Don't Tell Me What To Do

Today we are diving into the topic of the beauty industry and the effects on our health. We’re shown millions of cosmetic ads yearly telling us to buy products to take away our wrinkles, die our hair, cover our face, and more. But did you know that many of the cosmetics that we use in the U.S. have been banned in Europe due to toxicity of the chemicals? Neither did I. It was only this year that I really started to think more holistically about what I was putting on my body besides food and started to learn more about all the other chemicals that we bring into our lives in our cleaning and beauty products. To talk about this today I brought on Sarah Strickland - Sarah began her journey into her health career by attending Bastyr University, where she received her degree in Nutrition & Dietetics. Rather than following down the path of solely nutrition, Sarah decided that this health journey needed to be much more encompassing & began diving into many of the other health gaps of today’s society. This holistic view on women’s health came to include not only diet, but alternative remedies such as essential oil use, reducing environmental toxic exposure through the products we use on our skin and in our homes daily, and challenging many of societies “norms” when it comes to what we consider “healthy” and how we treat illness.

Today we are diving into the topic of people management. A manager can make or break how you feel for so much of your day — yet some of the things we’re taught about management are so antiquated. This is a topic I’m personally so passionate about as a people manager and love talking about new ways to think about how we interact and run teams.

To discuss this topic today, I have Derek Gillette - who is the VP of marketing at Leadr - a new kind of people management software - designed to help companies grow leaders.

In today’s episode, we talk about Derek’s journey to people management as his very first job. We dive into his decision to leave operations and take a risk to follow his dream of becoming a marketer. And we talk about how he took a chance, quit his job, and eventually landed his gig today years later as VP of marketing

We dive into practical tips for any manager or someone thinking about management —

Themes like focusing on strengths vs. ironing out weaknesses. We talk about coaching and mentoring vs a focus on tasks and compliance. We debate 1:1s and who really owns it (manager vs. employee). We talk about how to give ongoing feedback vs. relying on performance reviews. And we talk about the importance of really specific recognition.

To cap it off we dive into the best advice Derek’s ever received as a manager and some hard lessons learned.

Manager resources:

Today we’re diving into the complicated — yet oh so important — topic of food and nutrition. I’ve always loved cooking and eating healthy food, but this year in particular, I’ve begun to really tune into the effects my food intake on how I feel, how I show up at the gym, how I show up at work, and how I show up in life. It’s led me down a rabbit hole of researching about nutrition and our food systems. But it’s felt like the ultimate “don’t tell me what to do” in that there are SO many opinions out there and sometimes they are so conflicting. In this episode, I’m less interested in diving into what you SHOULD eat and more discussing how we navigate and approach our health in a holistic way without getting overwhelmed with all the messages we get daily.

To speak with me on this topic, we have Tracey Grant, a registered dietitian nutritionist and certified wellness health coach who shifted away from the conventional approach to nutrition to use food as medicine to support her own healing and the health of her clients. She has overcome SIBO and Hashimoto’s and now works with clients virtually to help them optimize their health and wellness using diet and lifestyle.

We dive into Tracey’s evolution from teaching conventional nutrition to arriving at a more holistic approach and the big lightbulb moments with her clients and herself that led her there. We talk about how it’s much more than food that makes us healthy. We dig into the biggest nutrition myths out there — like fat is bad, calories in equal calories out, the amount of protein you really need, and share that more restriction is NOT better. To wrap it all up, we talk about how to navigate all the fad diets out there and how to bring mindfulness back to how we approach our food.

Today we’re talking to Josh Hunter, Seattle strength coach and podcast host of Treat Yo Health. We go back to the beginning and talk about Josh’s journey from management to fitness 10 years ago. We also chat about what he learned about himself through quitting the business and returning. We talk about changing our mindset on fitness to think about how we’re setting ourselves up for the future vs. exercising for short term gains. You’ll hear all about Josh’s new podcast - Treat Yo Self - and dive into the topic of his first episode on longevity and fitness. We dig into the difference between aging and decaying and how to promote physical health for the long term. We also dig into what Josh has learned through his podcast books and share insights on finance and relationships.

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Today we have a very special episode with Mona Lee Locke. She has held many different titles throughout her life and career including journalist at King5, former First Lady of Washington State, Executive Director of Susan Komen Foundation and most recently, the Chief Communications Offer at Swedish hospital.

Today’s topic centers around identify. We talk about Mona’s identity as a child of Chinese immigrants. Her identity as the governors wife and her identity post divorce as she struggled to define who SHE really was — not how she was defined against others.

We also dig in the role of family and duty. We talk about how you might be able to have it all — but definitely not all at once. We talk about how women need to lift each other up. And we talk about how to truly define who you are on your own terms.