Be It Till You See It

Are your eating habits helping or hurting your lifestyle? In this episode, Lesley Logan sits down with Lisa Salisbury, a health and weight loss coach, to discuss how we can redefine our relationship with food. Lisa shares insights into disordered eating, the history of the "clean plate club," and how to listen to your body's hunger signals without obsessing over diets. Tune in for practical, mindset-shifting strategies to enjoy food while making choices that truly serve you.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

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In this episode you will learn about:

• Lisa’s own journey from chronic dieting to mindful eating.
• Dieting for weight loss versus having a healthy relationship with food.
• How food connects people and why eating should be about enjoyment.
• The surprising history behind the "clean plate club" and its lasting effects.
• The signs of disordered eating and how to shift towards intuitive eating.
• How to identify hunger cues and stop eating before feeling overfull.
• The two-bite challenge: recognizing fullness without food guilt.

Episode References/Links:

• Lisa Salisbury Website - https://wellwithlisa.com
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/well_with_lisa
• Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/wellwithlisa
• Lesley on Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well Podcast - https://beitpod.com/ep104

Guest Bio:

Lisa Salisbury is a former chronic dieter on a mission to help women stop obsessing about everything they eat and feel confident in their ability to lose weight without a diet app. She teaches them to stop counting and calculating all their food and check in with their body. Most of all, she helps women make their lives amazing so food doesn't have the job of comforter, compensator and celebrator. She hosts the top 100 podcast Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well. She is a certified Health, Life and Weight Loss Coach, with a BS in Health and Human Performance.

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Episode Transcript:

Lisa Salisbury 0:00  

Food has always brought people together, because you cook in big batches, and it's just kind of the way humans evolved to eat together. And so there is connection with food. And if we try to pretend that there isn't, I think it's just a losing battle.

Lesley Logan 0:16  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started. 

Lesley Logan 0:59  

All right, loves, I'm gonna tell you right now that I am pleasantly surprised, amazed, like, excited for this episode that you're about to listen to. I'm gonna let you in a little secret. I do my very best not to have, like, a weight loss as a topic for being it till you see it, because there's just a lot around that, and it's complicated. And also, I don't want anyone out there thinking that weight loss or their weight is actually the thing that's keeping them from being it till they see it. But there are things around our health and wellness and how we eat that can be. And so today's episode, I really hope that you do listen to it and you're not turned off by if their weight loss was in the title, or anything like that, that you actually take a listen because, especially if you are around my age or a little bit older, our relationship with food and how food was used can be complicated, even if we think we have a great one. And today's guest is Lisa Salisbury, and she's an incredible podcast host. I was able to be on her podcast, and the thing that I really love the most about this is it's not about weight loss at all. She actually, multiple times encourage people to eat more, and I think her story will resonate with a lot of you as well. What this is is about how we can and it's not also about like thinking food is just this boring cardboard. It's about how we choose to eat and how we eat, and how we can really make our lives more full in a good way, and not through, like over full through food. So I'm just gonna stop talking, because her words are so beautiful, and she's so thoughtful, and she's incredibly well researched in what she is doing, and I got a whole history lesson in here, so I'm just gonna say freaking great, super awesome, super informative. And I hope this gives you the permission that you might need when it comes to, hey, sit down with your meals, or if you sit down with your meals, or if you needed to be reminded to eat more, or if you just needed permission, like my husband gave me, to just leave some food on the plate. So here is Lisa Salisbury. 

Lesley Logan 2:59  

All right, Be It babe, I'm so excited to have this conversation. It's one we haven't had on the podcast before, and I think it's a really important one as a child from the 80s who was told to clean her plate because there's people starving in other places. It's interesting how that can affect how you how your whole life ends up being. And so I have Lisa Salisbury here. She is the host of Eat Well, Think Well, Be Well. And, nope, it's Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well. Let's get it right, Lesley. Anyways, we'll make sure that link is in the notes so it's just easy for you to find her amazing podcast. I was a guest on it, and I'm and so you can always start off with that episode. Lisa, thank you so much for being here. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at? 

Lisa Salisbury 3:39  

Yeah, great. Thanks for having me, Lesley. I, like you said, my name is Lisa Salisbury. I'm a health coach and weight loss coach and podcaster. I was a chronic dieter, as many, many of you, and like you said, people from the 80s. So, started dieting in high school, started having babies, then in my 20s, and so my weight was just on an absolute roller coaster. And it's really quite a long story, as it is, for a lot of people, of how they get into the health and fitness space, health world, any kind of that sort of influence, and it's just usually through your own experiences, which was the same for me. So I just realized, hey, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to diet anymore. And I got my health coaching certification. And even through that, I thought I wasn't dieting. I thought that my last ditch effort to quote-unquote lose all of that baby weight was macro counting. And so I thought I wasn't dieting because I thought, oh, this is okay, because I can eat whatever I want as long as it fits your macros. That's like their tagline, right?

Lesley Logan 4:41  

It's kind of the same thing with Weight Watchers. It's kind of like you can eat whatever you want as long as it's in your points. So it's kind of like that, yeah.

Lisa Salisbury 4:46  

Right. Yeah, totally. And so my acute study partner that I had during that health coaching course, she gently, so gently, during the eating disorder, we said, oh, is there anything that you're noticing about yourself here? When we were talking about orthorexia, and she was really sweet, and really just opened my eyes to the fact that I was so anxious about meeting my macros that it was really affecting the way I showed up in the world. And so the first time that I sat down and ate lunch without weighing my portions was kind of like mind blowing for me to be like, oh, I'll just let my body decide when I've had enough. There was actually a big increase in anxiety. But then over time, of course, as I let that go, I saw, you know, just a change in my health as far as mental health around food. And then I went on to start coaching, and realized that most of my clients needed help around not so much about what to eat, you know, give them a food plan, but why they were eating when they didn't really want to be eating. Why they were eating when they were bored, frustrated, sad, confused. Why they were eating when they weren't hungry. And so that's when I went and got my life coaching certification, and I really helped them figure out that emotional eating piece which can or cannot have anything to do with weight loss. I have several clients come to me that are just like, I just want to be healthier around my relationship with food. And so whether they lose weight or not is neither here nor there, because they just want to feel like they're the ones making the decisions, and not the food making the decisions for them. 

Lesley Logan 4:46  

I love that you shared that last part about it's not necessarily about the weight loss for most people, it's like the relationship with food. My grandmother was a chronic dieter. Like, up 100 pounds down 100 pounds up, 100 pounds down. She was so pissed when they took Fin-Phen away from her. Like, she was like, this is the thing that worked. And I'm like, so it's killing people. They and they know it. 

Lisa Salisbury 6:29  

Small detail.

Lesley Logan 6:47  

Yeah. And so, like, I grew up around that, that is what the word diet actually means. When it's, what diet actually means, it's like, how you eat, not just like that you're on a diet, we're, every any which way you eat is a diet, guys, it's just that it's like some but we are trained that that word means, you're on a diet, you're trying to lose weight. And so then, there's people who are like, well, I just want to love the body that I'm in, and you can but if food is dictating how you are doing your life, and when you do things in your life, that can be a problem in allowing you to live the best life that you want to live. I want to just go back to something really quickly, and then I have, okay, orthorexia for the people who don't know what that word is, can you share what that is? 

Lisa Salisbury 7:29  

Yeah, that's kind of the obsession with eating healthy. So it's a fairly new eating disorder. In fact, I have to say, I'm not even sure if it's in the DSM yet, but it is being recognized as a real issue. So a lot of times, this is what we call just disordered eating. When you look at someone's nutrition, when they're like, here's what I ate today, and it's clearly, you know, from a list of 10 foods that are approved in their brains. That's orthorexia, having a lot of anxiety around, for example, I called a restaurant, I remember this particular time, they were a small restaurant, so they didn't have their nutritional information available to me, wasn't like a big chain, you know? And they're like, oh, if you email us, we can send it to you. And they didn't, and I called them several times to get it. That's orthorexia, right, to be so anxious that I need to put my macros in and hit it plus or minus five every single day. And some people think that's a great game. Some people are like, that's my favorite game with Tetris to play. Great. That's fine. You can absolutely count off macros and not have orthorexia, totally. That didn't work for me. My brain, I was like, I have to do this. And if I didn't, what was weird is I went to a lot of times, I would be like, well, I can't. And so now it's a cheat day. Now it's a eat whatever I want sort of day which is also disordered. 

Lesley Logan 8:56  

Yeah, I feel like there's more people with disordered eating than maybe they recognize. You mentioned a few signs of orthorexia, and some of those equal disordered eating. Is there any other signs of disordered eating? And mostly because what I'm hoping for today is I've always tried to make sure that everyone feels super loved on this show, that every listener knows even if I'm a Pilates instructor, I'm not here to make anyone change their body. I'm here about moving people, because I know movement heals and it's mental health and it's all this stuff, but I also know that there are things that we do out of habits and especially around food, that can be affecting us, having an amazing mental health life, or having fun in our life, or actually focusing on other things in our life. So if you can talk about like, some of the signs of disordered eating that people might not necessarily recognize.

Lisa Salisbury 9:42  

I think having just a really small list of foods that you are able to consume. So if you're like, I only eat chicken and these two kinds of fish or so if your list is really small, if you're excluding foods that are considered whole foods. So if you're excluding things, especially entire groups of food, like all carbohydrates, or if you're like a potato, which is grown in the ground, is somehow bad for you, obviously barring allergy or, you know, insensitivity, that kind of thing. But if you've excluded several whole foods, that would be concerning. If you're excluding ultra-processed foods, that's great. Let's do that. 

Lesley Logan 9:58  

You're fine, everyone. 

Lisa Salisbury 10:33  

Yeah. But if we're like, hey, we're going to exclude all kinds of different whole foods, then that would be kind of a hallmark if you are eating on the clock. So if you are like, I cannot, should not, not supposed to those types of words, eat before my alarm goes off at 1 pm there's a difference between intermittent fasting and being starving and gritting your teeth until 1 pm until 2 pm, until that moment, right? So you have to really look and check in with yourself is, am I doing this because I really, actually feel amazing, or am I doing this because if I don't, anxiety will skyrocket, because if I don't, I will have somehow lost control. Or if I, does that make sense?

Lesley Logan 11:19  

It totally makes sense. Also, it makes sense because I've been listening to Mindy Pelz on her fast like a girl thing, which is, yeah. And I would listen to her thing in the way she describes how you should feel on the fast. And then she's also very careful to qualify, like, if you have somewhat disordered eating, you should be doing this as a professional, and not on your own. And what's interesting is, as I was doing the fast like a girl thing, I was very consciously aware, like, okay, how am I going to do this? So I don't have control issues around it, because having grown up with the history of my grandma being on a diet, off the diet, so then, of course, I was, I'm the girl who was pulling out the magazine articles on all the exercises and putting them in a binder to do all of them, and then totally eliminating whole food groups most of high school and college. So I'm just really aware that it's easy for me to go, oh, this is like, something like, it's healthy to do it, so I'm gonna do it like this, and then get controlled about it. So, like, okay, I'm just gonna interestingly pretend to do it and see how I feel. And she had these tools. If you do get hungry, but you're not famished and you just need, you can do a cup of coffee. And so I was trying it out, and I could tell the difference between being like, I am really, actually hungry right now and I need to eat something, versus I'm actually just bored right now because I normally eat at eight. 

Lisa Salisbury 11:19  

Right, right, yeah. 

Lesley Logan 11:29  

Which is a really fascinating thing, because it's like, okay, well, I could do other I could do other things, then, why am I choosing to eat at eight o'clock, versus like, so it's just a really interesting thing, because you can't, I can see how someone could over control the healthy intermittent fasting process and make it an unhealthy thing for them. So thank you for sharing that. I want to just like, pick your brain a little bit, because you have so much information around this. You know, so many people are raised where food is a reward for, like, getting good grades or you're feeling bad. So then there's food, and then we have to eat. Can we talk a little bit about relationship with food? And like, are we supposed to just be agnostic? How do we what are we supposed to feel with food? Because I think it's really interesting, right? It's like a fun thing. Like, I want to get some ice cream right now. Like, how are we supposed to think about food in our lives? 

Lisa Salisbury 13:21  

It's such an interesting topic, because you'll find you know coaches who have trained at the same exact schools that I have will give you wildly different answers. Some people are like, food is fuel. That is it. You only eat it for fuel. And I have never, I tried that for a little while, and I never could get on board. I never could get on board with food as fuel, because the truth is, food is connection, and it always has been. Even in hunter-gatherer days, they ate together, right? I mean, I don't know, maybe the documentaries are incorrect. I wasn't there, but I think most tribal groups still ate together. Food has always brought people together, because you cook in big batches, and it's just kind of the way humans evolved to eat together. And so there is connection with food. And if we try to pretend that there isn't, I think it's just a losing battle. And so I have decided every time I eat I want it to be delicious, and when I think about food being fuel, that sounds like cardboard to me, right? Like, just hook me up to an IV, there's like. 

Lesley Logan 14:28  

No one's ever been excited to go get filled. I mean, like, no one is excited to fill up their gas tank, right? If you think about it, how many of us are waiting until, like, I've got one mile left, I better go, You know what I mean? So it's not exciting, and not the food has to be exciting. But I do love that you brought up connection because I think so many of us lack that in our daily lives. So much stuff is like, I mean, we're here on Zoom, right? So much stuff is digital and virtual, and so there's not that space. But I also think how much we've lost the connection around the eating as well. People eat alone at work, they eat at their desk, you know what I mean, or they're at home, working remote. They're by themselves. And so that would be an interesting maybe goal. It's like, how many meals can you actually have sitting down with someone that you love or care about or want to spend time with?

Lisa Salisbury 15:12  

It's actually a huge point that I make with my clients, because when we're talking about waiting until we're hungry to eat, because that's the nicest time to eat, by the way, is when you're hungry, when you're just mildly hungry, that's the nicest time to start eating. And so we talk about, okay, what does your lifestyle look like? What time do you eat with a family? Do you eat with a spouse? And what time is that? And we adjust the rest of their day and the rest of their eating if need be around that piece, because the relationships come first. And so I think that's kind of another thing about food, is that we want to focus on, I actually want to have dinner with my family regardless of what we're eating. The important piece is that we, and I still insist on this, because I'm neurotic. We set the table placements and everything. And like my kids know how, every one of them knows how to set a proper table, like where the fork goes and the cup and everything, because we sit and have dinner as a family. And so because that is important to me, it's far more important than what we're eating. And so I want food to be enjoyable, but it's not just about the food and when you're eating, and it's only about the food, and it's only about how good the food tastes. That's when you overeat, that's when you take in too much, that's when you feel yuck afterwards. That's when you're like, because the truth is, it doesn't matter if you're trying to lose weight or if you're not trying to lose weight, even if you're trying to gain weight, like, if you're trying to gain muscle or whatever, overeating actually feels terrible. We pretend that it doesn't. We pretend that it's so fun. We pretend like, oh, this was like, amazing, and, oh, I'm stuffed. And we pretend to have a happy face. But inside, let's think about how your body feels. It's not good. 

Lesley Logan 16:15  

It's not good. You don't even feel great the next morning, sometimes. Everyone loves Thanksgiving. I have to be so honest, I'm so grateful that my family is like, there's only four of us. It's not worth buying anything. Let's go to a restaurant. We have no leftovers. I love that, because there's a whole pressure around some of those holiday meals, like overeat. But it's true, and maybe we get this a good time to ask you, I don't actually people know when full is. Do you know what I mean? Like, I was listening to something about how, in Japan, they teach kids from the age of five how to eat until they're 80% full, how to know what that feels like. They, also, they take a bite of one thing, and they take a bite of a different thing and take a bite of a different thing, and so they're putting their fork down. They're enjoying the bite. They're enjoying the food. I don't eat, like that, I'm gonna eat all the salad, and then I'm gonna eat all the meat. I think that it has taken me, as a 41-year-old, oh, I'm full now, and to, like, stop eating no matter how delicious it is. And I think that's a really difficult thing. Like, where does that come from? Are we just so lacking and delicious food that we just keep going? Or, like, is it a learned behavior that we have?

Lisa Salisbury 17:59  

I definitely think it's learned behavior because if you watch a toddler eat, first of all, they're usually far too busy playing to eat. And then if you're like, Hey, come on, come on, you could drill them to the table when they're done, they're done, you cannot get that last bite of macaroni and cheese in them if they do not want to eat it. That's just it. When you're two, you actually are really good at hunger and fullness cues. I mean, really, babies, they don't stop nursing because the milk is out. They, the milk runs out because they've stopped nursing and trained, they train the mother, right? You, if you have been a nursing mother, or been associated or seen your sister, or whatever, their milk supply adjusts not immediately. I mean, I could have nursed triplets when I first had a baby, but eventually, it adjusts based on the child. And so we teach our children that you should eat past full a couple of ways. Number one, we offer them food and snacks to cure boredom and as rewards and to fix their owies, right? So we teach them that food is the answer to a lot of their emotional problems. I did this, too. I have four kids. I did it. I, no judgment, no shame. This is just what you do as a parent, because it works. It's fine, it's normal. 

Lesley Logan 18:00  

Yeah, I have no judgment, because I have seen a crying kid sometimes, like on an airplane, like, how do we stop? Yeah.

Lisa Salisbury 19:27  

Yeah. Like, please give that kid some goldfish. So I think that's the first thing that we do as parents. And then the other thing that we do to keep our kids from paying attention and letting them go by their own physical fullness cues is the clean your plate. You've got to clean your plate. You have to eat this if you want dessert. No more potatoes, if you don't eat the broccoli and that sort of thing. And so it really kind of messes with because they're like, well, I want the ice cream. And so they force down whatever is on their plate. And then, put ice cream on top of that. And so they're like, well, the right thing is to feel this way, because this is how it feels when I get to eat what I want to eat, the ice cream. And so the, you know, cleaning your plate is, well, it's a tricky topic. Do you want me to get into that as well? 

Lesley Logan 20:17  

I want because here's why, and this is for anyone listening, I think if you raised your kids this way, you shouldn't shame yourself about it, but I think it's good information, because it does, I swear it's ugly how when you're an adult, my husband, when we were first dating, I was like, I'm so full, and I would like, take another bite. And he's like, what are you doing? And I was like, well, I don't wanna waste the food. And he goes, you can just put it in a Tupperware. And I just started laughing. I was like, oh my God, I hear my parents, and my mom listens to this, so please don't get mad, but like, children are starving in Africa. You better eat your food. The young me didn't understand that the food on my plate is not going to any starving child. So like, it doesn't actually it's not being wasted at all. And so as an adult, I had to learn that because I was getting sick every night trying to finish the plate, and it really did affect my moods at night, my sleep at night. And those are the things, you guys, that if your sleep is affected, if your digestion system is not going well, that affects you from reaching the goals you have, because it becomes, your life starts to revolve around how you're feeling out of that one heavy or two heavy meals. And again, this is not a weight loss thing. This is a just a getting you, getting us a relationship around food that can allow us to live the life we want to live. So, I love to get into details of it. 

Lisa Salisbury 21:26  

Yeah. The thing about your mom saying that, is that, isn't it crazy how many people just nodded their heads, and I just already know this, because we all use the same phrase. Why? This is what I was like. Why do we all use this phrase? Where did this come from? So I started to just like Google a little bit, and right at the very top of Google, you can Google it yourself. The Clean Plate Club was an actual club in World War One. It was a government program and was started up again in World War Two, and the reason for this, so Clean Plate Clubs were established in elementary schools. So your grandmother was likely exposed to that phrase as a government program as an elementary school student, because that's back when her eyes are like, getting so big.

Lesley Logan 22:17  

This is like that. I'm sure, I'm sure there's a reason that had to do with the war, but keep going. 

Lisa Salisbury 22:22  

Yes, so okay, that's when, like, lunch ladies were actual, like making lunch back there, right? In actual kitchens. They weren't just serving up packaged foods like we get today. So they're making actual lunch. They're dishing up actual food. It's not that kids today don't get actual food, but I just mean, like dishing up a portion of meatloaf, right? And the idea was, the child would say, this is how much I want. And then when they would finish their plate and be part of the Clean Plate Club that indicated, I took the right amount for me. And there were rations. We were trying to conserve food, because for them, there were starving children in Europe. There was war-torn countries that we were trying to help, and we were shipping food to Europe. So the less that we could waste here really did help the European nations at that time, but as time went on, we weren't sending food to those nations, and we have more abundance in this country. And we do have the ability to send food in the 80s to Africa or to the other, you know, China, I got that one a lot, too, and still, we can waste a few bites of our food without that affecting it, because we're not on rations anymore. There were true rations in World War Two. Like, my grandma told me, they came around and asked, how much do you have of this and that and the other? And it's a story that sticks in my head, because she said, when they came around and they asked me how much sugar I had, I said I didn't have any, because I took all the sugar on my shelf, and I made sugar syrup, and I canned it so that I would have sugar syrup to can my peaches when it was time. And then I got my full ration of sugar so I could also make a jam. Poor woman, she was trying to, like, conserve food and do all her canning, and try and do that with, on sugar rations. But that's why I know they came around and asked, because. So there really were rations at that time. 

Lesley Logan 24:21  

So they were trying to keep, make sure that you're not, like, saying, I need a cup, and you only used a quarter. And it's like, well, we're in a, you don't need another because you're not using your.

Lisa Salisbury 24:21  

Right. 

Lesley Logan 24:29  

So this is very fascinating. This is interesting because they were actually like, kind of teaching people, I want this much meatloaf, and then I ate that much meatloaf. So I didn't waste anything, but I didn't ask for more than I needed, which is very different than how it you know, just like everything, it's like the game of telephone. How it translated to, which is, we aren't on rations anymore, but you should still clean your plate, because I always clean my plate, and we are not teaching kids how to pick a portion that they can then eat. 

Lisa Salisbury 25:00  

Well, portions, too, are such a mess, which I want to get into in a second, but I will say we do a lot of these things. This is one of my favorite jokes. I'm pretty sure I read it in the Reader's Digest when I was a kid. They're having a big family dinner, and the granddaughter is the one who's hosting. She's an adult, and she had cut off the edges of the ham, and her mom said, Why'd you cut off the edges of the ham? And she goes, I don't know, because you always did it. And the mom goes, well, I did it because my mom did it. And Grandma was, like, I only did it because it didn't fit in the pan, right? Like, we need to stop doing things because the ham didn't fit in the pan for our grandmothers, right? The problem is, in the 80s, a bagel was about three inches across. And in 2016 there was a big study done, and they called this portion distortion. So, in 2016, bagels averaged six inches across. We still consider that a portion. A bagel is a portion, right? So when you're like, well, we've got to teach kids what portions are. They don't even know what portions are appropriate for their bodies, because they go to a fast food restaurant and they're like, here is a portion of fries. But if you look at the nutrition label for what they are serving you as a portion of fries, it might be considered two or even three servings, right? So a serving size is much different than what we consider a portion. If you ever looked at the serving size of cold cereal, no, no teenage boy eats a serving size for cereal. 

Lesley Logan 26:26  

And here's why, here's what I noticed, guys, because in my 20s, trying to lose the Freshman 25 that I gained. I was like, I was doing the portion control situation. And I was like, let's say, a three-fourths of a cup. That was like, that's mostly what it is for cereal. And I'm like, how do you even measure that? You have a cup, a half a cup, a quarter. I do two measuring cups, and then I get this little itty-bitty, like, you couldn't fill up on that if you wanted to. 

Lisa Salisbury 26:52  

No, no. So we have all this portion distortion. And so we go to restaurants, and they're like, here's a portion. They never once asked how hungry I was. And if my husband and I ordered the same thing, our plates look exactly the same, even though he's six-five and, you know, 215, I am not that size. I do not need the same size portion, serving size that he does. And also, if I haven't eaten all day and he just ate lunch, maybe I am going to eat more than him. So there's just so many factors about what you're going to eat at that meal, and the restaurant never asks you. They just bring out the portion, right? So we have to learn to, like your husband said, put it in a Tupperware, put it in a to-go box. Or if it's a salad and it's dressed, or it's salmon, or it's not going to keep we have to be okay with leaving it behind. And it wasn't our job, wasn't our fault. If you asked for a half portion, would the restaurant even do it? I don't know. Maybe. You're still going to pay the same. It's not about the money you're paying for the experience, which goes back to food being as a positive part of relationship and connection. My husband and I went out to dinner last Friday for a date night. It didn't matter that we ate two different things. It didn't matter that I didn't finish mine and brought some home and he didn't finish his, but he decided not to bring it home. That's not what we were paying for. We were paying to not do the dishes. I was paying to not have the mental work of thinking of what to make and then making it and then cleaning it up. I'm the primary cook and cleaner in our house. Like it's fine, that's, he does other things. I'm not mad about it, but that's mental load. You're paying for all of that when you go out, you're not paying for three or four or 10 ounces of French fries? 

Lesley Logan 28:45  

Yeah, I am obsessed with this conversation, because I love the permission that you're giving every single person here. And this is like, it's an interesting way. It's just such an interesting way to think about all the different things that we do, and why do we do it. And I feel like that's like, kind of your way that you work with your clients. It's like, it's not about the diet and it's not about the weight loss, it's about understanding the choices that you're making and why you're making them, so that they're your choices and you're not being controlled by your choices. Am I correct? 

Lisa Salisbury 29:14  

Totally. Yeah. 

Lesley Logan 29:14  

Yeah. I guess the next question I have is, and maybe this is something you just work with people on is, how do we understand, in a sense it's going to sound so stupid, but only because I feel like someone's listening like, going, okay, that's me. What is the before feeling full feel like? Do you know what I mean? Because if we know that it takes forever, many minutes, to get from my mouth to my stomach, what are those signs? Because my friends used to make fun of me, because in college, I would pull out my napkin and put the death blanket on the meal, because I was trying to teach myself I'm getting full, and so I'm going to put the death blanket on. Maybe people are wondering what those signs are, what's their body telling them so that they can start to think about, do I need this other bite? Or can I take this home? Or can I just leave it here? 

Lisa Salisbury 29:54  

Yeah, totally. So I teach this as what I call a hunger scale. If you were to Google that you'll see lots of different versions of them. Most go from one to 10. I use a hunger scale that goes from negative 10 through zero to positive 10. And the reason is because negative 10 is very, very hungry and positive 10 is very, very full. They are equal distant from zero, which is neutral, because they're equally uncomfortable, right? Like I said before, positive 10, being super full seems like it's fun. It seems like it's fun to be like, roll me out of this restaurant. But it's uncomfortable when we're focusing just on how we feel in our bodies and not how we're beating ourselves up in our brains about it. That's a whole nother thing. But when we just focus on our bodies, they're equally uncomfortable. And then as we get closer to that neutral, that zero, where we're neither full nor hungry, we don't feel food in the stomach. We're not feeling like pressure, but we're also not hungry at all. That's zero. We want to spend most of the time at that point, right? So you want to wait until you're at a, what I call negative three to eat. So this is true signs of physical hunger. We're like, oh, feeling really light. Very first startings of your stomach, like turning a little bit, oh, I'm empty here. The reason this is the nicest time to start eating is because if you wait and get really hungry, when you wait and you're like, at a negative seven or eight, and you're cramped up. You put food in that cramped up stomach, and it cramps worse. And then it's, do you know what I'm talking about? 

Lesley Logan 31:25  

I do know, sorry about when you're like, yes, and also, then you're more uncomfortable, because you're almost like, you're eating faster, I don't know, like, it's like, oh my God, I just need to get this in me because I'm so famished. And then you, you don't even really, you don't even feel zero happen. You just get past it real quick. And then you're uncomfortable the other way. That's how, that's my experience.

Lisa Salisbury 31:45  

Totally. And so if we can catch it at just a negative three, and then we want to eat until we're at a positive three. So this is really not technical. I call this a meal. The reason I make a joke of that is because in every diet community out there, they're like, here's what to do if you're hungry, and they suggest this 100 calorie snack, 100 calorie snack packs. I mean, you get on Pinterest and you're like, snacks for weight loss. It's like, why? Why do we need a snack? If you're hungry, then we want to sit down and eat a meal. If you, if you get to the end of the day and you're like, gosh, I just was hungry all day. Look back. Did you just snack all day or did you ever wait for hunger, sit down, get out a place mat, get out a napkin, actually eat a meal until you are comfortable, and then get up and move on with your day. I guarantee, the solution for hunger and for being hungry all day is to eat a meal. Okay.

Lesley Logan 32:46  

Yeah, I love, I love this. I also love, I love it's like, like, not pomp and circumstance, but I really love that you're like, put a placement down, sit down, have a meal. My husband and I have lunch at not always together, but we eat our lunch at the dining room table in our house. We work from home, and we don't eat it at our desks. We eat it as much as possible at the table, with like the placemat and with the things, because it is, it's an event, and it's a pause, and it's a time to focus on that. And the next goal would be to put the phone down. That'd be great. But you know, like we're getting there, we're getting there, and I think that's an important thing. But I love that you're bringing up those, those snacks, because also, you guys, just eating a meal, or eating like half a sandwich, like making half the sandwich, you are gonna give your body exactly what it needs. It's not a distraction. Again, we're being it till we see it. If we're feeling hungry all day long, that is taking up space in your brain from other things.

Lisa Salisbury 33:42  

Totally. Yeah. So when you get to that positive three, here's some of the ways you're going to know it. Number one, you're going to feel like kind of a there's called a sigh. You're going to feel your body take a breath. Watch for that. That's often the time where things are shifting around. You're getting too satisfied. When you're at a positive three. You're not using the words full, stuffed. You're not feeling pressure, a lot of discomfort. You don't have to unbutton your pants. You're not wishing for stretchy pants. Okay, it's before that. So if you get to that point, you're like, oh, okay, this is, this is not a positive three. I'll try again tomorrow. It's no big deal. Experiment with this. When I assign this to my clients, when I give them the hunger scale, and I'm like, I want to see hunger scale numbers on your food journal, where they just like, write it down, you know, I was at a negative two and positive five or whatever, if they come back to me and every single meal says negative three, positive three. I'm like, I'm sorry you did not do the assignment, because the assignment is to experiment with it, which means you're going to take two bites less. You're going to leave two bites on your plate and see how that feels, and then in an hour, if you're like, yeah, actually, I really am still hungry. That wasn't quite enough. Fine. Eat more. But you can't know what your positive three is if you've been over-eating consistently, you can't really know what it is until you gradually get down to it. Yeah, the first couple days, you might overshoot, and then you might undershoot, and that's okay, because we live in a world where there is food on every corner. Right. There's no more scarcity. We don't live in caves and tribes anymore, but our brains, unfortunately, have not caught up with that and so we have to teach them that food's always available. 

Lesley Logan 35:30  

I love your permission to experiment and be curious, because I do think it is going to require, it's part of just being curious in our bodies, and that's something I'm like, really big, and that's why I love my Pilates because it's a way for me to be curious in my body. This is about being curious, not being perfect. This is about kind of understanding, and especially if you've never figured out what portions of food are going to put you in that positive three when you come at a negative three, versus what portions of food are you going to need if you're coming to negative five, these are good information to know, because then when you go out and you pick the meal, you can actually make that decision for yourself, and you can enjoy the company you're with, as opposed to being so focused on how many bites you're having or the macros like, my God, I could never. I couldn't. My friend is a macro coach, and I try, I literally try. I lasted one day, and I'm spending more time thinking about my food than I am anything else. And no offense to people who love their macros. Again, if it's working for you, that's great. But I think that what I truly love about what you're saying here and what your mission is is really to help people go back to food being part of the connection that they're trying to make in this world, and also really understanding what their needs are and meeting their body's needs.

Lisa Salisbury 36:38  

Yeah, totally. And when we appreciate food for what it is and for the relationships that we're forming when we eat together, we just don't require the need of food to be our comforter, compensator, celebrator, all the things that we use food for, we can drop all of that and still enjoy food at mealtime. Still be like this food is delicious, and still, sometimes, you know, we can eat the cookie or the breads or whatever you've previously said is off limits when we are eating these things in the right portions for our body. So most of the time, you feel gross when you eat those chocolate chip cookies, not because you had one, because you had four or five.

Lesley Logan 37:24  

Yeah, on a full stomach, because you finished your plate. 

Lisa Salisbury 37:27  

Yeah, yeah. Right? So we're like, oh yeah, sweets, they make me feel sick. Do they? Or did you just not leave room in your hunger scale for them? Like, if you stop, if you're like, oh hey, it's a dessert night, because, for whatever reason, you know, you made dessert or, I mean, I had fresh plums coming out my ears. We have this tree that reaches across our yard, and I swear, we get more plums than the neighbor does that actually grows the tree. And so, you know, I make a plum, a plum cobbler, so it's a dessert night. I keep that in mind when I'm eating dinner, because I'm like, I want to enjoy the plum cobbler, and so I include it as part of my hunger scale with that whole meal. 

Lesley Logan 38:07  

Lisa, thank you for opening our eyes up, because there's a lot that we have all learned here today. It's been permission-giving and also fun and a way to be curious. And I love your hunger scale. So you've given us so much, we'll take a brief break and then find out how people can find you, follow you and work with you. 

Lesley Logan 38:24  

All right, Lisa, where do you hang out? Where can people connect with you more?

Lisa Salisbury 38:27  

So mostly, I'm on Instagram that's Well_With_Lisa, well with Lisa with those spaces in there and a lot of Instagram links you back to my podcast. I share a lot of the podcast content on Instagram, and that's Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well on any of your favorite podcast platforms. 

Lesley Logan 38:46  

Awesome. Okay, you've given us a lot. Actually, you've given us some amazing stuff. I know my overachiever perfectionists are already writing down the hunger scale, but bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it, what are some of those that you have for us? 

Lisa Salisbury 39:01  

Okay, so I'm just all about eating the amount that's right for your body, paying no attention to food scales, paying no attention, like, to your the scale in your kitchen. So I think you can do this by just experimenting with bites. Leave two bites behind at every meal this week, and experiment with being the person who is allowed to waste food, because that's very tricky sometimes, and so one or two bites is not going to make a difference much on your hunger, but it's kind of like being it till you see it, meaning you're like, not quite using the hunger scale, but you're experimenting with it. And so that's one of my favorite challenges for my clients, is the two bite challenge. We leave two bites at dinner, every meal if you want, primarily just dinner and see how you feel, looking at that food on your plate, and then also checking in with your hunger. Maybe next week you're going to dish up two bites less. I don't know. Maybe you actually needed more food, so next week you're going to dish up two bites more. But just experiment with it and allow yourself to leave food behind and just really check in and see how that feels. 

Lesley Logan 40:16  

I love this. I really do. I think the easy, wonderful challenge that's not going to be easy for some people, but it's going to be possible. I should say, that's going to be possible for people, it's not enough to go buy out, to go buy anything. It's something that you're already doing. And I also think how cool that once you start to figure out what you need, and each day may be different, like you might need more, might need less. It's not like you're wasting food forever. You're actually going to start to learn what you need, and so you're giving people so much permission and power and putting it back in their hands. So thank you so much, Lisa, for being here. Thank you for all of your tips. I think this is going to be really helpful. Also, I think, for parents who have kids, what a wonderful way to help them understand, you know, their own figuring out, like, how hungry are you? I had a girlfriend whose kids would come and go, hey, I'm hungry. Can I have a snack? And she's like, okay, dinner is going to be in two hours. So whatever snack you choose, make sure it's going to sustain you for two hours. Shouldn't say ruin dinner. She always would say, like, let's make sure it's going to sustain you for two hours, so we're not going to need another snack before then. And she really helped them learn, like, which choice should I have? Should I have the grapes or should I have the beef jerky? She helped them figure that out. So I think that this is really fun information that people can use in their own lives first and then also with the people around them. So thank you, Lisa. 

Lesley Logan 41:26  

You guys, how are you going to use these tips in your life? Make sure you let Lisa know. Let the Be It Pod know. Share this with a friend who needs to have, you know that friend who, like, is annoying to go to restaurants with, that one that will only go to one restaurant because that's one that she can eat at. You can share this with her, and she won't find out till right now why you did that. So, all right, loves, until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Lesley Logan 41:50  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 42:31  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 42:37  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 42:42  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 42:48  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 42:52  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

In this Fuck Yeah Friday episode, Lesley Logan highlights an inspiring story of a young girl who turned her autism diagnosis into a celebration, reminding us all to embrace what makes us unique. She also shares incredible wins from the community, from finalizing a studio purchase to unexpected career opportunities that reinforced confidence. Tune in for a powerful reminder that outside validation can reinforce inner growth, and that celebrating your wins—big or small—fuels the path forward.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• A young girl’s inspiring autism celebration and why embracing differences matters.
• The power of celebrating personal milestones, from final payments to career breakthroughs.
• How small steps create big shifts in confidence and opportunity.
• Lesley’s journey to sustained energy—and the habits that made a difference.
• Why external validation can confirm the work we’re already doing.

Episode References/Links:

• Life on the Spectrum Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DEGIy48ThBN

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

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Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
• Lesley Logan website
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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

It's Fuck Yeah Friday. 

Lesley Logan 0:01  

Fuck yeah. 

Lesley Logan 0:05  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 0:47  

Hello, Be It babe. How are we doing? Happy March 21st 2025. I'm practicing saying that because we are still recording these in January, because we've got stuff in February and things like that, that are going to get me out of town. I know I'm already back in town, but I'm getting ready to go out of town. That, such is the life we live. And so we must honor the time that we have. 

Lesley Logan 1:05  

All right. So this episode is the time where we share something that's inspiring, that I saw online, that I'm like this just should inspire us all. We should all be so, like, this is amazing, very interesting to take note of. A win of yours, a win of mine, and a mantra. Really quick and simple. 

Lesley Logan 1:18  

Okay, so this one came from @lifeotspectrum. I'm not really sure if it was like, oh, Life On The Spectrum. Duh, Lesley, get it together. OT. You know, usually they don't, usually put the T in the acronym, but there we go. So it says, point of view, your daughter is diagnosed with level two autism and asked for a party to tell her friends why she feels different. And I just think that's great. I think that's amazing. How beautiful is this child. She's like, oh, okay, I'm autistic. I'm gonna have a party so my friends can celebrate the differences in me. Brilliant, brilliant. You know, we should all have a party to celebrate our differences. Wouldn't that be so cool? So way to go. I believe her name is Ayla, and they said in the captions from Life On The Spectrum, like, slay queen, yes. And you know what's really funny? I don't think I would have thought of that, right? But it reminds me of I was getting my hair done, and I, finally, after six years, got a car, and it's a car I've wanted for a really long time. It's a really special car to me. It's a car that I've dreamed about. And I really, truly haven't had a vehicle. We have had the van, but I haven't had a car that can fit into a parking garage or, like, be valet or anything, for six years, and it hasn't gotten in the way, but it has. There's always a way around. There's like, another place to go to, but you have to go out of your way, right? And so when I showed her my car, she's like, you have to have a party for your car. And I was like, are you crazy? But actually she's not, because if I had been like Ayla, I could be like, I'm gonna do this. So Ayla, thank you so much for showing us that we can celebrate our uniquenesses with a party. And so maybe we should all do that. That's what we should all be doing. 

Lesley Logan 2:49  

Okay, let's get to what your wins because it's so fun for you to hear your own win later on, after you've had it, in case you're having a day, and you're like, oh my goodness. And then you hear this, and you're like, oh, I had a win before. Yes, and also, and also for you listener, if you didn't send it in to see, like, what is possibly a win and how you might have had that in your life, right? So Melissa Capitano, on Wednesday, sent off my final payment to officially buy the studio from the previous owner. Still have some loans to pay off related to buying it, but I don't owe the seller anymore. Fuck yeah, that's amazing. It's so amazing to, like, make a final payment on something. You really have to celebrate that. How many of you have made a final payment on a credit card or on a student loan or on something and with red you know, one of these money coaches I listened to was just like, oh no, whenever you're paying a bill, you should do it from the highest light, from the highest place. So, Melissa, thank you for reminding us to do that. 

Lesley Logan 3:42  

Kristin Salmans wrote, Contrology contacted me to write an article on the Spine Corrector and then emailed me again, asking to collaborate on a reel because of the ones I've done and tagged them in have been their best performing. Shocking on so many levels, and feeling honored and encouraged to keep doing what I'm doing. Didn't think any of that was in my strengths, but it's helped me to feel confident in areas I doubted myself. Also, Kim Young, as a motivator, using my Spine Corrector daily, wins all around. Isn't it so fun to get caught trying, just doing the thing, and then you get caught trying, and people see something in you, and it's, oh my God. Sometimes we have to have other people see something in us for us to go, I'm killing it. I'm doing a great job. So can't wait for your Contrology article to go out, Kristin, and I'm so happy you're loving your Contrology Spine Corrector. I love mine. It's one of my favorite things to be on. It's really, really beautiful. 

Lesley Logan 4:28  

Okay, so a win of mine. I really want to highlight something, I think I mentioned it on a podcast that it's already come out, but I don't think I've celebrated it as a win with you guys. So on the last day of the tour. I mean, I guess I'd celebrate it with you. I talked about it on the podcast, but I just want to say I didn't actually celebrate it as a win, and I want to celebrate it as a win, because that's the message I preach. So on the last day of the tour, I had someone come up to me on the last event and and say, like, how do you have so much energy? And I have to say, a year before the winter tour, I did not end the year with a ton of energy, end of the year, not resentful or upset or like negative or not wanting to do what I do, nothing like that, but just kind of exhausted, a little whelmed, not overwhelmed or underwhelmed. Just okay, it's done, right? And her noticing that I had high energy at the end of a day, at the end of a long tour, after living out of a van for 36 days, there was a woman in me who was dancing with joy inside, because I was like, yes, you did it. And I will say that energy that she saw came from several wins compiled together. One of those is advocating for myself and finding some help with my hormones, which help with my sleep. Another is just years of continually keeping my practice up, and also boundaries, pretty strong ones that can annoy people sometimes. And I share this as a win because I knew I was doing all those things, and I even celebrated those ones along the way. You heard many of them, but it was really nice for someone outside to who it doesn't know me to see those things in me. And I was like, yes, because it's easy for us to get off of our own trains and off of our own dedications, and right before we could have had the outside validation to match the inside validation. Of course, the inside validation should be the only thing. But honestly, in a world of a lot of -ish, sometimes you need the outside validation to remind you that your inner validations is working. So I hope that makes sense. Anyways, essentially, my win is someone saw that I had the energy I've been working on getting and maintaining for a year ago, and it just made my day. Just made my day. And isn't that fun for something to make your day? It is for me. 

Lesley Logan 6:49  

So, all right, let's pull a mantra. It's not even a mantra. This is, it's called The Deck and I actually have never, I know what I'm gonna pull. So, oh, this one's a, this one's a long, theirs are not mantras, because these are long. So here it is, and you can journal to it, right? We put the show notes of these podcasts out. You can journal to it. So, I embrace the mess my heart makes. It chooses to love. It chooses to feel. It chooses to wander far beyond the bounds of what seems like a logical decision. It risks being broken in order to stretch. It risks rejection in order to know the rush of being honest. It risks being wrong to see what might be right. So the mantra is, I embrace the mess my heart makes. And the journey to that is it chooses to love, it chooses to feel, it chooses to wander far beyond the balance of what seems like a logical decision. It risks being broken in order to stretch. It risks rejection in order to know the rush of being honest. It risks being wrong to see what might be right. What a beautiful poem. That's a poem for us today. 

Lesley Logan 7:55  

All right, loves, Happy Friday. Send your wins in. I want to celebrate you. All right. Send them in just, to the Be It Pod, DM me, whatever. Let me know I can use it. I want to celebrate your win so you can hear them back and be reminded of the things that you're doing that are so great. Have an amazing day and until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Lesley Logan 8:13  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 8:54  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 8:59  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 9:03  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 9:10  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 9:14  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Making time for creativity and personal passions can feel impossible amid life’s demands, but it doesn’t have to be. In this episode, Lesley and Brad reflect on key insights from their conversation with Kristen McGuiness, including how she protects her creative energy while balancing work and family. Tune in for actionable tips on reclaiming your time and honoring your dreams.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• How to establish and enforce boundaries that protect your personal goals.
• Why honoring your intuition leads to better decision-making and less regret.
• The value of intentional time for creativity and deep work.
• How to overcome guilt around prioritizing your personal passions.
• Why waiting for life to slow down before pursuing your dreams is a mistake.

Episode References/Links:

• Cambodia October 2025 Waitlist - https://crowsnestretreats.com
• OPC Spring Pilates Training - https://opc.me/events
• Pilates Studio Growth Accelerator - https://prfit.biz/accelerator
• Pilates Flashcards - https://opc.me/flashcards
• Rise Literary Website - https://riseliterary.com
• Rise Literary Instagram - https://instagram.com/riseliterary
• Kristen McGuiness Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kristenmcguiness

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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

Even if we call it a boundary, just so you know, you also don't have to explain why your boundaries exist. 

Brad Crowell 0:04  

You don't. 

Lesley Logan 0:04  

And if you need help with that, the holistic psychologist constantly reminds you that you actually do not have to explain why a boundary is a boundary that is.

Brad Crowell 0:12  

It just is. 

Lesley Logan 0:13  

It just is. 

Lesley Logan 0:14  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 0:57  

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co-host in life, Brad, and I are going to dig into the groundbreaking convo I had with Kristen McGuiness in our last episode. If you haven't yet listened to that interview, feel free to pause us now, go back and listen to that one and then come back and join us.

Brad Crowell 1:12  

No hard feelings. We'll still be here. 

Lesley Logan 1:14  

She's a great. 

Brad Crowell 1:15  

Oh yeah. 

Lesley Logan 1:16  

I have actually shared her. 

Brad Crowell 1:18  

Okay, so hold on. Did she write the book that you read, that you told me? 

Lesley Logan 1:22  

Different book. But. 

Brad Crowell 1:23  

Oh, really? 

Lesley Logan 1:23  

Yes, I know. 

Brad Crowell 1:25  

Okay, okay, okay. 

Lesley Logan 1:26  

I know, yes, yeah, no, different book, but same topic. At any rate, it's in my TBRs still, Kristen, I'm so sorry.

Brad Crowell 1:33  

What's a TBR? 

Lesley Logan 1:34  

To be read. Yeah, this is a TBR. There's no, you know, I anyways, it's, I'm really excited because I really, so, I have actually talked about her multiple times to multiple people, because this woman, when I interviewed her, she was on her monthly like, three days in a hotel to get her shit written, like to get things done. And I just love that this woman was okay. I'm not gonna get anything done. I'm not gonna even try. I'm just going to keep the wheels on the bus, and then every month, I get several days at a hotel uninterrupted. I'm like, I want, I don't even have kids, and I want that. Anyways, before we talk about that, let's talk about how it's March 20th 2025 and it's International Day of Happiness. If you're happy and you know it, celebrate it on International Day of Happiness on March 20th. 

Brad Crowell 2:21  

I thought you were going to clap your hands. Right. 

Lesley Logan 2:24  

Anyways, when I was a kid, my mom would always sing that all the time, so. 

Brad Crowell 2:27  

That's so fun. 

Lesley Logan 2:28  

Other than being in a neutral state, happy is how we should mostly be. Okay. 

Brad Crowell 2:35  

Yeah. Don't fuck it up.

Lesley Logan 2:36  

Unfortunately, emotions, just feel like that's a lot of pressure. Unfortunately, emotions like anger and sadness are increasingly becoming a default way to be for a lot of us. So here's a day to cheer up and appreciate the good things and silver linings in life. So as you listen to Pharrell Williams’s ‘Happy’ on repeat, also take a minute this March 20th to consider what truly makes you happy, and how you can pursue it. Well, I can get down with that part of the holiday. Why don't you really take some time to journal what makes me happy, and how can I pursue that more? 

Brad Crowell 2:43  

All right. 

Lesley Logan 2:54  

That's the only part of the song you know. Because I'm happy.

Brad Crowell 3:13  

That's the best part of the song. 

Lesley Logan 3:23  

Okay. Well, anyways. 

Brad Crowell 3:24  

Good job. Nailing it. 

Lesley Logan 3:25  

We are back from Pilates On Tour. We are home for a little bit, and we are in the middle of the Accessories Flashcard presale. And I promised Brad I was not going to talk about it, but he clearly is sneaking into the show notes. So I'm just going to say, if you know, you know. 

Brad Crowell 3:41  

If you know, you know.

Lesley Logan 3:42  

And that's how it's gonna be. If you know, you know. 

Brad Crowell 3:45  

And if you don't know, and you're like, what? 

Lesley Logan 3:46  

Go listen to the other recap episode and get the link. But I'm.

Brad Crowell 3:49  

DM us. 

Lesley Logan 3:50  

But I'm I want you to take or I want you to take action steps sooner. Okay, all right. So what's coming up next that you need to know about is our Spring Training. It is April 27th through May 3rd. It's going to be virtual. There'll be live events and there is replays. So don't worry about it if you are like, oh my God, it's the busiest week of my life, I promise you, you'll be able to attend the things on replay. You want to go to opc.me/events. Pretty soon, I'll tell you what the theme is going to be about this Spring Training. But all the OPC teachers and myself are teaching multiple classes over the week on different pieces of apparatus for different levels of bodies, so that every Pilates lover of any level can have access to moving with accountability, Q&A to get feedback on their form and potentially seeing what OPC is all about. 

Brad Crowell 4:37  

What is it about? 

Lesley Logan 4:39  

Opc.me/events plural to get on the waitlist, which means you get the discount. What's next, Brad? 

Brad Crowell 4:44  

All right. All right. Pilates business owners. Calling all Pilates business owners, go to prfit.biz/accelerator for a free webinar where we're going to dig into the biggest three secrets that Lesley and I have learned after coaching 2500 businesses just like yours, whether you are teaching someone at home, whether you're renting space with someone, or whether you've got a big team in a brick and mortar studio, these three secrets all apply to you, and it's all about how do we make more money? How do we make our businesses actually profitable? And that's what we do at Profitable Pilates. So come join me. It is free, prfit.biz/accelerator. That is profit without the O dot biz slash accelerator. And then finally, what is the last note? 

Lesley Logan 5:28  

Well, you guys have to come to Cambodia with us on a Pilates retreat. 

Brad Crowell 5:30  

Obviously. 

Lesley Logan 5:31  

And some breath work and some visualization and some tips and tools and workshops on how to actually make your life the way you want to live it. Plus you get to see incredible temples that are a thousand years old or older. 

Brad Crowell 5:43  

Mind blowing. 

Lesley Logan 5:43  

You get to go on a beautiful water cruise, and it is incredible because you actually get to see how a city can thrive on the water, and the community they work in.

Brad Crowell 5:52  

They literally live on boats. 

Lesley Logan 5:53  

Yeah and the community they work in. And this is not some sort of like weird tourism thing. We actually get permission by a community to go into the water. You can see how the city is built. And you actually get to attend one of these amazing shops, where you get to see how women can work remotely, making beautiful pieces of things you can buy, and you can support the village in an incredible way. It's so fun. It's so relaxing. It's really nice, because after all the breath work you'll have done that day, you just go out and just be in peace and not taking in, like, overwhelming information. And then also, we go to a lotus farm, and you can just see how this one guy's company uses every single piece of a lotus flower to not only create beautiful things you want to buy, but also energy in remote places. It's quite amazing. 

Brad Crowell 6:40  

It is astounding. 

Lesley Logan 6:40  

It's astound, I mean, it's like, this, it's this guy's like, how can I, like, change the world? And he is doing it and we get to go show you that. So it's in October. You want to go to crowsnestretreats.com to snag your spot. If you're like, I'm gonna do the next one. We haven't planned it yet. 

Brad Crowell 6:53  

We haven't planned it yet. 

Lesley Logan 6:55  

And that is because this is your next time. This is the time.

Brad Crowell 6:57  

This is your next time.

Lesley Logan 6:58  

So come.

Brad Crowell 6:59  

Yeah. So join us at the end of this year, in October, looking forward to it. 

Lesley Logan 7:03  

It's a great time. It's before all the chaos of the end of the year. So it's a really good time, because. 

Brad Crowell 7:07  

It really is. 

Lesley Logan 7:08  

You can reset before the chaos of the holidays, and then you'll have all these tools and things that we'll have done in the workshops and the Pilates to help set you up for 2026.

Brad Crowell 7:17  

Some breath work, some mindset. Go to crowsnestretreats.com crowsnestretreats.com. Okay, we have an audience question before we dig into this awesome conversation with Kristen McGuiness.

Lesley Logan 7:28  

That was August. That earthquake, you guys, if you're watching on YouTube, was her, it's earthquake August. 

Brad Crowell 7:33  

Earthquake August. Okay, love_Danielle on IG asks, when will your flashcards be available again on Amazon and is there a discount code available?

Lesley Logan 7:44  

So the time this comes out, we should be back stocked on Amazon. We were selling out all of our OG Matt decks, and we had to completely sell out of that deck on Amazon before the new mat deck could come up. So that's now available on Amazon. Our Reformer Deck is our bestselling deck.

Brad Crowell 8:02  

It's hard to keep in stock, not a lot. 

Lesley Logan 8:04  

It's hard to keep in stock. 

Brad Crowell 8:05  

Thank you for supporting us. 

Lesley Logan 8:06  

So thank you. We love that you love it. And at the time that you were asking this question, we did have some in stock on our website, but not on Amazon. So what we'll say is we should be stocked on Amazon. We do not have discount codes available for any of our decks, and it's mostly because actually, we're really a small business, guys, and these decks are really a lot of work to put together, and they actually cost a lot of money to print out. And so while we would love to just give the discounts around everywhere, we do have to make sure that they continue to pay for themselves. We continue hitting print on them. And so you can buy them on Amazon. You could also buy them from us, and if you buy them from us, we obviously can make more money to support more Pilates adventures that are out there. We do.

Brad Crowell 8:47  

We love Amazon, but they take a whole lot. We have a love-hate relationship with Amazon. 

Lesley Logan 8:51  

At the moment, if you are the people trying to do your best to boycott places like Amazon and Target and things like that, we fully support you. And what you can do in your targeting of boycotts is be very intentional about who you're shopping from. So if you are going to shop on Amazon, shopping from people like us is a great thing. Small businesses, because it really does affect us in a positive way, Amazon allows people to find our products who don't know us, and so that's why we are there. It's not because we're like pro everything that they do, we actually need to be found. 

Brad Crowell 9:22  

We intentionally sell on our website.

Lesley Logan 9:24  

Yeah. So if you buy from our website, it's better for all of us. And then the people that you're not enjoying and want, not wanting them to make money, don't. So you can buy from us, and then we get it all. 

Brad Crowell 9:33  

Yeah. So go to opc.me/flashcards. 

Lesley Logan 9:36  

So in case you're wondering why we're on there, if you don't own a business with products, you need to understand that the way the world works, we, unfortunately, as product based businesses, have to be where people already are. And so that exposes them to OPC, and then hopefully they come over to our side, and then they find all of our amazing stuff. But I don't judge any of the people who shop on there, because we do, too. It's convenient. So anyways, all this to say, yes, they're there. They should be back in stock, and you can also buy from us. 

Brad Crowell 10:07  

Awesome. Well, stick around. We'll be right back, because we're going to talk with Kristen McGuiness, who is an author. And she talks about how does she escape the chaos of being an entrepreneur and being a mom to be able to write books. So, pretty cool stuff. Great conversation. She sounds amazing. Stick around. We'll be right back.

Brad Crowell 10:27  

Okay, now, let's talk about Kristen McGuiness. Kristen is a bestselling author, book publisher and a book coach with a deep passion for storytelling and empowering others to find their own voice. With years of experience, Kristen has helped countless others bring their ideas to life. Her own writing journey includes her novel, Live Through This, a compelling and thought-provoking exploration of resilience and activism. Beyond her professional accomplishments, Kristen is a mother, an entrepreneur who believes in creating space for creativity and living a life aligned with purpose. 

Lesley Logan 11:00  

I mean, thank you Roxy Menzies, who introduced us. Because I just. 

Brad Crowell 11:04  

I was wondering how the dots got connected there. 

Lesley Logan 11:06  

Yeah, yeah. I really enjoyed this intro. I feel like, if we lived in Ohio, Santa Barbara, we would all be friends. We'd be, you know, doing life in the daytime, and then I would figure out when she's gonna be at that hotel, and I would get another room, and then we could have drinks at the end of the day, going, what did you fucking create? Like, this is what I dreamed of, Kristen. Anyways, I just think she'd be cool, but I also appreciated her vulnerability and honesty. I feel sometimes a lot of moms have to, like, show us all the hats that they can wear in a day. And Kristen was pretty honest about how, no. So she said, I think my creative fuel tank is the same place where I draw my maternal energy from. They are both creative forces. When I'm in my mom mode, I'm running off of that creative fuel in the same way I would be if I was writing or editing. But she highlighted the importance of taking time for herself, and she said, at the end of the day, I've got nothing left. I mean, I could do an Excel spreadsheet, but I'm not going to come with a masterpiece. And I actually, really love that. She is actually not putting pressure on herself to write something amazing. On the same day, she just ran a household, and I found that to be cool. 

Brad Crowell 11:06  

It's amazing permission. 

Lesley Logan 11:06  

Yeah, amazing permission. I do. I think that, well, it takes a lot because you're like, oh, but you got this thing that you want to write, this thing you want to do, and a creative is like, I've got to birth this thing. And I really think it's cool that she gives herself permission to be where she's at and do what she's doing, wherever that is. So if she's at the hotel writing her work or her masterpiece, she's not mom and the children. She and her partner have set things up so that she can do that. And I have a lot of girlfriends who have children, and I find even more together, they're not as present as I love them to be, because that boundary isn't there yet. And I think that what's so cool is Kristen gives herself permission to, I have a boundary for my work when I'm with my kids, and I have a boundary for my family when I'm doing this work. And I just think we all could take, even if you don't have kids, you could take permission for that. Go to, I want to go to a hotel this month just by myself.

Brad Crowell 13:03  

Me too. 

Lesley Logan 13:04  

Well, maybe not march. This is a, this is a heck of a month, but April, I'm doing it in April.

Brad Crowell 13:09  

Okay, okay. I have a couple things. She said one thing that I thought was really interesting, she commented on being a grown ass woman still having to tell her parents that she's going to a conference when she just rented a fucking hotel room for herself because of the generational assumption of work hard, play hard. Okay, this was like a super side note. Nothing to do with writing, but I thought it was such an interesting observation. It made me think about it as I was listening to the interview. You know, she said her parents' generation is actually sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice until you get retired and then y'all can go, you know, take a long walk. The rest of my life is for me. I'm never doing anything for anybody ever again, as opposed to the way that she's doing her life, which I think is very generational, because I'm more associated with her. My parents very much are in the way that her parents are. But she's like how can I enjoy some of my life now and not have to wait till I'm 65 and retired to in quote-unquote, enjoy my life, and also this idea of just like 1,000% self sacrifice until that time, maybe there's a happy medium in there that I think we can have. So anyway, that is not what we had written down here for me to chat about today, but I just thought it was so powerful that I wanted to reiterate that. 

Lesley Logan 14:29  

Also, just in case anyone feels guilty about a fib like that, that is, don't, sometimes people in our lives are just not going to understand why we do what we do. We don't need their permission. We don't actually need them to understand. So just tell them what they need to hear so you can go do the thing you want to do. 

Brad Crowell 14:47  

Well, actually, instead of encouraging people to lie, that's not what we're encouraging here, what I think is a better through line is it's another boundary. She created a boundary between, you know, she heard her mom for this specific experience, so that she doesn't have to go through this emotional roller coaster and then justify all the thing and the expense and the la, la, la, you know, and then be judged. And you know, all that.

Lesley Logan 14:48  

When you also speak, even if we call it boundary, just so you know, you also don't have to explain why your boundaries exist. 

Brad Crowell 15:20  

You don't. 

Lesley Logan 15:20  

And if you need help with that, the holistic psychologist constantly reminds you that you actually do not have to explain why a boundary is a boundary that. 

Brad Crowell 15:28  

It just is. 

Lesley Logan 15:28  

It just is. 

Brad Crowell 15:29  

Yep, that being said, she was talking about control, right? And she said hey, we clearly can't control things around us. The only thing that we can control are the choices that we make when the things around us are happening. What she was talking about was she's an entrepreneur. Her husband is an entrepreneur. They run different businesses. They also have children. And she's a writer. She said she was reflecting on finding agency in the midst of chaos. And, you know, obviously the most glaring example would be COVID. Like you already mentioned, you could set everything up, but then kablam COVID comes around. She said you need to flip the way you're looking at it, instead of like this shit is happening to me. She said you get to create your own pathway through whatever it is that you're navigating, and that's an opportunity that you have more control over, instead of it's happening to me. So she acknowledged life's unpredictability and emphasized it's just this thing of at a certain point you didn't hit that first domino, and you just have to sometimes be okay, we're in the pressure cooker right now, but relief is always on the way, right? And she shared she had a mantra. I actually thought it was great, because she clearly knows our audience. She said, I'm gonna write my way through this chaos. I'm gonna write my way through it because she's a writer. She said, maybe for you guys, you're gonna have to Pilates your way through the chaos. You know what I mean, wherever is your safe zone.

Lesley Logan 16:51  

I agree, whether you write or do Pilates, there has to be something that you're doing for yourself to process what you're going through. When I found out that Jay had passed away, it was on a Tuesday, and I still showed up for my session on Wednesday. And it's because moving through the grief made it actually easier to grieve. Or when there's a lot going on, you might just want to, like, keep watching the news and just watch them repeat that shit over and over again to keep you there until the next ad break. Or you can go move your body and get CliffsNotes later, because we have to, or you can go write, or you can go journal, or whatever it is, we have to have some way of processing what we're going through so that we can go back to the beginning, whatever the next step is, and keep going. I find that in today's chaos, a lot of people are waiting for things to be better before they take the first next step, and sometimes you just have to take it. So, you can use whatever that creative energy is to use that to go through whatever is going on.

Brad Crowell 16:51  

Yeah, well, listen, stick around. We'll be right back, because we're going to dig into some really juicy be it action items that we had. 

Lesley Logan 17:07  

It's such a good, such a robust episode.

Brad Crowell 17:58  

With Kristen McGuiness. We'll be right back. 

Brad Crowell 18:01  

Welcome back. All right, let's talk about those Be It Action Items. What bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted action items can we take away from your conversation with Kristen McGuiness? She said if I care about my creative careers, whatever that thing is that I love to do or that you love to do, you've got to create a boundary around it and hold that sacred, okay? So this is, again, the through line here of today's episode is boundaries. She shared that if you truly care about something, whether it is a creative project, a personal passion, personal passion, or even self-care, you must be intentional about carving out time to do it. Right? There's no question about it. Setting clear boundaries allows you to dedicate energy towards what it is that actually fulfills you, even when life gets demanding. And I think that's the hardest part. She said it's about creating those pockets of freedom, the pockets of concentration and the pockets of creativity. So we've got the POFs.

Lesley Logan 18:58  

The POFs, POC and POC again. 

Brad Crowell 19:01  

Yeah, POF. We'll call them POFs, Pockets Of Freedom. And I think that's another argument for taking time to the hotel like she did. 

Lesley Logan 19:09  

Those all fall under gemstone time. 

Brad Crowell 19:12  

That's right. 

Lesley Logan 19:13  

So, if you come on my retreat, or you've ever heard me talk about how to create an ideal schedule, your gemstone time is time you have to protect. 

Brad Crowell 19:21  

Gotta protect it. 

Lesley Logan 19:21  

And it is the time where you do things that you need to concentrate and be creative on. So, you know, the things that can propel your life and your dreams forward.

Brad Crowell 19:30  

Yeah, actually moving things forward. So, what about you? 

Lesley Logan 19:33  

Never lose sight of your dreams no matter what. She said this and I think one of the authors that Oprah quoteed was Gertrude Lyons who said, "The only times I've ever made mistakes in life is when I've chosen to ignore that voice." So that voice being your intuition, the thing that you want to do. And I think that's so true. I think we can all look back and look at things we regret, and it's like, oh, I didn't turn left when I knew I should have, I turned right or I should have done this. And she said, as long as you're listening to the small, quiet voice inside you, you will lways end up where you need to go. And this is actually just one of the truest things. I mean, just like us sitting here in this house, this was like a small voice going kitchen both now, think you should go now, think, you know what I mean, and not letting all the things. 

Brad Crowell 20:13  

I think you should go now. I think you should go now. 

Lesley Logan 20:19  

What if we made a meditation, which is like, I think you should go now. 

Brad Crowell 20:22  

Today is the day that you should go.

Lesley Logan 20:29  

Create a boundary. 

Brad Crowell 20:31  

Going is what today is for. 

Lesley Logan 20:34  

Boundaries are kind.

Lesley Logan 20:36  

Anyways, I hope that you take some time to listen to Kristen's episode a couple of times. And really, ladies, especially my ladies, I know there's a few good men who listen, but ladies, I hope you realize this person, she's not perfect. She's not claiming to be perfect. She is really, truly honoring what is possible and when it's possible, and making sure that she doesn't ever stop focusing on what her dreams are, even if it means they're in pockets of freedom and pockets of concentration. So. 

Brad Crowell 21:01  

Tell us about your POFs. 

Lesley Logan 21:02  

We want to know. 

Brad Crowell 21:03  

Yeah. 

Lesley Logan 21:04  

Yeah. I'm Lesley Logan. 

Brad Crowell 21:05  

And I'm Brad Crowell. 

Lesley Logan 21:06  

Thank you so much for listening to this episode, and every episode you listen. This is episode 500. 

Brad Crowell 21:10  

Five hundo.

Lesley Logan 21:11  

Cue the balloons. Nope. You don't have it on your thing. I would. I just, if you're, okay, well, if you, I think you did, it's okay. It's beyond. It's past now. If you're listening, they don't even know, but we're trying to do balloons. There we go, confetti, on the, on the YouTube. You can see it on the YouTube. We love you. You're amazing. And we couldn't have gotten to 500 episodes without you listening and you writing in and you sending your questions in, and you sending your you got to make it more of a heart, babe if you're going to do it, and and then you've got to send in your win so we can shout them out on the FYFs because we want to constantly support you. That's what this podcast is about. So thank you for your love, for your sharing, all of that and until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Brad Crowell 21:58  

Bye for now. 

Lesley Logan 22:00  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 22:43  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 22:48  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 22:52  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 22:59  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 23:02  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Lesley Logan speaks with author and publisher Kristen McGuiness about balancing motherhood, entrepreneurship, and creative pursuits. Kristen shares her journey in publishing, how she makes time for writing, and the inspiration behind her novel Live Through This. She also discusses activism, navigating personal challenges, and the importance of following your inner voice.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• How Kristen transitioned from editor to author while working in the publishing industry.
• The realities of balancing motherhood and a creative career.
• Why creating boundaries around personal time is essential for productivity.
• The inspiration behind Live Through This and its connection to real-world issues.
• Different forms of activism and how storytelling can drive change.
• The importance of trusting your intuition and taking action despite uncertainty.

Episode References/Links:

• Rise Literary Website - https://riseliterary.com
• Rise Literary Instagram - https://instagram.com/riseliterary
• Kristen McGuiness Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/kristenmcguiness/

Guest Bio:

Kristen McGuiness is the bestselling author of 51/50: The Magical Adventures of a Single Life, which was optioned by Original Films/CBS Cable with Alison Brie attached to star, and her new novel, Live Through This, which was released from Rise Books on October 10, 2023. She has over twenty years’ experience in book publishing, as an author, editor, and book publisher, with such houses as St. Martin’s Press, Simon & Schuster, and Harper Collins. 

Kristen is the publisher of Rise Books, launching in 2023, which publishes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry of radical inspiration, and also runs the book coaching company, Rise Writers, which provides book coaching and management for emerging and established authors. Kristen has appeared on the “TODAY Show,” in USA Today, and in Marie Claire, and has written for numerous publications, including Rolling Stone, Marie Claire, Shondaland, Huffington Post, Scary Mommy, Psychology Today, Salon, and The Fix. She lives in Ojai, CA with her husband, two children, and a dog named Peter.

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Episode Transcript:

Kristen McGuiness 0:00  

I'm a mom who prioritizes being a mom, but I also don't want to lose myself in that activity, and I don't think that is healthy for my children either.

Lesley Logan 0:10  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Be It babe, oh my gosh. Okay, I felt like I just met a dear friend who I've never known. But it's kind of shocking how we didn't know each other before, because I felt like our paths would have crossed. She's an author, she's a publisher, she's a mom, she's an honest, vulnerable human being who I think is going to inspire the heck out of you to lean into who you are and how you do things. And I just really, truly love this conversation. We are going to talk a lot about how Kristen McGuiness got into books, what her world is in books, how she does it and writes especially with kiddos. You're gonna hear some great ideas I hope you use. I love her quotes at the end. I will just say that we do get into talking a little bit about mass shootings and school shootings because of her fiction book. So just protect your heart if that is something raw for you in this moment. But I hope you listen, because I actually can't wait to read her book, and so I'm gonna read it before I do the recap, because it just sounds really cool, and I'm really inspired in this moment. And so I'm saying this after I interviewed her, so I know that you'll be inspired as soon as you're done listening to this. So here is Kristen McGuiness. 

All right, Be It babe. This is going to be fabulous. I already know it. I just met Kristen McGuiness a minute ago, but I can tell by who she is and what she's been up to that you are going to love this person, because, like you, they wear many hats. So Kristen, can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?

Kristen McGuiness 2:11  

Absolutely and thank you for having me on I'm so glad we were finally able to do this. And it always ends up being perfect timing when you get to do these things and the day and moment you get to do them, when it, you know, made sense at the other time. But, yeah, I'm Kristen McGuiness and I'm a book lady. I mean, I think that's the or a book bitch, depending on the moment. But I've been doing books my whole life, you know, since I was a kid, I always say they're my first addiction. I ended up gathering more than that, less healthy addictions, but I started with books. And just, you know, the places and imagination that we get to escape to when we're reading. And it's no wonder that that became my profession. I continued to love books, you know, try to write books. I ended up starting my career in book publishing at St. Martin's Press and Simon & Schuster and then later Harper Collins. I worked as a book scout in Hollywood for a brief bit, like reading books to develop into movies for Warner Brothers. And then I became a book publisher and a book coach and a bestselling author myself. So it's just, it's all books all the time. That's what I do, and a big and amazing part of that has been helping other people write their books. 

Lesley Logan 3:21  

Okay. That is so fun. That's so cool. I imagine you as like a girl, little girl, like reading all the time, and then you get to just read all the time. Like, how fun is that? Okay. I think where I'd want to start is, it sounds like you were in books, but then you wrote a book. So what was it like to go from reading other people's work and, like, not picking it apart but going, oh, this would be great for this, or this is great for this, and then to writing your own? Was it an easy transition? Were you nervous? Were you excited? Like, what was going on?

Kristen McGuiness 3:49  

You know, there's some editors that are happy to be editors, and they know that's like, what they love to do. I was always an editor who wanted to be a writer, and so that's just a different dynamic. And I still love editing. I mean, I can simultaneously be editing a book and writing a book at the same time and enjoy both processes. And I mean, honestly, sometimes the editing is more fun because, you know, the stakes aren't as high, right? Like, and it's not on me. I mean, it's on me to help it be good, but I'm not the source of the goodness. Whereas when you were the author, it's really hard to be like, I'm a shitty editor. It's really easy to be like, I'm a shitty writer. So I really enjoy getting to do both. But I was definitely always someone who wanted to do both. I mean, I ended up leaving book publishing, and that's how I wrote my first book. I went into the world of nonprofits, and that became like a secondary career to books during a period of my life just because I moved out to California and there was no, I mean, now there's more opportunities in that field, but at that time, there was, like, no book publishing in Southern California, and I preferred I wanted the weather. So I chose weather over books.

Lesley Logan 4:55  

Wow, you really wanted the weather.

Kristen McGuiness 4:59  

I do. I really like the sun. 

Lesley Logan 5:00  

Oh my God. Well, and you have some sun going on you. And also, I understand that, as someone who's California born and raised, I can visit a city, and I'm like, I could do two weeks in this weather, but I gotta go back.

Kristen McGuiness 5:12  

Yeah, no, I very romantically lived in Paris for one year, and my friends all joke about, like, how much Kristen hates Paris. And I'm like, I don't hate Paris. It was just that it was gray every day, and I ended up with seasonal affective disorder. Like it wasn't, I mean, it was like nothing I could control. I was just horrifically depressed and wanted to throw myself into the sun every day. But I'm like, it really wasn't Paris's fault. I just need sunshine. 

Lesley Logan 5:36  

It's just like the location of Paris is just not ideal.

Kristen McGuiness 5:41  

If I could pick it up and move it somewhere else, that'd be fantastic. So I, you know, I ended up moving out to California and ended up in nonprofits, and that's when I did write my first book. And I think I did have to remove myself from the book publishing industry in order to write a book. And I don't think that's true anymore. I'm doing both very simultaneously right now, but in that period of my life, I did so that I could just really have that fuel tank of creative energy just for me. 

Lesley Logan 6:10  

Yeah, yeah. I understand that. I I think, like even just to not have distractions or especially with something new, even though books weren't new to you, but writing your own is a new thing. You kind of have to, like, kind of immerse yourself so you can really get into it. You know, I know your mom, and I think having all of these hats and then having kids, I know, like, for our listeners, there's always people going, how do they balance it? And I don't have children. So when I say, I don't think balance is real. People nod, but don't really listen to me, because like, but I don't I think that there's a blend. And I think that, you know, my yoga teacher says balance is the art of not falling, and that just means that you're kind of tilting over here, and then you're tilting over here and you're trying not to fall either way. And that resonates with me. But can we talk a little about what it's like to be curating this amazing career that you have, you know, being in books, of writing books and being a publisher and doing that while, you know, parenting and bringing kids into this world. What was it like? 

Kristen McGuiness 7:06  

Well, that's why I'm in a hotel room right now. So, you were like, so how do you, I'm like, I literally go to a hotel room two nights a month. That's what I do. And I joke, again, I'm a former addict, so it's like a drug vendor. I'm like a Hunter Biden, but with books. So I just, like, pull myself up in a hotel room for like, 48 hours, and I just write like a wild Banshee with caffeine and Red Bull. I mean, I find, though, whatever that looks like for people, I do think it's about creating the pockets of freedom and the pockets of concentration and the pockets of creativity, because, I mean, I'm also just somebody, like, I always eat one thing at a time. I'm not good at, like, fully integrating. So I can't be in the middle of parenting and then be like, give me five kids. I'm gonna go edit a book. My brain doesn't work that way. And I do think, speaking of the creative fuel tank, I think, at least for me, my creative fuel tank is the same place where I draw my maternal energy from, not surprisingly, because they're both creative forces. And so when I'm in my mom mode and I'm really with my kids, I am running off that creative fuel in the same way I would be if I was writing or editing. So I think it is really hard to be a creative and a mom, because if I've been momming all day long, like I, at the end of the day, I've got nothing left. I mean, I could, like, do an Excel spreadsheet. I can put the dishes in the dishwasher, but I'm not going to come up with a masterpiece. And so I've really learned how to pull this time out. Hence, I mean, I wrote a screenplay in the last 12 hours, that's what I have done here today. So I came here yesterday at 3pm and I was like, we're writing a screenplay before I got that podcast tomorrow, and I literally finished it right before we began. But that's how I've learned to like, if I'm if I care about my creative career, which is not even a career that pays my bills. I mean, that's still, you know? I mean, it's still, like a speculative career, if I care about that, whatever that thing is that you love to do, like, I've got to really create a boundary for myself to make that something that I hold sacred.

Lesley Logan 9:14  

I am obsessed with this. I love this so much. I really do. I, first of all, my friends make fun of me because I'm like, oh, you're going there. This is my favorite hotel. Because I love a hotel. I find I get so much done. I wasn't even in a hotel on Monday, but I was at a friend's house, it kind of felt like a hotel. And I was like, oh, I got all my work done in three hours. Okay. And I was like, that is so funny, because when you're at home, there's so many distractions. Like, before we're on this podcast, we have an older dog. By the time this episode comes out, it's probably passed at this point, but, you know, it's hard. It's how you're like, oh, okay, so we're gonna be late on that call because I got this thing, and then I gotta do some laundry. And you just can't be that creative person. You have to kind of remove yourself. But I also just love that you highlight, like, I have pockets of this, and I think protecting those pockets, like a pocket of this type of thing I'm going to focus on this here. It allows you to kind of show up and be their best version of yourself in that moment, and not kind of stress about all the things you thought you'd fill in those two hours. 

Kristen McGuiness 10:08  

Yeah, yeah, I've learned. I mean, I've, I mean, look, I think most moms struggle with self sacrifice because motherhood really demands it. I mean, it is hard you constantly or be laboring like, how do I, I don't want to put myself ahead of my kids. I mean, I want to, you know, I mean, they are in and I have young children. I have a five year old and a nine year old. I mean, the nine year is obviously more independent, but they're still school-aged children. I don't have teenagers at home, and so there is a lot of caregiving, physical, emotional, psychological that is taking place. And I want to prioritize that I am a mom who prioritizes being a mom, but I also don't want to lose myself in that activity, and I don't think that is healthy for my children either. And when I do lose myself, that's when I am my worst mom, that's when I'm angry, that's when I'm quick to temper. It's when I don't feel like I'm getting to take care of me. And so I've just really learned that, you know, I come, you know, my mom's, like, a boomer, we're actually in a fight right now, so it's really interesting. And we're, and it's a fight about exactly these things like these intergenerational dynamics of like, I have to, like, still lie to my parents and tell them that I'm here doing a business meeting. Because they'd be like, why are you spending money on a hotel to work on a screenplay that you're not getting paid to do? And I'm like, because I will go insane, otherwise, it is so valuable for me to stay sane and creative and whole and human. My mom came from a generation, although she's incredibly makes very selfish choices now, like it was all about, like, you sacrifice all the way up until retirement, and then you just get to be selfish every minute of the day. And I'm like, that doesn't look I mean, I think we've seen by the gross impacts of your generation's choices, that probably wasn't a good idea. But also I don't think that makes it like a well-lived life. I want to feel like I'm getting to show up for others and getting to show up for me in some level of consistency. And I absolutely agree, like balance is just not falling down. And also, sometimes I think balance is falling down because that's also part of it. You're like, oh, fuck. You know, like, I'm off. But I do think creating that integration between we take care of others, but we still take care of ourselves and our dreams and who we are, and not losing that identity that exists before, during and long after our children are grown.

Lesley Logan 12:22  

Yeah, and also, I just think it's really cool for your young kids to see that you do protect the things that you love. You protect your time with them, but also they're seeing you go and protect the time for who, like, whether or not you get paid for the screenplay. Like, it's not about that, because the screenplay could lead to something else, into something else, but, like, it makes you feel whole, and it makes you feel alive, just as much as parenting would, but it's a different part of you. And so I think it's cool they get to see that, because then they get to, when they get older, know that there's an option for them, you know, like, there's, there's possibilities, and there's ways they get to see it an example. 

Kristen McGuiness 12:57  

Yeah, no, I, and I think it's really about like showing. It's, I mean, again, I've just written, like, literally, I'm just coming off of writing the screenplay, and there's a whole like, scene in the screenplay where one of the characters say, we can't control what happens around us, right? The only thing we can control are the choices we make in that, you know? I mean, I'm an entrepreneur. My husband is also an entrepreneur, which is just, I mean, the level of insanity that that brings, and especially in the last couple of years where, like, the global economics have been far out of our control, so we've been terribly impacted by sort of the larger financial environment. And I'm like, but you know what? We get to make choices within that. And that doesn't mean that all of them are happy, some of them are hard. But just to feel like I have no choice, and that this, well, this is just the way it is, right? And it's like, no, I mean, we get to create our own pathway through whatever we're navigating. To me, you know, I always say to myself, it's like my little mantra, like, I'm going to write my way through this, whatever is going on, I'm going to write my way through this. And that's just, you know, for others might be, I'm going to Pilates my way through this, right? Like, whatever the thing is that's your source of healing. And also the thing that helps you to understand how and why life happens. That's what you have to tap into. And without that, I mean, then I think you are just on the floor, right? Then you can't even, then there's no balance, because you can't even, like, you don't even have a foundation underneath you.

Lesley Logan 14:16  

Yeah, yeah, it's so true. There's a million things that go on in a day. I was just recording the podcast drops that we call FYFs, Fuck Yeah Friday, and it's just a short episode where I share listeners wins, and I share one of mine. And I was like, there's 17 things that have gone wrong today, like 17, and they're all out of the control. None of them were things like, I knocked the first domino forward on that. So you have to just go, okay, what are those do I need to deal with? Can I just put that over here? Or what can I do? What is possible in this moment for me to handle so that I can keep moving the ball forward? Because, like you, my husband and I are both entrepreneurs. We work together, which is this own level of insanity. 

Kristen McGuiness 14:53  

I love you both. 

Lesley Logan 14:55  

I know everyone's like, so how do you do it? And I was like, I'm just gonna tell you right now. We're still figuring that out, and I think communication is really key, and sometimes we suck at it, but you try and you just go, okay, didn't handle that so good. Next time, I'll handle that better. But I think it's really there's honesty about it, and I love that you said you write your way through it. Some people will Pilates their way through it, or journal their way through it, or take a long bathrobe. But like, you, there's got to be a process for which you reflect and learn and integrate what's going on in your life.

Kristen McGuiness 15:26  

No, absolutely, and yeah, again. God bless you for being an entrepreneur with your husband. I try to, sometimes I have to help my husband with his business, and I'm like, I would quit this job in like five minutes, but he owns a restaurant, which is, like, I think the worst business you could open, honestly, I'm like, oh my God, every time I go to eat now at a restaurant, I have so much grace and gratitude for what happens. Our pediatrician once said, no one knows how expensive the cheat meal is. And I was like, so true. Like, you have no idea what people do to sell you food in a restaurant.

Lesley Logan 16:01  

Oh, you're, bless your husband and all the restaurateurs out there, but that's, I don't like the margins, but I would say books are very similar. So I feel.

Kristen McGuiness 16:11  

You realize that, thank you. We kind of realized that a little late. We're working our way through that. We did not know that. We thought, we knew that books were a slim profit margin. We naively thought the restaurant business wasn't. Then we discovered both were at the same time. We were like, you know, there's a great Macklemore song where he says, if I had done it for the money, I would have been a fucking lawyer. And I'm like, that's like, my bumper sticker I got in the back of my car. We're truly here for love and fun, and the belief in, apparently, pizza and books, but pizza is important. I will never deny that. But, yeah, no. I mean, we have learned. I mean, we are in a very high stress, double entrepreneurial situation, and also have an aging dog, and we are also in the end zone of what's to come on that. And it's just, it's so brutal, and yes, and it's the same thing where, like, there are days where we do not do it well, certainly. And then, like, recently, I've just, you know, been realizing that there is so much about this that you have to take your hands off the wheel, you know. And I've joked, like, I know, if you have seen the other the little gif at some point, I think everybody has. It's like, the end of Thelma and Louise. We're like, Thelma and Louise grab hands, and then the car flies off the Grand Canyon and like a hubcap falls off. And I've been using that gift is like, I just send it to everybody I work with, because I'm like, this is my business strategy. And last night, when my friends was like, you can't tell people that. And I was like, no, but it is because there is something about living your dreams that is just like a hope, a prayer and floor the fucking car, and, like, off you go, and you got to know that you're going to land. It might be a terrifying drop, but you're going to land. I mean, obviously, hopefully not in fire and death, but that's not going to happen, right? Like, no business ends like that. And so it is just this thing of, like, at a certain point you can work really hard, you can do all the strategies, right? But like, ultimately you didn't hit the first domino. And you just have to sometimes be like, Mercury is in retrograde, and we're just gonna wait until August 28 rolls around. Everything goes direct, or whatever it is, the thing that you know is, like, this is just, we're in the pressure cooker right now, but like, relief is always on the way. 

Lesley Logan 18:22  

Oh, my God, this retrograde? We are feeling in every possible way of tech. I'm like, Okay, well, okay, we'll just redo that. We're like, I have a astrologist that I listen to who's always like, if it's put an argument in front of it, and that's the best thing, refine, reorganize, read, we're redoing. We're just gonna but I agree, you do have to take the action. You do have to put the pedal to the metal, but then you also have to, like, release and go, you know, it's gonna end somewhere. And some of the best things that ever happened in my business were the ones that felt that kind of happened for me, or to me or without, without the control, and I just have, it's not the right place at the right time, because I did the work to get there. But also, couldn't have happened without some just like magical or universal or divine appointment that happened along the way. And then you just have to ride that. You just have to enjoy that. And I also think it is crazy that I work with my husband. I also am so grateful because it's really fun to work with him. And I don't know that a lot of people can put up with my creative energy. There's not a lot of people who would be like, we love that idea. Lesley, we're gonna put that over here. You know, like a partner can go, yeah, later, until later. It's really refreshing and also just really nice to hear like, you know, you don't have everything figured out. Not everything happens the exact way it's supposed to. You didn't just turn a light switch on, and things worked. So thank you for sharing that. I want to get into, like, your latest book, is it Live Through This, and I just, can you tell us maybe, like, what was the drive like, why did you have to, like, why was it something you wanted to, like, get out of you, and what are you hoping that people get from it? 

Kristen McGuiness 19:52  

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I really lived through this. That nine-year-old was, at the time, only one years old. So it was in 2016, and it is not a spoiler alert, because it happens in chapter two. There's actually a mass shooting that sort of is the impetus for the whole story that kind of explodes across the rest of the pages, quite literally. And I was really moved to write it because, I mean, obviously we are a nation that deals with mass shootings all the time, but as we know, it's almost like a season, like there are these moments where it just feels like it's every day, you know, you're just like, oh my God, another one. Oh my God, another one. And 2016 felt that way. There were a lot of them, sort of back to back, and they had actually happened in places where I knew or was just felt like really emotionally connected to, actually, the shooting that happened in Paris, the Bataclan attack in November of 2015 I think that was, was in the neighborhood where we used to live in Paris. Someone was actually shot on our street corner. And then there was a shooting in San Bernardino at the regional center, which was 40 minutes from where I was working at that time at a nonprofit, also in a government building. So we began to get trained in our offices about what to do in the event of a mass shooting. And then the night of the Paul shooting was really the impetus where I was just like, oh my God, enough. My husband and I were about to go to a live concert a couple weeks after that shooting, and I began to get really scared. And I'm just not somebody who has, like, I have no agoraphobia. I'll go anywhere. I don't have a lot of just those kinds of fears. Or I'm really adventurous. I love to be out and about. And it was like a band we love and personally know, and a really fun night. And I actually began to get scared to go. And so it sort of led to this, you know, as a lot of books I think come out, oh, it was like, what would happen if, right? And I was like, what would happen if there was a shooting that night? And out of that began this story. And so it is about a shooting at a nightclub and a concert, and the main character loses her spouse, which, again, it happens in chapter two. So it, you know, it's kind of silly to hide it. And she begins to navigate what happens, not just after you lose someone, but also what happens after you go sort of like accidentally viral and suddenly and I started writing this long before Parkland, but it is the Parkland journey of what happened with a lot of those kids who've experienced significant trauma, not just from the event, but from the activism afterwards, because obviously they wanted to be part of activism, but the, and in the same with the Sandy Hook families and everything that happened with Alex Jones is that they're just dragged through the mud, and it's just so horrible what happens to them, and death threats, and, you know, it's like it was bad enough they went through the shooting, but now they have to go through this. And so she's navigating all of that, but it's 2016, it's on the eve of what ended up being a really shocking election that has dictated the last eight years of our lives. My God. oh my God, please let it end. And so this character isn't just deciding, hey, am I going to be an activist about what just happened to me? But also the story kind of stands on the pinnacle of art, what became our modern times. You know, how am I going to show up in this world as a person? And it's also about, really, her finding her voice, and she's coming out of a very complicated and hard marriage, and she grieves them, and she also has relief from what was a hard marriage. And so it's also about that, you know, I, I had that experience when my own father died, when my husband is completely alive and taking care of our kids, but, but when my father died, I really, you know, I really depicted it more about that relationship, because I had a very complicated relationship with my father, and when he passed away, I had a therapist who said to me, you know, you can have any reaction you want to this, and that includes relief, and it was such a freeing thing, because, you know, it's always like when someone dies, we're supposed to be sad. And it wasn't that I wasn't sad, but also I didn't have the complexity and the trauma of that relationship in my life. And so she's navigating that she has a young child, so she's also navigating being a single mom and all these different pieces. So it's interesting because it's set, now, it's almost like historical fiction, right? Oh, those sweet and gentle times of 2016 the days of yore, so, but it is also a lot about marriage and parenthood and sacrificing your dreams to show up and be a stable you know, I'm going to take care of the family and I'm going to do what I need to do, and she's in a nine-to-five job, and she sacrificed her dreams to just try to be like a normal person, only to discover that there's no such thing as normal, especially in modern America. And so we called it like a modern, suburban Western, because it is about that, and she has to become her own version of a gunslinger in the end.

Lesley Logan 24:28  

I do love that it's now historical fiction, because I too long for those days sometimes my husband and I sometimes I'm like, I just want to not know the house representative for, like, a state I've never been to. I just want to not know who that person is, but also like, how naive and how unique a time that was as well. Thank you for sharing the story. Now I feel like we need a Be It Till You See It book club, you guys, I want to hear all of your thoughts on reading it. I find fiction fascinating because I actually love it. I grew up on like Judy Blume, which is like fiction but not, you know what I mean. It's like, always based on something that happens, and then it's like, the story of it, your daughter, your it was your nine-year-old just one. Excuse me. Yeah, so with your, was there a part of you that was, like, writing it because also to be a parent of a time when, like, yeah, it's, I don't know how parents in their school, kids school, my mom's a school teacher. She's a first grade school teacher, and the thing she's telling me that she's have to prepare for, I'm like, you should not have a gun. I'm just gonna tell you right now, you know, I grew up with the earthquake drills. Now it's very different. And so was it partly just, it was even therapeutic, or just like, ways for you to kind of understand what you're going into as a parent at a time when this is such a scary thing going on?

Kristen McGuiness 25:40  

Yeah, no. I mean, that was definitely a driving force. I mean, it's a driving force every day, I think. I mean, especially now that I do have school aged children, and I mean, I make sure I kiss them every morning, just God forbid, I will not let them go to school without hugging them and kissing them. Because I remember one of the Parkland fathers, actually one of them who became quite active. I forget his name now, but he always said that the morning that his daughter left for school, they were really busy, and he didn't hug her and say goodbye, and he never knew he would never not see her again. And I just can't even fathom that pain, especially under the conditions that those murders take place. And so, yeah, I mean, I definitely wrote it for that. I mean, there's a as one of the my blurb authors, Gina Frangello, who's amazing, gave me this great blurb that's saying, like, it's a call to action, and the book really is. I mean, there's a moment in the book where the main character, I discovered, long after writing it, that there's actually a genre called autofiction, which is what I wrote. I just didn't know, you know, my own genre's name, until, like, six months ago, where it's like, it's totally my life, like anybody who reads the book, like, my husband's name is Terry, and my friends all call it the book where Terry dies and like, it freaks them out, because they're like, wait, he's still, he's still alive, like, I just saw him yesterday, but like, it's like the book where Terry dies, and I did. I mean, I did use our lives, because at the time, I had considered writing a memoir, but we're not that exciting of a couple. We don't drink, we don't smoke, we don't cheat on each other. I joke, it would just be like 100 pages of people arguing about finance and ADHD.

Lesley Logan 27:08  

There's, there's a, there's a group of people who would read that, you know?

Kristen McGuiness 27:12  

I mean, they still can, because they because the couple still argues about finance and ADHD in the book. But we just, we raised the stakes. They need a little more plot, a little more plot. So I gave it a lot of plot. But I mean, there's a scene in the book where the main character ends up having a meeting with the President of the time prior to Trump. And I didn't like, use Obama's name, but it's clearly him, because Obama would meet with people after those shootings, and she ends up with a one-on-one meeting, because she ends up kind of getting a little fame under her belt, and in that meeting, she flat out asked for an executive order banning assault weapons, because it's just and that's why, I mean, ultimately, I say like that is what? If you ask me what the book is about? Yeah, it's about marriage and single motherhood and mass shootings, but it's really about the need for, excuse me, an executive order banning assault weapons. One point, I'd actually worked on building a whole campaign around that, and an activism campaign, and then with everything that happened with the Biden administration, it didn't make sense. But I was just talking to one of my colleagues the other day, and I was like, look, if Trump makes it into office, we can just say goodbye, but if I'm like, truly, like, see you later, buddy.

Lesley Logan 28:14  

I know, especially after the most recent Supreme Court situation on that. I was like, What are we doing? 

Kristen McGuiness 28:18  

I know. See on the flip side. Yeah, my husband and I like a boat, a boat sounds good. But if Kamala makes it into the office, there are some real changes that the Democrats have failed to make, multiple times over, with multiple opportunities, with control of the Senate, control of the House, and I would hope that she will take this enthusiasm and momentum, although obviously it will wane, because it is what it is. But I do think that people have returned to the fold in a way that's like, okay, let's just fucking do this. But once she, you know, presumably, gets to do it, she has to do something, because we just can't have somebody else show up again and not take control of the situation. 

Lesley Logan 28:59  

Yeah, I love that. You said that what I'm thinking of is we live in a world where we do all have to be activists of some kind, but not every one of us is someone who wants to stand on a line and protest. That's not everyone's way of being an activist, but there are unique ways where we can be activating in people. And for some, you're barely keeping your head above water. And so your activism is telling your friends to vote, and you voting and doing the research, you know, like that could be your form of activism these days. Because, my goodness, if you don't know the US's voting records, or people are just don't do it. I've been to Australia. They're like, I don't understand. Like, we make it a holiday and everyone does it. It would be so weird to not do it. 

Kristen McGuiness 29:37  

Well, it makes so much sense, wouldn't it? 

Lesley Logan 29:38  

Yeah. And they're like, and you guys are just only this many people. I'm like, I don't really, I don't want to tell you. So for some of you, it might be an activating thing to go do that, but I love that you took this desire, this drive, this passion, and you put it in a form for people who want to have a really good read can be inspired by and also go, oh hold on, wait a minute. There are things that we can do, and there are things that can be done. And from our lips to their ears, my fucking goodness, if they do not hit the ground running, if they get what they need, like, I don't know what we're going to do. Want them to act with a little, just a little bit of urgency would be great, yeah, just that fucking tiny bit. And all this to say, the administration we have currently has done a lot with what they've had, but there was a two year mark where we could have just done a whole lot more, just saying, but I think like you're showing I hope that what everyone here is hearing this is like, you can have different ways of being an activist and different ways of inspiring people to think about what is possible and what can be done and keeping things in the forefront, because you're right, it goes in waves. That's not that we haven't had mass shootings. Unfortunately, they happen every day, and our media doesn't talk about it anymore. And then there'll be one, so then they'll talk about a few, and then they'll keep going, and then it becomes something else. And our media has talked about ADHD. They have a whole different acronym of what their attention span is. And so I appreciate your book, and I also appreciate this is a different way we can all figure out how we can take what we love and still use it to inspire others to take different actions. And I think that's really cool.

Kristen McGuiness 31:14  

Yeah. And I think, you know, going back sort of full circle on and, I mean, I think everybody has their the thing they used to get through life, right? Like I said, I write my way through this. So for me, my political activism, it makes sense for me to write it. That's the space in which I'm comfortable, you know. And everybody has their space in which they're comfortable. It's about to me, I think the most important thing is, as long as you keep paying attention, because the minute we stop paying attention, and that's the biggest thing too, is whatever way in which you can help other people to pay attention. You know, not just because you post on Instagram, although I don't not recognize how important that is, too. You know, the more that we are sharing information with each other, the more that we are talking, the more that we are activating each other into just awareness, hopefully, the better our world will be and the more we will demand the people in power to make certain decisions. And it does kind of go back into that idea, it's like, you know, we can, we can't control what the President does, but we can make choices every day to be part of that conversation in whatever way feels right and good and aligned with who we are. And so, you know, I've always been a political person, but I do believe that we all have our path through just navigating life and impacts those big systems have on all of us, no matter who we are.

Lesley Logan 32:31  

Yeah, you're so right. My husband, people wouldn't know, but his second hobby is like political podcast, the amount of research he does, and he's also the type of person who phone banks. So whenever they're like, are you volunteering? Like, only one person in the household can do it. Some of us have to keep the wheels on the bus right here. 

Kristen McGuiness 32:47  

Like, phone banking's over here.

Lesley Logan 32:48  

He's phone banking, but he, I watch him all the time in his way of activating and activism, he's not afraid of a conversation with someone who disagrees. And he's like, oh, have you heard this podcast? And he'll just use a podcast episode that will explain to someone he's like, just think, just listen to it. There are ways of doing it. He's not on socials. Lucky him. You know. But like we each can have our way of being part of this society and making change. And it can be loud or it can be writing a book. It can be writing a play. It could also be how you teach a class. It can be the types of music that you're using to help and inspire people and have people ask questions. Or it can be like, Brad is like, oh, to our friend who had a flag up, we're like, it's interesting. I wouldn't have expected that from that person, and he just went with quiet curiosity and was like, oh, you should listen to this episode right here. And the guy did, that's where you make really big impact, is on those small relationships. It doesn't feel big in the moment, but it's big over time. And so you're just freaking cool. You're so cool, we're all gonna go read your book. What are you most excited about right now?

Kristen McGuiness 33:50  

I mean, I just wrote a screenplay in 12 hours, I'm very excited about that.

Lesley Logan 33:55  

Yeah. What did you guys do listening? She wrote a screenplay in 12 hours. I forgot my laundry in the wash machine. 

Kristen McGuiness 34:00  

That's not what I do every day of my life, folks. So, by no means, there are a lot of days that are just laundry and lifting up a 80 pound dog who can't stand by himself. I take care of a lot of people, no, but I did get to do that. But the exciting part of that, the reason why I just cracked that out, is that Live Through This is actually going to a very big actress in the next week, and I wanted to have some sample writing to go with it. So that was the motivation to be like, I'm having dinner with the producer tonight. And I was like, I'm going to crack out that screenplay. She's a dear friend of mine. I'm going to give her a draft of it tonight, and hopefully next week we can turn around fast enough so that this book and this screenplay that I just wrote that is similar in that it's about, I mean, my poor husband has become a very unfortunate muse, but we just went on a two week trip to Greece that I said was like an odd DC and adventure. It was like, people like, how was your vacation? And I'm like, how do I respond to that? I'm far too honest to be like, it was fun. I'm like, it was not like two weeks laying around Hilton Head. It was a fucking life changing adventure, in good ways and bad. So I decided, you know what, I'm gonna write a screenplay about that experience, except for it includes, you know, talking cats and the goddess Artemis. And it's like, it's super funky and fun, and that's just what I did. And the beauty of it is that I am also a book publisher, and I'm a book coach. I have a book coaching company, Rise Writers, and a book publishing house, Rise Books. So, so much of my time when I am not parenting, I actually am not a writer. That's not what pays the bills, right? So I have this other really big creative job, but it's so much of my time and energy goes into other people's creative projects. So when I just finished that screenplay, I was like, who knows what's gonna happen with this crazy thing I just wrote. But the fact is, I got to just do that for me and the catharsis and excitement. I mean, I'll watch anything with a talking animal. So, I mean, I just figured if nobody else ever wants to see this movie, I'd watch it just for a talking cat named Gordon. 

Lesley Logan 35:57  

Oh, don't you love a pet with, a pet with a human name. I screwed up. We named all of our animals like something important, and the next round is going to be like, Bob and Jonathan.

Kristen McGuiness 36:09  

My dog's name is Peter. It's actually like, it's so funny, because there are a lot of dogs with human names, but that wouldn't, for that reason. And he also looks like a human so he actually confuses people. When people look at my dog, they're like, oh Peter. And you see, there's a moment where they go, is that a person or a dog? 

Lesley Logan 36:26  

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I understand. I understand. Oh my god. I adore you. I'm so excited to see where this goes. And I just so appreciate your vulnerability and honesty about how you do life, because I think that, for everyone listening, there's something to pick up there. We're gonna take a brief break, and then we're gonna find out how people can find you, follow you, read all of your goodness. 

All right, Kristen, tell us where people can read your amazing book, or find out if Gordon ever makes it on the big screen. 

Kristen McGuiness 36:51  

Yeah, let's say if ever there was a cat who deserved the big screen. No, you can find me at Kristen McGinnis on Instagram or @RiseLiterary, but my website is riseliterary.com where you can learn more about me and the book publishing house, Rise Books, as well as all of our book coaching programs. If you are writing a book and are interested in finding out how you do that, we offer lots of ways to find your path to publishing, which is like our trademarkable motto. But also you can find Live Through This anywhere it's sold. It's distributed by Simon & Schuster. So we are everywhere, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, I guess I will flash the book, yeah. So wherever books are sold. So yeah, but otherwise, just come and check us out and hope to connect with some of y'all listening soon.

Lesley Logan 37:40  

All right, before I let you go, bold, executable, intrinsic, targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us?

Kristen McGuiness 37:48  

All right. This is, when I read the email beforehand. I was like, yikes.

Lesley Logan 37:55  

I know you know what though, you're brilliant. It'll, every like, it's gonna be brilliant, whatever you say, so don't be yikes.

Kristen McGuiness 38:02  

No. I mean, I think if I could just show the gift from the end of Thelma and Louise, that would be it. But, I mean, I do think it is it, you know. I mean, I think it's about never lose sight of the dream, no matter what, and no matter what gets in the way, you know, no matter what life shows up, no matter what children you have, no matter where your marriage goes, or whether you get married or not, or whether you have kids, no matter whether the dog passes away or you get a kitten, you know, no matter what comes there's this great I think it's an Emmy Lou Harris song that says all that you have is your soul. And I think that that's really true. We are always there underneath it all, and as long as we connect back into that, and I'll actually end on an Oprah quote, one of my authors put this in a book that she just, we're publishing in May, called Rewrite the Mother Code. I will also honor her, Dr Gertrude Lyons, she's writing it, and she puts this Oprah quote in there that said, I've learned, and I'm going to not say the quote perfectly, but like I've learned over time that there is always a small, quiet voice inside me that's leading me where I'm supposed to go. And the only times I've ever made mistakes in life is when I've chosen to ignore that voice. And I think that, to me, is the biggest step is like, as long as you're listening to the small, quiet voice inside you, you will always end up where you need to go, so you don't need to grip the wheels so tightly. Let go and get the gas and enjoy the view. 

Lesley Logan 39:30  

Oh, Kristen, I'm obsessed. You're amazing. Y'all, how are you going to use these tips in your life? Let Kristen know. Let us know at the Be It Pod. Share this with a friend. Sometimes it's like the thing that someone needs to help them listen to that voice inside and, you know, write their way through it, or Pilates their way through it, or whatever it is, because we all have something we can do in this world. Thank you so much. And until next time everyone, Be It Till You See It. 

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 40:37  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 40:42  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 40:47  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 40:54  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 40:57  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

In this week’s Fuck Yeah Friday, Lesley Logan celebrates wins—big and small—from the community and her own journey. Inspired by Reese Witherspoon’s advice on confidence, she highlights the power of simply starting, rather than waiting to feel ready. She also shares community wins, including a successful holiday event, attracting the right clients, and making big business decisions. Plus, she opens up about her personal journey of letting go of pressure and embracing self-kindness.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• A community member’s win in hosting a memorable holiday event.
• How simplifying processes helped attract new clients.
• Facing big transitions and trusting the next step.
• Letting go of pressure and embracing self-kindness.
• A powerful mantra to reconnect with your wild side

Episode References/Links:

• Her Midlife Empowerment - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCc6wU-IUy8

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

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Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

It's Fuck Yeah Friday.

Lesley Logan 0:01  

Fuck yeah. 

Lesley Logan 0:02  

Get ready for some wins. Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 0:48  

Hi, Be It babe. How are you happy? March 14th 2025. Whoa. This year is flying. I'm really excited that you're here. I'm excited you're listening. I love this episode of each week. It has a special place in my heart because I get to celebrate things that you did, and I get to give you some inspiration, and I get to give you a mantra, and it kind of just makes me feel like I get to be in your ears, supporting you, hopefully, support you, and remind you you're doing amazing things. You're doing a really good job. 

Lesley Logan 1:14  

So, the person who inspired me on the internet, this is really cool. I came from Her Midlife Empowerment and it's a Reese Witherspoon video, so I'm sure she's just reusing it. But basically, Reese was asked how she has the courage and confidence to do a job and all that stuff and to know that they're confident in it. And Reese was basically like, you don't wait to have confidence that you can do it. You actually just need to have the confidence to start. Because when you start, yes, you'll make mistakes, but you'll get better at it, and the more you do it, the more confidence you'll get. So you don't have to have confidence that you're going to be a great nurse. You just have the confidence to start to be a nurse. You don't have to have the confidence to be an entrepreneur. You just have the confidence to start the business you think. We just have to get started. The courage to get started needs to be celebrated. And I really love this. I'll make sure the link is in the show notes. But I just really thought it was so brilliant because one of the reasons this podcast exists is everyone thinks you're so confident in everything you do, you're so, you're so good. I'm scared to death, but I have enough confidence and courage to start the thing and then trust that I'll get pulled along the journey, and as it's going I get better. For example, I don't even know what number this is when it comes out. When I started, I did not think I was confident as a podcast host, but I was definitely confident I could start to be a podcast host. And so the first episodes probably are a little bit weird. I'm still working on things out, but I've gotten so much better, and now I'm very confident in being on anyone's podcast, or having any guest on the show, like I'm very confident. Having my favorite guest on Episode 400 didn't scare me, because I was really ready for them, right? So thanks, Reese for that amazing reminder that we don't need to have the confidence to be something. We have to have the confidence to start to do the thing. 

Lesley Logan 2:55  

So now, a win of yours. This one is from Stephanie Eder, also an eLevate grad and an agency member. I threw a kick ass holiday party charity drive for my clients this week. Music suites, table, photo booth with the Grinch appearing. I love that. Pilates, trivia prizes from local businesses and Korean beauty facials. I'm selling the product at my studio starting in January, so it gave me early exposure. So I don't think it would have been as good without the help of LL. We discussed the party on my quarterly call. She helped with the little details like the goodie bag and approaching businesses. She had the ideas of doing all the things, for-your-feet goodie bag, a branded rally towel, marbles, pencil and thick rubber band. She made sure I thought of all the elements to make it a success. So many thank yous for my clients and great event to create community. My husband was a trooper and jack of all trades helper last night, and made a comment that it was such a nice group of people. I really felt that last night, and felt very lucky to have all these people in my life. So Stephanie, it was so fun to plan your holiday party for your business with you. It's one of my favorite things to think about. I think it's still been fabulous, because I definitely didn't think about the Grinch with the photo booth. That's great. And you had to go and do all those things, right? So thank you for having the call and asking me that question so we could just brainstorm and dream up, because there's no bad idea in a brainstorm. And I'm so happy that they loved it so much. I mean, really, I wish I could be there. I wish I could have been there. I would have loved to have taken a picture of the Grinch, and I would love to meet everyone, but you attract amazing people. You really do. I have been able to meet them, and you really do. So I want to highlight these wins, because the win for Stephanie is the event of it all, as opposed to, sometimes we're like, okay, into the holiday party, then get me 17 other things. No, it's the actual, a party itself. You threw this party. Many people don't, or if they do, they half ass it, but you were intentional about it, and celebrating your intentionality is so worthwhile. It's so amazing. 

Lesley Logan 4:44  

All right, I'm going to give you one more win from you guys today. It's from Mary Dellanina. Mary's went on retreats with us and on Agency, and she wrote, wins the past few months. So, great coaching call with Rachel Piper, who gave me the words to move on from my current studio. A new student stated that my onboarding process was the easiest he's worked with. I was the fifth Pilates studio who tried to get an appointment with they need LL. Yes, Mary, they do. My gosh. Also, let's just shout out. What a win. This guy kept trying different places, and you were number five. That's amazing. Number three, I've had two sessions, my first professional athlete, a professional baseball player. He's so easy to work with as each movement matters. He's loving how each movement is challenging him. He shows me how the movements work with him and how he has to bat, which is very fun and interesting. Fourth, my December is extremely busy. I'm happy about this. And I'm headed to bike in Chile, and then a hike in Patagonia in January. Oh my God. Fifth, this is my last quarter on my home studio. I'm afraid, excited and sad. I've lived in the same area for 37 years and grown this business for the past 10 years. But I know my move will be a win for my spirit. It really is going to be exciting, Mary. Number six, wishing you all a blessed holiday season and a 2025 that feels right for you. And number seven, I'll be hosting my first retreat, which people will travel to in 29 Palms California. I'm excited to be in the desert and share it with others. We absolutely love the Palm Springs area. It's so fun. We were there in January as well, Mary, and these wins are just beautiful. I love that you collected them, and I love that you have a variety and just got to see how all these different things you're doing, you're making big challenges, like changing a studio space can be so scary, and yet it served its purpose, and now it's time to go to another purpose, go to another space. You know, we've all, never want to overstay our welcome at a party, right? So thank you for sharing that. 

Lesley Logan 6:34  

Okay, a win of mine. So my win is that I have been working really hard at giving myself permission that what I did was enough. And this is not easy, and I actually do not think that I'm great at this yet, but I don't like to drive at night like a thing, like I just really don't, and it really stresses me out. And I was feeling really overwhelmed by it, and I was feeling like I would let our household down if I didn't drive through the night. And I gave myself permission to check in with myself at the halfway point, not the halfway but almost half, more than halfway point. And then I could stay if I needed to, and sleep, and then I could go. And I know this sounds like oh, Lesley, don't drive if you're tired, but I wanted to be someone who could get all the way to where we're going, but I also felt pressure doing that. At any rate, this was my first challenge for myself for the year. I was driving our new-to-us car, used car, but a new-to-us car home from Tempe at night, and I did it, and I was so proud of myself, but also, when we got to our stopping point, I even allowed myself to go you can stay here if you want. What you've done is enough. And having a little self-talk, little self-chatter was really helpful. Having a little self-talk and a little self-chatter was really helpful, not only to get all the way home, but to realize I was doing a great job, and I actually was awake and I wasn't tired. And I share that with you, because I think we all have these conversations with ourselves, and we always when we wonder, like, did I do enough? Self-evaluating or judging, even today, something happened in my text messages, and I was like, oh my God, did I do the wrong thing? And then I was, hold on, I did all the things right. I don't know what's going on, but I can't control that, so I'm gonna let that go. It's a daily conversation. It's really annoying. My Be It loves, like, this daily conversation of talking to yourself about what's real, what are we making up? What is possible, what are we doing? But in doing that so far this year, like I'm having a much better year and having a more confident year, and there's a lot more kindness in it. So essentially, basically, to sum it up, my win is that I did a thing. I didn't force myself to do more than I could. I was able to do more than I thought. And it wasn't because I pushed myself, it's because I could do it, and that's great. So if you can take anything from it, just ask yourself, if this is all I can do today, okay, great. I did it. That's what I needed to do, and celebrate that. It's going to help. It's going to make your life so much easier. 

Lesley Logan 9:02  

So your mantra is from the Deck of Plenty. I break bread with all priestesses of pleasure, and I co-create with those who adore the wild within me. I break bread with all priestesses of pleasure, and I co-create with those who adore the wild within me. Ooh, that's fun. That's a fun one. That one means you gotta get excited, gotta find the wild in you. She will have it. 

Lesley Logan 9:27  

Thank you guys for being amazing listeners. Thank you for being you. We couldn't do this podcast without you. And so I hope that you send in wins of yours, send in people that inspire you, so we can celebrate them and until next time, Be It Till You See It.

Lesley Logan 9:27  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 10:23  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 10:28  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 10:33  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 10:40  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 10:43  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Lesley Logan and Brad Crowell break down key insights from Lesley’s conversation with Sam Mandel, CEO and co-founder of Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles, one of the first ketamine clinics in the country. They explore how ketamine therapy can help reframe trauma, unlock new mental pathways, and provide clarity for lasting change. In this recap episode, they discuss the power of perspective shifts, breaking free from limiting beliefs, and why taking action—despite fear or perfectionism—is the key to growth. If you’ve ever felt stuck in your past, this conversation will give you a fresh way to move forward.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• How ketamine therapy helps reframe past experiences and shift perspectives on trauma.
• The role of ketamine in rewiring the brain and breaking old thought patterns.
• Why a structured clinical environment ensures the best results with ketamine therapy.
• The importance of normalizing alternative mental health treatments and breaking the stigma.
• How perfectionism holds you back and why taking “messy action” leads to real growth.

Episode References/Links:

• Cambodia October 2025 Waitlist - https://crowsnestretreats.com 
• Spring Pilates Training - https://opc.me/events
• Pilates Studio Growth Accelerator - https://prfit.biz/accelerator
• Accessories Flashcards Waitlist - https://opc.me/flashcardwaitlist
• Ketamine Clinics LA Website: https://Ketamineclinics.com 
• Sam Mandel's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thesammandel

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

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Resources:

• Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube!
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• Profitable Pilates

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Episode Transcript:

Brad Crowell 0:00  

The past is the past, but our story about it can change at any given moment. So the event still happened, but the story we tell ourselves about that event that is something that we can change. And he said the ketamine really helps you dig in, because, well, first off, he said the most challenging aspect of trauma is that we feel like it can define us, and ketamine helps you see the traumatic events with a new perspective, detaching from the overwhelming emotions and allowing for more objective processing. 

Lesley Logan 0:31  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 1:10  

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co-host in life, Brad, and I are going to dig into the eye-opening convo I had with Sam Mandel in our last episode. If you haven't yet listened to that interview, feel free to pause this now go back and listen to that one or you can listen to this one and then listen to that one. You can listen, too, in whatever order you want. I found it to be really fascinating.

Brad Crowell 1:35  

Yeah, actually, I always find it funny that people tell us we've clearly said this almost 300 times now, or 250 times now saying you could pick if you want to watch one, listen to one first or the other, or watch and. 

Lesley Logan 1:48  

People need permission. 

Brad Crowell 1:49  

But then when people meet us, they say, oh, I'm really enjoying your recap. So I listen to them first and then go back. Or other people are like, I don't know. I have to listen to this first versus the I can't listen (inaudible).

Lesley Logan 1:59  

They want to guess. They want to know if their takeaway is what we're going to talk about, which I think is really fascinating. I think it's also what a great personality test.

Brad Crowell 2:08  

Yeah. I don't know what conclusions we're drawing from it but yes. 

Lesley Logan 2:11  

Here's what I would say. I listen to a couple true crime shows, and I cannot listen to the talking about the show until I've listened to the show, because I like the anticipation of, like, did he do it? What's going on? Like, I like that. And then I like listening to. 

Brad Crowell 2:26  

What are you talking about you skip to the end? 

Lesley Logan 2:30  

Well, when we watched The Crown, yes, I Google. I Google, like, if it is true. Well, sometimes the anxiety makes me want to know.

Brad Crowell 2:37  

This is the Lesley thing. We start a thing, there's some kind of stress, which is, in every TV show, it's on purpose. And then she pulls out her phone, Google's the resolution for the entire show. And then I'm always like, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I literally don't want to know. I want to enjoy the show the way they made it. 

Lesley Logan 2:54  

I am not your friend to support you not finding out if you're having a boy or girl, even though I completely support whether or not they identify as that, I like to know. 

Brad Crowell 3:06  

You're not going to do the Moira Rose, I don't know if you trust me with that secret. 

Lesley Logan 3:13  

No, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to be I don't want to hold a secret. No, that's not true. I can't hold a secret. 

Brad Crowell 3:20  

Hilarious. All right. Well, today is March 13th 2025 and it's a day for two specials things here. 

Lesley Logan 3:26  

Oh, okay. So here we go. First up, it's International Every Girl Wins Day. This holiday helps bring attention to women's rights worldwide, especially to young girls. The celebrations involve talks, lectures and conferences on women's empowerment in every country, the goal is to achieve long-term systemic change that addresses women's rights to equity. The day also inspires young girls to take pride in their most essential assets. They're encouraged to support each other and be ambassador of the female empowerment movement, not just beneficiaries of it. The Ever Girl Wins Institute introduced this holiday. That's so cool. 

Brad Crowell 3:59  

Yeah, pretty cool. 

Lesley Logan 4:00  

What a fun day. Okay, well, that's so fun, we have to figure out how to celebrate that more. Let's participate next year. I don't know. Lex, if you're listening, let's talk about it.

Brad Crowell 4:08  

Yeah. Second up, it's National Open An Umbrella Indoors Day. 

Lesley Logan 4:13  

What? 

Brad Crowell 4:13  

Right? I was like, okay, I need to include this. So it's a day to test the popular superstition that opening an umbrella inside will bring bad luck. So I didn't know that was a thing. I didn't realize it. I've heard of walking under a ladder, something about black cats. I don't actually know. 

Lesley Logan 4:29  

I have always heard that opening the umbrella inside is bad luck, but I've never participated in it, because where else are you supposed to open the umbrella, outside in the rain? Not everythin has a.

Brad Crowell 4:39  

You always open it indoor first, and then go outside with it.

Lesley Logan 4:42  

Oh, I kind of want to, if I can push the door open, I want to open the umbrella as I'm going outside, because. 

Brad Crowell 4:48  

Yeah, as you're going outside.

Lesley Logan 4:49  

If there's not a, most buildings don't have a porch, like a, what do you call it? It's not a porch. It's not what you're staying on, it's, it's overhang. Most of them don't have the overhang. And I just think it's annoying, because then you're wet under your umbrella.

Brad Crowell 4:49  

Yes, yes.

Lesley Logan 4:55  

Okay, well, tell us more about this day. 

Brad Crowell 5:03  

Apparently, superstitions are baseless beliefs held by people that influence their behavior. So, shame on you, apparently. There are irrational beliefs that performing or not performing particular acts will lead to either bad luck or good luck. National Open An Umbrella Day, Indoors Day, allows you to try your luck and see how your day goes. So if you're willing to risk it. 

Lesley Logan 5:27  

I just think that this person is kind of an ass. It's baseless. Your superstitions are baseless beliefs. There are so much studies on where you have attention, that's where things go, and that's why manifesting works. So I would just say, focus on the good things. You don't bring in the bad. I wouldn't go wrong going, oh my God, this happened because I opened an umbrella inside, but maybe you do. And so this day is for you. 

Lesley Logan 5:47  

Okay, so we are at P.O.T. Denver. It actually starts Friday, but we are on our way. And so if you're there, make sure you come and say hi. If you're an OPC agency or eLevate member, we are having a little happy hour, so make sure you come over and find us. We want to talk about it. We want to hug you. Then get this, guess what, guys, March 18th to the 24th the Accessories Deck is on presale.

Brad Crowell 6:09  

So that's less than one week, y'all. 

Lesley Logan 6:11  

Yes, so if you go to opc.me/flashcardwaitlist, this is your last chance, because next week's podcast, we won't even be talking about it, because if you're not on the waitlist, you can't get the discount. So you must go to opc.me/flashcardwaitlist to get that 30% off. 

Brad Crowell 6:27  

I think we'll still talk about it this week. 

Lesley Logan 6:29  

No, no. Urgency, people. Get on it.

Brad Crowell 6:30  

Get on it right now, opc.me/flashcardwaitlist. 

Lesley Logan 6:34  

Hey, look, in case our things fuck up, and even though you get on the waitlist, you don't hear about it. 

Brad Crowell 6:38  

It's possible. 

Lesley Logan 6:38  

Also, because this is the last flashcard deck. Is there a waitlist anymore? 

Brad Crowell 6:43  

Yeah, what are we going to do with this waitlist? We're going to have to email y'all and be like, hey, this waitlist is now closed. Do you want to go over to other waitlists and we'll, we'll let you know what we got.

Lesley Logan 6:52  

Yeah, we'll have to, someone, whoever was on the team listening, please assign me that task. Okay.

Brad Crowell 6:56  

Okay. 

Lesley Logan 6:57  

April. 

Brad Crowell 6:58  

Coming up hard. Coming up fast. 

Lesley Logan 7:00  

April is coming up fast, and Spring Training is going to be April 27th through May 3rd, and those who are on the waitlist are going to get the early bird special. And this is a different waitlist than the flashcard waitlist. 

Brad Crowell 7:12  

True. They're not the same waitlist. 

Lesley Logan 7:13  

No, they're not. And so if you go to opc.me/events you are going to be entered.

Brad Crowell 7:19  

That is plural, opc.me/events

Lesley Logan 7:21  

Plural. That's where you go to make sure you get the early bird opportunity, because we will open up the early bird sign-ups a few days before regular sign-ups, and only those on the waitlist are going to get the discounted rate. Up next, Brad, what do you got for them? 

Brad Crowell 7:35  

Okay, we've got the Profitable Pilates Accelerator free webinar, if you are taking any clients on your own anywhere, whether that is at your house or in the park or your friend is, I don't know, buying you lunch. Technically, you are getting paid to teach, and that means you have your own business. And I'm sure you're aware, Lesley and I have been working with business owners just like you, just like us, where we were and where we are, coaching them through all the hard questions. How do you get new clients? How do I make this a living? Whatever the question might be, but I have a free webinar for you, specifically on increasing your income. Okay. So, come join me. Go to prfit.biz/accelerator that is profit without the O dot B-I-Z slash accelerator and join me for this free webinar. I can't wait to dig into the three biggest secrets that Lesley and I have learned after coaching more than 2500 small business owners just like you. And then finally, we've got October of this year. 

Lesley Logan 8:40  

Cambodia.

Brad Crowell 8:41  

Cambodia. We literally just got back. 

Lesley Logan 8:43  

We just got back and it was kind of a quick trip for us. We were only there. 

Brad Crowell 8:47  

Two and a half weeks. Yeah, we were traveling for two and a half weeks. 

Lesley Logan 8:50  

Yeah, we had a couple of days in Singapore, so not really two full weeks in Cambodia, but we loved it, and we're jonesing to go back already. And we have some epic people who already signed up. I'm really excited. Some of these people have been on the next time I'm gonna go next time for years, and now they're coming. 

Brad Crowell 8:50  

It's true. 

Lesley Logan 8:55  

And we have some repeat offenders. 

Brad Crowell 9:09  

We have someone else signing up this weekend. It's definitely starting to get full. October is a very popular time for our community. The weather is lovely. It's quite beautiful. If that's something of interest to you, make sure you reach out to us as soon as possible, and we'll get you all the information that you need to make the decision. But it's going to be October 12th through the 18th, 2025 so, come hang out in our favorite place in the world. 

Lesley Logan 9:33  

Yes. 

Brad Crowell 9:33  

Where do you go? Crownestretreats.com crowsnestretreats.com okay.

Lesley Logan 9:39  

Okay, so we're gonna get into the amazing Sam Mandel, and we're gonna learn all about ketamine and talk about it. Before we do that, we have a question from the audience. 

Brad Crowell 9:48  

We sure do. Okay. Eva de Brune from Instagram, states and asks, I know you enjoy lifting weights. Is the reformer, like the Contrology reformer and mat and Wunda chair, etc., is that enough? Or do you recommend adding weights to the workout routine? I get asked a lot, is mat enough? Yoga, you are using your body weight. What is your take on this? So a couple of things. So I think the way that this is written, I'm not sure if she's asking if she should go to the gym and be lifting weights, or if she's asking if she'd be adding weights to your Pilates practice. 

Lesley Logan 10:21  

I think it's go, I think it's the first, which is going to the gym and lifting weights in addition to your Pilates and your yoga. So here's the deal. Unfortunately, many of the studies that have been done on Pilates implies resistance has been done with Pilates isn't how I teach. Scientific studies cost a fuck ton of money. I actually, I've postponed a particular call with a group that does these studies multiple times, because it's tens of thousands of dollars. And the reality is, it's not even the best way of testing, because the more Pilates you do, the more muscles you bring in. So then who should we be testing? You know, there's just a lot of things. So what I can tell you is, my Contrology equipment has the heavy springs, obviously, that is resistance. That is absolutely resistance. Is it the same resistance training as heavy weights? I don't think we can say that it is. And so what I'm going to say is, I know you're very busy. I know you've got a lot going on. I would love to be able to say Pilates is all you need. I don't think it's true. 

Brad Crowell 10:21  

It's all you need. 

Lesley Logan 10:21  

I don't think it's true, but here's what I would say, pick a couple of days to do some heavy kettlebells. Pick a couple of days to do some barbell training. You don't have to hit. I'm not actually a big fan of hit for women over a certain age, it's can be really cortisol-inducing, but I would do some or do some heavy weightlifting. I would, also, because it's cool, because it's really cool to see what you can lift. It's really fun. The mat alone is epic and amazing for mobility and strength training. But even Joe realized that people needed more, and that's why he brought the springs in. And it's not that they need more because the mat isn't enough. It's because they need support to teach the body parts that don't have the access yet. So I actually use my weight training as information on where I have work to do, like my Pilates practice could support my weight training. I recognize like I have a balance issue when I do my single leg dead lifts. And so I use my Pilates Cadillac and my reformer to help train the things that I need so I can weight-train better. So to me, Pilates is actually so I can do my life. I'm sure there's a yogi out there who's gonna get pissed if I say yoga is not an not enough, but I'm gonna be really honest, depending on what your bone density is doing, body weight exercises alone are not necessarily enough, because you need to stress the muscles. So that is where I do think heavy springs can be compared to lifting weights, but they're just different things. 

Brad Crowell 12:40  

Stress the bones. 

Lesley Logan 12:41  

Stress the bones, yeah, you stress the muscles, which pull in the bones, which creates good stress on the bones, which creates good bone density. So, the other thing I would just say is your body is you got one, and the longer we wait to challenge it, the harder it is to support it. And so if you went in my routine, I do Pilates five to six days a week. I lift three to four days a week. I do yoga twice a week. I walk every day. And I do these things because I actually want to be 100 years old and still be able to travel and hike and be independent. So it's just like, what do you want in your future? And then how does your fitness regimen actually support what you want? Where are you at in your age group? Notice I didn't mention any cardio in there, because my Pilates practice has bouts of cardio in it. When I'm doing some of my yoga stuff, my heart rate goes up. When I do some of my lifting stuff, my heart rate goes up. So I'm challenging my heart in multiple ways. I don't need to spend time doing that, but I would, I would lift some weights, babe. And yes, your mat practice is essential. It's amazing. It's great for mobility and longevity. But I do not have a study in front of me that says it's enough.

Brad Crowell 13:46  

Right. Well, great question, Eva, thanks for asking. 

Lesley Logan 13:49  

Yeah. You know, here's the deal. If someone wants me to do a study, I would love to do it. You have no idea how much money you actually need to do it, and you need people who know the method. I would want to have people who are beginners, people who are advanced. I want to have women, men, but then, you need to know the women's cycle and where they're at. There's so much information. And I think that until we have that, you got to do it all. 

Brad Crowell 14:10  

You got to do it all. All right, well, stick around we'll be right back, because we're about to dig in to a really interesting conversation with a doctor, Dr. Sam Mandel. We're going to talk about. 

Lesley Logan 14:20  

Ketamine. 

Brad Crowell 14:21  

Ketamine. Special K, all the drug paraphernalia names. It's all the same stuff, y'all, it's just actually how you use it. And he went way deep on that, so I thought it was really interesting. We'll be right back. 

Brad Crowell 14:33  

Okay, welcome back. Let's talk about Sam Mandel. Sam Mandel is the co-founder and CEO of Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles, Sam and his father, who's also a doctor, opened KCLA in 2014 making it one of the first ketamine clinics in the entire country. Sam's passion for this innovative treatment stems from the profound and lasting positive impacts it has on people's lives. He believes ketamine therapy offers individuals the oportunity to rewrite their stories, overcome deeply ingrained mental patterns and step into a life filled with hope, resilience and joy.

Lesley Logan 15:09  

Okay, so when I got to talk to Sam, I was like, okay, I'm very interested, because we've had Dr. Kelly Bender on. 

Brad Crowell 15:15  

Yes. 

Lesley Logan 15:15  

She's a dear friend of mine, and I know that she does ketamine therapy and treatment, and we have a personal friend who we know has done ketamine treatments. She tried to do them on her own and. 

Brad Crowell 15:26  

Yes, I mean, she was prescribed it, but she did them at home alone, which I thought, I didn't realize that was an option.

Lesley Logan 15:32  

And also, we have another friend where his wife has gone to the clinic like Sam's, and then he did on his own. And so anyways, so I just was very interested, because also, I think there's a lot of misinformation out there, and then when you have a death of someone who is abusing it with other things, then people get scared of something. And so I was really intrigued, because I think a lot of ways that people are affected of being it till they see it is they have past traumas or things going on in their brain that keep them from having the ability to be it till they see it. They have all the ideas. They've been listening this podcast. They have all this support, but then they have this stuff that's keeping them in their way. And so I really want to have Sam on because if ketamine can help them, then they need it to be it till they see it, right? So here's one thing I learned, ketamine is actually a psychedelic. I guess I didn't know that. I don't know what I thought ketamine was, so I thought that was really interesting. And it's really the only legally available psychedelic in the United States. It has the ability to dissolve these barriers that get in our way and help people get out of their own way. And so obviously, traditional talk therapy is really great. It can be helpful, but it says limitations. It's because our conscious mind gets in the way and makes it difficult to confront those deep seated issues. But ketamine acts in a different part of the brain than antidepressants can, and it allows these breakthroughs that aren't necessarily possible with other methods. And I think that's really cool, because we've heard of great stories of how ketamine can help people, like vets and different things, and like. 

Brad Crowell 16:57  

PTSD.

Lesley Logan 16:58  

Oh yes, and it also like just kind of helps you take a different look at what the thing is. And I think in our own brains, we can judge ourselves for our actions we took or we didn't take in that situation, because it can be difficult to kind of forgive yourself about how you participated in an event that's affecting you, or how long it's, you just get in your head about it. And the way that ketamine can actually, when prescribed correctly and when done at a I think it's so cool that there's a clinic that you can go so, you know, you're safe, you know, I mean, first of all, it is safe. 

Brad Crowell 17:30  

It's a controlled environment. Oh, yeah. 

Lesley Logan 17:31  

It's a controlled environment, yes.

Brad Crowell 17:32  

I think that's half the reason why I stayed away from drugs was I didn't know what was going to happen, and if I knew something was going to happen to me and I was going to be impaired. Am I in a place where I'm going to be safe, right? So.

Lesley Logan 17:45  

Right. When I finally tried doing a little like micro dosing of mushrooms, it has to be at the house. There can be nothing going on. 

Brad Crowell 17:53  

I can't have any obligations, no expectations from anybody else.

Lesley Logan 17:59  

Yeah, all these things we didn't even need to do that we could have just gone to Sam's clinic, and it's all set up in his clinic. 

Brad Crowell 18:05  

Sam's clinic. 

Lesley Logan 18:05  

Sam's clinic. It's called, not Sam's clinic. It's called, Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles, KCLA. So anyways, I just think that it's important for me to bring to everyone's attention here, that this is something that exists, and there are places that you can do it in a controlled way to actually get the true benefits from it. And because I've had so many people tell me that they have good benefits, I just didn't want negative stuff to keep people from doing it in the right way. 

Brad Crowell 18:32  

Well, let's talk about why you might want to participate. Why would you be signing up to do a psychedelic? What I really enjoyed about Sam was him breaking it down from the perspective of a doctor, of what it actually is doing, how it's affected his patients. They've been around since 2014 so they're 10 years. So, they've done like, 30,000 treatments or something, you know, amazing. So he said ketamine helps people to craft the story around the trauma that they have. He said what happened is fixed, meaning the past. Whatever traumatic event happened, it's fixed, and it can never be changed. The past is the past, but our story about it can change at any given moment. So the event still happened, but the story we tell ourselves about that event that is something that we can change. And he said that ketamine really helps you dig in, because, well, first off, he said the most challenging aspect of trauma is that we feel like it can define us, and ketamine helps you see the traumatic events with a new perspective, detaching from the overwhelming emotions and allowing for more objective processing. The potential for ketamine to promote neuroplasticity, meaning your brain is creating new pathways, right? So, you know the expression, old dog can't be taught new tricks, right? Well, the whole idea there is that you're in a rut. You're in a groove, and it's really hard to jump out of that groove and create a new way of thinking, because we just default to what is easiest, and what is easiest is what we already know. So if we've defined for ourselves years ago that this thing equals pain, this thing equals fear, this equals whatever the thing is the story we tell ourselves, it is actually really hard to rewrite that story, and ketamine can help allow your brain to create those new storylines, those new pathways, so it helps bump out of that rut, which I thought was pretty cool. He said ketamine provides this kind of objective clarity. It can be extremely healing and transformational for people. 

Lesley Logan 18:51  

Yeah, it kind of makes you go, should we all just go and do a ketamine treatment? Like, can it just be, like, the jump start you need? I don't know. It feels, I just, I feel like maybe it would help me get the all the journaling in the world that I've been doing, I might be able to speed up the process if I just did a treatment around the thing that keeps coming up.

Brad Crowell 20:55  

I think that's the idea. And I think also, even just the concept of that, it still feels taboo. It still feels like this scary thing that, great we've put it in a controlled environment, but I actually think it would benefit society if we normalized it. 

Lesley Logan 21:12  

Yeah, well, we have to, first of all, we got to normalize mental health and that we all have different ways.

Brad Crowell 21:17  

Yes, same exact stigma as any kind of therapy, or any of that. This is a different form of therapy than talk therapy, than. 

Lesley Logan 21:25  

I don't know. Maybe this is because we actually did do 14, 15 years in LA, and I knew people who were doing these things and doing controlled micro dosing of other things. And because my friend studies it, I know the benefits. And so to me, it doesn't feel taboo. Also, maybe we all could use a little bit of like, when you lived in LA, everyone had a therapist, and it was not unheard of for people to go, yeah, I'm gonna go get some ketamine therapy. We need to normalize all that for the rest of the country. Therapy is real. Do it. And also, if you can't get to, LA, do your research. But I would definitely use Sam's website for what you're looking at, as far as what the standard should be.

Brad Crowell 22:07  

Like the standard, which organization's the gold standard, you know, go look up Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles, and then compare that to a local clinic. 

Lesley Logan 22:14  

Or and or go to LA. 

Brad Crowell 22:16  

Yeah, or reach out to them and talk to them and ask them, you know, what they recommend. 

Lesley Logan 22:19  

Yeah, they had some great stuff. So anyways, I think it's great. I think I could see where this could be really useful. And obviously it's not what you go do every Thursday. But if you've got -ish holding you back, what are you waiting for? 

Brad Crowell 22:33  

Yeah, let's splash that -ish.

Lesley Logan 22:35  

I don't think that's what Sam wants.

Brad Crowell 22:42  

All right, stick around. We'll be right back with those Be It Action Items from Dr. Sam Mandel. 

Brad Crowell 22:47  

All right. So finally, let's talk about those Be It Action Items. What bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action items can we take away from your convo with Sam Mandel? Borrowing Nike slogan, he said take action. Just do it. Honestly, planning and strategizing is important, thinking things through, figuring out who you are, what you want, and putting together a plan that actually matters. So, the just do it part could start with the planning, but I think it's so easy for us to have analysis paralysis. I was just having this conversation with someone over the weekend of yeah, I started to do the thing, and then I ran into a speed bump, and I had to make a choice. But to make the choice, I had to learn a whole lot of stuff, and to learn a whole lot of stuff, it was going to take me a lot of time. And then what did I do? Nothing, right? So sometimes maybe we can phone a friend and shortcut that maybe we can, I don't know, join a coaching group and shortcut that maybe we can call a doctor and shortcut that when it comes to the planning and whatever, but I think just getting out there and taking messy action, we talk about that all the time. 

Lesley Logan 23:43  

And also, if you haven't yet listened to the interview, go listen to it, because you actually hear about how he and his father started the clinic, which was like just doing it. It was like a freaking closet with a tiny desk and everything. But I think as we plan different things, there's part of me that loves how I do things. I just go for it. And then sometimes you and the team have too many questions, and I'm like, I don't have the answer for that. I think we're gonna figure it out when we get there. And it doesn't always work that way. So I would say, if you are someone who has to know every single thing before you get started this Be It Action Item is for you.

Brad Crowell 24:14  

Yeah, there's just too many unknowns. So planning can stop you in your track. 

Lesley Logan 24:18  

We've coached so many people who have made sure they have all their plans to a tee, and then something out of everyone's control comes in and fucks it all up. I've had friends who've literally planned exactly what they want their business do, and then literally, two months later, after they did everything to a tee, perfectly, exactly how they wanted, they spend the budget the right way, everything, then COVID happened, fucked it all up. Didn't matter. So, you know, I think there's a healthy balance. 

Brad Crowell 24:44  

Yep. What about you? 

Lesley Logan 24:45  

Okay, he talked about it's too easy to let perfection keep us from taking the steps that we need to take to get done who we want to be, so. 

Brad Crowell 24:51  

Wait, say that one more time. 

Lesley Logan 24:53  

It's too easy to let perfectionist keep, perfectionism keep us from taking the steps we need to take to get done who we want to be. So like. 

Brad Crowell 24:53  

I think it would be better to say to become who we want to be. 

Lesley Logan 25:03  

To become who we want to be, probably. So I couldn't agree more. And he said you're going to make mistakes, and it's really the only way you actually succeed in life. And he said, if you're dealing with mental health condition, he encourages you to call and so a lot of times perfectionism shows up as a sign of imposter syndrome that you're dealing with, but it could also be a way of you controlling things, which can be part of a mental health situation. And so.

Brad Crowell 25:26  

I mean, it's the same exact, here's a perfect example. If he's the gold standard and you don't live in Los Angeles, then you won't take any action, because you can't get to the best one, right? That is perfectionism. What you could do is take messy action, give them a call and say hey, I don't live there, but.

Lesley Logan 25:44  

What are my options? 

Brad Crowell 25:45  

What am I, what should, what should we be talking about here and just see if there is a path or some kind of alternate option for you, wherever it is that you live. So. 

Lesley Logan 25:52  

Yeah, I mean, we talk about perfectionism here a lot, and I would just say, don't get mad at the perfectionist tendencies that you have. Use them as a highlighter of where you have work to do, whether that is doing a controlled ketamine treatment to get over this perfectionist issue that you have, or it's how can I get a friend over here who I just envy that they just go for things to help me take a look at this thing that I want to do, because I can borrow a little bit of their imperfection and go-getterness and help you. You know what I mean? 

Brad Crowell 26:23  

It's like a barrier. Perfectionism is a barrier that we throw up to keep ourselves from failure. 

Lesley Logan 26:33  

It is a great excuse for not getting shit done. You are correct, sir. Like, I know a lot of people who will say, oh, it's because I'm perfectionist. That's why I haven't done it. And it's a really good excuse that people will just go, oh, well, that's true.

Brad Crowell 26:45  

For me, I think it's the other extreme of the concept of, oh, I don't set any goals, because then I can't be let down. If you heard someone say that, you would go, well, that's not how I want to live. Well, the irony is that perfectionism is just the flip side of that coin. We are inadvertently putting roadblocks in the way. We've got to make sure everything's good, because if we don't, then it's going to fail, right? Then I'm going to be let down. 

Lesley Logan 27:09  

I really enjoyed him sharing his stories of how he built everything, because they had to be (inaudible). Even if everything they did around how they controlled the environment for ketamine was exactly to a tee, the way they had to open the business, grow the business, put things together, you know, they had to do it, trying to figure it out, because it didn't exist before. And so a lot of you who are listening have ideas. 

Brad Crowell 27:30  

He said he went to a Radio Shack and bought a burner phone so that they could make sure they had some kind of a (inaudible).

Lesley Logan 27:36  

I think it was the Radio Shack that, like, is on Santa Monica Boulevard. 

Brad Crowell 27:36  

No it's the other one. That one, you brought up, though. 

Lesley Logan 27:42  

Yeah. I was like, but even if you just listen to this episode to learn from Sam, just getting started with what you have access to that helps you get going, we have to stop allowing ourselves to be like, well, I don't have enough information. I don't have enough of this. I don't have enough this to start, it's affecting your gifts from being enjoyed by the people who it's for. Imagine if Sam and his dad hadn't started in an office because it's not sexy enough, right? So anyways, just do it. That's what he said.

Brad Crowell 28:09  

Just do it.

Lesley Logan 28:10  

Yeah, I'm Lesley Logan. 

Brad Crowell 28:11  

And I'm Brad Crowell. 

Lesley Logan 28:12  

Thank you so much for listening to our episode today. How are you going to use these tips in your life? Are you going to go to KCLA? Please let us know. Tag Sam Mandel. Tag the Be It Pod. And until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Brad Crowell 28:23  

Bye for now. 

Lesley Logan 28:25  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 29:07  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 29:12  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 29:17  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 29:24  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 29:27  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Lesley Logan sits down with Sam Mandel, co-founder of Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles, to discuss the transformative potential of ketamine therapy for mental health. They debunk common misconceptions, explore its impact on PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and highlight how it empowers individuals to reshape their personal narratives.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• What ketamine therapy is and how it differs from traditional treatments.
• How ketamine enhances neuroplasticity and helps reframe trauma
• The science behind ketamine’s impact on depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
• The difference between medical ketamine use and recreational misuse.
• What to expect during a ketamine therapy session.
• How ketamine therapy can help individuals reconnect with themselves and regain motivation.

Episode References/Links:

• Ketamine Clinics LA Website - https://Ketamineclinics.com
• Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ketamineclinicsla
• Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/KetamineClinicsLA
• Sam Mandel Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thesammandel

Guest Bio:

Co-founder & CEO of Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles (KCLA), Sam Mandel, is a tour-de-force of compassion and innovation in mental health care. From volunteering at a teen-to-teen suicide prevention hotline at twelve to pioneering one of the world’s foremost Ketamine Infusion Therapy clinics in 2014 alongside his father, Dr. Steven L. Mandel, Sam has channeled his lifelong passion for healthcare advocacy into transforming lives for the better. Sam was featured in Entrepreneur’s list of Top 10 Inspiring Healthcare Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2023 and acknowledged by MSN as an Entrepreneur Leading the Business Frontier in 2024. Numerous media outlets have interviewed Sam for his expertise in Ketamine Infusion Therapy, and he is a frequent speaker at medical conferences and events. Under his leadership, KCLA has provided over 30,000 infusions to over 6,000 patients with an 83% treatment success rate, establishing the field’s gold standard treatment protocols and patient satisfaction.

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Episode Transcript:

Sam Mandel 0:00  

When you look at trauma, for example, ketamine is extremely helpful for depression and anxiety, but also for PTSD and a lot of people have some trauma that is at the root of one of those issues, and ketamine helps people to recraft the story around that trauma. 

Lesley Logan 0:16  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 0:59  

Okay, Be It babe. This is going to be a different kind of episode, but in the best way. I have Sam Mandel, who is a founder of Ketamine Clinics in LA and I was really intrigued by what I know about ketamine from my friends' holistic doctors. And when he came up as someone I could interview, I was like, oh, we need to do this, because there is a lot of misinformation about ketamine and what ketamine can be used for, and I'm on a mission to help you be it till you see it. And I really want you to understand all the different ways that you can have support in feeling more like yourself and not letting things get in your way. And so that is why we're going to talk about ketamine today. And if you think you know what it is, I strongly encourage you to just stay and listen, because I thought I knew and I learned so much. And then on top of all of that, I really enjoy Sam's story of how he started these clinics and what he and his dad did. And so there's just a lot of beautiful information in this episode, and I can't wait for you to hear it. So here is Sam Mandel. 

Lesley Logan 2:00  

All right, Be It babe. I am really excited. I can tell you for a fact, we've never talked about this on the Be It Pod. And only is it quite timely, I think it's actually extremely imperative that we have this discussion so we have Sam Mandel here on the show. We're gonna talk about ketamine and all things about it, ketamine therapy. Sam, can you tell everyone who you are and probably why you rock at ketamine therapy?

Sam Mandel 2:25  

Yes, yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Lesley. So, I am Sam Mandel. I'm the co-founder and CEO of Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles. We're one of the first ketamine clinics in the country, established in 2014 and we specialize in IV infusions of ketamine for mental health, but we also offer several other innovative therapeutics for mental health. 

Lesley Logan 2:45  

I love that mental health is something more people are talking about, and there's like more awareness around it, but also that there can be clinics that are working on different ways of helping, supporting mental health, including these infusions. For people who have heard about ketamine, and maybe not the positive ways, can we kind of, can we just dive in and ease their nerves about what we're talking about here?

Sam Mandel 3:07  

Let's do it. Some of your listeners are definitely like, ketamine what? And there's five different people saying that it's five different things, and all of them are correct. So that's one of the interesting things about ketamine. It is, first and foremost, an FDA-approved anesthetic for humans. It was FDA-approved in 1970. This is an old medicine. It's also commonly used in veterinary medicine. So a lot of people know of it as a horse tranquilizer or a cat tranquilizer. In some circles, it's more commonly known as that than as a drug for humans. But there's a lot of medications that we use for humans, that we also use in veterinary medicine. And it's also a drug of abuse, or something that people use recreationally or self-medicate with, depending on how you want to look at it, known as Special K. Same drug. It's used as an analgesic, as a pain reliever, in emergency room departments and crisis situations, trauma situations, when someone's in a terrible accident, they're in pain, they need sedation, or someone goes in and they need their shoulder reset, they commonly will use ketamine for conscious sedation. So it is a ubiquitous drug. It has a lot of different uses and applications, and one of its most recent, or probably its most recent, addition to that list of its identities, if you will, is as a mental health treatment. And in the last 25 years, there's been a growing body of clinical research proving ketamine to really be among the fastest, if not the fastest-acting, safest, most effective depression treatments available today.

Lesley Logan 4:36  

I mean, it's kind of amazing that it can be all these different things, also not, right? Like there's so many things, I feel like there's a lot of untapped medicines out there that we're already using, and we don't realize it could be done for other things. Can we talk about how it helps? Because I'll say my family's understanding of mental health treatment is when you sit on a couch and you talk to a therapist and you go weekly if you're depressed, you can take a pill that will kind of help with some hormonal imbalances. But that's not what this is. 

Sam Mandel 5:01  

Yes, that is not what this is. And by the way, talk therapy is great. I go to therapy every week, you know, even when I'm in a good place and I don't necessarily feel like I have a lot to talk about, it's like going to the gym. I just go. I show up every week no matter what. And I think that's really good and healthy, especially if you have a therapist who you think cares about you and is invested in you, and you can just talk about, you know, life. And I'll tell you, sometimes when I go and I don't have anything bothering me or an agenda is when I do the most important work in those sessions, sometimes, so you just never know. But talk therapy is great, but it can only go so far. The conscious mind really gets in the way. Finding someone who cares is difficult the right credentialed person is expensive. A lot of the best people typically don't take insurance. It's not true for all of them. There's wonderful people out there who do, but a lot of the really good ones don't, and so it's a tough thing, but it has its limitations, like with anything. Ketamine and other psychedelic medicines, because ketamine, for all intended purposes, really is a psychedelic, and it's really the only legally available psychedelic in the United States, has the ability to really dissolve these barriers that get in our way. It helps people to get out of their own way and with exponential growth in ways that really are not possible and haven't been seen in any other treatment or modality. And the way it does that is really two primary mechanisms of action. The first is the neuro chemical effects and what's going on in the brain and how ketamine is impacting the brain and our neurochemistry in ways that really nothing else does. And the other is the experiential component, psychologically, what is going on during the experience or the trip that people have when they're receiving this medicine. And both of those are profound and really create lasting impact. On the neuro-chemical level, there's a neurotransmitter called glutamate. It's the most abundant neurotransmitter in the brain. It's present in 85% of the brain. All the other neurotransmitters combined comprise only 15% but for some reason, we've been disproportionately focused on them with mental health treatment. Those are the common ones you know of. Serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, you know, the most common class of antidepressant medications are SSRIs. Those are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and those are targeting serotonin. They're a tool. They help some people. They really don't help a lot of people, too, and the people they do help, they really cause a lot of negative side effects and weight gain, sexual dysfunction, dried mouth, blurred vision, even increased suicidality, and the list goes on and on, really terrible side effects that are really debilitating for a lot of people. Even when those side effects are not as debilitating, the quality of relief is typically not very good. So people will say, oh, well, I definitely am not as depressed, but I don't feel happy either. I'm just kind of existing. They have the spectrum of life and of the human experience narrowed, so the lows are not as low, but they're not really thriving either. Not a nice place to be. Is it better than being in bed all day? Absolutely. But that's not the goal. That's not my goal for my life. That's not my goal for other people's lives and for the patients who come to our clinic. We want people to really thrive. Ketamine has the ability to help people to truly thrive. It restores compassion for self and others. It is enhanced energy and motivation for most people. It's a genuine reconnection of self. One of the things that happens with this, with the glutamatergic system and other processes that are occurring in the brain with IV infusions of ketamine, is it causes and promotes neurogenesis, enhanced neuroplasticity, actual new pathways, new connections forming in the brain. This helps people to form new habits, new patterns, new ways of thinking and being that can be very, very positive by disrupting a lot of the automatic responses and reactions we have in our day to day life that get so deeply enmeshed in us that they become a part of our personality, and ketamine can kind of push the reset button on that so that we have the opportunity to consciously choose who we want to be and how we want to be, and helps us call into question the things that we've accepted as just that's the way that I am, or that's the way that it is, and that's not the case most of the time. You look at trauma, for example, ketamine is extremely helpful for depression and anxiety, but also for PTSD, and a lot of people have some trauma that is at the root of one of those issues, and ketamine helps people to recraft the story around that trauma. So what happened is fixed and can never change. The past is the past, but our stories about it can change at any given moment, who we are and who we were and the other people and our role in it, and their role in it, and what happened and what didn't happen, and ketamine provides this kind of objective clarity on that that can be extremely healing and transformational for people.

Lesley Logan 9:50  

Yeah, this is fascinating. What I've known about ketamine, and I have friends who, I have a holistic doctor friend who offers it as a treatment, and I've heard of these amazing effects that can happen, but I never understood on the brain level, like what's going on and why it's different than the antidepressants that people are on, and how it could, so if someone comes in, first of all, what are some of the reasons why they're coming in for treatment, and then what is the, what are the expectations? Are they coming in one time for an IV infusion? Is this a weekly thing? And how long can the effects last? Can it be forever? Do they have to keep coming back? Can I get the lowdown on that? 

Sam Mandel 10:25  

Yeah, you're asking all the right questions. So what treatment looks like is typically a series of six infusions over two to three weeks after that process I just explained where people are cleared for treatment. They come in, we have them fill out some paperwork, do a brief physical exam, and they come back to a private room. We help them to become comfortable in a recliner with noise canceling headphones, a sleep mask, unlimited selection of relaxing music, pillows, blankets, and we start an IV, and then we infuse the ketamine for 50 to 55 minutes. And it's a slow, gradual, steady state of infusion. People are conscious and awake the entire time. There's a level of dissociation where we don't want them to go so far that they don't know what's happening, but we want them to go into it far enough that they can kind of have a little bit of that quieting of the noise and chatter in their minds, and get a little bit of that clarity that I was describing earlier, and this separation really from themselves in a healthy way to take a look at things that can be really therapeutic, and doing that inner work. We monitor them the whole time. We use hospital-grade monitoring equipment. So that's like pulse, oxygen, EKG, blood pressure, continuous monitoring. I mean, it's a very safe medicine when it's used responsibly in a clinical setting like Ketamine Clinics Los Angeles. We still do all the proper monitoring just to make sure that people are comfortable and safe. And yeah, it's, that's pretty much the, you know, summary of the experience.

Lesley Logan 11:53  

Yeah, no. Thank you for sharing that, because I think, I don't think anyone's ever explained that, and I'm trying to think about people listening. It's like, well, what does it look like, you know, because let's just talk about what, we have heard about ketamine in the news lately, and it will continue to be in the news as people are going on trial, like when we hear Matthew Perry pass away from not the best use of ketamine, I think people are like, well, then how do you, what does it look like? Am I doing this myself? And I love that you have a wonderful protocol that allows people to be safe and use it in the best way that gets them the best results. But can we talk about the dark sides of ketamine, and what are some signs that people might not be in the safest situations using ketamine?

Sam Mandel 12:30  

Yeah, well, I'll definitely answer that with your reference to Matthew Perry, which is obviously a really sad situation. He was taken advantage of by people he trusted. He was a addict. He had a really, he's really struggled with addiction. He was very public about that, and not with ketamine specifically, but with really any substance that he could get his hands on. And was in a lot of pain, obviously, and it's a terrible situation. I think it's really important that people understand, though, that that has nothing to do with ketamine therapy. And the media created a lot of confusion for people saying that he had had ketamine therapy a few weeks ago and but that wasn't really a part, a factor in his death. But by the way, he had that and, you know, saying that he died from the acute effects of ketamine, that's just it was really, really distorted. He took more than 10 times the dose of ketamine that we give in the clinic by himself, in combination with buprenorphine, which is essentially an opioid, and Lorazepam, a benzodiazepine, which is another sedative. So he's combined three powerful sedatives, one of them in really absurd doses, by himself in a hot tub. And of course, what happens? He becomes incapacitated and he drowns. This is not, this is such a departure from what we do when we use ketamine in a therapeutic context. There's no correlation, but the way that it's been reported on, and what the average person hears is, oh, ketamine is a bad, dangerous drug, and that's it. That's the takeaway, and that's really a sad thing for people to to get from it. What they should get is that addiction is a serious illness. What they should get is taking lots of sedatives in combination is dangerous. Taking drugs unsupervised, alone in a hot tub is dangerous. These are the takeaways. There was even medical doctors involved in supplying it to him, but they were part of an illicit, underground, illegal drug ring. You know, this is not like mental health care, you know?

Lesley Logan 14:25  

I know. It's so sad because, well, first of all, the whole situation is sad. It's sad that someone was taken advantage of. It's sad that someone died from combining too many things, but also because they had doctors doing it, like all of that is sad, and, but, really, what I find, and one of the reasons I wanted to talk with you is, so this podcast is called Be It Till You See It, and one of the things that I am always on a search for is like, what can keep us from being it until we see it, what's holding us back in our life, or what can help us more? And the facts of what ketamine therapy that you do that is supervised, and you have pre-screened people to make sure that this is the right therapy for them, the benefits can actually change people's lives, like you said at the beginning, to choose what they want, and that allows them to step into the person that they want to be, like to me, this can be an amazing option for people who they know what they want, but they are just stuck, and they've got other things going on that with their mental health that the talk therapy hasn't helped with, or antidepressants haven't helped with. And so I really wanted to, like, clear the air and go, this can be an option for the right person.

Sam Mandel 15:30  

Absolutely and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to speak with you and for you creating a platform to have conversations like this, because people deserve to know the truth. And you know, you talk about talk therapy. I mean, a number of patients have literally said that was like 20 years of therapy in an hour. I mean, it really is that exponentially transformational. And it's not instead of therapy, but in addition to, right? When you can do a treatment like this and then work through the material and the learnings that come up for you with someone who understands mental health, who you trust, that's where a lot of even more growth can happen, and you can implement those learnings into your day to day life in the weeks to come. That process is usually referred to as integration, and it can look a lot of different ways, but then you have your experience. How do you integrate it into your life and actually make lasting change? Ketamine really does produce transformation for most people. In the almost 11 years that we've been doing this, we have done over 30,000 infusions. We have an 83% success rate, and we're typically not seeing people who are just wanting to have growth because they're stuck. We're seeing people who have treatment resistant depression, complex PTSD, severe anxiety, suicidality. I mean, there are definitely more moderate cases, but we see a lot of people have really just they've tried a lot, and some of them tried everything, and they haven't benefited. And this really works for them, because it works on under a completely different mechanism of action than the conventional treatments like antidepressant pills or even ECT or talk therapy, or really anything else out there. 

Lesley Logan 17:04  

Yeah, when I think about PTSD, we obviously a lot of things about vets. People have been in the military, but there are people with PTSD who have had other traumas. It doesn't have to be that you've been to war. You could have been in a bad car accident, you could have been assaulted. Can you kind of explain and maybe it's redundant, but just how does ketamine help with PTSD, and then what does someone's life look like? What with one, do you have a case that a person who you can talk about, like, who had PTSD and like, what their life was like after the ketamine treatment? 

Sam Mandel 17:29  

I'm glad you bring that up, because while a lot of us do think of military and war, there's actually many more cases of PTSD among the civilian population in the examples that you mentioned with violence, assault, accidents, etc. So it's super common, unfortunately. I believe there's around 16 million Americans suffering from PTSD who are at least diagnosed. There's many more, I'm sure, who are undiagnosed. And ketamine really does help with the neurochemistry in the brain and helping to rewire the brain, and it also really helps with the perception that we have of ourselves, of the event. People who have trauma are able to go back and revisit the trauma without being as emotionally triggered by it. And so sometimes, when I've talked about this with you know, friends, they say, yeah, you can revisit your trauma and work through it, and it's so great. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Why would I want to revisit my trauma? What are you talking about? I'm going to go and spend time and money to go there? No, thank you. I spent time and money avoiding my trauma, not going to visit it. But it isn't like that. You know? There's this ability to work through it without having the kind of pain of going there that is so often keeping people from addressing it head on in talk therapy and in life. We avoid, naturally, what's painful, but it isn't painful for most people in this context, they're able to have this detachment that is healthy in this way, to revisit it and to understand who we are, who we were, what our role was, what It was and etc, and to get clarity on that. And it can be really healing. It can really provide closure for a lot of people. And just with the whole cascade of different chemicals going on in the brain, it gives people generally a better mood and more positive outlook and demeanor, and enhanced feelings of compassion towards oneself and towards others and energy and motivation and just all around wellness, it's an elevator in that way which can just be really motivating for people to be able to do the things that most of us know we need to do and just struggle with in terms of our lifestyle, like fitness and eating healthy and sleeping well and talk therapy and having healthy relationships with people, getting outdoors and getting some sun and some fresh air, doing things we enjoy, all that stuff is absolutely critical for longevity, and for someone who's really severely depressed or anxious or dealing with real trauma, they can also feel like it's almost impossible to do a lot of those things. 

Lesley Logan 20:00  

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's really interesting. If you're not someone who has PTSD, or you haven't had, like, severe depression, it can be hard to understand that it becomes all encompassing, you know? But if you think about it, like, when you've had an injury, you've been sick for a few days and you can't leave the bed, that's the the domino effect of what happens to your strength, and then what happens to your ability to, like, feel like you can reach out and that you can connect with people because you've been sick for a week. It's an easy way to see like, oh, if that's my life all the time, you know, it's not easy to go outside, and it doesn't feel easy to connect with people. And so it becomes part of their whole life. And so it's really cool to hear that with ketamine treatments over a couple of weeks that they could have a new lease on life and enjoy it. And I love that you brought up longevity, because I think we forget that how we treat our bodies now is what dictates how long will you get to have them? Hopefully, there won't be anything that stops us from living the life that we're supposed to but if you don't see like a lease on life there, what longevity do you have, you know, so it must be really amazing to get to do what you do every day. You really help so many people.

Sam Mandel 21:01  

I love it. It's the most gratifying thing ever, you know. When I tell people a lot of my job, the reality of what I do on a day to day basis, I have to do a lot of things I don't like to do, I don't want to do. I'm the CEO of my company. I get the worst, toughest problems that no one else can deal with. I get the fires to put out, the problems, the issues that got escalated to me, and all the weight and pressure and responsibility of it, and there's a lot of stuff, this is not fun, frankly, but I do it because of the, for the patients and for my team, and the work that we're doing, the impact that we're having. It's hugely motivating and gratifying. And when I see patient who I pass in the hallway in the clinic, and they just, can I just give you a hug, or I just want to say thank you so much, or we get a new Yelp review, and someone goes through and lists, you know, half my team by name and how amazing each one of them is, and how life-changing this has been for them. That's what gets me up in the morning, and that's what helps me to keep going every day. I just love it. The transformations are very abundant. And, you know, like I said, 83% it's not magic. It doesn't work for every person every time. It's not perfect, but it is a really incredible treatment.

Lesley Logan 22:04  

Yeah, yeah, I do understand that. I mean, my husband and I run our own businesses, and sometimes you can forget what you do while you're doing it, because you're doing all the fires, yeah? But then you do get stopped by someone who's been helped by it, or their life has changed, and you're like, oh, that's why I do this. Obviously, you know, it's been a journey to get to do this. Can you take us back how you figured out how to create a space where people could have ketamine therapy? You know, you are the first in the country. So, like, there wasn't really a model to go off of. So I feel like there's a be it till you see it story in there.

Sam Mandel 22:36  

Oh yeah. Started with me building the website with GoDaddy website builder, drag and drop modules, not knowing a lick of code, never built a website or anything of the sort, not even the most tech savvy guy, and literally just dragging and dropping and, you know, doing research on articles and clinical research, and conferring with my father, who I co-founded the practice with. He's a physician, and I'm talking about, what do you think about this? I'm just trying to make sense of it all in a way that I could understand it well enough to then be able to put it into layman's terms and explain it to other people. What is this? How does it work? And just putting it together, and then going to Radio Shack and getting a motor

Lesley Logan 23:17  

That's how long ago this is because I don't even think they're around anymore.

Sam Mandel 23:20  

They're not, They went bankrupt. 

Lesley Logan 23:22  

Was it the Radio Shack on Santa Monica Boulevard underneath the yoga place? Because that was my favorite. 

Sam Mandel 23:27  

It was the Radio Shack in Marina Del Rey by the CVS and little strip mall off of Max Stella or something. Anyways, I got a Motorola flip phone prepaid, and I said to my father, you ready to launch the site? We're going to make it live. And made it live, and started taking calls on this cell phone. We were renting space in another doctor's office that was literally this closet. No kidding, they used it as a utility closet before we rented it, and once we moved out and got our own space. They went back to just keeping boxes in there. That's how tiny this room was, no kidding, and it was just really a trip. We had a operating room, recovery area, recovery room for an OR right outside of that little closet that we were in, which, by the way, we were sitting at literally just two folding chairs, a folding table with two laptops, and that was it, no kidding. And we use this recovery area to see patients. And we saw our first few patients, and their transformations were so incredible. We went, this is just too special. We have to do whatever it takes to do more of this. And my father was working as an anesthesiologist. He also has a master's degree in psychology. He was chief of anesthesia in this plastic surgery suite where we were. And so it started out with, well, he's already there, doing anesthesia for the surgery. Maybe we see a couple patients here or there, see how it goes. And next thing we knew, we just started getting busier and busier. The word got out. This was such a radical thing that a lot of people were very incredulous, very suspicious. A lot of people were very critical, but we were like, it doesn't matter. I mean, this is just too special. And it got to the point where my father had to choose between doing our cases or doing ketamine infusions for patients. And I, I remember that quite vividly, where I said, it's really gotta pick. We can't continue to do both. And it was a big risk, you know, it was a really big risk. So I have a lot of respect, you know, for him, for that and that we both just said, let's be all in on this. And, you know, we bootstrapped it. We put everything on credit cards. We had no investors, no financing, no loans, nothing. It's just a little bit of cash, credit cards. And really, just brick by brick, built it up, and now we have 15 employees, 5000 square feet, a really beautiful purpose-built office. I still have, well after the falling table, I had a custom desk built because of maximizing every inch of that space. So I had, there was a little nook between two pillars in that room, under a window, where they made this skinny little desk that was probably literally eight inches wide by three and a half feet long or something. Just stick it in this little nook so I could sit at a proper desk, and I still have that here in our suite now, and so that's kind of fun, but, yeah, it's just truly been an incredible journey.

Lesley Logan 26:12  

I thank you for taking this back, because we do have a lot of people who are entrepreneurs, and I think that they need to hear that like even a ketamine clinic, the first of its kind, starts in a utility closet. You know, people don't realize, because if you, one, you have to know if people want the thing. You knew it was great. You knew it could be amazing. But you have to get people to buy in, and especially on something that long ago, where people might not know all the amazing things that it can do. And even today, now, even with a beautiful space that can attract people in and make them feel super safe, doing something that changes lives, but also going up against where misconceptions, misinterpretations, and also the people who are misusing it can affect the majority getting the help that they need. I love hearing the stories of how things come to be. And also that is pretty amazing that your dad was like, yeah, I'm gonna quit my safe job. There's always gonna be surgeries, you know. So that's so, so, so cool, and it's really amazing. Is there anything about ketamine therapy that I haven't asked you, that you want to make sure people know? Is there anything else that we can help people understand why this would be something they might need to use, or might use so that they can have the life they want to have?

Sam Mandel 27:19  

Yeah, I do want to mention, you know, I was talking about how, you know, Matthew Perry was misusing it, and how different that situation is from what we do. And ketamine is still something that people do use recreationally or abuse or misuse. It's not as common, I think, as sometimes it's portrayed, but it definitely can happen, but it's also not in the same category as most other substances, because ketamine is not addictive in the way that most others are. And what I mean by that is you don't develop a physical dependence on it if, for example, like nicotine or opioids or alcohol or benzodiazepines, all you can get to the point where you actually need it to not feel sick. I mean, you have physical symptoms of feeling like nausea, headaches, wanting to throw up. Even with benzos, you can actually, if you abruptly stop taking high doses, you can literally have seizures and die. And you know, you can have symptoms from abrupt cessation of alcohol if you're a heavy alcoholic. That doesn't happen with ketamine. So some people can use it in the way that they're using it as a means to escape, but that's not really that different as far as the psychological dependence in the way that someone can use ice cream or chocolate or, you know, sour candies or sex or any of these other video games as a means of escape or avoiding or to self-soothe. So I think it's important that people understand that. It also has a very, very high therapeutic index. There's actually no known lethal dose of ketamine, so you can obviously be in a bad, unsafe environment, where, if you take a bunch and get into a car, that's not a not such a great outcome for you, or in a jacuzzi, but the medicine itself is unlikely to hurt you on its own. Most of the issues are people in bad situations, or they're combining it with other drugs. Virtually, almost all of the fatalities that are related to ketamine were one of those two, either in combination with other drugs and or in a situation like behind the wheel of a car. So I just want people to know that it's not to say that there aren't people who have an issue with misusing ketamine, because there are, but it really is distinct from most other substances that people are misusing or abusing.

Lesley Logan 29:20  

Thank you for saying that, because I do think, as a child of the night, you know, I grew up in the 80s, so it's, like, always just say no to drugs. 

Sam Mandel 29:25  

The cocaine epidemic. 

Lesley Logan 29:28  

Yeah, so I know they really that didn't really help them, did it? But, like, they thought it would. But I, like, grew up, so it's really funny when I have friends who, like, talk about doing some sort, some psychedelics, or do I have this innate like, I don't, I don't know, I don't know if I could do that. I'm afraid to try. I'm like, I'll be addicted on the first dose. 

Sam Mandel 29:45  

Right, right, right. 

Lesley Logan 29:47  

This is my fear, which is why I drink, right? That's what people do. And so they said no to drugs, but then they drink. But I really appreciate because it's nice to know that if I were to do a ketamine therapy, I'm not going to be dependent on coming to ketamine therapy every single week or I'll be using it at home, like, it's nice to know that it's a non-addictive thing that people can use to get the benefits. And I think that can make a lot of people feel more comfortable, you know. 

Sam Mandel 30:08  

Yeah, because people are afraid of that, they think, God, well, if I go and do this, even if it's in a therapeutic way, am I going to become a ketamine addict? You know? I'm going to go and then be looking to score some on the street the next day. It's really a sad perception that some people might have due to the media or for whatever reason or they know somebody who misuse ketamine or the DARE program, like you said, or the 80s. A lot of baloney. 

Lesley Logan 30:28  

Oh, and by the way, the DARE program was a lot of baloney. I just heard a whole podcast about it, and I was like, ah. So, but it, but it does put in people's minds, and also good for good reason. Like, I don't want people going out there doing other drugs we do know our addictive and like, hoping that they are fine out there the first time, but I am on this mission of helping people figure out how to get out of their own way and live their best life, and sometimes our own way are things that are really outside of our control, the PTSD, the depressions, the mental health, the suicide like I think it's important that people have access to forms of therapy out there that they may not know about or they may have misconceptions. Because we do know that the media does like to click bait things into headlines that get people to look at them, but don't actually give all the information. So I'm just so grateful that you were here to just really explain all this and the benefits of it.

Sam Mandel 31:22  

Absolutely, yeah, no, I appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, there are drugs that you can do once or twice and develop a real serious problem with pretty fast, methamphetamine, probably not one that you need to ever try. You know, if you're curious about trying drugs, I'd say take that one off the list. Heroin, probably not a good idea. Pretty easy to die, pretty easy to get addicted to that one, right? Opioids, crack, cocaine. These are some that maybe you don't need to, you don't need to check out, but maybe there's some others that if you really want to with the right mindset in the right context, if you're going to be safe or responsible, maybe you'd be okay with. And by the way, I'm not advocating for you to go do illicit drugs illegally either. But there are some that you can have, even in a controlled environment, such as ours, where you don't need to be afraid of them. I'll tell you what are the most dangerous, though, is the prescription legitimate drugs. As a matter of fact, prescriptions are more commonly abused than any of the other illicit drugs. You look at your stimulants like Adderall, your benzodiazepines, like Xanax, opioids, I mean, these are drugs that are a lot of people are really hooked on and that are killing a lot of people, especially the opioids, but because they're from big pharma, they're not all that bad. I mean, people are finally starting to scrutinize the opioids, but the others are still kind of under the radar, and they're really widely abused, but the focus is on the big, bad, illegal ones. 

Lesley Logan 32:39  

I know of a client who's a social worker, and she used to work in a hospital, and we're talking about pain meds, and she's like Lesley, I watched a 14 year old kid come in super healthy, just had a broken arm. They had to have surgery, but within the three days they were there, they were extra tapping the pain meds. And she's like, we create addicts with these pharmaceutical drugs quickly, but we don't think of it like that, because they had a prescription written. And so it's important for us to educate ourselves, to be informed and to be able to advocate for ourselves or advocate for others when we have this information we can. So, thank you so much. I'm not gonna let you go. We actually are gonna take a brief break, and then we're gonna find out Be It Action Items from you. 

Lesley Logan 33:19  

All right, Sam, where can people find you, follow you, connect with you. If they want to know more about ketamine therapies, if they want to come to your clinics, how can they connect with you best?

Sam Mandel 33:28  

Yeah, so ketamineclinics.com. That's K-E-T-A-M-I-N-E-C-L-I-N-I-C-S dot com. Lots of great information on there. People are more than welcome to call us, 310-270-0625. Consultations are free. We're always happy to chat see how we can help you. We do offer other treatments we really didn't talk about today, TMS, General Psychiatry, medication management, we take 12 of the biggest insurance networks in California, including Medicare, so there's a lot more that we can cover with you. Whether or not ketamine is the right fit if you are dealing with a mental health condition, I would encourage you to call and see if there's anything we can do to help. And we're on social it's ketamineclinicsLA on all socials and my personal is theSamMandel on all socials. And just really happy to connect with people and hear their stories, answer questions and help in any way that we can. 

Lesley Logan 34:23  

I love it. Thank you. And that's also so cool, because we mentioned, like, it can be really hard to find a therapist these days because they don't always take insurance. So to hear that you do. It's really nice. Okay, we always ask people bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps they can take to be it till they see it. What do you have for us?

Sam Mandel 34:41  

Oh, I wasn't ready for that one. I would say action. Take action. Just do it. Take Nike slogan. I mean, honestly, planning and strategizing is important, and thinking things through and figuring out who you are. What you want, what you like, what you don't like, putting together a plan matters. But I think most of us, or almost all of us, spend too much time on that, and there's just too many unknowns and too many things that you really can't solve for until you're in it and doing it, and it's too easy to let perfectionism keep us from taking the steps that we need to take to get done what we want, become, who we want to be, and who what our potential is. And I personally struggle with this too. So I say that from, you know, my own experience, and I really strive, and I want to encourage other people to really strive, to just get out there and do it, and you're going to make mistakes, and that's okay, but it's really the only way to succeed in life. You have to be on the fields, on the court, in it, and behind the scenes, thinking, planning, strategizing is only going to get you so far.

Lesley Logan 35:58  

Yeah, yeah. Oh, thank you for that. And also, I can tell you, practice what you just preached, because it's true. You started with a utility closet and some folding chairs and a Motorola phone, I mean. But also, you're correct. People do spend too much time in the planning, or they're waiting for it to be perfect, or they're waiting for the perfect decoration, and then they have the perfect branding and all the things. And if you guys had done that, you wouldn't have been able to help the thousands of people that you have today. So thank you so much, Sam for being here, for educating us, for informing us. 

Lesley Logan 36:29  

And, you guys, how are you gonna use these tips in your life? Please share this episode with a friend as you hear conversations come up about the misuse of ketamine, and now you know you could share this with them to educate them, and also, if you have friends and family or yourself who needs this, please contact Sam and his team, because there's help out there for you. Until next time, Be It Till You See It.

Lesley Logan 36:50  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 37:33  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 37:38  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 37:42  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 37:49  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals. 

Brad Crowell 37:53  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

This week, Lesley Logan reflects on the power of letting go, whether it’s decluttering your space, releasing limiting beliefs, or celebrating personal wins. She highlights inspiring stories, shares listener wins, and offers a simple yet powerful mantra to create space for growth. Tune in for a boost of motivation and a reminder to recognize your own progress.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• The impact of recognizing and celebrating wins, big or small.
• How decluttering can create space for new opportunities.
• The inspiring career journey of LA Fire Chief Kristin Crowley.
• Overcoming resistance and taking action on long-standing tasks.
• Finding ways to give back through donations and mindful decluttering.
• A powerful mantra to help release what holds you back.

Episode References/Links:

• Hear Her Stories - https://www.instagram.com/p/DErNWbmN9Qj

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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

It's Fuck Yeah Friday. 

Brad Crowell 0:01  

Fuck yeah. 

Lesley Logan 0:05  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

All right, hello Be It babe. Happy Friday. It is FYF. If this is your first episode with us, hello. This is when we celebrate your wins and my wins and some things that inspired me on the internet. And I should just say that we're recording these early so some of these wins happened a while back when you're listening to this, but so did yours. And what I love is that when I get to, whenever you listen to this and you get to listen to your wins, you get to be reminded of the accomplishments you've had in the past. So I think that's really fun. Also, the whole point of this episode is to really encourage us to notice what we can celebrate. There's a lot of things to celebrate. We have an episode coming out in episode coming out in April, all about high functioning depression, and one of those things is like celebrating the things you did do. So that's a sneak peek on that with Dr. Judith Joseph. 

But first I've started this year with the FYF having an inspiration from something I saw on the internet. And when this came up was in January, during the fires in LA and I kept getting really irritated about just how people were treating a woman who runs the fire department in Los Angeles, and I wanted to just honor her, because I think, here's what I think, I know as women, we are above and beyond qualified for most of the jobs that we're doing. We're more than qualified. Studies already have proven that women won't apply for something unless they have a 10 out of 10 of the things that people want, where males will apply with six out of 10. So I just want to highlight this amazing person. This is from the account Hear Her Stories. A little bio for the 24-year veteran fire chief of Los Angeles conservatives are calling a DEI hire. Kristin Crowley was a paramedic, engineer, fire inspector, captain, battalion chief, assistant chief, fire marshal and deputy chief. When she took the firefighter exam, she ranked among the top 50 out of 16,000 applicants. She became the city's first openly LGBTQ+ Fire Chief in 2022 and it says, "Congratulations! You have earned it!" She has so earned it. And I wanted to honor her and celebrate her, because it doesn't really matter any other things that she identifies as like this woman has achieved so much, top 50 out of 16,000 applicants. Are you kidding me? Way to go, Kristin. You inspire me. You are amazing. And thank you for the work that you have done and the service you've done for other people of LA. So, you inspired me. That is who I am highlighting today in our FYF episode. And I think that irked me, because I have been more than qualified for things that I've been doing, and then people go, who are you to do this? And it just is, like, how about you go get qualified for your own thing? Like, why can't we just celebrate what someone is doing? And it doesn't mean that they're perfect, doesn't mean that we can't make mistakes. But also, like, people are hired because they are qualified. We have to trust that in a lot of cases. And I really trusted in Kristin. So, anyways, that is my little bee in my bonnet moment. So let me celebrate. I wanted to celebrate her because I just really, I was impressed with that. Listen, I'm so impressed with that. 

Okay, an FYF from you is Lisa Osoteo. I was going to post this in random, but then, on second thought, it's definitely a win wrapped into other wins. I sold my Allegro 1 Tower of Power. It's been on my mind to do for a year, but my resistant brain would shut down when I would think of the tediousness of it. I'll need to take pictures, clean it up, post it, let go of my sweet first reformer tower. When every time I would use her, I would resent that she wasn't a Contrology reformer, not her fault. She saw me through my Pilates journey when I was learning how to teach, and she saw me through eLevate when I was learning and still learning the repertoire. When I finally told my friend Mandy I wanted to sell her, she put a fire in my butt by matching me up with someone in the area who was looking exactly for what I was selling. I needed all the things I was resisting. I took the pictures, cleaned it up, posted the post and yes, talked to and negotiated with some random strangers. I posted on Sunday, got an offer on Monday, agreed on a price, Tuesday, and today, Wednesday, we saw her off to her new and rightful owner. I learned a lot in this process that when my brain shuts down, it's because I get overwhelmed by too many steps. Two, once I got started with the help, sometimes with good friends, the work itself is manageable. Three, selling can be a win-win for everyone involved. Four, letting go of things that no longer serve you is liberating. Five, I can detail Pilates equipment like no one's business, plus drops of oil do wonders on pins. Thank you. Balanced Body garage. Six, the Pilates community at large are pretty awesome. And seven, I get to buy a Contrology Wunda chair and spine corrector for 2025. So that's my win. Way to go, Lisa. Way to go. I love that. I love Lisa so much. She is just a fabulous person. She's an eLevate grad. She's been on a retreat to us Cambodia. It was just like a fabulous week I got to spend with her. But I love to look at the world through her eyes. And the thing is, is that some of the things were on our to-do list to let go of and get rid of are really going to be the thing that someone else is looking for. And in the world where there's so much stuff, you know, there's so much stuff, and we're like, oh, I want this thing, but I already kind of have a thing. Well, if you can have the thing that you want, and you're just not getting that because you are already stuck with something else, the thing that you have someone else might want, so you can get the thing that you want. And everyone wins. So I love that it's a win-win. So your win is a win-win. Thank you, Liza. 

Okay, I'm gonna do a win of mine, which actually happens be on the same thing. So around the beginning of the year, I feel like there's just too much stuff. Maybe it's because I've been in a van for a month. Maybe it's because we give a lot of stuff, we get a lot of stuff. And so Brad and I used to live in a really small apartment, and in Los Angeles, in the west side, and so we could not acquire very much because there was no place to put it. And now we have a house, and I'm like, literally looking at stuff that's in a bag in a corner right now, if you're watching on Zoom, I'm like, looking at this. Where did this come from? So we came home from the tour, and I listened to Mom and Me Astrology, and I did not clean on New Year's Day. Well, I wasn't home for New Year's Day, so that was not hard. When I came back, I legitimately went through my closet. I was like, okay, we're not wearing a lot of this stuff. And I went through and I just was like, pretty harsh about the cuts. I was just, let's go. It's time. I honestly, I could do another harsh at it, but we'll wait for that for another day. I also went through all of our towels. They're useful towels. I don't want to throw them away. I don't want to waste and put things in the garbage. So I, like Lisa, I was like, okay, I've got all these clothes, who needs them? I've got all these towels and sheets, who needs them? I get sent a lot of skincare and makeup care and all this stuff that I'm not going to use. And so it's brand new. It's in the box. Who can I get this to? Well, here's the funny thing. This is the win. I opened up Instagram, and I saw that the butcher in town is actually taking clothes to people who lost everything in the fires. Boom, that's gone. Then my friend's store is collecting makeup and clothes for another charity that's in Las Vegas who needs it. And I was like, oh, boom, there's all that. And then someone suggested, oh, contact the pet place. They always need these things. So I contacted the Nevada SPCA, and I said, do you guys want, like, used towels and stuff? Like, we always want used sheets, used, towels, used whatever. Here's when you can drop them off. So my win is, normally, I clean things up and put them in a bag and then they just sit in bags somewhere forever, or I just give them off to a friend, but I really wanted to give it to people who needed it, and here we are. I gotta say, win, checked that off the list, I got to get rid of things I'm no longer using and give them to people who truly need it. And I feel good. It feels good to do that. So I would just say a simple win you like have on your to-do list is to clean out your closet or clean out a junk drawer, just know that there's probably a charity and who's looking for the things you're getting rid of, and it makes the task that you have on your list feel even better to do. And so that is my win of the week. 

Now for your fabulous mantra, let's see, this one was going to come from the Deck of Plenty. The Deck of Plenty says, I release what keeps me sheltered from my life. Oh, this is so timely for this episode. Don't you love that? I just drew this one. So, I release what keeps me sheltered from life, I create space for what encourages my growth, and I rejoice in the ways that life emboldens my best to come forth always.ed I release what keeps me shelter from life, I create space for what encourages my growth, and I rejoice in the ways that life emboldens my best to come forth always. Well that is brilliant and beautiful and wonderful. 

You guys, thank you so much for listening to the FYFs, another short, another sweet. I know sometimes you're like, what am I gonna learn from these episodes? But these are episodes that I really think are important for us high-doers to recognize that in all the ish that's going on, there can be something that is worth celebrating, and we have to celebrate, otherwise we are just doing stuff, too much stuff. So, thank you. Thank you. And if you have someone, something that has inspired you that you want to send in that I can highlight on episode, please feel free to DM me. If you have a win you want us to celebrate, please send it in. You are amazing, and until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 10:13  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 10:18  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 10:23  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 10:30  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 10:33  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Life’s toughest moments often push us toward our greatest transformations. In this episode, Lesley and Brad dive into Lesley's insightful conversation with Stephan Neff, a doctor, author, and podcast host who shares his personal journey through trauma, addiction, and self-discovery. Learn how challenges can reveal your purpose, why taking messy action is key to growth, and how a simple self-hug can shift your mindset.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• How trauma and adversity can push you toward personal transformation
• The importance of taking action even when it feels hard
• Stephan’s journey of loss, grief, and self-discovery
• The power of daily practices like journaling and gratitude
• How a simple self-hug can create a sense of self-acceptance and healing

Episode References/Links:

• Cambodia October 2025 Waitlist - https://crowsnestretreats.com 
• Spring Pilates Training - https://opc.me/events
• Pilates Studio Growth Accelerator - https://prfit.biz/accelerator
• Accessories Flashcards Waitlist - https://opc.me/flashcardwaitlist
• Stephan Neff Website - https://www.neffinspiration.com
• Steps to Sobriety by Stephan Neff - https://a.co/d/hHY4w9P
• Depression Lied To Me by Stephan Neff - https://a.co/d/7s6Ddg0
• Neff Inspiration Podcast - https://stephanneff.podbean.com
• Stephan Neff YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@neffinspiration
• Stephan Neff Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/neffinspiration
• Stephan Neff Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/neffinspiration
• Stephan Neff LinkedIn - https://beitpod.com/neffonlinkedin
• Episode 167: Alan Stein Jr. - https://beitpod.com/ep167

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

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Episode Transcript:

Lesley Logan 0:00  

By going through trauma and being forced to change, you get outside of your comfort zone. You get to experience fear. And he was sharing that he had a successful life at the Big House, the wife and kids, and on the inside, he was just not a happy person. 

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co-host in life, Brad, and I are going to dig into the evolving convo I have with Stephan Neff in our last episode. If you haven't yet listened to that interview, make sure you do after you listen to this one, because it's great. Stephan is really cool, and he's got that New Zealand accent, which is, you know, if you're in the Western world, it's kind of nice. I guess that's the Western world as well. If you're in the United States, an accent is nice. It's, you know, it's different than mine. 

So anyways, today is March 6th 2025 and it's the Day of the Dude. 

Brad Crowell 1:26  

The Day of the Dude. 

Lesley Logan 1:27  

The Day of the Dude is celebrated on March 6th every year to commemorate the North American release of the movie The Big Lebowski in 1998. The movie portrays a protagonist with a laid back attitude to life, who chooses simplicity, peace and happiness. The idea is to enjoy life's little moments, such as bowling or drinking with some friends. The holiday looks to promote ease and simplicity in society. Being able to easily let things go and go with the flow is big part of the lifestyle. The lifestyle portrayed in the movie inspired the birth of the religion philosophy, known as “Dudeism.” 

Brad Crowell 2:03  

Dudeism.

Lesley Logan 2:04  

And so you know what, guys, I think we all need to just sit back, go bowl, drink with some friends, and just have a day where you just relax a little bit. I didn't really get the movie. I think that's because I can't relax very well. So I think maybe this is my Day of the Dude. It's Jeff Bridges. And who doesn't love John Goodman?

Brad Crowell 2:22  

And Steve Buscemi. I mean, it's amazing. 

Lesley Logan 2:24  

Julianne Moore, Sam Elliott, John Turturro. Huge cast, amazing cast. 

Brad Crowell 2:30  

Pretty fantastic. 

Lesley Logan 2:31  

You know. So I think we saw this at the cemetery. We saw The Big Lebowski at the cemetery. 

Brad Crowell 2:35  

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the cemetery.

Lesley Logan 2:36  

The one and only time I've ever seen The Big Lebowski. But anyways, my loves part of being it until you see it is resting and relaxing. If you cannot, just have some moments where you go with the flow. Take the Day of the Dude as a reminder to, you know, find some simple ways to enjoy life. 

Brad Crowell 2:52  

So hey, we just got back from Cambodia. 

Lesley Logan 2:54  

We did. A couple days ago. 

Brad Crowell 2:56  

It was an amazing trip. We got a chance to hang with some friends who we basically consider family at this point. Take a bunch of people around to see some of our favorite spots, literally in the world, and we want you to join us on our next trip. Come this October 2025 to see our house and see the life that we've built over there, that we welcome you to stay at our place and tour the temples, do some Pilates, meet some elephants. All the things. Go to crowsnestretreats.com crowsnestretreats.com and in a couple ofweeks.

Lesley Logan 3:28  

Not even a couple of weeks, I think we're, like, about a week-ish, oh, from this coming out, we're on the, we're probably in Denver at this point. 

Brad Crowell 3:36  

Actually, we may be at P.O.T. 

Lesley Logan 3:38  

We're definitely supposed to be rolling in tonight. 

Brad Crowell 3:41  

Yeah. We're driving.

Lesley Logan 3:41  

So we're in the Aurora area with the van to see our Balanced Body peeps and our P.O.T. attendee people are here to have some fun. 

Brad Crowell 3:48  

No dogs in this trip. 

Lesley Logan 3:49  

No dogs. We're leaving them at home, mostly because.

Brad Crowell 3:52  

We're gonna be gone for like eight hours, 10 hours a day. It's tough.

Lesley Logan 3:54  

Yeah, also, easy, if we took one, not so easy if we take two. So no dogs, but we'll be there. Come say hi to us. 

March 18th to the 24th, the Accessories Flash Card Deck, the final deck, this is it, guys. It's the last one. It's being presaled. I guess that's now a burp on March 18th to the 24th it's going on presale, which means it'll be 30% off its original price. Doesn't mean it will ship to you the next day. It means you get to wait until it ships, but you get to get the best price. It, we do not do this discount again, and so we really, truly hope that you take advantage of it. So go to opc.me/flashcardwaitlist because only those on the waitlist will get the invite to get the discount. You will not see this on Instagram. You will not hear about here again. This is it. Then in April 27th through May 3rd, we have a week long spring training. Yes, our own version of a baseball event, but it's with Pilates, and it's with all the OPC teachers and myself. We've got 10 classes planned over seven days, all different time zone. Yes, there's a limited replay. Yes, it's going to be super affordable. And if you go to opc.me/events and get on the waitlist, you will get invited to the early bird price, which is basically stealing this, this amazing event. And if you're OPC member, it's free, but opc.me/events is the wait list for the early bird price. 

Brad Crowell 5:11  

Yeah. And if you are taking money from a client at all in any way, shape or form, that makes you a business owner, congratulations. Even if you don't see yourself as that, you know, even if it's like a side hobby kind of a thing. Technically, you still are a business owner, and I have a free webinar for you that's called the Accelerator webinar. Come join me at prfit.biz/accelerator, where I'm going to be revealing the three biggest secrets that Lesley and I've learned from coaching more than 2500 businesses just like yours over the past seven years through Agency, our coaching program. So join me at prfit.biz/accelerator. That's profit without the O dot biz slash accelerator. 

Lesley Logan 5:49  

Doesn't that word just make you want to go because it's accelerator. Before we get into Stephan Neff's interview, we have an audience question. 

Brad Crowell 5:58  

Yes, we do. Kara Dowd says, hey, I listened to the podcast. I'm hoping for nuggets of wisdom here, as I am an instructor, wondering the big question of whether I should make the transition to a studio owner. Either way, it's a great podcast. Well, I hope so. What if we told you no, okay, I would still be a good podcast. I'm teasing. Well, thank you for saying that. It's very kind, and we are really glad that you listen. And this is a great question that is really tough for us to answer, because there's a lot of factors involved. That's actually, literally why I host this webinar that we were just talking about. So if you haven't done it yet, Kara, you totally should join me on the Accelerator, where we're talking about, how do we create the right plan for you with your business, because Kara, you have your own goals and your own dreams, and you, choosing to open a studio, it's not like there is one path that you have to take in this career. Every single business owner that we work with has their own desires, their own vision for their business, and we help you sculpt and create that path that allows you to enjoy your business. Because what if you didn't want to open a studio and have the stress of paying rent, and maybe you even have a team and all that's like, what if you're like, why am I doing this? I just want to teach out of my house. You don't need to go open a studio, but you also could, if that was what you wanted to do. 

Lesley Logan 7:18  

But also you could have a studio in an office building, like where the rent is something you could pay in a week of teaching, and so you have the other three weeks for profit and taxes. And because it's in an office building, it's really safe. You don't need anyone else. If you can get the systems in place, you can run it by yourself, like I had a studio by myself. And then our goals changed, and so that studio had to change. My teacher, who I take from, he is solo. So he went from being a renter to actually just open up his own space and doing it himself. So the big transition is, how big is it? It depends. We already have all this equipment. So if we were to transition to a brick and mortar, the big expense is really going to be the building. What do we have to do there? Are we going to buy it? Are we going to just curate it? Are we just going to paint the wall? What are we going to do? So what I would say is actually ask yourself, okay, I have a studio. What does it look like? And make sure you're not picturing someone else's studio. What does your studio look like right now? Like, if I'm picturing, like, what's in our future studio? Like I told Brad, if we're gonna do this again, I really want to have those garage door window doors, for whatever reason I like the idea of an old mechanic shop or some sort of, like old building that looks like it was something else, but now it's this, and I want the higher ceilings. I didn't have high ceilings before. So picture that, and then ask yourself, Is this a studio you are doing by yourself? By the way, you guys, we help people all the time, work by themselves with their own studio, making the money they want to make, and having no extra teacher help. Or do you want to have a big class? Do you like leading people? Do you like managing people? So we can't answer this question on here because we don't know enough about you and what your goals are. And as coaches, one of the things that we're so proud of at Agency is that we actually coach you based on your goals. So we've coached thousands of studios and teachers around the world. And yes, some of the studios have a similar business model, but they all have different goals, and so how they approach what they're doing next depends on that. And so we can't give you a specific answer to your question, but I hope that helps you manifest what you got and then come to the Accelerator event so you can get to know us more and see if we can support you.

Brad Crowell 9:19  

Yeah, absolutely. Well, stick around. We'll be right back, because we're going to dig in some amazing action items from Stephan Neff. We'll be right back. 

All right. Now, let's talk about Stephan Neff. He actually says his name, Stefan with the S-C-H-T. Stephan, and I was like, that's really cool. So Stephan Neff is an anesthetist. He's the author of My Steps to Sobriety. He's a speaker, and he's the host of the Neff Inspiration podcast and YouTube channel. With expertise as a functional medicine specialist, a life coach and yoga instructor, Stephan combines his personal journey with professional insights to help others heal from trauma and addiction. Through radical compassion, mindfulness and proven clinical strategies, he empowers people to build emotional resilience and embrace lifelong wellbeing. 

Lesley Logan 10:10  

But he's just so vulnerable. 

Brad Crowell 10:12  

Yes, he really was. 

Lesley Logan 10:13  

And not in like a vulnerable trauma dumping way, like a vulnerable here's what I did, here's how I fucked up, and here's what I learned from it, and here's how I'm changing my life, and here's how you can.

Brad Crowell 10:23  

Don't be a trauma dumper. 

Lesley Logan 10:24  

People. Well, you know what? Brene Brown in her book talked about vulnerability and shame, right? And she said vulnerability is not like telling everyone, like, all this stuff until they run away from you. So some people. 

Brad Crowell 10:34  

Yeah, then it becomes like a defense mechanism. 

Lesley Logan 10:37  

Lay their stuff on you and see if you run away. His was like, I found myself going, oh my God. How did you get out of that? Oh my God.

Brad Crowell 10:43  

Yeah, because I think it was within the last three years that. 

Lesley Logan 10:46  

His whole life changed. 

Brad Crowell 10:47  

Yeah, he crashed. 

Lesley Logan 10:48  

I think it's been longer than that, but he's had more changes since then. And so anyways, he said by going through trauma and being forced to change, you get outside of your comfort zone. You get to experience fear. And he was sharing that he had a successful life with a big house, a wife and kids, and on the inside, he was just not a happy person, and he had these unresolved needs, especially in relationships, and he had unhappiness. And then he said, because you are searching for this purpose in your life, you have not yet found and so he basically talked about, when you have these things happen to you, it forces you to actually go figure out your purpose, because you haven't found it yet, until you're kind of in the wrong place. And you know, we've talked about this before on the podcast, taking away someone else's rock bottom is like a terrible thing to do, because they often need it, you know, they need a lesson, or they need the thing so that they can step into the next iteration of themselves. 

Brad Crowell 11:38  

You know, a reflection point. 

Lesley Logan 11:39  

Not that I'm saying that every bad thing that happens to you just go with it, because it's going to be not like the dude, it sucks when these things happen, but also that hardship and pain you go through, you can learn from it. You can discover what you're here to do on this planet from that information and take it on. And it doesn't have to become your story. It becomes part of the story that you're leading.

Brad Crowell 11:59  

Yeah, it was an intriguing conversation, because definitely, he's very willing to share the experience that he's gone through. He also has written a whole bunch of books, which is pretty cool too. I mean, the dude's a doctor, right? So he likes to write, apparently. The Day of the Dude. We're just gonna see how (inaudible)

The Dude is the doctor.

Lesley Logan 12:15  

The Dude and everything is The Dude. 

Brad Crowell 12:18  

Well, look, this dude really loved what Stephan said. He said, you have to take action in order to live your life, and the harder it gets, the more action you have to take, which we could not agree with more. When you take messy action, it gives you clarity. It helps create that path that we were talking about. He shared when he lost his wife of 27 years, he never allowed himself to feel loss and grief. He didn't allow himself to feel it. And that was not a win. That was like, he was like, oh, wow, okay. And he just kind of bottled it up. And then he said, actually, the thing that triggered it, that tripped it for him, was a song. And he said, suddenly he was like overwhelmed and overcome by the loss and grief that he experienced, and it really was powerful. He said, despite taking many of the right actions, he had neglected to address those deep emotions. And then with that song, he said it was so beautiful to cry, it was so beautiful to feel whole again because, yes, I can feel whole again even after that loss. I can definitely understand that. Thinking back through my divorce, I remember doubting myself thinking, oh, well, I had my shot. I fucked it up. I guess that was it. He's arguing. No, I can feel whole again. Despite this, he also shared many daily practices of journaling. He said those things that I took for granted, you know, they become my wins. They become my wins list. And this is something we've talked about in the past all the way back at the very beginning of this podcast, where we think it is so important to keep a log of the things that are a win in your life, because it's so easy for us to just focus on beating ourselves up and holding these things. I did this. I did that. I hate myself for this and all this stuff, but we never pull out that card and go but despite all these negative emotions that I have that I'm telling myself, all of these other positive things have happened in my life, so it's so helpful to have a journal of those wins. 

Lesley Logan 14:16  

Yeah, I hope people do it. I just want, we want to. I just want wins to happen all the time. 

Brad Crowell 14:21  

You never know when you're gonna need to read that. Lesley and I, we have been encouraging our clients to post their wins. People feel when they first come into our coaching group, they always feel awkward about it, because it feels like you're bragging, right, and you're sharing it to a bunch of people who you don't know. So are you bragging? Right? But the reality is, it has become the most popular channel in our entire group, because you go there and you just feel that things are possible when you read about this amazing things that have happened for other people in other people's life, because they're taking messy action, because they're trying to figure their way through and then amazing things are happening. It's just so inspiring. So you can even inspire yourself. 

Lesley Logan 15:05  

All the way back to Episode Five. We had someone who was talking about how she, like, kept track at the end of her day about her wins. And then we had Alan Stein Jr. somewhere around episode 100-something, and he talked about how at the end of every day he asked himself, what were his wins for the day, and so this podcast celebrates him on Friday. But, my goodness, can you figure out a way to celebrate every day? What did you do? Like, I washed my hair today. 

Brad Crowell 15:29  

That's a win. 

Lesley Logan 15:29  

That's a win. I'm telling you. I have been putting it off for three days. 

Brad Crowell 15:33  

I did mine last night. 

Lesley Logan 15:34  

Yeah, you look so good. You know what? Stop making it difficult to achieve a win in your life, because otherwise, life is already just hard.

Brad Crowell 15:42  

Yeah, graduating from college, that's definitely a win, no question about it. But it takes years to get to that point when you can finally say, I graduated, right? There are smaller wins along the way that you can definitely take note of.

Lesley Logan 15:53  

My senior year, one of the counselors used to have a dry erase board that they showed out their window and how I had to walk to class I don't pass this thing. 

Brad Crowell 16:00  

They put a message on it? 

Lesley Logan 16:01  

They put a message on it, and one day it said, every class, every day. And that was like our mantra, to show up to every class every day. We're like, we can do it. Every class, every day. And every day that we went to every class, we're like, oh, let's go get a latte we did it. So Brad, did you know I cut class? I knew exactly how many classes I could miss in a school year to still graduate with my honor. So I was like, I can miss this third period because I haven't missed it in a while, and I can. So anyways, figure out what the wins can be and make them small and achievable so that you actually start to give yourself the confidence. And I love that Stephan shared that with us, because I think we need that reminder. 

Brad Crowell 16:38  

Yeah, all right, so finally, let's talk about those, Be It Action Items. What bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action items can we take away from your conversation with Stephan Neff? He explained, for many, gratitude does not come naturally. He said it's a practice, so it's a privilege to be here, be grateful, and practice that. It's a privilege. Then he said the most important bit is to finally stop for a moment and actually try to figure out who you want to be when you grow up. 

Lesley Logan 17:06  

I know, and we're all still growing up, but we're 42 I know someone who's 62 and I was like, oh, that's I have so much time between now and then. Who do I want to be by then? I think it's cool. 

Brad Crowell 17:15  

He said, create that dream in your mind who you actually want to be when you grow up. Change your dream to a vision by becoming very, very, very, very clear. Once you've nailed it down, go to that next feature until your dream has become a very clear vision. 

Lesley Logan 17:28  

I can still hear his lovely accent saying, he's saying that he's so passionate about each of these Be It Action Items. He was so like into this whole section. 

Brad Crowell 17:35  

I know you said New Zealand. I swear I thought he was from Germany. 

Lesley Logan 17:38  

No, he's New Zealand. 

Brad Crowell 17:39  

He's in New Zealand. He mentioned Germany. 

Lesley Logan 17:42  

I know. I'm quite positive because of the time difference. It was like a whole different day. 

Brad Crowell 17:48  

Okay, well, oh yeah, you know what, you mentioned, I think he was traveling to Gisborne. You did mention Gisborne. 

Lesley Logan 17:57  

Gisborne. 

Brad Crowell 17:58  

Gisborne, I don't know how to say it. 

Lesley Logan 18:00  

Gisborne. I don't think the R is as emphasized as we do it. 

Brad Crowell 18:06  

Emphasized.

Lesley Logan 18:06  

So anyways, emphasized. 

Brad Crowell 18:07  

Yes, it's the place that they have the first light of the day every day. What about you? Let's get back to our Be It Action Items here. 

Lesley Logan 18:15  

My biggest takeaway was give yourself a hug and spend 15 seconds with yourself after. So, let's do that.

Brad Crowell 18:23  

Yeah, let's do it right now. 

Lesley Logan 18:24  

Close your eyes.

Brad Crowell 18:25  

So his hug was like, pretend you can bear hug yourself. So the biggest wrap around your shoulders that you could possibly do, and we're closing our eyes and we're going to do 15 seconds here. 

Lesley Logan 18:35  

Squeeze hard as you can and tell yourself I love you. So, ready? Squeeze. I love you. I love you. 1001, 1002, 1003, do we hug? Do we stop hugging after 15 seconds? Or do we hug and then we spend 15 seconds?

Brad Crowell 18:49  

Just hug yourself. 

Lesley Logan 18:50  

Okay, well, I'm trying to. 

Brad Crowell 18:51  

Just hug. Just hug. Two, one, awesome. He said he's super good. He's known for giving bear hugs to his friends, but he realized he never gives a bear hug to himself, and I just got chills. I literally just got chills right now. 

Lesley Logan 19:08  

I feel so good. I feel like I could end the day. It feels amazing. So. 

Brad Crowell 19:12  

He said accept who you are, squeeze as hard as you can and tell yourself I love you.

Lesley Logan 19:16  

Okay, everyone, let us know if you gave yourself a hug. Make sure to tag Stephan. Tag the Be It Pod. I'm Lesley Logan. 

Brad Crowell 19:22  

And I'm Brad Crowell. 

Lesley Logan 19:23  

Thank you so much for listening to us today. Thank you so much for sharing our podcast with your friends. Thank you for your reviews. They really mean the world to us. And make sure that you share your wins with us. You can start celebrating your wins by sending it to us. 

Brad Crowell 19:36  

Yeah, text us. 

Lesley Logan 19:37  

Yeah, that's exactly, or DM us or whatever, you know how to do it. We'll figure it out. And until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Brad Crowell 19:43  

Bye for now. 

Lesley Logan 19:45  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 20:28  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 20:33  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 20:37  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 20:44  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 20:47  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Are you truly aware of the addictions shaping your daily life? Dr. Stephan Neff joins Lesley Logan to explore the hidden addictions we all face, from social media scrolling to workaholism, and how they impact our emotions, identity, and self-worth. In this raw and insightful conversation, Stephan shares his personal journey of addiction recovery, trauma healing, and radical self-compassion. Learn practical steps to regulate emotions, embrace grief, and redefine your identity beyond societal labels.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at [email protected].

And as always, if you’re enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe.

In this episode you will learn about:

• The hidden addictions we all face and their impact on emotional well-being.
• The challenges of identity loss after major life changes and the journey to rediscovering self-worth.
• The importance of grief, how it manifests beyond loss, and why allowing yourself to feel is essential for healing.
• Practical self-compassion techniques to reframe negative thoughts.
• How taking intentional action and creating a clear vision can transform challenges into opportunities for growth. 

Episode References/Links:

• Stephan Neff Website - https://www.neffinspiration.com
• Steps to Sobriety by Stephan Neff - https://a.co/d/hHY4w9P
• Depression Lied To Me by Stephan Neff - https://a.co/d/7s6Ddg0
• Neff Inspiration Podcast - https://stephanneff.podbean.com
• Stephan Neff YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@neffinspiration
• Stephan Neff Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/neffinspiration
• Stephan Neff Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/neffinspiration
• Stephan Neff LinkedIn - https://beitpod.com/neffonlinkedin
• Esmee The Mindful Mouse - https://neffinspiration.com/books

Guest Bio:

Stephan Neff is an anaesthetist, bestselling author, speaker and show host. After studying medicine in Heidelberg, Germany he travelled and worked in Europe and Australia before settling down with his family in beautiful New Zealand. As a pain physician, he developed a specific insight into human psychology. As a man trying to drown his sorrows, he found out the hard way that the critters can swim. But over the last ten years, he made every day a little bit better than yesterday. When he became intrigued about epigenetics, he started training in functional medicine. Once he experienced the power of breathwork he became a breath coach. Not willing to accept getting stiffer with age he became a flexibility coach. His desire to impact humans led him to become a life coach and hypnotherapist. He strongly believes that the past does not equal the future. By taking action in a consistent way, we can experience transformations beyond our wildest dreams. 

He shares this passion through his podcast and YouTube channel, and through social media (Stephan Neff / Neff Inspiration) There is so much more to Stephan than sobriety. Nevertheless, in his book “Steps to Sobriety” he shares the lessons he has learned as a doctor and as a man. Every addict can turn his life around, one little decision at a time. His books and his show explain how to do it.

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox.

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Episode Transcript:

Stephan Neff 0:00  

One in three people have got chemical addictions. One in three. How many people are scrolling for hours on their social media? These are all dopamine quick hits, your likes, your, whatever you post out there. Oh, look at me, I'm looking so good. That's all a heap of B.S. because ultimately, it's nothing else than a form of addiction.

Lesley Logan 0:24  

Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.

Lesley Logan 1:07  

All right, loves, I'm so excited for today's episode. We had so much to talk about, so I'm gonna make this intro super quick and grab a pen, paper, because there are so many little nuggets of like, oh, I need to do that. Oh, I need to do that. And I think you'll really like it. So Stephan Neff is our guest toda. We are going to talk about all the ups and downs, trials, tribulations of losing a job, losing a marriage, changing your life, and then also, I just love when I ask people what they're excited about right now, because they can learn so much more, and truly, so many, be it action items in here for you. There's something for everyone. So, here you go. 

Lesley Logan 1:39  

All right, Be It babe. I'm really excited that I get to have another conversation with our guest today. I've been on his amazing podcast, and now he's going to be here on mine. Stephan Neff, can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at? 

Stephan Neff 1:49  

Oh, thank you very much, Lesley, for giving me the privilege and the honor to be a guest on your show. I'm Stephan, I'm anesthetist. I'm a functional medicine specialist. I'm also a life coach. I'm a yoga instructor. I've got all kind of hats, like hypnotherapy and I've studied that. So I am addicted to becoming the best version of myself, and I've had many opportunities in my life to make choices that were not so great with hindsight, so I had more trauma than I would wish on my worst enemy, and in turn, I have investigated the effects of alcohol, of renzodiazepines, of sex, of a lot of coping mechanisms, food, for that matter. So workaholics, see, the moment I start talking, the more holics are coming to my mind. Because it's not just one escape mechanism. It's not just one thing that you try, you so dabble in many things. I was lucky because being in Germany, England, New Zealand, I was not exposed to various epidemics the United States have seen, and I was never really tempted by harder drugs that whatever, whoever is guiding here this game, they guided me away from those things. And for that, I need to be really, really grateful. However, I became a master escape artist with all the other things. And unfortunately, yes, they work for a little while, because they take away your pain, but ultimately they catch up with you and these demons, they are riding you deep inside. And again, I have been in situations which allowed me to grow so in other words, about 1011, years ago, I ended up in rehab that stopped my alcohol, and that was one of the best things that could have happened to me. Now, at the time, I was certainly not agreeing with that statement, but nowadays, I strongly believe every 18-year-old needed to be in rehab for a month. I think I would make that mandatory on actually, even before you go into college, even before, a 15-year-old, that's probably a better time to actually just learn about your emotions, learn about your feelings, learn about.

Lesley Logan 4:24  

What if there's a summer camp for emotions like, what if that's what everyone had to do at 15? I'm in. I think so, too, because it's true. I think most of the different addictions that we have are because we are unsure how to regulate or understand the emotions we're feeling, or we were not allowed to feel them, and so we don't know how to feel them, and so we figure out a different way to not feel. Workaholics get away with that addiction because, you know, except that they're annoying to their family, and their family's never to see them. It doesn't seem to be harmful. In air quotes. So unfortunately, the people who have. The addictions to alcohol and drugs, we look down on that like, oh, my God, how could they have let themselves get involved in those things? 

Stephan Neff 5:06  

Which is ludicrous, Lesley, if you think about it, one in three people have got chemical addictions. One in three. How many people are scrolling for hours on their social media? These are all dopamine quick hits, your likes, your whatever you post out there. Oh, look at me. I'm looking so good. That's all a heap of B.S. because ultimately, it's nothing else than a form of addiction. 

Lesley Logan 5:33  

Well, and it's also so hard because everything out there, there are lots of people who are helping your addiction along. So, you know, I mean, in the States, recently, we've heard about who was arrested in the Matthew Perry loss. And yes, he is addicted, and yes, he's the person who's like, doing the drugs and having been to multiple rehabs, and all these things, but the people around him that facilitated that addiction to continue, you know, and I'm not saying that if you'd switch people like that wouldn't happen with other people, but with your social media scrolling, they make sure you stay on. There's all these different things. And so I love the idea of a 15-year-old or an 18-year-old. My goodness, every so many years it's like we have to go do a CPR test every two years. Maybe you also have to just do a little check in on how are you regulating your emotions? Are you doing that? Because there's going to be times in your life where it's not going to go well, and you could be the best regulator in the world that need help. 

Stephan Neff 6:30  

And but that is a privilege, and that is a something. I mean, gratitude is nowadays playing so much a role in my life due to the many traumas and the lessons I had to learn the hard way, and I'm very grateful for them nowadays, and you're so right, things don't end up in all peachy sort of Hollywood ending. It does not. I'm 58. Now, physically, emotionally, spiritually. I'm stronger than I have ever been in the last 30 years, probably emotionally, spiritually than ever in my life. Now, in reality, I have lost my job as an anesthetist. I'm going through a not nice divorce. My children have moved on in their own lives, and they are now overseas, far away, so I'm not getting the good old center support that maybe I deserve, want, need, and so there is a hard time here. But if there's one thing that I have had to learn, that I had the privilege to learn, is that there is a sense behind that suffering, and Viktor Frankl and many other far more clever people than me, before me have expressed that, and it is so hard, it sounds like a cliche. It sounds like something weird, but ultimately, it is a skill, just as much as you have a skill of maybe playing an instrument or going to the gym, being able to lift a certain amount of weight in a certain style, these are all skills that you have acquired. Now, I have acquired many of these skills, but also I have had to acquire some very powerful skills that allow me to regulate my emotions in a beautiful way. Indeed, going through the divorce and losing my job, losing my identity. I mean, I, who are you? I'm Dr. Neff von Stephan. I'm an anesthetist in blah, blah, there and there, well, take all that away. Who are you left with? And many men don't know that answer. They never ask themselves these answers until maybe trauma, physical trauma, stops them being the master carpenter or the mechanic or whatever they identify themselves. I've had so many soldiers on my show who were top alpha predators, and then were on the receiving end of a machine gun. And then, surprise, surprise, their body was no longer alpha. Theirs was not even omega. It was a heap of minced meat. And then, who are they? 

Lesley Logan 9:16  

Who are you? Yeah. 

Stephan Neff 9:17  

And so many men and women suffer from that, and I had the privilege of repeated traumas that forced me to ask those questions and come up with answers, solutions and the right steps forward.

Lesley Logan 9:32  

Yeah, many years ago, someone said you can't take someone's rock bottom away, right? And because you're trying to help people, and sometimes we're trying to help people. Of course, we should all be helpful, but sometimes people go into their own detriment trying to help someone, trying to make someone better, or see the light or take something away, and it's like some of those rock bottoms are exactly the thing they need to go through so they can learn who they are, so they can handle the next thing. Because I'm sorry to hear about all of those things. It sounds like there is like one and then a space between, and then another. And it sounds like because of one, you might be able to actually handle the next one. Like the divorce is awful, but because you learned how to regulate and feel your emotions and talk about who you are and go through those things, was that helpful when the divorce happened? Or am I, were they all at one time?

Stephan Neff 10:22  

No, sometimes you wonder if the gods out there in the pantheon are just sitting there and thinking, Stephan, he's doing far too well. What shall we throw at him? And then everyone pikes up. Ah, monkey pox. No, no, no. Divorce. Around with the children. They say, you know what we do, all of them at the same time. Yeah, see how it copes.

Lesley Logan 10:43  

Oh, my God. Are you watching, I don't know if you have it in New Zealand, there is a show on Netflix called Chaos. It's about the gods. If you can get it, it is worthwhile, because that is exactly what they're doing.

Stephan Neff 11:01  

I'm sure some writer had a dream about me, and thought, oh, I we're gonna make that show. I want some royalties here. 

Lesley Logan 11:09  

Yeah, yeah.

Stephan Neff 11:10  

But there's this, shit will happen, and I ended up in quite a dark space over the end of last year and start of this year, and when I did some courses which forced me to live with my emotions, some radical compassion courses, things like that, where I had to learn how to really live with my emotions, not just run away from them, but actually be there, feel them, pour oil onto the fire and be there, feel it, and then afterwards, learn how to calm down and learn how to nurture myself. It was so beautiful. It was one of the hardest courses I've ever done, but that was what allowed me to be here and speak to you today. Many a times, when I thought, well, is my life really worthwhile? I'm fat, ugly, I'm a failure. You know, all these kind of I ams that are coming up, these voices? Now, fact is, we all have got about 80,000 thereabouts thoughts every day. Of these 80,000 about 80% are negative, and mine had a volume cranked up to max. Now we all have them, and that is a problem, because this is all a heap of B.S. that your body is telling you, either focusing far too much onto the history which is gone. You should learn from your mistakes. You should learn from history to prevent making the same mistakes again. You could talk now into politics big time in your country, but we won't go there. 

Stephan Neff 11:11  

Stephan, trust me, every day, I'm like these people need to fucking read a history book. What is happening here? But here's the deal. Then we have talked about education in this country, and that's another mountain to climb, so.

Stephan Neff 12:59  

Exactly. I think the same applies for us as human beings. Never forget where you came from. Never forget the lessons from the past, but do not relive the hardships or the sadness, unless you need a relief valve. I, oh my God, end of last year, I went to a counselor, just because, you know, that's really the clever thing to do, because these people sort of can see what you're saying, can listen to you, and can also listen to what you're not saying.

Lesley Logan 13:41  

Yeah, they're talented. So great.

Stephan Neff 13:46  

So I had this wonderful woman, which I knew. So I said, like, you know that's what I'm going through. And she said, wow, okay, so how is your loss and grief? I said, which loss and grief? I didn't lose anyone? And she just looked at me, you just lost your wife of 27 years. I thought, huh, okay. And so there was a loss and grief, but I never allowed myself to feel that, and it was interesting for me that a song recently triggered me, and that was absolutely amazing, because that song allowed me suddenly to cry, to really sob, snot, tears, you know, you name it, it came out, but it took me the better part of what, eight months, what is it now? September. That was only really in August. So we're talking 10 months, really, in which I was the stoic survivor, in which I did what I had to do. And that's one of the key things. You have to take action in order to live your life. And the harder it gets, the more action you have to take. So I did all the right things, but I neglected that one emotion, and when it finally came out, it was so beautiful. It was so beautiful to cry. It was so beautiful to feel whole again, because, yes, I can journal every day and write down the things that give me the highest anxiety, and take them off immediately, those things that I take for granted that becomes my win list. So I'm actually writing down pretty minuscule things, but these are all things that maybe previously I would have procrastinated about, etc. And here, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, and I write win, little wins next to it. And if I achieve something really big, which I didn't think big win. So I do all that. Yet, whilst I took the right action, there was still so many things that needed to be addressed, and there was this emotion, and it was there. It's beautiful. 

Lesley Logan 15:57  

I think I love that you're sharing, because it's so easy. I got my tools, I'm doing my things, I'm doing the work, I'm, whatever the work is for you, but I'm not surprised that grief was an emotion you weren't letting yourself feel because it's not an emotion any of us are taught how to deal with. We don't handle grief well, and there's not a model for it, right? If you don't lose someone or have grief when you're a child and it's not modeled correctly, we don't really know. We don't really see how to do that. And then if you see a parent or person who handles grief terribly, they get angry, they bottle it up, they don't process it, then you learn you can't even, you can't express it. And then most people, what do they say? Oh, you'll feel better in time. There's not a lot of great examples of feeling grief, and we also think grief only comes if we lose like a family member. We are not realizing, you lose your job, that's grief, Stephan, because you're grieving what the future that you thought about was, what did you think that was? Like, we moved to Las Vegas, and that was a beautiful, exciting goal that we had, but also it came so suddenly and when it happened during the pandemic that I remember working with my therapist about grieving my L.A. life, not because I wasn't happy in Vegas, but just the day to day that made me feel like me was gone and I had to start over. And your brain, the way grief works, expecting this thing. Oh, I went for a run to the next, Oh, there's no Starbucks here. Even though that sounds silly, that was, part of my day was saying hi to the same five people, seen running with my best friend. There's a grief there. And I think we don't allow ourselves to grieve what could have been when situations don't go well, and we think it makes us something weak, or makes us feel like we're stuck on the path. And really it's giving that space, and going back to the Greeks, like letting that float down the river, like giving it a celebration, right? I think that that is a huge step. It's something that I'm really, and I'm really, I don't know, I'm really stuck on this in this moment.

Stephan Neff 17:52  

And I guess there's a message there for you, because obviously I've triggered you. And hopefully after the show, you can reflect on that, and can actually see, ah, okay, what's waiting now to be released, what opening is coming up for me to learn something new about me, because that's really the chance that we have got every single day, and we squander so many of these chances we take our life for granted. Two years ago, my life well, from the outside, I was at a pinnacle. You know, I was I made an very, very beautiful income. I had a big house, I had a pool, I had a wife, I had two kids. From outside, hey, you know, on the inside, I was not a happy man, but it was so grumbling and so chronic that I didn't see how unsatisfied my needs were as a man in my marriage, and the same is probably to be said for my wife, her needs were not met and we were unable to express our respective love languages we wouldn't have known them if they would have bitten us in the ass. It is those kind of things, you know. It is those kind of things that ultimately make you unhappy, make you unsatisfied. You're searching for this mission, you're certain, searching for this purpose in your life that you have not yet found. And I think by going through trauma and being forced to change, you get outside of your comfort zone, you experience fear. And if you look at any successful, truly successful person who's got their shit together, then you will see that they have gone through tremendous amounts of trauma, through tremendous amounts of heartbreak, that in their business, they have failed and were sometimes completely, how do you call it in America where everything is taken away from you? You lose your house, you lose your.

Lesley Logan 20:01  

Bankruptcy, yes, yes, yes. 

Stephan Neff 20:03  

Yes, exactly. Ultimately, many men and women have gone through such scenarios, but those who are successful are those people who have learned and are willing to learn from such trauma. I call it trauma. Trauma is sometimes a word that is. 

Lesley Logan 20:21  

I think there's little T and there's big T, and I also think it's fine they've gone through some sort of like life experience that has flipped them things upside down. Look at Oprah. We forget what her life was like. We forget who she was before she was Oprah. And so you're completely right. And I guess our life is always evolving. And I think your life is a perfect example of it's not like life's a roller coaster, but it's like an ebb and flow. There's like, these highs, these lows, and what we do with the lows to get to the highs really matters. And how we, actually, it sounds like you educate yourself in a low so that you can, like you go through these highs. But now, with this new life change, like, how do you find yourself being it till you see it to the person you want to be on the other side of all this, what are the tools you're using, or what are the or how are you figuring it out as we go?

Stephan Neff 21:06  

Righty-ho, so over the next three hours where let's talk about. No, no. I give you, I show you one tool, actually, that I've used very, very frequently in the recent months. And it is actually very easy to do. It comes in various versions, but I use my right hand and put it on the dead shoulder. That hand onto that shoulder. I squeeze as hard as I can and say, Stephan, I love you. You're a good man. You're going through shit. I absolutely love you to bits. You are strong. You are a good man. Shit is happening, but you're a good man. Don't forget that. And I do that for 15, 20 seconds, and I'm renowned for my bear hugs to those people who I love, and you never show this love that you show others to yourself. You're a mean bastard to yourself. You speak to yourself in a way that you wouldn't speak to your worst enemy. And I force myself to actually love myself. Warts and all. And I think that sometimes gives me that hug, gives me that release, gives me that reassurance, where I am getting stronger and I feel the panic and the anxiety running away. We already spoke about writing things down. What I shared with you was the win list, because we always look at our failures. We never look at our wins. And I want to celebrate every win. In order to do so, I need to celebrate every chance I get. In order to do that, I need to celebrate being here. I need to be celebrating that I'm here in this moment. I'm not distracting myself, I'm not escaping. I'm living this moment and I live it with joy. I live it I'm here with you, 100% intentional, and I enjoy every second have I had in the past a fear of public speaking? Hell, yes. Are we talking about some quite, you know, not things that I'm not so happy and proud about, and now I'm sharing it with a few thousand, 10,000 million viewers. Well, okay, talk about that. Do you think me showing up is a win? Well, 80% of success is showing up. Me, actually, jumping over my fear and actually just being here, exposing myself to my fear of public, speaking of whatever it is, and suddenly realizing, actually, you know, I'm not eaten up by some magic force or some saber tooth tiger has killed me, although my body inside and all the responses of fight and flight coming onto this show, but now it is those kind of things, so the gratitude and the realization that this is a privilege that you are living. Yes, it's a shitty day here. Look outside. It's raining. Damn. Many of my friends are no longer here, but due to disease or trauma or violent deaths, well, you know, it's a privilege to be here, so be grateful and practice that. And you need to just, you actually need to do that. Practice it, because it doesn't come naturally to many of us. 

Lesley Logan 24:47  

Right, right. 

Stephan Neff 24:48  

So practice those things. And then the most important bit is finally stop for a moment and actually try to figure out who you want to be when you grow up. Create that dream in your mind, and dream means leery, flary things that are going on in your head. So if you say, okay, I am 58 now, and I haven't found true love in my life. So if I say, okay, I want to find true love. Well, that's nice. You can think of Valentine hearts, or you can say, what does that actually look like? Okay, there is, there needs to be a partner. This partner probably needs to understand my needs. Or for that, I need to be able to learn how to communicate my needs, but then I need to understand what are my needs? There's a bit of work waiting here to actually figure out what is your dream. Now, that dream, it's nebulous. Please change your dream to a vision by becoming very, very, very clear. So I want to have this dream partner. Okay, how does she need to look like? Well, maybe not the best question that you want to ask, because she might come in a very different package, but it has, it's everything that you need. So maybe a different question might be, which features should she have, which emotions, which style, what makes her burst into laughter and in turn infect you with joy? And then you have to figure out, okay, what affects you or infects you with joy. So what is your joy? So it's those kind of things. So once you've nailed it down, go to the next feature, to the next feature, until you dream that nebulism something has become a very clear vision. And now you need to take action. And that is the cool thing, but not action on that. Don't take someone and try to somehow mold that someone. No, take action on the input and say, okay, I want this loving relationship. So what would I do now? Right now? What ideas, five ideas that would make this relationship with this person a better thing. What input can I put there? What does she need? She needs to be supported. Okay. And how does that work? She needs to know that I will not run away. Well, fair call. Let's do something on that. Or she always feels alone that she is doing all the work in the house. Fine. Let me put that rubbish out, let me paint that corner, let me fix that part of the house, whatever it is. I can control the input. I can't control the output. I can't control the end result, but I can show up and do my best, and that is a beautiful skill. 

Lesley Logan 27:44  

I really love your way of being it till you see it. It's like we always work backwards here. We love that, so that's great. But I also loved how it turned into like, the things you're looking for, you have to know more about yourself so that you can spot it when you got it, because people can't read your mind, and you could say, I want a supportive partner, and then you meet someone whose idea of supporting is financial, but what you really meant was emotional. Well, it doesn't matter. I need to be supportive. I am supporting you, and it's because words matter and we need to be specific. So I think that there's just so many different ways. We just had a coaching call with our group, and this girl wants to open a studio. She's like, where do I start? And I was like, well, what kind of studio do you want? What does that look like? What's happening in the studio? How busy is it? Is our teachers there, like, I can't tell you how to open a studio if I don't know what we're opening because then it's like, you go get a building, you get a lawyer. First of all, it's not inspiring. Second of all, what order of those steps is going to change based on all the things you have to know, what it is that you're wanting to open for us to go with the first action step. So I really, really think that that is so cool. What are you most excited about right now? 

Stephan Neff 28:57  

Well, my house is going on the market, and this house, this town, has a lot of memories, many of them beautiful, many of them not so. So, by all I know, in four days time the house is sold, and then what will happen? And I've got a Toyota Estima, sort of a gray people-mover, kind of soccer mom kind of thing. I've turned that into a Batmobile. So I've ripped out the interior. I've turned that into a stealth camper, into basically an RV. 

Lesley Logan 29:30  

So cool.

Stephan Neff 29:32  

That was quite a cool thing, something, you know, I'm 58 and I'm a doctor, for crying out loud. I focused my skills on a very different skill set by my experience in different skill sets, not necessarily DIY, not necessarily building. So I had to learn auto electronics and how the car works on the inside, etc. So I did that. So that was cool. I was really enjoying finding things that give me joy. And it was a surprising journey, because. You, those things that gave me joy in the past were no longer as beautiful, and I found new ways of creativity, new ways of looking forward to projects that maybe will increase my wealth again. Any divorce is hugely detrimental to anything. So there's a good reason that I changed my house to a car to actually just recover financially, but that is all part and parcel. So here we are. There are those people who have forever dreamt of the RV lifestyle, of downsizing, of those kind of things. I'm forced to do it, but I choose not to look at it as being forced, but I choose it as an opportunity to see that beautiful New Zealand and actually build up my private practice in functional medicine and. 

Lesley Logan 30:50  

Have you been to Gisborne? 

Stephan Neff 30:52  

Yes, I have. Yes. 

Lesley Logan 30:53  

So that's the first light of day. I feel like you have to go there in your RV. If you do, we have a lovely friend there who likes to serve.

Stephan Neff 31:02  

Like Gisborne, Napier, there are so many beautiful places here. So I'm looking forward to doing that and in the process of finding myself, of finding out more about me, focusing more on one thing. This, the journey of divorce and getting rid of a house is incredibly disruptive to all your creative things. I was lucky because I was putting all my creativity in designing a very tiny home, and it was beautiful. But now it's time to bring that creativity to the next project. May it be, well, part of it probably will be somewhere, a rundown house that I will renovate and bring up just to a really lovely standard. 

Lesley Logan 31:46  

You know, when you live in it, because we, we live in our van from time to time, and we lived in a tiny apartment before our house. Our van is not finished by any stretch of the imagination. I'm glad we didn't, because we would have made changes. And so what I think is really fun for you is the next house you get, even if it's small, you will, based on what you like and don't like in your RV life, you will make changes so that your home has the things you want at the home versus what you have. So then you'll have two homes, and you'll have one you can travel like it's mobile, and then you'll have one that's a sanctuary. I think it's so cool. Yeah. 

Stephan Neff 32:09  

So, so, instead of saying I've lost my house now, I've lost my life, I have gained freedom. I have gained a new way of life that probably injects quite a bit of you back into me. I have the opportunity to explore new things. For example, I love juggling. I love spitting fires, so I studied circus arts when I was a younger man. 

Lesley Logan 32:46  

That's so funny. That's not what I thought you were gonna say.

Stephan Neff 32:49  

But I know that there's a group of jugglers around New Zealand. They meet, typically on the full moon, on the beach somewhere, and have fire and juggle and things like that. And I always thought, oh, wouldn't that be cool? Then it was always the I need to work next day, and I'm busy and there's all that. Well now I have got that freedom to actually do that. Get back into it. Well, I haven't juggled for quarter of a century. I'm sure I will find it again, and I'm sure I will find new ways of finding joy. In finding those new ways, it is likely that I come across people who really infuse me. And who knows, there might be true love waiting there, true love in whatever form and shape it comes. These are all gifts that have come out of trauma, just as much as I have become the phoenix rising out of the ashes again and again over my lifetime. I just didn't expect it that I'll do it with 58 again. But hey, you do what. A man has got to do what a man has got to do. But I take it as a challenge. I take it as an opportunity as, I take it as a positive thing, and that is the only thing, the only true thing that works when it comes to the challenges in life, that you are able to find the meaning, a purpose, a sense in your suffering, that you accept what is happening, that you practice radical self-compassion, that you take ownership when it is due, that you learn to analyze when someone maybe was gaslighting you or was bullshitting you, or the whole kind of messages subliminal that you had been fed, maybe throughout your life, that you're actually able to start analyzing them and say, well, that's actually a heap of B.S. but that is actually not true. I'm not a failure. You know, for 50 something years, I thought I'm a failure. That's my rundown. Now, it helped me to focus and work harder. But to actually say, actually, no, I'm not a failure. I'm resilient, I'm resourceful, I am a survivor, I'm a thriver. I am lovable, I am worthy to learn. I wrote on my website, I wrote an article about the Power of I Am, and it's so important that we use that power, because it's the shortcut to your subconscious. So instead of being the bearded lady in the circus, why don't you start becoming the ring master and actually decide what is happening in your show, in your circus. Okay, you can actually control your thoughts. You can be far more mindful as far as what is happening up there, and that will make you stronger, that will make you a better human. And in turn, you will attract better humans. Inadvertently, or maybe on purpose, you will seek out a different group of people, not the naysayers, those people who give you good advice, for example, about finances when they are themselves, run down and have nothing. 

Lesley Logan 36:05  

Yes, there's a lot of those around. Yeah.

Stephan Neff 36:09  

Isn't it? But you're an example, Lesley, you are out there. You have gone through your own trials and tribulation, but you haven't given up. And you keep going. And you keep showing up. You keep showing up on your show. And you're there to help others. You bring others on to infuse you. You open yourself up, in this case, by being very honest, and I was triggering you here on the show. So therefore I know you will grow, like it or lump it, by you showing up and making yourself vulnerable, you grow, and you will become a better version of Lesley than when the show started. How cool is that? I think we all can learn from that, isn't it? 

Lesley Logan 36:54  

Yeah, yeah, oh my gosh. We could keep talking forever, but we're gonna take a brief break, and then we're gonna find out where people can listen to your show and read your books and all the amazing stuff. 

Lesley Logan 37:05  

All right, Stephan, where do you like to hang out? Where can we send everyone if they have been inspired by what you've got? 

Stephan Neff 37:11  

Please head over to neffinspiration.com. Neff, N-E-F-F, it's my surname, inspiration dot com, it's my website. From there, you have got links to my YouTube show. We are close now to 500 guests, and Lesley is one of them. You had some fantastic pearls of wisdom there. It's beautiful. So I'm growing through that show. I have in my creativity, written quite a few books, some of them no longer in print because I felt it's probably not so good. I've recently lost 30 kilogram and some of my books were dangerously good German cheesecakes. So that's a bit inappropriate. I still have that out there. I 

Lesley Logan 37:59  

I mean, it's probably okay if people are addicted to cheesecake.

Stephan Neff 38:03  

I was always joking that because you bake them for such a long time that you bake all the calories out of them. I don't think that's true. I need to write a new recipe book.

Lesley Logan 38:16  

Okay, if our listeners hit you up for that cheesecake recipe, you have to give it to them.

Stephan Neff 38:21  

I can live with that. It's a baked German cheesecake. So it's great quality. It's a great taste. It's a little bit more work. I love it. The free books that can give you the most bang for the buck and the most value, I guess, is Steps to Sobriety. That is a book I've written. It's now coming out next month in its third edition. It is a memoir slash recipe book, How to look at recovery from addiction in a step wise, logical approach, and give you step by step way forward. The steps are essentially the 12 steps from AA, but I've taken the god out. I've taken many of those things out that maybe are a bit more difficult to swallow, and I've put it into a modern language, and have explained why these steps are actually a very good system. How to approach a failing business, for example, and I go into details there. So if you were to help a friend who is in trouble, like you are helping other Pilates teachers to create or maybe become better in their systems, well that's exactly you would actually do exactly the same steps as a 12-step program offers. So I'm using that approach. But then there are so many, so many other things that are typically happening, the trauma, the very predictable things, the depression, the mental health problems that will affect one in three of us. So you might as well learn something about it. When you drive a car, you learn how to change a tire, because sooner or later, you have to. But not one of us ever learns the signs and symptoms of depression or how, what is, what help is out there. So, Steps to S,obriety is really a beautiful mental health book in an overall, over encompassing kind of way. I've had another book out, Depression Lied To Me, in which I had the honor of having 14 female storytellers who were sharing their stories about how depression lied to them. And it's wonderful, because depression, as many other mental health problems, they come in all shapes and forms. They come in all disguises. Yet there are common themes, and yet there are the same kind of bullshit lies that these mental health problems tell us. Let there be addiction, let there be depression, etc. To hear 14 different women talk about their experience has been a very enriching insight for me. And last but not least, I will republish Esmee The Mindful Mouse, because I believe that if we start earlier on in life, if we start creating strong, little humans, it's much easier than repair broken adults. So therefore, why should we not start teaching mindfulness at an early stage? And I've written a beautiful, written and photographed and produced with a friend, a beautiful book about this little mouse who lives in our beautiful redwood forest here, and who is vivacious, but with her vivaciousness also sometimes makes her friends angry, and she needs to find out the difference between, am I a bad mouse, or have I done something bad that has angered someone else? Again coming back to the power of I am and, needless to say, her friends love her for who she is, but she needs to learn that lesson, and you will find links to all those books and more a neffinspiration.com so check it out, guys, but first, please press the like and subscribe button on Lesley's show, because that's so bloody important, because we all grow with algorithms on YouTube and other places, and if you've heard something cool today, hopefully it will enrich your life, but also send it to someone else, and send a link to Lesley show so that they can get better insights and we grow and start becoming this community of growing people.

Lesley Logan 42:37  

Thank you for that. Please do all of those things everyone. You've given us a bunch already. I feel like, so feel free to repeat something you've said, because I feel like you did. But there are so many gems of like, how we could be it till you see it, but bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps, the action someone can take, if they're like, yes, okay, what can they do next? What would you like them to do?

Stephan Neff 42:57  

Immediately now, I want you to give yourself a hug. I want you to actually give yourself a hug and spend 15 seconds with yourself just after the show is finished, immediately, 15 seconds, if it is safe to do so if you're driving, maybe not, okay? Maybe pull over, okay? But I want you to close your eyes and be with yourself and whatever is happening with you, whatever goes through your mind, whatever is happening, I want you to give yourself a big bear hug and just accept you for who you are, that beautiful human being who is probably going through some shit, because otherwise you wouldn't listen to a show like this. You would be distracted with living this most beautiful, suckering, sweet Coca Cola advertisement life, which, yeah, how about that? Okay, no, I want you to be real, and I want you to show compassion to yourself, because it all starts with that, yeah, just to tell that inner child of you, to tell that that right now, big child that is sitting there or standing there, whoever is around you, just give yourself that big hug, squeeze as hard as you can, and tell yourself, I love you. 

Lesley Logan 44:17  

That's beautiful. Thank you so much. You guys, go give yourself a hug, and then please make sure that you share this with a friend. And if you have takeaways, please tag Stephan. Tag the Be It Pod. We want to hear them. We want to celebrate what you're doing. Y'all, you heard him say wins all the time. We actually have a wins episode that comes out on Fridays where we love to celebrate your wins. You can actually send them in and we read them out loud, so that sometimes when you hear your own win, it's on a day you really need a reminder that you had a win recently, and until next time, Be It Till You See It. 

Lesley Logan 44:50  

That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.

Brad Crowell 45:33  

It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan 45:38  

It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell 45:42  

Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan 45:49  

Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell 45:53  

Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.