393 Tosca Reno (NYT Best Selling Cookbook Author!) on Discipline, Weight Loss, and Transformation
Tosca Reno (NYT Best Selling Cookbook Author!) on Discipline, Weight Loss, and Transformation
Episode 393: Rain or Shine Podcast
Guest: Tosca Reno, Eat Clean Founder
The Unsexy Side of Transformation: Tosca Reno on Discipline, Loss, and the Power of "Who Am I Being?"
Episode: Rain or Shine Podcast
Guest: Tosca Reno, Eat Clean Founder
Quick Summary
New York Times bestselling author and fitness icon Tosca Reno shares her remarkable journey from 204 pounds at age 38 to magazine covers and massive success, then through devastating loss and financial ruin, and ultimately to creating Transform with Tosca—a holistic wellness program that addresses what most weight loss plans miss: emotional self-care.
In This Episode
How Tosca showed up for her first bodybuilding competition and magazine cover shoots despite being 20 years older than competitors
The visualization technique that kept her motivated when she wanted to quit
The refrigerator trick she uses to stay inspired on hard days
How she went from unknown to New York Times bestselling author in just five years
The career-changing moment when the "key model" showed up 35 pounds overweight
Navigating the devastating loss of her stepson and husband, plus financial bankruptcy
Why weight loss is often a symptom of deeper unaddressed trauma
The four-word question that can change your life: "Who am I being?"
What makes Transform with Tosca different from every other weight loss program
Key Takeaways
Success is when preparedness meets opportunity - Show up ready even when you're not the "chosen one." You never know when your moment will come.
Discipline comes from knowing your why - Connect deeply to the reason behind your goals. When you know why, the how becomes easier.
Emotional self-care is the missing piece - You can have clean eating and exercise down, but without emotional self-care tools, sustainable transformation remains elusive.
Do it in community, not isolation - The magic happens in sisterhood. Accountability partners and shared vulnerability create breakthroughs that solo efforts can't.
Ask yourself daily: "Who am I being?" - This simple filter can shift your attitude and actions in real-time, helping you align with the person you want to become.
Memorable Quotes
"I could see this me that was zinging with purpose and passion. I wanted to be her, and I could see her and I believed in her and she was calling me. So, I had no choice. I went."
"Success is when preparedness meets opportunity. We have to do that even when you don't have evidence of success yet. We just have to believe it's there because we're all just one decision away."
"When women come to me and say, I want to lose weight, they're not saying that they think that's the problem, but weight is a symptom and typically it's a symptom of a deeper unaddressed trauma."
Resources Mentioned
Tosca's Website: toscareno.com
Tosca's Instagram: @toscareno
Kelsey's Website: KelseyReidl.com
Kelsey's Podcast: Rain or Shine (350+ episodes featuring Canadian entrepreneurs)
Instagram: @KelseyReidl
The Biology of Belief (book)
Oxygen Magazine - Where Tosca's "Raise The Bar" column became the most widely read feature
Raise The Bar - Tosca's groundbreaking column
The Eat-Clean Diet series (Tosca's cookbooks - over 4 million copies sold)
Transform with Tosca - 12-week holistic transformation program
Robert Kennedy Publishing
The Arnold Expo
CanFitPro
About the Guest
Tosca Reno is a New York Times bestselling author, fitness icon, and transformational coach who transformed her life at age 40 from 204 pounds to competing in bodybuilding and gracing magazine covers. After selling over 4 million copies of her Eat-Clean Diet cookbooks and building a massive platform, she navigated devastating personal losses and financial ruin, which led her to create Transform with Tosca—a 12-week program that combines nutrition, exercise, and emotional self-care in a supportive community setting.
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CLEANED & EDITED TRANSCRIPT FOR SHOW NOTES
Kelsey: Tosca, welcome to the Rain or Shine podcast. I'm so delighted to have you here. We've been working together for a few months. I have followed your journey and have absolutely loved getting to know the story behind your brand, your business. First off, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.
Tosca: Well, thank you. I'm so excited to be here at Rain or Shine with you, Kelsey. I did not know how much juice there would be in what you provide me, but this is an exciting time I think.
Kelsey: We're going to get into so much today, but I want to kick off with something that I'm really fascinated with, which is the unsexy side of transformation. The discipline of showing up even when you have no motivation. My listeners heard your bio in the intro. They know that you went through a massive life transformation in your forties. So I want you to take me back to those days of prepping to be on a magazine cover, prepping to transform your life and going through such a radical shift. How did you show up even on the days when you were thinking, I just want to eat Skittles in bed, or, I don't want to lift heavy weights today? We all have those days, but it seems like you were able to push through and really commit to a major change. So take us back to those days.
Tosca: Alright, well that is a journey. Back in the day I probably didn't really know what I was getting myself into, but I knew that the current state that I was in was not my optimal self, but almost like not honest to me. I knew that I had so much more in me that I wanted to give.
My very first cover shoot was actually a flop, to be honest. My photographer said, you know, I'm not giving you anything. We're going to shoot 10,000 pictures and probably I won't take any. And he only took one of those pictures and it never made a cover. So then we did three more shoots, tens of thousands of photographs.
He was really honest about not giving me anything, which I appreciated because you've got to put your feet in the fire and really feel what this is all about. When you are representing on a cover or even on stage, because I also competed that very first year at the age of... what was I, 204 pounds, mother of three, and then completely transformed myself to shoot for a cover and compete in a bodybuilding show. You are representing your demographic, your people, women. Even young women. I was standing there for my daughters, with my daughters. I was standing there for everyone who has ever wanted to transform themselves. That was what would keep me going.
But I have to say, when you're trying to make change or transformation, there's a lot of repetitive drudgery and you need to commit to the repetition, the work, because that in itself is flexing muscles that you need to develop in order to take it to the next level. I did find the chicken and the broccoli a bit repetitive. I missed ice cream and cheese. But I knew that when I was standing on stage, nobody else was eating ice cream and cheese. So I had to show up in that way.
I had so much doubt in my head because for that first shoot, my abs were just frustratingly slow to pop out. I'd had three babies by that time, five pregnancies. Everybody that I was competing with on stage was much younger than me. No one had any children. I was 20 years older than most of the women on stage. And I'm thinking in my head, what am I doing here? I had to keep reminding myself, this is not just my story, it's their story too. I wanted to see that better version of myself. I knew I had more to give and that I was just on autopilot in life. I could see this me that was zinging with purpose and passion. I wanted to be her and I could see her and I believed in her and she was calling me. So I had no choice. I went.
Kelsey: So incredible. Did you have any specific tools that you used to reconnect to her even on the hard days? Because I think so often we set goals, whether it's a business goal or a fitness transformation goal, and everything goes good for a week or two, but it's almost like we lose sight of that vision of who we can become. And oftentimes we quit before we even reconnect and be able to envision that moment of standing on stage and celebrating. So what did you do when you were kind of in that moment where you'd lost the vision of her?
Tosca: I cut out a picture of Rachel Ish and put my head on it.
Kelsey: Oh my gosh. Genius. So like a visual cue.
Tosca: Oh, I had a visual cue and I meditated. I didn't even really know how to meditate, but it wasn't even meditation so much as I was speaking to God. I was speaking to... I know I owe you more. I can see you. You're asking more of me. I can do better. I'm a disappointment if I don't. Where can I go to be absolutely my best?
And it brings me to a question that I asked today in this work with you, Kelsey: who am I being? Who am I being? And that filter, even in those early days when I didn't really know what I was doing, is what I used to get myself there. I had to use every trick in the book. I got the small bikini, I got the picture with the ripped abs and I just had to hold on tight.
Kelsey: Have you always been a disciplined person? Was this a muscle that you had to build when you entered into this world of fitness competitions, or have you always just been disciplined?
Tosca: I can be disciplined when I know why. When I can connect to the absolute reason inside of me. I mean, I clearly was not disciplined when I got to a point of weighing 204 pounds at the age of 38 and being unwell. That was not disciplined. That was, I was numb. I was hopeless. I was lost. But I can be very focused and I had to be to make that transformation, and then I had to be in other areas of my life. I could not lose my resolve. It's like I didn't want to dissolve. I wanted to really take up more space. But you do have to practice it. It doesn't come easily. You do have to practice it, and you have to lean in.
Kelsey: And it's also like a daily recommitment, right? We could both sit here today and be like, yeah, we're so disciplined. But it's like, I think we have to wake up every day and choose that because some days it doesn't feel natural. And I would call those the rainy days where I wake up and I'm kind of teetering on a negative attitude, lacking belief, wanting to cancel my workout, not wanting to post on Instagram, even though I said I would because I have a launch coming up and it's like, oh wait, I think I need to recommit. Like whatever those habits are. The visualization you talked about, looking at the tangible item and choosing to go that direction. You do have to make a choice.
Tosca: And sometimes I need a bump and I will look at some of the thank you cards that I've received from my clients. So I do this weird thing where I print, even if it's a text message or somebody sends me an actual physical card, I print these things off and I read them and I put them in my refrigerator.
Kelsey: I love that. In your fridge?
Tosca: Why I do that is because I wanted to energize everything. Words have spells, they convey meaning and codes. And so pretty much, we are 75% water. Most of what we eat is water. So in the refrigerator, I feel like that energy is circulating around in everything I eat. And I see the thank you. So when I open up the fridge, I'm like, okay, it's that day and I need the reminder.
Kelsey: I have never heard of this tip before, but it's actually genius. I mean, I think 15 years ago I read a book called The Biology of Belief, and it talked about how when you talk to water, it actually changes the chemistry of the water and then the water you drink actually interacts differently in your own body. And it was over my head when I read it at the time, but I'll never forget the concept and I'm like, oh yeah, I believe that. We see how what we project into life, it actually manifests back to us. So yeah, I may not have understood the scientific side of the book, but I think that's brilliant to put love notes, positive affirmations, client testimonials somewhere where you're looking every day, but you're not usually receiving value from opening your fridge, and you have actually curated your environment to do so.
Tosca: I did, I did. Because I know, I just know Kelsey, that there are some days where you just don't want to. So it takes a bit of pumping up your own tires.
Kelsey: Absolutely. So good. I am definitely going to do that, and I will send you a photo and report back when I do. What a great tip. Okay, so you do your first fitness competition. Then what happens? This is a whole new world for you. We can put ourselves in those shoes of being like, oh, I've never played pickleball before. And then all of a sudden going into a pickleball tournament and being like, oh, this is different. And then starting to open the next door and the next door. So can you kind of take us back to what happened and what unfolded from there for the listener who doesn't know much about your journey?
Tosca: I never had the intention to be a big time bodybuilding competitor or fitness competitor, but what happened was the transformation in my body was achieved through obviously learning how to lift weights, but also through eating clean. And my then coach and trainer who had sort of discovered me on the school playground said, okay, now I'm going to challenge you even further. You did very well. You placed top five, which as a newbie was ridiculous, but I did it.
And he said, I want you to think about all the people you could help by telling your story. I'm going to give you a column in Oxygen Magazine and you're going to write Raise The Bar and you're going to write it for those women who are looking to do what you've just done and just be that friend. It's not about you, it's about them.
Raise The Bar was the most widely read and successful column in Oxygen Magazine in all the years that it was running. And from there, everything just exploded. It absolutely exploded because it seemed as if the timing was right and women were, pardon the pun, hungry to learn how to make change, but not from a 20-year-old. At the time, I'm in my forties. This just wasn't being done back then. And it was as if the seeds inside of me all the time got sunshine and water and the right nutrients and it was just time to bloom.
Kelsey: Because the phrase that kept coming to me was right place, right time. But I also feel like there has to be so much more because it's almost like you felt like you had been preparing for that moment. Maybe yearning for it, visualizing it, thinking about the future. You wanted, even if it didn't feel clear, but it's like perhaps it's not just pure luck, it is a culmination of every time you committed to yourself and followed through every time you showed up, even when you felt like you were failing at your health and wellness journey. Do you feel that way about that phrase, like it wasn't just luck, it was the relatability of you being authentically yourself?
Tosca: The phrase that got me through was success is when preparedness meets opportunity. So I knew that if I just did what I was supposed to do and never questioned it and showed up, then whatever opportunities would reveal themselves.
So here's a story if we have time. My very first out of country on the beach photo shoot. Now remember, I'm 43. So I'm no young chicken anymore and babies have come out of this body, so I was allowed to come along as an extra for a cover shoot that had been planned with another model altogether. So we flew down to Miami and I was ripped months before. I was sitting beside Dwayne Johnson at a bodybuilding show right beside him, and he says to me, so when are you competing? And I said, well, I'm not actually going to. He goes, you should get up on that stage right now.
But we flew down to Miami. We go to the beach, and the way it is with bodybuilding shoots and fitness shoots is you're up at four, you're getting your hair and makeup done, you've got your bikinis ready, you're on the beach, it's freezing, but the sun, the light's perfect. So I show up with the photographer. There's a couple other videographers, and then the model, the key model, not me, the talent shows up and I remember the photographer turning his head and going, oh shit. She's 35 pounds overweight.
And in my head, the door opens this wide for me, and I think I'm on my game. I know I did everything I needed to do to be ready for this moment. I'll just be ready. So one of the videographers says, come this way. I'd like to just do a few pictures. And I was on fire. All of a sudden, all the cameras are on me and there's a crowd and everything. And all I did was I showed up as if I were the key model for that shoot. I wasn't, but in my head I wanted to be that. And so that's what I mean by success is when preparedness meets opportunity and that we have to do that even when you don't have evidence of success yet. We just have to believe it's there because we're all just one decision away.
Kelsey: That is the best advice and to go back to this rain or shine concept, you were ready to shine. You weren't necessarily waiting for them to anoint you to say, you are the woman of the day. You're like, I'm just going to be that woman.
Tosca: Every day. Every day that I can be. Because I get to do this for work and I get to choose how I show up and then the opportunity comes because you're planting a shit ton of seeds. So here I am. Shine that spotlight on me. Let's go. It kind of goes with your rain or shine theme.
Kelsey: It definitely does. So good. Okay, so can you give us a career snapshot from there? Because you've had some incredible accomplishments, cookbook author, New York Times bestseller, you've been on so many different media TV shows. Just unlock what happened in the next decade from there.
Tosca: Well, literally in a five year almost. It was so fast. So I finish competing. I do my first shoot. I'm on the cover of Oxygen Magazine. I get the column. And we're seeing a massive response. So this was in the day when there was no social media. We were just barely getting email off the ground. And I was just getting mail after mail, after mail from a community that was hungry for this information. And so we got so many emails, I had to hire one person full time to answer all the emails.
And from there, because the column was doing so well, I was challenged by Robert Kennedy Publishing to write a book. And I didn't know how to write a book. I mean, this is what JFK did in the sixties when he said we're going to the moon. Nobody knew how to get to the moon, but we did it. We'll figure it out. So I figured it out. And then the first book I published, we did a print run of 5,000 copies thinking in Canada, we'll be lucky if we sell that in maybe a year or so. We sold out in less than two weeks. I was a Canadian national bestseller, and then the books just started to explode from there. And I got picked up by agents and publishing houses in the United States, and then I became a New York Times bestselling author, and then I had a TV show and it was kind of bananas. It was crazy. Yeah. And it was a very wild ride. I traveled maybe two thirds of the year. I was on all the big morning shows and a lot of the night shows. It was really a wild ride.
Kelsey: Can you deconstruct what it was about you? Because I feel like not anyone could just build this brand, capitalize on this wave of momentum you were on. What do you think it was about you, your message, the way in which you portrayed yourself? What was so magnetic if you were to look back on that journey?
Tosca: It's a good question. I feel that there was a message there for women of a certain age. In a sea of young, skinny things, there was a message that said, I'm valuable. It doesn't matter that I've had children or that I was once overweight or that I'm in my forties or fifties. I was definitely swimming upstream. There weren't a lot, I think there was nobody doing it at the time, and so that was something that I felt keenly because I know how much I suffered as an overweight, unhappy person and I thought if I could save one person, if I could make their life easier, then I will have been fulfilled.
But it went beyond that too because I think this just goes to, we're all born with talents and to honor them is not bragging or claiming the spotlight. It's honoring who you are. And I am very comfortable with a microphone in my hand, in front of a crowd or a television camera. Tens of thousands of people. It's still that way. I'm very comfortable with that because I knew that it was never about me. It was about serving. So that was another piece that really began to flourish for me, that I hadn't had a chance to experience previously.
And the bit that I had been really overweight. I was obese. That story resonated with people that, well, if she can do it, I can do it. And I think as you say, the timing, everything intersected.
Kelsey: So cool. And I mean, I grew up having your cookbooks on my mom's cooking shelf. You infiltrated the homes of a lot of people. That must have felt so good, especially given the mission you just shared of, it's not about me, I just want to help as many people as possible. And there's something about that egoless desire to serve that I think is required in order to achieve that level of success and rapid growth. You can't just be guided by a self-serving vision to make it that big so quickly.
Tosca: You know, Kelsey, I feel like this maybe speaks to something that we're seeing a lot of today. I might be called an influencer, but I'm not an influencer. I'm not in that ilk where I need to get that picture and I need to almost risk my life to get the shot of me hanging on Niagara Falls, which recently somebody did do and died. That was never me. What was, it was more like, okay, so what? How can I take a little bit of pain away from what you are suffering with? Because I know from pain, and I actually know a lot more now today than even back then. Maybe that was it. Sort of an authenticity, a surprise, an underdog story.
Kelsey: What were some of the career highlights that as you look back, you're still in reflective mode of how incredible it was? Those shiny moments that you'll just never forget because of how good you felt in that moment.
Tosca: Well, the photo shoot on the beach when it wasn't supposed to be about me at all. And then my pictures are the ones that are just so well received. For me that was beautiful, but, going to events where there would be hours of lineups, like the Arnold Expo or even at CanFitPro. Becoming a New York Times bestselling author, becoming a Canadian national bestseller. Selling over 4 million copies of my books, having a TV show. All of those highlights.
But can I tell you one story? And I will never forget the story because it really isn't about the acclaim. It's about... So I was at an event where I was speaking and I did a little meet and greet afterwards. This was actually in Toronto. And there was a young girl and her parents had waited until the very, very end of the show, it was time to go home. And I could see they were waiting, waiting. And then they finally came up and they said, we just want to thank you. And I'm thinking, okay, that's wonderful. So tell me a little bit about your story.
Well this is our daughter, and up until a few days ago, she had been in the hospital about to die from anorexia. Someone gave her your book, and in the book there's a line about how to nourish yourself to be strong. And that was a book that this young girl said she was weeping and parents were weeping. No one ever told me it was okay to eat and no one ever told me what to eat, but when I read your book, it gave me permission to eat and I wanted to be alive again. And that's the kind of story that just, I can feel it in my body even today. So that's the highlight.
Kelsey: It's so cool to hear you tell that story because it, I think it reminds all of us that we never quite know the ripple effect. Even when we think about a raindrop, it plops down and you think it just kind of impacts where it hits on the surface. But what actually is happening is sometimes that effect of somebody tells somebody else about you. And then another person raves, and then someone sees your post and all of a sudden it's like there is a ripple of impact, but it doesn't always make it back to us or the person who initially put that droplet in the water. And every once in a while when you've shown up rain or shine, you get these stories, you hear the testimonials and it's just the most fulfilling thing for anybody. An entrepreneur or not, to just know that what you said, what you did, the action you took, affected one person. We know it affects lots of people. But to hear that one story, it's just motivating enough to wake up again tomorrow and keep creating, even in the absence of praise or immediate gratification.
Tosca: And it lets me speak too about this, what I think is such a beautiful human, one of the top human emotions, which is empathy. Because empathy wraps up compassion and love. And when you have really real true empathy for another individual, you really want to serve. That is what comes shining out. Kelsey, it's the same with you. I mean, I met you through my daughter and here we are having this conversation. But you are empathic towards what a person is going through when they want to elevate their business or elevate themselves in business. And this is, I think this is why it works, because to me there's no greater human emotion than that. And you can feel it. It's hard to describe empathy, but when you feel it, you feel it and you know it. And it resonates from somebody when you meet them.
Kelsey: Take me to a time when maybe you faced a significant challenge or setback, whether that's in business or life, because you have a ton of accolades, a ton of successes we can celebrate. But I know that it hasn't always been easy, so I'm curious to hear how you navigated an unexpected storm in your life and maybe what it took to crawl out.
Tosca: Oh, boy. Okay. Well, you just opened up that camp. So, I had just a tremendous amount of acclaim and that was really a beautiful decade of my life. I ended up marrying Robert and our family is blended. And we had a really, really wonderful time.
In 2011, there was a chapter of my life that was kicked off by the loss of the passing of my stepson Robert's son, whom I had helped to raise. He was 24 years old and he passed from complications from a car accident, a catastrophic car accident. Then a year later, Robert, whom I married and really was the love of my life, and he was the one who was watering my seeds with this way to bring me out of my dormancy. He passed from cancer suddenly. We got the news in January of 2012, and he was gone by April and he left in his wake a lot of secrets and those secrets all had to do with financial disaster.
So I was forced then a year later to sell several of my book titles and all of the magazines and bankrupt his business in 2013. And I was held responsible for that, though it was not of my own making. And so this was just a horrific time of my life because I was on my knees, I was definitely on my knees and I did not know how to cope with, it's like when you're out there in a riptide and the wave just keeps slamming you down, and it just kept happening because then I discovered many other things.
For a while I was loyal to that story. I was loyal to the victim's story, and then I began to realize I have a responsibility to my daughters. Four daughters now because I adopted Robert's only surviving orphaned daughter who had been my stepdaughter. I have a responsibility here. I really don't know what I'm doing or how I'm going to do this, but I need to find a way, I need to elevate myself.
And what I learned was this: I had done the eating clean, it was a massive success. I had done the exercise, that's what got me the covers and all that. What I did not have was the emotional self-care tools that I needed. I needed those skills and I didn't know where to begin, and I have to throw a credit to Rachel, who one day came to my home. This is 2014 now. So a couple years after all these deaths and losses and bankruptcy, and I'm just really, I think finally I was able to grieve, hadn't been able to, and Rachel came to see me and I was in bed on an afternoon where I'm never in bed, never. But I'm in bed and she's trying to talk to me and I couldn't talk. I was catatonic. And she said, mom, you got to take your life back. Let's start with meditation.
So I started with meditating. And I didn't even want to do it at the time because I'm thinking meditation. Who has time for that? But I think it saved my life. So the long and the short of it is that while I had the eating clean, while I had the exercise, now I needed to learn the emotional self-care and I was getting those lessons big time.
And that has made me a very different individual. So now when I teach and coach and I'm so blessed with my beautiful clients, I teach this aspect of wellness because I have learned Kelsey that when women come to me and say, I want to lose weight, they're not saying that they think that's the problem, but weight is a symptom and typically it's a symptom of a deeper unaddressed trauma. And that has changed everything for me.
Kelsey: Oh my goodness. Incredible. And you actually packaged a lot of this up into a program called Transform with Tosca. Of course, you work one-on-one with clients as well. Is Transform with Tosca essentially all the tools beyond eating clean? Of course it contains that. But tell the listener what this program is and maybe why it's different from, because there's a billion weight loss programs on the internet. You sharing your story, I think we're realizing, oh yeah, she's kind of cracked a code on something that not a lot of people are talking about. So tell us about Transform With Tosca and any details that kind of set it apart from a traditional weight loss book.
Tosca: Oh, well, I like to call it a quest because for women who are looking to shake themselves out of whatever it is that they're in the grips of. This is a path for them that makes far more sense than saying, I need to wear a size 28 or a size two dress, or whatever we used to say to ourselves. We want the fullsomeness of the experience of wellness so that I am aware of the decisions I'm making when I want to drink a bottle of wine in a night or a bag of chips. We want the conscientiousness of, wait a second, when I eat this, then I'm underserving myself here.
So in Transform with Tosca, you're getting 12 weeks with an intimate group of women who are all seeking similar transformation. And we start with the basics of eating clean because no matter how many times I teach this, people say, oh no, I know how to eat clean. Not so much. So we go back to the basics. And then we go into exercise, but exercise for you specifically. So women will learn how to hit the gym, but not to break themselves, to actually capitalize on their own metabolism, their muscle, and they're doing exercise that makes sense for them at this time, but that helps to shrink the time spent in the gym and maximize results.
I love teaching this because it's such a fullsome experience. And then we do four weeks of emotional self-care and when we finish, we have this graduation of women who have been together for 12 weeks in this sacred space, this vessel. I can't even tell you the stories that come out of this. These women are on this quest together, they make friends for life. They become accountability partners because that's mandatory. We need to pair up so we can keep each other accountable. I'm announcing the partners tonight because this is only our second session, the autumn cohort.
But it's the story. So I can teach all day long, right? But what I can't script is the magic that happens when we do this in sisterhood in community. And I have so many stories.
This actually happened, the idea of Transform with Tosca came from when I was hosting retreats live in Costa Rica. But this story speaks to the sisterhood. So I have a group of women and we're in a villa at the top of a hill and the ocean's down there, and every day, invitation, you can join the group, walk down to the beach, and then we're going to walk back up the hill. And at one point I asked the women, I say, it's an invitation only, but I'm going to ask you now as we finish this last bit of the climb, very steep. They're all huffing and puffing. Remove your T-shirts or tank tops, and we're just going to do it in our sports bras in shorts. And most of the people are like, okay, whatever she wants.
But one woman, one woman, who was the fittest woman, you'd be surprised. She ran away, couldn't handle it. So we finish our walk, get up to the villa, we're having breakfast outside. It's being served. It's absolutely gorgeous. Glorious. And the group of women is talking and they see, they feel, this other has left. Where does she go? What's the problem? And at that moment, and I could not have scripted this, I swear to God, another of the group says, well. I kind of haven't been honest either, and we're all like, what? And she said, yeah, I haven't been honest. I've been playing small. And she takes her hand and slowly reaches up and removes her hair. She's wearing a wig and she's been damaged on her scalp by some chemical process, and she'll never get her hair back.
Well, unbeknownst to her, the woman who had run off is now standing behind her sobbing because the vulnerability of the woman with the damaged hair had opened up something that no one could have foreseen. And what had happened was she was invited to sit at the table and tell her story. Her husband had cheated on her. And so in her mind, no matter how lean and how mad, how buff, she wasn't good enough. And so this is the kind of thing that comes up. And then women are just such courageous souls to hold each other and hold space for each other so that this is not something that has to be processed alone. It was so beautiful after that all bets were off. It was just incredible.
But that's what happens in Transform with Tosca too. People, I've had people who have become sober who used to drink one or two bottles of wine a night. Someone who survived two rare cancers at once, someone who survived the loss of a child drug overdose, you name it, it's all there. And really, it just becomes this safe vessel in which to learn and grow and expand well beyond dieting.
Kelsey: Powerful beyond words. Those stories say it all, honestly. And there's something so magical when one person decides to be vulnerable, share something that maybe takes a bit of courage and the way that cracks other people open is just incredible. And it all is a testament to the type of community that you bring in and the way you're able to facilitate it. So I would encourage anyone who is on a journey to head over to your website, and I know you have lots of details. Obviously you just sold out your September cohort. You filled it up so they've already missed that one, but I'm sure you have another one coming up, no matter when the listener is tuning into this, or they can look at your one-on-one coaching or all your other incredible author's works.
So, Tosca, as we wrap this up, I want to really reflect on the person who's listening to this and maybe just having an off day. Maybe they're ready to throw in the towel with their business. They are frustrated and don't want to update their website anymore. Tech glitch gets them down. Maybe they just ate a whole cake and they're feeling shitty about themselves when they said they were going to eat clean today, go to the gym. In that moment of just wanting to beat yourself up, wanting to be like, you idiot, or you know you're not good enough to be an entrepreneur, what advice would you give to yourself but also give to that person who's having just that rocky, rainy day?
Tosca: Yeah, I would say meet yourself in the space of grace. Know that it is hard living and lifeing is hard work. Being in business is hard work. I think the balm to any of that is to not do it in isolation. After all those events that happened to me, I intend, and I realize this now, I intentionally went into dormancy. I didn't want to talk to anybody. I didn't want help. I wanted to just hide, but that also made things worse. And over time and after doing some hard work on myself, I was able to slowly expand and reach out for help. Namely you, Kelsey. Now I'm going to get emotional. You can't do it alone. You can't do it in a silo. You can't do it alone. I don't know, your mind just gets like this when you really want to be out here.
So on those days that feel like they're just completely limited and blocked and dark, just meet yourself in grace, say, it's a day. It's going to be a day. And who can I trust with my knowing? Who can I trust right now that is able to help me just a little, share the burden and shift my attitude? Because honestly, a shift in attitude, like the woman who didn't want to take her shirt off to run and the woman who took her hair, shift in attitude. That's a miracle. So I don't want to be trite here because I know it's very hard to elevate yourself out of, but here's the one question that I use as a filter now for everything.
This is the question: who am I being? Who am I being? Is the way that I'm being right now going to help me get to where I want to be? Who am I being? And I find that I'm reaching for something in the fridge. Who am I being? Is that going to help me? Or I am getting a coffee and I'm upset because the coffee's wrong. If I get angry, who am I being? And so it's really accountability with yourself. And then having grace to say, yeah, you know, I can do a little better. I can change that. So if that helps anybody, it helps me a lot. Or you can jump out of a plane.
Kelsey: Which you've also done, which people can consult your Instagram for the full highlight reel. So incredible. You know those four words, I think if you get nothing else out of this podcast, who am I being? Four words that can literally change your life at any given moment. So I think that's a beautiful spot to end. Tosca, we will plug all of your links to your website, your Instagram, your Facebook, et cetera, inside of our show notes. We so appreciate you for sharing so openly and vulnerably today. It has been an absolute delight to get to know you just over the past many months, personally and now to share your story with the rain or shine community. So thank you, Tosca, and we wish you all of the best.
Tosca: Thank you. Thank you, Kelsey. God bless. I love you so much. I'm so glad I found you.
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