Never stop learning!
This past weekend, I attended the National Association of Nutrition Professionals (NANP) HEALCon Conference. This was an amazing conference filled with amazing presenters and attended by amazing professionals (my peers!). As a side note, when you work for yourself, getting to say you did something with your “peers” doesn’t happen too often, so I get really excited when the opportunity presents itself!
The presenters touched on many different topics of health. I love the NANP because it is dedicated to nutritional professionals, but it focuses on a holistic approach. At a typical conference, all the presentations would be about digestion, specific foods or products in the food industry (typical conferences are sponsored by Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Beef, ect), and how to build the perfect diet (presumably the “perfect” diet usually involves the product of the event sponsor). This was different. The presentations ranged from mold, EMF exposure, holistic cancer treatments, and medicinal mushrooms. There were several presentations on stress and how to bring our knowledge and experience to our communities. The conference was as “holistic” as the practitioners who attended!
As I sit here watching Wally and Winston (the pigs 🐽) wander around their backyard while I sip my mushroom chai latte, I am taking some time to reflect on what I learned this weekend. There was so much packed into those four days, I’m just glad I can go back and watch the presentations again!
I wanted to share a few of my takeaways from this conference. I am going to share a lot more with you in the upcoming weeks, but this is a great overview. These speakers certainly sparked several awesome ideas in my mind for upcoming courses, workshops, and services. But I need to take some time to develop those and fully wrap my head around everything I learned.
Here are my top takeaways:
Nutritional advice needs to be personalized. That has been at the center of my business philosophy from the beginning, but this really put things into perspective. I truly believe the future of medicine involves personalized nutrition as more and more physicians are opening their minds to preventative care and more and more holistic practitioners share their knowledge and their passion with the world. Not to mention, more and more people are demanding it.
2. Stress management could be at the center of almost every consultation. Stress impacts the body in deeps ways, from our mental health to physical symptoms. Everything is connected and it can be really difficult to overcome physical ailments when the mental and emotional barriers are not addressed. Stress can be the missing piece to the puzzle in a lot of cases.
3. Meet people where they are. To be a successful ally for someone, you need to understand where they are at, both physically and mentally. This goes back to the idea of individualized care. A quote used by one of the presenters was, “The problem cannot be worse than the solution.” Even when something big needs to be changed quickly, if that person is not ready to change, they won’t be successful, so it doesn’t matter. Sometimes, just giving the client a quick “win” can help build confidence and help to make forward progress. If you have worked with me in wellness coaching, you will recognize this approach as it is typically the idea behind the very first goal we set.
4. There is always more to learn. This is an obvious one, but really important. Every presenter was an expert in his or her area. I dream of the day when I can give a speech at a big-shot conference like this and feel like I am the expert in the room. But you know what? I am already the expert. Being an expert in this context doesn’t mean that you have all the answers. It means you know enough to educate your listeners and then you know where to get the answers that you don’t have.
Being an expert in your area is also a relative term. My life experience, as well as my education, the work I have done with my clients, and my perspective on life in general will put me in a different vantage point. It’s no better and no worse than yours. It’s just different. I believe that is something really important to consider when you begin working with a practitioner. It needs to be a good fit. Not everyone is going to “like” or be a good fit for every practitioner. That’s ok. When you move into the holistic health world, that’s one of the beautiful things. As a client, you get to ask questions and find that good fit. Since many practitioners are not able to accept insurance, you get to decide where to go. It’s the silver lining of the health insurance conundrum!
5. Taking time to expand your knowledge and develop as a professional is key to staying current in your field but also to challenge yourself to be better. I am a life-long learner. I truly wish I could always be enrolled in a class of some kind because I love learning new things and I like seeing what other people have to offer. That’s not always financially wise or possible, but there are lots of ways to stay connected and to keep learning.
No matter your industry, I encourage you to learn something new every so often. Maybe it’s familiarizing yourself with a product that’s outside of your scope of work, or taking on a project that is in another department, or maybe learn new leadership skills. There’s always more to learn.
On the other side of that, I bet you have a lot of knowledge to offer to others as well. Maybe there’s a way for you to help someone else learn all your tips and tricks. Learning can be a two-way street and, unfortunately, is often the first thing to go when we get busy. By making it a priority and creating a plan, you may be able to find time to learn, grow, and reconnect with that spark that attracted you to your position in the first place!
As I said, I will expand on these ideas in the upcoming weeks. My head is bursting with information! But if you can’t wait and want to learn more about one of these areas right away, let me know and we can set up a time to talk!
In the meantime, let me know what you think! Now, back to my new favorite past-time – pig watching!
Peace, love & kale!
Lindsay