We actually just wrapped up our Professional Women's Weight and Wellness Symposium, and in that summit we gathered a group of topnotch experts like you who spoke about all the different ways, all the different facets that need to have attention in order to create that whole life success. We did get into it more specifically, but it really is about aligning the mindset with the action and putting the prioritizing and the focus back on you over your career, which so many corporate women and female entrepreneurs get sucked into this cycle of work, work, work. It was great.
Dave: Yeah. I got a lot of great feedback, not just pumping up my own talk but just in general. A lot of listeners and followers wrote in to me saying they really appreciated it. I know you had some very topnotch experts, so thanks for putting that together. Honestly, I heard really, really great things. Shannon: Oh, it was our pleasure. It's always fun. We love interacting, hearing back from the audience. It's just amazing how many experts there are out there who are willing to help.
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Dave: I guess that kind of flows into my next question, is what is sort of your personal passion in terms of health, wellness, or your expertise or? That symposium was particularly for women, corporate women. Is that who you usually work with, or what is your favorite area? Shannon: It is, just because I actually work with my sister, and we spent years in corporate America. We were certified public accountants, which has grueling hours.
It has demanding busy seasons. We were D-1 athletes at the college level, and we went from that, which you know your body mechanics, you know what it takes to stay healthy, you have all that knowledge, into a situation where health was not only not prioritized; it was totally off the radar. It was not even a concern. It was very much results, how much can you produce, tons of stress , tons of bad food choices. Our passion really is helping uncover those myths that women have heard over and over and over about what it takes to lose weight, and then also empowering them to know that you can have this whole life success.
You can have this healthy personal life while still knocking it out of the park in your career. It is possible.
Dave: Ah, neat. Today, we're talking particularly about mindset, and we're talking about mental health and how that ties into healthy living and weight loss and the whole bit. When you were working in a corporate environment and were feeling all these pressures and weren't living a healthy lifestyle, how would you say your mindset was, or from a mental health perspective, how healthy were you?
Shannon: I would say the mindset was very much defeated. I felt like a lot of things were beyond my control, but in actuality, they weren't. Women sometimes fall into this category of victimizing ourselves or our situation, and it can become really addictive and really easy to continue with. I would say that I definitely put my health on the back burner.
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The interesting thing about mindset is it affects all these different areas of our life. What was happening at my office, in my career, filtered into how I valued myself, the relationships I got myself in, how much I took care of myself. It really was this whole life effect that all went back and started with the mindset, the outlook that I had. Dave: Was there sort of an aha moment where you thought, "Okay, I can't do this anymore," or how did you jump from that environment into what you do now?
I was an accountant, so everything My whole life had been, okay, take step one, research, evaluate, what's the most risk-averse answer and option, what makes the most sense.
I was halted in that for a lot of time. I think the biggest turning point was just a couple different life events that went on with my family. One sister was pregnant, which I was really excited about, with her first kid. Then my other sister had this, not near death, but a very scary experience when she was deployed over in Afghanistan. Between those two opposite ends of the spectrum, these life events, I realized, "Man, I'm not doing a whole lot here in my own life, things to be really powerful and get excited about.
Dave: Just, okay, I'm going to offend a whole lot of accountants out there, but I actually When I started university, my first year I was enrolled to become an accountant. I think I did it for about a semester and thought, "Oh, I can't imagine doing this for the rest of my life. Dave: Now, like I said, we're talking a little bit about mental health because Chloe wrote in, and, Chloe, if you're listening, thanks for writing in, especially being so personal. I really do appreciate it. It's brave of you to do that. She talked about her depression, said she's been clinically diagnosed as clinically depressed and just feels kind of at a loss for what to do.
She said, "You know, it's easy to turn to food for comfort. It's hard to get up sort of the motivation to exercise. When you hear that story, can you relate? Was there any sort of elements that you ever experienced in your life similar to what Chloe wrote in? Shannon: Definitely. I have to just say, first of all, anything we talk about here is not to replace the opinion of a doctor.
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If it is a clinical diagnosis, then you definitely Number one, you have to go see a doctor and see how they can assist you and what they can do. When it comes to the mindset aspect of things, I can definitely relate to this idea of, oh, the next thing I can get excited about is lunch or my coffee break or going out to dinner after work. Those food items were the only thing that excited me throughout the day, just because I was in that very low state.
F irst, I just want to start off, the number-one most important thing is to create a foundation, whether you want to get healthier, whether you want to lose weight , whatever you need to do, you have to focus on that foundation.
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The way that women were taught to lose weight was not designed for this modern woman to be successful. I just want to put that out there. When you think about it that way for Chloe, she is turning to food. Food is very easy, it's very available. There is a biological, physiological connection. When we eat food, we in the immediate sense tend to feel better, but then it's right after that immediate sense that maybe guilt or shame or, "Oh, you should have known better" kind of sets in.
Weight is definitely an issue, which makes sense because where there's emotional eating, there's usually overeating and then there's usually a weight issue. All right? I'm just setting the baseline here. Any time we eat when we're not hungry, we're eating for emotional reasons , and emotions are related to mindset and mental health and what we're thinking and what we're feeling.
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Emotional eating is just a band-aid approach to the real reasons, to the real emotions we have that we need to attend to. Does that make sense so far, Dave? I totally agree. Food is so easy because, like you mentioned, we get instant gratification and it takes virtually no effort to walk over to the fridge or stop by a store and get something to eat. When you talk about getting down to the root of what's actually causing that emotional, that negative emotion, that seems like work, whereas eating never is.
I could see when I read Chloe's question, right away, I just thought, oh, I can totally see how Chloe and many, many other people, including myself, go through that. What is that first step to getting away from that easy reaction? Shannon: The first step really is, number one, knowing your triggers. Assuming that Chloe's not literally eating all day every day, there are certain triggers that occur that make her reach for food, that make any emotional eater reach for food.
Really identifying those triggers is the first step, because then you would have awareness and then from there, we can build on, "Okay, how can I change these triggers, or how can I change my reaction to these triggers? Dave: Yeah, I was going to ask you a question. Sorry, maybe I interrupted too quickly, but I was curious how specific those triggers are, because Chloe or someone else, I could see her saying, "Well, my trigger is I feel sad or I feel depressed.
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Shannon: The thing with triggers is you need to work to really get down to the root cause. Here's an example. Some people eat at 12 o'clock noon.