The Liz Moody Podcast - Monique from Ambitious Kitchen AND Jeanine From Love & Lemons: How To ACTUALLY Make Your Dream Life & Career Happen

Episode Date: October 2, 2019

I have not one but two amazing guests for you today—Monique Volz from Ambitious Kitchen and Jeanine Donofrio from Love and Lemons. They’re both incredibly successful food bloggers, and Monique is also the woman behind the vintage rug company Ambitious Home. Jeanine, meanwhile, has written two best-selling (and gorgeously designed!) cookbooks—Love & Lemons and Love & Lemons Everyday. Beyond that, though, they’re lovely, wonderful people who’ve managed how to balance having an amazing career and an amazing life. I sat down with them to record a live episode at my Chicago book tour stop (although unlike other book tour stops, this is more of a traditional interview—although I chime in at the end to answer audience questions!). I called this the “How To ACTUALLY Make Your Dream Life & Career Happen” episode because I grilled both women about exactly that: how they financially made it work to quit their full time jobs to pursue their dreams, how they knew what their passion was, how to create content that resonates with audiences, how to find your passion (even if you’re not sure what it is!!), how to network and make friends in your community, and so much more. If you’ve ever thought about pursuing a passion-based career, this is a must-listen to episode—and if you just love Jeanine and Monique (who doesn’t?) I think you’ll love getting to know them on a deeper level too. Definitely tag all three of us (@lizmoody, @loveandlemons, and @ambitiouskitchen) with your feedback or thoughts on the episode, and any other questions you’d like us to answer! Enjoy! PS: Healthier Together is officially a number one best-seller! You can get your copy right here or at lizmoody.com/cookbook. Please keep sending me your creations on Instagram—they make me so happy! This episode is also brought to you by one of my all time favorite brands, Garden of Life. I’ve been taking Garden of Life probiotics for more than four years. Their Mood Plus probiotic is formulated specifically to help with stress and anxiety, and it’s made a huge difference in my mental health. Zack also takes their Once Daily Men’s probiotic, and their RAW Vaginal Care line is an amazing secret weapon against any UTIs or yeast infections. I also love their prebiotic, which has five clean, organic ingredients and provides food for the probiotics in your gut. I never travel without the Oil of Oregano and the Turmeric Gummies are truly addictive and so good for helping with chronic or acute pain. You can check out all of my Garden of Life picks at lizmoody.com/shop. If you need recommendations for specific products, please DM me and I’ll help you figure it out! I can’t wait to hear how they change the health of your whole body and mind! This episode is also sponsored by Natural Cycles, the first hormone-free contraception app that’s FDA approved and CE marked in Europe. Natural Cycles has been shown to have effectiveness rate of 93% with typical use and 98% effective with perfect use—for reference, the efficacy of the pill is 91% with typical use. I’ve partnered with Natural Cycles to do a little mini-diary of my experience with it on the Healthier Together podcast. Every episode, I’ve given you an update of how it’s going, and now, at the end of our series, I have to say—i’m fully obsessed. I love being able to take control of my body in this way, and highly recommend it to all of my friends (including you!). You can find out more info at NaturalCycles.com. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthier Together podcast. I'm your host, Liz Moody, and I'm coming to you today from London, where I just am finishing up two and a half weeks of traveling around the Scottish Highlands with my dad and my husband. It was a lovely, lovely trip. DM me if you need recommendations on that part of the world. I have a ton of thoughts. I'm doing a quick two-day stopover in London to see some old friends before heading back to New York, and I don't know, a lot of feelings right now.

London is so interesting for me. Zach and I lived here for two years, a few years back, and it was this really wonderful time. It was this grand adventure that we had together, but it was also when my anxiety reached its absolute peak when I couldn't get out of bed for a month. And I was having panic attacks whenever I left the house. And I love the city. I love the history and the parks and the friends that I eventually made here. But I also can't help but feel like I failed when I'm here. I've considered myself sort of a traveler, someone who can live all over the world and deal with all sorts of different situations. And I just feel like I could have taken a different path in London.

I could have made different choices that would have had different outcomes. And I don't know. I know everything in life brings us to where we are. But it's a time that's Latin with a lot of regrets that I'm still processing. So that always gets sort of stirred up for me while I'm here. But I'm going to try to enjoy it. I love actually having the opportunity to think about these things and process all these things. And I also love having the opportunity to eat it De Shume, which is my favorite restaurant in the world if you ever go to London.

So I'm going to do that, see a few old friends, and hopefully have a lovely time. Anyway, I have a great episode to share with all of you lovely humans today featuring not just one, but two incredible guests. We have Monique Volz from Ambitious Kitchen and Janofrio from Love and Lemons. We recorded this live at my Chicago tour stop for the Healthier Together cookbook, but it's much more of a traditional interview about Monique and Janine than a lot of my tour stops. I jump in a little bit at the end when we're answering audience questions. I always love the audience questions because I feel like they're more like what you all would ask if you were there. But other than that, it's really focused on telling the stories of these two incredible women. And their stories are incredible.

Both Monique and Janine have hugely successful food. blogs. Monique is the woman behind the whole ambitious kitchen empire, which I'm sure you've heard of. She has her amazing blog, which has tons of recipes, and she has ambitious home, which is her gorgeous vintage rug shop. Janine created Love and Lemons, and she has her whole blog, Love and Lebons, which I'm sure you've cooked something from. Her graphic design is amazing. You can hear on this episode, Monique and I are just sort of fawning over Janine's gorgeous sense of design and aesthetic, which we talk about where she got that from. But she also, has two best-selling cookbooks under her belt, the Love and Lemons cookbook and Love and Lemons

every day, which just came out around the same time it's healthier together last spring. They've both figured out not only how to make a successful living financially, but also how you can make a successful life and how you can build doing what you love into a wonderful life for yourself. So we really focus on how that happened and how you at home can make that happen for yourself in this episode. We talk about where they actually make their income, like how their pie chart breaks down, how they decided to leave their corporate job to work for themselves full time, when you should start charging for your work, and how much you should work for free and how to know what your value is, how to network effectively, and how they've built

these incredible networks, both of them, how to use social media to feel good. We also talk a lot about how to know what your passion actually is. And if you know what your passion is, what are the very first steps you take in pursuing it and how to know what makes you stand out from the crowd of everybody else and all of those types of things. They have very different approaches and perspectives about these things and I definitely learned a lot. So I hope that you do too. This is totally an episode about how to actually create your dream life from grander visions to more specific nitty gritty questions and details that you might have. And it's also just a really fun one if you love Monique or Janine and you want to peek into the people behind their

amazing brands. You'll really get to know both of them in this episode, including their relationships, their fears, their hopes. And I hope you love both of them as much as I do. One quick thing, before we get started, I am signing book plates to send to people who purchase the healthier together cookbook. A book plate is essentially, it's like a sticker that goes in the book and I can sign my name or write a message or draw a picture of it. I can only draw pictures of pigs, palm trees and popcorn. So if you want a picture of a pig, palm tree, or popcorn, I'm happy to draw that for you. Anything you want, really. It's great just to have, and it's even better as a present. And I would love to send you one, but I'd love just one quick favor in return. If you could

leave an Amazon review for healthier together, even if you bought it somewhere else, it's totally fine. And just say a few things that you love about the book, your favorite recipe, any of that. It takes two minutes. And then after you can screenshot it or just screenshot that you did it. and you can send it to Liz L-I-Z at Liz Moody.com, L-I-Z, M-O-O-D-Y dot com. With whatever you want me to write on your bookplay in the email, it can be for you, it can be for a friend, it can be for a parent, for anybody that you want.

And I will get those out in the next few weeks. And thank you. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the reviews. They're really helpful for people finding the book, especially with the holidays coming up. So if you want a signed copy, just do the Amazon review screen. Send it to Lizette Liz Moody, and I will get that right out to you.

All right. I hope you love this episode. I cannot wait to hear your thoughts, so be sure to screenshot it and share what you're loving, questions you have, all of that. As always, tag me, I'm at Liz Moody, and then also tag Monique and Janine with this episode. They're at Ambitious Kitchen and at Love and Lemons, and we would all love to continue the conversation. Enjoy.

I think we should start with. I'm so fascinated with both of you as business. woman. You've built really successful careers in something that is very hard to build a successful career in. So can we start off with like when you were growing up, did you think that this type of career was possible? What did your parents do? Just sort of what was that background? So let's start with Monique. Well, I don't think blogging really existed when I was growing up. So I never really thought that this would be my job or anything like that. I started out working at General Mills in brand management, social and digital. And so I always loved food. My parents,

I grew up with my parents cooking. My mom is full Puerto Rican. So she was always like just making the most delicious things ever. And then what would she make? Oh my gosh. She would make empanadas, just azale like Puerto Rican potatoes. Yeah. Everything. And where are you? Like where are you growing up in this story? I grew up in Minnesota. Okay. Yeah. Small town, big, does Minnesota have big cities? Just outside of Minneapolis.

Okay. But it's just not that big, yeah. Basically, small. Okay. And, you know, I was always exposed to food. And then my dad was a baker. And so, yeah, he just loved. So you had, like, the dream childhood.

Yeah, basically. Or you were like 400 pounds. And no, I was, it was definitely chunky. But, yeah, no, my parents were just always encouraged. me to be in the kitchen and that was really, really fun for me. So eventually I just knew I wanted to work in food. I thought I wanted to work in CPG consumer packaged goods and I had that opportunity and then had my blog at the same time and then quickly just realized that it was so much more my passion. And of course, when you work for yourself, you just, you're able to be more creative,

you set your own schedule. You know, there's just so many more benefits. So eventually I took that leap. All right. So we'll get into the specifics of leap taking later because I think it's like not nearly as easy as maybe we might talk about retrospectively and it's very brave. But let's go with you. Were you raised by people who sort of thought this was an option? Well, I mean, first of all, food blogs didn't exist when we were growing up to have that be a lot. Do you identify as like a food blogger or cookbook author? I guess both now. I guess I just identify with a creative person of the world and I just happened to love food. And what was the first question?

Whether you, what you sort of like thought you were going to be when you grew up? I knew I would be an artist of some type. Although my parents, it's funny because my dad, my grandfather was an entrepreneur and my dad always said how much he never want, always wanted to work for somebody else. So it was kind of incorrect. Not incurred. I never thought it was encouraged to get a job and do a thing. Do a thing you love. I knew I would do something in art and then probably in commercial art. But like he liked the idea of the safety of a paycheck and like having somebody else be like every two weeks, even if you're sleeping all day, you get a paycheck. Yeah. And I was really creative as a kid. So

they encouraged me to kind of probably go the graphic design route or commercial art or commercial illustrator, something like that where you can do what you love but have like a steady career. And I did. And a long sort of college story short, I ended up working as a graphic designer for a bunch of years. And then I found myself going out of my own as a graphic designer. And I think that caught everybody by surprise. But so I did that. Was that like a conversation?

with your parents after they'd been like, we think it's safer to work for somebody. Were you like, I'm going out of my own? No, no, no. Well, no, it wasn't a conversation. No, they're, I mean, they're 100% supportive and whatever. I mean, I think they mostly thought, well, I didn't ask. So it wasn't like, hey, I mean, I wasn't living under their, like,

you're like, I'm a grown up. Yeah, I was a grown up. I was working on my own. I had been working on my own for a while. And, yeah, and it was more of, okay, here's what I'm doing. And they're like, oh, I don't know what they thought. I think they think that everything I do is a little cookie. But I do think, like, publishing is really interesting because I feel like everybody thought

everything I did was weird until they could, like, see it in a tangible way. Even when I was doing a lot of online writing, they were like, and for like real sites that had like, you know, 15 million readers, they were like, oh, like, Liz is a little, we don't know what she does. And then I did a book and everybody was like, oh, you're famous. It was just this like total switch. And my first book was a healthy popsicle book. And I was like sort of embarrassed by it almost.

Like I published it, but it was a healthy popsicle book. And people, I'd be like, oh, I wrote a cookbook. And people would be like, oh, what's it about? And I'd be like, popsicles. And people would be like, that's not a cookbook. That's a freezer book. But even then, like something about people finding something in a bookstore, I think, is really validating. So was there like a moment for you where you?

your family was like, oh, cool. Like, we get what you do. This is, like, really, really cool. Well, I think they 100% understood what I did as a graphic designer because that's the thing where it's like somebody needs a logo. I can make the logo. So a lot of people don't understand how that goes, but they fully understood that. The crazy part was when I had a successful graphic design business and then I decided,

I'm going to stop doing this and I'm starting a food blog. They were like, what's a blog? And so that was a little like, what are you doing? This is a little crazy. We don't know what this is. So when both of you guys started your blogs, what year was it? And where did the decision come from? Where did the name come from?

How did you just sort of go from like, I don't have a blog? So I have a blog. Monique? I was still in college. It was 2011. So, yeah, I was just reading a couple of blogs online. and I was like, you know, a place to put all this stuff I'm making, and that was kind of it. So you were just cooking for fun?

Yeah. Just for fun in school. And did you have ambitions of the blog? Were you like, this will someday be something? Oh my gosh, no. I mean, I didn't really understand digital media in a way that I do now. I mean, Pinterest didn't exist back then. Instagram didn't exist.

So the landscape has changed so much. And I don't really think I knew the potential of what it would, what it could be when I started it. Truly, I just did it because I was passionate. And I, like, just wanted to write and share. And I was going through so many things at that time that it just kind of made sense to write it all down and have a place for that. And that was that. I mean, I had a point shoot and nothing worked good. And the recipes were just terribly written.

But it was fun, you know. I love the idea of too. Like, everything's going to look bad when you see. start it, like always. I think even, I mean, maybe not for Janine because everything she does is so beautiful. But I was saying for most people, like my stuff looked terrible and my first writing, I think for anything you do, it's going to be terrible at first. And you should just sort of like do it and let it be terrible. I think it was Ira Glass who said something about like it takes so many, like you let your ambitions of your future self get in the way of your

present self. And I think that that's a really poignant thing because it stops us from ever becoming our future self. What was the process of the blog for you? Was it sort of a creative outlet as well? Janine? Definitely for sure. I was just, I was, I was cooking. Cooking became my passion. I was getting stressed out in my graphic design job and that I had built for myself. So it was stressed out at my own creation. But I would come home every day and be most excited about what I was going to cook and what vegetables that was putting together. and I find it very calming and meditative to chop an onion and have that kind of alone time. So I was just, I don't know, I was inspired by what I was making and what, the thing is I love to cook and I love to put things together.

And I love the, I loved how pretty everything looked when it came together in the skillet. But I hated how quickly you, like, I would put it on the table and you'd eat it. Jack would, no, my husband Jack, though, he, we would, yeah, we would sit down and he would eat it in five seconds. seconds and you know and you're just like it was so beautiful now it's gone and then it's gone yeah yeah so there was a part of me where I'm like oh this is kind of like a tireless like I I want to remember what I made and how pretty it was or or later it became kind of just a place too where I would make I would make up so many different things or I would cook I mean I cook seasonally so I would cook I had a CSA box so I was trying all kinds of different things

and putting things together. And then I wouldn't necessarily remember what I made. I'd be like, oh, wasn't that good, you know, that I made the other day. I want to make that again. But I wouldn't write it down. I would just put things together. So I kind of thought like, okay, well, one day I will start. I don't know.

I wasn't a, I'm going to start this and this is going to be a career. There was never really the thought. Yeah. It was more of a, I enjoy reading some other food blogs. And I think that this would be a nice place to put things together in one area as a creative outlet just for me. So first of all, I find there's something like really, like, I don't know, like poignant and philosophically fascinating about the fact that cooking is this creative art that you do and

you put all this time into it and then it's just gone in like a second, like you eat it. And there's something like, I know, beautiful about the fact that it's this bleeding moment of wonder and then it's just gone of pleasure. But was there like a tipping point for either of you guys where you were like, oh, I can make money off of this or, oh, this could potentially be a career since you both sort of started as a hobby. Yeah. Oh, geez. I think in like 2013, well, in the beginning I was making like $50. I had no idea how ads worked. I mean, the whole system was just different back then. And then I think 2013, 2014, I got connected to a couple of ad companies, which is probably about

half of how I make income now, and I started running ads on my site. And solely I started to see that as my page views built, so did my income. And then came brand partnerships. And that was first when brands were like really testing it out. And just kind of like, influencer marketing was becoming a thing. Yeah. So eventually when I started realizing that my income from blogging was almost the same as what I was making at my corporate job. I knew that there was something there. And this was also, while you were full time at your corporate job and you were like coming home nights and weekends and doing this. It's all I did. Didn't have a life. Did you still like love it even during that time? Or were you ever sort of resentful of the fact that it was taking up all of your social time?

No, I loved it. And I think, you know, I still made room for friends and everything like that. But, I mean, I was very, very dedicated to what I was doing. And I think just because I very much enjoyed it, it made me happy in a way that, you know, it was just different than hanging out with friends or having that sort of time with them. And I was so young that I felt like I could just really push myself to work as much as possible. So, yeah, I just really love that. I had a friend saying that to me once when I was like, I think 24, 25, and I was deciding whether to take this job opportunity, it was like, this is when you should do that stuff because in like five years you're going to be really tired. And it's true.

It's like five years later. And I'm really tired. So if you're young in your 20s, if you feel like you have boundless energy, use it now because you won't have it forever. Okay. And what about you, Janine? Do you feel like there was like a tipping point or like a moment you were like, oh, I can make this a business? I can make as much money off of it. Well, I guess I should say that I started as a hobby.

I should put it as a hobby in air quotes because I, we designed this site and planned this out and spent a lot of time. Actually, we spent a lot of time when we just practicing the photography. We learned how, taught ourselves how to take pictures of food. And we and you and your husband. Me and Jack, yeah, together. And we worked on that for, I think, a couple of months before we. even had anything that I would. Oh, so it was like there was a sort of trial and error and then I was designing the site. So, and then I kind of got carried away and was spending just like Monique said,

like I loved it or I loved what I was working on and what I was building and designing and I was excited about food and I was excited about sort of sharing it and how I could present it and how I could. Our photos were terrible. So I thought I'll just design a really beautiful site because that was in my real house. So I'll just design really pretty things around all the photos. And then people won't realize that the photos are really bad right now. Because they truly were. Is that where, like, the writing on the photo picture, too? You were like, that makes it looks put together.

I thought, like, the strategy was, so, right, this is my air quote hobby, like, with a strategy. The strategy was, you know, I can design, what's in our wheelhouse is design and programming. So Jack is a programmer. So he could program anything on the web that I designed. So yeah, so I really just thought, and our photos were not great, and I would spend time learning, I would, I would come home from, he would come home from work. I worked from home and it was my design work at the time. And he would come home and I would have like new equipment or a new thing or a new. And I'm like, okay, today we're trying this and today we're trying that. And so today we're going to try to light it like this and light it like that. And then also I was designing, yeah, so I was designing the site. And I just thought, well, I'll play our strengths. And our strengths are that I'll just, like, put beautiful typography and put really pretty design all around it. And I also had noticed that of the blogs that were out there at the time, none of that there were blogs with stunning photography, but nobody had a beautiful website.

The people have beautiful websites now because, like, the game has been elevated. And you have to have stunning photography. And you have to have a beautiful site. and you have to have really well-written recipes, right? You know, I mean, I guess you don't. But, yeah, I think that the bar has been raised now. But at the time, the sites were, like, I thought, well, this would be an area where I can, like, put my own stamp on it and kind of enter. And then I think that's what kind of people really noticed.

I think that's a huge thing when starting a creative business is that you should be completely aware of everything else that's out there. I hate when people come to me for advice and they haven't even sort of done that initial due diligence. And I definitely think if you're ever asking somebody for advice, you should have done enough research that you can ask a very specific question. Like, what do you think of this specific thing and this specific thing rather than like, I want to be a writer? How should I do that? Because it just, it shows that you respect yourself and you respect them enough to do your homework first. But I also think that a lot of people see something that's really, they're like, oh, Ui, Gui, Browning. are doing really well on Instagram, so I'm going to make a way of a brownies.

But I think it's so much a better of an idea to look through everything that's out there, see what's missing, and then fill that hole, because that's something that you can bring to the table that nobody else can bring, which is 100% what you did and what made you stand out from the crowd. Yeah, I mean, I think if you're starting, I think that for any business, I guess, as a brand strategy, though, is to, I guess, look around and see how you're going to stand out. But that being said, I don't really spend a lot of time scrolling through other food bloggers on Instagram. But you're big now.

But I also don't want to be so influenced. Like I don't want to see other people's work. Actually, I look at very few people. I mean, I follow like dog blogs and interior designers and things like that. But I try not to kind of look around too much at what other people are doing just because I want to create, I want to create something that has a voice. And I think that if you're looking at doing things too much. So I think there's a really fine line. So what are you then?

We'll get back to like how you sort of jumped shit from your full-time job and all that later. But what are you creatively inspired by then? Where do you get that creative juice? I think it's like seasonally shopping in the farmer's market, what I just crave or feel like eating. Or for me it's a lot of like I'll go to a restaurant and have liked something that I ate and kept that flavor combination kind of in my mind. and that'll usually play out somewhere later.

So that really inspires me because it's like I can, it will never be like a recreation of a restaurant dish, but it will be like, okay, well, this and that went together really well, and it was really excited by that flavor combination. So then I'll kind of mess around with that. That's why I love being like a healthy person

because I can go out and like eat trash and be like, how can I make this healthy? Like, this is my job to eat this trash and then figure out how to make a healthy version of it. I do feel, yeah, you feel that too. Which is nice. It's a good job to have. So people, you were kind of standing out, but was like for both of you, was there, you know, like an article that was written or somebody else who shared your work or something that you felt like, because I feel like everything is so saturated and maybe it was less saturated at the time, but there was still a lot out there. How did your things get found, your creative endeavors? So for me, it was interesting because I felt like I was sort of, I just really thought.

That was in 11. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Direct competitors. Yeah, I know. I was like love and loving. Oh, my God. No, but there weren't a lot of healthy bloggers at the time or people that just focused on, you know, fresh seasonal produce,

healthy comfort foods, whatever it was. So I felt like there was a really huge opportunity. I remember for me in particular, a cup of jubber foods, Joe, she shared a few of my recipes on her site. And she, she's like lifestyle. I don't really know. Mom, not sure. But I feel like she's like a category of one.

Like people in marketing like are like, if you can get on cup of Joe, you will sell so many of whatever your product is. Right. She's like, she's cup of Joe style is her style. So that was really huge for me. And then, you know, slowly just things started picking up. And I think, you know, it was all about getting people. people to the website once to try a recipe and then hopefully they sign up and come back again.

There was like a couple different sites out there. Like, Pioneer Woman used to have this, which probably still does. I don't even remember what it was called. It was like sister's site where you could submit recipes and people would make them and rate them and then really big bloggers would remake them and talk about how good they were. So that helped. And just like involving myself in the food blogging community was really. really helpful. What did that look like? Just going to conferences, events, meeting other people,

learning a lot, I think, and just being more consistent with my work. So when I started doing all of those things, I would see sites like Cover Joe or, you know, like, I didn't even know, like, to the day food or something like that, you know, like, pick me up. So that was really helpful. And for you? Gene. I think, I remember we started, we launched the vlog. And then one week later, this was sort of the, like, because we wouldn't actually start making money on it for two or three years, really. But it was kind of dangerous because it was a week in and Lamar magazine posted something, reposted something. A week in? Yeah.

It was like seven days. And you didn't pitch them? They literally just found you. No, no. We had Google Analytics, like, hooked up. And all of stuff, like there were, there was nobody on our site, like, except for probably my mom. And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, my gosh, like, because there are people here. That's crazy.

Yeah. It wasn't like a giant feature. It was like a little thing on their site. It was like a tiny picture and a little link over it. And I was like, oh, my God, Jack, like, we are going to, this is going to work. We're going to make it. And that was kind of dangerous because it takes a lot of little things. and a lot of big things and a lot of, I'd say, working for, like, nothing, a lot of people posting

and linking over a lot of the time. And it was really exciting because I think at the time other bloggers would link over when they found us, and that was really, really cool. Like, I remember, Sprouted Kitchen shared, re-shared something, and green kitchen stories posted. My friends, a couple of cooks posted something. And I remember, like, oh, my gosh, like, all these people are linking. over and this is great. And you weren't asking for any of that. They were just sort of like finding

everybody would always do linky things like that too. And it was like, oh, hey, here's something. It would like follow Friday or like here's the thing we found or here's something I'm sharing on Twitter. Actually, man, the first one, my friend Catherine from Cookie and Kate, I think she was the very first one that was like, oh my gosh, beautiful new food blog. And so I credit her for like that maybe a little bit. She was right after the glamour magazine thing. But the thing is that then I spent years in, or what seemed like your, I don't remember the time frame, but I spent a lot of time then like contributing for free at a lot of places to, for this exposure, like, for this search of, in the search of exposure, kind of knowing that I had to like pay my, like, pay my

dues or like do this work and that it wasn't like starting in graphic design. You can start very quickly because somebody needs a service and they agree to pay for this service and starting an online thing meant building a following before you could start to really charging anything in any real way. So I'm so curious about that content because there's so many like Instagram memes that are like, you have to say no and like protect your time and all that kind of stuff and just sort of like inspirational quotes about that. And how say no is like one of the most important things to pursuing your business. But then I have like my friend Kelly Levec who is on an earlier episode of the podcast has this great story about how she started working with Jessica Alba, and it was literally just by saying yes to being

this weird free nutritionist at a target event. And then she helped Jessica Alba's makeup artist, who she didn't know was Jessica Alba's makeup artist with arthritis in her hands. And then that person recommended her Jessica Alba, and that completely kick-started her whole career. So if she had said no to that because she was free and she wanted to protect her time, she wouldn't have the same career. She she has now. And I think it's such a hard, like I do think saying no is important. And I also think saying yes, even if you're not getting paid is important. How do you guys think you decide which times you're like, oh, I value my time too much for this? And which times you're like, no, this is worth it for some sort of future payoff that I might not even be aware of right now.

I think a lot of times it's if it's something that aligns with what Ambitious Kitchen represents. So if it's working with a brand and they want me to go to an event or something like that, like if it's a brand that I always work with and love, then I'll say yes and do it for free. But also at the same time, like, I don't have all the time in the world. And as I think we've both grown, like there are more opportunities that come through the door. So it's hard to, it's very hard to pick and choose. And of course, you're never going to know, like, what can happen because of that. But is there advice you could give to somebody who is more up and coming than you about like how how when to do it for free and when to just be like no I need to value myself in a different way either of you?

I think that well I think it's a super it's a really good question because I think it's a super fine line between working putting doing things for free and and saying and saying absolutely not and your time is in and everybody tries to. what sell you on the exposure like we'll pay you an exposure we'll pay you an exposure i mean it's all day long um but i think i mean for me at the beginning well i did a lot of that for i didn't really work for i didn't work for brands for free it would it would be other publications like places that i don't feel like they had necessarily a budget or but you know that like you'd write a piece for like a women's health or like a yeah or i would do i did um i would contribute pieces to like to Food 50 to and I've contributed like things to like anthology magazine. I remember doing a whole bunch of free things just because I like oh this is really great and

it's the lines and I think I'll get I think I'll get some new readers this way and I also contributed a lot to other people's blogs either in a one-off way or it's sometimes in like three post way or like there's a blogger Camille styles where I I are I I contributed to her for maybe a year, a year maybe once a week for a year. So maybe wasn't quite that long. But, and she really helped me girl a lot. And she would reshare everything and tag me on everything that I had created. So, yeah, I think it was necessary to kind of just, I mean, my strategy was to kind of do that

kind of thing to a point. And that was, and then really there was a point where I kind of started to feel like, you know, I'm not going to do these free things anymore, but that was probably when I started making some money from other opportunities, and I was just too busy. So I think that you shouldn't work for free forever. You have to stop. You have to really stop that at some points. It's really hard to say it, but I felt like I'm not answering your question. I think it's a really hard choice because you get taken advantage, like especially as a new blogger and especially nowadays if you have great photos,

like people want your photos and they want your stuff and they want to not pay for it. And I mean, I try to not do things for big companies that I know have big budgets. I don't do that for free, but publications where I'm like, okay, I'll contribute a piece of mine body green and I'll contribute that, you know, this because it's like that comes.

You got me to contribute pieces with. Yeah. But that came back, but even something that you would post to linking back to my site, I got huge traffic from that. I know. I'm wonderful. Yeah. But no, I wasn't, yeah, and I didn't feel like, yeah, I didn't feel so posed by that.

Well, I think an interesting way to think about it is to never do anything for free, but what you're getting from it doesn't necessarily need to be monetary. So if, like when you said with Camille Stiles, she would always like regram, post, link back to, et cetera. And I think a lot of people do stuff for free without clarifying very specifically what they're getting back from it, just sort of going to an event and hoping they'll make a cool person or contributing for a site and not, you know, talking to the editor ahead of time that they're going to get a link back to their site because that should be part of the deal.

So I would never do anything for free, but I think that my definition, especially if I was up and coming, of what my value was wouldn't be limited, limited to things that are monetary. Would you agree with that? I think that's 100% true. And I think that would are so many sites that would like take advantage. it, like, if you didn't clearly say, tag me on this or credit me, you have to credit me on this or link back to me. Yeah, of course, they're just going to take take. Okay. Do you guys think it is too late now to do what you did? Like, do you think it's too saturated? The time is over

and it's like impossible. I don't think it's impossible, but it's definitely more difficult. And I think the name of the game has changed because when we both first started, like, we were very passionate and kind of doing it as like a hobby with no, I think, no goals to just make as much money as we could sort of thing. We weren't thinking about it as like, this is going to be like our lifelong career. And I think so the intention with some of the people I see sorting blogs is like a little bit different. And sure that's fine, but you really do have to believe in what you're doing and show that you're authentic. And I think that is often where I see a difference in a lot of people that are just starting out, especially on Instagram and things like

that because that's a very easy way to kind of like go back to your blog, get your personality out there and stuff like that. But like be there for the right reasons. Yeah. Too much. Yeah. I think it's always. It's very easy to start a blog. It's difficult to be consistent with it. It's difficult to you know, I think male brand partnerships. And so you just have to really be doing it, yeah, for the right reasons. And I think people can tell nowadays. What about you? Do you think it's too late? I don't think it's too late at all. I mean, I agree with Monique because it was really the Wild West back then. But I think that what's available now, I mean, they're like, I don't know, Sometimes I'm surprised there are courses.

There is just sort of like clear path of like you do this, you can sort of achieve this. And I'm not really sure how that would work because I haven't tried it out. But I think I'm, I guess I'm surprised to see how many people can, like how much, I guess how much information there is about how to do this and how many people are started. and are starting really successfully. So I don't really know. It's hard to say because I always say, like, I just, I had to rethink. If I was starting now, I have no idea what my, I would have had a strategy. I would have to come up with something like a plan, but it would have, it would look entirely

different than what my plan was back then. So it's so, I don't know, it's so hard to say. But I think there's so, I think the space is so big, though, because at the time, even when we were doing brand partnerships, I feel like there weren't how many people doing it at all. I feel like we were in really, really, really early with that. And there weren't trying to convince we can get a budget out of that was like what is, like it wasn't, people didn't know what this was and what is this. And why should I pay you to post about my product? And so, and now there are like it's different.

It's just everyone knows it's a thing. It's like a line item. Well, an influencer marketing is a thing. Yeah. It's a turn. Like those words weren't words when we started. Well, and I think there's so many small few brands in particular, just any brand, I mean, that now their budgets that were for marketing in other ways are now directed towards and willing to our marketing. So, I mean, I think it's a lot easier to start.

I think it's harder to stand out. Which is what I always kind of say. A lot of people will be like, in publishing we talk about if you want to like start a site or write an article or write a book, it should be, you should be, you should. be creating something that you wish you could read that you can't read because you can't find anywhere. And I think that's the same for a blog or an Instagram or anything like that. I think in general, you're going to be way better off if you're creating something that you wish existed and you can't find anywhere else because then there's a very high probably in podcast. People ask me all the time, is it too late to start a podcast? Is it too late to start a podcast? Because I

didn't start my podcast that long ago, but it's grown really, really fast, which I'm so grateful for. But it's because I think I wanted a style of podcasts that I couldn't find out there. And people are always asking me what podcast I listen to and I recommend if they like my podcast because they can't find other stuff that's kind of similar to it. And I don't know other ones that are like mine, which is why I started mine. I wanted one that was going to feel like you were like hanging out at the table with your girlfriends and drinking wine and very conversational, but you were also learning. And I felt like all the health podcasts were either you're really learning and you're sort of

interviewing doctors or then you'd get into sort of more of the girly conversational stuff. And there wasn't a fusion of the two where I felt like I could become the self I wanted to be, but do it while I was sort of assuaging that lonely feeling of being home in my house with nobody to hang out with. So I wanted to create that. I didn't feel like it was there. And I created my podcast. And I think that's why it's found in audience.

And I think that leading with that will ensure success more than just like, I want to start an Instagram. I want to start a blog. I want to write a book. I think there should always be like, I want to write this book. This book needs to exist in the world. And I don't see it out there, so I'm going to write it. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast.

People are always asking me what supplements I recommend. So I wanted to walk you guys through a few that have made a real difference in my life. All of these are from Garden of Life, one of today's sponsors, and a brand that I've been using for years, long before we started working together. Their oil of oregano is one of my go-toes for travel. It's a tincture. And you only need a few drops of it, but it's incredibly antiviral and antibacterial. Whenever I start feeling a bit off or sick, I put about eight drops in a glass of water and chug it down.

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And also travel makes me like really constipated. I don't know if that's just me, but I will also have it three times a week when I'm at home just to provide enough food for the probiotics to keep my gut healthy and happy. Finally, I love, love, love, the maximum strength turmeric from their My Kind Organics line. I take this if I'm having any sort of pain issue. I have like a chronic knee pain on my left knee, so when that's acting up, I'll add this to my daily routine. It contains turmeric and ginger that have both been fermented to be super bioavailable.

And as you likely know, turmeric is hugely helpful for inflammation-based issues, whether it's chronic pain or something autoimmune. I have a friend who takes these for migraines, and they've helped her a ton. And I have another friend who has endometriosis who's found a lot of relief from her painful periods. They also have a turmeric gummy that has no added sugar and it basically tastes like heaven. and I'll keep these around, but honestly, I love them so much. They taste so good that it's like a little dangerous for me to have them in my cabinet. I have direct links to all of these items and my other Garden of Life picks in my shop at Liz Moody.com slash shop, and it really helps the podcast if you buy them through there.

It'll take you directly to the lowest price item on Amazon. Again, that's lizmoody.com slash shop. And if you want any recommendations or have any questions, definitely hit me up on Instagram at Liz Moody. I would love to help you find the perfect probiotic or herbal blend for you. Now, let's get back to the episode. Was it worth it? Like, is your life dreamy now? I'm happy.

What are like the good parts? And then what are sort of like the bad parts behind the scenes that people might not see? Yeah, I think it's really changed over the course of, like, eight years now. just in terms of the work that we're doing a lot for me in particular i think it can be frustrating sometimes to work with brands um it's just i'm like reading contracts i have no idea what they say and then i have to send it off to a lawyer and then you know it's just like a frustrating process sort of being your own business owner i have like accounting i have to start a 401k i have to buy small business insurance there's all of these things sort of you didn't

realize that came with being an entrepreneur, I guess you don't really think about it. You're like, hey, I'm just going to do this cool business and I'm going to live my passion, live my dream, whatever. But it's also a lot of work and just a lot of learning. And I think it's a good thing and a bad thing because sometimes I just feel like I'm bogged down by all of the administrative things, which is I'm lucky I have my husband to help me with a lot of that stuff. But yeah, I think it's definitely worth it. But there's stuff. There's things that are frustrating and just out of your control. What about you?

How dreamy is your life? Living the dream. No, I think it's worth it for, I think it depends on who, for somebody else. I think if you love it, then it's worth it. And I, yeah, it's not a voices every day, but I get to do what I love every day. And I think part of the, but, and to add to what money said, That is totally true. I'm doing all kinds of different things every day where it's not, I wake up and I blissfully go to sit at my computer and I blissfully go like take pictures and everything turns out beautiful and it's fun.

But it's challenging and I liked how every day sort of is really different. One day I'm tackling muffin recipe that won't rise or I don't know. doing, I don't know, just any, I can't even list the things because I feel like I'm distraught, like I have, there are a lot of things and being, I think doing any sort of entrepreneurial thing means like you're never kind of doing one thing over and over again. You're kind of had to like fix the printer and like take out the garbage, like do everything, you know, at the same time. So, but I love what I do and I wouldn't take it away. I think that the key is to just kind of be happy with the parts that like the not great parts like accepting of that

like everything's going to be a trial and error and of course they're going to be like the times and everything's going great and every love everything but there's like I mean that book editing process is killer you know and like that's not like necessarily fun and retesting retesting and oh my god recipes fail there's like nothing sadder and you're just like I've wasted my time I've wasted my money on the ingredients and I have like a pile of mush to show for it. Sometimes I'm like, Zach, you're just going to eat the mush to make me feel better because I always feel terrible. We eat a lot of mush because also we like we don't like to waste food either. So it's like, well, here this mushy, these mushy not risen muffins like they're going in the freezer and we'll like eat them

anyway later, whatever. But what about that financial insecurity? Because that's the part that gets me. I just left my full-time job as an editor in February and it's going well, but I'm always, like, will it be going well next month? Will it be going well the month after that? I think that's a really scary thing. Yeah, I think there's always that sort of unknown part, especially being an entrepreneur. Like, I don't know. Somebody could hack my website and take it all. You know, you just never know. And then you question, like, is advertising always going to be there because that's what I rely on as a source of income? Are we going to have a recession? And then, you know, there won't be brand partnerships anymore. There's always something, but I think, like, the thing is creating a plan

and feeling really solid with what you're doing and how much you're saving. And that, at least for me, was key when I, like, quit my corporate job was just, I knew I was secure enough to quit and to move to Chicago and live on my own. I didn't know what it would look like in the future. But I think it allowed me to have more time to just really focus on, like, doing some of those things for free to get exposure and like working with more brands and just how much time ahead did you have like how what window of financial wiggle room did you give yourself with like six months uh no i just did it i was like oh making the same amount got to go yeah that was literally my thought process it was literally when your salary from the blogging hit your salary from okay yep and then i just i i was like

I knew I wasn't happy. I knew I needed to make a change and I wanted to move to Chicago to be with my boyfriend. I mean, who else doesn't want that at the age of 24? So, do you have, like, something you tell yourself when you're thinking, like, this might all go away at any second? Do you have, like, a way to talk yourself down from something like that? I think it's just, like, I know I can't live with that mentality because it's easy to get caught up in all of the what-ifs. It's easier, but it's also, it's better for me to help live in the moment and also to have a plan to back that up. So, like, saving 401K, like, setting up all of those things to make sure that I'm actually financially secure. I didn't have that, you know, my entire time that I was blogging. I mean, this is sort of like

new for me. But I think to just feel great. grounded in what I'm doing and know that like I can I know that if everything were to end today I have so many skills that I could go and get a different job it wouldn't be difficult or start a different business and I'm not like afraid of that so I don't let that kind of like fear hold me back. I also love I interviewed Jeanette Ogden from shut the KLF and she she she grew up with not that much money and it gave her this like perspective of like yeah this doesn't work out and like you know, having so much of your business and income be based on Instagram, I think is quite scary. But she's like, I can just go like work retail at Bloomingdale or something. And I just,

I thought that was like a really not elevating your lifestyle so much that like it's scary to not keep it up. I think is really good in any career path, you know. And I thought that was really inspired. Like knowing that you have a fallback. And her fallback was like, I can definitely do that as a fallback. Yeah. What do you think? Do you get nervous about money? No, because the thing that I started, or I guess at the beginning, yes, of course, at the beginning. This is the thing is that I've been working on my own for so long, not at a company, the last time, because I had a whole career before this one where I had my own business as a graphic designer. And I think that, and I had a lot of fear around it. Then, I mean, that was, it's just, the thing is it's been, at that time, at that time when I took

that leap, the leap was, well, if I'm not making, the only way I was failing at that is if I was making less than what I was making at my job, which I was making much more than what I was making at my job. So that was kind of like, oh, okay, well, I could go get another job because that didn't work out, but it worked. And then I guess when I started, when I started this, and then, you know, eventually, I should add that when at the two or three years, that we weren't really making money on the blog. We were starting to make money on the blog, and I was scaling down just freelance graphic design,

just clients that I had kept, just to kind of like balance things out. So I don't feel like I took a leap, but it's just that between that career and this career, remember the second thing? I thought, oh, wow, like when it really was working, I thought, oh, wow, this is really working, like, again for the second time.

And I think that that was the, at some point from them, until now, I guess I thought, okay, well, I could, I trust myself to know that if this all fell apart, if this all fell apart, that I could do it, I could probably figure out a third thing. Like, I could probably figure out two things. The average person has seven careers in their life. Yeah, and I feel like that it's never, I think for me, like, this is not working for somebody is who I am.

My sister and her husband work, like are people that, like, go, we, we, we, to go and work. They need to have health insurance and this whole thing. And I think a lot of people, I think that many, many, many people are that way. But like at some point, I realize, like, I am not that way. Like, what gives me fear is the idea of, like, going and punching a clock and working at the same place every day and showing up at the same time every day and, like, leaving at the same time and doing similar things. Like, that gives me the shakes. So, like, I think that with that I kind of have to accept that, like, yeah, of course, there are like ups and downs and sideways roller coasters and, like, weird things.

And it's, it's a challenging process, but it's like, this is my, this is my game, though. This is my, like, this is where I thrive. And it's not, and it's not so much, oh, I can make my own hours and I don't have to be there on time and leave on time because I work much, much, much, much more. But I love that about, I love that about the whole thing. Like, I love that about the whole thing. So I wouldn't trade that.

And if I stopped doing this, then I would just do something else. I also love that you said that about your sister, too, because I think we have this tendency to put working for yourself up on a pedestal in our society right now and be like, everybody should at some point, like, quit their job and do their passion. And I think that there's a lot of people who just do thrive in a nine to five. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And I think we're in this, like, weird cultural moment where we're acting. like there is something wrong with that.

There's a lot of pros starting with health insurance to working for a company. And there's a lot of personality types that really, really thrive with that kind of structure. I have anxiety really bad, which I'm sure a lot of you know that I've talked about before. But I was in this very, very bad cycle of anxiety for a while. It's very agoraphobic. And the thing that I sort of climbing out of it, climbing out of it, climbing out of it. But the thing that tipped me was having the structure of a 9-to-5 job, like having to get up and be at a certain place at a certain time every day, having to interact with 30 people

and going home and just having that really intense structure. And I think a lot of people with anxiety would not thrive off of the like, well, you could wake up at any time you want. You could work until, you know, one of my friends actually, she quit being a full-time editor and went freelance and she'd like be working until 11 and be like, oh my God, this is so great. I'm working in bed. I didn't even get dressed today. And then she went down a whole, anxiety spiral about it and just I think losing that structure is really hard for her. I think it's so interesting that you say that too because a lot of times, yeah, like I think it, I don't know if it's stemming from Instagram and people seeing like other people having their own

entrepreneurial career, whatever. And in thinking that it looks, the perception is that it looks easy because you're only seeing two minutes of that person's day. You're not seeing all of the things they do behind the scenes. And of course, like, I don't chair when I'm, like, grinding away at 11 p.m., like working on accounting and things like that. But a lot of times a nine to five is, it's just, it is a much simpler way because a lot of things are provided for you, you know, by corporate. It's like, okay, you get your health insurance. You probably get a membership maybe. You also sort of just like get, like, what you're doing every day. Like, you sort of have more, like, I think a weird thing about working for yourself as I wake up

any day and I could develop a recipe and shoot it for Instagram. I could work on my next book proposal. I could research podcast guests. I could reach out to a brand. And I think it's really, really hard to be like, which one of those things should I be doing? And sometimes I wish I had. Sometimes I'll make, I'll be like, Zach, what should I do today? Because I find it like, and he'll just pick something totally at random. But I just find it really overwhelming that you could do anything in any day. And I think a corporate job provides a lot of structure and projects and things to propel you forward in that career. But as your own boss, you really have to be creative and driven

and know what your future is going to look like. How to expand your business, how you grow it, what does your strategy look like? You're wearing so many different hats. How did you learn, like, did you have books you read or, like, were there resources that were really helpful to either of you when you were building your business and learning to wear all those hats? Honestly, there weren't a lot back then.

I mean, I remember I just hired some random graphic designing. I was like, make this big a pie. Like, I haven't seen a fish's kitchen a slice of life. It was so funny as you hate me. It was just disgusting. But, like, no, I think I read a book called, like, go blogger or something back in the day because there weren't online resources. It just didn't exist.

And I was like, how do I create my WordPress site? Do I do WordPress.com or dot org? I just didn't know anything. Yeah. No, it was all about figuring it out on your own. Was that the same for you? Yeah, I think it's just to figuring out as you go. But, like, I don't think.

You know what? If there was a book, I probably would have, either I would have not read it or I would have read it and decided I'm going to do it all differently. But I do think there's like, there's stuff is more Googledable now. And I do think there's something nice about, like, when I want to start a podcast, I literally Googled like how to start a podcast. Like, what are podcast hosting platforms? what's the best equipment for a podcast?

And I think you can find a lot of that information these days online or like your WordPress questions and stuff like that, how to take. And also like free YouTube videos. Oh my gosh. You guys are talking about the courses earlier. And I'm like those have nothing to the YouTube videos. I feel like there's a whole world of just teaching you how to do stuff for free on YouTube. Yeah.

Well, and now I also think that people's careers have sort of shifted, or at least I've seen this shift where bloggers have now started or Instagramers, I suppose, have started. to create online courses that people are purchasing to kind of teach these skills. So it's really... Well, you know that. I mean, the reason for that is because you don't make... Like, you make money. A lot of influencers and people like that, they're number one source of income in these

courses. And the courses that you do about, like, how do eat healthy and stuff like that, don't make as much money. But the second you do a course about, like, how to grow your business or anything business related, they see, like, tenfold... you know, income off of that. And I think that's such an interesting, like it feels, I don't know, almost like a Ponzi's. Like it just feels like there's so many people out there teaching you how to get successful.

And that's how they're actually getting successful. So it's like a roundabout thing. And all they're really going to be able to teach you is how to teach other people. And then that will be your only avenue of income, you know. So I'm very wary of those types of. But I also think that those types of things that you're teaching you, this is what I, I did, and I think that, I don't know, to back, go rewind back to the standing out in some way, I think you have to kind of go at it your own way to figure out how to create something that

stands out that isn't just, here's a thing based on somebody else's thing and the way they did it. I know, it's so interesting because you're just like, yeah, you got to know, like who you are and what's different about you, but it's like, I feel like you knew that intuitively maybe, but that's such a hard, you know, thing. If you're just like, why do I stand out? What do I bring to the table that's really different and interesting? Would you have any advice of literally like a first step from like going to bookstore and reading this or some type of pin, like a very specific first step somebody could take if they were trying to figure out what made them special? I did a lot of audience surveying.

So I did Google surveys and I kind of asked people like, what do you like? What do you not like? And these people were like your followers? Yeah, readers. But this was back in the, you know. So when you even just had a few, you were able to like. Yeah. In the first couple of years.

and that was really, really helpful and kind of like narrowing down. And then just like sort of other people's perception of you and asking like what are three words to describe my business or my brand or like how do you see it? I think gathering that information was really insightful and kind of led me in a different sort of direction. Because I was going down like a strict like healthy baking path and I was like, oh wait, yes, I do bake a lot. But that's because, like, I'm a single female, like, not making cans of lasagna and enchiladas every week. You know, so it was just easier for me to. And then the feedback wasn't, like, you should be a healthy baking blog? It was more so that, like, we see you as a healthy baking blog.

And I knew that I personally didn't want to just be that. I mean, I tend to err on the side of, like, suites, but, like, I really wanted to be well-rounded. If it was going to be ambitious kitchen, it wasn't ambitious baking. So I knew I just had to like shift that. So that was really hopeful for me. What about you? Is there a specific sort of first steps that I could take if they're trying to figure out what made them special? It's so hard.

I think that's something, well, I mean, I think the first start looking at like, what do you do? And what, like, what do you are a graphic designer? No, even just like if you're, if I'm cooking, what am I cooking? Like, what am I baking? What am I baking? Or am I baking or am I making? or am I making vegetable things or am I making, I don't know, I guess, to figure out what you're making that is slightly different from maybe what other people are making. But I was going to say, though, something that I sort of live by is the idea of, like, whatever you procrastinate on is, like, sort of your passion.

So I think this is intangible. It's hard for me to say, it's like I can give like a stylistic sense to say, like, okay, well, come up with a mood board and like say like okay like for me is like I should be shoot on marble and white like have this like white bright thing where like color like colorful food it's it's mostly about fruits and vegetables so naturally it's really bright colors and so really bright colors work on the really white thing but like that by no means should be like then everybody goes out and you know there's like everyone out of marble slab so everybody can have the look you know so i think that finding i mean i i think it's a two-part question because finding

what you're passionate about and then finding your visual style are two entirely different things. And I don't think you have initially be a visual person in order to figure out who you are and what you want to create in the world. I mean, I think probably you have to have a friend that's a visual person to like make you a sight or whatever. But I love the idea of what you procrastinating about is like maybe your passion because I think we do, I think procrastination often we're like, oh, I'm so lazy or whatever. But it comes because we care so deep. deeply about something usually and we're afraid we're going to do it wrong. I think it comes from procrastination comes from a place of a mix of like insecurity and passion. And I think that

almost if you can recognize that and build up the skills so that you don't need to be insecure, which going back to what we talked about earlier, I think comes a lot from like trying and trying and trying because that's how you get good. But then also recognizing like, oh, I'm procrastinating because I really, really care. I love that as an idea. Well, I also think that there's some, you need to have some space to like, I think that if you say, okay, I want to start a thing, how do I stand out? It's like a giant, like, that's like an unfair question, kind of, because I think the figuring out who you are, how to stand out is like what you do is, like, maybe procrastination is not a good word, but like play is. So if you like are doing something, like I realized, oh, I kind of like

before I started the blog, I was like, oh, I'm in, I'm pinning food pictures on Pinterest all day long. Instead of this, like, every time I take a break from like this one task I was doing, I'd be like, pin, pin, pin, maybe I'll make this. Maybe I'll make that. Maybe I'll make that. And then planning what I was going to make and doing this whole thing and making my sort of meal plan for the week and typing out like what I had my CSA box to figure out what was going

to go. Like what I was going to make from that, you know, then into the next thing, into the next thing. And it was sort of like an aha later to be like, oh, like, this is what I love to do. And I could just do that. Like it was a moment where I'm like, I could just do that. And that's like what I just want to. It's like the work that I want to do right now that at the time,

it didn't matter if anybody was paying me. I was doing it anyway. I was doing all this stuff. And this is what I was drawn to doing. And that's, you know, and ultimately that was the kind of food that I was making. And this is the kind of that turned into like, here's the kind of vibe that I want to put out. So I think that. And then that, so to say like, well, how do you put like the visual panache on the thing?

I think that has to come kind of later after you answer the questions of like, well, what are you doing? What is the purpose of that? And what are you like trying to ultimately create? What kind of message are you trying to, what kind of work are you trying to put out into the world? Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to take your guys' questions after this question. So start thinking about them.

But I'm really curious, you guys both work with your partners to different levels. And I think that that is hard and also really fun. Zach and I have sort of off and on. We've gone from starting companies together to me just being like, yeah, can you make me a website, please? Because he is a designer and, you know, engineer and all of that. But I don't think he would ever work full time with me, which I don't think he should because I think we would kill each other. So I'm curious how that sort of started and the evolution of working with your partner and then the pros and the cons of it and how you make it work in your relationship. Yeah, so I just started working with.

my husband probably about a year and a half ago. So I own another company called Ambitious Home. It's focused on vintage rugs right now and soon to be vintage art. It's all online. And I sort of had this idea after going overseas to the Middle East and kind of falling in love with the drugs. So I decided one day that I was going to hire my designer and developer to make me a website. I had no idea how I was going to do it.

I just thought, hire people, and they'll figure out the inventory, etc. My husband and I got married in November, 2017, and then we went on our honeymoon late December, early January. And he was sort of in this position where he had played professional baseball, had stopped doing it, went into like mortgage lending, just was not happy. They were calling him on our honeymoon. We were in the middle of the ocean on a boat. And it was just like a nightmare. And I was like, how about you just work on ambitious home? Like, we'll figure it out.

And so we did. He quit. And it was a really interesting journey, I'd say, the first year of marriage and also working together. Also doing that. Yeah, working together. I mean, it's kind of like a nightmare. But I was like, are we stinging?

But, no, it actually works so well now because he truly does have his own. set of responsibilities and he mostly does work on ambitious homes. So he'll help me with certain things for ambitious kitchen, like that website, like mostly website stuff. But I mean, he is the person that runs it day in and day out. He does customer service, all the sales, inventory, cleaning the rugs, sourcing the rugs, talking to all of our guys out in Turkey. So it's just, it is his thing. Do you guys ever run into situations though where you're like, he thinks the business should make one decision and you think it should be a different one. And then are you like, well, it's ultimately my thing and you came on or how does that work? Yeah. I mean, it was in the

beginning, it was very, very difficult for us because I, it was like we're in a partnership, a marriage, but it was also like I was his boss in a lot of ways. And he has like no idea how marketing works. So he was kind of like running around with his head cut off. And so it was a lot of like teaching and understanding, but also, like, I mean, I was in therapy at the time, so that was incredibly helpful for me to be going to therapy and also having the ability to have someone, like, kind of coach me through how to transition that, because I had only been in a partnership with him, not in, like, a working partnership. And so we, we still run into situations where we disagree, you know, on, like, if we should have a certain percentage off on the sale, or

or like which rugs we should be sourcing. But ultimately, like, he knows that my decision trumps. And that's just kind of like how it works. It's my business first and foremost. And like, because I'm such a, because the visual branding part of it is mine, then those are the decisions that I get to make. But I always, like, want him to feel validated. And I think that's super important when you're working with your partner.

is just to really communicate and understand. And ultimately, I think it's helped our marriage in a lot of ways. How so? Just because, like, I think I have to be more understanding, and it's kind of grounded me a little bit to hear his opinions because I'm used to saying it's my way or the highway. That's how I've been with Ambitious Kitchen. Like, I get to make all the executive decisions.

And now I have somebody that I really, really care about their opinion, and I want them to feel like, you know, I appreciate them and that it matters and everything like that. And so it's just, it's really sort of changed our whole dynamic. Was there anything that the therapist said that you were like, oh, that's like the key to this or that really was helpful? Just putting it into perspective that I think, you know, I can't, I can't really treat him like I would treat an employee. And that's what I'm sort of used to doing. I mean, I have a few other employees, and so that's it, like, I'm bossing them around, but, you know, if I'm like, okay, this is the decision, that's it, like, do this or this,

I can't just, like, say it like that. Yeah. So the perspective and the communication style had to really, really change. I bet it would, like, fast track your communication skills, though, generally, which would be awesome. It's it. And it's really, really good. So, yeah, it's nice, though, because we do have a separate, we have a shop, so he works there, and he has his own office at home. So I don't consistently see him, like, 24-7. So that really helps us to have that sort of separation as well. What about you, Janine? Yeah, we started together right from the get-go.

I thought, well, because food is our thing. So that really was the story of all the women's, is that he, I was working, I was working on my own. and he was working on his own, and I thought, what can we do? That's like a together thing, like a together project. So that's what we did. We got healthier together. Well, love it. Yeah.

Did we get healthy together? I don't know. We got unhealthy. We got unhealthy. We go eat a hot dog. But, yeah, but no, we love food. Yeah, we love food together. We love to travel and eat together and then come together and go to the farmer's markets together.

So it was a thing. And I thought, well, how can we have, like, before that we were working two separate things and you get together at night and you're like what do we have to talk about like you talk about your guy talk about my work so I thought let's make work together and then like we can talk about that together and then we can talk about work all the time which is like a really dangerous territory is it hard to like shut it off yeah I drive from crazy I drive him crazy I talk about all the time but so and we weren't I mean yeah I think I was full-time at it before he, you know, was full-time at it, but yeah, we're kind of, and we're all in,

and it's not, it's not easy, and there's a lot of, like, figuring to put it lightly. So there's a lot of full-out arguing and a lot of, I mean, we also shoot together. So there's, like, a, I mean, some, some tasks there are, are very separate where, like, he goes and he does the, he can go do a techie, you know, part of the site thing on his own, and I can do a part of the thing in my own, but really, I mean, there's just no separation. And I don't think, I don't hear to say that that's the healthiest thing, but that's what we're doing. Do either, this is kind of a weird question, but is it, do either of them get, like, embarrassed if they're describing what they do elsewhere because of sort of the structures of men being the bosses and men making more money and all of that? Like, do you find that they're weird about it at all when they're sharing that information other people?

I think, I mean, Dern, Tony's not weird about it, but I think other people's perception of what we do is weird. Number one, people are like, what into drugs? Like, don't get it. And he was just raised in such a small community. Like, I know when we first started,

his parents were, like, very, very concerned. I mean, they were just kind of like, what? Like, you want to sell rugs on the internet? Like, you have no. background in this. And so I know that some of his friends still don't get it. But it's just like at the end of the day where we talk about it and we're like, it doesn't really matter like what anybody else thinks as long as it's like we're being. And he doesn't feel like emasculated, I guess,

for lack of that word. I think at first it was different. But like he also knows who I am and he like supports me and appreciates me. And he's just like, okay, like she's badass. bitch, just let her do what she wants. So I think at the end of the day, like, that over anything that I'm happy is what matters to him over, like, just any sort of feelings of, I don't know. I don't even know, yeah, like being emasculated or anything like that. I think he kind of, like, is slowly shifting to understand that, like, that's not how the world works anymore.

And, yeah, at the end of the day, we have a great business together and a good life, so that's really all that matters. What about you, Janine? Do you think that Jack would find it tricky, not internally in your dynamic of your relationship, but like telling somebody externally. If we are at a restaurant and we're getting a free meal, he is very happy to be Mr. Love and Lemons. And if he's around some tech geeks or something, he's like, I'm a programmer and that's what I do, his programming.

Yeah, that's true. And also help with my wife's blog. I feel like that. I think it depends on who the audience is. Yeah, Zach's very all in for the perks. And then when I'm like, but can you design me a newsletter? He's like, but he does it. He's a great guy.

You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. Alas, my mini diary series with Natural Cycles has come to an end. If you haven't heard on earlier episodes, I've been sharing my experience trying out natural cycles as a non-hormonal form of birth control. Natural Cycles is a basal thermometer combined with an app that has an efficacy of 93% with typical use and 98% with perfect use. I started using it about four months ago, and I have to say, while I was a bit nervous at first, I truly love it.

You get red days on the days you're supposed to use condoms, and on green days you can have sex condom free. As time has gone on, I've gotten more and more green days, and I've been surprised to see how few days of the month you can actually get pregnant, which makes me even more frustrated that I spent years putting hormones in my body 365 days a year just to prevent pregnancy on a small handful of days. I've also loved getting to know my body better and seeing it readjust after being on hormonal birth control for so long.

This is the first month since I went off birth control in December that I had a 28-day cycle. And because natural cycles tracks your period, your ovulation, and all of that, it's easy for me to look back and see my cycle get longer and more regular. Also, if you're wondering, yes, natural cycles even works with irregular cycles. The app is powered by an incredibly intelligent algorithm that creates the green and days based on your unique body. So when my cycle was 21 days or 24 days, I had the same efficacy, 98% as I do now that my cycle is 28 days. Mostly, though, I just feel really empowered. I'm getting to know my body more. It's fun to see my sex drive rise and fall with different parts of my cycle

or to see my energy levels change at different points in the month. I feel like my reproductive health is in my hand, and then I'm not having to sacrifice anything to be able to, you know, have sex with my husband and enjoy my life. I'm planning on sticking with natural cycles for a long time. It's so easy to just take your temperature every morning. It seriously takes like 30 seconds that I can't believe I settled for hormonal birth control for so long. It's also really affordable, less than $10 a month, which is way less than I was paying for the pill when I was on it. If you have any questions, definitely ask me on Instagram. I'm always happy to answer. I highly recommend checking out natural cycles.com. It's a really informative website and I've learned a ton by exploring it. And of course,

when you're there, you can sign up to try the app for yourself. If you do, let me know what you think. I really hope you love it. Now, let's get back to the episode. All right. Does anybody have any questions? The question was, there's all these sites that are kind of telling you about the dangers of social media and how you need to unplug and live in the real world. So how do you balance that with the fact that your job is social media in a lot of ways. And I also think there's sort of a second question there about balancing, looking blissful on social with living your real life and how that actually is. Yeah, I think, I don't know, probably about two years ago, I was finding myself just kind of like really invested in Instagram and things like that, like feeling like I was comparing myself to

everybody else, kind of just falling into that sort of trap. And I started taking my phone and putting it like in my nightstand and going to restaurants without it, spending time with friends without it. And slowly I kind of started out, started to cut out some of the more personal things on Instagram just for my own sanity. So like time doing them out with friends or family and just really enjoying it. instead of feeling like I needed to document it for people that it didn't know. Because realistically, everybody else is only seeing two minutes of my day.

And of course, I choose to show mostly like the positive things because I wanted to kind of, I don't know. It's like, I don't know if it's, I want people to think that about me or just like, you don't really tend to show like, oh, hey, like I totally failed on this recipe and I. I spilt coconut oil all over my floor and my cat has diarrhea. Like there's just, you know what I mean? There's just things that like, you're not like, ah, yeah, probably. But yeah, I just, I kind of tailored back a bit.

And it was slowly but truly, but as soon as I started like enforcing that as a habit to put my phone away more, that's kind of like how I started living more in everyday life, which is super difficult. That being said, though, I also am not only on Instagram. so it's easy for me to remove myself from that part and still feel like I can run a successful business. And then also hiring people to do the replying on comments for me and things like that.

It's not you replying to my comments? Yes, it is. I'm going to stop trying to be so funny. Janine, do you have anything to add to that? Social media balance. Well, I'm, I really don't document my whole life and feel the need to post things all the time about everything, every part of my day. So I think that, I don't know, for me, the balance kind of shakes out because I will go. Sometimes I'll be really inspired into it and I'll posting, posting, posting, or posting a certain time every day or doing everything.

And then, I don't know, some days, like three days will go by and I didn't post anything. And I think that's when it's like, well, I kind of needed to, like, I just wasn't into it then. I didn't even say or whatever. So I don't know. I think the comparison game is real. And I think there's a lot of, I think it's weird because there's a lot of talk about people posting about a social media detox specifically from Instagramers. And they're posting out like, oh, I went the whole day without my phone.

But then they're back to report about it on Instagram. And I feel like it's a little bit like, you addict? Like, you know what I mean? I think it's so funny. I kind of feel, I don't know, I kind of look at all that and laugh. I don't always take it with a grain of salt and just try to post what I post and not look around. If I'm getting very, like, I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, yeah, I just, I don't know, try to, like, I definitely, like, I sleep with my phone in another room. So I'm just maybe not the best example of when I get bored by it and I set it down and then I'm into it and I pick it up.

I also think the scrolling is the part that, like, makes you feel the shuddy is, like, a hundred bird. Like I think there's times when you like watch TV show and you're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, and you're like not watching the TV show and you're not really engaging Instagram and then you just feel like crap afterwards. And it's just, I think those are the times that I try to identify in my own life. And I'm like, am I just scrolling for the sake of scrolling? I think it's so, I feel good when I use Instagram to actually connect with people when I'm really talking to people on comments, really engaging in their lives, feeling like I'm developing real relationships with people that I don't know. I think that's the magic of social media. But when I'm just sort of mindlessly, like, getting that serotonin hit from bombarding my brain with pretty pictures, that's when I feel like absolute shit.

So I really try to only do one thing at a time. I think we live in a world where we very much taught ourselves to do like 11 things at a time. And it's so anxiety-inducine and it makes us feel really, really bad. So if I'm watching a TV show and I'm not engaged enough in it to just watch the, show, I won't watch that show anymore. I'll be like, oh, I don't really like this show enough to watch this show. And then for the like putting only positive stuff out there, my husband and I were having a really interesting conversation today because we just had my birthday last Wednesday. And for my birthday, for everybody's birthday, I don't just do this for myself. For everybody I know

it's birthday, we do a thing called the birthday tradition where everybody goes around and says something that they love about the birthday person. Because my theory is we're all. always thinking really wonderful things about the people that we love, but we don't often say them. So I wanted to give people a form to say them. So we do that with all of my friends every year, and then my birthday comes and we do it for me, which I love. And a lot of people said some derivative of like how self-confident I was and then how self-confident I made them feel. And Zach was like, where did you become so self-confident? And I was like, it's so funny because I don't think of myself is that self-confident.

I feel like I'm a huge fake-it-till-you-make-it person where I'm like, I might not feel good about my body, but I'll be like, yeah, I love my cellulite. Like, I have a banging body. Or I'll feel really jealous of somebody on Instagram, and they'll be like, should I start a podcast, Liz? And I'll be like, yes, you go, girl. Like, I totally believe in your success.

And inside I'll be like, oh, no, like my life is going to be over. They'll get more popular than me. It'll be a whole thing. And then he so I'm a huge fake until you make it person, but then I'll be confronted by somebody who will be talking about their body in some way or talking about being jealous of their friend's success. And in those moments, I'm like, I don't feel like that anymore. Like I actually have to some degree talked myself into a different place with my body. I have talked myself into a different place of support for other women's success and getting away from jealousy. So I almost put the positive. stuff out there. And I am really vulnerable and really intimate and really honest on my Instagram. And I think it's so important, like when I was completely agoraphobic and I was laying in bed for months, I would see people who would say I had really bad anxiety and now I'm here. And that was literally the thing that kept me from like killing myself, honestly. So I like

to say that and share those parts to myself. But I also feel like when I can share the parts of myself that I almost wish I was, it wills me into them. So I don't feel like I'm trying to portray a false positive thing. I feel like I'm trying to create a better life for myself by creating it and then stepping into that which I've created. If that makes sense. Any other questions? So the question is you, when you're starting out, you have to sort of do your own PR and develop your own relationships. And you guys may not be in that place now so much, but how would somebody who's just starting out, are you talking about pitching for press and also developing relationships with sort of other bloggers and stuff like that? Okay, so how would you go about

pitching for press and also developing those relationships like you said with, you know, a couple cooks or cooking Kate where they're linking back to you? Well, at this point, I mean, I think just starting out, I mean, you can like go to, I guess, event of other. bloggers and meet people. I would say when early in my career, I did a lot of networking just like old fashioned way in person. And I, a lot of my sort of early relationships, not like the things I mentioned

earlier that was like, okay, this person linked to this, but this person went to that. But I mean, I would meet people in person that would defend, like, the ending know your face. You're not like a random, like, just like typing out to somebody that you don't know. How do you find those events? The in-person ones. Well, I'm probably like something like that.

Like, would you be Googling now or like? Oh, no. Oh, back when I would say like in when I was, well like now there, I mean, I don't, I don't know right now. There are conference, they're probably, I went to a couple of conferences where I feel like I met. We started just meet other bloggers. I think that are also at like, I think at different levels because I remember going to,

very early at going to a conference and Cookie, like, and like Catherine from Cookie and Kate was there and we were kind of both at like, very beginning level where we weren't like the speakers or like the top notch people but like you find but they're but that thing kind of I think you can grow those relationships and then those people can help you later um at the in Austin when I was starting my other business I would just I know other people in personal or it's early early on our brand relationships would be people I met in person or people like through friends that I knew so like prioritize the in person elements because then you can sort of make an impression and it'll make people invest

Yeah, and then they might actually share something because, like, you made a connection or they have, like, somebody you should meet or something like that. Yeah, I don't. What do you think, money? Yeah, no, I completely agree. In person is great. I think in the beginning, I was networking a lot through, like, our ad networks and going to conferences. That's how I found a lot of those things.

And then events like this, I mean, I know that hello wellness, does a lot of events in Chicago, like-minded women, interested in help and wellness. So it's a great way to just meet people. I would say that events are your best bet. But also don't be afraid to reach out to people online and just email that, send an email. I mean, the worst that could happen

is that they're not going to respond or say no, which is, I mean, I remember, I reached out to the founder of Pure Bar back in the day and I was like, hey, I'm in California, California. Do you want to just meet up? I think what you're doing is so cool. And she met up with me for coffee and like just talked to me about her business and, you know, connected me with somebody else she knew in the industry. And so I think it's really all about who you know and just don't be afraid to get yourself out there. I have three things. So one, first and foremost, I would say prioritize relationships, not what people can do for you. I have had so many people who ended up. that being so helpful in my career, but almost every single one of them I formed a friendship with because I thought they were like interesting, cool people. And a lot of that I was able to do because I had a full-time job. So I didn't think I would like need them, quote unquote. I was like,

because I didn't need them, I could just feel free to hang out with people that I enjoyed. And almost every single time I've tried to develop a relationship with the intention of getting something out of it. It hasn't worked. And I think that's because we're humans and we can feel when something's not authentic. So I think gravitating towards the people that you really like talking to, that you want to go grab a drink with that you're going to really enjoy hanging out with will ultimately pay off not only in your career, but like your life. And I think sometimes we get so caught up and being like, how do I make my career great? But it's like you want to make your career great to make your life great. So I think that if you're paying off in your

life, it's almost your career can be, if your career goes well, if it doesn't, at least it's paying off in your life. So that's number one. Two is to reach out with people who are roughly the same size as you, and then you can grow together. Somebody who has 10,000 followers now can have 150,000 followers in a year. You don't know. And I think that where you get a lot of rejection is when you're reaching out to people who are in a significantly different level than you. And I think finding sort of a posse and growing together can be really useful because also you're conquering a lot of the same challenges. You're at similar stages in your business, whether it's a social-facing, customer-facing business or something that's more traditionally start-a. And you can talk

about those things and really act as a network for each other. So I think that's huge. And then three, pitching press, always, always, always have a story. Have something you, people like are like, oh, you want to feature me as an editor. And I'm like, no, I don't want to feature you. I want to feature something that my audience wants to read. And if you come to me with a story that I cannot refuse, I will publish it, even if you don't have a following. And you can find that, I think, perusing studies and finding ways that you can comment on those studies, like on Science Daily or something like that, if you're in the wellness world, looking for other news items and sort of taking a spin on it. If you want to be on a website, spend at least 20 minutes reading every

article on that website so that you can figure out how you could offer something different that would still be in the same vein as the stuff they're publishing. If they're publishing, and Mind Buddy Green, if you read our website for 30 minutes, you would know that. that like we love gut health inflammation and hormone balance. And if you could give us a different angle on those three things, we would probably publish you. And I also think to that end, pitching in a headline is going to editors think in headlines. They don't think in like, oh, this is a cool idea. They think is like, this is the headline that's going to be on the site.

So if you can look at the site, find the headlines that they're using in the style that they're using because every site is going to be slightly different and pitch them your idea in that headline style, you're going to have a lot higher chance of success. Okay, so the question is, what were some aha moments of like, I would definitely do that again or I would like never do that again? Wow. I can go first if you guys on a thing. So I tried to be, I've sort of done a lot of different types of writing in my career, but I tried to be a full-time novelist for a very long time. I wrote five books, which I've talked about pretty publicly before. And Zach, there was a point when we were living in England, and Zach was so encouraging, and he was such a good partner.

And he was like, I believe in you. I believe in your dreams. And I was able to sort of support myself by doing freelance work and marketing on the side. But I was just, I was kept being like, this novel didn't work. I will write another one. I will write another one. I will write another one. And it wasn't until I pivoted completely. And I said, I'm not going to do that to myself anymore. Like, it can be your dream, but that doesn't need to be the way to get there. And I switched into food. And then within seven months, I had my first book deal.

So I think that knowing when to stop yourself and when something isn't working would be a huge thing that I would go back on. And I, yeah, I think we have a lot of people saying, you can definitely achieve your passion. And I think maybe you can, but maybe it's at a certain point, time to think about alternative roots to your passion. Do you guys have any, like, big a haas? I think the alternative root thing is so true, too, because I pretty much set, you know, I set out in my life thinking, okay, well, here's the goal I'm going to reach, which is to

be, like, an art director as a graphic designer, and then I surpassed that. And I was like, well, now what? This isn't the question, though. The question was, what would I not do again? What mistakes? It's hard because you really make mistakes, like, every day. And everything's sort of a trial. It's all a trial and error.

I'm trying to be more specific. Was there any, like, specific mistake you can think of where you're, if you were going to go back and repeat your life, you would, like, X that one out? I think that, well, that's hard because I think that that is a dangerous route of what it could shoulda, because you can second guess. I get in my head and I start second guessing myself. So I don't... I don't want anything to add this one.

I think what it could have shoulda is a really dangerous place and I just think that everything is sort of a trial and error and an evolution. And okay, well, this didn't work, then we'll try something different the next day. And this student work, then I'll try something that's different sort of next time without, I guess, sort of... I mean, yeah, they're like certain...

I mean, so. You can pass. I'll pass it to me. Okay. I have one. I actually totally forgot that this happened. But, um, so I had another business. It's called Healthy Glow.

And I started it with another food walker. Um, it didn't work for a number of different reasons. What was it? It was called Healthy Glow. But like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, we sold meal plans and fitness plans. Okay. And we did very well.

in terms of sales, but it, I felt, I was feeling held back in a lot of ways. And I think I didn't recognize when to quit soon enough. And I think I knew in my head, but I was just like, I didn't want to disappoint people. I didn't want to, you know, it was like sort of the saying no thing that we were talking about. I knew that it would have been beneficial for me to stop. And I think it kind of created a lot of chaos in my life for a long time because I was doing so many different things. and trying to be very successful at everything I was doing. And I was just, I was so miserable.

And so I think, like, recognizing that, number one, sometimes it's not a good idea to go into business with a friend. You just, it has to be the right type of people. And that's totally okay. And then number two is just knowing your boundaries and knowing when you're not feeling right on the inside. So much of that, I think we failed. to like actually sit down and recognize and say like, why am I not okay? Like what what is the thing that's making my life not okay? And I think I inherently knew, but I just,

I wasn't paying enough attention to myself and like what I actually needed and showing up for me. And so that was a huge aha moment for me. And like from that point forward, I, when I finally did and ended the business, it was like, it was just such a relief. You know, when you like stop doing something or say no to something and you're like oh my actually got it into that like it was like for me and so I wish I kind of would have like listen to yourself yeah listen to myself and paid attention to my needs I think so much of it is like I need to be successful and show up as this person and show up I have this perception and I think just like learning to let that go it was really it was really helpful for me and one more quick one because my life is rife with mistakes um but it's similar

to the success thing, which is I always thought, like, when I publish a book, my life will be good, or when I make this much money, my life will be good, or when Zach proposes to me, my life will be good. And I put, you did, like, eight years later, you definitely did. It's good. And it is good. And it was good. But none of those things are as good. Like, they're all good.

They feel good. The day my book came out felt good. The day that held they're together. My next book came out felt really good. But then the next day my life was back to normal. And my wedding was good. And then the next day I was really hungover. And then the next day my life was back to normal.

And I've been lucky enough in my career to be surrounded by a lot of really, really inspiring, successful women like New York Times bestsellers, people with television shows, people who sold their businesses for millions and millions of dollars. And it always feels good for a moment. And then your life is just the same again. And sometimes it's worse depending on what you've sacrificed to get to that good moment. So I think that it's sort of like a dumb thing people say, but realizing that you don't just need to enjoy the journey, but the journey is your life. And the good moments are single moments that will happen throughout it. And then you're going to, if you hate yourself before you publish New York Times bestseller, you're going to hate yourself after you published New York Times bestseller. And sometimes you might hate yourself more if you, you know, got to 11 on the list and not 10.

I think being really cognizant of the things that actually make up my life and the things that actually give my life meaning is a huge aha moment for me. I think we can take one more question. All right. Advice for new fluid bogger. Let's make this like a speed brown, like one super concrete, super specific piece of advice. Not like a go for your dreams. I think letting your personality shine is incredibly important and just talking about the things that you love because when people read that, it's not just about,

it's so much more than the food having food blog. And so you just really have to be passionate about. So just talk about the things that I think really light you up. And you mean on, like, to bring it as specific as possible, like on Instagram, on blog posts, all of that. She said food blogs. Yeah, I mean, all of it. Honestly, yeah, I mean, that's what's going to set you apart

is just telling your story of who you are and showing people that's going along with it. Just super quick, make recipes that people want to make. And I try to present it in a way that makes people want to make it. But ultimately, the recipe has to work. It has to be well written. It has to be all. correct.

It has to be something that's going to work. And I think that those are super tiny details that people don't really talk about a lot when we talk about like, oh, the photos and this and that. But, I mean, if somebody's not going to come back if the recipe didn't turn out. So I think, and they do come back and they do share it and they reshare it with their friends. They say, if I made this and this is awesome, that's how I mainly get new followers that are friends and saying this recipe is great and they share it with their friend. and then say you go make that.

So I think that's like that in full suggestion. And I would say probably like think about your story that you're telling with your whole, your whole blog. Like are you creating a blog because again there's like you feel like there's something that's not being said out there? Are you creating a blog because why are you doing it and make sure that that comes through in every single part of it? Like if you're creating a blog because you feel like there's no vegetarian food for, you know, people under five foot two, like just something very specific.

Make that very clear in your About page and your design and all of your recipes. Repeat your story over and over and over and over because that's going to be how you stick with people. Stories are sticky. I think individual content is not. So the more you can craft your content into an overall narrative and an overall story, the stickier it'll be. And I think that goes for pitching press, too, the more you can create the story and then figure out how you fit into it, the more sticky you're going to be.

I feel like I could have talked to them both for so much longer. But alas, we only had the event space for a few hours and I had to sign books and all of that. But definitely, if you want me to do a full solo traditional, Healthy Together podcast-style episode with either Monique or Janine and get their entire story from the beginning and all the inappropriate questions that I love to ask. Definitely DM me on Instagram and let me know or when you screenshot the pod and share it on your stories. You can say solo episode with at Ambitious Kitchen please or something like that and we'll definitely record that for you. And if you love this episode, please leave a review on iTunes, especially if you love sort of the group format where I'm interviewing

a few people at once or more talking about a topic. I would love to hear that. So if you love that format. Definitely leave a review on iTunes and be like, love the group episode with Monique and Janine and all of that. It's really helpful for me to see what people are responding to, what people love, and all of that type of stuff. And also, iTunes reviews make me really, really happy. I was reading one the other day and it was just like the nicest things that anybody has ever said about me. And I started crying. And Zach was like, why are you crying? And then I showed it to him. And he was like, okay, I get why you're crying. And it's just really lovely. And it makes my day. And if you love the episode, definitely remember to share it on Instagram tag at Ambitious Kitchen and at Love and Lemon so that Monique and Janine can continue the conversation with all of us. I'm at Liz Moody. And I cannot wait to see you guys in the next episode of the Healthier Together podcast. Have a great one.

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