IAM2388 – Certified Holistic Health Coach and Entrepreneur Teaches on How to Become a Healthier and Authentic Self

Nicole Nelson is a certified holistic health coach, wellness influencer, and entrepreneur, who transitioned from a corporate job as an engineer at General Mills to pursue her passion for health and wellness.

Nicole launched her health coaching business, Living Well with Nick, in 2016, and has since helped others lead healthier, more authentic lives.

She earned her health coaching certification from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN) and started her business on the side.

Nicole describes her transition as life-changing and is grateful for the difficult experiences that pushed her to follow her true passion.

Her approach revolves around digestion and overall wellness, addressing clients’ personal lives and stressors that may affect their health.

Nicole attributes her business success to a focus on service, emphasizing the importance of listening to client's needs and creating a supportive environment.

Website: Living Well With Nic

LinkedIn: Nicole Nelson

Instagram: livingwellwithnic

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Transcription:

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Nicole Nelson Teaser 00:00

So my main focus is helping people really get their digestion on track and I try not to really push a diet.

I'm doing that in air quotes because I don't believe in diets but a specific way of eating to my clients.

I personally follow a plant-based diet, but I try to listen to my clients needs and listen to how their body needs to be fueled because everyone is different.

Intro 00:26

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:53

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. Have Nicole Nelson of livingwellwithnic.com. Nicole, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Nicole Nelson 01:03

Awesome to have me. Thank you for having me.

Gresham Harkless 01:05

No problem, no problem. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about Nicole so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.

And Nicole is a certified holistic health coach, wellness influencer and entrepreneur. At the age of 25, she left her corporate job as an engineer and set out on a mission to create a life that set her soul on fire.

She teaches others how to become their healthiest, happiest and most authentic self through private and small-group coaching.

She also helps other wellness entrepreneurs grow profitable, passionate, authentic businesses that allow them to live more joy filled lives. Nicole, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Nicole Nelson 01:38

I am ready.

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Gresham Harkless 01:39

Awesome. Let's do it. So the first question that I had was to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and what led you to start your business.

Nicole Nelson 01:46

So I actually went to school for packaging engineering, something completely unrelated to health and wellness.

And after college I ended up landing my dream job with General Mills. And this had been a lifelong dream.

My dad works there and we were actually the first father-daughter packaging team in the company's history, which was really cool.

And I, quickly learned though, after that honeymoon phase wore off of any new job you have, that just the corporate environment, the type of work I was doing was just not fulfilling.

And I had this moment of oh my gosh, what am I doing? I just spent my whole life preparing for this and I'm really worried that I will not be happy.

And even though I have this quote-unquote perfect job on paper. I just was not fulfilled at all on the inside.

So I received my health coaching certification through IIN and about halfway through that program I launched my own health coaching business, Living Well with Nic.

So that was born in February of 2016 and actually my three year anniversary is coming up this week, which is really exciting.

So I started blogging, I was doing a lot of recipe development and then when I graduated I started seeing clients one-on-one.

So my business was slowly growing on the side because I was still working full-time at General Mills.

My job was very demanding, I was traveling a lot. So I reached this point in April of 2018. I had this wake-up call. I was actually on a business trip and I was just burnt out.

My anxiety was through the roof. I was so stressed and I just said, you know what, this is no longer serving me.

I can't keep holding on to this dream that this will get better and I can just have this little side business.

So I decided to just quit. I gave my notice at the end of April. So it's coming up on a year this April that I've been an entrepreneur full-time.<

And it was amazing to see not only the shift in my business, but also the personal shift with myself and how I really got a lot of my personality back that my corporate job had completely sucked out of me.

So it's been a very, very exciting year. But that's kind of my background. I went from having extremely stressful, not fulfilling corporate job to this thriving business that I created.

And I am the happiest I've ever been in my entire life. So it's been a very fun past few years.

Gresham Harkless 04:21

Nice. That's definitely awesome to hear and happy three years as well. Make sure I won't forget that.

And I think a lot of times when, when you're younger, sometimes you think and see like this is what I'm going to be when I'm going to grow up.

And that might be the path and that might be how that happens for some people, but sometimes we kind of forget that we also evolve as people.

So sometimes we learn a little bit more about ourselves or we have an experience that we want to kind of pursue and we evolve over time just like everything else does.

Nicole Nelson 04:48

Exactly. And I really did a lot of self-reflecting and I said, I think I've been holding onto this corporate packaging engineering dream for my dad at the end of the day and I started finally living for myself and making decisions just thinking about what would make me the happiest.

And at the end of the day, it all worked out how I was supposed to work out. And I tell people, even though I left General Mills, not the way I wanted to.

It was a very difficult decision at the end of the day. But I'm so happy that I had the unfortunate experience. I did not have a very good manager.

And I truly believe to this day that she was really put into my life to kind of push me in the right direction and push me to take the leap sooner than I did instead of getting super comfortable and just keep saying, yeah, this is okay.

I'll just make it one more year, one more year. So even though my experience was very, very challenging while I was in it, I'm so incredibly grateful that I've been on this path because I have learned so much about myself.

And being an entrepreneur, you have to be very resilient and you really have to be your own cheerleader and own motivator.

And I learned very quickly to do that at my corporate job when things got really hard. And so that skill has really helped me in my own business.

Gresham Harkless 06:17

I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear a little bit more about what you're doing to help support the clients that you work with and what you feel kind of set you apart.

Nicole Nelson 06:24

Yes. So when I was in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, they talked a lot about niching down your health coaching practice, which basically means to find a specific group of people that you are interested in helping, or it could be a specific area of nutrition that you're really passionate about.

So when I was thinking about my ideal client, I was thinking of someone who was similar to myself in the aspect of they were female, they worked in the corporate environment, they were stressed out, and ultimately they were overwhelmed by all of the diets and the fad diets that were out there.

And so my main focus is helping people really get their digestion on track. And I try not to really push a diet. I'm doing that in air quotes because I don't believe in diets, but a specific way of eating to my clients.

I personally follow a plant-based diet, but I try to listen to my clients needs and listen to how their body needs to be fueled because everyone is different.

And that's another thing IIN really preached was this idea of bio individuality. So a lot of dietitians, they are schooled to come from a place of counting calories and macronutrients and health coaches are really there to listen to the client and help them heal themselves at the end of the day.

So my ideal client, like I said, is someone who is around the age of 30 years old. She's female, single, works in the corporate world and I kid you not my second client was actually my ideal client to a which is actually very, very, it was very telling that I was, I had niched down in the right direction.

So right now my coaching practice is kind of split up a few different ways. I work with people one-on-one and that's typically a six-month basis.

And depending on if the client is local or they're out of state, we'll either meet in person or just over the phone.

And then I also have small group coaching. And this is really great for people who want more of a broad foundation of just wellness and nutrition in general.

They don't really need that one-on-one attention. They're not dealing with a very specific issue and they're interested in building that small, trusting community.

So I try to keep that around five to 10 people. But I would say my main focus with all of my clients, whether it's the small group or one on one, is really digestion.

Because the digestion piece is something that affects all aspects of our life and vice versa. And a really cool part of my job and something that IIN is very passionate about teaching is that IIN health coaches are taught to look at the person as a whole being.

So instead of just asking someone what do you eat on a daily basis, we really get to know the clients well on a personal level and we talk about all areas of your life.

We call it the circle of life. And we figure out how balanced this circle of life is. And when you have these areas of your life, it could be relationships, your career, your finances.

You'll notice that when multiple things are out of balance, or it could be one thing that's just way out of whack. Your food and how you're digesting that food is not optimal.

And so you might be dealing with some food sensitivity issues or weight gain or weight loss that you feel like you have no control over because you're just eating things that you normally wouldn't eat because you're stressed, you're overwhelmed, whatever it is.

So I like to say that health coaches are, we're kind of a breed between therapists and nutritionists.

And I will tell you that 75% of my conversations with my clients are really about just life stuff that they're dealing with.

And it's fascinating to watch this transformation after talking with people about different aspects of their life that they're dealing with and how eventually the food just ties in naturally.

So that I would say that is the one thing that really sets me apart is that personal aspect and getting to know my clients really, really well and teaching them how to heal themselves at the end of the day.

Gresham Harkless 10:45

What I want to do is switch gears a little bit and ask you for I call a CEO hack. And this might be an Apple book or a habit that you have, but it's something that you feel like makes you more effective and efficient.

Nicole Nelson 10:54

I would say my main thing is reading. I swear by reading. I have always been an avid reader, but since being an entrepreneur, it is something that is a non-negotiable for me every single day.

Even if I have time to read a page of a book. It's something that is so incredibly grounding and it forces yourself to be very, very present.

I feel like it's different than, you know, listening to music in the background or even an audiobook.

Like you're not, you're not focusing as much as reading words on a page and really absorbing it. So I like to sit down every morning. I try to read for at least 15 minutes.

And I like to switch off between reading books that are both self-development, business-based, finance based and just fun personal reads.

And two books I will say that I swear by and I tell all of my other health coaches that I mentor to read.

These are you are a badass and you are a badass at making money. They are both written by Jen Sincero and I've actually read both of them twice.

But I read that first book when I was still working my corporate job. It really just gave me this boost of confidence that I needed.

And just the information she shares is so incredibly valuable. And you will notice this huge shift in your mindset after you read them.

They're really quick reads, they're funny, they're just really engaging. Those would be my top two books if I had to suggest a new book to someone.

Gresham Harkless 12:26

And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Nicole Nelson 12:35

I would say always come from a place of service. When you are young and you're starting your business, you're not really tuning in to what your consumers or your customers are telling you that they need.