Episode #20: How To Take Massive Action Towards Your Goals with Brenda Rigney
INTRO: Welcome to Healthy Sexy Nutrition with me, Michelle Fox, culinary nutritionist, health coach, and your host for this podcast. I teach busy professionals how to get more nutrition in their bodies and how to have more fun in their home kitchens. If you struggle with consistency or sometimes forget to make your needs a priority or you avoid planning your meals, you, my friend, are in the right place.
Join me each week for inspiration to increase your energy, discover new recipes, manage your hormonal woes, and so much more. You are a busy professional, but that does not mean your nutrition should suffer. You deserve to live in a body and have a life that you love.
So let's dig in.
MICHELLE FOX: So today my friend, we are in the right place because we are talking about how to take massive action towards your goals. I know this time of year is when a lot of us, uh, I would even probably venture to say most of us have health as one of our top priorities and one of the top things we are being more conscientious of.
I am so thrilled to let you know that today we are speaking with a guest who is going to help us look at those goals and teach us a few tools on how to really make massive action towards those said goals. So my friend is Brenda Rigney. She is a business and leadership coach for business leaders and startup entrepreneurs. Are you looking for a straight-talking, a sounding board? How about someone who can help you bring your dreams to life? You are in the right place because Brenda is your ultimate accountability partner, and I would love to just jump right in.
Brenda, hello.
BRENDA RIGNEY: Hey, Michelle. I'm so glad I'm here. Thanks for having me on.
MICHELLE: Oh my goodness. Yes. And for my friends who have access to your laptop or another way to get to the internet right now, ahead over to 3uniquescoaching.com/about because I will just read this for you. At the very top it says, “Working with Brenda may cause you to live a purposeful life.”
You get jazz hands for that.
BRENDA: Yeah, that's from one of my clients, Jess, like she was awesome when she put that in there, but um, yeah, that's absolutely what I stand for. Thanks so much for the lovely introduction. That was amazing.
MICHELLE: My pleasure. I am giddy to jump in, but first I would love to invite you to play a game with me. Are you open to some rapid fire questions?
BRENDA: I'm totally open. Let's go.
MICHELLE: Sweet. Okay.
Sweet, salty, or savory?
BRENDA: Oh, I would say salty. Yeah. for sure. Salty. Yeah. Chips. But even like chocolate in salt. Yeah. Anyways, salty.
MICHELLE: Mm. There's only one nutrition bar I recommend to my clients and it's by this company called Resist. And as soon as you said that, I'm like, yes. Cause they make this chocolate bar and it's dark chocolate, which I don't always love, but. It actually tastes amazing. Plus they have sea salt, so you get like the sweet chocolatey plus the sea salt on top. Yes, it's, it's delicious. Resist. Okay.
Inbox zero or Inbox 10,000?
BRENDA: Oh no. Inbox zero for sure. I'm a pro.
MICHELLE: Okay. Favorite movie of all time.
BRENDA: Oh, uh, favorite movie of all time. I would say Pride and Prejudice with Kira Knightly. I love watching it with my girls. We'll just like snuggle up in bed with popcorn and watch it and we kind of know all the lines and the scenes and stuff like that. And, yeah.
MICHELLE: Kira Knightly is one of my faves. And interesting to note. A podcast guest that I talked to yesterday, she said the exact same thing that you just said. I wonder if there's something universal. We're we're all connected here.
BRENDA: Yeah.
MICHELLE: That makes me smile. All right, last question.
Would you be willing to share one of your favorite childhood memories in the kitchen?
BRENDA: Oh, in the kitchen. Yeah, that's totally easy. Well, my colonial heritage is I'm Ukrainian, Scottish, and Irish, and my Ukrainian great-grandmother, she was alive until I was about 21, so I always felt really privileged to be able to have my great-grandparents alive when growing up in my early days. And then, um, my grandparents, and then obviously my parents, but my great-grandmother, she would always, at Christmas time in the holiday season, we'd always make pierogies and cabbage rolls.
I go back to some of those traditional Ukrainian dishes. You know, I just have like these fond memories of making the dough with her. Like the night before we'd go to bed in the morning, we'd see the dough rise and you know, she pounded down, eat her breakfast and had risen again. And then we'd mash the potatoes and we'd make these pierogies and it was like the best time ever. And, and I just loved that. Like when I was smaller, she'd like wrap, like come up behind me, wrap her arms around me and show me how to pinch the dough. So, cause you don't want the pierogies to open up in the water when they're boiling. And just that feeling, you know, of her arms around me, it's just, yeah. Best memories.
MICHELLE: How magical. Yes, cuz you have that community and the love with your grandma and then you also get the delicious food and I can just like smell it as you're talking about it.
BRENDA: Yeah. And like, and contest, like how many pierogies can you stuff in your face? Like 13, 14. Like it was just like now it's like, no, I can only eat like five, but um, but yeah, definitely back then when I was a kid we used to gobble them down. It was a great time.
MICHELLE: How special. I actually had a Ukrainian roommate in college. I went to NYU. Her name's Daca and I often think about those days. One, just how attached to her culture she was and things that I, I learned. You know, I'm from here, Denver, Colorado, uh, relatively small town compared to New York City, especially back in 1991, and it was just fascinating. I had never met somebody of Ukrainian descent before and it, it's amazing. So yeah, as soon as you were talking about the pierogies, I'm like, ah-huh. That was before I knew about my gluten intolerance and a few of my other, uh, nutritional needs, but yeah. Tasting, the foods that she and her mom made, I was like, yes, please, and thank you.
BRENDA: Yeah. There are definitely no, uh, gluten, uh, free pierogies, but we were full on gluten back then, so.
MICHELLE: Understandable. Alright, well thanks for playing with me. Let's jump into the juice.
BRENDA: Okay.
MICHELLE: Which is where I believe your work definitely intersects with my work and my community in that you are really passionate about helping midlife successful female leaders and entrepreneurs find effective ways to keep their health and wellbeing their number one priority. Yes and amen. One thing that really attracted me to your work is that you talk also about looking at our behaviors and our lifestyles without shame and without judgment towards ourselves. And so can you just tell me a little bit more about the work that you do in your world?
BRENDA: Yeah, well, I mean often women come to me, they're in the business community. They're either working for an organization or they're starting up their own, or they've been maybe in their business for a while and they're scaling it up. And initially, like when I started working with clients, uh, it was really focused just on the business, but then things would start creeping in about like their relationships, their health, their wealth. Oh, they wanna impact the community more, but they just don't have the time to do those things. So I've really pivoted my business to really encompass the whole life of these leaders and business owners and entrepreneurs that I work with. Because at the end of the day it's like, what are you, like, what's that legacy that you're creating for yourself? Is it just a legacy of hustle? And that, you know, you accomplish something and that's the scorecard that we're all working for. Or is it that you're leaving something behind for the next generation and that when you're 92 sitting on your rocking horse, it's like, what are the things you're gonna remember that Excel spreadsheet that you were working on at midnight on a Friday night? You know, like, binging on like Doritos and drinking red wine. Been there, done it. Um, you know, to say…
MICHELLE: That would be the pandemic for me.
BRENDA: Yes. Yeah. So like, you know, is that, is that the trophy that you want or is it gonna be about the relationships and about your health and that, you know, you've got mobility and you can actually, you know, climb that, you know, mountain that you want to climb or whatever it is, like the real mountain, not the make belief stuff in our head.
MICHELLE: Mm-hmm.
BRENDA: And, and I think. when I talk to and work with my clients, that's what they're looking for. It's like they're looking for definitely some purpose in their work, but it's more in their overall life. And so that's where I, I focus in on that.
MICHELLE: And so I just heard the word purpose. What I will say is my belief, and tell me if you agree, is that when we do have that purpose to wake up for, it makes it that much easier to make better choices and decisions. around our food, around our nutrition, about the ways we are treating our body, whether that's fitness and or the mental health choices we make. And so back to what you were saying, looking at ourselves without the shame and without the judgment. Do you think purpose is one of the ways to get us there?
BRENDA: Absolutely. Um, now the road to you know, aligning to your purpose every day is not gonna be the easy one. So like, when people are listening to this, they're not gonna be like, oh yeah, it sounds really great. Um, what's my purpose? Align to it every day. It's like, you are going to, if you haven't been to date now, you're going to have to work kind of through a couple things.
One is those sort of like limiting beliefs that come up, that tell you that, like, who are you to have a purpose? Who are you to like, say no to anything else about your purpose? Um, that seems really selfish. You know, like you're only thinking about yourself, like whatever those things are, right? So I think that's where it's like you're gonna have to go do some of that deep work to really understand, well, why haven't you been. You know, understanding or, or, or aligning to your purpose all these years. And I was there and it took some time and there was some denial about it and retraction and I, you know, flip flop, whatever. But I think that's part of the work. So to say that, you know, I'm gonna click my heels together like Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz, and all of a sudden my purpose is gonna become super clear to me. You could have that clarity, but the work to get there may require you to drop some limiting beliefs. It may require you to set some new. New boundaries as far as like, you know, and to your point about the foods you're eating, what does activity look like? And it doesn't mean that you're denying yourself. Right. I I don't think it's like, it's that, um, and making yourself feel bad about it, but it's, it's setting some boundaries in place instead of maybe like when your friends are like, “Hey, let's go out again on a Saturday night for drinking and appies.” Or it's like, “what if we also went for a hike on Saturday?”
You know, maybe we went to bed early on Friday night and then we met, you know, at the bottom of the mountain on Saturday morning and we went for a hike. Um, you know, it's just making…
MICHELLE: Changing the behavior.
BRENDA: Yeah, changing those behaviors. And I think that's some of the things too that I did, um, during Covid and during some of the restrictions. I was like, “Actually, it's kind of okay that all the restaurants are closed right now because we can still meet up, we can go for a walk around the sea wall.” I live by the ocean. “Or we can, you know, go for a walk around the mountains.” You and I both live near mountains, so it's like those things were still open. And we, we could still do those things. And I've now even pivoted my business. Like I'll meet with clients down by the water, um, you know, at a park, those type of things. And we'll go for a walk around a lake. So I think that's where it's like setting boundaries, but then boundaries isn't necessarily mean that you're restricting yourself. It's just you're just putting yourself more in choice.
MICHELLE: I gotta take that in. Would you mind saying that one more time for the people in the back?
BRENDA: Yeah. Boundaries don't restrict us. They just help us get in more into choice around the things that we want.
MICHELLE: Yes. As soon as you said that a certain client came to mind, who is, I would say, the stereotypical mom in that she is putting her two children ahead of her. She's putting her husband's needs ahead of her. And so what, she comes back to me often saying, “Michelle, I understand what you're saying about the gluten and the dairy and the sugar.” She's like, “I just don't have time after I've made their meals.”
And I'm always like, no, but, but, but stop like. And of course I won't go into detail about what I share with her. I'll, I guess use that as an example to ask you when you, cause I imagine you probably hear it frequently with your clients as well, of reasons which I lovingly call excuses for not putting ourselves first.
And I love the way that you use the word boundaries, cuz I feel like the more boundaries we can have to protect our highest and best, then we're gonna be that much better for our families and for our friends, and for our partners, for those of us who have partners. Um, But what, in like, in practical terms, what, what would a, a healthy boundary look like to you?
BRENDA: Um, well, a healthy boundary, first of all is number one, knowing who you are.
MICHELLE: Mm-hmm.
BRENDA: So I, when I talk about boundaries, I think of boundaries as in rings, right? And so, in the center of all those rings, and just so people from a vigil standpoint, if they're listing. Imagine yourself in the middle. And then there's all these rings of connections of people that you know, people like, uh, again, obviously family, friends, neighbors, colleagues at work. Could be a vendor, a supplier, someone that you know, you do business with. You know, there's all these people, um, that you're connected to. And you know, sometimes people talk about it like degrees of separation, like Kevin Bacon, right. Six degrees of separation, but Kevin Bacon, it's like that. And so you're at the center.
So the first thing around boundaries that I think is absolutely critical that I always go to people about is when you wanna set a boundary with, I don't know, your neighbor or your Aunt Gladys, who likes to talk about your weight with you at, you know, a holiday dinner. “Oh wow, you've lost weight.” “Oh wow, you've gained weight this year.” Like, thank you. I'll let you know, you know, I'll, I'll let you know when I need your advice. But to be able to even have those conversations with those people that you need to set some boundaries with, you first need to take stock of who you are.
MICHELLE: Mm-hmm.
BRENDA: So I always go back to my clients and like, you know, who are you? Like, define yourself, right? And. And knowing like what's important to you? Um, what are your values? What are your beliefs? What are your experiences? What are your skills, your talents, your abilities? Knowing those things is absolutely critical because then when something doesn't feel right, you know exactly what doesn't feel right, and you know what you need to do next. Right, because sometimes I think these messages that sometimes we hear these sort of boundary infractions or these violators when they say sometimes these things to us and they're, they could be people that like love us, they're family. It's not like this is like some nasty like hater on Facebook or something. I'm just talking about like again, the Aunt Gladys or your partner, they may say something to you not knowing that it affects you, but also you not knowing it affects you because you don't take stock of who you. So when you know who you are, you can then declare it to people and then people might say, Hmm, I maybe not say that to you because that might offend you, that might, you know, make you upset about something.
So that's where I think a lot of times boundaries get frayed, is that when we don't know who we are and then we don't know what we're saying yes to, what we should be saying no to. And neither does anybody else that's around us. So they may say some things or do some things that impact your boundaries, but they didn't know because you never told.
MICHELLE: And I'm also hearing the word accountability come up in that description as well. Because we have to be accountable for doing the work to find out who we are. And I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the name of your business, #3UNIQUES, so sounds like that is. In the name of what you do, you help us define our unique qualities. Um, and before I mess that up, tell us, tell us more about the #3UNIQUES.
BRENDA: Yeah. Well, the whole point of #3UNIQUES is that I do believe that people have these strengths. So, I mean, I follow like the same sort of doctrines of teaching of like Marcus Buckingham or a strengths finder, where it's like, you know, go after and discover your strengths. I think a lot of times in organizations too, they look after, um, the employee in their development. But not necessarily in, in, in heightening their strengths. Like, you know, if, if we go back to sort of performance review cultures or strategy planning, it's always about what we didn't do and what we could do better versus what we're already doing really well and how do we maximize that.
So the whole idea behind #3UNIQUES is that we first identify the sort of like this like sort of sweet spot in the middle that makes us like, like sort of pops off the page as far as what our uniques are. But the first thing we wanna do is identify our skills, talents, and abilities. So all those things that we know we're good at.
Like I play the flute, I'm really good at making blueberry muffins. I'm really good at strategy planning. Like all the things in our life, not just work, but also in our relationships with people. I'm really good at managing the household, you know, finances. Um, like put all those strength, like those strengths down as far as your skills, your talents, your abilities.
Then you look at your values, beliefs, and passions. Like I believe in, you know, raising, or elevating, the lives of indigenous people in Canada. I believe in, uh, that my daughter should have full access to education and whatever means it is to, for them to be successful. Like whatever those things are, like what do you stand for?
And then the third area is your experiences, right? So our past, our present, and soon to be future experiences, things that we've gone through in our life. Daughter of like single, you know, of a single mom. parents divorced when I was two. Like those are experiences that I either fell into or created for myself, but they've brought me to where I am today and they've enabled me to become strong in some things. What are those things when I know about those different areas and then kind of what makes 'em up in the middle? So this is where I go align to your purpose. It's like if I know what I'm uniquely gifted at doing, then how about I just do that all the time? And I do it in everything I do because I'll talk to some people and they'll be like, oh yeah, I'm really strong at doing this. And I'm like, great. How's that show up in work? Oh, it doesn't. I just kind of, I don't, like nobody at work knows that I know how to do that, and I'm like, huh, okay. And then what about this strength over here? Oh yeah, I'm really good at that and that shows up in work, but I don't bring that home. I'm like, Hmm, interesting. What if you just stopped being different things to different people and just uniquely showed up as you. In everything that you did, in everything that you spoke about, in every interaction that you had with people in every work or personal relationship, you were just Brenda. You were just Michelle. And I don't say just as in like that's just not enough. It's more like you can just be Michelle anywhere you wanna be and. Then when you're saying yes to things, it's like a heck yes. Because it's like, it's a universal Yes. In all areas of your life, your health, your wealth, your community impact, your work or your business and your relationships. It's not a maybe over here or no there or a yes, and you gotta juggle all of that.
MICHELLE: You are speaking my language. I love that. So, so far we've talked about being clear or at least exploring your passion. We've talked about having the boundaries. We've talked about being uniquely you, so how can we put all that together to help people who are listening to really take massive action on their goals? I know this time of year a lot of us are looking at improving our health. And or just doing things better than we did in 2022. So do you have some tools for us that we could take away as far as taking massive action towards making new choices?
BRENDA: Well, first of all, when I say massive action, massive action to me is even just like one degree different or one percentage, one step different than what you did yesterday. Mathematically that is massive action. Right? Like, you know, it's like, it's like if I did two things yesterday and I do one more thing today, that's massive action. And I think sometimes people get tripped up in the word massive and think, oh my gosh, I have to be doing something at the Mother Teresa level of massive action. It's just like, no, whatever you do today that's different than what you did yesterday is massive action.
The second thing is you take massive action from the future, so you need to define what your vision is before you start taking action on anything. What's my vision as far as my health? So like five years from now, 10 years from now, how does my body feel? Um, how does my mind feel? What am I thinking? How do I navigate through tough situations and good situations? What does pleasure feel like? What does like intimacy feel like? What does like feeling great in my dreams feel like? Like whatever those things are right? Like, declare those things for yourself and see yourself in that future. Because oftentimes what happens is people take action from the past. Well, I'm feeling sluggish. Oh, I'm overweight. I don't feel good in my jeans. My husband doesn't look at me, you know, the way that he used to do in my twenties, like whatever those things are. But we're looking towards the past and we're taking some type of action from a past result. And while that is informative, and yes, it's data, but that's all it is, it's just data. If we had something that we can be inspired by, which is like this vision of where we're going, like, then it's more like, okay, why am I doing. I'm not just losing weight or eating better or whatever it is that our goal is because of something that I did wrong in the past, but it's like there's a why behind why I wanna do this for the future. I want to feel, I want to, you know, eat more greens and ancient grains and whatever it is so that I can keep up with my kids when we're walking around the lake this summer. Because I wanna spend more time with my kids in the outdoors, and it makes me feel really good when we're doing those things together, like, great, that's a great why.
And now when you're thinking about this versus that, or doing this activity or that activity, now you can be in choice around it. Versus begrudgingly doing it because it's something from the past. So I think those are two things really around massive action is one is one thing that you do today will be different than what you did yesterday. That's massive action. So it doesn't take a lot. Second thing is do it from the future versus do it from the past.
And then my third thing is always checking in with your nervous. Because our brain is wired for, you know, low effort, no pain, and instant, you know, seeking pleasure. So if we're doing it, when we're in reaction versus in response, you know, then I think it's, it's off. So like, how do you regulate your nervous system? How do you calm your nervous system if you're doing it from fight, flight, freeze. Yeah. It's gonna feel not great. Whatever the goal is, you know, and no matter how inspired you are when you set the goal. So I think that's really important, is that you've got your nervous system, it's available for you. It's a great tool. I don't think we were necessarily raised, I know I wasn't from a generation that knew about our nervous system. It was kind of like just hack your way through it, hustle, culture, um, you know, comparison, you know, as far as like having it all. So I. Recognizing your part, your partnering with your nervous system is an amazing tool, and that's available for you as well.
MICHELLE: Oh my goodness. I am getting full body goosebumps. I can tell you, it's just been this past three months that I've been really kinda hyper focused on looking at my nervous system. And to your point, you said earlier about looking at our whys. Like I have become more clear on my why and so that when I get a request to do something, if it's not a hell yeah, or as we like to say over here a kale yeah, then, then the answer is no. And it's the easies as that it's my, this is my boundary. It's not a kale yeah. We're all gonna be Okay. I'm, I'm gonna love you from afar.
And so looking at what you're saying about the nervous system, I think it's huge, especially for women. I've been reading this book called, Burnout. Have you heard or read of the book Burnout? It's by…
BRENDA: I've seen it. Yeah, I've seen it. Who's it by? I can't remember.
MICHELLE: It's by twin sisters, Emily and Amelia, I wanna say Nagoski.
BRENDA: Oh, Um. I've read the, yeah, I've read Emily's book, Come as You Are, which is all about women's sexuality and intimacy. So I haven't read the Burnout book yet.
MICHELLE: Okay. Oh my goodness. It is fabulous. The two of them really break down the patriarchy and how women have been designed to please men. And of course I'm totally watering this down. Um, but because of that, it's. Counter to our intuition in a lot of ways, and it's counter to our nervous systems. And so paying attention to our nervous systems can actually be quite revolutionary. And I have found that from myself. Like as I'm walking through my days paying attention, well how does this feel? How does this feel in my body? Like it's amazing how we can actually use our bodies as a source of information for our brains. Imagine that.
BRENDA: Yeah. Well, and it's just, it's, it's built into our system. It's like an amazing tool. Again that I don't think as children, I know I didn't come from a generation, my family didn't necessarily operate that way. Um, and I'm not saying it to be critical of them, but I think, you know, as we learn more, we just get better. It's the Maya Angelou quote, right? When you know more, you do better. I'm mashing that up poorly, but, um, it is that, right? So it's like we learn about it and we're now knowing more about neuroscience research. We're hearing about how it impacts people from a, like in a workplace situation around psychological safety. It's like, yeah, all the bosses out there that I've got teams and you're going to the holiday season or in the new year. It's like, you know, this whole like, uh, command and control, um, way of managing people. Nobody likes it anymore. Guess what? They're leaving. So we saw that a lot during the pandemic and afterwards and women leaving the most.
MICHELLE: Yes.
BRENDA: Leaving organization…
MICHELLE: Hello. That's one of me.
BRENDA: Yeah. And me too. Like be prior to the pandemic, but still for very similar reasons. And I think it's like if companies want to have women in the workplace, and that's not even a question. It's like you must have women in the workplace nowadays, it's like they're your consumers. Women have access to money. We are now like the largest consumers out there. So it's actually prudent for you to have women in your business. You need to figure out how to create a business that brings out the best in women, not women fitting into the patriarchy. Because I think there's a lot of us that are like just done with it and our bodies can't take it anymore. It can't take it. Right.
MICHELLE: Right. Hence the burnout, the, the massive burnout. And a lot of us, which thankfully for your work and the work I do, we're saying enough and, Hey, fellow woman leader, come join us. Come be part of the wellness revolution.
BRENDA: Well, and you brought up my point about shame too, cuz I think for so many of us, it's like, oh, we have to fit ourselves into this patriarchal structure and then when we don't, we can't hack it. And even the guy saying, oh, come on. Like, you know, call me by my last name. They don't even call me by your first name. Come on Rigs. Like you can hack it. You know, that sort of testosterone camaraderie, and it's just like, I don't wanna have to hack it. Like, what do you mean? Like, there's nothing fun about that. And you know, that whole sort of lifestyle of maybe our parents and our grandparents where they worked until they were 60 and then they had a heart attack and you know, died on the golf, you know, on the, on the golf green. It's like, I don't want that either. My plan is to live to a hundred, like my runway is to a hundred for sure. If I go to 102, that's awesome. That's just like brownie points. But, uh, like the goal is to a hundred. So. I'm gonna have to really unwire, un unpack, and that's why I go back to about aligning to your purpose. Like it's one thing to say and you see all the, you know, manifestation stuff that's out there, but it's like you gotta do the work.
MICHELLE: Yes. Yes.
BRENDA: And I gotta clean up some of the system internally. Um, I was just with a client before we started our podcast and she was drinking her green juice. And I'm like, awesome as we're doing our coaching call. And she's like, yeah, I'm gonna drink my green juice every day now, Brenda. And I'm like, good.
MICHELLE: Nice.
BRENDA: You know, it's like we gotta clean up the gunk.
MICHELLE: Mm. And so I'm glad you brought that up because I also believe you have a mastermind right now. Is that correct?
BRENDA: Yeah. It's a 12 month immersive mastermind, for women leaders, entrepreneurs, business owners. We get together monthly. We have different topics monthly. We do energetic work, we do strategy work, there's skill training, and then there's coaching, like hot seat coaching. And you know, through all that work that we do together, we are unlocking the blocks, releasing, you know, the limiting beliefs, setting clear boundaries, and then getting intentional around our purpose for our life. Creating values. Cuz some of the values that we have are maybe inherited from family values. And again, not knocking those, but those may have been created by our grandparents or great-grandparents, et cetera, based off of what was going on in the world at that time.
And for me and where I live in the world, uh, my great-grandparents, grandparents, they all came from outside of Canada, usually war torn situations and bringing those beliefs with them. And in Vancouver, Canada, we don't have a war going on. Like I know there's stuff going on in other parts of the world, and I'm not ignorant to that. It's just more, I don't have to have my nervous system on alert like that. And I don't have to be planning my life like there's gonna be a war or. a depression and we have to hoard our chocolate. And you know, like all that sort of like, that's not gonna happen right now for me. And I also have the means to do something about it. If I, you know, if that did actually happen, I feel confident in that. So I think that's where it's like we work through our purpose, our values, and really set those values for ourselves and our attention of where we're going, our vision for a life over the next 10 years. And then goals and how do we get, you know, take that massive action around our goals.
MICHELLE: What powerful self-awareness, but also what beautiful leadership, they're also willing and able to lead other women through this process as well. Kudos that, that's amazing.
BRENDA: Yeah, absolutely.
MICHELLE: Yes. And so I know like you and I are gonna talk about it soon. I'm so excited that I get to be on your podcast, but I'd love a little sneak peek cause I took your quiz and for any of my friends listening today, please go to 3uniquescoaching.com and at the top there is a 3uniques quiz and it will give you some insight. And I will tell you that I took the quiz and I came out as the successful synergist. And before Brenda breaks it down, let me let you know that my results came back to say I was the same as Oprah, so I got Oprah Energy. I'll take it, but silliness aside, tell us more about the quiz and if you'd be willing to share a little bit about the successful synergist. I'm, I'm so curious.
BRENDA: Yeah, absolutely. That's so funny. Um, yeah, so the quiz, well I started it in February of this past year, and again, it kind of breaks down like four leadership archetypes of different women that I typically work with. So it's like, as I was coaching clients, I was like, oh, okay, yeah, like I can see clients in this sort of category or archetype or this type of archetype.
And so you take the quiz and there's probably like 10, 12 questions. It's pretty fast. And then you get a workbook. And the workbook, there's like lots of meaty stuff in there that you can work through and really at the end of the day, it's kind of like there's, there's four main ones. There's the transformational luminary who I love, which I love, that's the the woman leader, entrepreneur, but mostly a leader inside an organization that's maybe a little bit further along in their career and looking to give back in some way at a bigger level. Either it's through developing or mentoring people serving in their community, maybe consulting and just taking on something in a bigger capacity. Then you've got the innovative entrepreneur. So again, like, you know, lots of different, you know, ideas that are sort of generating in their business all the time and just go, go, go.
You've got the, uh, catalyst, that is just like, you know, in their, in their organization's driving change, et cetera. And then there's a successful synergist that gets things done through people. They are like, they're like the spoke in the wheel. They know people, they're active out there. They're mentoring, they're grooming people. They're networking and they're like building like this internal sort of like combustion of like strength in their business. Like they're knowledgeable and they're the go-to people. They're also the calm, like kind of before the storm people seek them out as it being that sort of like oracle. Very wise people in their organization and because of the synergist, like it gets shit done.
MICHELLE: Oh, that sounds about right, Thank you.
BRENDA: So, yeah, so it's a, it's a fun activity, but it also brings you into the world of your 3uniques, right? And like really being able to, like, when you download the workbook, it's like going through like page by page and like, like what I said earlier about like when wanna set boundaries, like the way to set boundaries is to know who you are. So the whole workbook is just discovering more about yourself. How to step into your 3uniques. Um, there's some podcasts that you can listen to that might be a little bit more aligned to if you're a successful synergist or a transformational luminary, and you can hear from other people about what they're doing with their, um, 3uniques.
MICHELLE: Oh wonderful. Oh my goodness. All right. Well, half an hour goes by so fast, but is there anything else you wanna share before we close.
BRENDA: Oh, I just think that, you know, like based on the topic that we were, um, started off with around massive action, just remember that like I said earlier, it just takes like one step and, you know, to try to try that one step. You know, even if you're thinking, you know what, I've got this big goal that I wanna take on and I know there's lots for me to do. It's like, just start with one. And even if you're not too sure about all the steps and it turns out that, that you needed to do 15 steps to, you know, to get to that end goal, you will start cultivating your brain. This is a little bit about the neuroscience, right? It's like, just take one step. You'll start convincing your brain that you can do hard things, you can do different things, and it just needs the evidence, cuz otherwise it's gonna pull from the past and say, well, you've never done that before. What are you like, who are you to think that you can take on this goal?
So you gotta like, just take that one step, show your brain that there's evidence that you can do this, and then it will just allow you more access into taking the next step and the next step after that. So just my little word of advice.
MICHELLE: How powerful. Well, where can my community find you to get more of this goodness.
BRENDA: Uh, I am on Instagram all the time, so you can find me at your3uniques. Um, so you can find me there. You can, you've mentioned my website a few times, so you can go to, um, 3uniquescoaching.com and you can find all my social handles there. And, Where else can you find me? My podcast, of course. Those are the #3UNIQUES podcast. Um, I'm on Apple, Spotify, listen notes, like there's a bunch of them, but Apple, Spotify are the main ones that people go to. So you can find me there.
MICHELLE: Thank you. We will definitely be sure to put all of this in the show notes so that more people can find their own 3uniques and be more aligned with their boundaries and their vision for the future, and also to know their why.
Brenda, this has been quite enlightening. Thank you so much for spending this time with me and sharing your wisdom with my community. I'm very grateful.
BRENDA: Thanks Michelle. Thanks for having me on and thanks everyone for listening.
MICHELLE: Thanks so much for listening to Healthy Sexy Nutrition. Have you been driving, doing laundry or walking around the neighborhood? Sweet. I've got show notes for you at michellefox.com/podcast. Click over there when you are ready. I will let you know that on the page you will find resources to support what you just learned on today's show.
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