Episode 6: Investing In Yourself & Your Business W/ Maddie Alm

March 30, 2023

My guest on today’s podcast is Maddie Alm. Maddie is the owner of Fueling Forward Nutrition, a sports nutrition consulting firm based out of Boulder Colorado, working alongside runners and endurance athletes to help them optimize their performance through proper nutrition. What’s unique about Maddie is that she is a professional runner herself. She walked on to her college team and through working with a dietician herself, went from one of the worst runners (those were her words not mine) to one of the best. Through her own story she came to realize that many athletes in endurance sports are underserved when it comes to things like sports nutrition counseling, so she decided to become a registered dietitian. In today’s episode we talk about how being a dietician affords lots of opportunities in the form of traditional jobs, but how she went out on her own, so that she could work with the specific types of athletes she wanted to work with, in the ways she wanted to, and how that also afforded her the freedom to continue to run and compete herself. We talk about how Maddie took her own advice, and hired a professional business coach to help her structure her business and in doing so doubled her income in a matter of months. This episode is jam packed with great thoughts and nuggets for all types of entrepreneurs. And be sure to listen to the end when Maddie shares some nutrition best practices and tips for busy entrepreneurs. So, with that introduction, I hope you enjoy today’s episode of the Self employment success podcast.

TRANSCRIPT

leland_gross (00:01.592)

all right welcome mattie am to the self employment success podcast

maddie (00:05.3)

thanks so much for having me i'm excited to be here

leland_gross (00:07.892)

yeah i'm excited for today's episode for those listening i've known mattie for about a year now and i think i personally think what she does is really fascinating um she is register dietition and does sports nutrition consulting and is also a professional athlete herself doing professional running um so i'm just excited for you to share your story for us to hear all about that if you listen to them she might do some nutrition tips will find out so tell us a little about

maddie (00:35.66)

leland_gross (00:37.652)

yourself as well as your business and what it looks like today

maddie (00:42.undefined)

yeah so my name is mattie i'm in boulder colorado i grew up in colorado just outside of boulder and i am a runner and i started running in high school i ended up going on to run at the university of colorado and boulder they have a pretty high level across country team so i actually walked on and worked my way up from being one of the worst runners on the team to being one of the better ones and the way i was actually able to do that was through some work i did with a sports dietician so once i

leland_gross (01:03.612)

yeah

maddie (01:11.72)

learned how to feel myself properly for my sport i started to get a lot stronger and faster i stayed healthy i didn't get injured any more and i was able to make it to the national championships where i played twelve and was able to kind of go on from there and have the opportunity to run professionally after college so for me like learning about nutrition was game changer literally and also kind of gave me that open door to the career path i wanted to take because

i was like you know i'm twenty something i'm in college and no one has ever told me these things before like why aren't we taught this earlier why don't athletes have these resources available to them and so i kind of wanted to fill in that gap and become a registered dietitian myself and work with runners specifically because i am one and because endurance sports as a whole tend to struggle a bit more with fuel and compared to other sports so that was kind of how i ended up where i am today and i started my sports nutrition consulting business call

feeling forward and work with endurance athletes

leland_gross (02:15.912)

that's awesome so what's really cool about that the story that i love is hey i walked on and i was one of the worst i appreciate the fact that you just own that and then just not i mean i'm sure there was also lots of other hard work going on behind the scenes but the key difference being i changed how i feeled my body and that dramatically changed the output and so you are your own proof you are your own like proof of concept

maddie (02:27.02)

i was

maddie (02:32.9)

yeah

leland_gross (02:46.252)

with this and i know that over the last handful of years nutrition just in society has become a lot bigger of a topic but i think i still think about you know the football players are athletes who work out really hard and push their body really hard and then just eat anything and everything they want n in bulk and it's fine because their metabpolisms are huge and they're just burning it all um but it's been interesting talking to you and how

maddie (03:11.9)

leland_gross (03:16.212)

no how you feel it not just that your getting the calories in but like what are the nunlike the nutrition behind that and how that dramatically changes even things like injuries like you just don't think about that like i would never have thought that what you feel your body with would lessen the chance of injury um and so i just think that's really cool and mattie is she does run professonally and she will own it but she's also pretty humble because she runs like with the olympic team and so

maddie (03:23.4)

m hm

maddie (03:27.9)

yeh

leland_gross (03:46.352)

um in the like those athletes and so it's very high level professional running which is awesome so you chose this field because you saw the benefit of it yourself and you saw the gap there of hey athletes aren't getting this um but as a register dietician you can do that a lot of different ways like that is i mean you could work i'm not super familiar with the field but you can work that in a ton of different fields what prompted you to do that

maddie (04:10.86)

yeah

leland_gross (04:15.672)

as your own entrepreneur and as a business as opposed to working for another sports nutrition or sports consulting business

maddie (04:25.46)

yeah so the cool thing about being a dietician is there's a lot of different routes that you can take i don't think a lot of people aren't familiar with this career field because it is relatively new but you can work in like clinical setting so you can work in hospitals um to become a dietician we have to do like a residency program like doctors would do so we do rotations in different fields so i did everything from like calculating two feeds in the i c u to you know buying snacks at casco for the soccer team at the college i was wearin

leland_gross (04:54.912)

maddie (04:55.54)

so it's pretty fun because there's a lot of things you can do with it but as i kind of went through this residency program and was working with an ntyovlitteam i kind of realized that there's a lot of like red tape when it comes to doing the things that i want to do as a die titian usually the programs that make the most money so like football basketball those are going to be the ones that the athletic directors want to prioritize but in my experience those really aren't the athletes that need the support and the help it

more of the you know the wrestlers like the weight dependent sports that the cross country runners who are more prone to eating disorders or the gymnastics team and um so i kind of realized that the route that i wanted to go was going to be a lot more challenging if i were to go through like a college or university um even working with professional teams there is a lot of you know stuff caught up in a budget and how you get to spend the budget and you have to convince the people who have the money that year

leland_gross (05:44.672)

maddie (05:55.22)

are worthy cause to spend it on and you know they'll kind of pick like the gear or whatever over the sports nutrition because a lot of people don't understand the value of it so to me i really wanted to bring that value myself to the people who are looking for it and along those lines to i've i've kind of seen athletes who've been forced to work with me neither of us get much out of it because they're not really wanting to do the things i'm telling them to do

leland_gross (06:08.172)

m m

leland_gross (06:22.972)

maddie (06:25.14)

so then i'm not really knowing what's working for them and what's not so it's just kind of a frustrating cycle and i think for me part of the draw being an entrepreneur is that you're working with people who seek you out and who are paying for your services so you know they're going to do the things you ask and it's so much more enjoyable for everybody and everyone gets so much more out of it when they're doing the things we talk about doing they're seeing the results they're getting excited i'm excited because i love when you know what we talk about helps people so to me

s was a lot more fun that was definitely a big part of it and then the other part of it was that i wanted to run professionally and so to do that the hours that i can actually work are really challenging to fit into any other job most most employers probably wouldn't be willing to work with my schedule if i have a work out in the morning usually i'm gone from eight to one p m and i can do calls from one to four and then a lot of times i have a second run at five so i have to kind of fit things in

leland_gross (06:57.772)

leland_gross (07:24.592)

oh my gosh

maddie (07:25.22)

i can um so that was another reason why i decided to kind of start my own business because what i wanted to do outside of my business requires such specific hours that i felt like it would be too challenging to find a job that would accommodate that

leland_gross (07:41.572)

that makes so much sense and so and obviously you weren't forced into it but you re you re sort of like pushed that way of hey with the work i want to do if i were to work with athletes in a traditional setting you know not only will there be a lot of red tape for the to get to the specific athletes that i feel like i'm passionate about serving but also the ones that are that i am serving will most likely be forced to meet with me and therefore it's not going to be as productive of an experience and

maddie (07:47.02)

leland_gross (08:11.472)

and lastly the schedule piece which i think is every none of every entrepreneur s like key things is like i want to be able to work when when i want how i want i don't want to be strapped to a desk eight to five every day i want to be able to kind of foster the life style i want and for you that's your actual passion which is also sports and running and and which is also a second job for you you know and and both have to be prioritized so that makes total sense

maddie (08:16.9)

maddie (08:32.74)

yeah

leland_gross (08:41.452)

what you said about the joy of entrepreneurship is people are choosing to work with you and you kind of also get to choose who you work with i don't know that i would have articulated that the same way but in my own experience in financial planing that was the case i worked at a corporate firm where they kind of told me who i worked with i couldn't say no to anybody and people were assigned to me and it just was not as fruitful and stuff didn't get implemented as opposed to

now people are choosing to work with me and i'm choosing to work with them and it just makes it so much more beneficial both ways like it serves the consumer so much better and i go home having enjoyed my work day um okay so well we're going to jump back into feeling forward but tell us a little bit more about your running and that piece of it because they go hand in hand you're working with athletes you are an athlete and you're an athlete beyond just

maddie (09:14.3)

yeah

maddie (09:25.42)

exactly yeah

leland_gross (09:41.912)

college level and so tell us a little bit about that and what that looks like

maddie (09:43.8)

yeah

yeah so i i run at the professional level which means that our season is pretty long we usually start racing for track season will if we do in door it will be kind of january february but then outdoor season runs from april through september and so within that time frame there is a lot of stuff going on the goal is typically to run the time sandard to run at the u s championship race so that's the equivalent of the olympic trials but obviously the olympic trials only happens on

every four years so in the non olympic years it's called like the u s championships um so in twenty twenty one because the olympic got moved to twenty twenty one i competed in the olympic trials in the five k u and i placed twelve there which was really exciting and so that was kind of a nice reward for you know all the work that i've been doing over in the past few years but yeah it's very time consuming we typically will meet in the mornings to do our training session

leland_gross (10:18.272)

leland_gross (10:27.372)

maddie (10:46.6)

if we have like you know bigger workout days obviously it takes longer we also will lift after our workouts on our workout days i run about seventy five to eighty miles per week so it's pretty time consuming and then yeah on top of that i also do some coaching for the high school that i went to in colorado um with the high school across country and track team so running is very much a part of my life and pretty much every aspect

leland_gross (10:58.552)

oh my gosh

leland_gross (11:12.212)

yeah i mean it's it's your your nutrition businesses with runners you are running at the professional level which is taking up so much time and you're coaching it on the side which is just incredible so so you finish up your residency and you're telling yourself okay i'm going to go out and 'mgonna start this and i'm gonna i'm gonna launch a consulting business with runners where did you start how did you start you know did you have a program

maddie (11:18.12)

maddie (11:32.58)

leland_gross (11:41.992)

that you created that you walk everyone through what does that tangibly look like

maddie (11:48.56)

yeah it's always so funny to me thinking back to when i started this i can't tell you how little i knew about having a business or doing anything i just it's not normally like me to just jump into something like that i feel like i'm normally more of like a calculated planning person and i just was like you know i trust that i have these skills that other people don't have the skills with nutrition and you know specifically friend durance athletes and i have these unique connections

then durance athlete community and bolder bolder very well known for the endurance athletes that come out to train here because we're at altitude um and a lot of my teammates are olympians and very well known athletes and so i was very fortunate that they were able to help spread the word about my business very quickly so it grew a lot faster than i thought it would which was both good and bad because i don't think i really had the infrastructure in place to support um all the influx of athletes that i had but

leland_gross (12:27.272)

leland_gross (12:44.272)

maddie (12:48.4)

did just kind of like take the skills that i had learned about nutrition counseling um you know what i knew as an athlete about nutrition and kind of combined the two into a program that it went well but i think i wasn't maximizing what i could have been doing with my business um in terms of like you know what i was charging and how i was structuring thing so i was very much flying by the seat of my pants for the first year or two of my business um i actually started my business in september of twenty nineteen so right

before covid hit yes which actually ended up helping my business ironically because i was kind of forced to learn tell health and how to do everything virtually and because of that it opened the door for me to work with athletes all across the us um and so that actually helped grow my business and then on top of that they were a lot of people now that they weren't going into the office and they were at home they had more time to devote to things like training for a big marathon or

leland_gross (13:19.492)

great timing

leland_gross (13:28.672)

maddie (13:48.54)

learning how to cook or do these things that they didn't have time to do before so i think i'm one of the few people that can say ovid actually helped my business and it helped me kind of build something that ended up being a lot more sustainable as well

leland_gross (13:49.272)

leland_gross (14:05.692)

that's incredible what i mean truly what a story of

maddie (14:06.8)

leland_gross (14:12.912)

you know one of the best problems you can have as an entreneur is i started business and it takes off too fast and i don't have the imforstructure but it is a problem i mean when you're like i just don't have i've not figured out my pricing i don't have standardization among like how i do this and everyone's different i mean that is just a real real problem and then with covid so many people struggled in that season and yet for you that was almost the perfect store

maddie (14:16.9)

yeah

leland_gross (14:42.892)

a great now i actually can do this even on a wider depth i've got i'm already taking off and now i can even bring on more people because of the tell health world and being able to meet with athletes all over so someone signs on with you what does that look like is it on going indefinitely is it package deal for xmonamonhs how does is it not is it totally per person and individualized what does that look like

maddie (14:43.3)

m hm

maddie (14:47.3)

yeah

maddie (15:13.4)

yeah so now thankfully i've developed a pretty like structure approach to everything it's pretty stream line and so the year that i actually decided to work with you as a financial planner i also decided to hire a business coach because i had not really invested anything back into my business and i think in my mind i'm like okay if i'm investing my business it's something more of like a company that's selling products like buying a new oven or something so in my mind i'm like well i don't really have any of these expenses because it's all tell of health

leland_gross (15:36.912)

m hm

maddie (15:43.12)

but i realized that there's you know just like i want people to reach out to a dietition for nutrition help instead of googling everything i was like i need to take my own advice and do that when it comes to learning how to track my finances and learning how to structure my business so the business coach that i worked with kind of really helped me develop more of like a stream lined program and much better pricing structure so when i take on athletes now it's a three month coaching program we need four times over those three months

leland_gross (15:43.672)

leland_gross (15:51.872)

maddie (16:13.32)

every three weeks and i kind of have a way that we progress through it we kind of start with what they're doing now we build a fielding plan you know if they're training for a marathon or something longer we talk about how they're going to fuel you know during the marathon leading up to the race we talk about how to practice that kind of stuff um and then just depending on what they're challenges that are like if they don't have time to cook how can we make sure they're getting the fuel they need within those constraints so it definitely varies from person to person in terms of what we work on and what we talk about

but that general structure has become a lot more of a flow for me which is really nice

leland_gross (16:48.972)

that's awesome and i mean our businesses are so different and yet in some ways the consulting world is relatively similar where i've had to build in like standardization but every person is so unique that you're like okay i have a structure and then within that structure there's variability but that structure itself allows me to serve people well serve people efficiently and that frees me to be able to scale and do more with it that's awesome um so this business

maddie (16:56.52)

yeah

maddie (17:15.28)

yeah exactly

leland_gross (17:18.852)

och i feel like i've heard that theme among so many entrepreneurs of we were doing it it was going well but i got to this point where i was you know growing and it was turning into kind of chaos like spaghetti just there's a lot of stuff on the plate but it's everywhere um i didn't actually mean to do a food analogy with the dietitian on here but m and then they hire a business coach who really helps them

maddie (17:34.76)

maddie (17:38.24)

it works out

leland_gross (17:49.232)

kind of organized all that i guess what was that like bringing that person on to your to your quota quote team and you know what changes did they encourage you to make and was that comfortable uncomfortable um i find you know some people love it and other people are like it's really uncomfortable they made me like drastically raise my prices which is scary or m yeah so i guess what was that experience of bringing on

business coach like for you

maddie (18:21.58)

i think all the above explains my experience definitely i was i was hesitant at first i think a lot of entrepreneurs are similar and that we want to be the ones to build it from the ground up and kind of like we're the ones who want to do the work we want to feel like we've done everything ourselves and i think that's where like i said earlier as entrepreneurs we should also appreciate the idea that people want our expertise and want to reach out for the help that we can provide so again taking our own advice and being like okay

leland_gross (18:23.312)

m m

leland_gross (18:49.372)

maddie (18:51.58)

i am not a business professional i don't know anything about this i can hire somebody else who is and they can help me kind of fill in the gaps of knowledge that i have and really take what i am in visioning and make it what i wanted to be so once i finally took that step and admitted that i needed help and like too took that on i kind of went through the same thing i definitely was way under charging the prices that she suggested that i come out with

leland_gross (19:06.472)

leland_gross (19:11.272)

maddie (19:21.82)

you have got to be kidding me that is insane that is so much more like no one's going to pay this and she had a good point to me which is like my i forget what the term was that she used but the rate of people that say yes to work with me was about a hundred percent she was like a good rate is about thirty per cent if your prices are done correctly and so she was like the fact that everyone who reaches out says they will work with you shows you that you're probably not charging enough and then you are going to end up over

leland_gross (19:26.472)

leland_gross (19:41.272)

leland_gross (19:50.672)

maddie (19:51.4)

worked and together that's going to really quickly lead me to burn out which i was kind of experiencing i was getting very stressed i felt like i had no organization and i felt like i couldn't provide the services to the degree that i wanted to so drastically raised my prices picked how many clients per month was reasonable for me so we kind of did that by working backwards from like what are the times i have in a day how many clients spots so if my calls are forty five minutes how many clients spots per day is

leland_gross (19:55.672)

maddie (20:21.46)

alistic kind of extrapelating that into client spots per month and that really helped me kind of narrow down okay here's how many people it's realistic to take on and then from there i kind of developed an application so that was something else that was really nice was to kind of automate the screening process prior to them getting to me before that i was just taking on like anyone and everyone some people who are a good fit some people weren't and so that was also stressful for me because there were some people i really enjoyed and then you know some people that were

leland_gross (20:39.272)

maddie (20:51.44)

we're challenging so screening who i'm working with really created the environment that i was in visioning right i could pick people that i wanted to work with just as much as they wanted to work with me and so that made each day that i was working way more enjoyable because i looked forward to every call and kind of seeing where people were um so implementing all that stuff took time and was intimidating to me because i did have to learn how to do like new things with technology that i didn't do before and raise my prices to a level

leland_gross (21:19.972)

maddie (21:21.52)

i was like no one is going to pay this but even with this drastic price increase i still have close to a hundred per cent rate so i'm trying to still workshop that you know yeah but it definitely wasn't i opening experience like when you bring someone on who knows what business like what your field can handle in terms of pricing structure and things like that it definitely change everything about my business for the better so it was a great experience overall definite

leland_gross (21:23.012)

m m

leland_gross (21:31.492)

yeah raise those prices even higher come on

maddie (21:51.58)

some uncomfortable parts to it but i also think as entrepreneurs were used to that because starting a business as a whole is an uncomfortable experience so yeah it was it was very positive overall

leland_gross (21:59.692)

leland_gross (22:03.452)

i love that i mean as an entrereter myself i'm like i got to go get myself a business coach but i think like there's so many good lessons learned there and i love how like your spirit of teachability and humility of like i have an expert is and i think people should pay me for it and therefore i should be paying people for their experts and to even just say you know this is uncomforta

maddie (22:10.12)

yeah

leland_gross (22:33.372)

well but i'm going to take the leap and i'm going to do it and you know in seeing that you know i've because i work with you have seen that really drastically improve the quality of the business from a financial health obviously from a financial health perspective but also like you said getting to work with people by the time they get to you they're already a good fit you've already kind of weeded out a lot of

maddie (22:50.04)

yeah

maddie (23:00.24)

yeah exactly

leland_gross (23:03.372)

that and so many businesses when you launch as an entrepreneur you're like well this work so you're just taking on anybody who can fog a mirror and a lot of them are not good fits and then you end up under charging and like you said getting to a place of burn out whether it's from volume because you have to bring on so many people to create the income you desire or burn out because the people are not good fits and so it's just not enjoyable so i love that that business coach was able to

maddie (23:10.98)

exactly

maddie (23:16.6)

m hm

leland_gross (23:34.432)

foster that for your business and i specifically love the fact that you were teachable enough to make that happen with my clients and with you know people who i'm sure like business lens i look for this is terrible i look for fat people so faithful available and teachable people who like are faithful and like are dedicated to the work you're doing who are available they're going to be responsive

maddie (23:54.28)

hm there you go

leland_gross (24:03.412)

going to schedule the meetings and who are teachable and want to actually implement it and not only do you want that from your clients it sounds like you are that way with your business coach and now you're reaping the fruit of that which is awesome

maddie (24:16.7)

exactly and i think for me to a big part of like the the success i was able to have from that was i was picking people that were good fits for me as well so like you for example you work with small business owners and entrepreneurs and so i knew i didn't want to pick a financial planner that knows nothing about small businesses right so yeah exactly and like my business coach she is a dietician actually so she had she knows like the world of dietetics and how things work and how to structure things

leland_gross (24:26.672)

leland_gross (24:35.232)

who only works with federal employees

leland_gross (24:41.132)

oh cool

maddie (24:46.54)

i had picked a business coach who's for like selling products they may be wouldn't have been able to help me to the same degree so you know just like i'm trying to pick the clients that are a good fit for me i'm also trying to pick people to help build my business that know the world that i'm in and are a good fit for me as well and so like working with you and working with her has been a huge game changer and i highly recommend anyone who's on the fence about reaching out to someone like yourself or business business coach just do it deft

you will pay that off and then some

leland_gross (25:20.412)

and i mean yeah if you're listening that's that's not ad for me but that's just a good principle like the the investment in your business while it's scary to pay for really like will pay yourself tenfold and i think that's a fear of a lot of entrepreneurs is how much do i spend on investing into my business versus boots strapping it and there's a balance there i mean i know people who will like pay and pay and pay to create system system systems and they're not actually getting any

maddie (25:26.02)

i'll say it is

maddie (25:34.5)

yes

leland_gross (25:49.092)

ay in the door to pay them so there is a balance there but i just want to highlight this idea because it's so important like invest in your business it will pay dividends for you

maddie (25:51.72)

maddie (26:00.44)

and i am i was by no means like a higherning business but i still was able to take you know some of what i was making and put it back in and was able to like double what i was earning through my business within a year or two so again highly recommend

leland_gross (26:15.532)

yeah which is awesome so what's the what's the future of your business hold where are you hoping to take it i know you've got a lot of irons in the fire with professional running and your business so what direction are you heading

maddie (26:25.64)

yes

maddie (26:30.58)

yeah so really with with running like you go in olympic cycle so the next olympic cycles twenty twenty four for me i kind of see that as the year after that olympic cycle that i kind of take a step back from running so everything i'm doing with my business right now i want to be working towards setting myself up to have that once i'm done running and i know right now my running is a big feeder into my business because i get you know social media of things like that i get a lot of exposure as a runner that also helps with my business

so my goal the next year or so is to really kind of take advantage of this end of my running career and prepell my business into a place where it's sustainable and then you know moving forward you know as i go on to build a family and things like that i can kind of pick and choose when i'm working i have that flexibility i can really create the life that i want for myself and you know on those really hard days of working for yourself and being an entrepreneur i just try to remember that i would

a hard day is an entrepreneur over a hard day at nine to five job where i don't get to pick what i'm doing or who i'm working with so yeah i think really just trying to create a sustainable business that continues to help athletes and reaches the people that i'm trying to reach to make it a frient

leland_gross (27:37.872)

leland_gross (27:49.172)

i love that i mean i just get excited about that for you and i love the thought of like a hard day as an entreneur is you know better than a hard day as a nine nine to five and you know even yesterday i went home and was telling my wife like yeah yeah today was just sort of dull it felt like work and then i was struck by the fact that like i'm grateful that that's not every day like today was a hard day but is not the norm like typically it's so

maddie (27:53.8)

uh uh

maddie (28:01.52)

yeah

leland_gross (28:18.192)

more creative and fun and passionate so what surprised you the most about your journey into entrepreneur ship

maddie (28:19.26)

yeah

maddie (28:27.48)

honestly i'm surprised how how much i've enjoyed it i think i definitely am like more of a high stress person and so i was like oh my gosh i'm just going to be chronically stressed but i actually feel the opposite and i now that i've had this experience like getting to pick and choose my hours and getting to have this life balance i've kind of realized how important that is to me to be able to go for a run at nine in the morning come back and kind of like work at my own pace

leland_gross (28:43.572)

maddie (28:57.7)

you know take fridays off of meetings and use that as an ad monday or you know if i if i want to travel i can schedule that in and plan for that so i've just realized like there's so much more to life than work for me and even as an entrepreneur that sounds you know counter intuitive because a lot of entrepreneurs are like my work is my life and it is to some degree but i've realized how important that life balances and if you don't want to have that burn out experience in your career i think it's so

leland_gross (29:16.112)

maddie (29:27.4)

portant that you kind of create a well rounded life and for me the best way to do that is by being an entrepreneur so i've really enjoyed the whole experience i've learned so so so much along the way and you know i think if anyone's on the fence about being an entrepreneur you're never going to feel a hundred percent ready to do it i never did but i just started anyways and was able to kind of learned and pick up the pieces as i went and build something today that i'm really proud of

leland_gross (29:31.072)

leland_gross (29:46.072)

leland_gross (29:55.052)

i love that um what was the low point for you was there a low point

maddie (30:01.22)

yeah i mean the low point was when i during like honestly the pandemic as a whole was a low point for everybody but i was i had to live at home because was not making enough money to pay rent in boulder i was working a second job that i really didn't like you know it was it was just like that time period when i'd like is this ever going to be what i wanted to be and i definitely had many moments where i was like you know this isn't worth that i should just stop i should look for a job

leland_gross (30:09.472)

maddie (30:31.32)

and i should just like find something that's salaried because there is a lot of uncertainty in being an entrepreneur especially when you're first starting you just i mean you don't have a salary guaranteed you don't have benefits like there's a lot of stuff and security that you don't get as an entrepreneur and so that was really stressful to me and that all kind of came to a head like during the pandemic when i was like i just don't think this seems like it's going to be sustainable like in my being um like irresponsible basically choosing this

leland_gross (30:42.112)

m hm

leland_gross (31:00.472)

maddie (31:01.02)

career path and especially people that are you know i think my age my generation our parents were very much like the nine to five people and so you grew up in a household where it's like this is how life works you go get a nine to five you earn your money that's it and so you know i didn't have an example really of how this is done or that would work out or be okay and my parents have been very supportive which is really great but yeah i think it's it's just been um it was stressful at times feeling

leland_gross (31:09.612)

yeah

maddie (31:31.14)

insecurity or feeling that doubt or that fear um but just you know pushing through it and realizing like you can't build what's that saying you can't build rome overnight or whatever that's saying is where i'm wasn't built overnight exactly no entrepreneurs business was built overnight so you know sticking with it finding ways to take the little winds and learn from the losebalosses and just kind of roll with the punches um took me some time because that's not inherently how i am but i got there

leland_gross (31:41.412)

yeah rome rome wasn't built in a day

maddie (32:01.18)

and i'm very happy i stuck it out

leland_gross (32:01.272)

that's awesome i mean that is the entrepreneur journey and and you are they like epitome of that i saw a need i went for it it was really hard i had to make sacrifices moving home getting a second job i had all of what i call i personally call it head trash like will this ever work you know will anybody pay me just all the things that tell you you shouldn't be doing this you're being irresponsible it's not going to work

maddie (32:08.48)

yeah

maddie (32:24.1)

hm yes

leland_gross (32:33.692)

and to keep fighting it out is the entrepreneur journey to say like were i'm just not giving up on this where is going to keep doing it and then to emerge and be like wow okay this is working and now i have the freedom now i've got the income now i'm like getting the clients that i really love now they're starting to come to me you know like that is you know such a thrilling and rewarding experience i love that this is a part

maddie (32:33.94)

maddie (32:45.58)

yeah

maddie (32:54.88)

maddie (33:00.54)

yeah

leland_gross (33:03.452)

as about success but the word success means different things to different people so how would you define success for yourself and how will you know when you've achieved it

maddie (33:15.4)

yeah it's funny i've been asked these questions on podcast related to running and i think for me you know as a runner as an entrepreneur success is kind of synonymous with just working my hardest and if i can end my day or you know my running career whatever and know that i did everything i could to set myself up to create what i wanted even if it doesn't take off i can feel at peace and feel successful knowing that i put myself out there i worked my

ardest i tried my hardest obviously learned things along the way maybe was successful you know in terms of making it as a you now making it to the olympics or you know making it as an entrepreneur and maybe i wasn't but it's something that i would not feel good about if i had stepped away from before i knew that i had tried everything so to me success is just in the journey of you know going for it and not necessarily in the outcome

leland_gross (34:07.072)

maddie (34:15.56)

at the end

leland_gross (34:16.752)

i love that and that's not a response i get very often well just so much of the definition of success is like once i get to this place and so often it's not you know once i make ex amount of money because everyone's going kind of like i just money will never be the thing that makes you feel like you have enough but i love that your definition of success is not in the in the end result but in the how do i treat the journey how do i

maddie (34:20.26)

oh really

maddie (34:26.7)

yeah

maddie (34:32.28)

maddie (34:46.36)

yeah

leland_gross (34:46.772)

how did i finish did i finish well did i perform well more so than did i achieve a certain output okay so i'm curious um what nutrition tips would you give to entrepreneurs

maddie (34:49.64)

maddie (34:55.54)

exactly

maddie (35:05.24)

yeah so i have like a few main tips that i give to people who are super busy with their work life i think the first one is planning ahead a big barrier for you know people like entrepreneurs is that they are so busy by the time they get home there's nothing in the fridge that they don't have anything to cook so they have to eat out not only is that not financially sustainable right but it also is not you know as healthy for it

leland_gross (35:30.232)

yeah

maddie (35:35.1)

so the biggest thing i would say is like pick your slowest day the week sit down for ten minutes plan out which nights make the most sense for you to cook so for me it's usually like anywhere from two to four nights a week then i'll pick a couple of recipes and i'll kind of write down a few ideas for like breakfast lunches and dinners and snack and snacks in addition to the dinner recipes i'll kind of use that to build my grocery list and then i'll just go to the store one time a week so you know that's a big thing is like

leland_gross (36:03.972)

maddie (36:05.04)

you go once a week you're saving yourself all that other time and then you have kind of a rough plan so that when you do get home at eight p m from a busy long day you have left over is ready to go or you know exactly what you're making so it kind of takes that decision out of it so that's the first one um the second one is actually snacks are good i think a lot of people get told that they should not be smacking or that smacking is bad and i think what they associate with smacking is like

leland_gross (36:17.172)

leland_gross (36:28.972)

maddie (36:35.02)

getting so hungry that it's an hour before dinner so they don't want to eat anything but they find themselves standing in the pantry eating a bag of chips and that's obviously yeah there you go right like that's not the kind of smacking we're looking for um eating more consistently throughout the day so adding in snacks can actually help with energy levels productivity focus um so when you go for that you know three oclock cup of coffee that's usually a sign you should probably have a snack instead um so picking something with carbs and protean like pretzels and

leland_gross (36:42.792)

that was literally me last night

maddie (37:05.08)

cheese stick you know apple and peanut butter yogrtan fruit that kind of thing to have you know throughout the day trying to eat about every four hours can really help keep your energy up keep you from getting like hangry or losing focus and can definitely help you have a more successful work day as a whole

leland_gross (37:24.612)

that's incredible and i feel like you just spoke exactly to my life style in the fact that like and and you know i'm so lucky my wife is incredible and keeps me sustained but for the most part i mean like we go to the grocery store we do like a big trip and then thoghout the week we're just running for random things here and there and i she's like i have a snack drawer in my office and she's like stocking it because she's like you just will forget to eat or you just won't playing ahead or i mean as embarrassing as it is today for

maddie (37:27.7)

uh uh

maddie (37:42.38)

exactly yep

maddie (37:47.72)

yeah yeah

exactly

leland_gross (37:54.792)

for lunch i just brought a bag of pop corn because i was like just grabbing and going did hever plan i know so i'm like okay all right playing playing ahead get the protein and freedom to snack

maddie (37:58.16)

yeah you got to get some protein in there leland

maddie (38:04.72)

yeah yes exactly and i always tell people like you can't pour from an empty cup so if you're not taking care of yourself of your body then how can you show up for yourself for your clients your employees at work right so definitely it starts with the little things like eating well eating consistently um and it kind of branches out and affects all different aspects of your life so it's worth it

leland_gross (38:11.272)

leland_gross (38:18.772)

leland_gross (38:30.272)

that's awesome well i have loved this episode and you are just like such a fun person such a with such a fascinating career and like the epitome of the entreprenorial spirit and so thank you so much for being on the self employment success podcast

maddie (38:37.6)

uh uh

maddie (38:45.92)

thank you for having me this is so fun

leland_gross (38:47.932)

yeah