Leah Gervais: Hey visionaries. Welcome back to the Your Biggest Vision show. I am Leah and I am recording this live. Thank you for those of you that have patience with me as I record things live and then use them for my podcast. I know sometimes it’s a little clunky, but I really do get so energized, uh, being online. I love talking to you guys. I love hearing you guys. Hi, Olivia. Hi everyone. I love you guys so much, and I’m so excited to talk to you about this topic today. This is really meant to be conversational because in no way, do I feel hide other Olivia? I also love you in no way. Do I feel totally like an expert on this conversation? I just want to share my personal experience. So today we are going to be talking about how I have overthrown my calendar this year, completely overthrown, how I work and how I think about work as I’ve learned how to align my strengths with my hormones and the time of the month that I’m experiencing.

So again, I’m not a health coach and I don’t, I’m not a hormonal expert, but I do consider myself an entrepreneurial expert and I want to share exactly what I’ve done within my business to, um, maximize, you know, what I’m good at and what I can do all of this started a few months ago, probably two months ago. So I haven’t been doing this for terribly long, but all of this started about two months ago when my masterminder Chelsea Mullen, who is incredible, you should go follow her on Instagram. If you don’t. She is a holistic lifestyle coach and a practitioner of Chinese medicine. We will also tag her in the notes of this podcast. She recommended the book “In the Flo”. Let me get the author of this. So in the flow by Alisa Vitti, I believe is how you pronounce your last name.

Now I didn’t have a ton of interest in reading this. I’ll be totally honest because I love the book, but I think the name is a little bit misleading. The name sounds like it’s a book about your period. The name sounds like it’s pretty much just about how to navigate and manage your period. And I think this book is about so much more than that, and I understand that she used this double meaning because it’s about how to get you in the flow of your life. Uh, and I think that that’s far more what it’s about it really, there are chapters where it talks a lot about your period, but those weren’t really what was the biggest, uh, the biggest takeaways for me. So I read this book and I also want to say that this was part of my quest. So my word of 2021 is self.

Every year, I have a word of the year and this year I really was on a quest to just make the most of myself and pay the most attention to my own personal energy, my own well-being, my own mental and physical health. And I started this year by getting sober, basically by stopping alcohol consumption in my life completely. That’s been incredible. I’m going to do a whole podcast episode on that in a few weeks as I’m approaching my 90 day, Mark, hi Chelsea. She just popped on Instagram live and I’m talking about her. Um, and then, so this was kind of step two to that. Once I had a clear head once I had a clean liver, and once I got alcohol out of my system and I don’t think you need to be alcohol free for this system to work. Uh, she does say that alcohol really interferes with your hormones and your hormonal health, but she also says caffeine does. I have not given up caffeine.

You know, I try not to drink a ton of it. I don’t really drink coffee, but I don’t think that that’s the whole point here. And she even does point out different parts of the month where your hormones can handle alcohol more than others, but I’m just giving you my personal experience here. So I read this book as I stopped drinking. And as I was just really trying to learn more about my mental, physical health, making the most of myself, I am kind of on this health journey  that’s not really reactive. And I feel really grateful for that. There have been times in my life where I’ve completely burnt out and I’ve had to pay attention to my health out of necessity, out of desperation. And this year it was really about wanting to do so proactively and just to see how much better life and business could get when I put my health and myself first.

So this book, I would say changed my lifestyle in three main ways. And I’m only going to really talk about one of them. So the three ways that really are broken down about how to live in alignment with your cycle all throughout the month. I mean it, it’s such a mind blowing book because she talks about how this 24 hour Workday and the normal things we do in eat in those 24 hours, like how we standardly eat more for dinner and how we standardly do more of our work in the morning. Um, kind of more of our heavy work in the morning. And then we do a little bit more social things in the afternoon. Like if we go to happy hour or whatever, and then we unwind at night, those are all actually based on male hormones. Those are based on a male hormonal 24 hour cycle.

So both genders have hormonal cycles. This isn’t just about women yet. Our entire society is based off of a male’s hormonal cycle. We do not at all take into consideration how to work within the flow of where women’s hormones are. So men have the most testosterone in the morning, which is why they are the most focused. And she explains it in a lot more depth than I could that you, that there’s a reason why we’re more social in the afternoon, that is based on male hormones, not women’s. 

So this book is groundbreaking in the sense that you are introduced to a whole new way of living, but it really shouldn’t be because it’s not introducing something that isn’t already equally as natural as the 24 hour cycle that we have all become so accustomed to. And so used to. So the way she starts helping, having you think about this is to think about how to work, socialize, eat, play, be by yourself, take care of yourself, et cetera, in a span of 28 days, instead of in a 24 hour cycle, every single day, trying to expect the same things of yourself.

Now, when I read this book right away, I started feeling some of my anxiety lifted. And I also do want to say that I have, my anxiety is nearly disappeared since I gave up alcohol, but I am still human and still get stressed out about things from time to time. And one of the things that I got stressed out about in the past was having moments where I would get upset with myself or annoyed with myself. If on a certain day I didn’t feel or act or perform the way I thought that I should, especially a busy entrepreneur. 

If I had a day where I didn’t have a lot of calls yet I’m not feeling really focused, I would get really frustrated with myself. I’d wonder why aren’t I in a mode to get a lot done right now? I need to take advantage of the fact that I don’t have so many calls. Likewise, the days that I do have calls, they would sometimes be hit or miss. Sometimes I’d be really excited to, you know, get on these calls and work with my clients and be really lit up about that. 

But then other days I feel like it was very hugely energy sucking to get on calls. And I didn’t know why, and I never ever thought that these things can be about my hormones. I just always brush it off to the fact that maybe I needed more sleep or I was just being too hard on myself or maybe I wasn’t good enough. And honestly, it did give me quite a bit of anxiety and I tried the best I could to plan out my life and to be efficient and productive. 

And when I couldn’t be that way, it really does suck. It sometimes could hold my entire business back. That’s the thing about having a team- it’s so wonderful, but if you’re not on your stuff and you’re not like ahead of the game and proactive your team can’t do their job unless you have kind of done the foundational work that they needed in order to get things done. And so that’s where the anxiety would come from is on days where I felt like I couldn’t get certain things done, or I really didn’t want to, or I was doing it from, um, a, you know, a pressure standpoint or a push standpoint and not from an inspired place. It was like, I have to get this done in order for my team to do their job in the business to continue to function.

But for whatever reason, I was just so blocked. So when in the book, she started talking about the fact that it could be nothing to do with you. If you, on certain days you feel really excited about doing one thing with work. And then on another day it makes you want to cry or pull your hair out. It could be because you aren’t working in alignment with your hormones. And this is incredible. This was right away, made a huge difference to me right away. I started thinking, huh? Maybe if I just started thinking about what I do. And when I plan out my business based on where I’m out hormonally all 28 days of the month, right? This isn’t just like, Oh, you’re on your period. So do less stressful things, eat some chocolate, like every single phase. I didn’t even know about all these phases. I’m not going to lie. I was so uneducated on this.

And I think our whole society is. I think that all women should read this book. All women should read this book. You have the four stages of your cycle of your hormones and each of them have a different strength. So anyway, as I’m reading this book right away, I’m starting to get a little bit of a relaxed energy. I’m starting to recognize. Hmm. Maybe if I just did things more in a way that was aligned with my cycle, then I would not feel this stress and not feel this drain. That’s another thing that I would sometimes get anxiety over is money. 

You know, I’m a business coach and the work I do with my clients is both to be transparent, the most fulfilling and most tiring work I’ve ever done in my life. It’s incredible and tiring for the same reasons. It’s incredible because I witnessed life-changing transformations within them. My clients completely changed their lives. And, um, I say that humbly it’s them who do it. I’m not giving myself credit for that, but it’s amazing to see, excuse my language. 

I see people transform their incomes, double their incomes, sell single packages that make as much money for them as they used to make in two months combined, I see people quit their nine to five jobs. I see them have different relationships. I see them get out of toxic relationships and toxic friend groups and into really inspiring ones. So incredible. And it is a lot of processing. It is a lot of things that they have to go through to achieve that transformation. Um, you know, sometimes they have to do very, very hard work and it’s my job to support them through it and I’m good at it.

So I like doing it and I know that it has an impact, but that can be a whole lot of space and heaviness that you’re holding for someone. And so when I started realizing that maybe there’s a way where I could sort of schedule my life. So I’m doing those things when I most can hold that space and can optimally support people instead of trying to do it all the time and wondering why sometimes I felt like it was really energizing versus sometimes it felt like it was tiring. I got really excited now, listen, I know that sometimes this is going to be beyond my hormones. We’re all humans. And some days things are going to be more tiring than others. Um, sometimes you’re gonna have more responsibilities than others. Sometimes you’re not going to sleep as well as others. This isn’t like the end all be all.

But I have already seen a huge difference. So right away, I took this all to her and I got my calendar out and I got my assistant on board and I got the app and I just really thought, how can I make this huge, like how I’m going to give this my all and going to see how it can go. So there were three main parts of my life that I started to re-examine, uh, based on how to optimize my hormones. The first is food. The second is exercise, and then the third was work. So I don’t want to, I obviously can’t like say everything that she had in the book, because there’s a reason that there’s an entire book written on it it’s a lot, but here are a little bit, I have a spreadsheet that I pulled up here is a little bit of an idea of what this would look like.

So, I’m starting with the follicular phase, which is the phase that happens after menstruation. And, um, I started writing down all the things that I would like to eat that were recommended to eat during this time. And I’m not going to go too deeply into the food, but it’s really incredible how she lays out the different vitamins and nutrients that your body would optimize from having more of at a different time of month because of the way your hormones are produced. Like, for example, during menstruation, if you can have more, more things like seaweed or zinc, heavy foods, that’s going to help you feel so much better, that’s going to help your cramps lessons so much. It’s going to help you sleep more because you’re losing a lot of zinc when you menstruate. Um, additionally, during the phase, like observation, you are, that’s kind of when you are the most, um, energetic that’s when you have the most natural energy.

So you’re going to really benefit from foods that support that natural energy, like raw foods, like summer foods, like kale, et cetera. However, kale during menstruation is very, very high, hard on you to process. So I, haven’t no idea about any of these things. And she really does an amazing job of saying these are the veggies that are most going to supplement or complement whatever your hormones are naturally producing during, during this time, these are the Nazis or the legumes. These are the types of proteins I want to allow. I made these spreadsheets and I thought, okay, I already, I’m not a great cook, but I’m going to have fun with this. And I picked like different smoothie ingredients for every single, all of the four cycles that I could put in my smoothies that I know helped me. I made some notes and things like that.

So I guess to summarize just so we’re all on the same page, the way she made it sound really simple in the book, which I loved is that you can think of each of the four seasons in alignment with our, I’m sorry, each of the four cycles with, or stages of your cycle in alignment with your seasons. So she would compare your follicular phase, which is between menstruation and ovulation to your internal spring. And you can think of that in many ways. You can think of that in an energy way. So you have a lot of energy during your follicular phase, which is why cardio is really good for you and doing things like running or jogging or dancing, just doing things to move your body. As you can kind of think in the spring, you get that new pep in your step.

You want to move more, you know, you have a little bit more energy than you did during the winter, and you are just sort of, um, able to flourish that way. And you can think of your food that way too. So what are some spring foods and how are spring foods prepared that you can compliment your body during that time? So various different types of, uh, you know, fruits, like this is a time when you can have a lot of fresh fruits. Things like, uh, pineapple cherries were a big one. It had a lot of cherries. I have a lot of cherries during it. Um, and same thing with vegetables and also how you cook food. So you’re not going to want to have such or things like soup or stews or things that are like in a Crock-Pot as much during this time, but rather things that are a bit more fresh and steamed and again, how you would think of spring.

So that is kind of an alignment with, I just want to lay this out before I get into how I work in each of the four phases, which is the main point of this episode, but that is how she thinks of the follicular in terms of eating and exercising. Ovulation is what she would consider your internal summer. So that’s when you are the most lively when you have the most energy, it’s when you’re the most magnetic. I think everyone always feels the most confident in the summer. Cause you usually have a little bit of a tan and you know, you’re getting to just kind of be out and about a bit more and you usually have a little bit more skin showing in your sh um, with your clothes and, you know, you have later nights out, it’s just kind of like a really confident time.

Um, and again, that’s how you would think of food. So more raw foods here during any definitely you wouldn’t have as many raw foods during menstruation. So a lot of raw foods during your ovulation phase or in your internal summer, um, a lot of summer foods like, uh, like strawberries, lots of berries are good right now. Things like that. Your luteal phase is what you would consider your internal fall. So as you switch into luteal menstruation, your energy is going to go down a bit and naturally, and that’s, luteal, you’ll have a little bit more than menstruation. So now’s a good time to do things like strength, training, um, weights, things like that. Probably not as much cardio, maybe a little bit in the beginning, cause the luteal phase is the longest of the phases, but you’re not going to be doing things like high intensity interval workouts- that’s really good for ovulation. 

You’re going to want to be doing things that are a little bit more, um, that just don’t require you to expend so much energy because your hormones are, uh, kind of creating or using all the energy that you have. So it’s going to really tire you out to energy. Like isn’t this so amazing. You guys, I never thought like this, like have you ever had a workout where you felt really, really good one day and then a week later you do it and you like, can not get it together. The rest of the day, you’re exhausted and you need to nap because I certainly have, and recognizing that that’s not because I’m in bad shape or it’s not because I didn’t eat well enough or whatever lie we tell ourselves. But just because of where my hormones are at is so freaking freeing.

And also just how sometimes we are a lot hungrier than others and we think, well, what’s wrong with me? Am I stress eating? No, you’re probably in your luteal phase where you are burning the most calories and that’s why you’re hungry. You know? Like we all have these. It’s so sad how I think women right away, blame ourselves for not performing the way we want for getting too tired. When we work out for being overly hungry for feeling like, you know, why did we eat something that we shouldn’t have? It could just be because of your worlds. It probably is. It probably is. 

So realizing that like in your luteal phase, for example, that’s when you’re burning the most calories. So if you’re the most hungry, eat like that, really all there is to it. It’s not about you not having discipline. It’s not about you stress eating. It’s not about you not sleeping enough. Seeing like whatever the hell we tell ourselves, it’s usually not that at all. And then mensuration just to close it out is obviously your internal winter. That’s when you are the most tired about it is when you need the most self-care. That is when you were the most internal. She says napping is a good, a good exercise during this time. Um, or just really gentle things like going on a walk, gentle yoga, et cetera. Again. So freeing, how many of you have been in your menstruation phase and beat yourself up because you didn’t want to work out that day? I have. I certainly have. 

And that might sound awful. And you know, I hope that by sharing this, I break some sort of stigma that women feel that you can’t, you can’t take a few days off when you are in your menstruation phase because you’ve 100% can, no matter what, no matter what and her just saying like, yeah, and nothing is an exercise to really, because that’s how your body’s going to be able to recoup.

So freaking so, so freeing. And as you can imagine during that phase, you’re going to be eating a bit heavier foods. So that’s when you’ll want something with like soups and Susan and, um, just things that are kind of, um, a little bit more, a little bit more comfort food, but not unhealthy food. Uh, you know, to really do her cycles thinking living. I will say I don’t, I don’t think of it as a restrictive diet. I don’t think it’s a diet at all. I think that she does a good job of helping you just add foods to it. Um, but she does say that ideally, you wouldn’t have caffeine, you wouldn’t have alcohol, you wouldn’t have dairy and you wouldn’t have gluten. So if those are things that are heavily in your rotation, that might be something to consider because they just won’t help your hormones process as cleanly is kind of my understanding of it.

Um, I’m sure Chelsea who’s watching this has a much more sophisticated and technical way to describe that than I can, but, uh, I don’t really eat. I don’t really drink very much gluten or eat very much gluten. Um, I’m pretty much dairy free. I am not caffeine free, but I am alcohol free. So the way I try to think of this all is like an 80, 20 rule. While I am grocery shopping before each phase, you know, I grocery shop once a week. That’s how I do it. I grocery shop once a week and I just look okay what phase am I in this week and go through kind of the list. And, um, I just add things to my cart that are recommended for that week. Not everything I eat is in alignment with this, and I certainly don’t restrict myself if I want to eat out or anything like that.

And I’ve also recently had a thing for alcohol free beers. I don’t know why, you know, I never really thought that I’d want an alcohol-free like wine or beer when I stopped drinking. Our college has kind of wanted to out of my life, but we went to Key West last weekend and it’s like such a party city that it was actually kind of fun having like an alcohol free beer in my hand. It just, it, you know, you really, you feel like you’re completely, um, in exactly where you used to be. You just feel better, uh, with your health. So, you know, that has gluten. And I’m certainly like at that point, it’s like, what’s the lesser of two evils. I’d rather not drink alcohol and have gluten. So I, in my experience, I have not needed to restrict all of those things from my diet at all, to feel this experience or to feel the benefits of this.

I think the thing she really points out, like if you are being really intentional with your vegetables and fruit and, um, nuts, you know, that’s really where you’re going to see the most benefits from, because those are kind of what can compliment your hormones the best. So, uh, anyway, that is kind of the outline. Now let’s get into what you guys actually came here to hear how I think about working in alignment with these. So now that I’ve kind of covered the outline of the four of them, a spring, summer, fall, and a winter, you can kind of think of how those would work when you’re working. So here is how I do it. Uh, my follicular phase when I am in my internal spring. This is so funny. You guys, whenever I’m so happy, I’m talking to you guys about this, my poor husband, I’m like, it’s my internal autumn and he’s like, I have no idea what you’re talking and I try to get him to like, eat with me in the cycle. And he’s like, can I just have a normal meal? 

And I’m like, you know, so it’s nice to talk to just other women about it and understand that it’s actually so fun to have all these internal seasons and needs me grocery shopping, more fun. I’ve just really had a great experience with it. So when I am in my follicular phase in that internal spring, that is when I feel really fresh headed. Um, and, and clear-headed kind of like how you would think of an energy of a spring morning. Uh, you are excited for new growth. You’re excited for new things to come and expand. You are excited for what is about to unfold. So I primarily plan in my follicular phase in my calendar.

And I think I mentioned this, but I’m so serious about you guys that even my assistant knows what phase hormonally I am in, because she helps me plan all of this. And she’s very, she’s amazing at what she does. And she’s very protective of my calendar. So as not to over what, like, so as to stay in alignment with this. So I do almost all my planning in the follicular phase of my month. I plan the month ahead. I usually do planning for the following quarter. Um, and then I also plan out projects that we have that month. 

So for instance, this month, I am working on my book. Many of you know, that I’ve shared that I’ve started writing a book and I’m very excited about it, but this is another great example of how, if I didn’t understand this hormonal way of working, writing, it could have been a lot more stressful because if I was forcing myself or expecting myself to write this book, you know, once a week or two times a week, which is exactly the kind of advice I probably would have given myself a year ago, you know, just be consistent a few times a week.

Then it would have been pretty frustrating at times because my brain and my hormones aren’t optimized to sit down and write creatively for four weeks weeks out of the month. And I would have gotten frustrated. And I would’ve wondered if I had what it took and I would have taken it personally. And I would have thought I had writer’s block and they probably would have paid someone to do a writer’s hip, hip hip, and the taxation on me, like all of these things, you know what I mean like gone down this whole rabbit hole, thinking that there’s something wrong with me. Um, but there’s not. 

So in my follicular phase of this month, I outlined what I wanted to write by the end of the month. I did not actually write it, but I blocked out an hour of my calendar where I outlined exactly what would happen when we were, when I did actually write it and kind of what the, um, you know, what the table of contents were, uh, what, how much I wanted to get done.

I planned and made goals for how much I wanted to write. Likewise, we are, our illuminator program is open for enrollment right now, which by the way, it’s filling up. So if you were interested in it and do not delay in doing that. And so I planned the logistics for that and, you know, plan how that’s going to look over the next six months. Um, we’re going to open scale your side hustle again here in April. 

So I was able to plan things like that. So follicular phase is a big planning phase for me then during ovulation is when I do the most marketing. So I loved having the book she described, how you can almost compare yourself. And I told Chelsea, this, this might be a little bit too much information, but I don’t care because half of the population is women.

And so we should be able to talk like this more often, she said, think of yourself during your ovulation phase, like your egg, you don’t need to go chase those from they come to you. You are magnetic, the things that you want come to you. And when you’re ovulating, you’re the most energetic. Remember you’re in your internal summer, the most confident you’re the most social that’s when it’s good to have happy hour with your girlfriends. That’s when it’s good to kind of meet new people and do some networking. And so that’s when I do a lot of my marketing. That’s when I really try to put myself out there, which, like I said, at the beginning of this call in the past, I had noticed that marketing could be hit or miss for me. Sometimes I feel like I am on it. I just, you know, had this sales call or the sales email is like poetry and I feel so good. 

And other times I feel like I am a toddler, uh, taking a square block, putting it into a round hole, wondering why it’s not working and then wondering why everything feels so off. And probably that was because I was not in my ideal face in my cycle. So that is what I would, that’s what I do. And I would consider you guys to, to, to look at that. If you can look at the few days of the month, when you’re ovulating book your discovery calls, then open your calendar. Then, you know, have sales emails going out beforehand saying like, I only do these calls once a month. And so here’s how you can book this and talk to me about it.

Get, get more visible. Then I will say that I love doing live. So I don’t think that this is something that I just would need to do during ovulation. I think I could do it during those phases. But if it’s something that stresses you out, if it’s something that you don’t feel hugely comfortable with, do it when you’re ovulating, see how that feels. That is when you are going to be naturally the most energetic, that’s when you’re going to be the naturally the most extroverted. So take advantage of that. Meet new people, put yourself out there, pitch your stuff, market, like the little social butterfly that we all have inside of us. We just don’t Mel have her inside of us all the time. Um, you know, and right now during COVID, um, we’re not doing tons of social things, especially with friends, but this is when I would imagine that I’d really love to go out with girlfriends.

That’s another thing that I’m sure you can all relate to in the past. Sometimes going out with your girlfriends is the best thing in the world. Other times you are like spending the entire day beforehand, planning how you’re going to cancel your plans. I’ve been there. And I used to be like, well, I don’t want to be with my friends. It’s probably because I wasn’t in my ovulation phase. So that is how I think of ovulation. My ovulatory phase at this point in my business is super booked. I usually have nine or 10 calls or things to do on those days, which is a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot between doing something like being it’s usually calls. Honestly, it’s usually being on calls with people, usually not internal planning calls as much. Cause I do those more during my follicular phase, but marketing calls, sales calls, coaching calls.

Um, if I’m doing like, uh, you know, if I book a power hour with someone, I’ll have it during that. So it’s very, very, uh, call heavy having call heavy days like that used to stress me out because I would feel like I always had other things to do. Like I had to catch up with emails or I had to make sure that I was on boxer enough for my clients or I had to make sure I was there for my team. And so being able to just know that, Hey, this is just a few days, you know, my team because I planned so much in my follicular phase, my team is prepared and I am just not gonna do anything on those days, except my calls. Those are the days when, like you literally just your calls and your, your inbox can wait.

Luteal phase during the internal, uh, fall is, this is a phase I really love, um, because it’s the longest and because I love hall and because I love what it symbolizes, which is sort of like, um, executing it, sort of where you then execute the things I planned during my follicular phase and follow through with the things I’m marketed on in, at my ovulation phase.

So using my book example I have for this month, when I am in my luteal phase, we blocked us out. We blocked out I think four or six hours during my luteal phase for me to write that book and I already have planned what I’m going to write. I just need to actually write it. And in this phase, because you have a lot of, um, you’re burning a lot of calories, but you don’t have quite as much energy. You get a lot of satisfaction from checking things off your to-do list. You get a lot of satisfaction from tying loops together. You know, you see, you can think of it like just with the seasons. Uh, the spring, the spring has been, all these new things came to be the summer is when you really put them into momentum and kind of got into to overdrive and did everything you could.

And in the fall is when you see things come together and almost prepare for kind of like the global rest that is winter. So that is when I do a lot of executing when I follow through on all the things that I were that I had planned to do, uh, in my follicular phase. And, um, when I just make sure that all my T’s are crossed and I’s are dotted. And it’s also when I do things more on the backend, uh, like if I wanna do a new email sequence or if I want to do a flash sale or something like that, I would do it in my luteal phase because it feels really good to get those things done, but I don’t have quite as much energy as you’d be outwardly marketing, or  you know, creating something totally new, which is another thing that I think is a really good takeaway.

If you’re listening to this and you are an entrepreneur, um, try to have, I don’t love the word discipline, but try to have the perspective of only planning new things during your follicular phase. So if something there’s so many multi-passionate entrepreneurs out there who I think honestly, really stunt their growth, because they’re constantly wanting to do something new. So they never actually see something into full form. If you get an idea throughout the month and it’s not in your follicular phase, try to park it and revisit it in your follicular phase, we can have a really clear head and you’re in that mode of birthing new things and creating new things and bringing them to life, um, so that you can plan it from a really strategic, uh, place and from a growth minded place. Whereas in your luteal phase, if you’re trying to plan new things, but also trying to finish things that you’ve already been doing, it could feel really chaotic.

And I think if you just focus on making sure that you’ve already finished things, you’ve put into motion, it’ll feel really satisfying. And obviously that’s a better business strategy. Don’t want to have a million things going at once, menstruation your internal winter. So this is actually when you are the most, um, like kind of how you can think of your right and left brain being the most in sync. So it’s a very good time to make decisions. You don’t want to put any stress on yourself, but it’s a very good time to analyze things that you’re doing and think is this working? It’s actually when you’re the most logical, but also in tune with your intuition. So you’re able to listen to both in a very clear way. So, uh, it’s, it’s, it’s an internal hibernation, if you will. It is when you do not need to market, you do not need to be on calls.

You get to do self care, you get to nap as an, you know, don’t have any plans, um, really pamper yourself and actually look forward to it. What does it mean to spend a whole week or however long you’re menstruating five days for four or five days, at least five days. People give yourself out, even if you don’t count it as you’re still menstruating, um, to just really objectively look at everything you’re doing, analyze how you feel about it. If there’s something you need to change, put that away until your follicular phase, when you’re in the planning mode and do that then, and just be very gentle with yourself, sleep extra during that phase, um, you know, have things like you don’t have to show up on social media as much during that phase. Um, maybe you do some more internal things with your team during that phase, or you kind of just reflect during that phase.

So it’s a, that’s a very quiet phase for me. That’s when I really let myself kind of rest after the four or the three intense things that I’ve done so far, all the things I birthed into life during the follicular phase, all the things I accelerated during the ovulation and internal summer, summer phase, all the things I pushed myself to finish during my luteal phase, I know all the things I get to internalize, rest, analyze, and really feel at peace with during your menstrual phase. 

So that is how I think of working during my four phases. And that is what I schedule into it based on my entrepreneurial, very busy schedule. Now, at this point, something you might be thinking is Leah, I can’t overthrow my whole calendar that way. I’m still going to have to do some marketing during my menstruation phase, or I’m still going to have to do some planning during my luteal phase or whatever the case may be.

I get that, you know, it’s not like I’m during my menstruation phase. I’m not talking to anyone for all of the days. I have clients and, um, team meetings that I do every week and I’m not going to just cancel those there’s reasons for them to be done every week. And I know that I have the capacity to do them still. They’re not going to like, it’s not like I can’t do anything. You know what I mean? So we all don’t live in this perfect fairytale world where everything in your life is going to be at the mercy of your unique hormonal cycle. And even with my team, we’re all women and I’m encouraging them all to think like this and even offered to buy them this book. And, um, w you know, we’re going to be on different hormonal phases. So, it’s like this mix of like, okay, you don’t want to have as many calls this week. That’s fine.

But we still have to have some, because I’m in a big planning mode this week. And so we can lessen them, but we kind of still have to get things moving. So not everything is extreme in the way that we might wish it could be. So how do you deal with that? How do you deal with when you can’t totally overthrow your life or your business because of, you know, how you want to be on your unique cycle? Well, the tip that Alisa gives in the book and what I’ve tried to adapt to is to offset as much as you can. Um, the contrarian things you need to do during a certain cycle with doing extra of what helps you. So, for instance, during menstruation, if you have a busy day, if you have a call heavy day or a marketing heavy day or a socially and networking heavy day, how can you also have a massage that day?

How can you also sleep an extra hour that day? How can you make sure that you’re not exercising that day? How can you make sure that you have, you know, pre-prepared foods that are within your nutritional cycle, um, on that day. And that’s what I do. So, you know, I try to compensate for the things that I know are going to not compliment me so much during that time, by having extra things that will really compliment me during that time, uh, to kind of even it out. So that’s just an extra little bonus. If you are struggling to kind of do this. And also, I want to say that this takes time, I’m still, you know, implementing all of this. I’ve still only been doing this for a few months here, and I’m still trying to find the best ways. You know, cause sometimes it’s hard sometimes.

Like I can’t, I can’t only have calls with my clients or discovery calls or sales calls or team calls a week of the month it’s driven, my business will not accelerate at the rate I desire it to, and I can’t just push them all off to the next month. So I’m still figuring this out. I think it takes a little bit of time to, you know, to adjust to, and to really feel what works, but at the bare minimum, from a nutritional standpoint, if you start implementing the vegetable and fruit and nut recommendations, um, and then if you can at least try to do some of the exercises in alignment, which I’ve definitely done the exercises, I’d say I’m the best at, that’s what I can kind of, it’s just easy. It’s just the easiest to change. Um, and then just trying to be a little more conscious of what helps you during each phase and overcompensating for it.

If something is going to hold you back during that phase, it’s made a huge difference. You guys, I have felt so good in every phase and I never have like this anxiety anymore of another thing that used to stress me out is if some weeks I had so much on my calendar that like, I couldn’t, you know, I don’t, I didn’t know how I could handle it all that would really stress me out. And I would write my journal. Like I’m afraid I’m going to burn out. I’m afraid that I can’t handle this all. I’m afraid that I have put too much on my plate and I don’t know how to do it all. Um, now things like that don’t stress me out because if I have a day like that, or if I have a week like that, I know it’s just a day or a week, you know, I don’t feel like I’m potentially putting myself just way in over my head.

It’s during a phase when I know I can handle it. Um, and likewise, sometimes it used to do the opposite if I didn’t have enough on my calendar, if it’s too laid back of a week, you know, such as the Knight of an entrepreneur and you’re like, Oh my God, should I be doing more? Oh my God, should I be, you know, am I doing enough? Am I doing enough? Should I have more of my calendar? And it’s like, no, I, you know, I have a later week because that’s how I designed it. And I know that come next month during the weeks when I can, when I have the capacity to handle a lot more schedules, a lot more appointments, a lot more socialization, a lot more networking. You better believe it will be packed. So all of this, I’ve kind of given you guys a glimpse into just small anxieties I’ve had as an entrepreneur.

And I hope that I don’t hope that you relate to them, but I hope if you’ve had any of them, you know, that they’re totally normal. Um, I’m sure most entrepreneurs, you know, or look up to have had them too. And I always used to think I could cure everything with a mindset. And I do think mindset is King. I think it’s the most important thing. And there are some just biological tools you can use to make that easier on yourself and to realize that instead of just trying to have to fight against my fears all the time, I can work in alignment with my body and my mind and my hormones so that these things don’t even come up anymore. So I can’t speak highly enough of implementing this. And I’d love to hear from you guys if you have implemented it. Um, or if you liked this episode, um, I’m going to go ahead and answer some of your questions. So let me know what questions you guys have and I’ll stay on for a few more minutes.

Okay. Chelsea. “So cool that giving up alcohol has such a profound impact on your life”. Clear mind, you know, it just feels so like there’s nothing better feeling clear and calm of mind, I think.

Leslie. “This is another significant reason I felt I can’t start my business. Oh, Leslie. So do you not have a business now? Or is this something that you have started in the past and gotten over, but let us know the fear. You’re feeling girl, you’re in good company here, everyone here, listening has gone through a lot of fears and a lot has done very amazing things in spite of them.

Olivia. “Amen, my girl”.

Okay. Allie. “I’ve had this book sitting on my bookshelf for a year and I’m feeling so inspired to read it now”. Yeah. I love it, Allie. And it’s, um, you don’t have to read every chapter. You know, she does a good job of being like in this chapter, we’ll talk about X. There’s a whole chapter on like hormonal birth control. So you can decide if you want to read that or not. There’s a whole chapter on PCOs and hormonal imbalances. And so you can decide if you want to read that or not. There’s a whole chapter on eating, which I pretty much just covered her. So you can decide if you want to read that or not. 

So it’s almost like this little encyclopedia, but it’s so good. So good. Especially, I would definitely recommend it no matter what reading the first few chapters. So you have the context of how powerful your hormonal cycle is and just understanding what a deeply patriarchal world we live in. And I’m not even going to talk about that entirely here, but it really helps you free yourself from so much of the weight we, as women put on ourselves.

Ashley, you’re currently reading. Love it. Yeah. Myuran um, or Mirena. I’m not sure how you pronounce your name. Sorry. Do you have an app recommendation to keep track of that? Yes. So Alisa, the author of the book has a, uh, an app that she created called My Flow. It’s $2, I think, but I don’t know if that’s monthly or a one-time thing, but I downloaded the app and it’s really helpful. It has tips beyond just kind of tracking where you are hormonally, but everything we’re talking about here, what foods could help you with exercises can help you, um, you know, romantic tips, if that is what you’re looking for and work tips. 

So I definitely recommend “In the Flo”, Ashley, this makes me so excited to read. Thanks for sharing the details of this”. Of course. Yeah. Like putting the puzzle pieces together of how I was going to sync it with my life was so exciting for me. All right. Any other questions, guys? I hope that you loved this episode. Thank you guys. Yeah, I wanted to, I’m not sure if I said this in the beginning, but I did a, an Instagram poll on this to see what people are more interested in, and this was highly requested. So I’m glad that you guys were interested in it and I hope that you found it helpful. And I we’ll wait just a minute or two to see if you guys have any other questions.

“Please remind us of the name in the book my flow…” The book is called “In the Flo” and then her app is called “My Flo” and what she teaches throughout it all. She calls her cycle syncing method and she just something else that I thought was so interesting. And she talks about how she’s anti sunscreen, because she thinks that it sends to me, it has more harmful chemicals that disrupt your hormones and actually the sun is harmful. And so she, yeah, but she thinks that the sun is super important. 

So she just says wear, you know, I guess like the SPF equivalent of close, just close that blocks UV rays. And don’t go outside at high noon. But if you go out in the morning or in the evening when the sun isn’t as harsh, it’s good for you. Um, so ever since I read that I haven’t used the spray sunscreen as much because I think those aerosol cans are really harmful. I still do use sunscreen on my face, I just try to just get really organic, natural sunscreen. But that was really interesting that she just doesn’t use sunscreen at all. And, um, she said that that’s really important for fertility too, which I, you know, I guess I don’t know much about fertility or infertility, honestly, until I read this book, but she, she talked about how, just like we don’t get enough sun as humans where a lot of us don’t leave our apartments or homes all day, especially with COVID.

So in the, and then when you go out there, um, and you do use sunscreen, you’re not really getting the benefit of it. Yeah. Olivia, it’s very interesting. I mean, my dad was always pretty anti- sunscreen. He just thought that like the Mo but his philosophy was like, the more you use sunscreen, especially on young kids, the more tolerance they, the less tolerance they’re going to build to the sun and way more burnt, they’re going to get, like, they’re going to be way more susceptible to have long-term skin damage if they have used up all the sunscreen, their whole life, and then they, you know, go outside for like one minute and they’re burnt if they don’t have sunscreen, that’s going to be way more harmful than like gradually having a tan. So we didn’t really use sunscreen that much as kids, but we also, you know, I’m Greek.

We naturally have, um, we started that pale. So I don’t know if that’s a great philosophy for everyone, but I do see where he’s coming. And I do think it was interesting. I just think you gotta be careful. Yes. The book is called “In the flo”. All right, everyone. Thank you guys so much for tuning into this. I hope that you found this useful and helpful. Please DM me  if you listen to this episode, let me know if you had any sort of thing you’ve learned from it or thing you’re inspired to implement.

I really wanted to tell you how I applied her book to my life as an entrepreneur, because I think if you just want the information, she does a better job in the book than I ever could. Obviously this is like her life’s work, but she doesn’t apply at all to entrepreneurs, especially online entrepreneurs, people that own their own businesses.

And so I thought that if that is something relevant to you, if you own your own business, that this could be a helpful way to see how I think about it. So if anything, if you guys are your own business owners, push yourself to market during ovulation, I think just like, see how magical you are. See how magnetic you are and think of yourself as the way she says, like, think of yourself as the egg. It’s not like when you’re ovulating, the egg goes to chase the sperm or anything like that to conceive. 

The egg doesn’t have to, it lets things come to it. The sperm all fight for it. And the egg gets to be choosy, which with everyone she wants to choose. So have that vibe. The next time you put yourself out there, you don’t need to go find and chase your clients. You don’t need to feel desperate around them or go to them, let them come to you. And you can even be picky with who you take on love that attitude. All right, everyone, I hope that this helped you work toward your biggest vision, especially if you’re a woman. Obviously I will talk to you guys next time. Have an amazing day and here is to Your Biggest Vision.

Show Notes:

Book: “In the Flo” by Alisa Vitti

App: “Your Flo”

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