This week on ReInvent Healthcare, I have a very special guest, KIm DeYoung. Together, we tackle a topic that is relevant for us practitioners and for clients as well. We all have the power of choice and it is up to us to help guide our clients to make the right choices when it comes to conquering their health issues and symptoms. Listen in on how choice can empower and motivate us to make the right decisions that will positively impact lives.

IN THIS EPISODE:

The Importance Of Choices

Each one of us makes an estimated 35,000 choices per day, from deciding what to wear to what to eat. As functional practitioners, we should be able to help clients make the right choices when they come to us for help in dealing with chronic illnesses, symptoms, and important health decisions. 

Empowering Clients

We as healthcare practitioners can empower our clients to make the best choices for their well-being. We must understand our role in helping clients understand why their choices matter and how to bring thoughtfulness and intentionality to decision-making so that they can lead healthy, optimized lives.

The Concept Of Choice Mapping

Choice Mapping is a tool that can help our clients and us practitioners to visually capture the components of a choice, including why it matters, potential obstacles, possibilities, and actions to take. It is important in decision making matters, especially those that can directly affect health and lives. 

Kim DeYoung Links

• Head to Kim DeYoung’s website here.
• Grab your copy of The Book Of Choice here.
• Get the free Choice Questions offering here. 
• Follow Kim DeYoung on Instagram here.

ReInvent Healthcare Links

• Get our FREE Guide to Taking a Detailed Health History that gets you to root causes.
• Access Additional Resources for Practitioners ready to improve clinical outcomes through our Nutritional Endocrinology Practitioner Training.  
• Visit my ReInvent Healthcare site to check out other episodes that will be beneficial to you and your clients.

Ep 85 - Choices

[00:00:27] So today we're going to do something a little bit different than we normally do. We're not going to geek out on left brain biochemical pathways. We're going to do something that is extremely, extremely important for our clients, and as you know, every single day people have choices that they need to make. Choices about what they're going to eat, how they're going to live, everything. And 35,000 choices a day is what it's estimated that each of us gets to make. And guess what? For health, every choice matters.

[00:01:16] And the purpose of today is we want to empower you as health professionals to work with people and empower them to be able to make their best choices possible so that they get the health that they come to you looking for. So Kim, thank you so much for being here. It's so exciting to have you.

[00:01:41] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: I know you do and you're good at it. And I've seen some of your videos and I've looked at your book and there's just so much to unpack here. So I would love to start with how we as health professionals can do our clients and our patients the best service to help them navigate through the maze of all these choices that they get to make every day.

[00:02:21] Kim DeYoung: So we do make 35, 000 choices, but those can be from our simplest, what we're wearing and of course what we're eating, which is very important to like our big life defining choices. I mean, it's the gamut of all of them. And I think at the root of what I believe about choice in general, no matter what the choices are that you're making, it's about bringing a thoughtfulness and an intentionality to it. So, from the perspective of a practitioner supporting a client, I think it is really the opportunity for that practitioner to support their client to know why they're making their choices, like what matters to them.

[00:03:35] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: I love that. You mentioned a couple of times in your book and in your videos, I'll live a life examined. What does that mean and how does that affect us as health practitioners? Why is that important?

[00:04:18] It's quite simple, but you can imagine the sort of the dichotomy of like not paying attention versus paying attention. And everything I really believe is bring that awareness to what you're doing as best you can, especially in the choices that really have significance in your life.

[00:04:57] Do I leave my partner? Do I move to a new state? Do I move out of my house because I suspect it's moldy? I mean, sometimes those are huge choices. And sometimes they're Less huge, but very impactful. Like, what should I eat for breakfast? Should I eat breakfast, right? Should I skip it and go to lunch? So as practitioners, like we're navigating this.

[00:05:37] Kim DeYoung: well, and you're so right. So imagine so you're bringing up kind of like a big life choice choosing to move and a relationship. But the reason a client is coming to a health practitioner is they want to feel better. They are making the choice to feel better. They've obviously gone through the gamut of professionals, medical, whatever they've done, and they want support. So they are reaching out to a skilled practitioner to say help, and they're putting themselves in their care to say, tell me what to do.

[00:06:49] You're not meant to hand slap them. You're looking to educate them, of course, but for them to understand that they're being given guidelines. And things to follow so that they will feel their best. And each moment, they're kind of little micro choices that they make.

[00:07:46] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: You're right. You're so right. And you know, it's interesting because what I hear a lot from practitioners is I tell them what to do, but they don't necessarily do it. And I like the way you framed that, that we start out with, look, you chose to come here. That was a choice you made because you're choosing to want to feel well versus to feel like crap all the time. Right? And you're going to be making choices every single day, and I'm going to guide you to making the best choices for you based on your labs, based on your history, based on your genetics, based on your desires, right?

[00:08:38] Kim DeYoung: And that's a beautiful message of partnership. You know, it's a two way street. I mean, it's any coach client relationship of the client has to be coachable. And in this case, that implies making helpful choices. And guiding them, you know, again, I'm sure clients are coming in at different skill levels and education of knowing what they need to do. And some are going to be, you know, kind of at the new level, some are more advanced and it's working with them where they are at that level, but supporting them.

[00:10:26] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: Yeah, I like what you said and it's about reminding them and really setting the tone right at the beginning, right? You have a choice to continue what you've been doing, and how is that working for you? Or you have a choice to do things differently, to make different choices at all these 35,000 crossroads, and maybe half of them is at 30%, even if 10% are related to health choices. That's a lot of opportunity to be in control of your health. And I think that's where people feel a lot of out of control, right? Is there, they don't feel like they have control over their health, their health happens to them. But when we can turn it back around to the point, like you get to choose, not blame, never blame. It's just, you get to choose and we're going to help you make better choices. So that you feel better.

[00:12:13] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: And when you do them and you do them repetitively. , it's still a choice, but it becomes less of a, of a choice you have to ponder about. You get to just, of course, I meditate in the morning. I never get outta bed without meditating. , that's it. I've been doing it for 2200 days and I'm not going to break my streak. That's what motivates me to, I keep going with it. Of course, I'm going to drink water, like I'm not going to not drink water, of course.

[00:12:47] Kim DeYoung: And that's such an important point. You're right. The presence and you know, whatever tool you're using, look, we live in an iPhone world or, you know, however that is where we've got assorted apps that we can have as double checks and reminders for the things that matter to us as a process. And again, practitioner to client, you know, you could list those things out for somebody on an app of what are the things to do all of that, but it. A lot of it is habitual, but you're right, even when you get in the proper habit of something that's a new choice and then it becomes more ingrained in you, it's still the choice to keep going. It really is all the time.

[00:13:40] Kim DeYoung: Well, and I think what happens is, let's imagine you've set a goal and you're looking to do something for Monday through Friday, and now it's Wednesday and you haven't done it. Now, all of a sudden, self sabotage and blame and all of that stuff starts to show up. You're like, oh, forget it. I didn't do it for two days. Why bother? Versus, okay, I didn't do it for two days. Let me get back on track because I know this is important to me.

[00:14:13] Kim DeYoung: You know, choice mapping is a tool that anybody can use for any choice. Let's actually flesh it out to see how it could be appropriate. I've often taught it to people. Let's take a non health related choice. For example, let's say you are choosing to start a new job. And so the concept of the map is this ability to visually capture the components? Why does that choice matter? What could get in my way of making that choice? What's possible? What actions will I take? So now imagine taking it, applying that concept for a health choice. I certainly think at the bigger level of somebody choosing, it could be both sides, choosing to become a client. It's kind of like, why am I making the investment to work with a practitioner at this time? Why does this matter to me? And also to say, what could get in my way of doing this work? What are the things that are going to pull me aside? That's very important. You see that all the time. People have great intentions, and then they fall off the bandwagon. And why? And for someone to really have documented whatever they're scared of, if they've got any limiting beliefs, maybe they've tried it before, it hasn't worked, they don't think it's going to work now. I mean, you can imagine all of those voices and that sort of thing. But then for them to counteract those fears with what could be possible if I really do this work, how much better may I feel? How may my life be different? And to really visualize the power of that and then finally capturing in the map. Like what actions are you going to take following the instructions of your practitioner? I mean, it's, it absolutely can be used, I think, at the bigger level. I think from the perspective of I choose to focus on my health is a really important choice. And then using the map to capture. Kind of again, the why, the fears, the possibility, the actions is very powerful.

[00:16:06] Kim DeYoung: So I have been mapping choices now for a decade, and I have gone back through my entire life to look at choices I did make to explore all of the details to learn from them, and have also created a process. As I was just sharing with you of how people can look at choices they want to make and in the book, I take people at a very detailed level of how to do that. And it's through a lot of stories and a lot of examples and you know, so that people can use this beautiful tool, which can be used as much or as little. As you want. What I find is really beautiful about creating a map. And again, let's use the example of the client who is coming to work with a practitioner. They've not been feeling well about their choices. I choose to do the work to feel my best. That's a great choice. And then they think through the examples and they flesh out the words of a map and they have it to come back to.

[00:17:28] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: As health practitioners listening in, doctors, nurses, health coaches, physicians assistants, et cetera, we have lots of different health practitioners listening. We also have some people listening for their own health. So what would you recommend for us to do to embrace more the power of choice with our clients?

[00:19:14] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: Yeah. I like that idea. That's a really good idea. So in your book, the book of choice, you can get it on Amazon. Would there be like a roadmap that a practitioner could use? So that if they want to map those out, like you just said, that they would have like a process.

[00:20:12] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: Great. And is it something that a practitioner could use with a client? Like, say, here, let's, here's this book, here's how I want to help you to navigate your choices as we go through this coaching process together.

[00:20:55] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: Awesome. That sounds awesome. So anything else that you would like to share with our practitioners to really empower them to help people make better choices of those 35, 000. That number just mind boggles me

[00:22:03] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: Better impact, right? And it's the breadth of that decision and understanding the breadth or the long term, the down the road. And I would see that making a map would help people to see the down the road implications. of the choices, right? So how do people reach you? How do people learn more?

[00:23:04] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: That's great. So it's we will put all these links. It's on the show notes page so people can follow up and I, I recommend that you do because everybody makes choices every day. Did they eat the pizza for dinner or did they eat the salad? Did they get up and exercise or did they go back to sleep and put the pillow over their head or, you know, there's so many of those choices and we have to be empowered to help people make empowered choices, right? Choices that matter, choices that take them down the right path to where they want to be. I show a slide in a lot of my presentations, it's the, you know, the pizza at one end and the, the salad at the other end. I'm like, what's behind the pizza, probably more of the same dysfunctional health that you've been experiencing and what's behind that. It's like further down the road from the choice is either something you want or something you don't want. And the more we can empower people to make those choices, the better it is. So thank you so much for being here and for sharing parting words of wisdom before we say goodbye.

[00:24:16] Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo: That's great. We've been talking to Kim De young, author of the Book of Choice. Go pick up your copy on Amazon or @thechoicebook.com and use this wisely with your patients, with your clients because they get to choose every day. We know that. We want to help them to be making thoughtful choices that are going to move them in the direction of where they want to be. This is just part of being a good practitioner, right? If you want more information on all the other aspects of being a good practitioner, go to inemethod.com. And until next time, shine on.