Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife

Ep.112 Harnessing Mindset and Gratitude for Health and Body Transformation with Trish - This Phoenix Rising

• Michele Henning Folan • Episode 112

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Can a shift in mindset revolutionize your health and wellness? Join us in this compelling episode as we explore the journey of a remarkable woman like Trish, known as This Phoenix Rising on social media. We uncover the undeniable power of mindset in achieving health goals without resorting to extreme measures. Trish shares the incredible impact a serious illness in March 2020 had on her life, driving her to make significant health improvements driven largely by a change in mindset.

Discover the immense benefits of quitting drinking and honing in on nutrition, and the newfound authenticity and presence it brings to significant life events. Learn how redirecting resources into positive outlets like fitness can lead to a more fulfilling and healthier life.

Harnessing the power of gratitude and mastering mindset for health success are integral themes in this episode. Drawing from Gay Hendricks' concept of "Einstein Time," we discuss reclaiming control over your schedule to improve overall well-being. Trish shares personal anecdotes about the transformative power of gratitude, emphasizing the importance of focusing on inner health and resilience over superficial metrics.

 Listen to motivational stories and practical advice that will inspire your own health and wellness journey, culminating in a heartfelt reminder that true transformation begins from within. Follow Trish's journey on Instagram at @this.phoenix.rising for daily doses of inspiration.

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Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling rundown. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan

Have questions about Faster Way? Feel free to reach out.
mfolanfasterway@gmail.com

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Michele Folan:

My story of midlife and menopause is probably not unlike yours. The midsection fluff came from nowhere. I was tired and achy. Not sure why I waited so long, but I did get coaching, but only after looking at the multitude of programs out there on the market. You don't have to spend a lot of money, do crazy workouts or buy a bunch of special food to get results. Let me show you how. My six-week group program starts every few Mondays and I promise by week two you will feel better and by week four you will start to see body changes. By week eight, other people will want to know what you're doing. This is not a diet. It's a lifestyle with sustainable results. Are you ready to invest in you? I'm happy to get on a call to explain the FasterWay program or just check out the info in the show notes. You can even send me a DM on Instagram. I can't wait to work together. Health, wellness, fitness and everything in between.

Michele Folan:

We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, michelle Follin, and this is Asking for a Friend. Whether you want to lose a few pounds or need to make some big changes in order not to go down the path of a concerning medical issue. How do you get yourself motivated to get started and stick with it to achieve your goals? This week, my clients and I were discussing mindset. You can have the best coach, workout program or nutrition plan, but unless your mind is truly in the game, you may be setting yourself up for failure. I often ask myself what are the consequences of inaction. If I play this forward, how do I want the future to look?

Michele Folan:

My guest today, Trish, also known as This Phoenix Rising on social media, had her own transformation that began with a major mindset shift, which propelled her to not only get fit, but build a foundation to ensure her future health and happiness. Welcome to Asking for a Friend, Trish. Thank you, good to be here. Yeah, and we're not using your last name because you don't mingle the two, between your professional life and your online persona, and I totally appreciate that and I'm going to honor that. I gave a very brief introduction of you. I would love for you to just tell the audience a little bit more about you where you're from, family details and that sort of thing.

Trish:

Well, that's a tough one because I'm not from anywhere. So people always ask where I'm from. I'm from nowhere. I was a military brat, lived all over the world, went to high school in Japan, and I have moved a lot as an adult, living in Europe and things like that, so I'm not from anywhere. I am one of three, I'm the oldest, so I'm very type A. I'm a high achiever, yeah, and I have one son he will be 21 next month and so I own two companies, I work a lot and my life is super busy. That's kind of me in a nutshell.

Michele Folan:

How has that growing up, living abroad impacted you now as an adult?

Trish:

I mean, at the time I hated it, right Like, at the time I was jealous of all my friends who went to one school with their same friends the whole life, you know. But now that I'm older I'm really grateful for it because it taught me so much and some of my closest friends are still the friends I went to high school with in Japan and it has taught me number one it's taught me a lot about gratitude, because as Americans we're extremely fortunate to live where we are and people who have not lived outside of the United States maybe they've just gone and visited. You don't understand how lucky you are, but it's also. I can't meet a stranger so I can talk in any situation. I don't really feel uncomfortable anywhere, and so it was a lot of struggle. As a child. It was very difficult. I endured a lot. I endured a lot of bullying and things like that, but it made me a really strong adult and so I'm really grateful for it in the end.

Michele Folan:

And I've got to think too, running two companies, that having that ability to adapt to any situation has been helpful too.

Trish:

Yeah, and it also you become tolerant of people. Where a lot of people are very intolerant. I'm very tolerant of people and who they are and how they may be different, and so I'm able to. I think the thing that makes me successful, both in business and just in life in general, is I have a true desire to learn and I especially love to learn about people. So I'm the girl who you know. When I go places, I want to know the story behind the waiter. I want to know what everybody. I want to know their backstory. I want to know about people. I'm far more interested in learning about other people than ever talking about myself, and that serves me really well because you learn a lot in the process. But you also get people to open up and people tell me things they don't tell anybody, and I think it's just because they feel that genuine, like I want to. I genuinely want to know about them. I really, really do.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I love that. I think that's a great trait to have. But today we are going to talk about you, Trish.

Trish:

Well, I'll turn it around on you, just so you know yeah.

Michele Folan:

Well, buckle up. All right. You have an amazing story about your fitness journey. You said that you gained 90 pounds in the span of seven years. What else motivated you to finally get yourself fit?

Trish:

I didn't care about the weight. First of all, I think people need to understand that I was not someone who hated myself. I wasn't someone who looked in the mirror and felt like disgusted. I actually quite liked myself. I didn't think I was fat, I didn't, and I didn't really worry about it. I had no desire to lose weight.

Trish:

And so what happened was I got really sick, really, really sick, in March of 2020. I don't know what it was. People are always like, oh, did you have COVID? I don't think so, but maybe. But I ended up in the ER and the doctor ran a bunch of tests and they couldn't figure out what was wrong, and he basically told me that I could have a stroke at any moment and die, and so I had to go through all kinds of stuff. It was a very, very scary moment. I thought I was going in just because I couldn't breathe and maybe I had the flu or something. I mean, I was very, very, very ill. I was in bed for three weeks and I had to take my blood pressure four times a day and that kind of stuff.

Trish:

And so I am a single mom to my son, and at the time he was 16, my son has autism and I'm very committed to I mean, he's my best friend, I'm committed to making sure he's okay, and all I could think of was what happens if I die. I mean, what's going to happen to him? Who's going to help him become a man? Who's going to help him go to college? Who's going to help him navigate these new experiences that, as an autistic person, it can be very difficult. And so after I came home from the hospital, I was laying in bed and I basically I mean it was a bargain with God. I basically just said to God you tell me what to do, I will do whatever you tell me to do. I will do anything if you just let me live. And that's why I got healthy. It had nothing to do with how I looked. It had nothing to do with my weight Couldn't have cared less. It had to do with being alive for my son, all right.

Michele Folan:

Listen, whatever it takes for us to finally get ourselves in that place where we're motivated to care about our health. Was there any family history Trish Of what? Just any cardiovascular or anything like that? That was worrisome.

Trish:

My parents are super healthy. My parents are very fit. They were always very, very active. My parents were never overweight or anything like that. My mom is one of 11. None of her siblings are overweight, nothing like that. My mom had breast cancer when she was 52, and my dad had a heart attack in his fifties but he's still alive and kicking and his heart attack was basically because he eats terribly but has an amazing metabolism and so, and being a Marine for all those years, he was really active and running and all of that. But you can't outrun bad diet. No, I know. So, no matter what you look like on the outside, that doesn't mean necessarily that you're healthy. It's about what's going on in the inside, and that's what I was interested in. I was interested in getting what was going on in my insides healthy.

Michele Folan:

You decided to document this journey, which I find incredibly motivating. Was this motivating for you or is it therapeutic for you, to kind of put things out there?

Trish:

No, I didn't want to do it at all. So what happened was I didn't start from the beginning documenting my journey. The videos that you see from the start of my journey were because my coach trained me virtually and we would have to upload at least two videos a day showing our workouts. So that's where those videos came from. I didn't share anything and I didn't want to and I didn't need to.

Trish:

I'm actually a very private person, believe it or not. I am super private and, like on my personal social media, like my personal stuff, I don't share any of this. I don't share my journey. I don't share my before and after photos. I don't share any of this. But what, um? I don't share my journey. I don't share my before and after photos. I don't share any of this. But what happened was after. So I started. I got sick in March of 2020. I started getting my stuff together, started eating healthy, started moving my body and one night, as I was sitting on the couch, I saw a post from train with Joan on Instagram and she talked about her daughter starting a transformation program and I thought, oh, whatever, you know, I'll apply it just it was like on a whim right.

Trish:

And so I did that and I applied, and so I worked with her from July to December and at the end of December I had lost all the weight. So I had lost by that time. In total I lost 90 pounds. But from July, from March to December, I lost 85 pounds.

Trish:

And so I thought, well, you know, I'm somebody who needs a goal, I'm very goal oriented. And so I thought, well, what if I compete? You know, that would be a really good goal to get to the next level. So I scheduled a call with my coach and I said, hey, I want to compete, I think. And she said well, the only way that I will support you competing is if you do the transformation category. And I said, oh, no, nope out not doing that, because I knew what they did was you walk out on stage in your bikini and they show your humongous photos on the Jumbotron behind you and it's on pay-per-view for the world.

Trish:

And I didn't want that. I didn't want to think about where I had been, I just wanted to get out there and be like hey. And I said, no, I don't want to see those photos, I don't want that behind me. I that's, that's not my journey. And she said well then you, you can't compete. And I was like oh, okay. So then I thought well, what I'll do is I'll start this Instagram where nobody knows me and I don't use my name because I have a pretty high profile career and I'll just start sharing these photos and see how I feel. And if I feel like I can do it and I feel more comfortable, then maybe I'll do the transformation category. That's how it started. That's why I started sharing.

Michele Folan:

Got it Okay, yeah, and one of my questions was how did you find your coach? And you answered that, so you did follow a specific program. Was this macros? Did you count macros? Okay, so you weren't necessarily counting calories, or were you doing both? No, okay, how much were you eating a day? I'm always curious.

Trish:

Oh, I don't know, I couldn't tell you that was four and a half years ago. I have no idea what I was eating. What I do know is I was eating very differently than I had. So when I was unhealthy, what my daily routine would look like is I would get up, I would go to Starbucks. Now, I don't drink coffee, I drink frappe, I would drink frappuccinos. So I would get up, I would get a frappuccino from Starbucks, go to work I would not eat all day long and then I would come home, make sure the dogs were taken care of, go out to eat Usually it was like some and then you're like oh, I haven't eaten all day, so I can have this pasta, I can have this bread, and it always accompanied wine. And then I would eat dinner and I would come home and I would sit on the couch and I would work until one in the morning, eating and drinking, snacking on the couch.

Trish:

Where I was a workaholic, I worked easily 16 to 18 hours a day, lord, and so I would just work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work and snack, work, work, work, work, snack, and that was my routine.

Trish:

So then, when my coach, when I started with my coach, she wanted me to eat five times a day and all this protein. I remember thinking, my God, I'm so full, I just can't eat this much, this is so much. And I tell people when they're starting the journey and they message me and they say, oh my God, how did you eat this much food? I say to them embrace this, because within two weeks to four weeks, you're going to be hungry because your metabolism jumps in and your body goes oh hey, wait, this is great, this is really good. Okay, oh, we're getting fed. And then you're going to get hungry. That's what happens. So I do know. At the beginning it just felt like I was just shoving food in. I just thought I could not put another morsel in my gut. But that changes very quickly and you get hungry as you start working out.

Michele Folan:

So I had this happen. This morning. I had a client reach out and she says am I eating all of this food today? And I said, yes, you are. And just trying to help people understand that a lot of people don't eat enough and maybe eating 750 to maybe 1200 calories a day, and when you ask them to start really fueling their body, it can be tough at first, but I just said, yes, stick with it. Stick with it. Trust me on this one. You did bring up drinking wine. Did you cut alcohol out altogether? Yeah, I don't drink.

Trish:

Okay, I don't miss it. It's the very best thing I've ever done in my entire life. Why do you think you don't miss it? Because I'm not trying to mask anything anymore. I'm not trying to shove my feelings down anymore. I am so whole and so fully me. I don't need alcohol.

Trish:

I never liked the taste of alcohol. That's not why I drank. I drank because my life was stressful and I was trying to escape it. And the thing about me is I never drank in college or any of that. I was always extremely motivated. I didn't have my first drink till I was 26. And then I drank on such rare occasion. It was just very, very rare. But then, as I went through this very stressful period in my life, about a seven to 10 year period of intense stress I started leaning on alcohol because I just I was having panic attacks. I just couldn't figure out how to manage the stress and I just I was running away from the stress. So that's why I drank.

Trish:

And when I first started my journey it was one of those questions I asked my coach you know my, can I drink? And she's like well, can you? Yes, should you? It depends on what your goal is. You're never going to reach your goal if you continue to drink. But that's your personal choice. So I thought, okay. So that first year I had in total four drinks the whole year of my transformation journey. The second year I had two and then I haven't really drank since. Now I don't say I'm sober, it doesn't mean I might not have a glass of champagne someday. I'm not going to take it off the table, but I will never drink the way I did Not, ever, ever again. I don't miss it. I save so much money. I spend that money on workout clothes. It's amazing. Again, I don't miss it.

Michele Folan:

I save so much money. I spend that money on workout clothes. It's amazing. I'd love that. It's like hey, guess what that $20 bottle of wine can become clothing. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's funny. We use alcohol to help with anxiety and stress and it does just the opposite. Yeah, it actually exacerbates it. Yeah, it does. And then you get anxiety and all the other stuff.

Trish:

That's where the 3 am, girl brain begins where you're in bed.

Michele Folan:

You wake up at 3 am and you're like, oh my God, the world is colliding, everything's happening.

Trish:

You start having all these horrific thoughts and then you start spiraling. Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore.

Michele Folan:

Don't miss that. Oh, here's the other thing too. It's the. You know, people say, oh, we'll put a little notepad and a pen by your bedside so that when you are awake at 3am, you can write things down. Oh, my God, you don't want to write down anything that I think about at 3am. That's not going to help anybody. No, that would just make it worse. Yeah, it just makes it worse. So, anyway, did you set an initial goal? What was your?

Trish:

goal when you started the program? What were you really going after? So I went back and I reread my application to my coach recently and what I said in there was my goal was to live. To see my son graduate from high school. That was my goal. My goal was to live. That was it, and I know that sounds trite maybe to some people, but it was such an impactful goal for me.

Trish:

It frustrates me a little bit with the women who reach out to me, who are so obsessed with how they look. And there's part of me I just want to say like I don't like that's so vapid. And there's part of me I just want to say like I don't like that's so vapid, so vain. And while outwardly appearances you might think I'm vain, I am not vain at all and I didn't do this for it to look a certain way. I didn't care. I wanted to live. I was so committed to living. At the end of the day, you know and I have women always reaching out what about loose skin? What about this? It never even crossed my mind because I didn't care about what my body looked like. I cared about living as long as I was alive. That's all that mattered. That's all that I cared about.

Trish:

And I did put a little parentheses in, like what is your goal? And I said all that. And I said something like and also, if I could ever be 135 again, I mean that would be great, but it's not a have to, which is hilarious because, as you know, a goal weight is kind of weight isn't really. It's more about your metrics and what your health is. You don't even know what your goal weight could be or should be, and I can tell you my goal weight or my maintenance weight is far less than what I thought it would be.

Trish:

And I don't get tied up in any kind of number like that. I don't let that control me. And I think that's really important as you go through a journey to not let a number control you, to not let your physical appearance control you. Think about what you're giving yourself in that longevity and in living your life as fully and as completely as possible, for as long as possible, where someone doesn't have to take care of you, you don't have to live in a nursing home, you don't have to be riddled with pain, you don't have to have cancer, things like that. That should be your goal.

Michele Folan:

I have a inside out approach. So if I take good care of my insides and I do all the stuff, if I take good care of my insides and I do all the stuff, then ultimately the outside will start to reflect that, and I work with clients. Like I said, we try not to focus on weight as much as we do. How are your clothes fitting? It's because when you do this transformation, as you know, Trish, you're shifting fat to muscle, and so the scale isn't always going to be your friend, and that's something that you know we as a dieting society have to try to overcome. That's thanks to marketing. Yes, I know Right, and so mindset had to be a very important part of your process. Can you talk about that a little bit Like, did you ever get frustrated or want to quit at any point? Nope, no, never.

Trish:

Never even crossed my mind. Okay, but that's me. And so I say to girls all the time right, you know, how did you do that? How did you develop that? That's who I am.

Trish:

I was born this way and I come, by it very honestly, from Irish Catholic parents. My dad was a Marine. My dad was a motivational speaker for the Marine Corps. So he started out as an airline airplane mechanic and he moved into PR and then they kind of tapped him to go out into the community and do motivational speaking, motivational speaking. And so he would go out and he had this whole speech he would give about the rhinoceros theory, because rhinoceroses they never stop, they never quit. They are always, always moving forward. They're charging forward. So as a young kid, my rooms I would wallpaper my entire room with the billboards from the Marine Corps because my dad helped create those campaigns.

Trish:

And that's all I ever heard about my dad talking about the rhinoceros theory and how you know, about being positive and about how you'll never get anywhere in life without being positive. I was always told I could do anything I put my mind to. I was told that you may be poor but it doesn't mean you don't have integrity. If you don't have integrity, you don't have anything in life. And so I was given those gifts, from my dad especially, and I've always had a really incredible mindset, unstoppable. I've been unstoppable my whole life. Anything I've said I want to do, I do, and like it shocks people, but I'll say I'm going to do X, y, z, and they're like you're going to do that and I do it, and that's the same with this, like as soon as I and you know.

Trish:

But I have to be laser focused. It's not everything, you know. There's some things like, oh, I might do that and that won't happen. But if I'm laser focused on something, if I set a goal and I say I will do this, I will do it, and that's just. There's no stopping, not I mean, the world could end.

Trish:

I did this during COVID. It's not going to stop me. There were no waits anywhere. It's not going to stop me. Gyms were closed. It's not going to stop me. Nothing is going to stop me.

Trish:

And I think that's something you really have to think about. You can't let things stop you. I mean, I've had so much thrown at me during this journey that I could have said poor me, I deserve a day off, I deserve a week off. I deserve this, I deserve that. But I never let that happen because I'm unstoppable. So that mindset was given to me by my dad and it was fine tuned with my coach and going through the program. For sure it gave me more food for thought and things like that.

Trish:

But I basically applied what I applied into creating businesses, what I applied to recovering my son from autism, what I applied to escaping an abusive marriage, what I applied to everything that I achieved in my life. I applied to this and I had the same result I won. And so that's the thing. You know. You have to just think. Nothing else matters. You have to become unstoppable. It's really not that hard. You just you can't let yourself have excuses. Excuses drive me bananas and people always ask me when am I going to become a coach? Why don't you coach? And I say to them I'm never going to become a coach and you don't want me as your coach because you would hate me, because I'm so intolerant of excuses and I'm never going to be sweet to you. You're going to say to me oh, I had a headache today, so headache today, so I didn't do my workout. I'd be like did the world end. Really A headache. You didn't do your workout.

Michele Folan:

Are you kidding me? So I'm not cut out for that. I don't have the empathy gene. When it comes to excuses, well, and that's totally okay, but what I'm hearing in your message, though, is what I try to get across to women with this podcast is I don't care if you are 60, 65, 70 years old. It is never too late to do the thing, whether it's get yourself in shape and be healthy, or starting a passion project, writing a book, I don't care, but we use all of this knowledge and confidence that we've gained through all the wonderful things we've done in our lives. It's our time. It's our time right now.

Trish:

Grab a hold of it and take it and run with it, no matter what age you are, whether you're 25 or you're 65, I mean you have to take care of yourself and you have to put yourself first and you have to know that you are worthy of loving yourself. You're worthy of that self-love Absolutely. And I think as a society, especially with the unfortunate advent of social media I think social media is what has destroyed the world we really, really have to learn to love ourselves again, because we don't as a society. I see it especially with young people. I see it with the people I hire. I see these young girls that they don't love themselves and I work so hard to empower them, to teach them to love themselves.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, don't get me started on social media.

Trish:

Yeah.

Michele Folan:

It's horrible. That's a topic for a whole nother show. We can do that round too. I am curious, Trish, what your workout schedule looks like now versus what you were doing when you were training. It's the same.

Trish:

Yeah, okay, yep, it's not going to change. The only time it changes is when I'm in contest prep, and it's more oh.

Michele Folan:

God, so are you competing?

Trish:

again. Yeah, I'm slated to compete in September. We'll see how it goes right now. So I'm somebody that I like a goal and I like to compete. I like to be on stage. It doesn't I'm not. I'm well you know, a lot of girls are backstage shaking and really nervous. I love being on stage. I do a lot of public speaking, so like the stage is my thing. But I also will not put my body through. I won't do anything to destroy my health. So contest prep can be very damaging to a body. It can be very, very difficult, and so my coach and I you know, I've talked to my coach and we both know I will not. I refuse to push myself to the limits in which some people will, because ultimately my goal is health. It's not about a photo on one day. So as long as my body keeps showing up and doing the things it needs to do, then the goal is September.

Michele Folan:

Have you had to battle any injuries along the way? Oh yeah, all the time.

Trish:

I'm always injured. Yeah, you keep working out. Yeah, you're injured, work out. I mean I just, you know, I go. I have a really great sports physical therapist, I have a really great sports chiro, and so they keep me tuned up. And when I'm in injury especially my sports PT, he's amazing he will show me other alternative exercises I can do to work around that injury, to continue to get the gains I need to. And so, in conjunction with my coach, the three of us really, really work to make sure that I keep going. I've never had an injury where I've had to stop working out, and I've had back injuries, shoulder injuries, leg injuries, you name it. I've had an injury and I've never stopped working out.

Michele Folan:

I am really curious how you balance all of this with you know you're a busy CEO. Do you have life balance or no?

Trish:

Oh, yeah, way more now than I ever did. Okay, all right, I mean, I think that people, there's a I always referenced this and it's actually a reference that my coach taught me. So there's a book called the big leap by Gay Hendricks, and he talks about Einstein time and that was actually very life-changing me because in that book he explains that you are in control of your time. And I was like yeah, yeah, yeah, I've always been in control of my time, whatever, gay, whatever. And I kept reading it and he's like you know, you can control your time. Time is just an illusion. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so then I started thinking about it and I was like what does he mean? I control my time. I don't know what that means. And so I started looking and I decided I took a notebook and I started writing down like what I did, every like throughout the day, every minute, this, this, this, this, this.

Trish:

I started noticing number one I wasted a lot of time. Number two I let a lot of people control my time, a lot of clients, employees, things like that. A client say I need a meeting, I need it tomorrow. I would, you know, rearrange everything, do all the things oh yeah, yeah, yeah, oh God, don't fire us here. Yeah, here you go. And so I was like you know what? Hmm, let me try this. So I decided.

Trish:

Upon reading that and reflecting, I was like I'm going to see what boundaries would do. So I started setting a lot of boundaries and so now my answer to everyone who wants a meeting from me is I'm at least three weeks out. Let me look at some dates and that's the truth I'm three weeks out. Unless I have to completely blow up a day to get you in, I'm three weeks out on meetings. So I started setting boundaries that way With employees. I started setting boundaries. I wasn't completely available to them all the time.

Trish:

With everyone in my life I set a boundary and I started really capturing my time back, and my time is mine and I actually have more free time now than I ever had before, when I was a workaholic, eating like crap, not working out. I have more time now in my life because I've reallocated the time and as far as working out, I think everybody should do what's best for them. So some people like to work out in the morning, some people like to work out at night. I work out when I can. So I look at my week schedule, I look at what I have coming up and I literally put my workouts in my calendar as a meeting and it's based on when my meetings are. So sometimes I work out at six in the morning, sometimes it's at lunchtime, sometimes it's two in the afternoon when I have a block that was open, sometimes it's after work. It's different every day, but the key is that I get it done. That's the most important part.

Michele Folan:

I wish that I had heard about these boundaries thing 25 years ago, right, because I was the worst. I didn't know how to set a boundary to save your life. I am much better at it now. It's a learned skill, I believe. But yeah, I think, as working moms, we have to set boundaries and even if you're not working, you need to have emotional boundaries too with people. It's not just time, it's emotional.

Trish:

I always say I'm a recovering people pleaser because I always was worried about everybody else except me. And now I worry about me and then I'll worry about you. And that seems selfish at the beginning. You feel selfish, but it's actually selfless because in giving to myself then I am much more present and much more capable of giving to others in a much bigger way than I was when I was. Just, you know, people pleasing and jumping over every hoop to to, to jumping through every hoop to give to them.

Michele Folan:

Right yeah, Trish, who is your biggest cheerleader?

Trish:

Oh, my family my fiance, my, my son, for sure, yeah.

Michele Folan:

I, I, I got a sense of that. Yeah, I can kind of.

Trish:

I can kind of tell they're amazing, they keep me going and, uh, you know, they'll see like where there's a gap, especially in contest prep. When life is so contest prep takes about three and a half hours a day of time. That's a lot of time. When you work eight to 10 hours, you want to sleep at least eight hours. It doesn't leave a lot for other stuff. And they are very understanding first of all. But they also will jump in and they'll fill the gaps. Where they see things, things I don't even ask for from them, they'll jump in and do something simple. From just going grocery shopping or making a meal or prepping some items, I'll come home and I'll just see it's just done and it's even my kid who's 20.

Trish:

I just traveled. I went to LA. I came back yesterday and I came home and he had cleaned the entire house. He had made sure all my plants and I'm a plantaholic, so I have like a thousand plants, all my plants were watered and taken care of. He mowed the lawn. He did all these things because he knew, when I would come back, that it was going to be a crazy week of work and he knows I'm in contest prep and so he did all that for me and I didn't even ask, and it's just like a beautiful thing to have that kind of support. That's nice yeah.

Michele Folan:

We would all hope that our kids would have that sense that we need help without having to ask. Hey, just saying, I do have a question for you in regard to advice that you might have for women who may want to lose weight but also get healthy, but they're having a hard time getting started or sticking with it. That's all mindset.

Trish:

I met somebody, actually, when I was in LA. She's a wonderful human. I went horseback riding with her in the mountains of Malibu. It was the most beautiful, glorious experience I've had in a very long time. We were talking about this and she said to me what was the biggest contributor to your time? And we were talking about this and she said to me you know what? What was the biggest contributor to your success? You know cause? We were talking about being healthy.

Trish:

She's a mom of two young kids and I said, well, I mean, hands down, it's mindset, it has. It has nothing. There's nothing else, right? I'm not an athlete. I never played sports, you know, I wouldn't say I'm the best weightlifter out there. I'm not. My form's not perfect, but what I'm really good at is mindset, and so if you have the right mindset, you can do anything. So it really boils down to mindset. So if you're finding that you're someone who you know you're, you're doing well on the week and then on the weekend, oh, I want to, but, my friends, I want to drink but my husband wants pizza, then you don't have the right mindset.

Trish:

Like, none of that stuff should derail you. You can still go out with your friends and drink soda water. You can still go out with your husband to have pizza and order a salad. Nothing's keeping you from making the right decision. That's all about your mindset. So you need to get your mindset right and you need to work on that pretty quickly, because all it's going to do is continue to spiral and as you get older it's only going to get worse and you're never going to be in a better position than you are today. So I highly encourage you to get that mindset right.

Trish:

So when girls complain to me like that, it's when I send them a list of mindset books and I go seriously, I mean, I'm not special, okay, the only thing that's different between me and you is I believed I could do it, I knew I would do it, I made no excuse. I kept those daily promises to myself and I did it. Yeah, that's the difference. It really is about mindset. You know, my idol, my hero in life, is Jon Bon Jovi. I love him. He has impacted my life. If I could meet him, I would do anything to meet him. I would do anything to have 15 minutes to say to him how he impacted my life.

Trish:

And I was just listening to an interview with him and he said I'm not the best singer, I'm not the best guitar player, but I'm the hardest working guy you'll find in the music industry.

Trish:

That's me. I'm not the most talented, I'm not the best at my job, I'm not the best at what I'm doing as an athlete, but I will outwork anyone, I will outwork you, and so that's what it boils down to. It's just a matter of like. How important is it to you? Is it more important to drink with your friends and feel like crap for the rest of your life, or is it more important to just hang out with your friends, be present, have some water and be like cool, I feel great tomorrow? I mean, I got to tell you. It's a pretty good feeling. My friends don't care that I don't drink and as I'm watching them drink, all I can think is my God, I'm so glad I don't drink, because I would never want to act like that again and I know how they're going to feel tomorrow and I don't want to feel like that.

Michele Folan:

All right. Well, you just threw it out to the universe to meet Jon Bon Jovi, so I think it's going to happen. I do it all the time.

Trish:

I mean, I have held his hand, he has sang to me, but I haven't had the conversation that I want to have with him, which is so important to me, because he literally has changed. He's made me. He's a huge part of who I am. He's a huge part of what I've accomplished in my life. You know, I started a Habitat for Humanity chapter and I grew that really successfully and I did all of that because of him. All of it because of him.

Michele Folan:

Well, that's really nice. I hope he finds this out someday with an impact that he's had in your life. I love that 15 minutes.

Trish:

All respect, not trying to have a kiss nothing.

Michele Folan:

That's so funny. Yeah, your fiance might have something to-.

Trish:

Oh, he wouldn't care, he would throw me at him. If he could have thrown me on stage that night when he held my hand and saying to me, he would have, like Kevin is all about, like whatever. I know this is your dream, but I respect that.

Michele Folan:

John's been married 40 years, so yeah, I, yeah, I yeah, oh, we can't forget that, trish, what is one of your core pillars of self-care?

Trish:

I don't know. I think probably the most important thing in self-care is sleep. I'm very, very committed to my sleep. I sleep a solid eight hours a night and it feels amazing and I love it. That's probably the biggest thing that I do for myself and it doesn't change whether I travel or whatever. I am extremely regimented in my schedule and I, you know, I'm in bed by 10 PM, all that kind of stuff, and if I'm not in bed by 10, I'm a night out right. I used to go to bed at like two in the morning, so this is a huge change for me. But if I'm not in bed by 10 PM, the next day is miserable for me. I love sleep and that's super, super important. And then, secondary to that would be things like I practice.

Trish:

I'm very big into gratitude and I think people don't practice gratitude enough. You know people talk about meditation or they talk about this or they talk about that. For me, as soon as I wake up, when my eyes open, I immediately try to think of three things I'm grateful for, and it can be small, like the birds singing oh, it's sunny out today, you know whatever but I go through my day constantly thinking of gratitude. So when I just recently traveled to LA, my bag was stolen, like literally stolen, and I have Apple AirTags in my bag and I could see it like on the freeway, driving Right.

Trish:

And you know Kevin's angry because this is a trip that he planned for me for a birthday surprise and all this kind of stuff. And you know Kevin's angry because this is a trip that he planned for me for a birthday surprise and all this kind of stuff. And you know he's like, oh here's all my plans foiled. And my first thought was this is saving us from something Like there's either going to be a bad accident on the freeway, there was something that we were going to be involved in, there was something bad that was coming for us.

Trish:

And this is our guardian angel saying no, no, no, you need to stay here a little longer. So I always come from a place of gratitude and I think that's really important, and not only self-care, but just and looking at the life and looking at life in a different perspective, because so many people are so angry and upset right now, and being angry or upset or having upsetting thoughts that live inside your body aren't going to help you on your fitness journey, aren't going to help you lead a more fulfilled life. That's not going to lead you to ultimate happiness, so you might as well just practice gratitude, and it really does change everything.

Michele Folan:

I love that. That's really nice Trish. How can people find?

Trish:

you. You can find me on Instagram. It's just at thisphoenixrising, but it's thisphoenixrising.

Michele Folan:

Okay, I'll put that in the show notes so if people want to be inspired by you and your transformation journey, you can look for Trish there. Trish, thanks so much for being here today. This was really fun. Sure, thanks for having me Follow Asking for a Friend on social media outlets and provide a review and share this show wherever you get your podcasts. Reviews and sharing help us grow.