Cait: Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of The Born To Rise podcast. I’m your host, Cait Scudder. Today my guest is the amazing, radiant Gaylene Gomez, health coach for women. Gaylene helps women have more energy and lose weight by nourishing their bodies with the power of food and simple lifestyle changes and choices so they can feel strong, healthy, sexy and vibrant. Using holistic approaches she assists her clients in prioritizing their four pillars of health so they can create balance and feel supported by a strong foundation. 

Gaylene is the founder of Compass Rose Nutrition, which is a holistic health coaching practice that helps women achieve their health goals while doing so in a way that really supports their inner well-being first and foremost as in addition to their physical well-being. I am so excited to have Gaylene on the show today, because this approach to health and wellness is the approach that we all need. So Gaylene thank you so much for being here with me today.

Gaylene:  Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to hang out with you for a little bit today. 

Cait: This show is really dedicated to bringing online and having conversations with incredibly inspiring female entrepreneurs like yourself. I love what you’re doing in this space Gaylene, because you don’t just work with entrepreneurs, although that is a huge portion of your client base. You work with a lot of women who live fast-paced busy lives doing a lot of different things and somehow health just slips to the bottom of the priority list. I’m curious what in your journey brought you to holistic health coaching and opening up Compass Rose Nutrition in your practice?

A Journey To Holistic Health Coaching

Gaylene: Yeah, I think so many of us have really busy lives where we’ve put work first or family first or just life first. We forget about prioritizing the things that are sustainable long-term, our health. 

My own backstory was similar. I prioritized travel and friends and excitement and life and just all of the other things and thought I could actually survive doing that on popcorn and ice tea and not really fueling my body or nourishing my body. It wasn’t until I got really sick that I had to turn and get help and undersanding what that looked like. Help as far as nourishing my body, eating more food, eating the right food, really starting to take care of myself in a different way than I had ever done before, was required. And it was required quite dramatically because I was very ill. 

It got me really thinking, why do we wait until we get so sick? Why do we wait until we’re so depleted? Why do we wait until we’re so drained of energy, or we have a medical diagnosis or we wait until things are really bad before we decide to prioritize our health? I wanted to help women really start thinking about what they could do now to have a long healthy life to have more energy to feel their best, whether that be losing weight, or getting rid of those afternoon energy crashes. Really setting themselves up to have long term health.

So as I was in school, studying nutrition, I remember saying to my husband, everybody needs to know this stuff, why don’t we know these things? This is crazy, we should all really understand our bodies a lot better. I was actually a massage therapist at the time, my background has always been in holistic health, and I still did not prioritize nutrition. And so as I had a really good understanding of self-care, and massage, and the physical body, I had not really dived into the nourishment. And it really made me think about all of these different pieces of the puzzle that need to be put in place for that long-term sustainable health. 

I want women to do that now. Before they get a diagnosis. Before they get really sick before their doctor tells them they have to make those changes. 

Cait: I love this so much. And it’s so important. And it’s so true and so beautiful. And it’s also really hard, right? Because for whatever reason, we’re wired as human beings to put things off, and we don’t have anything until it’s glaring in our face. And yet, it’s almost preventative health and medicine rather than doing it after the fact, after a diagnosis of as you say.

Gayele: Yeah preventative, it can be tricky, because we have to carve out the time, right? We only have so many hours in the day. One of the things I asked my clients to do is start calculating, how do you actually spend your time? We all have 24 hours in the day. So how are you going to spend that X amount of hours? Working X amount of hours or sleeping X amount? What do you have left? And what are you going to do in those hours? Are you going to watch Netflix? Are you going to go for a walk? Are you going to do some self-care and have a bath? Are you going to read a book? What are you actually going to spend that time doing? 

Cait: Most women say I don’t have time to do these things that you’re recommending. Well, we need to make time. But again, there we are spending two hours a day on Instagram. And it’s like, do I not have the time? Or am I just not thinking about it in that way?

Gaylene, because I find your story really inspiring. Good on you for listening, okay, I’m sick, something has to change. Because I think a lot of women get to that place and keep ignoring the signs, and then they end up in serious trouble later on. 

I’m curious for you, when you work with women, whether that be in your free support community or inside of your paid programs? What are some of the things that you find helpful for women who struggle to carve that time out for themselves? What do you say to them? How do you start? For somebody who’s like, Alright, I know, I recognize that I need to get my health on track a bit more, but I’m really struggling to prioritize this. What are some small ways that we can start  to incorporate more wellbeing into our lives that don’t involve going to a health retreat in Bali?

How To Incorporate More Well-Being Into Your Life

Gaylene: Yeah, a health retreat in Bali sounds amazing. But it’s definitely not practical for all of us. One of the things that I find my clients really appreciate is having some accountability, having some motivation, having someone on their side that gets it, and is there to really support them as they go through it. 

Because oftentimes, spouses or families or partners or friends are not in that mindset. They want to be supportive, but they’re not really understanding what you’re going through. And so really having somebody who’s on your side, you can reach out to, you can have the hard conversations with who will give you a little kick in the butt when you need it. But really guide you and encourage you to make the choices that are in your best interest and then kind of teach you them if you need the knowledge if you need the support, if you need the motivation. Whether that comes from myself as a health and nutrition coach, or whether that comes from a friend, an accountability buddy. Really finding someone that you can lean on and rely on and turn to when things are hard. So that’s definitely a huge piece of the puzzle. 

And then to take it slow, right? There’s so many fad diets out there. There’s so many quick fixes. There’s so many things that promise instant results. And that’s not the approach. I want something more sustainable. I want something more long-term. I want the little things that are going to add up over time when we do them consistently, to really create that long-term health. I want to be healthy in my 50s 60s 70s and 80s. I’m not looking To just lose that quick weight right now and harm my body on the way. 

I really want that long-term sustainable health. So the women that I work with really want that as well. And they want to really learn the little things that will make the big difference over time and start shifting away from that diet mentality, that quick fix fad diet, lose 10 pounds in 10 days type of thing. Having them really start to understand what that looks like for them, what those results are actually going to do, how it’ll affect their relationships, how it’ll affect their energy at work, how it will affect all of those other pieces of their life. Not just fitting in their skinny jeans, not just enjoying their bikini summer, but really having that long term sustainable health.

Cait: It’s so beautiful. I’m at the spa just listening to you. This is self-care for me right now getting to talk to you about this because it’s so beautiful. You are just breathing this fresh air into the industry, both the health coaching industry. 

The Parallels Between Holistic Health And Entrepreneurship

But honestly, I see so many parallels in the entrepreneurial industry. What’s the quick fix to the next 10k? One quick fix to this. That’s actually not what we’re after. And if we’re chasing that, we’re going to burn crash really, really hard and I totally can see how you would see clients coming in who bought every shake, pill, and powder available and are still feeling on this yo yo rollercoaster with, how they feel, how they look how, the weight that they carry. 

It reminds me of these memes that I see on Instagram of me and my 20s and it’s up in the club with blue shots of who God knows what and then it’s me and my 30s  snuggled up on the couch with a cup of tea in a face mask on at 8pm. That’s the new partying. The approach and the seeking after this really quick and dirty fix for health is so not the long-term game. 

You’re really leading this slow revolution of what health is really about. I don’t know if that’s ever been reflected to you, but it feels like what you’re describing, slow and steady. Especially because you’re a business owner, you’re a marketer. So I’m sure you have experience, but it’s it’s less sexy and glam to sell. And yet it’s what all of our souls are really craving. And when it comes to health, it’s what actual health looks like.

Gaylene:  Yeah when you were talking about it, having the similarities of being an entrepreneur, when you’re promised those quick fixes, with money, with weight, with health with those kind of things. And you don’t achieve that, or maybe you do temporarily, it’s so deflating. It’s just makes you feel like this is not something that you can repeatedly do over and over and over.  

Creating A Strong Foundation For Your Health & Your Business

You can’t continually try new diets, you can’t continually try all of the quick fixes that are out there in entrepreneurship. Really creating a strong foundation for both our business and our health is so important. I’ve been working on my business for quite a few years now. And I’ve really appreciated the strong foundations that I’ve put in place for myself, so that I can feel confident within the future of my business. And it makes that equal comparison to my health.  

The strong foundations we put into our health asleep, the face masks, the cozying up on the couch, the self-care, the nourishment, the exercise. All of those things are really creating a future that is going to be sustainable. They’re not the thing that’s just going to get you through the weekend, where you want to lose weight for that upcoming event. You’re really creating long-term health where you can enjoy energy and vibrancy for the long term.

Cait: I love that so much. I think you mentioned earlier, the four different pillars that come with health. You really focus on that in building that sustainable, longevity-focused foundation. Talk to us about those four pillars and what those are?

Four Pillars Of Health For Longevity

Gaylene: Yeah, so this kind of comes from the fact that I did come from a holistic health background, I was already in massage therapy, I already felt like I was doing a lot of the right things. And I was missing an entire huge piece of the puzzle, I was missing nourishment. When we’re missing a big piece of the overall puzzle, we’re not going to get the results that we want. And I think that goes to business as well. When there’s a big chunk of things missing, you can’t get the results that you want. 

So the four pillars that I work on with my clients are nourishment. So that’s not only what we’re eating. We’re not talking about calories or points but I’m actually talking about getting all the vitamins, minerals, the nutrients, everything your body needs to not only survive, but to actually thrive. I go back to when I thought that I just wasn’t hungry, so I wasn’t eating, or you go back to people that are trying to count calories to restrict themselves of what they’re eating. 

We have a society that is actually hugely deficient in nutrients and hugely deficient in all of the ingredients, all of the nutrients our body needs to actually do its proper functions. So when we look at all kinds of health conditions, we can go back and really pin it on the lack of nutrients. It’s such a huge piece of the puzzle. That’s why I specifically went on to study nutrition and why I’m so passionate about it. But so that’s a big piece of that puzzle. But it’s not the only piece. 

The second piece that I work on is movement and exercise. So many entrepreneurs, we sit at our desk for hours and hours and hours on end. We don’t take time to walk around the block, or even stretch or roll our shoulders or stretch out our neck, literally rolling my neck right now.  if you’re listening, do it. Everyone, take a second and just roll out your shoulders and stretch your neck and close your eyes and think about how does your body feel? If it feels tight, or if it feels sore we need to move our bodies more, it’s so important. I’m not saying you need to go get a gym membership and pump iron for an hour a day by any means. But you do need to move your body. 

So whether that be a walk with your kids or your dog or taking up some yoga or even just pulling up a YouTube video where you can start learning some movement and set a reminder on your computer to move your body, it’s so so important that we move our bodies regularly. We need to get the blood flowing. When we get the blood flowing, we actually feel more energized. If you think about a time when you were going out to exercise or going for a walk and you didn’t feel like it, you were feeling like you’re too busy or it’s raining or whatever that thing is, there’s a pretty good chance that if you did do it, you actually came back with more energy than what you actually started with. You come back more pumped up, you probably had a bunch of ideas on that run.

If you’re feeling stuck in your business or you’re feeling stuck with whatever’s going on, if you just step away from it and go move your body, that extra blood flow can really do wonders for us. And it’s gonna help with things like metabolism and weight loss, and all of that as well. 

Then the third pillar is one of the things that my clients tend to struggle with the most and that is sleep. So sleep is a piece of the puzzle that does get put last. When we were talking earlier about prioritizing how we spend our day, how many people stay up watching Netflix or the news, or working or doing things a little bit too late, they would be better off getting sleep. I definitely know that I’ve been one of those people. I’ve now made that shift where I prioritize sleep. But it is hard to do. Because we can get so busy with our to-do list that we just keep going and going and going. Then when the alarm goes off in the morning, we have to get up and do it all over again. So sleep is something that is an opportunity for our body to regenerate all of those cells, recharged, refresh. But we need that piece of the puzzle in place. And so if we’re only getting that five, six hours per night, we’re not necessarily getting the refresh the reboot that we need. So sleep is huge. That’s pillar three.

Cait: That one lands so deep right now. It’s a form of torture not getting enough sleep actually. We’re very lucky that Ella is a really good sleeper, but there are nights, last night she had a nightmare or something, woke up at three in the morning. I was so out. So I just went over picked her up. Anyway then when I woke up at  530 this morning, I just felt like I’d been run over by a bus. That interrupted sleep can totally mess with you.

Gaylene: Yeah, and it takes its toll over time too. If there’s one night of poor sleep, we can deal with it, especially when we’re in our 20s. We’re going to drink that blue stuff at the bar and, but as a long-term sustainable piece of the puzzle, it’s so so important. I actually had a rude awakening last night as well, I don’t have kids, but I have a dog and she recently hurt her tail quite badly. She whipped it in and cut the end of her tail. So she has to wear a cone. The whole thing to have the cone and not her tail and trying to let it heal and the vet told us this is just one of the most frustrating injuries and we need to keep such a close eye on her. So sleeping for her is just been exhausting for her right now. And she keeps waking us up. 

But I woke up to her literally crashing around in her cone at midnight and crazy noises and I was thinking, Man, people that have kids wake up to this kind of stuff every night. It takes a toll on your overall health and your mindset. That’s actually pillar number four is mindset. So they all carry together, right?

If the word mindset doesn’t resonate, then just think about it as stress. If we just think about stress and how that affects our health. If you think about your stress in the last week, the last month, the last year, if it’s acute stress or chronic stress, if it’s chronically elevated, that absolutely takes a toll on all of those other pieces of the puzzle. 

What I like to do is actually connect those four dots. If one of those is missing like sleep, then you’re probably not getting the exercise that you want, you’re probably not getting up and cooking a healthy breakfast, you’re probably going to be more stressed the next day. If we even pull one of those pillars out of the equation, the rest suffer. 

So now in my business, instead of just focusing on self-care, massage, or just focusing on nutrition, I really work with my clients on all of those pieces. So that we can create that lasting, sustainable change.

Cait: So beautiful, I love that combination. And that multi-stage focus. It’s interesting because there’s a lot of holistic health or whatever about diet and exercise. I’ve seen one or two of those paired together in different iterations, but none that have that emphasis on really all four. I can imagine Gaylene, that some of the women that you work with feel a bit overwhelmed by that, because they’re like, Oh, my gosh, I have to change my diet and I have to exercise and I’ve got to track my sleep and I’ve got to not be stressed doing all these things makes me stressed to just think about it. I’m curious how you really support them to get started without feeling really overwhelmed by feeling like they have to up end their whole life and start over?

How To Avoid The Overwhelm & Just Get Started

Gaylene: Yeah, overwhelm is huge. I think especially in the health and wellness industry, we can get so bombarded by everything on the media to eat this and don’t eat this and go high carb and low fat and high fat and low carb. There’s so much mixed information out there. 

Part of my job as a nutrition coach is to help people simplify it, but also to help personalize it for them, right? Because we are unique, we are all individuals. What I need more of in my life is probably different than what you need more of in your life. And so in my coaching programs, we come up with a plan that is sustainable for you. So in saying that, we can’t do all of the things. If I was to tell you to drink more water and exercise and get more sleep and do all those things. And you’re telling me Look, I’m already really busy, my day is already really full, I can’t do more. 

Then we really need to figure out what the best next step is for you. So I definitely have a couple of ways of doing that. One of them is in a fun quiz that I have. I’m sure Cait can pop the link here for everybody later. But the quiz is actually going to help you determine what is the pillar you most need to focus on. Because if you get that one thing back into balance – for you, if it’s sleep, then we need to really prioritize that. Don’t worry too much about the rest of the moment, we really need to work on that one piece of the puzzle. Or for you, maybe it’s nutrition. If that’s the case, we need to really focus on that piece of the puzzle. 

So my quiz will help you identify which pillar, which piece of the puzzle you should first prioritize. And then within that pillar, it gives you a three-step plan for some simple things that you can do  right now that are really easy. That would make a really big difference for you. They’re not going to take a lot of time, they’re not going to take a lot of energy. They’re completely laid out of here, go do this, and you’ll actually start feeling better right away.

Cait: I love that so much. I keep coming back to the scaling because it’s such a theme of this conversation, which is so beautiful. You are so good at and so committed to this simplification of taking it from it feeling like this big, scary thing to actually no, it’s actually just about going small. It’s not about going big, it’s about going small. 

When you go small, that’s when you really start to lay the foundations that actually shift things. It’s such a backward way of thinking culturally. We’re pushed toward these really go big or go home narratives. What you’re even saying of how this free resource helps people identify what that one thing is and just focusing on that one thing and kind of tuning out the noise, it feels it feels so much more manageable, so much more approachable. 

I think that message is really empowering, whether that is for somebody in their health or somebody in their business. Permission to go smaller and go slower and focus on the foundations and really let that move the needle. And it’s working. Your clients stay with you for years and you can’t get them to leave because they’re just so happy with you, because they’re seeing results. It’s not because they’re being pushed into them, but because they’re being invited to really create that sustainably from the ground up.

Gaylene: Yeah, I love how you recognize that out of all of this because I think it gives us permission to do the little things that make a Big difference. When you talk about going big, we’re not even doing the small things. We don’t have time to go big. We don’t. If I just gave you permission, okay, let’s focus on getting you some sleep and drinking more water. 

Most people take a big sigh of relief. They’re like really, that’s all I need to do to start heading the right direction. We’ll build on that over time. But if we’re already not getting enough sleep before already, not drinking enough water, if we’re not already taking time to make a healthy lunch, then there’s a lot of little things that can make a big difference. 

That also goes back to the sustainability of it. Right? If we create those healthy habits. I use this example a lot with my clients — when did you learn to brush your teeth? Why do you brush your teeth every day? Because you probably make time to brush your teeth every single day. That’s a healthy habit that you built at some point in your life. We can build other healthy habits, other ones that are just as small, but make a really big difference. Brushing our teeth is something we know we need to do. We make the time to actually do it. It only takes a couple of minutes. Let’s do a couple of other things like that. But it can actually just take a couple of minutes a day, we can commit to doing we’ll build it up over time, and it’ll work for the long term health.

Cait: I love that so much. That’s such a beautiful, beautiful reminder, beautiful invitation. I literally feel like I’ve been to the spa just having this conversation. It’s so permission-giving. It’s so empowering. And it feels very, very manageable. Yet it’s interesting how for a lot of us, what is simple and what it’s like oh, okay, great Gaylene, and you just gave us the keys, thanks, I’m just gonna go be super present and do one thing at a time. And yet, when we try to do it alone, we revert back to our Instagram addiction, going a million miles selves. We need that reminder to breathe and to go slow and to take it one thing at a time. I’m mindful that so much of this work is reminding ourselves and reminding the people that we work with that it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Gaylene: Yeah, it absolutely is a marathon. It’s one of those things that, I think is why my clients stay with me month after month, year after year is because of that accountability. Yeah, because when left to our own –me too, right — I work with coaches as well. When left to our own, when we can drift off doing different things, or we forget to stay on track, or we make decisions that are not in the best interest of what we should be doing moving forward. Having someone else’s eyes on our life, on our business. We need someone else giving us that feedback and stepping in with us to look at the bigger picture is so so helpful. 

So a lot of my clients that do stick around when I’ve asked them, what do you want more of? What do you enjoy the most? It’s always the accountability and the motivation and religiously having me by their side that they appreciate the most. Having someone who gets it, having someone in their life that they can turn to, having somebody that can give them that little kick in the butt, to focus on the little things that are going to make the biggest difference for them. And do it continually and repeatedly. When you fall off track, you get back on and you keep going. This isn’t something that’s meant to be a quick fix. We’re not going to finish working on our health in 30 days, or 60 days or even a year. This is something that we do long-term. And so with my clients, it is all about the long-term support around all of this.

Cait: That’s so beautiful. I love that. I love that focus on longevity and long-term illness as opposed to just doing something really fast for the sake of doing it. So good. One question that I always ask on this show, Gaylene, which is so much about supporting women to rise and giving them a really clear picture. You’ve already alluded to this a little bit about you’re getting sick, but I’m curious in your journey and your experience as an entrepreneur as a health coach, but then also as a woman wanting to lead her most healthy life, if there is an experience, I’m sure there’s many that you’ve fallen down and you’ve had to rise up from and what it really took for you to be able to do that? If that’s specific to health, how you’ve used that to inform how you now guide other women. 

Gaylene: When I got sick, it makes me look back and wish that I had made changes sooner, because it took me years to recover from. We can always look back and wish we would have done something. We can look back and have that regret or wish that something was different. 

So a reminder to take action on whatever it is that you want right now. Create the future that you want right now, the things you’re doing today, the activities that you’re working on in your business, the things you’re doing for your health, you’re literally creating where you’re going to be 30 days from now 90 days from now, one year from now. So we can’t look back and go, I wish I, whatever, because that’s already done. But we can absolutely look forward and think about what we want our life to look like and then start putting the things in place right now to create that.

Cait: I love that so much. That’s so so beautiful. The last question I love to leave our listeners with is, you’re such a treasure trove of information and support and motivation and all of the things. If you had to channel a message for women listening to this, who are really wanting to improve their health who are visualizing them as that balanced, whole, happy, healthy,  from the inside out, truly healthy woman, but that feels really far away right now, what would you say to them? 

Gaylene: That could be something I could talk to them about for an hour. Really, where I would go with my clients is to really give them that deeper level of support. But if I was just to try and sum it up, it’s to decide to put yourself first. If that means putting your health first, and start taking those actions, but put yourself first. 

Life is always going to be pulling at you in many different directions, whether that be your business, or if you are a boss, or if you are a spouse, or a mom, whatever. Your roles in life are going to continue pulling at you today, tomorrow, next week. Just they say on the airplane, put that oxygen mask on first. I want everyone to start putting themselves first. Put your health first. Because when you do, you’ll be in much better shape and condition. Mentally, emotionally, physically, to be able to support all of those other people that are in your life relying on you. 

When we get depleted and when we get drained, we’re not the best version of ourselves for anybody, right? Our relationships suffer, our responsibilities suffer. So really, really taking care of prioritizing ourselves and our health, I think is what I would encourage every single one of us to do different and a little bit better of and start taking those small actions right now.

Cait: That’s so beautiful. I love that so much. I’m literally gonna go eat myself up some soup, I was just gonna have another bagel, but we’re gonna have that soup. Yes. Gaylene. Thank you so, so much for being on the show today for all of those beautiful reminders. Where can our listeners stay connected with you figure out do you have any upcoming programs? Where can we find you on the internet and hang out with you? I know you give so much crazy amounts of free value out there as well. But tell us where we can stay connected with you and keep up with all things that you’re putting out?

Gaylene: Business name is called Compass Rose Nutrition & Wellness. The reason that it’s called that is because I want to help you find the way on your path. We’re also individual. So if you’re not familiar with a Compass Rose, definitely Google what it looks like because it’s the inside of a compass, with a little flower that points the right direction. 

My goal is to help you figure out what your best stretch forward is. I have a website, it’s CompassRoseNutrition.ca. I’m in Canada. So it’s dot ca, I have my Facebook page, I have a Facebook group. So absolutely, I have a big community of women who are ready to start making these changes. I would love you to join in that. 

But if you’re really ready to take action, if this is something that you’re listening to thinking, Okay, I want that accountability and that motivation and I really am ready to start putting myself in my health first, then absolutely come over into our membership. It’s called Nourish For Life, because this is a lifelong change. It’s a low-cost monthly membership, but it’s something that women stick around for a very long time so that they can get that continued support and accountability and motivation on their journey. Cait, I’m sure will pop all of these links. But please come over Say hi, let me know that you heard this. Tell me what resonates and I would absolutely love to connect with you and help you plan your next steps.

Cait: Oh so beautiful. Gaylene And yes, we will include all of those links in the show notes you guys and if you did listen to this episode, tag us on your Instagram stories and let us know what really resonated with you what really stuck with you will put galleon’s Instagram all of the website links and the membership link on the show notes as well for you guys to listen back. 

Gaylene once again, thank you so much for the beautiful work that you do the deep breath that you help us all remember to take and just all the goodness that you’re putting out there. It’s so powerful. It’s really world-changing. So thank you for being here.