VISIONARY SPOTLIGHT
Photo: Julie Daniluk, Speakers Spotlight
Some people show you what's possible long before you know you need to see it. For me, Julie is one of them.
Back in 2013, I was a student at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition when Julie walked in and gave us a presentation on building a holistic nutrition business. I remember thinking, this is what's possible for our profession. So it felt like a full-circle moment to have her on the Rain or Shine podcast, in our very first joint episode with Emily Elliot of Peaceful Mama Leads, ahead of her talk at our Wave event. For this Visionary Spotlight, I'm pulling from that conversation to bring you her journey, in her own words.
Tell us about your business and how it started.
It started with a near-death experience. Julie got food poisoning in Thailand and was so ill that when she recovered, she wanted the world to know what she'd learned. "You could have an extraordinary breakthrough simply by changing what you put in your mouth. We're not just fueling our bodies with every choice, we're actually rebuilding every cell."
In 1999, she was graduating and "full of hope." She co-owned a health food store that grew from about 35 to 60 worker-owners and became the Big Carrot Natural Food Market. There, she created a brand-new role: walking customers around the store one at a time and showing them foods that fit their actual health needs, completely for free. It boosted sales, but more importantly, "it cemented loyalty."
She never set out to build a brand. "I purely created it out of a passion to help transform people's health." Her advice to anyone building something? "There has to be that organic spark, that insatiable need to share."
How did you get yourself out there in the early days?
Julie leaned on a part of her past that might surprise you: she has a full degree in theatre. She took improv classes and joined Toastmasters, and she credits both with helping her reach a bigger audience organically. Improv taught her to listen and roll with the momentum ("It makes you a more playful person, which is simply awesome"), and Toastmasters gave her real presentation skills.
As for stage fright, she got out of her own way by focusing on one thing. "I'm just here to serve."
How have you stayed relevant for over 20 years?
By learning when to let go. Julie remembers when Periscope and Meerkat were the live-streaming platforms of the moment, until Instagram Live came along and eclipsed them both. Some people had built up 10,000 followers on those apps and kept pouring energy into them long after it was time to move on.
"We're here to ride a boat, and that boat carries our message. We need to stay pliable."
That lesson hit home in a big way when Julie's Facebook account was hacked. She'd been on Facebook since 2008, and she lost about 55,000 organic followers when someone impersonated her, started selling weight loss supplements, and got her page shut down. Meta wouldn't help her get it back. "I run an online business, so this was like the floor dropping out."
It forced her to build her own home. Her weekly newsletter, "a love note to my community" that she spends up to five hours on, became her biggest asset. "No matter what happens, I have built my own safe shore."
“We cannot be attached to the delivery system.”
-Julie Daniluk
How did you navigate a major setback in your business or life?
2019 was one of the best years of Julie's life. She was speaking on stages in front of 1,500 people, and about 95% of her income came from public speaking. Then the world shut down.
She had a hard choice to make: let her staff go, collect CERB, and call it a day, or dip into her RRSPs, keep her team, and pivot harder than ever. She chose to pivot. Out of the pandemic came Thrive Hive, a five-pillar wellness community that now has about 218 members (she calls them Wellness Warriors), growing month over month.
Part of what kept her going was who she'd be letting down. Her team is her family: her sister is the herbalist, her nephew is the movement coach, her brother is the yoga instructor, and her husband handles tech and mindset support.
Photo: Julie Daniluk, Speakers Spotlight
What's the best investment you've made in your career?
Training with Tony Robbins. Julie has invested tens of thousands of dollars in that work, and it's how she brings the mindset piece to everything she does. "He has fundamentally reprogrammed me to choose to live a beautiful life, no matter what happens."
She used to have "massive negative mental tape loops" running. She still hears that voice, "but there's a louder voice that pulls me forward."
What does nobody tell you about writing a book?
That it probably won't make you money. Even after selling hundreds of thousands of copies, Julie earns just one to two dollars per book, and writing them actually costs her money. "You don't write a book to make a living. You write a book to have a calling card that opens up the rest of your career."
The other surprise is how much the book changes. Expect it to come back from your editor marked up, then go through five rounds of revisions until it's a different book than when you started. "It took me until the fourth or fifth book before I started thinking, 'This is co-created.'"
What’s something you always do?
Protect her self-care rituals, even in the most intense seasons. During a book tour that had her up at 5 a.m. for media and signing books until 10 p.m., those few protected hours in between are what kept her from burning out. It's something she never used to prioritize, especially with ADHD. Now she uses the Finch app to stay on track with habits like vagal toning, skincare, and a hot Epsom salt bath before bed. And when an intense season wraps up, she takes a real break. With 7,000 posts (2,000 of which no one has ever seen), she can replay her "greatest hits" and step offline to recharge.
Was there a moment when your dreams came true?
Julie auditioned for Healthy Gourmet on the Oprah Winfrey Network on June 6, her birthday. She felt great about it, and then heard nothing for six months. Slowly, she let go of the outcome. But she kept the faith, even writing her own little chant (a riff on a Smash Mouth song) that she'd sing in the shower. Then, on Christmas Eve, she got the call: "We'd like to offer you Healthy Gourmet. Are you still available?" The show went on to air in 78 countries. "Keep the faith. Somewhere, at some point, there will be resonance."
How do you handle negative feedback?
Recently, Julie has faced pushback around the body positivity movement. She wholeheartedly believes in loving ourselves exactly as we are, and she's also bravely talking about how visceral fat drives inflammation and health risks, which some people hear as "diet talk."
That's why she calls her approach a "live-it," a sustainable way of living rather than something you fall off in 21 days. And she's learning that she doesn't have to be for everyone. "I'm here for the people who are sick and tired of being sick and tired."
Advice for other entrepreneurs having a rough day?
Never forget why you're sharing. Before you show up, give yourself a pep talk about how you can be a gift to others, instead of thinking about what you can gain. "If you give generously, it is so rare in this world that it is absolutely noticed."
As a mentor once told her: give away the gold and sell the silver.
“Without your nervous system, you don't have a career.”
-Julie Daniluk
A resource that’s added value to her journey?
A self-care app that helps Julie stick to her healthy habits. You grow a little virtual pet and earn points as you check things off, which she calls "extremely dopamine-enriching" for her ADHD brain.
Julie's full story, including Thrive Hive, her books, and her TV work, can be found on her websites and Instagram.
Visionary Spotlight
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