5 Tips for Using AI in Your Marketing

Welcome to episode 249 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento. I am here to share with you five tips for using AI in your marketing. So I know there’s a lot of controversy about AI and they’re going to replace people and photographers and all of these things, but that’s not true.

There’s no AI bot that can come to a wedding. There’s no AI bot that can take your photos in person in real life and capture those memories, those moments. So there’s just nothing out there that’s going to do that. The other thing to remember is that there is no substitute for human editing, intervention context, or those types of things.

So even though AI is a great place to start, and we’ll talk about this in one of our tips, it is not the end of Anything, you shouldn’t just be pasting, copying whatever ChatGPT spits out, and posting it. Edit and we’ll talk about this now. I’m your host Amanda Tento and My voice is like this because I was intubated. So if you are looking for the story behind that, you can listen to episode number 243. That will give you all of the details. 

Is AI a great place to go for ideas?

If you’re sitting there and you’re blocked for an idea, like what should I post on social media, what should I do, any of the things that you can, a thousand things that you can use AI for, this is a great place for you to start. So just go ahead and put in a prompt and say, please, find six postal please develop Six social media posts that I should post on Instagram for XYZ audience about XYZ.

And you can also ask it to include hashtags. I’ve asked it to include stock photos from my stock photo library before, which is cool. Because it will go, I use Envato Elements, so it will go there, and pull a stock photo that’s relevant to that. 

We want to make sure that we’re editing. That’s number three on our list. But the second thing is I want you to always make sure that you’re viewing all of the content that you get from there as a draft. It is a place to go when you’re looking for an idea or trying to figure something out.

When you need a little extra help, it’s not somewhere that you go to rely on for everything. You still need to use your brain, your voice, your context. So that’s a very important part of it. So make sure that you’re using it for ideas, make sure that you are treating it as a draft only. And number three is making sure that you edit.

So a lot of what AI spits out, while it looks good, isn’t necessarily true, or it might be fluffy, or it might be just some of the facts might be off. The spelling is usually never wrong unless it’s spitting out something in British English or Something like Canadian English. I’ve had that happen before but just check everything.

Check the spelling, check the context, make sure you’re reading it, and make sure you’re putting in your voice. The edit is number three. Number four is you can use it to create some very cool social media posts, and I just talked about this, but you can ask it. You can go to chat and say, please write a post for LinkedIn about family law for professionals on LinkedIn that will attract their attention and engage them. And include a stock photo from Envato Elements. And then it will do all of those things, spit out some posts, and then you can go and edit them.

That’s a cool, easy, quick way to get things done. So you’re going to, again edit. Make sure that you’re not using it as your last draft. You’re going to make sure that it’s only a first draft. There are other ways that you can use ChatGPT or AI. There are a million different things, but most of them come through ChatGPT.

You can use them to find keywords. You can use them to develop posts. You can use them to develop blog posts. You can create polls with them, so You can ask it to create a poll for you for LinkedIn and then also create some options for you for that poll. Then you can also use it to draft emails. You can draft website content and pretty much anything else that you write in marketing.

You can use AI for it, which is great. Again, I’m gonna stress it’s only for ideas. It’s only your first draft and you need to edit everything that comes out of it. It is not going to replace you. It’s not going to replace me. It is a really easy way to get ideas and content flowing and those kinds of things.

Just treat it as that. But, these are amazing ways you can easily use AI in your marketing and give yourself a little boost in time, a boost in content. Maybe you haven’t thought of this, but it’s a great way to get started. I feel like AI is a jumping-off point for us now, and that’s how we should view it.

Not as a final destination, but as a jumping-off point. If you have any questions about this episode, please email me at amanda@tdm-marketing.com or amanda @tdm/marketing.com. Thank you and have a great week.

5 Strategies for Using Pinterest to Grow Your Business with Dominique Dunlop

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host. I’m Amanda Tento, and I have with me, Dominique Dunlap. She is a former teacher-turned-digital marketing-obsessed Canadian mom of two through her done-for-you content repurposing services and lead generation. Pinterest, VIP days.

Dominique’s goal is to help you develop a low-effort, high-traffic marketing strategy that will allow you to attract leads on autopilot and be everywhere your clients are without leading to content creation burnout. That sounds like a dream, first of all, But I also wanna just touch on what we’re gonna be talking about today before I allow you to.

Kind tell us how you got started in Pinterest, but we’re gonna be talking about five strategies for using Pinterest to grow your business. So this is gonna be a killer episode. This is actually something that people have been requesting forever, so I’m glad that I found you and that you’re here to talk about it.

But how in the world did you get started, like specializing in Pinterest? Honestly, through a series of random online rabbit holes. When I left my teaching career after I had my second child, I basically decided that I needed to figure out a way to earn my income from home. Because I couldn’t go back to the classroom, I started blogging.

I started out with a learn-from-home play-based preschool program that I had put together for most stay-at-home moms and took my teaching expertise that route. The more I got into that and started learning how to actually market the preschool program, the more I realized I liked the marketing side more.

The preschool side at that point. So in talking to a few of the online connections that I had made over the past while, and people I had connected with in trying to market my program, I ended up connecting with a few women who I call very close friends now that were Pinterest experts, and one of them had a program that trained Pinterest VAs.

I decided to give it a try, thinking maybe I would use it for my own marketing. Maybe I’d go a different way, not really sure what was gonna happen, and soon after I. Took the plunge and completely pivoted away from the preschool program and into the marketing space instead. So do you feel, this is gonna be like a mom question, but do you feel more fulfilled and do you feel like that switch has allowed you to have more time with your kids?

Like just not having that hands-on, half-to-hands-on? Such a tricky balance, and I’m sure most moms can relate. I was putting so much time and effort into the classroom, into other people’s kids when I was teaching. Not to mention we also live quite rurally, so I had quite a drive on top of things, but now it’s just balancing.

Home life. So, there are days that I feel like I’m not giving my kids the attention that I need to be because they’re at me and they’re needing this and they’re needing that. And I try to balance client work and that, but at the end of the day, I get to be here with them and. That’s been really critical for our family through the pandemic, not having to worry about childcare.

So some days, no, I’m not as present as I would like to be with them for sure, but it’s still definitely been the best decision we made for the family. I love to hear that. And I can completely relate to that. Like I know like sometimes my kids are like, but you’re always working. And I’m like, but I would be working like not even in the house.

Like you couldn’t ask me a question, you couldn’t ask if you could have this or do this, or, like I couldn’t resolve any fights or anything like that. And like I’m here like I’m always working, but I’m also. Available. When they need me, which I absolutely was not When I was in the classroom after I had my first.

 And especially with a commute like that too, like Woo. . . . Awesome. Let’s talk about these strategies. What are the five strategies that you’re gonna teach us to grow our businesses? Alright, so there are a few things that we need to understand about Pinterest before we can even talk about strategy.

First of all, Pinterest isn’t social media. It gets lumped in there all the time. It gets lumped in with those social media apps, but it. Really at the heart of it is not. It’s a search engine, and if you think of Pinterest more akin to Google than you do to social media, you’re going to start to really transition how you can leverage Pinterest to grow your business.

I see people all the time, they jump on there with their social media tactics and strategies that worked on Instagram. It’s not going to work. On Pinterest. The other really important thing that we need to understand about Pinterest is because it’s a search engine, it takes time and it is a slow burn.

You have to be in it for the long haul and you’re not going to get instant results. So I would never recommend Pinterest be your sole marketing platform right from the get-go. It’s going to take time before that snowball starts. That’s my big disclaimers and caveats about Pinterest.

One of my mentors likes to refer to Pinterest as the ugly stepsister of social media because it doesn’t get the same attention that the other platforms get. But at the same time, it is such a powerhouse if we can invest some attention in interest. And the other thing about Pinterest is once you’ve got your strategy in place, which we’ll talk about today.

You can have your Pinterest marketing completely automated and going operating in the background in as little as about four to six hours a month, which is way less time than you’re probably spending on other social media platforms. And you can sit down and do it in one shot for the month. There’s no obligation to show up and engage on a daily basis and just be present.

You can sit down, do it, bang it. And it’s done until next month. So that’s something to keep in mind too when we’re talking today. I have two quick questions if you don’t mind answering them. One is, do you find that people give up like they’ll say, okay, I’m gonna go do Pinterest, and then they get started, and then because of that slow burn that you talked about, it just doesn’t happen?

And then they’re like, Ugh. Done. And so many people give up right when they’re at the cusp of things that could have looked different for them. Just to give you an example, what we’re talking about when I say slow burn, slow burn. When I take on a monthly management client, I do a minimum of a six-month contract because I don’t even expect to see a whole lot happening in that first six months.

Something that I take a lot of time to prime my clients with is that we have to trust the process here. We’re looking at a year or so before we’re really going to start to see the fruit of our effort happening. You don’t eat the fruit the day you plant the tree. So what I see a lot of times with people who are getting started with Pinterest or managing their own Pinterest, they will, they’ll go gung-ho for 2, 3, 4 months.

and then they’re really disappointed in what’s happening in their statistics. So they bounce. But if I come back to that same account down the road, that effort that they put in for those four months is still bringing them traffic two, or three years.

And you’re gonna have, and we’ll have the link to book a VIP day in the show notes as well. Definitely check that out too. So thank you so much, Dominique, for being here for sharing your amazing wealth of knowledge with Pinterest, and I am sure that we’re all going to go right now and look at our Pinterest accounts and kind of evaluate them, and get started.

For sure. And as you’re saying that, I thought of one more little key tip. I’m gonna slide in there. You’re not using a business account. Please make sure you switch it to a business account. If you’re still on your personal account that you planned your wedding on and you’ve got all your kids’ birthday parties planned on, you need to switch it up to a business account and you can either start fresh or you can just toggle that in your settings.

You can switch from personal to business, but you need to get it on a business. That’s a great tip too. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dominique, for being here. Thank you for having me. It was such a great chat.

Update Your Google Analytics Today to Keep Tracking

Welcome to episode 247 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento. And if you are listening to this and don’t know why my voice sounds like this, it’s because I was intubated and have some vocal cord issues. Working on resolving those, but this is how my voice sounds. So I apologize. And I hope you will keep listening so that you can get the content of this podcast. 

Today, we’re going to talk about. Y you need to update your Google Analytics today. So that way, you can keep tracking your website data. Google Analytics. It has changed from universal analytics, which we’ve all had installed for years and years. To Google Analytics, the difference is. 

There’s a significant difference, and it’s in our favor. They will track across the internet. So let’s say someone is browsing on their phone. And then, they pick your website back up on their desktop. They will only track that person as one visitor, which is great because. 

They will know because if they’re logged in to any Google products or anything like that, they do laundry and browse if they’re on the same network. Whatever it might be. If we’re on that same IP, they will track that person as one visitor. So that way, it’s not fluffing your analytics or your visitors. 

That kind of thing. So it’s essential. And also. If you have any mobile apps, it’s going to be across mobile apps as well. So you’re not going to have inflated. User information for apps and the web. So that’s an essential feature. There’s also enhanced reporting. Other things like that now. 

If you’re thinking, I don’t want to upgrade. Unfortunately, you don’t have a choice. Google Analytics, universal analytics, has stopped tracking ads. First of this year. So as I was recording this a few days ago, 

That means that you have to make sure you have Google Analytics set up and make sure that it is tracking. Very easy to do that. Very easy. And you have to do it. There’s no other. Either option is for you. You can be at ax systems, but Google Analytics is free. It’s very robust. 

You can do a lot of different tracking in there. A lot about who’s visiting your website: you can even find out if. Suppose your social media posts are getting any traction. You must do this. And please do it today because if you wait another day, you lose another data day. 

Now what happens to all that data you already have in universal analytics? Does it convert over to Google Analytics for is not. So you will have to save that data somehow if you want to keep the access to it. So let’s say—next August. You’re like, how did we do in August of 2020 or August of 22 or 21? 

You’re going to need to have backed up that data. So that way you can access it. One way you can do that is through. A significant query backup. That’s the easiest way. It’s a Google data backup. Definitely. 

It must be done, especially if you’re a large or medium-sized company or yourself. You want to keep that information. So you have access. What’s going on? You can look at trends and determine if you’re doing better than the previous year. All of that is critical. 

For your marketing success. If you need help doing this, we do offer. This service is at TDM marketing—more than that. I want to ensure you’re aware of this change. And that you’re able to take action. Our podcast is all about actionable marketing tips and tools, which you should have done already. 

But I’m just reminding you in case you haven’t. If you have any questions about this episode, please contact me at amanda@tdm/marketing.com. Thank you for listening, and have a great week.

How to create powerful content to stand out from the crowd.

In this episode of The Determined Mom Show, host Amanda Tento interviews Mel Daniels, a content coach and strategist, to explore the key strategies and considerations for creating content that resonates with your audience and sets you apart. Mel shares her journey and insights, highlighting the importance of authenticity, purpose, and understanding your ideal client and yourself as a content creator.

Finding Your Path as a Content Strategist

Mel begins by sharing her accidental journey into entrepreneurship, starting as a virtual assistant and eventually becoming a content strategist. She emphasizes embracing change and being open to new opportunities, even if they take you on unexpected paths.

The Power of Purposeful Content

Mel discusses the need to create content that serves a purpose and differentiates itself from the noise. She encourages content creators to ask themselves whether they use their content for good or self-promotion, highlighting the importance of authenticity and genuine connection with the audience.

Understanding Your Ideal Client

While considering your ideal client is crucial, Mel also emphasizes the importance of understanding yourself as a content creator. She advises aligning your content with your strengths, passions, and preferred channels. The key is to find the intersection between what resonates with your audience and what feels natural and enjoyable for you.

Balancing Purpose and Strategy

Mel emphasizes the need for a strategic approach to content creation. She discusses how content can unite or divide people, highlighting its power to inspire collaboration and create meaningful connections. Content creators can significantly impact by providing helpful content that genuinely benefits the audience.

Choosing the Right Channel

The best channel for creating content depends on where your ideal client engages and where you feel most comfortable. Mel advises content creators to block out the noise of various expert opinions and instead choose the platform that aligns with their strengths and resonates with their audience.

Creating powerful content that stands out from the crowd requires understanding your ideal client and staying true to yourself as a content creator.

By approaching content creation with purpose, authenticity, and a focus on providing value, you can create meaningful connections, become more visible, and establish yourself as an expert in your field. Remember, the key is balancing serving your audience and staying true to your passions and strengths.

What I Want YOU to Learn From My Illness: Life and Business Revelations

Welcome to this episode 245 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento, and today I want to share with you what I want you to learn from my illness. And this episode is about life and business revelations, which were revealed to me through this process.

If you have yet to listen to episode 243 to find out why my voice is like this, what exactly happened to me, and what my illness was, please go back and listen. So then this episode will make more sense. I was intubated. I will say that, and that’s why my voice is the way it is, and I’m still working on getting that to be back to what I would call normal or close to normal, and I look forward to sharing this with you. 

When I went into the hospital, I thought I had to have everything, all my eyes dotted, all my ts crossed, everything ready for the baby, which is normal, like nesting for being a mom, ready for a new baby.

I had all the baby stuff and my business stuff ready, only partially, so I could leave for eight weeks and not have to touch it. That was not the case. I was expecting to be able to be back, to be able to answer questions. I was hoping for just a couple of days that I was going to be out.

Everything I planned for did not happen as I wanted it to. And it was a huge learning experience. One of the things that happened when I woke up was I realized that I didn’t want my life to be like it was before. How was my life? I worked all the time. I woke up and got the kids off to school, got to my desk around eight, and I sat there until six o’clock at night, minus getting them off.

The bus and getting them started on their homework, and eating lunch. But for the most part, I worked all the time, and I didn’t have all that much to show for it. I had a lot of clients, and we had a great income coming in, but it wasn’t that I needed to work that much. I don’t know even know what I was doing at this point.

Now that I don’t work that much. But anyway, I was just, Maybe, addicted to the work, and I just felt like my purpose was work, and that was it. So when I woke up, I realized, Hey, I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want my family to be like this. I don’t want anything to be like this anymore.  I talked to my husband about it and said, look, I don’t want anything to be as it was before.

Because it wasn’t great and I shouldn’t have been working that much and I shouldn’t have been focused that much work and the kids and you both just were bitter and it was just a huge revelation. I knew that for my life to be different, my business had to be different. I’m thinking, okay, if I can not touch all of this stuff or six weeks and see what happens afterward, and if everything’s still okay, then you know, It’ll be fine.

I had gotten two huge new clients before I went into the hospital. One has a Google business optimization project of a hundred locations, and the other one has a Google business management project of 26 locations. So we went forward with those projects, and I assumed that I could answer questions and be there for my team and the client.

And that was not the case. My husband had to reach out to a colleague whom I had hired VA through, I trusted this person with everything, and I did not think they would let me down. And in the end, they ended up letting me down. So this is another lesson that I want to share with you.

And that is, don’t just trust anyone, even though they promise you the moon, don’t trust them because it’s very likely that they will not come through free. And when that happens, it can be devastating.  I lost the client for whom we had 26 management profiles per month. 

And that’s simply because she did not pay, even though I was paying her like it was coming out of my account, auto-draft her payment. She was not paying the VA that was supposed to be working on my project. And that VA did not do the work because she wasn’t getting paid. And here we are, like Christmas time and she has kids and things and she needed money.

She needs to get paid for the work that she’s doing. And so she ended up not doing the work, and I couldn’t figure out why. And so, finally, I figured out why. And it was because literally $180 of her pay was being withheld from her and for no reason. And this person was not replying to my messages or her messages.

So I ended up paying her the $180 because I do not like people being unpaid, especially on my watch. Even though I’d already paid her the $180 through the other person, actually way more than that I just, said, okay I don’t want you to be suffering because of something you’re supposed to be doing for me.

Here is the payment. So the moral of this story is that we ended up, because of the poor response time, losing that client even though it was extenuating circumstances, but it was a very big corporation and they did not want to move forward with that type of response.

So that was a big customer service lesson for me. A big lesson in trusting others with your business is for me. My husband was already busy. If you’re thinking like, oh, why didn’t your husband step in? My husband was busy making sure I didn’t die. He was advocating for me. He was coming to the hospital every single day rubbing my feet.

He was taking care of an absolutely 100% newborn baby. And he was also taking care of our other three kids, making sure they got to school, got their homework done, and had lunches. He was doing absolutely everything. So he could only take on one thing.

It was just a lot. The whole experience was a lot. And what I want you to take away from this experience is that I want you to realize that you do not have to work as you’re, as much as you’re working now, you can work probably half of what you’re working and still get the same if not better results because you’re.

Concentration is going to be more focused. Your efforts are going to be more concentrated. It’s just going to be 10 x your results. So since I got home from the hospital, and now I’m recording this in June at the end of June, I got home from the hospital; I want to say the beginning of February, I didn’t even open my computer until I want to sound like mid-March because I literally couldn’t like I could, I was trying to relearn how to walk.

That was my biggest task when I came home, I was trying to walk and walk for longer distances, and I was so excited that I could walk from here to the bathroom at first and it’s just crazy when you find out what’s really important in life and the things that you take for granted.

So you do not need to be working as much as you do. My business was fine for however long probably that’s more than eight weeks. That’s 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, probably 12 weeks. So my business was fine without me for 12 weeks, minus a couple of client and team communications.

But other than that, I could do all of that from my phone. So I did not have to log in. I did not have to do any of that, and it’s grown since I got home. So that is amazing too. So you need to make sure that you evaluate what you’re doing and where you want to be and focus that time on your life.

My family. Now that I don’t work anywhere near as much as I did, I probably work three hours a day, if that. Just because I have a lot of therapy, I wanna spend time with them; I want to be able to do things around the house. There are so many things that I want to focus on that are not work that I need to ensure that I have that time.

That’s what I focus on. And I hired an operations assistant, which has made all the difference and she is helping me get organized. She’s helping me to get my client onboarding. She’s allowed me to do that. We’ve worked through a lot of things together, and she’s also going to eventually become that person where my husband can send her one message and she sends everybody a message and lets them know what’s going on.

And takes over everything. So it is amazing to have that and to know that I’m setting myself up for success in the future, and also setting myself up so I can step even further back from my business whenever I want to or get ready to take a couple of days off as a family. And I would never have done that before.

I would’ve never been able to take two days off of work and not do anything, nuts, and message anyone who still needs to do something. But I have complete confidence in Danielle and hope you’re listening. But I just am so grateful to be alive. I’m so thankful to have gone through this experience because I wouldn’t know these things if it hadn’t been for this experience.

I would still be thinking that I had to work all the time. If I didn’t work this amount of hours, this would happen. You are your own boss. I am my own boss, and we make the rules. We make the schedule, and we can get as much done in three hours as we can in eight.

So that is my lesson for you today. I hope you take this and evaluate your life and business and imagine yourself in a situation where you can’t touch your business. What would happen, even if you want to for 12 weeks, then make an emergency plan? Figure out what is important to you, what parts of your business you enjoy, and what aspects of your business you don’t enjoy, then cut all that stuff out that you don’t enjoy and only focus on those things you want.

How to Hire Your First Full-Time Employee to Start Scaling Your Company with Dr. Elaine Stageberger

Welcome to Episode 244 of The Determined Mom Show. In this episode, we have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Elaine Berg, an expert in real estate investing and various other domains.

Today, Dr. Berg will share her insights on hiring your first full-time employee to begin scaling your company. Hiring employees is essential to business growth, and Dr. Berg’s expertise will guide us through the process.

From Psychiatrist to Real Estate Investor

Dr. Berg’s journey from being a psychiatrist to becoming a real estate investor may seem like an unexpected shift. However, her passion for real estate sparked when she and her husband rented out their previous home and saw the potential in generating passive income and increasing property value. This initial experience led them to invest in real estate and eventually build a substantial portfolio.

The Importance of Building a Team

Every entrepreneur dreams of reaching a point where they can hire employees to assist in business expansion. Dr. Berg emphasizes the significance of building a team, drawing from her medical background, where teamwork is fundamental.

Initially, the fear and uncertainty surrounding hiring can hinder progress. However, Dr. Berg encourages entrepreneurs to transition from a scarcity mindset to recognize that building a team is an investment in the company’s growth.

Quantifying the Value of Employees

Determining the value an employee brings to the company is essential. Dr. Berg suggests aiming for at least three times the employee’s all-in cost. While the initial stages might not immediately yield positive returns, a period of learning and onboarding is necessary for both the employee and the leader.

Over time, the employee’s familiarity with the business, unique experiences, and fresh perspectives contribute exponentially to the company’s success.

Finding Long-Term Employees

Dr. Berg’s company emphasizes fostering a culture that instills a sense of purpose and belonging among employees. Recognizing that individuals seek meaning and connection in their work, the company emphasizes transparency and open communication.

Weekly team meetings allow employees to anonymously share their energy levels, feelings of value, and connectedness. This feedback informs the leaders and helps create a supportive work environment.

Hiring your first full-time employee is a pivotal step toward scaling your company. Dr. Elaine Berg’s expertise in real estate investing and her experience building a successful team provide valuable insights for entrepreneurs. 

By viewing employee hiring as an investment rather than a cost, fostering a strong company culture, and quantifying employees’ value, you can set your business on a trajectory for growth and success. Building a team is integral to creating something greater than yourself and achieving your long-term business goals.

Where Has the Podcast Been? My Near-Death Birth Experience

Welcome to this episode 243 of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento, and I am very excited to be here with you and share my story. So if you are listening to this, thank you so much. If you’re a seasoned listener, Thank you. And if you’re a new listener, I also thank you. I want to share this story of A, why my voice sounds like this.

B, why we took such a massive break from the podcast, C, what happened, how we can all learn from it, and many other things. So this will be a topic of many conversations in the future, and I appreciate your listening. I want to mention a lot of trauma, medical trauma, and birth trauma in this episode.

So if those things trigger you, please do not listen to this episode. Thank you very much, and looking forward to sharing this with you. I want to return to last year when I was pregnant with our fourth child, our son. Very excited because we have three daughters. And so we were excited to have a son, and I had gestational diabetes during my pregnancy, and I thought this was probably the worst thing that could happen to me.

I had to prick my finger four times a day. I had to test my blood. I had to get myself injections. I had to get my husband to gimme injections. I was allergic to one of the insulins. It was just an ordeal for me. I had to monitor every single thing that I ate. I couldn’t eat 90% of everything.

But I got through, and it made it and was a great experience. Knowing how it is to live with diabetes is not easy, and my heart goes out to everyone that has to do that regularly. And I was hoping that everything would return to normal after my pregnancy and I would not have to do that again.

So I. Flash forward to December 22nd. I went to my diabetes appointment, ultrasound, and all that stuff, and my daughter had a cold earlier in the week. She stayed home for a couple of days but went back to school. It wasn’t a big cold, just a little sniffle or sore throat, so she got better immediately.

So then, I started feeling bad on the afternoon of the 22nd. Like I was getting a cold as well, and then I was feeling terrible by the evening. So we asked my mom to come up and watch the kids. My husband took me to the hospital, and they tested me for the flu, RSV, Covid, and everything they could think of.

And all of them came back negative. They said, go home, drink water, rest, and you’ll be fine. So I went home, drank water, relaxed, and did not feel okay. I felt horrible. I don’t think I slept at all that night. And when I woke up the following day, my daughter made me breakfast, and I tried to eat it.

I think I ate one blueberry and couldn’t eat anything. I was just so sick. My lungs felt like I couldn’t breathe, and it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. It was tough to even. Moving at that point, like even moving a muscle, was difficult because everything hurt. My whole body hurt.

It was just horrendous. So they called the ambulance, and we went in by ambulance to the hospital, and they ended up admitting me. I have the flu. So I did end up testing positive for the flu. So we stayed there overnight on the 23rd and our 15th anniversary, by the way. Or no, was it our 14th?

I don’t know. It was either the 14th or the 15th. That’s how wild. I don’t even know what happened. So that was December 23rd. We stayed overnight. And then on the evening of the 24th, The nurse checked my cervix to see if they still needed to check it since I had gotten there. So she checked my cervix to see how things were going and it ended up that I was just a little bit dilated, like three centimeters.

And my cervix was soft, so she said, yeah, I don’t think anything will happen. You could be more dilated. You don’t have any contractions. And Like in that moment that she was still checking me, the baby reached down, and I felt him push and pop my water. And she was like, are you sure that happened?

And I’m like, yes, I’m sure. And she checked, and sure enough, there it was. So she was like, okay, this is now an emergency. Because I was not strong enough to go through labor to give birth or anything like that, they had to do an emergency C-section. So leading up to that C-section a nurse came in and tried to put an IV in my right arm, and he failed three to four times.

I think it’s just three because I have three scars. But he failed three times, creating a blockage in my arm, but we didn’t know that at the time. So he called another nurse. The nurse did it on my left arm, and it was fine. We go into the C-section. This is the last thing that I remember. They did the epidural, laid me down, and immediately cut me open.

There were no seconds or minutes in between those two things. It was just like in a lay-down cut. And so I said to them, the last thing I remember saying is, I can feel you cutting me. And they’re like, Oh, you’re not supposed to handle that. And they keep doing it because they have to. And it was like, I do.

And then that was it. I don’t remember anything else. I don’t remember hearing anything. I thought I was awake for quite a long time. I didn’t know what was happening to the baby. No one was telling me what happened to the baby. I was having all kinds of vivid Experiences; I want to call them.

And I thought everything that was happening to me was real, and it was very traumatic. I, there were people I thought had gotten stolen at some point. It was a very weird ordeal to be unconscious. I woke up, and it turned out that what happened to me was, The doctors couldn’t stop the bleeding after the C-section.

And then I had an amniotic embolism. I had the flu, I had pneumonia, and I also went into septic shock. So my body, all my organs, started shutting down and failing. And they ended up putting me on ECMO dialysis, a breathing tube. Liver, I don’t know what you would even call that. I don’t know what the liver is called, but liver support.

So I was on every type of life support to keep my organs alive. And they told my husband that he should prepare for my death because it was pretty much imminent at that point. They didn’t know what else they could do to try to keep me alive. I wasn’t waking up when they said that I should wake up.

And they told him that massage was one of the ways that would help if he was going to wake up, to wake up. And it would also relieve all of the swellings because it had extreme swelling overall all over my body. So he massaged my feet every day that I was in the hospital up until the end.

So that was four weeks off. Massage. And he even did it also when I was in rehab. That was probably six weeks of massage. Finally, I woke up while he massaged my feet one day. Sometime in the beginning of January, it was before the seventh, but after the first, I’m not sure exactly when it was because.

I don’t know. I couldn’t even keep track of anything at that point. I can look in my medical records, but I haven’t done that yet. There’s a little bit of trauma going on here, so there are many things I haven’t done yet because I’m still recovering and mentally recovering. So I woke up.

Thank God much to me. The surprise pretty much everyone, all of the doctors and everyone, did not expect me to wake up, and I found out that I was on all of the things, and I woke up intubated. And if you’ve ever been intubated or never been intubated, it is a challenging experience.

That’s worse than the ECMO, the dialysis, and all the other things. Because you, you have this massive tube in your mouth. To me, it felt like the end of a Nike, I want to say, like a field hockey stick, how it’s triangular. It felt like that was in my mouth. That’s how thick it was.

That’s how big it felt. I have no idea what it looked like. I have no idea how big it was, but it felt gigantic, and I couldn’t communicate with anyone. My hands were tied down because I resisted and wanted to remove the breathing tube. It was just a very traumatic experience from the jump.

It was not the way that I wanted my birth to go. I planned on having a natural birth as I did with my other three. Be in the hospital for a night. Go home. Enjoy my baby. This did not happen. It’s tough for me even now to talk about that part of it because I didn’t get that, and I didn’t get what I wanted.

And thank God I’m alive but still reconciling with that part of it and moving on. It took me a while to come off of everything. Every day there was a new, something that was happening, whether it was, whether it was them removing the ECMO tubes, for example, that was a whole event.

They removed them, and they had to sew me up. I was not. I was conscious. They gave me some medication, but it didn’t do anything. I felt them sewing up my neck and sewing up my groin. And it was excruciating. It’s incredibly traumatic to know they’re sewing you up while you’re awake.

It wasn’t easy. As I said, tubes come out daily, and things improve. My kidneys were damaged at that point. They were not working well. My, I couldn’t move. This was one of the biggest shocks to me when I woke up. I couldn’t even lift my head off the pillow. My muscles had all atrophied so that I couldn’t lift my head; I couldn’t lift my hands.

Once they finally took the breathing tube out and unrestrained me, I couldn’t. Lift my arms. I couldn’t sit up. I couldn’t do anything. It was extraordinary, very odd. And once I had a little bit of being able to lift my hands, I asked for my cell phone and I literally couldn’t even hold it because it was too heavy.

It felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. I couldn’t lift it. I couldn’t look at it. I couldn’t even touch it because I was so weak from being just out for that long, not moving. It was wild how that felt. The other shocking thing was knowing that I had almost died and then b I.

Having the feeding tube and not eating food. I didn’t think about it at first. And then they talked about taking it out and it was like, oh yes. Yeah, that’s great. I can eat again. That would be great. Eating again after you’re on a feeding tube is not what you would think. It wasn’t easy.

Any. The tiniest, tiniest thing would fill you up. It was tough for me to eat because I had gotten a thrush infection. My whole mouth, tongue, sides of my mouth, roof, everything in my mouth, and lips had been infected. And I couldn’t eat anything.

And milk, anything dairy, it felt like battery acid. Anything that I ate, it felt like I was eating acid. And so they kept me on the feeding tube while trying to get me to eat again because of this. And so I was on the feeding tube probably longer than I could have been because I had a lot of trouble eating.

That wasn’t easy. And my husband was an amazing, just a fantastic person during this whole process. He took our baby home, and the baby is great, by the way. He is alive and well, and his name is zip star. He is now almost six months old and is just the light of our life. But my husband at the time took all.

Everything on. He just rocked it. He took the baby home after he was in the NICU for about five days because of some breathing issues that he was having. And thank God he made it through. He’s recovered beautifully and cared for all three of our kids. He just It’s fantastic.

He came to the hospital to visit me every single day. He massaged my feet every single day. He brought me soup; he brought me broth; he brought me smoothies. The only way I could eat towards the end of my hospital stay was smoothies and things like that because the hospital food was absolute trash.

And it, he, I can’t even tell you everything he’s done. He advocated so much for me. At one point, the doctors said to him that, again, they needed to, he needed to prepare for my funeral. And he told them I don’t because that’s not what will happen. And he said, have faith.

I know God is going to make this right. And Even the chaplain at the hospital looked at him like he had three heads and did not believe him. And I think that says a lot about a person’s faith and beliefs and how strongly they trust God. And my husband trusted him a thousand percent and knew that everything would be okay.

And even when other people are in religious faith, like the clergy. And the chaplain, even when they doubted he knew it would be right.

So I will abbreviate many of the following parts because it’s a very long story and I could talk about it for four hours and still not be done. Fast forward. Every day I’m getting new tubes taken out and things, and I was in the ICU for about three weeks. They finally moved me to an acute care room, where they had the facilities to drive me around, get me up with a lift, and put me back in bed.

I couldn’t. Move. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t sit up. I could not move, so I had to relearn how to walk literally. I had to relearn how to eat. I had to relearn how to talk. I had to relearn how to write. I had to relearn everything, and I became a baby again myself. It was tough.

You’re a healthy 42-year-old. You go into the hospital to have a baby, and you come out a baby yourself. It was so challenging, so complex, but also at the same time, it’s exactly what needed to happen because God put everything in place and I liken it to a massive storm coming through. I. Like a hurricane and you have all these beautiful trees and you think you’re watering the right tree, you’re taking care of the right tree, you’re taking care of the one that you think is the right tree, and the storm comes and knocks it down and it’s Nope, that’s not what you should be doing.

These are the ones that you think you should focus on. Everything in my life, my family, my friends, my business, everything that was important, felt unimportant in those areas. And the items were standing; it was so clear to me after I woke up that those were the essential things and those were the things that I should be focusing on.

So it’s incredible. So my voice is like this because I have either damage or something going on with my vocal cords. I have an appointment this month with my otolaryngologist laryngologist, and we’ll figure that out then as we do scoping and things like that.

But there are so many different things that I’m still recovering from. I have a, and we’re about six months out in a few days. It’ll be six months on the 24th of June. I’m struggling with joint pain and am working with the rheumatologist to determine what’s happening there.

But I’ve had joint pain since I woke up, and at first, obviously, I was in the hospital, so I thought, oh, I’m just so stiff from everything and, All that stuff. And then after I got home, I was still stiff, and then a month later I was still stiff, and then two months later, and I was like, this doesn’t seem right.

So I reached out to my doctor, and then she referred me to a rheumatologist, and we’re currently trying to figure out what is causing that joint pain. That’s one issue. The other issue was when the nurse failed to put my IV in three times, he caused a blockage of my artery, and it ended up turning my thumb necrotic, which meant that the thumb and my tissue died.

And so my thumb turned black, and it was the texture and sound of bamboo. If you hit it on something, it was almost like dead wood, right? And so they. I needed to do surgery in January on my thumb to try to save it. So they scraped off all the dead tissue and tried to keep as much of my thumb as possible.

I did have about half of the first knuckle of my thumb like the tip cut off, and I’ve been recovering from that ever since. I’m just now to the point where my last scab fell off, and again in January, and we’re now in June. So it’s been five months since that surgery. And that has been a very lengthy recovery because when amputating something, a lot of healing needs to go into that.

It’s a very long process. So my last gab just officially fell off today, and I am so happy I can wash my hands. I’m able to take a shower without a glove on. That just happened this week. There are so many things. I was just able to change my son’s diaper for the first time this morning, and he’s been alive for almost six months, so it’s wild the things that we take for granted.

I’ll do an episode on what we take for granted and what I have found to be blessings instead of chores in this experience. But with that said, that’s been a struggle. My voice is a struggle, and I also have a chronic cough that is sometimes debilitating, like it’s so difficult to deal with.

And to get through the day sometimes, but it is; it does feel like it’s getting better now, but that has been an issue as well. Lots of things going on still, but I can’t tell you how blessed I am to be here. The doctors gave me a two to 4% chance of survival, and I will liken that to a 3% because that’s my favorite number.

A 3% chance of survival, and I beat the 97% against me, and I know I’m here for a reason. I know that God has a purpose for me. I have a plan, a purpose for everything, so stay tuned because there are going to be big things coming down the road. I just need to find out what they are. I’m just trusting that they will be revealed to me as needed.

I am starting a new podcast. I called healing medical trauma. And it is all about stories from people who have been through medical trauma and their friends and family. I want to give everyone a space to heal, and I also want to give people going through it a chance to hear other people’s stories and know that they can get through it.

There may be setbacks; there may be different things going on. But eventually, you’re going to get to a place where you can wash your hands, wash your hair; you can retake a shower by yourself. Sounds very silly. When you’re not sick, you’ve never been ill. But those are tremendous accomplishments.

So that podcast will be coming up soon, so stay tuned for that. And If you are a survivor of medical trauma or you’ve had a close family member you’ve supported through that survival or recovery, please reach out to me, We will schedule a time for you to record an episode.

How to Look and Feel Your Best After the New Year Hype is Gone

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show. I’m your host, Amanda Tento, and I have the amazing Sarah Thomas here. She is a 44-year-old personal trainer, fitness instructor, nutrition coach, business mentor, wife, and mom of three, and she’s also the founder and CEO of Burn Fat and Feast. 

Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here. I’m really excited to talk about this topic. It’s so timely, and we’re gonna talk today about how to look and feel your best after the new year hype is gone. We all have experienced that. Like January 1st is perpetually a new year’s resolution is Fitness, health, and nutrition. 

This is huge because every year, January 1st is a reset. Everybody wants to reset everything in their life. Health and wellness obviously are a huge component of most people’s new goals. And there’s just this new energy that we feel come January 1st.

What makes me the saddest about this is that the statistics say over 90% of people, especially in our country, will throw in the towel after January, after about four weeks of attempting all these new great things in their life.

 There are a few reasons why people do this. Three top ones that I wanna talk about really quickly today. The first one is that we just simply overcommit. As I said, we wanna do things differently in our life. We’re gonna be organized and our relationships will be better, and we’ll make time for our kids and we’ll, have these health and wellness goals and do all the things better and greater.

We set too many goals. I’m not a huge fan of resolutions in general. And we’ll talk through that a little bit today, but this is the big one. One of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan is because if over 90% of us are thrown in the towel after the end of January why do we do it?

But that’s one of the reasons is that we are, we’re over committing, We’re doing too many things. We’re setting all the things in front of us and it’s not realistic that the. 

The second reason why we are just giving up after January is that we have that all-or-nothing attitude. We start and we are maybe depriving ourselves of foods that we love. We’re under-eating. Maybe you’re attempting to work out six days a week when you weren’t consistent in the beginning. 

Then we see ourselves as failing when we aren’t doing all the things that we set in front of us. And it’s not, it shouldn’t feel like a. Winning and failing. There’s a middle ground. We can, part of setting goals and part of working towards them is the journey.

And the journey is sometimes two steps forward, one step back. Sometimes it’s one step forward, two steps back. But that’s part of it. And we should never feel like, it has to be an all-or-nothing thing. But the third reason that we are throwing in the towel healer here is that we have this mental picture in front.

Of how it’s supposed to go of your new life come January 1st. All the newness in front of you and how it’s gonna feel and how it’s gonna look, and you’re excited. But it doesn’t always happen that way.

And sometimes when you go on that trip, it can feel disappointing or the plain thing leading up to it feels more exciting than the actual trip because we set ourselves up for that by picturing this mental place that, sometimes it’s just unrealistic. 

When we step into February. The honeymoon phase has, is over officially. Maybe I can’t do all those things. Or maybe it’s just not real, I’m not meant to do all of those things and do all of them at one time, and today we’re talking a little bit about how we can reset those intentions.

How can we go from that state of doing all the things and now feeling overwhelmed and feeling sometimes like we failed come February how we can not be one of those 90 plus percent statistics of feeling like we’re throwing in the towel how we do this as, especially as women in our forties and beyond when we’re trying to really focus on our internal health with our hormones and our metabolism health as part of that.

You no longer really look at health and wellness out from the outside of the six-pack apps or, fitting into your size two genes or those are those things. They come, the physical part comes, but. What we should be more focused on. And really what I see women around me now are focused more on that and they understand that internal wellness is the inside wellness. 

Five ways that we can reset our attention.

I love that you said that you started before the new year. That is a fantastic strategy and really you can reset your intentions anytime throughout the year. But I love that strategy because, When you get in some habits before the New Years start, you’re already five, 10 steps ahead of Where you could come January?

The first one is that you need to make something, a habit in your day. And there are many things that we can do, and many goals that we can set, but we have to pull some of the layers apart and focus on one thing. We’re talking about the number one priority, the number one habit. What’s that one thing that you need to focus on right now that will push everything else forward?

What is the one thing that will be the hardest for you to tackle? And that’s all you needed to focus on. For example, if you’re like, Okay, I’m working out, I’m going to the gym regularly, at least I’m going like three or four days a week.

I really need to make some changes in nutrition, then that’s your one thing. That’s the one thing you’re going to change. Everything else stays. And I call this the domino effect because if you truly choose the one thing that is gonna push you forward, that’s the domino, That’s the very first domino that pushes all the others forward.

Maybe that means you’re waking up at 5:00 AM how do you start that, right? If that is the goal, how do you start that? That may start with going to bed earlier. Simply you can get up early in the morning. Whatever that first domino is that pulls everything else in front is what you want to do.

And I will disclaimer here with a little side note if you’re saying that, my goal, my big priority is a meal plan, You don’t make it a priority to plan your meals or go grocery shopping. Then maybe that isn’t your priority right now in your season of life.

You always make time for the very first thing.  It’s as the day goes on or later, it’s maybe I’m not gonna cook dinner, maybe I’m not gonna work out. We always make time for the very first thing in our day. Keep that in.

And these are things that you need to go back to, to decide, is that still my number one priority? Because oftentimes maybe it’s not, maybe, saving money for a special trip is your number one priority, and that’s what you’re gonna work on for this season of your life. That’s a really good thing to mention too, I’m glad you brought that up.

 The second thing here that you want to really focus on when you are resetting these intentions, and this is a food-based one, is prioritizing protein. And this is important for women, especially late thirties and beyond because there are a few things.

Number one, protein helps to repair and build muscle. We lose muscle mass starting in our twenties. That’s a big deal because muscle has a lot to do with arm metabolism. And how fast or how fast we feel it is. Muscle and specifically protein help to burn fat. Muscle and protein help to burn our fat. It also helps to regulate our hormones.

Prioritize protein and if are looking at it, you’re tracking your macronutrients. Really women wanna get around 30 grams of protein at every meal. And most women are undereating protein, and it’s simple. Just add a little bit more to it.

When I make soup, I just add more protein to it. When I eat anything at home that, let’s say it’s, chicken breasts, I just have one and a half. Just adding a little bit to what you’re already eating is the easiest way to do it.

Not overcomplicating it. You just don’t overcomplicate it. And oftentimes you’ll find that if you are snacked throughout the day, there’s a reason that you’re snacking. And typically that’s because you’re undereating. 90% of women are undereating and if you are undereating, you want to snack, you feel that urge to snack throughout the day.

The third thing you want to think about to reset these intentions is strength training. And I touched on that with building muscle on the last one, but strength training is huge. All movement is good movement. I will forever say all movement is good movement.

But if you are focusing on internal wellness. In turn, focusing on the outside physical wellness and really just focus on. Increasing how you’re experiencing your daily life. Strength training and adding muscle will never be a bad thing. As I said, we start losing muscle mass in our twenties.

We continually lose muscle mass once we hit our forties in our fifties and later we start losing it at a higher rate, a higher percentage every single year.

And this is a big deal because Helps to increase our metabolism. Number one, that’s a big one. Number two, it helps to regulate our hormones as we get older. Number three, it decreases our risk for inter-injury. If we have more muscle mass, we are not susceptible to two injuries.

And now as we get older, and we’ve probably seen this, you’ve probably seen this in someone that you love that’s elderly who gets injured easier. It’s a lack of muscle mass that’s protecting our joints.

And if you want to live a long, full life, strength training is non-negotiable. And it is one of those things where, If you do nothing else, like fine strength training in your day and in your week.

Tip number four is one of my favorites because I think, at an earlier age in life, a lot of us just use this and put our blinders on. I know I need to do this, but I’m not, and that’s resting. Resting well, and they’re so many. Ways that we can look at rest.

And I’m gonna talk about all of them because they’re all important. Digestive rest is the term for giving yourself and your internal health a chance to stop digesting.

That’s very important for gut health. It’s doing two things, either digesting or it’s resting. And when we are constantly eating, when we wake up and we start eating and we are eating and all the way until we go to bed, the only time we’re giving ourselves digestive rest is during those nighttime hours when we’re sleeping.

And then we start that cycle again. We really do need to give our bodies a longer chance to de digestive or have digestive rest. And I’m sure some people have heard of intermittent fasting and how to do that correctly, and maybe you’re doing it now or whatever. Implementing some of that in your life.

That is a great thing that you can do for yourself. Giving yourself rest in terms of just sleeping. Allow yourself to sleep. It is the most discounted thing ever. And a lot of us, as I said in our earlier years, use that as a badge of honor. 

If we are trying to juggle just being a mom and doing all the things. Often that’s still a badge of honor. It really isn’t fine. It is really one of those things where we need to stop and make this more of an intention in our day.

Getting at least a minimum of seven hours. We, our bodies really need up to eight, eight to nine hours of sleep. And I’m not getting nine hours of sleep, but I do try to get eight hours in and sometimes that means just saying no to some things.

Sometimes that means saying no to dishes in the sink. And that’s okay because your sleep is way more important than leaving dirty dishes and your sleep sink overnight that nobody’s even gonna know about.

 It is really important and it is actually been researched many times. We’re talking about metabolism and hormones and losing weight as we get older, that if you are sleep deprived if you are not allowing your body to rest, you are gonna hold onto everything.

Your cortisol, your stress hormone’s gonna be high. You’re gonna hold onto all your excess fat because your body’s in that fight or flight mode. Like it’s what are we doing? You’re not allowing us to calm down. You’re not allowing your nervous system to chill. It holds on, It’s in that fight or flight mode.

You’re mind mentally, you’re not focused. You’re foggy. There’s a lot of research now talking about how our body and our minds, like everything, and our body, and our mind, our brain, and our physical body. The effects of the lack of sleep with alcohol.

They’re comparing the two. And what they’re saying is that as you are sleep deprived, even three days in a row of not getting seven hours of sleep, your body starts to function like it’s intoxicated with the brain fog, with the physical limitations that you have when you’re intoxicated.

The fifth thing that you can do to reset your intention is to grant yourself grace. And I’m speaking to all the women out there who feel like they should do everything perfectly all the time because it just doesn’t happen.

Life wasn’t meant for us to walk through it perfectly and have all the answers, have it all figured out, and do everything that needs to be done on the to-do list every day in the life. That’s what it’s about, right? It will always throw you a curve ball. 

I leave margin for the curve balls, whether it’s a thing that happens that diverts my attention or it’s a sick kid that I have to go get from school. Or if it’s an unexpected something with my dog, whatever, whatever it is, I truly leave space in my day now for the what ifs. . And I have found that has helped me navigate better when they come my way, and then some days, they.

We incorporate our favorite foods, it’s not all-or-nothing. And so if you are focusing on trying to grant yourself grace and you’re struggling with it, I would just. Find support, find a community that’s gonna help you through that to be in your corner. Because it is, it’s a process.

I will go back to what I mentioned earlier of whatever is your priority and your number one, do it in the morning. Because you always have time for things in the morning, whatever is most important. And what I do on a daily to do is I set my top three, I call them my big three.

I don’t know at this point, whatever I need to do and whatever you feel like is. Gonna serve you well that day or that point in your life is, and just a side note, it’s not perfect. It’s never gonna be perfect. Even when you leave your margin for those things there, there could be something that comes up where you’re like, you have to erase everything for the entire day or for the entire week, but this will help you feel less stress.

I know I need to pick that one thing to pull that, that will be that domino that pulls everything else forward and helps me. But how do I do it? This is a strategy. If you just need help getting started with something, right? Doing one thing, even if it ends up not being that first domino If you’re doing one thing that will get you in the habit.

And that’s why we need to get in the habit of doing one thing consistently before we add something else to it. And that’s why I say push everything else aside and just focus on one. How you get started with this and this. On so many levels is to habit stack. And if you’ve never done habit stacking before, if you’ve never heard of habit stacking, it’s really simple.

You take a current habit that you’re currently doing something that you and you wanna continue doing and you stack it with something that you want to do. You can also do this with things that you don’t want to, but let’s just focus on the things that you want to implement in your life.

Using something that you do all the time and you’re adding to it. Here’s an example of something that I wanted to do. I wanted to really start doing some affirmations I wasn’t making it a priority in my day, and I wasn’t doing them on a regular basis, so I posted them truly on a post-it note in my bathroom on the wall, and I would say them out loud and say them to myself while I was brushing mine.

 As a habit could be you walk into your house and put your stuff down in your mudroom. Then you put your phone down and you charge your phone and it stays there. Or, a habit is you cook dinner at night, you sit down to eat dinner every night, and that is your cue when you sit down to eat dinner, to put your phone away for the evening, and it’s charging.

 Many ways that you can just take something that you’re doing consistently and add to it. I have had clients that have said that they’ve used they’re really good about doing devotions in the morning or gratitude journals in the morning, but they also wanted to do their workout in the morning.

And so I’m like, You’re in a habit of doing your devotion already. Take your journal. whatever you’re using, take your notebook and put it in your workout space. If it’s a gym, your garage, or whatever. And so you have to be dressed. In order to go and do your gratitude and you’re in your space around your workout equipment. You do that and then you work out. It’s just stacking those habits on the top. 

We offer free five-day training, you can sign up for that on our website, Burn Fat, and fees.com. It’s right there on the main page and if you have trouble, you can certainly reach out to me. On our team. We are Instagram and Facebook and all the places burn fat and feast. Thank you so much, Sarah for being here, sharing your wisdom, and also sharing your program with us.

How to Include a Nature Routine Into Your Work and Family Life

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tento, and I have the lovely Sandi Schwartz with me, and she is the author of Finding Eco Happiness Fun Nature Activities to help your kids feel happier and calmer. 

And today we are gonna talk about how to include a natural routine in your work and family life. We have not had anyone that’s an expert in basically anything like eco-happiness or nature or anything like that.

How did you get started? 

I’ll have to take you back to high school when I was in high school and I think it was 10th grade and I was part of the Nature Defense Club, and we went and cleaned up the dirty polluted local rivers. And that was a very jolting experience for me, and that changed my life. 

I continued to be involved in the environmental club at school and taught recycling to younger kids. Wrote my college essay on that, cleaned up, and went to college as an environmental studies major. And then went on to get a graduate degree in government with an environmental policy focus. 

I’ve been a long-term, long-time environmentalist and my goal is to save the planet. But then on the parallel trajectory were my struggles with stress and anxiety. And that was really, I can go back to being a young child and having an upset stomach and sweaty palms and nerves, and in math class or birthday parties. 

And it was, it happened in college and then it came to a head actually when I was going through infertility, which I imagine many of your listeners probably have dealt with themselves. I was going through infertility, which is very stressful and anxiety provoking. 

It triggered a lot of anxiety and I went down a path, a journey to figure out, what can I do. I started to delve into the world of positive psychology and its tools that we hear about every day, like mindfulness and gratitude practice, healthy diet, exercise, and then nature. It all came together like my appreciation and love and care for the environment. 

I realized that it could also really serve as a medicine to me and many others. And so that’s why I decided to really, I’m a writer and I wanted to dive in deep into this topic. There’s a lot of amazing new research about how nature can benefit. Our health and happiness. So that is why I coined the term Eco Happiness and wrote the book. 

It did open my eyes to, my passion, and then my passion for writing came later. I wish I had majored in English. But I majored in environmental studies and I do, I remember taking some great English classes in college as well. 

What is a natural routine?

You have to brush your teeth every day. And we just do that. We know we have to do it. We know we’re gonna, I go to the dentist twice a year, it’s just part of what we have to do. And then you’ve also heard that we need to exercise. Why do we need to exercise? We’re getting this input from. Health professionals, exercise, get up, and move around.

Healthy diet, and drink enough water. It can become overwhelming. Mindfulness, it’s really to me, mindfulness, and I’ve done a lot of research and reading about mindfulness because at first, it seems overwhelming and complicated, but it’s just stopping and being in the moment.

 I took something like mindfulness. I have a whole chapter in my diary. I start with the basics of mindfulness, the basic research, and why it’s beneficial, and then I look at it through a natural lens. 

 I wanted to provide all this information on how to be mindful of nature outside, even inside just looking at a plant or even on your, on the tv, or, on your computer.

I love watching those quick videos of a flower blooming. It’s like a fast pace, of something that happens, in 48 hours or something. 

 That is so inspiring. And so even if, this isn’t just about immersing yourself out in the woods for days at a time. It’s by taking, it’s taking a couple of minutes here and there throughout your day and building in that nature routine.

 I once wrote this article, it was cool. I tend to get very, I get, I’m very impatient, I’m working on my patients and I hate wasting time. One of the worst things is sitting at a red traffic light. And I once did this piece all about being mindful and this had nothing to do really with nature, but it gives you the sense of it. 

 At a red light, how can you turn that red light, which is so anxiety provoking and negative, turn it into a positive like it’s a green light to be mindful for that minute that you’re sitting there and instead of letting you know, your blood pressure goes up?

 Now you bring nature in, you look around, look for the trees, the flowers, the clouds. And then the best thing is you do that with yours. So that they’re learning this skill. It’s not something you may do every day, but those days that you’re feeling a little bit more rushed and stressed and you keep hitting those lights instead of getting mad, it’s like we have to tell ourselves no.

 Let’s just try to at least appreciate something. And it gives us more benefits. It’s more beneficial if we’re looking at nature. We are animals at the end of the day like we have an innate need. And to be connected to nature that’s, living inside all day long and not getting outside is not what we were made for. So yeah we now need to take those moments. So that’s one really simple trick.

 The other thing I was gonna say even earlier was food. It’s interesting. I know I have a whole chapter on food and some people might be like what does food have to do with nature? But food, real food, and Whole foods are natural. So something as simple as a mindful eating practice, at breakfast or dinner with the kids. Let’s say you decide to serve grapefruit before dinner. 

 Just taking that one or, you have the grapefruit, you talk, you look at the color, you discuss the color, you take a whiff of it, you smell it, such a very soothing citrus fragrance. And then you take that wand, see a bite and you just savor it. And even if you just do it for a couple of minutes as you begin your meal, that in itself is connecting again, mindfully to nature, and then it might spur conversation. 

 That’s the beauty of nature, and that’s what is so fascinating about the research in the last couple of decades because cultures, and traditions for hundreds, thousands of years have known this, and as we became more industrialized, we moved further and farther away from it. And it’s just getting back to the basics, to ours.

 And doing these simple things. And that’s what mindfulness is like. Mindfulness doesn’t mean you have to go to that 90-minute yoga class. I can’t stand those long yoga classes. I want a 30-minute yoga class. Just enough to like, have a touch of it. Not everybody you know is gonna sit and meditate for that long.

 And they say the experts have found like a little bit sprinkled throughout your day, your. Meditation is the same thing as nature. It’s almost better to have a little bit every day than go on that two-hour hike on a Sunday afternoon. 

 There’s a whole area of research on green exercise specifically, which I found fascinating. So yes, you’re gonna, so here’s an example of running, but power walking. So you can do it inside, on a treadmill, in a windowless environment. Staring at a wall. You are going to get some benefits, you’re gonna get those health benefits.

 But if you have a view of the, of a, of the window, if you buy a window and it’s a beautiful scene, you’re gonna get more benefits. And if you go outside for that walk or run now you’re really getting a lot of benefits and it’s utilizing your time more efficiently too. And it doesn’t mean every single day you have to go outside.

 The research shows, and it was very recent, a big study came out in 2019 that getting 120 minutes per week outdoors is really where you wanna be. So that’s about 20 minutes. And so let’s say, half the week you’re, and that’s what I do a lot. I try to go on my outdoor walks, but I’ve been playing pickleball sometimes inside, and sometimes outside.

It’s all about balance, but know that you will get more health benefits and emotional benefits if you are exercising. For sure. And we wanna bring that into our kids’ decisions as well, Especially because they’re growing up in a time when the schools are locked down, which is a whole nother issue on the topic.

 There are security issues, so they’re, they go outside, but, and it depends where you live, but that’s the whole thing. And then the technology just brings them, it keeps them inside more and more. Because they’re staring at their screens that it’s very, And I say even take them out, let them be on their screens outside. At least they’re breathing in the fresh air. 

We’ve made a lot of effort trying to make it. That was the first thing that we worked on in our house. Like when we bought our house because it’s like a 122-year-old house. We made a lot of effort on making the outside space as nice as possible, as quickly as possible instead of working on the inside. Now we’re on the inside, but there’s still, just that having a space that’s peaceful and quiet and just outside is important. 

 Having family meals outside more, if the kids are reading or doing art or even homework, seeing if they can go out in the back patio. People who live in apartment buildings hope, some of them also have balconies or maybe a community spot where they can get, be in some grass to enjoy.

It’s a matter of utilizing what you have. It could be, maybe you don’t have it at, you don’t have a balcony, you’re in the highrise, but maybe there’s a local library that has some sort of balcony or the local park with the bench and a table.

 It’s just again, bringing it into our routine and that just sometimes means exploring a little bit deeper than we usually do.

I have a checklist too. If people just feel overwhelmed, where do I begin? Where do I start? I have a free checklist on my website on the homepage that you can download. It’s like what? A 30-day calendar of activities. 

 We’ll have a link to that in the show notes, so then that way everyone can access that and also your books, so then that way they can get that. And is there anything else that you would like to share with the audience as far as? Why is this something that they need to start yesterday?

 I keep reading more and more about stress and anxiety and what we can do about it. And to me, I feel this is a toolkit. Hold it up. If the sun’s up being a video, this, there’s, this is a toolkit inside. Again, like one chapter on mindfulness.

 Another one is gratitude. We hear a lot about, before we go to bed at night, picking three things we’re grateful for. So I do that to give you tons of activities, how to do that, to be grateful for nature, and be creative with that. There’s a whole chapter on creativity.

 There are so many ways that we can be creative and keep getting involved with art that has to do with nature. From a nature poetry walk. To make nature mandalas too, again, just sitting on a balcony and drawing or taking nature photos, and, the kids can do that too. Again, I’m not opposed to technology.

 You go on a walk or in the backyard, wherever. Kids can take pictures and then see what they can do on Canva with it, or Power on PowerPoint. My daughter’s 10 and she knows how to use Canva. If Canva’s a graphic design, a free graphic design program, if you’re not familiar with it, she can take these images she’s made like a slideshow to music and they can create little TV programs.

 You can turn it into a news report, right? About nature and what we saw today on our walk. The ideas are endless. Food with gardening and mindful eating animals. And that’s the other thing that I like to tell people is to start with what you already love, what each child already loves.

One child might be really into sports. So they can focus on that outdoor time. Another might be more into art. 

 Start with what you love, what each child loves, and then go from there and continue to challenge yourself and next thing you’re beyond an ecotourism adventure.

 There’s actually an app where you can take a picture of a flower or a tree and it’ll tell you the exact species of it and so that’s amazing. And that can keep the kids busy for hours. 

 I so appreciate you being here and sharing this message with us. It’s much needed, and I think you are an angel for evangelizing this very needed message and trying to get us all out of our anxious state of life. I truly appreciate you being here.  

I truly believe that, when we’re calmer And happier. It’s a kinder world for all of us, and we all get along and we want our kids to grow up like that. And then it’s being kinder and happier to the planet too.

How to Incorporate a Podcast to Grow Your Business with Gabriela G. Valdez

Welcome to this episode of The Determined Mom Show. I am your host, Amanda Tinto, and I have with me the lovely Gabriela G. Valdez, and we’re gonna talk today about how to incorporate a podcast to grow your business. 

I am a psychologist and podcast manager because in 2020 I saw that I had the opportunity to create my own story like many other people did and live on my terms. I was sick and tired of exchanging my time for money, and also because I had the feeling that my true potential was wasted I knew I could do more and I could impact people other than my coworkers and the people I worked with.

I was also very tired of asking for permission. I live in Austria, but I am Mexican, so I didn’t wanna ask for permission. If I can have my holidays and hope that I would, they would get granted to go see my family. So I took a leap of faith and I employed myself.

Here I am now. I work exclusively with women and I help them launch and grow their podcasts and reach a lot of people all over the world. While they’re spreading their message and making money out of it. 

I’m so grateful for 2020 as we look back on it and it evolves and we’re getting back to a new normal and all of these things, but I’m so grateful for the eye-opening experience that it provided for so many millions of people. Not only, people that didn’t like their job, but maybe even employers that have seen things could be different.

I’m so grateful for that too. Those were difficult years. 2020 and 2021 were difficult for a lot of us, but also full of opportunities. And, I like that I am helping other people to do or follow a similar path, not a similar path, their path, but following the same dreams that I followed, like making your reality or Yes, creating and living what you want to live

How can we use a podcast to grow like any type of business?

Regardless of what you do or what you sell, chances are you can make a podcast and a successful podcast because any podcast deserves as much success as any top show out there. So there is a podcast where they read one word from the dictionary per episode. So if they can find people who are interested in that, any business can find among the almost 500 million podcast listeners, they can find interested bunch.

So there is a beauty in podcasting and there are a lot of things that are beautiful about podcasting, but the main thing I consider important is the community that you build around your podcast because it’s a very intimate channel.  You are talking about all the things you are an expert, you are an expert on, and it’s like proof that you know your craft. But for me, the key is a sense of community and connection.

So there is a study, a survey from Sprout Social that they found out that 57% of the consumers will increase their spending with a brand if they know the people behind the brand, and that is across all niches. That is something you can use for your business. The people who are listening to you, give you access to their life because they listen to you while they drive and they listen to you while they’re preparing the meals for the week or cleaning their house.

If you do it through a podcast, it is way more strong, way stronger than if you do it on social media. It’s a compliment. But a podcast helps you make that very strong connection and that they have the sense that they know you and also, They are more likely to choose you over a competitor.

Just like what we’re talking about today, I would feel bad having known you, having known your expertise and everything you have to share with the world, and then not sharing it with other people. It’s just an interesting transition that we go through as we evolve in our businesses and anyone can do it.

Also, I see a lot of people thinking too much about, Oh, I need to buy a microphone and I need to make sure that I have the best software. That might be of help. You don’t need any of that. You could have it, but you don’t need any of that. 

You can start with what you have, and then just later on you changed the way you started. But you don’t need any of that. What you need is the desire to share your message. And what I always say is, if you believe in your message, then that’s all you need.

I have known of people who just started a podcast. Maybe they didn’t even plan to start a podcast, but one day they thought. And they recorded it. And then from there, they thought, Wait, this could be a podcast. So what you need is just to dare to take that first step and then you’ll be on your way. 

It can even be proof of how much you’ve grown. It can be like the track record of your growth. This is where I started and then, I don’t know, six months from now, this is where I am and I think it is beautiful because you can, you have proof of how much you’ve grown. From the moment you start a podcast.

What are some other ways to use podcasts to grow business?

A podcast can be the perfect way to be seen as an authority, and it can even be the first step towards an omnichannel. One piece of content. When you start a show, you will have to spend some time thinking about your episodes and what are you going to talk about. What do you wanna share? And if you’re gonna have guests who are going to be in your episodes.

You are going to have one big piece of content per episode, and then that will give you plenty of opportunities for repurposing. And then you can take that episode and from a transcript, you make a blog post and you could also upload that episode to YouTube and you can get the highlights of the episode.

And then you make an audiogram or a videogram and you share them as a reel or a story or on TikTok, and you can also make several posts from them and even posts with quotes that people usually save and share. From one episode that you planned and produced, you get so much value and you have so much value to offer to the people who you are talking to wherever they are, and they find you through social media and they come to your podcast or maybe they find you.

Then maybe they find your podcast and then they go to social media and you are there and there’s so much for them to binge listen and to scroll through. And that means you are already closer to you and there is so much value for them that chances are they are going to choose you. To get a service or product. Because of this big piece of content with so many opportunities for repurposing.

I recently had my own experience that blew my mind honestly. With content repurposing. D Scott Smith is going to be recording an episode with him and he is an Amazon publishing expert he’s been encouraging me for a couple of years now since I’ve known him to write books. 

So like finally, after our pre-call went through, I looked at all the episodes that I’ve done on Google Business Profile or Google My Business. And I also looked through some of the webinars that I’ve done, some of the workshops, some of all of these things. And I have enough content now for 10 different Amazon looks like it’s crazy. I just transcribe them and put them into Google Docs, and each one of them is 30, 40 pages long. 

It’s almost getting a new life in a different format because I know, I have a lot of friends that don’t listen to podcasts just because, like audio issues, like they, everybody has some neuro divergence of some sort and.

They may not like audio, they don’t like listening to videos or watching videos or listening to podcasts or anything like that. This is bringing that same content and that same messaging to a whole different audience. But because I had the podcast and that wouldn’t have happened any other way. 

How can we take these two amazing aspects to work together and increase income?

I think there are two different types of approaches. One is if you already have a community, and the second would be if you don’t have a community yet. If you have a community and there are some people interested in what you say on some or all of your platforms, you will use your podcast. 

You are going to continue to give them value there on the part. And at the same time, you are going to take the opportunity to sell them with a lot of love and with meaning to sell them what you offer right there on the pot. And if you are having, say you have a course and then you can.

Make an episode about the topics you are talking about in your course, or you can have a few moments, say 30 seconds at the given point of an episode, like an A, like a PSA. If you don’t have a following, that might be a little more difficult to do in the beginning because, for people to buy something from you, from the podcast, then you need to be reaching people.

So if you are very new and you are just studying, what you are going to do is to focus on the content that you are going to create, and here this might be even more interesting because you have a lot of options, so you are going to select your content pillars and you are going to create content around it, and you are going to build your community.

And having more content and different formats will make it easier for you to get an audience that is interested in what you do in your products and services and even brands. Because when a podcast is new, you have a lot of opportunities to invite a brand and grow your podcast through the brand. You are leveraging that brand’s following, but also you are giving them a space where they can showcase their products and services.

If you have a very nice media kit and you have your story, your brand story on point, and you have your goals well crafted and you can present them to a brand. This will help you reach more people and get more followers and not only followers but interested people. And from there, as you keep growing, you will be able to. Showcase your products and services and people will buy from you.

I have seen it a lot, and you do not need to have 30,000 downloads per episode, per month to make sales from your podcast. What you need is to have a strategy in place and be consistent because if you have 200 downloads per month, even if one person buys from you, that is one sale that you’re making out of 200 downloads.

And also it’s very important to consider that podcasting is a long-term game, but it is a very profitable one. You can see it’s very fruitful when you commit to it and when you are consistent. So it is long-term, but if you commit to it, it will work out. 

Where is the best place for our listeners to get in contact with you? 

I love Facebook groups, so I am very active on Facebook. I just started my business Instagram account, so I’m also on Instagram. And lately, I am very active there because like I said, I just started. I get to be there if I want to see it grow, but so does Instagram or Facebook.

Thank you so much for being here and sharing everything with us, and we will have links to get in contact with Gabriel in the show notes.