Full Transcript

 

Sari
Maybe you like sitting around in confusion and overwhelm and doubt, but I sure don't, I want to skip the line experience. I want to get inside a community with an expert who knows how to help me and understands my problems, and gets me answers fast so that I can make decisions and keep moving forward. I also want someone to hold me accountable, and keep me focused on my business and moving it forward and limit the life distractions that happen for all of us. And I want to be surrounded by a community of other entrepreneurs who understand what it's like. It helps me to not feel so alone and so overwhelmed in what I need to do to put myself out there and possibly be judged or rejected or laughed at, and all the crazy stories that our brain makes up when we start to do something uncomfortable when we get out of our comfort zone. That is why I am for a limited time opening up the Fuel membership as a standalone product. So you can go and just get the Fuel membership. I have people ask me all the time, I've already have a business, I'm already launched. How can I work with you? How can I get information and feedback and community? Well, now is your chance. It starts at $57 a month and you can cancel at any time. So come and take a small risk that has potential for huge payouts to skip the line and get yourself into action and get yourself results so much faster than just spinning out on your own. I see the difference that it makes in entrepreneurs who come to the calls, who get coaching, who connect with community. We have members in there that are constantly reporting, I tried this, I did this, I got this advice, and I am increasing my sales. It is working, I'm going faster than I ever thought possible. And studies show that you are 95% more likely to actually achieve your goals when you get accountability and support. Don't put this off, go to foodbizsuccess.com/fuel and get inside. I look forward to meeting you in Fuel and we are going to add some rocket fuel to your business.

Sari
Welcome to your Food Business Success. This podcast is for early stage entrepreneurs in the packaged food industry ready to finally turn that delicious idea into reality. I'm your host Sari Kimbell, I have guided hundreds of food brand founders to success as an industry expert and business coach and it's got to be fun. In this podcast, I share with you mindset tools to become a true entrepreneur and run your business like a boss, interviews with industry experts to help you understand the business you are actually in and food founder journeys so you can learn what worked and didn't work and not feel so alone in your own journey. Now let's jump in!

Sari
Welcome back to the podcast, so glad you're here with us today. We are going to have a phenomenal conversation with Kendra Seone. And Kendra is a somatic weight loss coach helping people who work from home, specifically entrepreneurs, to lose weight without dieting. Using her unique brain and body based approach, her clients are able to get over emotional eating and find food freedom in the way that they are able to relate to their bodies and show up as their full selves. So you may be wondering, why are we talking about weight on a podcast that is about starting a food business? Stay with me because this conversation with Kendra is incredible. And how you are showing up or not showing up in your business has a lot to do with how you are processing your emotions. And there are a lot of emotions that come with starting a business. So welcome, Kendra. So glad you're here with us today.

Kendra
Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. This is so fun.

Sari
I'm excited to have this conversation. So first of all, tell us what somatic psychology is. Tell us a little bit about your background and what you do.

Kendra
Yeah, I'd love to. So yeah, somatic psychology is I think the best way to describe it is that it's about looking at our body as actually a resource for healing. So in the traditional model, and traditional meaning, actually like somatic approach is actually more traditional in the sense that it's more ancient. But in modern day, the traditional approach to healing is very outside in. And so it's like, I'm going to this coach, I'm going to this healer, I'm going to this therapist or this doctor, and they are going to give me the insight and the, you know, the medicine or the, you know, aha moment or whatever that I've been needing to find healing, the diagnosis that whatever. And I also just want to say that I'm not saying that any of those things are not okay, I use all of them at some point myself, but somatic psychology is about also not forgetting that our body is actually this super powerful resource that can be used for healing from the inside out. So you can, for instance, change, like, you know, or approach any psychological issue, any behavioral issue, by using your own body to change it. So that's, you know, and what I refer to a lot is approaching things from the inside out, living your life from the inside out which, you know, changes our relationship to everything to how we see ourselves, how we interact with the world, our sense of presence, all of that.

Sari
Well, it's taking back our ownership, right, and our authority over our experience because I think a lot of times we delegate out a lot of things to other people, to experts.

Kendra
Yeah, exactly. Because if you can see your own body as like, I like using the metaphor of like a toolbox for like, coping tools and stuff. But it's like, if you imagine that your own body is actually the toolbox and that you have all these tools that you can resource at any given time, then it's like, I'm not dependent on something outside of me. I can be in any circumstance with any, you know, whatever's happening in my business, in my life, in my relationships. And it's like, I can go like, oh, you know, there's a nail, I have a hammer for that. Like, there's a screw, I have a screwdriver for that, you know, so that's what kind of this somatic, another way of wording it is just body based healing, body based tools.

Sari
And I think it's pretty common with entrepreneurs is that we get really caught up in our head and just as humans, but high achieving entrepreneurs, we tend to get all up in our head and we try to go find the right answer out there, the expert, somebody else and remembering that we also can get in touch with what's inside and our experiences and use our body as a guide as well.

Sari
The reason I asked you to come on why I think you are such an incredible resource for listeners, is anytime we get outside of our comfort zone and starting a food business, growing your food business, being an entrepreneur is definitely an example of getting outside of your comfort zone, is that we often don't have a very full toolkit to manage our emotions, and to put ourselves out there to do the difficult work to manage all of the things, the emotions that come up for us as entrepreneurs. And it often can look like we start procrastinating, we start distracting, and we start leaning into things that feel like they give us emotional comfort in the moment. It could be eating, it could be drinking, it could be scrolling on social media, it could be working out, like there's so many ways that we can check out and feel like, oh, I'm taking care of myself emotionally in the moment. But actually, we're not. And it can definitely have some larger impacts on our overall health, and how we show up in our life, in our business. And on top of that, many of the people listening are starting or growing businesses around food, around beverages, around the comfort and the emotional resonance that brings us together over food, we love food.

Kendra
Or even just like food is my identity. Like I would imagine that a lot of your listeners gets like who I am. So don't take that away, I don't want to go on a diet or I don't want to have like a food plan or a list of foods that I can and can't eat or whatever, you know. So, yeah, but, I mean, so your question, I'm kind of filling in the blank, but like, just what, how could I, what I share, maybe be relevant to them. And I think there's a lot of different angles, you know, as far as food being, being a passion and being a pleasure with that, like there is nothing wrong with that. That does not need to change in order to be at a healthy weight, in order to have a healthy relationship with food, like you can enjoy all the food that you want to enjoy. And so that's why my approach for for people who, you know, the people that I work with are coming to me because they want to lose weight and they are emotional eaters. And so what I say is, there's no good or bad foods, there's no, like you need to never have that again, or, you know, feel restricted or deprived. It's really about being strategic about eating. And so what what that might look like for your people is something like, you know, if you are going, like I'll put it in terms of myself, like when I'm going home to visit my family, they are obsessed with eating out at restaurants, like that's just what we do, that's their form of love to us, and connection and, celebration, all of that, right. So when I go out to a restaurant, what I will do, and they also they want to they want to order dessert at the end. So I get strategic. And I go through a process ahead of time of expecting, I'm going to want to eat more than my body probably needs right there that in and of itself, just expecting that is actually being strategic. A mantra that I really like is what we expect, we can accept. So if you can expect that and accept it then you're going in just a little bit more prepared. Like I'm going to want to over eat 100% of the time. I know this about myself, I'm going to want to eat the whole thing, right? But now I know that and so I'm prepared for it. So now when I'm in the meal, I might an example of being strategic, I might decide, I'm going to eat to, you know, this level of satiation, which is a little bit less than usual, because I want to save room for dessert, right? So it's like, it might seem so simple and like obvious. But when you're swept up in the moment, I mean, how many times have you sat around a table and everybody's going, no, I couldn't? And then people ordered the dessert and everybody's eating it right? Like, oh, I'll just have a bite, right?

Sari
I love that strategy. I've never heard that mantra before. That's great. Because that happens all the time, whether it's eating or anything else, it's like if we can actually get ahead of it and expect what could happen, and then make a plan for it. That's such a great strategy in general. And this is perfect timing because this podcast will be coming out as we're heading into, into the holidays and all of the stress and pressure that comes with the general life but then adding a business on top of that can really exacerbate any emotional eating, any emotional escapes that we have. As I was preparing for this podcast, one thing that hit me is that I want to be really open and transparent about my own personal journey. And many people are surprised to learn that at my highest weight, I was over 200 pounds I have since lost over 60 pounds. And initially I did it through a lot of restriction and a lot of beating the crap out of myself. I certainly was, and still am an emotional eater. I just have a lot more tools in my toolbox to manage it now. I was working for Whole Foods Market, I was incredibly stressed out. I was unhappy in a lot of ways and I just ate and I leaned on food and alcohol to really numb me out And then fast forward, I go and start a business. Now I am really outside of my comfort zone and I am trying to make a living like this is my sole income earner is starting a business. And my methodology, as I said was a lot about restriction. But what I would do is go on these binges, right, of food and alcohol as either celebration, all right, oh, this amazing thing happened. Now I need to go overdo it, over eat, over drink, or I need to go comfort myself because this was a total failure, a flop, nobody listened to my videos, nobody liked my posts, right? Nobody signed up for my program, whatever. And I was making it mean all these terrible things about me. And so let's go, you know, totally cheat, quote, unquote, on my diet and go eat that pint of ice cream. And just by looking at me, you would not have suspected that I was in such a tailspin. Right? It was not necessarily about how I looked on the outside. But there was a lot of shame, there was a lot of self loathing, there was a lot of self criticism. And it really affected how I showed up in my business. And I have a lot of compassion for her. And I'm so grateful for the tools that I know you teach, and the tools that I have learned to help manage that so much better and actually feel my feelings instead of drowning them in a glass of wine or a plate of cheese.

Kendra
Food is such a powerful state changer. You know, like we literally get a dopamine hit. When we think about food, like you could right now just think about your favorite food. Like, for me, it would be like ice cream. And if you're if you're really attuned to your body, you might actually feel a little zing. And that's actually your body giving you a dopamine hit. Like, if you think about it, like why would we evolve to get a dopamine hit when we think about food? Well, if we look from an evolutionary perspective, food, with our brain evolved in a time where food wasn't, you know, basically, you can close your eyes and reach out your hand and have food in your mouth, you know, like food was hard to come by, we had to brace the elements. And so we actually needed to get a dopamine hit to motivate us to go out and get it. So that's why we have a dopamine hit. And that's why it's such a powerful state changer. And then on top of it, so you add the fact that food is accessible. I mean, like, if you're, you know, in a lot of places in the world, you know, in a lot of places in the world, it's not. And so I do want to just honor and respect that and just, you know, give my compassion to that situation, which is completely true. But in a lot of circumstances, we have food accessible to a ridiculous degree. And if a lot of your listeners are, you know, working from home entrepreneurs, like, you know, you have your cabinet and your pantry and your fridge right there, 10 feet away. So it's easily accessible and then you put on top of that, have you heard the expression, the bliss point?

Sari
Yes, I totally have. This is so fascinating.

Kendra
I would think you have all the people would know that, right? Like, and your people that are crafting these foods would probably know that to the bliss point. I mean, companies spend millions of dollars figuring out the exact proportions of the different flavors to make it the most dopamine hit, the most addictive.

Sari
The right combination of fat and sugar and salt, the triad.

Sari
Exactly which not the food that we, you know, our brain evolved to manage, you know, we evolved to see food and eat all of it. Because we didn't know, you know, and so I really like to normalize it for the experience of emotional eating on all these different levels, like from an evolutionary perspective, but then also from a modern day like, I mean, to me, it's a shock that not every single person on the planet doesn't have a weight issue. You know, and I think but I also, you know, to what you said earlier, I think everyone is an emotional eater. On some level, it's just that it might not manifest as like a struggle or it might not manifest with weight, but every single person is an emotional eater because humans are emotional beings, right? So, emotions are part of the picture. Like no matter what you're doing, like there's going to be an emotion.

Sari
Yeah. I mean, that's true. People who are creating a food business are actually realizing, you know, everybody has some business is relying on emotions to sell their product, whether it's a healthy food or a complete gluttonous, you know, decadent dessert. We're using emotions.

Kendra
And no judgment here, you make your food and you rock it out.

Sari
But we are all relying on emotions to sell that product because humans are emotional beings first, and then we rationalize our decision. We love to think that we're logical.

Kendra
Like it ends up being a tool to manage stress, to deal with any emotion, you know, like, and it starts so early, like we all, a 100% of us across the board could could name something from childhood of where you recall, having an emotional connection with a food or using food to feel better. It might have been, you know, a parent give, like, I remember my mom, when when we would get sick, she would buy peanut m&ms random, but she'd hand them to us, like, here, take your medicine. And it was this total, like playful, innocent, you know, that was her loving us, right? Like, we're home sick, and she's like, take your medicine, and she's being cute about it. But that left an imprint, right? Like it left the imprint of food is going to make me feel better. And, you know, I don't want to blame her at all. But, you know, that became a tool for me, that became a resource for me. And I also, I have to say, like, I am grateful. Now looking in hindsight, I'm like I'm so grateful that I found food when I did as a kid. And like, for all the years that it served me and for all the like, there's a wisdom in finding that because as kids, like, we don't have a lot of options or resources, you know, I mean, so for me to find, for instance, like eating bowls and bowls of cereal before school, like that was me managing extreme anxiety. And I didn't know that I have anxiety, like, I didn't have that language. I would never, I mean, I feel like kids today have much more of a language for that kind of stuff back then. Like, I didn't know that I was anxious or stressed. I'd be like we're going to school, I'm eating cereal, it tastes good, whatever, right?

Kendra
But now looking back, I'm like, 100%, that was stress eating. And so it's no wonder at as an adult, you know, and I've kind of always run my own businesses, which is just, I think I want to say that it's just a fact that running your own business is stressful.

Sari
I think I feel like we can put that in the circumstance. That is a fact.

Kendra
And so it totally makes sense to like, just, you know, I'm trying to figure out how to do this funnel or this thing on my website isn't working, or you know, I'm just done. I think one of my biggest triggers for emotional eating was just being done, like, I'm done working on this thing. And I don't know what that emotion is. But that's my language for it is like when I'm just done. And now I'm so attuned to that. So I can, you know, precipitate it, I can prevent that from happening. But before when I didn't, it was like, I would, I would hit that wall. And then boom, I'd think, oh, there's leftovers in the fridge. And then I would just find myself standing up at the fridge eating. But I wasn't thinking like, oh, this is because I'm done with work. And like maybe it would be really great to just take a walk and close my computer

Kendra
and take a break. You know, instead of just like food dopamine hit, right.

Sari
So what's the problem with that though, like, okay, so you hit a wall, you're done. You go and eat. I kind of have my ideas, but I'd love to hear from you. Like what's the problem, especially related to being an entrepreneur?

Kendra
I think that that, you know, something being a problem is very much self defined. You know, like I can't look at somebody else's habits around food or relationship with food and say that is a problem. Like, that's something for you to feel from the inside out of like, this is, you know, I'm using this to procrastinate, or I'm using this to hide, I'm using this to fix something that just cannot be fixed with food. And that doesn't feel good in this situation. But I will tell you, even as somebody who, you know, has recovered, and like I teach this shit, I will intentionally choose to emotionally eat sometimes. Because it really isn't a problem. And especially for me, if I'm being deliberate and intentional about it, and I'm like, I'm, and, you know, at the point that I'm at now, I probably would have tried 10 things before that. But at some point, sometimes it's like, you know, what? I'm just going for food.

Sari
Yeah, you said intentional, right. And that's what exactly where I was hoping you would go is that it is up to the person to define if there is a problem, or what's the problem, but I will say for me, when I would, and I still do sometimes it still creeps up down as often. But when I overeat, when I would over drink, I would then spend so much energy beating the shit out of myself that it took so much energy that I could be spending on my business. And so I think for me, that was one of the big problems. You just kind of shut down, you go a little bit numb to doing the hard stuff, right, you're using oftentimes using the food as a way to escape doing the thing that you're like, I don't really know how to do this, this feels uncomfortable. This feels new and scary. And I think about, we're running, we have our Master Your Business program. And I'm asking people to start doing cash flows weekly, and to be looking at their different KPIs and doing things that are outside of their comfort zone. And that's what's asked, that's what's required of you as an entrepreneur is to constantly be doing things outside of your comfort zone. And if we don't have other tools to manage that stress and that uncomfortability and kind of work through it, that can be really problematic.

Kendra
Well, and I love that you use the word like, if we don't have other tools, it can be problematic, like, that is very much an outlook that I have on this whole thing is that, like food can still stay as a coping tool, we're not taking that away, what I want to do is just give you more tools. So then you have options because what a diet does that, you know, the traditional approach to a diet is like, follow these rules, take out these foods. And in a sense, what that's doing is it's taking away your main go to coping tool without replacing it. And when you don't replace, when you take away a coping tool, and you don't replace it with something else, then inevitably, you're going to go back to it, you have to and you know, again, your listeners might not be that food might not be their go to. The people that I'm working with, they are emotional eaters, they very much know that food is their go to food and alcohol is their is their go to. And so when you when you approach your weight problem, from a position of taking away food, it's addressing the wrong problem. That's what, you know, I always say like, over eating isn't the problem, it's been your solution to a problem. So let's not take away the solution. Let's not take away food. Let's just give you other tools so that you have other options.

Sari
What I love about this conversation, you know whether weight is an issue for any of the listeners or not, is that how you do one thing is how you often do most things in your life. And so I think we can like look at you know, one of the things I ask people to do as they step into becoming a CEO of their life is look at where they can raise those standards in their whole life. Because sometimes we just want to focus on our business, right? And I promise how you're showing up in other areas of your life is probably how you're showing up in your business and vice versa, right. So I love conversation about food and emotional eating, and how we're showing up in those areas of our life, because I think that it does bleed over into how we're showing up on our social media or the risk that we're taking, by going and making offers to people or, you know, signing up for a program or going to a networking event, things like that.

Sari
Because sometimes we just want to focus on our business, right? And I promise how you're showing up in other areas of your life is probably how you're showing up in your business. And vice versa, right. So I love the conversation about food and emotional eating, and how we're showing up in those areas of our life. Because I think that it does bleed over into how we're showing up on our social media, or how we're the risks that we're taking by going and making offers to people or, you know, signing up for a program or on an going to a networking event, things like that.

Kendra
Yeah, and I know, for myself, when I was really struggling with emotional eating, and you know, for me, it was to the point of, I mean, I had eating disorders, bulimia and binge eating and stuff like that. So I felt really out of control. And so for me, it felt like, if I, you know, this wasn't like a conscious, actual thought that I had, but it was operating under the surface, which is, if I can't be in control of like this basic human action, eating food, then how the hell am I capable in any other area of my life? You know, like, that's kind of what the message was of how I was judging and translating my relationship with food. And so I think that that just kind of speaks to what you're saying about like how we do one thing is how we do everything. It's like, I was translating how I do this one thing of like, being out of control with eating is how I do everything. Like, I can't even handle handle eating.

Sari
We can't get rid of eating, right. Like, there are a lot of things we could stop doing all together.

Kendra
Eating is here to stay, kind of need it. And then another thing that comes to mind in this conversation is just for those who are struggling with weight perhaps, that can really show up as far as being able to show up fully and putting yourself out there as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as somebody who's proud to show their product but also themselves, you know, and I'm sure that there's a lot of people that like, don't even have to show themselves with their product, you know, there can be a faceless brand for sure in the food industry. But it still can impact I mean, you still need to get out there, on some level, you know, like, you still need to be putting yourself out there. And if you're not comfortable in your body, in your own skin, if you don't feel good, like being seen, it's like fundamental to having a business. I am being so vulnerable by creating this product or this service or whatever. And like putting it out there to be seen, it's just inherent in that. And so, you know, it can be very easy to use our weight as protection to hide behind that. And so sometimes our eating, can, like, it sounds very counterintuitive, but the eating can be to have more weight, to have more protection to not be seen, to not have to put myself out there.

Sari
I'm so glad you brought that up. That's really, I mean, both those things are actually really gold for this conversation, I think, start with the last one is it's something I'm constantly coming back to people with, I'm like, you got to put yourself out there, you got to put your face, you're who you are, like, you don't have giant marketing budgets. But the big brands do that they don't need a face, they have the brand already, you don't. And what people are going to really fall in love with is you. And we are not talking about being a specific weight here. We're not talking about, you know, fitting into some idealistic societal programming of beauty. That's not at all what we're talking about. I think we're talking about, do you like the skin that you're in? Who you are? And yes, you're going to I mean, I think about some of my clients who do pitch competitions and, you know, going to those buyer meetings or doing trade shows like you're constantly putting yourself out there. And if you think that you can hide behind your box, your brand. It's not happening.

Kendra
Yeah, not a sustainable solution.

Sari
So I think a lot of the tools and actually this goes in the second part of what you said is that, if we can get confidence, more confidence in one area of our life, it will, in the same way, bleed over into other areas of our life. So by the tools that you teach around how to maybe not stop altogether, but add more tools to your toolbox around emotional eating, it becomes evidence that you can do hard things, that you can process emotions, that you can handle things in this area of your life around food, and it will really actually help your business a lot.

Kendra
Yeah, absolutely. And that's something that comes up with my clients regularly is I'll be like, remember that skill that we used for, like, you know, this urge to eat more, let's say, I'm like, that skill, I want you to exactly apply to this situation, which might be like, dealing with some kind of a work stress, or in your relationship with your daughter, that skill is actually, it applies. It seemed like it was just for food, but it's actually for anything, for so many things. And I'll also say, as far as you know, when you, you know, create some on the spectrum of mastery in one area of your life, and how that can translate over into like, like, I mean, I genuinely feel like, if I could overcome my struggle with food and weight, I really feel like I can do just about anything that I want to do. And that is pretty amazing. I'm not saying that I'm not scared shitless a lot of the time, I'm scared, I have a lot of self doubt, I have a lot of insecurity. But I know that it's possible because I overcame that. And that I think is really kind of a foundational key is, you know, in our coach world, and just in entrepreneurship in general, we talk a lot about, you got to believe, you know, you got to believe in yourself. Like, if you don't believe in yourself, you're never going to make it, you got to believe in your product, you got to believe in, you know, your abilities, you got to believe in successful blah. Well, I think that that is kind of a lot of pressure to say, like, you need to believe and a lot of people will even say you need to believe 100%. You know, which that's, like, so intense.

Sari
What if I only believe 90%?

Kendra
What I say is, what's good enough, is actually just believing that it's possible. That's actually all you need, is to have 100% belief that something's possible. Because if you believe something's possible, then you kind of get solution focused. And like, for instance, if you were like on a hike and came across this, you know, big wide river crossing, and you're like, oh, like, that's impossible. Like, there's just no way that I can make that you're not going to go into problem solving mode, you're just going to turn around and go back, right? But if you go, I bet it's possible. Let me see, how is it possible, then you're going to go like, well, I could take off my shoes and walk through. I could walk up the path a little bit more and see if there's like a thinner, you know, a narrower part I can jump over. Or maybe there's a tree like weaning over, right? It's like, all I need is to know it's possible. And then I really can do just about anything.

Sari
I love that. And that is entrepreneurship in a nutshell. So we can definitely extrapolate a lot of things from that. And that's life, right? To be living the fullest version, our most potential in life is that believing that it's possible for us is where it starts and then we can go find solutions, go find community.

Kendra
Go find an expert to tell us what to do.

Sari
I know we were talking about before we start recording that you know when people are first starting and they just need all the logistics, there is a formula and yeah, we're still dealing with the procrastination and the fear of failure and the things that slow you down but then once you have a product launched right, then it becomes the wild wild west as far as the mental stuff and it is entrepreneurship is what Tony Robbins says 80% mental, 20% strategy, and having tools like what you're talking about to help us process emotions and not just go over eat our feelings to numb out and ultimately take resources away from the very thing that we actually want.

Kendra
You know, one thing that I talk to a lot in my work with people is about expanding your capacity for discomfort. Because a lot of people will say like, oh, you know, the problem is stress, like we really just need to manage stress, have as little stress as possible, delegate things, you know, hire things out, which I'm not saying that those aren't valid things to do. But especially for, you know, people that are just starting out, you might not have the budget for that. And in my experience with entrepreneurs, we're kind of control freaks. And we kind of want to do everything ourselves anyways.

Sari
Really hard for us to delegate.

Kendra
That's like not really a realistic solution is to like have less stress. But what if we had a larger capacity for stress, a larger capacity for discomfort, then it wouldn't be a block for us. Like stress happens and you're like, okay, there's that overwhelm. There's that doubt, there's that confusion, I can feel this, I can do this and take imperfect action and move forward. You know, I don't have to fix it with food.

Sari
Can you give us one tool that you, let's say, I mean, we'll just go back to my example with, you know, starting to do things that are uncomfortable, like now I need to be doing a cash flow and looking at my budget and evaluating my KPIs and things like that. And so I sit down to do it, and then I find myself, you know, in front of the fridge. Actually, what I need is a snack.

Kendra
Oh, my gosh, well, I mean, I would say that the first, the first most fundamental tool is just awareness. Awareness is so huge, it sounds so boring and simple. But in a lot of cases, just having awareness alone without even having to do some like, you know, body based intervention with yourself, like that alone, can actually stop you. And you know, wake up to what you're doing and change directions. Right? Because when we're not aware, we're kind of like a victim to our habit brain. And so when you like, and the way that I used to describe it, like your example is me to, like, really fly on the wall. Like, I'm overwhelmed with this, I'm in the fridge now. But that that neural pathway was so strong for me that it felt like I was in a trance, you know, and so to have the skill of waking up in that moment is huge, huge, huge, huge. So that's, I think, one, you know, first, right off the bat foundational skill tool that that you can use is just awareness. The second thing that I would say, in your example, you were saying, like, I'm overwhelmed, I need a snack, right? And so after you've become aware, like, oh, okay, this is me doing that well groomed pathway. I don't actually need a snack. What do I actually need? What am I actually needing right now? And it's like, the quintessential phrase that we have in our culture is like, what are you hungry for? Like, we use that expression for things other than food? It's like, what am I hungry for right now? What am I actually needing? What am I needing to feed right now? And in the scenario of being overwhelmed by doing something new and looking at your, I mean, KPI, whatever, like even just hearing that I'm like, I can feel like I don't know what that is. I feel dumb. The tool of being able to have compassion in that moment, I think, can really really feed what we're actually hungry for in that moment where a snack is not going to do shit for feeling insecure. But compassion, oh my God, self compassion is such powerful medicine for the soul. And again, it's one of those things just like awareness, like compassion. It sounds so like woowoo and corny and like it's not enough, but I promise you it is very powerful. It is yes. If you think of just your natural human instinct, like, you know, a friend stubbed their toe, and they're like, oh, I just stubbed my toe. Your first instinct is oh my god, you just stubbed your toe. Are you okay? Like, that is compassion, right? And it's not a big deal if they stubbed their toe, right. But they feel seen in that moment, they feel your compassion. And that feels good, you know. And then you take it on, like, if we go another direction, if the person goes, I just stubbed my toe and you completely ignore it. They're going to feel like, again, it's just stubbing their toe, it's not a big deal, but they're going to feel like, what the hell? Like acknowledge me, you know? Or if you were like, oh, just suck it up. Like, it's just a stubbed toe. You'd be like, yeah, I know. It's a stubbed toe, and fu, it hurts, you know. But what we do with ourselves in a moment of, you know, like not necessarily stubbing your toe, but in this situation, it's like, feeling like, I don't know what the hell to do here. I feel lost, I feel totally incompetent. And we jump to food, or we jump to like, you don't know what you're doing, or just give up. Or, you know, just forcing yourself through it, which I'm sure you've found out doesn't produce the most effective work. You're like, I just need to make myself do this. Like, that just doesn't work. But if we just took a moment to see ourselves, oh, my God, you're like, you're regulating your nervous system first of all in that moment. You're going from fight or flight to like, like down into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is going to make you a lot more effective at anything. But especially with business. It's like, well, I think that's, that's my point is that you're, you're using this tool that's so simple. And I'll actually if you want to do it, I can, we can do it right now. It's just like really quick, a quickie little taster. So this is actually what I did my thesis on. So I have like a 100 page long thing on this exact intervention. It's very powerful. So if you're driving, do not close your eyes. But if you're sitting and you want to close your eyes, and it's safe, then close your eyes. And if you're driving, you can actually still put your hand over your heart. And you're just going to take a breath. And like I was speaking from the beginning about feeling from the inside out to experience your own touch, maybe even push your hand in a little bit on your chest. So you can feel the weight of your own hand over your heart. Really experiencing, holding yourself, experiencing that from the inside out and taking a breath and then just saying, I see you, saying that in your own mind's eye. And if we want to dial this up a notch, you could think of something that is stressing you out in your business right now. So Sari has given you this amazing assignment with the KPI reports and the, you know, whatever bloody Tableau, I don't even know the words. But if that's something that's stressing you out or something else, think of that one thing and think about how you've been feeling about yourself related to that. And then just say to yourself, I see you. I see you in that experience. I see how hard this feels. I see how important this is to you. I see how much you just want to get this right. I see how much you care. I see you just take another full breath that feels good to you. If your eyes are closed, you can open your eyes and just look around in the room that you're in. And you what that feels like what does it feel like to have just done like, such as simple process, such a simple tool that you use your body to create that, right?

Sari
That was beautiful.

Kendra
How did that feel for you?

Sari
Oh, I felt so good. I actually had a little like, there's a little emotional, like twinge when you said I see you trying so hard to get it right. And, you know, as a recovering perfectionist, as I know, many of my books listening are also perfectionist, right? There's that piece of like, I don't want to do it unless I get it right. Unless it's perfect. And so we avoid, we procrastinate. We do lots of song and dance and numb ourselves out with food and other things. Instead of just acknowledging that it's so calming, just even if all you did was take a breath. We forget to like, we're breathing all the time. But we're shallow breathing and just this like, longer breath. Yeah, it calms everything down where I feel like, okay, let me now I can problem solve. Now I can think about what do I know how to do in this? What questions do I have?

Sari
Yeah, it's so much more anything is so much more doable from that as your baseline. And nothing's changed about your circumstances, you still have the exact same stressor that you're having to face, but it's completely different when you're coming from a grounded like I'm in my body now place and so much more effective than food. Because then with a snack, like you were saying, well, now I'm I'm distracted by how guilty I feel, or how physically uncomfortable I feel like maybe over ate in that moment. And now it's like, I literally feel uncomfortable in my body. And the last thing I want to do is like sit at my computer and try to figure this out.

Sari
Or a substance altering, you know, drinking alcohol or something. Now you're like, no, I'm no good. You know, I literally can't do this anymore.

Kendra
I can't possibly do this. So now I'm off.

Sari
Ah, thank you for taking us down that road. I love that I've been really doing a lot more self compassion work personally, and using it with my clients as well. It's something that seems almost too simple and too easy that like, No, I can't be the thing. And yet hopefully, if people did that, even if they were driving, you can still feel it, you know. And so taking that into your work as an entrepreneur, and yeah, starting to eliminate the emotional ways that we distract ourselves. And there's plenty of other ways we can do that. I love this conversation. Kendra, you have a new course that you are welcome to do a little promo on and you also have an upcoming so this will be coming out the Tuesday before your second workshop coming up. So feel free to tell us a little bit about where people can find you.

Kendra
Awesome. Yeah, I thank you so much. I'd love to share. I'm so excited. So excited to be finally putting this out into the world because I was joking. I'm like, you know, it might look like I've spent the last year creating this course. But I actually spent my friggin lifetime creating this course like that is what I've been living and breathing is it's all gone into there. I've poured everything that I've ever learned into this course. And so it's called the Food And Feels Weight Loss Experience. Very particular about the word experience because again, back to the you know, body based that's my you know, how whole outlook on how to really create change is to have an experience from the inside out. Like we don't learn by just getting the information like reading it or hearing it or whatever, we have to have an experience for it to be in our body for it to rewire our brain and for us to actually like implement it and for it to make us change, to make us a new person. And so yeah, my program is it's it's a 90 day program and basically I took every single possible issue that could come up as a block, a roadblock, or a challenge on your weight loss journey or you know, trying to find food freedom, and I made a skill out of it. I made a step by step skill. And so that you learn, like, that's the magic of a skill is that when you learn a skill, now it's yours. And you get to have that for the rest of your life. And that's why like weight loss when you approach it from like, you know, the thing that my tagline is always, like, weight loss is just a matter of learning a handful of skills. And what I love about that is that once you learn the skill, you have it for life. So that means that you can have weight loss for the rest of your life, weight maintenance for the rest of your life. Because now you have those skills, you're not relying on I need to do this plan, or this workout routine, or this pill, or, you know, cream. Oh my god, I did everything. Like when people are like, I've tried everything, I'm like, yeah, did you try a cream that you put on your belly? Because that's how crazy I got. So that's a little bit about about the the experience and another aspect to it is because I really specialize in business owners, people who work from home entrepreneurs, is I've created kind of this whole community vibe that we're doing this learning together in where on a weekly basis, I'm having pop up parties where we might do like a productivity day, and we're doing like pomodoros with like a dance break. Or we're implementing one of the tools for like a, you know, a 10 second thing during the day, like I really tried to make it practical, because I know that everybody has different stuff going on and different levels of availability, or even sharing meals together. You know, like having a lunch together, having a mindful meal like this is practicing the skill in action. That's the program just like high level of the program. And then and then upcoming is a masterclass that I'm going to be hosting and that'll be on the Saturday after you after this is out. So on Saturday at 11am Mountain Standard Time where I'll be sharing the three secrets that I learned to stop stress eating and melt the fat away.

Sari
That's great. I will make sure and put the link in the show notes and that should be able to direct to even if it's after the Saturday so fun. And then you have an amazing Instagram channel as well, I think are you also on Tik Tok? Doing the same video there too?

Kendra
Instagram. I'm on Tik Tok. I'm on Facebook. But yeah, I've got I tried to put out some bite sized, so to speak, tips and tools and stuff.

Sari
And where can people find you there?

Kendra
It's Kendra Seone on all the platforms. So it's just K E N D R A. And my last name Seone, S E O N E.

Sari
So go follow Kendra. She's a lot of fun. Lots of great tips and ideas there. So it's been so fun to have this conversation with you. Thank you for taking us on a little self compassion journey as well. And is there anything you want to leave us with for all the entrepreneurs out there who are struggling through it?

Kendra
Oh my gosh, I mean, I guess just imperfect action is my phrase of 2023. And that's just what I encourage you to do is just let it be messy. Let it be learning, let it be failing forward.

Sari
Well, it was an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for being on Kendra,

Kendra
Thank you so much for having me. All right.

Sari
That was amazing. I love her so much. And I hope you go and check out what she has to offer. It could be really useful for you. And until next time, have an amazing self compassion filled week. The smartest thing you can do as an entrepreneur is to invest in a who to help you with the how to speed up your journey and help you skip the line. When you are ready for more support and accountability to finally get this thing done. You can work with me in two ways. Get me all to yourself with one on one business coaching or join Food Business Success which includes membership inside Fuel, our community of food business founders that includes monthly live group coaching calls and so much more. It's one of my favorite places to hang out and I would love to see you there. Go to foodbizsuccess.com to start your journey towards your own Food Business Success.