The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 024: Natalie Jill – How To Be Healthy, Happy, and Fit… And How Natalie Maintains Great Abs Year Round

Episode Date: June 4, 2015

Episode 024: Natalie Jill – How To Be Healthy, Happy, and Fit… And How Natalie Maintains Great Abs Year Round This was an extremely enjoyable episode for me.  Natalie Jill is a very intelligent leader who has a fantastic understanding of the human body.  I promise you will have more knowledge about your body after listening to this episode.  This is episode is great for anyone who wants to learn more about the specific activities (lifestyle eating and exercise) to be healthy, happy, and fit. Natalie Jill helps millions of people become the healthier versions of themselves… In her words: I DECIDED to fix things. I put everything I knew into play- from goal setting, to vision boards, to eating unprocessed foods, positive thinking and getting negatives OUT of my life. I did NOT starve myself. I didn’t try any fad “quick fixes”, I didn’t do dangerous diet pills and I didn’t do unhealthy calorie restrictions…I used a FORMULA.” Episode 024: Natalie Jill – How To Be Healthy, Happy, and Fit Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher Radio. The Learning Leader Show “You have to be authentic and real.” – Natalie Jill Some Questions I Ask: How did you get started with this career? What does a vision board do for you? What is your goal setting process? What is the 7 day jump start plan? How do you execute your plan? Why do you hate the elliptical? What do you suggest for people who have to travel a lot for work? In This Episode, You Will Learn: About vision boards and how they can help you About The 7 day jump start plan Why writing down your goals ensures you hit them She practices addition (i.e. – eating more veggies will help you stop eating sweets) How to get out of your comfort zone The elements that define a quality life  “I show a lot of videos… You can’t photo shop videos.” – Natalie Jill Continue Learning Go to Natalie’s website: http://www.nataliejillfitness.com/ Find the right program for you: http://www.nataliejillfitness.com/programs/ Follow Natalie on Twitter @nataliejillfit See why over 933,000 people follow her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nataliejillfit   You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 002: How To Take Over And Set Bigger Goals With Chris Brogan Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts Did you enjoy the podcast? I love discussing how we can all become healthier, happy, and fit!  It’s a fascinating topic and Natalie is an expert.  I really enjoyed speaking with her.  Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell   Bio From: Natalie Jill Fitness   Natalie Jill helps people across the globe reach their health, fitness, and business goals.  Natalie left a very successful career in corporate America to follow her passion with health and fitness. As a Licensed Master Sports Nutritionist and functional fitness trainer, Natalie leveraged the power of the internet and in a short amount of time she was able to help millions of people worldwide get in shape and be their best selves.  In the process, she created a globally recognized brand with over a million social media followers worldwide and created an online business that has reached and transformed hundreds of thousands. Although many see Natalie Jill as a fitness and nutrition expert, she is increasingly garnering attention for her ability to help others create, define, and monetize their brand in the online space.  In health & fitness, or in business; Natalie brings out the BEST in everybody she works with and helps them GET RESULTS!

People can read through authentic or fake. Like, I feel good about anything I say and do. Because if somebody has a issue with me now or I get a mean PR thing about me, whatever, if that were to happen, I am okay with it because I can stand behind whatever I said or did. It's truly me. I think it would be a lot tougher if you're pretending to be somebody or pretending to be what you think people want. And then, you know, backtracking.

That's different. I feel like if you're always authentic and tell the truth and where you come from and who you are, then you don't ever have to stress because you're not lying. you're not hiding anything. You're just being who you are. And those are the people that are going to connect with you if they can relate to that. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work

on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success. You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey, and welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. guest, another really inspirational one. It's Natalie Jill. Natalie specializes in healthy lifestyles, weight loss, functional body weight training, and on a daily basis, she coaches, motivates, and empowers others to turn their excuses into solutions and become their best possible selves.

You'll hear the energy that Natalie brings to this conversation. I absolutely love it. We talked about the importance of having a vision, and in her case even having a vision board, and how that helped her. Talk about specific ways that you can take action today, actual practices you can implement. And also her fitness focus of progression, intensity, and body weight. I love that part of our conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it's Natalie Jill.

And here we are, like I said, with Natalie, Jill. Natalie, how you doing? Good. Thanks, Ryan, for having me. Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. I know in our pre-interview, we're talking. You've got so many different things going on.

I really appreciate you taking the time and investing the time with us here at the Learning Leader Show to share some knowledge. I know we're all going to get a lot out of this. So thank you so much for being here. Sure. So I'll give you the floor here, though, Natalie. Give us a brief intro of you, things that you've done, how you've gotten to this point, and what you're currently working on.

Sure. Oh, my gosh. Where do I start? Well, the first thing I love to tell people is I'm really just like you. I'm like everybody else. There's nothing particularly special other than I'm definitely the kind of person that when I decide something, I make it happen no matter what that is. And the reason I say that first is I'm 43.

I'm a mom. I'm a full-time working mom. I've been through a divorce. I've gone through financial hardships in my life. There's nothing. I don't have this privileged, you know, born. You're born with these great genetics and just have all these things. So I'm just like everybody else, the difference is that I make decisions.

And when I decide, I make them happen. I'm a master sports nutritionist and a functional fitness trainer. And that's my passion. And then I'm a business builder. I love to take challenges and work online and build things. Yeah, I think your intro could actually last probably 30 minutes based on all the things that you're doing. So that was a really concise way and it was really well done. So how, I'm curious about how you got into this.

Why specifically nutrition and what makes up how to live a healthy life and everything that entails? So for years, I was in sales in corporate America and primarily in dental. I sold dental implants. I was a manager, a director. I moved up that corporate ladder with the nice cush job in a industry that I just had no interest in. I liked being in medical sales and around it, but I didn't care about teeth or dental implants. My passion was always fitness and nutrition. But, you know, as a lot of people do, you get sort of those golden handcuffs.

You know, you're comfortable, you're moving up. You've got the paycheck, the 401K, everything. But I used to laugh that I would go to a presentation, and the best part of my presentation would inevitably be, you know, one of the doctors or somebody asking me what I do for workouts or what do you, we start talking about food. And I always thought that was funny. We'd spend, you know, 10 minutes on the dental stuff and then, you know, 45 minutes on food and fitness. And that was just my interest.

But I was not willing to take a risk at the time to leave that comfort zone and go do that. I didn't know what I would do there. But what happened was I had hit a rock bottom point in my life. I was a new mom. I had just had my daughter. I was going through a divorce. The housing market had crashed, stock market a crash. I went from having money in the bank and being able to buy what I wanted to not knowing how I was going to pay my bills and having to make some serious tough decisions.

I ended up having to take it to motion at my job because I was traveling full time and just couldn't do that as a single mom. There was no way. And having to move and just feeling like the weight of the world was on me and I gained a lot of weight for the first time of my life. I was just finding comfort and food. And I sort of gave up my whole passion of like fitness and nutrition. I just, I didn't know where it went. I was just getting through the days. And I had this big turning point where I fully hit my rock bottom and I realized I'm going

through a depression and this is not who I want to be. And things couldn't have gotten any worse for me. It was just everything was piling up. The only positive I had in my life was my daughter. That was the only thing I could hold on to that was positive. And I, and I sat down one day and I thought, if I could create this dream life and get back something what I was, what would it be? What would it be? And I, I was really having a hard time coming up with it. I was stuck. And I remembered what I used to tell people in my corporate

jobs when I would motivate sales reps or managers and try to get them engaged in something. I used to always talk about creating a vision and writing out your goals. And a lot of leaders talk about that. That's nothing new. But I hadn't done that in a long time. So I remember my daughter was taking a nap and I made a vision board. I just took a poster board and magazines and I cut out pictures of the ocean and money and a happy relationship and I cut a lot of fit pictures because that was always my passion before. And I thought if I am not that right now, but if I could just look at this and start absorbing it and stare at this every day and start moving towards one step at a time being that person I know I can be,

things can get better and it's something I can control. And I remember making that decision. and, you know, earlier offline, you and I talked about something that makes me different is that I decide things. You know, I decide. I want to make things happen and I do. And that was my turning point where I decided. I said, I decided that this was not an option. I was going to get in better shape than I was before. I was going to use what used to be my passion, fitness and nutrition, to bring myself back.

So that's what I did. I started looking online. And as everyone would see, there is just information overload. I got confused. So I decided to get my personal training and my own nutrition certifications. I had had them at one point as a hobby, and I went and they had all expired. I went and re-uped them. I started studying.

I started learning. I started testing on myself. And it gave me this newfound confidence. I was just moving towards it. And I remember, you know, getting on the scale and nothing was working quite yet. But I just kept saying, if I just keep doing this, it's got to work. And I would document what I was doing. doing, starting with taking pictures of my meals, you know, and I would post them from my

blackberry at the time, these little dinky pictures, to my personal Facebook page. I didn't, you know, at the time I had a few hundred friends on Facebook. That was it. Not the following I have now. And I would post these pictures of food and people were interested in them. And that was interesting to me and it was encouraging me and it kept me going like, oh, what can I have healthy tonight? Because people want to see this. So I kept taking these pictures and one day someone asked, hey, why don't you make a recipe book? I thought, a recipe book. Like, I don't know how to do that or, and they said, why don't you make an ebook? And I didn't even know what an ebook was. I remember Googling it. And I, and I did, I took a, made a PDF file for

my little Blackberry pictures. It's embarrassing now what this recipe book look like. And I, and I sold it for $12 on Facebook. It was like, and I used to get so excited like somebody would order it. How many did you sell? That when I think when I first launched it, I sold like a couple of day. But, you know, I was like, wow, I can go off dinner now. I can, you know. So it was, it was fun. And it was helping me get my confidence back. So I would answer all my messages at the time on Facebook.

And people started to say, you know, you've really inspired me. You know, how can I use these meals together? How can I, you know, put them together to lose weight? So I remember I sat down one weekend and I wrote out what's now my seven-day jumpstart plan. And I wrote it in a weekend. And I wrote everything. that I did. The vision board, the goals, how I did that, the kind of foods, what I researched, what I learned about food, how I started getting my energy back. I wrote it all out. And I put it

into a seven-day plan. I didn't even proofread it. I had some friend that was learning graphics, slap a bunch of stuff on there. It's embarrassing what I had originally created. But I put it out there for $35, I remember, and I could not believe people were buying it. Just on Facebook? Just on Facebook. Wow. It's like, people are buying this. Wow. And even better, and then buying it, they were emailing me how it changed their lives. What year was this? When was it happening? This was a little over, this is almost four years ago now.

Okay. Three and a half years ago, almost four years ago. It hasn't been that long. No. No. So that Jumpstart program just naturally, I sent it out, it was working. And not even thinking this was going to be a business, really, just it was a little side thing.

It started to grow. And a big reason was, one, it worked. Two, it's real. It came from what I really did. I was authentic with people. I wasn't trying to sell them. I was just sharing what I was doing. And three, because somebody would send me a testimonial and say, I love this.

I lost five pounds. This is amazing. I feel great. And I would say, that's awesome. And I would share that. Like, look at Joanne. Look what she did. This is awesome, you guys.

And I wanted people to encourage her. And it made me sell more. And that's literally how our business launched. And it just grew from there. And I laugh at, you know, I giggle at Facebook now because I have. have almost a million followers there. And it really grew from that. And it's, you know, the jumpstarts since been revised and it's a lot better.

And it's, it doesn't look anything like it originally look like, but it's the same core stuff. And that one product alone, my gosh, it brought in over a million dollars in a year. Really? Yeah. Well, not the first year, but, you know, trickling, selling it. And then by year two, it's brought over a million dollars. Just that one product.

And so that was that, because how long did it take you even to put that product together? Gosh, well, I did it in the weekend initially. So I literally got it turned around in three days. This is why I tell people overanalyze what they're doing so much. You know, yes, now I would not put a product out at that level. I wouldn't now. But at the time I did and it was fine and it worked and no one complained. It was great.

How do you think that worked with, because this field, obviously, you've already said it, is very crowded. And it is definitely information overload. And so your, what was the difference between what you did and what, basically millions of others were trying to do because a lot of this information is out there on Google really. Yeah. So the difference is I didn't come up with a product first and say, how do I sell this? That's never what I did.

It was I really built a legitimate following being authentic. People found me that were like me, that wanted to learn for me, and I connected with them. That's really, it's not like it was years ago where you have to make this big elaborate business plan and go like sell it to everybody first and then to when people do that it's like analysis paralysis like just get out there just start doing what you do best talk to people listen i made the 70 jumpstart because people asked for it they wanted to know what i was doing how i was getting my results and i shared it with them that's it and then when they got results i shared that that was it i never tried to be somebody else i didn't try to copy someone's product i did my own thing and that's why it worked

And there's no right product for somebody or right, you know, thing. It's, it's, I tell all entrepreneurs, it's about being your best you and sharing your unique ability, your unique skill and connecting with others and listening to what they want and how you can help them. And that's how you really build anything. Every product I've created since the seven day jumpstart, all of the ones that I followed that I created based on what people were asking for were hits. Anything I tried to create outside of that just because I wanted it,

ever worked. You know, Natalie, I've been fortunate to talk with a lot of great leaders on this podcast. And one of the themes that I found to be in common with all of the great ones that are successful is they are very, very transparent. They're more than willing to share and almost overshare everything, whether it's, you know, Pat Flynn sharing his income reports or you, you know, telling stories about, you know, real life, tough things, you know, divorce, single mom, being broke. I mean, this is, this is tough stuff.

Like most people won't, they don't want to, they don't want to say that, right? They, they, you know, people are living that. They don't want to say those things. And I went through that. I'll tell you when I first started my, when I first realized, okay, John starts working this. Now I thought, oh, I have to build a website. I have to build all this stuff.

And I went through the whole like, I have to look this way. And, you know, it didn't, that was not good because people don't relate to that. If I put a picture on Facebook of a perfect looking fitness image and I'm say some in-your-face thing about, you know, and making it like I have this perfect life, people are, it draws hate, you know. People want to tear you apart. I'm curious about though, not to cut you off, but your current pictures of yourself. Yeah. I mean, don't, you know, don't people say those things? Do you get hateful things because of the six-pack or 10-pack abs and all of that?

You know what I mean? I sometimes do. But if you look at my stuff, I'm very consistent. And I take that, I take a lot of pride in that. I do show that I'm fit. I am fit. But I do a lot of, I show a lot of videos, a lot of videos. It's hard to Photoshop a video.

You can't, you know, I want people to see that that's me. I do it because I want to show people it's possible. I, before I post anything, always run it through my own little filter of, will this make people feel good about themselves or bad about themselves? Is this something that's helpful? Is this something that's showing my true personality so I can connect with other like-minded people? That's what I think. Now, there are some things that, yeah, somebody might get offended.

I will tell you I have more supporters than people offended now because I am constantly thinking about what's in it for them, always. So, yeah, I can't not put fit pictures up because that's my business. But I'm very careful about what it is that I'm sharing. I'm always, I'm smiling. I'm not rude. I mean, I try to be helpful. I put free videos up every morning that people could do at home, workout.

I share so much free content. I always say, are you in? Who's in? Who wants to do this with me? I try to be very inclusive of them. So I won't please everyone. But I will say you'll never see a picture of me like a TNA picture all with the mean face. It's just never going to happen.

You know, James Altasurer, a guy that I read and I listen to him on his podcast says, if you're not scared before you click publish, then you're probably doing something wrong, at least a little bit scared for what you're about to put out there in transparency. And I really believe that. I think it's okay to have a little bit of fear because, I mean, if it's just boring, you're probably not going to be scared. There's not going to be any fear of releasing that.

But if it's going to, you know, if it's going to potentially help people and do some things and you're going to maybe overshare a little bit, you're going to be a little bit nervous about that. And I've tried to take that to heart in the podcasting world here and what I put on my website as far as, you know, sharing my true feelings about how excited I am to get a guest or get a certain person like to have you on Natalie to say,

wow, this is really, really neat for me. I want to be transparent about, you know, the process and in my thoughts and feelings. So I think that's, you know, there's something to that as well that people can appreciate. Yeah, and people can read through authentic or fake. Like, I feel good about anything I say and do because if somebody has a issue with me now or I get a mean PR thing about me, whatever, if that were to happen, I am okay with it because I can stand behind whatever I said or did.

It's truly me. I think it would be a lot tougher if you're pretending to be somebody or pretending to be what you think people want and then, you know, backtracking. That's different. I feel like if you're always authentic and tell the truth and where you come from and who you are, then you don't ever have to stress because you're. you're not lying, you're not hiding anything, you're just being who you are. And those are the people that are going to connect with you if they can relate to that.

Right. What do you say to the people that view positive psychology with skepticism or even worse, if some of them, some type of like modern day snake oil salesmanship? What do you say to those people? I don't even let them in my lives, to be honest with you. But you might hear some of that feedback on Facebook. I mean, you have a million followers on Facebook. You have a massive group.

I mean, I can't imagine that all of them are like, oh, this is great. This is awesome. You know what I mean? But here's what I do. I tell, and I have a team of people that help me now. And I think that's very important. The more you put yourself out there, the more you need to put some people in place to help protect you from some stuff because it would wear on you. But I will say, I'm very strict about talking to my audience.

And I've told my entire team the same thing. We've defined who our audience is. I know exactly what they look like, what age they are, their mindset. I know who I want to talk to. And that's who we answer and talk to. If somebody does not fall into that, they get ignored. Period. I don't give them a platform.

So if somebody comes in and I don't like their comment, their negative mindset, it's my platforms. I don't have to talk to them. So, you know, I used to be in this thing where I would have all these great comebacks and this is what I'm going to make them, I'm going to show them and I'm going to make them realize and everyone's going to gang up on that. You know, it's stupid. What's the point?

I'm just giving them a platform. Yeah. So I let it go. I'm not saying I'm perfect. Every now and then, something may trigger me, and I, you know, will have to say my thing and I delete it later. But I try, you know, don't ever check threads after you've had a glass of wine, period. You know, it's just, it's going to happen.

But it's, you know, I, my team knows they delete stuff before I see it. It will never get to me. And I tell people, I'm, I'm going to talk to my audience. Yeah. You know, and I have a motto, excuses or solutions you decide. That's my thing. I even have T-shirts that I've made with that. That's my, and I feel anyone that's offended by that, I don't want them in my life anyway, period.

Yeah, no, I get it. I am also very curious about inflection points in people's lives. And I listen to a very, very smart guy named Brian Coppulman. And he's in the movie business, actually, and TV shows, but he has a podcast as well. And I love learning about specific moments and points in people's lives because the difference between successful people and people who are not successful is how they handle specific moments in their lives to where they can go one way or the other. And there's a certain subset of success and what that looks like. And they go one way. And there's the majority that goes the other way. And I'm wondering,

is there a moment in your life when you felt that you had turned that corner and what was going through your mind at that time. I've had several moments like that. But the first one would be the one I was talking about earlier when I had, I remember seeing myself in this mirror window reflection and thinking, you know, this isn't who I am. Like this isn't, I don't recognize myself. And I'm thinking, well, maybe that's what happens.

You have a kid. You get a divorce. You get overweight. You just, that's what happens. Like, I could have given up. I just knew it didn't feel right. And I didn't like that answer. So I had a turning point.

And the thing is, you know, one thing I've really learned is it's really, really hard if you don't believe in yourself. Like if you don't have that power to say, I can do this and you don't have anyone else to help with, I believe in you, it makes it very, very hard. And I see that commonality with successful people versus people that never, you know, do things. If you've never had somebody believe in you ever, it makes it very, very scary to take, risk and have these turning points and take chances. So, you know, I always advise if someone's going through that, I have someone very close to me that dealt with that in their whole life. But you can work that out. You can find people to believe in you. You can join, you know, groups even on social media. Just getting, surrounding yourself with others that want to encourage

and help you is very powerful. And I know with me, that's what's always helped me, no matter what moment I've hit to start to surround myself with the positive, people that overcame it, and not let any of those negative thoughts in my life help me make those turning point decisions. So, is that the answer to your question? No, no, absolutely it does. I, the other follow up to that is, you know, I think, I've talked about this before, but I think people do a great job of trying to learn, of going to seminars, listening to people like,

like you, Natalie, speak, watch your videos, and they can grasp those ideas intellectually. They can understand them. However, where we fail, for the most part, unfortunately, is the implementation and the execution of these great things that you're sharing. They don't take action. We struggle, right? And so I'm curious for somebody who has taken action, who has made it happen and consistently does it on a daily basis, how can everyone do that?

Are there specific, I'm talking like specific takeaways that someone can take notes right now as they're listening. I'll give you one right now. I'll give you one right now. Well, and I always say my, you know, my fiance always jokes with me. He says that I'm ready, aim. I'm ready, fire aim, ready, aim, ready, aim, ready, aim, ready, aim, aim, maybe I'll fire. You know, that's, and I think my personality definitely helps with that. But here's what I know for sure.

I don't think. I go with my gut. If I want to do something, it gets done now. It's that. So for people that struggle with taking action, and I've coached a lot of people through this, what I would suggest is take some time, sit down, take an hour. What's your goal? Rumble out every single possible thing.

Don't think how you're going to do it. Just ramble out in a perfect world. If I were to make this goal happen, what needs to happen? So I don't know. Maybe you want to sell dog food and be famous doing that. Okay, what needs to happen? Well, I have to develop dog food. I have to find packaging.

I have to have a website. I'd have to, you literally write out every single possible thing that you need to do to make your goal happen. Okay? Just don't think. Just brainstorm it out. Take you no more than a half an hour to an hour. Then what you do is you take a big highlighter and a big red marker.

And you go through that list and you think, okay, which things on here are things that I could actually complete myself if I had time and just start highlighting those things. Okay. and then take a red marker and go, what is not necessary right now? Like, what could I actually take off here and take, cross those off? Then my advice from there is you pick one thing from your list, one yellow thing each day that you tackle. You can do one thing in a small wins.

If it seems too overwhelming, if one of your yellow things you think is going to require a week, why is it going to require a week? Write out all those things that need to happen for that to happen. Pick one thing a day. If you do one thing a day in a year, guess what? You've put 365 things into place. Yeah. You've done it without thinking.

Yeah. How do you relate that to, that's awesome, by the way, but how do you relate that to, and I appreciate the specific takeaway, because I think it's one thing to hear it. It's another thing to say to give people specific actions that they can do. They can take right now that will make a difference. Even if you did it for a month, that's 30 things you got right now. Yeah, even you block out an hour day for it. I mean, that's, wow.

So how do you relate that? than to nutrition. Because I think even there's some very intelligent people I know who when you talk about nutrition, and this is shifting gears a little bit, but obviously you're wheelhouse. And they eat like, you know, a turkey sandwich for lunch and an apple. And they're like, that's pretty healthy, you know. And in reality, they're probably not really doing what they need to do. So how do you coach those types?

I approach it the same way I do business. I'm not a fan of subtraction. I'm a fan of addition. So what I mean is I, in business, say, what can you add every day? What can you do every day? What positives can you add? With nutrition, I'm going to say the same thing. What can you add to your life every day working towards your goal?

Because the more good you add, the less room you're making for the bad. So if you add good, you less room for the bad. And let me give you an example. With nutrition in my Jumpstart program, I talk about the importance of adding whole foods, adding unprocessed natural world foods, things that once grew or had a mom, fruits, vegetables, proteins, nuts, oils, like certain things that you should add into your life because it's going to help with your energy, it's going to help you not feel bloated, it's going to help you lose the weight, all the things to add.

I get rid of the whole takeaway mindset. So if you really pay attention to that and you think, I need to add more water, I need to add more vegetables, I'm not taking anything away from you. I'm just going to add these things. You start to see that there's less room for the bed. And that is a change that everyone can make that takes away that whole I'm going to diet. I have to eliminate. I can't have this.

I can't have that. I'm not saying I say free reign to eat everything. That's not at all what I do. But I'm going to teach you about the benefits of the good things. And if you can just take that step of adding those things, you're going to make a huge headway. Wow. I've never really heard it put that way. And I like to think I study this stuff.

I'm relatively healthy. You played sports my whole life and workout every day. So that's, I like that. The other thing that I know you do really well is explosive type training and not just like not getting on the elliptical for 25 minutes a date. I hate the elliptical. So there's something wrong when you're on something and your foot falls asleep. Like, you know, really?

Now your body is not meant to do that. Yeah. Talk a little bit more about that. So it's not so much explosive. Here's the words I like to use. I like to say progression, intensity, and body weight. And let me explain what I mean by that. First and foremost, you can change your entire body with your own.

body weight. And if people think that they can't, I want to see them hold a plank for five minutes and try to do 20 pull-ups. Like, most people can't do that, right? If you did nothing but just work on your pull-ups every day and some planks, you're going to start to change your body. Body weight is key. Body weight doesn't mean just standing there and doing arm circles. Body weight means using your own body as a machine and strengthening and changing your body. And so I'm a full believer in body-weight training. I'm not against weights. I just love body weight for most people. And I like that you could do it anywhere and at home. So that takes away the excuse of I can't afford a gym. I can't get to a gym. I don't know what to do. Right. So that's the first thing. The second thing is when people say I work out all the

time, but I don't look like you. Okay. I don't believe that they're progressing or using intensity. So what does intensity mean? Intensity means doing what's challenging for you. What's challenging for me may not be the same as what's challenging for you. For some women, one pushup is going to be very challenging where there might be a man that it takes 30 to even feel it. But it's making it intense for you. When people ask me, how many steps do I do? I hate that question. I don't know. When do you feel it? I don't know. Can you do 100? Great. Is that hard for you? That's intense. I want it intense. I love pull-ups and chin-ups for that same reason. It may take everything you have to work towards doing one. Once you knock it out, can you work towards 10?

Can you work towards 20? I don't know. Can you work towards 10 at 10 different times? You know, that's intensity. And that's also progression. Can you go up and challenge your body? You know, a good friend of mine, my friend Ari had once given me the example with progression,

that if you were to go pick up a roll of paper towels, how much energy that would that require and think about how your body would be, how your arm would be lifting it, like what does that take to lift a roll of paper towels? Now imagine you're going to go pick up a 50-pound dumbbell. How is your body for that? Like, how are you getting yourself prepared for it?

How much energy does that take? Well, imagine if you were to use that same mindset when you were picking up your paper towels. You know, it's like, and see, people don't really grasp that. And somebody will say, well, my gosh, my age and now I'm out of shape. Well, you can't keep doing three sets of 12 of your five-pound dumbbells. That's not progressing. Yeah. You know, maybe that was hard for you when you were 15.

It's not going to be hard for you right now. Yeah. So you have to progress. You have to be intense. And you have to get off the machines. If you're reading on the elliptical, you're wasting your time. That does nothing except for make you hungrier. Seriously.

It does nothing. It's a waste of time. I've said on this podcast that sometimes as my cool down, that's what I do to relax. I'm embarrassed. If you like it mentally, if it's something, I'm not saying, don't do it if you enjoy it. If you enjoy it, if it's adding some value to your life, great. If you're just putting in time because you think it's going to help you get in shape, that's where I would intervene.

Yeah, no, I have, you know, podcasts are transparent. They're long conversations. So I hate that I forget who I said that too. But part of my routine in the morning, I have a big morning routine. And part of it is at the very end of a workout, which involves a lot of things you're talking about. But the very end is I will go on the elliptical and I read for about, you know, 20, 30 minutes because it kind of gets me ready to for the day. And it's almost. It's hungry too, though.

Well, yeah, I guess. But I guess I'm going to take like a protein shaker to eat breakfast after. words. But in a way, it's my, I do it almost more for the reading than I do for the elliptical because, you know what I mean? Like, I enjoy reading and for some reason I struggle to read when I'm just sitting still. Like I like to move. Totally. Oh, I used to read every day on the, I used to do it for years on the step mill or whatever. I'd read the paper. All that. And I stopped and it was amazing how it changed me. But here's the thing, like, because somebody's going to say some nasty comment about, I don't know what I'm talking about. Here's the thing. Two things.

One, if you enjoy it, keep doing it. If it's a, if it's a way of being relaxing, reading, whatever. It doesn't matter. It's still moving your body. It's good. That's the first thing. The second thing is I'm not talking to about athlete training.

If you're running marathons or you're in the Olympics, I'm not arguing with you. That works. I get it. That's athlete level. You know, but I'm going to tell you, and you know this, watching an Olympic athlete train and do their cardio is very different than

leaning on the elliptical and reading and chatting on your cell phone. They're very different things. So what people don't understand is there's a difference. So if you're an athlete and you're training that way, On cardio, I'm all for it. Let's say you're in a, hey, Natalie, so let's say you're in a hotel room because you travel and you want to have an intense workout. And the hotel gym is a couple ellipticals and maybe some 20 pound dumbbells and it's a tiny

room. So it's like you might be either stuck in your room if it's cold outside. What are some things that all of us could do that are intense when they're a traveler? Because I think a lot of people listen, they do travel. for work or whatever it is that they do. Okay. Well, first and foremost, you would download the Natalie Jill Tone app. Oh, yes.

And my rev 4 DVD, which would give you body weights off. That was just a little shameless plug there. I like it. But it would not stop me and it shouldn't stop anyone because you can change your body and get a great workout in using your own body weight in 10 minutes or less. You 100% can. You don't need space. And there's so many exercises you could do.

I could go on for days about plank variations. and just doing a proper plank is awesome. And when I say proper plank, if you're doing a plank correctly, it should not hurt your lower back or your wrist or anything like that. If you're doing it correctly, you're engaging that core, you're squeezing, you have engaged glutes, you're tucking your pelvis under. There should be no pressure in your lower back. It should be all abs and core, and you'll feel it there, not anywhere else.

Working on that is huge. And then there's so many variations from that, you know, taking your knee to your elbow, lifting an arm up. I could go on with variations on that. Push-ups. Another great one. You're in plank position. You can vary your arm position, work your chest, your triceps.

Those are great. Lift your leg up, make it more challenging. That's huge. Another one is just wall squats. I mean, people forget that you could use your body for this stuff. You could go sit with your back against a wall anywhere and hold it. I want to see someone hold that for a minute. It's hard.

Yeah, it is. It's hard. You'll be sweating. If you did those three things in three minutes, you would be sweating and tired. Yeah, that's really good. When I was in college, our strength coach at Ohio University's name is Sunny Sano, and we did planks every day. But I learned them called, and maybe, I don't know if you've heard them called this before,

we called them thinkers because you would be kind of be in that thinking position because some people would bring their hands up under their chin, you know, and to try to hold up. And we'd have to sit there and just see the clock ticking as we're going. for, you know, minutes, and it's, it's so hard. Yeah. And I hate that. Once I got done with college, I was like, I don't want to do those anymore.

But they were so good for you that, you know, I needed. Oh my gosh. I love planks. This morning and my workout, Natalie, and knowing that I was preparing for our time together, I was sitting in the movie theater area of the gym that I go to, which is where all the great cardio equipment that you hate is housed. And I went on the floor and did planks. I did planks because I want to be able to tell Natalie what I really did this morning.

And I was doing planks this morning in honor of you. So thank you. I love when people comment on my Facebook videos and I'm like, well, this is not what you really do. This wouldn't change your body. And I always, I just want to say like, did you try it?

Because the stuff's hard. People might think they look funny. But when you really try it and you do those things for a minute, they're awesome. Yeah. I think it's great. And it's especially good for the people who we all, and I fall into this category too, where it's easy if you're traveling, whatever, to say it's hard to maintain a healthy nutrition.

It's hard to do it when I have a hotel room and it's snowing outside or whatever it may be. It's a decide. Yeah, exactly. Like you have to be, I think I was going to say, you have to be an intentional with your decisions. And it's so easy just to say, you know, it's too cold and I'm traveling. I can't do it. But you don't want it bad enough then. Right.

You don't talk about it. You didn't decide. You know, I always, if people say that, that's why I love excuses or solutions. you decide because there's excuses for everything. You know, I always think to when I post a lot of things showing the beach in the background or where I live, you know, and people say, well, if I lived in San Diego, I would be fit to it. Well, you know what?

I didn't grow up in San Diego. I decided that I was going to live there and I made it happen. So, you know, nobody's stopping anybody from things. You can design your life and choose to be in those places. And I'm not talking about, obviously, I know there's people in extreme situations. I'm not talking about other countries or somebody might be living on really extreme resources. I get that. I'm talking about most of the people listening to this podcast, have it better than other people.

And a lot of it is excuses. So it's deciding and finding a solution. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So I think, though, a couple more questions for you before we wrap up. But everyone occasionally gets in a rut or they, you know, it's a time that's not as good. and there's usually a varying number of factors for that reason. What do you say to those people who are in a situation to where they're like, I'm just kind of tired.

I go to the gym every day. I'm just tired of it. Or I do this or do that and I'm in a little bit of a rut or, you know, I'm eating too many sweets or things like that. What do you say to those people? Well, they're not at the root of what it is or they're trying to change or why and they haven't decided. So you got to go back to the drawing board there.

Like, are you just going through the motions or are you after a specific goal? So, you know, it's going back and deciding that. But it also, you know, I won't, people have to decide they want to help themselves before anyone else can help them. So are they saying they're in a rut just to hear themselves, you know, talk? Or are they really asking for help and will they make a change? So, you know, if you keep doing the same thing over and over again and, you know, you're not liking it and you're not getting results, it's time to change it. You know, I always think it's funny when somebody has, let's say somebody has 50 pounds to lose and they message

our support, like, you know, I, and they end up buying one of my programs. And then they look at it and after two minutes, they say, well, this won't work for me. Well, I want to work for you. Well, because I like to do this. Well, okay, that's great. You like, you like, it's not working for you. You know, it's like, that's great. So sometimes when you're in a rut, you got to look at, is it doing it out of comfort?

What's going on there? Are you willing to change it? Because you got to be willing to change it if you want to change something. Yeah, I mean, motivation is an internal thing. Inspiration is an external thing. So I think it's just like when you're at a business, if you're going to hire people, you can't really, you can't plan to motivate them. They have motivation comes from within, but I can as a leader work really hard to inspire people to move, so to speak.

So I think there's two very different things that people get mixed up from time to time because it's, it's like, I want to hire people and work with people who are internally motivated. That will then, you know, give, give me the platform to help. help inspire and then they inspire me as well. So I think that's what we're really looking for. Well, yeah. And, you know, there's so a lot of people that try a lot of things. And trying is different than committing, too.

So it's making that decision. And, you know, I know that some people don't like when I say this stuff. They think, well, you don't know my situation. You don't know this. You don't know. I do because I don't know your exact situation. But I know that mindset. I've been there.

And it's a decision. And you have to make the decision. And you have to, it's like faking that smile when you just don't. want to. You got to act as if and you got to just, I am going to be fit. I'm going to be determined. I know when I was starting to do all this, I'm 43 now, but I was 39 and I wanted to be if I decided I was going to be on a cover of some magazines. And my friends thought I was smoking something funny. Like you're 39. Like nobody wants you on a cover magazine. I'm like, I am going to be on a cover magazine. And I got on three covers that year. Wow. Because I decided. I'm like, it is going to

happen. I'm going to reach. I was determined. I made it happen. How did you do that? I just decided I was getting fit. I was going to make this happen. I was networking. I talked to photographers. I talked to magazines. I just worked it out. I offered to write for them.

I did whatever I could to get myself in front of people to be in that position to do that. And it's so, yeah, that's maybe a funny goal to somebody else that might have nothing to do with what they want to do. But you can decide you want things and you can find a way to make it happen. You can. Yeah. I love the message. Natalie, it's been great. I have one more final question for you here before we take off.

Again, my show is focused on the art and the science of leadership, which is obviously what you do. And learning and constantly improving, which is another thing you do. That's why I thought you'd be a perfect guest. And I really appreciate you being here. So when you define learning leadership or learning a learning leader, what is your definition of it? Gosh, I don't even know if this will be right. But I would say a learning leader is somebody that's constantly learning and trying to improve themselves also. So they're not stuck, you know, like, for instance, I personally listen to the podcast

every single day. Yeah, me too. Because it's a nice morning habit for me. I wake up. It's like the first thing I do. I get in the right mindset. I'm hearing, you know, when you go to like a motivational something and you come back all fired up?

Yeah. Then you kind of forget a few days later. Exactly. You know, podcast to me, especially because you can download and find your specific interest or what you're trying to learn, you're just, it forces. you to surround yourself with that information all day long. It reminds you of things you knew and forgot. It's good refresher. It's just a right positive thing. And you can always learn. And, you know, another thing with learning leaders, if I were, if I'm defining it, right,

is I would say that they're never so proud that they won't ask for advice or learn from others. And like, I don't view other people as competition. I am, I want to learn more, you know, how they did it. And not so I can copy more just so I can get inspired and get my own ideas too. So I share a lot of my information with them and I love learning from that. You know, I want it to go both ways. So I never feel too proud to want to learn something from others. That's awesome. Well, Natalie, I hope the Learning Leaders Show can be one of those that make it into that rotation.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm a big time podcast listener. or I have about, I don't know, 15 to 20 are rotating now at all times because I'm just like you, I listen to them every morning or when I go for a walk or whatever in between meetings. I like to listen to the latest of some of the most inspiring people in my life. So I'm on the same way. So I appreciate that. Thank you.

One more thing on podcasting is what's interesting is a lot of people say that they don't have time for that self-development or to learn. That's where podcasting has been amazing because you can, any, you could be in the shower listening to it. I do that too. It's the perfect, yeah, we're driving, shower, you know, getting ready, whenever. It's just there's no excuse you can learn it. I mean, I just recently put one on how to learn Spanish because I was like, I keep saying

I want to learn Spanish and I haven't done it yet. But if I can learn one word a day, you know, maybe in 10 years I'll know Spanish. That's pretty cool. There's a podcast for everything. It's just, it's like, I think the same thing when people say like I don't have time for podcasts or I don't have time to read. It, you know, obviously, I mean, come on. Like that's, you don't have time to read or listen to a podcast.

You can do it any time. Obviously you have time, but you're choosing to allocate that time to something else. Exactly. And so that's that like you said, you have to decide and you have to go and do it. And I think that's the same thing with being a learning leader. You have to decide that you want to constantly improve and get better and inspire others. And that's what it's all about. And that's part of, you know, part of the reason my inspiration behind doing the show.

Yeah. So Natalie, thank you so much again for for being. here. Where are the places you want to send people that they can go and find everything that you do? I've got everything that we talked about and that I do on Natalie Jill Fitness.com. I've got links to my social media, all my programs. I've got tons of free blogs and videos, you know, links to my YouTube channel. So I have a lot of content out there. Some of my most amazing transformations that I've worked with never even bought a product for me. You know, they just literally, I love that. They've used my videos.

They learned on their own. I love, you know, my programs are more specific and help people that don't want to weed through all that. But I've got so much information there. So a ton of resources there for fitness, nutrition, and then also growing your own brand and business. Yeah. If somebody has just a shade under a million fans, likes, whatever, on Facebook, there's

probably a reason for that. So I tend to want to follow those people, too, to see what's going on. and you certainly deliver. So I, again, I appreciate that. And thank you so much for being with us here on the show tonight. Thanks so much. All right. Talk to you soon, Ellie.

Thank you. All right. Bye, Ryan. Thank you. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO,

world class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you. You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again and we'll see you next time on the Learning Leader Show.