Let's Think About It Podcast

Empowering Change with Holistic Health Strategies

• Morice Mabry • Season 2 • Episode 42

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Ever wondered how the path to a healthier lifestyle can unlock your full potential? Esther Avant, a passionate coach and champion for healthy living, joins us to share her journey from high school fitness enthusiast to navigating an identity crisis in college. Discover how she learned to harness the holistic benefits of health, influencing both personal and professional spheres of life. In this engaging conversation, Esther reveals how understanding human behavior and life's transitions is pivotal in empowering individuals to thrive.

Join us as we explore the art of building confidence and achieving consistent success by taming the inner critic and learning to focus on possibilities rather than limitations. Esther shares how small, actionable steps and self-compassion can help set and fulfill commitments, transforming failure into a stepping stone for growth. By delving into the deeper motivations behind our goals, we can foster a trustworthy relationship with ourselves, enhancing our willingness to embark on new ventures despite setbacks.

Balancing health with work priorities is a common struggle, but we uncover strategies to align personal values with commitments, ensuring health enhances all aspects of life. Esther emphasizes maintaining motivation and consistency by prioritizing core values amidst distractions. This holistic approach not only aids in achieving health goals but enriches other life areas, preventing the sacrifice of relationships or joy. Embrace the mindset of seeking solutions over excuses and learn creative ways to make health a proactive priority, paving the way for long-term well-being and success.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the let's Think About it podcast, where we embark on a journey of thoughtfulness and personal growth. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here to guide you through thought-promoting discussions that will inspire you to unlock your full potential. In each episode, we'll explore a wide range of topics, from self-discovery and mindfulness to goal-setting and achieving success. Together, we'll challenge conventional thinking and dive deep into the realms of possibility. Whether you're looking to find clarity in your personal or professional life, or seeking strategies to overcome obstacles, this podcast is your go-to source for insightful conversations and practical advice. So find a comfortable spot, chill and let's embark on this journey of self-improvement together. Remember, the power of transformation lies within you, and together we'll uncover the tools and insights you need to make it happen. So let's dive in. Welcome to another episode of the let's Think About it podcast. I'm your host, Coach Mo, and I'm here with another amazing guest. Her name is Esther Avant. Esther, what's up? What's going on?

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you today.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely so. Where are you checking in from? What part of the world are you calling in from?

Speaker 2:

I'm in sunny San Diego.

Speaker 1:

Sunny, san Diego, born and raised.

Speaker 2:

No Came here. In my early 20s I grew up in New England and had one winter too many Came out here. Very promptly met my husband, who's in the military, and we've been gone for about a decade and just came full circle and are back here again. Very happy to be back.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, don't lie, you're addicted to the weather in San Diego, right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's very hard not to be. It's just so nice for the weather to not even be a thing you have to think about. Your plans aren't revolving on well, if it's nice out or if it doesn't rain, you can just consistently be outside, be doing fun and active stuff, and it's not a consideration. So, yeah, that's cool. So tell us about yourself. What do you do? What value do you bring to the people that you work with?

Speaker 2:

To podcast hosting and I published a book that came out last year, and I'm beginning a speaking career as well all with the mission of helping people prioritize their lives so they can live their healthiest, prioritize their health so they can live their healthiest, happiest, most confident lives and also thrive in their careers and in their personal lives.

Speaker 2:

What I've seen from coaching hundreds of women over this time is that the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle and prioritizing your health extend far beyond just that. That when you essentially crack the code of what it takes to be healthy, to change your habits, you develop this confidence that just makes you unstoppable, and so many of my clients started seeing the spillover of. They would come to me to lose weight and on our coaching calls we'd be talking about how they're getting promoted or they're going back to school, they're starting businesses, their relationships are improving all because they decided that they were worthy of being a priority in their lives. And that's what I'm on a mission to help people do is realize that health, it can't be an afterthought, but the time that you spend prioritizing it is going to pay for itself in dividends in every aspect of your life.

Speaker 1:

Take me through the process. How did you develop this awareness of prioritizing health, making it very important for you? What was that?

Speaker 2:

Trial and error, like for most people, and that's part of what I love about coaching is I can help my clients avoid the same pitfalls that I had to experience, and largely I discovered working out when I was in high school, right before college. Being active in the gym made me want to care more about what I put into my body. I went to college in a really healthy place. That's why I decided to major in exercise science and almost immediately had this kind of identity crisis where I stopped working out. I started eating at the dining hall. I had everything I wanted at my fingertips. I gained a bunch of weight, just totally lost sight of the things that made me feel good, and that was my first introduction to oh.

Speaker 2:

This stuff isn't just about looking a certain way. It affects everything. That when you are not putting nutritious food in your body, when you're not moving your body, you're sluggish and you feel badly about yourself and it makes you not want to do other things and it makes it harder to study and retain information. Just had this cascade effect, got myself back to a good place, figured out who I was again, and then, at each of my transitions in young adulthood, moving cross country from Boston to San Diego.

Speaker 2:

I struggled to be consistent with these things.

Speaker 2:

Even knowing how important they were, it was still hard to continue doing them or to figure out what they needed to look like in each new chapter of my life, because often what I see is that we'll have things, will be cruising for a while, but then we have some sort of life change or disruption and we just end up falling on our butts and rather than picking ourselves back up and figuring out, oh, my life is different, now things need to look different we just blame our lack of discipline or lack of motivation and are really hard on ourselves.

Speaker 2:

So it was through experiencing all of that myself that I realized the certifications, the textbook, knowledge on the science of exercise nutrition they're important, but they're not what was going to be most impactful in my life or in my clients' lives. And that's where I started really diving into human behavior and understanding how our brains work, why we are inclined to do what we do and how we actually take the what to do and implement it in our unique lives in a way that gives us the confidence to say even if circumstances change in the future which they inevitably will I can trust myself to recalibrate as I need to and maintain my health no matter what.

Speaker 1:

I'm listening to you and the one word that, like really sticks out to me is consistency, right, and being in the let's just say the corporate environment, right. And we're showing up. I have to do this, we got to do that task and we put our own health on the back burner, our self-care on the back burner, right, and we're not really consistent in managing our own personal self-care. Okay, so I'm assuming that you deal with a lot of clients and the common theme is consistency, right, and how they are prioritizing their self-care. So, just to start this topic off, how do you help your clients establish more consistency around their self-care?

Speaker 2:

This is an excellent question, and consistency is my jam. In my book I talk about there being three Cs of success your commitment, your consistency and your confidence. And when we are struggling to reach a goal, it is a lack of one or several of those Cs that's holding us back and the way we increase them. So we'll focus on consistency. The way we focus on consistency is threefold. Number one you got to stop trying to do all the things. We tend to want to make these grandiose efforts, but the reality of it is, when we have so many competing demands on our time and our energy, we don't have a whole lot to give, and this is very classic tortoise and hare situation. But you're so much better off doing less, but really committing to doing it consistently and doing it well and doing that over the long term and then, as you feel ready, adding a little bit more, adding another thing, rather than trying to dive in with both feet and flailing around. Number one is determine. What are the I call them the big rocks, what are the handful of behaviors that are going to generate the majority of my results? Generally speaking, for people, these are eating the right number of calories, prioritizing your protein and fiber, general daily movement, walking, strength training, rest and recovery In general. If you're focusing on just those things, you're going to be in a pretty good place. What that also means is letting go all the other noise out there. It's easy to get bombarded with content about what we should be doing and we end up feeling like if we're not doing all of it and doing it perfectly, then it's not worth doing and it's not going to make any difference. So you have to both be able to parse out what matters and then let go of the other stuff. Put your blinders on and say if it's not one of these three things or five things on my list, I am not worrying about it right now, and down the road you might decide. Now I've got the big rock squared away. I want to experiment with some smaller things. Sure, or you might realize, I'm getting results that I'm happy with and I'm spending a lot less time and energy. I'm not feeling overwhelmed, it's not feeling unsustainable and I'm good there. So that's number one figure out your big rocks. Number two having support will skyrocket your consistency, and that can take on lots of different forms depending on where you are in your life and what you need help with.

Speaker 2:

But whether it's a coach or a trainer or a therapist or a workout class where you have people who are expecting you to show up a walking buddy at work, a friend that you meal prep with your family we tend to feel like we have to be doing all of this by ourselves, like we have to shoulder all of the burden. That if we ask for help, it's a sign of weakness and the reality of it is. Sure you are capable of doing it on your own, but it's a sign of weakness and the reality of it. Is sure you are capable of doing it on your own, but it's a lot more pleasant and it's going to be easier and faster if you get comfortable saying, hey, I could use some help. And here's how Be really clear with your communication on what a person can help you with. So if that's, my very well-meaning husband keeps bringing home my favorite wine at night because he knows that I like it to relax, except that I'm taking in all these empty calories and I'm sleeping terribly and I don't want to be drinking anymore why don't I have that conversation with him and approach it from the standpoint of I appreciate what you're doing and I know you want to support me. Here's what you could do that I would actually appreciate right now. So number two you'll be more consistent if you have other people that you're talking to about your goals, if you have somebody that you're accountable to. That will help you build the accountability to yourself. Ultimately, you want to get to the point where you're doing these things because it's who you are, it's what you said you do and you can trust yourself. But having a little bit of external accountability guidance, support, community goes a really long way.

Speaker 2:

And the final piece of boosting your consistency is to stop being so hard on yourself. We're very mostly we're our own toughest critics and any slight imperfection we tell ourselves oh, you blew it Once again. You're a complete failure. You should have known this was going to happen. It always does. You just don't have the discipline for it and we're really hard on ourselves and we think that we need to berate ourselves into submission. But that's not how it works. You are not going to show up for someone you don't love and care about, giving yourself the same compassion you would give to another person. Just accepting your imperfections, accepting your slip-ups and taking responsibility for what you're going to do differently to avoid repeating the same things over and over again. Accept that you're going to make mistakes and then learn from them. You're growing as time goes on. When you practice those three components, you will no longer struggle with consistency.

Speaker 1:

And the last one, right, the inner critic is what I like to call it. The inner critic. And here's an element that I want to go a little bit deeper on the last bridge that you presented. The inner critic affects your energy. You have this limiting belief I can't, I won't, oh my God, this is hard, this and this right.

Speaker 1:

And in those moments you're distracted from your true self, your true worth, because you're focused on what you can't do. And in that moment, while you're focused on what you can't do, your energy is limited, you're not as motivated, right. And so you're stagnant. And so then, when you start to incorporate I need to lose weight and the consistency part, like you had the other two pillars, but then the final pillar, that inner critic is chirping, trying to recast that old experience of you not being successful because you tried this diet plan that moment is speaking pause, stuck. I don't know. I don't want to, I don't want to fail, want to, I don't want to fail, right. And if we can just move that to the side and actually look at the optimistic side of things and see the possibilities, right Now you're motivated, you have a step towards more courage to achieve your goal. What are your thoughts about that?

Speaker 2:

I think you're nailing the three C's. That, yeah, that inner critic creates this lack of confidence, where you've just picked up this belief from who knows where over the course of your life that certain things aren't possible for you. Other people just have it easier. And when you go into something already telling yourself you're going to fail, of course you're not going to give it your best effort, of course you're not going to stick it out. When times are hard because it's all becoming self-fulfilling, you're like, see, I knew this is what was going to happen. And I think part of what can help is to what helps with commitment is really getting clear on why you're working towards, whatever the goal is, beyond the surface level. I want to look good or I want to see this number or be the size, but what difference does it make? How is my life really going to change for the better? Why is it worth sticking with this, even when it's hard, even when I feel like a failure and realizing that, yes, we do want?

Speaker 2:

It's very important to do the mental work and start addressing these limiting beliefs and also the action can happen at the same time, because taking action is how you prove to yourself, that's how you build confidence. That's how you say I'm willing to try anyway. I don't need to feel like it's a sure shot or done deal before I start something, but I have to be willing to risk failure in order to prove to myself that I can do it. And those the you have so many opportunities to do that in really small ways. It doesn't need to be oh, I'll be confident once I get this promotion. I'll be confident once I am a size six.

Speaker 2:

You can develop confidence every single day with setting small commitments and then following through on them for no other reason than because you said you would and because your reputation with yourself matters. And if you get in the habit of saying I'm going to drink this glass of water because I said I would, I'm going to take this walk because I said I would, you start proving that you are reliable and trustworthy. And that's where confidence comes from. If I could do all those other things, maybe I can do this thing, this thing too. I know it's possible that I'll fail, but I'm willing to try anyway because it's not really failure. I will either accomplish it or I will learn so that next time I try I'm more likely to be successful.

Speaker 1:

What about the thought of helping clients connect their values to their commitments? Because it can be difficult when you're distracted and let's just say that inner critic is present, you're not thinking about your values and it's easy to become not motivated. And when we can establish what those priorities and our values are at the highest level and really dissecting the level of importance, with that you're more likely to be committed to small steps moving forward, because you're leaning in with that value. And when that value is really present, it's hard to forget about that. That and I think I think about integrity.

Speaker 1:

When you're tough with your task, with a tough decision at least for me, I lean in with integrity right, because with integrity there's intent. So I know, whatever the decision that I'm trying to make, the intent is for the benefit of my team and to make sure that we're going in the right direction. So, because integrity is highly present in that decision, I'm okay if the results doesn't come out as desirable as I want, because I led in with integrity and I also know that there's a learning opportunity that comes with that right. So when I talk about value, is that something that you help incorporate into your philosophy of helping your clients as well?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a great exercise that a lot of us just don't do or haven't done in a long time, and when you can parse out your top three or five values, those become such a good litmus test for how you want to spend your resources. You're able to then say is this thing that is demanding my time, energy, money, whatever, is this aligned with one or more of my values? And if not, that's a pretty good reason to not do that thing or do less of it. Sometimes it's not entirely possible, but I think it really helps simplify and helps you spend your resources on the things that actually matter to you. And, like you said, it makes it a lot easier to then be committed and be consistent when you know, regardless of the outcome, I'm acting in alignment with my values. And what more could I ask of myself?

Speaker 1:

Tell me this, because I meet a lot of fitness people out there mindset coaches, things like that. What really separates you from most other approaches and coaches out there?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's a great question I used to really struggle with. You know this is such a saturated market. What makes you different? All the exercises are the same, you know. You give somebody a list of protein foods, it's all the same. What separates me is that I focus on the entire person. Part of what got me into coaching was losing my mom to colon cancer in my early twenties and she had struggled with her weight most of her adult life certainly my whole life and I just knew I was working at a commercial gym. I was a trainer. I knew a lot of other trainers and I could see how they interacted with their clients and I often thought I wouldn't want my mom to work with that person.

Speaker 2:

It felt like a lot of people in the industry diminish their clients to being one dimensional. You're here just to work out. I can give you a good workout. Whatever else you do. The other hours of the week you're on your own, or we're here to just talk about food. Follow the meal plan I gave you.

Speaker 2:

If you're not, well, that's on you, but the reality of it is we're all unique and dynamic human beings and there is so much more to all of us than the number on the scale or this one health marker that we're looking at, and a lot of why it's hard to be consistent is deeper rooted stuff. It's the limiting beliefs, it's the mindset stuff that we're talking about, and I think we do clients a disservice when we just focus on the surface level and say here's your workout, here's your meal plan. But what we really need help with is understanding, A understanding the client, but helping clients understand themselves and understand that there's nothing wrong with you. You're not deficient, You're not lacking anything.

Speaker 2:

You need to better understand your brain, why you do what you do, how you operate, and then, once you do, it's a lot easier to work with a known entity and then say okay, given what I know about myself, how can I make this exercise, nutrition stuff feel easy? So I think that's what separates me is that we're not just looking at this one piece of your life. We're looking at your whole life and making sure that the changes we make for your health are going to benefit you in other places. It's no good to reach your health goal or your weight loss goal or be in good health if you sacrifice your relationships or your livelihood in pursuit of it or you're no longer living a life that you enjoy. So I think it's about using health as a catalyst to live the best life you possibly can.

Speaker 1:

I love that. And here's another question for you, as you were talking right. We have so many people in this environment today. They're about getting results in their whatever work environment that they're in right, and it's about work I got to get these results. I don't want to, and they carry certain fears that if I don't get this done, I'm going to lose my job, whatever that looks like Right. How do you really help people connect? The value of their health is just as important in getting the results of what you're doing in your professional world. How do you help them make that connection?

Speaker 2:

That's an excellent question, because often people don't and they think they're at odds. I'd love to exercise more, I'd love to eat better, but I can't because ABC, my kids, my job, whatever and the reality of it is your health isn't going to wait for you to find time or for time to fall in your lap. I was just reading a book the other night and I'll butcher the direct quote, but the gist was a healthy person has a thousand wishes. A sick person only has one, and I feel like that's what it boils down to is, if you do not proactively make your health a priority, odds are there is going to come a time where you no longer have a choice, and not only are you doing yourself a disservice by not making health a cornerstone of your life.

Speaker 2:

Every other aspect of your life will benefit. Your relationships will improve if you feel good about yourself and you know that you're a trustworthy, reliable person who likes who you are. You will be more productive at work. You'll be better able to manage stress and burnout. You'll be more likely to get promoted more quickly, to make more money, to enjoy your success for longer if you are a healthy person and I was just talking with a podcast that focuses on finances for retirement.

Speaker 2:

And if you have a goal, if you're working hard now in your early and your middle years with a goal to be able to retire and be financially comfortable, and you're a goal, if you're working hard now in your early and your middle years with a goal to be able to retire and be financially comfortable, and you're telling yourself I want to do all these things, I want to travel, I want to hike, I want to sightsee, you do not want to get to your 60s, 70s and beyond and not be able to do those things you've been looking forward to your entire life because you didn't make your health a priority. So the reality of it is you can't afford not to. If you want to be successful, if you want to have healthy relationships, if you want to feel like the best possible version of yourself, it starts with taking care of yourself.

Speaker 1:

I want you to break this down for me, because you're the health expert. Okay, so people carry this limiting belief. Just like you said, I don't have time, you know, for my health right now because I got to get this and that done, right. But here's where the limiting belief really is present, because we think making my health the priority means that I need to be working out one to two hours a day so that I can be this health guru. And they just carry that. So then they see that big picture right, it's intimidating, but the reality is all I need to do is move around, do some extra walking, have some mindful thoughts throughout the day. Some gratitude, drink a little bit more water. Help clear up this misconception for us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you are 100% right. It boils down to the big rocks. You do not need to be overhauling your entire lifestyle. You need to be doing a little bit more, a little bit better, a little bit more consistently than you have been. None of this is new news. I'm not the first person to tell you to take a walk.

Speaker 2:

The issue is that we, I think twofold. One, we're not doing it consistently, but two, even when we are, we don't align our expectations with the effort that we're putting in. If we embrace the do less mentality, we don't adjust our expectations accordingly. We still expect drastic results, even though we are no longer doing the drastic overhaul. And I am not suggesting you should overhaul, but, generally speaking, the more changes you make, the faster the results come. So we need to reconcile this in our minds.

Speaker 2:

If what you have done before hasn't been sustainable and the results have been short-lived, then something has to change and that something is starting smaller, really letting these habits become ingrained and continuously reminding yourself that the results aren't going to come overnight. Nothing has gone wrong If you wake up after a week of doing these things and you still feel roughly the same. They are going to come, but you need to be consistent over the longterm, and the benefit of taking these small actions is that they feel doable in the midst of having a family, having a job, so there's really no reason not to. If I can do these handful of small things each day, and in three months, six months, a year, I'm going to feel I'm going to be way better off for having done them. Why wouldn't I?

Speaker 1:

Exactly, and learning how to pivot when you're not having certain successes, but thinking more so about what's the learning opportunity and how I can make an adjustment. How can I pivot here because I'm not getting this particular result? Where can I grow at? Who can I seek for more insight to help me? I think all of that becomes very powerful. But at the same time, you're still managing your same workload. Right, you could still be busy, but if you just say, for example, if you're a remote worker and you're working at home and you have meetings back to back to back, okay, just like when we met, when we first met, you was on your treadmill just walking and we were talking. You were knocking out two birds with one stone, right, having a meeting while you're walking, it was all good.

Speaker 1:

Or you could take a break in between meetings, which is five minutes let's just say it's five minutes and do a quick breathing exercise to reground yourself from taking one stress to the next meeting and adding more stress in that meeting. That's still part of your self-care, your health. Okay. Instead of drinking soda, let's say you drink soda three times a day. Let's do it twice a day and then incorporate a glass of water, just making those subtle changes, then see how you feel and then go back to the board germ board and you know what? I drank a little bit more water and I do feel a little bit better. Let me try that, let me try that again. And each of those experiences that become positive is what helps create the habit for consistency.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and something I think when you mentioned water, it really struck a nerve with me. I struggled to drink enough water for a really long time. It's been about a couple of years since I've consistently been drinking a sufficient amount of water and I think sometimes we don't realize how badly we're feeling because we've gotten so used to it. I never thought that I was, I never like felt dehydrated. I was never like oh, this lack of water is really getting to me. I felt what I thought was normal until I started regularly drinking enough water and I was like oh, I feel much better. And now that I'm used to feeling better if I drink less, I feel the difference.

Speaker 2:

But often you might be feeling like oh, this is just what everybody feels, this is middle age, this is having a desk job, this is everybody feels this way. But you could probably feel way better and you don't even know it yet. But once you get a taste of it, that's where that commitment kicks in. You're just like okay, of course I want to keep doing these things that are making me feel so good.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and I'm going to take it up a notch because I manipulated my mind to drink more water, because I started adding the little water flavors. I started adding them and I was like, oh, this water tastes actually pretty good. This is to the point where now water tastes better than like soda and all of these drinks with all of this sugar and things in it. I spend most of my time when I go to the store. Now I buy the water flavors and I have specific brands that I like, right, feel, just better, because I'm consistently flushing out my system because of all of the water I'm drinking. It's just a game changer. But it's making little tweaks like that really doesn't hurt you or limit you and you still do your same routine. But now I found a flavor that I can put in my water that I'm addicted to and it just makes me drink more water Win-win.

Speaker 2:

What's really standing out to me is you're being a problem solver, and I think I talk to clients about this all the time. You can either be somebody who looks for excuses or you can be somebody who looks for solutions, and you have to remember that, at the end of the day, your goals are your own. They're something that you want. It's easy to be like. Oh yeah, I should probably drink more water, but I don't like the taste of it. That's not convenient to have a water bottle. I never think about it, I always forget, I don't want to have to pee all the time and you're just like rattling off the reasons why you can't. If that's where you're shining your mental spotlight.

Speaker 2:

Of course, nothing is going to change Exactly, but if you say, this thing has value to me, I want to be doing it because I know the benefits are ABC and in my life is going to improve for having done it. Right now it doesn't feel natural. What are the possibilities? What could I do to help myself? I started I was using flavor enhancers.

Speaker 2:

Also, what has ended up sticking for me long-term is this app. It's called Plant Nanny. It's free I'm not sponsoring anything but basically log your water. You grow these little plants and that's it. It's just, it's a little bit of an extra reason to do it, and I think sometimes we talk ourselves out of doing these things because we tell ourselves like, oh, I should be able to do it without, I shouldn't need this X, y and the other thing. But if you're having a hard time, as is just telling yourself I just need to, isn't a strategy. Ask yourself what specifically am I going to do differently to get a different outcome? If I want to drink more water tomorrow, I'm going to feel the same way about water as I do today. Nothing's going to change unless I am intentional with how that's going to be. And once you apply that mindset to your life, possibilities everywhere.

Speaker 1:

Everywhere. I appreciate that so much. It's power in what you just said, so my listeners need to know how they can get ahold of you.

Speaker 2:

My website is estheravantcom. I also have a podcast called To your Health, where I dive into all of this stuff as well, and my book is called To your Health A Lifestyle of Health, Happiness and Confidence, and it is a deep dive into everything we've been talking about today the exercise and nutrition, big rocks, how to get yourself the support that you need and a big chunk of the book is exactly this stuff is the mental piece of how do I go about thinking about and doing my life in such a way that being a healthy person starts to feel easy. So you can get that on Amazon or wherever you buy books.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and before we sign out, you got to give us one success story that's really dear to you, in someone that you helped.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, it's so hard to pick. One comes to mind just because she recently we're communicating through our messenger system, so she's fresh in my mind. She's lost nearly a hundred pounds. She came to us having experienced a lot of recent grief and trauma in her life and she realized that her health needed to be a priority. It could no longer be on the back burner and she fully embraced everything we've been talking about. Yes, she was putting in the work, she was taking the walks and lifting the weights and eating the food, but she was willing to do the deep mental work and her whole life has improved. Her relationship with her son is better, she's thriving in her career and recently she was asked on a date and, for the first time in years, felt good enough about herself to say yes and explore the possibility of a relationship in her life. So that's exactly what I mean when I talk about the spillover that it's not just which clothes you're pulling out of your closet, it's about improving your whole life.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for sharing that. By the way, that's a wonderful story and congratulations to Miss Client, who you're referring to. Really happy. Any lasting thoughts that you would like to share as we get ready to sign off?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think the thing that's coming to mind is that I know from experience how easy it is to consume information and to be nodding along while you're driving or while you're eating and to be saying like, yeah, this is really good stuff, and then to get busy and not take action on it. So my challenge to you would be to take just one thing that we've talked about today, whether it's a practical like I am going to go buy some crystal light and drink some water or some of the deeper let me explore my limiting beliefs or why I don't believe that this is possible for me but take action on something that you heard today, because that's where the change comes from.

Speaker 1:

There it is, miss Esther Avant. Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast mind.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. This was a blast. Thank you for joining me in this episode of let's Think About it. Your time and attention are greatly appreciated. If you found value in today's discussion, I encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Remember, the journey of self-improvement is ongoing and I'm here to support you every step of the way. Connect with me on social media for updates and insights. You can find me on Instagram and Facebook at Coach Mo Coaching, or LinkedIn at Maurice Mabry, or visit my website at mauricemabrycom for exclusive content. Mauricemabrycom for exclusive content. Until next time, keep reflecting, keep growing and, most importantly, keep believing in yourself. Remember, the most effective way to do it is to do it Together. We're making incredible strides toward a better and more empowered you. So thank you and I'll see you in our next episode.