Shownotes

Are you prioritizing yourself, or are you stuck in people-pleasing and overachievement? In this episode, Lesley Logan interviews Whitney Prude, a Board Certified Clinical Pharmacist and wellness coach, who shares her transformative journey from career burnout to self-love. Whitney reveals how women can stop the cycle of self-neglect, find their true worth, and make self-love a priority. Tune in for a conversation about letting go of people-pleasing, shifting from external to internal motivation, and leaning into the discomfort for lasting change.

If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co.

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In this episode you will learn about:

• Whitney’s transition from pharmacist to wellness coach.
• How her autoimmune disease forced a career shift.
• The harmful effects of people-pleasing and overachievement.
• How to recognize early signs of burnout before it’s too late.
• The importance of prioritizing self-love and emotional care.
• Why leaning into discomfort is key to personal progress.
• How to shift your motivation from external validation to internal fulfillment.

Episode References/Links:

• Whitney Prude Website – https://www.mywholeandhappylife.com/about-updated/
• Whitney Prude Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/mywholeandhappylife/
• FemGevity – https://www.femgevityhealth.com/?via=lesley
• Dr. Mindy Pelz – https://drmindypelz.com/

Transcript

Whitney Prude 0:00
You need to be at number one. If you want to show up for your kids, if you want to show up for your husband, if you want to be here in 20 years when you have grandkids and you want to see their kids and whatever, you want all of that stuff to happen, then you’ve got to start putting yourself at number one.

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INTRODUCTION

Lesley Logan
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I’ve trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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Lesley Logan 0:56
All right, Be It babe. Okay. I’m excited. I am so excited for you to listen to this conversation. It was more than I ever expected. So when I met today’s guest, I was like, yeah, I want to talk about this. This is great. This is exactly what I want to talk about. And just my schedule is kind of crazy so I couldn’t talk to her until today. And today–the day that we’re recording it–is the three-year anniversary of the podcast, and so super, just so exciting, and to be able to have this conversations, honest conversation that is really for the ladies who are listening, but if you are a male listening, thank you. And there are women listening in your life, there are women in your lives, and I think it’s really important that you hear this and then also you share this with them. So we are going to talk a lot about self love and achieving and also people-pleasing. And today’s guest is really just an expert in really helping you work internally on yourself. But a lot of times people work with her because of external stuff. So it’s just great. It’s amazing. Get ready to hit rewind a couple of times. I remember when Oprah goes, that’s a tweet. Tweet, when Twitter was new, she’s like, that’s a tweet. Tweet. Like, I just want to go this is like, hold on. I just need, like, there’s a Be It mic drop moment. We’ll have to come up–send in your suggestions for these things. But I just really, absolutely love today’s interview, and I cannot wait for you to hear our guest’s amazingness. So here is Whitney Prude.

Lesley Logan 2:17
All right, Be It, babe. I’m really excited to have this conversation today. I’ve met Whitney, our guest today, a while back, and I just really love the mission she’s on and her tips and advice that she has, so I’m excited to share that with you. Whitney Prude is our guest. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?

Whitney Prude 2:31
Well, thank you, first of all, for having me. Like you said, I’m Whitney Prude. I am a Board Certified Clinical Pharmacist and I’m also a certified health and wellness coach and a certified nutrition coach. So what do I rock at? Well, I try to crush it at all of those things where I have certifications.

Lesley Logan 2:51
Should I be calling you Dr. Prude? Am I supposed to be calling you– or Dr. Whitney?

Whitney Prude 2:57
I don’t know. It feels a little uncomfortable to me. I don’t need to be called doctor. I mean, I am a doctor, but it feels kind of weird, because medical doctors are called doctor and so it’s always like, just call me Whitney. I don’t want to, you know, but yes, I do have a doctorate degree. I’m a pharmacist, but I’m not currently working as a pharmacist. I’ve kind of stepped away, and I’m working full-time in my business, and it’s been a fun journey.

Lesley Logan 3:20
That’s amazing. Okay, I just want to like shout out. And maybe I’m ignorant, but you worked at the Mayo Clinic for many years. Like, don’t we consider the Mayo Clinic is, like, the top the best of the best, right? Like, this is where everyone goes. Like, yes, don’t be so humble. Like you, you, you’ve done some amazing work in the medical field. And then the fact that I love that you mentioned certified against the health and wellness and the nutrition, because so many people, they have certificates, not necessarily certification. So what drew you to in the being a pharmacist to also then going after these other educations and these other areas of expertise?

Whitney Prude 3:58
Yeah, good question. I never intended on doing what I’m doing right now. That was not it wasn’t in my plan. I never imagined that I would be a business owner. I never imagined that I would be a coach. It wasn’t in my plan. My dream was to be a pharmacist. I worked my whole life to be a pharmacist. I had decided, since I was in high school, to be a pharmacist, and I became a pharmacist. I worked in pharmacy for about eight years before I stepped away to do my own business. But that was my dream, that was my goal, and life had different things in mind for me. I don’t know if you want to dive into my story. I’m happy to if you’d like me to, but.

Lesley Logan 4:34
Yes. If you’re willing to share it I love our listeners to hear first of all, to be honest that it wasn’t in your plan. Sometimes I’m like, do we need to have plans? But then yes, because, like, a plan is a road map, and if you’re willing to allow yourself to go on an adventure, then you’ll eventually get to somewhere better than what you could have imagined from your first plan. So, but I would love if you’re willing to share.

Whitney Prude 4:56
Yeah, 100%. I think it is important to have a roadmap to think, you know, to have a goal is something that you want to get to, a dream, whatever, right? And you can work full force to get to that. But the reality is, is that things don’t always turn out how we plan them. And when life happens, sometimes we have to make shifts, and we have to learn how to make the best of what we’ve got. So that was my story, basically, when I I mean, really, to give you kind of a full understanding, let me go back even to when I was a teenager, because I think it kind of starts at this point. When I was 16 years old, my parents went through a divorce, and it was, I mean, at that point in my life, but, you know, I’m a teenager, it’s already hard to handle life, to manage life, but my world crumbled. Everything that I knew was a solid foundation for me, relationships that were closest to me, everything just crumbled beneath me, and at that point, I remember very vividly having two pathways of like I can decide to rebel and let this be my excuse for going down one path, or I can make a decision to not let this destroy me and to continue to follow my dreams. And I remember very vividly making that decision, but what I did when I made that decision is that I started to bury the pain and the hurt and basically try to survive like humans do, and just move forward, but I really buried everything in business, the busyness, in trying to accomplish my dream of becoming a pharmacist.

Lesley Logan 6:23
Yeah, I’m sure no one listening knows what that is. All of our people are perfect. They don’t over-achieve at all.

Whitney Prude 6:31
They don’t over-achieve and they don’t bury their pain. They address everything as they come, they process everything. So, yeah, I’m human, right? And it actually took me a long time to accept that I was human and that I actually wasn’t okay as I was burying all of those things. I did it for several years, and then I pushed myself through pharmacy school. And pharmacy school is literally the hardest thing that I’ve ever pushed myself through, because it just pushes you beyond, like, what, what survivable human, human limitations should be because it’s just so demanding, and it really pushed me past my limits of what I could cover up. I couldn’t cover up the pain anymore, and I just started having like these emotional meltdowns, like on a very, very regular basis. And essentially, I pushed myself to a point where I just, I crumbled. I came home from school one day I was completely exhausted. I felt like a zombie, nearly. I had so much studying I still had to do, and there was just this day where I crumbled to the floor and I just sobbed and I sobbed and I sobbed and I sobbed. I just I laid there, and it was just like I was completely broken. And that was really the, the turning point in my life where I was like, okay, I’m not okay. I can’t cover it up anymore. I’m not okay. And so I started going to therapy. I started reading every self-help book possible that you know, that I could find. I was like, okay, I gotta do something, right? But the reality is I did get through pharmacy school, I got through residency, and I got this job at the Mayo Clinic. You know, it’s like, oh, dream come true it’s like, everything’s fine, but the problem was, is that I had pushed myself too far, and I had pushed myself too hard, and I ended up developing an autoimmune disease about nine months into my job.

Lesley Logan 8:20
Oh my gosh.

Whitney Prude 8:21
So I had, yeah, nine months in, I had $200,000 of debt, student debt, hanging over my head and I couldn’t use the computer. I was (inaudible) my whole job. I couldn’t use the computer. I had a lot of limitations, a lot of restrictions. It’s like, oh, you know, everything. I just need to let it heal my wrists and stuff will be fine. And that wasn’t the case. I never came off of those restrictions. My limitations never changed. I couldn’t do my job in the way that I ever you know, that I had imagined it being I was on disability, and at that point, I was like, what do I do now? How do you ever pay this loan off if I can’t keep working as a pharmacist? And so that’s where I started, you know, I was like exploring well, what would I do if I wasn’t a pharmacist and I wanted to be a public speaker, and kind of, with that came coaching, and so that’s when I started to explore some other things. But ultimately, what I decided I wanted to do, there’s this, and I think that this maybe will be beneficial for some listeners, but I tried to find other people that could be inspiring to me, people that I knew had chronic illnesses, but I hadn’t really looked into it very much. And one of the celebrities you can kind of hear more about their lives and stuff and so I came across Lady Gaga. I had never really been a fan of her before, but.

Lesley Logan 9:35
Huge fan, huge fan, huge fan. (inaudible) I was at her first World Tour. Front row. Okay, anyways.

Whitney Prude 9:46
And so, well, so I started listening to a lot of her interviews and stuff as she was talking about her chronic illness and she said something that was very, very powerful to me. And she said, “My pain really does me no good unless I can transform it into something that is.” And so I took that to heart, and I said you know what, I am spending hours and hours and hours in bed every single day for months on end. And what I decided to do was to take that pain and all of this that I was dealing with. And I said, well, what I’m going to do is I’m going to turn it into a program to help people to avoid the pitfalls of what I have just gone through. I’ve lost so much of my life, so I’m going to now make it my life goal to help other people to avoid the pitfalls that I’m dealing with and have to deal with the rest of my life.

Lesley Logan 10:34
Yeah. Oh, thank you for sharing that story and I love the idea of looking for people who inspire you who have similar issues, I think that is where people tend to also even go wrong in their inspiration. They pick someone out who has a different life than them, and they’re like, I should be like them. That is a path. And it’s like, I certainly don’t want you to be inspired by other people outside, but also it’s important for us to feel seen and heard and understood. And there have been people that I’ve compared myself to, and they inspire me as a female CEO. And it’s like, yeah, they also had investors up the wazoo. We do not have the same life, we do not have the same abilities. I can have them as a North Star, but also like, can I be inspired by them, or should I find someone who’s also gone through similar journeys, similar instances, similar growing up, so that I can feel a little bit more seen and also be inspired, because in spite of all of that, they have done other things. So that’s really, really cool. So yeah, I mean, it’s interesting. Like, autoimmunes are really–I was listening to Mindy Pelz and she was saying that the world we live in is killing women and more and more women have more autoimmune diseases than ever before, because of our society. And so it is true, because we push ourselves, because the way education systems are done is not anywhere in a way that is conducive to a cycle that a woman is going through and they’re pushing this. And so you’re inevitably going to have some sort of issue, whether it is a gut issue or an autoimmune issue. What are some of those things that you were telling people to like maybe be on the mind, watching out for that could be signs that could be affecting them or pushing them too far. And what are some of the things that you are doing to help people watch for those signs, or how we learn from your story so we don’t end up in the same situation?

Whitney Prude 12:18
Yeah, when I bring women into my program, I think some of the most common reoccurring things that I see, especially with women, is people-pleasing or we define ourselves as caretakers. And I think that also falls into being a mom. It’s like when you’re a mom, all of a sudden you have humans that are dependent on you to stay alive. And so a lot of times, we very much put ourselves on the back burner. So people-pleasing is a huge one. If you’re taking care of everybody else, and if you’re a yes woman, and you’re saying yes to everybody else, but you don’t have time to eat healthy, and you don’t have time to exercise, and you don’t have time to get enough sleep at night, those are key indicators that you’re doing too much, that you’re not taking care of yourself, that you’ve got to start switching your priorities and putting yourself at the top of your priority list, or you’re not going to be able to keep showing up for those people.

Lesley Logan 13:11
Yeah, so not at all what I expect you to say, and I’m loving it. I’m so grateful that you talk about people-pleasing and being too busy for self -care. There must be something in the moons, like I was talking to my girlfriend, and I don’t want you to lose your train of thought. But I was talking to a girlfriend and she was like, I just don’t have it in me to have that hustle. And I was like, you should see the morning routine I have so that I can do the job that I’ve created for myself that I love so much. And I was starting to feel like it sounded like luxurious and ridiculous. And then I was like, wait a minute, actually, no, this is what I need to be the best version of myself. There’s nothing wrong with that. And I already tell people self-care isn’t selfish care. So why is it, why am I thinking that I sound like it is selfish or luxurious. It’s required. I need it. So I definitely, let’s definitely get back to self-care in a moment. But thank you for bringing up people-pleasing because it is an epidemic. There’s too many people who are people-pleasers, and it is costing us our lives.

Whitney Prude 14:05
Well, and essentially, if you’re a people-pleaser, you’re very likely also an overachiever, like you’re saying yes to way too many things, whether that’s in the community or people you know, it’s like at your kid’s school, and they’re asking you to do stuff, and then at church, they’re asking you to do stuff, and then at work, they’re asking you to do stuff, and if you’re a yes woman, you’re essentially overachieving. You’re taking on everything, and you think that you’re this rock star–in the long run, it’s damaging, and it’s going to show up. It’s going to manifest when we push ourselves too hard internally, it is going to manifest, and usually it manifests in our physical health. So whether that’s an autoimmune disease or it manifests in weight gain and bad diabetes, there’s hundreds of ways that it can manifest, but the reality is, is that it will manifest. You cannot continue living like that the rest of your life and not have it lead to health issues.

Lesley Logan 14:56
Yeah, yeah, everyone, rewind and re-listen to that again, because it is 100% my own experience. I also had student loans, but not, not nearly, not nearly what you had, but I also didn’t walk out of it with a doctor degree and even a career. Liberal arts degree over here, everyone. I had a private school because that was smart. So that just means more expensive, everyone. So I was really trying to get out of this low-salary job and do what I loved, and I love doing it. So I told myself, it’s fine that I’m working seven days a week because I love what I’m doing. And that was the overachiever in me. And what was happening is like my gut system was shutting down and I got dangerously underweight, and not because I wasn’t eating, but because I wasn’t digesting, absorbing nutrition. So my body was just not doing well and Facebook is showing me videos and pictures that I posted 10, 15, years ago, and I was like, that girl is, I can see how unhealthy she is. I could see it. I didn’t see it then, because I’m just going and going and going and, like, living L.A. life where I have a 45-minute commute, and you just do that because that’s the range you can afford. You just keep pushing and at some point you can’t push anymore. And the problem is, is that now you’re in a worse position, because it’s actually harder to get out of that health situation than if you had made change, if I had made changes at the first signs of things. But no one told me–I think what the issue is and I think this is where listeners might also–I did seek help for some of the signs, and no one said, Hey, tell me about your workload. Tell me about, let’s talk about a day in the life of you. Do you feel like you have time like, tell me about, what are you doing for? How’s your sleep? No doctor was like asking me those things. And I do think that if someone had just actually put a mirror into my face, like you are actually not doing enough sleep, you’re not, enough self-care, that I may have been able to shift it sooner. So I’m just wondering, like that’s your experience as well.

Whitney Prude 16:54
Oh yeah, 100% it’s like when you do start noticing things like, where do we go? What do we do? We go to the doctor. And there’s nothing wrong with going to the doctor, but the reality is that in the medical field, right? You’re going to come in and they’re looking at symptoms, and they’re going to try to find a way to treat it, but we’re not looking at what has driven us here. Why are we here? How do we make changes to actually change our lifestyle? A lot of it, you could reverse some of it, you can’t, which is unfortunate, and you may require treatment, but we’re not looking at the underlying root causes. And one of the things that I’m very, very passionate about is that usually, so if you look at people like, okay, we’re people-pleasers, we’re overachievers, we’re perfectionists, whatever those things are, right? Whatever it is that we’re pushing ourselves backwards and we’re trying to please in the world. We’re trying to, we’re trying to feel worthy. We’re trying to feel like we’re enough. We’re trying to feel loved. Well, where does this usually come from? The majority of it comes from our past. We go through our past and we’re treated in a certain way, and there is no parent that is going to 100% meet your needs. Yeah, it’s just not possible. They’re human too, right? And so there’s always going to be things where we don’t feel good enough, or where we weren’t recognized, or maybe only when we would really high achieve that’s only the time that we were recognized. So now we’re like, well, if I do everything perfect, then I can be loved and I can be good enough. And so we develop, over our lives, we develop these beliefs about ourselves, we develop these coping mechanisms, and they’re all subconscious. Our brain does it on its own of like, how do we get this satisfaction out of the world that we need, essentially, and so we start doing all of these things in our lives to try to feel good enough and nobody ever teaches us how to show up for ourselves so that we can meet our own emotional needs and feel good enough inside of ourselves, so that we don’t need any of that stuff. And none of that is ever going to be addressed when you go to the doctor. Never, never, never, never. It’s the underlying cause for the majority of why people start getting sick.

Lesley Logan 19:10
Oh my gosh. And for everyone we’re not advocating, don’t go the doctor, obviously, like, but we even have a female telemedicine that’s a sponsor, so I love them. But also, just getting your symptoms treated is not the same as going, how did I get here in the first place? And so do you have tips for us, for the people who are listening, like, how do I meet my own needs? Or is this something that it obviously can’t just be like three things and like, we’ve all nailed it. Obviously it takes coaching with you. But what are some areas we can see we’re not meeting our own needs? Maybe that’s a better way of looking at it.

Whitney Prude 19:40
I mean, the first thing that I would say, and I like to challenge people to do this, just in general, if you sit down and write down your top five priorities, one through five. Okay, everybody sit down, write down your top priorities. Now the majority of people, when I have them, write down their top five priorities. At the end I ask, “And where are you on that list?” Nobody, almost no one puts themselves on that priority list. And where should you be and your health be on that priority list? It should be number one. Now everybody feels like that is selfish and it’s 100% not selfish. It is essential. So you need to be at number one if you want to show up for your kids, if you want to show up for your husband, if you want to be here in 20 years when you have grandkids and you want to see their kids and whatever. You want all of that stuff to happen, then you’ve got to start putting yourself at number one. So you move yourself up to priority number one. You shift your kids down, you shift your husband down, you shift your work down, you shift everything down. And even, you know, some people are like, oh, no, well, God is most important. I have to do all this stuff for God, even that you cannot show up in this world and fulfill your true purpose for God if you are not prioritizing yourself and your health? So it doesn’t matter. All of this stuff, you have to shift it down on the priority list, and you have to put yourself as number one. And when you start putting that into your focus every single day, it’s like, well, have I met my own needs today? And people are bombarding you and asking you for all this stuff. If you haven’t met your own needs, then the answer is no. You’ve got to start saying no.

Lesley Logan 21:24
Oh my gosh, thank you for saying that. I’ve heard only one other person ever say, and this is not to knock men, but he was a male saying kids are number three. And I was like, I just feel like he gets away with that. He can say that, and every mom is not listening to that. They’re, you know what I mean? They’re not. They’re putting the kids up first. And the relationship may be a second, but probably not. And honestly, he’s like, you have to take care of you. And then if you have a partner, your partner’s taking care of them, that’s great. Then together, there’s some way of making income, and the income is what fuels the payments for all the things. And then there’s other people in your life, your children, family, other stuff. And he’s like, it’s gonna sound awful, but you can’t provide for them if you don’t take care of you, and you can’t be there for them if you haven’t made a way of providing. So it’s like very difficult for people to understand. And I’m gonna get so many people saying kids should be number two. Obviously, if you have an infant, take care of the infant. But it’ll be easier to take care of the infant if you’ve taken care of you before having the infant. And it’s easier for your kids to be in a household where they have needs met, if the person who’s meeting their needs has taken care of their own. It’s just I don’t like I used to teach so many moms that come in the school’s asking to show up for things. They’ve got to do this thing for the household. The neighbor needs this. So all these different things, and they’re talking about this in their session that’s for them. And I was like, so this is like, for you. So like, maybe we, like, just, can we just, like, close the world off for a moment, this is actually for you. And when I kept telling them, like, we’re doing this for you, so you could do all those things. I had those women coming three and four days a week, because it was the thing that they could tangibly feel was for them, it was like, why they were coming in, and it gave them the energy to do all this other stuff. And it’s really cool. And we do have to remind people, we say this all the time on the podcast, which is why I’m, like, obsessed with you already, is like self-care is not selfish care. It is essential for you to be around. And the other unfortunate thing is, all the stuff that we do for self-care can feel very luxurious, like that’s a word I mentioned, because you won’t ever know what it prevented you from getting. You’re not going to make it to the end and go, whoop, didn’t get that autoimmune disease. Like you won’t know because you did the things to prevent the burnout or the diseases or the illnesses, we don’t get that information, so we tend to forget the self-care stuff when life gets hard.

Whitney Prude 23:49
Yep, I think another important point to make as well is like, we talk about self-care, and I’ll ask people like, do you genuinely love yourself? And they’re like, oh yeah, well, I spend money, I buy myself clothes, I go get my nails done, I take care of myself, and I’m like, yes, but do you genuinely love yourself? Like self-love and self-care are two different things, right? So we have this element of are you showing up for yourself physically? Are you doing the things, you know it’s like you’re eating healthy? Are you exercising? Are you showing up for yourself physically? But on the flip side, and this is another thing that a lot of people miss, are you showing up for yourself emotionally? And do you know how?

Lesley Logan 24:32
I think everyone just stopped and didn’t know how to answer that. How did you learn that? Because I can’t I mean, obviously that’s something you had to learn, because you know, I’m not going to say you don’t burn out if you love yourself, because I’m sure there’s always room for an option, but I definitely think you would know it sooner than later. How did you learn that? How did you learn to self-love? How do you help people do that?

Whitney Prude 24:56
Well, so my experience through this journey and my own self-love journey is kind of interesting. And you know, some people, anyone that’s raised in like a pretty religious environment, could potentially relate. But within religion, there’s a lot of expectations, and you’re either doing the good things and meeting the expectations, (inaudible) or they’re not, and you’re not a good person, and you’re a disappointment sort of a thing. It doesn’t matter what religion it’s like, these things exist, right? There are things that you’re supposed to do and there are bad things. So for me, I had gotten, and it’s not to say that the religion was bad in any sense of the word, but for me and my personality, I latched on to this of like, I can check the boxes and everyone thinks that I’m awesome, right, and it’s praising me and I learned at one point in my life where my belief kind of started to, like, falter a little bit. I was like, wait a second, if I don’t believe this and people aren’t praising me, then, like, do I even freaking matter? Does anybody love me? Can I be loved, right? Like, if I’m not doing all of these things. Am I still lovable, or am I just this horrible, awful disappointment? And so I had to prove to myself, and I almost intentionally started doing the wrong things, because I had to prove to myself that it doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do, my worth doesn’t change. And getting to the base of like, what’s the value of a human being? Is value based on actions of how much you can accomplish? Or are you valuable because you are a living, breathing human being. It doesn’t matter what you do or don’t do. You’re a unique individual that has value no matter what. And so my journey was associated with religion of like, where I felt this disappointment, because all of a sudden I was questioning like this, you know, this core belief that had brought me all of my self-worth, my whole life. And so then I had to start working to find myself like, well, can I be good enough? Can I be loved regardless? And I had to be the one that loved myself. I had to stop searching for all of these other people to fill that void. I had to start doing it for myself.

Lesley Logan 27:06
Yeah, oh my gosh we could talk forever on I was raised in religion, and so we could talk forever about how that creates overachievers and this urge to always be doing and I think inherently, like, religion isn’t bad. I think it’s the way it’s interpreted in people’s bodies and emotions (inaudible) on them and so, yep, it’s true, and it’s interesting, because I don’t know how much, even though I could quote some verses, which I’m not going to do that right now. But like, even though we are told that we are loved by the person we believe in, we are not taught to love ourselves the way that they love us, you know? And so going back to what you said at the beginning of this episode, it’s like, how we are raised. Are we raising kids to love themselves? Are we teaching them that–I have a girlfriend who has her little girl, and she has like, little mirror things, and she’s like, I’m beautiful and I’m loving, and she’s doing this thing. She’s like, I don’t know if I (inaudible) in the mirror. And I’m like, I think it’s really cool that she says, I’m beautiful and I’m loving, like she’s having a whole little self-love moment every single day. Who cares what’s in the mirror? You know? Like, I think that I didn’t grow up like that. So we obviously know more today than we do. Every generation gets to have a little bit more insight. We get to learn from other people’s journeys. But I think that is a really cool thing that we can all take away. Now that you are obviously now full time working for yourself and very aware of, like, why you’re doing this and what you’re doing. Who are you most excited to work with? And like, what brings you joy in doing this work? What are you hoping to help them achieve? And I hate the way I said achieved, like, helping them get or enjoy?

Whitney Prude 28:39
Honestly, my favorite people to work with are women who don’t know who they are, who are lost in their life. Because when they come into our program and they start digging, and it’s hard to dig, you got to be brave, you know, and you got to say, okay, we’re going to look inside, we’re going to start paying attention to what my feelings are, and showing up and validating and recognizing that those feelings matter and that I deserve space in my own life. And so those women that come in and say, I’m not comfortable in my own skin, I don’t really know who I am. Like I’ve lost myself. I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to get out. Those are my absolute favorite people to work with, because when those women come into the program and we start digging and we start diving in, I mean, there’s a lot of emotion, and there’s a process that we take women through. They come because they want to lose weight, and they leave not even caring about the weight that they lost because they found themselves and they knew they know who they are and they’re in control. They’re able to now live a fulfilling life because they know how to show up for the woman that’s staring back at them in the mirror. Those are one. 100% my absolute favorite clients to work with, because you just see this complete transformation. And it is absolutely incredible.

Lesley Logan 30:10
I love that. Thank you for being so specific, because I do think there’s a lot more people who are more aware that, like they’re whelmed, like they’re not, like they might not be overwhelmed, they’re in the middle and they’re kind of like, if you were to ask them, like, who are you really? Do you love yourself really? Those are some big questions that we don’t have to face on a daily basis. Most people just ask us how we are, and they expect to say, I’m good, and then they get to know, I’m good too. Have a great day. Like, that’s what most people expect. So most people are not asking themselves those big questions. And this is the Be It Till You See It podcast, and it’s really hard to be it till you see it if you don’t know who you are in the first place, it’s a little bit difficult, you know? And so we’ve all been in places where, like, who am I really and where am I going? And like, do I matter? And am I lovable? And those are big questions that don’t get answered overnight, but you do the work like your clients, or that you’re saying your clients do, and then you get on the other side, and not only have the benefits of shedding weight in your instance, but also your client’s sense, but also knowing exactly who you are and why you matter and what matters to you. So easy for us to focus on the outside. I need to fix this about me on the outside, and it’s always, there’s always an internal thing that is the root of it.

Whitney Prude 31:23
If you think about, and this is, and I just say weight loss, just because, yeah, that’s what, what brings a lot of people in, into my program. But if you think about someone so they want to reach a goal, right? They’re like, okay, I want to lose 20 pounds. We don’t like how we look. We want to get the scale down. Like, the motivation is very external, okay, but if you can take that motivation and you transition it from external to internal, and you get yourself to a point where you genuinely love yourself and you honor yourself, and you respect yourself, and you make yourself a priority, okay, so now it’s coming from inside of yourself, then why do you eat healthy, and why do you exercise, and why do you get enough sleep? You do all of those things not because you want to change the scale. You do them because you genuinely care about yourself, you care about your body, you care about who you are, you care about how you feel like it all comes from inside of you, and it doesn’t matter if the scale changes three pounds. Who cares now, right? You’re gonna keep doing these things no matter what because you care about you. ,

Lesley Logan 32:26
Yeah yeah. I think that’s like, that’s so good. I’ve been asking people what they do for self-care. I’m like, here’s what I do for self-care. Like, what do you do for self-care? And I was on another person’s podcast this week, and she’s like, I got my nails done for self-care. Like, what do you do? And I’m like, prioritize my sleep. I try to drink enough water every day, you know, I make sure I’m feeding myself before I’m angry. I move my body intentionally for how my body is feeling that day, because I know I will be thankful tomorrow. I said, then, yes, I have a cold punch and I have a red light and I’ve got all these extra things, but like, the other thing that is listed are mostly free, if not things you are already buying at the grocery store as it is. So like, how you’re choosing to see them. And I think people don’t realize that they have control over self-care without changing that much in their schedule. It can be more intentional about when they go to bed and what they do before bed, and what they’re feeding themselves with. And it’s so easy to say that because I know how badly I felt when I wasn’t making those intentional decisions, because I wasn’t loving myself and I wasn’t caring for myself. I said I’ll do that tomorrow. Oh, when I have more time or I have my money, then I’m more deserving when I’ve done this, and I’m more deserving of x and y things, and it’s actually like your future person is deserving of it now, but that it comes with self-love, like you said. Oh, cool stuff. Whitney. Okay, we’re gonna take a brief break and we’re gonna come back and find out where people find you, follow you, work with you and your Be It Action Items.

Lesley Logan 33:54
All right, Whitney, where can people connect with you more if they want to dive in deeper with you? What do you got for us?

Whitney Prude 33:58
Yeah, the best place to connect with me, first of all is on Instagram. You can always message me on Instagram. My Instagram is @mywholeandhappylife. Just send us a message. We’re always in Instagram responding to messages. Happy to answer any questions.

Lesley Logan 34:14
Amazing. Okay, you have given us a lot to ponder already. So I’m just gonna say, like, the transcripts of this are gonna have some great questions for you to ask yourself. But we always love the for the overachiever, perfectionist, the action step that people can take to be uit till they see it. What bold, executable, intrinsic or target steps can we take? What do you have for us?

Whitney Prude 34:34
So I think what kind of goes along with the conversation that we’ve had today in talking about helping women to really dive in and find themselves. The step that I would encourage people to take is to lean into the discomfort. Now, the reason that I say that is because if you want to change, change is uncomfortable. So. So your body will be telling you what you need to change, because it will feel uncomfortable. Maybe you don’t express yourself, you don’t share your feelings, and you feel uncomfortable. Your stomach drops. You’re like, like, you know it’s like our bodies often will tell us the things that we need to be working on, that we need to do, but we have to lean into that discomfort. We have to recognize it, and then we have to start forcing ourselves to actually do the thing that’s uncomfortable. So then you have to start actually speaking up, whether it’s like looking inside of ourselves, or if it’s prioritizing ourselves, even when we feel selfish, that’s uncomfortable. I have clients where it’s like you have to schedule 10 minutes of nothing in your schedule. That is just time where you sit like you are just spending time with yourself. Put it in your schedule, on your calendar, non-negotiable. And it’s almost overwhelming. They’re like, I can’t even comprehend spending that 10 minutes with myself, right? You have to start pushing yourself into that discomfort. So in talking about self-love, in talking about self-care, my action step would be to really plan that time for yourself, put it on your calendar, non-negotiable. Same time every day. This is your time, and you have to just sit in it, no matter how uncomfortable it is, start sitting in the discomfort and it will get more comfortable. But you have to get into the discomfort before you’re ever going to make progress towards change.

Lesley Logan 36:33
Yeah. I was just talking to some of the girls in my mentorship program, they’re Pilates teachers, and they’re like, yeah, my client complains it’s uncomfortable. And I was like, so it’s not painful, just like, No. And I’m like, well, then, yeah, it’s uncomfortable. We’re doing something different in her body. Like, no, we need to it’s okay to say. It’s okay. It’s okay to be uncomfortable. Not everything is comfortable in life, changing our strength, changing our alignment, changing our posture, is going to be uncomfortable because it is different than what we are used to. Pain is a different story, and so it’s just really funny, because we all want the thing or the goal or the achievement or whatever it is, but to get there, because we don’t have it now, it’s going to take some discomfort and changing who we are to be there. So I love that. It’s great. It’s great. Whitney, you’re awesome. This has been a wonderful conversation. I’m fired up. I’m excited. I am definitely checking myself on my self-love after this, what a great thing to just do a check in on everyone. How are you gonna use these tips in your life? Please let us know. Make sure you tag Whitney and her team and let them know how this episode affected you. And if you are needing more of this. Reach out to Whitney, because obviously, like, wow, definitely struck some good chords in here. And until next time, Be It Till You See It.

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Lesley Logan
That’s all I’ve got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over on IG at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!

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Lesley Logan
‘Be It Till You See It’ is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @be_it_pod.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell.

Lesley Logan
It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music and our branding by designer and artist Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.

Brad Crowell
Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.