The Hidden Reason High-Achieving Women Feel Stuck (It's Not Mindset) -Podcast interview with Jessica Von Antonie
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Jessica: [00:00:00] I was the director of business development for a wellness center, in Boulder, I was working like 90 hours a week, I was already in the health and wellness field, but I was subsisting on coffee to make it through my day. , I would then drink beer to unwind so I could relax.
I had started smoking cigarettes so that I just had an excuse to step away go outside for five minutes,
And there was a moment at work where we were in a meeting and the owner of the company said something and it just triggered me. I had gotten to the point where if someone so much has said my name, it felt like glass was cracking. I didn't have the capacity for one more thing.
The glass did shatter in that moment. And I just had to go into my office, curl up in a ball on the floor, crawl underneath my desk, and just ugly cry. Of course being in the health and wellness industry, I thought I just need to go to a yoga class and get a massage.
And like meditate
running these functional lab tests, I learned that I had some fundamental imbalances that were predisposing me to this sense of overwhelm and fragility, heightened stress [00:01:00] levels. And once we started supporting my body from the inside out, my capacity to handle and meet the obligations and responsibilities of my life expanded.
So the same amount of stuff was there for me to do. I was just able to become bigger than, those responsibilities and those obligations.
Jessica, welcome to the podcast. I'm excited to you today. I wanna start off with a big question. I wanna know what is one of the biggest wins that changed everything?
Jessica: The path of entrepreneurship is full of struggles, so it's hard to certainly isolate just one.
Those struggles change, you know, depending on where you are in business, how new it is, how old it is, where you are in scaling. Certainly in the beginning, visibility was a big thing for me, lead generation and just kind of getting my name out there. But I will say one of the biggest wins that came to me completely unexpectedly, was I was contacted by Inc. Magazine to be included and profiled as a leader in the health and wellness [00:02:00] industry.
Christina: Yay.
Jessica: Yeah. So that was that was amazing. My sister-in-law who's in advertising, she was like, oh, who did you pay to get this?
No, this, I didn't pay anybody. She was like, oh, this was organic.
Christina: It makes it so much better when it's organic.
I get people every day reaching out to me, oh, you could be in this magazine or that magazine. It's $1,500 or $2,000. Right? now for you and yours? That's more of a credibility that you use to your people.
Someone's looking at you like, oh, is she real? Is she gonna really do what she talks about? She was in this magazine, this is a credible source. That is awesome. What do you think led up to that moment?
Jessica: at this point in my career, I was a massage therapist and I had a wellness retreat company. And, it was just through my engagement online and talking about what I do and reaching out to people and working my craft and doing it genuinely and from a place of heart, they were like, oh, you're actually a leader.
I live in the Boulder, Colorado area. Boulder is well known for being a wellness hub, the us if not the world. Having been in this town for 20 [00:03:00] years and really building my career here, my name and my reputation, it was just sort of one of those universal things. It just kind of, came around.
Christina: I love it. And sometimes, I feel like the universe just kind of opens the door. You do the stuff you're supposed to do, you do it well, you're enjoying it, and then an opportunity just opens. if you have experienced it, you know what I'm talking about it's something where you're just kind of like, how did this come to me?
One of my, other businesses when clients come to me, how did you find me? And they're like, oh, at a party and so and so knew so and so who knew you? And they mentioned you.
Jessica: This series of coincidences. Yeah,
Christina: Yeah.
And are you still doing your wellness retreats?
Jessica: I am not currently. idea has been floated for a collaboration with, some other women. And I do see a place for my current business to sort of evolve in that direction and for those things to integrate .
Into one another. Speaking of coincidences, my whole life and career has been a series of those universal, doors opening and me just walking through them. I never wanted to be a massage therapist. I never planned on It it was [00:04:00] just something I was exploring amongst other options.
It was just the door that opened I went to sit in on a program and met the director, and I literally was in the program the next day.
Christina: Wow. And then from there, how did the results of one action lead to another that just kind of transformed everything for you?
Jessica: I just kept following my heart. Much to my father's chagrin but I pursuing what interested me and what lit me up. I discovered shiatsu in massage school, which is all about Chinese medicine.
And that's such a beautiful philosophy through which to interpret your life and the world and how everything interrelates that led me into Qigong energy medicine,
meditation and, , yoga certification and, that led me to the woman from whom I purchased the wellness retreat company. And, that was a beautiful synthesis of everything I had done in my career up to that point. It wasn't one off, like a massage over here and yoga class over here.
It was a very synthesized immersive experience that I got to facilitate with people. And , that, led [00:05:00] to what I do now, which is functional health coaching. Approaching health from the spiritual and emotional side.
Again, a door opened. This woman connected with me on LinkedIn and at the time I was not very active on LinkedIn. But for some reason, this one I looked at and she had basically the exact same background.
Massage therapy, meditation, yoga, breath work. And then functional diagnostic nutrition at the bottom. And I'd been interested in functional medicine for a over a decade, but I didn't think it was available to me as an unlicensed practitioner.
Christina: Okay.
Jessica: I reached out to her about it, I inquired about it and
she pointed me in the direction of the program. They happened to be having an open house starting the next week. I went to a few events and I was enrolled by the end of the month. And, now I get to approach health and wellness from the physical perspective.
Integrating all those layers I get to work with people on all the layers of health, which is really amazing.
Christina: I hear some really big pivots. I call it income jumps. Because the way I look at the structure is you had a business A, and outta business A, you took two or three of the things [00:06:00] that you already liked and pulled it into a subset, which are called Business B.
And then , you pulled a couple more over. Now let me ask you, was your income growing every time or were you shifting around and kind of restarting?
Jessica: I was shifting around and restarting. , Certainly with the wellness retreat business, the pandemic did, us in,
that was gonna be the year, we had a collaboration, worked out with a reporter from Yoga Journal who was gonna come and attend one of our, retreats. And that, was gonna blow us up. And that was gonna be a big win.
Christina: Yeah.
Jessica: And our retreat was scheduled for late March of 2020. And so of course the pandemic hit in like early March and we had to cancel it. From there it was just kind of dominoes. Just everything sort of fell apart after that
Christina: because it was a long time where
I think a lot of people were afraid to do things towards the tail end of COVID.
Jessica: Everything fell apart and now, pivoting into functional health. Not an income leap, necessarily a sidestep. I certainly, you know, I had been a massage therapist for over 15 years and that was a steady and stable income, but my heart just wasn't in it anymore.
[00:07:00] Again, it was never something that I aspired to do. That being said, it was more fulfilling than I had ever imagined that a career could be. And, I just felt I was doing a disservice to all of my clients by continuing to work in a field where my heart really wasn't truly in there.
The functional health door opened for me and now I'm, starting over , in a lot of ways I work remotely. And my client base here locally is not necessarily interested in that service.
Now my audience can be so much more spread out, which
Christina: is also harder.
Jessica: Right, exactly. So I'm really learning all these skills about, building a business online. Yeah. Essentially, rather than in, in my local area with, you know, physical presence.
Christina: And it's funny you bring that up 'cause I had to do the same thing.
I have multiple businesses, which were offline . And I was doing one-on-one coaching for probably four or five years. I was getting tired of the one-to-one I care so much about my clients and something came up, I still would chat with them a little bit and I would help them and I was giving so much to myself and I just felt exhausted. So about two [00:08:00] years ago, I came into the online space and I was gonna do a course.
Yeah, I went through Amy Porterfield's DCA. I learned how to do all that. I did it for 18 months and I was like, I freaking hate it.
Jessica: Oh no.
Christina: Because I felt like it was so much hustle, I have to have a freebie that I have a change every so often.
Then I have to launch every so often, but you have to change the launch a little bit every time. 'cause people get tired of it. Then I have to run ads to get more people. It was like this constant hustle of just filling and moving and filling and moving, and I don't like that. So the other businesses I run, I make a lot of money and I really don't work very hard and that's my whole philosophy.
And so I revamped it all and I said, okay, I'm changing it. I don't wanna be launching all the time. I don't wanna have to be finding people. I don't wanna have to be doing all this. I wanna do it differently. And so I changed all that. So I wanna let you know you don't have to do it the same way everybody else does it.
Jessica: Yeah.
Christina: So if that feels overwhelming find what's right for you and it will work. Whatever it is you pick because you're authentic to yourself, that it [00:09:00] actually attracts more people to you then if you say, oh, I'm gonna copy these other ways, just because they say I have to do it.
Jessica: And I'm currently in the process, even just in the last couple of days of trying to figure out, how to integrate some more of the mental, emotional, spiritual work that is my background into what I do now, into the physical work and functional health coaching is all about digging into lab work and really figuring out where the body is deviating from optimal, so we can bring it back to full function so that all of your symptoms go away, whatever they may be, whether it's, headaches or fatigue or brain fog or, fill in the blank.
Whatever you're coming up against on a daily basis that may be holding you back. And I particularly focus on work with female entrepreneurs. Okay. That's how my mind works. I have my own personal, burnout story, so I really am passionate about helping other women avoid that in their businesses..
Which is, one thing in and of itself, but really optimizing your health and actually leveraging health as a business strategy because our bodies are the one [00:10:00] thing, that touches every other aspect of the business. So the quality of the inputs in terms of our energy, our clarity, our enthusiasm, directly influences the quality of the output.
The course and the certification that I took is very much physically focused.
And so now I'm in the process, after having integrated that, really tested my program and I know it's value, but I feel like there is that piece missing, I know I have the skills. And so just trying to figure out how to bring that into an online, in a virtual coaching space, so that I can be more authentic to myself.
I did a lot of inner soul searching before I made this pivot. Asking myself, what kind of industry do I wanna be in? Where are my skills? Where do my skills lie? And, where do I really thrive in relationship with others?
And I really thrive in small groups, one-on-one and also in classrooms. I really thrive in that role. I really love teaching people and just seeing their eyes light up with insights and aha moments.
I'm taking that into this one-on-one coaching. Yeah. [00:11:00] So that I can really develop, like you, I care a lot about my clients. I wanna help them. So much, I wish I could just wave a magic wand and , make all of their health issues go away. I
Christina: was gonna say, because I'm very aware of this area.
I've had, a functional medicine doctor for, like four or five years. but I call it shadow success. So what happened is I was doing really well. I had a lot of success. I was running a lot of different businesses and I was at the point where I'm growing them.
And I have four little kids. And so I'm like, okay, I can do all this. And then my body just started shutting down a little here, a little there. About two years ago I almost died.
I was like 10 minutes from death. Yeah. I lost all my blood and so, I, my body had severe trauma. But the funny thing is that's not the first time I almost died. I've almost died four times in my life. Yeah,
So, all of that added up. The stress of all the work, the stress of the family, the kids, me just ignoring my nervous system and just pushing, pushing, pushing. I broke, I literally got to the point where safety was [00:12:00] avoidance. Like, just don't do the work. Don't check the phone, don't look at the email 'cause you won't have anxiety of something going wrong and you're fine.
And then I wasn't doing anything and then my income just started going dropping because I wasn't doing anything. I went and I got trauma release. I've done so much work. I've worked on supplements 'cause I had digestive problems that wouldn't go away. And I'm actually finally, I would say in the best stage, I'm not a hundred percent yet, but I just finished my trauma release.
But I think we need this help us women entrepreneurs. A lot of them haven't hit the burnout and I want them to avoid it, but so many have hit the burnout and it's hard.. I wanna hear your burnout story
Jessica: This was in 2011, 12, and I was the director of business development for a wellness center, in Boulder, and I was helping them scale, we were opening a new location and I was working like 90 hours a week, to open this facility and get it, fully functioning as quickly as possible.
And I was young at the time. I was around [00:13:00] 30, you're like, well, I can do anything. And so working 90 hours a week, and feeling like super proud of myself and important.
I completely lost track of all of my wellness habits. I was already in the health and wellness field, but I was subsisting on coffee to make it through my day. Mm-hmm. At the end of the day, I would then drink beer to unwind so I could relax and, I'm ashamed, I'm always ashamed to say this.
I had started smoking cigarettes so that I just had an excuse to step away from the computer Yes. And go outside for five minutes, even though I was inhaling toxic air.
Christina: But
they're very calming.
A lot of people start smoking because it actually allows you to take a deeper breath and it calms the system down, which people don't realize. I think it's, as you're
Jessica: breathing deeply. Yes.
Christina: As you're breathing deeply, which is horrible 'cause you're breathing all the bad stuff in,
Jessica: I'm really fortunate in that it's not an addictive thing's for me, even at the, ripe young age of 30, my body could not handle the level of stress that I was putting on it.
Yeah. And there was a moment at work where we were in a meeting [00:14:00] and the owner of the company said something and it just triggered me. And I had gotten to the point where if someone so much has said my name, it felt like glass was cracking. Like I just felt so fragile. I didn't have the capacity for one more thing
long story short, I was triggered and the glass did shatter in that moment. And I just had to go into my office, curl up in a ball on the floor, crawl underneath my desk, and just ugly cry. And I knew that I had to change something. Of course being in the health and wellness industry, I thought I just need to go to a yoga class and get a massage.
Yeah. And like meditate, I'll be fine. But that day,
Christina: yeah.
Jessica: This gentleman walked into the studio to talk about teaching classes there, and he was a functional health practitioner and I was a person he needed to talk to about teaching classes. And so I learned about what it was that he did.
And I immediately signed on with him and started working with him.
Running these functional lab tests, I learned that I had some fundamental imbalances that were predisposing me to this sense of overwhelm and fragility, heightened stress levels. And once we [00:15:00] started supporting my body from the inside out, my capacity to handle and meet the obligations and responsibilities of my life expanded.
So the same amount of stuff was there for me to do. I was just able to become bigger than, those responsibilities and those obligations.
Christina: I love that because it really shows we all have it in some way or another. Everyone will say, well, I'm not in tune to my body. I won't experience that.
But I heard a story of a gentleman who, was really smart and he was pushing really hard. And then he had a couple accidents where he had injured his back 'cause he was climbing, in the Himalayas he was pushing so hard that he became paralyzed
And he said his body was so fragile, it literally shut down.
No energy to get up. He couldn't do anything. Just wanted to send to a hospital to be taken care of. And then he goes, and then I healed my body.
And in this world, it's all about push, push, go, go. Now I wanna come into the conversation of what you're building.
You talked about your retreats. I feel like it's the time to start your [00:16:00] retreats back up. And you're asking the question of how can I integrate the one side of the business, which is harder to do online to what I'm already doing. And I would do the retreats.
I would have a group coaching have people come in and you're coaching with them . And at the end ~of it,~ it's an in-person retreat. And people would come. Right now a lot of people, especially women, are craving the in-person small curated events.
So if it's just like 10 or 20 people and they come for a day, or maybe it's an overnight thing they're gonna come if it's part of the package, because you're gonna teach 'em the next element. You taught 'em one aspect, and now with the retreat, you're gonna learn the next level.
But this has to be in person. It has to be felt, it can't be over a camera.
And if you position it like that and it's part of what they're already paying for, they're gonna come. And then you get to integrate 'em. And I think we need that more than ever. What do you think?
Jessica: I agree.
Certainly the in-person stuff with everyone having gone virtual and remote. I agree that we all crave the in-person, experiences, [00:17:00] especially with those people who are on similar paths that we're on because the health and wellness journey can be isolating if you're the only one in your friend group or your family that's doing something like that.
And particularly if you find out if you have food sensitivities and so all of a sudden you're changing your diet and everyone around you is like, wait, what? You're not gonna eat this queso at the Super Bowl party? Like,
Christina: you're like, and I'll die.
Jessica: Yeah, exactly. , It's not easy changing your lifestyle. That is certainly, the hard work that's involved in this, like the data part and the, what we learned from the labs, that's the easy part. It gives us a clear path to healing, but the hard part is making those changes and that's why I work with people on an ongoing basis.
It's not just, a one-off appointment here and there. We're really gonna set you up for success even beyond the time that we're working together. We're gonna make a lot of progress during the time that we are working together, but then in order for you to maintain that progress and actually continue making progress on your own, there are certain foundational pieces that need to be put into place.
Lifestyle habits. Yeah. And dietary habits and awareness [00:18:00] and, you know, that's where a lot of the education comes into play.
Christina: I think it's been like eight years now. I learned that I couldn't eat gluten. I didn't realize gluten really bothered me. Like it made me really sick. It wasn't just stomach problems. It actually gave me psoriasis and gave me inflammation.
Jessica: Whoa.
Christina: At the same time I realized I couldn't eat dairy. I was anaphylactic to dairy. And then, I became severely allergic to egg. And so egg gave me severe migraines where literally I could not walk or function, but that was because I just had my son and the pregnancy triggered all of it.
My husband's like, I don't wanna take you anywhere. You're so difficult to go out and eat. It was just really hard on him because I had two other kids and then we had to find a restaurant where I could go,
And so it's not just how do we manage ourselves and our issues, but how can we mentally be able to have tools to work with other people around us? Because I think that's the hardest thing. And it took a long time for him to be okay with it. And then now my, son has gluten problems, so it's easier [00:19:00] now because I've done it and we're like nine years later . There's gluten-free bread everywhere.
Jessica: Changed a lot.
Christina: Yeah. It's changed a lot.
Yeah. I think it's the emotional part of it. People thought I was crazy. They were like, oh, like you don't have a food allergy.
Jessica: Right.
Christina: But mentally it was a heavy load on me because I get so sick.
Jessica: Yeah,
yeah. It is a lot of work.
Because I work with female entrepreneurs and they, like, you have, sometimes multiple businesses and they're so busy, there's I can't imagine taking time away from the business in order to attend to my health.
And that's not what it's about at all. Yeah. I really focus on how do we build this into your lifestyle so it feels like a seamless integration rather than something that you're having to, take time away from everything else. That is definitely one of my focuses and one of the reasons why it takes an ongoing length of time in working with someone so that it can be sustainable.
Christina: Once I have the habit and it's just, this is what time I do and I make it easy, I don't forget it, and then I stay consistent.
Jessica: That's right. Yeah. I really think it's, it's one of the things that frustrates me about Western [00:20:00] medicine and doctors in general
~I ~they don't listen to their patients one of the approaches that I take that sort of differentiates me even within functional health is that I test all of the systems of the body at once
'Cause our systems don't work in silos and if there's something under functioning over here, there's something else compensating over here. And if we're only testing one system at a time, we're not gonna get that full picture. Nor are we gonna get the real solution, the comprehensive solution to address all of those things at once.
We get insight into hormones, detox, methylation pathways, digestion, immune function, kind of across the board, nervous system functions so that we can address everything at once. So we're not having to play whack-a-mole with your symptoms and go chasing after things.
Christina: it's hard because I do see medical doctors, but the way I look at I'm high estrogen converting to bad testosterone.
High cortisol. Well, guess what? If you have low progesterone, you have high estrogen and it starts converting to bad testosterone and then you have over production of cortisol because you have no progesterone to [00:21:00] calm the system. We don't really ~get~ prescriptions for that.
They're built on an infrastructure of what prescription can I give you? Forever,
My legs were so weak and everything, but that was all from inflammation. So I basically cut out eating processed carbs and processed sugar.
Half of my inflammation went away. Just, went away. My brain fog went away. Everything started clearing up. But I still had my knees were achy so they put me on,
The LDN to help with that inflammation. kind of stop it at the source so that my body can heal. I'm also on creatine plus, which is helping with achiness and soreness. 'cause I can't work out because I hurt too bad. But you go to a doctor and you tell them that and they're like, oh, you have rheumatoid arthritis.
And I'm like, so you're just gonna stick me on some pill like forever?
Jessica: Yeah. . And I'm not surprised, I mean, that's what they're taught.
Pharmaceutical companies sponsor medical schools. Yes, they do. So those are the solutions that are being taught in those schools because the pharmaceutical companies have say, because they pour so much money into those programs, they get to then influence the actual curriculum that our [00:22:00] doctors are learning.
And so it's either a pharmaceutical or a surgical intervention, right? Like those are the two tools essentially that Western medicine has for us, which in the cases where they're indicated are highly useful. But like you said, it's a lifetime of being on that prescription. Whereas, functional health I come from a perspective of where is your body not functioning optimally and how can we heal it and return it to a hundred percent function?
Now, in your case, because, you know, you don't methylate, there are certain supplements that you're gonna have to be on forever. And it just depends on people's, you know, biology and physiology. So if you've had a gallbladder removed, you're always gonna need some bile support for, and digestive support.
If you've had a thyroid removed, you're always gonna need mm-hmm. Some thyroid support and, you know, same thing for the M-T-H-F-R gene, you know. Yeah. But mostly the supplements are designed to heal the body, on a short term basis, return it to function. And then, you know, we have those lifestyle kind of habits that we put into place to help maintain that function.
I like to [00:23:00] think of the body as a bank account, and there's a, the finite amount of resources in there, finite amount of money in your bank account. And we all have had these lifetimes of taking little withdrawals out of that bank account based on what we put into our bodies, what we do with our bodies, what we don't do with our bodies, and how often are we actually making deposits back in.
So certainly things like meditation and yoga and massage and stress management and good diet and exercise. Certainly those are making kind of some small deposits into the bank account to prevent further kind of degradation of the systems. But, through the lens of functional health, looking at where the body is malfunctioning,
not functioning at a hundred percent. Hence the term functional health, functional medicine is how you make really large deposits into the body's bank account, restore its capacity to heal itself because the body does want to be in a state of health. It wants to repair itself, but it only has a finite amount of resources to do so.
So that's where we come in and to shore things up over here. We need to patch [00:24:00] a hole over here. We need to, lift everything. A rising tide lifts all boats, right? And so that's why we look at all the systems of the body.
Christina: It's needed more now than ever because our environments are polluted.
I remember I did my Dutch , oh, or a different one, but it, I had so many heavy metals in my body.
Jessica: Oh, HTMA, the hair test, htma.
Christina: Yes, . And it was so many, and I was like, where do these come from? And they were like, well, you grew up in Silicon Valley. Wow. so I had to do really strong detox to try to get it out and really work.
But it takes a long time to really clear the system and everything, but. This is why so many people are so sick and bringing it back to business. Right. As a woman founder, we talked about in the beginning, if your body isn't healthy
Jessica: Yeah.
Christina: It's the brain and then it's consciousness. Right.
I feel like we're just so disconnected in ourselves that it's hard to feel it all. And we wanna drive, we wanna do these businesses, we wanna build more and more. But , we're dying in the process and
Jessica: sacrificing ourselves.
Christina: Yes. Yes.
Jessica: [00:25:00] And that's the thing. It does not have to be that way. You can integrate your health into your business strategy.
And in fact, I really am a big proponent of leveraging health as a business strategy, integrating your healthcare into your business strategy so that you can show up with a clear mind. You make decisions faster. Your productivity is more efficient.
How we're functioning within our days, how we feel within our days. We're just like, oh yeah, I'm okay, but it could be better.
Christina: So, so this is an interesting fact, and we as humans kind of have the short-term memory. We forget things.
So what happens is we forget how good we really felt before.
like. All these things come into play, but a lot of people don't remember how they used to be and they think this is normal.
Jessica: But then when you start to dig deeper, yes, this is what happens a lot.
When I talk to people, I'm like, okay, so what are your top health complaints? Well, I don't really have any complaints. Okay. let me ask a different question. How's the quality of your sleep? Oh, I don't sleep well. Okay. So how's the quality of your energy? Oh, I crash every afternoon. I need to [00:26:00] take a nap.
It has become normalized. And I appreciate you, saying that word, because I like to make a distinction between normal and common. Yes. So we have normalized it, but I would like, everyone listening to actually take it into a different perspective that what is common is not necessarily normal.
While these things are common, they are not normal. And to kind of loop back to another thing that we were talking about earlier, like every single symptom that you experience, whether it's headache. Brain fog, fatigue, trouble sleeping. These are all signs from your body that there's something out of balance on a deeper level.
Yeah. And we can find the physical cause of those things. The entrepreneurs that I work with, they're proactive women. Like we run our businesses, we have vision, we are problem solvers. They are trying to resolve these issues, but they're using these surface level solutions that aren't actually addressing the physical imbalance that's causing these symptoms in the first place.
But what I like to say is, if you know when your body is functioning at a hundred percent, you will be symptom free. You'll sleep deeply, [00:27:00] you'll wake up refreshed. You'll have energy
and then you don't need three cups of coffee just to start like feeling like a human being in the morning. Yeah. And you have energy that is steady instead of being on this rollercoaster all day and you have energy, steady energy to make it through your day, your mind is clear.
You work efficiently so you get done. You have four hours on your A game versus before what would take you, maybe you're on your C game, like six hours to do. So you regain time in your week and whether you put that time back into your business or whether you choose to take that time and spend more time with your kids or your partner or your friends having more of a social life like there are.
Ramifications beyond just the functioning of your business when you really, address your health. You know what I mean? But these, so to kind of go back, the symptoms that are cropping up that we have normalized. Are these warning lights, like the warning lights on the dashboard of your car. And if you don't pay attention to them, then they will eventually start to scream.
Like the gentleman that you were talking about earlier who, was just paralyzed because he'd been [00:28:00] pushing himself too hard, that doesn't just happen overnight.
Christina: No,
Jessica: there is a process leading up to that. Right? Like I'm sure he had some symptoms, some warning lights. It
Christina: was a long time.
It was like 10, 15 years. And then he had injured his back. He said he had broken it a little bit, but he didn't realize it, when he had fallen. But he just ignored it 'cause he was young, he was robust, he could do it.
Jessica: Yeah. When you don't pay attention to those warning lights Yeah.
Your car's gonna break down.
Christina: Yeah.
Jessica: Meaning your body's gonna break down. We have all heard stories of people being taken out by some health crisis. But again, that didn't just happen overnight. So it's really learning to be more in tune with our bodies, to pay attention to what's going on in our bodies and to approach our health more proactively.
I feel like our agency has been taken away in the Western model, even the term of like, being a patient, be patient. Like, just sit back and let us take care of it.
Just be patient. Be a patient, you know, versus really becoming empowered and being proactive in doing things that are going to make deposits into your body's bank [00:29:00] account and really help it heal from the inside out. And that's my mission, is I wanna empower people in their own health and wellness and reduce their reliance on the Western medical model because there's so many things wrong with it.
Christina: There's so many. I tell people all the time,
I get the sun, the sunshine in the morning.
Jessica: Yep.
Christina: I try to go in the evening and get light so my body can regulate.
Medical doctors don't talk about this.
And you were talking about giving more time back into the business. Like if you're on your real True A game. 'cause I don't wanna call what people are doing now, their a game. 'cause this is not their A game, like being really on your A game. When I'm really functioning well, like you were saying, I have a four hour slot every day except Friday.
I don't work on Fridays. I try not to work on the weekends. I work four hours. I crank out podcasts, YouTube, I'm editing them all myself. I'm putting content out, articles, right? I'm working on getting affiliates to come help me fill up my live experience. I'm talking about my society. I mean, there's so much to do.
I'm writing a book, like there's a lot when I have four hours. I crank through a lot when I'm working, when [00:30:00] I am not functioning well, that four hours, I get like a quarter of the stuff done. And this is where my time billionaire philosophy of my framework really comes in, because you want time with your family when you're not functioning right, you lose your day and then you have anxiety because you're like, oh, I didn't finish this project.
I didn't do this thing I have to do. So when you're with your family for dinner, it's almost a push off. Your family feels I'm annoying doesn't wanna be around me. And they feel a different thing than you think you're portraying and it's really hard.
And so I think that's another big thing. So my whole thing is learning the time billionaire as we go, utilizing free time that we have when I'm with my kids.
And I think that's forgotten as well.
Jessica: Absolutely. Just how this affects it your work life, but also bleeds into your, personal life. And then your kids are getting the message that, work is more important than they are.
Christina: Yeah.
Jessica: I don't think any parent wants to send that message. Ramifications and the implications for what becomes possible when you do [00:31:00] start to prioritize your health and really approach it from a functional perspective. Yeah. And optimizing your body. It goes beyond just again, what you can put into work and how much you can crank out, but the impact that your work then has like
you are more efficient with your time. So you scale faster, you earn more money, and your impact is bigger. Right. We all wanna make a positive impact on the world. Yeah. And have a legacy to pass on to our children. So this becomes an integral part of it.
Christina: It's all about enjoying life. Like in a society that I'm building, it's really about people who want to be time billionaires who have everything but time and they wanna learn to enjoy, but they want to be with other people doing we talked about, like your retreat. Being with the same people is so powerful.
People who understand you, because it's rare.
When you find your people and you're together, it's something so powerful. It feels so amazing, and that's why I created this. So for people who wanna strive and really just be together, [00:32:00] then that's for you, right? But if not, go find your people. So I think all of this is huge. I wanna get into a question, as we were talking about your growth, where you started, where you are now, some possibilities of maybe restarting your, retreats Again, what is a big goal that you have for growth?
Jessica: I'm definitely in the steps. I wanna grow it financially. Okay. I want to grow the number of people that I can serve at once. Um, so once I reach a certain threshold of one-on-one clients, I want to develop a group program.
Christina: Yep.
Jessica: So that I can be helping more people, there's a book in my future. Yeah, definitely. Speaking engagements. I'm one of those weird people. I actually love public speaking. Me too. I love it. So there's a really big vision here.
And so I'm still in the building phases and I'm doing this business differently than I've done any other business so far as I'm hiring coaches and, working with people who have developed systems and processes that work and have walked this path before.
Christina: I love that. And then in terms of financial goals, right?
[00:33:00] You said you wanna help more people and then ultimately get to a group coaching.
But what if instead of doing more and adding more, what if instead you income jumped, meaning you're already helping the people.
You already are solving one problem at a set price, but instead you find the next big problem to solve for the people you've already found and worked with and you charge more money for it. That's how I help my client's income jump. And so this way you're not in that constant treadmill of find new people, find new people, you're utilizing your people and you're going to the next level when they're ready and you're solving a new problem.
And then you charge more. So let's say you're charging $2,000 for yours, the next level would be like five or 7,000.
Jessica: Mm-hmm.
Christina: Less people, more money, bigger problem. And you keep doing that. And sometimes we do bring more people in 'cause they get attracted. But it's an easy way of income jumping without having to do more.
Have you ever thought of something like that?
Jessica: I have not. A couple weeks ago I was on another podcast and the [00:34:00] woman suggested a similar thing. She was like, you should just raise your rates.
Christina: Yeah.
Jessica: Like
Christina: a lot of people say that, but here's the problem.
When you just raise your rates, let's say $2,000 as an example, the problem that you solve right now is $2,000. If you raise your rate to five, there's a disconnect with your people because your people are like, wait for the past, however long you've been solving this problem for $2,000, what are you doing different now at the same problem for $2,000?
That's where the disconnect is. So what I tell people is, you could do that. But instead, if you're solving a bigger problem, it's a new problem you're solving. So it's completely separate problem.
That's the business A to business B to business C that I was talking about. See, you are using the same kind of elements to do the next level. You're not really creating a new business. It's like a new problem, Uhhuh. And so then when they look at that, they're like, oh, of course this is $5,000. 'cause she says it's $5,000 and I need this to be solved.
But if you're always saying it's two and you go to five or seven, their like, wait a minute, why did it jump? What changed? That problem was always [00:35:00] 2000. So that's why I tell people, be careful of that because you get that resistance and it's really hard. But if it's a new problem, there's no resistance.
'cause they're already at that next level saying, I need this. That's the bigger problem is how do we integrate the next level so we have stability.
Once we fix ourselves with supplements, we have stability so that we can actually be calm. Or like I was telling you in the moment, when you realize your nervous system is flipping out, what tools do I know because she taught me in this retreat that I can actually calm myself. But that could be the next problem that you're solving.
And so income jumping really is once you're kind of solve the problem so much where you're like, I can do it in my sleep.
Mm-hmm. And you already know what test you're gonna start with. You already know all that. That's kinda like you're doing in your sleep already. Yeah. So once that's so well, you're gonna start noticing, well, I caught 'em here, but now I notice they're struggling here. Yeah. Huh. How can I now help them here because I've already got everybody over here.
Good. But now they're at the next level and that's where you start income jumping.
Jessica: [00:36:00] Perfect. Oh cool.
Christina: Yeah.
Jessica: Very
Christina: cool. Okay, good. I love that. And, and then I wanna ask, do you have an exit strategy?
Jessica: I don't.
Christina: I'm just curious, do you wanna stay in it, forever? Do you wanna sell it?
Jessica: I would love to grow a team. Okay., Have some other coaches kind of doing some of the work and, be in a more of a CEO role myself. And certainly, like I said, I visioned a book in my future Yeah. Speaking engagements. So I would love to be focusing on that side of things.
But an exit strategy I have never, considered. I've always just kind of like followed one step to the next in my life. But certainly have a vision of like where I'm going.
I did actually have a vision when I was in massage school of owning a retreat center. Not just running retreats, but owning a retreat center. And so, I'm open.
Christina: Should do that for sure, actually. Yeah. So I know people who are buying, a lot of land.
Mm-hmm. And they're building their own centers. Yeah. And you get to ride off all the costs and everything. 'cause it's already on your property. People are coming. So that's something cool because if you have it, you can also lease it out to other people who [00:37:00] wanna come for different things.
Oh, absolutely. And it's a cool money maker where you don't have to do a lot of stuff with it. So that would be a cool one.
Jessica: Yeah. When I did own my wellness retreat company, there was a kind of a shortage of retreat centers that had the certain amenities that I was looking for, that I wanted to include and that were of a certain
Christina: level.
Jessica: Quality.
Christina: Yep.
Jessica: Level. Yeah.
Christina: Yeah.
Jessica: I mean, certainly there were lots of like YMCAs and stuff,
Christina: It's a different level too, and you want your clientele to feel a certain way when they're there and it all just varies on what you're gonna do and the whole feel of it.
But yeah, I could totally see that. I mean, exit strategies, the reason I bring it up is I tell people when you're starting, especially when you're starting to get the flow and you're going think about how you wanna end it because that's how you can build it to breathe. , I was talking about,
ecosystem stacking, and you can do multiple businesses, but if you don't plan now how you want to be later in life, you get so busy and you get so wrapped in up into it that you actually kind of forget about how to exit and you're trapped. And then a lot of people are like, [00:38:00] I don't know how to get out of this.
Jessica: Yeah.
Christina: And they just stop. And that's the worst thing ever. They have this big beautiful business they did, and it just starts declining and then they just stop it.
so I always tell people, plan now as you're building what you wanna do in the future, and then you have it.
Right.
So I, I think definitely the CEO, that's what I'm gonna do. I'll eventually have a team of people. I still wanna be involved. I wanna still be around, I'd rather be more with people than running everything.
So I'll probably have people running the operations Yep. And everything else, but I'll get the flow, the creativeness, like Yeah. And then one day, I just wanna step away, I can just fully step away and I'm still making a ton of money and that's the way I look at it.
Jessica: Yeah. Beautiful.
Christina: Well, we are just wrapping up the podcast right now. Why don't you share with everyone where they can find you, and I will put all the links, if they are listening, it'll be in the show notes. If they're watching on YouTube, it'll be below the video. But why don't you share with everyone how they can get in touch with you and check out your programs?
Yeah.
Jessica: Great. Thank you. So my name is Jessica Van Antoine. My [00:39:00] company name is Phoenix Functional Health, so that's the URL Phoenix functional health.com. And you can find me on LinkedIn under Jessica van Antoine.
And they can learn more about me and my approach and, book a call if they're curious about working together.
Christina: Awesome. Well, Jessica, this was a fantastic conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for joining us today and sharing all this great knowledge and giving us a little insight into your business and all the great things that you're doing.
I'm so excited for you, and I know we'll have more conversations later on.
Jessica: Yeah. Maybe when I do that income jump, I can come back.
Christina: Yes. Come and tell me about it. Absolutely. And all the stuff you're building.
Jessica: Thanks for having me. It's been a delight.
Christina: Thank you.
