Erin: Welcome to weirdos in the workplace, the podcast that celebrates authenticity, transparency, passion, and purpose and its impact on our world of work. And I'm here today with my special guest, Kelly Ryan. Say hello, Kelly. Kelly: Hey, everybody. Thank you so much for having me on. Erin: Erin, I'm so excited to have you on. Kelly is the owner of nerd mom Nutrition and helps companies support their leaders and employees so they can have more energy and focus at home and at work. She's a culinary nutrition expert, certified holistic nutritionist, facilitator, and coach. And Kelly, you also have a Rogers cable tv series called Nerd Mom Kitchen Adventures, which features your kids who are eight and eleven. Is that right? Kelly: Eight and eleven? Yeah. Erin: You're amazing. All right, what are we talking about today, Kelly? Kelly: We are pretty much talking about, I guess, everything corporate health and wellness. Erin: Absolutely. All right, folks, stay tuned. So, Kelly, if a company wanted to work with you to support their employees or their team and their culture, what exactly can you do for them? Kelly: Yeah, so I call myself the sidekick, but really, I firmly believe that it's in a company's best interest to support their employees health and wellness. And I like to support that in a fun, nerdy kind of way. So I'll go into a company and I'll either do a live talk, and I've got a couple that I do. The funner one is the eight health zapping supervillains and the superheroes that defeat them. Erin: You must make that into a book, if you haven't already. Kelly: I should make that into a book. Maybe a comic. Yes. That could be fun. A graphic novel or something. Yeah. So that's one. Or I'll do, like, from exhausted to energetic live talk. Kelly: So it's all about that healthy living, energetic kind of vibe. Or I'll do a cooking demo, and I've done a couple of really fun cooking demos. One company I worked for, they're all Star wars. Like, they all love Star wars. Their servers are even named after Star wars characters. Erin: Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. Kelly: Yeah. So I went and I did a Star wars themed cooking demo. That's a lot of fun. And, yeah, I do another live talk that's all about from exhausted to energetic. And that's basically how you can make little changes in your own life and how companies can support their employees with their health changes, so you can have tons of energy. I'll also do cooking demos, and they can be a lot of fun because I had one client who they all love Star wars. Their servers are even named, like, different Star wars names and stuff. So we went and we did a Star wars themed cooking demo. Kelly: I love that. Yeah. So that was a lot of fun. And other than that, we'll do fun challenges, which are a little bit longer, or we'll do a workshop where we'll do a live talk and then what they learn, we put into practice. Or I'll actually help a company with their health and wellness policies, procedures program, that sort of thing. Yeah. Erin: Awesome. So you actually can go into a company and help them with policies related to this? Kelly: Sort of. I have a background in quality policy planning, internal auditing. Erin: That's a bonus. Kelly: Yeah. So that's kind of why I decided to go and work corporate health and wellness. But that's part of the reason I think it's really important for companies to support their employees health and wellness, because the reality is we spend a lot of hours at work, and you don't want your employees to feel that work is a barrier to their health and their wellness. Right. And a lot of employees feel that way. They find it hard to take care of their own health. And it's important for a company to support their employees health and wellness so that they can be present, they can be creative, they can feel focused. And a lot of that comes from whether it's mental health, whether it's physical health, what they're eating, drinking up water. Erin: How much control do you think your clients or any organizations have over the health and wellness of their employees, especially in terms of, obviously, nutrition, because that's your main area of focus. And what have you seen successful companies do to help integrate that? So it's not like such, this division of church and state. You go eat healthy at home, or you try to, and then you come to work and all hell breaks loose. How do we integrate that? Kelly: It's not about control, because people don't like feeling controlled. It's more about creating that culture, that health and wellness culture. So it's more about supporting and encouraging. Right. And providing the information. I mean, it can be everything from putting posters up on your walls to having walking meetings. Or instead of ordering pizza, maybe ordering salad, soups, sandwiches. Right. Instead of having pepsi or coke in your fridge, have water, have a Brita filter or something. So it's about those little things. One big important thing is, as we know, people don't do what we say, they do what we do. So creating that culture, living that lifestyle as a leader is very important. And encouraging your employees to take care of themselves. I mean, how many people. Oh, well, I got to work through my lunchtime. So I'll just skip the gym today. Right. Whereas, no, it's important. No, you need to go to the gym or whatever. If it's yoga, gym, go for a walk, whatever it is, it's encouraging them to do the things that are important to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Now, I do believe in the ED 20 rule because I think community is very important, but not mandating things, but growing that healthy culture. Right. And when you grow that culture, you're going to attract those employees that want to live in that culture. Erin: What does culture mean to you? Kelly: Culture? To me, culture, it's basically, to me, the way the people that you attract, it's the environment that you nurture. And that can be a positive environment. It can be a toxic environment. It can be one that's centered around, yeah, maybe it's fun, but unhealthy. So your culture is. It could be one that's just strategically work, work, grind, grind, grind. Or it can be one where it's like, okay, it could be supportive. So your culture is just almost like the vibe that you nurture in your company and the people that you attract to your company. Erin: Yeah, I think that's very similar to how I would describe it as well. And I would also add how we work together, kind of like the behaviors that we expect and the different team norms and different values that we use to make decisions and all of those things. Right. Kelly: I agree. Yeah. Values is a big part of culture, I think. Erin: Yeah, I run into, and you probably run into this as well. Folks are skeptical. Maybe the word only because I hear this a lot. We don't have the time to do XYZ program. We're too busy. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether it's like diversity, equity, inclusion, or performance management, even we don't have time for performance management. I'm like, you don't not have time. Kelly: You don't, no. If you don't have time for performance management, you should be doing double the amount. Erin: Yeah, seriously. Exactly. But you probably run into that as well, where people are just like, we don't have time for nutritional or to do that, to do health and wellness programming. We're already eating, working through our lunches. We're working late or whatever. What do you tell companies or leaders in companies who have that issue? Kelly: If you don't have time for a walk, then you should take two walks. Erin: Yes. Kelly: We're all busy. But the fact is that if you start taking care of yourself, you will be. And same thing for your employees. They're going to be more creative, they're going to be more efficient, effective. So you'll get more for less and your employees will be more engaged. Because if you don't have time for things like health and wellness, performance management, culture, growing, any of that, if you don't have time for these things, then you're making time for absenteeism. You're making time for presenteeism, which is, I don't know, for any of your listeners if they know what presenteeism is, but that's basically where you're there in body but not in mind. It's the same thing. Kelly: If you're not making time for health, you're making time for illness, and that's it. So it's in a company's best interest to make time for health, for supporting their employees, for building that culture, or whether supporting your employees is, like you said, through meeting with them, managing them, working with them, helping them with their own health and wellness, supporting them, whether it's mental health, whether it's financial health, whatever, DeI, any of those. If you're not making time for that, well, then you're making time for absenteeism, turnover, presenteeism, lack of focus, lack of creativity. You're making time for having to hire new people, spending money on that. Erin: Oh, yeah. This isn't just your feelings on the subject. There's so much data that supports this. Yeah, so much data that supports this. Kelly: There's so much data that supports this. 60% to 75% of not just staff, but also c suite. So all levels have found that work is a barrier to their health and wellness, and they would consider leasing their job for one that better supported their health and wellness. 60% to 75%. That is a huge percentage of the population. Erin: Oh, yeah. And we know how important it is to retain those important people in our workforce anyways, it's a whole domino effect. Right. And everything's connected. Kelly: It's in a company's best interest to support their employees. Definitely, yeah. Erin: Do you believe in work life balance as an entrepreneur, a mom, a blah, blah, blah, like, you've got 1000 things going, you're spinning plates, you're doing the same thing we're all doing here. Kelly: Yeah. No, I don't believe there's ever 100% perfect balance because you're going to have times that are busier, you're going to have times that are not as busy. And I think I feel that it's never going to be 100% balanced. I mean, if I have a booth at a convention or something, like that. That's a crazy weekend. There is zero balance there. Erin: Yeah, I know. Kelly: You know what I'm saying? I mean, it adds up over time and it's probably balanced, but it's never going to be 100% completely balanced at all times. Which, again, is why it's more important to take care of yourself. And when you can take time off. Take time off? Like, I'm taking time off, Christmas time. I'm going to take ten days. Right. I think this is actually going to air in the new year. So I guess I will have taken right during Christmas. Kelly: But it's like taking that break and I'm going to pretty much unplug and really take a break. And I think you need to do what you can to take care of yourself. You need to build that into your day so that you can be at your best when you need to be, whether it's as a parent or as an employee or an employer or whatever. Self care is very important. But no, I don't truly believe that there is a perfect work life balance. It's trying to find what works best for you at any given time and realize that there's going to be times that are busier and there's going to be times when you can slow down, but when you can slow down. Slow down, like recharge, regenerate. So that during the busy times, you can fire on all cylinders. Erin: Yeah. Great advice. And I asked that question to a lot of the guests, and I think the answers are all very similar. Even though you probably never listened to the previous episodes, potentially, you guys don't know each other. You do all kinds of different types of things. The one common denominator is pretty much everyone believes in exactly what you said. It's a flow, right? It's an eb and a flow. Yeah. Erin: And I think we need to kill it dead. The concept of work life balance, wherever that came from, I think it's actually really harmful, because when people strive for an impossible goal, it is incredibly frustrating. Kelly: Yeah. It's important to know to yourself. I know I've got certain hours of the day where I can be creative because I've got energy, but, I mean, nobody can be creative for 8 hours in a day, like using crazy brain power. I mean, I'm good between nine and maybe two. And then other than that, maybe I'm sending emails or having coffee or learning. You know what I mean? But if I want to do creative work, like blog posts or work on canva or something like that, I've got a window to do it on. And I mean, I know, too now, and this comes with experience. That's the other thing. Kelly: I mean, you learn things over time, right. But I know now that if I have a booth at a convention, I need to take at least a day or two afterwards off, or else I'm a write off for the rest of the week. And so it's learning to work with your own energy levels when you know, you feel good. And if there's a certain time of the day where it's like, okay, I don't have brain power yet, but I can go to the gym, well, that's a great time to schedule gym time or yoga or hiking or whatever it is that you need to do. So whether you work on a day schedule, like per day schedule or some people are more like on a month, I know a lot of women where men, a lot of times their energy levels peak during a day. With women, it's over a month, which is really interesting. So if you find during this one week in a month, that's your time to be creative, well, that's when you schedule all your creative stuff and you do it then. So learning about yourself, too and when you work best at different things is really valuable. Erin: That is excellent advice. And, yeah, I've definitely experienced that myself. There's like the day pattern, and then there's this more cyclical, long term cyclical pattern as well. Yes, I think that that message, I hadn't really heard anyone talk about that before. That's a really good message, I think, to get out there. Kelly: Yeah. Then that way you can work within your energy, and when you feel great. Erin: You can be very effective. Well, and I mean, a lot of us entrepreneurs are working within different mental health conditions as well. And I think that that more like long term cyclical pattern is relevant for men and women who have certain types of mental health conditions. Kelly: 100%. Erin: And that doesn't mean you can't be productive. You just have to give yourself the grace and the understanding to know when you're in an energetic, creative moment, you leverage that. And when you're in a more repressed, sort of like, I need some space and time and I need to be by myself, then you have other kinds of activities you can do at those points in time. Kelly: Exactly. It doesn't mean that you can't keep moving forward, but maybe that's when you read a book on marketing. Erin: Yeah, exactly. Or maybe figure out what works for you at different points in time, different energy levels, different personalities. We're not all consistently like the same person from day to day, month to month. I love that. Kelly: Yeah. Erin: If there's one thing that you wanted people, if nothing else, that they took away from this conversation, what would that one thing be. Kelly: For employers? It would be walk the walk. Don't just talk the talk. So work on your own health and wellness and then support your employees health and wellness and grow that culture. For everybody who is struggling with energy, drink water. A lot of times when we're tired, it's because we're actually dehydrated and your brain is made up of like 70% water. So if you're dehydrated, your brain is not going to work on at its maximum capacity. So drink the water. Erin: That's good advice. Yeah. Awesome. Did you want to quickly pitch your upcoming, I know in January you've got something going on, or January, February, new year. Kelly: Yeah. So starting in the new year, I'm going to be kind of focusing on new year, new you kind of thing. So it's basically going to be like, let's start the year with a bang. Let's get people energized and back from off the holiday. So I'm actually now booking it. Well, by the time this airs, I'll be probably booking into March, maybe February, March. But I would love to come and help companies with their health and wellness. Whether it's a virtual or live talk or virtual or live cooking demo, it's a lot of fun. Erin: Do you believe in New Year's resolutions? Kelly: No, Hard no. Most, I think 70% of New Year's resolutions fail by February. Wow. Yeah. So I believe in creating goals and you want to create smart goals and I believe in taking small steps. The biggest problem with New Year's resolutions is a lot of times they're not done properly. Right. So it's like, I want to lose weight. Kelly: Right. Well, that's a terrible goal. Your goal should be like, I would like to start going to the gym. If this is what your goal is, start going to the gym three days a week and by the end of the year maintain that habit. You want to focus on smart goals, but the biggest problem is people make these gigantic, unreachable goals that aren't measurable or timely in January and expect that they're going to keep them up and you just can't. You're setting yourself up for failure. So it's better to create a goal and revisit that goal regularly to see if you're maintaining it. And if you're not create, then why not? And either adjust accordingly, or get your button gear and make sure you're attaining it for sure. Erin: Do you believe in dry January? I have a lot of friends who do this and I find it puzzling, but I'm curious, like, have you heard of this dry January? Kelly: I've heard of it. My husband actually did dry January, and he has now been dry for two years almost, I think, I want to say. So he kept it up. I believe in it. If you're doing something for the long term, even if it's like, I just want to decrease. Whether it's decrease or completely cut out alcohol, I could see it as like a kick starting kind of thing, but I don't see really any point to it if you're just going to go back to old habits afterwards. Erin: Yeah, I feel like that can sometimes, especially when it comes to people who struggle with alcoholism. It's almost like that, like, crash diet. I don't know that they're, Albert, really healthy, but I'm not an expert. So the jury is out for me. But I wonder about it. Oh, yeah. Crash diets don't do it. I think that we've all learned our lesson, hopefully there at this point. Kelly: I agree. I think it's like the crash diet of alcohol. It's like either decide that you're quitting or decreasing and stick with it or not. Erin: And maybe some folks need help and if they need extra help, do you usually make recommendations there? Kelly: Yeah, if somebody needs extra help when it comes to alcohol in particular, go to an Al Anon or. No, I think Al Anon is for the mean, get the help that you need. Because the fact is, whether it's alcohol, mental health, nutrition, whatever, there's professionals out there who know how to best help you. And I mean, if you want, like making change in your life can be difficult. It can be very difficult. And so I think it's really important to get what I mean, just as a football player hires a coach or many business people, entrepreneurs, they hire business coaches for your health and wellness. I mean, you have doctors. There's psychiatrists, psychologists, naturopathic doctors. Kelly: There's so much potential help out there for whatever is going on. Just take the help. Erin: Yeah. Sometimes I think that we use our purpose driven goals, like our business goals, our life, like these haughty sort of pie in the sky goals to distract ourselves from our just everyday realities. I think sometimes you got to remember just like the building blocks. Kelly: Yeah. It's the foundations, right? Yeah. I mean, no person's an island. We're meant to be in a community. We're meant to rely on each other and help each other. That's what happened for millennia. And it's only now, in this digital age, really, that you see that less and less. And if we learned anything from COVID it's how much that we need other people. Kelly: So if you need help, ask for the help. Most people love helping, and one lesson I learned was if someone offers help is because they truly want to, you're not being a pain by accepting their help. They would not offer unless they actually wanted to help. So accept it. Accept the help. That's the way we should be. That's the way our society should be. Erin: Yeah. You are not an inconvenience. Kelly: No, that was the word I was looking for. Inconvenience. You are not an inconvenience. They wouldn't offer it if they didn't want to do it. Erin: Absolutely. Kelly: Yeah. Erin: What a great way to end the episode. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Kelly. Kelly: This was so much fun. Erin: Yes, 100%. And I look forward to many future conversations. Come on. Anytime you want. Anytime you have something new going on. Kelly, do you have some kind of inspirational quote that you'd like to share for the end of the podcast? Kelly: I do. I don't know who said this, but you are what you eat. So don't be fast, cheap, easy, or fake. Erin: Don't be fast, cheap, easy, or fake. I love that. Words to live by. Awesome. See you soon, Kelly. Kelly: All right, talk to you later. Erin: Thanks again to Kelly Ryan for joining us on weirdos in the workplace. Don't forget to check out Kelly at nerdmomnutrition.com. And on RogersTV on YouTube at Nerd Mom's Kitchen Adventures. We are gearing up for an amazing season two of weirdos in the workplace, where we're inviting 30 professional problem solvers on the podcast to solve real world problems. And we're gathering those stories from our listeners, just like you and our clients on the challenging scenarios that they're encountering as we speak in real time. If you're looking for help, everything from lead generation to grant writing to preventing legal challenges to retaining your diverse team, to time management to succession planning and whatever else is out there for business owners and business leaders in the workplace, we'll have you covered. Send in your stories to [email protected], or you can visit positivist.ca and fill in a form. That's all for today. As always, stay weird, stay wonderful, and don't stay out of trouble.

Ver todos los episodios