Certified Transformational Nutrition Coach (CTNC) program

Introduction and Cynthia Garciau2019s Background 0:00

Welcome everybody back to this amazing event here. And it's just getting better and better as we keep going and getting more speakers, especially today's speaker Cynthia Garcia. I've known her for so long before her name was Garcia. And, she's a real celebrity. She's a nutritionist, a transformation experts, bestselling author, and a very much in demand speaker. So I feel really fortunate that we got Cynthia on today. She's a TV and media personality, and she's also a very, very generous type person known as a philanthropist.

We all have our own degrees of philanthropy and doing things for others, but she really takes it to a new limit of again, known for a long time, she's the founder and CEO of the Institute for Transformation Nutritional. You've heard this out there in the health coaching world, is it? And, well, here's the lady who put that all together. It's a company, that makes it easy for health coaches to do the work they love by teaching them a proven coaching process that leaves them confident and credible so they can be the powerful force, force of the world that they want to be.

So, welcome, Cynthia. Thank you so much for being here. Oh, Reed, it's always such a pleasure to just sit down and and chat with you. And, like you say, we go. We go way back. So we've been we've done a lot of chatting over the years and I'm looking forward to doing it again today. Yes, ma'am. Well, you know, we've all been kind of lockdown and, and things and it's it's time. We were just talking before the recording started that it's time to loosen up. You know, I see some really big changes coming down the pike.

And, I want to talk with you about that because, again, you're someone who's been doing it a. Well, I mean, you look so young and beautiful. How could you know this experience? But you you know, you do, you know. So let's talk about the the work that health coaches love to do. Why do you think people become health coaches? Well, that's a great question and thank you. I'll take it. After being locked down for three months and not just yeah, it's been an interesting time. So I'll, I'll take those compliments all day.

You know, read I, I, I have thought about this a lot. I don't think anyone wakes up one day and says, man, I want to be a multimillionaire. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to I'm going to go into nutrition. I'm going to be a health coach. Like no one does that. I think that we all are drawn to this career. I think it chooses us. I don't think we choose it. I know that was my, my case, my story. I didn't know a protein from a carb and didn't know why I should care until it hit me personally.

And I really struggled with, with a lot of health issues for a long time. And that's when I realized the power of nutrition, not just, you know, not just what we're feeding our body, but what we're feeding our mind, what we're feeding our spirit, how we nurture ourselves in general. So, I think once, at least for me, when when I knew, what was possible, I couldn't unknow it. And so I became really passionate about making sure other people had that information because I would see people around me suffering, you know, friends, family, loved ones, just the general population.

And I really felt called to, to do something about that. And, and I think that's why a lot of us get into this field. I think you're absolutely right, you know, and, thinking back, I know that, like me, you come from pretty humble beginnings. You know, like I remember story, we've we've talked to you before about, how things used to be. And when you get successful and others are looking at you to be an example, you know, it's how you are now, but they don't really of, you know, always, remember the transformation that you had to go through personally to get there, you know, and we don't need to hear the whole story, you know, but, but it is, isn't it, that you, you come out of, often a lot of health coaches come out of a personal story.

You know, they overcame a certain problem. I don't think it's a prerequisite. But, you know, I'm sure many feel the same way. Right? Like you came because you also worked really hard on yourself. Yeah, I mean, for sure. And like you said, I mean, yeah, my background is is very humble beginnings. I grew up in extreme poverty in the Appalachian Mountains. No running water in the house, no indoor plumbing, none of that. And, but the bigger part of that wasn't just like the physical poverty. It was, you know, I would often be hungry for food.

My diet really influenced, how my health became as I got older, with my gut health just really needing a lot of repair. My mental health was really, struggling, you know, because I had experienced trauma at a very young age, over and over and over again. Everything from physical and emotional abuse to sexual abuse started at just the age of five. Witnessed a lot of domestic abuse in my home, so it was always really uncertain. I was never quite sure if I left and came back. What I was about to walk into, you know, my my dad shot my mom in front of me once.

He tried to shoot me like it was this whole, pretty insane environment. And so, you know, that does a lot to your mental health, which also impacts your physical health. You know, we know a lot about the gut brain axis, but also just spiritual health, which, you know, I really look at is relationship and connections, not knowing how to build strong relationships because I had never seen that, not knowing the importance of that, and having that impact my health, just feeling so alone. So you're right, I think that, you know, so many of us do have our own personal stories.

It's it's definitely not a prerequisite, as you said. But I do think that what we end up doing as coaches is taking our own personal experience and really starting to examine that and looking at others around us to say, and how can I help them not go through what I went through? Or if they're in that, how can I help them out of it? Now that I know what it's like to walk that road and find the solutions,

Why People Become Health Coaches 6:00

does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense. Personally, I didn't have any health challenges. I was just challenged with the fact that everybody that worked in our office, you know, I started working in a wellness center, and, everyone walking in had already been to four or 5 or 10 different practitioners already, and they weren't, well, yet, so it just blew my mind. I thought they were getting ripped off, you know, coming to the law field and, and, saving the planet. And I just as a consumer advocate thought, well, what do you mean?

You've seen all these people and you spent all this money. You're not better yet, you know, have you seen that that sometimes you feel like you want to be the last person they have to see to get better? Oh my gosh. Over and over and over, I swear. Well, first of all, that was my story, right? Like, I, I hired all the people, I did all the things. I popped the pills, I drank the shakes. Nothing was was really helping. But yeah, I think it's I think it's a lot of people's story. I think it's what brings a lot of people into coaching and especially health coaching.

Because we have tried those other solutions and they haven't worked. I would say, gosh. Right. I mean, I would estimate just a lot of clients I've worked with personally. That's a good 85% of them. I'm not the first person they call. I'm not the first person they've seen about these issues. You know. Yeah. I think that's, good to see you put the estimate way up there. Oh, yeah. Because by the time people get to a health coach, you've already seen a doctor. They probably might even have been told nothing's wrong with them.

Oh, your blood works. Yep. You know, and, here's something for you. Like a chill pill, you know, just just. You're okay. Just go diet and exercise. Come back when you're really sick. Yeah. Treating the symptoms. Yeah. Right. So as, as a health coach, now, your your program is different. I found the the certified transformational nutrition coach. What what do you would you say makes it the most different or different than all the other? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. You know, there's a lot of things that we do differently which work for some people and maybe not others.

But you know, we've I've been in this industry for a really, really long time. Gosh, six, 16 years now, I'm getting up there. We we're we're getting older, friend. But yeah, there's a lot of things that that are different. When I first got into this field, there was a lot of things that surprised me, that I realized right off the bat, for example, that food alone will never fix us, right? It's not just about the food that we put into our body. It's about something so much bigger. Other issues that I.

I saw is that, you know, in the coaching industry, people didn't really feel confident coaching. I would see and I didn't feel confident coaching when I first finished my program. I would see coach after coach who had all this information to give, but they hadn't really practice coaching. They hadn't worked with clients before. They didn't really feel like they knew enough. You know, that was a big thing that held people back. They were terrified. Like, what if what if a client ask me something, I don't know how to answer them or I can't help them?

Or what if I failed them? And I think that came about because, as you pointed out earlier, they have been failed by so many so-called experts and doctors and professionals. So they didn't want to do that to their clients. And so there was a real lack of, of confidence. We also saw a really, a lack of a deep dive into nutritional science, but not just that read. It was, other factors. So, you know, as I said, alone, food being or before food alone can't fix us. Right. But but our, our coaches that we were seeing, they had no idea how to deal with past trauma that their clients had gone through, or mental health issues or their mental environments or their relationships.

Right. I always say, if you want to know about someone's health, asking about their relationships, there's a direct correlation every time. Yeah. So it just felt like there was a bigger modern day conversation that needed to be had, and that we needed an actual system to make coaches feel confident when they go out and work with clients where they didn't have to know all the answers, but they were right at their fingertips and they could create personalized plans for people. And we also felt there was a real need for coaches to learn what they love and be able to do what they're passionate about, as opposed to being, you know, just default, health coaches.

And so we put a lot of things into place and we can talk about them if you want. We are the only school that offers passion based learning. Where it goes with that. Learn what you love piece. We created the model of transformational nutrition, which really bridges the gap between physical health, mental health, and spiritual health. And then we put a system around that that personalizes protocols for every single client that walks in your door without you having to know it all or feel like a fraud because you don't.

And then, you know, some other things. We went on, we are fully and approved school by the MBA for coaches who are looking to get licensed as health coaches. We know this is a big thing that's coming. It's already started. We're also approved by the NRA. And, you know, you work closely with them as well. Read. So for those coaches who want to be nutrition coaches, we got that covered. And you can sit for the board exam there. So there's a lot of things that, that we really do that's different. Again, may not be right for everyone.

But this is is kind of where we are. We're kind of known as the modern day coaching school for the forward thinking coach and those who want to become one. You know, I want you to tell us a little more exactly was transformational nutrition. But I also want to find out what's the opportunity for your students to, work on themselves, to do their own, you know, how do you walk the talk? I mean, because experience is. I know that you teach is based on experience, what didn't work and all the other things that people have tried.

How does that play into your program? Will students be trans? Yeah, I do, they are. I mean, that's the thing I think that, you know, I I'll, I'll, I'll illustrate this through a quick story. I had a friend who was a doula is a doula and, she would go out she before she had her babies, she would go out and she would be sitting with women in labor and, oh, they'd be feeling it, you know, like it's it's a it's an experience. Talk about transfer and. Right, I mean, literally human life is created here.

And so she would go out and she would sit with these women and they would be in pain. And she would say, I know, I know, I know. And they and she would nurse them through that. Well, later on she had her own child and she knew exactly what those women were feeling. And she had her own deal and went through her own experience and took some time off to be with her baby, and then a few months later went back to work. But what was different is now when she would be with those women in labor and they were in pain and they would say, I would hurt.

She would say, I know, I know, I know, I know, like she knew, you know. And it was a radically different experience from her for her. Not that she wasn't a great deal before she was, but it's just different. So I always tell students when they come into it, it's kind of a warning of sorts. It's in our orientation. I say, you know, you're not going to be the same person when you leave as you are when you're coming in. And we see this over and over and over. So we teach things like the transformational trauma technique to help you go back and release traumas of your past.

And we've seen that really open up our students and they've said, wow, I'm a totally different person just from being able to to stop holding on to the fear and the pain that I had from the past. And it opens them up to do this work in, in a whole new way. So we have a philosophy that that says, you know, first you, then then so first you go through it, you do it, and then you help them work through it because you can speak from experience. Right? So I don't teach anything that I haven't done before and where I fall short and I don't have the experience.

We bring in a whole team of faculty members, who are the best in the world at what they do, and then they speak from their own experience. So for us, it's just it's non-negotiable. The other way that we build this in is we do a coaching lab. And so I spoke earlier about coaches not really feeling confident. One of the things that we do is every week I show up and I teach them live coaching skills so that they can practice and get confident and have their own coaching. So I coach them. They're coached by their peers, and that gives them just tremendous breakthroughs and insights as to what it means to be coach, what that experience looks like.

So again, it's another point of real transformation for them before they even see their first client. That's fantastic. I love that about your program. And, you know, we have a Walk the talk thing too. And I think all the good programs have that, if you can't beat transform yourself, how are you going to help others? You got to be open to it.

Transformational Nutrition and Program Differences 15:00

You got to be vulnerable. Sometimes you got to say, you know, I'm a health coach for 20 years now before they call them health coaches, but I'm still not perfect. You know, I, I don't know, I look at it kind of as a stairway and there's no one at the time or, you know, anyone perfectly healthy or have no problems in the world. But it's it's kind of how you deal with it. You teach people and they get educated and they and they open up, become vulnerable, and they're there. And of course, we get to help people who have, you know, we're helping up the stairs that have a lot more steps to go than us, maybe, you know, and then, hell, if they pass me, fine, God bless them.

You know, just keep going, you know, and they'll be following you one day. You know, so many of our students over the years have become great teachers, too. And I'm I'm sure that's happened. You so know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now tell us more about transformation nutrition. You know I was a differ from say, you know, the paleo diet or something. Yeah. That's a great question. So first of all, it's sort of diet agnostic. We really believe that the perfect diet is the diet that works for you. So, you know, we're all very different.

I mean, as I said earlier, like, I'm getting older, my needs are changing, my hormones are different. I'm having to do things I didn't have to do. And so we really firmly believe that depending on which stage or phase of your life. So phase could be something like you just had a baby or you're recovering from surgery, your needs are very different, right? So we really believe that personalization is the key. And the way we personalize is through those three pillars of transformation or nutrition, which is physical nutrition, mental nutrition and spiritual nutrition.

Which kind of sounds a little bit like mind body spirit, but it's so much more than that. So I want to be careful that I don't confuse people with that. So what I'm really talking about here, if I could break this down a little bit more physical nutrition. Yes, we're talking about the food that feeds you and diet and all of those things. Right? All of those those core health concepts. But we're also looking at things like genetics and the role they play in your health. We look at your cultural background, we look at socioeconomic status.

We look at the bigger picture right when it comes to your physical health, your environment, which is is huge. So that's really what we look at in terms of physical nutrition. Mental nutrition kind of speaks for itself. But as I said earlier, we dive deep into past trauma and old wounds. We do things like looking at the research and how we can help people move through that. We investigate your mental environment. We explore, evolutionary psychology to see, like, what's worked for you before. How can we make that work again?

To get you to your goals and then spiritual nutrition. Just to unpack that a little bit, first of all, has has nothing to do with religion. Just to be clear with you, spirituality is connection. So relationships, the relationship with yourself, what are you telling yourself? Right. Stories that that you're telling yourself every day? What kind of relationship you have with yourself are you following through on the things you do? Do you trust yourself? We also look at your relationship with other people.

So our relationship read, you know, my relationship with other friends and colleagues, relationship with my family. Your relationship with your church, your community. Right. And then we look at spiritual, relationships as well. So your relationship with something bigger, with something, with the planet, with the Earth that we live on in nature and connection and connection there. So it's really a wide range of how were you showing up and being nurtured by yourself and those, around you. So that's really what what we do and that's what transformational nutrition is.

And then when you put all of those together smack in the middle is personalized nutrition, because we personalize all of those things for every unique client. That's remarkable. You know. So it's it's more of a bigger view of nutrition, more of just like nurturing for, you know, all the aspects. So it is my body spirit, but it's just got a unique, way. And your students all go through that personally. So. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, mind body spirit on steroids. Kind of. Yeah. Not that we condone that. I'm just saying.

Yeah. Fantastic. No, I know everyone's mind body spirit, you know, and they get, you know they get good meditate everything like that. But it's, got some concrete something you can put your teeth into, you know, get your teeth into. So. Yeah. That's fantastic. Cynthia. No. So first, because, you know, what we're doing here is we're giving the folks, a way to look at a lot of programs, you know, and people would wonder, you know, and I've had a couple people who didn't want to play because I think they had kind of a scarcity mentality.

And I know that's not yours. It's like, yeah, bring them in, get them exposed. You know, I might not resonate with everybody, but they'll be someone who didn't resonate with the others. That does resonate with me, and I'm there for that person. We're there to to serve and just to make the pie bigger. This whole event is about making the pie bigger. There's so many ways you can get into health coaching. You know, if you want to do some good in the world and you're willing to walk the talk like you think, be vulnerable.

Be ready to break down and make a few changes in yourself. That's that's critical, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I am I don't play by that game. Right. And again, you and I have known each other for a long time. It's not it's not how either of us operate. I don't believe in the scarcity mindset. I mean, look, if we are if we're just being candid right now and being honest, I think that's a lot of what's wrong with our culture. I think it's a lot of what's wrong with our world. I think that there is a lot of fear that perpetuates, our society, that perpetuates our communities, it perpetuates our businesses.

And I just feel like it's so unnecessary. I think when you come from a place of love and abundance as opposed to fear, I believe everything is possible. This isn't about, you know, choose my school over reads or shoot. It's not about that. It's about how can we best show up and serve the people who need it most. And and I'm about the long game, you know, I don't I don't believe for one second in that, you know, there's not enough for for all of us. And in fact, if you look at the demands right now of, of the health industry, of the life coaching industry, of the wellness industry, there's already more clients out there than all of our coaches can can handle.

And that's just the truth. So whether you know whether our school is the best or someone else's is like, that's not who we are competing against. We're really competing against, poor health, against, you know, mothers and fathers being taken away from their children to early because of physical and mental illnesses, spiritual illnesses, sometimes, we're fighting against, studies that say things like, for the first time ever, we're raising a generation of children who may not outlive their parents.

So I, I don't have time to I don't have to have time to, compete with you or any other school out there. I'm an I show up and we serve, and we do what we do. And I know you do as well. And that's our focus, right? We're really in this together. And I think until we let go of that scarcity and fear based mindset, we're not going to truly be able to have the breakthroughs in the world in, in any capacity that, that we want to have. And, and I know I'm on a soapbox now and I'll get down before Helen hurt myself, but I just think it's a really important mindset shift that needs to happen.

That's the spirit, Cynthia. And that's what I want the folks to see, is that the the people in the health coaching field are very heart centered and open and, magnanimous. And they, they, have abundance mentality, you know, and I think it's it might actually be a prerequisite, you know, that you look at the world as a place where the cup is at least half full if not running over, you know, and, and often or, if you really look at it, you know, my cup is running over minutes. It's so abundant. I don't know that I even deserve it. You know, it's fame.

But, so, listen, you know, people love to hear that stuff. The heartfelt and and centeredness and things like that. But they also want they want to know that they can come out of this doing something. What kind of, how do you train your students on the basic, like, skill level skills, like competence, coaching competencies, if you will? Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. So we believe confident coaches are successful coaches. But in order to be confident as a coach, you have to coach. In order to coach, you have to have the competencies and know how to coach.

Right. And so we work really closely with the NBC, the National board, for health and wellness coaches. And what we what they've developed is a core list of coaching competencies that they feel every great coach should have. Again, this is what the licensing standard is. But they're progressively, you know, moving forward in a big way. And so we took that and then we built in the elements of transformational nutrition. So we looked at how do we take this model of transformation or nutrition that we've built and then coach to that in a way that as I said before, coaches are confident and not feeling like, oh, what if I don't know enough?

What if they ask me something and I don't know what to answer? So what we did was we built a system around that. So we teach this, this, this one system because quite frankly, if you're just saying, you know, how do you do last week for your goals, what do you want to work on this week that's not really moving the client forward. That's not really how you coach. You need a proven system that works. Right. And it's easy to for, for coaches to follow. So when you first come in we have a transformation transformational nutrition health assessment form.

Your client fills that out. And there's lots of areas in there. And then what we do on the back end is we unpack that for you and we say, okay, if they answer this, then that means this. If they answer this, that means this. But the coolest part about this is we have something on there called, a symptom assessment. Right. And they go through a list of all of their symptoms. And then on the back end we give our coaches what we call a symptom decoder. So we say look this is split up into multiple areas.

If they checked off number 24 here's what you need to look at. Right. And so we piece that together for them. Then we've created based on that assessment based on over 1400 different studies and over 287 data points. And so we pull that together on the back end. We've done all the heavy work for you. So if it sounds like a lot, know that that we've done it for you. And then we give them personalized protocols for physical health, mental health and spiritual health so that they can hand that over to their clients and then personalize it based on where they are, what their goals are, and what they want to do.

So we've really removed all of the guesswork out of things like getting to the root cause, you know, understanding what this symptom means, creating meal plans, creating mental nutrition plans and so on and so forth. And we just hand that over. And it's a system that that they fall into, and it works for them every single time. And so we look at really healing them completely as, as a human, without any of the frustration or insecurity that coaches sometimes feel. And part of that, as I said earlier, is our coaching labs.

So we take these, these competencies again established by the end. We put our own competencies with that. And then I show up every week and I say, okay, let's talk about building rapport. Let's talk about motivational interviewing. Let's talk about positive psychology. So I teach the concepts and then I demo it for them so they can see what it looks like. Do you know a lot of coaches that we interviewed had never seen coaching done their coaches with they've never seen coaching demonstrated. It's crazy to me.

So they see it with us and then they practice with each other. They share what went well. What didn't I hop in and share some thoughts? And then our community gets to hop in and share some thoughts. And it's the most beautiful, transformative state space. And so by the time our coaches are even halfway through the program, they're like, let me coach already because they feel so confident doing that. And we've taught them all of the competencies along the way that they need to get their clients real results.

So, it's it's been a really, truly a game changing experience for me as a coach. And definitely for, for our entire community. Yeah. I love how you've, combined some of the, the new organizations that are doing some licensing and things like that with your you're able to modify your approach based on some of those requirements. Personally, I have a gun that, direction. Our course is incredibly robust. It meets all of the content curriculum, but we, we, are just still, sort of catering to the tribe that wants it recorded, you know, where they don't have to show up on Tuesday at 2:00, you know? So.

Student Transformation and Coaching Labs 28:00

And that is a requirement that they call the synchronous training versus the asynchronous training or is is mostly. Yeah. Even though we do a lot of one on one coaching. You know, it's not the percentage of of that time isn't, isn't high enough. But I think it's a really good thing you're doing it because, again, it's helping the entire thing expand. Now, another thing that you talk about is the, is the, passion based learning. You mentioned it once. What? Yeah. What are you talking about? And what is that? Yeah.

Thank you. And I hear you on the synchronous and asynchronous, and we offer both if you want to show up live, we have the coaching labs. We also have the recorded. Oh. Everything is recorded. And you go through that piece on your own, and the coaching labs are separate from that. But like you said, there's people need different things, right? We don't claim to be the one size fits all. And, yeah, you know, you don't either. It's really what best serves the student at the end of the day and their lifestyle and their needs and what they want to do.

So just wanted to, to to say that because I think, you know, we're all different. We're all very unique and we're all suited for for different people. So I love that, makes it fun. So, so passion based learning. We again, strongly feel like you should be able to learn what you love, right? Because we all have that special thing that we're like, who dislikes me? Yep. I love all of health. But that's the thing for me, right? And so what we do with our program is when you enroll in our core program, which is the Certified Transformational Nutrition Coach program, you go through that and at the end you get to essentially declare a major, right.

You get to say, I'm going to specialize in this area. And we have, currently nine different ones to choose from. So you can certify, yourself or you can specialize in digestive health, diabetes, autoimmune health, hormones, mental health coaching, life coaching. And so essentially you end up walking away with a niche with a specialty so that you're super credible. You get two certifications in one, and you're able to really do the work that you're passionate about. And then depending on which area you decide to specialize in or major in, then we teach you done for you protocols, resources and so much more, of that.

So, you know, we always hear niche down, niche down. We hear these marketing experts talking about that all the time. And we thought, well, let's give our students a credible way to do that. And then all of our programs are licensed. All of these specialist programs are licensed by the state of Washington. We're fully licensed state schools. So you have that credibility behind you as well. Yeah. Amazing. So how does that niching don't help coaches, are they. Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. So here's the here's the thing.

I've heard it said in a lot of different ways, if you want to go big, you got a niche. You got to get small. And so what we're really talking about is, you know, people these days are looking for specialist, right? Specialist more than ever. It's kind of like, going to your family doctor. Doctor for brain surgery. You probably wouldn't do that, right? Like, I mean, I wouldn't, I don't know, people do lots of stuff these days. But the same thing is true for health coaches. You know, if you're talking about general health, that's great.

And I'm sure you'd be able to help a lot of people. And I also know sometimes it's scary to think, oh, I only I can only help one little slice of the population. And what about the things that limit me? And the fact is it makes you more highly regarded. It makes you more in demand. It makes you more successful. I know it's counterintuitive, but this is what we see across the board, in terms of the most successful coaches and read we have a lot of friends in this industry. If you look across the industry as a whole, everyone specializes in one thing, right?

We've got Doctor Sara Gottfried with hormones, JJ Virgin with, her food intolerances and her virgin diet, Dave Asprey with just, you know, biohacking. So and and then you expand that. Right. But you've got to be known for one thing because if you're talking to everyone about everything, no one hears you. If I go on and I have digestive health issues, I'm looking for someone who's a specialist. You can help me just with that, right. And the other side of that, as you've already said, is we've gone to doctors and, you know, we've got kind of the Band-Aid solution, and that doesn't work.

So we're looking for someone who knows exactly what we're going through, who maybe has even had that experience themselves and can help me focus on this thing. Just does that make sense? It makes so much sense, you know, and I just as soon as someone walks in the office, you know, or back in the old days, you know. Yeah, walk in the office, but now it's like email or route, you know, and they say, this is good for everybody. If you want to increase your income, here's something that's good for everybody to go.

I automatically almost don't want it because there's no such thing as something that's good for everybody. You really have to, meet people where they're at. And, have you noticed a lot of people are niching down into the same area that that they had? Like, if they had a digestive problem. They're picking that. Is there an area that that we're not too many people are going into? Of your nine areas or, you know, oh, that's such a great question. Yes, that's a great question. Yeah. I'll tell you that Digestive Health is our biggest one.

And yes, to your your question, you know, do people go into the the issue that they've had? Yeah, for the most part they do sometimes. What they will do though read is they'll say, gosh, digestive health. That was my issue. But what I found out through my journey was that it was my mental health, my mental wellness or lack thereof, that was causing that. And so they'll specialize in that because they see that, oh, that was the missing link for me. Right. Or autoimmune disease. Right. They'll be like, oh, autoimmune disease. That was my thing.

But I realize now that that was stemming from this bad relationship and just my life in general, and they'll go into life coaching and specialize. So it's really interesting kind of, kind of across the board in terms of the least one. This might surprise you, but it's true. It really is weight loss. And then it's only by a slim margin. They're pretty much or kind of even. But digestive health and hormone health are definitely at the top. But the rest of them are kind of even. But but weight loss.

So that interesting weight loss is really the one that I think. Yeah. We're kind of moving away from a little bit. Not that it's not needed or won't always be there, but yeah, just different interest, I think. I think there might be an answer to that. And that's really curious. Yeah. But it kind of makes sense because we, we can help people lose weight, but we do it through getting them healthy first. Of whatever is their main issue in the weight loss should become kind of a secondary benefit. Because to just lose weight, is used tricks, you know, that some of the tricks you can trick your body.

And if you don't also get healthy and repair the other functions that were, dysfunctional, it's probably going to come back, you know? So I think that is you educating people that really think, you know what, that's just a trick. I really want to make them healthy. You know, it's the same time, you know, for health coaches, if, you know, if you tell someone, well, you'll lose a couple pounds a month, maybe, you know. Well, you know, after a year, that would be 24 pounds. But it doesn't sound like much to a person who's 100 pounds overweight.

So, you know, you've just got to kind of learn how to handle that weight loss question. And, do we help people lose weight? Yes. But it's it's a healthy weight and it's a permanent way. We we hope if if you keep if you keep living this way, remember, you're on a stairway. And this is not a trick to, you know, oh, I'm going to get healthy. You've got a solution. No, we have a path. We have a process. And, healing occurs when that process is focused on, you know, coaching up health, health building and cutting down the contributors, or detracts from what's making you health, you know, helping health, health express itself, you know, so there's a lot of coaching up function, coaching down what we call the contributors to metabolic chaos.

And it works. And I know you're you know, you're in line with that, but you also have these done for you guides and resources that you give you students tell me how those apply. Like is it like the symptom decoder? You know what, what the heck. Yeah, yeah. What is that? Yeah. And let me just say great point that you make your right weight loss should be or could be a side effect of getting healthy and fixing the root issue. So I think you're absolutely right on there. And before I, we move on from the niche thing, I just want to also say like just because you niche down in one area doesn't mean that you can't help other people who come to you for other things.

Right? You can you don't have to like, shut the door and say, that's not what I do. I'm a digestive health specialist. If you can help them, by all means help them and you will get clients who come to you outside of your specialty. I have for years. So I just want to throw that in there. As just a reminder that you don't, like, pigeonhole yourself. You're not stuck in one place. You think that's a good, good, good. Let me just say, Yeah. Good. That. So glad you said that. Because, as we really are generalists, but we choose a niche because it's so much easier to, promote yourself or, you know, who are you?

And what do you do if you say, well, I help everybody with everything. You know, you it's less believable. But the truth is, with good coaching skills, you could help just about anybody with just about any problem. Because you're not a physician. You're not diagnosing treating a specific problem. Before you go on with the answering about the decoder and other resources you provide, let's talk about that for a minute, because the health coaching space, if we're going to, elevate it, we need to make sure we're not crossing any boundaries.

Personalization, Niching, and Done-for-You Tools 38:00

You know, that we shouldn't cross. I think having the our backyard clearly defined is really important. Yeah. Like, if someone has cancer and says, I don't want to go to my doctor, can you help me? You should say you better go to your doctor first, please. You know, because I'm not a physician, I can't diagnose and treat anything specifically. I'm going to help you work around the edges of it. I can certainly take you on as a client and help you regardless what your problem is. But but you need to get medical oversight.

Have you run into any, conflicts with the integration at all or, you know, how do you view that? Yeah. You know, we make this. Yeah. I I'm so glad you brought this up. I think it's so important that as coaches, we stay on our side of the line. It doesn't mean that you can't work with tough cases. It doesn't mean that you can't work with people who have cancer. As a matter of fact, we have a cancer coach specialty, so you absolutely can. It just means what you're saying. Read. You can't diagnose someone with cancer.

You can't say you're treating their cancer. You can't say you're going to heal their cancer. Those are all huge. No, no. Right. That's not what we do as coaches. You work with practitioners, you work with their doctor, you work with their oncology, whatever the case might be. Right? And you stay on your side of the line. So coaching really has two, two roles we educate and we support. Right. So if a client comes in we don't say things like, you know what you're you're you're deficient in vitamin D and here's how much you take that and blah blah blah.

You say, look, you know, here's what could be going on with your health or if they come to you and they say that, you know, my doctor said I had a vitamin D deficiency, here's my test. You can see it. You can say things like, well, in my experience, when clients come to me with this, putting them on this supplement or, or them choosing to take this supplement is a great way to to overcome that. And what I've seen is clients who take this much of this particular supplement see these results, if that interest you, which, you know, if you're interested in that, and they'll say, great.

Yes, I'd love to do that too. Right. Or we could say things like, you know, studies have shown that taking this many, this much vitamin D per day, if when you're at this level that you're at results in this after the first 30 days, you know, results in bringing your levels up to this point after 30 days. So what you're doing here is you're educating, you're never creating plans for your client and handing them over. Right? We don't do that. We co-create with our clients. So they're saying to you, this is what I need you.

You say you educate them, you say, this is what I've seen. Work. They say, great, I'll do that. And then you support them through their journey, right? So you educate you support you educate, you support. But the client makes their own decisions. And another thing about this I love that you brought this up. It's the right level. Reaching out. Another thing about this sometimes coaches get so caught up in, being afraid they'll know enough, being afraid that they won't know what to say. And the fact of the matter is, is it's not about you.

And I say that with love. I do. And here's what I mean by that. You shouldn't have all the answers, right? Your client has all the answers. Now, you're an expert. You are read. You're one of the greatest experts I know in health and diagnostic nutrition. You're the man. But I think you'd agree with me here. You're not the expert on every client that walks through your door. Yeah, they are, they are the expert. And so we do things right. And like, we'll ask and and I know you guys do some of this too.

We'll ask what do you think you need to really to really get rid of these issues. And it's shocking at how many times they'll tell you, you know, they end up just telling you. And when you work on just those things, you're with me, right? Like, yeah, it's unbelievable how many health shifts. Yeah. They know, they know. And you know, you're right in in what I teach, it's a very broad view. We take the broadest view possible, but sometimes you just can't go deep enough. There's not enough levels to get you way down into the weeds.

So in that broad view we use, we apply the principles of healing. This is what? Yeah. How the body works. You know, the anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and what should happen, you know, the like. We can't guarantee anything, but we have reasonable to expect patients. And that's all you know. And that's part of setting up that relationship you mentioned with the client is what are their expectations. You know, if they want to get into a size two dress in two months and they're a size ten, that's not reasonable.

You know, or. Right. So so you, you have the whole relationship thing that you have to build. And, they start to see that you're a coach, not a doctor. You know, you're not doing heroic medicine, you're helping them live. And most problems, they've lived themself into, you eat yourself into this problem. You lack of sleep, you end of this problem, you under or over exercised. You went to this problem or there's some stress that that's involved and we can help sort that out. And and then the problem is you're supposed to just get better.

Cells, tissues, organs, systems start to function better and you feel better and you look better and, and sometimes diagnoses, go out the window. Oh, I guess I was just unhealthy, like in a broad way. Like in the broader view. So, Yeah, we're doing that. We're not peeing in the doctor's backyard in any, any way, shape or form, you know? No, no, no. Yeah. We accept, in many cases, if they have a medical problem that you're the junior partner. But that's important, you know, to provide that education and support.

Like you said. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things I'm glad you said that one of the things that coaches do is they we almost act like, I wonder if you'll agree with me on this. We almost act like translators at times, you know, between what what's going on and what the doctor is saying and then how the client can actually put that into their life. Right. How do they actually take this information and, and use it? Because one of the things that I know so many of my doctor friends say is, well, I'm telling them what they do, they just won't do it.

And the coach's job is like, well, why won't they do it? Why won't they do it? Let me investigate that with them. Let let me coach and do that. And the client again, the client knows they they do. I know it's like you, we think that as coaches you have to show up with your bag of tricks thrown over your shoulder and just pull things out. And that's not that's not how it works. As a matter of fact, in any coaching session, your client should talk far more than you should, and you have to pay attention to what they say.

Read I, I've I've asked clients before. I say, what do you think you need to heal? And they'll say things in a flippant way like I had this one woman one time who said, I need to get this man out of my house. That's what I need to do if I really want to heal. And she was telling the truth now. She was joking, but she meant it, you know? And so I think sometimes we say things just slip in and it turns out it was it was a very toxic relationship. And she was trying to do these things. And he would hold her back and, it ended up she came to for, for, for weight loss and for digestive health issues.

And she ended up losing about 250 pounds. And that was the man in her life. So and and she's doing great now. She's thriving. But it's just, one example of how we know exactly what we need and how it's that burden doesn't rest on the coach. We educate, we support, we show up for them. We make sure they're there, that they feel like they're seen, heard and matter. And we're that person in in their corner. But like you said, you know, we're not diagnosing, treating, curing, getting in the doctor's back.

We're not doing any any of that. We're coaches. Yeah I love what you said. You know, you can't hold the space for someone if you're doing all the talking. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's. People don't want to be lectured. No, they don't. And they also won't follow it. We can we just talk about that every second, just like the example of the doctor who says, I tell them what to do and they just want to do it. Well, probably because you tell them what to do. No one wants to be told what to do. We're all adults or grown. We do the things right.

We either pay the taxes, but if we don't want to do that, which is, in my opinion, one of the reasons that people don't stick to their diets, you know, like people say all the time, like, why don't diets work? I don't I don't think it's about that. I mean, granted, there are some diets are better than others. I think we would all agree on that. But I often think it's the people that fail the diets. What I mean by that is, you know, you'll start this, this new diet program on Monday and you're going along good.

But then right about Wednesday, you know, the dog choose your shoe, you're late for work. Your kid calls and has to get picked up like you're get a flat tire on the way and you're done. And at the end of the day, you're like, give me a pizza and a cheeseburger because I deserve that, right? So we throw it out the window because we didn't create it in the first place. But if we can choose it because it's not about it's not about, people get caught up on willpower. It's not about that. It's about finding your power.

And when you tell someone what to do, you're taking away their power to choose in their own lives. And to be quite honest, that's been done enough to all of us as it is, right? We're already locked into certain structures that we rebel against. And so if you can bring your client into the conversation and just listen to what they have to say, ask them what they want to do, and then find ways to support them and coach them through that, that's where you see the big results. Like that's what what what the where the real work happens.

Like even with this client who flippantly said, oh, I got to get rid of this man, that's what I need to do. I said, tell me more about that. And she did. And we went into like, all of the things that he was doing to keep her side tracked. And eventually, you know, I shared what happened. But, but that's really what what coaching is about, why it's so important to let your clients create the solutions with you educating and supporting. You know, I love how you put people at ease about getting personal, because if you are a health coach, I don't know.

I'm just reminded of this joke someone said that there's three people you can tell you trouble to. It's like you're you're priest, you're, you're something and you're in your jeweler. You're like, oh, where that came from? Maybe this jeweler told me. He goes, you know, you can tell your priest, you can tell your your whatever, and you can tell your jeweler anything. Maybe your hairdresser or something like that, you know, because because they they listen and you know, they might you might be buying a ring for one person this year and next year.

Someone else, I don't know. But you can also tell your health coach, you can tell your health coach that should be the the third person or fourth one, whatever. Because. So how do you get your students to be comfortable asking a lady about her relationship, like, like if her husband isn't supporting her or spouses, but if you're sports, then that's going to be a conflict and you're not going to be successful. How do you get them to be able to do that? Yeah. Well, I think again, you listen to them.

If she hadn't been willing to talk about it, she would have never said it. You know, she would never have brought it up. And so and you're easy about it. Here's what we don't do as coaches. We don't judge, you know. So so if somebody says, oh, I eat a whole pack of Snickers on the way here, you're not like, why? Why did you do that? You know, why? We're just like, I wonder why I like to wonder a play that I wonder game a lot. Yeah, I wonder, I wonder why, I wonder where that came from. Non-Church mental.

You're just curious. There's two things coaches need to do. You need to stay open, and you need to stay curious, right? You just wonder. We don't judge. We seek to understand. Right? Clearly no one eats a bag of Snickers bars on the way to see their health coach. Just for fun, right? I wonder why I'm curious about why I'm curious about what else was going on. So I'll often say things like, I wonder why or, tell me more about that. Or I'll say, how did that feel? Right? Because we make decisions based on emotion and then we back it up with logic.

Right? Well, we wanted the candy bars because that's the way we we nurture and love ourselves, you know, from some other story that that's happened in our past. But then we back it up with logic and say, well, I was hungry and there's nothing else to eat. Okay. So it's just about having conversation with people in the right way, open, curious and not judging, but really seeking to to understand and finding it, interesting and exciting. People are so interesting. And the other thing is, read. People want to talk. They do.

They want to be seen, they want to be heard, and they want to feel like they matter. And as coaches, I tell my coaches this literally just yesterday, I said, listen, they might you might be the only person ever who's made them feel seen, heard and like they matter. You might be the only person that just sits back and says, tell me everything, Betty. Tell me everything. Tell me about that. Say more about that. How did that make you feel? Right. And so it's really important to know that that the role that we think where it's like hovering and invasive and directing and telling.

And that's now what coaching is, right? Coaching is about staying curious. It's about wondering. It's just listening to people we love about you, along with the openness and, and acceptance and non-judgment, you also have a healthy dose of humility. You know that you're not perfect yourself. I think that's very admirable. So all of our symptoms on this symptom tracker, on their health assessment form, they're numbered. And so we say, okay, if they've checked off this or this, here's what that actually means.

Professionalism, Leadership, and Turning Pro 52:00

And we break it down in real English, actually have the structure somewhere to pull it out for you. And then once we have that, we say, here's, here's probably what's going on. And here from a physical nutrition standpoint, is what you do. Could be the supplements might help this diet because who's are some things for some particular health issues that we just know work better than others. Right. Supplements, lifestyle, diet, stress, all of those types of things. And then we'll say, you know, for your mental health, here's what we're talking about.

You know, getting rid of this anxiety, these stressors, this environment going through past trauma, and then we talk about the spiritual things that they can do as well. And so what it ends up being is a complete done for you protocol. And our coaches have that just ready to go without having to know any of the data or science behind it. They do because we train them on that. But at the end of the day, they shouldn't have to sit for hours and, you know, try to map things out. It's much easier if you just give that to them.

And then what happens is over time they learn it on their own, right? And they start to identify, oh, this is this is what's going on. I've seen this before. Right. But that comes through experience. And so we really make it easy for you to have that knowledge, that level of knowledge that comes through my experience and over, you know, these these, you know, thousands of studies that we've brought in to do this work. So it removes all the guesswork and you just show up and you're the coach, right?

You're there and you support them. So that's what the symptom decoder is. It's one of my favorite things. And our students, it's one of their favorite things to do. They're like, well this is all done for me. So it makes it easier. That's beautiful. Yeah. Let's let's thank you so much for that. And let's finish off with, just talking about leadership in the field. You know, again, the whole purpose of this event is to get some of the top people together and, and poke the brains a bit and see what makes them tick and otherwise, you know, the things that we could do to grow the field and, you know, everyone, I think everyone you teach wants to do this for a living, too.

It's not just for their own edification. So let's talk about what separates the professionals from the non professional health coaches and that kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah. So a few things do, but I also want to say like we do you're right that the majority of our students come in and they are looking to do it on the side for extra income, just because they love it so much, but they also love their day job and they don't want to leave, so they want to do them both, which is just great. And usually the weekends, in the evenings, that's when their clients are free to.

So it just all works out. But we do have people who want a complete career change. You know, they're they're doing the thing, but it doesn't fulfill them. It doesn't, doesn't give them meaning. Doesn't does it make them feel like they have that purpose, like they're doing what matters at the end of the day? And so they come in and they completely switch careers, and sometimes they'll go into work, with a company or a doctor's office or a medical clinic or what have you, or a lot of times they'll go into business on their own, and we teach you how to do all of those things, regardless of of what it is.

What we are finding a lot of people who are interested in doing this as entrepreneurs. They really want to start their own businesses. And we're we actually saw this kind of hit a peak with, Covid 19 because there was a lot of people, as you know, that have lost their jobs that, you know, had a job one day and then it was gone the next day and just nothing in between. And we've had people come to us and say, never again, never again am I going to be, you know, caught like this. Never again am I not going to be in control of my own financial future.

Never again am I not going to be controlling my own health. Right? Because people around them were getting sick and they didn't know what what to do. They know how to protect themselves from that. So I think we really felt that, you know, and we all we want to be free, right? We want to be free to live our lives and raise our children and make good money. And I think that especially with the advancement of technology, you know, like what we're doing here, costs very little. You know, it's it's the the barrier to entry is so much lower now than what it used to be.

You know, you can communicate and market to a global audience from your living room. Right? You can build a website in an hour. That's beautiful. You can send emails on social media. So people are really starting to see that, and they're wanting to take back control of their own life. It's it's definitely the majority. Now, we do have some people who come in and do the program for their own benefit. You know, they say, I see these people getting sick. I want to protect my family. I want to live a healthier life. And that starts with me.

And so they'll come in, they'll educate, and then they'll go and take that off on their, for their own use. What's what's funny is that when you get people who come in and they say, no, this is just this for me, and they like it so much that they end up turning it into a business. You actually have one student as she. I love her so much. She came in a couple of years ago and she said, this is just for me. I just want to raise a healthy family. But what ended up happening was not only did she turn it into a business for her, but her husband left his job and joined her, and their kids came on board and started their own part.

They would do like little videos and review different juices and fruit and vegetable juices. It was it was just so much fun. So it ended up being, you know, you know, started out as a just purely educational thing. And then they turned it into a family business. So it's really great. Yeah. Remarkable. So we know people come to us and work on themselves, and then they could be changing careers or just wanting to enhance their current career and things like that. And then in terms of leadership in the field, do you, a nurse that you, went towards A and B?

It's a B c thing and that, that's, that's part of leadership establishing, that they're certifying bodies and things like that. What what else do you think we could be done having summits like. Yeah. That's such a great question. Yeah, yeah, 100% what you're doing. You're you're educating people. I the fuzzy thing. I don't know what's going on. No, I think that that's really important. But I'll tell you the other piece to this is we have to have modern day solutions and we have to be having bigger conversations.

We have to talk more about, the real issues. That is plaguing our communities and our world and not just get so caught up in diet and meditation and those types of things. Right. I think that there's a lot of conversations that are starting now, and I think that's really powerful. Where we look at your background, we look at each person's cultural upbringing. Because there's things that we know about certain cultures when it comes to health, physical health, mental health, spiritual health. And then we need to address them as so if we don't do that, then we're just trying to put a square peg in a round hole and no one ever really gets help.

We need to look at things like past trauma, you know, you're never going to heal your gut physically if you can't heal the things that are triggering, the thoughts that disrupt your gut function in the first place. And for a lot of people, that is intense moments of trauma, of really painful past that they have to be able to get through, you know, our mind and our body like they're, they're they're the same. Right? This is one system we got here. And so until we address all of those things at the same time, you don't ever really, truly transform you don't really, truly heal.

So I think we have to start talking about that and integrating it more into the offerings that we give, that we give our clients to, to, to really get them through, through their hard times and also give them tools for things that might come up in the future. So it's about starting, you know, a modern day conversation, and it's about talking about the fact that we're all overworked right now. It's about talking about things like, you know, certain races that have been held back for so long and how that affects their physical and mental and spiritual well-being.

So I think that there's a lot of things that you're already doing. And I'd like to recognize that. I know you've always been at the forefront of of moving the conversation forward. I think that there are a lot of people doing that. I think that there's a lot of education going on. And I think we can do more. I really do. I I'm not one to just be like, oh, well did that, you know, now that's good to go. Especially in a ever changing world, right, in a global economy. So I think we continue to set higher standards and push, for those I love it, I love it, and I'm I want to have this conversation with you.

You say it's been a conversation. Get people to be more self-aware, you know, like that's that's a pretty important way to transform the whole planet, right. And, so let's have that conversation in the future. Final question is about what what are your best tips to separate, let's say, your professional versus what we call the hobbyist. You know, you don't see professional versus amateur. It's just someone who doesn't really do it for a living. Give us some top tip or tips and anything you want to see in it.

And go from there. Sure. Well, I think you have to make a decision. Right. And I know that sounds like. Well, gosh, thanks for that breakthrough answer, Cynthia. But what I mean here is, you know, decision. The Latin root of that word to decide means to cut off. So you have to cut off any other options, right. You can't say, I think I'm going to do this or I know you have to decide, right. And that's the first thing that separates the successful coaches from those that are like me. You know, I'm doing this.

So you have to decide. You have to decide what your mission is, what your priorities are, what you need to do to become the person, the coach that you want to be and then cut off everything that doesn't support that. So that's really the first thing that you have to do. You have to invest in a good quality education. You can read Google all day. It's funny, our, our mutual friend Sean Croxton talks about how he got his PhD from from Google. You know, he's so great. He reads and researches all the time.

He's a super smart man. But that's Sean, you know, that. He's a totally different human. You have to invest in, in a program that's really going to serve you. So when you look at what it is that you want to do, when you make the decision to do that, find the education that will support you and getting you to where you want to go. Right. That might be me. It might be read, it might be someone else. But make sure that what you want to do is supported by a high quality education. I think that's really important.

And then third thing I think is consistency. You have to show up day after day after day after day, even when you don't want to, and you don't feel like it and you'd rather scroll Instagram instead, you have to show up, right? So we're not playing here, right? We're talking about people's health. We're talking about what separates the successful coaches from those who dis, who just dally in it. And if you want to do that, by the way, again, no judging to do that. That's okay. But we're talking about how you make this serious, right?

How you stand out and really be that successful coach. And that is showing up. Or as Steven Pressfield would call it, turning pro. Right. And athletes work out even when they don't want to, they work out when they don't feel like it. Right? They work out when they're tired. If they just played a game the night before. And the coaches, the great coaches are no different. You show up so make the decision, figured out what it is that you want to do, find an educational program that supports that and then show up consistently and do the work.

You know, you just demonstrated your own work ethic, Cynthia, in a beautiful way. You know, you just showed up really importantly, like, I don't know, it's Friday afternoon on the stuff when we're doing this recording. And, you know, my backyard wants me to come out and just work and, you know, it's still in the office grinding because it's important, you know, and you get it. I just love what you do. Said I'm going to take that segment out of the recording, just like plastered some wake up words of wisdom from Cynthia.

And, thank you so much. It's been beautiful having you here. And, Yes, same for you getting together. Thanks for playing and showing that you're of an abundance mentality, Cynthia. Appreciate you being. And for everyone else, you know, we're going to put all of Cynthia's, contact information in our show notes. And along with it, you can see where you can purchase these videos so that you can listen to them over and over again. Because once we start this, week of airing these things, then they won't be available for that.

So go ahead and buy the recordings. And then you have me and Cynthia getting down, you know, forever. Thanks again for being here. Thanks, Reed. Take care.