If you can’t take your own advice, is it really worth anybody’s time?
At what point in our lives to we start telling people what to do when we won’t do it ourselves? I’d say, probably sometime around childhood when we see our parents take a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ approach to discipline. We perceive by their actions and habits that we can rightfully tell people what to do with good authority that our own opinion is worth their attention regardless of whether or not we have first hand experience in it ourselves.
My wake up call
The pinnacle moment in my life when I realized I WANTED to be held accountable to my own advice was when I had already decide to face my food addictions and find a way to conquer the chronic illnesses I’d owned as identity.
I was 22 when I teetered around 185, a rough size 16/18, in culinary school after I had literally JUST discovered alcohol and late night partying. No joke, I didn’t even get drunk until I went away to college in SF at the age of 21.
While already obese for most of my life at that point, I easily added an additional 15 pounds of fat when I hit college as I stopped working three jobs and dancing daily. The heavy daily dose of alcohol and bread consumption did nothing for me other than enable me to stay addicted to sugar and carbs.
I was a student of Baking and Pastry when I first started school so I was required to eat and taste everything I made. I know, such a horrible existence…said no one ever!
Really though, it happened mostly when I got to the Breads and Doughs class. 7 weeks of pure heaven! A carb addicts DREAM :D When Chef Kurtis taught us about the natural leavening of Sourdough it was like he was mentally orgasming everytime-
“When the bubbles start to rise (pause for expansion in the chest)…and the salt from the air infuses the starter (pause for spirit fingers in front of said chest)…it just makes your toes curl (pause for eyes rolling back of head).”
Dear GAWD! If you didn’t like bread before, you would LOVE it now!
As we were required to make our own sourdough starter AND make a fresh loaf of bread with it daily, I felt inspired to eat my entire loaf of bread daily as I couldn’t let such a sweet miracle of awesome San Francisco sourdough go to waste!! Not to mention, I got an A on my sourdough competency tests ;)
And you know I really did it up right- a little Asiago and roasted garlic in the dough…Um, yeah. Added some salami, brie, and grain mustard, and I had an epic meal every night in my dorm room.
That said, it’s pretty clear WHY I gained an easy 15 pounds in my first few months there.
But that ONE moment of clarity in WANTING accountability came when I really paid attention to what I was doing to myself, and it happened by what seemed like a fluke.
It was not.
I was IN culinary school to make the foods I was addicted to healthy for me. I didn’t come to feed the addiction…I came to break it, reframe it, and free myself from it.
One day I was running through the hallway and down the stairs in our dorms. My pants were fairly baggy as I wore them baggy to cover up my massive thighs which made for the perfect condition to create a moment of clarity!
A sudden sound of my slapping thighs brought me to a screeching hault.
Was anyone around me?
Did anyone hear that?
Whew! That was a close call. Guess I’m going to be walking down the stairs with a wider stance now. Hope nobody notices the change in my walk. Sheesh.
In that crowning moment of glorious embarrassment, I came to the realization that I not only needed to make some MASSIVE changes, I needed to become a person that could exemplify this message to others. How could I become a Spa Chef or a Chef of Healthy Desserts if I was not willing to LIVE the life of those teachings?
At that point in my life, I was so sick and tired of people who preached but didn’t take their own advice. I was grossed out by people who didn’t walk their own talk. It was also one of the reasons I hated myself at that point too. That pinnacle moment in time reminded me that I came to school to be greater than I’d been before and I was not living up to that promise.
THAT was the moment I KNEW I’d be a coach.
The Coach’s Struggle
Fast forward a couple of years. 80 pounds lost, chronic illnesses conquered, and depression resolved. I was in peak shape having just come off stage for my first body building competition.
There grew times where my high levels of perceived discipline created a bit of struggle when I wanted to have a drink or buy some ice cream. I would never live it down in the eyes of those who held me at such high regard and I’d hear about it the second Monday morning came around when those who saw me ‘committing the atrosity’ would confront me.
“Alida! I saw you drinking alcohol this weekend!!!”
“Alida! I saw you at Coldstone. Tell me you weren’t eating ice cream?!?”
In their minds, the image they’d made of me was “Alida is SO perfect she would NEVER do something like this!”
While I was quite clear in teaching my clients that they must allow themselves to moderately enjoy life, and also quite clear with them that I too allowed myself to “treats” periodically, it was those who did not see it worth their money to pay me for advice or training who would judge my actions in public.
They had only a small fraction of the story, and there was NO ONE to blame but ME.
At one point, I had a complete stranger who saw me on an infommercial I did with a biz partner at the time. She placed me on such a high pedestal, and rather than seeking my guidance for a customized diet plan according to her own goals, she followed me around Trader Joe’s secretly choosing everything I had placed in my basket just because “If Alida chooses it, it must be right for me.”
Your BRAND is not authentic if it’s NOT you
Transparency is important and I had that with my clients. Evidently I did not make it clear enough with those secret prospects who admired and followed me from a distance. And it was THEY who formed their own perceptions of my credibility.
Over time, I let it get to me. Bad.
I let their beliefs about me deeply affect how I saw myself. I mean, am I REALLY following the advice I share as a public Brand/Image or am I not being effective enough in clearly delivering the tips/info I share en mass?
The answer- I was not effectively communicating and so it appeared to those outside of my paid circle of clients that I was out of integrity. If I am not being clear, I’m out of integrity. Period.
“There is no such thing as a lapse of integrity.” — Tom Peters
As a trainer and coach, how could I expect people to trust me if I am not effectively communicating my message and thereby challenging their ability TO trust me? I couldn’t. And keep in mind that this was all BEFORE social media!
Now, in a world of social media documenting everything we do, it’s way too easy to omit the things we don’t want people to see or think about us. And if we really want to EARN the respect of others, we have NO chance of doing that if people don’t even know who we are.
At that time, I wasn’t purposefully trying to hide the ice cream treats or occasional drink. But because I was not openly sharing these things on a more public level, it appeared that I was hiding.
It’s tough to draw the line between what’s personal and private in these cases but in my case, my reputation as a weight loss and holistic lifestyle coach depended on me PROVING my teachings work by showing my life as the example and I was ineffective in doing so.
If you’re afraid that your audience won’t accept something about your life then you have two choices:
A- be more effective in communicating what you life is REALLY like so your audience matches your lifestyle which is WAY more authentic than trying to be something you are not
OR
B- change the habit(s) so you are vibrationally, emotionally, physically, and/or spiritually aligned with your teachings. I mean, even from the sake of human excellence why would we give ourselves more reasons to feel guilt or shame by doing things we’d be afraid for others to know?
Now coaches…
You ALL know that guilt is one of THE most toxic energies for someone to carry. Why submit yourself to habits that only build more of it in your own life?
All that being said, I invite and encourage you to come clean with yourself. You don’t have to advertise your dirty laundry online but it would be helpful to not be so preachy when you are not willing to take your own advice. You don’t have to confess your sins to the public but you’d be more effective as a coach if you could live the life you are trying to inspire your clients to live.
Communication is important. Authenticity breeds better, more effective communication. More effective communication creates deeper trust in your relationships…hence, more trust from your clients and within yourself and a better more effective brand.
If you have their attention, take incredible honor in BEING someone worth looking up to.
Don’t just be the change you wish to see in your world, be the change you hope to inspire in the hearts and minds of your clients and prospects!
