155 – Why Your Wellbeing is Important with Heather Denniston

Karen Yankovich 0:00
You’re listening to the good girls get rich podcast episode 155.

Intro 0:05
Welcome to the good girls get rich podcast with your host, Karen Yankovich. This is where we embrace how good you are girl, stop being the best kept secret in town, learn how to use simple LinkedIn and social media strategies and make the big bucks.

Karen Yankovich 0:23
Hello, I’m Karen Yankovich, the host of the good girls get rich podcast and this is episode 155. And is brought to you by she’s linked up where we teach simple relationship and heart based LinkedIn marketing that gets you on the phone consistently with perfect people, people that will have the big contracts, those the contracts that you’re dreaming about signing this year, that can change your business, your life and your bank account forever to digital marketing with the human touch right human to human marketing. So if you’ve listened before, or if you love what you hear today, we love to hear from you. So make sure to take a quick screenshot that you’re listening to this show and share it on your social media. And let your audience know that you’re watching this and then we’ll be sure to share it with our audience. And that’s how we all get more visibility. in the show notes. There’s a link for speakpipe, you can leave us an audio review there. Or you can just leave us a voice message, let us know what you’d like to hear on the show. Or if this guest, we should interview you can find all of that at Karenyankovich.com/155. I can’t wait for you guys to meet Heather denniston. Heather is amazing. And as you’ll see, by the end of this, I think she’s got some strategies that I think we’re going to be incorporating into some of the she’s linked up work that we do and in some of the work that we do what she’s linked up. So without further ado, here’s how there. We have Heather denniston on the show today. And Heather is a chiropractor by trade for 25 years, and now she is consulting and helping businesses which went from helping humans with their health helping businesses with their health, I guess, right? So Heather, want to use yourself and tell everybody a little about yourself?

Heather Denniston 1:56
Yeah, you bet. As you mentioned, I’m a chiropractor by trade. I left the brick and mortar space about five years ago to move into consulting and coaching with with companies. And I’ve been doing that with my company called wealth fit and fed. And it’s been a joyous, bumpy, crazy, fun, amazing ride. And I’m so glad to be here. I’m honored. And I love your podcast, and I’m grateful for you. So thank you so much for sharing the space with me today.

Karen Yankovich 2:23
Yeah, I’m excited to have you I’m excited to have you, you know, well, is this taking on a whole new, a whole business and personal wellness is taking on a whole new identity. Right now. It’s 2021 that we’re recording this and we’re we’re coming out of a crazy 2020. And not only I think what I like what I like about this is wellness as the word means staying well, right? Like what do we need to do to that we are staying well, and we’re not always fixing ourselves. Right? So tell me how you tell me a little bit about the story of shifting from a chiropractor to moving into presenting in consulting.

Heather Denniston 2:56
Yeah, I I’m out of Seattle, and my clinic, unbeknownst to me, when I bought got the space was literally smack dab in the center of Costco headquarters and Microsoft campus, Expedia, T Mobile, and several Amazon several other headquarters. And so after a few years, it got to the point that I literally could tell someone where they worked before they told me based on the expression of what was going on in their bodies. And, you know, you know what, people in corporate people in business, people who are working many, many hours and under a tremendous amount of stress are expressing that stress, that burnout, that fatigue in all sorts of ways that are not healthy for them. So I decided to move away from a confined brick and mortar practice so that I could spread the net a little wider and helping businesses, CEOs CFOs understand how bridging the connection between personal well being and professional success was a massive advantage to them personally, and to their direct reports and leadership teams. And it comes down to you know, productivity, promote ability, performance and bottom line.

Karen Yankovich 4:06
Oh my gosh, that’s so true. That’s so true. And you know, I’ve joked a few times that you know, as an entrepreneur, you don’t get sick days right? So your business your the success of your lesson, I hope that we’ve all built businesses that are not that dependent, that we can take a day off every now and then right but absolutely said, You know, I read something recently that talked a little bit about dehydration and how if you’re, if you’re if you feel dehydrated, like if you can if your mouth feels dehydrated, your brain was dehydrated an hour ago or two hours ago, right? And I was like wow, like that’s how my brain needs to be hydrated. My brain needs to be active because it helps me with my business. Right so there’s so many things, so many reasons that your physical your personal health impacts your business.

Heather Denniston 4:49
that is so true. Yeah, there’s a book called your body’s many cries for water. It’s ancient, but I still remember a quote from there saying, you know, dehydration is a symptom long down the road. Being dehydrated. And you know what in chiropractic we talk a lot about that too is that symptom is the very last thing to come on. There were issues way up river that are important to address, you know, I have a relative who’s like, ah, but ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It’s like if what we want to do is work up river on all of the feeding and and how we stay fit and our mindfulness and how we connect with others. And all of that informs how we’re going to show up downriver. And I think we’re seeing based on where we’re at right now, Karen, is that we know that COVID mortality has a lot to do with one to two to two and a half comorbidities, diabetes, cancer, you know, obesity, heart disease, and these are considered preventable issues. And it’s put us at a massive disadvantage in our current situation. And so yeah, I think we’ve had a wake up call last year. And I think this is a wonderful opportunity for companies to go Whoa, I need to be very intimately and emotionally concerned for the health and well being of my employees.

Karen Yankovich 6:09
Wow. I love that. I love that. So I want to take a step back even further from you, though, right? What was your personal journey? When it came to, you know, wellness? And what? What is it that makes you so passionate about what you do?

Heather Denniston 6:20
Yeah, well, we’d have to start with me bawling in the shower at 22. In my crappy college apartment, can we start there?

Karen Yankovich 6:27
Sure.

Heather Denniston 6:30
So there was standing and crying and I was easily 70 pounds overweight, I had early onset arthritis, a thyroid problem, brain nodes, IBS, several other issues. And what I realized in that moment was that if I was going to turn the Titanic of health issues around, I was going to need to take my wellness on as a priority project. You see, when I was nine, I grew like a massive puppy. And massive puppies don’t do backhand springs on the beam. And I was a competitive gymnast. So I needed to shift to what I considered my other competitive sport, which was Olympic caliber binge eating. And so by the time I hit college, I was about 235 pounds, and had all of these sort of adjunctive, associative issues that came up as a result of weight stress, not knowing how to feel my body not knowing how to be functionally fit, not knowing what mindfulness and purpose was. And so I thought, Okay, I’m going to take my health on as a priority project, nobody else is going to do that for us. And so I studied, and I studied a lot I, as you, we mentioned, became a chiropractor and a personal trainer and got an advanced degree in certified chiropractic wellness practitioner. And I spent the next 25 years working on shifting my own personal well being and that of 1000s of patients and clients.

Karen Yankovich 7:50
Wow, wow. Interesting. Interesting. So tell us about that. Tell us about being fit, saying well, right. I mean, I know for me, I do whatever, not whatever, I can’t, I hardly do whatever I can, but I try to do things that I try to build things in to make it simpler for me, to to stay fit. Like one example, with this pandemic, one of the first things I did was I bought a standing desk, you know, a desk that goes up and down, so that I’m not just sitting all the time. And and I’m sitting right now, and I sit a lot, but I, but I stand a lot too. And and I and I love that. And so I try to build things in but I am hardly fit. So tell me a little bit about, you know, how do you get started? And how do you how do you like how do you get fit and building things so that you can continue to build on it and not just continue to backslide?

Heather Denniston 8:39
Yeah, I’m gonna work into stories here. The first is, I’m not a beekeeper, but I was talking to a beekeeper. And we were talking about how sometimes you have to move the hives around and he said, but you can’t move a hive, you have to move it inch by inch by inch or the bees will get lost, they won’t be able to find the hive again. And so if you want to move it way down your yard, you’ve got to just incrementally move it shift by shift and that’s where we start is consistent small shifts made over time, we layer them one on top of the other. So just like you said, you started with a standing desk. That’s fantastic. So then maybe the next step is you set your alarm for every hour to take a five minute stretch break. And we just and when that becomes a habit we layer the next thing on and so it’s absolutely layering but but Karen, you mentioned fitness but really this is true for fueling and mindfulness and all of these things and it’s it actually starts way before that. So when I start with a client, we always start with a very specific thing and that is discovering their own personal wellness driver. And what I mean by that is I’ll use a short story to just illustrate it is I was dispatched with a company of of helping their team discover their wellness why it’s what we do first, and they’re all writing and they’ve got their legal pads and pen because I’m big pen to paper fan. And at the end of the table was this gal Jane And she was looking around at everybody else’s paper and smiling. And so I walked down to the end. And she’s got this very empty legal pad with one line at the top and it says to be healthy. And I said, Jane, is that your wellness? Why? And she goes, yeah. And I said, okay, but why? And she said, Oh, cuz I want to be active. I said, Don’t Why? And she said, because I guess I want to be independent, when I’m older. But why? And she and I went back and forth six or seven times, she was getting annoyed, I was not going to let up. And everybody in the table by the time we finished, had pens down, staring at us, and on the seventh boat, why her face literally changed. And she looked at me and she said, because I don’t ever want to tell my two grandsons that Noni can’t do that. And I’m like, that’s it. That is if it gives you goosebumps, it clenches your heart or brings a tear to you, I’ve landed on it. And you can use that as the wind behind you to move you forward and all of your wellness aspirations.

Karen Yankovich 11:02
Oh, I totally, I totally, totally do I get that I relate to that. That is actually my why I have a three year old granddaughter, and you know, she I love sitting on the floor with her. And then she’ll say, Nana, come over here. And I’m like, Alright, let me think about how I do that. You know, how do I get up? I get up and back down. Do I crawl over? Like, what exactly do I do? And I actually told the story on this is Episode 155. So Episode 150 of our podcast, I talked a little bit about New Year’s resolutions and how we make them and you know, the next year, we make the same one again, and how I was talking one time that one of the things that I envisioned was when my grant when I’m 90 or 100, my grandchildren and great grandchildren are going to be they’re going to be loving the fact that I do yoga every day and all this stuff. And then I literally like burst out laughing when I was talking to this person. And she’s like, What’s the matter? I said, I don’t do yoga every day. Now, what makes me think I’m gonna do yoga every day when I’m 90. If I want to do yoga, if I want to be the grandma that does yoga everyday at 90, I better be the grandma that does yoga everyday in her 50s. You know, so. So it is so true. And that and that is that is the why and the sooner? Listen, I mean, I can tell you, it’s not getting easier every year that goes by right. So the sooner you address it, you know, I feel like the better chance you have for success.

Heather Denniston 12:15
Yeah, one of my mentors is hilarious. I was in a class with him. And he and he came back after lunch. And I don’t know something good. So he got in his bonnet. But he stood up. And he said, Look, and this was a wellness certification course. So these are people who are already interested in wellness. And he said, tonight, I want you to go home and stand in front of the mirror naked. And I want you to look at yourself. And I want you to say if I do nothing different, this is the best I’m ever going to look and feel. Because truth be told we are on a steady decline. It’s the nature of who we are in a lifecycle. It’s just what happens. So if we want to slow that down a little bit, or if we even want to kind of hang out where we are and feel it’s you know how we do. We have to be proactive. And you just nailed it. It’s Yeah, 18 year old grandmas doing yoga every day. Typically, don’t start at 75. You know, a start now and Ben hardy have been hurt is a great mentor of mine who wrote personalities and permanent and his big thing is, is not worrying so much about you know what your personality type does or whatever. But he said, think about who you want to be and reverse engineer it. Who are if you are this at 80, then reverse engineer that I call it connect with your inner elder, sit down with your inner elder literally have a conversation with her and say what do you need from me right now?

Karen Yankovich 13:33
I love that. I love that. Okay, so then tell me that when you’re speaking and when you’re doing this work with people, what is the connection between being effective and successful at work and wellness.

Heather Denniston 13:45
So we talked about the wellness why the second piece I think we should talk about is is the connection between that big family size bag of chips that you’re staring down on Sunday and understanding the effect it has on you in your incredibly important client meeting on Wednesday. Because a lot of times people do not realize the repercussions that all of their choices make. And truly every every decision you make is either going to take you kind of to a slow degradation and in a less happy, less vibrant life. Or it’s going to help amplify and optimize and make you the best potential person that you can be so you can do the work in the world you were put here to do and so I think that is really key is helping people make that connection. Obviously honing in on their wellness Why? And then we we also talk about discovering kind of how to curate a wellness pit crew around you. Would you like to hear a little bit about that?

Karen Yankovich 14:39
I would love to hear that. Yeah

Heather Denniston 14:41
So I had this client Julia. She was a she was a high level entrepreneur, very, very successful business. And this was back when I was a chiropractor and she came in and long face I said What’s going on? And she said, You know what, Heather, I realized I have spent the last 25 years raising boys pursuing a career and somewhere I lost myself. I don’t recognize who I am in the mirror. I’ve lost what I’m passionate about. I’m I don’t move like I want to I’m not thinking like I want to, and I’ve tried to fix it. And I’ve failed. And, and so she said, I want you to be part of my lip. I’m like, What is a lip? And she said, it’s my Linda improvement plan. I said, Oh, this sounds good. Let’s do it. So what we did is we established this wellness pit crew around her it was me it was her physical therapist read it was her trainer, Derek, and one very key position, Brenda, who was a co worker of hers, who she hardly knew but had the adjoining coop cube, who on Monday mornings would climb up over the cube and look at her and say, Linda, did you do your hike on Saturday. And over six months, Linda made a massive turnaround and made the goals that she wanted to make she was supported in the way she needed to be supported. And now more than ever, we need a team of support around us, we need to acknowledge that we need to ask for help. And their support does not need to be a bunch of expensive trainers or expensive whatever. It’s a friend who walks with you. It’s a colleague who asks you and holds you accountable on something, but it’s conscious and you name it and proclaim it you revisit it a couple times a year to say who is my wellness pit crew? And how can I get them in on my goal aspirations so that we’re doing this collaboratively? And so I think that is just so key is consciously going who wait, who’s in on this with me.

Karen Yankovich 16:28
So fun wellness pit crew, I like that. So that Okay, so then they are so they’re helping you with reminding you know, I love I mean, listen, there’s accountability is amazing. Anybody that says they don’t need it is dreaming, I think. Yeah, but But okay, so when you’re doing all of these things, like to me, I, I like to know, I like to be able to see it right. I like to be able to see it. I like to say like, for example, I know that if I eat pancakes for breakfast, instead of eggs for breakfast, that by 10 o’clock, my brain is start to be starting to be much like I know that I know, that protein in the morning. Helps me have a better morning. Right. But I know that because I see it and I feel it. Right. So yeah. What other kinds of things like that, you know, are there that are is the correlation between your wellness and your success at work?

Heather Denniston 17:18
I’m going to answer what I think you’re asking. And and that is, if I were to ask you, Karen, why do you brush your teeth?

Karen Yankovich 17:25
I would say you know, oral health, good dental health and right, you know, and it’s terrible to not do it. And…

Heather Denniston 17:34
Every time you brush your teeth, do you get immediate feedback about?

Karen Yankovich 17:38
No, but if I don’t wash my teeth, I get immediate…

Heather Denniston 17:42
So the point that I’m trying to make is that one of the things we work really hard on is we are a quick result, I want to see it now culture, and it’s not done us any good in regard to our well being because well being is a slow mover. It’s a long game, it’s not a it’s not a short game. So if we are eating eggs instead of pancakes because of the immediate negative or positive feedback, we may want to dig deeper because one day we’re just going to go well I don’t care if I feel bloated, I’m going to just eat pancakes anyway, instead of saying, I know that eggs is going to put me in a high protein state, it’s going to keep me in fat burning instead of glucose burning, it’s going to allow me to have tons of energy over the next coming weeks. And we start to focus on not the immediate return, but the long term gain and what our inner elder is going to benefit from, then we get some really great consistent strategy. I’m using the example of an Olympic swimmer. So this 18 year old girl, let’s say she’s hopeful she wants to go to the Olympics. She gets up every morning at 430 in the morning and gets in a freakin cold car drives 10 miles to the pool gets in a cold pool and listens to her trainer yell at her for an hour and a half. And then she’s got to go to school, right? There are mornings that she gets up that there are no rewards there. Yes, she does it every single day because the value and the of standing on the top podium at the Olympics far outweighs the daily cost that this is doing. So what I would say is if you are getting tossed all over the ocean with your goals, because one day you feel like one day you don’t, we need to raise the value of what this goal is going to bring you and we need to lower the cost. So by lowering the cost, the example is this with this Olympic swimmer. If that was me, I would sleep in my swimsuit. I would have my sweat suit right on the bed to throw on I’d have my husband make me a teen warm up the car. I would stuff my favorite Spotify list on my waterproof earphones and not listen to my trainer. I would lower the cost heighten the value. And then every day when I get up, there’s ease and accessibility to this whether I feel like doing it or not and whether I get immediate feedback or not.

Karen Yankovich 19:54
Oh gosh, such good. There’s so many good things in there. There’s so many good things in there. I love that. All right. So This whole kind of leads into your concepts around leading a full color life. Can you talk about that analogy?

Heather Denniston 20:05
Yeah, I am going to talk about it. I feel like and i’d love feedback from you, the audience. I feel like I don’t have it quite right. But I’m going to share it and you tell me what you think. So here’s the deal. When I’m presenting this, I start with this really great black and white photo of these kids playing soccer and the balls up in the air and one kids jumping and other kids are running and it’s a meadow and it looks like kind of a summery, cloudy, sunny day, and it’s an amazing photo and left on its own, you would go Okay, well, this is a cool looking photo. But then I immediately flash to this Technicolor gorgeous version of the same photo blues, greens, orange of the sun, this cool white and black soccer ball up in the air, and the vibrancy, it is mind blowing. And here’s my thought many people live a black and white colored life. They either don’t realize they’ve taken steps, and now they’re they’re away from their full color life. Or they’re there knowing they’re there and going well, I’m 50. So it’s all that’s available to me. I am so too busy. So it’s all that’s available to me. But my mission is to help people take their steps back to their full color life because it’s available to you. And the more well you are, the more healthy you’re eating. The more fit you are, the more mindful you are. food tastes different rubbing your grandchild’s hair, it feels different climbing and seeing a sunset feels different. And the fact you can even climb there to see it is part of that as well. So the whole concept of a full color life is looking at my daily life experience is completely different when I’m coming from a state of heightened well being.

Karen Yankovich 21:47
That almost also talks that almost to me, almost comes reminds me of like kind of full, like full on senses as well. Right? you’re smelling you’re smelling more you’re feeling more you’re seeing where you’re you know, and it’s easy for us to kind of dull our senses, as because it’s easier, right? Sometimes, you know, it’s not easy, but it’s the lazy thing to do. Right? But it’s not the fun thing, right? The fun thing is the full color. The fun thing is the the top of that, that hike, right? Would that be off at the top of the hike? Right? And you know, you know, as never gonna be as good in your memory as it is when you’re physically there.

Heather Denniston 22:24
Absolutely. I came to this when someone asked me about kind of my passion for well being. And this story came to me because I had a father that got diagnosed with brain cancer and died. Six months later, I had a mother who also got brain cancer, who survived it, but then died some years later, a small intestinal cancer and most people are like, Oh, so you want to avoid cancer? I’m like, No, it’s not that at all. It’s that I want to live every day to the most Technicolor version, because I know how life how short life is I’ve had two parents die in my arms. And I know that every single day is an absolute gift. And if we are going to live it to our fullest, we have to be at our best and and not being at our best means that we are getting a lesser life experience.

Karen Yankovich 23:12
Wow. That’s important stuff. important stuff. All right. So tell us how tell us how we can learn more about what you do. Do you have anything to share with us? What can we you know, what can we do to learn more about what you do and start to live our own full color life?

Heather Denniston 23:27
Yeah, you bet. First, I definitely consider, you know, these podcast interviews as the beginning of a relationship. And so if anybody wants to reach me on Instagram, and message me any questions or follow up thoughts on this, I love that.

Karen Yankovich 23:40
We willl absolutely link that in the show notes, your Instagram.

Heather Denniston 23:44
And I also want to give everyone you know, as I said, the first step for all of my client work is to help somebody discover their true wellness why and most of the time, we don’t land on it right away, we got to dig much deeper than we think we do. So I’ve created a workbook to help walk you through that. And so we’re gonna put that in the show notes at the Discover your wellness why workbook, then gift your gift to everyone what you’re welcome to it. And then finally, I love to come in and speak to small groups to executive teams. And so if anybody is looking for anybody to come in and share some wellness strategy with their team, I am happy to do that for you.

Karen Yankovich 24:21
Awesome, amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that. I’m totally gonna check out your discover your wellness why free gift for sure. This has been so good. This has been so good. Heather, I really I really love this. I think that, you know, it is we don’t always make that connection. Right? I make a lot I make the connection a lot on this podcast, between your mindset and your strategy, like using the right and left brain, right. And when you’re doing that together, it helps you it helps you achieve success much faster. Because you’re you’re kind of you know you’re using you’re using you’re not leaving one piece out but this is maybe this is more of a triad than a two thing right? Because you’re wellness also impacts it. Right? If you want to have success. It’s not just about all the strategy. It’s not just about all the, you know, being grateful in the mindful, you know the importance of your mindset, but it’s also your physical well being, right? Like it all work together. And I yeah, I haven’t really put that together like that before.

Heather Denniston 25:19
Yeah. And for someone who’s not in it every day like I am, you know, you start out your day with a certain amount of energy, your creativity, your problem solving your ideas, your resilience, your ability to take feedback, all of that is completely related to how you’re showing up from a wellness standpoint. And so if we can improve on that, then we get massive impact and results in our entrepreneurial walk in our walk if we are on an executive team or a high performer. It’s an absolute key strategy, a secret weapon, I like to call it, and it Garner’s great results.

Karen Yankovich 25:54
Awesome. Awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here and doing this with us, Heather. I really appreciate it. I can’t wait to check out your free gift. And we’re connected on Instagram. And I look forward to staying connected. Thanks for doing this.

Heather Denniston 26:06
Thank you so much, Karen. I appreciate you very much. And I will continue to be listening and sharing your information to those in my audience as well. So thank you.

Karen Yankovich 26:14
I hope you enjoyed Heather as much as I enjoyed Heather she is amazing. I loved all the tips she gave us and just the way she lays it out in such an organized way. It feels doable, right? It feels doable. And I think we do need to maybe add another leg to our she’s linked up table or chair or whatever we do. We do a lot around mindset, the right brain, the left brain, but your physical wellness is a big is a big factor in your ability to create success. So I think you’re gonna be hearing a lot more about that in the upcoming months. If you want to know more about how to use these strategies using LinkedIn to build the relationships that we’re here to talk about how I meet people like how they’re in my life. Check out our free masterclass, you can check that out at Karen Yankovich comm slash masterclass that gets you in gets you started and get you starting to understand a little bit about how to how to start to use LinkedIn to build relationships with people like Heather with the people in your life that can help you land those big fat contracts. I will be back here next week with another episode of the good girls get rich podcast.