Latest / Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories / Always Shipshape, Mind & Body with Laura Banks | Ship's Log 12

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Always Shipshape, Mind & Body with Laura Banks | Ship's Log 12 · Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories

• 0:02
  Jeanne: Our guest today is Laura Banks, a holistic nutrition health coach helping women build healthy habits they can actually stick to.
• 0:10
  Jeanne: Her goal is to help women by healing their relationship with food and creating realistic day-to-day routines.
• 0:17
  Jeanne: Hi Laura, welcome to Project Candor.
• 0:20
  Laura Banks: Hello, I'm so excited to be here.
• 0:21
  Laura Banks: Thanks for having me.
• 0:23
  Jeanne: Oh, great.
• 0:23
  Jeanne: I think your business is a wonderful goal and mission, and I'm really thrilled that you're here to talk about it.
• 0:29
  Jeanne: So, first, what we I'd like to do is start with some questions.
• 0:33
  Jeanne: Are you up for them?
• 0:34
  Laura Banks: Of course.
• 0:35
  Laura Banks: Yeah, let's do it.
• 0:38
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 0:38
  Jeanne: So, question number one, Laura, after looking at your website and everything, I want you to take us back before the version of you that feels grounded and confident today.
• 0:49
  Jeanne: How would you describe your relationship with yourself back then?
• 0:53
  Jeanne: Not just food, but how you move through the days?
• 0:56
  Laura Banks: You know, I actually love this question because I was just thinking about it yesterday of how our relationship with food and our relationship with ourselves are very much the same, right?
• 1:06
  Laura Banks: Like it the relationship that I have with food where I was completely out of control and frustrated by my actions and just felt really lost and confused.
• 1:16
  Laura Banks: That's also how I felt in my day-to-day life.
• 1:18
  Laura Banks: I was really mean to myself, always beat myself up, whether that be about the food choices that I was making, about the way that my body looked, about the fact that I couldn't stick with anything, my mindset, whatever.
• 1:29
  Laura Banks: Like I was just always really negative, really down on myself, very low self-confidence.
• 1:35
  Laura Banks: And I just really lived in like a very honestly sad state of being.
• 1:40
  Laura Banks: Like I was not the happy person that I am now back then.
• 1:43
  Jeanne: Yeah, that doesn't resonate with me at all.
• 1:45
  Jeanne: Because I and knowing you just a little bit recently and meeting you at some events, that's hard to believe.
• 1:51
  Jeanne: You're such a bubbly and happy and positive personality.
• 1:54
  Jeanne: But I guess that's what people go through.
• 1:57
  Laura Banks: Yeah, I think there was like the reality probably was on the outside, I probably always did look this way.
• 2:03
  Laura Banks: You know what I mean?
• 2:04
  Laura Banks: Like people who met me probably always were like, oh, Laura's a happy, nice person.
• 2:09
  Laura Banks: But on the inside, I did not speak to myself that way.
• 2:12
  Laura Banks: And I think that's another thing to note here is like you never know what's going on in somebody else's head.
• 2:17
  Laura Banks: You never know how they're feeling, what they're going through on the inside.
• 2:21
  Laura Banks: And so, yeah, I love that you say that because people probably always have thought that I was a happy person.
• 2:27
  Laura Banks: And I, in a way, have always been like a nice, happy person, but I was really not very nice to myself for a long time.
• 2:35
  Jeanne: Right.
• 2:35
  Jeanne: I liked what you said just a minute ago.
• 2:37
  Jeanne: That's not how I spoke to myself.
• 2:39
  Jeanne: I think I struggle with that myself.
• 2:41
  Jeanne: I don't speak to myself with positivity or encouragement.
• 2:45
  Jeanne: I think a lot of times I'm looking for the faults that I have.
• 2:49
  Jeanne: So I really like that.
• 2:51
  Jeanne: Um, let's go do another question.
• 2:53
  Jeanne: Before things started to change, what were you avoiding, like consciously or unconsciously, because of your relationship with food or your body?
• 3:02
  Laura Banks: Wow, that's a great question.
• 3:03
  Laura Banks: What was I avoiding?
• 3:05
  Laura Banks: I think that I was avoiding discomfort.
• 3:08
  Laura Banks: I was avoiding putting myself, getting uncomfortable, right?
• 3:12
  Laura Banks: Like going to the gym and pushing my body past the point of comfort.
• 3:15
  Laura Banks: Like I just wanted if it got too hard, I quit.
• 3:18
  Laura Banks: If any diet that I was on, if it started to feel uncomfortable, if I walked into a room where I didn't feel like I fit, if I put on an outfit and I felt uncomfortable in that outfit, like if anything pushed me outside of my little comfort zone, I was like hard past.
• 3:33
  Laura Banks: Like I would back away immediately.
• 3:35
  Laura Banks: And so I think for a long time I wanted to avoid that feeling of discomfort because to me, that discomfort meant that something was wrong with me and I was displeasing to others.
• 3:45
  Laura Banks: I think it always came back to like I want to be good for other people.
• 3:49
  Laura Banks: I want their approval, I want people to like me, and I wanted to please other people, right?
• 3:53
  Laura Banks: And so I think for a long time I sat in that discomfort out of fear.
• 3:59
  Laura Banks: And so, in order to become the person that I am now, I just finally one day was like, I'm gonna push my body past the point that I think it's able to be at.
• 4:07
  Laura Banks: I'm gonna continue to learn about nutrition even whenever I feel like an idiot because I don't know any of this stuff that I feel like everybody else knows or that I should know, I'm still gonna push myself past the point of that.
• 4:17
  Laura Banks: Because the only way for me to grow into the person that I'm trying to become is to push myself past that point of discomfort.
• 4:23
  Jeanne: What do you think about like your circle of friends and the peer pressure and you know your loved ones?
• 4:29
  Jeanne: You all of a sudden feel they're not doing the same thing I'm doing.
• 4:33
  Jeanne: And so that's where you start to slide or start to back up and say, this is too hard.
• 4:40
  Laura Banks: Yeah, I think that's a really good point to make.
• 4:42
  Laura Banks: I started my journey at a natural transition point in my life.
• 4:47
  Laura Banks: I had graduated college like a year and a half prior and was moving to a completely different state.
• 4:52
  Laura Banks: And so I it was already a natural transition in the sense that like my old people I was kind of leaving behind.
• 5:00
  Laura Banks: And I didn't really, I only knew one person in Florida.
• 5:03
  Laura Banks: It was the person that I was moving there with.
• 5:05
  Laura Banks: And so, yes, the people that I had been friends with before, I would say that the people that I was friends with weren't really my biggest issue.
• 5:14
  Laura Banks: They supported me, they were encouraging of the new lifestyle that I was working on living, never made me feel bad about it.
• 5:21
  Laura Banks: Family sometimes did kind of give me a little bit of grief about it and made fun of me a little bit for the eating habits that I was taking up, or not necessarily that I was taking up, like some of my parents, for example, would always say, if it's not made out of cauliflower, Laura's not gonna eat it.
• 5:37
  Laura Banks: And that just simply wasn't true.
• 5:39
  Laura Banks: Like they just decided that for me and they believed that to be true in themselves, even though that wasn't the truth.
• 5:45
  Laura Banks: But I think I had to kind of let some of that slide a little bit and be like, you know what?
• 5:49
  Laura Banks: Like, if that's the mindset they want to have, that's the way that they want to view it, then that's on them.
• 5:54
  Laura Banks: But for me, I'm gonna keep doing me.
• 5:56
  Laura Banks: And I think the fact that I did have like this natural physical barrier between a lot of people, like I was living two states away, then most of those people, and so it that did help me to be able to, you know, kind of block some of that out a little bit so that I could continue on with the habits that I wanted to have.
• 6:14
  Jeanne: I like that answer.
• 6:15
  Jeanne: That's very good and positive too, because I know a lot of times having a spouse that wants to do something different, or friends that you want to go out with, and they always want to hit these spots that have the worst food.
• 6:30
  Jeanne: Like, let's go out and eat at I'm just gonna call the name Junk Food Alley.
• 6:36
  Jeanne: Yeah, it's like eating off a food truck or something.
• 6:40
  Jeanne: Not that there's anything bad with all food trucks, but you know what I mean.
• 6:43
  Jeanne: It's like your choices, you're trying something new and you're trying to be positive for yourself, but it doesn't always fit with the worldview, I guess, or your circle of friends.
• 6:54
  Jeanne: They're in a different mindset.
• 6:56
  Laura Banks: Yeah.
• 6:57
  Jeanne: So that leads to another question.
• 6:59
  Jeanne: There's usually a subtle moment where life starts to widen again.
• 7:03
  Jeanne: So what began to feel possible for you that happened before, even before your habits fully changed?
• 7:09
  Laura Banks: I think it's whenever I got consistent with exercise.
• 7:12
  Laura Banks: So for me, my my weight loss journey, it didn't all start from a place of wanting to lose weight.
• 7:19
  Laura Banks: I mean, that was the underlying motivation, but mostly I started during COVID.
• 7:23
  Laura Banks: Like two months into COVID, I was just bored of sitting around.
• 7:26
  Laura Banks: And so I was like, I'm gonna start exercising.
• 7:28
  Laura Banks: What else do I have to do?
• 7:29
  Laura Banks: I've been saying for years that I was gonna start doing it.
• 7:32
  Laura Banks: I'm gonna actually do it this time.
• 7:33
  Laura Banks: And so I started to do it and I started to notice, like, oh, I can squat lower than I could squat before.
• 7:39
  Laura Banks: I can lift a little bit heavier than I could lift before.
• 7:42
  Laura Banks: And I started to get really excited about the fact that my body was able to do things that a couple months prior it hadn't been able to do.
• 7:49
  Laura Banks: And so that was the like first glimmer of hope, I think, where I was like, this actually matters.
• 7:55
  Laura Banks: I'm not just doing this to do it, like my body's actually changing because of this.
• 7:59
  Laura Banks: It's positively impacting me in some way.
• 8:01
  Laura Banks: And then from there, you know, it was just like anything else.
• 8:04
  Laura Banks: There were valleys and there were hills, and you know, I reached the peak of some other areas, and there were also areas where I was like, what am I doing?
• 8:12
  Laura Banks: I couldn't see past, you know, the current obstacle that I was facing.
• 8:16
  Laura Banks: But there was always something that was giving me that little glimmer of hope where I was like, if I just keep going, you know, it was like I said, I could squat a little bit deeper, and then I started to see a little bit of change on the scale, and then I started to notice that those voices in my head about food were starting to go away a little bit.
• 8:32
  Laura Banks: And all over time I started to see all of these little things that kind of compiled into me now being truly a completely different person.
• 8:41
  Jeanne: Well, I love your energy.
• 8:43
  Jeanne: I'm just sitting here watching you while you're talking, and you're just so happy about everything that has come out of this journey.
• 8:50
  Jeanne: I just think that's wonderful.
• 8:52
  Jeanne: So if you could sit across from the version of you who was stuck and frustrated, what would you tell her about change that she wouldn't have believed back then?
• 9:02
  Laura Banks: I think I would say change is a good thing.
• 9:05
  Laura Banks: It's funny because I just recorded an episode from my podcast about change, and I talked in that episode about how our brains, they don't like change because change is uncomfortable, and our brains only have one job, and that is to keep us alive.
• 9:19
  Laura Banks: And what we're doing right now, even if it's like the most unhealthy version of us, the most unhappy version of us, we're totally uncomfortable with the life we're living right now, and we don't like it, still we're alive, and that's all our brain cares about.
• 9:32
  Laura Banks: And so as soon as we start to make some change, then our brain is like, whoa, you're like we're threatening our survival in a way.
• 9:39
  Laura Banks: Even though logically we know it's gonna make us live a better quality of life, we still our brains don't want to hear that because they're like, but what we're doing right now is keeping us alive, and that's all we care about.
• 9:49
  Laura Banks: So to go back to the question, I think what I would do is I would tell her change is going to feel uncomfortable.
• 9:55
  Laura Banks: You're gonna get some pushback from your brain.
• 9:57
  Laura Banks: Your brain is gonna give up really quickly because it doesn't want to face all of this uncomfortable that you are about to embark on.
• 10:04
  Laura Banks: But trust me, girl, it's good.
• 10:06
  Laura Banks: You'll be fine.
• 10:08
  Laura Banks: You have to, you know, relax your nervous system, remind yourself that change is a good thing and that you are going to be just fine and that you're actually going to be so much happier and healthier and have a better quality of life if you just get uncomfortable a little bit and allow yourself to make some of these changes.
• 10:23
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's a really good point about your brain doesn't like change.
• 10:27
  Jeanne: I got stuck in a a job that I did for years, and it sometimes wasn't healthy at all.
• 10:34
  Jeanne: But the thought of leaving that job, the change would have been too dramatic.
• 10:39
  Jeanne: And I finally did.
• 10:40
  Jeanne: And I'm so glad.
• 10:42
  Jeanne: But why was I so stubborn about it?
• 10:46
  Jeanne: I kept coming up with reasons not to do it.
• 10:48
  Jeanne: So I think I want to go back and listen to your podcast on that way, and I'd love to hear more about the brain and how to make that shift and let it help you move forward and not hinder you.
• 11:00
  Jeanne: So very good points.
• 11:02
  Jeanne: Very good.
• 11:03
  Laura Banks: Thank you.
• 11:04
  Jeanne: So if you coach in a lot of different ways, like for people that come to you.
• 11:09
  Jeanne: What strict plans, rules, and pressures do you put on people, or do you not go by strict rules and pressures to get people to change or that you're working with?
• 11:19
  Laura Banks: The way that I approach coaching is I want to you to build habits that support your lifestyle and your needs, and that you can actually stick to long term.
• 11:30
  Laura Banks: So the thing about it is, is all of these diets that we've been on in the past, they've told you eat this amount of protein, eat this amount of carbs, eat this amount of vegetables, eat it at this time per day, eat this, you know, eat it in this portions, and all these things have given us all this strict rules.
• 11:47
  Laura Banks: And then the second that the diet ends, we don't know how to continue on.
• 11:51
  Laura Banks: And that's why we lose weight and then gain it back, and then lose weight and then gain it back, or we can't stick to it at all because it's too strict.
• 11:57
  Laura Banks: For one, it doesn't fit your current lifestyle and your needs.
• 12:01
  Laura Banks: And for two, you're not actually learning anything about how to maintain it long term.
• 12:06
  Laura Banks: So my goal with my coaching is to help you learn what to do so that you can stick to it for the rest of your life.
• 12:12
  Laura Banks: And so I don't do anything that's like, hey, you're gonna eat this amount of vegetables, you're gonna eat it at this time per day.
• 12:18
  Laura Banks: Like my coaching is not really strict in that way.
• 12:21
  Laura Banks: I do challenge you, and I challenge all of my clients to shift their mindset and to look at things in a different way.
• 12:28
  Laura Banks: I do a lot of mindset coaching with my people, and I challenge them to challenge themselves, you know, like it's really easy for us to not want to get uncomfortable, like I've said so many times in this episode, but I challenge them to push themselves outside of their comfort zone, go a little bit further than they think they can go, but in terms of telling you what to eat and telling you when to eat it and how to eat it and all those things, that's not my main objective.
• 12:53
  Laura Banks: My main objective is to teach you what you should be eating for your goals, why you should be eating that way, and how to stick to it long term.
• 13:01
  Laura Banks: So I'm teaching you more so the overall how to be healthy and what that can look like day to day.
• 13:06
  Laura Banks: And I do a lot of group coaching, I do a lot of like day-to-day and in my coaching.
• 13:12
  Laura Banks: We talk through like chats and things like that.
• 13:14
  Laura Banks: And so through that, my people are learning, hey, okay, I'm kind of taking their hand and guiding them through it, but guiding them through applying it to their life so that it's not we're all eating the same exact thing, and then whenever it's over, you go back to doing what you don't know, you know, I'm teaching you how to build that so that you know how to do it forever.
• 13:33
  Jeanne: That's a great concept.
• 13:35
  Jeanne: I wonder how you, when you're working with your um clients, what do you do when they also are struggling and looking for answers and they're going to the YouTube channel to find every different doctor or every different coach out there that says, fast 36 hours.
• 13:53
  Jeanne: No, don't fast, do all carbs, no, don't eat any meat.
• 13:59
  Jeanne: Then another one's eat meat, and then another one is walking is perfect.
• 14:04
  Jeanne: Walking like Thai cheese walking is gonna make you lose a million pounds.
• 14:10
  Jeanne: I mean, what do you do with all that?
• 14:11
  Jeanne: Because this is stuff's just swimming in your head, and you see these and you kind of click on them and say, Oh, that sounds like a good answer.
• 14:18
  Jeanne: What do you tell people?
• 14:19
  Jeanne: Like, put it all away, turn off the excess noise.
• 14:24
  Jeanne: What do you do?
• 14:25
  Jeanne: Because I think I've experienced that a lot myself.
• 14:28
  Laura Banks: Oh, yeah, so normal.
• 14:30
  Laura Banks: We are literally like bombarded with options, right?
• 14:34
  Laura Banks: And so I remind people of a couple things.
• 14:36
  Laura Banks: Number one is put your blinders on.
• 14:38
  Laura Banks: I think about a horse whenever it's getting ready to start a race.
• 14:42
  Laura Banks: What do we put on their eyes?
• 14:43
  Laura Banks: We literally cover their eyes so that they can't see the other horses.
• 14:46
  Laura Banks: They're not worried about what everybody else around them is doing, they're racing their race.
• 14:51
  Laura Banks: And that's what I teach my clients to do too.
• 14:53
  Laura Banks: Put your blinders on.
• 14:54
  Laura Banks: Don't worry about what your neighbor's doing.
• 14:56
  Laura Banks: Don't worry about what the girl on Instagram said.
• 14:58
  Laura Banks: Worry about you and your race.
• 15:00
  Laura Banks: You're here in my program with me for a reason.
• 15:03
  Laura Banks: This is it.
• 15:04
  Laura Banks: You didn't come to this program and you weren't giving me on your Instagram feed or whatever.
• 15:09
  Laura Banks: You I didn't pop up to you for no reason at all.
• 15:11
  Laura Banks: You're here for a reason.
• 15:12
  Laura Banks: So let's stick to this and just give it a fair chance, right?
• 15:16
  Laura Banks: Like that's one of the problems is so often we start something, and then two weeks later we're like, well, this isn't working fast enough.
• 15:22
  Laura Banks: Let's start this thing.
• 15:23
  Laura Banks: And then two weeks later, well, that's not working fast enough.
• 15:25
  Laura Banks: So let's try this thing.
• 15:26
  Laura Banks: We don't give something a fair chance enough to work.
• 15:29
  Laura Banks: So one thing is put your blinders on and give it a fair chance.
• 15:32
  Laura Banks: The other thing is a bioindividuality.
• 15:35
  Laura Banks: What works for you is going to be different than what works for this person and what works for this person and what works for the next person.
• 15:42
  Laura Banks: And so, sure, walking might be the thing that's gonna help you lose a million pounds.
• 15:47
  Laura Banks: And weightlifting might be the thing that helps this person lose a million pounds.
• 15:51
  Laura Banks: And eating only meat might be great for this person, and this person might really hate eating meat and need to have a bunch of plant-based options.
• 15:58
  Laura Banks: So everybody is different.
• 16:00
  Laura Banks: And so that's another thing that I teach my clients is it's not about us all following the same thing and doing exactly the same thing when it comes to our health and wellness.
• 16:09
  Laura Banks: It's about finding what works for you and making sure that you are doing what you can stick to through enjoying it for one.
• 16:17
  Laura Banks: If you hate walking or you hate weightlifting, you're not gonna stick to those things.
• 16:21
  Laura Banks: So we have to find what you enjoy, and we also have to find what works for you because again, you're different from your neighbor.
• 16:27
  Laura Banks: So what works for her is not gonna work for you.
• 16:30
  Jeanne: That's wonderful.
• 16:31
  Jeanne: I like the way you're approaching things.
• 16:33
  Jeanne: And this is this is just enlightening that you know I'm gonna use some of your advice to put the blinders on because that's a put the blinders on in a lot of different aspects, not just in your health and wellness, it's just some of the things you see.
• 16:47
  Jeanne: It's like, how do I decipher from all of this stuff that's I'm bombarded with?
• 16:51
  Jeanne: I love the word.
• 16:52
  Jeanne: But yeah, this is fantastic.
• 16:54
  Jeanne: Well, I I know that there's so much we could talk about.
• 16:57
  Jeanne: You're doing such a great job with your business and your coaching, but I really want to move forward with the next segment, which is our normal Two Truths and a Lie.
• 17:09
  Jeanne: It's one of my favorite parts of the show.
• 17:11
  Jeanne: And I have to say that you have given some really good headlines and stories here for us to discuss.
• 17:18
  Jeanne: So, for those that are watching or listening, here's how we play Two Truths and a Lie on Project Candor.
• 17:24
  Jeanne: The guest has already given me their stories.
• 17:27
  Jeanne: I have looked at them and I know which one I want to pick as the lie.
• 17:32
  Jeanne: I don't know if I'm right or not.
• 17:34
  Jeanne: Um, but we won't know until after our guest has gone through all of the stories and we've asked some questions or I've asked questions.
• 17:44
  Jeanne: Uh, but play along with us, please.
• 17:46
  Jeanne: And then at the end, then Laura will reveal which one is the live, and I will see if I'm right or not.
• 17:53
  Jeanne: But are you ready?
• 17:54
  Laura Banks: I'm ready.
• 17:55
  Laura Banks: Let's do it.
• 17:56
  Jeanne: All right.
• 17:57
  Jeanne: This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts.
• 18:04
  Jeanne: Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, Life can be different.
• 18:14
  Jeanne: Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story.
• 18:28
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• 18:32
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• 18:40
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• 18:51
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• 18:58
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• 19:04
  Jeanne: Thank you to our sponsors.
• 19:06
  Jeanne: So the first one was, ew, eyeballs.
• 19:13
  Jeanne: Laura's biggest phobia in life is eyeballs.
• 19:16
  Jeanne: After learning about eyeballs in the fourth grade and throwing up in front of her whole class, Laura has had a deep fear and disgust of eyeballs.
• 19:25
  Jeanne: Your eyeballs look good.
• 19:29
  Laura Banks: It's one of those things where being around eyeballs, I'm just like, if somebody is like, hey, I have an eyelash in my eye, you know, I'm like, please don't bring it up near me.
• 19:38
  Laura Banks: I can't look at it.
• 19:41
  Jeanne: All right.
• 19:42
  Jeanne: Number two story hit by a car.
• 19:45
  Jeanne: Really?
• 19:46
  Jeanne: During college, Laura traveled to Paris for a 10-day study abroad trip.
• 19:50
  Jeanne: Within an hour of getting off the plane, Laura found herself lying on a sidewalk in a busy street in Paris.
• 19:57
  Jeanne: Uh just having been hit by a car.
• 20:00
  Jeanne: Wow.
• 20:01
  Jeanne: And the last one, number three, eight people.
• 20:05
  Jeanne: In 2003, Laura left teaching and started her own business as a health coach.
• 20:11
  Jeanne: She decided to start a group coaching program all about getting rid of your sweet tooth.
• 20:15
  Jeanne: She posted about it online, shared it with friends, and did all the right things.
• 20:20
  Jeanne: And eight people signed up, which was validation of your career change.
• 20:26
  Jeanne: Those are all great stories.
• 20:27
  Jeanne: Thank you.
• 20:28
  Jeanne: You're welcome.
• 20:29
  Jeanne: Now I get to guess.
• 20:31
  Jeanne: I'm gonna guess that you weren't hit by a car.
• 20:34
  Jeanne: Number two is a fault.
• 20:35
  Jeanne: So don't tell me yet, but I'm gonna guess that's the one.
• 20:38
  Jeanne: So now I want you to go through all the stories and give us your best recount.
• 20:43
  Laura Banks: Okay, okay.
• 20:44
  Laura Banks: All right, so number one is you eyeballs.
• 20:46
  Laura Banks: So yes, third grade or no, fourth grade, I was in my teacher's class.
• 20:52
  Laura Banks: She had her desk set up in like a square in the classroom, and we so we were all like facing each other, and she was teaching us about eyeballs, talking about all the inner workings, all everything about it.
• 21:05
  Laura Banks: And she brought out her great-grandfather's glass eyeball and was passing it around the classroom, and it got to me, and I literally leaned over the desk into the center of this circle of all of these desks in the classroom and threw up in front of everybody.
• 21:25
  Laura Banks: So, yeah, after learning about that, I was like, I want to have nothing to do with eyeballs.
• 21:30
  Laura Banks: That is disgusting, and I will always be, and it's not a fear, it's not a phobia, it's just a disgust.
• 21:36
  Laura Banks: Like, I just think that they're nasty.
• 21:39
  Laura Banks: So that's the first one.
• 21:40
  Jeanne: So have you ever seen that movie Minority Report?
• 21:43
  Laura Banks: No.
• 21:44
  Jeanne: Oh, you have to go.
• 21:45
  Jeanne: It's got Tom Cruise in it.
• 21:46
  Jeanne: You gotta go watch it.
• 21:47
  Laura Banks: Okay.
• 21:48
  Jeanne: Because in the middle of it there's a Swedish guy.
• 21:51
  Jeanne: Oh, I wish I could remember his name, but I can't.
• 21:54
  Jeanne: And a Swedish nurse.
• 21:55
  Jeanne: And the the reason why I know they were Swedish was because my husband is Swedish.
• 21:59
  Jeanne: And I learned some of the words that they were saying, and they are taking out Tom Cruise's eyes.
• 22:06
  Jeanne: So you have to watch it.
• 22:08
  Laura Banks: I don't think I need to watch that.
• 22:11
  Jeanne: It's a good movie.
• 22:12
  Jeanne: It really is.
• 22:13
  Jeanne: That's kind of gross.
• 22:15
  Jeanne: I actually did not develop a phobia, but I remember that.
• 22:19
  Jeanne: It was not fun.
• 22:20
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 22:21
  Jeanne: Next story: the hit by a car.
• 22:23
  Jeanne: This one I don't believe.
• 22:25
  Laura Banks: Okay.
• 22:26
  Laura Banks: It was my junior year of college.
• 22:29
  Laura Banks: I went on a 10-day study abroad trip with a small group of students from my school.
• 22:34
  Laura Banks: We'd like taken an English class together, and then we were going to Paris and Venice, France, to visit museums and see the places where some of these, you know, people had written these books that we had been reading and all these things, right?
• 22:48
  Laura Banks: And so we get off the plane, we go to our hotel, drop off our luggage.
• 22:54
  Laura Banks: It was like early in the day there, even though it would have been late here.
• 22:57
  Laura Banks: Uh it was early in the day there.
• 22:59
  Laura Banks: So we drop our luggage off, they keep it in a room for us, and we go out to get lunch.
• 23:03
  Laura Banks: I was with a couple other girls that I had been friends with and made friends with in the class.
• 23:08
  Laura Banks: And we were on one side of the street.
• 23:10
  Laura Banks: We had to cross to the other side of the street because we found a little deli that we wanted to eat lunch at.
• 23:15
  Laura Banks: And we crossed to the other side of the street.
• 23:17
  Laura Banks: And I had stopped because, okay, so the road was just a one-way road.
• 23:22
  Laura Banks: Nobody was coming down this one-way road.
• 23:24
  Laura Banks: There had been a car that had just passed, and we were going to cross the one-way road.
• 23:28
  Laura Banks: I stopped in the middle of the road.
• 23:30
  Laura Banks: No cars were coming.
• 23:31
  Laura Banks: And I took a picture of, I mean, I it was Imperial, right?
• 23:35
  Laura Banks: Like everything's beautiful.
• 23:36
  Laura Banks: So I stopped to take a picture of the middle of the road.
• 23:38
  Laura Banks: And the car that had just passed put it into reverse and literally hit me.
• 23:43
  Laura Banks: It hit my back.
• 23:45
  Laura Banks: And then I turned to the side.
• 23:46
  Laura Banks: It hit my side and I fell onto the sidewalk.
• 23:49
  Laura Banks: And uh my friends were like, Are you okay?
• 23:52
  Laura Banks: Are you okay?
• 23:53
  Laura Banks: And I was like, I can't believe I just got hit by a car in Paris, like 10 minutes after we got here.
• 23:58
  Laura Banks: So that's that story.
• 24:01
  Jeanne: Oh, wow.
• 24:01
  Jeanne: How fast were they going?
• 24:03
  Laura Banks: They couldn't have been going that fast because, like, maybe I don't know, between five and ten miles per hour.
• 24:08
  Laura Banks: Like they couldn't have been going that fast because they just had put it in reverse just like a couple of seconds prior to that.
• 24:14
  Laura Banks: So they couldn't be going that fast, but I will say they never stopped.
• 24:18
  Laura Banks: And so I'm like, like, if I had like actually fallen down and they would have like ran me over, I don't think I'd be here today because they never stopped.
• 24:27
  Laura Banks: Like they never were like, This it's this girl, and I just did okay.
• 24:30
  Laura Banks: They they just kept on going.
• 24:32
  Jeanne: Well, even at 10 miles an hour, that's a big machine hitting you, and you're not aware that it's coming.
• 24:37
  Jeanne: So yeah, and you and then they backed up and did it again, or they went forward and hit you again on the side.
• 24:43
  Jeanne: Where were the cops?
• 24:45
  Laura Banks: I know.
• 24:45
  Laura Banks: Well, I I wish they would have been there, but either way, I was like, I'm already getting hit on by Parisian guys.
• 24:55
  Jeanne: That is a great line.
• 24:57
  Jeanne: Oh my gosh, Laura, I love it.
• 25:00
  Jeanne: Oh, that's so funny.
• 25:03
  Jeanne: Okay, well, I don't know.
• 25:04
  Jeanne: I might be wrong.
• 25:05
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 25:05
  Jeanne: So let's go to story number three about eight people.
• 25:08
  Jeanne: That one sounds this eight people sounds logical.
• 25:11
  Jeanne: So I mean, I'm not sure which one.
• 25:13
  Jeanne: Maybe I got it wrong.
• 25:14
  Jeanne: Okay, go ahead.
• 25:16
  Laura Banks: It was the last year of my teaching.
• 25:21
  Laura Banks: And I was like, you know what?
• 25:23
  Laura Banks: I'm just gonna go all in.
• 25:24
  Laura Banks: I'm gonna make a group coaching program.
• 25:26
  Laura Banks: I called it Reduce and Revive.
• 25:27
  Laura Banks: Reduce your energy or reduce your cravings and revive your energy.
• 25:31
  Laura Banks: And uh I had like taken my people behind the scenes and was teaching them about how I was creating this and what all the things were gonna be.
• 25:39
  Laura Banks: And by the end, I started posting about, you know, it's open for enrollment.
• 25:44
  Laura Banks: It was around this time of year that I was doing all of this, and then January came around.
• 25:48
  Laura Banks: I was like, it's open for enrollment, and I started just seeing people after people sign up, and I ended up having eight people join that program.
• 25:56
  Jeanne: Well, that was probably just a wonderful surprise starting a new year off with your coaching program going and a whole group ready for you.
• 26:03
  Jeanne: That's wonderful.
• 26:05
  Laura Banks: Yeah.
• 26:05
  Jeanne: See, that sounds logical.
• 26:06
  Jeanne: All right, well, now we get to the point.
• 26:10
  Jeanne: Let me ask another question about this um number two, the one I think is a lot.
• 26:14
  Jeanne: So, what do you call police in Paris?
• 26:17
  Jeanne: So was anybody screaming like, help, help?
• 26:20
  Jeanne: I mean, you just get up and walk away.
• 26:23
  Jeanne: I mean, you just got hit by a car.
• 26:25
  Laura Banks: I just got up and walked away.
• 26:27
  Laura Banks: We went into the deli, we got our lunch, and then we went back and went to the hotel, and we were telling all the other people who were there, like that were from were from our school with the same trip.
• 26:38
  Laura Banks: We were telling all of them, like, yeah, Laura got hit by a car a few minutes ago, and we were just eating our sandwiches, and I have a video still for that my friend had made where she was like, Laura, what just happened to you?
• 26:49
  Laura Banks: And I was like, I just got hit by a car in parents.
• 26:52
  Jeanne: So yeah.
• 26:54
  Jeanne: Oh, and you're like, didn't you have like professors or some, you know?
• 26:59
  Laura Banks: We had one with us.
• 27:00
  Laura Banks: She wasn't with us then, and she was honestly kind of MIA for the whole trip.
• 27:04
  Laura Banks: Actually, we didn't see her that much.
• 27:06
  Laura Banks: She was like, Y'all go do whatever you want to do.
• 27:08
  Laura Banks: We had like certain things that were scheduled, but otherwise, she was like, just don't die in Paris.
• 27:14
  Jeanne: Oh, that's certainly comforting from people that are sending their kids off on trips.
• 27:20
  Laura Banks: Wait, I made it back.
• 27:21
  Laura Banks: I got hit by a car and made it back.
• 27:22
  Laura Banks: We're good.
• 27:23
  Jeanne: Oh, yeah, that is insane.
• 27:25
  Jeanne: Oh my gosh.
• 27:26
  Jeanne: Okay, well, and the eyeball thing, all right, going back to that one, one more question there.
• 27:31
  Jeanne: So, why would this lady bring a false eyeball to how old were you again?
• 27:37
  Jeanne: Fourth grade?
• 27:37
  Jeanne: Why does that age?
• 27:39
  Laura Banks: That's nine, twenty or ten, yeah.
• 27:42
  Jeanne: Yeah, that's not cool.
• 27:43
  Jeanne: Because an eyeball study, I mean, I remember we got uh told about germs, and then I became one of those obsessive compulsive, not long term, just for a while.
• 27:54
  Jeanne: After we'd heard about germs and that you need to wash your hands, and you know, every time you touch something, there's a germ that might get on it, and every I came this kid, and I was like, washing my hands, wash my hands, wash my hands.
• 28:07
  Jeanne: My mom, like, what are you doing?
• 28:09
  Jeanne: I was like, wash my hands.
• 28:10
  Jeanne: You slap the tenth time you've done that.
• 28:12
  Jeanne: And then uh I would touch the door knob to come out and then of the bathroom, and then I'd say, Oh no, I touched something, a germ's on me.
• 28:20
  Jeanne: So they have to be responsible for weirdos like me that just get this imprinted on on myself.
• 28:28
  Jeanne: And so why would you bring a glass eyeball?
• 28:31
  Jeanne: That's that's too much.
• 28:33
  Laura Banks: It felt like too much on my end too.
• 28:35
  Laura Banks: I was like, this is just very nasty.
• 28:37
  Laura Banks: I can't believe I'm seeing a glass eyeball right now, and I thought it was disgusting, and since then have very much thought it was disgusting.
• 28:46
  Jeanne: So when you're if we're right on the age, you're around ten nine or ten, and then that incurs the thought that somebody lost their eyeballs, so that's something you were thinking about.
• 28:57
  Jeanne: Like, why is there a false one?
• 28:59
  Jeanne: So they had an empty socket.
• 29:01
  Laura Banks: I know.
• 29:02
  Jeanne: I mean, all of those images.
• 29:04
  Jeanne: So I'm glad it wasn't in that kind of classroom.
• 29:07
  Jeanne: So all right, so tell us the truth.
• 29:10
  Jeanne: Which one is a lie?
• 29:11
  Laura Banks: The third one is a lie.
• 29:13
  Laura Banks: Yeah.
• 29:15
  Laura Banks: Oh I actually had zero people sign up.
• 29:19
  Jeanne: Oh so did it deteriorate from moving forward?
• 29:23
  Jeanne: Obviously didn't, but what did you do next after that when nobody signed up?
• 29:28
  Laura Banks: I think that for me, you know, it did discourage me a little bit.
• 29:33
  Laura Banks: I was like, what the heck?
• 29:35
  Laura Banks: Why didn't nobody want to sign up for this?
• 29:38
  Laura Banks: Um, but then it also allowed me to do like some better understanding of the way that I market myself, the way that I talk about my offers, my confidence in the way that I talk about them.
• 29:49
  Laura Banks: It did often, when I look back at the way that I talked about that program, I it was kind of like, I sounded like I was begging people to sign up, or I felt like, you know, you could just feel people's energy sometimes.
• 30:02
  Laura Banks: And so my energy was definitely off.
• 30:04
  Laura Banks: And so in the way that I approach, you know, whenever it's open enrollment time for my programs now, I definitely go into it from a really solid place emotionally.
• 30:16
  Laura Banks: I go into it knowing, you know what, I had zero people sign up before.
• 30:20
  Laura Banks: And if that happens again, I'll survive, just like I did last time.
• 30:23
  Laura Banks: Like I go into it with a really solid mindset.
• 30:26
  Laura Banks: And I think that I'm glad that that happened to me in the very beginning because one, I probably wasn't ready for that kind of commitment.
• 30:33
  Laura Banks: I probably wasn't ready to be a group coach yet.
• 30:35
  Laura Banks: You know, I needed to do one-on-one work with people, better understand myself as a coach, better understand how to coach people.
• 30:42
  Laura Banks: I needed to grow a little bit before I got to that point.
• 30:45
  Laura Banks: For one, and for two, you know, I probably did need to have that experience so that next time, whenever I'm going through my open enrollment times or whatever, I have a much more positive head on my shoulders.
• 30:58
  Laura Banks: So I'm glad that it happened, even though it sucked in the moment.
• 31:02
  Laura Banks: It was a really good and valuable lesson for me.
• 31:05
  Jeanne: Oh, great.
• 31:06
  Jeanne: Well, you said a lot of the people that you were sending that information to were friends and you know, people that you already knew, and you did some marketing, but I think sales is a numbers game.
• 31:16
  Jeanne: That's what I've always heard.
• 31:18
  Jeanne: So maybe you didn't have the numbers seen the opportunity, and then you also have friends and they might be friends, like I didn't tell ya, and they still are, but they also have that what is it called?
• 31:32
  Jeanne: The jealousy factor.
• 31:33
  Jeanne: I don't know.
• 31:34
  Laura Banks: Yeah.
• 31:35
  Jeanne: Like, oh, what's she doing?
• 31:37
  Jeanne: What does she think she's gonna do?
• 31:39
  Jeanne: So I tend to not tell my friends and families a lot of times what I'm doing until I move forward because it's it's that jealousy factor.
• 31:50
  Jeanne: And then, you know, I could be wrong.
• 31:52
  Jeanne: It could just be that it was trying to teach you a lesson.
• 31:56
  Jeanne: Life was teaching you a lesson.
• 31:58
  Jeanne: So very good.
• 31:59
  Jeanne: But now you have lots of people signing up, so that's a great.
• 32:03
  Jeanne: I do, yeah.
• 32:04
  Jeanne: So I wanted to let people know how they can get in touch with you.
• 32:08
  Jeanne: So it we'll have links on how to contact Laura after the podcast, and she's got a lot of opportunities you can find her, but I love this quote from you.
• 32:20
  Jeanne: The real change happens when the motivation fades away and devotion starts to appear.
• 32:26
  Jeanne: I love that quote.
• 32:26
  Jeanne: Do you want to talk about that at all?
• 32:28
  Laura Banks: Sure.
• 32:29
  Laura Banks: Yeah, it's one of the things that I often share with my clients is motivation is only gonna get you so far.
• 32:35
  Laura Banks: You're gonna start a new program, or you're gonna start a new diet, or you're gonna start the new year, and you're gonna say, I'm gonna do it.
• 32:42
  Laura Banks: This is it, this is the time.
• 32:43
  Laura Banks: Your motivation's gonna be really high.
• 32:45
  Laura Banks: And then over time, that motivation is gonna fade away.
• 32:48
  Laura Banks: And that's only gonna get you so far.
• 32:51
  Laura Banks: The real change happens whenever you start to practice from a place of devotion.
• 32:55
  Laura Banks: And I always like to use the word devotion instead of something like discipline, because when we think about disciplining someone, that sounds really negative, right?
• 33:03
  Laura Banks: Like we discipline children whenever they do something they shouldn't have done.
• 33:06
  Laura Banks: I, as a teacher, would discipline my students whenever they, you know, did something they shouldn't have done.
• 33:11
  Laura Banks: Devotion comes from a place of love, right?
• 33:14
  Laura Banks: Like I'm devoted to myself, I'm devoted to my spirituality, I'm devoted to X, Y, Z, right?
• 33:19
  Laura Banks: So I'm doing this from a place of love.
• 33:22
  Laura Banks: When I'm gonna continue to show up for myself because I love myself, because I'm worthy of this change, because this change is gonna make me happier and healthier version of myself.
• 33:30
  Laura Banks: And so we can rely on motivation to an extent, but that can get us started, right?
• 33:36
  Laura Banks: The motivation can be what jumps us off.
• 33:38
  Laura Banks: But then we have to be devoted to ourselves and to the journey if we want to actually change.
• 33:44
  Jeanne: Okay.
• 33:44
  Jeanne: That's fantastic.
• 33:46
  Jeanne: So I I really hope that folks will take these links and get reach out to Laura and get her to help coach you and whatever else you need from her.
• 33:58
  Jeanne: But I think it probably just her positivity and what she's doing would be a great answer for a lot of people, even if it's not just coaching on healthy habits and food.
• 34:08
  Jeanne: I think it would be healthy habits and what you mentioned earlier about not talking negative to yourself.
• 34:13
  Jeanne: Totally.
• 34:14
  Jeanne: I loved that.
• 34:15
  Jeanne: So thank you so much for spending time with us today, and I really hope that you'll come back again in the future.
• 34:23
  Laura Banks: Thank you so much.
• 34:24
  Laura Banks: I really enjoyed this episode.
• 34:25
  Laura Banks: I appreciate you having me on your show.
• 34:27
  Jeanne: Thanks again.
• 34:28
  Jeanne: Talk to you soon.
• 34:30
  Jeanne: Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real.
• 34:37
  Jeanne: If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew.
• 34:42
  Jeanne: Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck.
• 34:45
  Jeanne: I'm Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected.
• 34:49
  Jeanne: See you on the next Voyage.