Latest / The Lauren Castle Show / Functional Medicine Will Change Your Life in Ways You Never Expected
Transcript
- speaker-0: I was very, very stubborn. I just didn't want to take those answers as the only things that were gonna help me. It didn't sit well with me that I had spent 10 years of my life just kind of feeling miserable with my own health, despite being a healthcare provider myself. I think so many of us feel that way. I know there's a lot of pharmacists out there that feel that way, certainly, especially if you're still kind of working in the grind and like retail pharmacy and just like the the grind of it all. speaker-1: Welcome to the Loren Castle Show, a podcast for people on a path to well-being, body, mind, heart, and soul. Join us for conversations at the intersection of pharmacy, functional medicine, and psychedelics. My hope is that each episode will leave you feeling inspired to step into your power, speak your truth, and live your most authentic life. Let's begin. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Loren Castle Show. I'm back with another amazing guest this week. Dr. Kimberly Klimeck is a functional medicine practitioner, certified hormone restoration specialist, and certified health coach with over a decade of clinical experience. Her practice, Innate Healing and Performance, focuses on identifying and addressing the root causes of hormone imbalance, infertility, autoimmune disease, and gut dysfunction, with particular emphasis on complex women's health cases. Her approach is shaped by a lived experienced as clinical training. And As a woman living with endometriosis, Dr. Clymec understands firsthand what it means to be a patient searching for real answers, and she's built her practice to be a place for women to find them. As an enrolled member of the Q<unk>E Bay Indian community, she pairs precision, evidence-based testing with a whole-body ancestrally informed view of health, treating the person and not just the lab value. Outside of practice, Dr. Climack competes in 70.3 half Iron Man triathlons. A passion that's taken her racing around the world. It's more than just a hobby for her, it's proof of what she teaches. A diagnosis is not an identity. Chronic illness is not a life sentence, and aging was never supposed to mean just learning to live with it. What a bio. And I'm so excited, Kim. Thank you so much for joining us today. speaker-0: Thanks for having me. It's always so funny like hearing your bio. speaker-1: I know, right? And it's like, wait a second, who is she? Like, who is that girl? I felt the same way. I just recently was elected to the Cap Alpha Theta Foundation board for my sorority that I was in in college. And I just remember when I was like in my 20s and seeing these women on these like big fancy nonprofit board organizations. And I'm like, how do you get to do that one day? And I'm like, You volunteer a lot, you show up a lot, you like put yourself out there, you challenge yourself, you learn new skills, and eventually it all adds up. So speaker-0: Exactly. Applied to so many different areas in life. I d I like that what you just said. But I saw that for you. I was like, congrats. I was like, how fun. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I think it's really just about finding your passions in life and aligning it with your values, which is, you know, a really big part, I think, of what draws so many pharmacists into finding functional medicine. ⁓ so I would love to get into all of that today. starting, of course, where we always began, which is your journey into becoming a pharmacist. So tell us a little bit about, you know, your upbringing, what got you into pharmacy. ⁓ What kind of background you held in that space before transitioning into the functional side? speaker-0: Yeah, I was ⁓ definitely always interested in in medicine at a young age. My mom was actually a medical transcriptionist, so she had a a bunch of like medical books laying around the house all the time. And I remember kind of just like flipping through them and reading like just kind of like some of these big medical words. And I was always interested in what she was doing. ⁓ and I can kind of hear her charting on like ⁓ the physician's notes. And then my grandmother actually On so my mom's mom, which is ⁓ kind of the native side of my family, my grandmother was kinda a she was a community health representative for the tribe, which essentially nowadays is is like a nurse, but she would go around the community and then she would take vital signs ⁓ for ⁓ patients in their home and ⁓ some of the sickest ones, she would end up giving them like a voucher to go see the doctor. and I thought that was super neat when I was little was when I was a little girl. ⁓ and I would always when we were visiting up in the UP in Michigan, I would always ask her like how I can help people one day too, like that. And it was not necessarily in the always a conversations in the form of like nursing, but it was like we had these conversations about like healthcare in general. in different avenues and aspects. And then I wasn't when I was in high school, kind of just exploring a little bit of those ⁓ avenues. And it was very ironic. And I would s I honestly would say my mom had a a pretty big role into kind of my decision to become a pharmacist because she was working for a local community hospital where I grew up. And she at lunchtime, she would always ⁓ sit and have lunch with the pharmacist. So she was chatting with them all the time and she thought they were the funnest and neatest people. And ⁓ when we got to start to job shadow, she's like, you should go job shadow the pharmacist at the community health center in town. And so I did. And then I started asking them kind of questions. And ⁓ they were ⁓ doing a little bit of inpatient pharmacy, a little bit of st they had a little sterile compounding hood. I thought that was so neat. And then they were Preparing all the medications for the patients in the hospital. And it just seemed like a little calm, relaxing environment there. And ⁓ one of the female pharmacists was like, Yeah, it's pretty chill, you know, you can have a family and raise a family. And if you want to work part time, you can work part-time too. And we're kind of like, it wasn't necessarily that like front and center role of being a doctor. And I don't, I don't know, I never like thought of myself as like a doctor. But I thought, ⁓ well, this is a way to kind of still help people in the healthcare space without directly having to feel that maybe I had to go to med school and 10 years of schooling and all these things. Although it's kind of interesting. So now I feel like I've still kind of gone down that road of like eight to ten years of schooling, but with my residency program and everything. But that was sort of the gateway into it for me. And then ⁓ I was actually kind of on the borderline of ⁓ thinking about dental school or like chiropractic school as well. And really the one thing that kind of I would say pushed me into pharmacy was just job security. I learned that if you're into chiropractic, you have to maybe start your own business. And it's so funny because I was like, ⁓ my gosh, I don't want to do that. I don't want to own my own business. So that kind of like scribbled that one off the page for me. I'm like, no, I don't want to have all that responsibility. And then dental school was like a little bit more competitive, I think, at the time when I was looking into it. And so then I ultimately was just like, Okay, I wanna I wanna go to pharmacy school and then I I kinda went down that route and didn't really look back. speaker-1: Yeah, I love it. It's so fun like exploring how we all got into this profession because, you know, for you it was like, ⁓ the hospital or this community health center was like, you know, nice and quiet. And for me, I was like, I went into an independent pharmacy that ⁓ my friend from church, his mom was a technician at. And I was like, this is organized chaos and I love it. So like, even in one profession, there's so many different paths. ⁓ and my dentist actually, I loved going to the dentist as a kid. Like I've always had perfect teeth. And I definitely thought about dental school as well. And he was like, Well, I started in pharmacy school and then I switched to dentistry. So it's like it's always such a small world. And ultimately you realize at the end of the day, especially once you get into the functional medicine side, that it's like it's all connected, right? And it's like it doesn't really matter where you start, you know, and exactly what modality you're using. Like We're just all on the same page and trying to help people with their health. ⁓ so I love that. Very cool. ⁓ well, tell me a little bit more. You mentioned residency in there. So obviously your your educational journey continued. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of ⁓ yeah, a little a little gateway into like how I got into functional medicine too. But yeah, I had done ⁓ four years of undergrad at ⁓ UW Stout in Wisconsin and then I did kind of my pre pharmacy work and then got accepted into grad school at Madison, and I did four years of grad school at UW Madison. And yeah, at that time, and again, it was one of those things where I just even like second year into school, I was like, okay, I'm not gonna do a residency. I don't want to do a residency. I just wanna go right into practice. And then as soon as I got to kind of my latter years of of grad school, I was like, no, I think I do want to do a residency. And it was interesting 'cause I had a a ⁓ unique opportunity 'cause I because I had a scholarship with Indian Health Service and again kind of working and supporting tribal communities in exchange for ⁓ funding for school. And ⁓ Indian Health Service residencies were actually, in my ⁓ opinion, yeah, kinda like the best residency in terms of pay at that time. So I was like, okay. ⁓ 'cause normally if you go to residence, you know, you're taking taking a pay cut kind of like that the whole year. So but Indian Health Service actually ⁓ paid pretty well. So I thought I think I'm gonna do it. I think I'm gonna go do it. And I was I was always still very interested in kind of community pharmacy. So I ⁓ which again, very ironic because all growing up in in undergrad and grad school, I was working at an inpatient hospital pharmacy in Green Bay, like part-time. So I did a lot of ⁓ pharmacy tech work inpatient. Then I did ⁓ like ID sterile compounding as well too there, did some grad pharmacist work too, intern work, all that stuff i in inpatient. And it kind of made me realize that yeah, I wasn't I I didn't think that that was ever gonna be for me because I really need to be talking to patients and be out in the community. And I didn't really want to be in a stuffy basement all day because that's where the pharmacy was. Oftentimes I feel like in the hospitals they are, but it was like, okay, you're there 10, 12 hours a day, no sunlight, you're in in the basin. ⁓ and I was like, That's that's not for me. And it was kinda it's quiet work, you know, you're just you're ⁓ quiet and you're with your colleagues, and some people really like that. That's not an area where I thrive. ⁓ so I was like, okay, I'm gonna go to residency. I was doing ambulatory care. ⁓ it was it was like two thirds ambulatory care, ⁓ residency and then ⁓ like a third acute care. So and at the time, yep, I pretty much started residency and about halfway into it, that's when COVID hit. And so it was just a crazy unique experience, ⁓ being in the thrown into the chaos of that 'cause nobody, you know, nobody had any like Playbook for it. And so we were learning on the fly. I had to change my whole residency program project. And it just was wild. And it kind of just again just taught me more like discipline and and like it kind of opened my eyes up again to what I really wanted to do because I was so upset. I was working on a residency project, actually, ⁓ in regards to kind of de prescribing excessive amounts of insulin use in the elderly population. population and more concerned about kind of quality of life at this stage. So it was kind of cool because I was ⁓ doing a project to kind of work on deprescribing and polypharmacy and things like that, which I very much aligned with. ⁓ but then it kind of got cut off and I wasn't able to meet with any of the patients, nothing in person. So we ended up doing like retrospective chart review on like falls and hypoglycemia episodes and things like that. ⁓ and it just like really, really kind of like helped me realize that yes, I I just thrive so much on that connection with patients and being able to to talk to them and kind of work on their plans together. And so that that was something that I didn't think was going to hit me as hard. And that's what I came out of residency with, realizing like, yes, I really need to be in this ambulatory care kind of community space. So I kinda at and at that time I was Personally doing all this and I was still experiencing ⁓ I was kind of struggling with my own health issues. So yeah, when I was 20 years old, I had been diagnosed with endometriosis. And ⁓ kind of just a mainstay is, you know, at the I feel very blessed because many, many people it it takes them years to get diagnosed with endometriosis, but I was also very stubborn. My mother and I were very persistent in the ⁓ conventional medical space, very on top of things, one appointment to the next, always pushing, always just kind of like pushing that envelope, p pushing for ⁓ more ⁓ differences different opinions and things like that. And somehow it ended up leading me to like a referral and ⁓ I ended up seeing some specialists in Texas. And that was that was again, ⁓ okay, I got diagnosed when I was young. And then I was kind of ⁓ put on birth control. I had some excision surgery, put on birth control and kinda sent along my way. So all throughout undergrad and residency grad school, everything, I was kind of just still still like intermittently struggling with some some issues of gut issues, low grade inflammation, hormonal imbalances that was supposedly supposed to be managed with birth control pretty much essentially at that point is what they said. ⁓ and then when I came home from residency, I took a job working at community ⁓ a ⁓ tribal community clinic. and I think You know, many of us pharmacists or when we were in grad school going to be pharmacists and doing residency, like you push through so much. So despite like despite my own issues, I totally shoved them under the rug. Like I was dealing with with a lot of like gut issues, ⁓ chronic like indigestion, bloating, IBS, constipation, chronic fatigue all the time, chronic fatigue, ⁓ running on caffeine, just ⁓ irregular ⁓ issues with like kind of spotting and things like that, even when I was on birth control. And again, you just put it all, you push it all under the rug for so long. And then when I got home from residency and I started working at the community tribal clinic and there was like a colleague there. ⁓ she had given me a book ⁓ called Hormone Intelligence by Dr. Aviva Rahm And a lot of people know me of like that's my little little story, cause they get that book and they're like, Okay, what's the book? What's the book that you know, this was sort of my gateway. It wasn't like the end all be all, but I will say I was like my eyes were opened a little bit because this colleague was older and she thought, Okay, you're struggling a lot, because I would still kind of complain at work. So I was still dealing with like hormone issues, inflammation, really like a lot, a lot of brain fog and fatigue. ⁓ and I just thought I knew, you know, I thought I knew that exercise and diet could help me or that it would help me. But it wasn't helping me. ⁓ and I had decided to go see an another local specialist for for just more endometriosis care. And essentially they were like, Okay, well, it it just grew back. So now we're gonna give you surgery again. if that's what you want. And I was like, Okay, I think so. I mean, the first surgery did help me, like it excision surgery was ultimately really, really good. But it was crazy because it still like grew back, even though I was on birth control and they told me that was like that was supposed to help it, not ⁓ drove back. ⁓ so again, I kind of had that second surgery and then I read that book while I was recovering and that just like the blinders were off. At that point I was like, well, there is more than what I was being told because I woke up from a second surgery and it was just, you can be on birth control to help prevent this, which I knew wasn't the answer because it already happened again, even despite me being on depa shots and ⁓ vaginal rings and everything for for many years. ⁓ they said you can come back again in a couple of years if you want to get another surgery, because we know that's helped you in the past, or they said I could get pregnant. And again, that was wild. Those those three things were the only thing provided to me as options. And I just like I just ⁓ I left that second appointment feeling so defeated. And yes, I was so distraught. I was coming back to work, I was recovering from work, and then my colleague had given me that book. And she could see I was very distraught because I was emotional talking to her, like, okay, I'm in my late twenties. I still have a lot of life left to live. I have apparently I might have fertility issues and I need to be freezing my eggs and all these things that the doctors are telling me. ⁓ and it scared me. So of course when I was talking about, I was tearing up. And she she brought me that book and just out of the kindness of her heart, she's like, Maybe this is something that can help you. You know, maybe it's something that can help you a little bit on your journey. And it was a book about, you know, changing lifestyle, nutrition, getting into like professional grade supplements, a whole different world that I have never, never been opened up to before. And that was the gateway. I read that book front to back within like a week. And then I thought, huh, okay. So I learned about like what functional medicine was, ⁓ like a little bit more holistic, naturopathic medicine, was getting that idea. And then I Googled like, Functional medicine fun. I just Google, literally got on the internet and Googled because I was learning about functional medicine. I'm like, I like this path. I want to learn about it. And then I was like, are there pharmacists that do this? And I was sitting in my car, like outside the clinic. I kid you not, Lauren, reading your name on at the FMPHA website, reading your story with your ⁓ husband and like reading it and like how you helped him, like through the functional medicine journey. And then I like instantly was like, this is my community of people. Like, this is where I need to be. And I don't care what it takes. I'll figure out like how to do it. I was fresh out of school, a residency program. I had spent 10 years of my life dedicated to basically going to do everything that I had learned in conventional training. Yet I had this little voice in my head saying, somehow this was meant to come in front of my eyes today and like learn about FMPHA and learn about functional medicine. And I could not let it go for the life of me. Like I would go to work and just say, okay, like I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna do my job to the best of my abilities. And then I would come home and spend my evenings researching and like learning about functional medicine. And then of course I joined, ⁓ that was when I joined like your I think it was like one of your fo first cohorts for the functional medicine like boot camp. And I Yeah, the rest is kind of history from there. I started joining and then I came to all the classes and then I got this idea. ⁓ I c quit my job at the tribal clinic, which was hard for me because I really was like I was in it to do like I was in it to be a healthcare provider to help and give back to my community. And I'm like, I I will still be able to do this. I just need to figure out a different way of how I'm going to do this and connect with people and help them heal and other ways. ⁓ and at first at first it was like, I'm doing all this 'cause I want to help myself. ⁓ because I was like, I want to help myself. I want a different path. Of course I was just, ⁓ like I said, I just I was very, very stubborn. I just didn't want to take those answers as the only things that were gonna help me. I refused to 'cause I couldn't I don't know, it didn't sit well with me that I had spent ten years of my life just kind of feeling miserable with my own health despite being a healthcare provider myself. I think so many of us feel that way. I know there's a lot of pharmacists out there that feel that way, certainly, especially if you're still kind of working in the grind and like retail pharmacy and just like the the grind of it all. ⁓ and I ultimately like kind of left the clinic there. I ⁓ randomly reached out to this compounding pharmacy that I found locally, literally just emailed them and was like, I'm gonna come work for you. And that's how I am. I'm just like bold. And like, do you have any openings? I need to come work for you. And I said, I'll go do hormone training. I'll go do whatever you need me to do. But I'm like, I I told him, I was like, I'm learning about functional medicine. I feel like I align more with like personalized medicine and what you guys are doing here. And the owner there was like all on board. He's like, We'd love to have you. And, you know, it was such a yeah, it was a pay cut for me. There was no like, you know, benefits, no weak like, you know. No holiday pay, nothing like that. And I just didn't care. And I had a very good conversation with my husband about it because I said the most important things in life for me moving forward are always going to be my health and happiness at the end of the day. So you can pay me all the money in the world that you want, but ultimately I'm not gonna be happy doing that. And, you know, he was just very supportive and very on board with that. And then I just saw opportunity there. I loved it. I loved it. I got behind the counter. And then like every day I was like talking with people in the community. I got to talk about supplements because they were selling professional grade supplements like orthomolecular and just like these really reputable companies. And they gave me this opportunity to go do personalized medicine training, go do hormone ⁓ certification training. And then and then I applied, you know, I this part of the story, I applied to the Institute of Functional Medicine. I wrote a story and ⁓ I wrote an essay, whatever, telling about my journey, my story, my why. And I was blessed enough to receive ⁓ one of those applying ⁓ functional medicine and clinical practice, kind of early ⁓ IFM scholarships. And then, yep, everything was just falling into place after that. And then once I kind of got a little bit of that under my ⁓ belt. And again, it was a slow process, slow, and I just kind of kept. kept going ⁓ to work every day and I really I liked going to work at the compounding pharmacy ⁓ locally because it was just slower pace too and then we also just got to talk and then people started calling and like asking for me at the pharmacy and it was funny because I started doing hormone consultations there kind of just as a part-time thing. ⁓ they were gonna have me do it like one day a week. Then it started getting busy and then I was doing it two days a week and then I started applying more functional medicine training with gut Restoration, mineral balancing, things like that. And then yeah, it got to be so busy that my boss was like, Kim, this is really great. But you we can't have you doing both things. We I know like we know we need staff pharmacists here. We want you to d be able to do the things that you're doing because it brings in business too. And so yeah, ultimately they were super supportive and they like, Why don't you maybe you should just start your own LLC? And I thought, Yeah, I think I'm gonna do that. ⁓ And then that's where in a healing and performance was was ⁓ built. And that's that's the world and story. That's how it came about. speaker-1: It's so incredible. Like, seriously though, I just every time I hear your story and I don't even think I realized just how fresh out of school you really were when you started. that you were finishing residency in COVID. And I was like, wow, I graduated pharmacy school in 2013. I was like seven years deep into my career at Walmart during COVID. ⁓ so even more inspiring, right? It's like you just have to keep following the path and like finding those signs and taking the next step and yes, being bold, right? I think, you know, with pharmacy, there's there's sort of two general s like types of pharmacists. There's the ones who are willing to be bold and to put themselves out there and to go after what they want and to challenge the systems and like not just accept it. And then there's other pharmacists who have a tendency to just complain and sit back and say, woe is me. And you know, the system's never gonna change and become really cynical and jaded. And like it's it's sad, right? But at the end of the day, I think it's not just a pharmacy thing. Like it's a a bigger life picture that ultimately you're in charge of your destiny. And I know for me, COVID was the thing that really woke that up for me. Like I felt like I had dove into this whole corporate world of pharmacy and it was all amazing and I loved it and I was thriving. But then boom, right? Like my project ends. I have to go back to being a district manager. And then I start to realize, wait a second, this isn't what I want to do anymore. This isn't the right fit for me. And yeah, like leaving Walmart and stepping away from the comfortable. you know, salary and benefits and all of those things. I always knew I that entrepreneurial spin spirit. I worked in independent pharmacies in high school, but when you actually like cross the bridge and take the leap and do it, yeah, it can feel a little scary, but you did it slowly, right? Like one day at a time. Same thing. It was like I cut my hours back from being full-time market director to doing a work from home remote job. then going back into the pharmacy part-time. And then finally, like, I really just wanted to stay on PRN. And at that point, Walmart was like, nope, you have to choose F ⁓ B H A or us. And that was like, yeah, easy choice, right? Easy choice. Yeah. Like it's, it's such a journey. I definitely want to hear more about your practice today, right? Because it's taken this time to really find exactly what it's going to look like. And ⁓ you know, you mentioned obviously that you were in the boot camp, which yes, that was our very first cohort. So I had gotten back from my Walmart position, you know, my my home office gig that I got to do at the end of 2019. Once I got back into being that part-time pharmacist, that was when I really doubled down on like, okay, I'm at the pharmacy two or three days a week, and the other two or three days a week, I am Truly working an eight-hour day from my house, working on F and PHA, building out this curriculum, like building out our business model, figuring out how all of this is going to work. I had started my LLC for it as well. And, you know, at that point, I also found my first person that I hired for our team, which was Meg. So she's our operations manager, because I was like, I'm in over my head now, right? I don't know how to build a business online or a website or online courses or any of these things, you know, and I'm I'm a pretty techie person on social media and stuff like that. But I was like, this is a lot. And so yeah, that first step was like we were talking about this before we started recording, but it was like you start finding people in the online space and, you know, individuals that are like, I can help you with your business. I think I was then a bookkeeping class because I also realized I was like, ⁓ no, I have to do bookkeeping. Wait a second. Like, I don't know what I just signed myself up for. and so we connected through that that program. And then she's like, I help online business owners like streamline their businesses and launch their programs. And I was like, I need you. I need your help in my business. And we've been together ever since. It's been four years now. so yeah, we launched that first version of the boot camp. Had our sort of lifetime membership offers. We were like, we need our first 100 pharmacist members to like really help set the stage, right? For what was to come. ⁓ and you jumped right in and put everything into action right away. We didn't even have all the clinical content back then. It was just the business modules, right? And so it was so exciting when you got to do the IFM program. Like again, this is what it takes. Like it takes us putting ourselves out there. And saying like we deserve to be in this room, right? And you got picked for it. Like that was huge. You're probably one of the first pharmacists to ever get an IFM scholarship that I know of. ⁓ speaker-0: I'm yeah, I'm I'm one of those firm believers that like ⁓ it just ⁓ nobody's coming to save you. Nobody's coming to save you but yourself. Like I've always just had that mentality, like as a young girl, and I think just even all the trauma with endometriosis and living with chronic ⁓ chronic ⁓ illness for a long time, I d I had to have that mentality because I could see it happening to me every day was that nobody was coming to save me. So yeah, I mean How frightening. I I literally, yeah. I literally got out of of grad school and residency. Debt. I have debt. Crap ton of debt. And I was like, I don't care. Like I this program is where I need to be. And I was like, it I didn't hesitate to sign up. I instantly joined. I was like, something good is happening here and I can see it and it's brewing. And it's like so wonderful to see like how far that's come. And yeah, I'm like, when I joined, we didn't even have we didn't even have all this great, like, like, ⁓ clinical content combined with business coaching and everything. And it's like, okay, I yeah, just kind of went on a whim and was like, well, I'll figure it out. Like that that was always like how I was. I'm like, I'll figure it out as I go. And like so many that's how I f that's like how when I when I hop on calls with pharmacists who are maybe like interested in doing this too. I was just like, you're gonna have all and just let just let you know you're gonna have all those little voices in your head telling you that you shouldn't do this or it's not the right time or you need more training and it's like you're always gonna need more training. You're never gonna not like you're always gonna be learning. I'm still learning every single day. ⁓ I just find ways of like being confident about the knowledge that I do have and continuing to slowly build upon that. And worst case scenario, what do you do when you tell a patient something in real life too? You say, Okay, that's a really good point. I'm gonna take some notes on that and let me let me get back to you on that in like a day or so when I can you know, look over some of my research or things that my tools that I have access to, or I say I'm gonna run this by my colleague because I want a second set of eyes on it. Like you don't have to have all the answers right away. ⁓ but if you feel if you have this like burning feeling inside your, your, your heart, your mind, your body, whatever, whatever intuition, like you need to act on it. Cause the longer you don't, like you're literally just going to be sitting there with regret for years. And that's just what I tell people all the time. And again, I just feel like the like I could have had all the reasons to say no of being, like I said, fresh out of college, young. Nobody does this. Nobody's like doing functional medicine as a pharmacist. You don't have more money to spend on this. Like all the reasons. I had ⁓ surgeries that I had, you know, paid for out of pocket, like other things that were going against me. ⁓ but I just like refuse to kind of let that that pile of nose like be the reason that I wasn't gonna ⁓ be here doing what I'm doing now because that's the life I wanted. Like when I was looking at your website and and I was like, ⁓ that's the life I want. Like, and then I got that then I got that burning fire of like, ⁓ maybe I do want to run my own business. Maybe I do want to be an entrepreneur. Maybe I do want flexibility, freedom. Like, you know, that's all I That's all I ⁓ talk about now to you every time we chat. I'm like, ⁓ Lauren, it's going great. I'm gonna set my own schedule. I'm literally if I wanna take off on a Monday, I'll I'll block this off on my schedule. If I wanna be off for a long weekend, if I'm gonna go do a training ride, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna block that off for Friday 'cause I wanna ride my bike for four hours and I know people think that's nuts, but I like it. like that's like that's the power that you have. And it all started from saying yes to the boot camp and it started yes, saying yes to myself and my dreams and my goals. And like, I know people are just out there, they're just waiting in the weeds and they just keep watching and reading. They're reading an email and they're they're reading this next email and they just don't make an actual decision or a choice and they don't say yes. ⁓ but sometimes that is literally the hardest part. As a business owner now, those those like Insecurities still creep in. It's not like they don't creep in. I just have found ways to make sure that they don't kind of consume me or overtake my life. It's like, okay, yes, I have, you know, I have to make business decisions of where I'm going to invest money and this and that nowadays, which is, you know, it's cool to be able to like actually be in that position. But I always think that it doesn't matter. Sometimes it may work out and sometimes it may not. But like this kind of like the decisions about like, literally signing up for a program or joining a community where it could change your life, it's a no-brainer. Like, yeah, those are, you know, I don't know, words of encouragement, all the words of wisdom I can give for people. But I think sometimes like it's the lack of confidence that people have in themselves or they just have these like deep inner voices telling them like a lot a lot of negativities and things, which is again, that's it's S a pieces of that too, I tell people too, like sometimes that's hormonal things too, with like your body and we're working on your health and your healing 'cause like you can create that self confidence in yourself too. So it's an important point. speaker-1: Totally. Yeah. I talk about that too a lot. And, you know, there's this physical aspect of health and I really struggled with that personally whenever I was coming off of the Nuva Ring. And it took me a year to get my cycles back. And my hormonal levels when I ran my own Dutch test because my OBGYN was like, that's not something that we do here. Yeah, my levels at age like thirty-two were basically in the tank, right? And of course Course, of course. And I felt horrible and I had no energy and I was fatigued and I like had anxiety. Of course. So my first book that I read was Beyond the Pill by Jolene Brighton. And that was the book for me that really changed things. ⁓ Alyssa Beattie wrote Woman Code. That was another book that was really impactful. And then Lara Bryden ⁓ wrote the period repair manual, those three. And I had to work through a whole year of getting my health on track, like completely cutting out alcohol, you know, saying no to sugar, like just focusing on eating enough food. Like, and I'm sure you probably really understand this. Like the amount of food that we actually need to eat as women to properly fuel our bodies and make hormones is a lot. Yeah. Yes. It is a lot. And so The physical health is just one piece of it that feeds right into our mental health, our emotional health, our spiritual health, you know, and yeah, if you are stuck in a job that is unfulfilling, I think I honestly end up counseling more people about quitting their job as the biggest hack to improving their health. That there is, because at the end of the day, if you are sitting behind a desk or doing some job that is sucking your soul out of you, right? Like literally draining your life force energy, you only get one life on this planet Earth. And for me, like it took psychedelics to actually like finally make me realize that not everyone needs to go down that path. But once I realized it and it like became part of my everyday waking consciousness and reality of like, I could die tomorrow. Do I really want to be here working this job or doing this thing or not pursuing my passions in life? Right. Like the FOMO side of things becomes really real, right? Because it's like, yeah, you really might actually be missing out on an opportunity. And I balance that, of course, with saying that like I do think everything happens for a reason. And I think everything is divinely timed. So even if you have said, no, I'm not ready. No, I can't do it. No, whatever the reason is, right? And whatever the decision is, I still trust that. I still trust that you're still on the right path. It's just a different timeline than perhaps you could have been on. But eventually, eventually, right, when it comes to making decisions, there is a point that you just have to say yes. And it doesn't matter what the past has been, it doesn't matter what the future's gonna look like. There's really only a split second moment in time where you switch from being a no to being a yes. And that's it. So speaker-0: I know. And it's like as as a woman, it's like I I I I can totally raise my hand to this one too. It's like, ooh, depending like where you're at in your your menstrual cyclones too, it's like you have all this energy and like you're feeling on fire and you have these great ⁓ like ideas and these thoughts, you know, like maybe when you're hitting her on your ovulation and all that good stuff. And then it's like, ⁓ I could ha 'cause I could have somebody like super interested and then it's like, you know, maybe they're hitting their luteal phase and other things and the energy isn't as strong or they are struggling with some of the ⁓ like nervous system the balances and hormonal decisions and then they then they pull back too and it's like it's such a beautiful thing to be balanced and like not having these like up and down roller coaster thoughts of like, ⁓ my gosh, I made a terrible decision and like I know this happens for so many of my clients. And like sometimes I have to be the rock in that, like that roller coaster time and that like that season for them and just tell them like it's all gonna be okay. This two shall pass. We're getting more balanced. You're not gonna have all these like up and down feelings and emotions and anxiety and rage and everything like that. ⁓ I it's so interesting. I just had a call earlier before we we hopped on here and yeah, it was a a new discovery call of the potential client and She had she's reaching out to me almost a year later. I had done a community ⁓ talk in in ⁓ I do a lot of like random community ⁓ events talking about hormones and, you know, function medicine functional medicine stuff and she said she put on the intake form, Yes, you ⁓ you're ⁓ you were at ⁓ Hotel Northland for this speaking event last it was a whole year ago. And I was like, that's the power of like timing of what you said. Like maybe at that time something something resonated with her about my message. And now she here she is like a whole year later and she's like, I think I'm ready to get started. I actually went in this direction, but now, you know, things aren't panning out. I'm still feeling ⁓ worse, etc. Like I really remembered what you told me and I felt a really good connection. And then, you know, she was like that divine timing. It's like now she's kind of ready to get started. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And life, life will teach you lessons. So it's like you can learn things the hard way, or you can learn how to do things the easier way. And I really do think that that is what, you know, community and coaching and, you know, structured programs really have to offer. And I'm the first person that will tell any pharmacist, like, you don't need to get certified. You that is not a requirement to become a functional medicine pharmacist. However, if you want to get there faster, go together, right? Like really and truly, it speeds up the timeline of being able to get to the outcome that you really want when you have support. And the same thing goes when you're working with a practitioner, right? If you're a patient, you can go down all the rabbit holes and try to research it. And especially in today's world. Between AI being able to, you know, chat about all things health related, and doing your own labs, right? Like you can go on function health or Ulta Labs or any of these places and order your own lab tests. Like my my goal oftentimes is like, I want you to be able to be your own practitioner. Like I want you to be empowered because at the end of the day, yeah, like. No one else is gonna be able to know your own body in the way that you do. Like you have to develop that connection to yourself, to the symptoms that you're having and understand and how to translate those as signals of where we're not living in alignment, right? And that can be more of like a a spiritual approach to health that eventually our bodies will start talking to us. So yeah, I just think that like you said, there's There's a time and a season for for everything. and I was really pondering that today. I have been practicing with tarot cards. So this was my my tarot card today, which is the two of pentacles. And what's kind of cool about this is like there's little boats in the background, right? And this sort of infinity sign where it's like we learn this in in physics, right? Like the laws of thermodynamics that there's actions and reactions and Like energy is conserved. All of these principles don't just apply to physics, they apply to life. So it's like there's always gonna be like the ups and downs, no matter what it is, whether it's your health or in business. And so you learn how to just ride the waves of waves of life, and you just learn how to keep going and and going together. speaker-0: Yeah. I think that's like so much of the beauty of like what what we're doing now too is like, you know, I think about all I've had just like, I don't know, fifteen plus years of of medical trauma in my own journey, right? We didn't even we didn't even get into like this g this big, big story too. I mean I had I think that's like it's that is the beauty of my story is like I I really feel that you you talked about like hitting your r rock bottom, you know, kind of like working with Walmart and having to make le like these ultimate decisions and like I've had that we we all have moments. We can think of a moment in our life where like we really, really felt felt that for me it happened at a earlier stage, earlier point in my life than I probably would have ever wanted. You know, I was like twenty two, twenty three years old, I think, when I was kind of finishing up undergrad and I went to go study abroad in Costa Rica and I ended up getting some ⁓ random like v ⁓ right random infection that I acquired and when I came back from overseas it kind of disrupted the whole nerves and my digestive tract and they never really had an official diagnosis, almost like a Ghee and Bar type syndrome. And so, you know, even before I had kind of my endometriosis diagnosis, I had my entire colon removed when I was twenty two, twenty three years old. twenty three. ⁓ it's like a blur to me now. But it's such a crazy like I went to Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, top digestive health center in the world. Again, not knowing it l anything about like functional medicine, and I'm like, ⁓ could I have saved myself? You know, whatever. I don't ever look back on these things. Like I've had colon surgery, I had my gallbladder out, I had ⁓ three endometriosis removal surgeries. And again, that was that was certainly a tipping point for me. I'm like, Isn't enough is enough? This is how I'm supposed to live. Like You your resolution for me having a a good quality of life is just basically being on ⁓ synthetic hormone ⁓ management for the rest of my life with side effects and other things that I was struggling with, emotional imbalances, ⁓ just so much trauma. And that was my tipping point ultimately. Like I I had hit rock bottom with all of that. And I'd never I do say, okay, this was important for me. somehow this was what I needed to go through and the cards I had to be dealt, whatever, whatever you wanna, you know, view it as. ⁓ and it just it was my awakening. And it it kind of created this beast in me that was like, yeah, no, there's there's I can't handle any more trauma. I've already I already lived my trauma, 10, 12, 15 years of it. And like then that was like everything kind of started to fall into my lap a little bit. And maybe people think that it's like, ⁓ okay, well, Kim's path is like, She ended up winning the scholarship and she ended up like, you know, she she went to the pharmacy and they were like supporting her educational training. And it's like, okay, but I still had to speak up. I still had to ask for what I wanted or kind of take what I wanted too. And like my own investments. Now I've invested in so much like business coaching and other things too. Like I still put myself out there and I still make these kind of gut-wrenching decisions where it makes you like, ooh, okay, that's a big, that's a big piece of. Piece of change, you know, that I'm investing into this, but like ultimately, like I know what I'm gonna get out of it. And it's gonna come back at me five to ten times fold. Like that's just how I believe. Like that's and I kind of just don't settle until I have achieved it essentially. Like I put it, I put the fate in my own hands. I feel that. Like I don't, I feel like I'm not putting it like up to the universe to decide. Because I'm more of like an action taker like that. And I do feel that again, it starts with those little those just like those little steps per se. So even even now, it's just like all the people kind of coming into maybe functional medicine right now. Like is now is like the best time for functional medicine pharmacists. Like we have things figured out. We went through the trenches. We went through all like the the hard work and the what-ifs and like what programs are good and What business coaches and like, you know, we have these things. And it's like, I did it. I was like a little type A student. I did exactly what you each each week, you know. And I told you that. I tell people a lot of my story. I started my LLC before I even finished your boot camp. I started it even. And I didn't have any extra fancy labels. I didn't have the hormone certification training. I didn't have IFM training at the time. I was just like, I need to get started because. The longer I sit and wait, I was just like, okay, whatever. I'm gonna start seeing real world cases and get real world experience. And of course I started like that. I'm just like, okay, give me like five patients. I'll do I'll do it for free for them. I'll, you know, we'll the pharmacy will fund it. We'll get ⁓ these patients in. We'll use them as some case examples, like how we how we're gonna set up things. And like that was just kind of like how we did it. Maybe start with two patients. I don't care. Whatever you gotta do. But the I know I see a lot of people in the pharmacists are like, Well, I'm not quite sure. Like, I don't have all the training and I don't know. It's like, okay, call me then. Whatever. You want me to help look over a case, I'll help you with it. Like I reached out to I reach out to my lifelines and I still have my friends from FMPHA, probably some of my gals, and we talk like, you know, once a month, every other week, something like that. We still reach out to each other, like, hey, what would you do in this scenario? And that's what you're getting in the community too. It's like we want to help each other. And the other piece of it is like Something I hear too is that, ⁓ well, now I miss the boat or I miss the train because now it's getting oversaturated with like functional medicine pharmacists. And that's also wrong. There's so many people who need our help. My business is basically sustained by just helping people in my community. And I'm still growing and still making profit and everything's coming in. And I feel super blessed. And a lot of my business is based on word of mouth referral. I feel super blessed. I'm sort of just learning maybe to tap into a little bit more of that online space. And I do have some clients now from out of state and for like health coaching and ⁓ so it's like there's just so much. And that that thought process of that it's like oversaturated. And I always think too, I'm like, ⁓ my gosh, people could just have a business doing like gut health stuff. They don't even have to do hormone stuff if they don't want to do hormone stuff. You know, like everything's hormones is the answer to everything, which is also not true. But ⁓ it's just like you can do whatever you wanna do. Like, again, some people are not even seeing, you know, they're not seeing clients. Maybe they've built a business that's an online thing and they're teaching and giving giving people resources and access to all their information and their training. Maybe they are affiliates or working working with a company and like you're doing different branding things. Like, I don't know. There's just so many opportunities out there. I don't know. I I do part time now. I'm like locally, I do little part time like ⁓ modeling. That has nothing to do with functional medicine. I just get speaker-1: Me too. speaker-0: Like I do that in my community for funsies. ⁓ but no, things come up. There's a need. Like ⁓ I hear from moms like certain needs that they need. And so now I'm working on something in the background here that I'm gonna wanna kinda roll out in the fall and winter months, and it's all based on that kind of need in the community. But I know there's ⁓ a lot of communities that still need still need ⁓ our help. And like that's just one thing is like they really Patients and clients really trust me. They know I'm a licensed healthcare practitioner. They know I'm a pharmacist. So they know I know about because some of their fear is like, ⁓ my gosh, are you gonna take away all my meds? I'm like, no, that's not the instantly life thing, you know, that what we do. We work together. We can. There's a time and a place for medication. There's a time and a place for functional medicine, lifestyle changes, all that kind of stuff. But ⁓ I think that's where they really find that. like working with functional medicine pharmacists in particular is a great opportunity because we're we're understanding about like their prescription medications too and and you know, understanding pathophysiology and and the h human body and all that stuff too. And it's a prime place to be because you're kind of like mo like you're ti you're you're ⁓ is it kind of tr transitioning some of that knowledge too into learning about like professional grade supplements and active ingredients and proper dosing and things like that? So it's not like you're throwing away all that knowledge and stuff that you learned in pharmacy school. So I just apply it differently. speaker-1: It's so true. And gosh, everything you said, right? Like there really has never been a more perfect time for pharmacists to start their functional medicine journey. There hasn't. Like, and I say that after being in this space for 10 years now, right? Like, especially in the political, economic climate, like all of these things that's just chaotic all the time. People are just looking for people they can trust, right? Healthcare is a hot mess, but if we can balance having our functional medicine background or our pharmacy background with the functional medicine piece, like it really does bridge the gap for people to be able to say, okay, like how can I work with this person? and I love all the other like fun, exciting things that you do outside of your functional medicine practice because that also is. Something that makes you unique and makes you stand out. And it's so funny. I get your ads all the time on Facebook and Instagram now. And every time I'm like, like, like, share, repost. That's my girl. Go, Kim, because it's so exciting, right? Like you never know who could be just scrolling on the other side of their phone. And all of a sudden, like you show up and there's something about the way that you carry yourself, right? That can even be captured. In a photograph, right? Because it's genuine and it's authentic and it's real. And that is what people find. Like they they have that curiosity of like they're looking for answers. They're looking for you specifically, like wherever you are in your community, right? Our goal is to get a hundred pharmacists in every state. And that is just scratching the surface, right? That's 5,000 pharmacists out of 300,000 pharmacists in the US. We also know that we're on the edge of the baby boomer generation all being moved into assisted living, nursing home care, like that whole trajectory is coming in the next 10 to 20 years. We are going to have a crisis and a shortage of practitioners who can care for elderly patients who are on lots of medications, right? So it's like, There's so many different opportunities that if we can really capture this moment right now and help people start to take charge of their health and, you know, just like in your story, realize like I'm not going to be a victim of what has happened to me. Like I am going to use this to fuel the rest of my life and to live the most expansive life that I can live, right? To get out there and build the business, create the thing, like Get on a stage, go do a triathlon. I can't say I am gonna do triathlons yet, but I'm I'm teaching my very first yoga class. speaker-0: Right. That's yeah. I mean it's like what's your why? Like that's the point at the end of the day too. We're not we don't have to our whys are all gonna be different, right? Like, okay, I don't have any children yet, but a lot of people it's like what why do they want more freedom and flexibility to spend more time with their family? They don't wanna be working forty hours a week in a stuffy office. ⁓ well you do have control over that. You set your own hours. Like I love this. Like that it's like that's why that's what I'm promoting is because it's real. This is my real life. I wake up and I'm like, ⁓ okay. Like I set my own hours. Like I this is kind of my day. It's laid out. If I'm kind of working, maybe like ten to four that day, or I have like some breaks, I can eat lunch, I can go for a walk. I'm like I sitting outside. I'm sitting outside on my patio doing a console on my laptop. Like I get sunshine every day. Like I don't know. I'm just Happy. I wake up every day. I'm like never dreading going to work because I genuinely love. I could talk about hormone stuff and endometriosis and gut stuff like all day, every day. I'm so fascinated by it. I'm so enthralled in it. I'm like taking some extra training now on like genetics and like that's like where I invest my time and energy. But my why was I t I told you this kind of coming into it when I first met you, and it was like she probably I knew I'm like Lauren probably never heard this from anybody, but I'm like, Do you wanna know why I wanna start my own business or like why I wanna do this? It's because I wanna ride my bike when I wanna ride my bike. I wanna train and do my try plans when I want to do them. And if I wanna take a four day weekend, I wanna do that and not have to scramble back and worry about somebody who's gonna fill my ⁓ job ⁓ job position for the day or make sure I find a a fill in or just like having to be at a structured like t time and place every day of the week. Like I'm terrible. I was always late for work, like five minutes late every day because I'd be training and then like rushing and throwing on my scrubs and like driving to the clinic 30 minutes. And I'm like, I don't ever worry about that anymore. I I just like life is just it's so great now. And it's like, yes, granted I work. Like I still work, but it's like I can kind of spread those hours out for the week. I can take a week off if I'm gonna go somewhere on vacation. I kind of get make sure all my affairs are in order and I have that communication with my clients. And ⁓ now it's like gotten to the point, it's like where my business is growing and it's like I genuinely like again, this is this is job security more than I ever realized it was. Cause I'm like, people are always going to want help with their health. It doesn't matter. Like what their focus might be on, right? Like people are always looking for alternative, alternative ⁓ views on like health and wellness and alternative avenues. Sometimes they're like newly jumping into like functional medicine and ⁓ sometimes it's like okay, they just want some recommendations for ⁓ you know, when they get sick or something like that. Like that's always going to happen. People are always going to sit be sick. There's always going to be some type of Chronic disease. Like I don't say that in a bad way. It's just like that's just the reality like that we're living in with our our world. And ⁓ I think the thing that's cool too is like ⁓ I'm kind of in this space too where there's not necessarily like people who are ⁓ dealing with chronic illness, but they're just looking at like optimizing their performance and just like optimizing their health in general. Like they feel good, they they're not Diagnosed with anything. They feel great every day. Now they want to be able to perform better or whatever they're working on for like their athletics or activities or family or hiking or things like that. They just want to wake up and feel good every day. And that's a message that I'll probably preach till the day I die is that you can, and as a woman, it's like knowing personally, I would w I would probably feel good maybe one week out of the month, every month when I was really in the trenches and the depths of dealing with endometriosis, systemic body inflammation, gut issues, chronic bloating, constipation, ⁓ just like brain fog and so much fatigue. And then obviously dealing with again, endometriosis not just painful periods, but I did have very, very painful periods and heavy bleeding and that would just knock me out for like a whole week. But then you're dealing with all these other symptoms for like the other two weeks and it's like, holy crap. Like then I'm witnessing all my friends in college. Like they're having fun. They're they're going to parties and they're being social and they're they're doing adventures and like having fun and not struggling. And I'm like, ⁓ my gosh. Like I just like was like, I want people to know that they can feel good. Cause now like I'm in a place of balance. And now it's like I'm I'm I wasn't really stopping at just being like having a kind of just like an average kind of life. Now I'm like, ⁓ okay. I built, rebuilt my body and I restored it and got it back to homeostasis. And now I want to live. And that's like why I do try some. There's such a like funny saying about like endurance sports and it's a lot of people who have endured trauma. And I'm like, yeah, ⁓ gosh, like that's true. But now it's just like I love feeling alive. And like it's like last year I got to bike in Spain and I took my bike overseas and I did a year before that I got to go to Top Tapao, New Zealand and I was racing in the world championships there. And it's just like I'm never gonna I don't want to lose sight of that feeling. And it's like now I know how to keep my body balanced. I know how to keep take care of myself, rest, recover, balance my cortisol and my hormones and immune system regulation and I keep all that kind of balance. And that's what people want to know is like they want to know that ⁓ like there's there's life on the other side of like recovery too. And that's kinda like what I like to preach a little bit or be my be I like that to be a little bit of my claim to fame because it wasn't just the message is different, as especially like with talking, for example, about endometriosis, right? It's one chronic disease label. I like to call ⁓ labels. ⁓ it's not a life sentence. But that's the that's kind of the picture being painted is often like so much pain. And a lot of negativities, and like it's okay for you to feel this way. And when you're not feeling good, like just go lay in your bed for 48 hours. And like, I just like I didn't like that narrative that I was seeing, even on social media. Like I just disagreed. I'm like, okay, but what about living? What about like you can feel good? And I'm like, I want to be that example and I wanna show women that. And that's like what I do every single day. And so it's like, yes, people kind of know me. as like the triathlon gown now. And it's like I I I love that. That's a piece of my health journey and that's a piece of my life and it'll always be a part of my life now. But I'm not saying people have to go out there and do triathlons. But I do think that you deserve to do the things that you are passionate about and that bring you joy and that you can feel good doing it. Cause people know I was like, I sure as heck wouldn't be doing triathlons if I was still struggling with etnometriosis. So that's the message. But yeah. speaker-1: Amazing. Well, I think that is an incredible place to summarize the whole journey, right? Is get out there and live the life that you want to live. And if you need help along the way, then find the right practitioner, find the right community to help get you there. And that's what we're all here to do. That's that's life. So yeah. Amazing. speaker-0: I'm pretty grateful that I found you and I found FMPHA. And again, I kind of shelved that to the rooftops. Like I think it's just a perfect place for anybody to start in your journey. Like, you do have all the tools, and it's such a great, like, it's a it's a great little boot camp. And it's so simple and there's no stress. And it's just like you show up and you can be yourself and be authentic and like you can brainstorm, you get ideas, and you feed off of like that energy from other. Like it's like That's why I loved even being in the boot camp too. Like I can remember it. I was like feeding off of energy from other people who are just as excited about this. Cause like you're not getting that sitting at your, you know, conventional job or whatever you're doing. All you're hearing is chronic consistent negativity. And that's what sticks in your brain versus like being in a supportive community where there's hope and there's energy and there's support and there's good vibes. That's what I like to see too, is that I know you see all that stuff on social media. By you cheering somebody else on or rooting for them, it doesn't take anything away from you or your business. I'll be the first person. You wanna start a ⁓ you know, hormone practice or or whatever in in Wisconsin, do it. Great. What do you need from me? What help do you want? Like I tell people, I'm like, when I used to have stuff like ideas that I'd put them on my practice better, and I'm like, copy it, copy this whole plan. This ⁓ like ⁓ I got this package and this bundle and it's working good. And it's like I'd send that to my pharmacist out in front friends out in different states. And I was like, copy the whole thing, see if it works. You never know. And then there's always this fear, like, ⁓ nobody's gonna pay for that. I'm like, nope, it's happening. I didn't I thought the same thing. I thought the same thing. But I don't know. That's this is just more messages. I'm trying to think of anything that's like really, really detering people from for doing it because like I want everybody to join the boot camp. ⁓ and again, I was like, I have nothing, like I have nothing, nothing that I can't like that I'm that I wouldn't say that's that's ⁓ not beneficial about that because I think it's just a great starting point. Really gives you all the tools to launch and yeah, that's all you really need is basically that. And then just your crazy ideas and whatever you want to do. Whatever fulfills yourself. speaker-1: Yep. That's it. And I mean, honestly, that's that's why like exercise one in the boot camp is the foundation for your vision. Like we do a whole exercise to actually help you figure out what you want because that's a whole nother podcast episode that I'll probably do someday is just how disconnected we become from our own desires and the conditioning of the world and all the things, right? It's like sometimes you actually have to do a lot of personal inner work. To even figure out what you truly want. So we do that in the very first lesson. But again, thank you, Kim, for everything. And for anyone watching, Kim is our Wisconsin leader for FMPHA. So when she says literally, like she will help you with all the things, this is what all of our leaders are here to do. That was my big wild crazy idea that I was like, I can't do this alone. I need a pharmacist in every state to help bring this movement to life and to move this forward and to share resources with each other so that we can figure it all out, right? That's part of what being an entrepreneur is all about is creating something that's never existed before in a space that it's never existed before. And you don't have to be an entrepreneur, right? I do want to make sure that's super clear for people now, especially in the present day of how our boot camp is structured. We have plenty of pharmacists who are like, I really don't think I want to own a business. And you heard from Kim. She did not think she wanted to own a business, but somewhere along the line, you get bit by the bug and you realize just how incredible it is. And the resources are there for you. The skills are something that you can learn and that will teach you. But there's no pressure. There's no, you know, deadline on having to start a business or an LLC while you're in the boot camp. You can absolutely just learn the information, no pressure. And when you're ready to take the next step, we're gonna be here for you. So it's just everything you need to get started. And Kim is absolutely living proof of it. So thank you again for being here and sharing your story and going so deep with everything. I think you're just such an inspiration. speaker-0: Thanks so much for having me. And yeah, if anybody's, you know, got some burning questions, I'm always an open book. I like I said, I can hop on a phone call, an email, whatever. And yeah, I'm always gonna be authentic and I'm always gonna be myself. Cause yeah, at this point in my life I'm kinda like I just ⁓ I just ⁓ I just didn't want to I wanted to be my own boss. And essentially that's what I have and ⁓ I'm loving it. So speaker-1: Amazing. And we'll have all of Kim's contact information in the show notes. So be sure to check that out. Whether you're a practitioner or a patient, we'll have everything listed there for you so you can explore what she has to offer. And until next time, thank you again so much for joining this episode of the Lauren Castle Show. And we'll see you again soon. That's it for this episode of the Loren Castle Show. Thank you so much for tuning in, and I hope you'll join us for the next one where you'll hear more stories from me and some of my amazing guests. Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast no matter where you watch or listen, and check out our website, drorencastle.com and fmpha.org. We'll see you next time.