Biggest Small Things

In the final episode of my series on nutrition, I’m speaking with Caroll Lee about the joy of eating and using food as preventative medicine. Caroll is a certified health coach and founder of Provenance Meals.  Each episode of this special series has provided me with at least one takeaway that I have carried over into my daily life. I hope it has been just as useful for you.   Today, Caroll talks about her lifelong struggle with her diet. From a very young age, she suffered from stomach pains and it wasn’t until she first became pregnant and started to eat a more healthy diet that she began to correlate the diet with feeling better.  After making that connection and wanting a career change, Caroll decided to go back to school to study nutrition.   Show Highlights  Packaged foods are becoming more refined and more processed. Unhealthy eating can lead to chronic inflammation, which can lead to many lifestyle diseases. Why you should cut out processed foods and eat whole foods instead. Grocery shopping tips for

Today I’m talking nutrition with registered dietician Lauren Zimmerman. Lauren is the Director of Nutrition at Synchronicity, a recovery, and wellness center. At the center, Lauren offers cooking classes, gut reset programs, and gives plant-based nutritional talks. All to help her clients live their optimal life.   From a young age, Lauren was interested in cooking as a way to give to others, which led her to become a dietician. She became interested in plant-based nutrition when she was working as a dietician with cardiac recovery patients. Through her research, she discovered the many heart benefits of a plant-based diet.   One of the biggest takeaways from my conversation with Lauren was to view recipes as a template, you can make small tweaks to shake things up, but don’t have to be super creative. I hope as you listen, you gain useful insights as well.    Show Highlights  Embracing cooking allows you to focus on including more whole-food ingredients. If you want to experiment with plant-based nutrition,

Today, I am bringing you a conversation with my family on how we’ve been incorporating better nutrition into our household and daily routine. I believe it is beneficial to give children some level of ownership over their eating habits. In this episode, you will hear how we have been able to implement small changes within our household to eat healthier as a family.  Some of the things we’ve been maneuvering include: my youngest daughter recently becoming vegetarian; my older daughter is working with a nutritionist to treat migraines, and my husband started eating better and incorporating healthy smoothies into our diet. We hope some of the changes we’ve implemented and share in this episode, inspire you to do the same.   Show Highlights  Eat more vegetables and plant-based proteins to boost your nutrition and build your immunity. Have at least five colors on your plate. This is a good measure of a balanced diet. ACAI bowls are a great go-to snack/meal. Why you should start your day with a good breakfast. Smoo

“You would die for your kids, but would you change for them?”  That was a question once posed to Suzanne Carpenter, founder of CarpenterOne80, a company that focuses on equipping people with the tools they need to help them lose weight while living a lifestyle they love. That one question helped Suzanne acknowledge that she had a life-long eating disorder. Wanting to provide the best possible example to her daughters, she decided to confront the problem.  On today’s show, I’m speaking with Suzanne about making peace with food, and how she turned her journey into a business to help others do the same.  Suzanne became a certified nutritionist, and through Carpenter One80’s three distinct nutrition programs, she helps her clients learn their triggers, understand the basics of nutritional information, develop a maintainable lifestyle, and make their peace with food.     Show Highlights  Rectify your relationship with food and make peace with it. Know your triggers, allow others to know them, and help you through

How can I be the most healthy? This question comes up often in conversations with friends, family, and clients. In my quest to answer this question and more, I am beginning a four-part series on nutrition. I am kicking things off with Dr. Stephanie Zgraggen.  Dr. Stephanie was finishing her degree, working, studying for certification boards, preparing to buy a private practice, and planning a wedding. She began to feel the stresses of life and work weighing on her health. Unable to find a diagnosable problem, she relied on her training, did a deep dive into her health, and found she had several hormonal imbalances. Her year-long experience aided her ability to help other women with similar issues. Today, Dr. Stephanie is a trained chiropractor who owns a private practice that focuses on functional endocrinology, lifestyle modification, and whole food supplementation. My discussion with Dr. Stephanie has taught me the importance of reading labels and understanding nutrients, and I hope it helps you too.   Show

Reflection is good for the soul, especially in today’s world. In this episode, I take some time to reflect on the lessons I’ve learned from past podcast guests. Because each guest has been impactful on my personal growth. I hope as you re-listen to some of the interviews, or listen to them for the first time, you will be as inspired too.   Show Highlights  The ever important lesson to live with intention was shared by Joan Mara, Brian Brault, Stacie Barber. Julie Tassy and Emily Cassel stressed the importance of, “Going with your gut.”  Eli Dent, Miranda Barrett, and Krista Moore taught me to keep learning and evolving.  Kiri Masters and Monica Barnet shared the importance of not letting setbacks hold you back.   And finally, I learned the value of not beating yourself up and giving yourself some grace; from Rob Jordan, Katty Douraghy, and Dana Marxer.   Resources:Episode 3 featuring Joan Mara Episode 4 featuring Kiri Masters Episode 5 featuring Brian Brault Episode 7 featuring Krista Moore Episode 8 fe

When I look good, I feel good. Right now there's a lot going on outside my control. A lot. So, I have decided to focus my energy on something that always makes me smile. Fashion! In fact--this week there will be a bonus episode of the podcast dedicated to my top 5 picks for spring. Wear now--feel great and impress your family!--and wear later--feel great and impress everyone else!   Spring Top 5   Sporty Sandals -- This season, I am trying Tevas (or something similar). For the last couple years I have worn my plastic Birkenstocks, which I still love! Both are great because they are waterproof, stay in place and last longer than a one-season (or shorter) pair of plastic flip-flops.   One-Piece Swimsuit -- After years of mix-n-match bikini/tankini summers, I am going for a black one-piece! Easy to wear with shorts to bike to the pool or with a coverup to provide a little more tummy coverage. Plus, what's more classic than a black mallot? I'm looking at Prana, Athleta and Everything But Water.   Cover-up/Dres

Today we are talking about building a life or career around doing what you love. I’m talking with Carmen Marshall, a business mentor and lifestyle coach with 20 years experience. Carmen founded Soul Craft, a company with products and online instruction designed to help you create the modern-spirited lifestyle you’ll love to live.   Carmen shares with us the story of working a job she didn’t like to save enough money to build her own company. A financial crash that erased much of that hard work made her realize the futility of putting off for tomorrow and the importance of living a life you love. That realization has helped her create and grow her company while living and traveling the world with a little dance thrown in to make her life all that much better. I enjoyed my talk with Carmen, she helped me see a few new ideas for me to explore, and I hope she will be equally inspiring to you.     Show Highlights Build your life or career around what you love. That’s how you will find enthusiasm. Loving what you

Today, I am going to share a three-step process to help you create an empowered mindset during this time of heightened anxiety and fear. Yes, we're going to talk about the Novel Coronavirus. And, we're going to talk about how we're feeling. This episode speaks to the mental health aspect of dealing with any stressful situation and provides a process that we can follow to move toward a more positive mindset. I want to provide this process, and I hope that you can take it and plug into it whatever is bothering, challenging, or irritating you and help you to find your way forward. We've got challenges, we've got fears, and we've got anxiety. But we also have opportunity and hope. It's all normal. We need to trust ourselves to know that we have what we need inside ourselves.    Show Highlights  The mindset predicts the exact outcome experienced. Being in a decisive and empowered mindset takes us out of being reactionary and into being proactive.  The process of creating a positive mindset and the power of refram

This week we are talking about why the power of building a supportive and trusting environment and honoring yourself is essential in today's world. My guests are Dr. Kaitlyn Carroll, a pediatric and prenatal chiropractor, who owns and operates a corrective chiropractic office with her husband. And, Stacie Barber, a transformational life and wellness coach, who also runs a mindful body studio with her husband.  They each share a story from their life that helped them grow into the wonderful women they are now. Their stories are different, but their lessons are similar: we must be willing to accept and trust ourselves for who we are and allow our struggles to help us grow. I hope we can all learn to honor ourselves a little more.    Show Highlights Don't hit rock bottom before you reach out for help. Give yourself the same grace and compassion; you offer to others. Fill your life with things that are meaningful to you.   Sometimes you have to trust your instincts, make the significant changes to become who you

Have you struggled with finding your personal Why? Are you aware of how your Why leads to clarity and direction when you’re finding your path? Today I’m talking to one of my best friends, Miranda Barrett,  Vice President of Membership Growth and Retention at the Community Company. The Community Company builds and manages communities for business leaders. Miranda was fortunate to work with Life Coach Jamie Douraghy on finding her WHY. As someone who also worked with Jamie, I can attest to the importance of finding your why, and how it leads to clarity and direction when finding your path.    Miranda and I worked together for many years and became friends as we traveled the world together. We both made career changes around the same time and she’s here today to share how she went from a full-time executive to a full-time consultant and back to a full-time executive. Miranda also shares her story of hiking the Sierra Nevada trail—being totally present in the experience and how this experience allowed her to shut

In today’s episode, I have the pleasure of talking with Dr. Edward O’Bryan. Dr. O’Bryan is the Chief Medical Officer for Business Health at the Medical University of South Carolina and is the Co-Founder and Chief Medical Officer of One World Health. He spends his days saving lives so I was truly honored he took the time to share his story with me.  For those who don’t know, One World Health has built hospitals and clinics in Uganda, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and are now expanding into Honduras. They serve over 150,000 patients annually through the service and dedication of medical and non-medical volunteers. The needs of each country are different. Whether it’s a rural clinic or a full hospital, One World Health tries to answer the needs of the community. A mission trip to Nicaragua 20 years ago was an eye-opening experience for Dr. O’Bryan, he saw the need for long-term sustainable medical solutions. He found Matt Alexander, and they partnered to work to make this daunting idea a reality. They had many opportun

This week I have the pleasure of sharing my conversation with Marcie Anderson, an author, healer, and meditation teacher. Marcie’s daughter Adi also joins us. Together we have a discussion on using the elements of nature to help achieve balance. You will hear about how at the age of seven, Marcie was with her older brother at the moment he died of Leukemia. This was a life-altering experience which left her with many questions. Years later it led her to India where she spent ten years studying with a spiritual teacher learning mediation. During the second half of our conversation, we discuss Marcie’s book, Are We There Yet? Each chapter of the book explains nature’s five elements: earth, fire, sky, water, air, and how these relate to who we are. Marcie explains with the help of meditation you can use the elements to keep yourself in balance. As you can gather from the discussion, the Fire Element chapter really hit home for me and the one I was most drawn toward. I hope after listening to our conversation or

Today I conclude my conversation with Australian entrepreneur, David Bartholomeusz. In part one, David shared stories from his youth to illustrate how you can find a quiet place outside of meditation when you are able to find it within meditation. In today’s conversation, we delve a little more into being able to find that quiet place as we discuss the concept of flow.  Flow is a state of consciousness in which people can experience more enjoyment and creativity.   David talks about how he primarily finds his flow when he is working on a task that requires complete focus.  He says that he can go into an almost trance-like state when he is in flow and coming out of it is like waking up in the morning.   Additionally, you will hear my conversation with psychologist Marisa Nava, about emotional triggers. I shared how I was embarrassed by a reaction I had to an emotional trigger. When I discussed it with Marisa she assured me that my reaction was common and boy, was it reaffirming to hear. She also expressed the

Today’s episode is part one of my conversation with David Bartholomeusz of Entrepreneurs' Organization. David is a serial entrepreneur known for his explorations in behavioral economics and applied evolutionary psychology.  He has a particular interest in habitat systems and the organic growth of communities. Today we explore some unconventional and conventional ways of finding your quiet voice.  David uses a story from his youth to illustrate how he found his quiet place and how that helps him be better prepared for challenges in his life.  Growing up in a small town in Australia, he believed his only path to a future would be through the military. After attending cadet school, an Academy Psychologist worked to convince him otherwise.  Angry and discouraged, David had to allow the quiet in, in order to accept that the psychologist was correct and that the university path was the correct one.   Through this experience, David learned that it’s in these challenging times, the quiet you find can help you the mos

In this episode, I will share my EASY goal setting method to help you see the value of setting your own goals. And, no, setting goals isn’t easy but there are four things to keep in mind in order to make your goals something which will be lasting and fulfilling.   What is your relationship with goals? My relationships with goals used to be 100% corporate.  They were set by those above me and I was tasked with accomplishing them while I had very little control over them. I could see—and appreciate—their necessity but since I had no ownership of them, I had very little excitement about these goals. If this is your primary relationship with goals it can be difficult to see their use in your personal life. About five years ago my relationship with goals shifted. At the end of every year, my husband would sit and go through his list of goals (he actually typed a list of goals) and marked his progress.  One year I finally stopped rolling my eyes and I sat down to review his list with him. Even if he didn’t always m

Sean and Katie McLaughlin, my brother and sister-in-law, join me on this episode to help me demonstrate the Wheel of Balance in action. Sean and Katie are parents to two precious children. They each maintain busy lives—both inside and outside of the home and I am extremely grateful to them for agreeing to participate. I must admit, I was nervous working with a couple, relatives, no less. I’m so glad I pushed through my apprehension because we ended up having an insightful conversation.  So, what is the Wheel of Balance? The Wheel of Balance, or Wheel of Life, was first developed in the 1960s as a popular visual tool used in coaching to help clients quickly understand how balanced or fulfilled their life is in this moment. The purpose of the tool—typically set up as a worksheet—is to help with self-reflection and to help achieve better communication with others in your life. The Wheel of Balance is broken into a pie-chart, dividing your life into the eight most important pieces. From there you can examine and

On this week’s episode I am joined by Dana Marxer, CEO and Founder of Gen5, a strategic marketing firm that focuses on accelerating growth for emerging B2B companies. Dana has led marketing and product management teams for almost 20 years. She's created thought leadership concepts and visionary marketing strategies for companies across a variety of industries leading to significant revenue growth, public offerings, and acquisitions.  I admire Dana’s ambition and her commitment to family and business, which is one of the many reasons I am elated to have her as a guest. She’s one intelligent and inspiring woman. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Engineering and Economics and Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Dartmouth College plus has a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University along with an MBA, with a concentration in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the University of Maryland. She is a devoted mother to five boys who are her greatest inspirations. By the end of

This week my featured guest is Rob Jordan, CEO and Founder of Idealist Consulting, a Salesforce and Marketing Automation firm. Rob left his job at a global consulting firm in 1998 to join the Peace Corps. His decision would lead to a lifelong commitment to ethical business and a graduate degree in International Issues and Conflict Resolution. From his time as a Peace Corps volunteer, Rob developed a vision for a better way of doing business. This led him to founding Idealist Consulting, with the goal to bridge the technological chasm between nonprofits and the corporate sector. Rob is also a published author, speaker and lifelong traveler.  In this episode we explore overcoming mental obstacles and learning to live in the moment. As well as being willing to define the low moments and finding the strength to come back from them. We also explore the topic of rebirth from both a business and personal perspective.  One of my favorite takeaways was this idea of what “muscle” do you want to work out and grow? My fi

When it comes to the holiday season, it’s not uncommon to have a lot of extra responsibilities added to our already overflowing plate. There are extra parties to attend, extra tasks to complete, extra decorating to do and extra family events to navigate. Everything we have in our busy schedules is multiplied. And yes, it feels totally overwhelming. Here’s the thing, there are always going to be unexpected things that come up. So when things are already super full, those extras on top of the extras can push us over the edge. There are ways to ease the overwhelm and help manage the stress of the holiday season, and that is the topic of this special holiday bonus episode of the show.  Today, I'm going to share my system for mindful scheduling. My system will help you determine what you should do, what you should delegate and what you should delete. Using my scheduling system will allow you to go about the holiday season a little bit more mindfully. But what about the stress? Well, in this episode I will also sha