Episode 394: Building a Board of Directors for Your Life
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If you’ve been taking in alllll the health, wellness, business, and self-improvement advice, this episode is your permission slip to start curating your own intentional “board of directors.” These are the people who will help you steer the ship and hold the line for your vision when you want to default into old patterns.
You’ll learn Erin’s journaling exercise for filtering your influential inner circle into four categories: candle blower-outers, the safety police, light protectors, and expanders, so you can quickly spot who’s fueling your growth and who might be holding you back.
Erin also shares how she chooses truth-tellers and experts for her own board (some she knows, some she pays, some don’t even know her!), plus practical ways to “meet” with your board regularly.
Even if you are not a CEO of a company, you are the CEO of your LIFE, and the right board can help you stop playing small and start moving forward.
In this episode:
How Erin runs a regular “board meeting” with herself to evaluate decisions, track growth, and stay aligned with the life she’s intentionally building
How to identify the “candle blower-outers” who feel subtle, but consistently dim your ambition and confidence
Why the “safety police” mean well, but can still keep you tethered to what’s familiar instead of what you want
The difference between “light protectors” who love you and true expanders who prove your next level is possible
How asking “where is my ship pointed right now?” can immediately reveal which voices deserve decision-making power
Resources mentioned:
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We all have a flame or a light inside that really represents who we are. Our magic, our essence, our energy, our spirit, our soul, us. And sometimes that light shines really bright. And it is so important that we surround ourselves with people that protect that light because there are people, the candle blower outers, that wanna blow out that flame. We want people surrounding us who protect that light, that have space for our joy, that are here for the fullest expression of us.
Welcome to The Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast, spelled with a K. Because we do things a little differently around here. I'm your host, Erin Holt, and I've got 15 years of clinical experience as a functional nutritionist and mindset coach creating a new model that I call Intuitive Functional Medicine™, where we combine root cause medicine with the innate intelligence of your body. This is where science meets self trust. Your body already knows how to heal, and this show is going to show you how. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health, be sure to follow and share with a friend, because you never know whose life you might change.
Erin Holt:
Hello, my friends. I'm super jazzed about today's episode. I hope you are too. This is a little different, something I haven't done before, a topic I haven't covered before, but I really hope that you're into it. And I'm talking about building a board of directors for your life.
And if you're not super into that term, you can think about it as an inner circle. If you prefer that. For those of you guys who tune into the Thanksgiving episode where I talked about the board of directors for my actual business, that's cool. But you can also do this for your life. And I think it's such a neat concept. And I have to give a head nod to my friend Amber, who runs the Old Money podcast, because she really talked about this concept and gave me the inspiration to talk about it here on this show, how I've done this for myself, not just board of directors for myself, business, but my life as well. And I want to share how you can do this too, and why it can be so powerful and so influential. We are taking in so much information all of the time about health, about wellness, about fitness, about business, about wealth, whatever it might be.
So it can be really hard for us to focus and to figure out what's right for us. And the truth is that you should not listen to everyone. So we really want to curate our inner circle and listen to the right people. And we'll talk about how to figure out who the right people are for you in this season of your life based on your current goals and what you're looking to do. And it's totally okay if your board of directors or your inner circle shifts and changes and rearranges as your goals do, as your desires do, as what you're working on shifts and changes and rearranges. Now, we're going to use the CEO analogy to help you wrap your head around what it would look like or could look like for your life. Because even if you are not a CEO of a company, you are the CEO of your life. And a CEO is always surrounded by a strong team.
So I want you to start thinking about this. Who do you want to be on your team for all aspects of your life? If you think about this as different departments or divisions of a business. You've got your home life, you have career in business, you have relationships, love life, family, friends, health, mental health, emotional health, physical health, physical fitness. We've got finance and wealth, we've got social life, fun, recreation, we have creativity, we have personal growth, we have all these different aspects of our life. And we're going to circle back around to this concept at the end of the episode where I talk about my personal board of directors and help you create your own. So the CEO analogy. A CEO has a board of directors, people who are there to guide the company's direction, to make high level decisions, to hold leadership, including the CEO accountable, to offer expertise that the CEO doesn't have. Now, they're not down in the day to day, the operations, the weeds, they're really just there for the direction of the business.
Where are you steering the ship? Your mentors, your guides, the ones responsible for making sure the ship is steering in the right direction, looking out at the horizon and saying this is where we're going. And then holding the CEO back accountable to that. Now, as a real CEO, I do, I'll share this with you, I do have to be held accountable to those things because I default to my standard ways of being. Why? Because I'm a human being with a brain and a nervous system and a subconscious mind. And familiarity is safe to the nervous system and the brain and the subconscious. Unfamiliarity is unsafe. So your subconscious, your nervous system and your brain are always trying to default into the old familiar thought path patterns. The old beliefs, the old behaviors, the old actions, the old decisions, the old choices, the old familiar.
Now eventually familiarity is earned through repeated exposure. So you've experienced it enough times, you've shifted your self image and your self identity enough. We talked about that a couple of episodes ago. But it's really, really helpful while you're in that shift, while you're trying to recreate the new identity, stepping into the new ident, making decisions from that place, that takes time. So in the meantime, it's really helpful for somebody else to kind of hold the line about how I should be operating as a CEO, because that CEO identity is new to me. So the board of directors aren't going to meet you at the level of your insecurities, your fears, your subconscious beliefs, your limiting beliefs, or even your comfort zone. It's not going to, they're not going to dip down there. They're going to hold the line, hold the vision, hold the direction, hold where we're going now.
I recently worked with an FNA student. We had a one on one session business coaching session together. And she came to me with a very clear issue, one clear issue. And she was all over the place about it. Did not have a lot of clarity. But when I looked at all of the facts, when I looked at her, when I looked at her emotional body, when I looked at her business, it was so obvious and apparent to me, like, duh, like this is it, this is the one thing. And as soon as we clicked in, she's like, I know that this is the thing. She didn't come to me with that clarity.
But it was easy for me to see it because I'm not looping in her same stories, I'm not stuck in her limiting ideas, I'm not telling myself the same fear based stories that she was. So that is the benefit of having somebody else sit in your board of directors, your inner circles, because they're going to look at something in a very different way than you are and give you, offer you that perspective that you might not be able to see on your own. The board of directors is kind of like a bridge between where you are and where you're headed. They hold the line, they hold the horizon, they hold where you're headed and they're going to let you rise up to meet them in that energy that they're holding versus them kind of sinking down to you when you're in a loop of your own limiting beliefs. So that's really what I mean by holding you accountable. Another example of this not business related at all. I think about the recent episode that I did with Meg o' Neill and we were sitting on her health board of directors. We advised her, we guided her, we held the line for her when things got hard and she wanted to Default to old patterns.
We kept her accountable. So this can really play out in different aspects, aspects of your life. So think about a board of directors as people who keep you accountable and help you grow. I can tell you with conviction, I would not have been able to grow into who I needed to be without my board of directors. And as I'm going to share with you in a little bit, my board of directors are not always people that I know. Some are people that I know, some are people that I pay, and then some are people that I don't know and that don't know me. I listen to their podcast or I read their books or I follow along on social media. So I want you to think about your current inner circle, the people in your life, the people you talk to every day, the people you check in with, mentors or colleagues or peers.
And again, it doesn't have to be people that you know or have direct access to. So think about the content you take in. Think about influencers. Think about people you follow on social media. Think about the podcasts you listen to. Think about the books that you read. Really look at the relationships and the messaging that you take in and receive on the reg. Are they supportive of your growth or are they reinforcing your beliefs that are keeping you exactly where you are? Again, think about the relationships, think about the messaging you take in and ask yourself this question and be honest with yourself.
Are they supportive of your growth and your expansion and where you want to go and where you want to head? Or are they reinforcing the current beliefs and the current identity that is keeping you exactly where you are right now? And this is assuming that you don't want to be where you are right now. And I want you to put everyone into one of four categories. You can think about this now as you're listening to the podcast, but this would also be a great journal exercise. I want you to put everyone into one of four categories. The first one is crabs in a bucket or candle blower outers. I'll talk about this in a second. The second one is safety police. The third one are supporters or light protectors.
And the fourth are expanders. Okay, so let's break all four of those down. The first one, crabs in a bucket or candleblower outers. Candleblower outers is a Brene Brown term. I heard her talk about this years ago and it's always stuck with me. And she was talking about how she talks to her kids when they were younger and she explains that we all have a flame Or a light inside that really represents who we are, our magic, our essence, our energy, our spirit, our soul, us. And sometimes that light shines really bright. And it is so important that we surround ourselves with people that protect that light.
Because there are people, the candleblower outers, that want to blow out that flame. And they can do this through jealousy, subtle undermining, or just failing to celebrate your wins. They want to, poof, blow out the magic that is you. And what I will tell you, and I probably don't have to tell you this because you might have experienced this in your life. When you start to make positive changes in your life, it can be really disruptive for other people. Other people in your life, if you happen to be on a platform, it can be disruptive for your audience or for clientele, but it can be really disruptive when you start to make powerful, positive, impactful changes in growth in your own life. It can disrupt the people around you. When you prioritize taking care of yourself, when you prioritize your relationship with yourself, having good boundaries, exuding happiness and confidence, making moves, taking action steps, showcasing your ambition, that can really light people up.
And so much of our instinct and so much of our drive is to stay part of the group, stay part of the tribe. So if we have people in our life who are sending us messages saying that, hey, you growing, you glowing up your ambition, all of that is a problem for me. There can be a tendency to continue to co dysregulate with that in order to keep the peace, in order to not ruffle any feathers, in order to not rock the boat, in order to stay accepted, to belong, to stay part of the tribe, to not be ousted, to not be kicked out, to not be canceled. So just be really honest with yourself about where that might be showing up for you in your life and in your relationships. Who are the candle blower outers that you are surrounding yourself with? And it sort of begs the question, like, do they still get a seat in the inner circle? Should they be on your board of directors? Do these relationships maybe require a bit of a negotiation? Okay, so that's the first category. Second category is the safety police. And this is not nefarious. You know, this comes from love and protection.
These are the people in your life that want to keep you safe. And remember what we discussed before. Familiarity is safe to the nervous system and the subconscious. Unfamiliarity is unsafe. So these people are saying, this is familiar. You right here is familiar. This is who you are. This is who you are to me.
I Know that where you are right now can keep you safe. And if you grow and if you expand and if you step forward, I don't know if you're going to be safe there because that's unfamiliar, that's uncharted territory. So there are trying to look out for you. Again, it's not nefarious, it's not the candle blower outer. But they're not necessarily for your highest and fullest expression in potential because they want to keep you right where you are. Either because that's more comfortable for them or because they think that it's keeping you safe to keep you where you are. So again, we have the candleblower outers. I also refer to that as crabs in a bucket.
Everybody knows that term. It's like they see you doing well and they just want to yank it back down. So crabs in a bucket, can of blower outers, safety police. The third category is supporters and light protectors. So if we're sticking with that candle analogy, the light inside of you, right, we want people surrounding us who protect that light, that have space for our joy, that are here for the fullest expression of us. This is so important, this is so necessary. We need our light protectors, like protect the light protectors. But maybe they haven't done what you're attempting to do.
They might not be walking, breathing examples of the fact that your goal is possible. They might not bring the level of expertise or experience to guide you. So they are there. They're like your number one support system. They're your cheerleaders, they've got your back. They are your rider dies. They are screaming your name from the rooftops. But they're not necessarily models of what you're attempting to do.
So a great example of this is, let's say I was attempting to create a $5 million company. Well, I have a lot of light protectors in my life. I have a lot of supporters in my life. But not all of those supporters have built a $5 million company. So the next category is expanders. And expanders are real world breathing examples of what's possible for you. Expanders show you of what's possible. And the reason that these are so important is because the subconscious mind needs evidence.
It's an evidence seeking machine. It's constantly searching for evidence of your own beliefs. And if you want to change your beliefs, you have to feed it new evidence. So expanders can be evidence that what you're attempting to do is actually possible because you can see people that have actually done it. These are people that expand you. They inspire you, they inspire you with their actions, with their embodiment, how they're living, living their lives, what they're doing, what they're building, what they're creating. And expanders might be people you know, or they might be people that you do not know. And as you, your goals get bigger, as you expand, you might find it difficult to have big expanders in your life that you know in real life.
And that's perfectly okay. I remember in 2020, I read a book. It was an ebook. At the time, my friend Meg, Meg o' Neill had posted about it in her Instagram stories. And I bought the ebook. I think it was like 99 cents. And I read it in a weekend and it was about money, mindset. And I didn't know the person who wrote it.
I had no clue. I just read a 99 cent book from her that basically put possibility on the table for me to become a million dollar company that was like so far away from my goals, my vision, what I thought possible. And all of a sudden reading this book, connecting into the energy of this expander, I'm like, she did that. I can do that too. That's possible for me. I'm really sticking with a lot of business analogies here. But health expanders were also crucial for me. We talk a lot about expanders in Manifest yout Health for this exact reason, because we need to showcase to our minds what I'm attempting to do is possible.
So I went so hard studying cases of spontaneous remission and really seeking out content from people who had put kind of big, scary chronic stuff into remission. I needed to show my mind. Oh, it's possible. They can do that. I can do that too. So expanders can come into all aspects of our life. And I do want to shout out Lacy Phillips because I believe expanders is a trademark phrase from her. I'm not totally sure I've heard it in a lot of different spaces and places, but I kind of think she originated from it.
I don't know. I really like to give credit where credit is due and give people their flowers. And I'm pretty sure that that is a Lacy Phillips term, even though lot of people use it. So anyway, expanders either which way, your board of directors should really help to expand you. So there should be some degree of expanders on your board of directors.
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So let's talk about how to build one for yourself. You want to first take stock of like, where's the influence coming from? What is your current inner circle look like? Does it need a little bit of a shift, change, rearrange? And if we want to build a board of directors, how do we do it? Remember that you as the visionary, like you're the visionary of your life and you as the visionary have to point your life in the direction you want to go. You have to decide what you actually want, what you desire, where you want to go. Your board of directors can't do that for you, Sorry.
They just help you get there. But you're the one that's kind of like setting the gps. You have to point your life in the direction you want to go. And then your inner circle, your board of directors, helps to guide you there. So we first have to take stock of like, hey, where's your life pointing right now? If you are a ship, in what direction is the ship heading? And is it pointing in the direction that you actually want to go? And it's good to have some reflection on, hey, like, where do I want to grow this year? What kind of relationships do I want to be surrounded with? How do I want to feel with the people in my life? What do I actually desire? Where do I need the most support? Where do I tend to default into my old ways and my old patterns? That's a really, really good question to ask yourself. Where do you find yourself kind of looping and defaulting to the old ways? Where do you feel like you might be self sabotaging or looping? And where do you need someone else to hold the vision and hold the line for you because you're struggling to do it yourself? In what areas of your life do you want to be inspired? What do you value? What are the values that you want to embody? So here's a great example. Like work Life balance. If you followed along with the podcast for eight years, like you've heard me say this work life balance was never something that I said I wanted or I craved or I desired.
I was really fixated. And folks on the business, I felt like my priorities were in a good place. I'm like, I feel good now. I am in the season of my life and of my career where I actually want to work a little bit less. Having time off, more time off is really important to me, especially in the coming year. My daughter is playing so many sports. I want to be there. I want to be part of it.
All of her sports are like in the middle of the flipping workday. Like, what is up with that? How do parents handle multiple kids? I do not know. But point is, my priorities and my values are shifting a little bit in this season. And so it's important to like check in with yourself and to be like, what am I desiring and what do I want to do? And again, ask yourself, is your life pointing in the direction you want it to go? And if not, you might want to call in a board of directors to help you right the ship. And for me, I think it can be kind of helpful to break things down into different categories and then determine what top three to four categories you're focused on for the year. If this is helpful for you, great. Take it. If it's not, throw it out.
Who cares? Do your own thing. But again, the categories that you can break your life down into is your home, physical environment, career, business, relationships, love life, family, friends, health, mental, emotional health, physical health, fitness, finance, wealth, social life, fun, recreation, creativity, personal growth, spiritual development. Those are the kind of the categories that I think about when I'm thinking about my life. And then each category can be broken down even further. So to use business and career as an example, for me personally, it would look like creative marketing and messaging. It would look like CEO support and leadership. Okay, so there's categories and then there's subcategories. And this can kind of help you nail or drill down and like nail in where you are looking for the most support.
So once you have your list, think about it like this. If you were having a board meeting once a week, or let's say once a month, who would you want to be seated at that table with you? Based on the categories of your life that you're currently working on or expanding in or growing in or changing your values or whatever, who would you want at that table? And that is gonna be your board of directors and we want expanders, we want mirrors, we want truth tellers. We don't want people telling us that we're gonna play small or play safe. But we also want people that are willing to go head to head with us, to hold us accountable to the person that we're becoming. So for me, this is what's important for people to be on my board of directors. Number one is tell the truth. I've heard it said. I honest feedback on the verge of what you can handle.
Because sometimes honest feedback is really hard to receive. Jessica Marx is on my literal board of directors for my company. About a year and a half ago, we were unpacking team dynamics, what my team looked like, my org chart, what we were doing. And I asked her a question, and she looked at me and she's like, I'm gonna tell you the truth. What she said to me after that literally made me cry. But not because it was unkind, to be clear. It was actually so compassionate to tell me the truth in that moment versus telling me what would make me feel good. Because in that, I was able to see my blind spots, and then I was able to make the right type of change.
So you want somebody who's willing and able to challenge you, to stretch you, to help you grow, to tell you the truth, not just what you want to hear, to keep you comfortable. So truth tellers always have a seat at my table. Number two is being able to offer expertise or perspective that you don't have. So I'll stick with Jessica Marx. She brings in different experiences, different expertise. She has a different perspective than the one that I've had. I've never had, like a regular, like a normal job. Like, I've never worked in corporate.
I've never, like, sat in an office like, like, I don't know that life. I've never lived it before. I don't have that perspective. I don't have that experience. I don't have that expertise just based on my experience. So she has all of that. She has actually sat at the seat of a billion dollar acquisition. She has led Salesforce teams of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions of dollars.
She just brings that level of expertise that I don't have. So that is very, very, very valuable to me. And that is why she is on my board of director, makes decisions for the company, for the organization. Number three is people that see your potential, they clearly help see where you shine and also where you need support. You know, when you surround yourself with the right people, you're really surrounded by People who believe in the highest version of you, who believe in what you're capable of, and they might see it before you see it. I will have people in my inner circle reflect things back to me, and they're like, no, no, no. Like, this is how people see you. This is who you are.
This is where you're headed. So if I get down on myself, they're able to hold the line of like, no, no, no. Like, this is actually who you are. And that is so helpful for me because sometimes I forget. Sometimes we forget our magic. And so we get to grow into the best version of ourselves when others can really see that. That and treat us like we are capable of becoming it. Or expanders who showcase to us that our best, highest version of ourselves that we desire is an actual possibility.
So, again, these might be people that you know and reflect this back to you. These might be expanders who you don't know, but you're seeing it play out. So when I say surround myself with the right people, I just want to make it clear it's not necessarily just people that you know or coaches that you hire. It's not necessarily people that you have to pay. I'm going to share my board of directors with you, and I'll talk about the people that I pay to be on my board of directors, the people that I know irl, and then the people that, like, I don't know them, they don't know me, but they inspire me. But first, I would love to be on your board of directors this year if you're into it, for your health, for your mental health, for your spiritual health, for your emotional health, for your growth and expansion, for your career and your financial goals. Put me in a seatbelt. Put me in coach.
I'm ready. I have definitely been on People's board of directors for a while. I love it there. I love this seat. I will say that. So I've been on People's Health board of directors working with clients, one on one, our clients, working with my team, even just listening to the podcast. I have so many people reach out to me that say I've changed so much about my health and my life just from listening to this podcast. Somebody just said, like, two weeks ago, she's like, I have not paid you one red set, but I have, like, changed my entire approach to my health because of your podcast, which is like, the best.
So again, put me in coach, career and business. We've got FNA mentorship. If you want to be mentored by me, by Rachel who's my lead practitioner or a lead clinical mentor? If you want business training by me, FNA is the place to do it if you're a practitioner. P.S. applications are officially open for spring cohort. So get your application in so we can approve it. And then the new program that's rolling out is Manifest yout Health, which is a brand new way for me to be on your board of directors. The app is coming in hot.
It's coming in soon. And I was thinking about this because I really was like, how can I be in somebody's back pocket, like, and just be a voice in your ear every day just encouraging you along? Because that is a little bit of like, my superpower is being able to see people, like, see like what they're here to do and like, showcase their power to them. Like, I just see it. I see it before you see it sometimes. And so like, how can I be that voice in your ear? I'm not going to sleep on your come up. I'm not going to sleep on your glow up. Like, I want you to thrive, I want you to exceed, I want you to grow, I want you to expand. How can I be like a little like, pep talk in your ear outside of the podcast, you know, and I thought an app was a great, great way to do that and really give you access to a lot of different tools that have been so impactful for me without like a ton of different fees and logins and apps.
I have like so many memberships and so many apps I'm a part of. I actually added it up and I'm. I definitely spend way over $400 a month for all the different things, like eight different logins. It's all over the place. It's like a little bit chaotic. But I wanted to give you access to all of that for a fraction of the cost. And, and I'd love to be in your pocket giving you empowering messages and new perspectives and specific practices that you get to implement every single day? So manifest your health is that. So Stay tuned for the big announcement for when the app is ready and the cart is officially open.
We do have a wait list. We'll link it up in the show notes. That is the first place to be in the know. So get on the wait list if you're interested.
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Okay, let's get into it. What you've been waiting for. My current board of directors. So again, this is people I know, this is people that I hire and I work with one on one. And then this is also people that I don't know, but I engage with their work in some way. So we'll start with people that I know and I'm gonna shout out My Aunt Wendy, if she listens to this, maybe she'll cry.
She's a little bit of a crier. It's okay. I am just. I turn 40 and I cry all the time. So as I said earlier, in this season of my life, I noticed that my focuses in my priorities are shifting a little bit. And there was a season of my life where health was by far my biggest focus and my biggest priority, because it had to be. But luckily, through all of my functional medicine work and honestly, through manifest your health, I was able to completely outgrow that identity and step into a new identity. And then my focus, when I was able to take the focus off of my health and not be so hyper fixated on that, then my focus really shifted to growing and expanding my work and my company.
And I'm still definitely doing all of that. But because of the work that I've had over the past couple of years of adding to the team, building the team, I am able to work less. And the work that I do is really more focused on creative projects. So in this season of my life, I am actually desiring to work less, to be less in the weeds of the company of the day to day, and to be able to just like focus on more creative stuff. And the reason my Aunt Wendy is an expander for me here and is on my board of directors here is because she really gets that and she gives me my flowers. And I remember her saying this to me. It was about two years ago. I was just talking about work and she said, look, Erin, you've already made it.
You're already successful. Like, everything else is just the cherry on top. And the way that she said it to me, and coming from her, who is somebody who does have a lot of career ambition and is very successful in her own career, coming from her, it really just landed in a way that it might not have landed if somebody else said that to me. And she's no nonsense. That's what also what I love about her, she's a truth teller. And she wouldn't have said that unless she really meant it. And so that was important to me. Like, I knew she wasn't just blowing smoke.
I knew she wasn't just telling me what I wanted to hear. And so it like, gave me permission to really think about my career and my ambition and my success in a different way. And rather than do it from a place of I have so much to prove, I got to reflect on, like, I've already proved it. So now what do I actually want? If I took the pressure off of myself from having to prove this to everybody. Like, look at me. I'm actually a success. What do I actually want to do? And then on the sort of flip side of that same coin, she never judges my ambition or how hard I work. Last February, we were together, and I was talking to her.
I'm like, you know, I'm supposed to be on vacation, but I have to get some work done. And I'm feeling guilty about that because I'm supposed to be, like, 100% present with my family. And she's like, look, sometimes CEOs have to work on vacation. Like, no judgment whatsoever. She just, like, kind of sucks the judgment out of it all for me and kind of gives me permission to just show up as I am. And she's a great mom. Oh, my gosh. She's such a great mom.
Her kids are amazing, incredible people. She's super close with her kids. They're adults now. I love her children so, so much. My cousins, they're like the best humans in the world. Shout out to Connor and Abby. Love them, and they have a lot of fun in their life. I feel like this is, like.
Is just like an ode to my Aunt Wendy. I swear, I'm gonna wrap this up soon. They have a lot of fun in their lives. My Uncle Andy is now retired, and, you know, they just do a lot. They have a lot of people. They have a lot of friends. They have, like, a big, full life. And so that is an expander for me to be like, you can have the successful career.
You can have the happy marriage. You can have the happy family. You can have all of the friends and the fun. Like, you can do it all. I think there are people that embody that to me. Like, you can have it all, and you can still be kind people and good people. And so, anyway, I will wrap it up here, but that is an example of somebody in my life who doesn't even know she's on my board of directors, but is absolutely on my board of directors. Now let's transition into people that I hire, and I pay them to be on my board of directors.
I work with them one on one. I already mentioned my business advisor, Jessica Marx. I hired her business advisory firm a year and a half ago, maybe. And so she has been on my board of directors since then. She helps hold me accountable as the CEO. Like I said earlier, she offers a lot of insight that I don't have. Her number two is Brooke. Brooke is also on my board of directors.
She holds me accountable as a leader. But she also helps to hold leaders on my team accountable as well, which is really, really helpful, especially as I step into more of a leadership role and not having a ton of experience with that. She really is such a good sounding board for me and I appreciate her. And then I have my bookkeeper, Fernanda and my accounting team. Countless. They look at all the numbers. They also help to advise on the bud. All the people on the board of advisors are all kind of like talking to each other.
But they really help me be able to determine when we have the financial room to add headcount, what salaries we can pay people, whether or not a role can be part time or full time, all that jazz. Cause again, I don't have experience with that. Like I don't. I'm just like making shit up as I go along, you know. And so they actually help to come in and like ground those decisions. And then I have a HR consultant, Elizabeth Gilbeau, who also does leadership training. She's a clairvoyant. She reads the energy of the business.
Cause like obviously my HR consultant obviously has to be a psychic. Duh. She's been a mentor of mine for close to 20 years now. And I deeply, deeply trust her. And I am so honored to have her on my board of directors. And then not business related but personal board of directors. I have Ali Ofstedal. I haven't done talk therapy in years.
So she's sort of been like my substitute for regular weekly therapeutic relationship. I don't exactly know what her title is like a Shaman. I don't even know. I don't know what she does. I don't really care. But it's amazing. It has been a very long lasting relationship. I meet with her every Tuesday at 6pm for three years.
And so she's for sure. I don't make a decision I don't like. I just like run everything by her. And we like work on like my nervous system while I'm expanding and growing. And it's fabulous. Okay. So for people that I don't know, but I engage with their work in some way. I'm gonna go through this real quick.
Quick. Anna McClellan, she's at move like a mother on Instagram. I follow her lifting programs, her pelvic floor health. I love her programs. I just really do. So I have a subscription to her membership in her app and those are the, the workouts that I'm currently doing. I am very inspired by high capacity women. People that just like do a lot, they manage a lot.
And they do it well with like, you know, maintaining similar values to me. So health is obviously a high value to me. She has three little kids. I just look at her and I'm like, I'm inspired by you. I am inspired by the way you run your shit. And so not just do. I love her workouts and it's really good for my pelvic floor too. But I'm just inspired by her as a human in her presence.
So I would put her on, on my current board of directors. Dr. Tyna Moore has been on my board of directors for like a hot minute. I really, really respect her work in health. I've always, like, since COVID I've just kind of kept an eye on what she's doing. She's no nonsense. She's tell it like it is. She's oftentimes like at the forefront of trends and fads and phases and stuff like that.
So I'm always like, keeping an eye on what she's doing and I really appreciate the information that she puts out. Sarah Jenks is another one. This is kind of like personal but also professional in business. I followed her career for over a decade and I've watched her own personal and professional evolution and it's just been such an honor to bear witness to the whole thing. From a personal perspective, she always roots me back to the sacred feminine, whether it's moon cycles, earth cycles, a sacred start practice. I also really love watching her from a business perspective. Her and her business partner now, Kelly, they're just so creative and I just get very inspired by watching what they're doing and how they're doing it and how they're marketing. I think it's really, really, really cool.
She also just happens to be somebody that I could listen to talk forever. Like, my dream for her is that she starts a podcast just for me, my personal benefit. I just could listen to her talk for hours and hours. Doesn't matter what she's talking about. I just, I love her energy, I love her presence. I love listening to her. Watching her grow and kind of grow off the beaten path is very, very inspiring to me. Lacey Phillips is another one, specifically because I've watched her separate herself out from her brand and she still gets to be the chief creator without being in the day to day.
So she's a bit of an expander for me in that regard because she's showing me that that is possible. She's showing me that a company can grow without the founder being so heavily involved in the day. I appreciate how she really honors her intuition and uses that to guide her next moves. So that is why I would put her in the expander category on my board of directors. I'm kind of, like, clocking what she's doing and how she's making decisions, and I just think that's kind of cool. And then the last one that I will share here is Amanda Frances, and she is a money coach. She's does a lot with manifestation. I love her because she teaches me to dream big and helps me stretch my zone of possibility.
So she is actually recently, for my Bravo Housewives fan out, there she is. I followed her work for six years now, and she's now on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. And I think she's kind of like the villain arc. I don't think they like her very much, but it's super wild to watch somebody who I feel like I know her. She doesn't know me, but I feel like I've known her because I have participated in her programs for years and years for followed along with everything that she's done. And now she's, like, on the big screen. She's, like, on national television on one of my favorite shows, and it's just wild to watch her. So they don't love her.
They really don't. And of course, she's getting, like, she has more exposure than ever before in her career. And there are people that, like, really, really, really don't like her. And she has been able to source safety in her body. Body despite the fact that there's a lot of people saying really negative things in a very public, big way. And it has been so wild and inspiring to watch into witness. She's like, yeah, all of this is happening, and I'm still good. And she's like, this is not impacting my business.
She's like, I'm making more money now. More people are buying my book. More people are enrolled in my programs. She's like, I have more eyes on my work. Work. She's like, this is not a problem. And it just takes so much inner work and quite frankly, inner strength to be able to do that. And I am really working through some hardcore visibility fears right now.
Maybe I'll talk about that at a later date. How about this? I'll talk about them when I overcome the fears. That a good deal. And so she's just such an expander for me of, like, witnessing all of this go down and her being like, yeah, I'm good. I'm like, totally cool. I am safe. We're good. Here.
So I'm really paying attention to that right now. So those are some of my. That my inner circle, whether they know it or not. Now, I want you to figure out yours. And then once you have them put in place, what do you do really? I want you to have regular board meetings. So of course, the people that I know that I'm working with, one on one, I am meeting with them regularly. Whether. Whether it's a weekly meeting or a monthly meeting or I'm voxing them or whatever, and I'm checking in with them sometimes before I make decisions.
Or I will check in and be like, here's what I'm thinking. Like, what are my blind spots? What should I be thinking about? Or if I'm having a problem, I'll go to them, be like, how do I solve this? So I'm checking in with them and I'm bouncing ideas off of them so they can really hold me accountable. Of course. And then for the people that I don't know, I'm on their apps, I'm subscribed to their podcasts, I'm reading their emails, I'm plugged into them regularly through whatever channel they're on. Kind of like my own personal board meeting. I'm, like, going for walks while I listen to them. I'm doing their journal prompts, I'm reading their subsets, whatever it might be, I am engaging with them on some type of regular basis. Or if I feel myself in, like, a deficit in any place or space, I will plug into the source that I know will, like, fill me back up and build me back up.
So think about your board of directors and how you can regularly check in with them. Another great idea is to create a vision board with their images in, what they represent to you, how they embody the version of you that you're stepping into. So you have a visual reminder all of the time. And maybe you put that in your desk or maybe you put that somewhere visible that you can see or set it as the backdrop on your phone for a screensaver or something like that. So. So would love to hear from you. Was this episode helpful? I know it's, like, a little bit different. I just felt really called to do it and really inspired to do it, giving you, like, a little bit of line of sight into, like, how I think about stuff and, like, you know, how I build out the support in my own life.
Yes. In my business, but also in my life. And would love to hear from you, especially if any of you guys are adding me to your board of directors. Definitely let me know. I would love to hear it. All right, you guys, thank you so much, much for being here. I love you all and I will see you next week.
Thanks for joining me for this episode of The Funk’tional Nutrition Podcast. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. If you got something from today's show, don't forget, subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.