Howdy, welcome back to the Thriving Holistic Practitioner podcast.
Speaker:Can I just start by telling you how excited I am?
Speaker:I'm thrilled.
Speaker:I'm just tickled.
Speaker:We just wrapped up a three day workshop called Organize Your
Speaker:Practice and it was so much fun.
Speaker:My goodness, my business partner Emily Tornatore and I hosted this three day
Speaker:workshop to help Practitioners get a grip, I guess you could say, get a
Speaker:grip on their business, organizing it.
Speaker:And you know, it was funny because after we were done, one of the,
Speaker:one of the participants said, she goes, you know what, this is one of
Speaker:those things that I put off all the time because it feels so daunting.
Speaker:I never want to just dig in and do it.
Speaker:But once we got started, I realized it just wasn't that big of a deal.
Speaker:And I'm so glad I did it.
Speaker:And I was telling Emily, I said, you know what, to me, it's It's
Speaker:like, it's like in the movie, The Incredibles, when, when Mrs.
Speaker:Incredible or Mrs.
Speaker:Parr calls Bob and says, Bob, it's official.
Speaker:We've moved in.
Speaker:And she's like, I've unpacked the last box.
Speaker:You know, it's like, how, how many of us have moved?
Speaker:And then we just have that one pesky box that we never want to get to.
Speaker:So we just leave it there and leave it there until we finally
Speaker:maybe get around to unpacking it.
Speaker:That's what it's like when it comes to organizing a business.
Speaker:It's like that last box that you just don't want to unpack
Speaker:but when you do, it brings so much freedom into your business and into your life.
Speaker:And it's just so powerful.
Speaker:It's truly amazing.
Speaker:Incredible.
Speaker:Har har har.
Speaker:Pun intended.
Speaker:That wasn't really a pun, but you get it.
Speaker:That was a joke.
Speaker:I know my jokes are corny.
Speaker:You'll have to, you'll get used to me.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:Anyway, I'm excited to tell you about our guest today,
Speaker:Aimee
Speaker:Gallo.
Speaker:Aimee and I hit it off.
Speaker:She's originally from Alaska.
Speaker:And her father was an immigrant, but she just learned so much from
Speaker:him that carried into her journey as a holistic practitioner.
Speaker:Later, she and her husband moved to Oregon, which is kind of in my neck of
Speaker:the woods because I'm here in North Idaho.
Speaker:So we had a lot.
Speaker:I just felt like kindred spirits.
Speaker:Spirits.
Speaker:But what's really amazing about Aimee's story is that she and her husband picked
Speaker:up and moved all the way to Spain.
Speaker:I know, right?
Speaker:Huge shift.
Speaker:And she was able to take her business with her.
Speaker:So we dive into what that process was like.
Speaker:What is it been like to establish a practice in a foreign country?
Speaker:And what does that whole transition look like for her son too?
Speaker:We, we touched on that.
Speaker:So dig in.
Speaker:I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker:And by the way, if you want to catch the replay to the three day workshop, that
Speaker:is available to you for the next week.
Speaker:So dig in.
Speaker:There's a Facebook group that we did it in and that's below.
Speaker:If you get a chance to get in there and watch the replay, I
Speaker:really encourage you to do that.
Speaker:Otherwise you can catch us on the next round.
Speaker:We'll be doing it again in about a month and a half.
Speaker:Okay guys, thanks for tuning in.
Speaker:Let's get started.
Speaker:Hey, everybody.
Speaker:I'm your host, Lindsay Sutherland.
Speaker:I'm excited to have you here with us today.
Speaker:Also joining us is Aimee Gallo, who is a double degree
Speaker:nutritionist and health coach.
Speaker:She has been helping people claim and recover their health and
Speaker:vitality for more than 20 years.
Speaker:Originally from Washington, she's now living in Spain and she's here
Speaker:to talk about that journey as well.
Speaker:Um, and the name of her company is Vibrance Nutrition and Fitness.
Speaker:So Aimee, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker:I'm excited for this conversation.
Speaker:I am too.
Speaker:I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker:Yay.
Speaker:So let's start, just tell us a little bit about your journey, how you
Speaker:embarked upon the holistic path and, uh, just some of those foundational
Speaker:Things that you might've gone through.
Speaker:How did I end up here?
Speaker:I, um, when I was 12 years old and I grew up in Alaska, I spent my
Speaker:childhood in Alaska and then came down to Washington state for college.
Speaker:And as a young child in Alaska, I was in a bookstore one day and stumbled upon a
Speaker:book called 101 ways to save the animals.
Speaker:I was about 12 years old at the time, and I thought it was going to be about dolphin
Speaker:safe tuna and saving the rainforest.
Speaker:And it was written by the founder of People for the
Speaker:Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Speaker:So it was about, um, fur farms and animal testing, and how food is raised
Speaker:in the United States, specifically meat.
Speaker:And I had, I come from a family of animal lovers and I was completely
Speaker:aghast at this revelation of the, uh, uh, commercial feedlot operating
Speaker:systems that we have in the States.
Speaker:And so I decided to go vegetarian shortly thereafter.
Speaker:And there were some family members who were concerned about particularly
Speaker:my iron levels and protein intake.
Speaker:And in my adolescent mind, it was like, well, the entire.
Speaker:country of India is vegetarian, so it's got to be fine, but
Speaker:I needed to prove my case.
Speaker:So I set out to the library and started reading, and that's when I discovered
Speaker:the profound impact that nutrition has on our quality of life and our longevity.
Speaker:And it is a rabbit hole from which I never emerged, unlike
Speaker:Alice from Alice in Wonderland.
Speaker:I stayed in Wonderland, and I have been enamored with the field ever
Speaker:since, and have been really fortunate to have been able to build my career
Speaker:doing something that I feel still so strongly and passionately about.
Speaker:That is incredible.
Speaker:I think you're probably the first.
Speaker:Now, my dude, I think you're Only like the seventh or eighth person I've
Speaker:talked to on the podcast, but the first and in my even external life beyond
Speaker:podcasting, who's started out so young with like knew their mission so early
Speaker:on in life and then evolved from there.
Speaker:That is so cool.
Speaker:Oddly, my husband is the only other person I know.
Speaker:That is so neat.
Speaker:And that I'm curious, what is his, is he also into food and nutrition or is he not?
Speaker:No, I know.
Speaker:I mean, he's a foodie.
Speaker:He loves eating food.
Speaker:Um, and he loves eating good food.
Speaker:So we work really well in that regard, but he, he received one of the very first,
Speaker:um, Apple computers in the eighties and learned how to program as a young child.
Speaker:And was creating his own programming languages in high school.
Speaker:And so he's been a programmer, a web programmer and developer
Speaker:since the very beginning.
Speaker:No kidding.
Speaker:That's, that's powerful.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:What a cool story.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:So, okay, so you got into this bunny trail.
Speaker:This was a, this was a personal interest.
Speaker:You were doing this for yourself.
Speaker:When did it, when did you decide that this was going to evolve into a career path?
Speaker:Obviously, I'm sure when you got a little older and started wondering
Speaker:about how to make money in the world.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, I, um, I knew by about age 14 or 15 that this is what I wanted to do.
Speaker:And when I was in high school, I volunteered at the hospital with the
Speaker:registered dietitians and I emerged from that experience saying nutrition,
Speaker:yes, hospitals, no, absolutely not.
Speaker:So I knew that, um, preventative care was always going to be.
Speaker:Where I would be and that I didn't want to go through the hospital system.
Speaker:So I never actually ended up becoming a registered dietitian.
Speaker:I obtained my nutrition degree in 2000, my first degree in 2004, and then
Speaker:started what I called nutrition coaching.
Speaker:Because at that point in time, the word health coach didn't actually exist yet.
Speaker:So I became a nutrition coach and I was giving people general
Speaker:guidance on healthy eating.
Speaker:I started off working for the clients of my running coach and so immediately
Speaker:began in in the field of weight loss as well as endurance sports nutrition.
Speaker:And because they don't teach you anything about running a business in college,
Speaker:I fell flat on my face pretty rapidly.
Speaker:I had no idea how to run a business.
Speaker:I didn't feel comfortable marketing myself because I wasn't a registered dietitian.
Speaker:And we were told in college, that's the only thing that's going to be respected.
Speaker:Nobody will listen to you unless you're an RD.
Speaker:The truth is none of my clients ever asked for my degree or my qualifications.
Speaker:They just wanted to feel better.
Speaker:But it was really ingrained in my mind.
Speaker:So about two years after I finished college, I went to the Institute
Speaker:for Integrative Nutrition to get my health coaching degree or my health
Speaker:coaching certification, excuse me.
Speaker:And that I was motivated to go there because they had a.
Speaker:They had, part of their program was how to teach you to get
Speaker:a practice up and running.
Speaker:So you would learn from a variety of, of teachers, visiting teachers, many of whom
Speaker:were my childhood heroes, like Walter Willett and Dean Ornish and, um, Sully,
Speaker:Sully Fallon and, and, So I was drawn by actually meeting these people in person.
Speaker:It was like amazing.
Speaker:And then they were going to actually teach me how to market myself, how to
Speaker:get clients, how to make this work.
Speaker:And that was a game changer for me.
Speaker:That really gave me the confidence to be able to go out and help people.
Speaker:I didn't need to have industry approval to make a difference.
Speaker:Um, and that was, that was key for me.
Speaker:Okay, for those of you listening, I want you to write this down.
Speaker:I'm doing it with you.
Speaker:I don't need industry approval to make a difference.
Speaker:I think that is such a key thing, and not even just in the holistic space,
Speaker:because I've been doing this a long time in the internet and online space.
Speaker:Um, And I think the same thing stands to reason there.
Speaker:Oh, well, I'm not certified in SEO or I'm not certified in creation, yada, yada.
Speaker:And so we think we need to go get all these certifications and
Speaker:trainings and so on to set our worth.
Speaker:But if you can legitimately make a difference with what, you
Speaker:know, you have a starting point and that's the key thing there.
Speaker:Another thing that you mentioned too, that I want to highlight.
Speaker:You probably don't really realize what that is as a joint venture.
Speaker:And I think that's a really great way for beginning practitioners to start.
Speaker:You said that you were, um, doing nutrition coaching for a fitness
Speaker:coach or somebody in that genre.
Speaker:That's a great way to start leveraging.
Speaker:It's called leveraging other people's audiences.
Speaker:And it, you know, of course that was probably before podcasts were super
Speaker:popular, if they were even a thing yet.
Speaker:Um, I think YouTube was just getting started in the early 2000s.
Speaker:So, it wouldn't have made sense to leverage other people's
Speaker:audiences in ways we can today.
Speaker:And it's now becoming an overlooked, uh, business strategy because we're all so
Speaker:focused on social media and podcasting and, and YouTube guesting and all these
Speaker:things that we're forgetting something as simple as building strategic partnerships
Speaker:and creating a win win relationship.
Speaker:So I think that's a really key thing to highlight.
Speaker:I, I agree.
Speaker:And I've been, I've been largely.
Speaker:Reluctant isn't the quite, quite the word, antagonistically resentful of being
Speaker:told that in order to build a following, I need to be online, I need to be buying
Speaker:ads, I need to be doing this, that, and the other, that doesn't, it doesn't
Speaker:fit my personality, I don't like it.
Speaker:Marketing in that sense.
Speaker:It doesn't feel authentic to me.
Speaker:I don't like receiving ads.
Speaker:Why would I want to be contributing to that?
Speaker:And so for me personally, anyway, it doesn't feel good to do that.
Speaker:And every time I've tried, because I've been told this is what you're
Speaker:supposed to do, I just ended up angry and resentful, the.
Speaker:We, we really in this very modern digital age have forgotten the power
Speaker:of that personal connection in real time in life, human to human, because
Speaker:everything is so focused online.
Speaker:We're online learning, looking, reading, trying to get this information.
Speaker:And all of the people who are online are telling us to stay there.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:Our community is filled with amazing people who know people that could
Speaker:completely fill your practice if you make really good authentic connections
Speaker:and you two have an aligned mission.
Speaker:100%.
Speaker:That sums up Joint Ventures perfectly.
Speaker:I couldn't have said it better.
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:And the scary thing is I think we're just going into the mindset of that.
Speaker:A lot of times people think, Oh, well, they won't talk to me or I don't
Speaker:know how to start that conversation.
Speaker:And I always encourage people to just think if you were to bump into this
Speaker:person, say in a networking event, or, you know, a, um, and it could be not
Speaker:even a networking event, it could just be a wellness event and you just become.
Speaker:What friends, you build a friendship.
Speaker:I think like if we just take the emphasis on the what's in it for me or them
Speaker:and trying to get something like that result, and we just focus on building the
Speaker:relationship, it's an organic process that really is beautiful and it can evolve.
Speaker:With right before our eyes, you know, it's really fun and it's almost magical.
Speaker:It's like actually the fun part of business.
Speaker:I think it's definitely not.
Speaker:So it's saying it takes time.
Speaker:It takes time, just as we don't really like it if we're going on a date and
Speaker:on the second date, the person is like, when do you want to move in together?
Speaker:Neither do we appreciate being on the receiving end of, of someone who is,
Speaker:you know, Who appears to be pursuing the friendship for personal gain, right?
Speaker:So you meet someone, there's a spark, there's a potential there, feel it
Speaker:out, get to know each other, have fun.
Speaker:If it isn't a business setting, like a networking setting, then of
Speaker:course it makes sense to bring it up.
Speaker:Just like a serious dating site that advertises finding a marriage partner
Speaker:is a situation where you would bring up that serious subject quickly.
Speaker:But otherwise, don't be surprised if it takes a year,
Speaker:a year and a half, two years.
Speaker:I've been in the game long enough that I have seen inklings of things
Speaker:be rooted, but not actually sprout and bear fruit for three, four,
Speaker:even five years down the road.
Speaker:And, and that's okay.
Speaker:And oftentimes when they do bear fruit, it's really juicy.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Well, let's dive into that a little more.
Speaker:So you, so you decided to start your practice and then you
Speaker:got your second certificate.
Speaker:Was it a certification or a degree?
Speaker:That second one that was a certification in health coaching.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And then they talked a little bit about business.
Speaker:How did that, how did, what, what was like one big takeaway that
Speaker:kind of got you launched into the next phase of your business?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think the thing that really helped me out was, I think it really was
Speaker:majority, the majority of it was the mindset of basically get over yourself.
Speaker:People need your help.
Speaker:Get to it and forget about not being an RD.
Speaker:That doesn't matter.
Speaker:People won't ask you.
Speaker:They don't care.
Speaker:They just want to feel better.
Speaker:And fortunately, I was in a place where I could.
Speaker:Internalize that and receive it and then boom go out.
Speaker:Additionally, they taught us to leverage using, um, free talks
Speaker:and workshops and then paid talks and workshops to gather clients.
Speaker:This was, you know, very much at the early, early stages of social media.
Speaker:And so most things were still being done in person in real time.
Speaker:Obviously, Talks and Workshops transition very easily to the internet, especially
Speaker:now that we're post pandemic and all very, very accustomed to being on Zoom, and
Speaker:that is still an excellent way to broaden your audience to make collaborative
Speaker:connections, um, and, That has kind of been a seed that has stayed with
Speaker:me throughout Wherever I've been when there is someone or there's an alignment
Speaker:there and we have some overlap How can we create a win win situation together?
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Okay, so when did you feel like your practice started to Get legs.
Speaker:So to speak, you know, it really was taking off.
Speaker:And, um, were there any new challenges that kind of crept up for you at that?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Life has not been short of challenges for me.
Speaker:So things really started taking off, I would say around 2006, 2007,
Speaker:it's going really, really well.
Speaker:And then in, um, late 2007, I experienced a soul crushing breakup
Speaker:that really shook me and, um, definitely impacted my ability to work.
Speaker:I was, I was absolutely devastated.
Speaker:And I.
Speaker:Ended up, um, leaving Seattle for a while and moving to San Diego to do some
Speaker:personal work, um, with a friend that I'd actually met at the health coaching
Speaker:certification program that I had done.
Speaker:And shortly after I moved to San Diego, the economy completely crashed.
Speaker:That were, that the 2008 recession happened.
Speaker:So I was in a new city.
Speaker:I didn't know anybody.
Speaker:The economy was utter crap.
Speaker:Seattle fared fairly well, but California was definitely hit.
Speaker:Uh, the San Diego area was at that point.
Speaker:I transitioned to virtual coaching because I did have clients in Seattle still.
Speaker:And so I started doing phone coaching and I was able to maintain some
Speaker:small, a small client load after I had moved and I joined meetups.
Speaker:I joined running meetups.
Speaker:And to establish myself in the community just to meet people right and that
Speaker:ended up allowing me to be established as a sports nutritionist in San
Speaker:Diego to work with some people there.
Speaker:Later I met a naturopathic doctor, rented some office space for
Speaker:her, from her, and then that.
Speaker:That also allowed me to expand a little bit more, and I just essentially, that
Speaker:was, that was the first time I rebuilt.
Speaker:The first time, I love that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, the first time I rebuilt, um, it's not a linear journey,
Speaker:folks, but each, each challenge, each setback, each surprise.
Speaker:When you come through it, you are more resilient, more
Speaker:robust, and also more humbled.
Speaker:And I think that ultimately allows you to stay in the game
Speaker:when everyone around you quits.
Speaker:I really think success in business ultimately is being about the most
Speaker:stubborn, determined person in the group.
Speaker:That's very powerful too.
Speaker:You know, you got me thinking today.
Speaker:It's, it's this kind of, you never notice how like certain themes come up.
Speaker:Today's theme is flight or fight.
Speaker:And somebody I was just interviewing was talking about that.
Speaker:She doesn't probably even know this came up for me.
Speaker:And my brain went off on this bunny trail from our conversation, but she
Speaker:parasympathetic nervous system and, and, and just kind of how she was healing
Speaker:that and her practice and journey and, you know, that kind of story.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And she made that comment about her fight or flight and how overactive
Speaker:nervous systems can affect our our mindset and our future and so on.
Speaker:And it got me thinking, I'm like, huh, I never really thought about that.
Speaker:But if I look at even my own mindset, some of my biggest struggles come from having
Speaker:a more tendency to flight than fight.
Speaker:And what that does is it makes us want to just quit.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:Whereas that fight symptom or I don't know if it's not a symptom,
Speaker:but a strategy, I guess, that our body's designed to do would then put
Speaker:us where we would just put all in.
Speaker:We would just focus even heavier.
Speaker:There's just this difference in the way of thinking goes about it.
Speaker:If it's not easy, I'm not going to keep trying.
Speaker:And I think that's a really good thing.
Speaker:I haven't even fully digested that concept, but it's just coming up.
Speaker:And then what you said makes sense.
Speaker:It's like the one who stays in the longest is most likely to come out ahead.
Speaker:How do you think, I mean, it sounds to me like maybe, and maybe running was part
Speaker:of this for you or your fitness mentality that pushed through to the end, even
Speaker:when it's tough, maybe that kind of set that stage for you, or do you think maybe
Speaker:there was something else that helped you?
Speaker:Keep your dog in the fight.
Speaker:So to speak, there are a couple of things that come to mind.
Speaker:I think definitely being an endurance runner has played a part.
Speaker:I couldn't deny that.
Speaker:Um, more deeply though, I would say that I think the root of it
Speaker:ultimately comes from my family.
Speaker:So my father is an immigrant.
Speaker:He moved to the United States from Mexico when he was about 15, didn't
Speaker:speak any English, didn't know anything, started off cleaning toilets, you know,
Speaker:bussing tables, things of that nature.
Speaker:And he moved up, he just looked for opportunities and took, took advantage
Speaker:of them when they came his way.
Speaker:And so he began buying cars and fixing them and then
Speaker:selling them for extra money.
Speaker:He, um, once lied about his work position.
Speaker:He was a, He was a prep cook in a restaurant and there was somebody
Speaker:scouting recruits to take them up to Alaska because Alaska needed workers
Speaker:and they were looking for line cooks.
Speaker:And my dad was like, Oh yeah, yeah, I'm a line cook.
Speaker:I could do that.
Speaker:And so then he ends up in Alaska.
Speaker:And, um, from there, he, he worked in the restaurant business for a long time and
Speaker:then ended up buying his own restaurant.
Speaker:So now he has.
Speaker:12.
Speaker:I lost count a while ago.
Speaker:He's a very successful businessman and his tenacity, his drive, his
Speaker:willingness not to take no for an answer.
Speaker:His, um, extreme workaholism also has modeled what I don't want to do, but he,
Speaker:I had an example in my living room of what could happen if you put your mind to it.
Speaker:And knowing where he came from, you know, in a small, small ranch town in the
Speaker:middle of Mexico, in a stone house with dirt floors, and who he's become and what
Speaker:he's accomplished, I have no excuses, right, like there's no, just because
Speaker:it's, I can't expect life to be easy.
Speaker:I don't think that's a recipe for disaster because even in the most privileged
Speaker:country in the world, life isn't easy.
Speaker:So I think that has been a significant part and just stay with it.
Speaker:Stay with it.
Speaker:Stay with it.
Speaker:If you get knocked down, you get back up because that's just what you do.
Speaker:Um, however, that said, I love this field so much.
Speaker:I don't know what I would do if I wasn't doing this.
Speaker:And so in that sense, I almost have removed choice from the table.
Speaker:And so all I can do is keep doing what I'm doing.
Speaker:Whether I make 2, 000 a month or 15, 000 a month, I just need to do what
Speaker:I got to do because that is my life.
Speaker:That's why I'm here.
Speaker:Good stuff.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Let's get to the part about how you evolved again in your business and
Speaker:are able to now travel Europe and be, have this nomadic lifestyle, um,
Speaker:kind of, I guess, If you can, guide us through quickly, like your journey
Speaker:and where that led to and, and how you were able to make that transition.
Speaker:Um, I became a parent and becoming a parent really shifted things from me
Speaker:growing, uh, you know, six, seven figure business was no longer my top priority.
Speaker:It was really about making sure like this wonderful human that I
Speaker:brought into the world would do well.
Speaker:And And so with that, I wanted a backup plan and that's, that's why I went back to
Speaker:school for my master's degree was because in, in the state of Washington, if you
Speaker:have a master's degree in nutrition, the state will license you as a certified
Speaker:nutritionist, you can accept insurance.
Speaker:You can work in clinics, although you're definitely, you definitely have fewer
Speaker:options than a registered dietitian, but there are work opportunities there.
Speaker:And I wanted to make sure that.
Speaker:Um, I wanted to make sure that I had an option for employment so that my
Speaker:business didn't take me away from my child because as the child of business
Speaker:owners, I did have firsthand experience.
Speaker:of spending a lot of time alone because my parents were working very,
Speaker:very hard to keep the business afloat during the recession of the 80s.
Speaker:And there simply wasn't much time, right, to devote to things outside the business.
Speaker:So, um, 2020 rolls along and I implement that backup plan
Speaker:because things were very unstable.
Speaker:My child was at home.
Speaker:He was falling apart.
Speaker:I didn't know how long he was going to be home.
Speaker:Nobody knew what was going on.
Speaker:And a friend of mine that I went to grad school with.
Speaker:Was, um, needing, she was about to go on maternity leave and they needed to have
Speaker:someone and a second nutritionist in their clinic, in their medical clinic.
Speaker:And they were looking for people.
Speaker:And I was like, tell me more.
Speaker:And she was like, I didn't think you'd be interested.
Speaker:And I said, I could be bought for a price.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:I did, I did work in a medical clinic and obesity medicine and metabolic
Speaker:health clinic for three years.
Speaker:It was fantastic.
Speaker:It exposed me to so much more than I can be exposed to when I'm in
Speaker:a cash based private practice.
Speaker:We accepted Medicaid, Medicare, and so we saw all kinds of people.
Speaker:People from all walks of life.
Speaker:It was a glorious experience.
Speaker:And I was with very supportive medical professionals who believed in what we did.
Speaker:And that is also not to be expected in the field of nutrition.
Speaker:So it was, it was beautiful.
Speaker:Um, however, I, I was really coming up against this.
Speaker:reality that how my child was being raised, how I was able to raise my child
Speaker:in one of the more expensive cities in the United States, which we had decided
Speaker:at some point was the last city in the States that we wanted to live in.
Speaker:If we were going to stay in the States.
Speaker:Suddenly became too untenable, too unrealistic.
Speaker:It was, you know, we choose to have a retirement fund or we choose
Speaker:quality education for our son.
Speaker:We bust our butts and he's still socially isolated and it
Speaker:wasn't what we wanted for him.
Speaker:It wasn't what we wanted for ourselves.
Speaker:Because I had been virtual to some, if you know, 50 to a hundred percent
Speaker:of my private practice since.
Speaker:What, 2008,
Speaker:no biggie, I, all I needed to do was leave my clinic position that I was working
Speaker:at part time and then I was, I was free.
Speaker:My husband being in tech, um, you know, their office shut down in March of 2020.
Speaker:It still hasn't opened up.
Speaker:He still works for that company, but from here in Spain.
Speaker:And so it became very clear that we want something else for our family, we
Speaker:want something else for our son, and we have, we are in a very fortunate
Speaker:position to be able to do it, and we need to do it soon, because he was, I
Speaker:think that the point that we decided to leave the states, he was turning eight.
Speaker:And I wanted him out before he turned 10, before he entered adolescence,
Speaker:before his friendship groups became, you know, from light into
Speaker:like very deep, deep friendships.
Speaker:So we were like, all right, let's figure out how to make this happen.
Speaker:Let's find a place to go and let's go.
Speaker:Because I'm half Mexican, um, my Latin roots are important to me.
Speaker:I was not able to be fluent in Spanish because my father was learning English.
Speaker:And so we only spoke English in the home and my mother's American.
Speaker:And I don't want my son to have the challenges and language connecting
Speaker:to family that I have had.
Speaker:For the whole of my life.
Speaker:So moving to a country that spoke Spanish was important.
Speaker:Mexico did not inspire a great deal of confidence in me in terms of how
Speaker:it's run, in terms of safety issues.
Speaker:As much as I deeply, deeply love that country, it's so
Speaker:culturally rich and beautiful.
Speaker:I have family down there.
Speaker:Um, It didn't, it felt like a lateral move at best, and I really wanted
Speaker:something better, and so Spain just sort of slowly emerged from the top.
Speaker:It was not on my list, it wasn't on my husband's list, we weren't ever thinking
Speaker:about Spain, but it just showed up.
Speaker:And so we decided, let's do it.
Speaker:And then we decided, well, before we do it, maybe we should go visit
Speaker:Spain and see if we actually like it.
Speaker:And did you?
Speaker:Did you?
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:I actually got the lawyer first.
Speaker:Decided we were going to move and then put the brakes on because it was, I
Speaker:was still, I was working at the clinic and maintaining a private practice and
Speaker:preparing to move to Spain in six months.
Speaker:And that's just not, that's not a thing.
Speaker:Don't.
Speaker:It's not a thing.
Speaker:It doesn't happen that way.
Speaker:So I hit the pause button and we decided to spend a month in Spain.
Speaker:I took a sabbatical from work to make sure that this was really the right choice.
Speaker:And so we came here, I immediately just felt like, oh gosh yes, this, this
Speaker:whole vibe works a lot better for us.
Speaker:We found an incredible school for my son, um, that was a third of
Speaker:the cost of what we were paying in Seattle, and offered him so much more.
Speaker:If we stay here, by the time he finishes high school, he'll know five languages.
Speaker:have opportunities to travel to other countries on student exchange programs.
Speaker:There's like tennis courts and swimming pools at this school.
Speaker:It's nuts.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And for so much less than what we were paying in the States.
Speaker:And then it was just, it was a non issue at that point.
Speaker:We took a tour to the school.
Speaker:It's like, well, I guess we're moving to that town.
Speaker:However, that town is, and.
Speaker:That was it and came home and started selling things.
Speaker:I, I left my position at the clinic, which was heartbreaking
Speaker:because I loved it there.
Speaker:And I love my patients so much, but, um, my son comes first and
Speaker:my, my family's health comes first.
Speaker:So we, uh, So I left and spent the final three, four months in the
Speaker:States, just devoted to getting rid of everything we own and, um,
Speaker:settling our affairs as best we could, and then finding a place to live.
Speaker:Once we got here and settling the whole visa process too,
Speaker:which is a, Crazy adventure.
Speaker:Yeah, I can imagine.
Speaker:That's incredible.
Speaker:And I love that you shared your journey on how to, how you figured out Spain
Speaker:was the way I was going to ask you that.
Speaker:Cause I think there's a lot of people who desire that laptop
Speaker:lifestyle and that freedom to travel.
Speaker:But then there's the whole.
Speaker:What is it really like actually taking that plunge?
Speaker:Like it sounds really romantic, but then what is it like to do it?
Speaker:So it's really neat.
Speaker:That's really neat that you did.
Speaker:How did, you know, since your son didn't know English, what was the school like?
Speaker:Did they, I mean, didn't know English, didn't know Spanish at the time.
Speaker:Did they have teachers that spoke English to help him make that
Speaker:transition into speaking Spanish full time or how did that work?
Speaker:Yeah, so we've been here for eight months.
Speaker:We're still very new, uh, to the country and, um, he's in a Montessori
Speaker:school here in Spain and he's always been in a Montessori school.
Speaker:And so it was important for me that wherever we ended up, that his
Speaker:school methodology stayed the same because it would be such a, it's
Speaker:such a significant disruption anyway.
Speaker:That if his school was the same and he was familiar with how that
Speaker:all went, it would be one less thing for him to have to adapt to.
Speaker:So we found this incredible Montessori school and at the school, they teach
Speaker:the students, um, English, Spanish, Catalan, German, and French, optional
Speaker:Mandarin in high school, if you want it.
Speaker:But the kids start practicing in Spanish and English and
Speaker:Catalan in the early grades.
Speaker:Kindergarten, first grade, so
Speaker:he, his teacher does speak English pretty fluently, and so he, you know, entering
Speaker:into the school, he's been allowed to read books in English, he gets some of
Speaker:the, some of the lessons are in Spanish or the lessons are in Catalan, he gets
Speaker:Spanish lessons, because we've requested an emphasis on Spanish versus Catalan,
Speaker:it's a choice you can make when you enroll your son in the school, and, um, Now,
Speaker:he told me today, he's like, my teacher says that when we get back from Semana
Speaker:Santa, which is our spring break that's happening this week, that she wants
Speaker:me to start reading books in Spanish.
Speaker:And I'm like, well, that's great.
Speaker:Like you're doing so well.
Speaker:You're ready to read books in Spanish.
Speaker:It's fantastic.
Speaker:Yeah, really?
Speaker:That's incredible.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's beautiful.
Speaker:Yeah, so he's picking up the language and he's much more immersed
Speaker:in it than its father and I are.
Speaker:So he's picking it up rather quickly, which is wonderful.
Speaker:Um, and the school, it's not an international school.
Speaker:It is a local Spanish private school.
Speaker:However, about 10 percent of the student population.
Speaker:Do our foreigners.
Speaker:So he has friends who are from America or they're half American, half Spanish,
Speaker:um, and friends from Russia and, and also Spanish and Catalan friends as well.
Speaker:That's so cool.
Speaker:I just, I'm excited to see where the world goes.
Speaker:There's so much.
Speaker:There's so much more of a worldly vibe coming up.
Speaker:I think we're just unified humanity is unifying, you know, we're becoming
Speaker:a global species rather than such a.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Like, that's a whole nother story, but I love that because I see that
Speaker:as coming up in so many different places, man, wow, that is cool.
Speaker:So for your business, now that you're in Spain, you had your client base.
Speaker:How do you see yourself growing?
Speaker:And from here, I'm, I'm in the middle of the third resurrection.
Speaker:So I, I do have a client base that's still in Seattle, predominantly
Speaker:they're, they're all West.
Speaker:No, that's not true.
Speaker:That's not, they're not all West Coast, but most are West Coast.
Speaker:Um, and so I have my mornings that I can use for personal time for personal.
Speaker:Um, you know, recording my own podcast, blasphemous nutrition for working
Speaker:on client notes, things like that.
Speaker:And then my client hours start at about three, 4 p.
Speaker:m.
Speaker:and then go until seven, sometimes eight o'clock at night.
Speaker:So it's a different lifestyle.
Speaker:And again, I'm in this position right now where I haven't quite figured
Speaker:out how to navigate this, but.
Speaker:It's taking time away from my son because he doesn't get home until five 30.
Speaker:So I am fortunate enough at this point that he do not have a full client load.
Speaker:So I only see clients, you know, three days a week, and then two days a week,
Speaker:I'm able to be fully present for my kid.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:What I'm looking to do now over the next three to five years is
Speaker:to Get to know Europe, right?
Speaker:So one of the reasons I launched my own podcast in January was so that
Speaker:I could reach the english speaking world Outside the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker:So, I mean, the East coast is only six hours behind me.
Speaker:That's much more reasonable than the nine hours from the Pacific coast.
Speaker:And then there's all the folks in Britain and Ireland and, you know, a lot of the
Speaker:Nordic countries speak English as well.
Speaker:So I have, I, I have a new population that I don't know them.
Speaker:They don't know me, you know, the first six, seven months, I was really
Speaker:feeling out, like, what do I, what are the needs of the people here?
Speaker:Because I can come in guns a blazing and, um, you know, be all Emily in
Speaker:Paris with my American attitude, fixing the world, but that might not
Speaker:be what they want or need, you know?
Speaker:So I'm still in this.
Speaker:Place of sitting and marinating and feeling out if what I have been
Speaker:specializing in, which is predominantly weight loss, metabolic health,
Speaker:and endurance sports nutrition, is that what I'll be doing here?
Speaker:Is that what these people need?
Speaker:The answers I'm getting are yes.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:This is, this is a worldwide problem where there's room for you here.
Speaker:And, um, functional medicine, functional nutrition is very much
Speaker:still in its infancy in Europe.
Speaker:And so in that sense, I've come to a place where I'm the pioneer.
Speaker:Interesting.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:I'm still figuring out where to get the quality supplements that I need
Speaker:for my clients, but, but there's.
Speaker:There's so much possibility here.
Speaker:So now that we are settled, housed, know how to do things like buy grocery
Speaker:stores and work the appliances in the house that we're living in.
Speaker:Now I'm thinking, you know, now I'm starting to expand out, like where are
Speaker:the European nutrition conferences?
Speaker:Where are the holistic medicine conferences?
Speaker:And, um, this is where I'll be networking.
Speaker:This is where I'll be going out here in Europe.
Speaker:There can be a conference in London, a conference in Amsterdam, a conference in
Speaker:Paris, and it's very easy and very quick to get there and not very expensive.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Um, and I'm told most of the conferences are done in English, no matter
Speaker:where they're held because that is, that's the dominant language of, of,
Speaker:um, of the world and of industry.
Speaker:So that's my plan, you know, for, for this year and then into next
Speaker:year is really kind of getting myself known and then doing collaborations
Speaker:with podcasting and utilizing my podcast as a resource for expanding.
Speaker:My voice and my reach to, to those who want to work with someone virtually
Speaker:and, um, aren't limited by borders.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Oh, beautiful.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:So I guess we could wrap up with a couple last minute things.
Speaker:Like if you could give yourself, go back to that beginning days and give yourself
Speaker:one piece of advice, what would it be?
Speaker:And then tell everybody where they can find you.
Speaker:I think, I think the best piece of advice I could give myself
Speaker:when I was first starting off is stop trying to be your father.
Speaker:Um, that's not the metric of success that's going to work for you.
Speaker:So I engaged in a lot of overwork, burnout, pick yourself up,
Speaker:recover, overwork, burnout for the first half of my career.
Speaker:And, um, it's not a path I recommend for sure.
Speaker:Knowing what success looks like for you, not what others say it should
Speaker:look like, not defining it by X figures is going to be my success point.
Speaker:X degrees is going to be my success point.
Speaker:What will make your heart happy?
Speaker:Because that's, like, if you don't know what's going to make your heart
Speaker:happy, you don't know why you're going to keep getting up when life
Speaker:knocks you down, when things get hard.
Speaker:And so it's really, really important to be connected to that.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Sometimes you don't figure it out until you start.
Speaker:But you, but if you just stay with that intention to pay attention and figure
Speaker:it out and then have the courage to stick with it, even when times feel like
Speaker:they're taking you in another direction.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Nope.
Speaker:If you don't have the answer, ask the question.
Speaker:And if you ask the question and you keep asking the question, your brain will work
Speaker:on it when you're not even conscious of it and it will, you will find the answers
Speaker:because you're asking that question.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:Oh, so good.
Speaker:Okay, great.
Speaker:So tell us where we can connect with you.
Speaker:Yeah, I, my, um, private practice is vibrancenutrition.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:That's V I B R A N C E.
Speaker:And my podcast is blasphemous nutrition.
Speaker:It's, um, blasphemous as in not holy.
Speaker:So, um, And that can be found on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere
Speaker:where you listen to podcasts.
Speaker:I am also on Instagram at vibrance nutrition as well.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:Thank you, Aimee.
Speaker:My pleasure.
Speaker:Thank you for having me today.