In today’s episode of The Dietitian Success Podcast, Krista Kolodziejzyk sits down with Laura Jean, Registered Dietitian. Through her business, Dietitian Values, Laura helps other RD’s create a business that truly aligns with their core values. Her coaching is for those who want their patients/clients to feel seen, heard and known, and who want to ditch the bullshit that permeates the nutrition and fitness industry, kick the I’m-the-expert-image and put the joy back into their work (and life).
Krista & Laura chat about:
- What it really means to discover your values
- How to know if an opportunity is just scary because it’s new, or if it truly isn’t aligned with your values and beliefs
- Thoughts on why RD’s are leaving the profession
- How to get started with creating a practice that makes you feel fulfilled and aligned
- Links:
- Follow Laura on Instagram here
- Check out Laura’s website and services here
- Listen to Laura’s podcast here
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Episode Transcript:
Welcome to the Dietitian Success Podcast. Here at Dietitian Success Centre, we’re all about making it easier for you to build your confidence and expertise. So, whether you’re a dietitian or a dietetic student, we’ve got something for you. I’m Krista, your host and the founder of DSC. Now, are you ready to ditch the imposter syndrome and join our incredible, vibrant community?
If so, let’s jump in.
Today I’m joined by Laura Jean. Laura is a registered dietician from Australia who practices from a non diet trauma informed social justice human centered approach. Through her business dietician values. Laura helps other RDS create a business that truly aligns with their core values. Her coaching is for those who want their patients and clients to feel seen, heard, and known, and who want to ditch the bullshit that permeates the nutrition and fitness industry. Kick the I’m the expert image and put the joy back into their work and their life today.
Laura and I chat about what it really means to discover your values. Why that process is so important and how to create a practice that makes you feel fulfilled, happy, and aligned.
All right, Laura, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me. Feel free to say hey to the audience. Hey, thanks for having me and hello to anyone listening. So, okay. I want to start off by talking a little bit more about your unique dietician story. So how did you get to where you are today?
Let’s go back. Well, I won’t go all the way back to birth, but we can head back to like high school years. I always wanted to be a chef. That’s where I was headed. And then I realized, Oh my gosh, terrible lifestyle, terrible hours. So I was Oh my God, what am I going to do? And I found, I stumbled across dietetics.
I really enjoyed science. I was quite good at like biology type stuff, terrible at chemistry. So, which I found out later, that’s like a bit of an important piece, I digress and food. And I thought, what an important excellent career, like science, get to help people or, hold that sort of space.
Although let’s be honest, we often come into this profession to help and talk about food. So that’s where I found dietetics and I’ve been a dietitian for 20 years and been in lots of different roles. So, started out doing more the public kind of In Australia, we tend to have we’ve got a, a government funded health system, which I know is a bit of a novelty for your side of the world.
But so I’m actually in Canada. So we have the same thing. Oh yeah. Of course. Sorry, Krista. Wrong country. Yeah. Yes. Yes. So, well, okay. So yes, absolutely. You’re on board with the whole idea. So I don’t know if it’s similar in Canada, went out into a government kind of funded position in health did that and then, yeah launched my first business or kind of stumbled into it, in 2007, so a long time ago before like social media existed for businesses and stuff like that.
So, I’ve, I’m showing my age here. I turned 41 this week, actually, when we’re recording. So I’m definitely an elder millennial. So I went through the kind of, that kind of stuff. Standard stream and then started playing around with business stuff. And I always wanted to have my own business.
I always like in at uni here, we could do some electives. I did marketing, those kinds of things. Cause it always interests me. And I gave it a go and I loved it. I loved the opportunity and the possibilities to. Create space just to be yourself, to create space, to do things the way that you liked to do them, to do things that interested you.
And so I was pretty hooked and I went back into the kind of health system and out in, out and then. Yeah, just really, I found I had to move into state which brought me into the online business world. I stumbled across that. Cause I was like, I had a quite successful business at geographical location, and then I moved into state.
Which in Australia, it’s pretty similar over there. They’re big States. So like you move and your network’s completely different. It’s all changed. And I was like, Oh gosh, that’s a bit of a pain in the butt. Like I’ve just done all that work and now I needed to basically start again.
And I was like I want a way to do business where I don’t have to do that. And this was like 2000. So it was like the bit of the rise of internet online business. It was definitely early days from the dietetics point of view, but yeah, so I stumbled down that rabbit hole and then over time got to a point where both of those worlds collided.
So running my own business, dietetic stuff and online. And yeah, so I, I did Business where I was working with people around their relationship with food and eating online. And so I really enjoyed doing that. And then when I came back from that leave from my third baby, I wanted to, I just had this passion to, I’ve always wanted to work with dietitians and hold space.
Because I love supporting dietitians to dream into those possibilities of what being a dietitian can be. And particularly when we bring ourselves to it. And so. I started Dietitian Values in 2020 and yeah, I’ve been having that conversation officially. I’d always been having some, career changing system, disrupting conversations for many years.
But did that like officially yes, since 2020. So that’s what I’m at now, just working around holding space for dieticians to really just, at the core of it to Build their businesses, create businesses their way. And to bridge that gap between the values we hold as health professionals and as clinicians and the values that we see in the business world and to support dietitians and health professionals to see that doesn’t have to be a disconnect.
We can bring that together and we can build businesses that bring our values and our humanity along.
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And do you still work with clients in your private practice side as well? And then also run dietitian values? Is that how you’re spending your time or mostly in one? No, I don’t anymore. I did when I came cause I was didn’t want to burn the ships as such.
And was doing a bit of both. And now I just work in dietitian values. As I said, I’ve got three kiddos. I’m still. mostly stay at home. So yeah, I try to maintain my sanity and a reasonable focus of attention on different things. So yes, no, I don’t do that anymore just for my yes, my, my mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.
Totally fair. So I want to speak more to what exactly your services look like with Dietitian Values, but I’m curious first, there’s obviously, you obviously have a strong why behind your business. There’s a strong mission there for sure. And I’m just curious, was there, Some sort of an impetus behind that, whether that was one event or a series of events that you were seeing in the business world that you were like, this needs to change.
There has to be a better way. What was the thing that prompted dietician values to come to life? Yeah, so there’s a couple of sort of things I think just all happening in parallel to lead to this, crest up into this kind of space and I mentioned I started digging into the online business world in like the early, like 2010, 2011, and I was really interested.
I saw so much opportunity. And the practices I saw were just a little bit ick, like they just, I’ve got a, I suppose quite a strong connection to my body and my intuition and it just was like, Oh, that doesn’t quite fit, and then there’s all these stories around. Well, it’s a youth thing. It’s a mindset thing.
To me, which was always well, maybe it is a me thing, in my early days and playing around with that stuff and trying different things and strategies, but just finding it really didn’t align. There was also just some things that weren’t possible to do as a health professional. Some things, particularly in Australia that are against our ability to be registered and to be held as health professionals that.
They were being promoted and so I was like, well, there’s a really big gap here around what one health professionals like, well, I know what I wanted to do, but also what I can do. And what felt, ethical and values aligned for me as an individual, but just also as a professional, because obviously we have professional ethics as dietitians which I think, they’re reasonably similar globally.
And and yeah, so there was just a big disconnect there. So there was that thing I was noticing. I went on a huge deep dive at a similar time. Clearly I was like having a quarter life crisis or something or a quarter life reassessment, let’s say, because it didn’t feel crisis like around my own Home, personal, like my personal values, at that time I still held.
a bit of a difference, although I will say now I don’t see a difference. I see one human, one set of values. But at that time, so I was looking into that, looking into really into sort of more slow down, simple living. I’d watched like the Al Gore movie in the mid thousands and early thousands and like being like, Oh yeah, okay, right.
This looks pretty scary. So, I’d been doing that at the same. So I’ve been really getting clear on my own values and what I was my boundaries around that and what I, what kind of life I wanted to move towards. And then I was wanting to do online business stuff and seeing all the practices there.
And so then over time I was playing around and just realizing that, Oh, this is a really big thing at the same time. And you might notice this too. So many dietitians and health professionals leave our profession. Because they can’t see the possibility, or burnt out feeling like the only option, if you’ve got a similar system in Canada of where it’s either be a public, public system dietician and get burnt out and burnt by the system or go do a private practice.
And then of course, we only see this traditional way of doing business. And we lose dieticians. And I’m just still 20 years in passionate about. The work that dietitians can do, not necessarily the systems. Okay. So I’ve got a few gripes, of course. But like dietitians as humans and as the opportunity in that, in our profession, I just love it.
And the possibilities that we can have. And so. Yeah I was like, okay, well, how can I bring all this together and support, something that was felt like there was reasonable ease for me around when I was building my business was just getting really clear on what worked for me and what didn’t and putting aside that stuff of I don’t need, like that doesn’t serve me, so I’m just going to leave it there.
And I realized that wasn’t necessarily what everyone does at the same time, because I’ve worked in for my clinical or my. Food facing practice has been around weight inclusive, human affirming, social justice, trauma informed stuff. I saw parallels between diet culture and online business culture.
And so I was like, okay, this is like the same picture. And also opportunities for us to just, yeah to yeah, bring that into our work. If we as dietitians and practitioners are questioning that in how we show up in our businesses, then it strengthens. The sort of space we can hold and actually the difference we can make, I believe in our practices beyond just what happens in the clinic room.
So all of that to, all of those things. So there was lots of things rather than one particular thing that kind of brought me to this and the 200th piece, let’s say of all of those pieces is I’m really avid gardener and really interested in permaculture and regenerative practices.
And I’m somebody who. Just pitches pitches systems and how they intertwine or how they impact and things. And so I really saw ways of how I was. impact interacting with nature in the garden and Oh, there’s some power anyway. So there’s, that is like a little tangent angle which is impacted on by how I approach the business stuff and something, I feel like we can build more connection to ourselves and to nature and things like that in business.
So. That’s me. Yeah. No that’s incredible. And I think it’s such an important reminder around, because I know I found the same thing just even in my own business journey and have observed this as well, that especially when we get started in business, there’s a tendency to find somebody, whether it’s.
Somebody who has a podcast or a business coach or whatever, you find this person and there’s a tendency to latch on to some of their messaging around what you should or should not do in business because we’re looking for a guide, right? We’re looking for somebody to tell us.
You know what to do next because it’s so overwhelming and it’s a brand new world and we don’t know what we’re doing. Right. It’s such a massive learning curve and it’s such an important reminder to still be critical around, those lessons that you’re getting. And if something doesn’t feel right or aligned for you.
That’s okay. There’s so many different ways to run a business. And it’s a, it’s an interesting balancing act too, right? Between, and I wonder if you ever, have this conversation around, what’s the difference between something truly not being aligned with your values and something just being new and scary, and I haven’t done this before, so it feels uncomfortable.
I know this is a bit of a tangent, but I’m just curious if you have any thoughts on how do we differentiate or how do we distinguish between the two things, like the thing that’s no, I don’t want to do this because this doesn’t feel aligned versus the, I don’t want to do this, but just because I’m scared and I’ve never done it before.
That’s such a great question because it’s definitely something around learning to know ourselves and learning to really connect particularly with our body more because our head will tell us heaps of stories right around around things to keep us safe and our body can give us some good information.
And I I, I would encourage people to think about like reflecting on situations in the past. What does it feel like in your body when something happens that’s not values aligned? It’s we’ve all walked away from those kinds of conversations. conversations where it’s like I should have said something or we asked to do something maybe in workplaces or organizations when it’s I really want to say.
No that because it doesn’t align. So thinking about that and then thinking about that different kind of feeling in your body that when it’s like something new, maybe you might have to stretch your mind back to childhood if you’re not up for. If you haven’t tried anything new more recently how we feel around that, or maybe for people, how you feel around maybe when you’re going to go to a networking event, right?
And you’re going to be meeting new people. And there’s that little bit of those different type of feelings, which are very different. I know for myself, as I’ve built that connection, there is a nuance there, there is still that kind of nervous system activation so they can feel very similar.
You’re right. And I think there’s nuance there around a difference around how it sits and settles in your body. When it’s something that’s not values aligned, when it’s not values aligned, it often can stick around as well. There’s I imagine when I just said that everyone can remember.
As the experience of that versus while we know roughly how we feel when we feel nervous about things and new things, we know what that feeling’s like. It’s not like that, that networking event 3 years ago on a Thursday where you felt a bit nervous before you went and stuck with you, but.
I’m sure many of us have a conversation with a colleague or a client where maybe something wasn’t a values aligned and that those things do. And we, that feeling stays with us. So I think there is a difference there. So our bodies are really great indicator. I think we might need to work on our connection though, to that, because often we’re over our lifetimes, we disconnect from that, we’re told that it’s an us problem, a you problem, it’s a mindset thing or.
Because of the way our cultures and systems work, we have to make choices sometimes that compromise our values for safety, for financial reasons, for lots of things, commitments to different things. That’s normal I really want to, I love talking about values and values as actionable things, but also as aspirational.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about being somebody who’s some kind of, quote unquote, like paragon of moral virtue. It’s about just being clear on your values and who you are and how you can move towards that and taking those small steps versus it being a thing like, yeah, if we act out of our values that we’re a quote unquote bad person.
But it’s tricky because dietitians, we do like To as a, the kind of, really broad strokes as a group of us, we tend to be people who are, socialized to be, good girls, good boys, good humans. So we’ve got that kind of baggage, people, pleases helpers, all of these things that comes along.
We, we like. We like certainty, we like knowing that what we’re doing is right. And I think when you were talking about with the business stuff, we go into business and it’s someone tell me the right thing to do, right? What’s the right way? What’s the right email provider to use? What’s the right marketing thing?
And so, yeah, like I really resonate. And I think that a lot of people can with that idea of latching on to somebody or a certain approach and when it doesn’t work or when it does feel a bit uncomfortable thinking it’s an us problem. Just the same as, , for the humans who work with people around their relationship to food and eating, when people have tried different diets and they haven’t worked, it’s a, it’s taken on as a them problem, a you problem.
And when reality it’s generally an external thing. It’s a system thing. And similarly in the business world, and like you said, there’s so many ways to run a business. And I often say there’s as many ways to run a business as there are humans running businesses because I think. That, yeah, like we can, and we can do it differently.
And sometimes just having spaces like you hold a great space for this as well where people can just get curious about what works for them. And the word you said before, critical, bringing that critical thinking, the same critical thinking that hopefully for most of us, we got in our training around to bring to science, to bring to things we can bring to the information we receive in the business world.
Thank you. And that’s where I think values can really help us too, because they can give us a filter, a space to run things through, and to ground back in when we hear advice or information and it feels a bit off, we can come back to our values and we can check that very thing that you said. Is it because this feels really new or is it just because it actually doesn’t align with our values?
And if we know what our values are, We can use them as a filter and we can run those strategies through. And sometimes we can do trial and error, give it a burl and see if it works for us. I know I did that with many of those strategies and that’s how I, for some of them were really clear.
Yeah, no, I’m not gonna do that. And some, I really had to give it a go to really get that felt sense and to see what it felt like for me to try that thing. And to know whether it was a fit for me because. Otherwise, you’re stuck in your head and we can be stuck there for a long time and not really take action or move forward.
And if we are wanting to, create businesses and create a different way of being in the world and mostly to create a difference for the humans we want to share our work with, then we do need to take action. We need to put stuff out there. And yeah, so trial and error. And that’s a real good parallel for me with gardening because often people say, I’m not a green thumb.
I’m a very black thumb. Let me think dice. Stuff dies in my garden all the time. So, I just went out the other day and all of my chicory plants have been eaten by slugs systematically. I don’t, it’s not a meat problem. I didn’t like, that’s a slug thing. So, it’s, gardening is a big experiment.
And so it has been a really good teacher around just giving things a try. And if they don’t work, then trying things differently or finding different ways to come at things that work for me or work for my ecosystem and similarly in business. So true. And so I’m curious, what, for a dietitian who’s sitting there saying, you know what, I haven’t really done the work in terms of understanding what my personal values are, what are some of the first steps that someone can take when they’re really trying to understand what their values are?
There’s a couple of ways like anything you can come of it. So there is the very traditional, values assessment tool. So there’s different ways we can look at it. And I think most dietitians and health professionals feel very values driven. And I feel like there is a difference between knowing your values and holding them close to your heart and maybe in your mind versus actually.
Teasing them out and pulling them out. And it doesn’t have to be written, I’m not going to create a hierarchy with different ways of taking out, but we can be oral. You could be talking them but ways that we can actually just formulate them. So there’s a couple of different strategies to come at your values and you can use one or all or little bit.
So the key one, and we’ve probably all done it at some point in our life is like that value assessment tool where you have a giant list of words and it’s but every word’s important. And often they are because. We have things we value, and we have our values. So there are things that are important to us.
As health professionals, we might see things like health and wellness and things as something we value. And it might not just be our individual value something that we hold. I Had a lot of time with that in my early days of figuring out like, that should be something that is on my values list.
And it often wasn’t because while it is something that I value, it’s important, it’s not one of my core values. It’s not something that directs my everyday thoughts and actions and how I want to show up. So we can have those giant lists of words pulling out the words that you like.
And I tend to just encourage people to just pull out as many as they like. Often they’ll say, you do this many and you’ve got to try and whittle it down and cull them out. And it feels you’re selling off your firstborn child because that, that, that word is really important to me.
But so doing the big list of values and what I tend to recommend, which is a little bit different than sometimes those. The tools suggest is to group them in categories that make sense for you. So looking at those words and finding common kind of themes or connections for you. And that’s really personal because words words are really important and they hold different meanings for us all.
And so I think when you are looking at those giant lists of words, yeah. all the way out the ones that really resonate for you and then group them into categories that make sense to you. And if you can get them down to around that five ish categories, then it is tend to be a little bit more true to who you are.
If you can’t, if you find you really struggle with that, it might be that you’re feeling like pressure to take on or to keep holding on to values that aren’t yours. So values that we’ve been given. By our family, by our culture, by the systems around us, our professional organizations, our workplaces, educational institution, we get influenced by a lot of values over our lifetime.
And so sometimes if you find it hard to really get clear, sometimes it can be because. There’s values we think we should be putting down on our piece of paper, and they’re taking up so much room from the values that we want to put down, the values that we know really connect to us. So that’s just something to be mindful of if you are finding it’s really tricky to narrow it down.
So starting with words is a great place, pulling them in and then thinking about what those words mean for you around how you show up. So that’s one way you can do the word thing. And I’ve got a little workbook. I’ll send you the link Krista, that you can pop into the show notes for people to download, which goes through that.
So that’s one. The other one is just the good old journaling it out. Who am I? How do I want to show up? Think about how you already show up in your practice with humans you work with, because that’s a good place where you’ll see your values or how you show up in your family or how you show up in your friend groups or social things and see what the values are that you are seeing.
The other way, the other place you can find it when you’re journaling out is in judgment. And we often feel a bit scared of judgment, but I find it’s a really great rich space to find information about ourselves. So if you find you judge other people, and look, we all do. I’ll put my hands up. I judge people.
It’s not a fault. It is just information for me. So if you’re judging, look there, that can be a place where you can find things that are important to you. If you’re judging somebody because they didn’t, I saw this post in a dietitian Facebook group recently, actually somebody was saying, people aren’t, don’t say thank you.
Don’t send a card. Don’t do that kind of, active gratefulness, and to me, that would be, well, that’s clearly that person’s value and it doesn’t mean that it is everyone. So where you judge people or things that can give you information. The other nice or uncomfortable place you can find them is in your resentments.
So if you’re feeling a bit salty about things about how, we feel like other people aren’t showing up that can give us information about our values about how we like to be treated or how like we like. So I’ll give one more exercise which I find a bit of a fun one. Imagine it’s your 80th birthday.
And we can mine that stuff. So that’s really gold. And this is what I’ll give one more exercise, which I find a bit of a fun one. Imagine it’s your 80th birthday. Alright. or your funeral if you want to get the tears flowing. And write a little speech, a little couple of sentences from people in different parts of your life.
So perhaps a partner, a child, a parent, even if they’re not part of your life right now. So imagine 80 years from now, or not 80 years, because then you’d be more than 80. But anyway, it’s your 80th birthday. And you can write a speech from different people, maybe a work colleague. Perhaps a work colleague’s not going to speak at your 80th birthday, but it’s just an exercise because then they’re reflecting on.
how you showed up in your life and that will give you information around the kind of human you want to be as well. So that’s another way you can come at it if you find that kind of word stuff a little bit trickier. The third, the final one actually, I will give another one and I can’t count clearly because I think that’s four is ask people.
Ask, five close friends or, three friends, three colleagues, three family members, people in your life and say, what are the values or how do you, what are five things or four things or whatever, if we’re thinking about those five kind of core values, what are five things that you see that I really show up for or five, five characteristics you would describe me as so you can ask people in your life and different parts of your life and different parts are good because sometimes we do show up I’m thinking like family versus professionally.
Sometimes we show up with baggage in our family life. And we show up in those kind of family values. And so it’s good to ask from different people. And that’s why with the like 80th birthday, it’s good to do speeches from people from different parts of your life, because it can give you a bit of a clearer picture across different settings.
So there’s some real practical ways you can go about. Digging in and getting a bit more of a kind of, pulling, yeah, pulling it out of your heart and your mind around what values you hold and what are important to you and also what you’re showing up in right now. And then it gives you the opportunity to cross check that and to say, well, is that who I want to be?
Is that how I want to show up? And make choices from there. Yeah, and first of all, that was just so helpful in terms of giving us a bit more of that structured framework for how do we actually start to have this conversation with ourselves. I know for me, one of the biggest values, aha moments.
That I had and I’m curious if you have any other sort of specific examples that you’ve seen of whether it’s yourself, sorry, I’m getting over a cold. So my voice is just all over the map. Whether it’s yourself or whether it’s people that you’ve worked with in the past, but just like how a specific core value has changed how you practice or how you run your business.
I know for me, one of the biggest aha moments I had was, I think, especially more towards the beginning stages of my business, I would get really stressed around testing new things in my business. So trying out a new offer, or creating a new course, or creating a new whatever, because I was so worried about And I had this conversation with somebody around core values, and we were talking about how, well, one of my core values is around curiosity and creativity.
And so, the question that was posed to me was like, well, if that’s one of your core values, is that not what you’re doing when you’re testing these things? Right? It’s You’re, this is what you love to do. And this is why you started your business because you want to be creative and try these new things.
And so why wouldn’t you just do it? Because that’s at the end of the day, that’s what’s aligned with your core value. And it was like, and it just, it took so much of the pressure off of creating. It was like, I don’t have to create for a result. I can just create because it’s aligned with. one of my core values.
So that was just a personal anecdote, but I don’t know if you have any personal anecdotes, anecdotes yourself that you want to share from past clients or what have you. I love that Krista. And I really love like it, that really illustrates that difference between your acting into your core value versus some of those maybe cultural values around perfectionism and those kinds of things.
And when we come back to our core value, It doesn’t necessarily make it easier. I’m sure you still get a bit nervous about putting things out. And you can see with the why, you asked me about the why before, like it’s clearer to know, well, why am I doing this? And what’s the important piece to me?
Is it about putting out this perfect thing or is it about being curious and creative and being myself? So that is beautiful. So thank you for. Sharing that because I think it’s, and it’s so helpful for people to see that, particularly because I do talk a lot about, systems and cultural stuff and social stuff.
And we often think that feels really hard Oh, I’ve got to challenge that stuff. It’s really tricky. And I feel ill equipped. And again, I’m not going to do it quote unquote right. And yet in those small actions like that’s challenging those cultural ideas, those scripts. Of who we are asked to be and coming back to our values gives us that opportunity to do it for ourselves.
I’ve got a similar one. One of the values that I used to hold really strongly when I would do values exercises was independence. And I would, that would be something I would gravitate towards. And again, that’s one of those cultural and for me and my family of origin values around don’t need help, you can just do it yourself.
It’s still one I challenge today. I’m still work at work in progress. And when I really got. Got critical around that, like critical analysis, not critical of myself, but that critical analysis because what I would notice is actually, I really value connection as well. And so it’s well. Sometimes different things can coexist, right?
A disconnect doesn’t always have to mean a disconnect, and yet it did in some ways for me, and so that was a process of really going, Oh, yeah, I don’t have to do it myself. I don’t have to figure it out. I don’t have to pretend I know what I’m doing. I don’t have any needs and all of those kind of ideas that stemmed for that.
So that’s one of my examples and what it’s meant for me in my life and my business is that I feel so fulfilled. Let’s say less uncomfortable asking for help. I’m not necessarily always at comfortable, but less uncomfortable asking for help. I’ve gotten clearer on my needs. Like I have needs, right?
So like I can bring them up and really recognizing that my business is a way that I take care of those needs. And so how do I want to show up in that the other piece? And it’s always been there right in my face around why I’ve always wanted to work with dietitians and health professionals and work holding space for that is because I want People to feel seen, heard, and known.
I want people to feel connected to themselves, but also to another human, because I think that we learn and grow and change our own lives and change the world and the humans we work with, right, with our dietetics work through connection. And I always loved that. That was my favorite part. One of my favorite parts about being a dietitian, working with humans around their relationship with food is connecting over that.
And so, yeah, so that was a real change for me. So it allowed me to. I suppose recognize that and really center it in my practice and as a business owner. It’s helped me to look for support, to look for those communities that offer that for me, rather than feeling like I’ve got to be a lone wolf, solopreneur, and I can only access those things when it’s about, in the business world, there’s that idea of yeah, it’s okay to be part of a mastermind if you need to level up, it’s okay to need community and connection, if it’s going to give you something, it’s that real transactional piece and so letting go of that idea of independence, having to have it all figured out, being, Needless, et cetera, has opened up space for me to recognize those things and to to build community and connection because I value it just in its own right.
Not because it gives me something, it does give me lots, but not because it’s going to, it’s not it’s relational versus transactional. So that’s been huge for me. And so that’s an example for people around that. That’s awesome. That’s amazing. So let’s talk, let’s circle back to what your service structure looks like with your business.
So what exactly do you offer for dieticians? So, space, mostly. How I run my business is very much built around yeah, holding space in ways that works for other people, as well as myself. I don’t leave myself out of it. And so I work with people either one to one, so I do coaching and that can be, So I work with I do like package, three month, six month kind of packages.
I do that mostly because, and I don’t know about you, but sometimes when you are working on things in life, but also in business, like having a little container of time around things is really supportive. So like knowing I’m going to be doing this for three months or I’m in this.
Container for this time, or I’m in this program and it just wraps a little edge around things rather than because, we’re working on these businesses for our probably for our foreseeable future. So it feels like those timelines can feel a bit great. So I find that can be helpful.
So do you have that end. I also just work with people as needed basis as well. So you don’t have to, as such, quote unquote, lock into a package to work with me. So really mostly one to one stuff because a lot of their values work is very initially individual. So once you’re, when you’re really building that foundation, it’s really helpful to have someone hold space and have that conversation around what exactly is going on.
So that’s what I do. And so, and. While values are my core stuff and I can support people to figure out their values, it’s not all I do as far as holding space in business too. So it’s a lot of the practical stuff. And what I offer is almost like that, like little mirror to help you to reflect back, like that conversation you mentioned with a colleague around.
Talking about, Oh, this is, I’m struggling with this. And they were able to say, well, what’s the value is and really shine the light on. So doing that kind of stuff, holding space, I often compare myself for those who work around, helping people change their relationship with food and eating.
I’m like a non diet dietitian version of a business coach in that it’s not about one way. Blueprint. I also have a six month program called Radical, which I only open up that once a year. So that’ll be next year. That opens up in March. And that’s around laying that foundation. That one’s in a group setting to add that opportunity to connect to other people.
So building again, that value of mine into my business and how I do it. So, yeah, integrating a bit more connection. So that’s around, but that’s a little way off. So the best way for people to work with me is, yeah, one to one. And if anyone is interested, I do have good fit calls where we can chat and see if we are aligned and if working with me is going to feel supportive.
Yeah, amazing. And I always like to finish off with this question. As we’re thinking about the next phase of our business and dreaming for the future, what is next for you and your business? I love dreaming into things, so thanks for inserting that word in there, Krista, because I think it’s so important and just so helpful, we often think about plans, like what’s our strategy, what’s on the, what are the goals for quarter two, quarter three, but just exhaling, like I feel like, When I think of dreaming, it’s oh, the shoulders drop down and then exhale.
And it’s this nice what are the opportunities? What are the possibilities? So thank you for that. So what am I dreaming into? Well, one thing I’m dreaming into is some, is a way for people to work through finding out their values a little bit more clearly. So I am actually putting together, I’m in the process of putting together, which may be out by the time this episode comes.
So I’ll keep you posted in the show notes if it is around just like a little audio training for people to work through. Around how do you figure this stuff out? So that is something that I am working on. And yeah, that’s I don’t, yeah, I don’t plan too far ahead, so I’m dreaming into that.
I’m dreaming into the other thing I’m dreaming into is more in person connection around some stuff now that the world’s kind of opening up a little bit more while my business is mostly online. I think that. What’s all online. I think that in person connection, the opportunities there I’ve just been in a room with people.
It is a really big thing. So yeah, I’m just dreaming into that a little bit as well. But to add a little bit of random tangent, I’m a, I’m looking at that as more a way of like, where are the opportunities to connect and weave weave those connections in with other humans versus me necessarily like pushing forward and, hosting things and making things happen because how I work.
Is more in that connection and more adding, adding on or creating that supports information, because I feel like values is like the foundation where you can launch from for so many things. And so, yeah, so that’s something else I’m dreaming into more in person connection and more just connection to humans out there doing things differently.
Very cool. I love that. So where can the audience find out more about you? so Social media wise, I hang out on Instagram the most at Dietitian Values. I also have a podcast. So if people want to hear my accent for longer periods of time, they’re welcome to go listen to that. There may be a few more swears in my own podcast than I have shared today.
Actually, I think I’ve been, I don’t think I’ve dropped one at all. So just a heads up put your head, your ear pods in if you’re, you’ve got. People who don’t enjoy those around. But yeah, so they’re probably the best ways to get to know me a little bit more. And if you want to connect, reach out connections, one of my core values.
So I am open to receiving a DM or yeah, jump on a call together and let’s chat. I will link to all of those in the description of this episode, but otherwise it was so great to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining us. That was amazing. Thanks. Thanks for having me and hopefully I didn’t take anyone on too many tangents or talk too fast.
I know I did. It was great. It was perfect. Thanks for having me and thanks for everyone who spent their time with us.
