is our goal. So until next time, keep rolling along. Thanks for listening to the D-Times 2 podcast with Denise and Deborah. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Be sure to subscribe and share it with someone who's ready to roll toward a more balanced life. Your support means the world to us. And just a quick note we're sharing our own experiences and ideas, not professional advice. Always do your own research and talk to a qualified expert before making big decisions. Until next time, keep your wheel rolling strong.