Episode #109: Birthday Special: Unstoppable Clients Ask Anything

Summary

Get ready for a revealing and empowering episode of the Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast! I’m taking a bold step in this birthday special by inviting my clients, both past and present, to interview me. With no prior knowledge of the questions, I’m diving into the deep end of my coaching journey, sharing insights and vulnerabilities like I’ve never done before.

If this podcast resonates with you, get my Free 5 Minutes Per Day Weight Loss Mini-Course over at: https://www.theunstoppablemombrain.com/email 

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Join me in this unconventional way of celebrating by letting my clients take the reins and ask anything.
• The transformative power of coaching as I reflect on my journey from physician to life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms.
• The evolution of my coaching practice, from one-on-one sessions to intimate small group settings, and the impact it has had on clients' lives.
• Insights into my personal growth as I candidly discuss the challenges and surprises I encountered on my path to becoming an entrepreneur and coach.
• My reflections on self-discovery, resilience, and the importance of embracing failure as an essential part of the journey towards personal and professional fulfillment.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Download the full transcript here

• Priyanka Venugopal: Hey, this is Dr. Priyanka Venugopal and you're listening to the Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast. My client's interviewing me for my birthday. I am thrilled for today's episode. One of my OG clients reached out to me and she was like, how were we celebrating your birthday? And she came up with this amazing idea to bring on clients from the past, some of my current clients to basically ask me questions that I have maybe not answered very directly, or maybe ever actually. Ever. And answer some of the questions that I think are sometimes lingering for my clients and my audience. We, I cannot tell you, first of all, when I hopped onto this call, I was so nervous. I do not know any of the questions that they're going to ask me. And truly, I think that my clients are, first of all, incredibly amazing for taking this time out to come onto the podcast, to help me celebrate my birthday. Um, But really also, I think that this call is such a testament to what we are doing together in Unstoppable and in this group where women who are leaders and smart cookies in their industry get to come together for a common cause, everyone in the Unstoppable orbit. And that includes you as a listener of this podcast is interested in self growth. You don't want to keep your status quo, whether it is the number on the scale, how you feel in your body, how you're feeling in your relationships with your children, with your partner, with your work, we are here because we want more. We want to create bigger and better lives. And we all know that there is a mindset component to this, which we're going to be getting into on today's podcast episode. So without further ado, I'm going to bring on my clients from the Unstoppable group. These are some of my clients from the past, some of my clients right now, and we are going to get into asking me anything. And I don't even know what they're going to ask me. Let's get into the episode. If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life. I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms. I've lost over 60 pounds without counting points, calories, or crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm and light on the scale and in my life. There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching you. Ready? Let's get to it. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I already did an introduction for today's episode, but I am beyond just excited. Is such an understatement to welcome some of my Unstoppable clients who are helping me celebrate my birthday today. This was all hope's idea. I'm going to give the mic over to hope in just a second. She is one of my OG OG clients who reached out to me and was like, how are we celebrating this? Like, what are we doing? You're always asking your clients questions on the podcast. I bring my clients on to share their stories. And she's like, what if we turned the tables on you for your birthday. And asked you some questions. So I have no idea what they're asking. I actually told him I'm feeling quite nervous about this episode, but I trust them and love them so much. So I am just unfiltered. I don't even know what's about to happen, but Hope take it away. What are we asking Priyanka today? 

  Hope: Well, happy birthday. We wanted to, like you said, flip the script and. Interview you a little bit. We've all heard a lot about your weight loss journey, but we wanted to hear a little bit about your kind of coaching journey. So we each have a couple of questions for you. So I wanted to know where along your getting coach journey, when you started with your weight loss coaching, when did you decide that you wanted to become a coach? 

  Priyanka Venugopal: So I first discovered, I didn't know coaching was much of a thing other than maybe performance coaching and like athletes getting coached. So I think I first discovered coaching as a thing in the spring of 2019 and I fell down the rabbit hole as we do. I discovered a podcast, fell in love with it. And then I joined Katrina Ubell's program. She was my very first coach who I dearly love, adore and respect. And I would say in the beginning, I becoming a coach was like, you know, not even on my radar. I think probably after the first, like after working with her for about six months and really, of course, not just losing the weight, but changing so much of my personal life, specifically with my son, who's now eight, but at the time was three and a half, four years old. I changed so much of my relationship with him and how I felt as a mom. I just felt like, um, I wanted to deepen my own skills for me. So the goal was not for me to become a coach for other people. It was more, I mean, as we do high achievers and like, maybe if I like, you know, get a certification in this process, I will be able to better coach myself and better understand my brain. And so I want to say it was probably in the early spring of 2020. So five or six months into me getting coached, I just felt like this was something I wanted to do. And also as a physician, and maybe as specifically as an OBGYN, I think I've actually been a coach since the minute I graduated medical school. I don't think I realized it until I was going through coach certification that coaching came naturally to me. And it was because I had been coaching my patients as a, as a physician. So I think it felt like such a natural fit, but it was mostly just for me to Decide I want to take it to the next level. And then the rest is history. 

  Hope: As one of your, I think you're very early on clients, it's been fun to watch you kind of evolve your coaching program, both your advice and going from one on one to kind of longer sessions to group sessions. So I, I think you've talked about this a little bit too, but about your transition from individual coaching and group coaching and what you, you've learned. What you hope to provide with it and what you get out of it. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Oh, this is my, one of my favorite things. So I still remember Hope when you and I first talked for the very first time. This was probably the fall of the fall of 2020. I think is when we started working together one on one and I posted in this OBGYN mom's Facebook group, like, hey, who wants to get coached? And Hope was one of the brave, brave people that was like me. And it was, I felt like really honestly, like kinship. Right. When we first started working together, I just. I mean, I loved working with you one on one and I want to say that one on one coaching was really beautiful. I always love one on one because we get to really do a deep dive and have a lot of abundant space and time to just coach on one topic. But what started to happen, I noticed is a lot of my one on one clients would be getting coached on the exact same obstacle. So they would get coached on their husbands or their kid, or, you know, they overate the pizza on Friday night when they didn't mean to, like a lot of these same concepts and themes would come up again and again. And a lot of what I noticed is in one on one coaching, it's much easier to think that you're the only one with a problem. Like I'm the special snowflake who just can't stop yelling at my kids, or I'm the special snowflake who is disconnected from my partner. And it must just be me. And this. It's like very isolationist and we feel really lonely in overcoming problems. And this was when I think it was in the fall of 2021. I started doing those story time calls. So I started to bring all of my one on one clients together for this  occasional group call where I would basically have a little bit of teaching, I would share a personal story and then we would kind of coach on it. And that was so impactful. So many people would reach out to me after the fact and be like, I did not really realize, I know you would tell me, but I didn't realize that I was not alone in this hearing that person share that marriage struggle or hearing that person share, you know, that, that worry they're having about their kid. Like I just felt so not alone. And that was when like, I just got bit by the bug of having an intimate small group and letting high achieving. Smart women who usually do feel really alone. I think in a lot of the struggles we have, we have this like badge of honor that we have to do it ourselves. Like this could be a space where maybe you don't have to do it yourself and getting to like really see that you are not the only one. I couldn't unsee that. And that was when I made a really hard switch from one on one to group. I was not offering one on one anymore. And yeah, so that was when I, I think that was in early 2022 that I moved to intimate small group. 

   

  Hope: On that note. What do you get out of coaching others? 

  Priyanka Venugopal: This is also, I mean, these are all such good questions. You guys are, oh, these are like really good questions. So I actually like to answer this question because I get asked often, why did you leave medicine? Like, cause I often share, I left being a practicing OBGYN, not because of burnout. A lot of physicians leave practice because they hate they get burned out. They're overworking. They leave for that reason. I think that that's worth, you know, that's a different story for me. I think it's just a testament to my experience with coaching. So I loved. being a physician, loved my practice. Of course, there were things that I did not love, but I overall loved being a practicing physician. What I think I started to experience as a coach was the kind of impact that I was able to have and the ripple effect that it was having on someone's life was far outpacing the ripple effect that I was able to have as a physician. So for example, you know, Hope, I remember, you know, we're getting, you're getting coached on maybe, you know, some, a relationship, like maybe marriage or maybe, maybe in your, with your children. And it wasn't just that you got to feel better or you experienced something, the ripple effect in your family, they got to experience something too. And they got to experience, you know, Oh, my mom is showing up in this way. That's better for them. And there's something about that. That was really intoxicating for me that it's not just my clients that are experiencing this, but their family, their. Friends, their local community, their staff, I can't tell you how many times people will say, like, you know, the staff that I work with are seeing so many changes in me or, you know, and, and that I think also is, it's like, how can we impact more people? It just felt like it was way more impactful. So I think it was intoxicating. And. Very gratifying that number one, it could be on my terms. So I wasn't having an office manager or a senior partner say to me, you're, you have to work in this way. You get 20 minutes with the patient. You have to clock in, clock out labs are due at this time. It was on, on my terms. I got to decide how much I wanted to do and how little, and, and yeah, so I would say that's, that's what I've gotten out of coaching. 

  Hope: You just answered one of our next questions. Diana, who's not here asked, which as a transition here, which parts of medicine translate to the work you do now in which parts are completely new?

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. Oh, that's a good one, Diana. I think the parts that are very similar, at least. Because I was in women's health and my lens as a physician was always very holistic like when I would be seeing my OBGYN patient I wasn't just doing just a pap smear or just a breast exam Like I really think I had this lens of seeing them as a whole human and a lot of times what I would pick up Especially for my patients after the age of 35 when they've had their first kid and now they're transitioning into this mom hood Maybe they're working, their, their marriages have absolutely shifted after having a kid. I think a lot of what has been the same is addressing the fears that a lot of women would have in that transition. So like, they'd be afraid of not being enough, afraid of working hard enough, afraid of doing it just right, afraid of, you know, the, you know, the expectations that maybe their family has on them. And so I think that it's interesting because coaching helps us kind of uncover a lot of the fears that we didn't. No, maybe we had, we might not have called it fear, we might have called it doubt or uncertainty or, you know, insecurity, but ultimately I think the same in terms of, you know, my practice as a physician and as a coach is uncovering what those were. The difference as a physician is I would give medical advice and it would be advice, like, here's what you can do to solve this problem. And as a coach, I think my biggest work has been not to tell my clients. what to do. I mean, sometimes I tell you all what to do. So I'm just like, this is what you need to do. But to help you find your inner wisdom, to help you find your highest wisdom, to help you unlock, you know, the answer for you and like what has been blocking you from uncovering this, that has been different. As a physician, I'm so practiced in like, this is what you do. This is the right answer. Steps one, two, and three. And as a coach to help you really discover your answers and what's right for you and finding your own inner voice and your confidence in navigating those obstacles. 

  Hope: And then I just have one more and then we'll move on here. What have been the most challenging and surprising parts of becoming a coach? And also, I guess, an entrepreneur that was a little different. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: So entrepreneur is a whole different thing. I'm going to answer that question separately. What's the, I think the unexpected thing with becoming a coach. When I first became a coach, I didn't expect to, because as a physician, I was pretty good at compartmentalizing. I would leave the hospital or would leave the office. And I was able to just be present with my kids, present with my You know, put the work away when I would get, when I would get home. But what I've noticed as a coach is I am very often thinking about my client's problems. I'm like, how can I coach this person in a way more powerfully? How can I teach them this concept so that they get it more quickly? And I find that I am often thinking about and trying to problem solve these things outside of our coaching call outside of, you know, our written slack cap coaching. I'm like, how can I explain this better so that they get it more fast? And I think that that has been something that. I, that's been my work for  me to really reel in so that when I'm with my family or when I'm doing my thing that, and it's easy for me to not do that because I love coaching so much and I love my clients so much that it's easy for me to just let that kind of run away with that. Let's say that that would probably be the biggest thing I've had to learn as a coach. As an entrepreneur, this has been, I would say in terms of my own self journey, one of the hardest things I have done in my whole entire life is self coaching. And this is after becoming a physician. I thought, I thought, you know, becoming a physician in residency was going to be the hardest thing or even early attending life. And yes, those were really hard in their own way. There was so much hustle and hardship to get through, but I think why entrepreneurship is so important. Has been so challenging is that there are no rules. And as someone who loves protocol and loves a good rule, you give me steps one, two, and three, and you want to just, you know, have the equation, what it equals. It has really forced me to let go of a lot of my perfectionism. This is why I talk about perfectionism so much with all of you, with my clients, with my audience, because I know that perfectionism as an entrepreneur has held me back. It's made me be quieter. It's made me hide. It's made me be small. I filter myself a lot. How am I going to say this so that maybe somebody's not offended people, please. I mean, there's so many layers of how perfectionism shows up. And as an entrepreneur, I have really had to catch that and, you know, have my coaches catch it for me and show me and really make a leap. of trusting myself, that even if, not if, when I fall flat on my face, how am I going to treat myself in this moment? I didn't have to do that as much as a physician. As a physician, I felt like, I felt very confident. You know, you give me a c-section, give me a hysterectomy, give me a laparoscopy, give me any emergency, there's a protocol. This is the team I'm going to call in, this is the steps 1, 2, and 3, even if there's someone hemorrhaging, there's a protocol. With entrepreneurship, there is no protocol. There is, you know, you could be hemorrhaging, I mean, you know, figuratively in your mind, and there is no protocol other than you having your own back. And so I think that it has been, for me, one of the biggest self growth discoveries, other than I think being a mom, I would say.

  Hope: Thanks for sharing all that. I'm going to pass the microphone. 

  Roshni: Yes. Hi, everybody. So my name is Roshni and fun fact, Priyanka and I actually trained together. It feels like a long time ago, but it wasn't that long ago. I know. Yeah. And actually, one of the questions I had is a kind of a segue from the last question. So this is good. My question is, what do you wish you knew? Before embarking, you know, on this journey, creating your business, forming a brand, what would have you told your past self, I guess? 

   

  Priyanka Venugopal: So I think I would have told myself something, but I just wouldn't have listened to myself. So I'm going to tell you why I'm saying that I would have told myself that you're going to mess up and it's going to suck and it's going to feel terrible. And that's normal. That's normal. And I think, and like, let's just expect it. It's going to be a part of the ride and it's okay to go through that experience. You're going to be just fine. And I think if I had told myself this a few years ago, this is with weight loss and, you know, in becoming a coach and in entrepreneurship, especially with, even with weight loss, I wouldn't have believed myself. I would have been like, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, like I would have logically understood, like, of course, we're going to make this, like, we all know logically we're going to make mistakes, but somehow we also subconsciously are like, well, we can kind of get around it. Well, we can just kind of work really hard. We can overwork. We can, you know, excessively plan excessively research to get the right, perfect strategy and perfect execution. So we can avoid the discouragement and the discomfort of failure. And I have had to learn, I think the only way I've had to learn this is actually by failing so many times that, oh. Turns out that this is a normal part of their process and it's gotten to the point where it still stings every time that I fall flat or have a failure. It still stings, but I'm like, Oh yeah, this is the time that we fail. This is that this is, this is that normal time that we fail. And I also remind myself, even, you know, this is true with weight loss and with entrepreneurship, even the people that are so far ahead in their businesses, people that are so far along in their weight loss journey, already lost all of the weight, you're going to gain it back. I think actually this is part of the reason that I made inside the curriculum. I have that Priyanka's diary module where I lost all of the weight, lost all, like reached my goal weight. And then I think I gained what seven or eight pounds back. And I was like, yep, this is normal. And really recording a day in the life over 30 days. Like how do I lose 10 pounds just because of the skills that we learn, like failure is normal. And I think we spend so much time in marinating. in the failure and marinating in the soup of discouragement. And that's what drives all the effort moments, destroyed moments, the micro quits. That's the real reason, right. That we don't launch. I think about like launching as like letting the rocket really take off. We like take off and we like fall back, take off and fall back. But I think. To let the rocket launch. It's like, just know it's going to be bumpy. I don't think I would have believed myself if I told myself.

  Roshni: And another question I have is where do you see yourself in a year? 

  Priyanka Venugopal: This is really a good question. I know that I also, I ask you guys often like lighthouse goals, right? Like where do you like, you know, really visualizing yourself. Can I be so honest? I don't know. I don't know. I feel like, I feel, you know, it's one of those things where I think I tell myself that I'll figure that out later. I'll figure out where I want to be a year from now in a little bit. And then all of a sudden it's a year later. I'm like, Oh, we didn't really think about that and still surprised and like we waffle around right for the last year. I know last year I had told myself I want to be the fittest I can ever be ever in my life. I told myself that last year and the mistake I made last year was I didn't truly visualize it. I didn't actually like let it crystallize and get into the nitty gritty details of what work it was going to take. And it was no surprise. I failed at that goal. So, and I shared this, I think it was in the new year's episode, like how I failed to hit the fitness goals that I had set for myself because of this question, I didn't actually decide like, what is it that I want for myself?

   

  So I think a year from now, I'm just coming up with this right now, is I really want to have achieved that level of like strength is what's really important to me. The certain level of strength where I feel truly just like I'm at my absolute peak, at my absolute physical peak. And I think this is not even just about a weight loss thing. It's just about, you know, like vitality. I see some of these women at the gym. I've started going to these um, strength training classes. Some of these women, they're like 70. Older ladies and their biceps are just like ripped and I'm like, I want to be 70 and have ripped biceps. Like these women are lifting heavy weights. I'm like, they're not going to need help loading the groceries in their car. They're going to come to the groceries, get to the trunk. They're not going to say, excuse me, sir, can you help me load my groceries? Like, I want to be that person who can like load the groceries. So I would say, you know, in terms of my body, my body goals would be to be the strongest that I can possibly be a year from now, that's going to be a lifetime journey.

  I think the other one, then this is more personal. I think the other one for me is a really, really, really giving my relationships. More, more airtime in my life, like actually more like this is my kids and my husband again, because of what I was sharing in the beginning, like I can think about my business and entrepreneurship and my clients, and it will take over me being with my kids and be like, I'll be with them, but I'm not really with them, you know? So I think that the other goal I have is to set boundaries for me for when am I going to be doing my work? And work is work time. And like, truly when I'm with my kids, especially my kids, like they're like growing, they grow up. And I'm like, where did, where did that time go? It's because I'm not being present with them. So that would say that's the other thing for me is to really bring that to the forefront. 

  Anu: I'll jump in. This is Anu. All right. So I'm going to ask you what three adjectives would you use to describe yourself before your Unstoppable journey versus now? 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Oh, Oh, I know this is a good question. I want to let me think. Okay. So I would say before Unstoppable, driven is the first one that comes to mind. Empathetic and like, hardworking. Is that an adjective? I feel like that's an adjective. Like, just hardworking. Put your head down and just do the work. I think after, like, after my coaching experience and just, just the work from the last few years, I would say one adjective is willing. Willing. I was not, I was really, I think, oh, here's another adjective from before. Inflexible. I was so rigid. I still am rigid in many ways. I have very all or nothing tendencies, but like, really rigid. It's my way or the highway. Like, that type of thinking. Yeah. And now I would say I'm a lot more willing to like basically experiment and like allow other people's opinions to be right, aka my husband. The other one would be I think brave. Like I'm more brave now than I was before. I'm more, I think this kind of ties in with willing, like I'm just willing to be wrong. I'm willing to be dead wrong. I'm willing to just fall flat. Even though it feels totally, totally terrible, but it's allowed me to make bigger choices in my life. And I think the last one, I feel like it's still empathetic. I don't know. I, or like compassionate. I can't put my finger on quite what it is, but it's like, I don't know. I just feel like my heart sometimes like surrounds my whole body and I'm just like always feeling a lot of love for the people I'm with. So whatever word that would be, I would say. When does that describe me? 

  Anu: I was going to ask you one more question probably ties into what our theme has been. If you could do one thing differently in any aspect of your life, what would it be? 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Okay. So I think I try very intentionally to not hold any regrets. And I, and I say that only because I really do believe, and I know I say this a lot in our coaching calls, but like every, you know, misstep that I have made personally, Was something I had to learn. I made that misstep because there was something for me to learn in that moment. But that being said, I think that the biggest one would be thinking that I needed to change my son. And this was again, like right before coaching and not just my son. I probably had this feeling about my husband, feeling about my job, feeling about like lots of things, like feeling like. Something outside of me had to change for me to feel better. And I think it was the most, it was just the most for my son, you know, cause as a kid, if your mom is thinking like, I wish you were different. I didn't know that I was doing this at the time, but I'm just imagining like, you know, subconsciously if in my, if my energy around him was like, I wish he was just easier. I wish he was just different. I think, you know, I, I feel, I do feel some self love. Sadness. When I think about like as a, as a child, as a three-year-old, you know, how must he have been experiencing his mom who wanted him to be different than he was? I would say if there's one thing it would really have been to have discovered coaching earlier, like to have, you know, discovered coaching before I had kids. And also, I don't know that I would've been open to it before I had kids. I feel like I had to like kind of go through it. So I would say that, and I would say even now, and this is one again, it's like kind of speaking to Roshni's question, like what could I tell myself? Even now I find myself. You know, when I do have a misstep or make a mistake, like have a fail, I still very reflexively, it's, it's so subtle because I'm a generally optimistic, half glossful kind of person, but I still do have negative self talk. And I think that I want to start catching it earlier for myself, like, Oh, that's just, let's do nothing. We do, and to not let myself linger in it, which. I have a tendency of doing sometimes. 

  Kelli: I'm up next. So this is Kelli. I'm going to put myself in one of the OG categories with Hope. So we've, we've coached for several years. And so my question is going to be hopefully a little, little fun here, but what is your go to guilty pleasure? And I want you to not answer Cool Ranch Doritos or the Netflix Plot. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I love it. I love it. Okay. Guilty pleasures. I think my guiltiest pleasures is to binge watch like shows on Netflix that I know my husband's not going to watch, like just by myself. And I don't want to, I don't want him to be home. So here's the, okay, when for it to be truly like the most relaxing, I want to be completely alone. I want my husband to be on a work trip. That's like the best. If he's on a work trip, somehow, I don't know why the house feels empty. It's it is emptier, but like, I feel more like I get to just really chill and. Watch, like, 1990s, like, The Net with Sandra Bullock or, like, something that, you know, like, old school, 1980s. Or read, like, trashy romance novels with my glass of wine and just I mean, it's still a plop down, but it's, like, an alone plop down. And I don't know what it is. There's something about just truly being alone, like, if my kids are not at home or if my husband's not at home, that it feels like I can somehow Really feel even more relaxed, like visually you can see I'm like really even more relaxed. I just get to unwind and I think a lot of it is because I'm not thinking about what, you know, my husband's going to think about this show, what my husband's going to think about me putting on the net again, what my husband's going to think about me picking up, like, you know, Twilight. I don't know, whatever book I might've read in the past, but like, I think it's one of those things where subconsciously I'm like, what is he thinking about me doing this? And that is why it's like, I wanted to be totally alone to do that. Oh, and the other one I do love. I'm just gonna say this because this is something everyone should know. I don't do Cool Ranch Doritos anymore, but what I do do is I make Fiesta Popcorn. Have we talked about Fiesta Popcorn, guys? Fiesta Popcorn. So you make the popcorn from scratch, like the fresh popped and then nutritional yeast. And the paprika and the onion powder and you throw in a little bit of homemade ranch. So it's like a gooey with it. Can we just, I mean, that's another guilty pleasure. Love that too. So it's not cool ranch. 

  Kelli: You maybe just answered my next question. You could choose one food to eat for the rest of your life. What would it be? 

   

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. You guys know, I love a good cauliflower crust pizza. So I would say it's like. The only reason I'm gonna say cauliflower crust pizza is because I actually get nutrients. And like, truly, it hits all the categories for me where I get all the vegetables that I want, I can make it protein heavy, and I feel so satisfied. I could eat it every single day. I have had it on my birthday. I have, like, I remember, this might have been last year or the year before, but I was like, also, what are you gonna do for your birthday? I'm like, cauliflower crust pizza with, like, our new movie on Netflix. That was just lovely for me. But yeah, actually, the popcorn with fiesta popcorn is a close second, but it has very little nutritional value. So, there's that. 

  Kelli: And lastly, again, I think it's funny that you hit on, on both of, of my first question, what is the last book that you read and what was your takeaway from it? 

  Priyanka Venugopal: The last? So, I have, I usually have two books going at the same time. I usually have one that is just pure, like, non self help, non self help category. I just got introduced, and reading it, it's called The Fourth Wing. It's a, it's a romanticy, romanticy is like sci fi romance. And, So that's like non self help. And then I would say the self, like the ones that I'm reading for just my own brain is I really love Dan Sullivan. He has a couple of really good books and I think that that was probably the last self help book I read. Oh, the other one is Us. That was for relationships. It's a pretty heavy book, but I would say that that was the other one. I actually mistakenly, I messaged Hope about this, but I took that book with me on my last vacation. That was so not a good idea. It was literally talking about these like very, you know, dysfunctional marriages and like marriages that I've needed a lot of work and therapy and I'm like on this beach vacation with my husband and I'm like having tears in my eyes crying for these, like the pages that I'm reading. So that, that, that was the other book. It was quite good though. I'm going to hand it over to Katie. 

  Kaity: My question is if you can tell us a story about like a client journey or maybe multiple client journeys that inspired you. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I think all of my clients, I've learned something from every client that I've coached. Actually, you know, even this call is really a testament to the culture of Unstoppable and like what my, my kind of goal has been. And a lot of what I'm teaching has often been inspired by a client. So I think one of the most common, like one of the trainings that I referenced the most, like the urges training was inspired by one of my clients, Annalisa. And I've talked about urges and cravings in so many ways over the years, but I remember last year, one of my clients was asking a question about urges. And the way that she happened to pose the question and ask the question, it just, it like inspired me to teach urges in a different way. We create a whole training on it. So I have to just start by saying that. I have probably learned as much from my clients as my clients learn from coaching and it inspires teaching and frameworks and, you know, the coaching kind of direction that we go in. I would say I've learned something from every single one. I think that the clients that I feel so inspired by actually Kaity, you're one of the clients I feel so inspired by. And I say this because, you know, you and I have talked a lot about perfectionism. And this desire to like, do a certain, like, you know, show up in a certain way. And the way that you have navigated imperfection and those hard moments is so inspiring to me because I see how often, you know, when we are met with imperfection, when we are met with, you know, what we kind of would label as a proverbial fail, how often, and I know that I, I still do this to this day, how often we just stop showing up or we hide. Are we, you know, we just like, you know, check out and we've talked about this before in, in our coaching calls, but that's just a stress response, right? Like where we hide, freeze, run away, check out. And what I really feel inspired by is when we are willing to, it's like willingness. To feel the discomfort and not hide. And I think what I've learned and this is from my clients and I think what I just see again and again through so many of your journeys is it feels maybe in the moment like hiding feels better if you like hit a roadblock or you haven't done something perfectly. So hiding feels better. But what I have been learning and you guys can all tell me, but hiding actually feels really terrible. And that has been a lesson that I think I've learned from you all, like from my, from my clients, and also just in my own, in my own journey, when I'm not showing up exactly perfectly, I have this tendency to hide and that doesn't feel good either. So I would say that, that, that would be what it is for me.

  Hope: Yeah, I really appreciate how Unstoppable has taught me to be, to persistently show up for myself, because I think there's this journey you have where initially you're showing up for you, Priyanka, like I'm showing up because you're my coach and I'm showing up to you. And then eventually that trust kind of turns around on yourself and it becomes self trust that I'm showing up for me. I also wanted to comment that I have also noticed a change in myself about around flexibility where I kind of came in really rigid and have noticed. flexibility in all areas of my life, especially with weight loss, but really everywhere, even with my relationships. So I thought this might be a good opportunity to kick off other people also sharing things that were different before and after Unstoppable or if you have any specific like pearls or the things that you hear Priyanka in your head or coaching you on. 

  Kaity: Yeah. You know what you want me to say in my head? You always say in my head, that's so normal. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Does he really? I love it. Influencing the husbands.

  Hope: I remember early on coaching on, on the cookies and yeah, I can still picture this moment of eating some cookies. Someone else had made that weren't really that good, but I kept eating them. And you're like, what are you thinking when you're putting that in your mouth? And I remember thinking, I wish this would taste better. And I like kept thinking that eating it more would make it taste better. And it still, to this day, like stops me from like eating things just because you wish it was something else. And it's really not serving a purpose. So that's mine. Anyone else wants to jump in? 

  Kelli: I think what you've been able to do for me is just Kind of putting that mirror up and being able to see the things that I maybe couldn't see myself, which again, I think is just what, what coaching brings, but, uh, the way you do it and the way that you helped push us to see those things. And, and I think the phrase I always recall you saying is, And why is that a problem? Like, like, why truly is, is that a problem? And just that simple question really allows you to stop and, and reflect on, you know, whatever it is that you're coaching on. It helps to kind of shift some of that thinking. So I think that's something you've always been able to do for me. And I really appreciate, appreciate, and it's given me the confidence. I think to really attack any situation that comes my way. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I love that. You know, I think the other thing Kelli's speaking on that one is we have, you know, we've, I call these whiffies, right? Like the what ifs, what if I get negative feedback? What if my colleague says this? What if my kid has a meltdown? Like, what if I gain a pound? Like all these whiffies. These rhetorical questions and I think what I used to do for a really long time and I think what you do maybe before you get coached or as you're getting coached is we don't actually let our mind go there like let's just what if like what if you get negative feedback from a boss or colleague or a patient right like if you're a physician what if you gain a pound so and I think that's like So what?

   

  Like, so what if that happens? Let's go there. And then, and like, really letting us go to those worst case scenarios that we've kind of kept hidden in a closet. And that's what's happened. Like we've shut so tight because we don't want to really face what might happen. But like, what if we actually showed ourselves? If we got to the worst case scenario, then what would we do? And that's where we get to find our power. Like, oh, even in the worst case scenario, the scariest one, I mean, even the scariest, scariest one, like reminding ourselves, like we would be okay. We would figure it out even in the worst case scenario. And I think somehow that, that for me has created a lot of, it's relaxed. A lot of my stresses and it's helped me know, we talk about open stress cycles. It closes a lot of stress cycles for me. And then it lets me make decisions from a place. That's not from my primitive fearful place. It's from my most wisest self, because I'm like, I can handle even in the worst case scenario. So I love that that's been impactful for you. 

  Roshni: I'll share something, something that I've really taken away from this program and working with Priyanka has been the voice I use when I speak to myself, whether. Things are going great or I'm falling flat on my face. And that voice just translates in all my other areas of life. That's what I'm working on. And that's been my, um, I've been a really impactful lesson from all of this. Like, what is the voice I want to choose? And that's going to really help me get through the, you know, failures and the highs and the, you know, All the different parts of life. So thank you for that. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I love that. I always think about, and I forget if this was brushing with you, or maybe we were coaching someone else in the group, but you know, when we ask the way we talk to ourselves, like, would I ever say this to my child when they're like, I want you to imagine your child when they're like two years old, like real baby, like really tiny, tiny baby. And you're like, no, of course I would never say this to my child. And yet we see. things to ourselves all the time that we would never say to our loved ones or to our best friends. And I'm like, how come we don't get that regard? Right. And I think that that it's just a good question. I love, I love that.

  Anu: Yeah, I'll go to, I think probably, you know, I, I signed up not knowing for Unstoppable, not knowing really anything about coaching. Really. I was looking for kind of an accountability. Yeah. group to help me get the weight off. And it's been so much more than that. And I think probably one of my big aha moments was, I think I brought to coaching about something just kind of relationship wise with my daughter about kind of having to navigate like difficult emotions. And I remember Priyanka asking me like, well, whose emotion are you really trying to deal with? I mean, are you going to let her, is it her emotion or is it your, Like feeling about her emotion and that shut really kind of made me stop and think about yes It really is me not wanting her to feel bad And so I would try to like kind of shut everything down or go into my kind of typical like let's fix it Let's see how we can fix it before allowing her or my other kids or even my husband like just kind of experience what they need To experience and so I've shown up very differently as a wife and a mom And I I know my family appreciates it. So thank you Priyanka. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I love that. 

  Hope: That's so, yeah, I knew that one is, that one was really impactful for me too, where I all of a sudden realized like, Oh, every time I'm uncomfortable with somebody else's feeling, it's really my feeling I'm uncomfortable with and starting to unravel that and realizing that I don't have to do that. Like I don't have to fix their emotion to fix mine. I can just fix mine. 

   

  Priyanka Venugopal: That's been so good. I love that one. I actually noticed that. I mean, even to this day, sometimes when, when I'm in a, in a gathering, I've been the person that brings everyone together. So for example, let's say it's my parents and then my husband and Mike, and I'm like the main central character that is the reason that we're all kind of in a group. I find myself really worrying about, like, how does my mom feel right now? How does my husband feel? Like, I notice that there's, there's a little ping ponging action happening. There's a little, that looks like an irritation on his face. And that looks like irritation on my mom's face. And, and this is exactly the work. I used to really leave a lot of those kinds of weekends feeling so number one, frustrated and wishing that everyone would just, you know, be different again than they are. But I would totally not have fun on weekends like this because I was so worried about how's my mom feeling and how's my husband feeling and like, oh, I hope my kid behaves so that my mom likes how my kids behave, like all this kind of stuff. And I think that, you know, what we kind of have gotten to navigate is letting Really seeing people for the feelings that they do have. I know I'm thinking of you like, you know, your kid is feeling disappointed or nervous about something. Like seeing that nervousness and like, what is it like to not be complacent about it? Because I think as moms, we don't want to be complacent about our children having a negative experience. How can we not be complacent? And also how can we just let them be having, you know, their, their feelings? And then how can we get to have ours? I, I think that is the work. Actually, that is the, that is the constant work, which I just love so much.

  Thank you guys so much. This has been such a fun call. If anyone has anything else they want to share or add, you can jump on in. Truly this, this was such an amazing idea. Hope. Thank you for thinking of it. Thank you guys all for coming on and sharing your questions and also your stories and your takeaways. I, you know, Kaity, I really appreciate your question around what have I, been inspired by and truly, truly, I think, you know, I have learned something new from every single client I've worked with and been inspired in different ways. And so I all for that. I thank you all for trusting me as your coach. I think that that's a really big deal and something I do not take lightly at all. And I thank you all for being here and to everyone listening. I hope you all enjoy this little conversation that we had in the group and answer some of your questions. Thanks so much guys. 

  Hope: Thank you. Thank you. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: Hi. Happy birthday. That conversation was so incredibly fun. We basically kicked everyone out of the room so that I could just thank Hope for setting up a call like this and having the idea to celebrate my birthday this way. I feel like, you know, there were some questions, I think Anu's question with the adjectives, what adjectives, but I used to describe myself really stumped me. So Hope, thank you so much for organizing this call and it was amazing for me. How did you, what did you think? 

  Hope: It was super fun and it was. Yeah, it was fun to hear people's questions and for me to guess like, how is she going to answer this? Because I feel like working with you, I know some of your answers. One thing I forgot to ask, I want to ask is what do you, what kind of coaching do you get coached on now? You talk about you have your, your own coaches. I'm curious. But. Yeah, this is, this is such a good question. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I, you know, I, there's, there's different phases I think are different seasons of my life based on what I want to prioritize in that season of my life. That's the coaching that I will usually invest in. So I think, you know, after weight loss coaching, the first, I would say the first coaching that needed was the certification, like the actual life coach school certification. And I, that was a lot of coaching. And then from there, the next. Layer or level of coaching that I did was my advanced certification. So I did deep dive coaching with Bev Aaron, and that was probably one of my number one, most favorite coaching experiences as a client, because I was getting coached on my marriage. I was getting coached on my, my, You know, myself as a mom, as a physician, I got coached on like, I think, multiple areas, which is what I liked about it. It actually reminds me a little bit of Unstoppable, where you get coached on lots of different areas of your life, which is what I think I loved about my experience with Bev. And then the, probably the next, Kinds of coaching that I got was business coaching because, and I will say this very openly. I've never thought of myself as an entrepreneur.

  I've always had this identity of being a physician. Like I've put the physician hat on. That's who I am. So I had to learn how to, number one, I had to unlearn a lot of the things I had learned as a physician, which is a lot of my perfectionism tendencies, protocols, and learn how to have the mindset of an entrepreneur. And that's still to this day, I think coaching that I will somehow invest in, you know, I might take breaks every now and then, but generally I will invest in business coaching because it just helps my brain have higher quality problem solving and higher quality thinking. And I think the other coaching that I have done is relationship coaching. So marriage and relationship coaching has been again, and this is one that I was sharing even on the call where it's easy to put on the back burner, especially with me and my husband, we've always. I've always thought of us as like, you know, we have this solid relationship and I think what happened and I was telling my coach about this is it's, it was easy to take for granted almost like because we're, we're, we're fine, you know, we're cool. It's cool. We kind of, at least not we, I would let, you know, the problem of the day in my work or with the kids or just with the laundry list of tasks just supersede. The marriage and the relationship and it's easy I think to start to drift when that happens. Maggie Reyes often talks about this she says you know when you're two people in an ocean you know if you're not taking the occasional stroke towards each other or like swimming towards each other the natural waves of the ocean will drive two people who do love each other to drift apart and I think you know, at the end of last year, in the beginning of this year, that was something that I was like, I don't want that to be the case anymore. And I don't want to have the drift happen anymore. So I would say that that's been something that I really want to bring to the forefront for this year. 

  Hope: Thanks for sharing that. It's been fun to watch you over the years, growing your coaching and changing your approach and kind of clarifying your approach to weight loss and how you explain it and have kind of simplified it over the years and made it. Clear and then just kind of watch you for your business and see, see you shine. I think with you just gaining like confidence and now that you're like being speaker at certain events and things like that. It's fun to see you, how you describe yourself when you're a little shy and didn't want to talk. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: I know, I think that's true. 

  Hope: For sure come out of, you know, The shell I imagine you as a child was in.

  Priyanka Venugopal: You know, it's so fun. And I think that that's something that I forget about where I still call myself an introvert in some ways, like a social introvert. If I go to a group of people that I don't know, I hesitate to say hello first, or I feel kind of awkward and shy in those moments. But I think you're right. Probably over the last few years, just practicing speaking to people that I don't know and putting myself out, out there. And, you know, I mean, the podcast is a big example. Yeah. Releasing a podcast for the universe to hear, I think that, that has allowed me to really realize that it's okay to, to speak up and to not, I don't have to be scared of being shy. Actually, this is so interesting because my daughter, she's five and a half. She is so, so shy. She's so confident, but if she goes even to people she kind of knows, and if they ask her direct questions, she won't answer. Because she's so shy. So it's interesting, you know, because I see myself in her. 

  Hope: The bits that you share about her, I imagine her just being this like raging extrovert. That's interesting. Yeah. 

  Priyanka Venugopal: She is. It's like, I think when she's feeling it's like that safety thing, when she's feeling safety and she's like with me or with someone like her, maybe her cousin or like a best friend, then she's fully like full fledged doing her thing. But if she is in like one degree away. You know, from even someone that she sees often she's so shy and I can see her face. I can see her little brain thinking about like, she wants to say something, but she's holding herself back. I think that that's the thing with coaching. And I say this a lot where, you know, a lot of what we get to coach is generational. And I can imagine before coaching, I might have tried to force her out of her shell. I felt when I was a kid, I felt like I was being forced out of my shell. Like just speak up and just, you know, basically don't be who you are. And what I'm trying to, I think, do with her is just validate that she's shy and normalize it. And then I'm hoping that maybe that safety will translate to other situations for her, but I guess we're going to see. Amazing. I love it. Hope. Thanks for staying on. I got it. Yeah. This is a good one. I loved it. And I will see you guys all next week. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to the Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast. It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more resources or information from the show, head on over to the unstoppablemombrain.com.