The LoCo Experience
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The LoCo Experience
EXPERIENCE 183 | The Chemistry of Resilience with Jennifer Watson, Speaker, Leadership, Performance and Wellness Coach, and CEO of Watson Worldwide
I was joined by my longtime friend Jennifer Watson in studio this week, while she was in Colorado for the first stop of her Chemistry of Resilience Fall Tour. It’d been a few years since we’d seen one another, as Jennifer moved to Greenville, South Carolina to be closer to her twin sister and growing family a couple years back.
Jennifer’s journey is inspiring in both achievements and authenticity. An All-American athlete during her college years, she also battled depression and anxiety for years, and through a journey of exploration she began to tie together physical wellness and athletic performance to mental and emotional health. She built a physical therapy business early in her career, and grew her coaching business on this foundation of physical well-being.
Jennifer is an accomplished speaker from the stage, and at times I think she forgot it was just the two of us in the studio. She used the words “you guys” enough times I couldn’t help but call her out - and if you close your eyes and listen, you can imagine her on a TedX stage. And - Jennifer shares abundantly from her journey and learning, and there are a good many nuggets in this one. So please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Jennifer Watson.
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Music By: A Brother's Fountain
I was joined by my longtime friend Jennifer Watson in studio this week while she was in Colorado for the first stop of her Chemistry of Resilience Fall Tour. It had been a few years since we'd seen one another as Jennifer moved to Greenville, South Carolina to be closer to her twin sister and growing family a couple years back. Jennifer's journey is inspiring in both achievements and authenticity. An All American athlete during her college years, she also battled depression and anxiety for years. And through a journey of exploration, she began to tie together physical wellness and athletic performance to mental and emotional health. She built a physical therapy business early in her career, and grew her coaching business on this foundation of physical well being. Jennifer is an accomplished speaker from the stage, and at times I think she forgot it was just the two of us in the studio. She used the words, you guys, enough times that I couldn't help but call her out, and if you close your eyes and listen, you can imagine her on a TEDx stage. And, Jennifer shares abundantly from her journey and learning, and there are a good many nuggets in this one. So please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Jennifer Watson. welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. I'm here today with Jennifer Watson. Jennifer is the CEO of Watson Worldwide. She's a speaker, life and wellness coach and a healer in general. So, uh, Welcome back to Colorado, Jennifer. Thank you so much. I am really enjoying being back here. It is my always home away from home and the amazing people that I have here that I've always connected with, I've been connecting with again, and that includes you, Kurt, and I'm just excited to be here and pour into your community. Yeah, it's uh, you know, it's great when people, Move away. Yes, and I know you're kind of splitting time for for a while with Virginia Is that right? I'm actually in Greenville, South Carolina But a lot of my contacts family's all South Central and in Colorado So I've done a little bit of hopping over the years But I love both places West versus East or different cultures different people and for me it's just another way that I love to challenge myself to connect with different people a Different viewpoints of different cultures to really engage with them because at the end of the day I We're all humans wanting to just do these great things in life. So I love actually the challenge. Um, I'm not military. I've never, I'm not moving every few years, but I will say for not being military, I've probably lived in quite a few places over my life, but it's been an absolute joy because I've met epic people. like you. Is there something specific that took you to Greenville where you're kind of full time living right now? You know, that's probably a whole nother hour podcast, my friend. You know, it's really interesting when I've done moves, really from a logistic statistical standpoint, there's always a reason, but this was really God led. You know, my twin sister and her family live out there. My mother recently moved out to Virginia Beach near my sister after my stepdad passed away and just, she's getting near the end of her time, you know, so a lot of personal reasons were family to get that gravity centered again. Absolutely. And I do have family out here, but with my twin out there and her boys, I'm the closest to them. Well, my wife is a twin also. And so I can understand the bond that twins often have. But also too, I felt God just opening up a few more speaking opportunities, some business opportunities out here. And by the way, I have them out here in Colorado, but everything was just lining up. You know how I call it the breadcrumbs. You just follow them. And it just got put on my heart. And about a year and a half ago is when I was like, you know what? this feels right and that's when I made the jump and I come back here anyway, so I'm here today and It will still be here. Yep. It will still be here. Exactly. So you did a bit of a rebrand since last time I knew, uh, from, I think it was Jennifer Watson Leadership for many years to Watson Worldwide. Yeah. Uh, is that Uh, shift in services or more of a branding to say, Hey, I'm willing to go to Spain if you want me to go to Spain and talk. Um, combination of both. I still go by a little bit of Jennifer Watson leadership under a trade name because that's what people know me by. But there was a transition in my vision and my focus for one. You're absolutely right. Um, from a more global perspective, I felt Watson Worldwide, um, was an absolute rebrand shift of where I believe my message needs to be taken and not only within the United States, but definitely internationally. And some of that I know we'll get into. That's probably one of the first and foremost points. But also to when I first came to Colorado and opened up this particular company, Jennifer Watson Leadership, It was still more at the forefront of being me, being a healer. I was a physical therapist. I had a physical therapy practice here and I was transitioning into coaching, consulting, speaking. Now that I've moved out east and even at the end here in Colorado, I could feel God leading me more to start to be in the forefront with speaking, coaching, consulting, in doing some of the healer books. work in the background with some of my clients I would get from the coaching consulting. So I felt not only that this need to be this message that I have in how I've really refined what I believe leaders and high performers and you know, honestly humans in general, but I really target a lot of leaders. that are really trying to create impact and do it in a really high vitality way that makes income and feels joyful to them too. And I just felt, God, like you need to do this in an accelerated rate. So let's shift you into speaking and coaching more. And I felt I could reach more people. And number two, I started shifting where my healership was. I'll always be a healer when I go on stage, I'm a healer, but really having that brick and mortar where I did that, it was all shifting. So I did want to rebrand and that's, I did that about a year, year and a half ago and I still. Honestly say Jennifer Watson leadership to some of my people because I still do a lot of leadership for my clients. That's half my focus along with wellness, but I just felt the calling and the vision mission were different. So I felt the rebrand was that whole energetic shift for me to kind of step into that new space that I felt God was calling me. Fair enough. I, uh, one thing as my banking career unfolded, I noticed that was that a lot of the highest owners, uh, were also very high performing physically, you know, they might be a scratch golfer, they might be, you know, a road cyclist or a big mountain biker or runners, different things. But they often had, you know, physical performance. goals, uh, alongside their, their business goals or family goals. Has that been your experience? Is that why you're focused on those leaders? Um, well, you know, it's really interesting. I focused on more just, I love leaders. I love teaching leadership. Um, I go through the lens of wellness, which I know we can get into a little bit. But I will say this, you know, as they always say, like draws like, you know, I was a high performing athlete. I ultimately became a two time All American at Wisconsin Madison, did my share of triathlons and marathons post college, always been a competitor in sports, and like draws like, I naturally started drawing in, not only in my healer world, but in coaching consulting prior athletes or ones that were in the new phase of trying to do something, create higher performance. Right, right. Get into golf or get into a different sport. and create impact as the leader in corporate or as a leader in the new business they were performing. So I believe two points here. I believe a lot of high, high level leaders. Like I will say that you guys, I work and we can go through that. We live with the elite leader and I believe some of those. extra attributes of the elite leader is you're absolutely right. They're trying to master other things in their life and it doesn't mean they have to knock out of the park every day. You guys, I want you to understand I've had to change my relationship to performance. It's not about love. It's not about significance, but we, we love the mastery of things. And I have found a lot of those elite leaders are awesome. Also wanted to create high performance in some area of physicality, not just where they're challenging themselves mentally and socially and relationally in business. So I naturally draw that in, but also I believe that's part of the characteristic of the higher elite leader that I love to work with. And at this point I do work with a lot of elite leaders. more small to midsize business leaders, and sometimes they're top tier leader teams. And also a little bit corporate. I've started moving into that a little bit in the last six to nine months. But at the end of the day, a lot of them have similarities, even if they're entirely different industries. And one of them being they'd love to be high performing a lot of things, including physical prowess and something. And I think that really helps boost energy, confidence, motivation, clarity, and a lot of things that are aligned with that. Where they're taking their business. It's a really cool thing to see. How would you describe like a, it sounds like you have a broad spectrum of, of offerings, but what's a, what's a normal client relationship look like for you? Maybe it's kind of typical. Yeah, absolutely. So I have where I really work either one on one, but also, with a client and usually the top leader, the top tier leader, um, in the company. So one on one with the client or I have a group program. Those are probably my top two signature programs is one on one in group. We're leaders from different industries. I drawn a lot of wellness, go figure. Cause that's my background, but I've brought in marketing, branding. engineering, a lot of tech people are liking a lot of stuff because they're realizing a lot of the wellness and leadership they're really struggling with and it's affecting some of their work and some of these other tech industries. So I either do one on one and or they become a part of my group program and I'm launching a brand new program this fall and it's going to be great. It's a 12 week and just like anything, I'm constantly elevating to what I think a lot of the top leaders need and the problems I'm seeing them come to me with. So I would say that's where I work with them the most besides it's one on one in group and I get a lot of those from my speaking. You know, I go to leadership conferences or business conferences or wellness conferences and they're wanting to go deeper once in a while. And I love this too. Once in a while, if it's a bigger company, they're like, wow, can you go a lot deeper on an extensive workshop, this division and go to the, exactly. So I've done that where I actually end up doing work specifically for a company where I'll do these micro little workshops on something that I spoke about at a speaking gig. Does that make sense? So I would say one on one in group is where my primary is at, but I absolutely just in the last six months to nine months started opening where companies that are bigger want me to come in for. Two, three, four workshops spread out and delve a little deeper on some of the concepts I teach. And again, a lot of those concepts are mental, emotional, physical wellness, as well as sustainable higher levels of performance, elite performance and productivity for them and their team. And also what I call higher level leadership traits that I believe are needed post 2020 with all the things going on, the fast pacedness of the world. So there's three different ways that I work. with these leaders is on those components, the mental, emotional, physical integrity of them and their team, ability to sustain performance productivity of them and their team during growth and change, and really looking at higher level leadership traits, which we can go into that too, that I believe are needed to kind of move things through. So those are my three pillars. That's the way I journey a lot of my leaders through what they need more of depends on the company. But I find a lot of leaders have a lot of similar things, both in mental, emotional performance and leadership. So when you see that, that's why I have group programs. You know, if I, if I think they need something more one on one, we do one on one. So that's what makes my, I think my coaching consulting really beautiful is I see where they're at and we pick, is it one on one? Is it a group program you need or do I need to just come in and do three or four workshops with your team to get you set and above the level of where you want to be? And I love working in that way. And honestly, with my background, I've been an entrepreneur a lot of my life. I've led a lot of teams. I've led a lot of those in my wellness communities because as a physical therapist, that's where I began. I opened up my first business in the 2008 crash. So I know what it's like to deal with adversity and grow a company during quote, I put in air quotes because I believe. You can be successful in any environment, um, and I've really had a lot of experience in that. I would say the leaders that come to me understand and appreciate the effects of wellness on performance, communication, leadership and beyond. I look at everything through the wellness eyes. People said like, how do you teach wellness differently? How do you teach performance? That's really your differentiator is your, your weaving wellness into the huge overall and you know, I'm going to, I'm going to, I don't say I'm going to argue, but I'm going to invite people in to understand. in this day and age. You can't ignore it. Too many employees. You guys, they just did a poll last year, Harvard review, 2023, that employees, the top tier companies in the United States did a survey and they found that employees still felt the number one thing they were struggling with was mental wellness. You guys, And how, of course, it was correlated to productivity, performance, communication, leadership. So I'm like, you guys, it's not even honestly my opinion. It's just the reason why people are really drawn to me now is they're realizing the fact. And I teach mental wellness, mindset. differently. just being aware that that's a huge piece, um, and how it also goes through the lens of but also just from research we're showing when we're really nail that in and create more integrity for that, for a company, how much nothing else has necessarily changed in the systems or anything else, but things start rolling. Yeah. Really shifting. They pay lower insurance rates if their people are healthier. They have lower, unexcused absences, I'm sure. All those kind of things. Um, I want to, you kind of mentioned kind of some things that have changed since 2020. Um, and I was just reflecting as you were talking about wellness, one of the characteristics of that season was that healthy people and younger people, um, had less fear. Yeah. Um, you know, obviously the, and for good reason, right? The older people and the heavy people were the ones that actually faced a significant risk of, of big setbacks. Right. Um, how does that play into what has happened since then, I guess, or, or yeah, talk to me about kind of what's changed. What are those next level leadership goals? Yes, you know, well from a wellness, we can start there from a wellness standpoint, you know, there are a lot of younger generations that were maybe healthier physically but really mentally emotionally taint. You know, I saw a bunch of young leaders in college students. I mean, suicide went up, depression, anxiety, so maybe they weren't necessarily You guys getting physically the manifestations of people that have obesity. So I will say this, you guys, no matter if it was mental health, emotional health, maybe of the younger generation, I think it ultimately affected all of us mentally, emotionally, or physically. You were behind the eight ball because of just some other health issues that you had. At the end of the day, we realized all components, mentally emotional, physical matter in how we show. Yeah. Okay. Mentally, emotionally, if we're not doing well, we're tanking in so many things. Physically, if we can't move, we're in pain, we're sick, we can't do anything like that. They all affect. So we can actually probably go through that a little bit for sure because I'm seeing kind of a trend more. I will say toward the mentally emotional space where people are really struggling. By the way, I'm a practitioner, physical therapist by trade. I did a lot of holistic things on diet, exercise, um, breath work, you know, so many different things to help people from a physical temple standpoint. However, comma, we're finding more and more in research. and it ripped the band aid off after 2020, but we were seeing it even before. Mental emotional health is one of the biggest dominoes, not only in how you show up. I don't care, leader, mom, you know, relationships, finances, but also it's a big domino for how you physically feel. They saw a correlation to those that had higher depression, anxiety, um, suicidal ideation. There's a higher correlation to chronic disease. cancers, other autoimmune things. So my point is just looking from a wellness standpoint, the mental emotional for all populations you guys in, and I'm talking about the United States, okay, and I'm sure we can look at this probably worldwide is the mental emotional component for people and it's getting worse with economy. We know what's going on, you guys, and it affects yes, in our physical health, but it affects how we're showing good work and all what we talked about the personal and professional well, they all build on each other. I'm thinking about a A two time podcast guest, Mandy Mullen, and she organizes a running community. And uh. She acknowledges that part of why she runs is because it's really good for her mental health, and obviously it's good for your physical health. And so you see that everything's stacked on each other. Yes, of course. And I will say that too, you know, I was a high level athlete for probably 10 plus years after college, and it was the same thing. I actually struggled. I'm very honest about this. I did a whole, you know, half my speaking gigs are on this. It wasn't my struggle on mental health. post college that I was, quote, performing, doing well, being successful, but I struggled with mental emotional health at a very young age. So already I was starting to get the tools, which isn't interesting, you know, the things I struggled with. Then I'm like, why am I going through this? Now I get to help all these people that are coming out of the blue. But now I would say running for me, yes, I still love to compete here and there. But for me, it's more for mental emotional health and, um, And that brings me the reason why I look at even leadership and higher level leadership traits for those that really want to go next level, especially in this world with all the things we're seeing happening, how fast paced it is. The reason why I go through the lens of wellness is when this is healthy, you guys, well, I'm kind of moving my up and down my body. When your mind is healthy, your body is healthy. You can actually start trusting more. I want you guys to hear this. Your inner wisdom. your inner brilliance. Sometimes we call it gun instinct. Sometimes we call it intuition. Many things I teach for a lot of my leaders is not just the foundational leadership, which I truly believe in the foundation of the house, but we'll get you next level. We'll get you when you're dealing with three or four things that are bad or hard or significant or hurdles and challenges. These three traits, and I'm gonna give you the first one is this is your intuition, your inner brilliance. It comes out more powerfully and you can be more confident in it when your body, your mind, your soul. are healthier. Why is that important? You guys, they have actually shown in research pre 2020, a lot of the leaders that you would deem a successful, and I'm talking the big ones, you know, the, the Oprah Winfrey's, and even some of the people in your own community. When you look at some of the higher level leadership traits they use for big decision making and big money deals and hiring team, yada, yada, you know, all of them said in interviews at some point, I've researched all of them. They utilize intuition, they utilize their inner wisdom. So no matter what they see on paper, statistically, whatever they're making a decision in, okay. With a team member, a problem solution that they're doing with their team on a, you know, a workshop day of trying to figure something out, whether it be they're just dealing with a lot, whether it be they're trying to decide, should I buy it? bite and step into this big deal financially. They tap into intuition. They say they tap over that even at looking over the stats on the paper. Why everyone? Why? Because your inner wisdom, when you're really connected with it, you guys, I teach this actually in my program, seven levels of intuitive mastery to actually be able to allow you with really tough decisions, be able to make it very quickly and efficiently and learning how to tap into unique in our inner wisdom when it's needed. Adversity, especially is happening when there's pressure on and in any situation, you guys, there's so many different situations I deal with, with business leaders, but I'm telling you I have literally seen leaders when they tap into this, I, you know, you guys, I use so many different words now, inner body brilliance. Inner wisdom, intuition when you learn how to tap into that. And it works out better when you're healthier. Okay? You absolutely. Well, and when you're safe psychologically yes as well. When you're safe. A hundred percent. Thank you for saying that. And I teach that when you're in your body and it feels healthy, you are safer, you absolutely have more brain clarity. You absolutely lean, learn more and lean more into your inner wisdom. You make better decisions.'cause I've literally seen leaders when I tap into this with them. Like we haven't done anything different with our systems, Jennifer. We haven't even hired anybody different. Our problems were still there by the end of the month. They're like, our money has doubled. The energy of our clinic and our team is better. They're more productive. What's going on? And then of course they catch themselves like, Oh my gosh, we're doing something where we're actually aligning. Yeah. People, places, opportunities, decision making to us and our vision and our impact in. We're drawing those people in. We're drawing in people that want that, that want to engage with us in creating this impact. We're drawing in an environment because we're making better decisions in that environment. Like it's just like clockwork. You guys know, it doesn't mean there's not fine tuning on, on, on. Obviously streamlining systems, looking at productivity and performance, making sure we're communicating well between teams. I work on higher levels of emotional intelligence. I'm not saying that's not necessary and some of the teams I work with that is, but I'm telling the reason why I put so much into let's get you and your team mentally, emotionally, physically well, and then tapping into one of these three. top level leadership traits, all this other stuff that we work on or need to work on gets easy communication, navigating tough conversations, hiring a new team, um, you know, expanding your business cause you're launching a new pro you know, program or product. I'm telling you, there's work behind that when you, when you come back home, you guys. What did you say, Kurt? I love that. Psychological safety is coming back home in a physical self, an emotional self, a mental self that is well and sound. Now, that does not mean that we're going to feel good every single day. Okay, that's not what I mean. But when you use tools and frameworks, and I have them in my program, mental, emotional, physical, to help keep this temple in an optimal space, and Everything stems from that your frequency, your traits, you know, that you want to bring into your business, Kurt. And then some of the traits that we, we teach people that are higher level traits, you know, everything gets more absorbed when you are stable here. And when you do that, like I said, I can really accelerate things and get through more things with the clients I work with. I mean, they're like, we only need 12 weeks to get through some of this stuff. I'm like, yeah, you guys, the, the mind is brilliant. Did you know you have a billion nerve connections? Transcribed In the brain, did you know that you have 100, 000 miles worth of blood vessels between your ears? Everyone, you have enough energy in your body of autonomic reactions that happen every day when you're not thinking about them, that if it was extrapolated in one second, it's enough energy to turn the world for a freaking Weak. Think about that. That is a lot. So yes, you're talking. No, this is neuroscience, you guys. This is absolutely. To turn the world for a week? Yes, you guys, the Electromagnetic pulses alone in your heart and your brain. Yes, you guys, this is real. This is neuroscience. I'll believe it. Look it up. But it's, if you think about all the autonomic reactions that happen in your body, you guys, at cellular levels. How much it takes for me to touch you, like point out and touch you, is billions of neuronal reactions that are happening in one second. Just in one second. It is amazing. This is why I still love to study the human body. With a very low energy. I mean, I still only need to eat 2, 500 calories a day to do all that. Exactly. So the body's really efficient, but there's still a lot of energy that's happening and cycling through the body. The body's efficient with it. But the body's very efficient. No, it's kind of like the economy. The dollar doesn't just get spent once, it goes, cycles around through there a little bit. Exactly. Exactly. So obviously you're not going to be able to extrapolate, but yes, if you separate each of those interactions, but yeah, that's where the circulation happens and allows me very with ease and flow and low energy to touch you or to pick up my can right here and drink a glass of water. But at the end of the day, when you, if you threw that out, that's how much energy inside of you. You guys, when We have more electromagnetic pulses in the heart than the brain. And I just said, we have a billion nerve connections that really, my point is this, everyone, we have that inside us. We talk all the time and I get it. Everyone, we're in a hard time. We are, there's a lot going on in the world and I'm not trying to have people put their head in their sand. But what I will say is this, when you actually start refining what you literally have, each of us have, each of us have your heart, highest potential body and brain stepping into whatever adversity you have, whatever problem you have, whatever interaction you have that day, I'm telling you game over and what's going to come out of that day. It's brilliant. You've got a tour going on. I'm so sorry. That's part of this. Is this one of your first stops? Yes. So I'm so excited about you guys. Just in a few hours, I'll be doing my kickoff. It's called the Chemistry of Resilience Tour and it's stemmed off, you know, I speak about resilience. That's one of the things I talk about a healthy resilience. to performance, a healthy resilience to challenge and change with a lot of leaders I work with. And there's a lot of science. If you guys, um, look at and come into my program, you know, I also always pull in science and templates that you can understand that helps you optimize things. Well, I did a TEDx, my second TEDx that came out in July and it was called the chemistry of resilience. And we'd love you guys to check it out. It goes through three separate principles of how to tap into your body and brain brilliance more effectively during hard times. pre adversity to kind of get your body prepped, your mind prepped for things. So it just keeps right on trucking and it's land and performing. And I just felt it on my higher, just download it kind of from God. Like Jennifer, you need to take this on the road. Many people are going to look at the TEDx, but I felt that people were asking a lot of questions. They wanted to go further. They wanted to go deeper. Later was like, that's great, but what else? What about this? I'm like, you know what? And I have so many. So we talked about the beginning, Kurt, so many colleagues and connections throughout the United States. I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna take this on tour. So literally a month ago, I'm like, this is what I'm doing. I started strategizing. I thought I didn't hear about it until it was almost upon us. Oh my gosh. No, it was. It was literally that last minute and I decided to do the kickoff here in Colorado because that's where I first transitioned into going into this new branding of Watson Worldwide where I started transitioning into moving a little bit out of my healership world into speaking, coaching, consulting. I'm like, and I have colleagues and family here and it felt right. So I'm literally doing the kickoff tonight. I will be doing all the way through fall through the fall. First week in December, I'm doing one to two states a month depending because I have other speaking gigs besides my tour and some of them will be small. Like tonight for the kickoff, there'll be like 20, 30 people there. I wanted it to be intimate with people. I knew other places I'm going to go. I'm going to be stepping into their bigger event. Um, some associations are hiring me because they have a monthly meeting and they want me to come in. So it's going to look different from city to city and state to state. And I'm loving it. So how I'm going to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's not weird. That's I don't do that, I don't pretend to. I'm not the type of person who gives out advice that doesn't work for me. And nothing's even gone right. My wife better work for me. Everything's not perfect. So I try to make sure that I don't give advice that's like, I don't want to hear from you. And I always say this, you guys, this is why I coach, you know, it starts the traction, but if you really need a little bit more help and resilience and mental health for you and your team, reach out to me, I'm doing a tour, whether it be getting it workshop style, going deeper on this, connect with me and we'll, we'll make the party happen. So I know you're kind of a wellness forward, but you've talked a lot about mental health. I, you're, I presume not like a licensed therapist or whatever. Where does that line of, uh, I can help you with your mental health, oh wait, not you. You actually need to go see a counselor. Yeah, no, that's a great, great question. So I work with a lot of counselors, absolutely. And when there's things that are more, um, more significant, more trauma based, um, and there's a lot of different ways that I, I screen people for that. Sometimes they're seeing me. Yeah. Yeah. And a counselor. Right. Right. Okay. And I've definitely additional. You'll help them develop a plan with their general anxiety perhaps. And some of those things. Yes. But, uh, their, their mother. Yeah. Uh, abandoning them. So, and I think. That's for somebody else to talk about. And I, you know, I, I did so much, um, PTSD and trauma work, mental health, depression, anxiety in my PT practice. We have, we have, I went to an additional schooling to deal with all kinds of health issues. Oh, I see. So I cross referred, even before I got into coaching, counselors that would help with some of the. protocols we were doing from diet, breath, work, meditation, um, performance exercises and complimented them. So I was always doing that and when I stepped into health coaching with focus on mental health coaching, where the line is, I will say is this, how I'm different than, um, counselors and coaches. We don't focus as much on the past and moving through that. When it's, there's a lot of trauma there. We definitely touch base, like this is where your behaviors come from. This is where the belief has come from, but we take it right into the present to help optimize aspects of your wellness, aspects of your performance, aspects of your leadership. If there's things that I feel, and again, we do screening on that, that are real problems, and we're not going to either get far in the performance, wellness, and leadership coaching that we do. or they need to have that compliment, we'll send them over. But really we focus on the present. We look back at where some of these behaviors and beliefs came from, but now we step into new frameworks in the present so you can be helped in the future for your wellness. You can be helped in the future for your performance. So I think that's a great clarity point. And I definitely screen and sometimes they go there first or they go and compliment her with me. But I was dealing with, gosh, when I had my big PT practice in Virginia Beach, I was seeing military, you know, wives, military men, um, that had PTSD. D along with back pain, you know, and I had additional schooling that we could do things around their cranial vault along with doing things around their back that helped decrease stress, help with heart palpitations. So we were doing things already in that respect. And now I've just stepped into more of that mental health component where we can really take. present to future and then use the support where needed to really help them if that's necessary. That's a very important point. So thank you for clarifying. But um, I think all of it's important and this is why I'm going to say this, you know, I was a high level athlete for so many years and coach for so long and people have asked me like, have you been coached or counseled majority of your life? And I'll say, absolutely. I don't care if it's in when I was mentally not well, you know, cause I went through a period of depression, severe depression, I, you know, suicide ideation. went through a period of working with a counselor to finally having just general mental wellness coaches to business coaches, to leadership coaches, to you guys, I've had them all. And I truly believe no matter how much work I experienced in and how much wisdom I have, I'm always needed help in certain things. And so are you. And I'm saying that to you guys that are listening to this podcast, no matter how much, you know, there's always going to be something that lands on you that hits you differently when you get a job. A coach, a counselor to really help support you through things, things that you're not seeing your blind spots. And when you do that, the magic happens. I mean, I've accelerated Or a peer group. Oh, a hundred percent. Peer group. The wisdom of crowds is interesting as well, right? Like, you're kind of a, because you're addressing all these kind of topics. Different but often common challenges. You become kind of a aggregator of knowledge, thoughts, challenges, and whatever. And, uh, and in the same kind of way when we have these groups, you know, they can really, uh, shoot somebody straight in a way that's peer based, you know, not kind of from above, but side by side. Hey, you're actually pretty awesome. 100%. And I think that's so important. Peer groups, mastermind groups, but I just believe in that because no matter how much you know and how experienced you are as a leader, it may be experienced in wellness. Maybe you've had wellness coaches, you know, go with your gut again. Do you need more support there? You know, that's the that's the thing at the end of the day. But, but at the end of the day for me is really making sure that people are in a healthy performance, healthy resilience, healthy mental health that allows them to step up in a, in a way that allows it to be sustainable, joyful, peaceful. You guys as leaders, we don't have to be miserable. Everybody thinks sometimes we think that because we're high performers, we're, we're pushing and always wanting to master. At the end of the day, I always say this, you guys, if your body and your mind are tanking, it's saying something to you. It's saying. I need a break, or it needs a shift, or it needs support. And I truly believe you guys, leaders, entrepreneurs, high performers that are out there trying to master a craft and create impact and create income and, and be that inspiration for people coming behind you. Yes, there's hard times. Yes, there's things that you're gonna run into problems and yes, there's gonna be challenges and hurdles But I truly believe you don't have to feel miserable. Are you gonna have hard days a hundred percent? Are you gonna always feel physically the best or think you knocked it out of the park that day as a leader? No, but if you get the right tools, I truly believe your days day out can be joyful peaceful high energy quote no matter what's going on around you, no matter the environment, whether it be external world events or internal in your own company. If you have the right tools of knowing how to master your brain and body to navigate things, it wants to do this game called life with you. Your body's very, very brilliant. I speak, I speak a lot about food. flow state in my work and that the byproduct is high elite performance. When you get into, we've all had it, right? You guys, we've all had, we're like, the day was just clicking. Like it flew by so fast, but the communication with my relationships was great. I got a lot done. I, my creativity was off the chart. Time stood still. We've all had them. There's actually a way to activate that consistently. And I teach in my program. Through the wellness lens of performing at a sustainable rate, especially when you have things coming at you and challenges with growth and change. So that's, it excites me. You guys, you don't have to feel miserable on the way to success. I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing with you because you keep saying you guys and uh, it just really reveals that you spend a lot of time on a stage. Yes. Um, and. I'm just, I'm the only one here, so everybody's clear out there. Right, exactly. I know. I'm like speaking to everybody that's listening to me, to me out there, but yeah, it's one of my phrases. I think it's like an up north phrase. They don't say y'all, like where I live right now in South Carolina, everybody is y'all, you know, up north when there's people, I'm kind of envisioning talking to people here on the podcast, but it's you guys a little bit, which is so, and I hate, it's all good. I'm just playing with you. No, it's great. I love it. I love it. It's great. Um, so. I think I want to, oh, that was a question I had for myself was, you built a practice in Virginia Beach, a physical therapy enterprise, um, grew that to up to a fairly sizable number of teammates and maybe multi locations even, I don't remember. Yep, I just had one location, but I had, There's two and a half other physical therapists that work for me. Ultimately, when I sold it back in 2016, when I moved back to Colorado, one of the therapists that worked for me ended up buying it and then she hired some more of her own staff. But no, it was just one location. We were looking to expand, but I was at that space of wanting to kind of shift a little bit where I was showing up. It was an amazing practice. And I will say the backstory on that, and this is what I mean, everybody, you know, I've gone through those adversities and actually stepped in. inner wisdom with powerful decisions during what appeared to be I could fail. And what I mean is we opened that practice in 2008 crash. I opened up in an area that a lot of it was traditional care. There wasn't a lot of integrative holistic care and mine was going to be a holistic practice, not just only addressing physical, mentally emotional that I mentioned, but also addressing things for more than just an exercise sense. I did body work, energy work, breath work. So I was doing probably coaching before it was even called coaching. So I not only stepped in the 2008 crash. With a clinic that may or may not succeed during that whole thing, but then second that it was a clinic that was not, I want to say fully embraced, but not understood like more of a non traditional. We used to say the scouts get the arrows in the banking industry. Yes, yes. So I want, the question I had was really, Like, maybe over the, since you moved here, um, or sold that business, you've been mostly self employed. You know, I don't know if you have maybe a virtual assistant or some helpers or whatever with the business, but mostly it's you. How do you, how do you like that in comparison? comparison. Seems like you're, you're radiating, but there's comes with joys and challenges of having a team, right? Yeah. You know, um, it's just different challenges, you know, with a brick and mortar and having a big team versus doing things more virtually. And a lot of people have gone virtual, even that were more brick and mortar pre 2020. Right. But I lead differently. So I do have a team and I have like three different team members, but they're all contracted and we are not around each other physically. It's usually zoom, whatever. So I do have a team in. It's very different though than brick and mortar. Do you bring them in for some of your trainings and workshops and different things like that? But it's not as like I said, consistent as when I had a brick and mortar and they were my employees. For sure, totally different. So I'm still leading a team, but it's contracted. We don't see each other as much. It's more Zoom. We do do, you know, workshop settings, see each other when we can like physical touch points, trying to do that more. You guys always want to lead by example. I do believe that's necessary. Even in these virtual worlds, we really need to make sure that we're having human connection because that really helps boost morale, mental health, ultimately mental health. Honestly huge, you guys, which I've seen a lot in businesses, communication, um, there's a lot of things that happen and get lost in translation with zoom and emails and stuff like that. So you need touch points. But my point is, yes, I still lead teams. It's just a different space. But the reason why I like leading this way that I'm in now, and it is a little different. A lot of the frameworks I teach are very applicable to whether you have a brick and mortar employees or contract. Just to let you guys know, however common. The reason why I like the way I'm leading now is it's challenged me in a different way and all my giftings. But number two, I, one of my biggest things and why I do one on one and group coaching, I'm at this space where I want to pass the baton. And what I mean is I've learned. I feel pretty effectively how to lead teams. I've done it for years. Even before I got in my own PT practice, I managed like several clinics. Like I've always been a natural leader and manager, and I'm ready to find people that are really eager to go to the next level of leadership and teach them how to be more successful. Elite leaders, not just I'm pretty good. I'm getting through it. I'm a pretty good, but those that come to me, high performers, post athletes, current, like I want to go, I want to shatter the glass ceiling on how we communicate. I want to shatter the glass ceiling on our productivity with this new product. I want to shatter the glass ceiling on us having team culture. I want to, they want to go next level on something. And I believe the way that we have frameworks, I get to teach them how to do that. So my new love is to not necessarily. expanding a huge team for myself anymore. My love is, yeah, having enough teammates obviously to help me, but to help other leaders become better leaders. My speaker coach talks about this all the time. He still speaks, but he doesn't speak a lot anymore compared to what he used to. And his big goal now is he's like, I still love to speak. It's just like, I love to do PT said, but I love, I'm so passionate now about helping other speakers become more powerful speakers. And that's what I'd say about leadership and even honestly about PT. I'm at this point in my life where it doesn't mean I know everything. I'm constantly learning from my peer group, my mastermind. I don't, I'm not the one I'll be on, on leadership or on wellness, you guys, but I do have a lot of wisdom in that through my own journey, the people I've worked with, not only their healing journey, but their leadership journey. And I believe our program, I believe the principles we tap into help that. leader that wants to go next level on whatever it is or get out of a struggle, whatever that is, that we have that ability to give that to them, that they can go from average or good to the elite leader, the powerful leader that's really creating the impact. And I'm going to be honest, you guys, we need this more than ever. Again, in a world that's hurting, we don't have to look very far. So there's a lot going on out there and we need leaders at accelerated rates doing epic work. with their impact and really compensating for some of the things that are happening out there in the world with your unique gift. And we need that. We need the leaders at a different, much higher level than we did pre 2020. I will say that it's just when a different environment. So we need you guys to tap in. And if I can show you how to do that, that's why I want to lead the way I lead. Now is now I get to show people how to do it again. It doesn't make me the one I'll be all, but I have things that I believe will help the leaders even coming behind me. And that is my passion now more than anything. I think I want to jump in the time machine. Um, let's uh, take you back to first grade. Hmm. Already an athlete. Yeah. You know, I was already, it's so funny you're going to say this. Athletic. I was, and my twin and I were both athletic. My twin wasn't as competitive as me, so that's probably why I ended up being better at sports than her. Not all, but I was just more competitive, right? Um, And already I would say this, first, second grade, my twin and I were already beating the boys, right? And of course, it's that prepubescence once they went, once they went through puberty, obviously they start getting faster, but we could really beat a lot of the boys and we could kick the ball farther and kick ball or whatever. So I would say yes, you know, even at a young age, what was your, uh, what was your first family environment there? Yeah. You and a twin sister, other siblings too. Where were you at? Yeah. So I lived in Montana, the early part of growing up. Okay. Where in Montana? Billings, Montana. Okay. Yeah. And my parents got divorced, um, when we were probably my twin and I were six years old. I want to say we had older siblings though, an older brother that was six years older. So that was 12 and older sister that was 10 years older, 16. Um, and At that period when there was divorce, there wasn't really necessarily split custody. My dad did stay in Montana, but we stayed full time with our mother. Okay. And then my brother stayed full time with my, my dad and then my, my sister after a while then went to college, you know, come back. But point is my, my dynamics kind of starting around six to basically the rest of growing up was a lot of my mom and my twin and I. as far as consistency. And then my stepdad came into our life around 8, 9. Mother remarried around 11. And then we moved to Minnesota. That's where I get you guys. Minnesota around 12. And then spent the latter part. Yup. Anoka. So north of Minneapolis, like 30 minutes. Um, and loved it. So we spent half our time growing up with our mom in Montana than the other half in Minnesota. And we'd see our dad, but it was, there was no such thing as split custody. So we learned, you know, just dynamics of. Uh, just a blended family very early on. Did you get stepbrothers or sisters too with that second marriage? But they didn't live with us. So they were their mom. Does that make sense? But we saw them. So we, we definitely went through that period of learning, you know, as kids, like blended families and just, they do it differently in communication and jealousy, you know, like, yeah, you know, different families. So we had to learn a lot of different things growing up. Were you guys like, single mom, right? Like, was it, were you poor for a long time after that? Or did your mom have a good career that she could support her family? Yeah, so, you know, my mom was uneducated. She did not go to college. She was very, very smart. My dad was educated, but my mom was not. And she was highly resourceful, very, very smart. She, you know, did a full time job, and then she did modeling on the side. She's always a very beautiful woman, but modeled, did a full time job. And then, of course, um, child support came a little bit from my dad. But we saw our mother work very, very hard. Yeah, yeah. Um, but that was about a two to three, it's hard to remember, two to three year period before my stepdad finally came in and she was remarried. We definitely saw our mom not only work hard, but she never made us want for anything. You know, as young kids, it didn't take till we were older, like, wow, that was definitely a rough time. But, um, yeah. Because she always made sure we were clothed and we had a good home and we were able to play with friends and we were loved and we had a great elementary school. And so I never, it's funny looking back, we now see like, yeah, we were definitely on the lower income wage side, but at the same time, my mom never made us want for anything. I think it hit us more when we moved to Minnesota because my mom and my stepdad started their own building contracting company. It took a while. So. That's when, as teenagers, we start becoming more aware, like we care, like if kids see our house or, you know, that type of thing. So I think it more, even though I know my mom struggled on her own, I think it hit us more when we were older and they were struggling the first few years of getting it off the ground. That entrepreneurial journey. That entrepreneurial journey. My mom did more of the book work. Obviously, my stepdad did the contracting and all that. Obviously, they, they had a Had he been a contractor before? Before? A little bit. Or worked for other contractors, probably? Um, he had actually done things in insurance. That was his main job. He made a lot of money. He had owned his own planes in Montana, and then he just wasn't into that. It was a desk job, right, and insurance stuff, and he always wanted to do custom made building homes. Okay. So that's when he started his entrepreneur journey. Yeah. Back in Minnesota, he had a lot more contacts. His family lived there. So ultimately, we, we went between those two growing up, then I went ultimately to Wisconsin. Okay. And ran track there. What was your, what was your sports? Yeah. So I, I played all kinds of sports growing up, like a lot of, uh, a lot of people, but probably my junior senior in high school is when I started honing down, um, you know, on track and field, um, middle distance. So 800, 1, 500 definitely went longer when I got out of college and sport, you know, ultra, you know, ultras and marathons and stuff like that, but no, it was middle distance. So I would say that's not a long distance. You guys, it is literally a long sprint. I mean, it's, it's very fast. It's just very fast. 800 is, uh, all the prettiest girls seem to run at 800, I'm just saying, as a former slow track athlete myself. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. No, it was a great sport. I will say this. Sports, when you asked us about, like, did you know you were fast and you were athletic when you were younger, you know, I always enjoyed sports at a young age. Um, but it ultimately became my meal ticket. We were poor, you know, growing up in the fact that I was able to get a full ride scholarship and my twin was able to go and they just pay for her. That was a big deal, you guys. And also, that is where I started really understanding who I was as a person because we all know in college, you already are starting to figure out who you are, what you want to be when you grow up. But being a student athlete is very unique. I became a leader right away. You know, I was already a captain of teams in high school, but a different type of leader learning how to balance student life and athletic life, learning how to get back up when it didn't perform well, the mental part of it. Like I was already learning at a very young age. Yeah. go to school for? Yeah, I went to school. So my undergrad was in exercise science and kinesiology. Okay. And I knew ultimately I wanted to go to, um, grad school and get my master's in physical therapy. Gotcha. Which is what I ultimately got. And then I've had so many additional certifications on top of that. But it's interesting. This has been my whole journey that really in high school, probably when I started going through puberty, I already started struggling a little bit with depression, even though I was really successful, and then it started hitting the skids really hardcore in college, even though it became a two time All American, I was a good student, and, you know, I came from the era that they didn't have a lot of sports psychologists at the school. I came from the era that it was still kind of like this taboo topic. I was shamed for it, so I kind of kept it back. Yeah. Have you identified, like, What was the source of that? Yeah, and I've been on a lot of podcasts with that. And a lot of, you know, there's so many layers. I'm going to say this, everyone, you know, depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, there's There's so many layers to it and it's different for everyone. It hits everyone differently. And I think everyone can say that after 2020, we saw a lot of people that didn't have depression. It hit them. I will say this. There's all kinds of sources, all kinds of reasons. What I will say from my origin and my back point, I think there's a lot of different layers. It, but the biggest thing for me is because I was so good at things at a young age, I started really connecting love and worth to success, to performance. And if I didn't do well, cause go figure you guys, I didn't always win. I didn't always get a straight A. I didn't, you know, I, I really started breaking down like, you know, are people going to see me? Are they going to notice me? Am I worthy of being around? And you guys, there's other layers to that, but I would say that would be the biggest thing that I noticed that was connected to my sport. And. I really had to ultimately after college is when I was starting to really self implode and I just had to go find research and I really started looking at health and wellness in a whole new light. Like it's more than physical, that my journey toward wellness was really understanding what true health was, mentally, emotional, physical, and go figure. My journey toward healing my brain brought up frameworks and templates for when I ultimately opened up my PT practice and I could take on the athlete that, Jennifer, I have back pain from my football injury, but you know what? I'm struggling with depression. I now had the gifting to do that. Now again, there's other reasons, the experience, the, the, the courses I took and just my journey in it. Now again, you guys, there's some that need more support and counseling and all that stuff. But what I will say is depression affects all of us in different ways in different layers from our different journey and stories. For me, for depression, and some of us are more prone to it. You guys, my mom is more prone to depression. My twin is not okay. She's more like my dad. Twins. Or happy go lucky kind of style. You know, and we're identical twins. But that's why they look at genetics versus environment in the way I perceived maybe the environment versus my twin. She didn't struggle with it and we're identical twins. So where I went and why And nor did she have as many achievements, at least in the sports stuff, I mean, it sounds like. So isn't that interesting, that chemistry? Right. I talk about it all the time. And thus, I, I, when I work with people as leaders, and if they're struggling in any area, that area. significant or subtle. It doesn't matter and it's affecting their performance or leadership. We really try to hone it down to the core. Like where is the story coming from? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and then from that story I'm telling myself is, is like, I got a B minus in that class and barely got a C, which must mean I'm stupid. Yeah. Or whatever. Got fifth place in the 800 last time. And then if you're more predisposed for depression, I'm more of a melancholy person than my twin. Then it kind of feeds it. So I literally went after it, you guys, from diet. I took out gluten. I've been gluten for years. Gluten is, makes me very anxious, you know, I have an allergen to it. So remember food allergens, side note, you guys, I used to do all this work with people. It doesn't necessarily always affect you physically, like your daughter, pain affects it. your brain, you know, and for me it did. So I did gut work. I did diet. I did nutrition. I did EMDR. I did cognitive remapping. Like you guys, I literally went after it all to find out what worked for me. Um, and you guys, I just want to say this, like some people do really well with traditional approach. Sometimes medication helps short term or long term sometimes talk therapy alone works. It did not for me. I had to find a counselor slash coach that did more real time. cognitive changes. I did biofeedback, neural feedback. So EFT, like I said, tapping, cognitive remapping, where I had to hit things head on and rewire something that I learned for years. So I'm not, I always always says I will never say traditional type of approach for mental health doesn't work. What they're showing in research, it doesn't as much as some of these other things I'm talking about. Diet change, some of these more research, physical type of approaches of cognitive remapping and tapping in EFT and EMDR can be a little bit more effective that both counselors and coaches use and can get certified in to rewire the brain. Um, because you can say to yourself, till you're blue in the face, that I believe in myself. I'm worthy and worthy. But if your brain and body, not just brain, you guys, but your nervous system, your body, don't believe it. Okay. You will continue the same pattern, you'll dump the same chemicals in your body, you'll continue to have depression, and the cycle will continue. Would you like to play, uh, uh, mental health trivia with me? Of course. Who said this quote? Yes. I'd rather have a bottle in front of me. than a frontal lobotomy. Oh my gosh, who said that? I think it's W. C. Fields. Oh yes, okay, there you go. That's a great quote. I love that quote. I'm so bad with, I've memorized quotes, but I never remember who says them. So say it again, do another one. Oh, uh, on mental health? Yeah. I don't know if I can. Yeah, yeah. Not at demand. I just thought of it when we were talking about all these different processes. And I assume you didn't get a frontal lobotomy. No, I did not get a frontal lobotomy. I haven't got mine yet either. Researching it. But you know, you guys, you know, it's so funny. This is great because you need to be able to laugh at this too. You know, we, we make mental health and emotional health and even physical, like so serious. And by the way, because I have treated. Um, and coached a lot of people that have been through a lot of hard stuff, physically, emotionally, mentally, however, comma, when we start using tools to get our body and brain to heal, it is amazing everyone how much your body and brain, I've seen it in my own life and I've seen it with people that have been through a lot worse mental, emotional, physical things than me. So. Uh, you know, I want to be sensitive to anybody that's listening, that's out there, that is struggling right now, reach out to me, you reach out to someone you trust, they could start getting some contacts for you to get support. If you're a leader that just thinks your team is struggling, you want to reach out to me and see how we might support the right thing. Yeah, but there's, I just want you to know that there is hope no matter how mild or severe it is. There's hope on leading better, no matter how mild or severe it is. There's hope on performing better for you and your team, no matter how mild or severe it is. There always is. And why I say that, because we have this brilliant temple that God gave us. And when you find the right equation for you, you're Game is over. You can honestly anything that happens out there. You can navigate in a truly powerful way, but it takes you first Acknowledging the awareness and taking a step whether it be reaching out to me Reach out to someone you trust and moving that forward and you can start seeing some changes I'm gonna take you back into the the life story of it. You you graduate from from college Did you move away from from Madison move back? So, you know, and we're going to fly pretty fast. No, absolutely. Um, yeah. So I loved Wisconsin, love the Midwest, but you know, I did my undergrad and master's there, but I was pretty much done with the cold weather to be quite frank. And you guys with my mental health, I was already noticing. I was also more affected by seasonal depression, like overcast. Now, by the way, everyone is a little bit. Vitamin D absorption is lower, all that stuff in the winter. Some are more affected than others. I was. And I knew I just didn't want to live, um, in that state long term. I went up and visited people all the time, but I was like, I'm out of here. So after I graduated, I actually came to Colorado because I had family here already. My other siblings. Okay. So I lived here for a couple of years, but ultimately my twin who was married to a gentleman that was in med school, he was on a Navy scholarship, so they moved out to Virginia Beach after he got done. So I stayed out in Colorado for only two or three years. You went and visited, then you were like, Oh, Virginia Beach is pretty sweet. But you know, I loved Colorado. The only reason why I left Colorado initially after I got out of college was to follow her. She had kids and honestly, I liked the beach and it was just something different. And then ultimately I stayed there for 15 years and then. ultimately came back to Colorado back in 2016. But yeah, I just couldn't handle the up north weather. And that truly was it. There was nothing else. I'm like, I'm out of here. I, uh, you know, I, I've had a challenge with psoriasis occasionally and stuff and it's in the seasonal, right? Like November, December. And so one of the things I do. In the wintertime, when the sun is low, is, uh, like anytime it's over 25 degrees and there isn't much wind. Yeah. I go stand out in the backyard with my athletic shorts on and just suck up as much vitamin D as I can. Yeah. For like 30 minutes. It's so crazy. Oh, it's only 30 degrees outside. Yes. And, but do we radiate, or do we capture enough radiation in the sun to just keep us warm? You know, sun gets a bad rap, and by the way, you guys, I used to do a lot more on wellness talks on physical stuff, like from vitamin D absorption from sun, to, to food, to nutrients to help support you, depending on your physiology, to exercise, I used to do fitness training, like that's Oh, 24 years, my backstory, but I'll say this. It's sometimes just simple things that change physiology and what you just said. You know, some people come to you like, I can't do all that. I can't work out this much and I can't eat this way. Sometimes it's just the simple things that you're talking about and tools. I even give my leaders that I train right now that I'm like, have your team go out 10 minutes in the sun, that boosts me. Even if you can't afford a mental health expert right now, like I will give them Everyone, I want you to know that you can make at least some changes with some small tools. And some of those things I give to my clients because they don't have all day to sit in a three hours in sun. I remember, uh, you probably met Rory before, uh, when she departed, uh, we did an exit interview kind of thing or whatever. And one of her favorite things about working with local think tank, uh, she said was dog walks. Uh, she had a little miniature poodle and I've got my little Tucker dog that you've probably met. Yeah. And, uh, And it's like, Oh, that's nice. You know, that's nice to know that that isn't wasted time or, you know, the worst thing, uh, last thing I want to do is take an employee out for dog walks when they're like, Oh God, I want to talk walk again, but we would talk about. strategies around the business sometimes, or just, you know, we didn't really take time to get to know each other otherwise. So that was just where we could just talk. Well, they've actually, they've shown in research, and I teach, I talk about flow state with my people. So if you're going through a really busy season that you have a lot, you're launching something and your team's like, Oh my God, you know what? Everyone, this is science, okay? Trust me, let's take a deep breath because all of you people that think you have to keep going for 20 hours a day and forget your wellness, they have shown in research, and I've actually challenged a lot of my leaders to do this, if they have just a month where it's just like, it's nuts. Like we're going to be game on. We're all working 20 hours a day. We're all whatever. I tell each of them like, whatever you're doing for wellness that you usually do, you Before this launch started, double it. They're like, what? I don't have time. More time. Okay. When you do that, this is research, when you double down on wellness and there's a lot of different ways of doing that depending on the person, but when you do that and you optimize blood flow to the brain, the body, when you're doing that. What happens? Your productivity and performance skyrocket. Half these quotes and I put air quotes, things that you guys have to get done in a day and you think it's going to take you 12 hours, end up taking six. And I'm not kidding you guys. This is, this is how your brain works. So when I go into a day, I have that too. Like, wow, me and my team have quote, and I put an air quotes you guys because half the stuff you don't have to do. And I'm going to go into that in a little bit, but 20 things to do that day or 20 things to do this month. What happens? When you double down on different aspects and I do it different for different people in different organizations on wellness, you literally cut in half the amount of time it takes to do things. One number two, the quality goes up and number three, people are actually happy because they're not putting in 12 hour days for 30, 60 days or whatever period of time that you're going through kind of that, that slam. So it seems counterintuitive everybody, but take a deep breath. Entrust the chemistry of your body and how it works. How many of us have sat in front of the computer after 12 hours of work and we're trying to force through and we're looking at the screen for like three hours and we get nothing done? Your brain is tired, you guys. Like, we all have examples. You can believe me or not, but I'm like, we all have examples when we're burning it at both ends. We're not being productive. So I'm going to encourage all of you to double down and just see what happens. Do it for a week and just see what happens and then you'll be surprised you might want to do it again. There's another, uh. quote that's tickling the edge of my memory. I think it's from Martin Luther. Uh, and he said something like he, I'm, I'm so busy that I, that I must, uh, double my amount of prayer time from four to six to eight hours daily. I've got so much to do that I better spend more time in prayer. Yes. A little bit. different, but same brain space that he opened up by having more time for meditation, etc. If you're used to doing a lot of hours, what I'm going to say for your nervous system, I'm giving you a little tool here. Don't go, okay, I work 12 hours a day. I'm just going to work six like for the next week. That'll be too much for your nervous system. It will feel unsafe. So I will say this, it's important to like, okay, I work 12 hours a day or I worked in, maybe if I can just try to work eight, you know, the reason why I heard is instead of I'm gonna work out, I work out two, two times a week for 30 minutes. And going into a season like that, well, let's try to do a 30 minute week workout maybe twice a day. Yes, exactly. Or a week. Yeah. Or whatever. Exactly. And it's just little stuff like that because there's a growth and expansion phase and where you drop off in the nervous system actually ends up recoiling and you'll either stop doing it or you go into fight or flight and it just becomes this huge thing for your body where you're literally in crisis. Confronted by this scary thing coming. And then you shut down and then what people do is they come back to me, I tried what you said, Jennifer, and it didn't work. And I will say, How much did you do? All my high performers want to be aggressive instead of going, okay, she gave me one tool. How can I do it where it's just a little bit of a stretch for my nervous system? And again, I'm saying nervous system, everybody, that's what you need to target here. So I'm going to bring us back so that we can get through our kind of normal format. Um, you moved to Virginia Beach, follow your sister. Did you start your PT practice right away or were you working for a while? I worked, I managed. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's really how you kind of learned the business. Yeah. Exactly. Because I didn't have any leadership courses, I, but I learned from him. He put me in charge of a lot of management and leadership for several years before I went on my own. So yeah, in Virginia Beach, I worked someplace for a while. He had like, I want to say seven, Oh wow. Maybe eight locations. That's a big PT practice. Yes. And then I've managed, like, I ultimately started at one, then ended up managing like two or three. Yeah. But it was great. It was great experience for me as I stepped out. Kind of like the Colorado Emotion, uh, group around here, I suppose in some ways. Exactly. Um, and I think we've kind of heard most of the rest of that story, you know, you found your way back to Colorado. So I want to transition us to the, uh, do you need a potty break or anything? No, I am actually good. All right. Same here. Thank you. Um, faith, family, and politics. We always talk about all three. And, uh, it's election season, lucky you. So politics are extra juicy just lately. Yeah, yeah. Um, talk to me about, uh, any of those that you prefer, just a little bit. Yeah, I know. We can start with faith, family, politics. I'm all about it, but faith, family, I always love to start there. Okay, yeah. Well, let's start with family, actually. Um, uh, You didn't mention any boys in this whole conversation. Have you been married? Have you no kids or anything? Right? No, I have no children. I'm an aunt eight times over. So I'm the closest to my twins boys. Um, they're Elliot and Simon. They're beautiful boys, but I adore them. I don't have any children. I have never been married. I've been in serious relationships in the middle of just dating right now, which has been really fun. Um, and I've had serious relations and I've learned so much from different ones of them and it's been such a blessing and a journey, but I'm always a big believer. It's just like anything in life. life. Um, things happen the way they do with choices you've made. And also I, you know, I'm a person that believes in choices make your destiny, but also I believe that in predestination to a certain point to speaking about Paul, you know, about faith a little bit. So for me, we're not done with family. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. But yeah, for me, it's. also I knew God would put me in this space where I haven't been married yet. Again, I've had some really amazing men in my life, but not the one that I'd ultimately be obviously in the life. I had two amazing dads. They're both passed away now, but we're great examples in so many ways and so many friends of mine. That are just amazing men in couples that are just wonderful and watching them in the in the mechanics of that. So one of the questions that we ask folks in the family segment is about kids if they have kids. Yeah. But it sounds like you, you know, your best aunt for Elliot and Simon. Yeah, Elliot and Simon are my twins boys, but I love all my nieces and nephews. They're amazing. I want to ask you for a one word description of those two because that's our fun little Yeah. Thing. Yeah. You can expand on it after that. Yeah. Um. Elliot, the oldest, they're both really smart. They're both, they're both in med school actually, but they're both really smart, but I'd say about Elliot, Eeyore. Eeyore? Eeyore. Yes, Eeyore. Elliot's always been, the glass is kind of half full and kind of a little Eeyore, like No, no, no. Yeah. Kind of, I don't want to say. a negative venting person, but kind of like, you know, lower kind of frequency, more melancholy. Like I would say Eeyore, even though I like, I adore him. And actually it challenges me in a beautiful way because I have a little bit more of the glasses half full and my energy is more here. But I love that because as we say, even in relationships, the men I've dated in my life are a little bit more on that Homer side versus here. And this is why I love Ellie. I love the Eeyore about him because that's who he is. You know, it's not even like, he's such a, yes. He's the amazing guy. Yeah. Simon, I would say, gosh, was Simon. Um, You know, the word that I'd give for him, honestly, is, um, brilliant. That's the word I'd give for him. He's genius in a lot of ways. He's brilliant. But the reason why I choose brilliant is Simon is very emotionally intelligent. He can sense when you're upset. He knows what to say and how to say it. He's very sensitive. It also works in his brilliance in, in books too, just in being book smart and he knows how to strategize and, you know, come up with a solution. So his brilliance hits a lot of different areas in his life. Um, from the way he studies medicine, the way he shows up to treat his auntie with a hug, like he's very aware. So he uses his brilliance in a very beautiful way. So I'd say brilliant. They're both very smart kids, but I'd say brilliant with Simon for sure. Um, you mentioned a fellow that you're dating now. Do you want to, Oh no, I'm, I'm in the middle of just dating. There's no one serious. No one's serious. No one's serious yet. I thought there was somebody serious. I'm receiving, I'm open to receiving right now. So anybody out there like is a, no, I have a lot of friends that'll set me up as well, and sometimes it's just events I go to and meet people as well, but God is good. I've had such an amazing life. I have amazing family, amazing friends, and I've made certain choices, some better, some not as good, but I've had so many powerful lessons and I believe that the timing of God is real and that it comes when it's supposed to, right? There's a uh, gal in our Rotary Club whose name is Diane Knight. Okay. And she was a career gal. She worked, worked, worked. She was upper management of some kind of a big fast food brand. I can't quite remember. And she was a, uh, what would you call it? I guess an old maid until she was like 50 and then she joined the Rotary Club and met tall Paul. Uh, now her husband for, uh. 25 years, you know, so she was single until far older than you are probably. And then, uh, has had a multi decade relationship, marriage since then. So, Oh yeah. I mean, it's never like, I would still be like, Oh yeah. And I just think it's everybody's journey. And I think when we detach again, this was part of my journey about performance too. When I felt I had to be a certain way and perform a certain way to get loved and seen same thing with all of us in this society that sometimes we deem. If we haven't done a certain thing by a certain time, that makes us less than, or, and I would say it's not just in relationships, you guys, even with career, like if you don't have your career by a certain time or you're not making a certain amount of money and buy a home, like I, I encourage all of us. It doesn't mean that you're not desiring things. What I'm saying is run your race, stay in your lane, make the choices, learn from the decisions you've made, create the lessons, but know that your time is your time. And when you are. Open to receiving, you're open to learning the lessons. It will be your time and whatever it is that you desire. And there's a lot of things I give to a lot of my leaders when they have personal professional goals, because a lot of them have both. When they come to me and some are things like me where they've waited a long time on certain things in business or some other things. And they're like, There are things we tweak, and there's things that we have to shift, right, to make things happen in all areas of our life. But also knowing that you are good enough where you're at, and God has also been a part of this, and that's what I believe, too, of cultivating where you're at in this life. And I'm excited to meet that person, and I'm, at the same time, really blessed with the life I've had, and the people that I've connected with, and that I've been able to impact, and that being able to impact me back. Let's talk about faith a bit. Mm-Hmm. Um, were you raised in a faith background? Mm-Hmm. So my dad, this was actually before Janna and I were born, was a pa, was a preacher, pastor. Oh, was that right? So, um, a Wesleyan church. And they did that for like, aside from the insurance business and the, or was that stepdad? That was my stepdad. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they actually got out of the ministry by the time Jan and I were born just for a variety of different reasons. But ultimately they got out. I think we were like maybe. a year, like, not even born. Maybe my mom was pregnant, but he got out of the ministry at the time. But I also say I get my speaking from him because he always enjoyed that. And he also did a lot of speaking at, he went ultimately into Motorola communications and climbed up that corporate ladder and did a lot of workshops and speaking. So I think I get some of my, I'm more like my mother, but, uh, I would say my speaking kind of bug I probably get from him. Um, but yeah, so he kind of did that whole thing in client to client with the corporate letter. My mom, until she remarried or was divorced, didn't work outside the home and was really kind of just that, that homemaker. And I don't want to say only because I think there's so much beauty in being the mother and support. So. Um. So did your family continue in the Wesleyan church then? Um, no, it was more evangelical and Baptist churches that we did, but I was very bred in the church and I was a wanna club clubber of the year when the Baptist church, you know, um, went to church all the time. We took, a part in it. We would play our violin. We would go on, um, youth group ministry trips, um, definitely took part in athletes in action in college, you know? And, um, so I always was integrating that where there are periods in my life that I walked away and kind of did my own thing and went through my own struggle. That's probably a whole nother podcast, but no, I, I feel really blessed that, um, just from my faith background, my Christian background, and I would say my relationship with Jesus. You know, I never really make it about like, am I a Christian or not? It's really about my relationship with Jesus and how much he has really just navigated this life with me, you know, supported me. And it's been really fun to grow that in a really powerful way, um, as I've continued to grow in my faith. You know, and I, I love the Lord and it, like I said, He guides me in everything that I do. And that's such a powerful place to be. And you know, like I do, I come from a Christian background and I love the Lord. And sometimes I'm talking to God, sometimes I'm talking to Jesus, sometimes I'm talking to the Holy Spirit, you know, the Trinity, but at the end of the day, I'm always developing, refining that relationship because it is a relationship to me. And I couldn't do this life alone, you know, um, whether it be my wins or losses or good times or hard times. You know, I've really. pulled into what I've learned from my faith, from the Bible, and moving that forward into things I do in business, and leading, and in my health. Well, I think one thing that's interesting about, you know, especially in a semi post Christian world is that I've observed an absence of what should the target be? You know, I think when there's, when there's robust church communities, they, they have a lot of, uh, communication and teaching and obviously the Bible and things of, you know, here is the target. You're going to miss it. Uh, and, but that's okay because you're human and yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. What, uh, what do you have to say about politics? Yeah, you know, listen, if it's, you know, it's such a local, national, whatever your hot buttons are. You know, it's really interesting when my, my older sister, she's now passed away. She passed away in 2018. She was really, um, involved in politics from the city, local, state, and she'd always get on my twin and I about like, vote, but also vote. educated and stuff. And I, she always really pushed us and challenged us in a beautiful way to get more breasts and not just throw away a vote, you know? So it's interesting. I was never really quote into politics when I was younger, but I realized as I got older, as an entrepreneur, as a business leader, how much it, you know, I was beginning to realize the influence, right? And of course my sister and her background and, and looking at just really what was going on, not only in the world, but locally from all that. So I would say just the latter years of my life is when I started really like taking it seriously, like looking at things, educating myself, not just voting because of whatever, you know, party I usually vote with and stuff. So I think first and foremost, my journey with politics was kind of more like, uh, whatever to moving to a space because obviously go figure some of that stuff. And, you know, that is decided upon obviously affects us internationally, locally, all that. Um, as far as what I feel what's going on right now, I mean, you guys listen, it's a mess. Okay. It's a mess. I will say that. Like, I, I think, or as, as we sit here today, um, the news channels are all speculating that RFK is going to drop out of the presidential race and endorse Trump tomorrow. Yes. Not because he really likes Trump, but because he fears and hates what the Democrats did to him in this thing. What are your reflections on that circumstance? I will say this, the summary of just not just politics, but what's going on in our world. And by the way, we've always had hard times. We've always had political unrest at different times. With that said, post 2020, sometimes I sit back and it's surreal. Like it's just, it's literally for me, I will say this in a lot of colleagues. I work with a lot of leaders and entrepreneurs. It's just getting wild. It's getting bizarre. It's like, did that just happen like morally because, you know, history is being diminished and deleted online. Like it's just some of the things that are happening, the way that marketing is happening on these political debates and how it's being coerced in different ways on both sides. You guys, I'm not going to say, you know, I'm going to take some stands on something. I haven't really heard much yet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I think, I think politics is really at a bizarre space. I think it's at a very scary space. I'm going to be honest. I see that. Um, I also see some things going down in history that are kind of predictable to be happening at this time we're in. You know, I talk a lot about the spiritual upbringing that I have and about where we're headed in our world. You know, there's a lot of just like foreshadowing. Antichrist? No, no, no. Yeah, yeah, exactly. A lot of foreshadowing going on, but I will say this, you know, so I, I've always been more of a conservative voter. I've always, you know, I would never say I always vote Republican across city, state, never. Will I say that? Because let's just be honest. First and foremost, this would be a whole nother conversation. Republican Democrat, that's changed so much in the last 20 years. Would I say that I vote more from that aligns with me mostly is the conservative values, core values, but also. Right now, where we're at, if I'm trusting what is being said, you know, with certain places that I'm going to find the information because I do believe information is really hard to find that's truthful, which is a whole nother conversation. Something's being deleted. It's just crazy what's going on. But what I'll say is, is yes, I probably align for sure more with Trump. And where he wants to go with this country. The things that I care about the most right now, and that I believe a majority of Americans care about right now. And also, I believe with some of the other things that we're talking about, about borders, international relations, yeah, security makes us also safer in the world. So I will say from a bill to pay for Putin, not knowing if Trump is going to bomb the Fuck out of him with nukes if he does something dumb, is a good thing in some ways. Right. But here's the reason why it's not even that I'm trying to be careful. I have very, um, I have friends that are more Democrat as well, and we have these really amazing open conversations about why you want to vote still for the Biden administration versus me. And it's a very open, beautiful conversation. But I, what I will say is this is, uh, Absolutely. I believe in in Trump's philosophies. I believe in what he's trying to move through for our country right now. It's aligned with where I think we need to make priorities in this country and aligned with my core values. Now, does that mean I like it? Everything he does. Does that mean I like that? I agree with everything. He says, well, no, you guys, I think that's actually kind of like ridiculous thing that any of us will like 100 percent everything, but I'm going to go back to everyone is this no matter how you vote, and this is how I'm voting. Research the heck out of it. Follow the breadcrumbs. Make sure. Is it legitimate? truth and facts. If you don't know where to start, get that help. Number two, once you find out the facts or where you think you're getting most of the good information, what's most aligned of where you want to see this country go. Okay. Once you've done both of those and really found, I think more factual things that you feel is more honest and that is hard to find everyone. I get that. That. And then look at what do I really prioritize that I feel our country needs, and what are my core values? Then align accordingly. And again, go into the voting knowing you're not gonna necessarily a hundred percent align with just one person. Yeah. Um, and at the end of the day, no matter what happens, we can still, I believe. Move this country in a powerful way back to one nation. Yes, indivisible. Yes. And no matter who wins, I will say that everyone, and I will say that, I mean, I voted for Trump last time and he didn't win. And I'm like, the thing is, we can still do things locally, you know, at state governments to move things through. So at the end of the day, we do need to love on each other. I, if you came and sat next to me and said that I want to vote for Kamala and this is why I'd love to have a conversation on that. What I'm telling you is where I stand and no matter what we need to love on each other, where we are. So we can move our country forward and stop flop, you know, flop our jobs on things that don't matter. I, uh, I saw a Twitter, uh, post a conversation the other day that, um, somebody was criticizing Elon Musk and saying, you know, I, I bet Elon wishes he never spent that 44 billion to buy Twitter. And, uh, you know, he's probably destroyed half of the value of the company is such a terrible businessman. And then somebody else posted. I doubt it. I bet the EU would pay him a hundred billion to get him out of there right now. Um, because he's really disrupting their mojo in terms of, uh, suppressing speech through the other channels and the governance approaching social media platforms thing. Here's the deal. We need this, but you can't tell anybody. Yeah. I mean, that's just crazy. It is what they're doing in mandates and controlling on so many different platforms is actually really scary. And this is where I go back to what you just said. Let's stop throwing mud at each other because it's all smokes and mirrors. that they're trying to throw at us so we don't like each other when we're not listening to what you just said. The real things in the background we need to be caring about, freedom of speech is one of the pillars this country stands on. And it's not happening anymore, everyone. They're deleting history. They're starting to fine people on certain things. I mean, it is crazy what's going on. So when we Take a deep breath, pause the liner. So stop fighting and look at the bigger picture. And that's just one of the bigger pictures. There's some scary stuff going on, everyone. And if we don't stop fighting over these little tiff for tats, and I can't believe you're voting for this, and really look out what's going on in our country. Freedom of speech is just, in our world, freedom of speech is just one of them and that's scary everybody. You know, the, the, the democracy we were built on is slowly crumbling some of these, these stands, you know, and exp in, in focusing like sit on that versus each other. I've been teasing a line I read somewhere on a meme probably was, uh, Uh, the plant replaced the vegetable without a vote to save democracy. I love that. That's, that's, wow. Well, that's probably a pretty good summary. Not exactly politically correct, but, uh, pretty accurate. Oh, yeah. Um, we've got only a few minutes left. I know you've got to run soon. What's your loco experience, the craziest experience of your lifetime that you're willing to share with our listeners? Oh, my craziest experience ever in my life? Yeah. Oh my gosh. I'm, I'm trying to think. That's like, let me cut. Okay. Any near death experiences? You know what? I actually was arrested for No, I, well, there's, I, I was a rodeo clown. I was a rodeo clown for a summer. So when in between PT school, we had like eight and a half, almost 10 weeks off. And I'm like, I'm gonna have to be a real worker, you know, someday. And this will be my last fun job. What is one thing I could do that I've, always kind of want to do. And I had family out here. Then I heard about dude ranches and my twin, my twin was like, Oh, you should do that. Whatever. And then I started researching and they had dude ranches out here where they have obviously families come and there's weekly activities. And one of the things that some dude ranches, not all of them do are rodeos like the last day you're there. So I was a kid's counselor and a rodeo clown like one summer. It was hilarious. And I didn't have any. potential near death experiences, but I did fall off a horse. I sprained my wrist. So there's a couple times that it was like, you guys, it wasn't like this huge one that they have in Denver where it's like a bulls running toward me, but I will say like, I was, it was pretty intense. I mean, horses, if they run your butt over, aren't no fun either. No. So I totally loved it, but that's kind of my, I used to actually have that. Fun fact on my PT website on the front, like Jennifer was a rodeo clown because it's just fun to get to know people from a different level. And you never had any real horses in your background in Montana? No, and I play, you know, we would ride them at the state fair. My brother got into it as he got older, he had a farm and everything. But as far as me in particular, I always loved farm animals and horse life and stuff, but I never had one. Like I never was like in training in it. Tell the people where they can find you if they want to. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm the most active on LinkedIn, Jennifer Watson, and then Instagram, the Jennifer Watson. Yeah, exactly. So you can DM me. I answer my own DMs. You can check out my website. I still have it at Jennifer Watson Leadership, but if you want to check that out, look at my programs. I have one on one and group program. I'm launching my new elevated group program for the fall here, like the third week in September. Um, if you're looking for, A speaker at one of your events. I have my core topics on my speaker page and I always curate it to obviously the event itself. But if you're looking for that, just reach out to me. And if you're having any questions off what we talked about today, definitely feel free to reach out on that because I want to make sure all of you are supported. We have coaching support, but we also have free PDFs and YouTube videos to help support you as well. I sure appreciate you being here. Yes. All right. Godspeed.
