Struggling to find time for self-care while caring for others, and a balance between self-care and fun?   

We can find a balance, but we have to “re-find” it every day. Being in your story your way is a daily practice, and in this episode, we explore how to maintain healthy boundaries that empower you to practice respect for others and for yourself.   

Do the things that light you up. Spend time with people who inspire you to learn, grow, and go after what you want. What are your superpowers? Share them with the world. People want to hear what you have to say.  

Join this conversation about prioritizing your wellbeing, to show up on your terms, and support yourself and the people you love. 

Tess’s Takeaways: 

• What are the pivotal moments where you choose you?   
• Stay curious about what makes you tick.  
• The stories you buy into matter. Are you empowering yourself?  
• Helping others is noble. But, are you getting lost in other people’s stories?  
• Gut health is the key to achieving better health.   
• Define success and failure on your terms.  
• The mess of life is a juicy place to learn and grow.  

Meet Tess Masters: 

Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of The Decadent Detox® and Skinny60® health programs.    

Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape, Glamour, Real Simple, Yoga Journal, Yahoo Health, Hallmark Channel, The Today Show, and many others.   

Tess’s magnetic personality, infectious enthusiasm, and down-to-earth approach have made her a go-to personality for people of all dietary stripes who share her conviction that healthy living can be easy and fun. Get delicious recipes at TheBlenderGirl.com.  

Connect With Tess: 

Website: https://tessmasters.com/  

Podcast Website: https://ithastobeme.com/   

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

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblendergirl/  

Twitter: https://twitter.com/theblendergirl  

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/theblendergirl  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tessmasters/  

Get Healthy With Tess 

Skinny60®: https://www.skinny60.com/  

Join the 60-Day Reset: https://www.skinny60.com/60-day-reset/ 

The Decadent Detox®: https://www.thedecadentdetox.com/  

Join the 14-Day Cleanse: https://www.thedecadentdetox.com/14-day-guided-cleanses/ 

The Blender Girl: https://www.theblendergirl.com/  

Thanks for listening!  

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Thanks for joining me. So in episode one I talked about what it has to be me is and shared some of my it has to be me moments in the hopes that it would help you find and identify some of your really pivotal, it has to be me moments that have shaped your life. One of the big things about it has to be made is and recognizing those moments is being present in your own story. And really RSVPing picking up those invitations to look at yourself and to explore yourself and, and stay curious and interested in what makes you tick. And so part of that is really looking at the kinds of stories that you're telling yourself, and the kinds of stories that you're choosing, it has to be made, that you want to put yourself in and be a part of, and participate in. And the stories that we tell ourselves, they matter. So are you telling yourself the I can I will story, I can do anything I want to do, and I will do it, and I will figure out how to do it, it has to be me to do it? Or is your life more a collection of stories of I can't, it won't work out, no one's going to pick me. And I think that we tend to inhabit both, you know, in different parts in our life, that we tend to be dominant in one. And, you know, I think that those, those stories get ingrained in us from childhood. Right. So we get taught the stories that are acceptable in our family, you know, all families have rules of engagement, you know, every family does, right? And we learn how to play by those rules, and then we carry them forward in the rest of our life. Right. So I want to ask you, do you see obstacles or opportunities? How do you respond to change? You know, so, do you see yourself, you know, your your story is a love story? Or is it a tragedy or a horror story or a series of disappointments? You know, and again, I think that we all tend to do, you know, a little bit of everything you know, but really, I'm encouraging you to look at yourself, and your life as a love story, that it's all about love and self love. And by practicing self love, we then can share love with others. And so I like to think of my life in movie analogies. So I don't know if you liked the movie, the holiday, you know, with Kate Winslet and Jack Black and Cameron Diaz and Jude Law, such a great Christmas movie, right? But you know, when Arthur is sitting with Iris in the restaurant, and he said, You need to be the leading lady in your own story. And she said, Oh, that was brutal, but brilliant, you know, I mean, yes. Are you choosing to be the leading person in your own story? Or are you choosing to get lost in other people's stories? I have certainly done that, right. Where, you know, I shared in episode one about some of my stories where I became addicted to helping others. What I realized through some of those stories was that it was a convenient place to hide. Even though I love helping others, I do it with a whole heart Helping others is a beautiful quality. So if you genuinely enjoy helping others, that's a wonderful thing. As long as it's imbalance, right, so our superhero is our Achilles heel when not held in balance. So what I've discovered in my life is that I need to be holding it in balance, I really, really love and genuinely derive pleasure from helping other people achieve their dreams. However, it cannot be to the detriment of my own dreams and my own health. So I invite you to look at how you're holding that balance between self care and care for others. So where are you hiding? I asked myself that question quite a bit, you know. constantly keeping the focus on other people is a is a form of disconnection. It keeps us disconnected from ourselves to a degree in some instances, it can also be a beautiful place of connection as well. But I guess what I'm saying is I'm inviting you to, to choose to be inside your own story, even if it's uncomfortable at times. What's here for me today staying present in what it is right? So I think that's where we realize what we really want and what we really want to be doing. And I think if we just be still in quiet and give ourselves permission to listen. We know what to do you know what to do, just like I know what to do. The confusion comes when I don't give myself permission. Can you relate to that? So, I talked in episode one about how my family are really curious and thirsty and constantly want to ask questions. You know, when when Karen Lee got married, when my sister and my brother in law got married years ago now, at their wedding, Lou Mitchell, a friend of ours, who married them told a story that Lee when Lee went to his mother and said, you know, how do I talk to girls, you know, to a girlfriend, his mother said, just keep asking questions. What great advice? Isn't that like the greatest advice? So I invite you to keep asking yourself questions, get curious, be really interested without judgment, just on your own thoughts, your emotions, your experience, stay inside of it, right. And in episode one, I asked you what your superpower or your superpowers, what they are. And being able to identify what you do really well, in owning and claiming it is a really big part of it has to be me. And taking action on it has to be me, but that you do have what it takes. And if you don't, you'll figure it out. And you'll resource yourself and get help to figure it out. Right? So I think that, you know, so often, we are so many things that we don't even realize that we are or that we're giving ourselves permission to be right. So I'll tell you, I'll give you an example in my life. So when, when I started the blender girl, I owned one blender when I started that, you know, and then it became I owned hundreds of blenders and I decided I was going to practice and practice and practice. And I was going to become an expert in this, if I was going to do this, I wanted to be really good at it. So by practicing, every you know, every day, every week developing recipes doing all this stuff, I became a very knowledgeable about blenders, you know. And so then companies started asking me what I thought about their products, you know, and I started to tell them. And over the course of this time, the engineers and the designers and the people at this company started saying you know what? Her advice is actually really bang on? Like, do you mind if I talk to her about this. And so therein became this process of me really starting to work in the blender space in a different way. And honestly, the imposter syndrome came in in the beginning, I'm not gonna lie to you like just going who were mine until a designer and industrial designer or engineer how to change their blender, these multibillion dollar company. I mean, it was just kind of crazy if you thought about it, right? Well, they were just asking for my opinion. And my opinion was XYZ. Well, what ended up happening was that, you know, I started working with some companies, and then KitchenAid landed on my doorstep literally landed on my doorstep with a poly styrofoam box, and a blender inside of it, this prototype, you know, and it started this five year relationship where I became the global ambassador for blenders and I worked with the designers and engineers at KitchenAid, to develop what I consider to be some pretty incredible blenders. If you have the K 400, blender at KitchenAid, the high performance blender, the K 150. I mean, they're really incredible blenders. What an amazing opportunity that was to work with one of the most incredible appliance manufacturers in the world, and really start to flex that muscle of figuring out solutions in this different way. But, gosh, if you had asked me 30 years ago, could you do that I would have literally laughed. I mean, just it just didn't even seem possible. But it was clearly inside of me to do it. I clearly had the ability and I worked really hard at becoming that person. You know. So if you have we are what we practice is my point in this story. Where

How do you get good at something by practicing, by learning about it by studying by doing it by communing with people that do it really well? And so forth? Right? That's how you get really good at something. So, you know, I gave that analogy and episode one about sometimes the best teacher for a third grader as a fourth grader that I got from my friends bone, Elizabeth. Yes. Right. So, you know, how do you choose to show up? You know, I really want to ask you that. This is a question I asked myself every single day. What does it has to be me look like today? Right? So are the choices that you're making, serving your lifestyle or detracting from what you want your life to look at right? Look like right? So how are you going to show up today? You know, so I talked in episode one about how I make sense of the world, right? It's three food nutrition stories, right? So, I, again, I'm going to tell you again, I feel like for me, that's how I make sense of it right? If I'm taking care of myself and practicing self care in this area, with what I choose to eat, how I choose to exercise, who I choose to hang out with the thoughts that I choose to entertain and give weight to and embrace, then I can practice and be disciplined over in these other areas, right? So I want to ask you, what are the non negotiables in your self care? What has to happen every day, every week, every month or periodically, regularly? For you to feel good for you to be the best version of yourself. So for me, it's, I need to drink water every day, I need to eat a lot of vegetables, I need to go to sleep and have really good quality sleep, I need to move my body and exercise everyday, I need to be doing some spiritual practices like medic meditation and breathing, I need to, you know, see my counselor once a month, you know, just to make sure I'm staying on track, you know that there's just certain things so what are your non negotiable things that help you be the best version of yourself? And are you doing those things? Are you practicing who you want to be? Right? So I always want to be practicing who I want to be. Right? So how do you make decisions? With your gut, right? You're gonna know in your gut. So you know, going back to my rom com analogy with the holiday, right? You know, what does your gut tell you? You know, it's not just for chick flicks and rom coms. It's a real physical thing in the body, right? So we know that science tells us that there is a gut brain connection, or the gut brain axis, you know, our gut is our second brain, you've, you've probably heard this about the gut microbiome, right? So there's an enteric nervous system, right? So our gut and our brain is connected by the vagus nerve is the largest nerve, but there's a whole bunch of others, right? And our gut sends messages to our brain, our brain sends messages to our gut. And it literally controls our entire body. Right? It it controls how we think and feel it's connected to our blood sugar, our hormones, how hungry we feel, how satiated, we feel our moods, stability, how well we sleep, how much energy we have, I mean, it just affects everything, right? So we know that science tells us this. So for me, that's why all of my work centers around gut health and improving people's gut health and digestion, because it's the center of our decision making process, right. So when you eat processed foods, and junk foods, and lots of sugar, and tons of alcohol, and all the time, it dulls your experience, your senses, your Pathways, you're not going to make your will you're already not making good decisions with food on a regular basis, but then it's going to have a flow on effect to the other decisions you make, you're going to be tired, you're going to have foggy brain, you're not going to be able to think clearly you're not going to have energy, you're just not going to be present, right? So does it mean you never eat that stuff? Of course you do. We want to be finding that balance of self care and fun. But again, it's what we practice every day. Right? So you know, my point in telling you that story is to eat well. But to trust your gut, you know what to do, right? And to look after it right, like so, listening, and trusting our intuition. I closed with that in episode one. Right? And I want to bring it up here again, right that I want to ask you how your intuition shows up? And are you trusting it? And are you choosing to be in relationship with people that are holding up mirrors? I talked about that in episode one. Right? I want to ask you that again. Right. So you know, often, we just feel we're not trusting ourselves that we know what it has to be me looks like, right? Because we're listening to other people in our lives, or we're feeling down about ourselves. We're feeling like we're not enough, right, that I'm not enough. I'm too much kind of spiral that we all get into. Right. You know, I was really honest in episode one about, you know, my imposter syndrome. Oh, gosh, I mean, if you're listening to this thinking that nobody else feels that way, I promise you, I can tell you that I do all the time, right? I just engage with it or choose to engage with it in a way that helps me see that that's not true. That I have something to say and people want to hear what I have to say. And when I can't get there on my own I resource myself and that's why I might go to my counselor talk to a friend speak to my mom or dad speak to my sister, a trusted person right? So you know We all need help, right? But I mean, I certainly felt that way when I got my book deal when I started working with KitchenAid, when I created the Deccan and detox program with my business partner, Karen, when I created the skinny 60 health programs, I mean, when I get a job as an actor, when I get a job as a voiceover artist, and I've got a voice a commercial, I mean, I go through this way, go, oh, gosh, someone else probably can do this better. I'll just leave that to somebody else. You know, do you ever feel that way where you just go, somebody else will do it better? Well, if you decide that they will, they will. But if you decide it has to be me, and only I can show up with this unique goodness, that is me. And so the story's never gonna be the same. If somebody else tells it, I have to tell it. So we do pick and choose error, it has to be mean moments, right? And I really encourage you to give yourself permission to do it your way. So here's an example in my life. So nobody taught me how to be a life coach and a wellness coach. Well, as that's coming out of my mouth, I say that nobody taught me what I mean by that is, I didn't go to school, you know, to study to be to be, you know, in in a formal educational setting. But the reason why I stopped myself as it came out of my mouth was that I've been training my whole life to do this. Right? All of my experiences have been training me to show up and have conversations with these people. And so while I haven't trained in an official capacity to be a coach, I'm really, really good at it. Because I decided I was going to show up as my best self and start practicing, start practicing. And over the years and years that I've been doing this now, am I getting better and better at it every single day that I do it? And every single week that I do it? Yeah. So I just needed to give myself permission. And also, I choose to stay in my lane, right. So I talked about this in episode one as well, where I, when I created, you know, skinny 60, and the 60 day reset, and the 14 day cleanse with my deck and in detox. Yes, I'm very knowledgeable about health and nutrition. I'm extremely passionate about it, I could have been a dietician or nutritionist or gone off and done that. But I wanted to be an actor and being stories, and I wanted to do it all right. But to make sure that I've got the credibility and that I am making sure that every single person in our programs is in the care of experts in every area, I make sure that I've got dietitians and doctors on my board, but it's we facilitate the 60 day reset with a team of dietitians, so people with medical licenses. So my point in telling you that is I just gave myself permission to do it my way, right. And then I brought on people that were going to fill in the parts that I didn't have the credentials to do, right so that we could provide this really holistic, very effective service for people, right. So that dream that's in your heart right now I know it's there, and probably several. I'm going to ask you again, what your superpower is, right? What do you do really well that you could share with the world that also just gives you joy that lights you up that fans that firing you that makes you happy, that gives you a reason to get out of bed, that makes you feel good about yourself that you can actually share with others to help them be better to help them feel great about themselves to help them fix something. We've all got it, you've got it in your heart, you have the ability, you just got to decide it has to be me.

So, you know, again, we are what we practice, right? And so, again, the reason why I keep coming back to these food analogies, it's because that's what I know. But it's because we all know that right? Because we're all doing it every day like so if I was to sit here and give an electrician analogy, we're not all electricians. But we all are eaters and we're all human beings. Right? So I think they're powerful analogies. So you know, with food every single time you eat or drink, you're either feeding disease or you're fighting it. It's a choice right now doesn't mean we don't eat pizza and have the cake and have the glass of wine or whatever. Yeah, we want to be doing everything in balance. But again, it's like anything if we're doing it out of balance, then it becomes something that doesn't necessarily serve our better health. Right. But if we do it sometimes it can be very joyful and wonderful. And we're doing it in communion making happy memories with family and friends, right. So it's just About that balance. So I want to ask you, a you being strategic in your life. Now it's really interesting the word strategic Isn't it because it for for some people it conjures up being calculating or being manipulative or being underhanded or something that it can for some people, when I asked you are you being strategic, what I mean, I think strategics being really smart, right, it's planning ahead, deciding and re deciding that you're gonna get what you want. And you know, when you get strategic, it's about making a plan that works for you. It's a plan of attack that's appropriate for you about how you're going to get what you want. So I'll give you I'll give you a food example again. So here's an example of not being strategic is just looking at a bunch of food charts and going these are all the healthy foods, right? And I will, I'm eating broccoli, I'm eating spinach, I'm eating clean, grilled protein, I'm eating Omega fatty acids, I'm taking my fish oil capsule, I'm going for a walk, I'm doing all the things, the good things, but it's still not moving the needle, I'm still not reaching my health goals. If I had $1. For every time I heard that from someone in our community, I would own my own island, and we'd all be having a party there together right now. It's so so common, right. And I've even gone through that in my life before I understood the difference between clean eating and strategic eating. Right. So I talked in episode one about how I hate diets, they don't work, they're miserable. They feed that deprivation mentality, they're not sustainable, and they can be downright dangerous. So just because a diet worked for one person, it's not necessarily going to work for you. It's also just no fun, right. And we know from science that they just don't work like long term, and you don't want to get into that yo yo, where you take the weight off, and you put it back on, because you can't stick with it, right? Because it's it's restrictive and limiting. So instead, it's about figuring out how the pieces of the Healthy Living pie come together for you. With your health goals, your genes, your stress levels, your activity levels, your health status, the medications, you're taking the health goals, your age, your personality, your family life, etc, they all play in to how the strategy is going to look for you about what you're eating. And this is why I have a team of dietitians because we need help to do this. And we need help for expert experts and dieticians are the medical experts in how to use food as a functional tool for better health. Right? So why wouldn't we use them? Right? Why wouldn't we want to ask them questions and go to an expert, right? Who's gonna look at our situation and our blood work and go, Okay, here's what you might want to try, right? And it's a bit of trial and error, right, figuring out the strategy, figuring out the path, figuring out what's appropriate for you figuring out the pieces of the puzzle, where do I get my information? Who do I team up with? Who do I go for support? Who do I ask questions? Who do I listen to? With advice? And then what do I try? And then do I listen to that data? So the food examples are really great template for how you can use and create a strategy in to, you know, towards to apply to any decisions you're making in your life, right? And how we practice, you know, and the other thing I want to ask you is, are you personalizing your experience? Or are you making decisions with a cookie cutter or a template of someone else's experience, and then feeling confused about why it's not quite working for you, I think that we do this right, myself included. So we'll see somebody else having an experience. So again, I'll use the weight loss health thing as an example again. So you might see someone who's lost all this weight, and this, this particular thing worked really well for them. And then you buy into it, and you go and do it and what's not working for me. And then while I'm a failure, there must be something wrong with me. There's nothing wrong with you. You're just using a strategy that's not appropriate for you. Right, it's just the wrong strategy. So you know, for me, this is why the exciting place with nutrition is personalized nutrition right is personalizing the experience for each and every person, right. So that's the exciting part for me is that we get to figure it out, you know, my team, we get to know each participant, we help you figure out exactly what's going on and what the strategy will be and then we just help you tweak it right. So you get it right. It's like a little puzzle. I love it. Right. So, you know, again, this is this is the string Did GPS and it takes time, right? You're not going to figure out every bit of it has to be me today in this moment, you're going to figure out pieces of it. And you're going to just chip away at it right? It has to be me to eat a salad. It has to be me to go for a walk right now. Right? It has to be made to go to bed early tonight, I know that I haven't been feeling well rested. You know, there's all these little micro decisions that we're making that make room for these big decisions like, because you know, when you feel healthy and strong, you feel like you can take on anything you feel really courageous, you feel like you can do it. Just how you feel right? So while you're making all these micro decisions, then you're ready for when it's like, should I take that job? Yeah, why not? Me? Yeah, I'm doing it. I'm gonna make that change. I'm doing it and I'll figure it out. Because I'm, because I'm really strong. Right? So, you know, I think that the thing about paying attention and listening to yourself, I would invite you to do that without judgment. So often, when we're paying attention, and we're looking at ourselves, we often really judge and we can get into that kind of shame and blame thing that spiral of I'm not good enough. I'm not enough. Or why did I do that? I'm, I'm an idiot. Why did I do that? You know, well, you did it, because you did it. So what are we going to learn from it? Right? What are you going to learn from it? And I mean, I can get into that place, too. But I just, I've just developed some tools to consciously redirect myself in the moment. Well, you did it. So you can't undo it. So mistakes. I don't actually believe in mistakes. It's just stuff we did. Right? Are we going to learn from it, then it was constructive? It was it was good that it happened, right? So the without judgment pieces is really key. So I'm gonna use I'll use a food analogy again. The term mindful eating has become synonymous with I only eat healthy, I only eat healthy food, right? Well, who does that myself included? That's I mean, I'm eating the wedding cake at a wedding. I am I'm having you know, some potato chips sometimes because I feel like I'm doing it. I don't do it every day. But if I'm sitting there with a friend, and I'm going to make a happy memory, gonna laugh over a bag of potato chips. I'm doing it sometimes. Right? So we I like, in our community, we like the definition of mindful eating is paying attention to the eating experience without judgment. And that without judgment piece is so key. Because we're just looking, listening, learning, I see it. So I would just invite you to apply that. That mindful strategic approach with everything in your life, right, where you can just start to really, really celebrate the lessons along the way. Right. without judgment. And again, going back to the Nelson Mandela quote from episode one, I never lose, I either win, or I learn. So if you're winning and learning, how can you judge that, right? If you have a commitment to wanting to be better? How can you judge what's coming up, right, it's coming up. So look at it, learn from it, right and be better. You know, when you when you are thinking about your it has to be me movement moments.

I think it's really helpful to think about how you want to feel like basing your choices on how you want to feel, I want to feel empowered, I want to feel strong, I want to feel healthy, I want to feel good about myself, I want to feel like I matter. I want to feel like I'm making a contribution, I want to feel excited to get out of bed, whatever it is, right. So that's how I base all my it has to be me moments or there has to be moments that I take action on. Right? Is that so? How do you want to feel? Right? You know, I talked in episode one about about my Epstein Barr Virus story helping me understand that I have the power to control how I feel. And you know, then the ROB story that I told later on in my life taught me that I had the power to control how I feel in my mind about myself and about others, right that it's a choice perspective is a choice, right? So how are you treating yourself? How are you making decisions? How were you using your power? So I'll use the food analogy again. Are you using food to celebrate your life as a source of light and love and power? Or you treating your body with medication And because you're not treating your body with food, right? So, you know, we have two choices in life, right, we can go down two paths, one of two paths, the first path is a poor food, and potentially be on medication supplements and drugs and die sooner than I need to die, or door to the second path, which is eat really great food most of the time, and I'll be on less medications or no medications. And I'll live a long happy life and be ready and strong and healthy to do anything that I might want to do and be ready for whatever life throws at me, I never miss out on an opportunity. Right? So it's interesting, right? If we think about this, why is there so much dis ease disease? Right? So why is diabetes an epidemic? fatty liver disease is an epidemic with over 30% of people having that over 70% of women are constipated. Right? I mean, it so many people have heart disease, cancer, I mean, it's just, there's so much dis ease, because we're walking through door a right, we're hiding, we're disconnecting from our full power, bright and we're not choosing it has to be me to step into my full power, so I asked you, you know, are you stepping into your full power? Do you have control over your life? Do you feel like you have control? are you deciding it has to be me to take control, to be in my power? So I hear this phrase a lot. You know, when I ask people, okay, so I'll give you an example. In my program. When I we have a member questionnaire that we send out to every member when they join the program, we get to know them, right? What are your health goals? Who do you live with? You know, do you have any what medications you want? All that stuff? We really get to know people? What are your superpowers is a question, right? What's your support network look like? All that stuff? And so often, the why, why are you doing this? Why do you want to be better? Is this I want to feel like I'm in control of my life again. Well, yeah, we all want to feel that way. I want to feel that way. And I want to feel like that every day. Right that I am in the driver's seat of my own life. I am the director of my movie my life, right. I'm a leading lady in my own story, going back to that analogy. So, Leslie, this lovely woman in our community, she came in saying that. And so she was going through menopause, and oh, man, poor, she was just feeling completely out of control. She and her and her husband are both really athletic. And they had just as she said, in her words, I'd coasted by being athletic and just kind of sort of mindlessly shoving food into my mouth and eating whatever, and not putting paying attention or putting much thought into it. And I was able to feel pretty good my whole life because I exercise and we just thought, you know, what, if we can just burn it off, we're going to be good, that was our attitude. And then as her and her husband started to get older, didn't didn't work that way, aging, the degradation is real, you've got to be paying attention even more than you did when you were younger, right? Because there's just literal, physical degradation, and your hormones change, and you're different. So you've got to be even more mindful, even more caring, even, you've got to practice, practice, practice, right, the better things in order to be showing up in later life as your full self. So she had developed ADHD, and put on weight and was not sleeping through the night didn't have energy, all kinds of health issues, and her husband as well. And so when they started eating strategically, and figuring out how to eat when she started figuring out how to eat for her body and her needs at this moment in time in her 50s. That's when the magic happened. And what I love about what she shared, you can actually watch her, her video, actually, there's a video of her, she recorded a really beautiful video, it's gonna be sixty.com You can look at that if you want to. But she shared the flow on effect of empowering herself with better food choices, the flow and effect that that had in her life. Were just like what I was talking about when you practice eating and drinking better. You start practicing being better in every other part of your life, and you start to feel empowered in every other part of your life. And so she just said, I feel like I've got my life back. I feel like I've got control of my life and she was starting a new business. But her father, her husband was starting a new business. So there was a lot of stress, a lot of unknowns a lot Wow, this is new, you know, and they just felt like they had they had what it took to make it happen and Oh, Are they flying? It's thrilling to watch, you know. So every choice that you make is connected to every other choice. So all these little micro it has to be me moments along the way make room for the really big it has to be me. So are you choosing to take control of your life? Are you choosing to lean into the things that are going to help you show up and be the best version of yourself? You know, I think part of getting ready for it has to be made arming yourself with knowledge, right knowledge about yourself knowledge from the outside world studying, practicing really resourcing yourself right? So knowledge is power. Right? So do you understand what you're doing? Do you have the whole story? Are you looking at the whole picture you know, are you ready to take action on your it has to be me right? So again, I'll use a food example because that's what I know that's how I make sense of the world right so for example, we were talking about the food choices making room for the big choices. So we know that sugar creates acid acid creates inflammation and chronic or excessive inflammation is the root of all dis ease all those little niggly symptoms like you know, high blood pressure and cholesterol not sleeping well. Hormone disruptions, mood instability, skin skin issues, all those little niggly things that sometimes we ignore constipation, diarrhea, whatever. If we ignore them, and we don't attend to them, it's our body's way of crying or going, please, please, please make some changes, you're killing us. That's what those symptoms are right? If we ignore it, it eventually leads to chronic disease, which is the cancer, the diabetes, the heart disease, death, right? So it's that thing of when we're choosing to eat better to regulate our blood sugar to regulate our blood pressure and cholesterol to sleep well to manage our stress, when we're just gonna be the better version of ourselves. Right? So it's arming yourself with the knowledge about that nutrition information, right, knowing what is credible information, right, because like I said, there's so much misinformation about nutrition out there, and all these crazy diets, right, that are making people even sicker than they were the reason they started doing them. Right. So where are you getting your information about that thing that you want to be better at your it has to be me, right? So another example might be you you love, you know, you want to open a bakery? Well, you got to research don't you got to research the other bakeries in the air, you got to you got to study and be doing it now at home baking is different than baking at scale in a commercial kitchen, and you know, you got to start getting the information, right, you got to bring in the right people, right? So, you know, for me in my life, I'm always wanting to stay rooted in science. We're just really interpreting data in our program, right? It's just mainstream science that's out there. And then we provide a way to interpret that and a way to understand that in a way to apply that to your specific situation. Right. So, you know, if we think about what's interesting, you know, going back to where do we get our information from?

And what do we believe in? With food, a lot of the stuff about food comes from ads, right? It comes from the top of the package, it comes from the processed food industry, it comes from lobby groups, right? might not necessarily be what's actually science based, right? So I see this all the time, right, where people have to rethink and relearn their ideas about food right that starving yourself isn't and dieting isn't the way to actually get healthy right? You can actually lots of beautiful food it's just about what's appropriate for you and in what quantities right I mean, that's really what interests me right is about I think it's about what we add not what we take away, right? So are you going to choose you are you going to choose to show up and arm yourself with the information that you need to go after your it has to be me right to believe that you deserve it, but also to be ready, be ready for whatever comes right. And so one of the big reasons why I do the work that I do is to help people be ready, right? It's when again when you're in a strong healthy body you feel like you can do anything right like so. I never want my physical health to be the reason why I say no to anything. Anything. I don't want that to be the reason I want my no to come from I don't want to do that. Not I can't do that. Because I don't have the energy because I've got a heart condition because, you know, I want if you said to me tomorrow, like I've I've gone to Nepal, and tracked and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. If somebody invited me to do that, again, I would do that again in a heartbeat. In fact, I dream of doing it again. And I've just decided I'm gonna do it again. It has to be me to do that, right? was so incredible. Well, I'm a lot older that when I then when I did it when I was 17 years old, right. But I don't want I don't want my health to be the reason why I can't do it the next time. Right? That's, that's one example. But maybe, you know, some other examples. This is this, why comes up a lot in my program. In the member questionnaire, it's, it's, I want to have an active retirement with my husband and be active and be able to play with my grandchildren. That is a big why that comes up a lot to beautiful. Why, right? Well, yeah, you don't. And some women actually in their 50s will say, I, I can't play with my children, I don't have any energy. So I'm missing out and the whole family's off, you know, going on these bike rides, and I can't do it, and I'm sick of sitting by my window, reading a book and watching them all right off, you know, I don't want to be that person anymore, then it's wonderful that you're here and you're choosing it has to be me to make the changes that are necessary, so that I'm getting on that bike soon with the rest of my family. And so, again, don't let your physical health be the reason why you say no to anything. The other really important thing is how do you feel in yourself your mental health, right? This is a really big one, I want to go back to what I was talking about with this gut brain connection, right? That our gut controls our emotions, right? Our gut controls our mood stability, right. And so the foods that you eat, have a direct impact on how you feel mentally and emotionally. So Sharon, this is this is a really powerful example of the So Sharon is this lovely woman in the program, who she was really in a dark place when she came into the program where she was feeling really, really hopeless, and really lost. And these are her words. And she just had all kinds of health issues. And she had really crippling anxiety, really crippling anxiety, and really huge stress levels, she's got a very stressful job, she's incredibly smart, really capable and talented. And works, you know, in entertainment, you know, works in making beautiful stories happen, and she absolutely loves what she does. But she just wasn't having fun in her life, and wasn't believing in her capacity to hold her life. And, and just wasn't happy, just wasn't happy. And so she had been seeing, you know, some doctors and some and some specialists and she tried lots of different things and was, was making some really, really, really good choices. Because I don't think any of us make all bad choices, or all good choices. If we want to put those judgemental labels on it, right, we just make a bunch of choices, right? And some of them serve our better self and some of them don't, right. And so this is how we learn, right. And so when she came into the program, which actually she she entered my world, our world through the decadent detox. And so she started with the 14 day cleanse. And on the first call, she just burst into tears, she was just really, really needed support and to be loved on you know, and everybody just held the space so beautifully, because she wasn't the only person like every we all want to vent and want to express ourselves. And it was incredible to watch what happened in just 14 days of eating beautiful foods, giving herself permission to focus on self care, giving herself this this gift of this time of this retreat, of paying attention to what was going on expressing and using her voice. Speaking her truth, giving herself permission to get it wrong in inverted commas to commune with a bunch of strangers on the internet. Right. That takes courage. That amazes me all the time about our community that it's all online, right? It's a bunch of different people all over the world coming together and realizing we actually know each other. We do. If you keep asking questions and you listen and you share your story and you let other people in, you realize that we actually all know each other, because our core need is the same, right? You just got to decide it has to be made show up and share, right? And listen. And so it was incredible what happened, where it hurt, cleaning up her digestion, her gut health. And then she came into the 60 day reset, and then it went, you know, supercharged, it went on a whole other level, right. So we were able to get really granular and really super strategic. But the like I was talking about with Lesley story, the empowerment that came from cleaning those pathways and starting to practice self care. Sharon took up that invitation to really practice this self care and be mindful and pay attention. And extraordinary things happened, she was able to regulate her blood sugar, regulate her blood pressure and cholesterol, manage her stress, get her moods more stable, lose weight when she thought it was impossible during menopause, and all that sort of stuff. Right? So things that she thought were impossible became possible. And so for me, you know, I kept constantly adding around this idea around superpowers, I believe that we are all superheroes. I am a superhero. Because I believe that I am in my own life, and you are a superhero in your life. You know, where we have this extraordinary ability to believe, to make magic happen to decide it has to be me to go after things to figure it out to experience incredible pain, incredible glory, these extreme emotions and learn from it and adapt and change and grow and expand. And I think that's pretty magical. More impressive to me than any Marvel movie, right? That exists in a fantasy. That if you choose to believe that you have incredible unlimited power in your own life, extraordinary things happen. So you just got to choose to show up, you just got to choose to show up. And I would add, choose to show up and decide that you matter. And that you're going to give it a go. And you're going to clean up the mess later. And you're going to learn from the mess and wait around in the mess and rub it all over. You know, only when, when I first launched the blender girl, I was sitting in a bar with my friend cane. And I was explaining to him what I was going to do. And he goes, I love this for you. This is so what you're meant to be doing. You love that thing you're always doing. I said, you know, I really feel like it has to be me. I really feel like this is what I meant to be doing. And he was you know, and he has this incredible photography business. And he goes, come and take some pictures. And I went, Oh, no, no, seriously, I want to be part of this conversation pictures. So he gave me his best photographer. I went to his studio. And they took the most incredible pictures of me that I still use to this day.

And she turned to me Janelle was her name that photographer, she was so amazing. And we're in this huge white box. And my sister came, you know, for moral support. And just for fun, you know? And she said, let's get messy. And I go, Yeah, let's get messy. She was No, I mean, really messy. Are you ready for that? And I went, What do you mean? And she goes, I mean, let's like get it all over you mercy. And I just read Okay, and so I just read with it, right? So she said, Let's just Let's just make a smoothie. And it was already making food for the shoot and stuff. Let's make a smoothie. And let's, let's just, let's literally pour it all over you. Because the way that you describe blending is that you can't mess it up. Like you talked about how you know, because I was telling her how the what I love about about the blender is that it levels the playing field in the kitchen and enables anybody to make healthy fast food with very little skills and even less time. It's literally child's play. Right? And so she said so let's show that that the cool. You talked about how you can't mess it up. Because you know it's the thing I love about some of these is that there is no smoothie that I cannot rescue from the depths of despair. Like some smoothies tastes like the swamp water where the plants came to die. But with a little bit of lemon zest, lemon juice, a little bit of banana or some fruit or some nuts and seeds or whatever I can make it into something incredible some spices ginger, cinnamon, whatever. Because let's show that, that we're not afraid of the mess. And that wasn't it has to Have you made a moment? Right? And I'll give it to you within the context of this conversation, then unless you're going to choose to kill somebody, which let's agree that we're not doing that. There are very few matters in life that can't be cleaned up. And I'd rather regret what I did do as opposed to what I didn't do. Right. And so my sister, oh, she thought it was the greatest day where she poured that smoothie all over me. And Janelle took, it was so much fun. It was so much fun getting messy, right? And it got all over me. Let me tell you that somebody got in places I didn't know smoothies could go to if you know what I mean. Like it was disgusting. Like, I think I was under the shower for like an hour and a half try to wash that's really off for me. But it was such a teachable moment for me. Where Yeah, you just jump in the shower. Right. And I know that there are other messes in life that that cannot be solved quite simply like that. But it was, it's still been a really powerful metaphor for me. Right. And when it came time to launch the Windigo, those photographs, and I thank you came because I love you, and Chanel. They launched my brand into the stratosphere because it captured people's attention, right? It was like, That woman is covered in sludge, and she is laughing. She's laughing, because so what, right? And it really became a visual for me. And I keep I keep that picture close to me. Because it just reminds me that the mess is where the magic happens. The mess is where we find our way to the joy. The mess is how we learn and grow. So, you know, that's one of the one of the things that we are going to constantly be celebrating on this podcast is celebrating the mess, I'm going to be celebrating the mess with each and every one of our guests. And, you know, I invite you to celebrate the mess as well. That that is how you find the solutions. It's how you find the answers. It's how you figure out what the next it has to be me moment is. So celebrate it all, celebrate the wins, celebrate the losses, celebrate the uncomfortable moments, celebrate the triumphs and the elation of getting it right in inverted commas or having the adulation or the success or whatever, right. That's the other piece of it has to be me, we all define success differently. And you have the right to define it your way just as I do, right. So it's for some people, it's money, power and prestige. And they want a high paying job and they want the Ferrari and the whatever. And there's nothing wrong with that. For other people. It's I want to find a great love. I want to have a family, I don't really care how much money I just want to be comfortable. I want to feel happy in my life. I want to contribute. They both beautiful dreams, right? It just depends on your perspective. Right? So I think the other part of it has to be me is how we define failure. So I've talked about this in episode one. I talked about it a little bit in this episode. About it has to be your Yes. And it has to be your no right. And your definition of success and your definition of failure. Well, I'm to give you the definition of failure that I embrace, which is just not trying. Failing to dry. That's my definition. And it's the only definition that I embrace. Because if we go to Nelson Mandela again, I maybe could call this podcast I love Nelson Mandela, right? If there is if we accept the idea that there is no losing, there's only winning and learning. Where is failure? It kind of has to be code checked at the door. Right? Because there is there is no failure, you cannot fail. You cannot fail. You can only win or learn. So get messy. Right? Show up for yourself. Give it a go dive in and clean up the mess later. Right. If you're not hurting anybody, how messy can it really get? You know what I mean? So I probably will use that photo actually, those of you that have been in the blender community for a long time will have seen that photo. It's everywhere on the internet, right? I used to use it as my business guy because it got attention. I'll tell you that right. But but it's just fun. Right? So I've been talking a lot about health and nutrition, this episode and the power of food to to you know to help you have a better life and make room for your it has to be me. But one of the things that that I would say about it is finding that balance of self care and fun. Right, that paying attention and being mindful is about that balance, right? It's about giving yourself permission to find that balance every day. And that balance is different depending on the other players and what's going on that day, right? So giving yourself permission to find a balance of self care and care for others, and a balance of self care and fun. Because what do we want to do more of the things that we find fun, the things that give us pleasure, the things that give us joy, the things that light us up the things that make us feel what it is to be alive, right. So decide that that's where you're going to make your decisions from when it with regards to it has to be me. All right. So next week, I want to talk about what holds us back what holds us back from claiming our ID has to be me. So join me next week. Let's dive into the messiness of that