29: The Career Change Cure: How to Boost Your Health by Shifting Gears

00:06 - Michael Kummer (Host)

You're listening to the Primal Shift podcast. I'm your host, michael Kummer, and my goal is to help you achieve optimal health by bridging the gap between ancestral living and the demands of modern society. Get ready to unlock the transformative power of nature as the ultimate biohack, revolutionizing your health and reconnecting you with your Primal Self. Let me ask you a question Do you think your job is helping or preventing you from achieving optimal health? I'm asking this question because I've noticed that for a lot of people out there, their day job isn't a way of being healthy. The day job is causing stress, anxiety, disrupts the sleep routine, prevents you from taking the time to cook your meals from scratch, spending time in nature, etc. It's all around our day jobs, our way we make money that gets in the way of optimal health. For this episode, I've invited Laura and Erin, who both work for Marxism Primal Health Coach Institute. Both of them realized that their job in finance and marketing was making them sick, so they quit and decided to do something completely different In this episode. It's going to be super interesting because I think there is a lot of information that we discuss that can help you figure out how you can make changes to the way you earn money and obtain optimal health in the process. So welcome with me, laura and Erin, and let's get right into the discussion. Alright, erin? Laura, thanks so much for joining me today. 

01:56

Today's episode is going to be a little bit different than the ones I've had in the past, but it's a very important one because, as I alluded to in the intro, one of the most detrimental factors for obtaining optimal health in the best case scenario but just better health for most people is really our day job, because that's the one that puts us under artificial light all day, prevents us from being connected to nature, prevents us from having the time to prepare our own meals, to source our food and doing all of the things that are necessary for optimal health. So the question is how can you improve your health? Or, in other words, what can you do about the way you earn money to make it more conducive for you, easier for you to improve not only your own health, but to share what I've learned, or what you've learned, with the people around you, so they can benefit from that as well. And in fact, I think it's your journey. It's also my journey. 

02:53

I didn't start out saying, hey, I want to become a health influencer, I wanted to improve my own health and I figured, well, why not share what I've learned so others can benefit from that as well? And so maybe with that and now here I am with podcasts and supplements business, all of the things that come with it, making it possible to earn a living while at the same time, every day, allowing me to work on my own health and sharing with my audience what I've learned. And so maybe you know, laura and Erin, you know, let's tell the audience what journey you've gone through, what you've learned and why you decided to, you know, ultimately change your job for the purpose of improving your own health and helping others to do the same. 

03:35 - Laura (Guest)

Love it. Do you want me to start, erin, or you want to start? Go for it, all right. So it's funny. When Erin and I first met, when we were the first two employees at the school Erin and I both worked for we both came from separate countries even right but we had very similar story in terms of our day job and sort of where we came from was a part of the problem for us both in our own health journey, and in my case, I was in finance. I spent 25 years in finance, the last 12 of which I spent on the road. 

04:05

Michael, I mean I was in the car every single day. Talk about not being able to pack food. I mean I couldn't keep it good. And when I finally learned a lot more about my own health, I did legitimately look at buying a refrigerator for my car to carry perishable food in. But look, I was entertaining clients all the time, so I ate out all the time. 

04:26

There's a lot of traps hidden there when you're eating at restaurants every single day, not being able to really have the time to prepare my own meals. I was working 60 hours a week. There was a lot of drinking involved. Again, a lot of you know entertainment in that world and the stress. You know it was a sales position. So I had these goals I have to meet and, like back then, anyone that's listening, that is in sales. It's not like if you have a banner year you can take it easy the next year. Oh, no, no, no. They raise your bogey right. They raise your targets. You have to work even harder. So it's this chronic hamster wheel of this just really bad environment. Yeah, I got to eat out at fancy restaurants. But guess what? Fancy restaurants still cook in canola oil. You're lucky if they cook in canola oil instead of soybean oil. All their dressings are made with that kind of stuff. 

05:14

So when I realized that the actual day job I was in was part of the problem, I became very hyper aware and I did the best I could in terms of hacking it. I learned how to ask what their ingredients were at a restaurant. When I didn't have a meal, I did try to pack things. I got very good at understanding what would be OK in my car. I would go sit at a park and sit outside and eat lunch instead of sitting in a restaurant whenever possible. So I did my best, but at the end of the day, a lot of the clients that I went to go see, instead of talking about my global bond fund, I was talking about why I was special ordering my salad. And then they would ask me questions and I found myself talking about this stuff more than I was ever really talking about what I was there supposed to talk about. 

05:57

And then when I started hearing things like why are you still doing this? Like I enjoy seeing you, but clearly you're passionate about something else, and I know that many of your listeners probably hear that, boy, you should really do this. You're so passionate about it, you should think about doing it. And that's when I started taking it seriously and it's when I took my first course. My thought was I don't really need the money. I made really good money back then, but I wanted to be able to help other people and that was my initial come from. I didn't really entertain the idea of leaving full time until, following that path, realizing how much good I can do and that there is a market and a need for it, that I finally eventually transitioned. So that's my story, and I know Erin's got a great one too. 

06:39 - Erin (Guest)

I'll share mine in two anecdotes actually. So I came from the advertising industry, which is just notoriously hectic. If you've ever watched Mad Men, right, it's like why was it like that? Why were they pulling all-nighters to come up with the headline for the advertising campaign? I don't know what it is about that industry, but it prides itself on being chaotic. 

07:01

The first anecdote I want to share is this is going to sound completely out of left field, but if you guys ever heard of the FIRE community F-I-R-E Financial Independence, retire early it's a big, big community. The idea behind the FIRE community is you learn how to extract yourself from the workforce by sensible spending and investing and you get to just quit your job and retire early into your life, right. So I've always been very interested in this for the obvious reasons. I mean it just sounds good Financial independence, retire early. I'm in, let's go. So I was listening to one of these FIRE podcasts and this guy was recapping his first year of retirement and he said the things I didn't think of that were going to be so, first of all, difficult but also eye-opening. He said the time I have to devote to feeding myself adequately, the time I have to devote to moving my body around, being in nature, moving, breathing, taking necessary rests. He said I knew when I left the workforce that my life was going to change, but I didn't know my health was going to change. I didn't realize that when I was really in the workforce it precluded me from being able to make just normal, healthy human choices. Normal, healthy human choices. This guy's not in the gym training like a bodybuilder, he's not trying to reach some next level. He's literally able to take care of himself because he doesn't have to. 

08:22

In a lot of ways the modern work environment really really does get in the way. No matter what industry you're in, whether it's a hectic one like Laura and I were in, or if you work at the paint department at the Home Depot, the reality is you've got to be there. You're dealing with the stressors of your job. Your schedule is very owned by your employer. It does make it really hard. It makes it very hard. It's just harder to execute daily healthy behaviors when you're in the workforce. I know this sounds crazy. 

08:49

My second anecdote is when I became unwell, I was pre-diabetic. I got diagnosed pre-diabetic, which didn't make sense because I've been doing fitness and I was a professional dieter. My whole life I was addicted to fitness. But my doctor said yeah, you do a lot of things right, but there's a lot of other reasons why people become pre-diabetic. I mean it could be stress. She just threw that, she just lobbed that out at me and I was like what? What Are you serious? Nobody had ever in my decades in the fitness industry, nobody had ever mentioned that I quit my job. I quit my job on the grounds of this. Stress was making me unhealthy. That's irresponsible. No one's going to go do that. I literally did it. For that reason I was like nope, I'm out. 

09:31

Then I went into different. I became a health coach. I wanted to really spread this gospel to people and be an authority. I came back into the workforce, but in a lighter capacity. I left my really hectic job because it was the thing that was ultimately ruining my health and it was just never going to be worth it for me. I know that sounds completely crazy, but I don't advocate doing that. Neither Lauren or I advocate leaving your job cold like that. But I did because I recognized immediately I would like to be healthy and that actually trumps almost everything for me. It's a values-based decision for me. At the end of the day. Guess what? I didn't starve, I didn't end up homeless, but I did end up way healthier. I think it worked out. 

10:09 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Yeah, but that's I mean. My story in comparison is kind of boring, because I kind of liked my job. I liked my job. It was just not the fulfillment that I was looking for. I realized that technology was no longer my passion. It's become health and fitness, simply because I mean, obviously technology is all around me and all around us really, but I'm like it's not really something that's essential for obtaining happiness. I don't need an automated home. I can trust as well, flip the switch and without negatively impacting how happy I am. But health is a different thing. I discovered that health was my true passion and I just slowly started taking it more seriously. And, as you said, there is a demand. 

11:03

Almost everyone that is not in the health niche is looking to improve their health. I mean, obviously we all are, but probably on a higher level. We are trying to optimize rather than fixing major issues. But there are so many people the majority of people out there have issues that they either think they have to live with or they're desperately trying to find ways to fix them and don't get the answers that they are looking for, or they get answers that just don't make any sense or that make the situation even worse, especially if you go with the USDA dietary guidelines. The other day I saw a post on Instagram like a checkout note from a cardiologist that was handed or a handout to the patient what they should eat like whole grains, six to seven servings a day, pasta and bread, and I'm like how on earth is that even possible in today's age that a cardiologist gives dietary advice that's so misguided and so a lot of people are struggling. 

12:01

And, as we already discussed, the day job is really a major contributing factor. I think if nobody had a normal job, people would just by default be healthier and have more. I guess mental bandwidth also to think about the decisions, dietary decisions, sleep related decisions, all of those things that are should just be a regular part of our routine. But nobody has the mental bandwidth. Everyone is so on the edge, so stressed out, so overloaded with activities and all kinds of things, that nobody has time to make the right decisions. Just going with the flow appears to be easier in doing what everybody else is doing. Unfortunately, what everybody else is doing ain't working evidently Yep, go ahead, erin. 

12:47 - Erin (Guest)

I was going to say this is what I work on with my clients. This is literally what I spend my days as a health coach. Working on with my clients is not how much of what to eat or how much exercise of what to do is how to fit this behavior into the actual realities of their hectic, chaotic lives. They're trying to figure out when to eat. When am I going to feed myself? When am I going to go to bed? When am I going to take a walk? They have no idea. They've lost the plot on when to squeeze in the essentials of human health into the context of their busy lives. This is the opportunity for health coaches is to get into people's lives. For them, but of course. 

13:27 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Before you can coach someone, you have to learn those concepts yourself. You have to educate yourself and you have to take, ultimately, your health into your own hands. You cannot just assume someone else is going to do it for you Big food, big farmer, the government, whoever None of those entities have your health, are interested in your health. There are other motivating factors out there. It's not your health. You cannot be an autopilot. You have to learn, you have to ask questions, you have to educate yourself. 

14:02

I understand that by going through a formal course, a formal certification that focuses on functional medicine, on the more primal aspects of health, going back to the basics, doing what has been working for humans for a very long time, depending on when you make the cut, but let's say 10,000 of years, 100,000 millions of years if we take our ancestors into account. Those are concepts, fundamental concepts that are ingrained in our DNA and by just taking those as a template and applying them to our modern life which is ultimately what the Primershift podcast is all about you can make significant changes without having to get distracted by all the noise and the different conflicting studies and opinions and everything that's out there, by just going back to the basics and educating yourself. I think that's exactly what you guys offer, isn't it? 

14:59 - Laura (Guest)

Right. That's why we're called the Primal Health Coach Institute. We have that name in common for a reason. I think, after talking with you and knowing what we teach, the concepts are identical this concept of primal meaning, kind of primary right, that initial root of what it means to be human, those foundational human concepts. And when I talk to people that are drawn to our school about what it was that drew them to us, it's once they understand maybe they've heard Marxist and our primary founder, or they've read a book or they've listened to you. What I hear all the time is it just makes so much common sense. 

15:33

You said something earlier where some of the advice they're given just doesn't make sense because someone else is selling them something for their own profit, not for their, not the end user's benefit. And so when it comes to our program, we stand very firmly rooted in this term primal to mean this foundational sort of ancestral health, more functional, medicine-based philosophy, and here's the thing that comes up quite a bit too, and I want to frame it in a good way. You also said something to the effect of sometimes the help you're seeking actually makes matters worse and that, how is it in today's world cardiologists can be giving still be given that advice, and it's because cardiologists are not taught nutrition. What education they are getting. Maybe they took a class for half a semester 20 years ago, back when the diet heart hypothesis hadn't been debunked it has now since been debunked. But also the people that actually underpin and pay for educational pieces, ongoing education, are the food industry, the processed food industry. Coca-cola is a leading funder, guys. So here's what I will tell you. If you talk to some of them more sort of out of the box thinkers in medicine that have written books, cardiologists that have written books that say the opposite they recognize this and they will be the first ones to tell you doctors understand illness and they understand how to treat an illness with a pharmaceutical or surgery, but they don't understand wellness and how to be well. It's not something they're trained in. 

17:06

And here's the thing with health coaching. We are an unregulated industry, which sometimes makes can be viewed as a negative thing for some reason. Well, there's really aren't any legal standards, which is true, but it's also why we as a profession do a pretty good job of policing ourselves. But it's a good thing in that I don't have to go out and tout the food pyramid. Because I'm not a regulated industry, I'm allowed to teach coaching and ask my client to be a critical thinker and curious about hey, does this advice make sense to you? Why are why not? Let's talk about something that, to use the word, make some common sense. And when has this proven to be true for you? We bring in this coaching conversation and overlay it with common sense principles. That allows the client to be like duh right. So we are an unregulated industry that allows us to put advice and education within the context of the coaching relationship and give the client the tools and the empowerment and the confidence they need to affect change. 

18:10 - Michael Kummer (Host)

That's what we do, and you mentioned foundational, and I think I wanted to talk about that term very quick, because a lot of people, when I think especially about nutrition, they think of diet keto, paleo, carnivore, vegan, whatever the case might be but the idea really is that you guys teach a framework that might sort of individual nutrition and or diet for someone. 

18:37

I don't even want to call it diet, but let's dietary lifestyle might be different between various individuals because their needs might be different. If you're exercising a lot and depleting a lot of glycogen stores all the time, then maybe consuming more carbs than someone who doesn't might be beneficial. If you're pro athlete, your diet is likely gonna be more performance oriented, like in. Someone who is more after longevity might have a slightly different diet. But there are certain frameworks or foundations Dietary foundations that I think we all can agree on are likely more beneficial for humans than something else, and so when someone thinks about well, primal health coaching, that doesn't necessarily mean paleo diet or carnivore diet or keto diet, whatever. There are obviously overlaps between all of those diets and I think those form the foundation of optimal human nutrition. Would you agree? 

19:34 - Erin (Guest)

We completely agree. 

19:36 - Laura (Guest)

I mean we talk about like I'm sorry, erin, go ahead. We talk about focusing on again, kind of going back to early humans. They ate what was local to them and in season, and they naturally knew where the most nutrient dense foods were. They prioritized, though, and they prized animal foods, but it doesn't. We were opportunistic eaters. We ate what we had access to that was local, fresh and in season, and from there you can build a diet based on your preferences, your needs. Look for good or bad. We now have access to I don't know avocados out of season. Should we be eating them out of season? It's certainly better than other options. 

20:17 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Right. 

20:18 - Laura (Guest)

But anyway, erin, I didn't mean to cut you off. I apologize, I know it probably helps. 

20:22 - Erin (Guest)

Oh, good, it's all good. There's a lot of different ways to approach this too, so I mean I consider myself an old school paleo girl, like they didn't even have keto bread when I went paleo. We just stopped eating bread. 

20:34 - Laura (Guest)

Like we were not an option. 

20:37 - Erin (Guest)

I mean, I don't tell my clients they're becoming primal. We don't even talk about that. My clients don't know that they're going on a primal diet, but I use these ancestral concepts to help them understand and understand why the conventional wisdom was not serving them. A really good example that I often come up against and maybe we all do is my clients will say to me I'm really concerned about eating this much meat Because I'm encouraging them to eat more protein and to obviously move away from the grains. By the way, I don't tell my clients to stop eating grains. I hope I don't lose my paleo card. But that's not where we start. I start like let's eat more protein, let's get more protein, and they always say this feels like so much meat, so much protein, because now they're eating an adequate amount. They were eating an inadequate amount before, now they're eating a normal amount. So I first of all will say well, you're not eating too much, you're just eating enough. But the meat thing, of course, that narrative I'll say. 

21:31

I want you to zoom out and imagine your ancestors, whether you believe in the hunter-gatherers or not. Just go with me on this. Maybe it's your great-great-great-great-great-grandparents, or maybe it's our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Do you think they were moderating their intake of the most nutrient-dense food on planet Earth. No, if they got the antelope, they ate the whole thing till it was gone. 

21:51

And I'll say also let's think about this from the other animals in the animal kingdom. No one's stressing about the cholesterol levels of lions or sharks. We're meat-eating animals too, and although that probably sounds like I'm some kind of kindergarten teacher doing a science lesson, that's what our clients kind of need. They really do need it simplified, but the last thing they need is more jargon, more anti-food guide, food pyramid language. That's not going to help them. I want to help them understand at a level that they can understand, or at least start to open their mind to it, and the ancestral health model is just so useful for that. Honestly, we're obviously all big fans of it, but that's one of the reasons I like it for general population, people who aren't already indoctrinated in primal paleo, just to kind of let them think about the ancient wisdom of their body. It's a really cool thing to anchor to. 

22:37 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Right. So now, of course, the million-dollar question is if I'm out there, I listen to the episode, I say you know what I'd really like to get out of that hamster wheeler? I'd like to do something else. I don't know yet if teaching health and wellness is going to be my ultimate champ, but I want to give it a try. I want to do something different. For sure, experience better health and happiness. What would you tell us people? How can I get their feet wet and see if this is something they might be interested in? 

23:08 - Laura (Guest)

Yeah, so there's a couple layers here. If you're just curious and you want to kind of stalk us from the periphery, listen to our podcast, health Coach Radio. That's our target audience our aspiring and practicing health coaches, and this includes the health coaching curious people that just want to understand a little bit more about it. We also have a blog that we publish for every single week and there's tons of this stuff out there. So that's kind of really easy in terms of just understanding what health coaching is. 

23:35

If you check out our website, it's just primalhealthcoachcom. That's the website for the full Institute where you can get a feel for all the programs and courses that we have. We have many. If you're not sold on the idea of becoming a health coach but you have an interest in just learning more about the lifestyle, or you want to understand more about your gut and microbiome health, we have courses for that. But if somebody listening now is like, wow, I really do think I want to know more about this, like directly from our website, you can just book a call with me. It's just 20 minutes. 

24:05

It's like having coffee. It's not even really a date right, and it'll just give you the opportunity to ask some questions. And what we could give you, michael, is the link to the curriculum guide book for the program so they can see what's in it. But our core program teaches all three core tenants health and nutrition, science, not just general principles. And healthy like science. Ok, we teach coaching skills, otherwise we're not a coaching course. Giving people advice will only get them so far. You need to really help them over the hump and get out of their own sort of emotional and psychological challenges and we teach you business. 

24:42

Many of the programs out there kind of stop short there. They're like great, we taught you how to be a coach, go, have a great time. We're like no, no, no, no. Now how are you gonna use it? How are you gonna take everything we taught you plus everything you bring to the table? Aaron and I talk about all the time that your own life experience has a tremendous value for people that are coming up behind you. Share it. How can you take that, package it into something, a deliverable that solves the problem? Now you have a business. If you can't solve a problem, you don't have a business, but that business is only gonna be successful if someone's willing to pay you for it. So they need to be willing to spend money on it, and we teach you how to do that in the business section of our program. 

25:19 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Okay. So in reality, if you think about it, so those three different pillars that you have as part of the program, even if at the end of, let's say, I go through that, I get the certification, I'm not certified in a primary health coach and at some point I realize, well, I really like coaching, I like the idea of running my own coaching business, but I'm not sure if health is gonna be it. You can still leverage what you learned in the health and apply to yourself and your family, maybe, or your loved ones, but use the two other modules to do it really in any industry. If suing is your passion or I don't know, whatever the case might be, you could still apply those right the business, 100% Knowledge and as well as the coaching knowledge I mean. 

26:02

Here's the thing. I mean I think coaching is important in every aspect of life because you're always gonna be coaching someone. You know, if you want to or not, you know we are trying to coach or parent our kids, right? Sometimes I'm trying to coach my wife and the other way around. You know we are always in the business. I guess not that we always earn money with it, but always trying to help someone with something, and it's a life skill at the end of the day, and the better you are at it, I think, the better it is overall, for not only you but also the community that you live in. 

26:33 - Erin (Guest)

That's very true. I love that you brought that up. One of the courses that I teach at our school. So we have a lot of courses, as Laura's touched on. Whether it's the main certification course, we have some specialty courses if you wanna drill down a specialized and things, and then we have some sort of next level courses, including this master coach course that I teach, which is a live taught course that really drills into the coaching relationship. The art and science of the coaching relationship Also qualifies you to sit the board exam if you wanna become a board certified health coach. 

27:00

But when I teach this course, a couple of things happen. First of all, people start having better conversations with everybody in their life. When you learn how to have this coaching conversation, which really involves active listening which on some level we kind of know what that is but we practice it we actually literally practice the art of active listening and motivational interviewing and getting values oriented sort of goal setting. This is incredibly useful. I've had students in this course who help their college age kids make a college decision, or they worked with their spouse to decide on a new bank because they were able to have a coaching conversation. So it is absolutely a life skill. 

27:37

And the other thing is what happened in this course one time. So the coaches have to go away and do a lot of practice coaching and this is kind of this is facilitated with some of our faculty, so there's a ton of practice built in and in one of these practice sessions the client was the client shows up at these practice coaching sessions with just whatever, like some kind of invented scenario, and then the coach's job is to work them through it. And this client showed up in the scenario wanting to make a big career change. He was a high level executive at his company and he was feeling uninspired and unsupported and the coach ended up having a career coaching conversation. The conversation never at any moment touched health. It was purely a career coaching conversation and it was masterful. 

28:18

And so when the session was done, I sat to the coach. Like you know, bob, have you done career coaching before? He said no. He was like I drive a dump truck. I don't know anything about the corporate world or what this guy is dealing with, this executive level CEO guy, but he coached him masterfully because coaching is coaching, is coaching. It is such a crucial skill and it's really there is a framework to it as well, like you do want to learn this framework to get people to their goals and their outcomes, and the coach is a really nimble partner. I think that's where a lot of people who get into this industry think they're gonna be the boss. Like I'm gonna tell you what to do, I've got the clipboard, I've got the Mac, whatever I got the rules, you're gonna follow my rules. That's not coaching and that doesn't really help people. 

29:03 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Yeah, that's why I always, whenever someone approaches me and say hey, can you coach me with this or that, I'm like nope, I'm a terrible coach, you know, because I expect you do what I say, otherwise I'm not interested. So maybe I can get you to coaching course. 

29:17 - Erin (Guest)

It would help. I will say that that's actually I thought. I'm glad you brought that up too, because the coach is ultimately the leader. A coach is a leader in the relationship and the coach shows up the relationship with an expertise that the client is ultimately paying for Absolutely. But it's this idea of imagining that the coach is showing up with this expertise and the client is showing up with this, their expertise of their lived experience, what is working and not working, their lives and what they want and what's important to them, and it's a co-creation, it's a true equal partnership. 

29:44

We're gonna create this really bespoke experience for you that blends my knowledge with your knowledge, and then it's actually personalized, which is pretty cool, because Laura touched on the fact that we're an unregulated profession. So what you hear a lot is well, we can't give personalized nutrition or health advice. We're not allowed to do that in a manner of speaking. But we can because we get with people, we get with the person, we're in a personal relationship, a personal partnership with a person, so it is personalized to them. It is a very bespoke experience, but you have to you know you do have to show up with your leadership energy and also allow the leadership energy of the client. 

30:19 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Right Makes sense. Going back to the path you know, into a coaching program. Is that something I can do? You know, in the evening, you know to go through that. You know the modules and everything. If I don't want to quit my day job in a court turkey like you all did, how would it work practically, you know, for someone who wants to pursue that? 

30:42 - Laura (Guest)

That's a great question. So the main certification is a self-directed online course. You're going we do set some pacing. You're going to gain access to a chapter a week. We don't allow people to crush through it as fast as humanly possible to learn to certificate. It's a chapter a week but you'd handle that on your own time and you can take longer if you need to. It's built for a busy working adult with that has other commitments. All right, maybe five hours a week, right, aaron, you know to get through each chapter or so it's 23 total chapters between the three pillars. So it'll take you six months to get through it and you study whenever you're ready. Programs like the one Erin was talking about, master coach those are taught live but they're shorter, they're 12 weeks. She's got one cohort that she teaches in the evening and other cohort she teaches midday. So we can find one that fits you if you decide you want that advanced course. 

31:30

But in terms of moving out of your career, I did not just quit. I worked my ever-loving tail off in my quote unquote spare time Once I decided to take it seriously. I will fully admit the first two years I didn't treat it like a business. It was definitely more like a hobby. I picked up people completely randomly on the soccer field and at the grocery store. I never really had more than two or three clients at a time early on. It wasn't until I got a lot more serious that I took steps and I actually opened a gym. I had some people that were running that gym until it was producing it. 

32:03

I came from the finance world. I'm a naturally risk averse person. I know how numbers work and I didn't leave until I was ready to financially leave and I was willing to put in the extra time because I was hungry for it. And then I eventually moved. So here's the thing that's cool with health coaching Most of your clients are going to meet with you when they're off too. They'll talk in the early morning before work or on a lunch break or after work or on the weekends, so you could absolutely be building your business on the side during what, when you would ordinarily not be working, and more and more people now in their other profession have far more flexible schedules as well. This is one of the I don't know how I don't know if I'd really call it a benefit, but a change that happened during the pandemic of people whose sort of work schedule shifted, so you can absolutely take this in your own time. 

32:53 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Right, all right, cool. So you said six months for the foundational certification. The first step, basically and I mean just by that you know that should tell you everything you need to know about how much you learn. You know if it takes you six months to go through the entire coursework, you know you're going to have a very good understanding of not only the health aspect of everything but also the coaching. You know the business side of things. So I think it's a very valuable tool that's out there that I think a lot of people should consider, especially if they're not super happy in their current role and maybe have less than optimal health, which I would argue applies to the majority of people out there. And so that's great. And so you know how was the company just, you know, very briefly, at the end, how did it all start? You mentioned before Mark Sisson. You know who. 

33:49

I really love Mark's content and all the brands. He's out there. The kids still, every day, you know primal kitchen catch up and mayo. They mix it actually to make pink sauce, we call it, and they put it on everything. Even they eat, you know, fruits with it. I'm like I don't know how. You know why you would do that, but they love it. And you know the Palluvia shoes, obviously, you know I wear them every day. There's a lot of good stuff you know has come out of. You know Mark's side, so, and he is one of the co-founders, I understand, of your Institute as well. 

34:19 - Erin (Guest)

Right, Well, he's obviously one of the godfathers of the primal paleo movement, right? So he's one of the one of the heroes. And he, you know, he had his blog. For gosh, how many 20 years 15, 20 years he's been writing his blog. Now it's a, I mean, he's, he's foundational, he's, he's our ancestor, in a matter of speaking. 

34:40

And Mark always had this lofty goal. It was he wanted to, he wanted to influence the lives of, I think it was 10 million people. He's since escalated that to hundreds, 100 million people, and so you know, this is Scaling 101. Mark Mark reached a lot of people by himself and then he realized he kind of needed it. He really wanted to have this army of, like primal foot soldiers. So he, you know, converted his curriculum, all the things he'd learned and taught and researched and all you know, all the books he's written, the primal blueprint, just an epic book that everybody should have in their bookshelf, as far as I'm concerned and, you know, turned it into an online course which at first was meant for people to just to take for personal development, personal health development, but then quickly realized we need to certify coaches who are experts in this, so converted it to a health coaching program and we've since. I mean, we were one of the earliest health coaching schools in the game. The whole industry has really exploded and so we've been growing and changing our curriculum as the health coaching industry has grown and changed. 

35:34

But the origin, like the genesis of the school, was Mark and Mark's point of view and this very unique point of view that really counters the conventional wisdom, and Mark always did it in such a non-dogmatic way. That's, I think, why people really like Mark is he's not crazy about it. Mark is a very, very moderate person. If you ever hang out with Mark, he's going to probably have some bread at the dinner and he's probably going to have a couple of extra glasses of red wine and he doesn't. He's not a strict dude, he really lives a really cool human life and so he's just a nice guru to anchor to in that way, and I like that. We're training our coaches in that same for the most part, in that same sort of non-dogmatic way. Now, having said that, we have a lot of coaches who are strict carnivore coaches, super strict, keto coaches, high performance coaches. You can take this ancestral model and you. There's a million ways to execute it, but it all comes back to the foundations of Mark's systems teaching. 

36:25 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Yeah, and I think that, as you said, it resonates, you know, having a non-dogmatic approach that that is practical at the end of today, you know, is is has a much higher success rate than trying to be, oh, you have to only eat meat or only eat this, and you cannot ever have XYZ and I've. 

36:42

You know, I'm a fairly black and white person and usually whenever I I want to do something, I go all in and just pull those are over, everything that's in my way, which is not always a great strategy, and then it kind of, you know, I kind of, you know walk back from there and say, okay, I've proven to myself, I can do it, you know. 

36:59

Now let's see what is really practical that we can do with the kids, you know, as a family, you know, and with extended family, maybe, when we have them over. 

37:07

And so I've also, you know, kind of dialed it back to a more practical approach to not only understand, okay, what foods are good for me, but also how to process certain foods, and by that I don't mean, you know, buying processed foods in the store, but, you know, to ferment, to sprout, maybe to soak, to do all of those things that humans have learned over the years, over decades, to make some of the foods that are arguably not the most conducive for optimal health more conducive, I guess, and to reduce the risk of, you know, adverse side effects and, and you know, incorporate that in a, in a in a somewhat modern life that I think everyone can do. You know, you don't have to be crazy about anything. There are many things that you can do if you have the right foundation and the foundation and knowledge which is what you guys teach you know, to implement those things. So I that's why I also, like you know, mark's approach very much. 

38:00 - Erin (Guest)

I'm happy to hear that you self identify as a black or white person and then you realize to actually get this to fit in to my family life, I'm going to need to temper this black and white. 

38:09

So I'm going to need to take some. I'm going to need to be okay with partial measures. I think that's amazing. That's that's really crucial. This is my plea to any health coach out there is the black and white methodology might work for you, but probably doesn't work for regular people. We need to figure out the small, little incremental steps that we can do, and those small incremental steps make a massive difference actually. Yeah, yeah. 

38:33 - Laura (Guest)

Thank you. You know it's funny as a coach too. I think you will attract more people if they don't feel like you're judging them all the time, if everything is always so black and white and you're constantly producing memes and making fun of people that eat bread or whatever. Look, I used to just start hosting all the holiday dinners at my house because I can control the food, and the first year I did it, I I didn't make standard anything. I made a paleo or whole food version of everything, and there was some of it that people really do. 

39:02

Oh, okay, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was basically the feedback I got, and then over time, it was I'm going to make things. It's it's what you eat most of the time that matters. It's really not what you eat on occasion, and so if gosh, a traditional green bean casserole or stuffing, just makes someone's Thanksgiving that much better, okay, I'm going to make it, but I'm going to make it from scratch and it's going to be delicious and all this other stuff. And the dogmatic judge mentalness needs to go away. People will be less likely to approach you for help if they think you're judging them in some way. 

39:39 - Michael Kummer (Host)

You need to be approachable. Yeah, totally agree. Yes, we've had those Thanksgiving stew, all right, cool. Well, now we my wife makes sourdough bread and that's the stuffing. So, you know, whoever wants to eat it eats it. Whoever wants to abstain from it, you know, can do so as well. Anyway, well, I think with that we can, we can wrap it up. Thank you so much, lauren Aaron, for spending the time with me. I'm going to include all of the links you sent me in the show notes so people can check you out, and I hope they will. 

40:13

Good stuff, you know, even if you only apply that knowledge to yourself and maybe to your loved ones. But think about it. And if you really want to get out of the hamster wheel, you know, maybe take that extra step. Start coaching other people, helping other people at the end of the day, on the side, and you'll see if those you know, the feedback that you get, is likely a very motivating factor to do more of it, because the more positive you get back, the more likely you want to do more of that and at some point you might realize well, you know what I'm actually earning more money now than in my day job, which was, you know the case for me, and I'm like now I can actually quit the hobby which used to be my primary income and focus really on the stuff that I'm passionate about, and so I hope that more people can go that route and experience the same journey. 

40:58 - Erin (Guest)

Nice, we need more. 

40:59 - Michael Kummer (Host)

All right, sounds good, cool. Well, thank you very much and I'll hope you'll see you guys soon. 

41:05 - Laura (Guest)

Perfect, thank you. 

41:06 - Michael Kummer (Host)

Bye, bye.