IAM040 – Culinary Coach & Kitchen Interventionist Empowers Individuals to Take Control of Their Wellness

Kristen Coffield, Culinary Coach, and Kitchen Interventionist empowers individuals to take control of their wellness with tools to help them navigate the complicated and overwhelming landscape of health and diet information. The Culinary Cure starts with what’s at the end of the fork to help people change their health destiny.

• CEO HACK: iPhone and capturing the world around you and understanding what the world is listening to
• CEO Nugget: Think of food as a part of your productivity package. Think of food and use it in a utilitarian way.
• CEO Defined: Leading by example and creating brand ambassadors.

Website: theculinarycure.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/theculinarycurebykristencoffield
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kristen-coffield-b4b488a
Twitter: twitter.com/kristencoffield
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/kjcoffield/
YouTube www.youtube.com/channel/UC0cGHFY9U2PQ24u60WPomuw
Instagram: instagram.com/kristencoffield
Google plus Kristen Coffield: plus.google.com/115119773687341532634

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Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Kristen Coffield from the culinary project,

Kristen Coffield 0:37

The Culinary Cure

Gresham Harkless 0:38

The Culinary Cure. I'm sorry, Kristen, I appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule and speaking to the I AM CEO community. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Kristen Coffield 0:48

I am. Let's go.

Gresham Harkless 0:49

Awesome, awesome, awesome. But what I want to do first was to read a little bit more about you so people get a good idea of you and your background and all the awesome things that you're doing. So Kristen Cofield is the Culinary Coach and Kitchen Interventionist and she empowers individuals to take control of their wellness with tools to help them navigate the complicated and overwhelming landscape of health and diet information. The Culinary Cure starts with what's at the end of the fork to help people change their health destiny. So Kristen, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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Kristen Coffield 1:29

I am

Gresham Harkless 1:30

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, what I wanted to do was just kind of give you the mic so to speak. So you can tell us a little bit more about your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

Kristen Coffield 1:37

All right, so the Culinary Cure is really the accumulation of lots of life experiences. I've been in the food business for a very long time. I had a catering company in Washington, I had a healthy delivery meal service long before, that was all the rage, I clearly missed that opportunity. I was feeding my kids organic baby food before anybody was doing that.

And then my life really went into disaster mode. So I had a 10-year period where everything bad happened. I lost my mother to cancer, I lost my father to Alzheimer's, those are both lifestyle diseases that can be controlled by changing the way you approach your wellness destiny. I myself developed fibroid cancer, my marriage was in trouble, my dog died, my last child went to college, and we were in financial trouble. And then I ruptured my L4-L5. It was just a series of unfortunate events. And I am not alone when I shared this story. Many people find themselves in a situation where their very well-controlled worlds start to go out of control. And it doesn't happen right away. It happens over time.

So having said all of that, I had this great food skill set. And when I was at my lowest point, and I felt I had no control over anything, what I did still have control over was what was on the end of my fork. So I took back control of my life, one bite at a time, I started with food. And once you change the way you eat, and you start eating, to empower your body and it helps empower your mind, then you've got a little more energy.

So you start going to the gym, and then you like the way you look and feel and you start to sleep better. And all of a sudden, more things become possible. So I took all those experiences that led me to that place where I was taking back my life, one bite at a time. And I figured other people could use those tools to reboot their own lives. So I started the Culinary Cure. It initially was just sort of a platform where people could get recipes and information.

And now it's turned into something so much more. I'm really trying to help people, not just one on one coaching, but I'm really hoping that I can help people change their lives in every aspect starting with food.

Gresham Harkless 4:29

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And obviously sorry to hear about those 10 years. But sometimes what doesn't kill you makes you strong so they say.

Kristen Coffield 4:36

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 4:37

Here you go, here you go. So what I wanted to do was learn a little bit more about like, what are the actual services? How do you support and serve the clients that you work with?

Kristen Coffield 4:45

Absolutely. So I do some one-on-one coaching but that's really not my end goal. I love to get into companies and I do corporate wellness programs. And what I love about that is people spend more time in the workplace than anywhere else. And so that has the biggest influence. If you have a wellness culture where you work that spills over into people's private lives, and then people bring that home, and they share it with their family. corporate wellness is a huge, huge market because health care is out of control.

And lifestyle diseases are controllable, which means you can change yourself on a biological level to prevent getting diabetes, cancer, heart disease, hypertension, and the list goes on the neurological decline is a big one. So by educating people and giving them the tools, I can really make a big impact. But this is a great term. So biohacking is a very popular term right now, Silicon Valley is trying to find all these ways of developing products to help people bio-hack their health.

Gresham Harkless 6:02

Right.

Kristen Coffield 6:03

Well, what I do is a very organic form of biohacking. So you control quite a bit, people don't realize just how much they control, and you can bio-hack your own life. So biohacking is basically taking all the things that you input, and that's into your body and your mindset, sleep and exercise, and food, and what you watch on TV and your thoughts and the people you surround yourself with. And then you tweak your inputs to improve the output. So the output is like your productivity at work and your emotions and those sorts of things. So I teach people how to basically bio-hack their own lives in a very organic way. And it starts in the kitchen, it really starts in the kitchen.

Gresham Harkless 6:56

Interesting. So what you're saying is you basically take people, whatever they put into their bodies or into their systems, that's what kind of manifests themselves and how they feel and how they're acting and how their day goes, really interesting.

Kristen Coffield 7:09

And when you have your own company, you are working all the time, you're always thinking about your business, there's never enough time in the day for us, for entrepreneurs,

Gresham Harkless 7:22

Can I get 25 hours?

Kristen Coffield 7:24

Exactly. And what you have to realize is sleep is one of the most important tools, you should never undervalue sleep because it's the thing that helps you go, go go, it's when your body can create growth hormones. And it's when you detox all the negative and environmental toxins of the day. And of course, now we're living in this world where we're on these screens all day and that's affecting our brains and our bodies, too. So you've got to sleep and you can't cut sleep short. So how do you maximize the rest of your time? How do you use food as a tool to achieve your business goals?

Gresham Harkless 8:07

Right, right. No, that's a huge thing. And I imagine that a lot of people never really thought of that, especially busy entrepreneurs and business owners that are running around all the time that don't really want to sleep but have to sleep as you said, but understanding that these bio hacks that they can do and implement into their lives to be more effective and efficient, and not only them but also their teams.

Kristen Coffield 8:26

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 8:27

And their families as well, too. So that's super awesome. So what I wanted to ask you now is a little bit more about what I call your secret sauce. So this might be what you feel makes you unique, or what sets you apart from people that may do something similar to what it is that you do.

Kristen Coffield 8:42

Well, there are sort of two things that I do that nobody else does. So I teach people culinary resilience, starting in their own kitchens with my kitchen intervention. And that's helping people create their own superpower in their kitchen, by reorganizing or getting rid of if you're gonna get to your walk, you better not have a panini machine in front of it.

You know what I mean? Like, strip it down to what you need, so you can do what you need to do. But my biggest secret sauce, and anybody who knows me, well will tell you, I get up at 4:15 in the morning. I know that sounds awful. To some people, it really doesn't matter when you get up. What matters is how you harness those first waking hours when you're the freshest. When you have your best energy, your clearest mind. So I get up at 4:15 I drink my warm lemon water with coconut oil because you want those good MCT oils to fuel up your brand and your body and you'll burn them for fuel not store them as fat and then I work out at 5 am.

Gresham Harkless 9:46

Awesome.

Kristen Coffield 9:47

So by the time I get home from the gym, it's like 6:15 I've already done all kinds of stuff. I have not looked at my cell phone. That is one thing I haven't done. I haven't gotten on my cell phone and I haven't got on my computer that's carve some time out at the very beginning of the day to set yourself up for success.

Gresham Harkless 10:08

Awesome, awesome, awesome. That makes perfect sense as doing that at the beginning of the day is huge. And I know that I myself sometimes use my telephone as my alarm clock in my game machine and also my work machine. So being able to kind of shut that down and not look at that, make sure you're not driven or sucked into all the things that are happening, you're not kind of passive to what's going on. So that's huge. So now I wanted to kind of switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And a CEO hack is an app or book or something that you use or, or lean on on a regular everyday basis that makes you effective and efficient.

Kristen Coffield 10:43

Well, being in the food and wellness business, I'm a recipe developer, I have to say, I love my, iPhone, for a bunch of reasons, I'm constantly capturing inspiration, everywhere I go. And that might be food I see that might be somebody dressed a certain way. But I think capturing the world around you makes you a little more aware of everything around you and what your role is, in that world. My role is to help people live their best lives. So the only way I can do that effectively is by understanding what their world is like.

Gresham Harkless 11:30

No, That's huge, that's huge, especially for people that are trying to connect and build relationships with people to kind of be dialed in and understand like, this is what your ideal client or what everybody is reading or watching or listening to is definitely a phenomenal CEO hack. So awesome. Wow. Now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And that might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice that you might have.

Kristen Coffield 11:53

I like to really encourage people to think of food, throw out everything they already think about food, and think of food as a tool that's part of your productivity package. So instead of thinking of food as just oh, I've got to eat something. Think of food as this really important component that's going to help you accomplish your goals. I tell people Monday to Friday, use their food in a utilitarian fashion, think of what can I eat to power them through the day, kind of strategically use food, and then live their life on the weekends. Because honestly, diets don't work because they're not sustainable. This is about creating a sustainable lifestyle that fuels you up. That gives you the mental energy, quality sleep, and focus that you need to live your best life.

Gresham Harkless 12:50

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah, that's powerful. And I love that because now food doesn't become like a habit or something you have to do becomes a tool that you're using to help you to reach your goals or help you to feel better, or help you to have a better relationship or whatever that is.

Kristen Coffield 13:03

And you actually just said something really important. We are the sum of our habitual behaviors. And people are very unaware of their behavior patterns around food. So when you start to create new behavior patterns that support what you want to accomplish in your life. It's a very powerful tool.

Gresham Harkless 13:22

Awesome, awesome, awesome. And that's definitely kind of one of those bio hacks or hacks that we can definitely incorporate into our lives. So I love that. So now I wanted to ask you what I call my favorite question, which is your definition of what it means to be a CEO. So we're hoping to have a lot of different CEOs on this podcast for big huge fortune 500 companies, smaller companies, and solopreneurs. So I wanted to ask you specifically what being a CEO means to you?

Kristen Coffield 13:47

I have a small company. So I have three people that work for me. And I think being a CEO, means that I'm leading by example. I'm showing my team so that they can be ambassadors for my brand. The best way to do that is to help other people. And I also coach all of my employees. So I do wellness coaching for them and help them live their best lives. But our goal is to really help people so creating brand ambassadors and people who understand the power of the end of the fork is really where we're going.

Gresham Harkless 14:29

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, Kristen, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. I wanted to see and pass the mic to you to see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best people can get ahold of you.

Kristen Coffield 14:42

Well, my website is theculinarycure.com I would love for your readers to go to my website and sign up to get my free live like you mean playbook. I think of this as being the starting point for starting your best wellness journey. It's got recipes and tips and really doable actions that you can use right now to live your best life. And of course, follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration.

Gresham Harkless 15:09

Awesome, awesome, awesome. I will make sure to have those in the show notes just in case anybody wants to click through and follow you. But Kristen, and I appreciate you so much for helping empower us to learn a little bit more about how we can live our best lives and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Kristen Coffield 15:22

Awesome. Thank you Gresh appreciate being here.

Gresham Harkless 15:25

Awesome. Thank you.

Outro 15:27

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co.  I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, And leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Thank you for listening.

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