the bossbabe podcast - 15. Reducing Anxiety, Creating Real Self-Love and Cultivating Sustainable Happiness with Samantha Skelly

Episode Date: May 29, 2019

In this week’s episode, co-founder of BossBabe Natalie Ellis is chatting with wellness coaching expert and best-selling author, Samantha Skelly. Together they talk all things anxiety, self-love, health, stress and everything we experience as ambitious women. Samantha is the founder and CEO of both Hungry for Happiness, a movement that helps people experience true transformation and happiness, and PAUSE Breathwork, which has a mission to unite humanity by helping people breathe, feel, and thrive. Natalie and Samantha dive deep on the importance of personal development, self-awareness and the relationship between emotionality and physical health. Samantha shares her incredible story of beginning as a dancer, actress and personal trainer whilst suffering from an obsessive eating disorder to becoming a successful multi 7-figure entrepreneur, global speaker and health and wellness coach who is rapidly revolutionizing the weight loss industry by examining the core issues and underlying causes of food, body, and self-love issues. She expands on her personal development and morning routines, travel tips, ideas as to why individuals won’t have sustainable health with short-term diets and thoughts as to how coaches can level up their mastery in order to better serve their clients. Get ready for a soul-nourishing episode filled with insights and perspectives as to why as an individual you need to honor what your body needs, be forthcoming about making that happen for yourself and do so with self-love and not self-judgement to result in perpetual happiness. “Keep your visions massive but let yourself win easy.” SS This episode is sponsored by Hungry for Happiness. A ten month, 400 hour intensive training certification program for heart-centered wellness coaches and female leaders who want to dedicate their lives to supporting those who struggle with emotional eating, body image issues and self-love. For more information head to www.hungryforhappiness.com/bossbabe 

Consumption without integration creates frustration. So we get frustrated because we know all the shit but we're not integrating it therefore we're not seeing it change. Our bodies are the holders of all of this emotionality but once we release all the emotions we get back to just like what is, which is just like peace and love. Keep your visions massive, but let yourself win easy. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share with you the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all.

I'm Natalie Ellis, co-founder and co-CEO of Boss Babe and your podcast host for this episode. This week I'm interviewing my amazing friend Samantha Skelly and it's a really good one. We talk anxiety, self-love, health, stress, you name it, everything that we experience as ambitious women and you know that I don't shy away from speaking out about my own experiences and I thought it might be worth sharing that I actually have had really intense experiences with anxiety. I actually got hospitalized when I had my first ever anxiety attack as I just had no idea what was happening to me and it used to be very common for me to get panic attacks when I got really stressed or overwhelmed. And to be completely honest, anxiety is still something that I deal with and it really shows up for me when I'm

tired and I'm not taking care of myself or there's just a lot of stressful things going on. I've had so much going on with my health lately that I've definitely found at times that anxious feeling in my stomach and all of those other things start to come up it's really important for me to work on the foundational things that support my mental health so self-care sleep rest fun that's a really important one so often we forget to have fun and then on top of that supplements I find 5-htp and l-tyrosine to be really helpful as well as GABA and l-theanine with lemon balm. CBD is also really great for supporting your nervous system. If you haven't listened to the podcast on hormone health

yet I really recommend it as we talk a lot about adrenal health and making sure that you don't put yourself in burnout and all of these ways that you can really be supporting yourself even when you are stressed and even when there is a lot going on. And my quote of the week this week is going to be more of a question than a quote as it feels really relevant to this conversation. And so it's, what would happen if you put as much time and energy into loving yourself as you did trying to please other people? And this rings so true for me. There's times when I cancel commitments and I find that negative self-talk creeping in, telling myself I'm letting people down when in reality I'm honestly just honoring what I need at that moment and sure it would be nice to really preempt that and say no to the things that you really

kind of don't feel a full body yes towards doing but there are times you just need to wipe your calendar clean put on your cozies grab a cup of tea and curl up like when you had really good intentions of doing something but your body just has other plans for you and so my encouragement to you is that you notice what you need and you'd be really forthcoming about making that happen for yourself. Do it with self-love and not with self-judgment. I'm going to say that again because I feel like you need to hear it. Do this with self-love and don't do it with self-judgment. Self-love isn't just bubble baths and early bedtimes, it's making sure that the voice inside your head is talking to you with love because we often talk to ourselves worse than we would talk to our worst enemy, right? Like I know you know, I know you agree with me on that.

So with that, are you ready to dive in? This episode is honestly just going to fill your soul and hopefully give you some really actionable steps to take when it comes to honoring your body. Samantha Skelly is an incredible multi-seven-figure entrepreneur, international speaker, best-selling author, and wellness coaching expert. She founded both Hungry for Happiness, a movement that helps people experience true transformation and happiness through trained certified coaches who use emotional and energetic coaching techniques and Pause Breathwork which has a mission to unite humanity by helping people breathe, feel and thrive. Sam actually introduced me to Breathwork last year and since then it has

been a really regular part of my practice and actually an amazing tool for getting rid of anxiety. Samantha has revolutionized the weight loss and self-help industries by examining the individual and underlying causes of food, body and self-love issues. In this episode you'll hear Sam talk about her Hungry for Happiness program and I know a lot of you've actually already completed this as you've reached out to me when I've shared some of my stories before which I do a lot so what we've been actually able to do is activate a special code for anyone listening to this podcast who might be interested in joining and gaining their own health coaching certification so you'll hear about it throughout the episodes I'm not going to go into too much detail but it's essentially a

business in a box for those of you who are looking to make it your career to transform people's lives with health coaching. So if you're interested in checking it out, just head to hungryforhappiness.com forward slash boss babe. And with that, let's just dive straight into the interview because it is going to be a soul nourishing one for you. A boss babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise keep going and fighting on she is on a mission to be her best

self in all areas it's just believing in yourself confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success okay so i'm so excited This is my first in-person podcast and already it just feels amazing. Me and Sam have not stopped talking. So we've turned this on. We're ready to dive in. So welcome, Samantha, to the podcast. We are so excited to have you. Thank you, my love. I'm so excited to be here. I would love to dive in with just like a really brief overview of your story. You have the most amazing story. Thank you. So I grew up as a dancer and an actress. So my entire life, I thought I was going to be an actress. And that was sort of like the path I was going on. And from 18 to 23, I developed a really unhealthy eating disorder to the point where I just had no idea

how to eat like a normal person. Everything was like managed and controlled. And during that time, I was like, I got to stop acting because this industry is like perpetuating this like addiction and this like fight with food and fight with my body. And I was also a dancer. So it was like double whammy. It was so gnarly. So that was like four years of that. And as I was going through that, I was also ironically a personal trainer. So I was in this industry of like health and wellness and trying to help people. But really behind the scenes, I was like so unhealthy because I didn't understand how to make myself feel better. I didn't understand that health had so much to do with emotions. And so I was putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds by trying to help myself by controlling my food.

But then that was driving me deeper into like the obsessive behaviors. And so after four years of doing that, I was living in England at the time I was living in London. I know I miss it. There is so good. And that was where I started my first company, which was a personal training company. And I just realized I'm like, I need to go home and just like get healthy and figure this out. Because like, I wake up every single day obsessing about food. That's all that's on my mind. Like, if someone's like, Hey, Sam, do you want to come for dinner? I'm like, Oh, let me check the menu to see how many calories. It was just so obsessive and so ridiculous. And it was consuming my whole life. So I flew back to Vancouver and I went to like the hospitals to get help. And they kept giving

me solutions that weren't helping. Like again, trying to control my food to make me feel better. And I was like, you know what? Screw this. I'm like, I can't do this anymore. I'm like, you guys have no idea that this is actually making me worse. Like Western medicine was making me worse. So I ended up traveling and going to Southeast Asia and Bali and India and everything and to try and figure out another solution. And I realized that the issue was all emotional. It was all internal. And if we're really going to change the way that people feel about themselves, and we're going to really shift this like obesity epidemic, we have to stop putting people on diets. We have to look at what the deeper reason is and really uncover like the emotional wounding that is creating the behavior. We change the behavior

so often and it's not sustainable. So people will go on a diet and then they'll do it for a month or two, lose a little bit of weight, and then they'll go back to what they've always done because they're not addressing the core reason as to why they're overweight and overwhelmed. So I was in Bali and when I get excited about something, I'm like a dog with a bone. I'm like, I'm going to be obsessed about how to actually feel better in my body and heal my relationship to food. So after years of doing that, I went back to Vancouver and I was having this thought of like, we need to change the entire weight loss industry. It is so destructive and it's keeping people so stuck. And we need to use emotionality in this. We have to stop. Like the weight loss industry is $80 billion. That's perpetuating this message that we're not good enough. We have to stop. The weight loss industry is $80 billion.

That's perpetuating this message that we're not good enough. We're not skinny enough. We're not whatever enough. And they keep repackaging the same shitty diets that aren't working. And so my intent with Hungry for Happiness is to be the voice of reason and to go, listen, we have to understand what's causing this and treat it at an emotional level. And so was the birth of hungry for happiness like four years ago that's incredible yeah you've had so much success with it and it really does come down to how you've been able to empower other people to go and change lives and it goes back to being a multiplier that's something we talk a lot about at boss babe it's not about just impacting one person but in fact impacting a person that's going to impact someone else exactly keeping that going i love that you talked about food as being emotions and

it's not something i talk about a lot but i love this podcast to be like as behind the scenes as possible and so for me i've been through so many different relationships with food like whether food has been feelings and like you know sometimes it's innocent you're like oh I'm celebrating I'm gonna get a cake or oh I don't feel well I'm gonna dive into this bag of chips or there's been times where I've and I try and control everything in my life it's a work in progress I'm trying not to but definitely diet's been that for me it's never been difficult to have the willpower to stick to something but actually I remember it was about six months ago I was planning to go to Disneyland and I literally said to my friend like oh I might take a pack lunch and she was like no you're not that's the most fucking ridiculous idea I've ever made yeah and I was like but if I eat

this I'm gonna get bloated and she said to me oh really well let's do an experiment and so we went to Disneyland and I was eating like food that I would normally be afraid to eat like croissants pizzas and I was eating it and I was like this is so good for me it's so good for my body and I didn't get bloated yeah so can we dive into that like yeah food is emotion totally well it's interesting that you say that right because when we look at like digestion if you are like highly anxious worried about everything that you're eating and you're eating a salad you're actually not going to digest that well because your body's in fight or flight. So it's actually better for you to eat something that's maybe potentially a little bit more

unhealthy, but when you're in a calm state, you know, what happens is, is when we don't know how to deal with the emotion in our body, food turns into a drug very quickly, right? It's like the most socially acceptable, readily available, we can get it anywhere drug. And most of the world doesn't even know that they're using it as a drug. But when we're stressed out, it's like, okay, we got to get chocolate, we got to get cake, we got to distract ourselves from our emotions, right? And the beautiful thing to like realize in all of this is anytime we have anxiety, anytime we're stressed, anytime our body is giving us feedback, that's just data to know that there's something that's out of alignment. There's something we need to pay attention to. And so if we use food as a drug

to numb the emotionality, we're not actually learning and growing. We're just staying stuck. Then because we're using food as a drug, we gain weight and then we get more depressed. And then so we use food again and it starts this vicious cycle. Right. And so I always say we have to feel in order to heal. If you're not feeling your emotions and you're not in your body, like I wasn't for my entire freaking life, then I can't actually learn what I need to learn. I got so good at avoiding my emotions in so many different ways. And food was just one of those ways. I had like food addiction where I was like, I just have to eat. And then it became

exercise addiction. I just have to work out all the time. Then it became work addiction. I just need to work all the time. And I kept replacing with these addictions because I didn't know how to actually feel my emotions. And so for 91% of the world, food is that thing. The severity of like how much they use it into the degree differs, but 91% of people on the planet use food as a drug in some capacity. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know, I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity, which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages,

collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering boss babe listeners a 30-day free trial go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial

that's kajabi.com slash boss babe i believe it and just when you were saying there about the listening to your digestion and your body being in fight or flight mode it's so true and i remember a couple of years ago I had really bad anxiety a few years ago but I remember starting to learn about it and I was having all of these digestive issues and I'm like why am I having these and I actually learned your body's digestive system just shuts down to kind of keep you alive so you can survive like it's assuming you're in a famine or whatever and so for a lot of people who are busy and not even realizing they're so stressed,

they're probably in this fight or flight mode. So you said you've got to be able to feel in order to heal. So let's imagine someone is coming out of a meeting, like it's just being crazy. Like they're starting to feel that in their stomach and they're ready to go and reach for something because they're mistaken that feeling for hunger. Like what would you say to stop, drop and do? Stop, drop and do. Well, first of all, we have to understand what is the outcome? What are we actually wanting from putting food in our body to numb our emotions? Oftentimes it's like, I want peace. I want to feel calm. I want to feel connected, right? So we have to understand what is the emotion that we're actually searching for and we actually want. Because what food is, is it's a strategy to get what we want. It's just a shitty strategy.

So what we get to do then is understand, all right, what is the outcome that I want? For me, it's peace. I'm like, I just want to feel peaceful. I want to feel calm in my body so I can think clearly. And the strategy that I used before was like, let me use food to distract everything so that I can just move on. Right. And that was like my strategy. So knowing that peace is my outcome, then I observe my anxiety and I'm like, okay, my body's anxious right now. It's kicking up for some reason. There's some, it's again, as data, it's feedback,

emotionality, sensations, or feedback. All right. So what can I do to help that feeling? I can slow down. I can take a breath. I can actually like drop into my heart, let myself know that I'm safe. Like you're safe. It's cool. Right? Because the body doesn't know that we're busy and we're doing all these meetings. The body just thinks we're going to die. So the anxiety is like, you better watch out because you're probably going to die. Like that's what our nervous system is telling us. And so then our mind goes, let me figure out all the reasons that I'm unsafe. Right? So then we start looking at things like our relationship. How am I unsafe there? Our business, our work, our friends, our family. And we start to figure out, we start to collect evidence as to why we're

unsafe because our body's telling us we're unsafe. Does that make sense? So, so when we're in that state, like whenever I feel anxious, I just go, Hey Sam, you're so safe right now. Why don't you take a moment and look for all the reasons why you're so safe? Like you're so safe in your body. You're so safe to feel everything's happening in perfect timing. None this stuff actually matters you're all good then I can literally feel my body go ah so what did I just achieve I achieved peace the very thing that I thought I would get from food so it's just about like introducing your system and teaching yourself new strategies for the same outcome I love that and I can so relate there's just nothing better than when you would

normally go and grab a slice of cake or a donut or some kind of sugar that you think is going to pick you up and put a bandaid on. Sometimes I just go make a tea and I sit with it and I'm saying such good things into the tea. I once read this study of like, you can really change the state of water based on things you say to it. It's crazy. Yeah. So I'm like saying to my tea, like all of these affirmations and it's just that slowing down and breathing, like you said. Well, it's interesting. Think about this. That study is amazing for those people who haven't, you know, seen it. It's incredible. It's like you say to one glass of water, you're a piece of shit. You're ugly. I

hate you. And then you say to the other water, you're so beautiful. You're amazing. Well, think about this. Our bodies were made up of what? 75% water, right? So if we tell our bodies that we're literally going to change the structure and the cellular, you know, makeup of our bodies, it's incredible. It's so incredible. That's mind blowing. Yeah. You mentioned something else as you were doing your introduction and it was the weight loss industry is broken. And just the way we're talking about food to be honest is broken and I've kind of been there before where I've went to a trainer and I've said this is what I want to work on and a lot of it probably wasn't even to do with like the way I would look and different things but then you get given like a food plan an exercise plan and you're told to go on your merry way and actually and what I've realized is development and

and growth it's all emotional and as an entrepreneur I can say like the most important tool for me has not been going and getting the best coaches and mentors in my industry it's been getting a really good therapist or a coach that will let me speak and talk through the emotions of what I'm feeling because as I grow my company grows totally and I think for a lot of us we really could do with coaches that truly understand that and help us work on that foundation so that we can be the best in all different parts of our lives so can you speak to that and what you think coaches who do teach on food should be mindful of yeah well I was a personal trainer so I was at the forefront of this where so many people were coming to me who had eating disorders or had issues with food, but I was

treating them with what I knew, exercise and food. And there's so many health coaches in the world right now who are like, I know I need to go deeper. I know that I'm just putting a bandaid on a bullet wound. I'm not actually sustainably helping this person. They may have transformation while they see me, but as soon as they stop seeing me, they're going to go back to their old ways. So health coaches are the exact people that I work with. Like my intent is to take every frigging health coach in the world, wellness coach in the world and give them the emotional tools so that they can help their clients on a deeper

level, which makes the health coach 10 times more valuable. If you could help someone with their emotionality and really shifting that, you are going to be so much more valuable. And as the industry is changing, as the world's waking up, and as we're realizing that the whole world is run by emotions, we need to add that value to our clients. And without doing that, you're just going to get lost in the crew, right? We have to understand that like these quick fixes are just no longer like we're, we don't live in that world. Well, we still live in that world, but we are growing and it's changing rapidly. And so when I was a personal trainer, I'm like telling Susie to run around the block 10 times is not going to frigging change her life. Like I need to understand why Susie is eating donuts

at two o'clock in the morning because she can't sleep because she's so anxious. That's what I need to get to. And once I can touch on that and I really let her know, I understand that because I was also doing that, I can really change her life. I can really create an impact with her. So that was the biggest thing. I knew I wasn't helping my clients to the degree that I could. And the majority of health coaches and personal trainers, nutritionists who go into that field, they've most likely, most of them have had some sort of disordered eating issue going on. And so they can really relate to it. And I think one of the best things that we can do as coaches is really relate to our

clients by saying like, I know how you feel. I've been there. I know exactly what that's like here. This is what I did in order for me to rise above all of this anxiety and noise and, you know, self-deprecation. And I love how you talk about the industry changing. And I just want to speak to that. Like a lot of people come to me and say, well, there's too many coaches. Like, is it too late to get into this? And my answer is it's full of coaches, but it's not full of good coaches. And I think, you know, know in the past perhaps you might have got away with being not fully on your way game yeah because people just wanted coaches and that industry was so small but

it's growing now and there are so many people stepping up and teaching from their zone of genius yeah that if you don't really become the best you can be in and take on the training and stay ahead of the curve then it might be a bit too crowded for you. And they say, you don't need to be 10 steps ahead of your client, but you do need to be one full step ahead of them. Yeah. So this is such a beautiful point. I harp on this constantly is this whole idea of embodiment and integration. So many coaches are like learning things logically and then regurgitating onto a client and hoping for the best. Yeah. It's too crowded for you because we need mastery. You know, we need mastery.

We need people who've done the frigging work. And so a big thing in our certification program is the first three months, I don't even teach you how to teach clients. It's all about embodiment, understanding yourself. Self-awareness is what makes you the best coach ever. The more that you can focus on mastering your craft and your craft is yourself, the more that you can help people. And so we don't want to go wide. We want to go deep with coaching. Right. And so many people are trying to like go wide

with it. It's like, we need depth, you know, and it's like, you can't take someone deeper than you take yourself. You can't do it to make yourself valuable, we have to like really go to the depths, which means embodiment, being so emotionally responsible. You know, I tell my coaches all the time, I said, don't put the coach hat on when you have your session, wear the fucking coach hat all day long because you are just bringing yourself to the game. A lot of coaches talk about like, I don't want to seem like a fraud. Well, you're not going to seem like a fraud if you're showing up and doing your work every single day. You know,

like people ask me when I go on stage, they're like, are you nervous? Are you nervous to talk? I'm like, no, because I practice 23 hours out of the day. And so this is the one hour that I get to like, just do what I've been practicing. You know what I mean? And I think like to your point, it's like, yeah, it's crowded if you're not willing to do the work and really be a stand for what you believe in I'm so in agreement with that and like you say it helps you get better results with your clients which is what every health coach really truly cares about but also from a marketing standpoint I mean when we talk about creating content if you can't really embody your client because you don't know what they're going through and you're just guessing then they are not going to emotionally connect with what you're selling and they aren't

going to convert like you can show up every single day and give them a call to action but if you aren't living the transformation and you aren't I talk about the transformation being a where your client was and b where you can get them if you're not talking about your journey from a to b and you're not showing up as b then why would anyone trust you and why would anyone buy your program yeah so it's very much a case of doing the work to be the best coach you can be but also being able to sell it because at the same time you can be the best coach ever yeah but if no one discovers you then it's gonna be really hard to grow absolutely so talk me through what this certification is because we've chatted through it a few times and i think it's incredible so So it's a 400 hour, 10 month certification.

So it's not one of these like quick and dirty things that you get. It's like we go so, so, so, so, so deep. It will be the biggest journey of personal development that person chooses to go on. So the formula that we use is called the Phoenix formula. And essentially what that is, is it's a seven step process to take someone from an unaware state, fighting food, hating their body, super disconnected from their body into a fully aware state, using food for health and hunger, integrated into their body, embodied, having visceral intelligence, which is essentially just understanding how these sensations in our body work and then how to honor them and

how to work from them rather than against them. And so that's our formula that we teach. So the first three months we do it on the coaches. So we, we get them embodied in the formula. Then I go through and I teach them how to actually facilitate this. So how to take someone who's struggling with food in their body and really walk them through the process. So at the end of it, they're able to heal with whatever is creating the disordered eating patterns. And then the end of the program we call able to heal with whatever is creating the disordered eating patterns. And then the end of the program, that's called the fire effect, which is our sales and marketing, how to actually talk to this demographic, how to talk to people who struggle with eating disorders, disordered eating.

And it's very specific marketing. It can be a very sensitive one. And so we help them with just messaging and how to word things and how to market things. I love that. So what kind of qualifications do you have to have before you go into the certification? Great question. So the biggest thing that we look for is I need to know that you've been doing personal development in the past, you know, to some degree, whether that is like a Tony Robbins thing or whatever it is. People who have never done a lick of personal development before coming into the program, it's going to be a little

bit challenging for them. Some people ask, do I need to be a life coach already? No, not at all. And sometimes it's actually better if they're not because our concepts and our formula and what we do is not cognitive. It's not like, hey, let's say affirmations a hundred times in the mirror and hope for the best. It's very deep and energetic. So it's just a different way of working. So you don't have to be a life coach. It's totally fine if you are. But other than that, the perfect person for this is someone who's really inspired by changing the face of health and really helping with women who really have a passion for women who want to shift their relationship to food and shift their relationship to food and

shift their relationship to body, reverse this diet culture craziness that we're in. But the certification, we give people everything that they need in order to create their businesses. I'm obsessed with this. It's almost like a business in a box, but I don't want to simplify it. Yeah, definitely. So like our clients, a lot of them get their initial investment back within three months because we literally show them everything. And we push people off the ledge in like a really loving way. So we get them to do like integrative exercises and challenges of like, go interview, you know, 10 of your ideal clients and just like really get in front of them. We help people with like enrollment calls and everything. So, and it's so frigging long that

it's like, we give them the confidence because that's the biggest thing, right? Coaching is such a, it's a science and an art. And we really teach people like the art of embodiment. So you can be the best version of you. So you can help that like multiplier things that you can help like thousands of people. I'm obsessed. I have a question though. So I know there are going to be a lot of women listening to this. Like, yes, you know what, being a coach has been so on my radar. It's something I would love to do. I see a lot of people doing it and I would love to be able to women listening to this like yes you know what being a coach has been so on my radar it's something I would love to do I see a lot of people doing it and I would love to be able to help people with food I've had that journey myself but what if they don't know like their niche what if they don't know

what specifically that they want to teach like would they go and research that first or would they learn that through your process how does that work so we kind of like extract all of that information on the enrollment call when they apply. So we go through an application process where people apply, they get on a call with our enrollment team. And then we really get clear on like, what is their vision? What do they want to create? Most of the time women are like, I'm not super sure. So we do help them facilitate that through the process. 80% of the people who graduate our program graduate just doing food and body stuff, just specifically on that. Some people favor the restriction side. Some people favor the overeating side. A lot of people will do just body stuff, just body image, but it's all in that

general area. And then we help them with messaging around like the specific niche that they want to work in. I love it. I'm going to make sure in the show notes, we put links to all of that. Cause I feel like there's a lot of people like, do you know what? I've been waiting for this. So thank you so much. You touched a lot about, you know,

this need to have done personal development beforehand. And I know you do so much personal development and I also listen to your podcast. And if no one listens to your podcast, I go and check it out. The hungry for happiness podcast is incredible. And I would love to know what you do for personal development. So what are the big things that you love? Oh my gosh. I've been a big Tony Robbins fan since I was 12, like literally

listening to his tapes on my like little recorder thing since I was like 12 years old. I don't know. I had this conversation with my dad last week. I was at my parents' house and I was like, dad, like, did you give me these tapes? Like, where did, like, where did this come from? I'm so confused. So Tony's been a mentor of mine for, since I was like 12. So I'm in his mastermind called the Platinum Partners. And so we do eight big trips a year. I just got off one where I'm just like in it with Tony for like seven days straight, 10 hours a day. And it's, it's intense. So that's that I have an energy healer, um, Andrew who is in San Diego. He was actually interviewed on my podcast, which blew people away. He's just like a real life wizard. Like he's like one of the most tapped in people I've ever met. And so I see him weekly to help with my energy, running a business, as you know, and having thousands of clients. And

it's just a lot. And so I have to always make sure that I'm like in my center and I'm not carrying energies of other people. And so I see Andrew constantly, like once a week for two hours. And when I'm traveling, I see him online. So like energy work is just so important. As you know, breathwork is huge for me. Yeah. And also I'll just add, you are the one that introduced me to breathwork. So just like I'll interject, but Samantha was leading, breathwork is huge for me. Yeah. And also I'll just add, you were the one that introduced me to breathwork. So just like I'll interject, but Samantha was leading a breathwork session and I'd never done this before. I was like, what?

I'm going to lie on the floor and breathe. I don't get it. And I talked on one of my previous podcasts about this, but I just start crying. And afterwards you looked at me and I was like, can you come upstairs with me? I don't know what just happened. And we just sat there. Well, I believe, so Breathwork's amazing. It helped me. I mean, this could be a whole other podcast in and of itself, but Breathwork truly helped me get over my eating disorder and really come back into my body because what we're doing with it, as you know,

is we're breathing and the body releases the emotion and the body becomes the healer. What we tend to do is logically think about how to heal our body and how to feel better. Just let the body do the work, right? And so breathwork is an incredible way of doing that. So like that's the second company that I started as a breathwork company because I just so believe in that. But breathwork is something that I do every single day. In the morning, I'll do five minutes of it. Once a week, I'll do like a longer session, like what I did with you for about half an hour or 45 minutes. But for those people who have never tried breathwork, it's one of the best. So yeah. So between Tony, Andrew and doing breathwork, those are like my three big things that I work on. I love it. And how do you stay so centered when you're traveling

so much? Cause I was just following your story as you're always aware you're always traveling, you're hosting these amazing retreats and teaching all of your clients how do you keep that center even when you're on the road so my mornings are so important to me and as much as possible i make sure that i have all the things that i have at home so when i check into a hotel like i'm doing right after this podcast check into hotel i make sure i have my green juice my yoga mat mat, my meditation pillow. And I just do my morning routine as, as if I'm at home. And so my mornings are still very structured when I'm on the road, no matter where I'm at. Even if I'm, you know, doing an overnight in an airport, I'll like find a corner, sit down or go to the business lounge and just like do my shit. And people are like, okay, this chick's crazy. But it's like, that's how I get centered. And like my commitment to

my emotionality is the most important thing for me ever, because it drives everything that I do. Of course, you know, it's like when my energy is off and I'm scatty, that energy goes into my team, into my clients, into my family. And so making sure that my mornings are just so solid. And then also Amazon prime is a great thing and nutrition is huge for me. So I just Amazon prime stuff to like my hotel wherever I'm at. Yeah. So I have like the things that I normally send to my house and I'll just Amazon it. Whole Foods and Amazon are like, yeah, it's crazy. So I'll, I'll just like Amazon it to my hotel room. So, and then tons of sleep, tons of water and making sure that I work out every single day as well. Cause that can sometimes be a little bit more challenging. I have these like videos for like just hotel room workouts, which I've been doing like a lot of

recently because I've been away for like six weeks straight. So my biggest responsibility in my life is my state. And your emotions. I love that you said that. And it's so important to be on top of our emotions. If we let our emotions rule us, it really does just move into everything. And I also love what came through. What you were saying saying is consistency and people always say in simple things like I get all these questions I mean how do you grow your business or how do you grow an Instagram or how do you do all these things and I say if you want to see what success looks like look at how consistent a person is yeah because if you are consistent the success will come but if you can't I mean if you can't even honor your own routine,

how can you look after clients? How can you grow a business? How can you do all of these things? And like you're saying, if you can't even master your own emotionality, how can you be expected to go and support your own clients in their emotions? Yeah. Yeah. And you and I talked about this briefly before we started recording, but creating the space to create, like we just all just need to slow down, all of us. Even when I say that, I can like hear my high achiever perfectionist being like, I can't slow down. I don't have time. I have too much to do. Right, right. It's like the bow and arrow thing, right? It's like you pull back, you slow down, you just get centered and get present so that we can go forward. And I've seen that happen in my

life so much of like, when I feel like I'm getting rat racy and I'm like, go, go, we can go forward. And I've seen that happen in my life so much of like, when I feel like I'm getting rat racy and I'm like, go, go, go, go, go. I'm like, all right, I'm operating from fear. Cause there's two big drivers of like where we're motivated from fear or love. Right. And when we're motivated by fear and we're taking action out of fear, we miss things. We get overwhelmed. Every like people can feel that people can feel energy and business all the time. Right. Whether it's on it, like, you know that. People can feel energy and business all the time, right? Whether it's on it, like, you know, when you watch some Instagram stories and you're like, oh, that person clearly is operating from fear because they want to sell me something because

there's a scarcity thing attached, right? Which is like so evident and clear. Or this person is operating from abundance and love. It's just a very different energy and we can really feel it. And so just checking in with that always of like, what is the intent behind this behavior? I ask myself that all the time. Why am I drinking that green juice? Why am I doing this? Why am I going here? What's the intent behind this? Is it service from a place of love? Is it abundance? Because if it's anything other than that, I'm out, right? And anytime I get up in my head and my fear takes over and I'm being driven by anxiety, which is how I was driven my entire life. So I'm so familiar about how shitty that feels. I got to slow down, check in and go, all right, what am I chasing? What am I trying to prove here? What am I doing? Right. Cause it

doesn't feel good. And it's like a visceral discomfort. I'm like, this is so uncomfortable. I want to get back to my alignment where I can produce and create and lead from this powerful place of like, just like, it's like a feminine grace versus, versus like a chaotic mess. Oh yeah. I feel that. And you said a couple of things there, which just really stood out to me. The first thing, like if you're in your story selling something, like what people need to realize is bullshit filters are high. Oh my gosh. Like, and especially like now more than ever, as you're being sold 24 seven on social, which is amazing, but people's bullshit felt as a really high. And if you are selling from a place of scarcity

and you aren't fully in alignment with what you're selling, I mean, people will feel that and they won't buy. So that was an amazing thing you touched on. And also this idea of bow and arrow, I thought was amazing. And it's very much something I embody. So we work in quarters of Boss Babe. So Q1, the first three months of the year are very much something I embody. So we work in quarters of Boss Babe. So Q1, the first three months of the year

are very much us pulling back. It's very much us getting everything in motion so that we can have the best quarter two and quarter three. And then in Q4, last three months of the year, I pull back again. I'm like, okay, let's look at what we did and how do we line up again for January? And so it's like kind of like six months behind

and six months in front so working behind the scenes and then pushing things out because if you're constantly in this like go go go mode then where's the space to create where's the space to come at things from that standpoint i kind of want to bring this background to food because you also we were talking a lot about the digestive issues and this fight or flight and i know there's probably a lot of people listening just like well it's not just like one meeting for me. It's not just like one day that I'm stressed. I feel like it's this constant mode of me being stressed and I'm gaining weight and my head feels, how could someone like that start to think about breaking that cycle?

So the biggest thing, and it's the thing that people talk about the most, but it's the most uncommonly used tool is presence. We're so distracted. We live in this state of like constant distraction. Our phones, work, everything. It's like, for me, I got to this place where I realized that I was just like high level coping. I had like my anxiety that was like so intense and I was just like high level coping constantly. I was doing all the things like I was going to yoga and I was drinking green juice and I was doing all these things, but I wasn't addressing what was like the core of it. And so for someone who has just like that constant low level anxiety all the time, it's really about getting present to it. And just like, I asked my body, what do you need from me? Because I don't, my mind doesn't know. And then the more connection we have with

our body, my body can start to tell me, right? I think the more that I use my mind, it just fucks me up, you know? But when my body guides, and I know people listening are like, okay, what is she talking about? I don't understand. And trust me, I didn't understand either. I'm like, what do you mean your body talks to you? That's bullshit. That's some like hippie stuff. It's so true, but we have to listen and we have to create the space for our body to talk to us. And so that was like me. I was like low level anxiety constantly. And I didn't realize that I was an anxious mess until I was out of it. You know, I didn't realize how bad it was until I healed myself. And I'm like, wait a second. My natural state is happiness. My natural state is peace and ease.

Wait a second. I can live from that place all the time and I don't have to live from anxiety. Okay. This just changed the game. Cause I literally thought, oh, this is just part of being human. We're just always stressed. That's the societal norm. That's the condition, right? It's hard. You got to work hard. It's good. You know, it's like fear, fear, fear. We turn on the news. It's just fucking all fear. Yeah. Right. So, so it's really about like taking the emotional responsibility and the personal accountability to slow down and know that you are in control of your state. So what do you need to do in order to get yourself back into like to recalibrate, to get back into balance, to get back to just, you know, I call it like the nothing state where it's just our bodies are the holders of all of this emotionality. But once we release all the emotions, we get back to just like

what is, which is just like peace and love. I can definitely say as one of your friends, you do embody that and you really have mastered what that looks like it's so nice to be able to see that and you're definitely someone that I would want to learn from I was at a journaling workshop last night and this is going to get a bit woo-woo but I feel like all the girls listening like go for it I'm ready give me the woo-woo and I was with Amanda Bucci who also she was just on the podcast as well we did this meditation and we were doing journaling exercises and we were being given prompts and one of the prompts was like okay it's time to write a letter to yourself from your body and it might was hilarious I mean I kind of guessed that I was like my body's very sassy I mean like I

am anyway but like the first thing my body said to me was like hey Natalie thank god you're finally listening to me and I was like here we Um, it was so funny. And, and what was coming through was this need to stop trying to put logic towards everything. Like all the time, my body tells me something. I'm very like gut led, very intuitive. My body tells me something. I try and put logic. I try and understand it. Oh, I'm feeling like this because, and perhaps, and actually like what was coming through was what if I just listened? What if I didn't have to rationalize?

And it was hilarious the way like the things that came out and it was talking, you know, all about, we have a soul and we have this like divine intelligence, but your body is here and your body is here to navigate a territory that it understands. And you need to be able to trust and listen to that and also times when you can take your mind out of the equation

to let your body do the work so whether it's meditation whether it's breath work whether it's personal development take your body and your logic out of the equation your mind sorry so your body can actually do the work because like you were saying so true your body's self-healing yeah it knows the way yeah exactly exactly i love it yeah it's so interesting it i think the majority of people listening to this i'm sure like very intelligent very smart very and so so we try and think our way out of it we try and think our way out of our anxiety we try and think and then we just start fighting ourselves. And we say like, I've tried everything and nothing works. I feel so stuck. Or like, I know everything, but I can't change. It's because you're thinking about it. And that's what you were saying about knowing everything and you might know everything,

but if you can't, if you can't do it yourself, how can you teach it? Totally. Totally. And not teaching from this place of like, I know the theory of how to do this. So that's what I'm going to talk about. But actually, and I heard someone else say this as well. Like you can read all the books, listen to all the podcasts, listen to all the things and know it all. But if you're not reading a book, putting it down and actioning it and actually thinking, okay, how do I integrate this into my life?

Then how are you going to learn? How are you going to progress? Right, right. So it's interesting, right? I got to this place in my journey where I was like a crackhead for personal development. Like I would have put that stuff in my veins if I could. I was like, I was like,

consume, consume, consume, consume, consume. Like I'm like, give me all the podcasts and all the books and all the seminars because I was just trying to satisfy my ego because I thought that I was improving, but I wasn't, right? And so consumption without integration creates frustration. So we get frustrated because we know all the shit, but we wasn't. Right. And so consumption without integration creates frustration. So we get

frustrated because we know all the shit, but we're not integrating it. Therefore we're not seeing it change. The best thing that we can do is like pick one thing, pick one thing that you want to master, make it so simple and, and just be consistent with it every single day. Right. Every single day. So whether that's presence, right. I would recommend everyone just start there because it's just the base of everything. I am going to commit to being present. What does that feel like in my body? How can I extract more magic from every single moment by paying attention to every single moment? And what happens then is when we pay attention to our external world, we automatically pay attention to our internal world because we're in it. Because we have to be in it in order to observe what's going on in our external world.

So just choose one thing. I think with personal development, it can feel so overwhelming because there's so many things. And there's all the, you know, and emotions. Like, man, I was like a hot mess express when I started doing this work. Because I'm like, I'm so emotional. Like, I couldn't handle it. Right? But it's like, let's just choose one thing and master it and go, okay, I'm really great at that.

Then maybe let's move on to, to like the whole feel to heal conversation. I'm just going to, rather than distract and go for food or overwork, I'm just going to feel my anxiety and just be in it. And I'm just going to master the art of being in my anxiety. Cool. Then let's move on to, you know what I mean? Like it in bite-sized chunks and understand always like less is more of personal development. Let it be easy. Let the roadmap to happiness be so simple. I always talk about like hacking my way to happiness. And it's just so true. Like how can I set the bar so low so that I can be happy and then my energy of happiness can fulfill me and I can be more productive. When you say set the bar so low, do you mean expectation? Yeah, we have such high expectations, especially I'm a recovering perfectionist for

sure. So it's like, I wouldn't allow myself to bask in celebration until I hit like ridiculous numbers, you know, like you can't be happy until you book like that major role or until you win that. Like, it's not good enough. It's never good enough. You know, that's like the perfectionism is so rooted in scarcity and fear, right? Of like, I'm not going to be good enough until, and I saw that pattern playing out in my business. And so it always kept me in the state of taking action from fear. Like we talked about like, all right, I just need to be better. I just need to do more, which indirectly says I'm not good enough. I'm inadequate. Right? So when I say set the bar low, what I mean by that is keep your visions massive, but let yourself win easy. So for instance, like when I make my bed, I celebrate that. I'm like, good job, Sam. Like, you know, and what does that do to my system? My system goes, oh, wow, I'm accomplished. I'm

enough. I'm good enough. Cause my body doesn't know that it's something as simple as making my bed. I just celebrate myself so much because it increases my vibration. And when my vibration is increased, everything is an increase. So don't make it so hard to be happy. Oh yeah. Everything you just said. And it's so funny. Me and Danielle are so guilty of this. And actually we were on vacation with our husbands one time and something massive happened I can't remember what it was and we didn't celebrate it we were like oh good job we like clinked champagne and we got back to talking business and the two of them kind of looked at each other looked at us and they're like stop this you need to start celebrating your wins you don't realize like that is so important and what you've just done is amazing like why are we not celebrating

this for longer and they pep talk us and they really try and keep us on track there. And I also, I love that you said about the one thing and I would love anyone listening. It's time for you to commit to and it's time for you to take action. So if you did listen to this podcast, please do a screenshot and tag me and Samantha and tell us what's the one thing

you're committed to mastering. What one thing you're going to take away in action? Because I would love you to listen to every single episode of my podcast, but at the same time, I want you to be integrating it and making it happen. And so I would also love to know, so we talked about your certification. If anyone listening is interested in that, what would the next steps be? What does that look like for them?

Yeah, definitely. You could go to hungryforhappiness.com slash boss babe. Check it out. There's videos, there's testimonials, there's alumni of what they're doing after they graduate it'll give you just like a really really really clear idea of what the certification is and what's available and the possibility when you graduate if you have any questions you can hit me up personally on instagram at samantha skelly or just apply with

all your information book a call with our team and we'll just really dig into it and figure out if it's a fit. So yeah. I love it. So if they're a bit nervous, they can get on a call and chat through. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Fill out the application. Let us know your vision.

What we're looking for is alignment of, is your vision of what you want to create in the world in alignment with exactly how we help people? And when it's a fit, it's just such an obvious fit. It's like, you know, most people say like, I have a fire in my belly and I know I'm going to do this. And so it's just like that visceral feeling of like, this is also my mission. And so what we do at Hungry for Happiness is we just like amplify people's missions by giving them literally exactly what they need to do in order to do the very thing they want to do. I love it so much. Amanda, thank you so much for being on this podcast. I feel like we could just talk all day about routines and performance and habits.

We totally could. We totally could. Amazing. So what's the best place for everyone to find you as well? Instagram? Yeah. Yeah, that's where I hang out. Amazing.

Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thanks for having me on. If you loved this episode, please subscribe and be sure to leave us a review. We want to hear what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were, and also really want to know who you enjoyed what your main takeaways were and also really want to know who you want to see on the show and speaking of reviews i've also got a little something on my sleeve for you so i want to send you a copy of the boss babe 25 this is a brand new resource that

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