A Journey Through Cancer to Empowered Wellness and Holistic Health with Maddie Pollack

(00:00:00) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Leadership isn't just changing. It's evolving in ways we're only just beginning to imagine. And women, we're not playing this game anymore. We're the ones reshaping the entire field, building models, movements, and businesses that serve more than just a few. On the She Leads podcast, you'll hear real conversations with women who've broken through all kinds of barriers, revenue, identity, borders, and expectations. There's no sugar coating here, just the truth told by those who are living it. I'm Adrienne Garland, entrepreneur, strategist, educator, and creator of live experiences, gathering women leaders together for over a decade.

(00:00:23) HOST: Adrienne Garland
And this is the She Leads podcast. Hi everybody and welcome back to the She Leads podcast. I am so excited to welcome my next guest. Her name is Maddy Pollack, and she was a speaker at She Leads Live in LA. I cannot wait to talk to her because she's an integrative nutrition health coach, a hormone health coach, and of course a yoga instructor. After surviving cancer at 25 years old, which I am sure was incredibly harrowing, she dove into the world of wellness and received her hormone health coach certification, which changed her life forever in the best way possible. Maddy works one-on-one and in group settings with clients to help them balance their hormones naturally, lose weight, live in tune with their cycles, and become more confident in their bodies. This is what we need as women entrepreneurs. So, through the pillars of nutrition, movement, and mindfulness, Maddy emphasizes a whole body approach with her clients, and she's passionate about helping women live in sync with their bodies instead of fighting against them. Welcome to the She Leads podcast, Maddy.

(00:01:21) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Thank you. Hi, Adrienne. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

(00:01:23) HOST: Adrienne Garland
I am so excited to see you again. It was so incredible to meet you and hear from you on the panel at She Leads Live in LA. And,

(00:01:29) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yes, it was so fun.

(00:01:31) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Gosh, it really was fun. It was fun. It was informative and so many women can just, you know, relate to these transitional periods in our lives when we are launching, growing businesses and then we are, we start going through other changes and I want to dive into that but before we do, I want to talk about you. You are an entrepreneur yourself and you got into what you're doing today for a very personal reason, so I'd love to hear your story so that you can also just encourage other people too that might be going through challenges that hey, it's possible to, you know, turn things around and lean into things that are important to you and build a business around it quite frankly.

(00:02:18) HOST: Adrienne Garland
So let's hear about you, Maddy.

(00:02:22) GUEST: Maddy Pollack*
100%. Okay, amazing, yes, well thank you again so much for having me here at She Leads Live. It really was so fun. So yeah, so you mentioned previously, so you mentioned previously at 24 I was diagnosed with cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma. So that was about now seven years ago. I'm 31 now. So I went through chemo and radiation and at 25 was when I was deemed cancer-free essentially. And so that was kind of like during treatment you're kind of in survivor mode, right? You're like, "Okay, I'm going to get through it. Like I'm going to get out on the other side. I'm going to live my life to the fullest." All these things. And then treatment ends and you're like, "Holy s, what just happened?" Like it's a very traumatic experience, all of it. And so that for me was when I started to really dive into like my own physical and mental health because I never really was like healthy at all. You know, I was like binge drinking every weekend, working in marketing, you know, really unhealthy, like eating Taco Bell. And after I was just like, okay, clearly something isn't working. Like clearly my body is not liking what I'm doing. So I need to start to shift things in order for this to never happen again. And to hopefully avoid issues, you know, in the future and long term and to just like feel better. I had a lot of like physical side effects as well after treatment. So, that's when I dove into kind of health and wellness and I found a health coaching program and so I did that. It was a year-long program and it just like changed my entire life. Like for sure for me just taught me how to eat well, how to take care of my body from a holistic perspective, how to practice mindfulness, and reduce anxiety naturally. I'm just an anxious person in general and cancer definitely didn't help that. So really having these like new practices was really, really important.

(00:04:14) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
And it also caused me to like change my career fully. So like I said I was in digital marketing before and I remember being at a conference for like a Microsoft conference and being like I do not care about any of this like what my life. Oh yeah. Oh listen I have had those moments for sure. Yeah, like what are we talking about? Who cares? I want to help people. So that was a big part of it too.

(00:04:47) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
And so yeah, I started my work as a coach working with cancer survivors actually after treatment. I still do that today, but I've switched my practice a little bit or shifted it. And so then a couple years later, I, you know, felt like I was eating healthy. I was working out. I was coaching. And I still didn't feel amazing in my body. Like my period never really came back after treatment. I was had really high anxiety. I couldn't sleep through the night. I was bloated. I felt like I was gaining weight. I was getting headaches every day.

(00:05:27) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
And my doctors, you know, were like, "Everything looks normal. So, I don't know. You're good." But then I, I know the worst. I'm like, "I know it's not, things are not normal." Yeah. So, I went to a naturopath and she did all my blood work and she was like, "You have PCOS and your hormones are a mess, so you fix them." Yeah. So, that's what kind of drove me to the hormones.

(00:05:46) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Let me ask you a question. Before cancer and the treatment and everything, had you been like, have you had you had regular periods? Like did, did everything change due to the, the, the treatment?

(00:05:50) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
No. So I always had a regular cycle. So my period never even like started naturally. I was put on birth control at 15. So my period would start. So I mean ideally that would have been a sign and my doctors, you know, maybe should have looked deeper into it, but that's usually not the case. So, no. So, I've always had irregular periods and I, I would kind of sometimes like prior to cancer be a little worried like what if I want to have babies like whatever and they were like I'll like deal with that when you know it's time. Yeah. So, I would just be like, "Okay." But then, you know, after becoming a health coach and really being connected to my body more, I was like, "This is like clearly a sign that something is off, you know, like I really do want to like solve this issue."

(00:06:51) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Yeah. So what how did you dive into finding out what was really going on? So that's it was working with the naturopathic doctor and she said your hormones are out of whack. What did you do in order to sort of get everything back in alignment?

(00:07:01) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah. Yeah. So that really like I thought it was just so interesting and I was like how do we not like understand this about our own female body. So then I got, I went back to kind of the school or program that I did and I got my hormone health certification and my mind was like literally blown. Like I just it's unbelievable how much we don't know about our own bodies. So I did change quite a bit but it's been like two years. You know it's taken time for me to like implement all of these new habits and strategies. One of those was not drinking coffee on an empty stomach in the morning.

(00:07:54) HOST: Adrienne Garland
I know I mentioned that at She Leads Live and it was,

(00:07:57) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yes that was a mind-blowing one because it's what everybody does.

(00:08:00) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Yeah, exactly.

(00:08:01) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Totally. And that's what I've done forever. But it makes the biggest difference when we add, we needed to eat protein before the coffee because essentially what we're doing is we're like punching our adrenal glands in the gut when we have coffee and caffeine first thing in the morning and spike our cortisol which just kind of keeps our cortisol elevated all day and then leads to a lot of other issues down the line when we're doing that every single day. We're just basically keeping our body in a state of like fight or flight.

(00:08:18) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Yeah. Yeah. So, so that's a great tip to just kind of put out there for everyone, right? Not just not, not just young women, older women, whatever we're going through, perimenopause, menopause, it's everyone. So, just be careful about starting your day with a cup of coffee.

(00:08:29) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah, exactly.

(00:08:30) HOST: Adrienne Garland
It's not that you can't have it in, in the morning, but you really should have protein in your system first.

(00:08:35) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
100%. Yeah, it makes seriously the biggest difference. And now I can't, I literally can't have coffee on an empty stomach or I get a headache immediately. So, your body will like adapt and you'll notice a huge, huge difference once you start doing it.

(00:08:49) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
I like to always have like breakfast prepped. So, I make these like breakfast biscuits or egg bites or whatever. I always have something prepped in the morning that I can just like quickly warm up, eat, and then, you know, have my coffee right after. But it makes the biggest difference. So, that increasing protein intake. I know that's like trending right now, but it's, it's true. We do need, we do need a good amount of protein, ideally about like 25 to 30 grams of protein per meal. That's made a huge difference for me. And then also really changing my workouts. I used to do like hit classes. I used to run and I've switched that a lot to more yoga and strength training to again really help control my cortisol and calm the nervous system because those kind of really high-intensity classes are doing the same thing that the caffeine is doing. It's keeping us in that fight or flight state. And if we're already in that state because of owning a business or being a mom or just being busy, then we don't really need those like cortisol driving workouts in addition to that. They're actually doing the opposite effect of what we want them to do.

(00:10:49) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Gosh, it, it just goes counter to so much of, you know, what we've read in Shape Magazine.

(00:10:55) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
I know. Exactly. Yeah.

(00:10:57) HOST: Adrienne Garland
It, it's really interesting that when you do those very intense workouts that they're actually counterproductive. And to me it went off in my brain. Yeah. You are literally stressing your body.

(00:11:15) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Also doing like those long runs, even like marathon runs or, you know, not that they're a bad thing to do every once in a while, but if you're, you're keeping your body in a state of fight or flight, then that's going to increase your cortisol, which that's the thing that is preventing so many people from, you know, losing that load and then that just feeling of like pain in the joints and, and all of it.

(00:11:29) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Exactly. And it's like we're doing it to ourselves unknowingly.

(00:11:34) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Right. Yeah.

(00:11:35) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Unknowingly. And it's just it's, it's, you know, unfair too because like we're not taught any of this. Like we are also taught to like live like a man. Like work really hard, work, you know, late hours. Don't get sleep. Like your business should be your entire focus. Work out really hard. Like all of these things that just don't work for women's bodies. Like they really, really don't and we just are setting ourselves up for kind of disaster later on when we don't pay attention to it.

(00:12:35) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Gosh. So what, what is, I mean, I don't, I don't even really know how to formulate this question but I almost want to know like what is the origin of that? So you know back in cave people times, you know, why, why is it quote unquote, I'll just say maladaptive for women to be in that state of stress. So, how, how did it help the tribe for women to to maybe be a little bit more calm and and long-lasting sustainable type of energy versus the, the, the sprints of energy, right? Yeah.

(00:12:59) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Well, I'll explain a little bit like the science behind how cortisol is impacting all of this, right? Because I think that can be helpful because we haven't, our world has evolved so much and so quickly around us, but we as humans really haven't. The way our brains work, the way our bodies work, like they haven't really changed since hundreds of years ago, you know, and what's happening essentially when our cortisol, our stress hormone is elevated consistently, that's telling our brain to shut off other processes in the body. So that includes our metabolism, that includes progesterone production, and when we're not producing enough progesterone, progesterone and estrogen balance each other out. So if we're not producing enough, enough progesterone, we likely have estrogen dominance or too, too much estrogen that our body isn't able to detox. And so that high estrogen which leads to all of kind of those symptoms that a lot of my clients experience that I've experienced in the past, which is, you know, that high stress, can't sleep, inability to lose weight, weight gain unexpectedly. All of these different things are because of those imbalances that are kind of happening. And we're just not taught that. Like I've never been taught that besides obviously that I went back to like school for that specifically. So, we're just unfortunately not taught any of that. And a lot of like science or a lot of kind of like health studies have been done historically on men's bodies because women's bodies are too complicated because of our hormones and our hormone fluctuations. So, they haven't treated it as like a control group. So, that's why a lot of the things HIIT classes, keto, you know, all these kind of trends a lot of the times are work for men's bodies, but then they don't really work for women's bodies.

(00:15:03) HOST: Adrienne Garland
My Gosh. Yeah. And you're so right. Hormones fluctuate. I, I know even, you know, if you go one day for a blood test and you have your hor, hormone levels checked, if you go, you know, the next day or the next week or something, you might have a completely different result. So, how can somebody who's going through these hormonal fluctuations and are experiencing some of these, you know, negative outcomes like not being able to sleep or even anxiety, right? How can someone recognize that it's, it's not them, right? It's, it's their hormones.

(00:15:35) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah. Yeah. So, I guess I'll go through some of the symptoms first that are pretty typical. So, feeling kind of like tired yet wired at night, like you're exhausted, but your mind won't stop. That's a really kind of clear sign of high cortisol. So, can't fall asleep, tired yet wired. Waking up between 2 to 4:00 a.m. Also a really big sign of high cortisol. Yeah, honestly most of my clients sleep happening and that used to happen to me. That was what was going on when I went to see my naturopath. I was like, I can't sleep through the night. That yeah, plays a huge role. So those two things for sure. Again, that kind of unexpected weight gain, like you feel like you're doing everything right, right, but your weight continues to go up, especially around the belly or inability to lose weight. Kind of similar, bloated all the time, frequent headaches or migraines, bad PMS symptoms. That was a big one for me that like unlocked a lot because we're taught PMS is normal. Like we're taught, oh, you're just getting your period. Like mood swings, cramps, bloating. Like that's actually not normal. It's actually signs of the hormonal imbalances and can be completely avoided. It's crazy. Like I have pain-free periods now and they used to be terrible. So that's a really big one. And then irregular periods, regular cycles is also a very, you know, clear sign of hormonal imbalance. So those are the biggest signs and symptoms that I see and a lot of women experience.

(00:16:32) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
The things that you can do. So I'll maybe go through like each of those pillars just briefly if possible. So nutrition I'll start with. I always start with nutrition with everyone because that's kind of the easiest one quote unquote to start to shift and the quickest one where we'll start to see changes and results. So first thing protein have again at least 25 to 30 grams of protein per meal. The balance of the plate is very important because blood sugar regulation is very, very important for hormone balance. So in every meal ideally we want to have some fruits and veggies for fiber. We want to have that protein intake and then healthy fats and healthy carbohydrates. So ideally we're having all of those things in each meal to help balance blood sugar and also to help our body have enough nutrients to produce the hormones that we need to produce. Our hormones are literally created from amino acids from the protein, fatty acids, and cholesterol from healthy fats. So, we need all of these things in order to create our hormones as well. So, that would be like my top two in the nutrition part of things.

(00:17:15) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Let me just ask with the, Yeah, I, I we'll go to movement. With the nutrition, there are times when it's not possible to have that mix at every meal. What can you do to at least ensure that you know if you can't get that really great mix for every meal that you're at least attempting to get some of these things in throughout the, the day. What do you, what do you suggest in terms of like snacking or eating in between, or Yeah. Or if you're not able to, you know, have lunch, you know, until 3:00 in the afternoon or something. What can you do so that you're, that you, you know that your blood sugar is, is it might not be perfectly balanced, but you're not letting it go wildly out of control.

(00:18:00) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah. So, I would try like with like a snack or or any meal, even if you're like eating out and you can't have a perfectly healthy balanced meal, like I really do always encourage like how can I add in protein, whether it's like mixed nuts or a little nut butter or, you know, like some quinoa, like whatever. That seems harder, but some like chicken, rotisserie chicken. You can,

(00:18:22) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Just grab some quinoa.

(00:18:23) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Grab some quinoa. Yeah, exactly. Make that on my way to work. Yeah. But like adding in some of like easy protein sources, I think, or having some just on deck, I think, can make a really big difference. I always, always recommend, I know it sounds hard, but I promise it's not. Meal prepping. Like, take an hour on every Sunday and prep some meals. Like, not even full meals. You can just prep again like some chicken, some protein sources so that you can easily grab them.

(00:19:07) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Egg biscuits, hard-boiled eggs. Even like we just need stuff prepped because we're all busy and we need to have things to be easily like grabbable. And then let's say like we're having, you know, you want like a banana, like bananas are great, have bananas, whatever you want. It can be kind of elevated in a way for blood sugar balance if we add like a nut butter because then we're adding in a little bit of protein and healthy fat. and that won't spike your blood sugar as much. So, just thinking about ways you can add things in, I think, can be really helpful.

(00:19:28) HOST: Adrienne Garland
That's so good. Okay. Yeah, I love the banana with some almond butter and you're good to go. All right, let's move on to movement.

(00:19:40) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Okay, so movement. I know movement can be a confusing one because a lot of people don't really know where to start. So, I always say, so first of all, cycle syncing. Have you heard of cycle syncing, Adrian? No. Okay. So, cycle syncing is the idea of syncing your workouts with the phases of your cycle. So, it's essentially like in the first kind of half of our cycle and follicular and ovulation, our body is primed more for kind of that higher intensity and higher impact workouts. So, that is a good time if your body feels good with it to maybe add in like a hit class or a run or whatever it is. And then that second half of our cycle when we're getting into our ludial phase, that's the time to kind of like pull back a little bit just in terms of intensity and impact. So, we could do like resistance training, strength training, yoga, pilates. So, that's really helpful. That's made a really big difference for me because when we're in our ludial phase, our phase right before our period starts, our body is more stressed out and more inflamed and we don't want to add more stress unnecessarily.

(00:21:04) HOST: Adrienne Garland
So much sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It makes a really big difference. It's so interesting. So, let me ask the question for the older ladies, including myself. So, as you're getting into menopause and you don't necessarily go through those phases or those phases are incredibly erratic, what are some suggestions? Because you, you're not going to know whether you're in the first half, second half, you know, whatever.

(00:21:42) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Totally. Who knows? Yes. So, my suggestion there is strength training. Strength training is so important for all of us, but especially as we age because as our estrogen starts to drop, our kind of bone strength starts to decline, right? And so we really need to support that with muscle. And so strength training is super, super important. And there are so many ways like I know it can also sound intimidating sometimes of like, well where do I start? There are so many free resources now on YouTube. YouTube. You can literally go to chat GBT and say like, "Give me a dumbbell only strength training workout and it will give you a workout." Like I use it all the time.

(00:23:05) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
So there are ways to do it with just like a pair of dumbbells and a yoga mat and free ways to find workouts to do, you know? So I have some like, you know, influencers that I follow that I love that give free workouts every week. So there are lots of resources out there. You just kind of have to search if you don't know where to start. But that is the biggest thing that I would say like walking, getting about at least 6,500 steps a day and strength training.

(00:23:05) HOST: Adrienne Garland
So for the people that are entrepreneurs, which is the majority of the audience here on the She Leads podcast and we're, we're, we're busy. We're taking care of emails. We're sitting down all day. How, how, what can we do? Because I have to tell you that as much as I, I exercise and I really do the, the and I try to take walks and and all of it. I feel that the majority of my day is spent sitting down and I, I know that it's not, it's not working for me anymore.

(00:23:43) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. I would say like if you can squeeze in even like 10 minutes in between calls just to get up and like walk around a little bit, I think that can be really helpful. I also think another, so, I'm very like, I'm a planner, you know, like I love planning. So, I really plan my whole week out and I do recommend it for all of us, especially when we're busy and working and building business.

(00:24:23) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
So, at the start of the week when you're kind of like organized in your calendar, things like that, fit in or schedule in your workouts. Even if it's like a 20 minute workout a day, that's amazing, you know? So, like 20 minutes in the morning, I'm gonna go on a 20 minute walk at two. I'm gonna take this call while I'm walking. So, like really, think about it. Take it, takes maybe 10 minutes to just take a moment on a Sunday and schedule out your week including the workouts. I think that's like the most helpful thing because if you're like me, like I live by my calendar. If it's not on my calendar, it's not happening.

(00:25:21) HOST: Adrienne Garland
It doesn't happen. Yeah. I love these strategies as success factors for women entrepreneurs. So instead of listening to that, you know, go hard, you know, drive through, through everything. Even if you're, you know, throwing up, keep, keep going. It's more like I kind of feel like it's more like surf the wave and and and go. But, but plan what you're saying is so important. Plan out. So if you can plan, you don't need to plan ahead for five years. That's overwhelming. No. Week by week,

(00:26:27) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Week by week,

(00:26:28) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Week by week. And even, you know, even maybe at the beginning of the day after you've had your protein and then your coffee may, you know, you can, you can plan okay what am I going to do today and where is the movement within my calendar and if it's not there, you need to change that because we need, we need to be bu, building these businesses for the long hall.

(00:26:55) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah.

(00:26:56) HOST: Adrienne Garland
So, so we have, we touched a couple of pillars and I want to make sure that we get to all of them, so we did nutrition and and movement are, are there more, did I miss?

(00:27:08) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
There's just one more.

(00:27:10) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Yeah, okay, one more, got there.

(00:27:12) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Mindfulness.

(00:27:14) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Mindfulness. We love mindfulness.

(00:27:16) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah. Yeah. That's a huge one. And I find that that one is the first one to kind of fall by the wayside when we get busy and when we are stressed, even though that's kind of like the one that will calm our stress. It's interesting. Yeah. But it's huge like because again, just as women in this world, as business owners, likely our stress levels in cortisol are going to be high and we need to have a daily practice to check in with ourselves and to calm our nervous system in order to lower our cortisol and our stress levels and that daily practice can look like whatever feels best for you. Everyone is different. For me, I love to like meditate in the morning, five minutes, nothing crazy. I like to journal a little bit. I like to read for 10 minutes and then like go on with my day. Sometimes I'll do some gratitude journaling at night, but, but those practices where again you just take a few minutes to check in with yourself, come back to yourself are so important where you can just like breathe and calm the body down. So that is the third pillar and like potentially the most important even though a lot of us don't think about it.

(00:28:56) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Yeah. And it occurs to me that you could pair together that afternoon 20 minute walk with some mindfulness and deep breathing techniques. And I do, it's so funny. I've actually been listening and I, I know he might be a little radical, but I've been listening to Joe Dispenza lately. He's, it's fascinating. But this idea of, you know, what anxiety is, right? It, it's, it's your mind is in the future instead of in the present. And then so he talks so much about we're either reliving the past or trying to project what's going to happen in the future and we don't live enough in the moment and I find that so fascinating even this morning, as I was listening to him and walking my dog because you got to pair everything together at the same time. You know I, I, I did say to myself like I, you know, I truly live in such a beautiful place. I, I live near the water, there's greenery and beautiful trees everywhere and, you know, and there was a hawk that flew above my head this morning and, you know, I'm like my gosh like,

(00:30:17) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah. Totally. I know. And we like don't even let ourselves enjoy it. So like most of the time,

(00:30:23) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Right. And it's like if you can just like I'm, I'm walking like you know in, in the yoga class that I go to, she talks about the easiest thing to do when you're, or trying to do any type of breathing is just saying to yourself, "I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out" so that you're just aware of exactly where you are and what you're doing. And it's not hard. And that's the key, too. Like, because there's another I don't know. I, I would love to hear your opinion on this. There's almost like in the pursuit of destressing, we stress ourselves out.

(00:31:39) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
100%. Yeah, for sure. Yes.

(00:31:42) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Wow.

(00:31:43) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah, it's true because and I hear so much like all the time, I'm bad at meditating. I can't meditate. And it's like I think we get this. Yes. We put pressure on ourselves for everything. And clearly I do it too. Like every single thing, right? We need to be perfect and we need to be doing it right and whatever. And literally the practice of meditating is just the practice of continuing to come back to the present even if it's every other second like your mind is going to wander you come back mind is going to wander you come back and I love that practice of like I'm breathing in, I'm breathing out because then all you can focus on is that breath and that breath the deep belly breaths literally tell your brain I am safe I am calm I do not need to produce cortisol so that keeps your body in that rest and digest mode which is what we're kind of aiming for you know as often as we can like we're not going to be in that mode every single day, that would be amazing, but we're just not going to be there. But if we can get to that mode at least once a day, like it's huge. It makes the biggest difference.

(00:33:14) HOST: Adrienne Garland
So fascinating. And you know, it's like sometimes you have to hear things many times for it to really hit. And this idea of being in rest and digest and that you can literally do something to get yourself there by doing that deep breathing. I've heard that before and but it, it, it just hit me now like it, it gives you a physiological change that can put you into that rest. And if you can say that's where you know that's the place that I need to be more often than not because even though we're talking about cortisol and that it, you know it's, it's quote unquote bad, it's actually not bad. It's, No, we need, bad to be there all the time, right?

(00:34:04) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We need cortisol to survive, but most of us just have, are producing too much of it all the time. Yeah.

(00:34:11) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Because we're constantly in survival,

(00:34:13) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Constant in survival. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like I think too the mindfulness piece of it like it brings in how connected the mind and body are. They are so connected. Our body is constantly listening to our mind and how we speak to ourselves. Our mind is constantly paying attention to the body and how we're like clenched and running around and our heart rate is like elevated, you know? So, they're so, so connected. And so, again, when we allow ourselves to have those practices, it allows that connection to strengthen and like start to really connect to your body and understand like, okay, yeah, like I'm really tired today. Maybe this is what I need instead of this. You know, like honoring the body. We're just constantly pushing past all of these signals that our bodies are telling us until it gets to a point where we act like absolutely have to listen. We have no other choice.

(00:35:05) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Yeah. And that is not good when you're building a business. So, do you have any, I mean I think all of these, all of this information, all of these strategies, all of these tips are they're critical success factors for anybody that is building a business, probably even more important. But how do you sort of and I don't know if you, if, if some of your clients are entrepreneurs and things like that. But, you know, there, when you're building a business, there are definitely times that are stressful. There are times that you do have to just put your head down and forget everything else. And especially at that point where, you know, maybe after you've launched your business, you're growing your business, and you're still in that stress mode. Do you have any just suggestions beyond what we've talked about for women that they're probably a little bit older, right? They're, they're at a point in their business where, you know, they're, they're looking toward, you know, growing, building staff, you know, putting processes into place, getting visibility for themselves, right? What are some of the suggestions that you might offer to a woman who finds herself in that place in her life?

(00:36:10) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah. Well, I think also too, like I think just remind yourself that you don't need, like taking time for yourself, just for yourself, not for your business, not for anyone else is so important. Like if we're not filling our own cup up, we literally cannot fill anyone else's. I know we, we hear that a lot now, but it's so true. Like you have to take care of yourself because no one else is going to do it for you. So I think that's just like number one to remind yourself.

(00:36:53) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
And then I think to have some non-negotiables, right? Like I don't think that there should ever be a time where you're like, I'm so, you know, a week, I get it. A week, two weeks maybe. But if you go months on end without working out and moving your body intentionally, like there's something wrong. You need to take a step back and you need to be real with yourself. Like I don't need to push my like what is this actually doing for me? You know, maybe my business is growing, but for me like you are not your business. You still need to take care of yourself and your body. And so I think kind of like separating them that and recognizing that that's really important is the first step. Like really understand how to take that time for yourself. And then yeah, have some non-negotiables. Like this is what I do. I have, I get eight hours of sleep. That is my non-negotiable. Like I work out four times a week. That is my non-negotiable because I know like if I don't work out, I'm a mess. Like I have high anxiety. I don't feel good. So having those non-negotiables and fitting them into your schedule in a realistic way I think is really important and hopefully like an actionable kind of takeaway.

(00:38:09) HOST: Adrienne Garland
I love that so much and I think that it's, I mean it's important for everybody. It's super important for women that are, are growing their business. And I think what it, it signals to to everybody else around is that this is what leadership looks like. Leadership is not pushing yourself to the brink of of a breakdown or like that's old burnout because if you, if you are the driving force of your business, you, you need to be a healthy driving force. You, you can't be like you're saying a mess. Your mind's all over the place, anxious, unhealthy. Who wants to look up to a leader like that? Not me.

(00:39:07) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah. Right. And also too, like come back to why you created your business. Like I know for me, I created my business one because Yeah. I want help people, but also cuz like I want freedom. I want freedom to be able to do whatever I want like you know during the day. Obviously you have to do some things but like what did you do build your business for? Cuz if we want to be miserable and work hard hours and all that we could go to corporate like you know have everything else taken care of.

(00:39:55) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Yes.

(00:39:55) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Like we don't want that.

(00:40:02) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Just go back there.

(00:40:02) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yeah. They got that they got that like really wrapped up, right? Like we could do that real easy. But like why did you create your own business, you know, like it's not to feel unhealthy and unhappy and miserable in our bodies. It's to have more freedom.

(00:40:27) HOST: Adrienne Garland
Yeah. And I, I think that that is something that as women entrepreneurs that we make sure that that is part of our business from the very beginning so that we, we don't even get into that place. I love that so much, Maddy. I feel like I could talk to you forever. I'm sure that everybody listening in wants to talk to you, too, because we all have our like situations and scenarios and we're all individuals and everything. So, how can people get in touch with you so that you can help them be their healthiest self?

(00:41:18) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Yes, thank you, Adrian. Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram, @maddypollack_health. Also, my website, maddypollackhealth.com. And then I work one-on-one with clients. And then I also have an online community called Becoming Balanced Together. And it's like my favorite place on the internet. You get weekly meal plans, workouts, mindfulness practices. So, we do all of it all together in community, which is just amazing. So, yeah.

(00:41:51) HOST: Adrienne Garland
I love that so much. We'll include all of those links in the show notes and I just thank you so much for spending time with me here today and giving us all, all the goods, all the goodies.

(00:42:01) GUEST: Maddy Pollack
Thank you. Thanks, Adrian. I appreciate you so, so much. This is so fun.

(00:42:05) HOST: Adrienne Garland
If this conversation moved you, inspired you, or made you think differently, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's not just about boosting the show. It's about amplifying the voices of women entrepreneurs who are leading with vision, building with purpose, and shaping what's next. We need more of these conversations in the world right now, don't you think? And if someone came to mind while you were listening, someone who matters to you, send this episode to them. If there's something on your mind about leadership, legacy, or what's next. I want to hear it. Head to sheleadsmedia.com/voice and leave a voice memo or note. Your insight might just help shape a future episode. Make sure to follow the show and come back next week for more conversations you won't hear anywhere else. Thank you so much for listening. This is the She Leads Podcast Network.