September is Suicide Prevention Month. And this year I am marking it the only way I know how. By telling the truth.

I call it Perspective Day. The time of year when I sit with everything I have survived and everything I almost did not. This episode is the most unfiltered thing I have ever said out loud on this show. And I am saying it because someone listening right now needs to hear it.

This is the story of losing my grandfather, my dad, and almost myself. Of getting my affairs in order. Of sitting on my best friend's floor while she told me her cancer had progressed and receiving the perspective that changed my direction. Of a car accident I did not think I would survive and a podcast I launched on my birthday because I did not know if I would see it.

Eleven years into this grief journey. Three years post accident. Still here. Still choosing.

This episode is for anyone who is carrying something heavy right now and wondering if they can keep going. You can. And I am going to tell you why.

If you are in crisis right now please reach out:

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741741

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention: https://afsp.org

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New episodes every Tuesday. Please share this one with someone who needs it.

There's a huge gap between saying "I want to do UGC" and actually building a UGC business. Most people stay stuck in the first category far longer than they need to, not because they lack talent, but because nobody hands them the actual starter kit.

In this week's episode of Mindset, Health, Empowerment: The Unfiltered Trainer, I'm breaking down the second installment of The Unfiltered Content Creation Series. If last episode was about the lies people believe before they start, this one is about what actually happens once you decide to take it seriously.

I get into the proof you need before any brand ever pays you a dollar, why waiting for the "right" gear or the right follower count is the biggest thing holding new creators back, and the three actual doors that lead to paid gigs, most people only ever try one. I also walk through a 14 day challenge I want you to try if you're serious about getting better on camera, and the five specific things that quietly cost new creators money before they even realize it's happening.

This one is part checklist, part reality check, and fully unfiltered, the way this podcast always is.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube. Link is below.

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefit
Listen on Spotify: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/createdbyginamarie/

New episodes every Tuesday. If you're building something right now, whether that's a UGC business or anything else, this one is for you.

Has someone ever made you the villain in a version of events you weren't even present for? Side comments. Assumptions. Conversations held about you in rooms you were never standing in.

In this episode I'm talking about whispers, gossip, and being rewritten into someone else's story. Since moving to Tampa, this has been the norm for me, in the fitness industry and in healthcare, two completely different worlds with the exact same pattern. People always have an opinion. People always have something to say. Almost nobody says it to my face.

I'm breaking down why until someone addresses you directly, they don't have an issue with you, they have an issue with themselves, why being gossiped about by someone you already distanced yourself from isn't a loss, and why staying exactly the same while people squirm is the most powerful response you actually have.

Message me and let me know where this has shown up in your life.

Stay Connected:
Listen on all podcast platforms: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/createdbyginamarie/
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ginamariefit
Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ginamariefit
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefit
Website and Blog: https://ginamariefit.com/

New episodes every Tuesday.

Welcome back to Mindset, Health, Empowerment: The Unfiltered Trainer and another volume of The Unfiltered Bookshelf 📚

Five thrillers. Five completely unfiltered opinions. And a couple of books that had me questioning everything.

This month I'm breaking down:

📖 The Divorce by Freida McFadden — 4/5 ⭐
A domestic thriller where literally nobody makes good decisions… and somehow that's exactly why it works.

📖 Ward D by Freida McFadden — 4.5/5 ⭐
A locked psychiatric ward, disappearing patients, secrets, and one very long night where absolutely nothing feels safe.

📖 The Only One Left by Riley Sager — 5/5 ⭐
My first Riley Sager book and an instant favorite. A gothic mansion, a decades-old family murder, and a twist I absolutely did not see coming.

📖 Next of Kin by Kia Abdullah — 4/5 ⭐
A devastating premise that turns into a complicated courtroom thriller about family, blame, secrets, and one decision that changes everything.

📖 Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney — 5/5 ⭐
A remote island, a missing wife, questionable residents, and the kind of ending that made me sit there and process what I had just read.

Throughout the episode, I'm putting each book through The Unfiltered Bookshelf Rating System — the Green Flag, Red Flag, WTF Moment, Twist Test, and who should actually read it.

No sugarcoating. No "everything was amazing." Just real reads, real reactions, and real ratings.

Which book would you pick up first? And if you've already read one of these, did you agree with my rating?

Follow The Unfiltered Bookshelf for more thriller reviews, book recommendations, TBRs, book hunts, and unfiltered bookish opinions.

Drop a comment and tell me if the twist worked for you or lost you completely! 👇

📱 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ginamariefit📚 BookTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theunfilteredbookshelf📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ginamariefit▶️ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefit🛒 Amazon Storefront: amazon.com/shop/ginamariefit📖 ShopMy Unfiltered Bookshelf: https://shopmy.us/ginamariefit/the-unfiltered-bookshelf

A leggings company is suing another leggings company over a seam, and that's not really a lawsuit story. It's a female competition story, and I've watched it play out in gyms and studios for thirteen years.

In this episode I'm using that lawsuit as the entry point into something much bigger: what happens when women in a competitive industry stop seeing each other as community and start seeing each other as threats. I'm sharing what it was like being in leadership and having to hold other women accountable, what happened when someone I fired rewrote the story instead of taking accountability, and the pattern I've watched over and over of trainers taking other people's work and calling it their own.

This industry markets itself as sisterhood. I'm talking about why it doesn't always feel that way, and what I think is actually driving it.

Message me and let me know which part of this one hit home for you.

Stay Connected:

Listen on all podcast platforms: ⁠https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/createdbyginamarie/⁠

Follow on Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/ginamariefit⁠

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Watch on YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefit⁠

Website and Blog: ⁠https://ginamariefit.com/

Everyone sees the aesthetic. The bookshelves. The brand partnerships. The content that looks effortless from the outside.

Nobody tells you the truth about what it actually costs — or why the lies you believe before you start are the exact things that will slow you down once you do.

In Episode 123 of Mindset, Health, Empowerment: The Unfiltered Trainer I am breaking down the three biggest lies about building a BookTok presence and a UGC creator business at the same time and the unfiltered truth behind each one.

In this episode we cover:

• Why you do not need a huge following to land brand deals and what actually matters to brands when they hire a UGC creator
• The real ninety percent of the creator life that nobody posts about: including what building looks like when your health does not cooperate
• Why choosing one niche might actually be the thing holding you back and how a thriller reading brain makes a better UGC creator than you would expect
• The most unfiltered truth about building something online when nobody fully understands what you are doing yet

This episode is for anyone building something in public who has ever felt like they are doing it wrong. You are not. Keep going.

Watch the YouTube video version of this episode: youtube.com/@ginamariefit

Follow on Instagram: @ginamariefit

Follow on TikTok: @ginamariefit

Book a UGC partnership: ginamariefit.com

Get The Badass Blueprint on Amazon

New podcast episodes every Tuesday. Book reviews every Friday on YouTube. Subscribe so you never miss either. 🎙📚

#MindsetHealthEmpowerment #TheUnfilteredTrainer #BookTokCreator #UGCCreator #CreatorLife #UnfilteredTruth #GinaMarieFit #ThrillerBooks #BuildingInPublic #ContentCreatorLife

Do you consider yourself emotionally intelligent?

Most people would say yes. And most of those same people have sent an email they immediately regretted. Have made a decision that felt crystal clear in the moment and looked completely different three days later. Have repeated a relationship pattern they could see clearly from the outside and still could not stop from the inside.

Here is what nobody told you. Being aware of your emotions and being intelligent about them are not the same thing. Knowing what you feel is step one. What you do with that knowledge is the actual skill. And most people have never been taught that part.

In This Episode:

What emotional intelligence actually is and why the wellness space has been teaching an incomplete version of it. The difference between emotional awareness and emotional regulation and why you can have one without the other. Why high achievers often have the lowest emotional intelligence despite the highest self-awareness. What emotional reactivity actually looks like in sophisticated high-functioning people and why it passes as strategy. Why managing emotions is not the same as suppressing them. The name it to tame it practice and the neuroscience behind why it works. And the single most powerful emotional intelligence skill you can develop starting today.

This episode connects directly to the nervous system conversation from Episode 119. The regulation work and the emotional intelligence work are the same project approached from two different angles. And understanding both changes everything about how you move through your own life.

Stay Connected:

Listen on all podcast platforms: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/createdbyginamarie/Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ginamariefitFollow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ginamariefitWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefitWebsite and Blog: https://ginamariefit.com/

New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe so you never miss one. And if this episode named something you have been experiencing but did not have language for come find me on Instagram and TikTok at ginamariefit. I want to hear what resonated.

Every book in this volume is hiding something.

A body with a story underneath it nobody was supposed to find. A woman inside an institution where the people meant to protect her are the ones she should fear. A neighborhood full of people who knew exactly what happened to a missing woman and said nothing. And a killer who narrates their own story directly to you from the very first page.

Four books. Four completely different setups. One obsession with the gap between what people present and what is actually true.

Volume 3 of The Unfiltered Bookshelf introduces two brand new authors to the shelf, delivers the biggest rating jump in this series so far, and has the most honest conversation yet about what happens when a beloved author does not land the same way every time.

In This Volume:

Dead in the Water by John Marrs: 4 out of 5. A new author earns his place immediately with a morally complex thriller that prioritizes character over plot mechanics.

The Inmate by Freida McFadden: 3.5 out of 5. The honest conversation about catalog consistency and what to do when an author you love does not deliver in the same way.

Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica: 4.5 out of 5. The biggest surprise of the volume and the most significant rating jump in the series so far.

When I Kill You by BA Paris: 3.5 out of 5. The most structurally unusual book in this volume and the one that asks the most of its reader.

Shop every book mentioned:

Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/ginamariefit
ShopMy Unfiltered Bookshelf: https://shopmy.us/ginamariefit/the-unfiltered-bookshelf

Stay Connected:

Listen on all podcast platforms: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/createdbyginamarie/
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Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefit
Website and Blog: https://ginamariefit.com/

New Unfiltered Bookshelf volumes drop monthly. Subscribe so you never miss one. And if you have read any of these books come find me on Instagram and TikTok @theunfilteredbookshelf and tell me your rating. No spoilers. Just the number.

Money is one of the most avoided conversations in the wellness and empowerment space. Today we are going there completely.

Amy Powell CFA is the founder of AimWell Financial with over 20 years of experience in the finance industry. She combines analytical expertise with a deeply personal client-centered approach built on the belief that financial planning should provide clarity, reduce stress, and support a meaningful life. She is not here to talk at you about numbers. She is here to talk with you about the life you actually want to build and what it takes financially to get there.

This Built Different conversation goes deep on the money topics most people are carrying quietly. What your childhood money story is doing to your financial decisions right now. How to start building stability when you did not come from wealth and nobody taught you how. What the first real steps look like when you are currently living paycheck to paycheck. The difference between financial discipline and financial deprivation. And what financial peace actually feels like when you finally have a plan you trust.

In This Episode:

The most common money belief quietly destroying financial futures. What financial trauma actually looks like in adult decision making. How to build a financial foundation while also managing debt. What generational wealth actually means and whether it is realistic to build it from scratch. The biggest financial mistakes people are making right now in response to economic pressure. How to create a financial plan that accounts for real life including the trips, the dinners, and the things that make life worth living. And what being Built Different means to a woman who has spent 20 years helping people build something real from whatever they started with.

Connect with Amy Powell:

Website: https://www.aimwellfinancial.com/

Email: [email protected]Phone: (727) 335-1874

Stay Connected:

Listen on all podcast platforms: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/createdbyginamarie/Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ginamariefitFollow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ginamariefitWatch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefitWebsite and Blog: https://ginamariefit.com/

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

Your life is actually calmer than it has been in years. The acute crisis has passed. By any reasonable measure you should be able to exhale. And yet your body is still braced. Still scanning. Still finding it genuinely difficult to do nothing without your nervous system treating the silence like a problem to be solved.

You are not broken. Your nervous system is just still running from a fire that already went out.

This episode is not about burnout as a buzzword. It is about the actual physiological reality of what happens to your nervous system when you have been in survival mode for an extended period and why it does not automatically reset when the circumstances change.

In This Episode:

What the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems actually are and what each one feels like from the inside. What chronic activation does to the body over time and why you cannot think your way out of a nervous system response. How sustained pressure, health challenges, and years of high output wire the body for threat and why the body does not update when the circumstances change. What nervous system dysregulation actually looks like in high achievers including the version that gets rebranded as ambition. The difference between true regulation and distraction. One specific tool you can use right now with actual physiological evidence behind it. And what the longer work of building a regulated baseline actually looks like in a real life with real pressures.

This one is personal. And it connects directly to everything covered in recent episodes about chronic illness, the quieter season, and building a life that finally sends consistent signals of safety to a body that spent years being told it was not safe.

Stay Connected:

Listen on all podcast platforms: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/createdbyginamarie/
Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ginamariefit
Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ginamariefit
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ginamariefit
Website and Blog: https://ginamariefit.com/

New episodes every Tuesday. Subscribe so you never miss one. And if this episode named something you have been living with come find me on Instagram and TikTok at ginamariefit. I want to hear what resonated.