294 From News Anchor To Entrepreneur: Risking It All To Follow Your True Passion In Life
Mindset and Success Coach
Leslie Gordon Christie
Familiar to the people of Southwestern Ontario as CTV's Health and Lifestyle Specialist, Leslie Gordon Christie reported the Local News for more than a decade before becoming a successful entrepreneur.
Today, she shares her story of Risking It All To Follow Her True Passion In Life.
Leslie is a certified personal trainer, culinary nutrition expert, life coach and mom who is helping women transform their bodies and minds, and unlock their unlimited potential.
In this episode, Leslie and I chat about...
How did you end up as a News Anchor?
What did you love about that industry?
Anything that didn’t align / you didn’t love about reporting the news?
When did you get the first nudge that ‘it was time to pivot’
Who did you create BUFF Nation (your fitness business) for?
Can you talk about the importance of mindset in everything we do from health, fitness, to business to leadership
How she uses intention-setting
The importance of community
Squashing the "perfectionist mindset"
& More!
To connect with Leslie:
Access the transcript for this episode:
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You're listening to the visionary life podcast. I'm your host, Kelsey Reidl.
Each week, I'll bring you conversations with the most visionary humans on this earth, in hopes that you'll be able to absorb their wisdom, avoid their failures and feel less alone on the roller coaster ride that is entrepreneurship.
This season, I'll be chatting with creative thinkers, masterful marketers, brick and mortar shop owners, brand builders and people just like you who have a story to share or a vision that inspires. If I can share one quick secret with you before we get into the episode. It's that we all have a little bit of visionary inside of us, you know, that spark that nudges us to pursue our full potential in this lifetime, but perhaps somewhere along the line, it got covered up. I'm here to tell you that it's never too late to explore that inner voice and access the brilliance deep down inside of you. It's in you. It's in all of us. Let's dive in. Hey, visionaries. Welcome back to another episode of the show. Today I had the immense joy of sitting down with Leslie Gordon, you might know her as a former CTV News Anchor. However, today she is the founder of buff nation, originally called the buff mom. She's also a mindset and success coach. And she is just an awesome powerhouse. She's a woman who is driven, who made a major change from CTV News, anchor and journalist to deciding to go all in on her dreams to be a fitness instructor and to grow a company. well beyond that. And today, she focuses specifically on working with women who are in their 40s, who want to reclaim their energy, reclaim their waistline, and just regain that zest for life, their movement mindset and nutrition programs. Her company buff nation, they do it all. And if you identify with the women driven over 40, you probably are going to want to get into Leslie's world she is so easy to talk to it was really great for us to get to know each other. And it's so funny because we got on the Zoom recording, and we're just kind of chatting back and forth, and immediately found a few synergies between us.
We don't live that far from each other. Our paths have crossed. I've actually been part of a couple groups with her husband before. And it's just so interesting. Sometimes when you think you maybe have nothing surface level in common with someone. Not that I thought that would Leslie but immediately we're like, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, I know that person. And so that was really, really cool. I have to give a huge shout out to Becky she is actually the one that put me in touch with Leslie, I know. You know, I'm always looking for amazing podcast guests. So to get recommendations from all of you is just such a amazing thing. Not only that you can do for the business owner you're recommending but then you get to hear a really fun interview with somebody that maybe you have a personal interest in or personal connection with. So just know that I take your suggestions super seriously. And Becky, thank you for recommending Leslie as a guest on the podcast. It was such a joy for us to sit down record and just talk about what it takes to make a career pivot. We talked about launching an online business 12 years ago, when the systems weren't really set up. We talk about the importance of always investing in your growth and development. It is something that Leslie and I are super passionate about. And we even share a percentage that we reinvest into our personal and our professional development. We talk about her journey of reigniting her love of fitness, instructing, but always fast forwarding to kind of the end where now she's more thinking about hiring team and expanding her impact and focusing on the vision of the company and kind of removing herself from the day to day.
You know, operations that are client facing so regardless, I think you're gonna love this episode. Actually, I know you're gonna love this episode. So when you listen when you love it, please tag us you can find our Instagrams. I'll put Leslie's personal Instagram, as well as the buff nation, Instagram inside of the show notes. And you can tag me at Kelsey rival. So I hope you guys love the episode. I can't wait to hear your feedback. And I hope you have an amazing rest of your week. So whether you are partway through the week, whether you're listening on the weekend as you're relaxing in your hammock, just know that I'm here alongside you. I've got big dreams alongside you a huge vision and I cannot wait to hear what you guys are up to in the coming weeks. So we will chat soon and have a visionary day. Hey visionary, I want to quickly interrupt this episode to ask you if you've been curious what it's like to work with a private business and marketing coach, if you're a business owner, and you feel like your marketing plan is all over the place, you haven't figured out your search engine optimization or your SEO strategy, you have no idea what your social media marketing plan is, and you are not doing so well on the self Express content front. I call these the marketing trio. It's the three S's SEO social media self expressed content.
And by dialing in all three of these pillars, you too, can get more visible, generate more income, and increase your lead generation where you're actually turning your followers into paid clients. And you're constantly bringing new people in at the top of the funnel. If you're not familiar with my work, I am a private business and marketing coach. And I have spent the last 13 years working in the marketing industry, many of those years doing consulting with clients like you who want to finally get more visible and get in front of their dream clients. So when we work together, you have me for four months, as your marketing partner, I'm going to do a full audit of your business, put you on a private project management software with me. And then based on your innate skill sets based on your strength, based on where you are curious and where your dream clients are paying attention. We're going to build out a custom marketing strategy, we're going to track it, we're going to optimize it. And by the end of the four months, you have a plan that works. And you're seeing results. It's truly incredible. Christina crook, just landed a $100,000 consulting contract after implementing just one of my marketing strategies. Emily Fraser signed multiple new clients in one day after just one month of working with me.
And now she is having consistent five figure months. And Natasha, she started leveraging her email list in December, and 30 days later in January, she pulled in $25,000 from one single email that we created. So these results are possible for you too. But don't sign up yet. Just had to Kelsey rydell.com. And check out how we can work together, learn all about it, make sure you feel informed. And if you'd like to book a discovery call with me, just fill out the application on my website, we can get on the phone and see if it's a good fit for you. So anyways, I don't want to interrupt this episode anymore. I cannot wait to work with you to support you and getting you more visible. And let's get back into the show. Leslie, welcome to the visionary life Podcast. I'm really excited to sit down with you today. One of your clients who is actually a family member of mine, Becky, she reached out to me when I was saying, Who do I need to interview for the visionary life podcast. And these are the types of guests we're looking for. And she's like, Oh, my gosh, I have the perfect guest for you. So as soon as I dove into your content, your story, the journey of how you got to where you are today, I knew we had something special here. And this is the first time you and I are chatting and meeting. So it's also a chance for me to get to know you but also to share it publicly. So welcome to the show.Oh, I'm so excited to be on this. I just love your vision and everything you're doing. So thank you so much for thinking of me.
Oh, you're so welcome. So I kind of want to start with a little bit of your backstory. So you haven't always been a mindset and success coach. This is more of a recent endeavor. You actually started your career, either as a news anchor or did you start something else before that take us to the backstory of how you began your career path.
Yeah, actually, since I was a little girl, I always wanted to be a news reporter. I wanted to be a journalist I would you know, protect my my hairbrush and tuck into it and pretend I was reporting the news. I'd go around interviewing people. So I always wanted to do that. That said I also made up dances and kind of had fun and discovered fitness early on that really impacted my life as well. So I kind of had this love for both passions. So I went to journalism school, I got a job I you know, I worked at Fitness magazine for a long time oxygen magazine. I was the associate editor there then I got into TV and I worked at some small stations and I came to Kitchener when I worked for CTV and I was loving it like it was a wonderful, cool thing. And I was I was pretty young. I was probably in my early 20s And I was working in the industry doing some really neat stuff. And then I you know, got got into anchoring and just just learning about journalism. And I did that for about almost a decade, you know, almost a decade. It was a very busy life. It was an exciting life. It was a very busy life. And I soon realized you know, this passion for health. I was still teaching fitness classes on the side. It's something that I started to Are you in high school, but I noticed there was really an imbalance to my life. And I started to notice that I, after I had kids, it was really difficult to report, the hard hitting news, it was really difficult to show up to those car crashes or have to sit through in a courtroom. And just deal with that, as a mother, like I was really having a difficulty with it. And so I thought, You know what, I'm going to hire a coach, and just try to get things together.
Because, you know, I've wanted to do this my whole life, my goal was CNN, this is what I'm going to do. So I hired a coach, and anyone who's gone through coaching, knows, it kind of rocks your world in so many amazing ways. But when, right, right, what I discovered through the process, is I wasn't in line with what I thought I wanted to do my entire life, which was be a journalist. I love the storytelling. I love the excitement of it. But you know, I didn't like reporting the negativity, I truly believe we become what we focus on. So I was what was happening to me is I was feeling uncomfortable watching those news stories not being able to properly do my job when I showed up at a crime scene, or I would feel affected for the next few days, as I was noticing. Through coaching, I discovered an inconsistency with my values, right. And I think we can, anyone can relate to that, you start to notice things that you're really not happy with. But you're not sure how to change it. So I hired a coach that changed my world. And I realized I needed to go back to what really lit me up as a human being that was actually teaching fitness classes, something I started to do in high school, which is crazy. But it was going to be a little bit different because through coaching, I also was really into personal development. Again, I was thinking I was gonna go to CNN, I was really into personal development. So I went and I trained to become it was called life success consulting back then through Bob Proctor. So I was actually a mindset coach first. But what I did was everything that I learned, I applied to how can I make a shift in my life. And so I went back to what lights me up, I was teaching fitness classes. And so I decided when I was when I was, you know, after my second child that I was going to give it a shot. And I started with just one class. And I wanted to pull in the mindset components that I had learned through my personal development program that had radically changed my life and the way that I looked at the world. And so that's what I didsuch a crazy story and so relatable. And what I'm very curious about was Did you have any hesitations or resistance in exploring, totally pivoting career paths? Because I think the tendency is, okay, I've devoted a lot of time and energy and your case, you devoted more than 10 years to pursuing a certain path in journalism, in news anchoring. And sometimes we have this like, sunk cost fallacy where it's like, well, I've been here 10 years, there's no more opportunities for me to make a change, because I just need to put my head down and keep doing what I've been doing. Because it's too late for me. Did you ever have that fear?
Or how did you navigate and entertain the idea of pivoting? Even though 10 years is really not that lot, like we should all feel open to making changes, but I really do think there's a block and just say, Well, I've spent this much time in a career path. I'm just gonna be here forever. So how did you navigate those thoughts? And what were you feeling? Or did it feel easy to just say, I'm done.I think thankfully, what I did, I had, I had some great mentors along the way. And one mentor told me and I tell this to all my clients, and anyone I'm working with, whether it's, you know, it's mindset coaching, or whether it's just getting fit, is, wherever you are at right now. You have the moment now to change, meaning if you're unhappy with your current results, like in your job, you want to just work on yourself and grow yourself in that moment. And as you grow yourself, and you know, really looking at your thoughts, beliefs, you know, taking responsibility as you grow, you're going to naturally grow out of that current position. And I think that's what happened to me. At first, you know, you have that stress feeling like I've put everything into this, like, this is all I know. But the more you invest in yourself and growing yourself and understanding that you do have unlimited, amazing potential. It's just allowing that to flow through that I think just gave me the confidence to just keep going. And a lot of it was intuitive because once you start to really work on your mindset and look at how are you causing your own results and take responsibility, you know, that you can really change the path and so I think that that really played itself out and so I can still Remember the day that I quit my job, I quit this job. It was, you know, pretty well paying. I'm just like, Don, I was walking through Walmart. And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, I just quit my job, I just quit my job. But then this feeling of freedom, like, oh my gosh, there's a world outside of news and anyone I talked to in the news industry, I always say, guys, you know, for so long, we're so focused, right? And what you focus on grows, you think that's all there is. But there's so much more. It's just allowing yourself to see it. And it was a really freeing feeling. Now, it doesn't mean that it was like rainbows and roses. But I think that I knew, listen, you know, I've also heard that the term you burn the bridges, you just you got to, there's no backup plan, you make it work, because that's what you got to do. Right. And so I think that's also also what I did.
Yeah. And I think there's so many ways to approach it, right? Some people need to burn all the bridges, do the quitting thing, and then just go all in on their next project. Some people are like, Okay, I'm going to mitigate risk. And I think there's space for whatever level of risk you're willing to adopt. And just knowing that, like, you know, you're always going to have to incur some type of risk. But you can always do like the slow burning of the bridge. But yeah, I can only imagine that feeling of just saying, Okay, we are done with this career. And I'm going all in on the next thing. So what did that transition look like for you? How did you start to bring out this new business idea? You were teaching classes, I guess. But how did the business start to unfold? What were some of the first things you did to bring it to life?
Yeah, I remember I was, I had the idea that I wanted to do this. And so I thought, you know, I really wanted to do it in Cambridge, because at that time, in Cambridge, Ontario, there weren't a whole lot of fitness options. I had moved from Waterloo, there was a lot, I was working at some gyms that I was continuing to, you know, work at gyms and teach fitness classes, even though I was a news reporter. And I would still do that. But I thought, You know what, I'm just going to rent some space. And I'm going to give this a go. But what I'm going to do differently, is I want to bring in the mindset component, because I think it's very big on people making any transformation. We think it's the external, but it's actually the internal, you know, how we're programmed how we see ourselves, our self image is so incredibly important. So I wanted to start this kind of like workout group. And I wanted to also teach that information. And so I did it, and I don't even I called I think I first was like, even better after baby or something I was in the age of, you know, I had my my kids, I was, you know, gonna have another one. And so that's kind of where I was going with it. But then we would do class. But then we would also talk about mindset, how it related to our goals, like I would have everyone write out their goals and do a little bit of visualization. So I was bringing what I had learned and what I had trained in as a Procter Gallagher consultant, I was bringing that in to the program as well. And so that's what happened. And then it started to grow. You know, one person tells another person, I had three people, and then it came time where I thought, Okay, I think I can, I can leave my job now.
And so, and so I did. And I remember, it's so funny, you know, I really think vision is so important and where you're going to go and, you know, programming your subconscious mind for success. But I remember, like writing it out on a goal card, I call it a goal card when I work with people on you know, what it is that they want. And then the idea is you continue to look at this every day, I had a goal card written out as to what I wanted, and you're not gonna know how to achieve it. That's not the point. The point is you just have the vision, right? And I had the vision. And I decided to go out on my own. And I think it was like, a couple of weeks until my programs were starting. And I don't think I had like only a couple people, right. But I was still focused on my vision. And I was just like, I'm doing this, I'm doing this and don't you know, I had a reporter call me that said that they wanted to do a story on me on, you know, my move from the news or something. And I was like, Okay, that's great. That's phenomenal. Well, that, that article hit, and every single class sold out beyond what I could even imagine. And that was the start of it. Yeah. But my point is your vision, right? Your face. And you just got to really visualize, and that's really like, thankfully, I had learned those techniques, and now I teach them to wit to women. But I learned those techniques, and they really helped me and that's, you know, that's a really cool story, I think, and inspiring people who, you know, maybe they want to do something, but they're not sure you just get that vision. So nice and clear.Mm hmm. Yeah, I want to circle back on vision because I think that's such an important piece of making change in our lives. Whether it's advancing in business or achieving a health goal, that's often not discussed. But I want to circle back quickly. You mentioned something about when you started your business, you kind of merge the fitness and the mindset piece, because that's what you were interested in. I find that really fascinating. because there's this tendency when we start in an industry like health and wellness to be like, well, so many people are already doing this, or well, there's no space for me. But I think the beauty really comes with when you pair to different industries like fitness coaching and the mindset piece, and kind of find like this beautiful Crux between the two, which were two things you were uniquely passionate about. And you know, for some people, it's fitness and I don't know hip hop music, and they have like a gym that focuses on that. For some people, it's fitness, and motherhood, like, what are those things that you can uniquely combine and create this unique community that nobody else has created in the area? So I think that's something really important to note, how did you come up with the name of the community? Did it start as buff nation, give us a little overview of what that means to you, and then we're going to circle back to vision.
Okay, so it actually started as the buff mom, the buff, because at the time, we were, you know, you know, helping women, I was finding that there wasn't a whole lot of options. This is like, I'm trying to think of how many years ago this is maybe 13 years ago, it was a very different climate life coaching was not even around like when I started to train, like no one was doing this. And so it was kind of a little bit out there, it's a lot more common now. So bringing those concepts together was kind of like, strange. But we were and I say we because my husband was a real big part in helping, you know, develop this and what it is. So what what I was doing is I wanted to have something that was inclusive to women who had had kids before, you know, I had kids, we've obviously they've had kids, but just women who had had who had had kids, and then they were looking for a place where they can be with other women. And so how we worked it is, instead of having a gym environment, which I sometimes over the many years of working in fitness, I find it can be very intimidating to some people, I wanted to create more of a friendly community atmosphere. So what I did is I rented schools or churches with new gyms to create more of a community space. And so that's what was called the bath mom. So we had classes in these different community, you know, community friendly spaces where people can come and they weren't, they weren't feeling like they were in a typical gym environment that works really well for some people, but for other people it doesn't. And for my particular target audience, it didn't work well. So we were the buff mom. And we were the buff mom for like more than 10 years. And then something interesting happened. I was seeing it I was seeing it happening. Our members were getting older, they were different needs, we needed to talk about more subjects other than just, you know, losing weight after the baby. And I really needed to shift but then COVID happened to Okay, and so when COVID happened, that meant we had to pull our locations and bring them online. We had already had an online component at this time, we had called it the bottom on TV. So we we sort of had an online but now we had to make it fully online. So I thought it was an excellent opportunity to rebrand and refocus. And so now we are buffed nation 40 Plus and fabulous. And we help driven women reclaim their energy waistline, zest for life. And it's mindset, and it's fitness. And Bob stands for beautiful, unique, fearless female. And the idea behind that is it's celebrating our uniqueness, our awesomeness, just as we are all shapes, all sizes, all fitness levels. Being grateful for that. And then understanding we do have the ability to step into the best version of us.
Mm hmm. So amazing. What have been some of the major milestones that you've gone through as the buff mom and buff nations obviously said 10 years as the buff mom and then a rebrand a few years ago with the pandemic, that's a huge milestone. What are some other things whether they're like small milestones that you celebrated with your husband and your family? Or like some big monumental ones that you're like, Wow, I can't believe I've accomplished this. Hey, visionaries. I'm going to quickly interrupt this episode to share something crazy. Did you know that 70% of all online experiences begin with a search engine? That's right. Every day millions of people log on to search engines like Google to find solutions, answers and content that meets their search intent. Whether they're searching for a gas station near them, a pair of women's Jean overalls, or a nutritionist for weight loss. Search engines have become an integral part of our daily lives. But with so many businesses competing for visibility online, it can be tough to stand out from the crowd, especially if you don't have an SEO or a search engine optimization strategy. Okay, so what is search engine optimization? Well, if I'm gonna go for the formal definition It is simply the process of maximizing the number of visitors to a website by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine. SEO is a key driver of growth and success in today's competitive landscape. After all, people are going to Google. And if you're not on page one, they're likely not finding your website. To put it simply, a good SEO strategy helps people find you on the internet. So here's a personal story. At present, when I collect all of the information regarding how people find me, and how they ended up hiring me as a private marketing coach 50% of my annual business revenue can actually be tied back to people finding me through Google, that is why I created everyday SEO, this is a 30 day live course that I'm going to be beginning at the end of July that you can take part in where I'm teaching you everyday business owners how to improve your online visibility through SEO, we are going to simplify the ins and outs of search engines. I'm going to teach you proven strategies to help you rank higher, and I'm going to help you attract more traffic to your website. Because what is the point of having that beautiful website, or what's the point in building a site right now, if you're not going to bring eyeballs to it, I want you to grow your business. And SEO is an important way to do that. So if you're tired of being buried on page 933 of Google search results, and you want to start getting noticed, it is time to enroll in everyday SEO and get our Early Bird rate of just $197. Canadian for the entire course. Simply use the code visionary at checkout to save yourself $100 Right now head to Kelsey rydel.com/seo. Or click the link in my bio. And again, use the code visionary at checkout to save $100 This is a total steal at this price. It will not stay this price forever. Kelsey rydell.com/s e o use code visionary at checkout.
Yeah, I think back when we first wanted to bring video workouts to the world like nobody was doing that. And I think it was so crazy. Like we were building membership sites, we have a membership site. Now before people were doing it because they had to have a way to access this. And we were piecing it together and technology. And now there's platforms. I mean, now we use Kajabi. And there's so many other platforms. But when we started, we were just like piecing it together on we were creating lighting grids in our basement with our ODOT outside landline outside spotlights because we have broadcasting background, my husband is a genius. He has a now he has a real estate video marketing company. But back then he was an anchor as well. But he loved the technical side. So we were building also, we created a green screen with a green curtain in our basement. And we were using it to shoot videos and then upload it to our our portal that members can work at workout at home when they couldn't come to class. So I think of where we started and how technology has changed. And there's so much opportunity for entrepreneurs now to really just take even a plug and play and be able to serve their audience. Really well like great technology that's out there. So I would say that for sure. On another milestone is we started to get into some online courses kind of halfway through I had a was called it's called delicious by design. It's a healthy cooking and lifestyle course that you can do from home. And we started that and then the pandemic hits. So it's interesting how, you know, this stuff is happening. And thankfully there is the technology out there. And now of course, we've added the other component of mindset to our business. So it's nutrition, fitness and mindset. And that is, you know, just going back to the foundation of what helped me make the pivot and really coaching women to do the same. So there's there's been a lot, but it's an exciting future because I love that as a community. I would say maybe you can, you know, give me your opinion, as well. But we're more open to using technology like using Zoom coming online. Like I just feel, you know, if there's some positives from COVID, it kind of united us in the online community, which would you think?
Absolutely, I think like there's this interesting dance that we're all doing between everything was online last few years, and we almost got so used to I want to do a workout online, I want to FaceTime my friend online, I want to do a business meeting online. And we're almost like trying to strike a bit more of a balance these days. It's like, okay, I want the accessibility and the ease of having online options.
But I also love being invited to an in person event whether it's once a quarter, once a season, once a month, but it's just like knowing that I can still meet people in real life and knowing that we still have social skills that we need to cultivate and work on. And that, like, there's so much connection with seeing people in the physical realm. But I do think that life is busy. And we are all so grateful that if I want to pull up a Zoom video and do a workout with you, or watch a course, that I can actually just do it on my own time, because maybe I don't need to be live, maybe I'm not the type that needs to be asking questions nonstop, with somebody live. And instead, I can do it at 10pm at night, when the kids are sleeping when I got my second wind, you know, so I think there's this beautiful hybrid that we're all trying to find whether we're creators of courses, or students of them, it's like, I kind of want both, but the options are there, right?Isn't he great now that we have the ability to serve people who would want to be in person and also want to be in line? And I mean, yeah, right. Like, that's amazing.
Exactly, exactly. Okay, so super curious, what does a typical week in the life look like for you at this point, obviously, things have changed a lot. You do a lot of things, you have a lot of offerings, even on your website, it's like, well, we can dive into the fitness world, we can dive into the mindset stuff. So when you look at your work, we get this point, what are you focused on? Are you still the one that's teaching all of the classes? Are you trying to pull yourself out do more like high level strategic thinking? Or is it just like a beautiful blend of everything Monday to Friday?
Well, in the past few years, my goal has to pull myself out and do more strategic thinking. So I love that I have an awesome team who's taken on these classes. Because when we were in our, in our in person classes locally, here, I was teaching the majority of classes. Now I have an awesome team that does that. I like to, you know, I like to the beginning of the week, write out everything that needs to be done, look at what's coming out, and then plug into my calendar what I need to get done. And then what I do is I make days like, Thursday is my mindset day, you know, and Tuesday is my mindset day. So I focus on mindset, programming, mindset content. And then Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I have my buff nation, state and buff nation days. So that's sort of where I'm at. But what I really like is, the variety of, you know, the plan is important, or life can go crazy. But I like the meld of the things together.
And it's just really refreshing to be able to okay, I've done this. And now I'm going to do this because those are two things that are so important to me both in fitness. And of course, the mindset, just two things together. So that that's what a day looks like, I make sure that I carve in my time for reset. So it's really important to me. So I have started each day with meditation, I do another meditation at three in the afternoon, I do Transcendental Meditation. I discovered that probably about six years ago, it has been totally awesome on and I make sure I do my personal development work first thing in the morning. So every morning, it's the same thing. I'm up at 545, I do my personal development work, I do my meditation, and then you know, get the kids off to school, whatever it is that they need. And then I work from home. Most of the time I work from home, sometimes I'm out doing some speaking engagements. But that's the structure. And I take the weekends off.That's nice to hear too. Yeah, it's always fun to hear the scenes of an entrepreneur who's you know, doing a lot of things, but it's like, how do they find balance. And I think having those buckets like Monday devoted to this Tuesday devoted to this, it just gives you that loose structure. It's not like every minute of the day is planned. But it's like, I know what the focus is today. And it's interesting, because you've kind of gone through this transition, as you mentioned, from the one that's teaching all of the classes and having that level of control over the experience that your members are having. But now you say you're more thinking about the strategy and kind of pulling yourself away and trusting your team. And something that you talk about a lot is the importance of mindset in everything that we do. I'm curious, did you have any blocks in kind of stepping away from a lot of the client facing stuff? And if so, like what type of mindset shifts did you have to make in order to go from? I'm a fitness instructor to Oh, no, I'm actually the CEO of a business. And the thinking time is required of me, which forces me to step away from all the client facing stuff.
Yeah, I had to do what you just said I had to stop thinking of myself as a fitness instructor and start thinking of myself as a business owner. And that took a while. And I think when we first start a business, we think we have to do everything. And I'm still in that transition of hiring things out and contracting things out. As you can easily get pulled into, I need to do this, it needs to happen. But if there's no vision, where are you going? You know. So pulling myself away has been has been awesome. But it did, it did take a lot. And actually COVID helped me forced me to do that. Because I could no longer do everything. I needed to rely on a team and awesome team. And, yeah,
that's so powerful to hear, because I think a lot of the listeners they are in that stage where they are still the service provider and the doer of a lot of work, but they're hitting their capacity. And it's quite an identity shift going from the practitioner, to oh, now I'm a leader, a visionary, a manager, like that's a completely different mindset, right. And knowing that, you know, there are just different upgrades probably being required of you to step out of the day to day mundane tasks and to step into, wow, we can take this company to really fireplaces, and I'm kind of the one that needs to cast the vision and spread it to the entire team. So it's scary, but I'm sure it's also an exciting place to be. But definitely, I think a lot of people waver between like, oh, my gosh, this is quite the, you have to drop one identity and start embodying the next one.
And that's just a self image shift, right? Like, you're, you know, you're seeing yourself as the one always offering the service, you're only going to go as far as that vision is. I also found, you know, just the audit automation is really helpful. Like I can remember when we first started and we would do like Pay Pal transfers cat like it was crazy, this stuff and you get the registrations for right. And now, I think we had a Drupal website, and we accepted payments. And now everything is automated, right. And so just, I had to actually do something that was challenging for me, I had to shift from my constant contact to my Kajabi, because the email provider, and I was working between two for so long, I would be like getting the contacts in Kajabi. And then I would be pasting them into constant contact. And it was just ridiculous. But it's one of those things where you know, your mindset, you're used to using one type of technology. And it's quick. So I had to read, and I'm so happy that I did. So things like that can be really, really helpful. And I do have a couple more things that I know I've got it got to step away from and they'll get other people to take.
But I'm sure there's some resistance being brought up, right? I just want to do things the way they've always been done. But we know that as entrepreneurs, you have to innovate and evolve. But sometimes it takes time, sometimes months for me to get these things shifted or to take necessary action, you know, it's going to upgrade you. But there's also like a bit of a block that's like, oh, I don't want to do this. And you have to work through that.
Yeah, absolutely. But it is worth it. You know, like I think of all those little things that I did over the years. And I resisted it because it takes longer to train someone to do what you can do in like three minutes. But it makes a huge difference to your bottom line. And just feeling like you can get done what you need to get done.
I want to quickly go back to the visualization piece, because I know this is something you also coach your clients on. And you talk about a lot, you know, even just thinking about the circumstance of somebody who is currently stuck in a job that maybe they don't like anymore. But they've never imagined what could be beyond that, or they've never imagined or visualized a life outside of the job they hate or the current life they've built for themselves. Do you have any tips for somebody who is intrigued by this concept of visualization? Or I think you talked about like almost like goal setting on cards and, you know, just allowing your brain to think of what else is possible. Any tips for somebody who's feeling maybe stuck or unfulfilled? How could they use visualization to start thinking about a better future?
Yeah, I think we first have to tell ourselves that it's possible. And how we tell ourselves it's possible is by looking for other people who have done it. Look at other people who have made the career switch and know that it is absolutely possible. And once you do that, you can start to focus on you know what that life would look like for you and you've got to use your imagination, but as human beings, that's how we create we use our imagination. So letting yourself be inspired asking yourself, what do I really want and being okay with the answer. I think there's a lot of fear sometimes and people will say, I don't know what I want But you know what thoughts create. So if you're telling yourself you don't know what you want, you really, that's what you're gonna get, you just have to say, Okay, I'm going to think about, you know where I want to be and be okay with that. And then once you start to kind of open your mind to it, you're gonna start to realize this, there's other people actually doing it too. And you're going to feel a bit more confident, and follow those people and watch those people and talk to them. And then you can see you can do it as well. That's what I the biggest thing is the belief factor, right? If we don't believe something, we think it's possible for us, we're just never going to do it.
I've heard this term called expanders before, it's like, if you want to get into a new line of work, it's exactly what you said, it's find someone who's already done it. And they act as an expander. For you, because right now, you might feel like that's not possible for me. But as soon as you get around somebody who's done it, or who's embodying it, they act as an expander. And all of a sudden, your energy is like way more open. And you're like, oh, I can do this because Leslie did it or, you know, and it's somebody who opens the realm of possibility. And I think it's so important to find those expanders whether it's listening to their podcast, or just following their social media content or reading their blog, or maybe you actually get to reach out to them or hire them as a coach. Because that can totally accelerate your success in your journey, when you can model your shift after what somebody else has done. And it's kind of like going back to when you said you hired a coach in the early days, and a lot shifted from that, like, the transformations that await when we get around the right people are truly incredible.
They are and I really believe like we all need coaches, coaches need coaches, we can't say we think we can do it on our own. But we all have that program, or what I call the paradigm, you know, we just do the same things over and over again, until we can have someone work with us and kind of show us we've got to get in. It's like your cell phone when I talk about it, you know, if your cell phone isn't working properly, what do you need to do if you're if your apps are slow, you have an old cell phone, you've got to update the program. It's the same thing. We've got to update our program. We can't necessarily do that on our own, like we can. We can read books, we can be inspired. But to get real change. You got to work with someone, invest in yourself to move yourself forward. I truly believe that. What was it the other day I was reading was Brian Tracy, quote, 10% of your income needs to be invested back into your personal development. Oh,
I love that. Right.
I think that's what it was. Hope that more what was more. Yeah. And you can also tell where someone has their values by looking at their bank account, like where are they investing their money? It's always personal development, like you got it. You know, you just got to do that. You got to develop yourself. So that's, that's what I would say anyway. Yeah, right, having a not knowing where they want to go, you got to just start where you are investing in yourself.
That is such an important reminder, too, it's like, if you've been kind of like fighting your way through this resistance to a big change in your life, sometimes that is time to reach out to an external source, hire the coach, invest in the mentorship, because I think there's only so much we can do alone. And I don't think we're meant to do this life alone. We're meant to be around people who can show us the way who can give us the keys to the kingdom and say, Hey, I've been there before just follow my playbook or learn from me or kind of let me take you under my wing and I believe in you. So yeah, I would completely agree like 10% or more, or whatever you can afford invest in a $14 book or a $14,000 coaching program, whatever you have time for and money for any resources for. There's always such an incredible return on investment, not necessarily financial, but like the energy gain, you get the motivation gain the time back. Everything. Yeah, absolutely incredible.
So I always say like, invest yourself has the best rate of return, right? Like that is you know, you can count on you. It's gonna have a higher rate of return than anything because it's going to allow you to show up as that best version at a higher frequency and have a completely different experience in life.
So, so true. I love this. So I'm curious, what does buff nation have going on right now? How can people get involved in your coaching programs, your courses, give us kind of a rundown of anything exciting that's coming up and what you're currently working on?
Yeah, we've got you can find us at WWE or buff nation.com. We've got our online transform program. It is six weeks that's coming up very, very soon so you can check that out. And we also have our seven weeks to a shift program and as a personal development program and It is open for registration. Now it's seven weeks of personal development really helping you live a life of passion, purpose and fulfillment in any area. So we talk about all this stuff that we're just talking about now. That's what we got going on.
So, so exciting. And why don't we leave the listeners with just one tip for if they're feeling stuck, or if they're feeling unmotivated, or, you know, those weeks or months that go by and you're like, I just don't feel like I'm on the right path and things feel blocked right now, from your experience, what is one thing that that person can do to just shift their energy to reset their mindset or to just improve the state that they're currently in?
Okay, so if I could only give you one thing, it would be on Energy flows where focus grows, I think that's an Anthony Robbins, quote, but it's so true, what we focus on grows. So you need to ask yourself, Who do I want to show up as Who do I want to be and actually make a list, I want to be fit, I want to be healthy, I want to be energized, I want to be abundant, I want to be inspiring. I want to be the kind of person who when I say something I want to follow through and do it. I want to be wealthy, I want to be adventurous, you need to think of your vision of you every single day, you got to look at that. So if you're feeling unmotivated, it's because you're thinking of the vision you don't want to be. So you need to turn it around and think of the person you do want to be and sit with that for a bit. Let the inspiration come and then take the inspiration that comes to you.
Oh, I love that. So making are Who do I want to become list instead of focusing on who I currently am or the parts of myself that I don't like or don't admire. Such a powerful tip. Well, Leslie, thank you so much. If people want to find you on Instagram, we will link it in the show notes. We will link all of your upcoming offerings in the show notes as well. So we wish you all the best and just appreciate all of the mindset and success tips that you put out there, and the really good vibes that you are spreading with your community. So thank you so much for sharing your story today.
Thank you so much for having me on. It's been fun.
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of visionary life. I love bringing you these conversations on a weekly basis. So it would mean so much to me. If you could help me out by rating and reviewing the show on either iTunes or Spotify. It just takes a second. And if you don't want to rate the show, you could also just take a screenshot of the episode and share it on your social media platform of choice tagging me at Kelsey Reidl. I'll catch you in the next episode.
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