In this episode, Founder of Andro Brands, Corey Hiben, talks about marketing and websites. Today, Corey talks about the website do’s and don’t’s, optimal website design, and creating an offer. What should you look for when having a website built? Hear about the value ladder, building relationships, and get Corey’s advice to his younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “Be 90% clear and 10% clever.” “What do you do, what problem do you solve, and what action do you want them to take next?” “Confused customers don’t buy.” “As long as your intentions are pure of trying to help people, you should never have resistance around marketing yourself, building a site, or any of the things you’re trying to do.” “You have the option to choose yourself and to do what you want to do, regardless of what other people tell you.”   More about Corey Hiben Corey Hiben is the host of The Health Hustle Podcast. He is also the founder of Andro Brands, which is a marketing agency for health & fitness professionals. Corey used to work as both a personal trainer and a healthcare professional and so he understands the challenges of providing incredible service to your current customers while also trying to attract new customers. Through many years of trial and error he realised that he is best suited to put all of his time and attention in helping other health & fitness professionals grow and market their businesses. His mission is to help as many of his fellow health & fitness entrepreneurs to build a business that fits their lifestyle.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Marketing, Website, Offers, Value, Niche, Entrepreneurship, Business,   Resources: FREE GIFT: From Followers To Clients in 7 Easy Steps.   To learn more, follow Corey at: Website:          www.coreyhi.com. LinkedIn:         Corey Hiben. Instagram:       @coreyhiben. Facebook:       Corey Hiben. Podcast:          The Health Hustle.   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript Here:  00:03 Hey, Cory, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you on today to talk all things marketing and website, which is something that is not intuitive for a lot of healthcare and fitness professionals because we didn't really go to school for that. So thanks for coming on and talking us through it. Yeah, that's exactly how I got into it is I solved a problem I had myself and now I help other people with it. So yeah, yep, that's always the way. So we're going to talk about website design, and we'll kind of see where it goes. But can you give the listeners, maybe some must haves and maybe must have nots? I don't even think that's a word on when it comes to website design. So let's talk about things that one should have, or maybe what a site what a good site should have, that will want people to come to see you. Because that's the point of the website. Well, for starters, something very funny and quirky to begin with. No, I'm just kidding. But uh, but just to give people some context, like, Yeah, I'm an occupational therapist, by trade, I really got into this marketing, website design and development thing purely through just a place of pain is somebody who understands the challenges and the struggles of really trying to get new clients and leads and customers and how challenging that can be to both see patients, do your documentation, keep up with emails, do everything you have to do from a practitioners standpoint, or even a fitness practitioner standpoint, and then also trying to figure out how do I also Garner leads and get get attention. And I think so many of us have felt the pain and struggle of like, I don't feel like I have time to do this. And so that's really where I fell back on to okay, how do I create the systems and the marketing and all those pieces in place have to get leads and to get new customers and to keep people coming in the door and in the clinic, and still have time to treat patients at a really high level. And that's really where I landed on this, this pocket of website design development and why it became something that was so interesting, and become so passionate for me is because like, I always tell people that your website is really, it's your mothership, it's your home base, it's your backbone, it's the thing that like, if you can get a lot of traffic and a lot of attention to that place, specifically, assuming it's designed correctly, which we'll talk about in a second, then you can essentially take all these people that are paying attention to you into somewhere down the road, hopefully clients and customers or even referral sources, because like all the other platforms out there, whether you use tick tock or Facebook or Instagram, or whatever your thing is, is you don't own any of them. The only ones that you own, or the ones that are on your email list are the ones that you have phone numbers to, or even maybe an address to if you want to write them a letter if people still do that today. But to answer your question of like, what are the must haves and shouldn't do is have a website? I would say first and foremost is   02:43 you have to have a compelling reason for somebody to want to reach out to you is the biggest mistake that I see is that so often people think if they just build a website and throw a contact form on there, that there's somehow going to get somebody to reach out to them. And I can tell you very unlikely, if not, will they ever reach out to you or ever fill out your contact form if you don't give them a compelling reason to do so. And that's why like the topics of like freebies and offers are something that you can offer a value to somebody is so so important, because the the pushback that I always get from people is that will I'm just asking for their email address, it doesn't cost them anything to give me their email address wrong, it costs them a lot to give somebody an email address. And what I mean by that it costs them their trust, it costs them their attention, it cost them the risk of maybe you spamming them. So if you're not giving them something of value in return for that email address, there's no way they're gonna give it to you unless it's your mom or your sister, or somebody that already knows and trust you. But if it's some random person perusing the internet, it's very unlikely. Or if you built up a lot of trust on your social media platform, and have some sort of ask them there that drives them back to it, that might be a way to get it. But I'd say that'd be the number one biggest thing is having a compelling reason for somebody to reach out to you. And unfortunately, I can't just tell you what that is that comes down to really tapping into a really deep layer of empathy of understanding the people that you're working with and how you're ultimately trying to help them. Because like, if you can really speak their language and understand who you're talking to you and have something that's very specific to their needs, then that offer becomes very obvious to you. And that's really what I tell people is like you want it to be a no brainer. It should be they're gonna look at it, they're gonna see this as an offer, and they're gonna go, Oh, my God, that's free. How is that free? Why would I not do this? Right? It's a no brainer offer. That's the biggest one. The one I would say the thing that people get wrong the most is that are the don'ts of a website is they try to do too much. They try to put all their photos and all the copy and they have the world's longest backstory about themselves, not even the person going to the website. And they have all these pages that are redundant and irrelevant and they have way too many colors and way too many buttons and it just becomes ugly and sloppy. And whether you like it or not, people have a judgment on you based on your website, no matter what. And if see   05:00 If you've a see a sloppy website or website that has really just way too much wording or something that just doesn't resonate with them, they're gonna assume that you're also sloppy or wordy or don't have a lot of structure into this. And so they will judge you on your website no matter what. And so like if you can have something that shows your authentic self, and I'm not saying it should be professional, I'm just saying, it should show up authentically as you and the people that you want to work with. And on top of that, it shouldn't even really be about you, it should be about them. That's the other mistake that I say, I see as well is that we, when we build sites, we really use what's called the story brand model, which I'm sure you're familiar with. So essentially, it's understanding that the client is the hero of the journey. That's the whole point of a website, right? It's for them to come to that to that site and go, Oh, they get me they understand me. Now there's a compelling offer that I can reach on connect with them. Kind of a long winded answer to your question, but those are some of the biggest things. Yeah, no, that wasn't long winded at all. That was great. When someone is looking to design a website, right? What advice do you have for people? If they're looking, let's say they're looking to hire someone to do their website for them? Are there questions I shouldn't? Let's say I'm the therapist, and I'm looking to have someone design my website. Are there things that I should be looking out for? From the designer before I hire them? Great question. I would say like most things in life, you get what you pay for. And so I think you if you wanted to go, the more simple or an easy route, obviously, there's always the Upwork or the the fibers where you can go on there and hire somebody. But I think what's really important for people to get from your question is that it's one thing to have a website, it is something completely different to have a website that actually attracts and converts customers, right. And that's where we get into the whole game of like SEO ranking on Google, having a compelling offer. Walking a person through a story, like these are all very intricate things that people don't fully recognize and understand. And so like, I would say, the first thing I would do is I'd be asking for referrals and references is like, there's obviously going to be people in your network that you know, that have had good experiences with it. Like, for example, I have a really good friend of mine here in town, I live in Austin, Texas. And she her whole thing, she's a PT, but she does purely pelvic floor in Austin, Texas. And basically, we're able to get her to rank very high specifically in Austin, Texas for the practice on that keyword search term, because we understand who her target market is, and how we're going to actually help her Garner and get leads from that specific population versus if you go to Fiverr and Upwork, which are totally fine, it's very unlikely that they're going to take that level of understanding of like how to actually build a site that actually gives you value to your business. Because like, just so people know, like a really, really good converting website, which people don't realize, is actually roughly maybe 5%. At most, right. And so like most people who have websites, I would argue if they either did it themselves, or they just kind of went the cheap route, which is fine, just so they have a presence on the Internet, are probably converting less than 1%. And if you understand just like basic statistics of how big of a difference that can make, do, how much more leads, you can get into your business from 1% to 5%. If you're getting, on average 1000 views a month, or whatever it is. That's a massive difference, right? And so like when you're researching people I, I've always told people to is like, if you if you don't have a reference to somebody that has shown proven results through data, which is very easy to prove the data, like you can look up Google Analytics, you can look up how well the website is converting, like if they can't show you that they're actually getting people results. That's probably a red flag.   08:48 Yeah, that's, that's great. So because I think it's important that the listeners know like, What do I look for? Do I just pick someone and ran at random? Or what questions you have. So that was really great. Okay, let's get back to the website design itself. So everybody wants to have a good user experience, right? Like you said, you don't want to have a million buttons where you don't know what's going on. Let's talk about when people first get onto your website, right? They're going to see live there. Let's say you're on a computer, and they're going to see kind of what's above the fold. Right? So above the fold is what you see before you start scrolling down. So what needs to be above the fold? Because some people might go on and what be on your website? For what three seconds? Yep. And be like, Nope, it's that quick. Right? So what do we need? When people first get onto that website? It should answer three questions, and it should answer them very clear. I always tell people be 90% clear and 10% Clever. And so like people always try to do like the quirky thing like me, as a web designer in the world. People are always like, I'm a website wizard. And it's like, cool, that's clever. But what the hell does that mean? That doesn't really give any context what you actually do.   10:00 So to answer your question is three things specifically, it's what do you do? What problem do you solve? And what action do you want them to take next? Those are by far the most important things you could do. And so for you, for example, it could be   10:13 physical therapy in Where do you live, New York City, New York City. So physical therapy in New York City, we help females with pelvic floor issues, click here to schedule a consultation, right? Very straight to the point, you could get a little bit more clever, quirky with it. And you can sit down a little bit, but it's pretty straight to the point. Like if you don't answer those questions right away, people are already going to leave. And I see that my own searching behaviors, if I land into a website of somebody that like refers me to their site. And if I can't figure out what it is they even do, there's no way I'm sticking around to continue to check out their content. I will say the other thing, too, that isn't often talked about is how important the, the image slash or maybe video at the top of the website is, is like this goes back to my original point is that people are going to judge you based on your website, whether you like it or not. And so like, if you have, let's say, some background video of people working out at what looks like a CrossFit gym, what does that tell people about? It's gonna it and that may turn off a lot of people 100% Right, just fine, right? If you only want CrossFit people, that's great. But that's a slim amount of people, even in a city as big as New York City. Exactly. It's not a lot of people. Exactly. Which could be a good thing, right? Because like, you equally want to turn people on as you do want to turn them off. Right? Is because like, not only are you trying to attract leads and get customers, you're also filtering the people that aren't a good fit for you. Right? Like if you right, you don't want to work with, for example, the 60 year old grandma, which I'm sure is a wonderful human, then probably having a CrossFit type workout in the background is a good thing, you're gonna filter out that human because she's gonna go there, and she's gonna go, oh, no, this isn't for me, right? So it always comes back to back to just like, really deeply garnering empathy, which PTS OTS trainers are all really great at in that realm. And so like, the more you can understand them, and the more you can build this, this home shipper, this backbone to talk to them and to understand them as a human, the more likely you'll be to convert somebody into a lead or a customer. Right? Yeah. And can you I want you one more time to repeat those three things that everybody must have above the fold. I really want to drill this in. What do you do? What problem do you solve? And what action do you want them to take? Next? Right, exactly. And that action is normally in the form of a button. Right? So it's either schedule here, call here, something like that. But it should be really clear. And it shouldn't be a teeny, tiny little thing off to the side. You want you want people to notice it.   12:57 Yeah, you definitely want people to notice it. So if you can answer those three questions, when you look on your website, kudos to you, if you cannot figure it out,   13:07 Figure Figure out how you can answer those three questions. Because I know when I redid my website a couple of years ago, it was like a total, like I had a website that I kind of did myself on Squarespace, which is fine. You know, in the beginning, I understand like, everyone's got a budget, and certain things need to be budgeted in a certain way.   13:30 But then when I hired people to do it, it what it also did for me is it forced me to look at my business and do a deep dive into that, and dive even deeper into the people that I want to work with. So that things became a lot clearer for me as well. So I think it's important for whether you're a therapist or healthcare or a fitness professional, when you're doing your website, it's your turn, it's your chance to really do a deep dive into who you are as a business owner, who you want to be the people you want to attract and how you want to present yourself to the world. Yeah, I think it's important to just be as authentic as possible to is like, that's the very first thing we do with every project with every client that we work with is that we really get to your point, we understand exactly who we're talking to. We go through all the exercises to dive really deep into who they are as a business who we're trying to attract. And how can we differentiate so ourselves in the market because there's of course, there's millions, if not, I don't even know billions of websites, maybe at this point. And if you're not finding your uniqueness, whether it's funny or quirky or weird or you like doing workouts with cats, in cat sweaters, whatever whatever your thing is, is like as long as you can be authentic to who you are and who you want to attract. That's the most important thing and so like really understanding like, who you jive with and how you help them is so important. Right right and and a website doing a deep dive into website is a great way to figure all that out. And and then what will happen is like   15:00 You said, You'll filter out people. And all of a sudden the people that you really like to work with will be coming to you. And it'll just make your life so much better.   15:11 Yeah, it's always fun when you get a contact message or somebody signs up in a newsletter, and you recognize that they're like, they're your people. And they're like somebody that you get, and they get you. And it's like, oh, okay, this is fun. Like, that's where things honestly get. So fun is like, when you start building that community via through your website, and contact forms, or however else you want to build it. It's like, that's where things get really fun. It's like when you realize you're connecting with the right people, because again, even to that original point of like, you could garner a lot of tension from people that you're not a great fit for. And that's not fun, right? Is that like, then you got to refer them to other people, which is great for other people. But at the end of the day, like, if you're a PT, or training or whatever, like you're really trying to build a community, honestly, right, and the throw everything at the wall and steel, see what sticks marketing technique is not a good one is that what I'm hearing you say? I literally just today actually finished a whole article about that entire topic, I had somebody have a podcast show as well. And I had somebody on that show recently, that just reminded me of, I think that there's a stage in most people's journeys, where that's kind of the initial part of where you have to throw some stuff at the wall. But really, the whole spray and pray approach is not a useful method to getting people. Like I always, I always compare it between, like, the difference between being a hunter and a farmer, is that as a hunter, you're just like, you're going out and you're shooting everything and you're attacking everything, and you're trying to get them and you're going over here and you're throwing spears this direction, versus a farmer just waters their seeds in their area of the people that they're trying to nurture and connect with and have relationships with. And I feel like the farmer approach is way more fun and way more fruitful. And way more. Just no pun intended. Yeah.   17:00 Exactly. Just way more helpful for everybody involved in that entire situation of like, so I always give people grace of like, yeah, there's a stage of prayer, spray and pray. But like, if you came to me, and you talked to me, and I was consulting you, I'd probably be like, not probably not right approach to this. But Right, right. Not, not the best. Not that not the best, not the best way to go. So is there anything else about websites? Let's talk about like maybe what you see, that drives you insane, that you're like, oh, my gosh, I want to jump through the computer or my phone. And I need to change this. And actually, for me, it's non responsive websites. So websites that are that when you look on your phone, you're like, Come on, man, like make this this this should be better. Right? So when I say like non responsive, it means they didn't like optimize it for a phone or an iPad. It's only on the computer. That is like one of my biggest pet peeves. What are yours? Yeah, considering the fact that I think it's now 70% of people that browse the internet, use it on a mobile phone. And so like we we design every website now with mobile first knowing that the majority of traffic is going to come from there. So for anybody listening, keep that in mind and to your earlier point of like, if you are somebody listening, and you're in that situation, where doing it yourself is kind of the avenue you want to go. I think to your point about Squarespace is a good option, because they have a lot of great templates that make that very simple for people to just write on their own. So anybody in that situation, that's usually where I refer them if they're not ready to invest in something like that.   18:32 But other than exactly what we're talking about, of not knowing who you're talking to. That is my number one pet peeve. But other than that one, because obviously I feel like we beat that one. Yeah, I would say that the other one is, is   18:47 they tried, like I was saying before is they try to do too much is that they have multiple buttons, multiple offers multiple links to things is like, just understanding just to help people from context of basic human psychology is confused, customers don't buy. And so if you go to your website, and if it's confusing at all, if it's confusing to a seven year old, if a seven year old goes to your website, and they don't know what to do, that's a problem. They should then we need to talk about what is the one no brainer offer that you can present to this audience that will get them to actually make a connection and to make a decision. They've done so many studies on it, we don't have to beat it down. But basically less choices is better. It's the same reason why we get like, what is it called? Analysis paralysis. It's like, you go to the shopping aisle in the grocery store, and there's 8000 cereals. And so you choose the one that you've always chosen because you don't want to have to make a decision on a new one. Right? This is true for the websites and the internet as well. Right? It's like if there's too many options, you don't make a decision. And that's not what you want on your website. And so don't make the mistake of having too many offers have one very straight and simple offer.   20:00 And then even just repeat it is like I think people feel like this, I see this in marketing all the time is people feel like they're saying the same things over and over again, and they're being redundant. And it's like, you gotta understand the first 10 times you said it, they probably didn't even notice it, it's very unlikely that they even noticed it. And so like, if you feel like you're being redundant, you probably need to say more, honestly. And so like, if you can repeat that offer, again, multiple times throughout the course of the website, that'll one increase the odds that they'll even see it in the first place. And two, it'll make it very clear to them. This is what I want you to do. This is how we can continue to move forward. This is the next step in the process of how we can even start a conversation, whether it is signing up for a contact, whether it is a newsletter, a freebie or whatever it is, but like, make it very clear on what your one offer is. And be a little redundant about it, honestly. And yeah. Thanks for elaborating a little bit more on what the offer is. Because that's because when people hear offer, they're like, What do you mean? Would I have to like, does it? Is it a video? Is it can it just be like book with me? Can it be? So when you say an offer? Can you be a little more specific on maybe some different options that people can use as that offer on their website? Yeah, great. I'm glad you brought that up. Because like that is a whole discussion and of itself is like understanding even how to create an offer. I think so often, that's the thing. The problem that I see in marketing just in general as well is that   21:29 people often think that they have a marketing attention problem when really they have an offer problem. And so really an offer at its core level is it's whatever is going to compel them to click to say Yes, right. And so that could be that could be a freebie, like we talked about, it could be an ebook, it could be a free course, it could be an email chain, it could be an email chain, it could be, it could be actually buying the product, depending upon what it is, if you're some sort of product based service, it could be you see it in SAS companies all the time, it could be like, try this free trial for 14 days, I actually have a trainer, a good friend of mine here in town who's doing two weeks for free. And then at the end of the two weeks, you can decide if you want to work them with him or not. And it's actually for any other trainers out there. It's worked out great for him. Because then they get to experience what it's like to work with them for a few weeks, and they often choose to buy but that's his offer right now. Right? says two weeks free, no charge to you. To me, that's a no brainer if you're somebody that concerning our trainer, right? And so like the best piece of advice I can give to anybody who's considering what sort of offer I should do, and I'm stealing this quote from the guy that everyone seems to know about these days is Alex from Mozi. But basically,   22:45 it should be so good. People would say dumb to say no to it.   22:49 Right? Like, yeah, two weeks for you with a trainer. If I'm looking for a trainer? Hell yeah. Why would I not do that? Right? Like something that something?   22:58 Yeah, that's definitely a no brainer. Now when it comes to, let's say, healthcare professionals, where maybe we can't kind of, we can't really give away our services, because as you know, we're a little more regulated than the personal training business.   23:15 So what have you found that works best to convert? People, let's say convert emails for wanting to get people on our email list? What have you seen in your experience that works really well is like a lead magnet or an offer? Yeah. And so I want to frame this so that this can be helpful for everybody listening to the show. And I think what's important to first understand is the basics of what a value ladder is. And so a value ladder is essentially like the lowest possible hanging fruit is the thing that you want to offer first, and then you work your way up the ladder. So for example, it could be something of free. And then your next offer is like a $20. Offer, your next dollar is like your $200 offer. And then your next offer is like I buy three months for $2,000. Right, is that you work them up the ladder, you never it's very rare that it works to start at the top and go the other direction. That is That is a thing. It's called an ascending model. But we don't talk about that. But like it's really about understanding, okay, what is my premium offer, and everybody should have a premium offer. If you are listening to the show, and you don't at this point in your business have a premium offer you need to start thinking about that right now today, you need to know is like what is the ultimate crazy priced thing that you could offer somebody that if somebody was willing to buy it, you'd be like, hell yeah, that would be an awesome thing for me to sell to this person, whether it's like a six month package, if you're a trainer or whatever it is like some sort of very high premium style offer. And now what you do is you basically take that and you work backwards from there to get to what is that smallest piece within that giant premium offer that if if your ideal client came to you, and they were like, Oh, I just want this one little tiny problem solved. That's what you love.   25:00 Looking for like, for me, for example, I'll just use myself as an example, is that somebody who does marketing, website design development, that's essentially what I do for business, is that my premium offer is like the whole package, right? It's the funnel. It's the website. It's the newsletters. It's the marketing campaign. It's the content. It's everything, right? That's a very big premium package. Right? Well, within that, when I distill it all the way down to its very base level is one little tiny thing in there that people often get wrong, is how to define your niche.   25:31 Right. And so my little tiny, very just stepping stone offer for people, which we can talk about at the end of this episode, is like, it's how do you define your niche, right. And so I created this tiny little thing, it's totally free, I can give it to your audience for free. It's called the niche test, there's three pieces that go into it that really talks into, it's not as simple as just picking your niche because everyone in their mom just says, just like pick a niche, and then they'll throw money at you. And unfortunately, it's not that easy. There's actually a lot that goes into it. And but I basically broke down how to do that. But that's my tiny little offer just to get people into my community and very transparent. That's purely the reason that I built it was that just to get them onto my newsletter so that I can obviously continue to offer and garner value to their inbox and continue to talk about marketing things specifically for the health and fitness professional. And through that, we work up the funnel, right. And so for anybody listening to the show, is understand just to break it down really quickly, when we're last time is like understand your premium offer, break that all the way down to the micro thing within that that you can offer your ideal clients. And then that's your freebie. That's your offer. That's you're getting them into the door just to start a conversation, essentially. I love it. Thank you for that. And now, as we kind of start to wrap things up here, what would you what are the main points you want the listeners to take away from this discussion around websites and marketing and how to make them work for you.   26:50 I think it's really easy to complicate a lot of it. And I think that the biggest thing I really want people to take away from it, though is that like, if,   27:00 in the years that I've been doing marketing, what I've realized time and time again, is that all it is, is another way of saying building relationships. That's really literally all it is, at the end of the day, if you look at all good marketing, for that matter, not your spammy, annoying, slamming at your door, I literally just had to deal with this the other day, it was like some auto deal. It's always auto dealers. But like that type of marketing does not build or Garner relationships. And that's not fun for me. And that's not fun for them. And it's very unlikely that I would buy from them. Right? He's world, it's all built on the back of like, how can we build relationships, and that's really all marketing is, is it's how can I put things out into the world, that's a value to my audience, or that your audience or whoever's listening to the show, that's helpful for them, that will help us build a relationship to support and help each other. That's all it is. And we can complexify it all we want. But like, as long as your intentions are pure, of trying to help people, you should never have resistance around marketing yourself or building a site or any of the things that you're trying to do as long as your intentions are pure of like, I'm just trying to help people and build relationships. That's really all it is. Yeah, it takes out the creepy marketing the slight, you know, because people are like, Oh, I don't want to feel like just slime ball being like marketing to people. But like, if you're not a slime ball in real life, you're probably not going to be slimy with your marketing either. You know, like, if your intentions are pure, you're okay. I always tell that to people. So thanks. I love that now. Last question. It's when I ask everyone and that's knowing where you are now in your life. And in your career? What advice would you give to that young guy ran out of OT school, I would have chose myself sooner. And what I mean by that, just to give people context is I like I said, I used to be an occupational therapist. And there was a point in my career in my journey, where I was very burnt out on patient care, I was struggling with this whole marketing thing, the website thing, all this stuff, I had no idea what I was doing. It didn't know where I wanted to go. And there was a really a point in my career where I was actually trying to get into the tech industry and into the marketing industry and actually get out of being an OT, because I was just so burnt out on insurance model health care, which anyone listening to show can obviously understand. And it's it took the I was in a spot where the pain outweighed the fear of the unknown. And I read a book at that time was called choose yourself by James all teacher. And the title basically says it all is that I was like I was looking for permission. I was asking tech companies would you hire me or I was like reaching out to other facilities or other entrepreneurs or whatever it was that people have like hire me or take me out or metro me or whatever. And I realized after reading that book is like, I can just choose myself and decide to start putting myself out there and start doing what I ultimately want to be doing, regardless of what anybody tells me and it's the greatest thing about modern day society in the world that we live in today is that anybody now can step up and grab the microphone, no pun   30:00 intended and choose themselves right and start putting value out in the world, the very first person I ever started building website for I did it for completely free. I helped her for $0 because I just wanted the relationship and I just wanted to show her that I could help her. And so talking to my younger self, or anyone fresh out of school, or whatever it is early stages is like you have the option to choose yourself and to do what you want to do regardless of what other people tell you. Right. Great advice things first time I heard that one. And I've been I've been doing this for a long time. So I thank you so much. That was great. Now where can people find you? And where can they get the free offer you alluded to earlier? Sure. So it's on my website. It's Cory high.com/niche is where the offer would be. You can find me and Cory had calm I'm most active on LinkedIn and Instagram. I also have a podcast show called The Health hustle. I talked to a similar audience that you do is other health and fitness entrepreneurs, specifically little people in Austin, Texas. So if anybody's listening to show in Austin, Texas and you want to grab a coffee, by all means, let me know I love connecting with people in your in town. It's my favorite place in the world. But yeah, that's my plug. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Cory, for coming on and giving us your time and your information. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

In this episode, CEO of Practice Freedom U, Jamey Schrier, talks about pricing your services appropriately. Today, Jamey talks about the guilt surrounding pricing, accessibility and luxury, and the 3X model. How should we express the outcomes of our services? Hear about job security, pricing according to the market, and get Jamey’s advice to his younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “You don’t strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.” “We need to charge appropriately for not what we do but benefits that we provide.” “Always get paid for R&D.” “People will pay for your results.” “I would’ve gotten help from an outside source sooner.”   More about Jamey Schrier Jamey Schrier, P.T., is a best-selling author, business coach, speaker, and CEO of Practice Freedom U, a business training and coaching company. Jamey has helped hundreds of private practice owners Treat Less, Earn More, and live a life of prosperity and fun.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Pricing, Money, Quality, Experience, Value, Business,   Resources: FREE GIFT: PT Practice Quiz.   To learn more, follow Jamey at: Website:          www.practicefreedomu.com. LinkedIn:         Jamey Schrier. Instagram:       @jameyschrierpfu. Facebook:       Jamey Schrier.   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript here:  Unknown Speaker  0:02   Hey, Jamie, welcome back to the podcast, one of my most frequent guests, and I love you for coming on. It's so great. I love seeing you. If only your wife would were here, that would make it so much better. Unknown Speaker  0:14   Well, thank you so much, Karen. And she couldn't be here. But I think she's having fun with her friends, because it's around the holidays. And that's what she does. Unknown Speaker  0:23   Oh, wow. Next time she's coming on. So let's see, last time we saw each other was that PPS in Colorado? And you had you did a pre con there, right? What was that pre con about just kind of tell the audience in case you do it again, we can get some you know, Unknown Speaker  0:44   it's it's one of my it's one of my best pre cons. It's one of my best workshops, it's five steps to additional five figures. And what I do is just grab, like, a few key areas in every business needs these. So for this one, we did a lot of foundational stuff around vision and values. We then went into messaging like, actually, how do you communicate what you do we always complain, no one understands what we do. Chad went into a whole thing on you know, how to develop your message and how to put this message everywhere. So people actually understand what you do. And let's see, we did delegation. Who not you. So to get that stuff off your plate that we all hate doing. You and I are talking about behind the scenes, video editing, it's, we all have things that we hate doing, you hire someone else. And we did some other things around development of systems. So it was four hours, and it was awesome. And it went like just like that. Unknown Speaker  1:52   I'm sure it did. Well, it sounds great. And if you do it again, hopefully at PPS people you'll get I know you had like a sellout crowd, right? Unknown Speaker  2:02   Well, yeah, I mean, we had it sold out in like a few days. And I thought that we're going to expand it, because we had plenty of room but there was some mix up or whatever. So I'm hoping I can get back there next year and literally do the same talk. I think we could probably get 150 people in there without without a problem. Because it was it was great. I got people still reaching out to me saying, oh my god, I did what you said I, I tweaked my my ad and all of a sudden people reached out to me, they want to work for me. Amazing. There's no secrets, but there's definitely some certain principles that can can always help us. Right, right. Unknown Speaker  2:38   Absolutely. And so today we're gonna talk about pricing our services. So this is a question I get a lot, I'm sure it's something you get a lot. And I have a feeling it's what a lot of people struggle with is how do I price my services appropriately? So what is your best advice? Let's just start with that. So how do we how do we properly price our services? And before we even start, I'll also say, I think a lot of physical therapists, maybe you may disagree, are uncomfortable around this conversation of pricing. Because Unknown Speaker  3:19   therapists are uncomfortable around the conversation of money. Right? Unknown Speaker  3:23   Right. So let's start. Let's start. Let's start with that. So what do you say to those people who are like, Oh, I don't know, I feel bad. I feel bad charging people for what I do. How many times have you heard that? Unknown Speaker  3:37   A lot. I heard today, I had three conversations. One too, with clients, current clients and one with someone that was interested in our program. And they all brought up the same word guilt. Guilt is a word I hear so often. And it's the guilt of whatever making money, the guilt of what I should be charging the guilt of, you know, I feel like it should be in with my team and working all the time with them. Or, you know, it's just this idea of this guilt is a motion that isn't a rational emotion. Right. It's an irrational emotion. And that kind of leads us to making some decisions that aren't beneficial for anyone. So, you know, when people say, you know, I, I feel bad about charging and, you know, my, my response back is, you know, what, specifically do you feel bad about? And that's when they kind of stop and it's more of, well, why don't really know, like, they don't know why they feel bad. It's almost like a default mechanism. Right? It's just, it's if you say you feel bad, it's, I kind of refer to it almost like I feel bad. So I'm a good person. Like if I feel bad about charging people, I'm a good person. Now you and I would do a reframe on that. If I don't to charge you, then you don't get to experience my services in a way that you get to pay and feel the value of what I deliver, like that reframe all of a sudden changes the whole relationship. But we don't look at it from that way, a lot of times, I mean, obviously, if we really wanted to become multimillionaires, we probably wouldn't have gone into physical therapy. So we would be, you know, right down the street from in Wall Street. So, you know, many of us do have this idea that helping people and doing good in the world somehow means we shouldn't make money or can't make money. I mean, there's some deep money blocks that that are going on there. And I think that's what interferes, when we try to determine how much do we charge for our services? Unknown Speaker  5:50   Mm hmm. Yeah. 100%. And, you know, I think early on in my career, I had those feelings of like, wow, I don't know, I don't feel right about this. And then, and then you realize you have that mind shift of like, well, wait a second. If I am not charging appropriately, to keep my doors open, then I'm doing a disservice to my community, because I can't reach the people I need to reach. Unknown Speaker  6:20   Yeah, I mean, I say this all the time. It's, you don't, you don't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong, we are the strong, the business owner is the strong, we're the one that's taking this risk. We're the ones that is, you know, trying to create this vision is something that we want to do and help other people. And yet, we're the ones that work more hours than anybody in our business. Typically, if you add up the hours, you work by what you pay yourself, you're making less than your therapists that you're that you're paying. And you're stressed out, it affects your relationships at home, it's like you give your best to the people that you work with. And you give whatever energy is leftover to the people that you love and that are at home. Right, the whole model screwed up. And it has a lot to do with kind of kind of going back to either our childhoods or what schools kind of teaching us or whatever our influences are, that is screwing us up when we go into this business of physical therapy. Unknown Speaker  7:24   Right, right. Because, for me, what was the biggest aha moment or a change in mindset, if you will, is going from being a physical therapist who happens to own a business, to being a business owner, who happens to be a physical therapist. So once you're in that business owner mindset, you need to keep your doors open, you need to know what you need to make to turn a profit to gosh, I mean, at least pay your bills, right. But you should want to pay your bills and turn a profit. So you know, when it so let's talk about when it comes to pricing. Is there a formula? Is there something that people can look at or can plug and play? That gives them a better idea on what they can charge? Unknown Speaker  8:18   Yes. So I like to share a little story with you. Um, New York has some beautiful hotels, right? What's What's the nicest hotel you know, of in New York? What's the peninsula? Unknown Speaker  8:33   Peninsula, you're like, I don't know. flippin insula. Unknown Speaker  8:36   I don't know. Okay, the peninsula. Pretty Unknown Speaker  8:38   nice place, right? Right charges. Who knows how much per night but it's not. It's not like 150 bucks. And then there's the opposite end of the peninsula, there's probably, you know, maybe a red roof or something floating around there, maybe a small little Fairfield inn or whatever the case is. Right now, the peninsula probably does pretty well. And I know the Red Roof Inn, they do pretty well as it also. So these are two hotels. These hotels have to make a decision about what is your avatar? What are you about? What do you stand for? And if the peninsula thinks that they're trying to be a red roof in and do some of the things that the Red Roof Inn does, then you as someone that loves peninsula will be turned off. And of course, if the Red Roof Inn starts charging $20 for water in the room, which I imagined the peninsula will do minimum, then you're going to turn off that ideal client. So it is not about what you charge, you first have to answer the question, Who is the audience you're trying to track? And even before you answer that, you have to go in too, what are you about? Where do you put yourself from the peninsula, the high end, Four Seasons Hotel even higher, and the Red Roof Inn, because it isn't bad and isn't good. They're just very different in how they identify their avatar, and how they deliver deliver services and how they market and how they deliver the experience of the Avatar, they both have an avatar, and they both do financially very well. That's where we have to begin, we have to begin with identifying well are we going to be more of a place that might be, hey, we're a little bit more of a volume business, we accept insurance, we're only getting paid 50 bucks a pop, we got to see three people an hour, we do pretty good service, the beds are clean, the pillows work, you know, we keep the place clean, we keep the lights nice, but it is it's like you're going to stay the night and it does the job. Versus Are you going to be a high end boutique, high touch kind of place, you're going to do things that most places don't, you're gonna get that call, the person is going to have your cell number they're going to reach out to it's just a different experience. Each of those places has to charge a different amount they have to write this is really an exercise on clarity. This is an exercise on you looking in the mirror and saying what is this place about? And you have to be honest, because if you're like, well, we deliver the greatest care in New York and where the best work, okay, then that means you have to align your business to demonstrate that don't say you're the greatest, and you got a leak in the ceiling. Your carpet hasn't been changed in 20 years. Right? You know, you got some water fountains sitting outside. One of my one of my clients, he's in Brooklyn, he, you know, we did this exercise years ago, and I said, Lou, what are you about, and he goes on Equinox, I go, um, hi. And he does PT he does ot he does, you know, a little bit of rehab stuff. And by golly, you walk into his place, it is high. And that is his whole way of doing things from the towels he gives in the bottle of water in the art, everything is for that person that appreciates that. And yes, many of his non insurance prices reflect that. So that's, that's where you have to start, you have to determine where you are on that spectrum, let's say make it easy. Let's just say it's one to five. All right, the wine is solid, nice. Probably a little more volume ish, lower price, the high end Peninsula, that's where you have to start. Unknown Speaker  13:06   Yeah. And that's when I sort of started my business, I sort of coined the phrase like a concierge practice, because I patterned my business after a high end concierge is like at the peninsula, or at the Four Seasons, or at the, I don't know, the Andaz or something like that, right, these very high end, hotel chains that go above and beyond, you know, they go the extra mile. And so that's how I created my practice and what my practice is, you know, we're all about excellence in every sense of the word. Unknown Speaker  13:47   And if you said that to me, and I'm like, Oh, my God, that's great. I love that because I'm status, right? Yeah. When someone tells me the peninsula, it's not because the beds are really that much better. They probably are. But it's not because of that. Let's face it, Seth Godin talks about this all the time, it's connecting with status on a certain status. Now, if you said, I'm the greatest, and you told me you charge $75 a visit, I wouldn't go to you, right? Because that's not enough. I need to be connected with the best, right? Let's face it, the best usually has the biggest price tag. That's why Mercedes, that's why BMW are a different level than some of the other car companies, right. That's what people expect, even if they pay a lower amount, because they started bringing their prices down to fit a different type of it still has that element of oh, I drive a Mercedes. Unknown Speaker  14:43   Right. And I think it also comes down to you know, you're looking at that word luxury. Right. So I and I often wonder, I do I think physical therapy is a luxury item. I don't I mean it Well, it could be, but I do think physical therapy should be accessible to everyone. But why can't you be accessible and be luxury at the same time? Unknown Speaker  15:11   Well, that's interesting. So you're going to start now moving towards a little bit of the heartstrings that you and I have talked about many, many times. This is where people get into trouble, right? I'm working with a client right now. And he's coming out of a really bad situation for the last couple of years, because he made a decision and impulsive financial decision to accept Medicaid, his businesses, typical outpatient, ortho, you know, one of those types of places, whenever be a half hour type of thing. And he did this because he said, Oh, my God, there's nobody doing Medicaid. The money's not too bad. And we don't even have to mark it, we can get a million people. Well, what he failed to really go through is realize that this population didn't align with everything else that he's doing. It was a completely separate population. It doesn't mean he couldn't have them in, but it was just mixing everything up. almost cost him his business. So he realized, oh, yeah, it was it was seven figures, it was costing him. So he realized, Oh, my God, this is a disaster. Now, he said, like you said, I wanted to try to help and serve more people. So I can help them serve more people. It was easy to generate a referrals. And we can see the population. But the population that came in the type of services that were delivered, the type of culture, not bad or good, it was just very different. What they had, so it caused a lot of internal strife. And of course, the amount of work it took to actually get paid from the government. Unknown Speaker  16:56   Right, right. Yeah. Unknown Speaker  16:59   So when you start doing things out of alignment, just like our spine, when your spine is out of alignment, it starts to create a problem, it starts to break down. So this this a question about what should I charge? The question is, what are you about? What do you believe in? And then you start to do research, not comparing yourself what someone else is charging. You do research around? I'm similar to Karen. I feel like I'm that place. What is Karen charge? She charges 250 a visit? What is someone else? HR 300. This purchase this person charges? Two. So now, you know, anywhere from two to 300 is in that world? Unknown Speaker  17:42   Yeah, you're in the right ballpark, Unknown Speaker  17:44   you're in the right ballpark. Now that number can be I don't know, I mean, people that say, Well, I charge 125 of this, like, Okay, the first question is, is that number going to get you what you want? And that's a hard question to ask, right? Why would you want to make? Well, I want to make 200,000 I go, Well, 125 an hour is not gonna get you there. I don't care where you live. Right. Right, right. These are really difficult questions that we have to answer. But the idea is, value is not about. It's not about the techniques. It's not about all that stuff. You're learning all that stuff that our profession sells us, you got to learn more about this stuff, you got to have the fancy technique. It's not about that values, really about the big result. You help people plus the benefits that you add the result or the outcome, and the ancillary benefits. That's ultimately what we're selling, all of us are selling. And if you do this exercise, right, you really start looking at Karen, well, what is the big result that we're giving people? Yes, we're getting them out of pain. But what are they getting back to? They're getting back to running, they're getting back to work. They're getting back to living their life in full. You tell me what that's worth. Because if you dig down deep enough, guess what it's worth? It's priceless. Right? If you truly think about what we do, it's priceless. Because of our health because we only have one body. And you know, if you don't feel good, it's just a miserable, miserable way. So if the value that we provide is really priceless. Then we're just using the the hotel model to figure out where we want to be. And then we align our business and we align everything else we're doing in that way. Right the alignment that's the biggest issue. Because we all say we want to be the boutique, especially the cash base programs, we want to be boutique but our heartstrings, in the way we run our business is the red roof in one's not bad ones not good. It just doesn't aligned. And that creates stress. Unknown Speaker  20:10   Right, right. Yeah. So I think if, as when you're thinking about pricing, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think you want to look at quality, like, what is the quality of the product you're delivering? What kind of experience and reward are you creating for your patients? Is it through like a controlled sort of channel? Or is it chaos? That makes a big difference? Nobody wants chaos. And then finally, is it a personalized service? Or is it cookie cutter? And I think you have to think about all of those things before, as you're thinking about your pricing. Don't you think? Unknown Speaker  20:56   I'll push back a little bit on that? Yeah. I've never met anyone that told me they had a cookie cutter practice, ever. We everyone knows people. But when you look at yourself, right, says they have a cookie cutter practice. Right. Right. So you know, you said you said something about experience. I'll push back on that. I don't really care how much you know, I know. I Unknown Speaker  21:22   don't I don't mean, my experience. I mean, greens for the patient. Oh, their experience? Yeah. Have creating a good experience for your customer? I've heard that before. Yeah, that's my experience. No, no, no, Unknown Speaker  21:36   I got 10 years and 20 years. I'm like, No, it's the value you provide? Unknown Speaker  21:41   Yeah, no, I mean, the, like the patient experience, I should have been more specific the experience that you provide for for them? Unknown Speaker  21:50   Exactly. I mean, you know, look, if you're providing if you feel you're providing a higher service, and part of that higher service is creating an experience that really meets people where they are and meets their physical needs, their emotional needs, and all these other needs that they have, then you need to price it appropriately. So you need to look at other places that do something similar, and get an idea of where you should be. Right. I can tell you right now, nobody does that. What they do is they just pick a number out of the hat based on their internal guilt system. Am I feel okay with this number, or if I feel too guilty with it, it's a completely irrational system. And that's how they do because I've seen people people come in our program, and I go, how much you charge? And I like 121 30. I'm like, is that what you're worth? They're like, No, I'm worth 180. I go in charge 180. They're like, really? I can do that. I'm like, Sure can. And then you start getting into, well, what if they say no, what? Every single time very few people ever lead, they just gave himself a massive raise. And now they feel better about the services are providing, right? Let's face it, I guarantee when you were a little younger, as a therapist, you charge less, there's a slight little resentment, I care and just a slight, just a little resentment, like, I'm so freaking good at what I'm doing. And I'm only charging this amount. I know with me there was because I spent a fortune on my education, continuing it hours upon hours learning to get paid the worst paying insurance that I accept it. Right. I mean, it's it's a tough thing. But you need to really look at, you know, a great exercise I like to do is what are the benefits your service or program provides? Like, if you're trying to figure out what are the benefits? What is what is the model? Like, what is the treatment model? We refer to it as the business model. You know, this is the revenue you make for the program or for the service. And then what does the market charge for a similar thing? Now I know people listening will be like, well, no one does it quite like me. No one will ever do it quite like you. But let's face it, there's other people that do something similar to the outside public. It may not be similar to you, but if you're looking outside, it's similar. That will give you an idea of where where you can play, whether you get the high end, the middle end or the low end, not service or anything, just the lower end of what you're going to build for the services. And typically, like you said before, the lower end you charge, you're going to have to do more volume. I just did a masterclass and financial unit We're talking about this yoga program around financials and financial statements and how to look at what's a profitable model. And I like to use the three times model, meaning whatever you charge, per, whatever you charge, whatever you make per hour, has to be three times of what you're paying the person to deliver it. So if you're paying someone $50 an hour, that person has to generate at least $150 an hour. If not, there's not enough money for profit, and for overhead, and salaries and labor costs and all that. So that three times model was always a good model, you can use that really easily in the cash base model, right? Because typically, in a cash base model, you're literally just paying because a lot of cash base is an hour. But hey, if you're paying the person $50 an hour, you can charge less than 150. That makes it really easy to figure out. But I know your model, you're like, I'm not doing three times my models five times, even better. And as long as people are willing to pay it, and you feel good, and they feel good. This is more of a mind a mindset. What do you value, your own services. And the challenge we all have Karen is, once we learn all this stuff, once we go through all the heartache, once we go through all that stuff, all the money and everything, we typically forget about how much we put into doing this. And we only look forward, we only look at other people that we think are better than us. And they know more, and who am I to charge more, they don't even charge that much. When we get into that whole world. And that's tough. We need to to charge appropriately for not what we do, the benefits that we provide. Right? Right. That's what we're billing out. We build out outcomes benefits results. Unknown Speaker  27:02   100%? And how do you? What do you advise people to? Or how do you advise people sorry, to? To express that, to whether that be on their website? Or when they're talking to a patient on a sales call? How do they express what they do for them? So what those outcomes would be? Because in the end, everyone's always like, How much is it? Which is normal? Like if people are coming for your services, they should know how much it is right? So how do you so now we're getting Unknown Speaker  27:41   into the sales conversation? Well, you know, my favorite topics. Yeah. Unknown Speaker  27:48   It's up to you how deep of a dive you want to go on this. Unknown Speaker  27:51   But I love I love the sales conversation because it can be really, really simple. Right? I don't have a complicated sales process. I had three calls today. They're the most genuine, authentic just conversation, here's the thing. Step one, identify where the person is, what trouble what pain, what difficulty, are there have it step one be? What are those? What are the problems that they're having? How are they affecting their lives? So in our world, in the marketing world, it's called pain points. What are their pain points. This is not just physical pain points. These are emotional pain points. It could be spiritual pain points, it could be financial pain points, think about financial pain points for a second. So you're working with someone, and you're helping them potentially to avoid a $35,000 back surgery. So there's huge benefits to this, right, you're also potentially avoiding them because they don't want to take medication. So they're now not going to be hooked on oxy. So what's the benefits of that? What's the results of that? So you always start with where people are, have the problem that they're having. So we call them you start in the pain. And then you transition to their desires, their aspirations, their wants, what do they want? And I've had people say to me, well, Jamie, of course, they want to be out of pain. I go, No, they want more than that. Getting out of pain is one part of it. But to do what, like I've had chronic back pain for 30 years. Now when my back pain flares up. First of all, I'll write a check. I don't care how big 100% Right Second of all, what I want is not to get out of pain, necessarily. I want to go back and play basketball. Now of course, it's a hell of a lot easier to play if I'm not in severe pain. Now the question was, or the question is, so what is it about basketball? Well, it's social. It's physical. I stay in shape. I stay connected with my friends. What happens if you can't play basketball? Well, frankly, I'll get a little depressed. I'll just be a slob. I you know, a walk around the neighborhood but that's I'd like to talk smack with my buddies. So you get people into this emotional place of where you are now. And where they want to be where they want to be. The only thing that you need to provide, besides a sense of trust, which is, what's the biggest thing you provide, is you're providing a bridge from what I like to refer to as the House of Pain. Because I like to house the pain. Sure, jump around to play. Yeah, Unknown Speaker  30:30   of course, that was that was House of Pain, right? jump around, Unknown Speaker  30:33   I know you you got the House of Pain, to Pleasure Island, are going from pain to pleasure. The thing that gets us there, the bridge that gets us from pain to pleasure. That's what you provide. Now, if they want to know the specifics of what you do, then you can share the specifics you could share Well, step one, we do an intake evaluation, and we go through ABC, step two, we determine what's going on step three, we turn the player of the plan, step four, we get you better. So 1234, that's our plan. So because when I trust you caring, if I trust you, I don't need to know every little thing that you're going to do. I really don't care. All I care about is can you help me get what I want? And get me out of this place that I'm at right now. This is the, quote, sales conversation. I have. I mean, I tell people what the sales conversation because people think this is like some bait and switch, some coercive, the best sales conversation in the world are the ones that are most authentic, most genuine, and you actually care and you want to understand where they are. And you want to understand where they want to go. And you have confidence in what you do. If you don't have confidence. You show up weak weaknesses in something people trust, and you show up. I don't know if you're gonna be they really helped me. So if I asked you well, how much do you charge? Well, I don't I mean, kind of I mean, is 100 too much? I mean, I mean, I'll see you a couple of visits, like, you start almost apologizing, right? I've done it. Unknown Speaker  32:21   I've done it. I've done it a million times. 100. Yeah, absolutely. Unknown Speaker  32:26   But I've gotten over my emotion towards money, because that was my issues. And now it's just very clear. Well, here's what the program is, here's what we do, here's how much it costs. Hey, whatever, you know, credit card, check, whatever worried. And, yeah, I mean, this, this is where, you know, when we do an exercise around sales, you come out of this, not thinking twice about it. But we have to appreciate the fact that we went into physical therapy, we do have some money issues, we do have some guilt issues. But we can address those, because those aren't helping us get create the life that we want. And that's not going to serve the people we want to serve. And that's not going to attract the people that want to work for us either. Right? Because your staff, as much as we like to say, well, the generation, whatever generation we're on Z, Y, whatever, they don't want to work, they don't want to do anything they don't want to nobody wants to work for a boss who's broke. Because you know, why selfishly speaking? Karen, if you're broke, that means my job's unstable. My security is unstable, right? I want you to do well. So it's not that I don't want you to do well. But let's face it, it's it's it's expensive out there. And I want to make sure that I'm secure. So most of the people that bitch and complain about the people out there, they volunteer about his money. Well, the problem is, why can't you afford to pay them? And it's because you're not running an efficient business. Because of some of the things we talked about. Your services aren't priced correctly, you don't know actually how to position and sell your services. But those are skills. Those are skills you can learn there's nothing magic about it. Unknown Speaker  34:15   Right. And you can practice those skills. Absolutely. You have Unknown Speaker  34:19   to practice Yeah, well, how many when I worked with my, one of my first coaches in this business and in the coaching and training business on my nine years ago, he had me do this extra because he I had so much damn money stuff in my head. He goes, what what's the most you've ever sold in a program is like $500 Like, okay, so you're gonna charge $5,000 for your upcoming 90 Day Program. This This was the first thing I sold. I didn't sell a $97 program or $7 The first thing I was selling despite that I was sweating. And I go what do I say because you say exactly this. You ask them about this, you ask smell that. And then you say, here's what the price is, and you shut up. And I was scared I was sweating up for people said, Yes, I made more money in that thing. And they ended up being clients for a long time. Right? So what he had me do here was the exercise. He goes, I want you to practice doing the sales on your phone. And then I want you to send it to me. I'll give you some feedback. You do it again. So I practice 10 times. give me feedback. I practice 10 more, I knew the sales close. Right? Hey, so what are your thing? All right. So this, what do you that? So I kind of practice that, that thing. And by the end, I'm not saying I still didn't have some issues and butterflies when I said it, but it was a lot less emotional for me. And, of course, the people came on and they they loved it, they did well. So this is what we get to do we get to increase our skill levels and capabilities by practicing for sure. Unknown Speaker  36:06   Right, right. And and it's okay to not be perfect right out of the gate. Unknown Speaker  36:12   You're not going to be perfect, you're gonna screw this up, of course, you're gonna mess it up. And you know what, they're still going to pay you. Unknown Speaker  36:20   That's right. That's right. Unknown Speaker  36:22   Another mentor of mine told me always get paid for r&d. And everything's r&d. In other words, everything we're doing, we're just practicing, right, we're gonna practice this, you might as well practice it on people that can write new checks and come in as, as a patient. So, lean into the fear, lean into the worry, practice the the conversation and all that figure out where your price point is, and be confident people, people will pay for the results. Now, that's not your population. If your population is $125 a visit, that's fine, that's fine. People will pay for the results. That's right, you get to choose where your thing is, the only advice I would give you is just make sure you're at that three times multiple, do not charge and we're not talking about you because nobody pays themselves. We're talking about if you are someone if you're just a solopreneur. If you are someone to deliver services, just make sure what you're charging is three times what you pay them. If not, you're gonna you're gonna buck up on some on some issues there. Unknown Speaker  37:38   Right, right. And I think that's really good advice, and kind of a one. One have a really good solid takeaway from our conversation. Are there any other takeaways that you want the audience to remember? Unknown Speaker  37:54   Decide whether you're the peninsula or the red roof. Look for the people in that level of your market. Look at where they are and what their services are, and charge and price accordingly. Absolutely, Unknown Speaker  38:11   yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more great advice. Did we miss anything in our conversation? I feel like we hit a lot of really solid points. Was there anything that you were like I really wanted to get this point in? And we didn't hit it? Unknown Speaker  38:26   No, I don't think so. I mean, you know, you and I have lots of conversations around this. wish this was more complicated. It's not. It's not complicated. We make Unknown Speaker  38:38   it complicated. Unknown Speaker  38:39   I don't want to make it more complicated. Because I'm really good at doing that. I don't want to make this complicated. By giving all this other stuff. Here's the biggest problem we have with this. It's not that we're great at delivering what we do. The problem is we have our own internal issues around money around pricing around guilt. That's the part we have to address. No amount of fancy strategy, this subnet is going to change that. So the thing I gave you with the hotels with the this and that, it gives you an idea where you feel comfortable, make sure it's three times what you would have to pay someone to do it and try it. See they'll thank you. They'll thank you for doing that because your issues your own stuff is all in your head. So the only way you can address it is by addressing it so you don't need any more fancy stuff. It's just figure out where you are who you are. Charge it and go get Unknown Speaker  39:43   it right kiss keep keep it simple, stupid, right? Unknown Speaker  39:47   Keep it simple. Unknown Speaker  39:48   Keep it simple. absolute love it now. I know you know this question. So what advice would you give to your younger self? You've given plenty of advice here to your younger self, and I feel like it's a never end Doing well, sources. So give us another one. Unknown Speaker  40:03   What advice would I give to my younger self? Um, I probably I would have, I would have gotten help from an outside source sooner. Unknown Speaker  40:19   I love it. I just said that the other day, I think that's great advice. Unknown Speaker  40:23   You and I, you and I have a value system very similar when it comes to learning. You and I are lifetime learners. Mm hmm. And I wasn't always like this, I learned in my profession. But when it came to the business of physical therapy, I did not invest one 100 of what I invest in my, you know, manual skills and stuff, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I would buy a book. And my younger self, I would have invested much more in my business acumen, I would have hired a coach, I would have went through the uncomfortableness of writing a check to my coach, which I eventually did. But then on the other side of that, you know, you get so much back of that, because you have to go through the fire, all of us have to go to the fire, even the overnight successes, which there's no such thing goes through the fire. So I would have gone through the fire sooner so I could get on the other side instead of through the torment that I did for for pretty much nine years. Unknown Speaker  41:27   Right? Right. I couldn't agree more. And now where can people find you? And what is your free gift for the listeners? Because I know there is one here. So they can you can follow me quiz. Ah, your PT practice quiz. Unknown Speaker  41:46   Yeah, I mean, look, the first thing you want to do is really understand kind of where you are in your business, you might think you understand where you are. But this this, this pte practice quiz and I have asked you questions that you're not asking yourself. So there's it only takes about five minutes to do it gives you a score kind of rates you where you are in your business, and then I provide resources to help you overcome those challenges that you're having. Because business really comes for most of us, you're really in three different areas of your business, you're in a Stage One Business stage two, stage three. And really what that means is where your income is your your total revenue, whether it's zero to 400,000 400,000 to a million or million to 3 million, that's where 90% of all of us are. So this quiz kind of will ask you some questions and really kind of teach you a lot about your business. So that's definitely something that I would highly recommend taking you want to reach me you know, best way to do is just follow me on LinkedIn. You know at Jamie Schreier. You can reach out for my you know, shoot me an email if you want to shoot me an email Jamie at practice freedom you. I'm all over the place. I'm like you, Karen. I'm all over social media. I tried to get myself out there and try to deliver good, good resources for people to try to help them. Unknown Speaker  43:07   Cool and I'll just remind people of the website it's practice freedom you the letter u.com Unknown Speaker  43:14   Yeah, practice u.com And then yeah, there's there's a quiz right there or you can leave the link to the quiz. Unknown Speaker  43:20   Yes, everything will all of Jamie's information will be at the podcast, website at podcast at healthy wealthy smart.com. In the show notes under this episode, one click will take you to anywhere you want to go. Jamie Schreier related. So I think that's pretty good, right. That's great. Great. So Jamie, thank you so much for coming on. Again, as always a great conversation. I really appreciate you. So thank you so much. Thank you, Karen. And everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

In this episode, Award-Winning Entrepreneur and Speaker, Julie Bee, talks about leveraging burnout. Today, Julie talks about her experience with extreme burnout, how burnout affects business owners, and how to document your burnout. What is the good side of burnout? Hear about how to explore burnout leverage points, accepting the fact of burnout, preventing burnout, and get Julie’s advice to her younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “Burnout forces you to really evaluate what is most important to you.” “You’ve got to go through it. There’s no going around it.” “The big things come from big work.” “When you get to the other side of something really hard, you realize how resilient you are and how powerful you are.” “If you’re not taking care of yourself, who’s going to take care of everybody else when you’re not there?” “Embrace burnout. Accept that it’s probably going to happen to you at some point, if it hasn’t happened already.” “Schedule time to read and time to think, at least once a week.”   More about Julie Bee Julie Bee is an award-winning entrepreneur, compassionate and empathetic leader, and engaging storyteller. Julie has spoken for 14+ years on topics including leadership, management, employee engagement and morale, workplace culture, small business ownership, and entrepreneurship. Julie’s leadership insights have been featured on FastCompany, Forbes, Thrive Global, and many more. Her forthcoming book with Matt Holt Books, The Business Owner’s Guide to Burnout, is scheduled to hit bookshelves in early 2024. Matt Holt Books is an imprint of BenBella Books, publishers ofTraction.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Burnout, Priorities, Leverage, Resilience, Entrepreneurship,   Resources: FREE GIFT: 30 Ways To Say No Guide. Join the Key Employee Coaching Program. Julie’s VIP Consulting For Business Owners. Watch Julie’s Speaker Reel. Read: Addressing the Risks of Manager Burnout. Read: A Founder’s Journey Requires Prioritizing Sleep and Defining What Success Looks Like, with Julie Bee. Read: 10 Crisis Communications Do’s and Don’ts During Covid-19. Read: How To Ask For More Support As You Return To The Office. Read: The Ultimate Guide To Succeeding in the New Workplace. Read: Why Successful Entrepreneurs Need To Be Calculated Risk Takers. Read: Should Companies Take A Stand On Social Issues?   To learn more, follow Julie at: Website:          www.thejuliebee.com. Podcast:          They Don’t Teach This in Business School. YouTube:        Julie Bee. LinkedIn:         Julie Bee. Instagram:       @thejuliebee_. Facebook:       @Thejuliebee. Twitter:            @thejuliebee.   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927

In this episode, Co-Founder of the Nav.it Money App, Maia Monell, talks about entrepreneurship and navigating finances. Today, Maia talks about the shortfalls in financial education, planning business KPI’s, and the results of financial inequity. How does the Nav.it App address these concerns? Hear about financial planning in the world of instant gratification, success milestones, how to keep financial stress low, and get Maia’s advice to her younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “Healthcare doesn’t understand finances, and finances doesn’t understand healthcare.” “Money is dollars and cents. Anybody can figure it out.” “The biggest quality of an entrepreneur is adaptability.” “You still have to work to be lucky.” “The results of financial inequity are far-reaching and persistent.” “Patience and adaptability are key.” “Do not act on a TikTok influencer.”   More about Maia Monell Maia is the Co-founder and Chief Growth Officer of the Nav.it Money App. Nav.it is the fitness app for finances, providing personalized financial coaching to build good habits and live financially well. When she's not pitching, selling, and creating for Nav.it, Maia is working with her family's two foundations. She's devoted to closing wealth gaps perpetuated by a system not built for the majority of America, and believes that financial wellbeing is an integral part of creating a healthier and more equitable society. She’s an avid tennis player, skate skier, and runner, with an obsession for physical, nutritional, and financial health.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Entrepreneurship, Finances, Inequity, Patience, Adaptability,   Download the Nav.it App on iOS and Android.   To learn more, follow Maia at: Website:          navitmoney.com. LinkedIn:         Maia Monell. Instagram:       @letsnavit.     Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927

In this episode, Founder of Say It With Gratitude, Scott Colby, talks about creating a happier workplace through gratitude. Today, Scott talks about the 5 languages of appreciation in the workplace, staying connected with handwritten notes, and how gratitude affects the bottom line. How can you infuse gratitude in the workplace? Hear about gratitude journaling, the gratitude toolkit, and get Scott’s advice to his younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “It starts with you first.” “Find out how each teammate likes to be appreciated at work, and then appreciate them in that language on a consistent basis.” “Write down one thing that you’re grateful for each day.” “Almost 50% of workers choose Words of Affirmation as their first way that they like to receive appreciation at work.” “61% of all US employees are lonely.” “Start now. Do something. Compliment somebody. Flash somebody a smile. Do something different.” “Do some of this unplugged.” “Don’t take things personally.”   More about Scott Colby After an eye-opening experience in Guatemala, during which Scott witnessed firsthand the power of gratitude, even in poor living conditions, he launched Say It With Gratitude, which helps companies create happy workplaces by having gratitude as a core value. In addition to delivering his message of gratitude around the world, Scott promotes the power of thank you notes, leads gratitude adventures in the wilderness, authored a book called The Grateful Entrepreneur, and developed The Grateful Deck, a card game consisting of questions that spark meaningful conversations.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Gratitude, Appreciation, Connections, Affirmation, Quality Time, Service, Gifts, Touch,   Recommended Reading: The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace.   FREE Gift: Gratitude Toolkit.   To learn more, follow Scott at: Email:              scott@scottcolby.com. Website:          sayitwithgratitude.com. Facebook:       Scott Colby. Instagram:       @scottcolby.     Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website: https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                       https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript Here:  00:05 Welcome to the healthy, wealthy and smart podcast where healthcare meets business with your host me, Dr. Karen Litzy. And just as a reminder, the information in this podcast is for entertainment purposes only, and is not to be used as personalized medical advice. Enjoy the show. Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. I am your host, Karen Litzy. And today's episode is all about gratitude. So often we talk about gratitude in the context of our personal life, which is great, there's nothing wrong with that. But today, in this episode, we challenge you to start practicing gratitude in the workplace. So to talk us through is Scott Colby. After an eye opening experience in Guatemala, during which Scott witnessed firsthand the power of gratitude even in poor living conditions. He launched say it with gratitude, which helps companies create happy workplaces by having gratitude as a core value. In addition to delivering his message of gratitude around the world. Scott promotes the power of thank you notes, leads gratitude adventures in the wilderness, authored a book called The Grateful entrepreneur and develop the grateful deck a card game consisting of questions that spark meaningful conversations. So into the in today's episode, we talk about the five languages of appreciation in the workplace. So if you are a manager, or a CEO, or you own your own practice, you're gonna want to know what those five languages are. Because that's how you're going to want to speak to your employees, how to stay connected with handwritten notes, and how gratitude gratitude affects the bottom line. So I want to give a big thank you to Scott for coming on and talking about gratitude in the workplace. And so I'm very grateful for him. Everyone enjoyed today's episode. Hey, Scott, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you on today.   02:01 Hey, Karen, thank you for having me. Looking forward to a great conversation.   02:06 Yeah, it's my pleasure. And today we're going to be talking about happiness and how to create a happier workplace through gratitude. So before we get into the meat and potatoes of our conversation, can you let the listeners know a little bit more about why you came across this topic? Why this is like your expertise. So go ahead and give the listeners a little bit more backstory, if   02:31 you will? Yeah, certainly. So back in 2014, I took a trip to Guatemala, I was there to build schools with an nonprofit called hug it forward. And we were building schools out of plastic bottles. And one of my first memories of that volunteer experience, it was about a week long experience was I was riding a bus with 25 other volunteers. And we pulled up to the site. In a community called Chinook stay in Guatemala, we pulled up to the site where we were going to be volunteering, and I didn't know really what to expect. And I looked out the window of the bus. And it looked like the entire community had come out to greet us. And there was people of all ages, kids and parents and grandparents. And as I stepped off the bus with the other volunteers, the community had formed two lines. And we walked in between the two lines of people. And we felt like rock stars, or at least I did, walking down the red carpet, there were people waving the American flag, there was music blaring over the loudspeaker, just they were hugging us and just had smiles all over their faces. And I really learned that they were just being grateful for the volunteers that we had taken time out of our schedule to take that trek to Guatemala. And the other thing that I learned over my week long experience there in genetics day, was that the community had very little, very little clean water. They don't have the smartphones and the internet that we take for granted very little food, cramped living conditions. But they had community they had each other. And again, they had gratitude and appreciation for just other human beings. And as I thought to myself, when I got back, I was living in Denver at the time, when I thought to myself, after I return home, like cash, like how am I living my life, I'm living a life filled with complaining, thinking about all the things that I don't have. And in stark contrast to just what I experienced, and also looking at my life and other people around me, are always on our phones and we're always have our head buried in screens, and we're anxious and we're overwhelmed and we're not making deep connect actions anymore. It seemed like so that was kind of the first start that I had in my head, that, hey, I wanted to do something different in my life to make, to really live in gratitude, and to live with an attitude that I learned from the community and nginx de Guatemala. And then also, I think, and we'll probably get to this a little bit later in the conversation, just my experience in the corporate world of, yeah, you know, I've had jobs where I don't feel appreciated in the workplace and how much of an impact that made to my to my happiness, we spend a lot of time at work. And if you're not happy with your job, and a lot of that is not feeling valued or not feeling listened to that can really impact your your mood and your attitude. And really, whether you want to stay with a company or not. So kind of putting all that together that led me to start a brand called, say with gratitude. And it started with thank you cards, and now it's morphed into where I speak on the topic of workplace gratitude.   06:05 And you alluded to this, but I want to dive right in. So how does this translate into the workplace? How does that action of gratitude, that feeling of being appreciated? How do you translate that into a corporate setting, or, in my case, I'm a physical therapist, so maybe into a healthcare setting where people right now are really stressed out and burnt out. And, you know, and carrying a lot of student debt, and empathetic loads, and everything else? So how do you infuse gratitude? What are your recommendations? Yeah, and   06:46 that's a lot. And I, I'm glad you brought that up, I actually just came back from Wisconsin, where I was speaking at a healthcare conference on this very topic. I'm a big believer that it starts with you first. So start with the person before we can maybe bring it into the workplace, because we need that. We need to have that right attitude. It's hard to it's hard to spread gratitude around the workplace, if you're feeling, let's say, depressed and overwhelmed and stressed. So what can you do to start your own personal gratitude practice? I also have a health and fitness background. So I love that you're in, in physical therapy. And yeah, so I, I always talked about the analogy of, you know, when you're on an airplane, and they're given the safety instructions, if the oxygen mask comes down, please put it on yourself first, before helping others. And I talked about that, because if you're passed out, how are you going to help other people, but we can maybe not literally get passed out. But we can have the feeling of like, Hey, I just can't do it anymore. So I think we have to take care of ourselves first with self care. And there's a lot of different ways you could practice self care, but for this conversation, what how can you practice gratitude, and help you feel better gratitudes got that kind of magical powers that it can help you be more optimistic, feel less stress, more energy and things like that. So where do we begin here? There's various ways to practice gratitude. Probably the one that people maybe, you know, they think of when they think of the term gratitude, just keeping a gratitude journal and writing down what you're grateful for. I've got a tip there, though. I know a lot of people that do do that just kind of go through the motions. And then you don't really feel that difference. Like if you're just saying like, Hey, I'm grateful for my cat Oliver, which we now know as parents cat's name. I'm grateful for all of her my health and my job. And then you turn the page and you fill out the gratitude the next day. What does that actually mean? It probably is not going to get you into a frame of mind where you're living in gratitude. So we're, I suggest people take it further is if you're writing down, you're grateful for somebody or some something in your life. Follow that up. By writing down why you're grateful for those things, or that person, what is it about that person that you appreciate that you love? And then I take it even deeper and I teach people think about what your life would look like without that person? Or that that thing without that job without your teammate? What would life look like then? And then when you do that, you say what, why and what would your life look like without then it creates a more emotional response. So I'll have people do this in my breakout sessions. And that's usually the hears, people have tears because they start to think, oh my gosh, my life without this person, I couldn't even imagine it. So I think that is one way to start a personal gratitude practice. So you're actually like, Okay, you're, you're reminding yourself of the good in your life. And then what does that mean for work and work, we could talk about two different things. One is like, leading with gratitude, which, in a sense, I take that to mean creating a culture of gratitude and kindness. So in healthcare, trading, treating your patients, like real people, and that have a heart and not just transactional. So I like to, you know, give examples, so people can really think about what this might look like in the real world. So I my favorite coffee shop in Denver, when I lived, there was a coffee shop called fluid. They, they got to know me by asking questions. I went there on a regular basis. So it wasn't just like, hey, here's your coffee, give us money. It was people that took the time to get to know me a perfect example. There was one day when one of my other cats we had talked about cats before we hit record. My other cat, Nomar who who's not with us anymore. He was having two teeth pulled. And so I was a little bit anxious and the barista the manager there, she asked me like, hey, you know what's wrong? I told her, her cat was having a tooth pulled that day as well, just coincidentally, and she just said here, your coffee is on the house today. And it was just just a little thing. But something like that can go a long way. Chewy. Speaking of animals, they're a company that sells pet food and pet accessories to pet owners. I know a lot of pet owners will get their food from chewy on an auto order subscription basis, they automatically send the food every month, and they take money out of your credit card. So there's a lot of stories, but it goes like this. A lot of times when a pet owners, dog dies, let's say or a cat dies, and they'll call you and say hey, please stop my shipment, my dog has passed away. Chewy, of course will express sympathy. And then they'll say, okay, all those unopened bags that you may still have, we will refund your money for all of that. Don't send the food back, we will, we would love for you to donate that food to a local shelter. And then a lot of times in a few days, sympathy flowers and a sympathy card will show up on the doorstep in just as a as an expression of condolences. So chewy is a company that leads with gratitude. So they're not saying like, we need your money back or we need the food back or we can't send these flowers because it costs too much. They're treating their customers like human beings that have a heart.   13:06 And then we've got appreciation in the workplace in the sense of all right, we need to appreciate our teammates, right? There's an interesting statistic. This is kind of a old statistic, Karen, but it's still relevant and maybe worse today. 79% of people in a research study a few years ago said that they left their job, in part because they didn't feel appreciated at work. So it wasn't like, hey, we need more money. Or we need to be you know, get promoted. It was really just not feeling valued, not feeling heard or listened to and not feeling like they mattered. So that's why I like to talk about Okay, starting with yourself first and then spreading it to other people like your customers or patients but also your team. And a great book is the five languages of appreciation at work. It's kind of a follow up book to the five love languages, which is was a popular book that talked about relationships, personal relationships, and we all have a preferred way that we like to receive love. We also have a preferred way that we like to receive appreciation at work. And the languages are the same five languages as the original five love languages book. So think of things like words of affirmation, quality, time, acts of service, tangible gifts and physical touch. We all have a way that we like to be shown appreciation at work usually follows one of those five. And so basically the idea here is find out how your each teammate likes to be appreciated at work, and then appreciate them in that language on a consistent basis. So somebody likes words of affirmation. So you want to appreciate that person, by affirming them with words that can be written, it can be verbal, the idea is to do it consistently. Be very specific. Don't always make it tied to performance. Maybe make it you know, give them a shout out on why you like them, kind of like we talked about earlier, when we write down like, Why do you like somebody's work? Somebody that is loves words of affirmation will love hearing good things about them? So yeah, so that's just kind of a basic rundown. I know, that was a long answer. But I think it's important to, to get all three of those in personal gratitude, leading with gratitude, and then spreading appreciation to your team. Yeah,   15:46 that's three, kind of an easy framework for people to follow. And circling back to that gratitude list or gratitude journal. I used to keep one and then I did it. And then I did and now you know, it kind of goes in cycles. Do you have any advice for people on how to be consistent. And as a follow up, I think it's important for people to know that it doesn't always have to be really big things. I remember when I started, the coach that I was working with was saying, Well, you know, it doesn't always have to be big, grand things. It could be like, I'm grateful that I have an umbrella because it was raining today, or I'm grateful I have a warm jacket, because it's 30 degrees today. So it doesn't have to always be a person or an animal or a relationship.   16:39 Yeah, yeah. Great point. You want to keep it simple, right. So don't get overwhelmed. So I love your point there. So my first thought to your question was, you know, you've mentioned that you weren't super consistent with your gratitude journaling. I know, I'm not I'm actually not either. You know, I'm seen as gratitude guy. But gratitude journaling never has been something that I've been consistent at. So what I do want to I'll give a tip on how to be consistent. But before I do that, I do want to encourage the listeners to find something gratitude related that you do enjoy doing. So maybe your thing isn't keeping a gratitude journal, but maybe like complimenting somebody. So that is a sign of gratitude. Or a way to show somebody gratitude. Gratitude could be just sending a quick video to somebody. So maybe like, I'm not really much with written but I'll send them a video or an audio. And that could be your thing, or writing handwritten notes, could be your thing. But in terms of if you did want to start with gratitude journaling, and trying to figure out a way to be consistent with that right off the bat, you could do some things that can help you form a new habit, much like forming a new habit to exercise or something like that. setting yourself up for success. So breaking down the habit into the smallest thing possible. So maybe you just write down one word each day instead of trying to form an entire sentence. So that could be a way to break it down in a small, small miniscule habit. But also think about something that you're already doing, and stacking this habit on that and creating a trigger point. So suppose you make coffee every single day. And that's kind of a routine you're already in. So maybe you leave your gratitude journal by your coffee pot or your coffee maker, and just have that next to it as a reminder that oh, yeah, because a lot of times not keeping a habit is just we forget about doing it. So create a way that you will remember to do the habit by having something that you already do be that trigger that reminder, right.   19:02 So your habit, habit stacking.   19:05 Exactly, yeah, habit stacking. Yep. So you've heard of that. If you're doing something like if you're doing something like writing a handwritten note, I've tried to do like, writing handwritten notes every day, which I've been successful at for a while. That is a little bit more involved. But what I could do is think about the night before who I want to write the note to find the address, get the envelope out, get the card out, get the pen out, get the stamp out and put it all out. So I'm actually see it and everything's not like hidden away in a drawer. So make things visible. So I think yeah, those are my best advice to find something that you like doing so it might not be a gratitude journal. Once you find it breaking down in the smallest component possible. So it's one word versus a list of 10 things and then finally have it stack you know, do Do it while you're doing something that you already do every single day anyway.   20:05 Got it? Yeah, much easier makes it much more digestible than like, well, I don't know if I can write the journal and then write the why. And gosh, take me 30 minutes. And do I have time for this? And yeah, so that makes a lot of sense. And I can also, I should also say, like, you can do it on your phone, too, like the notes section of your phone? Yeah. Yeah. You know. So that's, that's a possibility as well. So if you have like, a commute after work, where you're not driving, you can, you can like make that a habit at the end of your day to just throw something into your phone or something like that.   20:42 Yeah, I got one more. Yeah, it's similar to a gratitude journal to gratitude jar, which is huge. It's just take any jar. And you can just cut out slips of paper and just write down one thing that you're grateful for. Each day in the paper, maybe you have a family, and you get the whole family involved. And I like this idea. Because the jar can be visible. And it's fun. It's almost fun to watch the stacks of the slips of paper grow in the jar tilde, Giorgio stuffed, filled with gratitude, then you could pick a day, Thanksgiving Day, New Year's Day, maybe go and bring your family together, you sit in a room, on the sofa in the living room, and you go through like hay who said they were grateful for you know, chocolate, and then somebody raises their hand. That was me. And then you said, then you can go into more of the Hey, why did you pick chocolate? What is it about it? And then you can have these amazing conversations as a family. Or you could even do something like this at work as well.   21:50 Yeah, I was just thinking that if you have, you know, maybe a smaller to medium size, like a small company, or I know a lot of physical therapy offices. They don't have hundreds and hundreds of people in the same office. So this is something that's actually like, doable. You know, because I think if you had like, if you're in an office with like, 300, people, like it might be a little overwhelming. But most, I think healthcare offices, you know, if you have 20 people, I think that would be like quite a bit. So if you're in a smaller office, it's a great way to stay connected with your co workers. And another way of staying connected is and you'd mentioned this here, and there are handwritten notes. So how do you incorporate handwritten notes in the workplace? And are you only doing this if you're the boss?   22:44 Yes, I so handwritten notes I love it's how I started my company, say with gratitude, I, I had kids draw pictures. And I turned them into thank you cards that I sold to individuals and companies. But I love handwritten notes because it provides a connection point between you and the recipient of the note. So it's a way to not only appreciate somebody but actually connect to them on a deeper level. So whereas you know, writing in a gratitude journal, you might be the only one that sees that a handwritten note to people can see it or maybe even more in the workplace. You can use it a couple of different ways. One could be if you start to learn, who in your company likes words of affirmation, right, we talked about the five languages of appreciation. If you find out who likes words of affirmation, then you can make it a point to write a handwritten note to those people and know it doesn't need to only be the boss. I think if you're creating a culture of gratitude, I think everybody should be involved. If you're trying to figure out like, hey, I want to start this gratitude at work thing, not sure where to start, handwritten notes, I think can be a great place to start before you kind of fine tune your your appreciation, tools that you want to use. The kind of latest research shows from the authors of the five languages of appreciation and workplace that almost 50% of workers choose words of affirmation as their first way that they like to receive appreciation at work. So it's a great place to start. Of course also, you can easily write handwritten notes to your, your your patients to appreciate them. We talked about appreciating your customers patients, more is more than just a transaction, like make them feel good. And there's a company that I interviewed the HR had a few years ago, I love what they do every week, like once a week, they would, as a team, they would get together at lunchtime for about an hour. And they would write handwritten notes to their customers. And I liked it two reasons. One, they were expressing gratitude to their team, or excuse me, to their customers, but to they were bonding over the act of writing gratitude notes as a company. So just imagine there's a few people in a room, they're grabbing lunch, they're writing notes, they were being creative, they were putting stickers on the notes. And they were able to kind of chat with their the co workers on a level that they don't normally do, because they're normally just focused on work. So they got to know their team, on a deeper level, just having these conversations as they were writing note to their customers. So it could be a great way to, to bring your team together to just bonding over the act of writing handwritten notes.   26:02 And here's the question that I think a lot of business owners are going to want to know. And you may, you may have an idea of what I'm going to ask here. But what does this do for the bottom line of a company? So you're spending this time you're bringing in people from your company? How does does this improve the bottom line? Will this help the company make more money?   26:28 Yep. So that one statistic that I mentioned that 79% of people left a job because they didn't feel appreciated at work? Turnover finding new workers as a high cost of business for a company. So anyway, the Yeah, the the research is showing that. Doing things like infusing gratitude at work, appreciating your team, connecting with them on a more deeper level. So a lot of people feel disconnected at work, because they've got a lot of emotional stuff, you know, in their lives are overwhelmed or stressed. But when they get to work, they don't chat about any of that. So there's a lot of research now that shows workplace loneliness is high. Six, up to 61% of all US employees are lonely. So lonely workers and workers that don't feel appreciated, they're disengaged, they're not as productive. They're calling in sick, they're stress. They're thinking about leaving their job, or they're actually leaving their job. And connecting with a team and showing appreciation to your team can change all of I don't know that there's actually hard numbers that are out there yet, but just know that there are studies have shown there's productivity increases, turnover decreases, sick days decreased. So all of this leads to companies that can actually save more money.   28:10 Yeah, no, I understand that. Yeah, that makes sense. But I had to ask that question, you know, because people are going to be like, Well, this sounds great. But what's it gonna do? Yeah, it's   28:20 the biggest probably, you know, obstacle in doing something like this, because a lot of businesses are like, well, you know, I know if I spend, you know, $100 on Facebook ads, I'm gonna get this exactly. Yeah. Right, and $1 for dollar return. And for something that's more of a soft skill like this, you might not exactly have that data, but just know that there's a lot of money being lost due to low productivity and high turnover. Yeah. And with appreciation and connecting can really solve a lot of this. Yeah,   28:56 no, that makes perfect sense. And now, before we wrap things up, I want you to one more time. Yes. Do you mind repeating the five languages of appreciation in the workplace?   29:06 Yeah, the five languages of appreciation are words of affirmation. Quality time. So that's the second, the one that second most popular quality time. So two people basically, spending time together like you and I are acts of service. So that could be like helping somebody with a time sensitive project. Tangible gifts. So that could be somebody that actually likes to receive a gift. And that's how they like to be appreciated. The thing is, they're the best you can make the gift. It doesn't have to be expensive, but the more personal, you can make it the better. So a gift of a pair of socks with my cat's face on them is better than handing me a Starbucks gift card because somebody that knows I'd like my cats has done their homework and that would be a really meaningful gift to me. And then physical touches the last one That's not seen very much in the workplace that's like, you know, high five pat on the shoulder for obvious reasons. Yeah, yep. Yeah, that one is usually not somebody's primary way they like to receive appreciation. So the first four are the ones that most things, you need to focus on those four languages. Right,   30:19 right. And speaking of gifts, you actually have a free gift for our listeners. So it's gratitude. toolkit.com. Can you talk a little bit more about that?   30:28 Yeah, that's really a toolkit with a bunch of goodies. So what'd you get there? I wrote a book called The Grateful entrepreneur, which I know you mentioned in the intro, that you get a digital copy of that book, that's all about creating meaningful relationships at work. I've got something else that I created called the grateful deck, which is 120 questions to start meaningful conversations, great to use to start meetings at work to just get to know your team a little bit better. And then I've also got 47 ways to practice personal gratitude, and 29 ways to use gratitude to grow your business. So that's all in this all digital downloads in the gratitude toolkit.   31:15 Perfect. And that's awesome. So if you want to go a little bit deeper into what we've spoken about today, then you're going to want to check out that gratitude toolkit. And again, it's www dot gratitude toolkit. All one word.com. All right. So is there anything that we didn't touch upon that you want to hit on? Or is there something that you want the listeners to their big takeaway here?   31:43 Yeah, big takeaway, I think, is just to start now, do something, compliment somebody flash somebody a smile, do something different. If you want to go a little bit deeper than that, write a handwritten note. And do those three, do the three things that I talked about in the journal, do it for your note? Who do you appreciate? Why do you appreciate them? What would your life look like if they weren't in your life and read that note to them, it's even more powerful than just handed it to them is to read it to them, the connection will be amazing. And the one thing one thing that we didn't hit on, that's kind of near and dear to my heart. Do some of this unplugged. So don't you know if somebody is talking to you Don't be on your phones, pay attention to them. That's a form of gratitude, a form of connecting is just listening. So I if you want to start a gratitude practice, think about doing this, like write your note without like, put your phone in a different room, you'll be more engaged. And you're going to think more clearly. So yeah, that's a I think a good good takeaway for that for the audience. Yeah,   32:55 that's great. I love it. And now, I have one more question. It's a question I asked everyone. Okay. That's knowing where you are now in your life. And in your career? What advice would you give to your younger self?   33:07 Oh, that's a great question. Lots of advice. I could give my younger self. So I was thinking about this, I would say, and this is I was trying to think of what am I still working on? Because and there's a lot but I was I'm gonna go with don't take things personally. So good. Something I still work out. I don't think I'll ever be like completely perfect with that. But yeah, if I could give my younger self that advice. Because I do take things personally, I'm sensitive. If somebody you know, I could have 100 compliments, and one naysayer, and I'm focused on that naysayer, I think it's human nature. And I take it personally, but but I think like, we don't know, like, at least for me, personally, I know I'm doing good in the world. And I'm changing lives. And I need to not be sensitive and not read social media sometimes and take that own advice of unplugged right and just hanging out with the people that I love. And I know that love me and, and, and really, I think just continue to connect with other human beings in a meaningful way. Get rid of the technology. Don't let negative comments bring you down. Because then it can affect your day, your week thing that affects your performance at work that affects how you relate to your loved ones. And so yeah, so don't take things personally. Advice that I would give my younger self but I would also continue to take that in my older self.   34:54 Yeah, I love it. That's so good. And now where can people find you? Where can they connect with you,   34:59 too? your main website is saved with gratitude.com you can always email me Scott at Scott colby.com. And then even on Facebook, my most probably active social media platform at Scott Colby.   35:13 Perfect. And we'll have links to all of this over at the podcast at podcast at healthy, wealthy smart.com. So you can always hit up the podcast website, and one click will take you to all of Scott's info. So Scott, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing with us how to have gratitude and how to infuse that into our workplace in our jobs. So thanks so much. Thank you, Karen. My pleasure. Anytime and everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart. Thanks for listening. And don't forget to leave us your questions and comments at podcast dot healthy, wealthy smart.com

In this episode, Nutritionist, and Emotional Eating and Self-Sabotage Coach, Matty Lansdown, talks about dieting. Today, Matty talks about emotional eating versus hunger, creating healthy and sustainable lifestyles, and the “Why x5”. What alternatives are there to reproduce the “dopamine hit”? Hear about how to create healthier emotional escapes, intermittent fasting, and get Matty’s advice to his younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “Emotional eating is eating for any other reason than nutritional requirement.” “How you do anything is how you do everything.” “We can’t undo the work of the past unless we know what created it.” “[intermittent fasting] can be different for everyone.” “That journey takes a little bit of time, and you’ll fall off the bandwagon - that’s also okay.” “Do you own research, learn, be open-minded, and move forward with absolute curiosity.”   More about Matty Lansdown Matty Lansdown is a scientist, nutritionist, and an Emotional Eating and Self Sabotage coach that specializes in weight loss and self confidence for women and busy mothers. Starting out in the field of nutritional epigenetics, and spending several years working in hospitals as part of a disease research team, Matty believes that most disease and illness is not due to bad luck but as a result of poor nutrition and lifestyle choices. Matty’s extensive experience allowed him to uncover the deeper challenge people have with health which isn’t about calories or kale, but in fact mindset and behavior change. Having been on his own personal development journey, Matty is now super-passionate about showing people how to level up their health so that healthy habits and the best food choices are easy and natural. Likewise, Matty’s weekly podcast “How to NOT Get Sick and Die”, provides his followers and clients with a deep dive into nutrition and how to develop healthy habits that last.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Diets, Fitness, Nutrition, Emotional Eating, Food Addiction, Sustainability, Food,   Recommended Reading: Atomic Habits, by James Clear. FREE Gift: How to Turn Food into Self-Confidence.   To learn more, follow Matty at: Website:          mattylansdown.com. Facebook:       Busy Mothers FB Group.                         Matty Lansdown. Mailing List:     Join the Mailing List. Podcast:          How to Not Get Sick and Die.   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript here:  00:02 Hey Maddie, welcome to the podcast. I am happy to have you on today to talk about the D word. And we'll get into that in a second. But welcome to the podcast.   00:11 Hey, Karen, thanks so much for having me on.   00:13 Yeah. So like I said, we're going to be talking about the D word. dieting. Right? Yeah. Why does everyone go on a diet? Why do we think we always have to be on a diet? And of course, ultimately,   00:27 why a lot of them just don't work? Right? Yeah. It's such a good question.   00:32 Yeah. And I'm sure a lot of it, it has to do and we'll get into this, the psychology behind it, and why we eat and why we do the things that we do. And I know one of the things that you're really passionate about is working with people to understand their emotional eating. So can you talk about kind of what is emotional eating? And why do we do it?   00:55 Yeah, that's like the understanding that is really the the answer to possibly all health questions, I think, I think emotional eating to sort of classify it in like a textbook fashion, would be eating for any other reason than nutritional requirement. And then we get into the weeds instantly with what is nutritional requirement. Because we're in this world, unfortunately, that has, you know, anything in a bag, a box, or a can, is food that is somehow manipulated and changed and altered in a way that doesn't resemble the type of food that our genetics and our body is expecting to receive or familiar with receiving. And so that's why, you know, people are always looking for diets, because we've been consuming this food and living these very westernized lifestyles, which have led to bodies that are sadly, really unhealthy and really unwell. Whether that be through the lens of I've got access body fat, or whether that be through the lens of diabetes, or just any type of dysfunction in the body. It there's the diet is going to be a part of that in some way. And so we've created this Yeah, unfortunate reality where everybody wants to be on a diet, because they're marketed and sold to us as being the answer to basically getting your bikini body back, or pretending that a woman that's 55 can now be 21. Again, you know, and that marketing it, like, it appeals to everybody. Because of course we want, we all want our youth back. We all wish we could, you know, go back in time and be there where we thought we were fat then. But actually now in retrospect, we're like, oh, I wasn't bad at all. I wish I had that body. Or it might be in the case of like physical wellness and disease, which is like, yeah, I've eaten myself into some really significant health problems. And it's not just food, it's important to acknowledge stress, sleep, relationships in your life, the house that you live in toxins that they're all a part of the equation. But yeah, I think it's really important for people to I guess first understand, yeah, what is emotional eating, eating for reasons that are not nutritional requirement? And then second, why would I be eating foods, not for nutritional requirement? And then that's where we get into emotions?   03:03 And how, so how can people understand if they're eating is emotional eating? Does that make sense?   03:11 Makes perfect sense. Every single one of my clients asked the same question in the beginning. So the way that we sort of get to realizing that is, like, has have the diets you've tried in the past? Did they work for a short period of time? And then you went back to how you were eating before? Or did you you know, you couldn't wait, use lots of willpower for maybe 612 weeks, and you just couldn't wait for week 13 When he got the wine back, the chocolate back the pizza back. And if any of that stuff is a feature of the way that you've gone about food nutrition in the past, then it's highly likely that those foods that you were looking forward to putting back into the diet were consumed from an emotional standpoint, if you're thinking about the food that you're consuming six months or three weeks, that's not your hunger right now. That's definitely emotional. You are looking forward to having an experience that will bring you pleasure. So the way to sort of ascertain it in your day to day life is to sort of do an internal check in when you go to the pantry or to the fridge. If it's not mealtime, approximate mealtime. And that looks different for a lot of people. And you're not actually like, yeah, I've got genuine hunger in my stomach. And it's been a while since I've eaten it kind of makes sense that that now's the time. And you get there and you realize, I actually kind of don't feel that hungry, but I really want the thing. Want the chocolate want the nuts, want the muesli want the yogurt, whatever it is, but I'm not really hungry. There's definitely an emotion driving that behavior. So it's basically Yes, you got to check in with yourself and you've got to take a really conscience conscious 10 to 20 seconds to really check in with your body. And you might even do a little bit of breath work in that time just to calm your nervous system down to be like, am I actually hungry? And probably if you're listening to this, it's likely you're in a very privileged, wealthy country. It's probably very likely that you're going towards that Food for emotion rather than hunger?   05:03 And how can what can we do in those moments? So I need to like take a minute breathe. But if it is this emotional eating, how do we get to the sort of root cause of these emotions that are causing us to eat more?   05:17 Yeah, well, and that's a that can be a really confronting and heavy answer for some people. And like everybody that jumps into the work that I do a, I don't sugarcoat it in any way, I say this might make you cry. You know, we've been using these tools often to hide from, or cover up feelings that we're uncomfortable with, or situations, that might be a situation with our partner, that instead of having the difficult conversation that's been there for 15 years, we just get wine and chips every night. And I use that example, because I've had clients in that situation that when we removed that, some problems from a long time ago, we're able to be dealt with. And so the, I guess, the way that you want to navigate that is you don't want because we were essentially in that moment, we're using food as an escape, right? We're escaping an uncomfortable emotion or trying to move towards a pleasurable emotion. So if we ascertain the motivation, like, which is that first question, am I trying to escape? Or am I trying to move towards? Once we've answered that question, we can figure out, okay, we need a list of other alternative escape options, other than food, because sometimes we have to escape, because expressing your inner child's worst moment from when you were, you know, hurt, as you know, 1520 30 years ago, in the middle of a board meeting on Wednesday, is a really bad idea. Right? So it's not that we shouldn't always escape, sometimes we need to escape those feelings, because they're not practical to be dealt with in the current moment. So we need a healthy, what I call them routine swap outs. So it's like the eating the food is this ingrained routine or pattern that's automated. And through through this process, we bring it out of automation and into your sort of manual awareness. And then from there, we figure it out right? Now I know what I'm getting for this, from this escaping the pain or moving towards pleasure, what is a list of things that I can put together to change this routine, to be able to then create a more favorable outcome where I'm not punishing myself with food in the process. And then there's, of course, there's the, that's the escape, but then we also need to put a list of things together about how we might actually process because processing is really important. Otherwise, we're on this roundabout forever, hence, the yo yo diet cycle that many people have been on. And some recent research says that most women have been on 17 years of dieting and spent $40,000, only to be left with a problem that they never solved, basically. And so, so yeah, we've got to we've got to actually process so distinguishing the motivating factors, why it's there. And I call it the why times five. And it's kind of like just why am I hungry? It's like the surface level thing might be because I want food. That's like, Okay, let's go a little deeper. Why do you want food? Because I'm bored, bored of my work. I got up from my desk, and I moved to the kitchen. Why are you bored from the from your work? And it might be like, Well, I hate spreadsheets. Why do you hate spreadsheets, I don't feel super confident actually doing them. Like, I kind of feel a bit lost. And, and it's like, you know, I kind of just fumble through the task. And then the why that inevitably is at the bottom of that is I don't feel good enough, right? I don't feel capable enough, right. And it's and it might be one of those things. And that's, that's the little routine that we get people to go through every time they find themselves in a situation where they would be snacking, or even in the middle of a snack, or a binge or an Uber Eats order that you know isn't for hunger. And we dig down that little rabbit hole and you can see how very rapidly it can become very deep and confronting. But once we're there now we've finally confronted or met with the cause of the reason that these yo yo diets have cycled around for years and years and years, because most of those diets never deal with that piece.   08:59 Right? They just deal with, you know, eat, eat less food, eat this food, not that food, write everything down, keep a journal, all that kind of stuff, which works in the short term for many people. Yeah. And it comes back again, because I guess you're not really addressing some deeper things. Is that   09:21 accurate? Totally. Yeah, totally well, and the other thing is to like, where we're driven by dopamine humans are driven by the hormone dopamine, which is the happy hormone, the pleasure hormone, and it's the reason the species exists that drives us to procreate and have sex. It drives us to hunt food. But the catch is, because in the last 100 250 years, social evolution moved so rapidly along with technology is that we're now in this modern day world where we have access to dopamine. Keep in mind getting dopamine used to be risking your life hunting a buffalo, you know, or a wildebeest and there was a huge cost risk, like In order to get that dopamine, or it was like impressing a woman in much more traditional setting, in order to have sex for both parties, to engage in sex, the man would have to improve, you know, impress the woman, and vice versa. And again, it was a long Costas significant allocation of time before you got your dopamine. Now, we can wake up at 2am and pull our phone out and get a dopamine hit from our Facebook update, Instagram, Tik Tok, or even in most cities in the world, now you can get sugar, which massively like hits the dopamine button in a massive way, from a 711, around the corner that's open 24/7, or a service station or gas station. And so we have to put no effort in to get this hormone that we're driven to seek. So understanding sort of the science and the psychology behind dopamine drive, because many people actually go on this why times five exercise and they're like, I can't really find a belief for a trauma in my past that's driving this. And it can simply be biological addiction to the sugar, which then addicted to the dopamine, the happy hormones, because every single day of our life, we're trying to create situations where dopamine is available to us because it makes every human on the planet feel good.   11:13 And so what can we do? When we're in the thick of it to feel good without having that hit of sugar or snack or muffin? You know, you're at your desk and you're not feeling great? And because you know, offices, there's always a muffin or a donut or some sort of sugary something laying around. So when we're in those moments, what can we do to get that, that dopamine hit? I use that in quotation marks? Versus having the sugar and feeding that addiction, if you will, because it is an addiction.   11:52 Yeah, no, I totally agree. It's, it's funny often get asked as an emotional eating coach, what's the difference between emotional eating and sugar addiction. And it's one of those things that if you ask an emotional eating coach, they will say it's, you know, they're both the same. If you ask a sugar addiction coach, the, I'll say they're both the same. So it's very much is in that realm. But this list of things that we need to do alternatively, to produce that experience is going to be different for every single individual. And it's, the other thing is to that we've got to have like a really practical list and a little bit later in the week list. Because if you're a mom, or if you've got, you know, super busy job, you can't just necessarily respond to it in that moment, it's like, you know, you might need a list of options that can be done under two minutes. And that might include a little bit of breath, work, a walk around the block 10 Push ups, you know, something that moves your body and we know produces dopamine, it can be simply hugging somebody, like, you know, a lot of people go towards food for love and connection and security and safety and predictability. So and we can get all of those things from hugging somebody that we love. And these might sound overly simplistic because I often tell my clients, we want to find something of equal or greater value. And they're like, Maddie ain't nothing more valuable than a glass of wine. And so then we do this thing, which James clear in atomic habits talks about, which is habit stacking, essentially, which is like, we might need to do two or three of our little swap outs that we've come up with, in order to feel appropriately satisfied, that we can, you know, now put ourselves in a position of power to say actually, now I'm not really not really wanting the chocolate anymore, or the the muffin or the wine or whatever it is. And it's it might even to be just to elapse the time. And they do that a lot in sugar addiction space as well. When you get to the meal or you get to the pantry, you say, if I want it, I'll have it at the next meal. And you do that for every single meal. So you take the stigma away of you definitely want to get away from the don'ts. No, avoid can't have because that triggers our inner rebel to be like, watch me, I'll do that. But But yeah, so we want to take the stigma away from it. But But yeah, that little list of things is gonna be different for everybody. And yeah, we want to explore what's available to us. I literally have a little indoor trampoline. That's one of my own little routine stop outs. And it's purposely on the way to the kitchen because I run my own show from home. And I jump on that for literally about three jumps. And I've totally forgotten about food altogether. So yeah, there's a lot of different ways we can go about it.   14:27 So it sounds to me like achieving weight loss goals, or even just being healthier and fit, right because we don't want to have to tie everything to weight loss because that's not necessarily the goal for everyone. I think like you said before, being being healthy being fit, avoiding chronic disease, which happens a lot in people who are overweight. So it sounds like it's not so much about food, but it's about the psychology behind what we attached to that food?   15:06 Yeah, you're totally right. And I think it's one of those things I believe in the idea of how you do anything is how you do everything. And the thing that underpins the way you do food, the way you manage the relationships in your life, the way you walk up to your job, and how you execute, it's all from your own mind. So if we can work on that, then there's going to be a positive flow through all areas of your life, but equally food and if you are trying to lose weight, weight loss as well.   15:34 Right, and you know, people, people love plans, right? So out of this conversation, you know, it we're talking about changing habits and psychology and dopamine, and a lot of people might be thinking, Okay, what's, what's the plan? Give me a plan here, you know, like, what, what do I need to do to get healthier to be fit and perhaps to lose weight? How can I do that and sustain it? So what is your answer to that question? What's the plan?   16:05 Yeah, so the first step of the plan has to be looking backwards, you cannot understand how the present came to exist if you don't understand the past. And I think that's one of the problems with fad diet culture, and yo yo diets is that on Monday, change everything about your life. Why? Because apparently, that's better. And we instead, we can't undo the work of the past unless we know what created it. So we have to reflect on our past, whether there'll be a big trauma there that we can find, or whether we just understand on a deeper level that we've been convinced by 45 years of marketing and advertising the sugar industry, which spends literally billions of dollars, purposely to to addict you and convince you. So we have to understand how did I came to be now? Because if we don't know the answer that question, then no diet is going to work? If we understand that question, then we can start moving forward with okay, how can I navigate that space in a different way, because currently, the way I'm navigating, it has meant that over the last 25 years, I've gained weight every year, or has led to a situation where I've got a cancer diagnosis or a diabetic diagnosis or whatever it might be. Because if we don't understand the driver behind our behavior, where it's very unlikely, we're going to change it because we're not dead. And that's literally how the core reptilian part of your brain operates. It says, if we're not dead, everything we've been doing up until this moment has been relatively okay, because it hasn't killed us. So we won't change unless we can find some kind of understanding as to how we got here, and then also be inspired to be like, oh, and I can do it differently. Which is, you know, a lot of people get their inspiration from social media, but you really need to find that inspiration within yourself. Because there's only so long that we can want to be like, the person on Instagram or Tiktok, that we get inspired by every now and then we need to want to be better for ourselves or our children every single day.   18:01 Right? And I love that, you know, you're presented with a situation. And you kind of have to make that conscious decision, like you said, of how can I look at this situation and react to it in a different way than I normally would? So I think first it's, it's confronting the situation and having that sort of internal drive to say, Okay, this is what happens, I can't control the situation. But you know, people say this all the time, you can control how you react to it. And so my question is, you know, if we're working off of psychology, we're working off of patterns within the brain, the more you respond to the similar situations by maybe not having that handful of candy, or the muffin or whatever it may be, will that change that patterning in our brain eventually, so that when we get into that situation, again, the brain is going to be like, Oh, we don't not not necessarily know how to handle this in a different way?   19:01 Yeah, absolutely. It won't change it permanently, because the body and the brain. And evolutionarily speaking, we've identified that these fast sugar sources, you know, survival techniques, basically to eat these foods, even though we often live in very privileged, abundant worlds. The brain still is knows that like, oh, there's fast energy, so we're never going to get rid of it forever. And if you ever talk to a drug addict, or a sugar addict, really, that's in recovery, they, they they're under no illusion that it feels good at the time. And that's, you know, whether it be heroin, cocaine, alcohol, they're like, yeah, when I'm in the middle of it, it feels amazing. The same when you put the chocolate in your mouth or the lollies or the candy in your mouth. Like in that moment, it feels great. But the catch is that, you know, triggers a cascade so you'll always have this knowing and this knowledge in your mind that that's the experience. And if you've done it for decades, that will definitely be you know, those new runs in your brain will be really thick. However, we can start building up an alternative set of neurons, which by default will take the sort of physical thickness out of the other ones, it's because the brain works on it, you don't, if you don't use it, you lose it. So we want to start building up the neurons in a different pathway. And we want to do it slowly, too, we don't want to, it's not day one, throw everything out by 400 kilograms of kale and live your healthiest life, I have this little mantra that I that I always use, which is one tweak a week, we want to make one change. And that might be just focusing on breakfast this week, you know, and this is once we've already done the reflective work. But we've just just breakfast forget about every other meal, every other snack, just work on, you know, working on breakfast and making it great, and whatever great looks like for you. And then once that feels kind of normal to your nervous system, your identity, your personality, your routine, then we move on to the next one.   20:56 I like that. So you're not kind of bombarding your system with this huge change. Because like you said, like, I'm gonna start this program Monday morning, and, and everything's gonna be great, and it's gonna be no problem. And that's why people start programs and don't finish them. Or maybe they finish them. And then a couple months later, they're kind of right back to where they started. Because they didn't make the slow changes over time. Instead, it was just like, yeah, a shock to the system. And so from what I'm hearing is that it takes time, and that's okay. And I think you also have to give yourself some grace, to know that it takes time. And it's not something that's going to happen. Like, if, if your plan is to lose, I don't know, 20 pounds, it's not gonna happen in two weeks. And if it does, I'd say that's pretty unhealthy.   21:45 Yeah, and, like, yeah, we get caught all get caught up in marketing and advertising. And, you know, the, the amazing thing that's just around the corner, but most of the people I work with are sort of in their 40s 50s 60s. And they've done so much of that, that they're like, I finally got enough evidence after doing this for 30 years, that it doesn't work that way. And so if you think about it, I get people to think about it like a mountain. It's like, if you've been walking up the mountain for 25 years, and you're on the top of the mountain, the idea that you can change 25 years worth of behavior in like a 28 day challenge at the gym, or you know, an eight week program is like, even just in basic logic, it doesn't make much sense. So the reality is 25 years up the mountain, we might need to walk down and my mom is a perfect example. She's in the process of walking down it, she's lost 30 kilograms, which is like 70 odd pounds. thing. Yeah. And that's taken up for years. And she's still got plenty to go. But she's been in the situation. She's been with her health for 35 years. So we have to, unfortunately, it's unsexy. And it's not good for headlines, or clickbait or anything like that. We have to, you know, accept that this is going to be a 1234 year journey. But the good thing is every day of that journey, you'll feel better, you're moving in the right direction, rather than going from one extreme to the other.   23:07 Absolutely. And I have a couple more questions here. Before we kind of start to wrap things up. But another thing that I see a lot in the headlines is intermittent fasting. So can you talk a little bit about that what it is, and why would we want to do that?   23:27 Yeah, sure. So intermittent fasting is just spacing out the times that you do and don't eat, basically, because I think, well, there's a research study that came out of the US last year 2021. And they found that currently in 2021, Americans were eating on average, six to 11 times per day. And I would say if you're eating 11 times per day, it's really just once it's just once that never ends,   23:51 when really long meal,   23:54 just a grazing day. But that but the point of intermittent fasting is to start winding back the frequency. And a lot of people understand that it's like oh, fasting, so just don't eat. That makes sense. I'll lose body fat. And I'm really sort of anti that message. Because especially for women, because women's hormones really need to be nurtured and looked after, especially if they've been on so many different diets, which smash their hormones around all over the place. And so it's not any defined period of time, it's gonna look different for everybody. But it's basically just making sure that when you're not eating, you're really not eating. There's no snacking, there's nothing in between. And that allows the gut to go into a repair mode. Because we eat so frequently in the Western world, you can live a full 5070 years without your gut ever really having a day off. And we want the gut to actually repair itself because that's where a lot of the immune system lives. That's where the food you know, interacts with our actual body. So it's not necessarily about having a whole day away from food, but it's just about it might be returning to breakfast, lunch and dinner only. But no Next, it could be 7am, midday 7pm That might be intermittent fasting for you. Some people, it might look like breakfast moves till 11am, and dinners at 7pm. So we've got that's kind of like the typical 16 hours fasting, eight hours eating. But it's definitely not about going hardcore deprivation on hunger, you don't want to be experiencing overwhelming hunger. There's some things missing, and you're maybe not doing it correctly. But you'll find a lot of people on YouTube and Instagram and Tiktok that talk about just the the longer the fast, the better. I strongly disagree with that, especially for women.   25:35 Thank you, and thanks for clearing that up. Because that is something that we see a lot on social media. And so you think, oh, okay, so I'll just like not eat for a day and then eat again and then take two days off from meeting and just drink water tea. And then it's like, so unrealistic. And it just isn't the   25:54 same thing as all the other fad diets, which is throw you all over the place.   25:58 Yeah, it just doesn't it doesn't make any sense at all. So every time I see them, I'm like, I don't get it. But like you said, marketing works. Right. And this is dieting is a billion dollar industry. And we've been bombarded by these claims for decades it for, for a lot of us our whole entire life.   26:18 Yeah. Well, and if you're not a nutrition or biology expert in any way, it makes total sense if because if you think of the body through a single dimension system of calories in calories out, or energy and energy out, it's like, so I don't put energy in. Of course, I lose weight. That's the whole thinking process for most people. And that's why I totally understand it makes sense. But unfortunately, that's not the reality the body is so intensely complex. Oh, absolutely.   26:45 I mean, we're more than one system and more than one dimension. So yeah, so thank you for clearing that up. And and hopefully the listeners have a better understanding of what intermittent fasting is, and that it can be different for everyone. And that you should probably work with a health coach or a nutritionist. If you're thinking about moving into certainly intermittent fasting, I think, or working with folks like you to help get people to their, their why their five, the y times five, to kind of get down and so that they can really understand, okay, this is why I'm doing this. And I need to to face some hard truths in order to get beyond what I'm doing, because it's not helping me and it's not healthy.   27:39 Yeah, totally. And yeah, that journey takes a little bit of time. And that's okay. And guess what, you'll fall off the bandwagon. And that's also okay.   27:47 Absolutely. And now, I have a couple more questions. I have a question that I asked everyone, but we'll save that for a second. But what would you like the listeners to walk away with if they could kind of encapsulate what we spoke about and what you want them to remember? What would that be?   28:09 So I have spoken in, I've been fortunate enough to speak in many countries, on many podcasts, different things, and I've never met somebody that didn't know what to eat. Like a lot of people say information, information information. Information is not like nutrition education. And science is not the transformational variable, it's highly likely that you need to spend about 10 seconds thinking about what you should be putting on your plate you already know. So you already have all of the tools in your mind. But if things are not working, then it might be your psychology, your emotions, your mindset. So it's highly likely you've got the tools for the nutrition. You know what to do there. We need to go a little bit deeper is the take home message I would want everybody to leave with.   28:50 Yeah, I never thought about that before. But you're totally right. I mean, I know what to put on my plate and still on like, I don't know, I think I'd rather that gummy bear. That's probably better.   29:02 That's yeah. That's not like chocolate good for breakfast. Nobody's ever asked me that. Like,   29:08 I think I think that would be a better dinner. Of course, it's not a better dinner. Like we know this. We total it up. Okay, so now where can people find you? If they have questions? Social Media website, all that fun stuff?   29:23 Yeah, sure. So, my website, Matty lansdown.com. So you can just check out stuff there. We got some articles and few different things there. We've got a Facebook group specifically for mothers. So it's called the Healthy mums collective. And that's for people that are wanting to end their emotional eating and feel good in their own skin again, and Facebook website podcast, how to not get sick and die is the name of my podcast. So yeah, we're just about to hit 200 episodes, which is amazing. So come and hang out there.   29:52 Awesome. Congratulations. That's a big milestone. And we'll have we'll have direct links to everything at this podcast web. site which is podcast at healthy, wealthy smart.com in the show notes for this episode, so one click will take you to everything that Maddie has going on. And you can learn more about him on his website. And if you want to work with him, you can also learn how to do that on his website. Okay, so Maddie, last question, and it's one I asked everyone is knowing where you are now in your life and career? What advice would you give to your younger self?   30:27 Oh, that's a good question. I know that my younger self would not believe I was this older self. He'd be like, you're like a drunk, hippie. But probably to be more open minded. When I started out in western medicine, where I worked in a cancer hospital, I worked in many laboratories. I just thought everything outside of that field was woowoo nonsense, and, and I was so solid in my convictions that science and medicine was the greatest thing ever. Because if it wasn't, then why would it exist? And that was before I really understood capitalism. So yeah, I would just say to people that there's you know, there's a little bit of truth in absolutely everything. And there's a do your own research, learn, be open minded, and just move forward with absolute curiosity. I was not curious enough as a younger scientist, and it led me to well just be delayed in the way that I executed my life and my success, I guess, but, but yeah, be open minded is what I would ask my younger self to be.   31:31 I think that's great advice. I love it. The listeners, I'm sure appreciate and love it as well. So Maddy, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of this. And again, everyone, check out his website. And if you want to work with him, you can get all the information on his site. So Maddie, thanks so much.   31:48 Thanks, Karen. I appreciate you hanging out with me.   31:51 Absolutely. And   31:52 everyone. Thanks so much for listening and have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

In this episode, Functional Medicine Practitioner, Dr. Meg Mill, PharmD, talks about headaches and migraines. Today, Meg talks about headaches and migraines, what causes them, and how to get to the root of your headache to treat it. What are the major contributing factors to chronic headaches? Hear about treating headaches as a functional medical practitioner, controlling stressors, and get Meg’s advice to her younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways Environmental triggers: Heavy metals, mold, allergens. Solution: Putting an air filter in your bedroom, doing mold testing. Food triggers: High-histamine foods. Solution: Avoiding aged cheeses, fermented foods, shellfish, avocado, foods with tyramine, citrus, MSG, aspartame, and caffeine. Hormonal triggers: Estrogen-dominance, rapidly changing hormones, and hormone-enhanced products. Solution: Visit ewg.org to rate your products. “There is hope to make a change in your life.” “Be open. You never know what road it’s going to take.”   More about Dr. Meg Mill Dr. Meg Mill is a Functional Medicine Practitioner, bestselling author, podcast host, and speaker. In her virtual Functional Medicine practice, she works with patients worldwide to heal the root cause of their health struggles through advanced diagnostic testing and personalized support. She has been seen on Fox News Channel, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and in Reader's Digest, Health Magazine, and has appeared on many podcasts. She is particularly passionate about helping people end headaches and migraines, increase energy and restore mental clarity without drugs or overwhelming protocols with her proven E.A.T. Method.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Headaches, Migraines, Stress, Environment, Hormones, Triggers, Allergens,   The Strictly Business Roadmap: Create the Foundation of a 6-Figure PT Business Working 25 Hours a Week   Resources: www.ewg.org/skindeep. FREE Gift: 8 Step Guide to Say Goodbye to Headaches Naturally. Live Group Program Head Strong.   To learn more, follow Meg at: Website:          www.megmilll.com. Podcast:          A Little Bit Healthier. Instagram:       @drmegmill. Facebook:       Headache Healing Club.   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript Here:  00:05 Welcome to the healthy, wealthy and smart podcast where healthcare meets business with your host me, Dr. Karen Litzy. And just as a reminder, the information in this podcast is for entertainment purposes only, and is not to be used as personalized medical advice. Enjoy the show.   00:29 Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I am your host, Karen Litzy. Thanks so much for joining me, I really appreciate your ears on the podcast. Now before we get started in today's episode, I have a couple of announcements number one announcement. If you are listening to this podcast on October 17 18th, or 19th, for that matter, I have a big announcement I will be running a workshop. That's right, not a webinar, but a workshop. So be prepared to do some work, called the strictly business roadmap create the foundation of a six figure PT business working 25 hours a week. In this workshop, we will cover the human resources needed for a successful business, the organizational resources needed to keep your business running smoothly the surprising amount of technology resources you will need. And finally the financial resources and knowledge that are imperative to pay yourself and your business. So the details it will be Wednesday the 19th at 8pm Eastern Standard Time on Zoom. Of course, there will be a link in the show notes for this podcast. So if you head over to podcast at healthy, wealthy smart.com You can sign up for that workshop. Just do it by Wednesday. All right now the other announcement is we are placing the podcast interviews up on YouTube. So if you want to see the podcast interviews, watch us interact with each other head over to YouTube to my YouTube channel, just Karen Litzy. And you will be able to see us talking back and forth and I'm sure one of these times you will also see a big orange cat hop up on to the screen on my screen. Alright, so today's episode is all about headaches and migraines and the treatment of them. And to help guide us through that today is Dr. Meg mills. She is a functional medicine practitioner best selling author, podcast host and speaker. In her virtual functional medicine practice. She works with patients worldwide to heal the root cause of their health struggles through advanced diagnostic testing and personalized support. She has been seen on Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, in Reader's Digest health magazines, and many many more. She is particularly passionate about helping people and headaches and migraines increase energy and restore mental clarity without drugs or overwhelming protocols with her proven eat method. That's e period, a period T method. And for all the listeners of the healthy, wealthy and smart podcast, she has a free gift eight step guide to say goodbye to headaches naturally. Again, go to podcast at healthy, wealthy smart.com. And you can click on that and get her free guide. So a huge thanks to Dr. Meg mill. And if you are suffering from headaches or migraines or know someone who is please listen to this or refer them to this podcast episode. Thanks. Hi, Meg. Welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you on today to talk about headaches. So welcome. Thank you so much for having me. So headaches is something that affects millions of people every day. Sometimes it can be a little headache, or then you have people with more chronic headaches and migraines. So where did your interest start for treating people suffering from headaches. So I'm a functional medicine practitioner. And whenever I start working with people, they fill out a really detailed intake questionnaire and symptom questionnaire before we start working, just then we really review their whole health history. And what I started noticing as a pattern was that either people were coming to me suffering with these chronic headaches and migraines, or they were coming to me for other reasons. And when I'm going through their health history, and they're really going through these forms, I'm like, Oh, they're suffering from regular headaches. Oh, they're taking Advil once a week. Oh, that, you know, and, and normalizing and they didn't even even really realize like, Okay, I'm coming to you because I'm having this problem. It's just that that's been such a part of my life. I didn't even really think about it as a problem. And so I saw this happening, particularly with women, really in both directions, and then we would start working together and they would say, oh my god,   05:00 As my headaches are gone, I never believed this was possible, I didn't even think I couldn't, wouldn't have them. And I just kept seeing this over and over again. And I wanted to get the word out. You don't have to suffer with headaches and migraines, you actually it's actually your body giving you a message. And when we put all the connections together, we see this dramatic decrease in both incidence and severity. And, in your experience, what have you found as major contributing factors to people living with chronic headaches, so we want to look at, you know, there's there's two aspects of that. So we want to really put the connect the dots. So that's what I always say, we're trying to connect the dots, your head pain is giving you a signal. And so we're looking at connecting all those dots and you and really like digging, sort of down through the layers because it could be the top layer and we could fix it right away, we could just get you some supplements that give you the right nutrients, and it might go away, but like you may be layers down to all the connections that are going on. So you know, we want to make sure we have the right nutrients, we want to make sure that we're not eating foods that can be triggered. We want to make sure our hormones are balanced that our stress hormone, you know that our stress is managing our stress hormones, we want to look at our environment, even sometimes, like underlying gut issues are different things that are happening that are that can be causing like this inflammation and immune response to that can trigger headaches. Okay, so let's drill into a couple of those a little bit further. So you mentioned stress. Everybody has stress. Not everyone has headaches, thankfully. But how does stress contribute? And what advice do you have for people that maybe they can do right away? To help control their stress as it relates to their headaches? Because I hear it all the time. Oh, I've had it just when I'm really stressed. Yeah. So what happens what I call it the chain of pain, actually, because, you know, when we think of stress, we think of like, Oh, our to do list or you know, we're busy, we're in this fight or flight because we have so much going on. And stress can actually be physiological can be biological, there can be a lot of reasons that our body's responding to stress, and one of which is pain. So it's like this cycle, when you have pain, you can your cortisol can increase your stress hormone, which can actually increase another hormone called prostaglandins are called prolactin, excuse me. And then once prolactin is released, that can actually increase pain sensitivity. And so you can get stuck in this like pain causing stress causing pain. And we see this, the cycle happen a lot with people. And so we just need to do things, like you said, to get out of the chain of pain to really get your body to relax. So one of the things I think you could start doing right now is really just practicing breathing, because our breath can bring us back to the parasympathetic nervous system, we often breathe through our chest, we're breathing like high up in our body. But if you can take a couple minutes every day, it doesn't have to be anything drastic. But just like set a timer, you know, a lot of our watches even more, say, take a deep breath, you know, sit and take a minute or two out of your day and really practice that deep breathing, because we know that those deep breaths can bring us back into that parasympathetic nervous system. So that's just like a simple place to start. Yeah, so I think a lot of people, when they think of stress reduction, they think of mindfulness techniques and meditation. And they think, well, in order for that to be helpful, I have to do it for 20 minutes. And then I don't know, 20 minutes, and then they're stressed out because they don't have the 20 minutes in order to do that. And it keeps going and going. So I like the recommendation of hey, let's just take a couple of breaths. Keep it simple in the beginning. Exactly. I agree with you, because a lot of that feels like another stressor. So if I say to you, like we have to meditate, then you have to you know, and then it's like, Why can't meditate, my thoughts won't slow down. I don't have 40 minutes, I don't want to do so. So just if you can say like, Hey, I'm gonna do it, like we do anything else, put little chunks in your day, you can start to build and then if you practice that breath, when you are stressed, you can bring it in. It's very hard, when you don't aren't practiced that it to use it when you need it. And so that's I think, like building that muscle of being able to do it, get the practice and then being able to bring it back when you need it. Yeah, just like anything else. If you can practice something and build up like muscle memory, I use that in quotations   09:22 so that you can tap into that when you need it. I think is so important, rather than just maybe doing some breath work once a week, or once a month. Kind of when you think not even when you think about it, but maybe if someone mentions it to you then you're like oh yeah, I thought I was supposed to do that versus making something a habit right? Because habit building is something that human beings can do. We can do this. Yes, yeah. And you just put it in you just get it as a part of your habit and then you'll and then you'll really see the advantage when you're a   10:00 But when it is a habit, you're able to use lies it when you're in that stressful situation, because you can really actually feel your body calming down. If you're stressed and you think, like something happens, and you can get to that breath and really use it, it's actually just, you can physically feel the relaxation, we know physiologically that it does, you know that your breath really can bring you back into the parasympathetic nervous system, it's just a matter of being able to actually do it. Right. Okay, great. Now, another thing that you mentioned in all these contributing factors to headaches is your surroundings. So can you explain that a little bit more? Because I think a lot of people if I'm playing devil's advocate advocate, would say, Well, how can I change my surroundings like I live? Where I live? I do what I do, what are you talking about? So go ahead. Yeah, so we there's a, there's a couple of things whenever we talk about our surroundings, so we want to say like, actually, heavy metals can be a trigger for so if you have heavy metals in your body, sometimes even things like, like a lead could be in your bones from when you were younger, and sometimes as well, more women and we age, our bone density changes and actually can release toxins later in life that you may have absorbed when you were young. So it's just in some of those loads, or maybe not even what you're around right now. But we know some of the heavy metals, then we you know, mold can be another factor. So if you do live in a moldy house, we could look into that and see if you're surrounded, that's like also something if you see like, oh, I moved and my headaches started, after I moved or you know, at a certain location, some of those kinds of things, but then just also environmental. So when we look at our environment, sometimes people that have migraines, can have a genetic variant and this enzyme called Dao enzyme, and that's an enzyme that helps us break down histamine. So we want to think of that when we're eating foods that have histamine. But if you also have, you're also exposed to environmental allergens, you know, you're you're getting this allergic response, you know, this immune response. And so just actually also cleaning up your environment can make a big difference. We I one thing I would say is even if you're going to pick like something in your environment, you can't change where you live, obviously, you can, you know, clean up, but putting an air filter in your bedroom can be helpful. And you don't even have to go to the top of the line, you know, you can start out with something that you you know, find anywhere.   12:23 And just put it in your bedroom, because it's hard to get them in every room in the house. But we spend a lot of time sleep is so rejuvenating. And just if that's like one thing you can do, I think that is a help often for people just to add that. Yeah, and air I actually bought an air filter last year with the all concerns of like air quality and COVID and things like that. And so I have one and it wasn't very expensive. It's not like you said you don't have to go top of the line or anything you can get they have some really good basic ones that can fit the square footage of a bedroom really well. And I'm glad you say you know, even if you have an ingest your bedroom, that's good, because a lot of people might think well, what am I supposed to put one in every room in my house? It's gonna get really expensive. How am I going to do that? But now you're saying listen, at least have it in your bedroom where maybe you're sleeping and spending eight to maybe nine hours a day in that room? Yes, yeah. Cuz it is, it's hard to say like, Okay, I'm gonna put it everywhere. But you're, you know, you're gonna be there a ton of time, and it will be good while you're sleeping. It was funny, because when I was going to buy, like the first air filter that we bought in our house, my husband's like, we have a filter on our furnace. We don't need this. And I was like, you know, I just want to have it I you know, I think it's important. And then the first time we change that filter, he was like, Oh, it was shocking, because you think your air is being cleaned by your furnace. But when you really see those filters, and when you get their filter, there is a lot that's coming out. So yeah, yeah. And I I live in New York City. So if I just opened my window for half a day you're getting God only knows what blowing into the apartment. So yes, air filters very easy to do. What about you had mentioned mold? So there are obviously ways to clean mold. But let's say you're going to look at a house or an apartment or something like that. Can you ask about mold in the structure? Yes, they do. You can do mold testing. So that is something that you might want to look at because there can be black mold under things and so if you are looking for a new you know, a new home that is something related to take we you know, we check radon, we check different things, but are we actually checking mold and the you know, the people aren't I had a plumber come in one time that was like, I had a leak in my sink and I was saying like, is there mold is it and he was like, Oh, it's fine. That's not a problem. And I'm thinking yes, it is a problem. I actually know that it is. So I my point there is that you could have people just brushing it off that are saying like, Oh, that's not a big deal. Oh, we don't even need to look for that. But you know, that's always something that you can ask for it.   15:00 Yeah and you had mentioned that foods can also have an anti histamine effect is that right? What can you give some examples of foods one can eat like what would be considered a low histamine diet? So you want to be you want to avoid things like aged cheese's fermented foods sometimes shellfish even like avocado is a high histamine foods so you want to avoid foods that but I think if you try to you know stick the big classes would be like aged cheese's fermented you know, fermented foods have a lot of prebiotics in them so we're really hearing a lot about things like sauerkraut, kombucha things right are feeding our microbiome in a positive way and so you can hear that and you hear things about like avocados or healthy fats and all these things so that's what kind of gets tricky with with headache foods or migraine foods because they're often foods that maybe you're hearing are healthy for you but they're just not like they may be healthy in certain ways, but they can be potentially triggering your your headaches or migraines and you're not even knowing it. So we want to look at foods that are getting high in histamine. This is the one I mentioned. You also want to so some of the other categories of foods that we know are foods that have tyramine so think of like cured foods, aged foods, they're the foods that have nitrates. So you think of like hot dogs and foods like that. You also salicylates and that that can be like citrus foods. So things like lemons, sometimes oranges, those are, are ones that you wouldn't necessarily suspect. So then we have like MSG, aspartame, MSG would be like in canned foods, box foods, aspartame, diet, foods, and then even caffeine. So that's an interesting one, because caffeine can be helpful sometimes for people with headaches, but you can get rebound headaches, if you you know, are withdrawing from the caffeine to so so that so I'm gonna give you like their buckets. So like that those are foods we know actually have data, we know that those are they can cause the headaches and migraines. Now, it's not the same for each person. And there can be a threshold. So you may eat that food at one point. And like let's say you have a glass of wine and it has tyramine in it, and you're like, I hear this, like people say, well, sometimes wine, I'll get a migraine after but other times I can drink it. So it must not be the wine. Well, it might be the wine with some of that aged cheese that you had, or something else, that the combination of those two foods together was enough to like put you over that threshold to have the headache. So that's where it kind of gets confusing, I think because you you're it's harder to pinpoint your exact foods sometimes when you're trying to think about it, because you're not always getting the headache with that food. Right. And so that flows very well into my next question. And that's how do you know what, if any of this stuff is causing your headache, whether it be the food, you're eating your environment, your hormones? How do you know? Because that's a lot of buckets. Yes, right. Well, that's why when I work with people, I have like roadmaps. So no one you find a practitioner that you can that you trust that can give you a roadmap, but one of the things that because Because yeah, you get the guide to know like this, and this and this means this and that's very helpful. But one of the things you can start doing right now is printing out, I have people start by printing out a blank calendar, and write foods down like if you get a headache, or if you get a migraine. Wait, what you ate that day and the day before, and then just start to look for connections. So you know, start to look for like, okay, you know what, every time I get a headache, it's three days before I get my period, or every you know, like my migraine or every or it's mid month, maybe you're ovulating, you know, or I didn't sleep last night, but uh, you know what, I don't sleep. If I don't sleep, well, I get it, or I'm dehydrated or the ate these foods. So once you start to like, just you don't have to do it every day. But if you just do it when you're getting the headaches, it can start to show you patterns. Oh, that's a great idea. And then you can address them accordingly. Yes, right. Right. Right. Got it. Now, you had mentioned days before period ovulating. So obviously, advice for women who suffer from hormonal migraines. What do you got? Yeah. And that's one more thing I didn't have to worry about. Right? Yes. Yeah. So the two most common reasons that we get migraines associated with hormones are estrogen dominance, and rapidly changing hormones. And that's why with estrogen dominance, you often get it right before your period because estrogen and progesterone are both dropping, but sometimes then progesterone is lower than estrogen. We were having the dominance now. We really do. Test testing can be really helpful for this because if you have estrogen dominance, why, like do you have low progesterone or do you have I have estrogen or I see a lot of people that have normal estrogen, but maybe some of the metabolites that estrogen is going into are higher and they're not there. You want to look, we want to say use it or lose   20:00 that when we talk about estrogen, you want that to really be in your body, but you want it to be able to be metabolized and excreted. And if it's not being done that way, then you're getting the these higher levels of metabolites that actually have a little bit more proliferative effects sometimes, and we're getting these symptoms. So, you know, really one, if you can get the testing the right testing done, then, and you have to be careful, because if you just see the extra dial, like if you just get a blood draw, that's not really the whole picture. Because you're not seeing all like I said, all these metabolites in the way, you know, that might be okay, but the way they're processed, but you so if you're looking for something you insert, right now, you can look out, there's a lot of products in our life that have what we call Xeno estrogens. And so those are estrogens that are outside of our body, and things like BPA, so think of all the plastic containers in your kitchen, have BPA in them. And what we do is we eat out of those, but we also often we'll put those in the dishwasher, sometimes we'll microwave them. And when that happens, they're also like decomposing, you know, they're breaking down their structure and they can leach into the food. So then you're eating that food that sitting in that plastic that so we're getting some of these estrogen components outside of the body. So you know, just really taking a look at that. We look at that in you know, your skin is a giant mouth and skin products, hair products, all the things that we're using, so that's just a good place to start. And yeah, I actually have I can say I switched to glass for all of my food storage needs, or I'll just put it in like a regular bowl and just cover it with which is probably not good. But I cover it with   21:41 with aluminum foil. Okay, I don't think that's good. Well, that's not touching. Yeah, you don't want to high levels of aluminum either. But yeah, you know, might not be touching the food. No, no, no, no. Yeah. No, usually it's like in the bowl like, yeah, yes, for the most part, I decided last year, I'm like, I feel like I should switch to glass. You know, storage instead of using like the Tupperware or Tupperware like storage. So I guess that's good.   22:11 And when you're looking at things like what you're putting in your hair on your face, are there things that are you're like, do not buy this product, if it has this ingredient in it, or is that a little too broad. So what I would suggest that you do is actually go to ewg.org Skin Deep website, so they rate all products. And so you can actually tell you just tight, it's really easy. Just type in what you have. And you'll see a rating. So you'll say like, Okay, if it's a one or two, you're you're feeling comfortable. If your products and eight or nine, then you know, replace that product, it would be a good idea to really try to, you know, try something else. And I tell people to like, for cost purposes, if you just replace one product at a time, it really doesn't, you know, it add up so much. So yes, if we're going to say I need to go get all new makeup, that's going to be expensive. But if you're like, Oh, my foundation ran out, let me think of what you know, let me really think about that. Be mindful of what foundation I buy, or, you know, the next time your shampoo runs out, you do the same thing, you're spreading that cost out. And then you're just replacing one thing at a time. And it's just lowering your overall toxic burden. It's lowering those, you know estrogens that are coming in. Another thing I guess with that is also like looking at beef and dairy because we're you know, the animals are often given hormones. And then when we eat them, we're also getting that, so really paying attention to those those foods to to make sure you're not getting any extra hormones. Got it? And can you say that website one more time? Well, yes, sure. It's Ew, g.org. And then in that that's Environmental Working Group. And within that there is a section that specifically for products and it's called skin deep. And they have a whole bunch of products. They have sunscreens and makeups, and you know, shampoos and all sorts of different things. So it's just a nice resource, because I think it's just nice to be able to, you know, you look at the back of the shampoo bottle, and you're like, what does all of this mean? So it's sometimes hard to figure out on your own, but it's just nice to be able to put that product in and you know, put it in and then find a ratings like gives you like a little bit of a clear guide. Yeah, no, this is great. I mean, all your tips are amazing. So hopefully people if you are someone that suffers from headaches or know someone who suffers from headaches, then definitely get them over to this podcast so they can listen to all these great tips on how to not suffer as much because I know headaches can be just absolutely debilitating. I have several friends who've had you know, a history of a long history of migraines. And I'm lucky to be a person that doesn't really get that many headaches.   24:54 But now when I do I'm going to kind of be thinking about you you're going to be in the back   25:00 Could my head I'm going to be thinking about all these tips and seeing what I can do to help mitigate the headache when and if I get them. So thank you so much. And now, how, you know, you had mentioned that you're a functional medicine practitioner. So how does a functional medicine practitioner differ from   25:19 a medical doctor when it comes to the treatment of headaches? Like what do you guys do differently? Yeah, so I'd like to actually take use an analogy for this, because it kind of points out the way we're treating headaches in the conventional space. So if you took your, if you took your car to a mechanic, and you said, it's making noise, and the mechanic walked away in it, they walked away with your keys, and they came back and handed you a pair of ear muffs and your keys back and said it's fixed. Would you be comfortable driving your car? And we wouldn't, we'd say like, No way, it's so broken. And that's kind of what's happening a lot of times in the way that headaches and migraines are being treated. Conventionally we're giving, we're given medicine to cover the pain. So you're treating your pain, but your headaches are still coming back. And we see that happen all the time. You know, people are saying, Okay, well, I take this for my pain, but that they're never going away. They're just being covered up. So what we do in functional medicine is we flip it around, I say, like we do it actually the opposite. And we're really putting all the connections together, outside, sometimes even of your head, and putting everything else that's going on in your body together and really kind of diving into why you're getting a headache. So it's not as much about the pain treatment, which we do still want, you know, we still want to treat the pain, obviously, because we don't want you to experience that. But we want that my goal is for you to get the incidence and severity down because I want you to not have them so that you're not having to take the medication. Right, that makes sense. And   26:52 I think I like how you said you want the incidence and severity to go down because sometimes it may not be complete elimination for the rest of your life, like people may have flare ups, I work with a lot of people with chronic pain. And oftentimes, you know, they may have chronic low back pain, we've gotten them to the point where that back pain is no longer burden burdensome, but you know, every once in a while they may have little flare up. Right? So how do you explain that when you're speaking with your patients that like, hey, sometimes you may have a flare up, it doesn't mean that you know, all is lost. You need to give up what kind of what does that conversation look like for you? Yeah, so generally the people that finally get to me have had chronic you know, or severe headaches so they're just thrilled to not wake up like I you know, I get one of my favorite quotes is one of the people I work with when I patient said I just love the fact that I don't wake up wondering if it's going to be a headache day like she you know, she everyday was living her life like, is it going to you know, wait, I get you have that fear waking up like is today going to be a headache day, if I plan something? Am I going to be knocked out with a migraine? And so yes, I can't promise you that you'll never have another headache because I can get a headache. You know, because of you know, maybe I'm dehydrated. And I've slept weird on my neck and you know all these things. But I can't promise that but that's when we see this dramatic decrease in both incidence and severity that they're not really affecting your life that you're not taking medication, they no longer have to, you know, sometimes we were on prescription medication, Botox injections, all these you know, there's, there's a wide variety of things that peak cocktails that people were taking, and they're still coming. And so it's it's really saying you don't have and I think like deeper than that all these medications have side effects like we're getting they're not without consequence. They can, you know, have good purposes, but there's always the consequence. So you're still getting the headaches, you have the consequences. So we want to pull get you in a place where, okay, you're not relying on that. And you're you're not suffering from any side effects of having to take regular medications. Yeah, I think that's great. And the the biggest part there is like they feel like they're not suffering anymore. So you know, when people come in and you ask, Oh, what are your headaches or your pain on a scale of zero to 10? And people are saying it's a 20? It's because it's so they're suffering and it's affecting their life in so many different ways. And so if you can bring that down for them, I mean, that's a real blessing, I would think and they must be like, super excited about it. Now. Yeah, it's life changing. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, it's life changing. So now, what, what would you like the listeners to kind of step away with from this conversation? If you can distill it down into your main points? What would it be? Yeah, I just like them to know that one. You know that if you are someone who has, I think people feel that they've had these headaches for you know, a lot of times people had them since childhood even. And so you feel like well, I've always had this. This is something that I'm not going to change. I'm managing it. It's   30:00 You know, but it's, it's just who I am, I see those people be able to make that change and not have them, you know, so I think or if there's something that you're dealing with all the time. So I just think knowing that there is hope that you don't have to live this way that if you just maybe take a new perspective, I think we can get stuck in that same pattern of like, oh, this is just what I do, oh, this is how I treat it. But I, I think if you can be open to a different perspective, then you there is hope to really make a change in your life. And then I also would say, you're just really maybe dialing in and listening to your body and listening, you know, if you can be more in touch with, like, what food you're eating, if you're dehydrated, if you're not sleeping, if you're you know all those things that we talked about, and like really just kind of put a mirror up and see like, where are you on some of those spectrums? Excellent advice. Now, where can people find you? If they have questions they want to consult, they're having headaches, they they need you? Where can they find you? Yes. So my website is Meg mil.com. So that's just my name M eg mi LL. And then I have a podcast called a little bit healthier. So I'm talking about headaches and migraines, but all different ways you can add be a little bit healthier in your life. And then I'm over on Instagram, and Facebook at Dr. Meg mill, just Dr. Meg mill. Perfect, perfect. And now, last question. It's one I ask everyone. And that's knowing where you are now in your life in your career, what advice would you give to your younger self?   31:33 Oh, that's a good one.   31:38 I just think that, you know, so I started out on the conventional side of medicine. So I guess I felt like, Okay, this is the this is the way to go, although I always was into more prevention than treatment. And so I, I think my path is different, it's veered a lot. So I think maybe in some of those times that I was really frustrated with the system and the way things were going even though I knew all the protocols, I knew why it was happening, that that I was that I wouldn't be able to find another way. So I would have to say that's probably the advice that just be open, you never know what road it's gonna take. And I did think of one more thing, I have a freak, I forgot to tell tell, say this, when you asked me Yes, I do have a free guide that you can go to just called help my headaches.com. So if you're looking for some steps to get started, you can look at that guide to I should have mentioned that earlier. No, that's perfect. And we'll have links to everything. We'll have links to your website, your social media, and help my headaches.com so people can go on and get this free resource to help their headaches, which would be wonderful, because man, I   32:46 I always, I feel I have so much empathy for people who suffer from headaches, because I think I had like maybe two or three in my life. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is how do people live this way. So I have a lot of empathy. And I have a lot of gratitude for people like you who have chosen to really work with this population, because it's vast, and they need the help. So well done on you.   33:08 Yeah, and again, what's the name of your podcast again, it's called a little bit healthier. So it's just about taking tips too, that you can do every day in your life to be a little bit healthier. Love it. Excellent. Well, thank you so much, Meg, for coming on and sharing all of this great info so many good tips. I was like looking down and taking notes and I'm definitely going to that website and I'm going to put in all of my skincare and   33:34 hair products to see what I have going on and and then I'll take some deep breaths so then I won't get stressed out about it. But thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was great. Thank you for having me. And everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.   33:57 Thanks for listening. And don't forget to leave us your questions and comments at podcast dot healthy, wealthy smart.com  

In this episode, Founder of MasterTalk, Brenden Kumarasamy, talks about public speaking. Today, Brenden talks about becoming an exceptional communicator, online versus in-person presentations, group presentations, and presenting as an introvert. How do we get better at communicating? Hear about Brenden’s random word exercise, answering questions proactively, and building the jigsaw puzzle of a presentation, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “If you can make sense out of nonsense, you can make sense out of anything.” “The best way to get rid of fear is to have direction.” “You’re only as strong as your weakest link in group presentations.” “When you are not speaking, you are still speaking.” “Someone out there needs your message, and you’ve just got to go out there and share it and leverage your strengths in the process.” “The goal is not to live forever but rather create something that will.” “When we realize that communication is about leading a more fulfilling life, we’ll start to take it more seriously.” “Ask yourself one hard question about life every single day, and you’ll never be the same ever again.”   More about Brenden Kumarasamy Brenden is the founder of MasterTalk, a coaching business he started to help ambitious executives & business owners become TOP 1% communicators in their industries so that they can accelerate their success in the workplace & companies. He also hosts a successful YouTube channel by the same name with over 25,000 subscribers. Brenden has coached many executives from companies like Salesforce, Amazon, IBM, Morgan Stanley, Blue Cross, J. Walter Thompson, Deloitte, Verizon, and many more.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Communication, Public Speaking, Presentations, Fear, MasterTalk,   Recommended Reading: Thirst, by Scott Harrison.   To learn more, follow Brenden at: Website:          https://rockstarcommunicator.com. YouTube:        MasterTalks. LinkedIn:         Brenden Kumarasamy.   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript Here:  00:05 Welcome to the healthy, wealthy and smart podcast where healthcare meets business with your host me, Dr. Karen Litzy. And just as a reminder, the information in this podcast is for entertainment purposes only, and is not to be used as personalized medical advice. Enjoy the show.   00:28 Hello, welcome back to the podcast. I am your host, Dr. Karen Litzy. And in today's podcast, we're talking all about how vital it is to be a good communicator to be a good public speaker, especially for healthcare professionals. So I have a great guest to walk us through all of that and he is Brendon kumara Asami Brendon is the founder of master talk a coaching business, he started to help ambitious executives and business owners become top 1% communicators in their industries so that they can accelerate their success in the workplace in companies. He also hosts a successful YouTube channel by the same name master talk. With over 25,000 subscribers. Brendan has coached many executives from companies like Salesforce, Amazon, IBM, Morgan, Stanley, Blue Cross, J, Walter Thompson, Deloitte, Verizon, and many more. So like I said, today we're talking about public speaking, how becoming how to become an exceptional communicator, how to give great presentations, whether they're online or group and presenting as an introvert. So it's all about getting better at communicating. Brendon has some great tips and tricks, some homework for us all to do so that we can become better communicators, presenters and public speakers. So big thanks to Brendan, and everyone enjoyed today's episode. Hey, Brendan, welcome to the podcast. I'm excited to have you on it to talk about public speaking. So thank you so much for joining me, Karen. The pleasures absolutely mind. Thanks for having me. All right. So public speaking. As you know, sometimes it can be people's number one fear in life getting in front of a group of people in the I'm a physical therapist in the physical therapy world.   02:10 Public speaking is something that can really help move the needle on your career. Yet, so many people are afraid to do it afraid to apply afraid to get up there, that sometimes they just never do it. So before we get into a lot of things in this interview, because I have so many things that I want to ask you, from what you've seen, and in your experience, what are the biggest challenges people have with public speaking? You know, a lot of people, Karen, they think it's fear. But there's actually a challenge, even greater that fear, surprisingly. And the challenge is motivation. Because if we aren't motivated to actually work on our communication, if we don't have an intrinsic reason, we'll never push through the fear. Because the fear will always exist in some way, shape, or form. Even for me, even for the person on the podcast. Why? Because of me, and you are having lunch and Elon Musk calls me and he says, Hey, man, I really liked your YouTube channel. Can you come and coach and I'll pay you a million bucks? Would I be scared? Yeah, it's Elon Musk. But with motivation. The reason this is so powerful is from this question that I'm sure a lot of physicians a lot of healthcare pros don't really think about, which is how would your life change? If you became an exceptional communicator, we dream about becoming a doctor, we dream about finishing finishing med school, we dream about expensive vacations, things we want to buy experiences we want to go on. When was the last time we dreamed about a life in which we're a better communicator in it? And if we don't want to make it about us, I'll throw another one out to you. How would the lives of your patients change? If you became an exceptional communicator? We know in health care patient experience is so important how we make them feel. So if we're not going to do it for us, we might as well start by doing it for them. Yeah, I think that's a great way to to kind of turn that narrative around to take it off of ourselves and say, Well, wait a second, if I were better at communication, because it's communication in front of 100 or communication front of one, it's still being able to communicate effectively, right?   04:19 Absolutely. Yeah. So how do we get better? Right? So there's a couple of things on Oh, go ahead, John, jump in. Oh, you're good. So so a couple of things that are current communication. The reason why a lot of us don't work on it is because we don't know the strategy behind that example. Communication is like juggling 18 balls at the same time. One of those balls is body language. Another one is storytelling. Another one's eye contact, facial expression, smiling and the list goes on. So if we try and juggle all 18, all of them will naturally fall to the floor. So instead, what are the three easiest balls that we can juggle in the air to get started with this practice?   05:00 What I call my easy threes. So start number one, I'll pause after each one. So I don't monologue for 15 minutes. So the first one is the random word exercise, pick a random word like tea like trophy, like Master, like paper towels, and create random presentations out of thin air. Why is this exercise effective, because it helps us quickly think in our feet, I always tell people that if you can make sense out of nonsense, you could make sense out of anything. And it's also really easy to do. Because all of us listening to this podcast, I hope showers every day. So you got 10 minutes in the shower to do this exercise. Or if you have kids, you could do it when you're picking them up from school. So by random word exercise, you mean like, if I were to say a microphone, and I'm doing a presentation on a microphone, I'm trying to sell a microphone. What does that mean? Does that work? Absolutely. So to your point, let's demonstrate this throw any word at me. But don't use microphone because it's too easy, because I have time to think about it. Right? Right. How about polar bear? Awesome. So Karen did not give me the word polar bear proaches. Conversely, I just need to invent something that it didn't want to do. Right now. When I think of the polar bear, I think of many things. The first one is the cold temperature in the North Pole.   06:20 But minus just how aggressively killer these polar bears can be. There's also a bright side, kind of like how polar bears are the main attraction to the Coca Cola brand, or I'll pull up yours kind of reminds us of Christmas and of Santa Claus and of the holiday season. But the reason I bring up the polar bear is that the polar bear has both an aggression. That's a bit crazy, but also a soft nature to them when you look at them from afar anyways. And I think life in many ways is that way too, especially when it comes to our dreams. A lot of us from the outside, it's the opposite. We think it's really, really scary. But then when we get closer towards it, that's actually not that bad. Kind of like a polar bear from 10 or a long feet away. So what's the advice or the advice here is   07:18 follow your dreams. Because all it takes is a little polar bear. All it takes is a little bit of ambition for you to say, You know what, even if that polar bear might be scary. Let's just see what happens. And that's just the random word. It's just just something random. That's it. That's crazy. Yeah, well done. You well done and people like I literally did not give him that word ahead of time. So that was just speaking off the top you have kind of like improv improvisation. Yeah, which I took improv classes a couple of years ago to help with the podcast. But what I found is it really helped with my patient interaction. So tying back to what you said before I became a better communicator with my patients as well. Okay, so number one random word exercise, improving sort of riffing on things. What's number two? Absolutely. So number two is questioned drills. We get asked questions all the time in our life care,   08:16 on podcasts, on shows, at school at work and med school, we're always getting asked questions, and most of us are reactive to them, especially for patients. We wait for the question to come. And then we go oh, let me answer that one.   08:32 In the same way, but a few years ago, when I started guesting on podcast, I sucked. I remember one question somebody asked, he said, Where does the fear of communication come from? And I looked at the guy and I said, I don't know man of San Diego, London, it's you tell me like I didn't know how to answer it. So I was being very reactive, instead of proactive. So what did I do differently? Every single day, Karen, for just five minutes. That's all answer one question that you think the world will ask you. But if you do this for five minutes a day, let's say we take a list of your commonly asked questions by patients. If you just do that once a day, let's say day one is where does your communication come from? Day two is when will I hear back? You know, day three is Will everything be okay? You know, just just make a list. And if you do this once a day for a year, Karen, you'll have answered 365 questions about your industry, you'll be absolutely bulletproof.   09:32 I like that. I like that a lot.   09:35 That's so interesting. I never really thought about doing that. And as you were speaking, I was like, what are the common questions that physical therapists get asked? So now I'm gonna have to do a think on it, and maybe write down seven. So you got a week's worth. And then, as you're kind of answering those questions, I'm sure other ones will start to pop up. So I don't want people to think   10:00 Oh, you have to write out 365 questions right off the bat, right? Correct. I'm glad you jumped into the news. Let me even help help the audience even a bit more, because I'm glad you went there. Don't do this alone. I just said that because I want people to take action. So what's the easiest version, but there's others. But then people will make excuses. But I'm happy to give it for your audience here. Because you're all medical professionals, sure, you'll take action. So what does this mean? You know, there's other people, you got friends who are in physio. So what I would do the smart way of doing this exercise, whether you're the CEO of let's say, the Office of the clinic, or you got friends in that field, I would book a call with like, seven other people. And I've seven other people bring seven questions. So then you have 49 questions. And you're what's great about this process, is we're not competing against each other. If I don't know the answer to the question, I'll just ask you, Hey, Karen, I don't know what to do. How would you answer this question? And then you tell me and I go, Oh, let me just copy that with my patients.   10:54 Because the questions are the same. But the point is just to do the exercise, there's different ways of doing this. The easy one is just a load in your basement. And if no friends, you know, write it out every day. But to your point, yes, I'm sure you have colleagues in the medical profession that you could just do this with. Yeah, that makes it a lot easier takes us takes the pressure off, because I'm sure you've heard this before. Like, if you're under 65 questions, forget it. It's too much. I'm not gonna do it. Right. Absolutely. So to kind of have have some pals help you out will make a big difference. Alright, random word exercise question drills. What's number three? Absolutely. So number three is so simple. That nobody does it. Make a list of the five people you love the most in your life could be your mom, your sister, your brother, family members could even be patients. And ask yourself a simple question. When was the last time you sent them? Not a 20 minute, but a 22nd video message, just to tell them how much you appreciate having them in your life, the people who helped you through medical school, the people who really believed in you, the teachers, the mentors, the people supported you. video messages, make people's days, Karen, but more importantly, video messages teach us a very important lesson that the education system does not teach us. The education system teaches us, Karen, that communication is a chore. Oh my god, I have to get better at this thing. Because I have to do well. And then it's so much stress and anxiety. Versus when you start sending video messages and you wake up the next morning, you're shocked at the responses you get. A lot of people look at you look at the text and you say whoa, everyone's saying it made their day it made their their week feel really special enough. Some people never got a video message in their life. And it helps us relearn what communication is for, which is to create an impact to share an idea with the world. Going back to the fears we alluded to earlier. Right? I don't want to share my message I don't want but what happens if you don't?   12:47 Well, if you don't, you won't be able to serve as a role model for the people who are going through medical school right now, and are looking up to you. Don't worry about the millions of people in the world. Just worry about the people behind you, or rather, before you I think is the right way of putting it. Yeah, yeah. All right. So three really great sort of drills or strategy that we can use at home either on our own or with some pals to help us find that motivation for public speaking. Right. So let's say we've, we're motivated, now we want to do it. We're we've got a conference coming up. And what happens next, right? We know our stuff, we're good, but you're still it's still in there. You get up to the mic, and you're like   13:47 so what do we do that? Sir, sir? So so a couple of things before that moment arrives, hopefully people get to this episode of time, which I hope I would say the next piece. So now you're doing these drills, you're really building up your momentum, your skill set. What's what's my go to strategy for keynote prep? I call this the jigsaw puzzle method. Communication is like jigsaw puzzle security, you know, those pieces, you know, little things used to do as kids those toys, right? So whenever we're doing this jigsaw puzzle, we always want to start with the corner pieces. And the reason is because they're easier to find at the box. So if you open a jigsaw puzzle, you get these corner pieces, you put them all together, and then you're working into the middle. Now you're probably wondering, Brendan, why are you talking about jigsaw puzzles? And the reason is super simple care. The reason I talk about jigsaw puzzles is because in communication, most of us do the opposite. We start with the middle first, we shove a bunch of content or presentations. We get to the podium, and we ramble throughout the whole thing. And then the last slide sounds something like this.   14:56 Thanks, not the right approach. So what should we do instead?   15:00 To prepare presentations like a jigsaw puzzle, start with the edges first, practice just your introduction here. 50 times 50 Seems like a big number, but it really is it because your introduction is 60 to 90 seconds. So we're talking like an hour's worth of work. Same thing with the conclusion, what's a great movie with a terrible ending, terrible movie last time I checked. So same thing with the close, do it 50 times, once again, it'll take you another hour, then focus on the middle. If you do that, especially in this industry that we're talking to right now, most people don't bother prime, I've coached a lot of the the people in this industry, most people don't even spend a lot of time and effort doing the communication. So if you just spend those puzzles, and you just practice in that way, you'll blow everyone's minds.   15:50 That makes a lot of sense. I was just   15:54 a way at a at a physical therapy conference. And I did have to do an opening of the conference with another physiotherapist. And what we really did do a lot is we practiced that first slide that opening to make sure that we're grabbing people's attention. And then like you said, we actually did sort of finish with, again, another slide that grabbed people's attention and left people feeling really good about it. And we didn't do it intentionally. Mind you, we just kind of it just sort of happened, you know. But now I like that working on the edges. It's like when you're doing your you write the outline, and then you just start filling it in.   16:51 But I really like the beginning in the end, because it's true, you always remember sort of that last image, that last slide, whether it's a presentation, or even, you know, a TED talk or Keynote, you kind of always remember the end and kind of how that made you feel. So I think that's really great advice. I really liked that. What else? Is there anything else we need to? I mean, I'm sure there's a million things that we need to think about, although the podcast is not 10 hours long. But what are some other kind of big things that we should remember when it comes to the presentation itself? While we're in those prep stages? Absolutely, Karen. So I would say for the for the prep. What's nice about doing the beginning the end is because it builds momentum really quickly, especially in the industry. Right now we're in healthcare, where a lot of us, you know, we're dealing with a ton of patients, we're working long hours, we don't have as many hours as other industries to actually invest in our communication. So I'll give you an example. So people understand the comparison. Let's say you have three hours to practice a presentation, that's 30 minutes, what most people in any field will do is they'll practice a 30 or 30 minute talk three times in a row, they'll get tired, and then they'll eat lunch. That's generally what happens. But the problem is, is in those three practices, they don't really see that much growth. Because it's a big presentation, it's hard to keep improving upon. Versus if you take that seemed three hours, and you just spend the same the first two, the first hour doing just the intro and the second hour just doing the conclusion, you're going to go to lunch really happy, you say, Wow, I just delivered the best introduction of my life, the best conclusion of my life. Now I'm just going to spend the next hour to your point filling out the dots connecting the rest. So that's the reason strategically, why that works more sense, it's a better investment of time, in terms of the other points. Now we're going into the bonus round. So the bonus round is this. Every great presentation, Karen generally has one key idea, what do you want them to remember, I'll give you an example from one of my clients. What she is trying to do is the draw the relationship between empathy and patient care experience. That's what our presentations, but if she tries to talk about 10 Other things for a TED talk, it's not going to work, because she only has 15 minutes to talk. So every story, every analogy, every tool, every statistic is really revolving around the idea that we need to bring more empathy into not just the patient care experience, but towards other functions within the hospital, whether it's the support teams, the it the ops, so that the patient care experience is 360 Not just one ad, right. That's our whole key idea. But notice how clear that is. But if we try and do 10 different things, we go nowhere. So what's the advice, the advice is to bullet down 10 different key ideas on a list, and then look at that list with your friends if you have any ideally, and then look at that list and saying hmm, out of these 10 ideas, which one energetically excites me the most. Which one energetically gets me wow, like this is the one that I really want to land and the frame number two   20:00 Getting a little bit more advanced. But the frame around this is just asking ourselves this question. What is the one key idea out of this long list that I just wrote that I feel no one else is talking about the conference? No one else is emphasizing. No one else is really drawing a point around in the same way. We talked about Ajay, right, where she focused on the other areas of the hospital, not just doctors. That's her key idea. What's yours? So that's the other piece. And then the last piece to presentation prep, is the willingness to experiment like a painter, like an artist, like a mad scientist. What does that mean? That means try a bunch of tools, try a personal story. Try an anecdote, try statistic. And the only question you ask yourself, is this one, and I'll throw it back to you? Does this defend my key idea? Does this personal story does the statistic does this anecdote, defend my key idea? Yes or No? Try a bunch of things. And then you'll figure out the ones that make the most sense. That's what goes into the final deck. Yeah, that's great. I love that advice. I'm taking copious notes here. Because I like the way you're kind of laying it out for people. And I think that it's simple, it's easy to follow. Most people love a template, they love kind of instructions, right? I'm sure you get that all the time. Like, just give me instructions on how to do X, Y, and Z. And then I'll do it. And then when you feel at least, I'm going to say this personally, when I feel better prepared going into a talk, it's a better talk, I'm a little more relaxed, I can kind of go with the flow. If there's a complication or a tech issue, it doesn't completely throw you off your game. So I think, to your point by being prepared and prepping adequately, I think that can help take away some of the fear.   21:58 I completely agree. You know, what I always say is that the best way to get rid of fear is to have direction. If you're focused on direction of where you're going, and you're not thinking about the future thinking, Oh, I should probably do the branch board exercise tomorrow. I should probably do some question drills, I probably should get some buddies together. On and so on, so forth. Yeah. Now, switching gears slightly, but   22:21 we're still you know, in these COVID times, everybody's on Zoom. There's many, many, many zoom conferences. So does your advice change when it comes to an online presentation versus an in person presentation? And can you compare and contrast those for us? Absolutely happy to Karen. So the advice does stay the same. But there are three ads that are that I'll jump on that I'll let her on top for online. So the first one is eye contact. So when you're in an in person setting, Karen, do you want to move your head based on who's in the crowd to maintain eye contact with them? What's nice about online is whether you're speaking to one or 10,000 people, you only have to look in one area, which is the camera lens. That's it, you just gotta look in one direction, which is nice. So that's one. The second one and this is the most important, I would argue is energy. Look at the end of the day, Karen, it's easier to shove with energy when you're in person, because the accountability is higher, you'll take a shower, you'll wake up earlier, because you actually have to talk to people, you have to shake their hand, you have to hug them, depending on what your preference is. When you're online, you go like well, I mean, I guess they put my PJs on, no one's gonna know. So it's, it's that it's just that piece. It's impossible, in my opinion, to have that same level of standard as we do online than offline. So what's the advice, the advice is bring more energy in person, get really good in person and bring as much of that as possible, online. That's the advice. And then finally, number three, is accessibility a lot easier to get feedback from your audience when you're in person, because there's no friction, you just go up to them say what's up, you want to get lunch. And that's it. Simple, online. Not as easy, not as easy to build relationships with event planners and things like that organizers. So in that situation, you got to force those relationships, caring that means you got to get on calls with people you get on feedback calls with the organizers who brought you there to make sure you keep that relationship alive. You're getting the feedback you need, but you're also closing more speaking gigs through those relationships.   24:31 You're muted, by the way   24:33 I was gonna say it's all about the follow up.   24:37 And when your online follow up, can seem a little bit harder.   24:44 So follow up people email, text, voice message, DM however, whatever you need to do, but follow up. That's something that I admit I was not great at up until a couple of years ago was that follow up?   25:00 and it makes a huge difference. And it's it takes, I don't know, two seconds of your time to send an email to follow up, right? It's not that invasive to your time. No, yeah. So follow up, follow up, follow up. Okay.   25:16 One more question around the presentation and presentations is, oftentimes I see this a lot at in physical therapy conferences, or sports medicine conferences is, oftentimes you're presenting as part of a group. So there may be, you know, anywhere, maybe two people up to four people in a symposium or within a presentation. So what can you do to prepare for that, and present and stand out within this group presentation? Absolutely. So let me ask a clarification. Question, Karen on this. So when you've been stand out, because usually, and because that's why I want your feedback on this. A lot of the times when I'm coaching people in this industry on group presentations, it's usually like a research study that they all did together. So is that the context you're coming in from as well? Or is there like a different context that I missed? You? Know, I think that's definitely part of it is it'll be a research study that a group of people did on their own, or it may be part of a symposium on knee pain. And they'll be three or four different people speaking on knee pain, perhaps presenting their own individual research, or sometimes it can be researched together. Hmm. Okay, interesting. So I'll go in the context of let's assume they're all on the same team, because the other piece is more like you want to stand up for everyone else, which goes back to the individual tips, right, just just when, then then just do the rest of our exercise and just get the get the recognition. But in terms of the group, there's a couple of nuances be control. So thanks for that, Karen. The first difference is realize that if you're listening to this podcast, you are automatically the leader of the team. And the reason is because you have the most information, unless you're sending this podcast, which I encourage you to do as well, right to your to your fellow teammates in this group. Because you're the person with the most information, I encourage you to take leadership and understand the strengths and weaknesses of everyone on your team. Why? Because you're only as strong as your weakest link in group presentations. That would be my first advice. Take leadership, take all the hardest parts on make your teammates life as easy as possible. That's tip one. Tip number two, realize that when you are not speaking, you're still speaking. What do I mean by this? Let's say me and Karen are on the same team. We're both presenting this amazing research Bravo, she she did all the work, because what do I know about the medical industry? And she's presenting. And as she's presenting, I'm looking in the sky, and I'm thinking, Ah, what's for lunch? Even if I'm not talking? I'm telling my audience something, Karen, what I'm telling them is, by the way, guys, I spent six months researching this with Karen. And I don't care what she says. So you shouldn't either. And that's the message we're sending people. So what's the point? The point is you got to speak even when you're not speaking, which means when Karen's talking bread's looking at her and going, Wow, nodding his head, wow, when she says something great, you nod your head. So do the same thing with your teens be sure you're paying attention to the people that are speaking. That's number two. Number three is have a solid system for q&a, especially in the context of research. Why? Because generally in those presentation, not always it depends on the format. But usually, you will get specific nuanced questions about the research, the thesis, the sample size, what you did, you gotta be strong. Because if you miss those questions, or worse, you contradict each other, your whole presentation sinks. And that's what a lot of people don't get. So I actually have a system on this, but that nobody the medical industry uses that people, you could be the first one who is I call it q&a Master. So q&a Masters is a technique I learned from a team in Sweden, that I thought was really fascinating. So what they did is that the best person who answers questions became the master. And then based on the questions they got from the research teams, or the people in the room, or judges, what that Master would do is he would filter or she would filter all the questions, turn to the research team, and see who has their hands in front of their body. So everyone has their hands in front of their body wants to answer the question. And whoever doesn't want to answer the question has their hands behind their body. It's super nuanced, nobody would actually notice it. And all the Master does is that he looks really quickly or she looks really quickly and picks out the people. So he evenly distributes the question. So there's no stress because he knows who the expert is. And if nobody has their hands up, he just answers the question because he's the best at q&a. That's it q&a Master. I love it. That is such an easy and like you said nuanced way so the audience isn't really picking up on that and it makes your q&a flow so much   30:00 To easier, correct? Oh, that is such a good idea. I love that one. All right, if I, the next time I am in a group presentation, I will definitely bring that up. I love it. Okay. So   30:14 when,   30:16 when we're,   30:19 when we're presenting and we're up on stage, people often think, well, of course, they're up on stage because they're such a people person. They're the extrovert of the group there. You know, of course, only extroverts get up on stage, which we know is not true. So what advice do you have for those folks who might be a little more introverted or shy? And to get up there and do their thing? Absolutely. I mean, let me start with this, Karen, I had no business getting up on any stage. You know, I was 22. When I started master talk, my average client is 20 years older than me, I have a bachelor's degree in accounting. I spoke my whole life and a second language, and I have a crooked left arm because of a surgery head when I was younger, who in the world am I to share ideas on communication and public's view of the world? So the better question now becomes, why did I press record? Why did I do it? I had every excuse not. I did it for the 15 year old girl who couldn't afford me. I never did it for my executives. I just said, Hey, wait a second, like people are like 12 years old? Like who are they going to relate to with their communication, not some six year old white guy who's retiring, and what's seven PhDs and comms, she's going to relate to me. And I'm the only person who can share these videos, I have the expertise because I've been doing it for so long, even if I'm 26 have been doing for seven years. Nobody has that kind of resume. So I said it's either I do these videos, or nobody does. So think about that message in the context of what you want to share with the world. So if you're a little bit more shy or introverted, that generally means a few things. And let's focus on the positive three things specifically wonder a better listener. Okay, extroverts like me, are terrible listeners. That's why we make great guests on podcasts. Yep. All the time. Right. When you're an introvert, you listen more because you speak less. So it's easier for you to be empathetic, not just to the patients you serve in your day to day work, but also empathetic to your audience. You know what's going to land because you're asking them powerful questions, you're listening to them. That's one, two, you're better off Pausing. Pausing is the most important tool in communication, because that allows us to draw emphasis with our key ideas. Extroverts suck at pausing, because we hate space for at a party or at a bar, and we're just staring at somebody and there's no conversation. We start to get really anxious, and we've got us caregiver color. As a freak out. Resident introvert never has that problem, Karen, because they're just comfortable silence don't talk about much anyways. So pausing is really easy for them. And then the last piece is accessibility. Introverts are actually a lot more accessible to share their ideas than extroverts are. Example. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia, massive social media following. I'm a big fan personally, but you either like the guy or you don't you either like he's really, really loud approach or you go get this guy away from me. Nobody says that about Brene. Brown, Karen. Nobody says I hate Brene. Brown. So what's the message? The message is someone out there needs your message. And you just got to go out there and share it and leverage your strengths in the process. Oh, great advice for all of those introverts out there. Or even you're sort of somewhere in between that introvert and extrovert, right? I think it what is it an entre entrepreneur, entrepreneur?   33:40 Entrepreneur, no one ever heard, and pervert, right? Right, right. No, I was gonna say an entrepreneur. And then I'm like, No, that's not right. Yes. So great advice. Now, you had mentioned master talk a couple of times. So can you talk a little bit more about that? Yeah, for sure. Karen. So master was just a fluke, you know, after university ended for me, I had no plans of being an entrepreneur, like a content creator. Similar to a lot of the questions you would ask around introverts, I was just going to become an executive at IBM. That was my goal. So I went on to work there for a few years. But I realized that everything that I was sharing with the students back then wasn't available for free on the internet. So I started making YouTube videos on communication. And it just turned into something I never could have imagined, which today, of course, a coaching business and a media company for people can't afford a coach.   34:30 That's wonderful. I love that. You're, you're supplying people with really good, relevant content. That doesn't cost 10 grand to get it   34:43 out at all. Fabulous. Now, as we start to wrap things up here, I have a couple more questions for you. These will be easy. Number one, what are your top three books for public speaking or speaking in general, that you would wreck   35:00 have met, I'll recommend one because usually when you recommend three people don't buy all three. So I'll give one an unconventional one. Thirst by Scott Harrison. So that's thirst by Scott Harrison Scott Harrison is the CEO and founder of Charity Water. It's a nonprofit, he started to help people gain access to clean water. The reason I recommend Scott's work, Karen, is because the guy's a world class storyteller. I've never seen anyone like him where he would practically went from a nightclub promoter in New York City in his 20s, to building the largest water charity in America, he raised $100 million, just last year to find clean water projects. And he did it primarily through communication and storytelling. And there's a great quote in the book that I'd love to share. And the quote is simply this. The goal is not to live forever, but rather create something that will and that quote will always stick with me. Excellent, great. So that's thirst by Scott Harrison. And just so people know, we'll have a link to that in the show notes at the podcast website. All right. So what are you? What do you want people to take away from this conversation? I would say for me, Karen, it goes back to the question we alluded to a bit earlier in this conversation. How would your life change? Or rather, how would your patient's experience in life change if you became an exceptional communicator, I fundamentally believe that the biggest piece that's missing in this field is excitement and passion for pursuing communication. Communication is supposed to be fun, like everything we shared today, isn't like, Oh, my God, like you have to sit there and find your key idea. Like it's fun, do this with people around you get excited. Why? Because it matters. Because it's every moment of your life. It's not just about getting on the stage. It's not just about making your patients feel like they're the most important people in the world in that moment with you. It's every conversation you have with your family. It's the way that you talk to your children, your nieces, your nephews, it's the way that you're the foot at restaurant or when you make new friends. And when we realize that communication is about leading a more fulfilling life, we'll start to take it more seriously. Excellent, great takeaway for everyone listening. Thank you so much. Where can people find you? Absolutely can This is a great conversation. Thanks for having me. So two ways of keeping in touch one, the YouTube channel, just go to master talking one word, you'll have access to hundreds of free videos on how to communicate ideas effectively. And number two, I do a free workshop over zoom that's live and interactive. It's not some boring webinar. And I facilitate it. So if you want to jump in on one of those, all you have to do is register for free. At Rockstar, communicate tour.com. Perfect. So that's Rockstar, communicate tour o r.com. Perfect. And again, we'll have links to all of this at the podcast website, podcast at healthy, wealthy smart.com. One click will get you to Brendan and all of these amazing resources. So last question, knowing where you are now in your life and in your career. What would what advice would you give to your younger self? My advice, Karen would be asked yourself one hard question about life every single day. And you'll never be the same ever again. That's the biggest thing. I'll give you three to not make your audience too crazy here. One, if you had all the money in the world, how would you spend your time? You know, a lot of us are always optimizing for the magical number 65. But if I made you an instant billionaire, what would you do with your time now? That's one, two, if you could only accomplish three things in your life and only three? What would you accomplish and why this helps you focus because time is limited time is the essence that we're all trying to optimize again. So use it effectively. And number three, what's a goal or a dream that you secretly gave up on? And never told anyone about? I'd encourage you to answer that question because it might lead to a dream that you should be pursuing in your life. Wow, great advice. And I think that's a first I've never heard that for a piece of advice and I asked all my all my guests this that's the first time I've gotten that piece of advice. So you are certainly a first on the podcast and I'm really happy that you came on and shared all this great info with myself and with with the listeners of the podcast. So thank you so much. pleasure was mine can't that's for me. Yes and everyone. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.   39:29 Thanks for listening. And don't forget to leave us your questions and comments at podcast dot healthy, wealthy smart.com

In this episode, PT student and Miss North Dakota 2022, Sidni Kast, talks about her journey to becoming a PT and being Miss North Dakota. Today, Sidni talks about the Miss America Organization, the One Body Movement, and going through Miss America orientation. How does Sidni balance her job as Miss North Dakota while completing her studies? Hear about Sidni’s devotion to self-care, the value that Miss America can provide to young girls, and get Sidni’s advice to her younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “Whatever your dreams are, and whatever you want to achieve, as long as you set your mind to it, then you can achieve those goals.” “No matter what age, we can accomplish whatever we want to.” “Stop trying to speed through every part of your journey.”   More about Sidni Kast Sidni Kast is a second year graduate student at the University of North Dakota pursuing her doctorate in physical therapy. While attaining this goal, she has decided to make an impact on her community as the current Miss North Dakota 2022. Her platform as Miss North Dakota, the One Body Movement, correlates perfectly with the profession of PT and grants Sidni the opportunity to speak to people all over her state, and on a national level when she competes at Miss America in December 2022 in Connecticut. The focus of the One Body Movement is to preach the importance of overall health, and not just how people look on the outside; mind, body, and soul all play a major role in our quality of life. Sidni plans to speak to people of all ages on this matter, as she sees its importance for every demographic, especially after the isolation our communities underwent during the pandemic. Although, it can be challenging to balance these two time-demanding endeavors, Sidni finds the enthusiasm she has for both outlets as her motivation to continue her pursuit of success.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Physiotherapy, Miss America, Scholarship, Success, Opportunity, Impact, Advocacy, Inclusion,   To learn more, follow Sidni at: Email:              Sidnikast@gmail.com Instagram:       @sidnikast                         @missamericand Facebook:       @missnorthdakota2022   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript Here:  00:03 Hi, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the healthy, wealthy and smart podcast. I'm your guest host today Stephanie y rock, I am joined by Karen Litzy, who is the primary host of this podcast. And today we're interviewing Sydney cast. And Sidney is the current Miss North Dakota 2022. But she's also a doctor physical therapy candidate at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences. And so she's joining us today. Hi, Sydney. Welcome to the show.   00:33 Hello, thank you so much for having me.   00:36 So tell us a little bit about yourself. And tell us kind of your connection between being a physical therapy student and being Miss North Dakota and what that all entails.   00:47 My name is Sidney Cass, and I'm currently a student at the University of North Dakota, I have loved going to school there. And the best part is that it's still kind of close to home. So I'm originally from Minot, North Dakota, which is about three hours from Grand Forks. And that is where I grew up and really found my passion for what I wanted to do with my life. And that was physical therapy, I applied after, you know, I'm really glad that I waited after COVID Before I started my education, because that's really helped me get a good experience and really gotten that hands on experience. So I'm very happy with that decision. But ya know, so went to U n, d. And then I started my kind of connection with the Miss America organization before I got to u and d. And that was back in 2019. So it's very new to me personally, I didn't grow up, you know, Toddlers and Tiaras or anything like that. But I really found a passion for it, because it allowed me to get scholarship money. And it allowed me to perform once again, because I did choir and theater all throughout growing up. And once I was done with high school, I really didn't have that opportunity anymore. So that's what led me to join the organization. And it has truly been life changing ever since not only becoming Miss North Dakota, but meeting all of the different people and having new experiences has truly shaped how I go about my everyday life. And I'm so thankful that I'm able to combine my doctorate of physical therapy, and also my job as Miss North Dakota into one.   02:19 So you know, people have heard of pageants before. And there's lots of different types of Miss North Dakota as a person can be. Tell us about the Miss America organization and how it's different from some of the other pageants or organizations that we're aware of like Miss Universe, tell us a little bit about the organization and why it's unique to you.   02:38 So the best thing about any type of these organizations is you make it your own. For instance, what I do is Miss North Dakota is completely different than the previous minutes North Dakota has done and that's okay. That's the best part is it can evolve as we evolve. And what I love about the Miss America organization is it truly honors scholarship. And that is the base of everything they do. Whether it's fundraising, or it's different events, scholarship is the base of what they prioritize. So that kind of is what allows me to that is why I chose that organization over other ones, I probably wouldn't have done another organization because I had that preconceived notion of what a pageant was. And it is so much more than the stereotypes. And it's, it's hard to explain that to a lot of people because they grew up oh, well, Miss America, it's just a beauty competition. And that is the furthest thing from what it really is going to and we'll talk about this later, I just went to my Miss America organized orientation. And that was so uplifting because I wasn't the only one trying to push an issue that I saw was important and was something I saw our nation needed. Every single candidate going for the job of Miss America has something unique, that allows her to show her passions and really provide an insight to what she believes needs to be changed in our country.   04:05 Yeah, I've always said, this is kind of a disclaimer to our listeners. I was also involved in Miss America organization, and competed in Miss North Dakota back in my younger days. And one of the unique things that I thought besides of course, the scholarship money which did help pay for my PT school was that you have to have a platform and you dedicate your entire year as Miss North Dakota or if you're a local title holder, to helping people understand that platform and raising awareness. So Sydney one of the things that I think is great about your platform is it is very much related to your future job as a physical therapist. Can you tell us about your platform give us a little bit more detail and what inspired that platform.   04:54 My platform is called the one body movement and what inspired that entire thing is, being in physical therapy, there are so many things about the body that connect to one another. And Mind Body Soul is really the root of what I'm after. And what I want to preach to not only the state of North Dakota, but hopefully the entire country that we have to take care of ourselves, and invest in our bodies in entirety, in order to thrive and have a greater quality of life, which, as physical therapists we know is the number one thing we're looking to improve. So having both that connection to my current my future career, and also being able to show that on a state platform is something I'm truly excited about. And I feel when I talk about it, you can sense I'm excited about it. And not all things, when people go into these different outlets, you can see that passion, I feel like I'm able to have that passion for it.   05:53 Yeah, and I think that that's something that we talk about a lot on this podcast is that mind body connection and understanding how everything is connected. I know that as a physical therapist, I do that every single day with my patients. And it's unique that you have this statewide platform where you can, as I like to say, preach the gospel of physical therapy, to especially young kids, you know, there's one thing that we want people to do is to grow up and be physically active and to move their bodies, and to practice habits so that they can have health, healthy lives as they get older. What are your plans as Miss North Dakota to kind of spread this message across the state.   06:39 So my way of, I think the best way to spread knowledge is through stories. And I can definitely relate to when I was growing up, I thought, Uh, well, in order to be successful, I have to look a certain way I have to come from a certain background. And I want to tell people throughout the state that that's not true. Whatever your dreams are, and whatever you want to achieve, as long as you set your mind to it, and know, this is why I want to do it, then you can achieve those goals. Whether it's your overall fitness, whether it's your mental health, or whether it's, you know, the job you want to attain, anything that you want in life is, is under your control. So being able to speak through my own stories, whether it's different diet cultures that we all experience, or social media, how it really affects different generations is how I would love to connect to others, and portray what I believe we need to move past.   07:36 And what types of things do you plan to utilize from your education to kind of help spread some of those messages?   07:41 Oh, absolutely. That's, that's the best part about all of this, every day, I'm learning something new, that I can relate to what I want to share. I kind of talked about this, the last time we spoke, but an example of when I talk to a class is I'll have four guests come up. And you know, I like to have a little classroom involvement, whether it's a school presentation, or whatnot. And all four of those guests will represent the parts of a car, four different tires. And those four different parts of the car, or the tires each represent a part of our lives. And it can be different for each person. Because as we all know, we come from different walks of life. For myself, personally, one tire would be my physical health, the next tire my mental health, and then my school and social my school and work life, and then my social life. Because as we know, those are all different parts of our lives that directly affect us what and what I would demonstrate to those people is those tires like on a car, if one goes flat, the car won't move forward. So we have to give energy and input input to each different outlet, if we want that car to move forward. But like, unlike a car, you can replace the tires, you can't replace your body. And that's why I really focus on the one body movement as a whole and really, like trying to inspire others that we have to invest in every little part and not just you know, inflate one tire.   09:13 I love that story. I think that that makes that that's something that people can really everybody has seen a car. Yeah, everybody's probably experienced a flat tire. So it's, Oh, I understand. And I think, you know, one of the things that is that I think you can definitely apply to when you become a physical therapist is our patients also respond to metaphors. And speaking in metaphors helps them understand like, why am I in pain, what is going on with my body and makes everything a lot less scary to them, especially if you can give them something that they can see that they understand the story that they understand. So I love that you're doing that. You had said that you just got back from Miss America orientation. then. Yeah. So tell us about that Miss America is happening in December. Correct. So tell us about the orientation process and what the contestants were that you met there.   10:13 Yeah, orientation for Miss America is both one of the most exciting, but also the most overwhelming things I've ever, like witnessed. And the reason I say that is, I'm a very like, extrovert, and you're going in and meeting 50 other women that are also extroverts and also accent Yeah. So it's a lot. And it's a lot of, you know, high energy. People that really just want to get to know you. And that I mean, the first few days, you're just really having that small talk really like, Oh, hey, like, where are you from? It's you walk up to somewhere like Sydney, North Dakota, nice to meet you. And it's so cool, because you can you can see that everyone's excited to be there and get to know one another. And that's what I really love about the Miss America organization. It's so uplifting and empowering and everyone wants the other to succeed. It's not that you know, Catty, 80s movie, we're Oh, no, we're, you know, we're in a pageant we have to compete. It's it's so much more than that.   11:19 Are you talking about drop dead gorgeous, because it's the greatest pageant movie of all time, in my opinion. Maybe Miss Congeniality? Yeah, no,   11:28 I was gonna say those two movies, they're at their high competitors. I love watching those movies, because it's so fun to compare it to real life situations. But other stuff that happened at the orientation was the teen competition. So there's a whole Miss America, like women, part of the competition, and then there's the team portion. So I actually got to watch my team. And it's so amazing to see women, the ages between 14 and 18 to 19. Show such poise and grace. And I'm sitting there thinking I was taking speech class, when they went in there on a national stage presenting in front of stars, I mean, me of Franklin, Michael Phelps, his wife, Monica, from cheer, I don't know if you've watched that on Netflix, but just, you know, to be at that age, and to handle that situation just shows the preparation that the Miss America organization gives young women. And then after the team competition was when we really got into orientation. And let me tell you read every contract before you sign it. Because there's no, it was the funniest part, we all showed up. And we had our contracts pre signed, and you know, you know how contracts work, you might skim a few. But there are some important things in there that are about the Miss America organization that you really have to pay attention to. And I don't believe I'm at liberty to discuss that. But there's a lot that there's so many logistics, some things I would never even imagine. But the best part was getting to talk to the current Miss America, and hear how she's handling her year. And you'd be amazed at the life that they live and what they have to endure in order to be this, you know, the face of Miss America. And it's my favorite part was listening to how she coped with the stress and how she really took time for herself in order to succeed at that role, because it is time consuming, and it is overbearing, some days. But you could tell she took the steps to handle her situations. And overall, the experience was wonderful. I'm so happy to have met the women now and not at Miss America in December because I just think that would have been way too much to handle.   13:50 Well, you know, you talked about Miss America not being able to handle a lot you are going to PT school and you have u of n you have the full time job of being Miss North Dakota, which, you know, if our listeners aren't, aren't familiar with what it's like to be in the Miss America organization, when you're a state title holder, you are that is literally your job, you are going and doing public speaking engagements nearly every single day during your year. So how are you balancing all of this? We have a lot of physical therapy students that listen to this podcast, we have a lot of people who are working their normal jobs and going home and maybe doing a side hustle or parenting who are probably wondering like, wow, how are you doing it? So tell us how you're handling everything.   14:38 Yeah, the two biggest things I would say our communication with both organizations, and also self care, those those things are my like golden rule and no matter what I'm doing because the communication part, whether it's talking with my manager who books me for all the events I go to, or talking to, for instance, Cyndi Flom, who is in charge of all my PT scheduling, being able to communicate with them and tell them when I need to be where I need to be, is utmost most important thing for me and something, I really have to, you know, hone in on because I am in a generation where emails are not prioritized. And I know that I know that's a flaw of mine is answering emails, but it's something I'm working on and able to admit. And the next thing that really has helped me get through not only my first year of PT school, but this summer since becoming Miss North Dakota, alongside of PT school, is taking time for myself when I need it. And I know so many people forget to do that. And when we're constantly baring our souls into one thing, and not taking time to whether it's read a book, or watch a movie, take a walk with your friends, or, you know, just take time for yourself is my number one thing and not only taking time for yourself, but not feeling anxious, while you're taking your time. Well, I could be doing this, I could be doing that. But really taking it in and fully relaxing. And then moving on to whatever to do list you may have.   16:17 I totally agree with you. And I remember when I was a student, and I would go out and do something fun, I would think oh my god, I should be studying for that test. I should be doing this. So like, how do you do that? I mean, how do you let go of that anxiety? When in devote that full time to that self care or to the present? What advice do you have for people for that?   16:41 Number one, set your phone down? I think our phones control our lives. And that's, you know, that's an ongoing battle we all face because well, what if I want to call someone like maybe that's my free time, do that. But saying you're out with friends, just put your phone aside and relax in that moment. Because when those like dings come up your notifications, that's when you're like, Okay, I should get back to this. But being present in those moments and fully diving into them is my number one advice. I love my, my time to myself is when I go workout. And I just you know, turn the tunes up, listen to a podcast, whatever it may be. And that's I just remind myself, this is my me time. And you know, whatever comes in, I tried to set it aside, but really just relaxing in those moments and reminding yourself it's okay to take this break, because that is what is going to lead to your success and survival. And whatever it is that you're anxious about.   17:42 I appreciate that a lot. I feel like I've learned to live in the moment a lot more since I've become a parent. I was definitely not I was definitely not an in the moment kind of person. I had some areas, somebody who was in the moment to help teach me that. And then I had to become a parent to really actually do that. So you're way ahead of me know, oh, I Lycos. I couldn't even   18:05 keep a dog alive at this point. So you know, what you do is amazing. And you should recognize that whenever you can possibly.   18:14 What are you most excited about for Miss America? And maybe tell us a little bit about I mean, I know you haven't gone to Miss America yet. But you did go to orientation. What's that? What's what's a typical Miss America competition? Like, from what you know? What are you most excited about?   18:32 Well, if you asked me before last week, I'd say I'm most excited about meeting all of the candidates because that is where you truly that is the best takeaway from any Miss America experience I think you have is friendships. And I have gotten to meet those girls and have formed those connections. Now I'm most excited probably for the competition part, but specifically the talent portion. And the reason that's sort of on my mind right now is we actually get to turn in our talent request form this in the next few days. And how that works is you just submit whatever song talent, dance you plan to do. And they tell you, Okay, you can do it. Or they say, Oh, another person has that. Well, let's rock paper scissors to see who gets it sort of thing. So I'm so excited to do that. Because my talent is really where I get to express myself in a way other than words can allow. And what I do is I play piano and sing. And I did that at the state level. And I ended up getting the top talent and top vocal award which I'm so, so proud of because growing up I thought I was good at singing. But it's not until you have that stage moment that gives you the confidence and the validation that what you're doing is really what you were meant to do. So being able to do that. And then also, that will be the moment I get to talk about this platform on a national stage. And if given the opportunity to make Top 15 Because that's how it works. You have two nights in prelims. And then one night of finals, and in finals is where they cut you down to 15. And if I were to be able to that top 15 and really get to speak about my passions and speak for the physical therapy community, that would be a life changing no matter what place I ended up in, just being able to share my stories and my passions would be something I just, I can barely find words to form, but I would be so excited for that opportunity.   20:33 Oh, we would love to hear you talk about physical therapy on a national stage. Yeah, I think that I think that you'll have you'll definitely have at least 100,000 APTA members rootin, for you for one thing, and then those people who maybe are physical therapists from around the world or maybe not APTA members, hopefully they'll hear this podcast too. And rude for you as well. So you'll have the whole PT community rooting for you while you're on that stage. How do you think this experience is going to help you in your journey becoming to becoming a physical therapist,   21:11 I mean, just this right now, this networking, this opportunity to share my story and share my passions is what I've already noticed, has made a change in my future as a physical therapist, because this gives me opportunities to connect with people from all over the world. And not every second year DPT student gets to say that. So having that, you know that networking opportunity is what I'm most grateful for. But also, it's giving me that connection to people that you'll have as a physical therapist, that one on one being able to relate and tell people stories, but also to listen, I think that's one of the main things we do as PTS is listen to people, and what it is that's causing them pain, whether it be their physical or mental, and having the opportunity to really kind of get a dip my toes in the water as Miss North Dakota, will be will help me exponentially as a physical therapist. Well,   22:15 Cindy, this is Karen, I'm just for people listening. I'm just gonna hop in with one last question and comment. first comment is I am so blown away and impressed by your poise and your speaking ability. And, you know if this is something that you can take forward with your patients and to be a representative of physical therapy in the future, regardless of what happens in in the competition in December, I think you are well ahead of the game. So kudos to you on that. I'm very, very impressed. It's been a pleasure sitting in and listening to you and Stephanie chat. And my I had one sort of follow up question before we ended the the interview. And that is what do you feel? The Miss America? Or sorry? Yeah, Miss America. Okay, I thought I got that wrong for a second. No, no, no. I'm like, what do you what do you feel the Miss America Pageant can bring two young girls. So not someone who's you know, a second year DPT student, not the not even the teens. But you know, we're really looking for the for the young girls who are watching these pageants and looking up to you all. And just think maybe they're thinking, Oh, look at how pretty, but it goes a lot deeper than that. So what do you want those young girls to know?   23:51 So I love that you asked that. Because just recently at the Miss America, teen competition, they have this thing called Empower Academy. And it's for young women, young girls that have been watching the Miss America competition for years. It is for them to have the same experiences. So this weekend, I watch girls from the ages of five to 10 speak on a stage in front of judges in front of the entire Miss America class, speak as if they had been doing this for years. And I can't even imagine having that experience at such a young age. Because it really breaks down these barriers that young people can accomplish things. And just watching them I was amazed. And maybe it was the same kind of for you to me, but me to them, in this case that no matter what age we can accomplish whatever we want to and I got to see that firsthand this last weekend. So the Miss America organization is already accomplishing that kind of task of making young young women believe that they can do what The role models they're looking up to have been doing. Yeah, that's very   25:03 sweet. Go ahead stuff.   25:05 I appreciate that. Because I think that the first time I ever spoke in front of anybody was when I was like, I don't know, maybe 10 years old, maybe a little younger than that. And it was like through some type of pageant type experience. And I've been public speaking now for oh, my gosh, over 20 years. And I feel like what you just said about gaining confidence speaking in front of a national audience having to answer questions that have substance in them is and being able to express your own opinions to a lot of people that may disagree with you. I mean, that all that all starts at at at a stage like that. And so, you know, I do think that there is something to say about having a platform where young people, not just women, but young people in general can go on a stage in front of an audience and start speaking, because what's the number one fear of people? It's public speaking? Oh, yes, there are so many times that I go to a conference and somebody comes up to me, and they're like, Oh, my God, I'm gonna go speak and I'm so like, nervous, and I don't know what to say. And, you know, I get nervous when I go on stage, but it's more excitement, nervous. It's not like, Oh, my God, I'm afraid I'm gonna mess up, or I'm afraid of what these people are gonna think of me I have, I have that confidence. And I think a lot of that, in addition to some other things that I've done in my life, but a lot of that started on a stage in a situation similar to those young people. So I appreciate you saying that. Yeah. Yeah. It's,   26:39 it's been truly wonderful. And I've, I've loved being a part of it.   26:45 That's amazing. So I have one last question. Before we wrap things up, and it's a question I asked everyone, and knowing where you are now, in your life, and in your career, your Yeah, career? What advice would you give to your younger self?   27:06 There's a lot of things, I would give advice to my younger self. And it's crazy to say that at 24, because I still consider myself quite young. But I would say, to stop trying to speed through every road, every part of your journey, whether it's okay, I'm excited to graduate high school, and then I can go to college. Oh, I'm in college, I can't wait to get into graduate school. Oh, I'm in graduate school, I can't wait to get married, get a house, instead of rushing through those moments to really take time and understand why you're there. Because once you're done with that part of your life, it's gotten, you know, like, and I Yeah, I'd say it started when I was a swimmer in high school. I was like, Oh, I can't wait to be done with swimming. This has been my entire life. But now I look back. I'm like, I miss those days. I, I look at my undergrad, I constantly was stressing about getting into PT school, which a lot of us go through that. It's competitive. That's normal, but not always stressing about what's next. And being in the moment. That would be my number one piece of advice to my younger self and something I'm really taking into this year. Because the job Miss North Dakota is 365 days. I have to enjoy each and every day and not worry well, next month I have a conference or tomorrow I need to get this video done. It's taken in each moment. Like right now I'm sitting in this podcast, talking with you and experience in it to my full ability. And that is what I'm very happy. I've been able to notice that and learn from it.   28:47 That's very wise. Very wise advice. Well, thank you so much, Sydney for joining us. We had an awesome talk. Where can people find you if they want to look you up on social media or want to contact you?   29:01 So my personal Instagram is my name SSID and I KST and then my Miss North Dakota Instagram is Miss America en de in on Facebook. You can find me at Sydney cast Miss North Dakota, email Sydney cast@gmail.com All all spelt the same and super easy. And yes, my name is spelt Correct. I don't know what was going through my mom's mind. But we love her for it makes me different.   29:32 That's funny. That's great. Well, Sidney thank you so much, Stephanie. Thank you so much. We'll have links to all of your contact info and any other info you want to share at the podcast in the show notes for this episode at podcast at healthy wealthy smart.com. Stephanie, any closing remarks?   29:51 No, just good luck at Miss America, Sydney and we are all rooting for you.   29:57 We are we are and everyone Thanks so much for tuning in, be sure to watch the pageant or I should say scholarship program like the end of Miss Congeniality scholarship competition scholarship in December and let's all root for Sydney. So everyone, thanks so much. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

In this episode, Physical Therapist and Advocate Dr. Mercedes Aguirre Valenzuela, PT, DPT, talks about advocacy in physical therapy. Today, Dr Valenzuela talks about the different types of advocacy and the latest updates in advocacy. How is grassroots advocacy different than lobbying? Hear about APTA advocacy, making a difference as one person, and get Mercedes’ advice to her younger self, all on today’s episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways Three types of advocacy: Self-advocacy. Advocating for yourself. Individual advocacy. Advocating for someone else. Systems advocacy. Advocating for changing policies, laws, and rules. “You don’t have to be a member of a certain group in order to send an email or make a phone call.” “Don’t feel like you have to start on your own.” “You can really make a difference, even as one person.” “Get used to making mistakes, not being perfect. It’s all part of learning.”   More about Dr. Mercedes Aguirre Valenzuela Dr. Aguirre Valenzuela received her Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Rutgers School of Health Professions in 2020. Her dedication to professional advocacy has led her to leadership roles in the APTA on a National and State level. She was selected to serve as an APTA Board-sponsored Centennial Scholar and worked on the APTA “PT Moves Me” national campaign. In 2022, she began her term in the public policy and advocacy committee (PPAC) and CSM Steering Group. Within the Academy of Pediatric Physical Therapy, she is an active member and was elected to be in the Nominating Committee. In the state of New Jersey, she is an APTA Delegate as well as a Key Contact in her district. Clinically, she currently works in the early-intervention and school-based settings. Outside of the clinic setting, she uses social media to educate PTs/PTAs/students on how to advocate for their profession and encourage them to run for office.   Suggested Keywords Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Physiotherapy, Advocacy, Lobbying, Legislation, APTA, Representatives, Interventions,   Resources Our Experiences Matter When it Comes To Advocacy APTA Patient Action Center   To learn more, follow Dr. Valenzuela at: LinkedIn:         Mercedes Aguirre Valenzuela Instagram:       @theptadvocate   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:               https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the Full Transcript Here: 00:00 Hi, Mercedes, welcome to the podcast, I am happy to have you on and to see you again.   00:06 Nice to be here. Thank you for having me. Yes. And today we're gonna be talking about advocacy, which, in physical therapy, which I have spoken about with a lot of different people over the years. And I think it's great to get different perspectives on advocacy, especially from younger therapists, because I think it's great that you guys get involved. So my first question to you is, how did you get involved into an advocacy work for the profession? And why is it important to you?   00:37 So I graduated in 2020.   00:43 I was very even before I started PT, school, I was very into politics, legislation and public policy.   00:53 And then once I went into PT, school, I never learned about what the abt does in terms of advocacy, I felt like he kind of mesh, kind of like the two things that are really impassionate about and enjoy. And so I became more involved as a student. And then once I graduated, I wanted to create   01:16 content that was related to advocacy and explained in a very simple way. What are like the current updates going on right now? Because I feel like legislation, can we, it can be a bit intimidating for people to understand and to really get into. And I wanted to show people, what are the updates without all these extra details that they don't really want.   01:46 And that's what I've been doing thus far. And it's been really a great learning experience. When we talk about advocacy, I think that there are a couple of different types of advocacy. So could you go into a little bit more detail on the different types of advocacy, especially in the PT world?   02:09 Yeah, you're correct. So there are several definitions of advocacy.   02:16 I can just give you three of them. So number one, is self advocacy. So advocating for yourself, for example, you're advocating for a pay raise or a change in work conditions. There's individual advocacy, so advocating for someone else, for example, sending out a letter to your patient's insurance company in order to get more PT visits. Then there is systems advocacy, which is my personal favorite. And it's about changing policies, laws, rules, and how they can impact multiple people's lives. And that is more targeted at a local state or even national level.   03:05 And when you're talking about systems advocacy, is that when you know we as physical therapists, ourselves, and maybe encourage our patients to send a letter to CMS or send a letter to your Senator, advocating for whether it be you know, the stock, the Medicare cap, that was a number of years ago, things like that.   03:26 Yes. So what are you are describing right now is a grassroots movements.   03:34 So, grassroots movement is similar to how the way grass grows from the bottom up. So we are the grassroots advocates, we are at the bottom we are what legislators call constituents meeting, someone who can vote.   03:53 And we advocate for things that affect the top so the top is like policy, law, etc.   04:03 And the APTA has grassroots movements. For example, as I mentioned before with CMS, it was the hashtag fight the cut movement, which was one of them. And there are examples of different types of movements in grassroots, such as me to or love wins, black lives matter. So that's kind of how grassroots advocacy works. How is that different than lobbying? So how does that work if you can compare and contrast the two?   04:35 Sure. Let me explain what a lobbyists first perfect, though a good start. So a lobbyist is someone whose job is to build relationships and network with legislators and their staff. And that lobbyists represents an Oregon   05:00 datian So the APTA hires lobbyists. And their job is to advocate for us, they don't have to be physical therapists themselves. But we can also do the acts of lobbying, such as making phone calls to a legislator, sending emails, even having meetings.   05:24 But it's not like our job because you know, we have our own stuff to do.   05:30 Right, exactly, exactly. So you can be part of a grassroots advocacy effort, and then kind of take that into the act of lobbying not as a professional lobbyists, like you said, but like, for example, when a PTA and I know the private practice section will do this, will have groups of physical therapists go to meet with their lawmakers from their state on Capitol Hill, and also individual states will have lobby day within the state. Yes, correct.   06:08 And you don't have to be a member of a certain group and whatnot, in order to send an email write a phone call is really what you want to see change personally, or even like a small group of people don't ever feel like you have to like be a part of something big. Like, it's about what you are passionate and care about. Right. So if you're not part of the APTA you can still lobby on behalf of patients. Is that correct? Yes, I wouldn't call it necessary lobbying, but like advocating, advocating, like, you can still send a phone call, Hey, I had this patient experience and I want you to know about this and be aware about this. There's going to be a one this change in my practice, ag whatever like your state is advocating for you can still do that without being a member. Right. And how do we know as physical therapists? What is on legislative agendas, let's say for the APTA Is there a tool we can use to find out what's going on? Yes. So the APTA has an advocacy network, and you can join, it sends a newsletter,   07:29 every month, every couple of months, you can also visit that abt patient Action Center, which they have pre written emails that you can send out to your legislators, and you don't have to be a member in order to do those things. Great. So the APTA patient Action Center, and there's an app for that, right? Yes, there is a PT,   07:57 advocacy app that you can use, and you can also go on your browser as well. Right, right. So I think the big takeaways from there is there, there is an app for that.   08:10 Or, or you can go online, and you can find sort of pre written letters and things that you can send off to your senators or your congress people, whether that be at the federal or the state level. And you don't have to be an APTA member in order to have access to that. Yes, perfect, perfect. Okay, what are our current advocacy updates? What's on the table? What's on the line? What do we need to know? So for the last couple of Congresses,   08:47 there has been a bill that has been introduced called the Allied workforce diversity Act, which helps in recruiting a more diverse allied health workforce, as well as retaining those students and   09:07 just increasing the graduation rate as well, because sometimes you get these students in these programs, but they don't graduate. So that's the goal of that bill. It has not passed in the last couple of Congresses, but it was that bill was merged. Like the right the wording of it was merged into a pandemic bill, which has a high very high probability of passing. So that has been great news. That bill is called the prevent pandemics act.   09:43 And it's just to modernize the country's pandemic response, and they felt that workforce diversity was really important in it. So that's   09:56 that that's pretty huge since it was, has been a battle   10:00 To get this bill to pass for the last couple of Congresses, another one, if you're in pediatrics going to try to diversify these updates.   10:11 So there is a bill called the specialized instructional support personal services act.   10:21 You can also find it as a gross gross CIPS Act, as well, they call it hr 7219.   10:30 So this bill is going to create grant program, a Department of Education to increase partnerships between school districts and colleges to train specialized instruction support personnel. So PTS are included as that type of personnel, as well as PTAs. And they, and this is great, because, um, I was I worked at a school based physical therapist, and there is such a need for more therapists, so I could understand why they wanted to kind of increase, have more of a network between programs and school districts in order to retain the therapists.   11:17 Especially I,   11:21 you know, I saw, we're going to school way therapists, but like, I just always get emails all the time, like, we need therapists, we need therapists. And, you know, there's some kids that like I can't even see, even in the same school. So   11:34 very important for you school, PTs and PTAs. Out there, there is also a pelvic health bill that has been introduced. So moving on to pelvic health, the purpose of this bill is to educate and train health professionals on the benefits of pelvic floor physical therapy.   12:00 I think that's such a huge thing for pelvic health therapists is just a lot of people that don't know what it is. And you know, patients that go to their physicians for answers, they don't provide them the enough guidance, because they don't know that that help is out there.   12:20 So they'll be great. And the bill will also help to educate postpartum women on the importance of pelvic floor examinations and physical therapy.   12:33 And what it is and how to obtain a pelvic physical therapy examination, which would help increase access. And this bill was actually worked by representatives from a BT pelvic health, which is pretty amazing that, you know, Pts helped in creating this bill.   12:57 Yeah, and that was introduced into the house already are in committee. It was introduced, like into the house. Yep. Fabulous. Yeah. Anything else on the legislative docket? I can talk about a federal agency. Yeah, go for it. Update from the NIH. Okay. So the ABA is part of the disability rehab research coalition. And they some, which is occupational therapists are part of it, a lot of associations are a part of it. And they submitted a comment to the NIH requesting them to consider designating people with disabilities as a health disparity population, which I didn't think that they weren't. So I was really surprised by that. And this is just so important, because for the purposes of federal research, for this minority group, and it will develop and inform critical policy solutions to reduce and eliminate health disparities for people with disabilities. So I don't know the current update, but it is great that it is being brought up at this time. Perfect. All right, so we've got allied workforce diversity act. We've got the HR hr 7219, which was for school based PTS, and that was a really, really long   14:29 name for that bill. Yeah. And then we've got the pelvic health bill. So all those those three bills plus an update from the NIH. And if people go to the advocacy APTA PT Action Center, they should be able to find more information on that on those bills and how to contact their Congress person, correct?   14:56 Yes, perfect. So   14:59 in turn   15:00 terms of like federal agencies, if you're talking about the CDC, NIH, that's not necessarily something you just send an email to.   15:09 But for other legislations, yes, you can find pre written emails in regards to that. Excellent. All right. Well, that is a great overview of where we are right now. And current current advocacy updates. Thank you so much. Now, next question. What advice do you have for students and younger physical therapists, new career physical therapists who might want to get into advocacy? But maybe they feel like, Oh, I just don't know enough? Or I'm too new. What do you say to that?   15:43 Well, I will say contact me because I love   15:48 going to students sake meetings at different states and talking about advocacy, I have been to a few SEC meeting, so contact me and I will gladly, you know, present and help you guys out in any way possible. But also, when I was a student, I was really interested in to advocacy. And there wasn't much going on around in my program student lead wise. So I contacted my trusted professor, which is someone that I looked at as a mentor, and they really helped and guided me. So don't feel like going to have to start on your own, you know, find a professor that you trust and you feel is kind of already involved in advocacy in some level.   16:37 And they will help you out as well. Perfect. And who was that professor for you? Let's give them a shout out. It was Dr. Mike Rella. Ah,   16:48 yes, yeah. She just retired, right? Yes, he did. Yeah, that's a loss for sure. Yeah. But yeah, she really helped me out a lot. Oh, amazing. Yeah, she's a nice, she's a nice lady, for sure. Well, it's great that you had that professor to help guide you. And I think that's great advice for students and, and new graduates is reach out to those professors, because they, they can really help to guide you through advocacy, and through a whole bunch of other things as well. And they can also follow you on social media. Right. So what is your what is your social media handle? And where can people find you? At the PT advocate? Perfect, and that's on on Instagram? Perfect. That's the gram. Just the gram for now. That is great. And is that the best way for people to reach out to you they can just slide into your DM. Vic about advocacy only please?   17:48 Yes, or piece, you know, yeah, yeah, or pediatric care. Perfect. Perfect. All right. So what do you want people to take away from this conversation? If you can kind of distill it down to a couple of points? What would that be? I know, sometimes we can feel that we're just one person, one change can we make? And I know I feel that way. Sometimes too. Even though I have this advocacy, Instagram, sometimes I'm just like, all the stuff that's going on in the world's I walk in Mercedes do what can I even do about this, but you can really make a difference even as one person, that phone call that email that you send, even just reading about it and being aware and talking to colleagues about it or your patients about it, increasing a word that awareness of that can still be great and can still make a change. Don't feel like you are alone. There's a whole Association backing you up in this, and it's all for, you know, to progress our profession. So don't feel alone. And don't feel that like you can't not make a change because you can and your voice is really important. I love it. And last question, it's when I ask everyone, knowing where you are now in your life and your career. What advice would you give to your younger self? I would say get used to making mistakes not being perfect.   19:21 Because when I was a student everytime made a mistake, I was like, oh proceeds How could you do that? That's horrible scar for life. And as a new grad, I make a mistake every other day, every day. So just get used to it saltwater learning. Yeah, and I can say as someone who's been out for over 20 years, I make mistakes every day, too. Yeah. So it's never it's never ending we'll have mistakes and that's okay. Because like you said, you'll constantly learn from them. Thank you so much, Mercedes, for coming on and talking about advocacy. I love your passion. And I think it's great to see new graduates out there and making a difference. So thank you for that. And thank you for coming on. Thank you   20:00 for having me. My pleasure, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in. Have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.   20:13 Thanks for listening. And don't forget to leave us your questions and comments at podcast dot healthy, wealthy smart.com