Jennifer Broxterman | Conversations With a Real-Life Care Bear!

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:01]:

Welcome back to the Weird and Strong podcast. I am your host, Jeremy Grunsteiner. This episode is so fantastic. If you've ever wondered what a real life Care Bear is like, then this is the episode for you. We have Jennifer Broxterman from Prosper Nutrition Coaching, and she tells her amazing story of how she came to realize, guys, that her superpower was being a real life Care Bear and how she's used that to defeat cancer and how she uses that with her clients. So buckle up, and let's get weird. Welcome, Jennifer Broxterman to the weird and strong podcast. I'm so glad you're here today.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:00:41]:

Yeah, thanks for having me, especially after we got to cross paths together in Richmond, Virginia.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:46]:

Yes, absolutely. I've heard you on the Enlisted podcast a few times already, and so it was great to see your presentation and then getting to connect the next.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:00:57]:

Here we are.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:00:58]:

Here we are. Yeah. So to start this off, I've got a weird question for you. Are you ready?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:01:03]:

Love it. I am ready. Always the weirder, the better.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:07]:

Before we get into the weird question, I have a preparatory question. What is your favorite food?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:01:13]:

Oh, my gosh. Okay. Pizza. Like, no question. Fly me to Italy. And if I could just have, like, Italian pizza for the rest of my life, I could die very happy.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:24]:

Is there specific toppings or specific style.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:01:27]:

That you're really I love classic. Like, the classic margarita, the classic pepperoni pizza. I'll go there. I'll throw on some artichokes, throw on some arugula, throw in prosciutto, like, be creative. But I love a good, classic cheese and meat pizza.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:01:43]:

Okay, so here's the weird part. Something has happened in the environment, and now every time it rains, your favorite pizza, the classic margarita, starts coming falling from the sky. The question is, do you eat it?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:00]:

I mean, if you could catch it, like, out with your hands and catch a pizza, sure. I'd eat a falling sky pizza. I like pizza enough to do that.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:07]:

Yeah.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:08]:

Maybe even five second rule if it hits the ground.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:10]:

Yeah.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:12]:

Yes, I would.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:14]:

Yes. All right. Awesome. It's always a funny visual to imagine something a pizza just falling from the sky.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:23]:

Absolutely. And now I'm picturing it, like, flipping upside down and pizzas on your windshield like a big bird poop. And you're like, what do I do? Oh, my gosh, it rained pizzas again.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:32]:

Could you imagine the difference of a rainy day?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:36]:

Right?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:38]:

It's gloomy out, but then it would.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:02:41]:

Make a rainy day. I mean, rainy days are great, but if pizza came from the sky, too, that was extra delicious. That's just a bonus. Rainy day.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:02:48]:

Awesome. That's great. So as we talk about things unconventional, I'm going to ask a slightly different question. What is the most unconventional thing about you that people may not know about?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:03:05]:

That I think of myself as a real life Care Bear, and you actually saw me dress up as a Care Bear on a stage. And it was something I did secretly for a really long time and didn't really talk about it. And what I mean by the Care Bear is, like, I'm a kid of the 80s, early ninety s. I grew up loving The Care Bear show. I slept with my little pink cheer bear as my stuffed animal as a kid. And what I always took away from the Care Bear was that you could give really good energy to other people and lift them up and make things better. I always pictured that rainbow of hearts and rainbows and goodness and love coming out of my belly. And whenever I interacted really with any human, I thought about a Care Bear energy exchange of just like, what's in me that can come out and add goodness and love and positivity.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:03:55]:

And my little secret hope was that the person would walk away and not understand why they felt better, but just that they liked interacting with me and they knew that I was a good energy, a good soul to be around. And so I did that for a really long time and then went through a series of tragic events that I'm very proud that I've overcome. And we can get into that if you want, with your audience. And then it was the first time in my life I realized I could also receive Care Bear energy from other humans and just this beautifulness of the exchange of love in this very visual, spiritual way. So that's a really weird thing about me, but I am a super proud adult Care Bear that goes around trying to spread love and rainbows out of my belly everywhere I go.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:04:42]:

So you have that connection through from childhood. What was that path look like as you noticed this? And was it really easy to do to begin with, or is it something that was just a light switch on and off?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:05:00]:

What did you say? Yeah, there was a group of people where it really started to connect for me. So I'm a registered dietitian. I help people have a happy and healthy relationship with food. I really try to opt out of the diet culture shaming and scolding and finger wagging, like, no, you're bad if you eat this food. And so where I started to fall into was a lot of disordered eating and true, very serious eating disorder recovery. So my practice was starting to really attract a lot of young women. But I mean, eating disorders don't discriminate. They show up in all ages, all genders, all body sizes, and just these people who were so down in the dumps because their inner bully, that ed voice, would just not let them feel worthy and deserving of getting better.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:05:45]:

And so I started thinking about my nutrition sessions, obviously being a dietitian and giving helpful nutrition advice and guidance on recovery. But I thought about also this energy component to the nutrition appointment of, like, this person right now has the dark, evil spirit of the Care Bear episode where you're fighting the villain. And I felt like I was trying to pull that person out of the Ed headspace and be like, but there's another clear sky, sunshine and white fluffy clouds other side that we can get you to. And I was like, I think it's going to take a Care Bear Stare to help them break free. And so I started to do this mental Care Bear Stare, and then all of a sudden, my eating disorder clients were like, I've never been able to break this. I've never been able to break through. I've done a lot of therapy. I've had hospitalizations.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:06:34]:

And then they started telling similar friends in that same headspace, and they're like, I don't know what it is, but you have to go see Jen. She has helped me so much more with my eating disorder and my self worth and my self care than any amount of therapy I've ever done. And I was like, I think there's something about this Care Bear Stare that they don't know that I'm doing. That's a part of my treatment plan still, obviously being a dietitian, but bringing in this weird component. I just didn't talk about it because at the time, I was indoctrinated to be a healthcare professional, and you should only do healthcare professional things. And I didn't think admitting that I did this Care Bear Stare seemed very healthcare professionally. And then I was like, it's not on the list of things you get trained in school. But I was like, it works, and it's adding value and benefit, so I'm going to keep doing it.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:07:24]:

Yeah, when you're talking about you don't get taught that in school. It's not in the list of standard practices. It's not in the list of accepted things from an insurance company. No. Was there a point of resistance with that when you were considering it or when you were noticing it? Is what I'm doing right? Or what would people think if they knew what I was doing? Was there any resistance around that, or were you full on like, no, this is working. I'm just going to keep doing it?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:07:54]:

I think it's more of option B. I just was like, full on, this is working. This makes me feel good. This makes them feel good. And it's not just about feeling good. It was translating to positive action. Like, they were moving forward in their recovery. They were getting better.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:08:09]:

Every time I would see them, I would get emails and Christmas cards being like, I had Christmas dinner with my family, and I haven't been able to do that in eight years. I had pizza at my child's birthday party, and I didn't go throw it up afterwards. I am able to go out on a date because I can actually accept a date where food is involved. And so I was seeing people get their lives back and it was almost like they came in in the color gray. And again, I think a lot in colors and rainbows and stuff like that. But I saw these humans would come in drained and dark and gray and then the more I Care Bear stared, the more I gave counsel as a dietitian, the more they kind of came back into full scale color. And it was like they got to be their true, authentic, best version of themselves again. And so I was like, this is working.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:08:58]:

And whether I'm admitting this out loud or not, I think this is a component to their recovery. So I'm going to keep doing it. But it's weird. It's very weird.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:09:12]:

One thing that we've noticed on this show is that people showing up as themselves, you said it best, is that you are a real life adult Care Bear and you showing up as yourself, as your fully version of yourself is pretty weird because that's not the normal thing that we see in the world, right? And what do you think beyond the changes of their nutrition and beyond the changes of what happens for them based off of what they're coming for you for treatment with, what else does you showing up as yourself, as a Care Bear allow them to do or show them to do in their life?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:09:56]:

I think it gives them permission to lean into their imperfect, real, authentic self. There is quite a strong correlation between perfectionism and pressure and disordered eating in particular. And so it was a lot of people that wanted to have perfect grades, perfect athletic performance, perfect appearance, perfect clothing size, perfect relationships. Perfect is exhausting. Let's say it again. Perfection is just exhausting. And so they had nothing left over to have any fun and connection and meaning and growth because they were just exhausting themselves chasing perfection. And so as an early dietitian, I thought I had to be perfect and take all the courses and learn all the things and read all the books.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:10:41]:

And then there was just this shift where my confidence started to build and I just started to lean more into my intuition. And what I mean by that is I would go down weird rabbit holes being like I feel really compelled to learn a lot about this topic or I actually feel like I shouldn't take any more training and nutrition coaching. I want to go into mindset and behavior change, psychology or energy healing and just these other facets that I was like I think this is all interconnected and I think it's love is the currency that's like flowing person to person, exchange to exchange. And so I just was like, I feel like I have to chase love. And love is a big component to being a happy, healthy person and feeling your very best and contributing to the world in a really positive way. And so I just went on this love search. Not romantic love search. I was happily married and in love with my partner, but just like, how to increase love in all of my interactions and by bringing more love into my practice, my clients got a lot better a lot faster.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:11:44]:

It was really cool.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:11:45]:

Yeah, it's really interesting. There's something that I've seen in other areas that I've worked in the technology world particularly. Right. We talk about this idea of role silos. The designer just does the design work. The engineer just does the engineering work. And throughout how things have evolved in the tech world is creating cross functional teams. And do you feel that there's a space for that in the medical and the coaching world as well, where it's no longer just, I am just the nutrition coach and I just do nutrition, or I am just a specialist in my field of medicine, and that's the only thing I look and touch and work with.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:12:35]:

Do you feel like there's a lot more opportunity there that we haven't been exploring?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:12:39]:

Heck yeah. I mean, one of my favorite phrases I like to say to my clients is, it's about the food, but it's not about the food. You didn't hire me to tell you that broccoli is good for you. I know you are a smart and capable and caring adult that has your own best interests at heart, but real life often gets in the way of our good intentions and our day to day behaviors. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to be that sounding board and help you figure out what's working, where your blocks are, what motivates you, what are your daily challenges. And if I need to be a connector, there's going to be other things we're going to bring into this. Like, if sleep is a real challenge, let's see how we can improve your sleep. If your inner self talk is a big component to you, that perfectionism and that analysis paralysis of starting and failing really fast and not having the courage to get back up and try again.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:13:31]:

We're going to talk about the inner bully, and that might be weird that we're doing that in a nutrition session, but we have to talk about the voices in our heads. If you need more support in another area, I'm very happy to admit where my limitations or shortcomings are. And what I just want to do is let's build a big community, a big, supportive Care Bear team. Like, this is the Care Bear again. It's like Cheer Bear didn't do it alone. She linked arms and there was a line of Care Bears giving a Care Bear stare to help someone. And so I just was like, I can be that Care Bear that brings other Care Bears in. And I completely agree with your sentiment that we don't want to just be like, I'm the expert.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:14:09]:

You should get all your answers from me. I love actually learning from really diverse ways of thinking because I might pick up something that I wouldn't even consider from a totally different industry. So I'm very curious and I love to study how other industries and people and silos think because it makes me a better coach. And I also think I have enough of an ego check to not think that I'm going to have all the answers or be the sole person who can help. Can I more be the cheer bearer that links arms and brings the right members onto the team?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:14:44]:

That's really cool, and I really appreciate that perspective of seeing that because whether people identify this with this term or not, it could be a bit loaded for some folks, but it truly takes care to being truly holistic versus prescriptive. Or it's like a decision tree. If this is happening, then this is a solution. You can go to Google for that, right? Like, the information is, like you said about a client of saying you're smart enough to know that broccoli is good for you, or it's better than whatever you're comparing it to, or it's more nutritious than we know these things. And so what's the thing that holding us that are holding us back? Something that we talked about a little bit before we hit record is many times for a lot of folks is this tyranny of the urgent, of I have all of these things on my list that I have to do this pressure of real life that gets in the way. Aside from that inner saboteur, that inner voice, what are the ways that you start to bring forward for folks to help to break some of those patterns around that perfection?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:16:03]:

Endless question. Yeah, I'll explain it with a metaphor, a coaching game I actually do with my real clients. And I hope you listeners, if there's value to this, please take this idea from today's show. I call it the health piggy bank or the health spending account. So I want you to picture a piggy bank or a jar that's empty and you have a big pile of change as well as some dollar bills, right? So you might have some quarters. Now, I'm Canadian, I'm going to use some funny Canadian money language. But we have like, Loonies, which is like a one dollars coin. And we have Tunis, which is a $2 coin.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:16:35]:

And of course, we have like, nickels for five cents and dimes for ten and quarters for 25 and five and ten and $20 bills. Every penny is equivalent, whether it is five pennies in a nickel or however many pennies that works out to you in a $20 bill, every single penny counts. And so I want you to think about your health account, like whatever capacity you have to just start throwing positive change into your account. So if I have a glass of water when I get up. Cool. There's like $0.50 if I get to my gym workout that I was intending to do today. Awesome. That's like a nice $20 investment in my long term health if I add a salad to my lunch today or the broccoli right, there's a good investment.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:17:16]:

So what we're trying to do is look at ways that we can add healthy choices in. But little choices are just as important as the really big grandiose choices. Because if I wait to have $500 every single time I'm going to put money in my bank account, I wouldn't throw money in all that often. But if I'm okay that a nickel still counts and a $5 bill and a $20 bill all add up, that's okay. But here's the piece of the bank analogy, is you have to be okay that you're going to deduct. So we don't want to be like Ebenezer Scrooge. We can't just always put money in and be like hoarding and never take it out. So in my real life, I sometimes don't get enough sleep.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:17:55]:

Maybe I made the choice to scroll on social media too late and it knocked out an hour of my sleep. Maybe there's days I'm not in the mood to go to the gym and so I do a ten minute walk instead of an hour long workout. Okay, it's not the same, but it's still something. And so being okay, that deductions happen. But what I just think about when I'm making a deduction is how do I make the deduction as small as possible and can I quickly find other ways to put contributions back in so maybe I can't exercise. It's been a rough week of work and illness, but I can stay really well hydrated that week. So I don't ever think in all on or all off very black white. I very much just look for opportunities to contribute positive health choices to my bank account and then I'm very forgiving on the deductions.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:18:41]:

And then here's kind of a funny money example where it really clicks for people. It's to banish the whole screw it self talk. So I have a ton of nutrition clients, and maybe you listeners can relate to this, who make a nutrition choice that's a little bit off track from their goals. And they're like, well, today is ruined. Well, this weekend is a write off. And then they're like, But Monday, Monday I'll start again and I'll get back on the horse. It would be like on Monday always starts Monday, right? It would be the same as having a minor fender bender and suddenly you have a $479 car repair to replace a part and you're like, well, that sucks. Would you go and take 5000 or 10,000 or $20,000 that you were saving maybe for a trip or a down payment on a house or something really significant and go, well, I had this vendor bender and I had to spend this unnecessary money, what was the point of saving for anything else? Might as well go blow it.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:19:38]:

When you think about that with cash, you'd be like, yeah, I wouldn't do that. That doesn't make sense. Yet with food, how many times do people have a vendor vendor kind of choice? And then they throw in the towel and they just start to go, well, none of this matters. None of my efforts count. Why bother? And so I just talk about the idea of a long term saving plan where as long as you're accumulating and you're contributing a little bit faster, that's outpacing the deductions. Your wealth is actually going to grow with compound interest. So every day I just start with a piggy bank and it still has money left over from the days and weeks and months prior. And I just look for the little small five minute or faster opportunities to throw in a handful of change.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:20:23]:

And those little choices absolutely add up. And then I'm very forgiving when a deduction happens. I'm just being mindful that I'm not kind of like living within your means with money. I am earning more than I'm spending and I'm in a healthy financial state. I am contributing health wise, nutrition wise, exercise wise, a little bit faster than I am deducting. And therefore I get to stay as a healthy, happy person. But I'm not stressed about the mistakes and error quotes because they're not mistakes.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:53]:

Yeah, exactly.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:20:54]:

That's a health spending account.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:20:56]:

Yeah, I love that analogy. A previous guest who I've worked with, with coaching education, one of the things that they talk about is in this all or nothing type of black and white thinking that we get we can also get really stuck into the nuances. Well, if I just take this supplement or if I just sign up for this twelve week shred, right? If I can just find the secret sauce, the silver bullet, that could be the thing that's going to change my life. It's going to turn my life around. We as coaches, I'm making an assumption that get the next certification, that's going to change my practice, it's going to change my clients. I'm going to become the best coach ever. It's accumulating all these things. They talked about it as stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:21:47]:

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'll bring an example and play off what you're hinting at here from a business book that I read. And I was like, oh, this is so applicable to health. And so the business book was about business owners getting stuck in analysis, paralysis, thinking they need more information, they need more resources, more team members, more money, more marketing dollars before they're allowed or able or whatever to succeed. And so what the business book kind of labeled this as is two scenarios. There is the BTO. And that stands for Best Theoretical Option. Or there's the BDO Best Doable option where people, when you find yourself in paralysis and being stuck, you're probably in a BTO scenario.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:22:33]:

You're looking for the best theoretical solution, the best meal plan, the best workout option, the best certification, the best business coaching, the best microphone to get on a podcast, right? You're stuck in the best theory. Theory keeps people paralyzed. The BDO admits you're not ever going to have all the answers all the time, all the money, all the resources, all the information. So you just make the best doable option of what you have access to today. Or another way I like to remind my nutrition clients is I just say this phrase do the best you can where you are with what you have. You're at the airport catching a flight and you haven't had breakfast yet. What is the best airport breakfast you can get with what you have and the time available before you have to board the plane. So the BDO really gets you out of searching for perfect because you can just be making best doable options all day long as you go.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:23:27]:

And then I often will have them think about for the day. Be like. I call it win W-I-N what's important now? So maybe you can't get the ten health things checked off your list that you wanted to do. You wanted to meditate and sleep 8 hours and drink enough water and work out and have three whole square meals from scratch. You're probably not going to get all of those checked off in a day. But can you get what's important now? What is your one or two wins that your energy absolutely can go into? And you can check that off as a win before you go to sleep. And so I find that just getting people to understand best doable option and win what's important now, they just start taking imperfect action and then I love the science of motivation. I find motivation so fascinating.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:24:12]:

So to really simplify motivation down, people think they have to feel motivated and then an arrow that leads to taking action. It's the inverse. You take action and then you feel more motivated to take more action. So I usually just draw that on a piece of paper and I'm like what you've been doing motivation, waiting for that to show up before you take action. Let's flip it. Take a small action, be imperfect, but do something. And then you're going to find you have more motivation to keep going. And they're like, oh my gosh, this is life changing, but so simple.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:24:43]:

And it is.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:24:44]:

Yeah, we hold ourselves back and we wait to start. Because again, that lack of perfection or that lack of it's the same idea of well, if you're learning to play an instrument, are you going to be perfect the first time you pick it up? No. Why do we expect in our daily lives in habit change and new things that we're doing, changing our behaviors, changing our schedules, being able to as a common person that we know. Mark England says, start and keep going.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:25:19]:

Right?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:21]:

I know I fall into this category very often. I've been thinking about this quite a bit, especially when I'm looking at workflows for myself or how do I optimize my day? There's this chase towards optimization. What's the best version of this? What could it be? It's like, well, is that actually necessary? Or is, again, the best doable option?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:25:49]:

100%?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:25:50]:

Yeah, that's a perfect way to frame that up for all of us.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:25:56]:

And it just gives you permission, I think, to just move forward with a decision. Not the perfect decision, but the best decision that you have access to in that moment. And again, your BDO is allowed to change. That's what's so beautiful about it. Here's a really silly, simple metaphor, how you furnished. Maybe if you were like, just moved out on your own college dorm room, your first rental apartment that probably wasn't your forever furniture, I'm going to take a guess, but it was the best doable option for what you had access to in your finances and the space that you had. And of course, that furniture is allowed to change and get better or upgrade or have a comfier bed or a favorite desk to work at. So you just have to move forward with something, and we were okay with that.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:26:42]:

With less than perfect furniture. Why can't we be like that with our health habits or work schedules or places that we're pushing ourselves and striving? I find when people add pressure, the pressure is where they get pushed back into the best theoretical option. But when we take off the pressure, the best doable option is so logical to just move forward with the best option at the time. So strip off the pressure and the best doable option becomes much easier.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:27:08]:

Yeah. I love that we're switched gears a little bit, a little bit more about you personally. Okay, you alluded to this a little bit earlier of being able to make that change for yourself, of not only being able to give that Care Bear stare out, but being able to accept that what was that process like? Take us on that journey and tell us that story.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:27:35]:

Okay, well, buckle up. This was the biggest pivot I've ever been through in my life, and the most powerful and special and growth opportunity I've been very lucky to experience. So I just turned 39 a couple of days ago, and five years ago, almost to the day on October 29, five years ago 2018, I got a phone call from a block number. And I knew instantly, like, my stomach sank. I knew who was going to be calling me, and I knew that bad news was coming on the other side. But I picked up the block number, answered the phone, and it was an oncologist calling me to tell me that. I had stage three ovarian cancer. It was advanced, it was serious.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:28:19]:

They caught it really late. I had been bringing symptoms forward to my doctor for five years and wasn't ever taken seriously because I was a high level CrossFitter young, healthy dietitian. Why would someone ever think that I have cancer? So I get rushed into surgery a couple of weeks later and it's really bad. So I lose a whole bunch of body parts because the cancer is in my entire abdominal cavity. I wake up and they tell me I've lost my uterus, my ovaries, my appendix, my ileocecal valve, two big fragments of my large intestine and they lobbed off a third of my bladder, sewed me back up and then basically said, get your will and affairs in order. This is really advanced. We tried our best to get out what we could. We didn't get it all out.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:29:04]:

You have probably six months to a year, so make your peace with that and just get your affairs in order and try and enjoy the last few months of your life. And so I looked that doctor in the eye, I'm so proud of myself. And I was like, well, they're like, you have an 8% chance of living to five years was like the statistical average, I was told. And I was like, But I'm young. I'm healthy. I take good care of myself. And this guy's like, I don't care. It doesn't matter.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:29:28]:

We don't really talk about Dr. Death. He just was like, it doesn't matter what you do. Pretty much everyone dies. You're not getting it. You need to accept that this is your end. And I just looked him in the eye and I was like, well, someone has to be in that 8%. Why not me? Why couldn't it be me? And so what then? Transpired was just this amazing thing after thing of miracles.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:29:54]:

So, I mean, I wake up, they've also damaged my nerve in surgery and I have a paralyzed right leg. So I also can't walk. I have to learn how to walk again. I've been freaked out and told I have like an end stage terminal cancer. And I just was like, okay, it's going to take everything in me to beat this. And I weirdly was like, as a dietitian who's done a lot of mental health and resiliency and mindset and self care, all those weird rabbit holes, I didn't know why I needed to explore and go down in the years prior, I was like, oh, my gosh. I have been fully preparing for this moment by supporting other people through really hard stuff. I am now equipped and ready to help myself.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:30:36]:

So I did something called a teacup exercise, and I drew a teacup on a blank piece of paper and it's basically a story that goes like this, like, life is going to come along and bump you and if coffee comes flying out of your mug it's because you chose to put coffee in your mug. If tea comes spilling out, it's because you put tea in your cup. So life provides the cup. You choose how you're going to fill it. And so I decided to pick some really powerful words for how I wanted to show up. I knew I was going to get bumped and jostled, and so I picked words like love and positivity and hope and optimism and inspiration. And my overarching word picked was the word unstoppable. And I hung onto that word unstoppable every single piece of the journey.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:31:20]:

So they're like, you're not going to really get your leg back and walk? I'm like. No. Watch me. So I visualized surfing on a surfboard in Tofino, British Columbia. And like six months, seven months to the day of waking up with my leg paralyzed. I'm riding motorcycles and surfing in Tofino. I was like, well, someone's going to be in the 8%. Watch me be unstoppable and be in that 8%.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:31:44]:

And so the whole idea of the Care Bear piece is at first, I was so ashamed to admit I had cancer. Like, I had a deep sense of shame that how am I someone that's supposed to be this healthy role model who's eating well and portraying that I'm eating well and exercising, even though I really was. I was like, people are going to think I'm some fraud. And then I was like, oh, wait, that's a ridiculous thought, just like I would do with an eating disorder client. You don't need to believe that. That's just a really weird, not productive thought. And so I turned down the volume on that shame thought, and I turned up the volume of the unstoppable thinking. And so I was like, okay, what is this going to take? This is going to take support.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:32:27]:

This is going to take good nutrition. This is going to take fresh air in nature. And so what I did is I went to a walk in the woods with a notepad, and I sat down by the side of a river and I made myself a list of all the things I was going to take to heal from cancer. Do you want me to actually share that list? I'd have to pull it up quickly on my computer.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:32:47]:

But as you're working to pull that up, there's something that was interesting. So this is a fun story that not many people know is that if they're looking at pictures of myself recently and they might have noticed something changed. And so as you were looking at that thought of being a fraud or what are people going to think of me? So I had a moment just before the event earlier this month. My hair was almost as long as yours was.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:33:19]:

Oh, really?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:20]:

Yes. And as an aging male, you start to notice the thinning of the hairline because it's just what happens. And I've had longer hair most of my adult life, and I started having a crisis about it, and it seems so vain and so silly in the moment of like, yeah, what if I go bald? Who would I be without my hair? Who would I be without identity? And I took the step back and I realized how hilarious that thought is.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:33:53]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:33:54]:

And booked an appointment with my budy who's a barber the next day, went in without a plan. He's like, what are we doing? Are we just going to trim things up and make things clean?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:34:05]:

I was like, take wow.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:07]:

So confused.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:34:09]:

Right?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:34:09]:

Because he's like, well, what do you want it to look like? You figure it out. I trust you. It's learning to try on a different identity. If you're 100% idea of, oh, I'm going to be, that's an identity that you've assigned for yourself and you've chosen it. So could you try something different?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:34:31]:

Yeah. Or can I be a healthy dietitian who's an athlete with stage three cancer, who's a fighter and an inspiration? Like, can both coexist together? Yes. So, yeah, I go to the river and what my soul was telling me is like, your intuition has the answers of what it's going to take to be in the 8%. And so I just started to write down this list, and the list is called Healing from Cancer. And I have this pin beside my bed, and this is my magical spell. I read this every morning when I wake up. I read it every night before I go to bed. And so that list is three daily words happiness, joy and love.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:35:10]:

Have living plants everywhere. Be surrounded by them at home and work. Go hiking in the woods. Lean into my CrossFit community and get lots of support from my friends. Do lots of yoga. Participate in quiet retreats that are yoga or spiritual in nature. Go outside for daily walks outdoors. Eat lots of vegetables, especially cruciferous that's our broccoli family.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:35:36]:

Have low to no sugar intake and lots of fresh herbs and spices. Eat whole foods without being rigid with an emphasis on leaning into plant based but again, flexibility there. Be around warm and sunny vacations. Be in the sun. Work part time and keep making a positive impact in the world. Relax, stress less and lean into slower living. Have dinner parties with my friends. Drink lots of tea.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:36:07]:

Take probiotics. Have a daily gratitude practice. Do more meditation, inward reflection. Know really lean into a spiritual practice. Have a strong belief that I'll be okay. Nurture and protect my immune system. Have dog cuddles daily with my dog Carly. Reach out for social support from friends, my family and a therapist.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:36:30]:

Cry and let the tough emotions come out. Have daily hugs, more laughter and play. Look at beautiful art sound therapy and invite more peaceful sounds and music in some aromatherapy. Be around lots of natural light. Allow myself enough sleep, no alarm clocks. Wake up when you're well rested. Release suppressed emotions and practice deep forgiveness. Have less fear in my life and a sense of safety.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:37:01]:

Live in a clean, uncluttered, minimalistic home. Have travel and adventure limit and shield against negativity. Both people and the news have Sundays be completely electronics free, just dedicated to family time. And the final thing I wrote down was, be at peace with dying. Don't be afraid. And so I just was like, that's my list. That's what it's going to take. And so I turned down chemotherapy.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:37:32]:

No, I'm not anti chemo for you listeners. It's just I had two cancers. One was more responsive to chemo. One was really not super responsive to chemo. And the one that wasn't responsive to chemo was the majority of what I had. So that felt like the right decision. I had to beg for a Pet scan to get retested. My oncologist was so negative.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:37:52]:

He's like, no, we're not going to pay for a Pet scan. You still have cancer in you. Everyone has this cancer in them. It always comes back. It doesn't go away. There's not a scenario where you're not going to have cancer. And I was like, well, there's three options, actually. It's really bad and I'm going to die in six months.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:38:08]:

Like, you're telling me it's more slow growing and I maybe have a little more time than you're hinting at. Maybe my age and my health are going to contribute. Or it's the Care Bear rainbows and unicorns option, which is I'm doing a lot of these things that I think are helping, and cancer is actually dying. And so here's the part he didn't understand, and this is the weird and wonderful, is because I let my world Care Bear stare at me. I would post stuff online, and then I just got flooded with messages, flooded with love, flooded with prayers, flooded with support. And I could feel this tingling popping sensation. I physically could feel cancer dissolving. I don't know how else to describe it.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:38:50]:

Then something would happen on the inside, and it was almost like bubble wrap, like this light popping Rice Krispy tingling. And I was like, cancer is dying. I can feel cancer dying inside of me. And it's love. Love is the chemotherapy. Like, there is love being sent to me. I can feel Care Bear love beams coming into my body and something's actually happening. So at four and a half months after that surgery, I'm learning how to walk again.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:39:19]:

I have to beg to get this Pet scan that I have to pay for myself. I'm like, Just give me the signature. I'm the one paying for it. I just need an oncologist signature to allow me to have this. They were like, there's no cancer. We don't see any inside of you. And so touchwood. My five year anniversary is two days from today.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:39:40]:

So it's October 27. As we're recording this, it's October 29 in two days and I'm in the 8%. I did it. I'm cancer free. I've been in radical remission, and I really, truly think it was opening myself up to receiving the love back from other people. And I think a lot of those things on that list was just a well lived life. But that's my really interesting and wild and miraculous story of my touch with cancer and how I chose to handle it.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:11]:

When you're looking thank you, first of all, for sharing that. It's the second time of hearing that story and it's still one of the most rad stories I've heard. Thanks. And I have a question about this list.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:40:25]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:40:26]:

How different is this list from prior to cancer for you? How much of that changed?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:40:34]:

Yeah, so that list had probably 50% to 60% of that being done consistently. But it was always work and pressure and urgency first. That list came second, and now it's that list comes first. And the achievement and the work and the pressure, it's like, I don't need to actually have all those things. I just need to show up, do a good job, add value to the world, be great for my clients, continue to learn and evolve and grow, but make sure that those things are protected. And I notice now I'm not a perfect person, but I notice if I feel stressed or frazzled. What I just do is I spend more time staring at that list and then I'm like, oh, boom, there it is. Like reticular activating system.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:41:15]:

My eyes can go right to the bullet point on the list and be like, that's why you're not feeling so great. You haven't had friends over for a dinner party in months and you always belly laugh and have the best Friday night talking with your close friends and you know, there's just meals that go on for 4 hours around the dinner table. Or it might be like, hey, you love being in the woods. And I try to go one or two times a week on a nice long hike. But if I start to go two or three weeks without a hike, I'm noticing I am craving that. So if I ever feel off, I just go back to that list and the list guides me back to what needs to come up to the surface and then I just make that the priority.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:41:55]:

Yeah, that's really cool. What would you suggest for people who don't have a list like that?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:42:02]:

Oh my gosh, sit down and write your own list. I just now teach this to my own clients. I call it my Happy Healthy Human List. What makes you just a happy, healthy human? What are the things that your soul needs to feel like you're living a life well lived, you don't need a brush with cancer, a near death experience to focus in on what you really value and what are the priorities. So I think having a clear list. But I think the other magical piece of it is that I look at it every single day. I really have this list hanging beside my bed, and I look at it at least twice a day. And so it just is like I call them like train tracks.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:42:42]:

I've just laid down tracks that now that those tracks are laid, the train has a much easier time, leading you to drink tea and take Probiotics and be in the woods and have dinner parties with friends and laugh and have a sense of safety and slow down. So because I look at that list all the time, those reps are way more solidified.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:02]:

That makes a lot of sense. And I can imagine that there are times when you're using this practice with clients that there's that initial paralysis because we haven't written that book before, we haven't considered those things, or we're so stuck in that pressure and speed of life and all of those things that it can make it really difficult to even imagine. What are these things that are going to make me a happy, healthy human?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:43:31]:

Yeah. Can I throw a question at you?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:34]:

Sure.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:43:34]:

What would be on your list?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:43:37]:

I've been actually working on this myself. It's interesting how much this stuff comes up of how similar, even though we've never interacted beyond a few weeks ago, how much practices overlap with things. And so for me, it's connection being able to do things like these podcasts. There's a great amount of sharing there that I get to bring out into the world. But the more connections that I can create with people, it's having this podcast even when life is busy, even when the tasks list are there. Making the time for taking long walks with my dog, I got a bass down named Chester who's full of attitude. And I notice for myself, when there's times that I'm feeling the pressure, he's extraordinarily antsy and sassy, and we haven't been taking the time to go out and just be right. Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:42]:

For me, the connection is such a big component for me, and it's finding the opportunities for that of whatever vehicles those take. And for me, for a long time, that was my coaching practice because it was a lot of in person work.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:44:56]:

Right.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:44:57]:

I get to have that all the time, all day, every day. And so now that my path has changed and I'm no longer doing that, it's all right. What are the ways that I can continue to foster those things?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:45:11]:

Powerful.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:12]:

Yeah.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:45:14]:

What would you put in your teacup? That's my follow up question. Yeah. What would be your powerful words that when life jostles you, what's going to come out?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:22]:

Kindness and adventure.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:45:25]:

Love it.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:45:27]:

Those are the two words that have continually been coming up for me in this sense of continually similarly to you, with the not allowing it to come back inwards, of noticing for myself how much I want to care and help others. And then that shielding of, well, no, it can't come back inwards or suspicious when it does, or even for yourself. If I give this to everyone else, why can't I give it to the person that I spend the most time with?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:46:11]:

Right.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:46:12]:

Ultimately the most important person in my life, which is 100%, that kindness. And then the adventure component of that is beyond even taking trips, beyond getting renting my Budy's van and going out to Richmond or flying back to Germany for the first time in 20 years with no plan, or flying out to San Francisco very recently, aside from the coaching activity that I needed to do with no plan.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:46:44]:

Right.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:46:46]:

Continually bringing adventure into my life, and that life is the adventure. That's the journey. I talk about this very often with other guests, with people that I work with, is that we spend so much time focused on the achievement and the destination of, yeah, when I lose the 20 pounds, I will finally be that. These are things that I learned for myself, coming from somebody who was nearly 300 pounds at one point and had never touched a barbell in my life and then became an Olympic weightlifter at a national level, is that I was actually looking for that acceptance and love of self or connection to myself. And that the achievements that I put in front of myself, adding ten kilos to my clean and jerk, like, cool, great, I did it. It felt great for a day, a week. And now what? Well, now I'm back on the horse. I'm back into training, and things are back to where I was of not feeling enough.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:47:51]:

So then realizing that the journey is the point, the destination isn't the point. We all have one destination at the end.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:48:03]:

We're all going to die.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:48:04]:

Why am I trying to rush towards it? Why am I trying to make it come faster? Why am I trying to make this an accelerated timeline of my own engineering and my own attachment? And I can be comfortable and in love with what is.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:48:22]:

I feel like, in a weird, lovely way in my had to think about death way more than I think the average 30 year old does. And I'm so glad I thought about death a lot because it doesn't scare me anymore. We have a very death phobic society. Death has made me appreciate. Life is so awesome right now. And just like you said, life will be awesome. When I rush to this next thing, I achieve this next thing, I get this thing done off my to do list. It's like life is amazing today, and life needs to be well lived today, day in and day out, as opposed to the big objective outside things.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:49:04]:

So sounds a bit morbid, but contemplating death and thinking about death even at a younger age is such a cool way to know if you're on track with how you're spending your time, who you're spending your time with, and how you're showing up every day for yourself. Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:21]:

In that shift, have you noticed your perception of time changed? Does it feel like it goes more slowly, more quickly?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:49:31]:

I don't know.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:49:32]:

Different now?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:49:32]:

Well, the pandemic has made it hard because it's been on slow mo and fast forward and up topsy turvy. So that's a little bit hard to answer because it's just been a wild past five years. What I would say is I was one of those kids that was always like, delay gratification, delay gratification, eat the vegetables, don't have the cookie for dessert, save as much as you can. I just was always chasing that perfection. And now it's not that I just throw the towel in. Who cares? I can be very present and savor the little moments as they're happening, instead of just only being allowed to celebrate the very big moments. So that's how time has changed. I would say I'm much more present, moment to moment, day by day, and I'm noticing how many more wonderful moments there are throughout the day.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:50:26]:

And if I get a little nerdy and scientific, I learned this concept from a friend, it's called microbursts of happiness. So she's a happiness researcher, and most people think what they think will make them happy are the big moments of happiness. When I get married, when I have the baby, when we buy the house, when we add ten kilos, when we PR, when we hit a million subs or whatever. Right. The big things. But realistically, what our brains are happiest on is it's called an upward spiral of happiness. And there's a whole bunch of little micro bursts, micro doses of happiness that happen close together in the same day. So it might be a cold winter morning and you are just enjoying that first warm cup of coffee or tea, and then it might be scratching your dog just behind the ear just where he likes it, and connecting with your pet who loves you so deeply for 30 seconds to a minute.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:51:19]:

It's maybe getting a really nice hug from a significant other when you're having a tough moment. And it's so the ability to see these little micro moments of happiness. And if you can burst a whole bunch of them, like three to five and sort of connect them in the same day or in a row, your brain is so happy. And you learn how to be in love with whatever your simple, beautiful, big, little medium sized life looks like right now. Because it's just good enough as it is. And so that's, I think, my favorite change. And I don't know if that fully connects to your question about perception of time, but I'm more present and I really notice the small moments of happiness where I wouldn't have really given them a whole lot of credit prior to cancer, that's cool.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:06]:

I'm okay with how things are, but I'm not really connecting it through into how that's adding more value to my life of the experience.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:52:14]:

Right, yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:15]:

And that's where in talking about adventure, it carries directly into that as well. Well, I can view my life as a drudging set of tasks, that I'm going to do this job for X amount of years. I clock in, I clock out. Or what's the adventure for today?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:52:36]:

Yeah.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:37]:

Even though I know I'm going to the same place, I'm walking from my bedroom to my desk. What's the adventure there? And it opens us up to so much more than what normal life or what normal life has told us we can have.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:52:53]:

Right.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:52:56]:

So in talking about the doctor that told you that basically you're done.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:53:03]:

Yes.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:53:05]:

Dr death already. Yeah. Dr. Death. In being able to see someone go against the grain, with what the expectation was, do you imagine that made any sort of a shift for somebody in that role or in that perspective to see that change? Do you imagine that that changed or made them question what they have?

Jennifer Broxterman [00:53:34]:

I would hope so, but also I had five, six, seven appointments where it was the same loop of him being like, I don't think you get it, you're not going to make it. And so I actually just chose to remove myself from that situation where I was trying to work with this oncologist. And obviously we did not see eye to eye on my scenario, and so he just never followed up. Obviously, I omitted myself from his practice. I was hoping to be a great example. I will show you a similar example in the medical community, so I hope he could learn from this scenario. But also, it's not my job to change someone else's mind. I just like, I'm going to go live this awesome, positive, healthy life and hope for the best.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:54:18]:

But as I hinted, it had been about five years, me bringing symptoms forward and being sort of brushed under the rug and ignored. And so one of the things that happened is when I was 25 or 29, so I got diagnosed at 34, so 29 was five years earlier. I'll be really vulnerable on this podcast. I did have an abnormal PAP. And so for women, when that happens, you have to go through more intensive testing, so you do more Paps in a row in the same year. And what actually happened is those results did come back positive. So no one read the report and I found it sort of two weeks after my cancer surgery and what that report said was negative for cervical cancer, abnormal cells detected. Further testing is needed to rule out uterine or variant cancer.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:55:07]:

So I actually had warning signs five years earlier, and that's why I went to my doctor, because things were changing and not being quite normal down there. And so a whole bunch of people were like, aren't you going to sue? Look what they did. That's medical malpractice. And I thought about it, and I was like, no. I actually weirdly didn't have any anger in me. But what I did is I went to my family doctor, the oncologist or not the oncologist, the gynecologist and the endocrinologist, who were all following my case where my blood work and my PAP results were weird. And I just said, I hope I can be that case that you remember for the rest of your practice. I am not angry at you.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:55:44]:

I am not litigious. Your medical license is not at risk. But here is an example of paperwork that wasn't read and wasn't actually passed on to me, and now I am five years down the road from this test that you guys sent me for. And now I don't have a reproductive system anymore. I don't have the ability to have children because of what's unfolded. So I hope I can be an example for in your career when you're teaching interns about just making sure you do your due diligence to look at all testing that's done. And even if someone is young and healthy and doesn't look like the typical type of cancer patient, this is one of those times I fell through the cracks and there was a really serious negative outcome. And as soon as I sort of brought it to each of them and I was so loving and kind and mature the way I delivered it, I walked away, and I was like, I feel really good about that.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:56:41]:

I hope I saved another woman's life who has ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer is really hard to diagnose. It's almost always caught late. You don't get a typical solid tumor that you can feel. And the symptoms are like bloating and increased urination and digestive upset, like, not obvious cancer symptoms. And I had digestive upset. That was my only symptom of cancer, even when it was super advanced, because I had tumors in my GI tract that had grown through the GI walls. And so all of them kind of like, jaw hit the floor.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:57:15]:

But you could tell how grateful they were that I could use that as a teaching moment with them and just do it with love and grace and kindness and forgiveness. And part of that list was like, practice deep forgiveness. Because hanging on to hate and anger wasn't going to change getting body parts back or not being all the way at stage three. So I was like, how do I make a positive in this scenario and impact these three medical professionals lives so that they can go help other patients going forward? So I felt really proud of myself for how I handled when I found that piece of information in my medical record and was like, oh, my gosh, this has been here for five years. And it all made sense. I'm like, I'm not crazy. Things that I've been talking about and bringing forward and being like, I know my body, something feels off. I was like, it makes sense because five years ago I said that and there was something happening.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:07]:

Yeah, that's amazing. First of all, thank you for sharing that. And one of the things that I'm hearing in that is it's very easy for us to put our medical professionals in a silo of like, they're not humans or they're not people, and it's.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:58:28]:

Like, right, they are.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [00:58:30]:

They're just like us doing their best, doing the best that they can with the data that they have and the time that they have, the options that are present. And it's unfortunate that mistakes have consequences for people and it's the same thing for an engineer, somebody building bridges. And I can imagine that being able to come forward in that way. I can imagine myself in that situation of, okay, I can approach things in a different way than I have in the past, or this is the turning point that's going to take me from being who I am, which could be a great doctor, to being even better.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:59:17]:

Yeah. And I think because if we think about fear, because I didn't put them in a fear defensive state, they actually can learn and grow, right? Because I didn't come at them attacking them. And so I'll go back to my teacup is I was like, Life is going to bump me now. Obviously life is going to bump all of us. How do I want to show up? And so finding that piece of medical documentation to be like, that answer was there five years ago. I showed up with love and kindness and inspiration and resiliency and patience. I was my teacup because that's what came out of me. So I think the teacup is such a cool exercise and if you want, I'm super happy to share it with your audience.

Jennifer Broxterman [00:59:58]:

I have a little downloadable PDF if we want to link it to the show Notes or if you go to Prospernutritioncoaching.com Teacup. It's just one of my favorite gifts to give to the world because it's just been so impactful for me. And I think it can be really impactful when you think about the words of how you want to show up. So adventure and kindness, right? Like, what a great, well lived life if you constantly show up with adventure and kindness in your heart?

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:24]:

Yeah, that's fantastic. And yes, we will have that in the show Notes as an easy way to click and get that exercise. I think I have my printed version of that from the event in my little book right here next to me.

Jennifer Broxterman [01:00:37]:

Love it.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:00:38]:

So, yeah, as we come towards the end of our episode here, any final thoughts or anything that you'd like to leave the listeners with as a final nugget of wisdom?

Jennifer Broxterman [01:00:52]:

Yeah, I think I'm just so honored every time I have an opportunity to talk about my story and just share sort of that mindset of how to do hard things really well. I think I'm incredibly proud of myself how I showed up through that. So if that's something you want to follow along, I still post really regularly online. So I'm over at Prospernc, and my true goal in life is to just help others be the best version and make the best coaches in the nutrition world. So if you ever need help with that, I have a certification for health coaches out there to really bring in mindset and nutrition coaching together. But my final nugget of wisdom is just like, make that list, right? Whether that be the Teacup list of words that healthy, happy, human list. Know your words. The words have magic, and they'll pull you into the version of you you want to be in the good times and in the hard times.

Jennifer Broxterman [01:01:48]:

So if you've never sat by a river maybe and made a list, it is a well spent five to 15 minutes of your time.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:01:57]:

Or if it takes longer, or if it takes longer, however long, it's okay, too. Yeah. Anything that you would like, aside from following you on social media and getting the Teacup exercise, anything else that you would like to bring forward for the listeners? Anything that you have going on?

Jennifer Broxterman [01:02:14]:

Anything that you'd like to promote as a dietitian? I have a certification called Prosper Nutrition Coaching. It is for any kind of wellness professional, whether you're a personal trainer, a fitness coach, a nutrition coach. In reality, it's the people that already maybe have a nutrition certification to their name, but they just want to go higher and elevate what they're doing with their clients. And so I teach my whole life's work of analogies and games and metaphors and motivational interviewing, behavior change coaching, and the science and then the art of getting humans to be healthier and more consistent. So if you really resonated with the way I talk and teach and some of the messages that I have, that's what the certification is packed full of. We only offer it a few times a year, so you can jump on the waitlist if you're listening. And it's a part of the year where it's not open, but if you go to Prospernutritioncoaching.com, the certification info is there if that appeals to you.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:12]:

Awesome. Thank you so much for that. And also, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your story, you, your time. Thank you for being you. And podcast.

Jennifer Broxterman [01:03:22]:

Love it. Care Bear love.

Jeremy Gruensteiner [01:03:24]:

Yeah. Well received and returned. And also, thank you, listeners, for being here and listening to this episode. I had a blast being here and experiencing this with you. And so until next time, stay strong, folks, and most importantly, stay weird.