Barbell Shrugged - Why Evolving (in fitness, and in life) Is Scary But Worth It, with Steph Gaudreau — Muscle Maven Radio Episode #20

Episode Date: June 20, 2019

This podcast is all about evolution: how scary, difficult, frustrating, and ultimately freeing empowering it can be to figure out how to let go of things that aren’t serving you anymore and allow yourself to grow, change, and move on. Whether in fitness, business, relationships, or life in general, the key to authenticity and happiness is being able to learn from your experiences, pick and choose what works for you, and sometimes, take a leap into the unknown. Today’s guest, nutritional therapy consultant, podcast host, author, and fitness and nutrition coach Steph Gaudreau talks about her own journey, including her recent significant rebranding and all the fear that comes with rebuilding after the painstaking process of building a brand and a following. Steph talks about shifting priorities, stepping out of a “scarcity mindset,” and how staying true to yourself, even when that truth changes, is the best way to live and build a business.     Steph Gaudreau’s mission is to help women create bigger, bolder, fiercer lives — by building health from the inside out She’s a Nutritional Therapy Consultant, author, blogger, coach, podcaster, and the creator of the former Stupid Easy Paleo. Steph wrote the best-seller The Paleo Athlete: A Beginner’s Guide to Real Food for Performance in 2014, and her award-winning book, The Performance Paleo Cookbook: Recipes for Eating Better, Getting Stronger & Gaining the Competitive Edge. Her upcoming book The Core 4, due out in July 2019, shares her Core 4 pillars of health. Steph hosts her Harder to Kill Radio podcast, where she talks all things fitness, nutrition and mindset about how to build unbreakable humans. She’s also the creator of the Core 4 health program, and the Women’s Strength Summit. Steph’s an accomplished strength coach (USA Weightlifting Level 1) and is the creator of fitness programs like Made Strong, Basic Barbell, and Oly Lifting Basics. She coached Olympic weightlifting at CrossFit Fortius in San Diego for 3.5 years and holds numerous CrossFit certifications.     Minute Breakdown:   0 - 17  Ashleigh starts the podcast by talking about her own health and fitness journey and evolution      17 –  27 Steph talks about what it’s like to have a busy online business, how she structures her day, and tips for how to stay focused and avoid distraction when working from home       27 –43  Ashleigh and Steph talk about stepping out of fitness-related comfort zones, including switching from CrossFit to Brazilian jiu jitsu, and how her background in CrossFit and Olympic lifting helps inform her current movement and exercise   43 – 49 Talking about her rebrand from her popular Stupid Easy Paleo platform to her new eponymous brand, with less of a focus on a specific diet protocol and more on helping women with nutrition, fitness, and mindset: helping women find their voices and feel empowered to take up space in their lives and careers     49 – 1:02 Learning about the pros and cons of labels and categories, whether it’s labeling your brand or your nutrition or your fitness approach; how it can be both helpful and limiting   1:02 – Discussing the evolution of her fitness and business and how she learned to worry less about making everyone happy and more about making herself happy, through supporting other women in their journeys. So often, women are expected to be “palatable” to everyone, says Steph: not too strong, not too outspoken, pleasing and cute and happy to fit in to the mold others set for them. But doing the hard work of staying true to ourselves, even when it’s hard, will reflect positively in our businesses, our relationships, and even our fitness.   Follow Steph on social media @steph_gaudreau, and learn more about her books, programs, podcast, and coaching at stephgaudreau.com   ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/mmr-gaudreau ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Please Support our Sponsor: @beekeeper: hwww.beekeepersnaturals.com/musclemaven for 15% off

Maven Radio, I am your host, the one and only Muscle Maven. And I'm excited about this episode. I am speaking with Steph Gaudreau. She's a successful health and strength coach and author. And I think that this chat is sort of about, among other things, how we all evolve, not only as humans, but in our fitness and our wellness journey,

and how that evolution isn't necessarily linear, nor does it take the exact path that we have planned. I mean, after all, if we knew exactly where we wanted to end up from the very beginning, there would hardly be a path at all, right? We'd just figure out how to skip ahead to that finished perfect version of ourselves, right? But it doesn't work that way

because our situations change, our goals change, things get thrown in front of us that we don't expect and so on. So Steph grew a very successful business and a following with her brand Stupid Easy Paleo. And that's how I got to know her initially because I was obviously doing some work with Paleo magazine. And that reflected her nutrition and lifestyle at the time. And she kind of more recently decided to rebrand and reflect a new reality with the way she lives and the way she coaches. But it took her a while to make that switch for business reasons, but also I think maybe, as she'll explain, some confidence or fear-based reasons.

It's a big deal to work really hard to have a business and gain a following and then kind of switch everything up because we all know how fickle people can be. So she gets into all of that and we talk about the evolution of her fitness because a big part of what she offers these days are strength and conditioning programs. But it's a really great chat and I hope you enjoy it. But I thought I would also take this time a little bit to talk about my own fitness and health journey because I've had a couple people ask me, people who are sort of listening here and there to the episodes that know that I've talked a bit about my bodybuilding background. I've talked about CrossFit, a couple things that I dabble in here and there. And while my story honestly isn't particularly compelling any more than anyone else's is, like most stories,

it illustrates a growth and an evolution and a constant willingness to evolve. I think that that's useful for people to hear. I think it's necessary for anyone who wants to grow and get better and be happy. I'm going to just chat for a little bit about my story. It's very weird just to talk to no one, so this won't be too long. If you're not interested in my story, you can skip ahead a couple of minutes and we'll get right into stuff. Since some of you have asked, I'll just kind of do a little bit of an intro. So I was always into strength and being strong and other people's strengths. I was always interested in that as well, but I wasn't necessarily a natural athlete. I did gymnastics and swimming mostly as a young kid because I was

built for that. I was sort of like tiny until I hit puberty. So I kind of like leaned more towards gymnastics and I really liked swimming. So those were things that looking back, I think were very helpful in terms of building not only body awareness, but a base of muscle that a lot of people maybe don't necessarily get at a young age. So I did that when I was a kid. My parents put me in a few sports, team sports. I wasn't really particularly good at any of those. I wasn't maybe the worst either, but I wasn't super interested in it, like stuff like soccer. I just wasn't, you know, I did it because my parents told me to do it, but it wasn't

really my thing. When I got to be a teenager, I was always in the gym sculpting guns. And there wasn't really much of a fit chick culture in the gym back then, honestly. And I don't like to, you know, make it seem like I was some kind of pioneer because fit chick culture in the gym back then, honestly. And I don't like to make it seem like I was some kind of pioneer because I was born in the mid-80s. I'm not that old. But before the sort of fitspo world, before social media, and really, I mean, if we're talking when I was in high school, like the early 2000s, there really wasn't a huge community of women who are in the gym squatting and trying to get muscular fit bodies. It was kind of maybe more cardio world.

It was more sports-based, I suppose. But for whatever reason, I always liked being in the gym, lifting weights and having muscles. I grew up, I guess I had an older brother who made me get into things like wrestling and UFC and World's Strongest Man. So I kind of always liked watching that stuff. I was always fascinated with what people were physically capable of and what our bodies could do. So I guess I was kind of an original gym rat. But it wasn't until probably my mid-20s that I found CrossFit. I guess it was around 2008 or so.

So I was relatively early to CrossFit. I guess it was around 2008 or so. So I was relatively early to CrossFit. And I realized that this was definitely more my style athletically. It was social. It was interactive. You get to hang out with people. You're constantly learning. But the competition side or the improvement side, the progression side was still really kind of mostly on your own. And it was an interesting combination of gymnastics and strength, which was kind of my jam. I really enjoyed that. I never really got super competitive with it. I did kind of veer off and did some like powerlifting, some strongman stuff, just because I love all of it. It's just so much fun and like learning and like lifting heavy things. It's just so much fun. But I never really got super competitive on the CrossFit side because, believe it or not, I'm not actually a very competitive person when it comes to sports. I like to try things and I like to work hard, but I've never really been super attached

to being the best at anything. I think I always, from an early age, knew that I could be well-rounded and good at things and try things and enjoy them. But I guess I never really had that kind of competitive drive to be the best at any sport. I think that's also what led me to this job, actually, because I am fascinated in people who are the best. My very first interview for Muscle Maven Radio is with a friend of mine, Devin Larratt, who is the world's best arm wrestler.

Talk about a weird niche sport. But it's just so cool to talk to people who have dedicated their lives to being just the best in the world at a physical pursuit. I'm just fascinated by it. Anyway, I'm veering off again. So I did CrossFit for a number of years. I got pretty good at it. I crushed muscle-ups and handstand push-ups and some pretty good lifting numbers and really enjoyed it. But I just kind of kept evolving. I like to kind of keep dabbling in new things. So once I'd done CrossFit for a number of years, I started looking at bodybuilding. I feel like a lot of people go the other way. They start

kind of with bodybuilding and trying to have a beach bod and then they get into CrossFit as an actual sport. I went the other direction because I've always had people kind of telling me I do well in competitive figure or fitness because I've got this sort of developed upper body from all the gymnastics and swimming, a general lack of shyness. So walking around in a bikini wasn't a big deal. Genetics, honestly, mostly when it comes to bodybuilding, there are a number of factors that make people good at bodybuilding competition. But a big one is genetics because it's an aesthetic sport at

the end of the day. You can train really well, and you can do everything right, and you can be on point nutritionally, but if you don't have the shape that a particular category is looking for, you're in trouble. Genetically, again, this is nothing that I have going for me through hard work. It was just, I guess, thank you to my mother. I have pretty broad shoulders. I have a small waist. I just have a kind of like a fit crossfitter ish looking figure. Um, that's good for figure competition. So I decided what the hell, let's go for it. I want to know what I look like with abs. I've never had them before. Um, and I was older at this point. So now we're talking late twenties, maybe 30, even when I started. And that was probably the sport that I was the

best at for the reasons that I just described. I have no problem prancing around in a bikini. I have no problem being in the gym all the time trying to get big delts. And the dieting part, of course, was the biggest challenge. I think it probably is for everybody. But I really looked at it like an experiment. It was just really cool, again, to see what your body is capable of doing, how it reacts to things, how it changes. And seeing when you kind of do something like this in a very methodical way, like I was sort of dieting and training for a specific competition for maybe three to four months. And every day, you kind of see new changes. You wake up and you maybe see some more abs or you see sort of

different changes in the way your arms are looking or whatever. It's just kind of fascinating. And even the way your body reacts to different dietary changes or increased workload or decreased workload or increased carbs or whatever. It's just kind of fun. Your body is like a science experiment. So I really, really enjoyed that. And I did well. I made it within three competitions. I went from sort of the very local show all the way to a natural national competition in Canada. I competed in the biggest province in Canada, one of the most competitive provinces. And I really, really, really enjoyed it. I'm a natural show off.

And I loved the whole process. I mean, it was weird too. And definitely, there's some strange elements to it. And maybe we can have a bigger talk about bodybuilding and its pros and cons at some point. But I did realize that once I kind of hit the top of where I could go naturally, I didn't really want to go any further or I wasn't really interested in competing at a pro level because I know a lot of pros. And again, it's not to take anything away from anybody else, but I just, it wasn't really the lifestyle that I necessarily wanted. I thought that maybe the rewards weren't worth the sacrifices. And I just also wasn't ready to compete at the next level

because it basically requires drugs. And I just didn't want to do it. A lot of people make that decision and that's fine. I just wanted to kind of stick to what I was capable of doing just with my own work and capacity. So I'm not actually sure that I'm done bodybuilding. It's been a few years since I competed. I still certainly do it workout-wise. I might compete again because I

think it's fun and I had a good time. But as far as trying to sort of make it to the next level, I think I'm pretty much done for that. And then just to kind of talk about sort of nutrition-wise throughout this entire journey, I basically went from like when I was a teenager. I don't know, I ate cereal every day. I don't know. teenagers eat, like whatever you want. That's the beauty of being a teenager. I did kind of play with the zone a bit when I was in CrossFit. Again, this is aging me because that's, you remember when CrossFit was new, they kind of were into the zone diet, which is essentially tracking your macros. I then moved into paleo and that's where I sort of moved professionally as well because I ended up working for the magazine and learning a lot about ancestral health and sort of primal diets and

eating the way that your body biologically is meant to eat. And then I kind of transitioned more into bodybuilding, which I still stuck relatively to a paleo diet, but the macros were very much bodybuilding, which was high protein, high carbs, very low fat, which I got to say, even in light of the keto world today and how hot that is, that really seems to work better for me. I like to eat fat and I absolutely incorporate it in a normal, healthy, functioning diet. But if I want to shred up, I can't do it with fat. I just can't. I know a lot of jacked, lean keto people. It's just not my thing. So I think that that's also worth thinking about too, that you can't just play with whatever

other people say is the trick of the day. Or even if you know somebody who's had a lot of success with something, it doesn't mean you're going to. So you've got to really play around with things. And I have been playing with nutrition and food for, I don't know, I mean like more than a decade now. And again, I have fun with it. You just play with it. Some things work. Some things don't. I got chubby on keto.

It is what it is. You play around with it. You move on. You learn. You take things from all the different projects that you've had. Now, I'm in this fluid paleo-ish basis, bodybuilding style. If I'm trying to be lean, if I'm not, I'm just all over the place eating massive portions because food is life. Then I alternate between more paleo to carnivore paleo, so just meat-heavy paleo meals. That's what I found really works for me.

Now, I'm dabbling in jujitsu. That's my on and off project that I keep coming back to because I really, really love it. I'm just trying to figure out what's next for me. I won't say that I don't have moments of frustration or lack of motivation or straight up boredom that I never have feelings where I kind of feel like I'm not doing enough or I'm kind of down on myself. I think everyone has that and we can recognize that and be okay with it. But what I can say is that I don't look at anything that I've done over my entire fitness journey or even things that I maybe wasn't good at. Again, I ran a couple of marathons in there, sucked at those. I don't consider any of it failures or a waste of time. I look at everything

as a learning experience because every single thing that I did shaped what I know about myself, what I know I'm capable of, how I perform today, the things that are interesting to me. The things that you know you're good at, you get there from trying things that you aren't good at. So my perfect, ideal, healthy, happy lifestyle is not the same as anyone else's. It's up to each of us to kind of take that responsibility and that time and that hard work to test and try things and experiment and reflect on how those things made you feel and just take a little something from everything we do and everything that we've learned. And it's a super fun ride, right?

Like that's, I think, how you have to approach it. That's how you have to approach life in general. And I just, I can't wait to see what's next. So I'm really happy that my job is all about experimenting and learning from other people like Steph, who just to bring this full circle, that was kind of her experience too. She did a lot of different things. She evolved, she grew, she moved past things, but she took all of those experience to make this successful, awesome,

vibrant person that she is now. So that's what this day is all about. That's what this podcast is all about. I think I've talked about myself enough for one day. It's so weird just talking about yourself for 10 minutes in an empty room. But as I always say, if you have any questions for me at all, if you have any topics you want me to cover in greater detail or guests you want me to have on, let me know. I'm very receptive and reach out to me. The best way to do it is on Instagram at The Muscle Maven. Let's chat. Give me your ideas. And I appreciate it. So that's it. Quick shout out to my show sponsor, who happens to be longtime friends and supporters of mine, and vice versa. They are the amazing people at Beekeepers Naturals. And this is a wellness

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Bacopa monieri that you actually don't see in a lot of nootropic products that's pretty unique to them. And all of these things work together to give you, without any caffeine, it gives you a natural energy boost. It helps you lift brain fog, improve your mood and cognitive function. And actually, one of the founders of the company, Daniel, he actually used this formula to help him heal from the last of a succession of concussions that he suffered from sports, from hockey and skiing. So Daniel, you need to take it a little bit easy. But he said that using this product regularly along with his recovery protocol, it actually helped him feel better significantly faster than before with any of his similar injuries. So his last, hopefully, knock on wood, his last concussion was his best recovery because he was using this

product. And personally, I use it when I'm just feeling a little bit run down, like when I can feel that I start, I'm needing something. I use it when I travel because I always feel like garbage when I travel. I use it when I have a big interview or something coming up and I just want to feel on the ball. It tastes good. It's better than just kind of downing a pill you can mix it into a cocktail even although that might be defeating the whole brain power thing but um anyway another key point of this is that they're really affordable compared to a lot of other nootropic products it's like this little superfood shot you know there's stuff in it that's good for you it has only nice ingredients and it doesn't kind of make you feel like a dummy for spending hundreds of dollars on

like a pill that you don't even know what's in it or what it does. Anyway, I can't speak highly enough of this company. They have tons more information about their products, their ingredients on their website. If you want to learn more and you can use my special code muscle Maven, you'll get a 15% discount on anything you buy. And I'll make sure that there are links to everything in the show notes. You can go there and check it out. But thank you beekeepers. You guys are keeping me on the ball. I appreciate you. And that is enough of me talking. Okay. So let's move on to my chat with the amazing Steph Goudreau. So Steph, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the podcast. I'm very pumped to have 45 minutes to chat with you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So I've actually been a fan of yours for a long time, ever since Stupid Easy Paleo Days,

because I have been a writer for Paleo Magazine for a long time. And I actually think that when I first started with the magazine, which was probably around maybe 2009 or so, I actually wrote a feature about you. But obviously, in the years since you've, you've like grown, expanded and evolved and kind of done a rebranding, which I'm really interested in asking you about, but it's kind of cool to see sort of how your work and interests and all that stuff has kind of evolved and how your, your community has kind of grown with you. So I'm really excited to ask you about that. But I guess before I get into any of my specific questions, like how are you doing? What are you up to these days? Oh, I'm doing well. Life is always interesting when you're self-employed and an online entrepreneur. And just as soon as you

get used to something, something is changing. So I just feel like it's always a work in progress. But right now, sort of six weeks out from the new book coming out. So we're sort of in that getting ready to launch everything insanity and just trying to keep my cool. Yeah, I can relate to that because I kind of obviously on a different scale and sort of different, slightly different areas. But in the same realm, I'm doing like freelance stuff and kind of consulting stuff. And a lot of my work over the last like five years has been like, I have created it. And if I haven't, I wouldn't have work to do. So I understand the kind of hustle that's involved in doing that. But there's also a lot of like, freedom and excitement and kind of creativity

that goes into it, which is pretty cool. Absolutely. Yeah. I love working for myself and I didn't realize how much I value autonomy until I did that. And that was six years ago when I left the classroom and I was teaching for 12 years. And if you can imagine when you're a high school teacher, you're basically on the most regimented schedule that you could ever have for a job. It's, you know, a bell tells you when to do literally everything. So having autonomy now is super important to me, although I still am kind of a creature of habit, but this time I get to decide what I'm doing. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, having routine is great, but being able to decide it for yourself is like, yeah, you don't realize how sort of

amazing that is until you get the opportunity to do it. But it does, I think it takes a certain kind of personality because I do know people who, if they were given the kind of almost in a way freedom that freelancers have, it would be kind of overwhelming. Like some people I think do better with having that more sort of rigid schedule that's kind of created by somebody else. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So your, your description on your website, I love it makes me feel like we not to be creepy, but we would definitely be friends in real life. And I'm sure that you get this. I'm sure that you get this a lot. But like, you know, I don't know, Lord of the Rings nerd, I'm with you on that one. Cold brew, I literally

never drink hot coffee. People think I'm a weirdo because I live in a cold place too. Like I drink cold brew like year round and like minus 30 degrees and people are like, you're a weirdo. But most, most importantly, you know, you, you talk about how you believe that women should have the right to be strong and take up space in the world. And I love that. Have our voices heard. And you're a nutritional therapist, a strength coach. You are a podcaster as well, which again, I love that so much because I think that there needs to be more kind of strong women voices in the sort of strength world, especially all of that stuff. So I'm just really excited to get into all of that and hear more about the work that you're

doing. But maybe first, because I'm such a voyeur such a voyeur in this way. And I love it. But can you talk a little bit about what like a day or even a week in your life looks like, like how your workday is kind of broken down? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I also am from Massachusetts. And I lived there for 25 years. And I drank cold coffee when I lived there. So I totally get that. Yeah. I would say that, you know, I work from home, which is not for everyone. I love it. I'm an introvert and a highly sensitive person and all these things. Like I just really value time to myself. So on like Monday, Wednesday, Friday morning, I actually get up pretty early and I go to jujitsu at seven.

So I did that this morning and then I'll come home after that about 8.30, 9 o'clock. I'll have breakfast and get to work. And then it depends on what the day calls for. Today I'm recording a podcast with you and I've got some phone meetings and stuff like that. It might be recording my own podcast. It might be writing social media posts, blog posts, taking care of everything else that goes along with running your business like paying bills and all that stuff. So I'll typically do

that, break for lunch, do a little bit more work. But I find for me, my really great focused working time is done by about 2 o'clock. If it's something really important, and it really requires me to be creative and present and problem solving. And if I don't get it done by two o'clock, forget it. So I try to spend my afternoons dealing with, you know, less mentally taxing, sort of creative demand, things like answering emails and running errands and stuff like that. It doesn't always work out that way, but that's typically what happens. And then my husband gets home at about 6.30 and we have dinner and we watch some Netflix. And then it lights out by about 9.30.

So are you pretty strict with how many hours you work a day too? Or is it like depending on the day, you might just be like, well, today's a 12 hour day and I'll, I'll make up for it by maybe taking more time off tomorrow or something. Sometimes that does happen, you know, Tuesdays or Thursdays. Uh, it's usually been Thursdays lately. I won't do any kind of exercise whatsoever. It's like a pure rest day along with Sunday, typically. So those days I'll tend to do a little bit more work. If I'm doing jujitsu, sometimes I'll double up and I'll just do some strength stuff in the gym right after class. And so that means I don't get home from that until sometimes 9.30, 10 o'clock in the morning. So I'm already starting work quite late for that day. So yeah, it sort of ebbs and flows. And some

days I work more and some days I work less. And Saturdays, I usually don't do very much. But Sundays, I try to get set up for the week ahead. And so I have a pretty good flow down, but it depends on the day. And when you're doing your like, really like sit down to the computer, you're writing or, or doing maybe more strategic stuff, like, do you have any sort of hard lines where like, I don't know, you like turn off like social media or you like turn off the internet, like stuff so that you keep yourself from being distracted or can you actually work without being distracted? Uh, no, I, I am not a super woman. I do have some things that I tend to do, especially if it is a creative demand. So I will set my phone, uh a timer, and I typically set the timer in 30 minute increments. And I'll try not to do more than three of those. And I'll take a

short break in between just get up, stretch, use the bathroom, move around a little bit, go put some dishes away and just give myself a little bit of a really mini mental break. And then I'll try to after those three 30 minute sessions, we'll try to take a half hour break or so. It doesn't always work out that way. But I will try to take a longer time and step back away from the computer. And when I am doing things that require me to be more mentally present, I have an app on my Mac called Self Control. And it's a free app. And you get to pick for yourself. You can enter any domain that you want to block yourself from and then tell the computer for how long you want to set, you get to pick for yourself, you can enter any domain that you want to block yourself from, and then tell the computer for how long you want to block yourself from that thing.

And so sometimes I will, you know, set that and you just see if I go mindlessly, you know, facebook.com, it comes up and the whole page doesn't work. So yeah, I definitely have that stuff. I also, I wear noise canceling headphones a lot because I'm really noise sensitive. But when I put the headphones on, I set the timer, I set the self-control app. That's my message to myself that it's time to get down to work. Okay. Everybody needs more self-control. That's a good app. I'm going to write that one down because I could definitely use that too. Okay. So I have more business questions, but because you brought up jujitsu, I want to talk about that because that's a sport that I love very much. I've been

into on and off over the past couple of years. So you could say I'm an enthusiast. I can't even call myself a white belt because I only have ever done no gi, but I bought myself a gi, so I'm going to get into it. And I have actually, it's funny, this is like a sort of different road we can go down right now. But for the past few years, I've been more of just like kind of general maintenance fitness. Like I love the gym and I love working out and I love being strong, but I've been kind of, you know, just like doing whatever. Like I just go to the gym and I kind of work out just to be in there and for the good endorphins and just because I should. But I like to have a goal. And I've always kind of toyed with the idea of like getting a belt or like, you know, really kind of dedicating myself more to jujitsu, because I really love the sport. And I think it's so much fun. But I have been kind of, I don't know, coming up with excuses, why not to do it. So I wanted to talk to you and see if you can like light a fire under my ass to get back into it. But you know, one of the things that I've decided to do, I'm traveling this month, again, another excuse I'm giving you already, but I'm traveling in June. And then I'm going to be hopefully home for like most of the

summer for the most part. And what I'm thinking of doing is canceling my like Globo gym membership, which I have said I have no I can't go I can go. I can't go. I can't just like, what's out and decide I'm just going to go lift some dumbbells instead. And I'm going to get my, like, go get my jujitsu gym membership back again. So I have no choice. So if I get like the itch, I got to go in. I'm like, well, I've only got one gym membership, so I'm going and I'm going to go train. So I don't kind of don't have any excuses. But anyway, long story short, tell us how you like got into jujitsu and how you're training right now. Yeah, it's a really interesting story. So a couple years ago,

I hosted an online summit called the Women's Strength Summit, and it was a second year. And sort of the theme of that event became getting out of your comfort zone. And I realized I hadn't really done anything outside of my comfort zone in quite a long time. I was still Olympic weightlifting quite a bit at the time. I mean, I've been in and out of an Olympic lifting slash CrossFit situation since 2010, right? And in adjacent sort of communities and stuff like that. So, I mean, hey, nine years or seven years, I was like, I really haven't. I mean, athletically haven't really challenged myself to anything new in a long time. I've better, you know, take my own medicine here. So I, I asked a friend of mine

who I was coaching weightlifting with that at the gym. I asked him, you know, where, where's good to go. And San Diego is such a hotbed of jiu-jitsu in general. And he said, yeah, come with me to this class. It's a fundamentals class and I'll be there with you. And I'll tell you what, like I had only ever – the only jiu-jitsu I had ever seen done was in the context of UFC and MMA. I had never been – I mean, growing up in high school, I did taekwondo, which is completely different. I mean, you wear a gi, but it might as well just be a completely different universe. And I had never seen jujitsu done in a pure form. I had never been to a competition. I had never been to an academy. Like I literally went in blind. I had no clue what I was doing.

And that's how it started. So that was a couple of years ago and like two months ago. So I've been, I've been going straight, straight through ever since. And, um, it's been such a, just a great way for me to, you know, at the time when I was Olympic weightlifting, you get very good in, in moving in like the frontal plane, you know, you're like squatting and cleaning and jerking and snatching and all this stuff. It's like very – the movement tends to be very uniform unless you really go outside of yourself to do other accessory movements and stuff like that. And so I realized like, hey, I don't actually have a lot of comfort being on the floor. Like I could get up off the floor without using my hands.

But I just thought, you know, I really want to be – I really want to develop more physical capacity in myself in a broader way. And that's really kind of became my, my goal with jujitsu. And just to learn, I mean, it's, there's so much to learn. It is like, you know, it's such a contrast to Olympic lifting, because Olympic lifting, you're really trying to perfect two lifts, the clean and jerk and the snatch. And in jujitsu, there's an infinite number of combinations of stuff that you could try to work on. And you also have another person, you can't do jujitsu by yourself. So you're reacting to another human. And that's very unpredictable versus knowing how a barbell is going to react to you. So I saw them as being, you know, complimentary in a lot

of ways. Like for me, I'm glad I had weightlifting experience because I understood things like center of mass. And if I want to try to sweep somebody, I better get underneath them or, you know what I mean? Like just understanding how to move and manipulate weight and how to, you know, how to bridge, how to use my hips, how to use my glutes, like even just general body awareness, right? Very much general body awareness. And a lot of things have changed. So I, you know, I'm much like you at this point, my strength is kind of on the maintenance mode. I mean, I'm not lifting, I'm not squatting to max like I was when I was really, you know, training for Olympic lifting and competing in Olympic

lifting. And I was, you know, squatting like 275 or more like now I'm I mean, I might go in the gym and squat like 185 200 like casual casual like it's it's not like I'm pushing those things. So I'm kind of maintaining a baseline of strength. I'm not lifting super duper heavy, relatively speaking. And I'm not competing in anything right now, which is good for me because I'm putting a lot of energy into work. So I kind of know where I can divvy up my time and my energy. But I had to give you props for no gi. I do a little bit of no gi here and there.

It's really hard for me. I have a, I play a lot of foot game, you know, play a lot of spider guard lasso. I play a lot of bottom open guard. And that's like exactly the, the antithesis of what people do in, in no gi. Yeah. Well, it's so funny too, because I think it's just whatever you start with makes the most sense to you. Like I have this conversation about like skiing versus snowboarding. Cause again, we grew up in cold places and I learned how to ski when I was like three years old. And then I remember there was like a period where it was like cooler to like learn how to snowboard. And so people were kind of switching back and forth and it's just like, however your mind kind of gets around the sport initially is what takes hold and makes more sense because

everyone is telling me like, you would enjoy, um, gi actually, because of with all the like grip work, it actually benefits you more to be strong. And this is another thing I wanted to go back because you were saying it was good that you have kind of like a strength and body awareness background going into jujitsu. Um. One of the things that's so cool about jujitsu is that it isn't necessarily just about brute strength. And you referenced UFC, and when people were learning about ultimate fighting, and there was a jujitsu guy versus a massive boxer, and this tiny jujitsu guy would kick the other guy's ass because it was about submission and technique and stuff like that. However, with that said,

two people with the same technique, the strong person's going to win. So I mean, it is good to still be strong. You can kind of throw people around a little bit. But I'm really excited to try both. Like I literally have never put a gi on and I'm actually just kind of interested to see how that's going to feel differently. But so how often are you training right now? I usually train about five times a week. Right now, I've ramped down to three or four just because I feel I was talking to my community yesterday, I feel a little crispy, a little extra crispy around the edges just because of the amount of work is entering a really busy phase. And I feel like for me, you know, keeping in mind on how I feel, all that goes into it. I mean, jujitsu is really like doing six minute wads when you're rolling, right? You're like, okay, we're gonna do a six minute roll, we rest for a minute,

we're doing like six minute intervals of basically glycolytic work. It's right, it's hard. It's essentially that kind of that kind of a training. And so for me, you know, just knowing how I'm feeling right now, I'm like, you know what, I'm going to actually add in an extra. So I've been doing kettlebell workouts on my porch. I mean, it's like 10, 15 minutes. I'll do that two or three times a week. And then I'm doing three or four rolling three or four times a week. And today I didn't actually roll. I just went in and drilled technique. Um, just wasn't feeling it. So it. So I've gotten to a place now at 40 where if I really don't feel it, I'm like, eh, live to lift or work out another day. It's not the biggest deal in the world.

Yeah. I mean, five days of jujitsu training a week to me sounds like superhuman, the most I was doing. And I might ramp this up because I, cause I'm actually going to try to like focus on a goal here with jujitsu, but I was doing like literally two times a week and then maybe three days of strength training. And those days beat the crap out of me. Like I was covered in bruises. As you said, crispy is just like a very good explanation for it. Cause your body just feels like you're like, ah, you're just beaten up in a way that I don't feel from other training. Because as you said, and I'm just trying to provide some context for people listening that are maybe more like CrossFitters or lifters versus into any kind of martial arts. But it's like, yeah, when you're rolling, it's like, like your best Fran workout, like times five, because someone's also trying to choke you at

the same time. Like it's really, it's's really really cortisol raising and stressful I mean in a good way you're enjoying it at the time but it's like it's really hard to I found and I was training like in the evening so I found it was like really difficult for me yeah to come home and like down regulate what are do you have any suggestions for me or any like techniques for how when you're training a lot you can i don't know in you know um have more recovery and just kind of like relax and not feel like super amped up afterwards yeah that's so tough and that's the reason i don't train in the evening i mean occasionally i'll go in at night at six o'clock but it's super bright well at least in the in the winter right the lights are but it's super bright. Well, at least in the, in the winter, right? The

lights are on. It's super bright. It's like artificial light. There's a million screaming kids because the kids' class gets done. There's a lot of people in there. It's usually a lot hotter in the afternoon or the evening. So it's just like this brew where I'm like, you know what? I like my morning class. It's like chill. It's quiet. But in the evening time, yeah, I have that same thing. So the first thing i would i would make sure i would do is take a protein shake with some kind of like coconut water or something mixed into it and drink that right right away like on the way home right so maybe not when i immediately stop rolling but just to try to get some nutrition in because if you're training that late in the

evening you might not be able to eat a big dinner, you know, you might eat a lighter dinner, because you're just going to go to bed relatively soon. I think also doing some kind of box breathing or some kind of other, you know, parasympathetic, dominant, like, let's, let's just get into a more relaxed state. Even a quick meditation or something like that, when you get home, and you've showered off and just to try to calm your system down a little bit. But yeah, when you're at that point in the evening and like once everything is ramped up quite a bit, it can be hard to chill a little bit. So plug in your Headspace app and do a little bit of guided meditation or whatever you particularly like. But I think

keeping stuff just real low key when you get home, I mean, not stuffing in a giant dinner, I think also can help too because you're not feeling super full and just trying to roll into bed. And maybe not watching your UFC videos when you get home too. But I think probably the biggest answer for me, definitely like the breath work and the just trying to like really chill yourself out afterwards, but doing the classes earlier in the day, because it just doing stuff like that, where I mean, you're the reptilian part of your brain is like you are being murdered right now. Like it's just not ideal to do that at 830 at night. You know, it's like. It's just not. But one of the things that appeals to me so much about the sport, and I'm sure you probably feel the same way, and I think a lot of

people feel this about Olympic lifting and CrossFit too, is that it's so meditative because you're so present when it's happening. Personally, and I'm sure that other people feel differently, but when I do other forms of physical activity, like maybe yoga, for example, I can have a hard time being present, concentrating, like being in my body, not thinking about a million other things. But when I'm rolling, like there is absolutely nothing else in my brain. And I think that's so valuable for people who are just, you know, maybe spread really thin or thinking about a million things all the time, when you can be doing something where for an hour, there is nothing else in your brain. I think that's such a

nice thing. It just feels good. Oh, there you are. Oh, did I lose you for a minute? Yeah, you did. Yeah. Oh, go ahead. I was just waxing poetic about how meditative and beautiful I find jujitsu. Yeah, it is. So you have to be present. It's really hard to – when somebody's got side control on you and they're like squishing the breath out of you, it's pretty hard to not be present. And same thing with Olympic lifting,

you know, you had to really focus. And that's one of the great things about, I find strength training and other similar sports is that like, you have to mentally, you have to train yourself. And that's the great part of the mental training is to be present and to be focused and to be mindful. And like that mind muscle connection is so valuable and so powerful. Yeah. So that's one of the things I really like about it too. If I'm having kind of a wonky morning or whatnot and I go in there, I'm like, I know I can just focus on this for the next hour and not have to think about anything else.

So have you competed in jujitsu before? I have done one in-house competition and that was probably about four months after I started. So I was still a white belt at that point. And that's it. I haven't competed since then because again, for me, I've always been a really competitive person. It's how I've always tried to prove myself to myself, right? And to other people to compete and to want to be the best. And I've competed in sports from soccer to track to taekwondo to mountain biking, Olympic lifting. I mean, I've been in sports since I was a kid. And this is literally the first sport I have not competed in. And it's been really nice to just ease into the process. And the other thing is, honestly, I don't want to get hurt. I

mean, you can get hurt rolling. Yeah. But I've been to competitions and I'm just like, oh, that's a broken, that's a broken bone. Like that's a bloody gash on that person's face. Or like, that's a really badly hyperextended elbow that's going to take four months to heal. Like I just don't, I'm 40. Like I just don't want to, you know, have to, I just don't want to get hurt. A friend of mine just competed for the first time. She separated her shoulder. And I mean, yes, injuries can happen anywhere at any time. And I'm not saying that like you will get injured, but like when you you compete it's different than when you're just rolling with somebody in your gym and you're going really hard like people go out for blood and

they're they're dirty and um you know it's part of the sport it's just you know but you're not gonna find the same kind of uh grace that you get from your regular training partners absolutely people are really trying to win and injuries happen very, very frequently. So yeah, something I'm really down for right now. Yeah. And like you said, I think there's enough sort of excitement and reward from just going in and practicing it. So yeah, that makes sense. Can you tell me a little bit more about, you mentioned when we first started talking about this, the Women's Strength Summit? Oh, yeah. So in 2016, and then again, in 2017, I hosted an online event, where I brought together dozens of different experts in different fields. And they talked

about just kind of, you know, how do we, how do we help increase our strength as women in really our body, mind, and sort of our spirit, like our purpose. So we did the last one two years ago and decided after that, that it was, it was probably better to like end on a high note. And, and we haven't done it since then. So it was a fun way to connect with different people in different industries and, and bring different voices to the table. And we did it all online and women tuned in from all around the world to watch. So it was a fun time. That's cool. Can you tell me about the evolution from Stupid Easy Paleo that you've made relatively recently, right? I think you kind of rebranded. It wasn't much longer than a year ago, was it, or maybe a bit more? I rebranded in November of last year. So it's been about six months, maybe a tiny bit longer.

Okay. All right. Yeah. So it's recent, but the, the initial decision to rebrand or the feeling like I wanted to shift directions goes back to about 2016. So it took two full years really to finally just get over my fear of rebranding and do it. I initially started stephgoddard.com in 2016. And I was still running stupid easy paleo.com because I was afraid like I had built this big thing and I had a lot of people in my community and like I was coming at it from a real scarcity mindset. You know, what if I, what if I change and I lose this, all this stuff that I've created and all these things that I've built up. And, and so I tried to run two websites and, you know, really they're both part of who I am. Like, it's not like I decided I was going to run a website about Pokemon or something. And, you know, then I had stupid easy failure. I was like two very, you know, then I had stupid easy failure, like two very, you know,

two parts of who, where, what I was feeling. And I kept writing articles and thinking, where does this go? Does this live here or here? Like, and it became increasingly difficult and confusing to really run two websites when in fact, what I wanted to do was to transfer everything and just completely shift direction into building this new website, this new brand. So I tried to do that for a year. I ended up just so tired and confused and exhausted. And I said, OK, so for 2017, I'm going to just go back to stupid easy paleo.

And I'm just going to write what I want over there and start writing about more of these issues that I write about today. It started to evolve beyond just recipes. I'm just going to write what I want over there and start writing about more of these issues that I write about today. It started to evolve beyond just recipes. And I did that for about a year and then still was wrestling with this idea. Do I rebrand? Do I just keep the same thing? What am I doing with my life? And kind of like New Year's in 2018, I woke up and I was like, you know what? No, that's it. We're doing it. Like, I'm ready. And so it took almost another full year to complete the rebrand and, you know, improve the website and deal with some old content and, you know, just prepare for everything to be

moved, do the visual branding, build the website. Like, it was about a year-long process to get all of that ready and finally shifted over. So November of 2018, about seven years after I started Stupid Easy Paleo, the blog, everything shifted over. And now if you type in Stupid Easy Paleo, it just redirects to the new website. But there's a lot of old content there still. I mean, all the original recipes and all the old articles I wrote, I mean, that stuff is still on the site. But now it's become much more of a place that's not just about food. It's not just about recipes. It's talking about multifaceted holistic health. particularly women who are 40-ish, oftentimes who are finding themselves in these new seasons of life for whatever reason. Maybe they have recently left a relationship and they're kind of feeling like things are new or they had little kids and the kids are grown up now or they're not like mothers to little children anymore. They have a lot more free time.

Maybe they don't really know who they are because they've been spending so much time raising family. And now they're like, who am I now? You know? So I'm really trying to help women navigate this space about what is, what it's like when we are under so much pressure to look perfect, be perfect, you know, not be too outspoken. All the things that society tells women that we should do, which is sort of just, you know, be small, don't take up too much space, don't rock the boat, don't use your voice. And that's really what I'm, I'm trying to do through, you know, things like helping women with their nutrition, helping them with their fitness, helping them with their mindset. But it's kind of an all-encompassing sort of thing now.

That's awesome. Okay. I want to ask more questions about that. But I do want to go back to asking you a bit more about the thought process around and the nervousness, but also feeling the need to kind of make that change from one brand to another. It's timely because I was just having this conversation and I have it frequently as someone who writes for Paleo Magazine and actually hosts their podcast as well. So I'm doing double duty with podcasts. People have to hear my voice twice a week, whether they like it or not. But one of the things that I've struggled with, and I've talked about this just recently at an event that I hosted in Toronto about labels, whether it's paleo, whether it's vegan,

or whether it's, I don't know, like I'm an endurance runner, or I'm a CrossFitter, or I'm a Republican, or I'm a Democrat. We don't even have to get political with this. But the idea of labels, there's obviously benefits and pros to creating labels because it can help people find communities. It can help people understand terms and concepts. It can help bring people together. But of course, there's cons as well because it can create dogma and it can, you know, different labels can be become diluted or misinterpreted. So there's pros and cons to everything. And it can be, in a way, something that brings people together, but it can also box people in. And it's kind of hard to know where that line is sometimes with labels around, especially nutrition and fitness, which people

can really, it's such a personal thing. Like it can be so much of their identity and who they are and how they value themselves based on how they eat or how they work out. So what was your thinking when you decided that you wanted to kind of not have maybe the paleo term be a big part of how you market yourself? Yeah, that's a really good question. And I recorded a podcast much about what you were talking about there with labels. Essentially said the same thing. We could have said the same exact thing, which is they are helpful until they're not helpful. And they help people find each other, but they can also be divisive.

They can be limiting in a lot of ways as well. So I think for me, I got to the point where I realized I don't eat strict paleo anymore. It was an interesting segue for me, I got to the point where I realized like, I don't eat strict paleo anymore. It was an interesting segue for me. And it really, I mean, becoming, learning about paleo in 2009 and then becoming, you know, eating paleo in 2010, it, it, it really did change so much for me. I mean, finally, for the first time in many, many years, I felt better in my body. I had more energy. Like so many things changed positively. And yet after, you know, a period of time, I realized, you know, why am I eating a strict version of this thing?

You know, does it really work for me? What are the things that I have wiggle room on? And so I think for some people finding that, much like myself, starting out with something that's defined and then moving to something that's more contextual for your life and what works for you is a pretty typical way of doing things. And that's what happened with me. The problem is, is when people get really stuck in the rules and they're like, but I can't do this because it's like, but I can't do this

because it's this, or I can't do that because it's that. And I, you know, frankly, I got really tired of people coming at me on social media and on my own website and being like, you wrote about potatoes, potatoes, aren't paleo and, you know, arguing with me. And I was like, bro, I'm really don't want to have this discussion with you. By the way, I wrote an article about it. You can go read it here. And it said, essentially said the same thing. Yes. Some people don't want to have this discussion with you. By the way, I wrote an article about it. You can go read it here. And it essentially said the same thing. Yes, some people don't do well with potatoes for X, Y, Z reason, but other people do. And they're not devoid of nutrition. Like some people make them out to be. And I think that was just the crystallization of just one example of what was wrong with, in my mind, you know, and it can apply to anything. Like I've

had this happen with vegans too. They're like, well, I'm mostly vegan, except I also eat this. So am I not vegan anymore? Like, who am I now? And, you know, they, they would eventually, you know, maybe let foods back into their diet that would be considered non-vegan in any other context. And they started to wonder, you know, am I doing this wrong? Is this the wrong thing? And it's almost like a crisis of identity. And I just thought, you know, I think that there are so many merits to just eating a, you know, a nutrition plan overall that is minimizing ultra processed foods and ultra palatable foods, and really just trying to get people to focus on real whole foods, nutrient dense foods, like without all the rules. And I also see that there's so much benefit to just giving yourself

a little bit of space, because the more we set up, these are the rules, these are the foods to eat, we make certain foods good and then the no foods become bad. And then we set up this mindset of restriction. And that for a lot of people leads to binging, it leads to disordered behaviors around food, it leads to fear around food. And I'm just like, oh, wow, that's a really bad place to be in. And I'm not necessarily saying like I went into it like knowing that I could be contributing to people's disordered eating patterns. I think when I started it and I started Stupid Easy Paleo, I just want to share the recipes that I'm making and the foods that make me feel good. But now as, you know, as becoming a practitioner and somebody

who's really working with the community, I'm like, you know, I, I think we need to have a discussion about how labels can really be harmful and SEO aside and, and finding people online aside and finding people online aside and finding your community and stuff like that, I just, you know, I don't see that any labels like that are truly helpful for a majority of people in the long run. So that played a lot into it as well. And then I thought, you know, I don't just want to write about food anymore. I don't want to just focus on recipes anymore. And I felt that continuing to call myself stupid, easy paleo was a bit disingenuous of that. And just wanting to be more broad with what I'm talking about, which is the exact opposite advice that pretty much everybody in business will give you, which is like, you need to narrow

down and only talk about one thing. And I'm like, I just, that's not how I operate. So, oh, well, you know, I guess I go against all the good quote, business advice that's out there, but I had to do what I felt was right. And I no longer felt that there was complete resonance between myself and the brand and what I really wanted to do. It almost, I couldn't ignore that. do. It almost seems though, like many of us need to sort of go through this evolution before we hit the point where labels are no longer helpful. Like as we've both said, there's a time and a place and almost a level

where labels can be helpful because it brings people together and it makes information easy to access and all those things. But if you look at a lot of people's fitness journeys, a lot of people's health journeys, a lot of even going through school and things like that, you have a couple of years where you're like, I'm a CrossFitter and that's my identity and that's my community. And if you are doing CrossFit, you're missing out.

You're stupid. And I'm paleo. And if you're eating any other way, you're not doing it the right way. And it seems like a lot of people, it is almost sort of like natural human nature that we have to kind of slip past the rigid rules and kind of take bits and pieces from the things that we're learning and the different identities that we're growing through and pull them all together to create this personalized approach of like, this is who we are now. We don't have to call it paleo. We don't have to call it anything in particular. It's the Steph lifestyle or it's the Ashley lifestyle, but it almost

feels like a lot of us, we have to kind of go through that first. And from a business perspective, you mentioned the SEO, it almost seems like, like you sort of maybe, and I'm not putting words in your mouth, but like you, you have a large following now and you've, you've earned that and you've gained it through years of hard work and connecting and putting out a lot of good content. But maybe if you hadn't had that SEO to begin with and you had started in a more broad sense, it may not have grown the way that it did with Stupid Easy Paleo. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. And I always tell people who ask me business advice, I say, have your brand or your name that you want to do, whatever that is, but buy your domain for your name as well. Like if you can, or some,

some version of that, if you ever decide you want to switch it. And yeah, I don't know what would have happened. I mean, blogging was way different nine or 10 years ago and the paleo community was different five years ago than it is today. I will also say since changing my name and rebranding and actually pre-rebrand last year, I mean, we lost a lot of traffic. My community continues to get smaller, although I believe more aligned to what I want to do now. So if you just went off the numbers, so to say, I mean, you would look at it now and go, well, actually, it's like you failed. Things are contracting. I've lost 40,000 followers off Instagram in a year. But again, at the same time, what's more important to me? Continuing to talk and be

talking away and talk about things and be someone who I really feel I'm not resonant with or be myself and really talk about the things that I have a passion for that I really believe in. And I, you know, I can't imagine trying to continue to keep up the charade or the act of like, I'm really so into this when I'm not. And I tried to do that for, you know, a year and just thought this is killing me slowly. I can't do this anymore. And so it became just a sort of a cost benefit. But yeah, I think there's a perception of like, maybe it's growing and it's bigger. It's not, it's actually not bigger. You know, everything is contracting. So, but again,

is there more alignment? Is there more resonance there? Is there more engagement with the people that I do have? I think those are the things I'm looking at. And am I fulfilling this mission that I have through the work that I'm doing? Yeah, and I think that one thing, it's very easy for us all to get caught up in how popular we areize is that obviously how many followers you have on social media does not mean anything because there are a lot of very popular people that are either not putting out anything of value or not really getting a whole lot of interaction. I mean, social media is a fantastic tool if you can use it to your benefit and you like it and you enjoy it. But it's certainly not everything so I think that like you said if you're doing work that that means something to you and that you find is valuable and you're having like authentic connection with people that's a lot more important than the number of followers that you're that you have right so with your work um is do you offer like specific

nutrition plans strength plans or is it more of like holistic lifestyle program? Do you do one-on-one stuff? How does that work? I don't do any one-on-one stuff currently. And I may in the future and do some nutritional therapy stuff. But right now, the amount of energy I would need to devote to one-on-one clients, I feel I don't have. So I'm not confident I could serve them to the capacity of energy I would need to devote to one-on-one clients I feel I don't have. So I'm not confident I could serve them to the capacity that they really would deserve. So I don't do one-on-one stuff currently. I have a sort of holistic health program called the Core 4 Program, which is what the book's based on. And I've got a couple of standalone fitness programs,

one with barbell work and one that's more dumbbell-based. It's flexible. You could do at home. And that's kind of what we've got right now. I also work with Real Plans and sort of have all of my recipes uploaded into their system so people can hop over there and get all of their meal plans. They can make custom meal plans in like five minutes. It's the most crazy, amazing software. They're geniuses, which is why I'm like, hey, let's not reinvent the wheel. Let's just partner with people that are already doing it fantastically. So yeah, so if people are like, I love your recipes, want them in a meal plan, they can get them at RealPans.

Cool. And you mentioned you have a new book coming out? I do. I have a book coming out on July 30th. It's called The Core Four, Embrace Your Body, Own Your Power. Cool. And that will be available on your website, Amazon, everywhere in the world? Everywhere in the world. Yeah. Bookstores and people go to bookstores anymore. I do. I still, I like to look at them and touch them and smell them.

I do too. I do too. So yeah. Anywhere you can buy books, either online or retail. All right. So I know I have to let you go. I could ask you a million more questions, but I want to kind of end off on a high note here and circle back to one of the things that I responded to the most strongly about the work you're doing, which is about women feeling empowered and wanting to take up space instead of diminish themselves and be small and quiet and agreeable and instead just sort of be present and be yourself and take up space instead of diminish themselves and be small and quiet and agreeable and instead just sort of be present and be yourself and take up space. And I think that that's something that we need to think about more because even in this world where it's becoming increasingly,

I guess, acceptable, I hate to even say that word, to be strong and to have a voice and to do what you want as a woman, there is still sort of maybe less spoken rules about how we should act and how we're expected to be. And one of the things that I always had the hardest time growing up, because I was never a particularly quiet or shy girl. And one of the things that I got a lot was people telling me to kind of calm down or telling me I was intense. And I remember it making me really angry because no one told my guy friends that they were a lot or they were intense or they had a lot of energy or whatever.

And I was always kind of constantly being told to sort of tone it down. And I have a really hard time doing that because that's not who I am. Like I'm an upbeat, maybe high-strung kind of person. And if I had a dollar for every time someone told me to calm down, I mean, I wouldn't have to work. That's a whole other story. But it's taken me a while to really kind of own up and be comfortable with, look, this is who I am, you know, and this is if I'm going to find the people who respond to it and the people that don't, it's okay. But what is some advice that you could give to women who are interested and going to go to your website and maybe take some of your programs,

but some things that they can think about to become more comfortable with owning up to who they are and not feeling like they have to hide it. Yeah. So many good points there. I think I would just say that no matter what you choose to do, someone else is going to have an opinion on it. So often we're thinking, if I'm just more like this, then people will like me better. And it's like, well, actually, if you are more like that, you'll probably turn other people off because of it. So it takes, I think, time and just living on this earth and going through experiences to be more comfortable with the person who you are and understanding that somebody else is always going to have something to say. I mean, and just because somebody else has an opinion doesn't make your truth untrue. And I think that's something that we come up against culturally, as you said, societally, you know, we're supposed to be this like nice Goldilocks, like right in the middle, like don't, not upsetting the apple cart in any way. Like we're just supposed to be, you know, like vanilla and like acceptable to everybody. And it's exhausting.

It's really exhausting to be someone who you are not. So I think that there are certainly layers of social identities that play into a lot of that stuff. I mean, there are certain people who just have it a lot easier because of how they present to the world. And that could be a whole other show. But I think that women supporting powerfulness to uplift other women, to amplify other women's voices, to highlight other women whose voices aren't typically heard. That's really what's going to help to move ourselves forward and to get out of our own heads. I mean, yes, like I said, we have to take care of ourselves. Yes. We have to deal with our own crap. Yes. But at some point, if we're not then taking that strength and taking those skills and using it to move the collective forward and using it to help each other, we're only doing

half the job because we can't do it alone. I love that. And I love that we have platforms like this podcast, like your podcast, like all the work that you're doing to do exactly that and to empower other women and give other women space and a voice and an opportunity to kind of get out there and be who they are and I do love the concept that it's like look you're never going to make everybody happy you might as well try to make yourself happy you know life's too short to try to make everybody else happy yeah Steph thank you so much for your time I'm 100% into a part two, so let's do it sometime.

And yeah, have a great week. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening. That was a really fun one for me. Thank you again to our show sponsor, Beekeepers Naturals. They make so many great, healthy products, like their propolis spray that I carry everywhere,

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I love this company so much. I can't speak enough about them. So if you're interested and you want to learn some more, you can head to their website, beekeepersnaturals.com and use my special code, MUSCLEMAVEN, of course, and you get a 15% discount. So do that and join me next week. I'm going to be speaking with Dr. Ken Berry. He is talking about his new book, Lies Your Doctor Told You. And we're going to debunk some of these commonly held health and nutrition myths. I almost guarantee that some of the things we talk about, you are not going to know. As much as you might be an educated or smart person in health and fitness, like I thought I was, I read this book and there were a couple

myths in there that I was like, what? I totally thought that this was true and accurate. And he lays it out in a way that's very clear, very accessible, lets you kind of make your own decisions, do your own work. We talk about hormones and all the fun havoc that they can wreak on both men and women as we age. But it doesn't have to be that way and ways that we can address that. And we talk a lot about nutrition too. So it's a great, fun chat. Don't miss it. Join me next Thursday. Join me next Thursday. Join me every Thursday. And as always, reach out and say hi. Share this podcast on Instagram if you loved it.

Tag me at the Muscle Maven. Tag Shrug Collective. That's all I got for you. Have a great day, folks. Thanks very much.