March 5, 2025 • 39 mins
What if the secret to lasting weight loss and business success had nothing to do with diets or hustle culture? In this episode of The Bold Blueprint, Claire Bartlett chats with Naomi Holbrook, an unconventional weight loss coach, who shares how self-care, mindset, and authenticity are the real keys to transformation.
If you’re tired of quick fixes and looking for a holistic approach to health, confidence, and success, this episode is a game-changer! 🚀
💡 What You’ll Learn:
✅ Why mindset is the missing piece in both weight loss and entrepreneurship. ✅ The connection between self-care and business success - how looking after YOU impacts your results. ✅ How to build unshakable confidence and stop self-sabotage. ✅ The power of boundaries - why saying “no” can help you thrive. ✅ Embracing authenticity - how to stop playing small and own your journey. ✅ How belief and resilience can help you navigate career pivots and personal challenges.
Why This Matters: Success - whether in business, health, or personal growth - is about more than just willpower. It’s about how you think, how you treat yourself, and the habits you build. Naomi’s approach will help you shift your perspective and take control of your life in a way that actually lasts.
🎧 Tune In Now: Hit play now to ditch the quick fixes and start making real, sustainable changes!
🔗 Listen on Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Your Favorite Podcast App
💬 Let’s Chat! What’s one small act of self-care you’ll commit to after this episode? Tag @cs_bartlett and let us know! #TheBoldBlueprint #MindsetMatters
Connect with Naomi:
Buy the book - Kindle: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0DW497JW7 Paperback: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1917623038
https://www.facebook.com/naomi.holbrook
Connect with Claire:
Social Media Content Planner Freebie:
https://www.claire-bartlett.co.uk/365socialmediacontentprompts
Xero listener offer:
https://refer.xero.com/femalefounders
Connect with Claire:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of the Bold Blueprint.
Today, I am joined by Naomi Holbrook, who is the unconventional weight loss coach.
Now, I know some of you might be thinking, well, hang on, Claire, this is a businesspodcast.
What on earth is Naomi doing here?
And I promise you, it will all make sense.
So, Naomi, thank you so much for joining us this week.
(00:26):
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for asking me on.
I'm really excited to have this conversation because again, I think it's an area that, youknow, we don't necessarily think about as entrepreneurs and actually, we always prioritize
ourselves at the bottom, you know, we're always the bottom of the pile.
So first of all, can you just introduce yourself, tell us about your journey and how youbecame to be the unconventional weight loss coach?
(00:48):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I really helped to dispel the myths and to break the toxic diet culture that so manywomen have inherited, but also help them to feel free inside their bodies without the
guilt restriction and all the kind of labels that they've probably put on themselves.
And how that transpired was I struggled with my weight.
(01:12):
And actually, if I look back,
I didn't struggle with my weight at a young age.
I struggled with my body image, with my perception of myself from a young age.
saw my mum, you know, when I was kind of in my teens, my mum who was in her forties,watched her diet, watched her struggle with her body image.
And of course, unconsciously had already started to process those feelings and patterns.
(01:36):
I also went to a really competitive all girls school, which I think didn't help from thepoint of view of, you know, always comparison of
of sort of peers, but I started my first like diets at 14 and that carried on until I was39 and my weight fluctuated and you know, and dropped and I dieted and I restricted and I
overate and I did all those things and at 39, my health was in the worst possible place,know, diagnosed pre-diabetic, chronic pain.
(02:06):
I'd suffered with depression for the best part of 30 years.
I lost my mum when I was a teenager.
And that had a massive impact.
And also I now realized that food became that kind of, that friend, that comfort, allthose different things throughout life.
So 39, I decided to take control, take control of my own health, lost, you know, of nearly70 pounds and not through dieting, but this time through sustainable lifestyle sort of
(02:35):
choices and changes.
And then that took me on the path to...
leaving my corporate career and then starting up retraining and starting up my ownbusiness.
And the unconventional weight loss coach actually only came about last year.
I'd already been trained, you know, been coaching since 2016.
But the reason it came about was because my messaging just didn't sit with what I wassaying.
(02:58):
You know, I just felt I'm not a weight loss coach.
And all the women that working with me were like, it's so much more than weight.
But that's how the unconventional weight loss coach came about.
Love that.
And I think it's really important, like you said, that actually, preconceived ideas startfrom such a young age, but carry through our entire lives.
(03:20):
And so often, it's so subconscious, we don't even realise that we have those messages inour head.
But so we were talking just before I pressed record about how the body image and ourhealth and it isn't about the way it really actually isn't.
It's about your health and your energy levels and those sides of things and how importantthat is as an entrepreneur to look after ourselves.
(03:44):
And because if, you know, there's a really cheesy saying that I actually hate, but it doessort of, you know, you can't pour from an empty cup.
need to fill your cup first and, you know, service other people from the overflow of thatcup.
And it's a really cheesy saying, but it actually just says how it should be.
You we need to look after ourselves first.
And with what you teach,
(04:07):
It's not, it's not dieting, is it?
It's not about dieting because we've got, mean, I am sure that so many of the listenerswill have done the Weight Watchers and the Slimming World and all of these things.
You know, I did it many years ago and yes, it worked.
lost the weight, but it didn't fix my health for one and it didn't fix my mental issues inthat space.
(04:29):
You know, the, and I talk a lot about confidence and in business.
especially if you're trying to build a brand, personal brand, you have to have thatconfidence.
And a lot of that is body image and how we see ourselves in the world.
So working with you and just actually starting to prioritise yourself can really help withthat, can't it?
(04:50):
massively.
And there's not one woman that has come to me and not had guilt attached to looking afterthemselves.
And again, you say about so much of it is preconditioned.
And I talk about my mum a lot and, you know, sometimes I feel a bit like maybe I should Ishouldn't do.
But again, she worked so hard and she, you know, she was a nurse.
(05:12):
So I guess her personality and everything was all about giving to others.
And I saw her literally burn herself out.
it's why at 52 she died from a chronic illness.
And so it is conditioned and programmed into a lot of us from an early age that we are thecaregivers, that we're the ones that look after, if you look at the kind of games we
(05:34):
played at school and all those sorts of things, we were the ones looking after otherpeople.
So it becomes this real battle.
with wanting to look after ourselves, because I don't think there's anybody that wants toneglect themselves, but we want to look after ourselves, but we feel such guilt towards it
and we feel like it's selfish and we should be giving to everybody else first.
(05:56):
And you say about kind of cheesy sayings, but actually my first business coach...
This has just stuck in my mind.
And he said to me in 2019, Naomi, you have to put your own oxygen mask on first.
And if you think about when you get on a flight and what is the first thing that they sayto you, you know, in case of cabin pressure, you know, losing cabin pressure, put your own
(06:17):
oxygen mask on before children, before the elderly, always put your own on first.
And we're actually doing everybody a disservice.
by putting ourselves at the bottom of the list because we can't, like you said, we end upgiving the dregs, we end up giving the bottom of the teacup and that's no good for
anybody.
But we've got this perception because we feel like we have to be everything to everybody.
(06:43):
And a lot of that comes down to boundaries.
We feel guilty saying no, whether it's in our business, whether it's to our family,whether it's to our friends, but it's just so, so, so important to look after our own
health.
Yeah.
And this is the thing in when we say look after our own health, that's mental andphysical.
Totally.
the whole package, isn't it?
(07:03):
And you can be the, you know, the healthiest physically that you've ever been, butmentally, your rock bottom.
So and again, then that's not serving anybody.
So it's about getting that balance and just spending that time.
And I know, like you said, especially when we become parents, we have huge guilt on everputting ourselves first.
(07:23):
But actually, especially in the entrepreneurial world, we have a lot of stress and a lotof pressures being business owners.
So it's even more important, I think, for us to look after ourselves, because it all comesdown to those labels, doesn't it?
And how many plates we're spinning.
So we're an entrepreneur, we have a business to run, potentially have a team that we needto look after and nurture.
(07:44):
So the team are therefore before us.
We're parents, so we have our children that come before us.
We have a husband or wife that comes before us.
We have all of these people and as you, your success grows, the amount of people that youare putting before you also grows.
And this is where, you know, burnout is such a trigger word at the moment, isn't it?
(08:04):
And it's so, I think it's actually overused and under understood.
But we are all on that path where we're running ourselves down and just constantly, we'vegot to go, we've got to go, we've got to work.
it's not benefiting us in any way, is it?
And it can be really actually limiting to the success that we achieve.
(08:25):
Yeah, and it limits our creativity and I see that in myself.
You know, I make sure that I create time within my working week and my business week towhether it's get out for a walk, even if it means, you know, doubling up that time and
actually responding to messages whilst I'm out.
But I noticed that having that time away.
helps me to be more creative, helps me to come back with, you know, with a better sort ofmindset.
(08:50):
And you're so right about the sort of physical and mental health.
And I can really sort of say this from, you know, from my own personal experience.
When I lost, you know, nearly five stone in weight, I was my smallest that I'd probablybeen since I was a teenager.
And of course, everybody was complimenting me on, know, God, you look amazing.
(09:10):
Internally, I hadn't dealt with
30 years of depression, anxiety, panic attacks.
So I'd worked on the external transformation.
And then I sort of was like, I don't feel any different inside.
I don't feel more confident.
I don't feel all these different things.
And that's when I started to work on the mental health and the emotional wellbeing.
(09:33):
And it's why I created my own smart formula because I then realized that actually
without the mental and the emotional wellbeing, the physical health is nothing becauseit's so important.
And as you said, as entrepreneurs, we are on a constant roller coaster and I'm going touse that word resilience, which I think again, sometimes gets used in the wrong way.
(09:56):
Resilience isn't about, you know, like powering through.
Resilience is feeling that real inner strength of I'm going to be okay, whatever happens.
and not kind of like that real masculine energy of pushing, pushing, pushing, but actuallyleaning into that feminine energy of, you know, I've got this, I can handle this, but
(10:20):
actually sometimes, I said this to one of my clients yesterday, sometimes we've got toslow down to speed up.
But we just, again, we're kind of like the next thing, the next thing, what's coming next.
And, you know, we are, it's fueled by the world that we live in and modern day living andthe dopamine hits and the...
the things social media and all the new different, the new things that are constantlycoming.
(10:42):
And we've got to keep up with these algorithms and we've got to do this.
But sometimes we just have to say, what do I need amongst all of this?
Yeah, it's so true.
saw, I don't know where I saw this actually.
I don't know whether it was, it might have been Stephen Bartlett, but I saw somethingwhere you see a child in India, for instance, in one of the rural villages in India, a
(11:04):
bowl of rice and some clean water is like the absolute pinnacle of their life.
Whereas to us in, you know, where we live, that's rock bottom.
So
It's your perception of your surroundings.
for us, when we look around and we see so much on social media, all these glamorous lives,all these people saying how successful they are, and it gives us a feeling of inadequacy,
(11:30):
I think.
And then we're constantly pushing against that.
Well, we want more, more, more all the time.
And actually, if you just sit back and stop trying to keep up with the Joneses and just belike, what do I want?
What am I happy with?
What gives me contentment and gratitude?
And I think that is
such a beautiful place if you can get yourself to that spot but it takes work and it'sactually there's no ending to that either is there really?
(11:54):
It's really funny you should say that.
I'm always having this conversation with clients.
And I think, again, if I kind of reconnect it to the weight loss journey, the reason somany people do not sustain their weight loss is because they're aiming for a goal, like
whether it's to get to a certain dress size, whether it's to be in a certain thing for acertain wedding or an anniversary.
(12:18):
And one thing I say is it's...
a continual journey, just like entrepreneurship is.
never get there and that's it's done.
It's the daily actions that sustain the success and that sort of keep you going.
So yeah, I agree.
It isn't just once done.
It gets easier and you get more, you get better.
(12:40):
But actually it's a continual journey.
Yeah, it's about having that self awareness isn't it and that understanding.
Like you say, if we look at the health journey, you might say I want to be able to run a5k or I want to you know, whatever.
And that's the goal.
That's the target.
So you get to that point.
(13:01):
And then if you haven't done the internal work, and this is what happened to me and it'shappened to thousands of other people, if you haven't done any internal work, the next day
you're back on the couch and you're like, I've achieved that great.
and then you lose everything that you've worked on.
So it's about building in daily habits, I suppose, which we talk about in business, makesure you have those daily habits and the compounding effect.
It's the same in weight loss and health and just generally prioritizing yourself, isn'tit?
(13:26):
Completely.
And also what I think I want to say is that it's
it's not complicated a bit like a bit like business we've over complicated things or likeyou say we start looking all you know we start looking for the new shiny object and
actually the truth is it's the unsexy stuff that works it's the it's the boring mundanedull and i was saying to somebody the other day you know what i love boring now isn't it
(13:53):
weird i used to like crave the dopamine crave the like you know whether it was the night'sout or the
glass of wine or whatever.
And now I just crave the like early night and the going out for the walk in nature.
And I think it's really important, whether it's business or health, it's not complicated.
A lot of industries have made it complicated because then that keeps you as a customer.
(14:20):
And also if they don't educate you and they just make something over complicated withtheir own language or whatever it might be.
then you're sort of almost stuck in there and you're scared to move anywhere else.
But it is simple and it is about sometimes the smallest daily habits that make the biggestimpact over time.
It's not the huge steps, it's always the little steps that are compounded.
(14:43):
Yeah, yeah, it is.
So if we talk about, there's be listeners listening, saying, you know, this is all soundsgreat, but what really is the benefit of me doing this?
You know, what, how will it benefit the business?
So what would you say the sort of the key points where if you start prioritizing yourselfand looking after your health, and as we've said, it's not necessarily about actually
(15:05):
losing weight.
For some people, it's purely just a health thing.
If you're looking at that, how will
benefit, how my life benefit and how my business benefit.
Yeah, so I think the biggest thing and I work with a lot of female entrepreneurs, but Ialso work with a lot of career women.
And the biggest things that they have said that they gained, you know, working with me andworking with my smart formula is.
(15:31):
boundaries.
And not just boundaries with other people, because it's like I say, actually, you don'tboundary set for others, you boundary set for yourself.
It's like a form of self respect, a form of, you know, gratitude to yourself, and it helpsto enhance your own self esteem.
So boundary setting is a big one.
Because when you boundary set with yourself, that doesn't matter whether it's your healthor your business.
(15:54):
And it's hugely impacted my business, you know, I used to allow clients to
contact me at any time and I'd respond to any time and I'd, you know, literally go to theend of the earth to, you know, to do A, B or C when I didn't need to do that.
But again, that was, you know, some people pleasing tendencies that I had inherited andwas conditioned with.
(16:20):
Putting those into place in my own health and my and myself and in my business has had amassive impact.
It does with all the women that I work with.
and also I'd say the other thing confidence, you know, I've got women that have workedwith me and who have come to me first and said, my God, you know, I've started this
business, but I just, I don't even feel confident to show up and do a Facebook live.
(16:42):
I'm worried that my family who are on my social media are going to judge me.
And when we start to work on their health, their boundaries, their own mindset, all thosedifferent areas, they start to get to a point and they're like, what?
I don't care about what anybody else thinks.
I'm on a mission or this is what I want to do.
(17:04):
you know, and that is nothing to do with the weight.
It's nothing to do with the weight at all.
It's purely to do with the belief system that we have and how we, like you said, perceiveourselves.
And I know for me, my perception of myself was incredibly low.
And it's funny because people that have known me for a long, long time say to me nowadays,but you were always confident.
(17:28):
I wasn't, it was a mask, it was an act and it was exhausting.
You know, I'd have panic attacks before having to present in my corporate career.
I'd spend the whole weekend after a presentation literally on the sofa, just like drainedand exhausted.
And you know, if you want to use that word kind of burnout, complete exhaustion, thatdoesn't happen now because actually what I show up with is authentic confidence, it's
(17:52):
self-esteem that I've built.
It's not...
I'm not masking it and that's exactly what I help other women to do is let it come from aplace of authenticity and a real place that they don't feel like they're having to fit in
or having to pretend and they can actually, you know, just be themselves.
It's so powerful when you can get to that sweet spot.
And so I put a post out this week, actually on social.
(18:14):
So I have obviously this podcast and guests are constantly coming and pitching to my to meabout being on here.
And one woman recently pitched and said, Well, I can talk about anything, anything thatyour audience would benefit from.
Now, I'm sure that when we can all talk about loads of different things, but
you need to have the confidence say, this is my thing.
(18:37):
This is my mission.
This is what I want to help the world with and find the right podcast places or just havethe confidence say this one thing is what I want to talk about.
what I want to be known for.
And if it takes confidence to have that strength in conviction of this is the one thing.
so with you, obviously, I want to go back to you said previously, you had that peoplepleasing.
(19:03):
Jean, I think so many of us have struggled with that at points in our life, but you'vecome into weight loss, which sounded like a massive transformation for you where you
weren't in on corporate journey.
And then at some point, so that must've been difficult in itself.
But then at some point you've been like, hang on, my messaging is very different to therest of the weight loss community in its entirety.
(19:24):
So that must've been, it must've been quite a big decision for you.
And how did you handle that transition?
in yourself.
love that you've picked up on that because honestly behind the scenes it has been, I'vebeen on a journey myself whilst also building and growing the business.
(19:46):
And I think I felt such a misalignment a couple of years ago talking about the weight lossbecause I had started to realise just how it wasn't about that.
It was so much more behind.
There were so many different layers to it.
I actually realized as well that I was still holding on to shame and guilt andembarrassment in my own journey.
(20:12):
And that really only came to like last year when I was doing some work on my messagingwith one of my business mentors.
And, you know, she, she said, but that's not what you do, Naomi.
I've seen the results that you get, and this is what you get with your clients.
You're not a weight loss coach.
You're not, and I'm like, well, I am, but I, I am, but I'm not.
And that's when
(20:32):
we landed on the unconventional weight loss coach because people think it's all about thecalories and about the workouts and about the, 5 a.m.
club and all these different things.
And it's actually not.
It's so much more about the stories we tell ourselves, the belief system we have, that yousay the people pleasing, all those different things that we've, and I quite often say it's
(20:56):
a bit like the kind of, you know, the
the bag that we have just carried along through life and we get to, you know, and I'm justabout to turn 50 next week.
And I think we get to this point in life.
And actually I was, that's where I, you know, my, my health transformation came about at39.
And I think quite often when we get to those pivotal moments, like the new
know that I've been through it too, yes.
(21:18):
We're kind of a bit like, what am I doing?
And so I think my like meta, you know, my literal weight was like my 39th year into my40th.
And then what I feel like I've been doing over the last year coming into my 50th year isactually really releasing all the metaphorical weight.
(21:38):
And I feel like finally, you know, I wouldn't have even probably been able to do thispodcast a year ago because I have, I still have that self doubt of
Who am I?
What's my real message?
Who am I showing up as?
I probably would have been that woman that messaged you and said, hey, I can talk aboutanything to your audience.
(21:59):
And when I saw your post this week, it really resonated because I was like, I own what Ido now and it won't fit for everybody and it won't appeal to everybody.
about it, isn't it?
That is the beauty in it.
Yes.
This is what I said, you know, if we attract if we try and attract everybody, we end upconnecting with nobody, we have to be really clear in our messaging.
(22:21):
And the weight loss for you really is sort of the byproduct is it's something that happensaccidentally with the rest of the work.
And that's why I love so you have a book, I think it's just been released.
Yes, this week, I believe, and it's called Your Weight is Not the Problem.
And I absolutely love that.
Because it's so true, isn't it?
(22:42):
The weight is the aftermath and the byproduct of us not loving ourselves enough and nothaving that faith and not looking after ourselves.
that's just the, I suppose, the physical appearance of that self-neglect, really, isn'tit?
like the manifestation of it.
it took me 27 years of yo-yo dieting and disordered eating.
(23:06):
And again, I've only owned that in the last year.
I was so ashamed and so embarrassed that for nearly 30 years, I had such a disorderedrelationship with food that I couldn't even talk about it as a weight loss coach.
And then last year I was like, I need to own...
every piece of this, for me, and to honor what I've been through, but also to help otherwomen.
(23:28):
And so this book for me is just, I feel like the guide that I needed five years ago, 10years ago, 15, 20 years ago.
And you're right.
And I always use that terminology that actually the weight is just a by-product.
The weight loss is a by-product.
It's all the other areas that when you're looking after your health, when you're
(23:52):
got your boundaries in place when you understand how you work.
I didn't even know that I could reprogram my neural pathways.
just didn't, I didn't even know what a neural pathway was.
And it's only in learning those science-backed modalities and now teaching them thateverything makes so much sense.
(24:13):
And you can understand.
why certain times of your life or why relationships or why career or why business, you canstart to understand things and lean into them.
I always say if something triggers you, don't walk away from the trigger, don't hide fromthe trigger.
(24:34):
That's where the problem happens.
Sit with it.
What is it that's triggering you?
What is it that's uncomfortable?
But I think, again, we, you know, we often are in a world where we want to just soothe theproblem or, you know, or put the trigger warning out there before we say something.
And I, and I know, you know, firsthand that all those things keep fueling the feelingsbehind it, the failure, the embarrassment, the guilt, the shame, all those different
(25:04):
things.
So, yeah, it's about showing up.
wholeheartedly as you are.
That's the thing, isn't it?
You know, it's not an easy journey.
We all have a lot of baggage, like you say, that we've carried from our past.
And it's about, I suppose you need to be bold and you need to face up to those elements.
And it doesn't happen instantly.
(25:27):
Like you said, you you handled some of them and then almost 10 years later, you're readyto handle the next ones.
It's not an instant overnight fix for anything.
And business isn't either, you know, when we...
we will all come up against challenges.
you said that only last year, probably you wouldn't have been able to do the podcast oryou wouldn't have been as bold with your statement, this is who I am and this is what I
(25:50):
do.
And, you know, it was the same for me.
Years ago, I would have, well, I just wouldn't have dreamed of being on a podcast, like,alone hosting a podcast, you know, and the business, the work that I've done internally on
myself, the lessons I've had to learn, the boundaries I've had to push, you know, of thecomfort zone, really
grow through the tasks that you kind of have to do, being comfortable with beinguncomfortable has brought me to where I am.
(26:17):
you know, I've been in business a decade now, so it's not been an overnight thing, but Ifind it's really beautiful when you can actually sit back and appreciate the journey that
you've been on and celebrate the journey.
You know, and like you're saying a year ago, I wouldn't have been sitting here.
And here I am today and we need to be, we need to have the gratitude for that and theawareness of that journey.
(26:43):
So what do you think was the hardest point for you in your journey to date that youreally, you know, had to work hard to push through?
walking out of my corporate career was huge.
I was 41 and I'd had a successful 21 year career.
(27:04):
for a girl who left school with virtually no qualifications, I lost my mum during mycollege term.
And if I'm honest, I struggled with everything.
I struggled with schoolwork, I struggled with college.
So to have a 21 year career was like...
wow anyway I'd exceeded all my own expectations but my mental health was at rock bottomand I was not in a good place and you know I'm independent I didn't have a partner I don't
(27:33):
have a partner now I have two mortgages on my own I literally just had to like jump andtake the leap and do it I say I had to I didn't have to
I chose to.
And I think for me, that was the biggest thing, but actually it was what came afterwardsthat was the biggest thing.
And what I hadn't realized was how caught up my identity was in this career woman.
(27:59):
You know, I'd not become a mum by choice, but I hadn't become a wife and I hadn't become amum, so I wasn't a parent.
So I felt all I was, was a career woman.
And when I walked out of my corporate career at 41, I was a bit like,
Who is Naomi Holbrooke?
What does she like?
know, other than getting on the train at five o'clock in the morning and going to acorporate job and showing up in, you know, the suit that she's meant to be wearing and,
(28:26):
you know, performing this way in front of her team and everything.
And that was a huge thing.
And, you know, I know you and I were obviously somewhere last week together and we hadthis conversation with another lady about how...
There's almost like a grief process of grieving the corporate career that you've built up,everything you've poured into it.
(28:47):
So I would wholeheartedly say that was probably the most difficult time, you and eventhough I've been through a lot losing my mum in my early years and everything else, I
think that was one of my most lonely and difficult times.
And I live here in Hovindy, Sussex, and I must admit.
I cried some tears on that beach for probably for months on and on and off just what am Igoing to do next?
(29:10):
And one thing I kept saying to myself was I'm 41.
What do I want to do for the next 20, 30 years that lights me up that I don't feel everyday like, oh, here we go again.
And thankfully I've created that, you know, of just...
doing something that I love that feels like it's always been inside of me, but I didn'tknow it was there and I didn't know how to release it or how to kind of, you know, embrace
(29:38):
it or whatever it might be.
So I would absolutely say wholeheartedly that was the toughest time of my life.
And for every reason, like financially, mentally, you know, gosh, I had to really dig deepin some of those times.
So how did you make that transition?
you already started the coaching business and, were you literally, did you not even have aplan when you left your corporate?
(30:02):
I know.
No, this is amazing.
it
I had a, there was like a real mixed camp.
was like, I mean, I literally heard my colleagues whispering behind my back and saying, dothink she's having a midlife crisis?
Do think she's like gonna move to Africa and like go and like set up a, you know, like acharity or something.
(30:25):
And then there were other people that were literally coming up to me, shaking my hand andgoing, I wish I had your courage.
And I didn't feel like I had courage.
I felt like I was almost backed into a corner and it was like, for my own mental healthand sanity, there's only two ways out of this situation.
So there was no plan B.
(30:45):
And I've only come across Tony Robbins since I left my corporate career, but I do lovesomething that he says and it really resonates with me now and he's like, burn all your
bridges.
Because the problem is that when you have that safety net and actually when I left mycorporate career, they tried to get me to stay and actually they offered me a year
(31:09):
sabbatical and all these different things.
But I knew that having a year sabbatical was still like a plan B, an option in thebackground.
And I felt like I just needed this clear cut and this break.
So I have no plan B and
I literally left my corporate career and was like, what am going to do?
(31:30):
I've got to keep roof above my head.
So look, I got resourceful.
I took in a lodger in my flat so that, you know, some of the bills were being, beinghelped along.
I started up a pet sitting business because I actually, when I left my corporate career, Ididn't want to work with humans.
I was like, do you know what?
don't, I don't want to speak to another human being.
(31:53):
What can I do?
And I was like,
I love pets, I love dogs, and if I'm honest, those pets and those dogs healed a part of methat I don't think another human being could have healed.
I, you know, pet sat for people when they were away on holiday.
I even took a courier job six days a week delivering parcels and literally for threeyears, Claire, I worked.
(32:19):
solidly.
I didn't have a day off.
I just took a weekend off for my birthday every year.
The rest of the time I worked, was, you know, delivering parcels.
I then was studying to be recertified to get my nutrition and weight managementqualification.
So I was doing all these different things because I needed, you know, it was a case of Ineed to do this to make it work.
(32:41):
And it's, and it's one reason why nowadays, you know, I do truly believe that if, if it'simportant enough,
We'll find a way and if it's not, we'll find an excuse.
100 % yeah, can't agree more.
And I've just funny enough, I've just had a bracelet sort of commissioned for my 50thbirthday.
(33:02):
And I was like, want something really powerful put on it.
And my pretty much since 2019, my or 2016, when I walked out of my career, my littlemantra has been I'll find a way.
And I've had that put on there because I think we so often say, I haven't got the time, Ihaven't got the money.
And we say we haven't got the money.
And then we go on the holidays and we buy the frivolous
(33:25):
rubbish and we go out for all the drinks and all these different things.
But we're just, it's just what's important to us.
And what was important to me was changing my life, not just changing my job, but actuallyhaving the ability to completely change and transform every area of my life.
It was the freedom of choice for yourself and the ownership of your own life.
(33:49):
And I think we, you know, it's so often we get on the hamster wheel and you, and you juststay on it.
You don't see a way out of it at all.
And so when I, left my corporate career to set up my own business 10 years ago, I was thesame.
got a job in a pub, serving clients because I was like, I still need to be bringing themsome income.
(34:09):
The business is not going to be overnight bringing me in what I need.
So I'll go and serve points.
So, you know, luckily the business did grow very quickly and I actually didn't do it forvery long, but I would have happily continued that, you know, for quite a while if that
was what I needed to do because it gave me the freedom to be there for my daughter andwhat I needed at that point in that chapter in my life.
(34:34):
So yeah, I love that you would much have preferred to have that ownership of your life andbe currying parcels and, you know, pet sitting than getting your
probably very good wage in a corporate career, but it's about having that self belief, Isuppose.
And like you say, I will make it through, I will find a way.
Yeah.
(34:54):
And that self belief has been a learned behavior because if I'm honest, when I walked outof my corporate career, I was petrified.
I didn't believe that I'd be here today, you know, with the business that I've got, withthe clients that I've got doing what I love, having conversations like this.
But each time I've either failed or, you know, learned something from it, or each timeI've actually succeeded, you know, like I always say with my clients, belief is a, it's a
(35:21):
habit.
It's a behavior when we...
get a little bit of belief in one area, it fuels the next bit, it fuels the next bit andthe next bit.
And that's what's happened is that that belief has become, you know, a learned habit and alearned behavior.
think that's so powerful.
And it's exactly the same.
You know, it was what happened to me when we started, didn't believe that it would reallyeven be able to feel like two days of my time.
(35:42):
Let's be quite open about this, because I had never envisioned anything as big as what Ibuilt, it just was never in my line of sight at all.
But gradually, you know, I won the first client, that gave me the confidence to go out forthe second client.
And it comes over time, it's like a snowball compounding effect.
And now, if I face a challenge or something goes wrong,
(36:04):
it does not impact me anywhere near how it did in the beginning because I'm like, well,you know, it's a lesson learned or whatever, move on to the next thing.
it barely chips my armour at all anymore, whereas it would have been, you know, fatal inthe very beginning.
So yeah, it's such a powerful and, and, what's the word?
Analogy.
(36:25):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Absolutely.
And so many people, they see the transformation.
They don't see all the little steps that you take.
And the steps backwards.
We've all had that happen where, you know, things go backwards before it can kind of goforwards again.
But yeah, absolutely.
(36:47):
I love that.
Naomi, thank you so much for joining me today.
I've really loved our conversation.
So big question, if people are interested in learning more about how you work or buyingthe book, where can they find you and find that information?
Absolutely.
Well, first of all, I want to say thank you so much because it's been an absolute joychatting with you.
So www.theunconventionalweightlosscoach.com is my website.
(37:09):
Links and everything are on there.
But Instagram, I'm Naomi Holbrook Coach and Facebook, just Naomi Holbrook.
And the book is on Amazon.
amazing.
I'll put all the links in the show notes for everyone as well.
Yeah, just thank you so much.
I hope the listeners have gained loads from that and it might have sparked a few questionsand a few thoughts for them.
(37:30):
thank you for listening and joining us again this week and I will speak to you all nextweek.
Take care.
Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of the Bold Blueprint.
Today, I am joined by Naomi Holbrook, who is the unconventional weight loss coach.
Now, I know some of you might be thinking, well, hang on, Claire, this is a businesspodcast.
What on earth is Naomi doing here?
And I promise you, it will all make sense.
So, Naomi, thank you so much for joining us this week.
(00:26):
Thank you for having me.
Thanks for asking me on.
I'm really excited to have this conversation because again, I think it's an area that, youknow, we don't necessarily think about as entrepreneurs and actually, we always prioritize
ourselves at the bottom, you know, we're always the bottom of the pile.
So first of all, can you just introduce yourself, tell us about your journey and how youbecame to be the unconventional weight loss coach?
(00:48):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I really helped to dispel the myths and to break the toxic diet culture that so manywomen have inherited, but also help them to feel free inside their bodies without the
guilt restriction and all the kind of labels that they've probably put on themselves.
And how that transpired was I struggled with my weight.
(01:12):
And actually, if I look back,
I didn't struggle with my weight at a young age.
I struggled with my body image, with my perception of myself from a young age.
saw my mum, you know, when I was kind of in my teens, my mum who was in her forties,watched her diet, watched her struggle with her body image.
And of course, unconsciously had already started to process those feelings and patterns.
(01:36):
I also went to a really competitive all girls school, which I think didn't help from thepoint of view of, you know, always comparison of
of sort of peers, but I started my first like diets at 14 and that carried on until I was39 and my weight fluctuated and you know, and dropped and I dieted and I restricted and I
overate and I did all those things and at 39, my health was in the worst possible place,know, diagnosed pre-diabetic, chronic pain.
(02:06):
I'd suffered with depression for the best part of 30 years.
I lost my mum when I was a teenager.
And that had a massive impact.
And also I now realized that food became that kind of, that friend, that comfort, allthose different things throughout life.
So 39, I decided to take control, take control of my own health, lost, you know, of nearly70 pounds and not through dieting, but this time through sustainable lifestyle sort of
(02:35):
choices and changes.
And then that took me on the path to...
leaving my corporate career and then starting up retraining and starting up my ownbusiness.
And the unconventional weight loss coach actually only came about last year.
I'd already been trained, you know, been coaching since 2016.
But the reason it came about was because my messaging just didn't sit with what I wassaying.
(02:58):
You know, I just felt I'm not a weight loss coach.
And all the women that working with me were like, it's so much more than weight.
But that's how the unconventional weight loss coach came about.
Love that.
And I think it's really important, like you said, that actually, preconceived ideas startfrom such a young age, but carry through our entire lives.
(03:20):
And so often, it's so subconscious, we don't even realise that we have those messages inour head.
But so we were talking just before I pressed record about how the body image and ourhealth and it isn't about the way it really actually isn't.
It's about your health and your energy levels and those sides of things and how importantthat is as an entrepreneur to look after ourselves.
(03:44):
And because if, you know, there's a really cheesy saying that I actually hate, but it doessort of, you know, you can't pour from an empty cup.
need to fill your cup first and, you know, service other people from the overflow of thatcup.
And it's a really cheesy saying, but it actually just says how it should be.
You we need to look after ourselves first.
And with what you teach,
(04:07):
It's not, it's not dieting, is it?
It's not about dieting because we've got, mean, I am sure that so many of the listenerswill have done the Weight Watchers and the Slimming World and all of these things.
You know, I did it many years ago and yes, it worked.
lost the weight, but it didn't fix my health for one and it didn't fix my mental issues inthat space.
(04:29):
You know, the, and I talk a lot about confidence and in business.
especially if you're trying to build a brand, personal brand, you have to have thatconfidence.
And a lot of that is body image and how we see ourselves in the world.
So working with you and just actually starting to prioritise yourself can really help withthat, can't it?
(04:50):
massively.
And there's not one woman that has come to me and not had guilt attached to looking afterthemselves.
And again, you say about so much of it is preconditioned.
And I talk about my mum a lot and, you know, sometimes I feel a bit like maybe I should Ishouldn't do.
But again, she worked so hard and she, you know, she was a nurse.
(05:12):
So I guess her personality and everything was all about giving to others.
And I saw her literally burn herself out.
it's why at 52 she died from a chronic illness.
And so it is conditioned and programmed into a lot of us from an early age that we are thecaregivers, that we're the ones that look after, if you look at the kind of games we
(05:34):
played at school and all those sorts of things, we were the ones looking after otherpeople.
So it becomes this real battle.
with wanting to look after ourselves, because I don't think there's anybody that wants toneglect themselves, but we want to look after ourselves, but we feel such guilt towards it
and we feel like it's selfish and we should be giving to everybody else first.
(05:56):
And you say about kind of cheesy sayings, but actually my first business coach...
This has just stuck in my mind.
And he said to me in 2019, Naomi, you have to put your own oxygen mask on first.
And if you think about when you get on a flight and what is the first thing that they sayto you, you know, in case of cabin pressure, you know, losing cabin pressure, put your own
(06:17):
oxygen mask on before children, before the elderly, always put your own on first.
And we're actually doing everybody a disservice.
by putting ourselves at the bottom of the list because we can't, like you said, we end upgiving the dregs, we end up giving the bottom of the teacup and that's no good for
anybody.
But we've got this perception because we feel like we have to be everything to everybody.
(06:43):
And a lot of that comes down to boundaries.
We feel guilty saying no, whether it's in our business, whether it's to our family,whether it's to our friends, but it's just so, so, so important to look after our own
health.
Yeah.
And this is the thing in when we say look after our own health, that's mental andphysical.
Totally.
the whole package, isn't it?
(07:03):
And you can be the, you know, the healthiest physically that you've ever been, butmentally, your rock bottom.
So and again, then that's not serving anybody.
So it's about getting that balance and just spending that time.
And I know, like you said, especially when we become parents, we have huge guilt on everputting ourselves first.
(07:23):
But actually, especially in the entrepreneurial world, we have a lot of stress and a lotof pressures being business owners.
So it's even more important, I think, for us to look after ourselves, because it all comesdown to those labels, doesn't it?
And how many plates we're spinning.
So we're an entrepreneur, we have a business to run, potentially have a team that we needto look after and nurture.
(07:44):
So the team are therefore before us.
We're parents, so we have our children that come before us.
We have a husband or wife that comes before us.
We have all of these people and as you, your success grows, the amount of people that youare putting before you also grows.
And this is where, you know, burnout is such a trigger word at the moment, isn't it?
(08:04):
And it's so, I think it's actually overused and under understood.
But we are all on that path where we're running ourselves down and just constantly, we'vegot to go, we've got to go, we've got to work.
it's not benefiting us in any way, is it?
And it can be really actually limiting to the success that we achieve.
(08:25):
Yeah, and it limits our creativity and I see that in myself.
You know, I make sure that I create time within my working week and my business week towhether it's get out for a walk, even if it means, you know, doubling up that time and
actually responding to messages whilst I'm out.
But I noticed that having that time away.
helps me to be more creative, helps me to come back with, you know, with a better sort ofmindset.
(08:50):
And you're so right about the sort of physical and mental health.
And I can really sort of say this from, you know, from my own personal experience.
When I lost, you know, nearly five stone in weight, I was my smallest that I'd probablybeen since I was a teenager.
And of course, everybody was complimenting me on, know, God, you look amazing.
(09:10):
Internally, I hadn't dealt with
30 years of depression, anxiety, panic attacks.
So I'd worked on the external transformation.
And then I sort of was like, I don't feel any different inside.
I don't feel more confident.
I don't feel all these different things.
And that's when I started to work on the mental health and the emotional wellbeing.
(09:33):
And it's why I created my own smart formula because I then realized that actually
without the mental and the emotional wellbeing, the physical health is nothing becauseit's so important.
And as you said, as entrepreneurs, we are on a constant roller coaster and I'm going touse that word resilience, which I think again, sometimes gets used in the wrong way.
(09:56):
Resilience isn't about, you know, like powering through.
Resilience is feeling that real inner strength of I'm going to be okay, whatever happens.
and not kind of like that real masculine energy of pushing, pushing, pushing, but actuallyleaning into that feminine energy of, you know, I've got this, I can handle this, but
(10:20):
actually sometimes, I said this to one of my clients yesterday, sometimes we've got toslow down to speed up.
But we just, again, we're kind of like the next thing, the next thing, what's coming next.
And, you know, we are, it's fueled by the world that we live in and modern day living andthe dopamine hits and the...
the things social media and all the new different, the new things that are constantlycoming.
(10:42):
And we've got to keep up with these algorithms and we've got to do this.
But sometimes we just have to say, what do I need amongst all of this?
Yeah, it's so true.
saw, I don't know where I saw this actually.
I don't know whether it was, it might have been Stephen Bartlett, but I saw somethingwhere you see a child in India, for instance, in one of the rural villages in India, a
(11:04):
bowl of rice and some clean water is like the absolute pinnacle of their life.
Whereas to us in, you know, where we live, that's rock bottom.
So
It's your perception of your surroundings.
for us, when we look around and we see so much on social media, all these glamorous lives,all these people saying how successful they are, and it gives us a feeling of inadequacy,
(11:30):
I think.
And then we're constantly pushing against that.
Well, we want more, more, more all the time.
And actually, if you just sit back and stop trying to keep up with the Joneses and just belike, what do I want?
What am I happy with?
What gives me contentment and gratitude?
And I think that is
such a beautiful place if you can get yourself to that spot but it takes work and it'sactually there's no ending to that either is there really?
(11:54):
It's really funny you should say that.
I'm always having this conversation with clients.
And I think, again, if I kind of reconnect it to the weight loss journey, the reason somany people do not sustain their weight loss is because they're aiming for a goal, like
whether it's to get to a certain dress size, whether it's to be in a certain thing for acertain wedding or an anniversary.
(12:18):
And one thing I say is it's...
a continual journey, just like entrepreneurship is.
never get there and that's it's done.
It's the daily actions that sustain the success and that sort of keep you going.
So yeah, I agree.
It isn't just once done.
It gets easier and you get more, you get better.
(12:40):
But actually it's a continual journey.
Yeah, it's about having that self awareness isn't it and that understanding.
Like you say, if we look at the health journey, you might say I want to be able to run a5k or I want to you know, whatever.
And that's the goal.
That's the target.
So you get to that point.
(13:01):
And then if you haven't done the internal work, and this is what happened to me and it'shappened to thousands of other people, if you haven't done any internal work, the next day
you're back on the couch and you're like, I've achieved that great.
and then you lose everything that you've worked on.
So it's about building in daily habits, I suppose, which we talk about in business, makesure you have those daily habits and the compounding effect.
It's the same in weight loss and health and just generally prioritizing yourself, isn'tit?
(13:26):
Completely.
And also what I think I want to say is that it's
it's not complicated a bit like a bit like business we've over complicated things or likeyou say we start looking all you know we start looking for the new shiny object and
actually the truth is it's the unsexy stuff that works it's the it's the boring mundanedull and i was saying to somebody the other day you know what i love boring now isn't it
(13:53):
weird i used to like crave the dopamine crave the like you know whether it was the night'sout or the
glass of wine or whatever.
And now I just crave the like early night and the going out for the walk in nature.
And I think it's really important, whether it's business or health, it's not complicated.
A lot of industries have made it complicated because then that keeps you as a customer.
(14:20):
And also if they don't educate you and they just make something over complicated withtheir own language or whatever it might be.
then you're sort of almost stuck in there and you're scared to move anywhere else.
But it is simple and it is about sometimes the smallest daily habits that make the biggestimpact over time.
It's not the huge steps, it's always the little steps that are compounded.
(14:43):
Yeah, yeah, it is.
So if we talk about, there's be listeners listening, saying, you know, this is all soundsgreat, but what really is the benefit of me doing this?
You know, what, how will it benefit the business?
So what would you say the sort of the key points where if you start prioritizing yourselfand looking after your health, and as we've said, it's not necessarily about actually
(15:05):
losing weight.
For some people, it's purely just a health thing.
If you're looking at that, how will
benefit, how my life benefit and how my business benefit.
Yeah, so I think the biggest thing and I work with a lot of female entrepreneurs, but Ialso work with a lot of career women.
And the biggest things that they have said that they gained, you know, working with me andworking with my smart formula is.
(15:31):
boundaries.
And not just boundaries with other people, because it's like I say, actually, you don'tboundary set for others, you boundary set for yourself.
It's like a form of self respect, a form of, you know, gratitude to yourself, and it helpsto enhance your own self esteem.
So boundary setting is a big one.
Because when you boundary set with yourself, that doesn't matter whether it's your healthor your business.
(15:54):
And it's hugely impacted my business, you know, I used to allow clients to
contact me at any time and I'd respond to any time and I'd, you know, literally go to theend of the earth to, you know, to do A, B or C when I didn't need to do that.
But again, that was, you know, some people pleasing tendencies that I had inherited andwas conditioned with.
(16:20):
Putting those into place in my own health and my and myself and in my business has had amassive impact.
It does with all the women that I work with.
and also I'd say the other thing confidence, you know, I've got women that have workedwith me and who have come to me first and said, my God, you know, I've started this
business, but I just, I don't even feel confident to show up and do a Facebook live.
(16:42):
I'm worried that my family who are on my social media are going to judge me.
And when we start to work on their health, their boundaries, their own mindset, all thosedifferent areas, they start to get to a point and they're like, what?
I don't care about what anybody else thinks.
I'm on a mission or this is what I want to do.
(17:04):
you know, and that is nothing to do with the weight.
It's nothing to do with the weight at all.
It's purely to do with the belief system that we have and how we, like you said, perceiveourselves.
And I know for me, my perception of myself was incredibly low.
And it's funny because people that have known me for a long, long time say to me nowadays,but you were always confident.
(17:28):
I wasn't, it was a mask, it was an act and it was exhausting.
You know, I'd have panic attacks before having to present in my corporate career.
I'd spend the whole weekend after a presentation literally on the sofa, just like drainedand exhausted.
And you know, if you want to use that word kind of burnout, complete exhaustion, thatdoesn't happen now because actually what I show up with is authentic confidence, it's
(17:52):
self-esteem that I've built.
It's not...
I'm not masking it and that's exactly what I help other women to do is let it come from aplace of authenticity and a real place that they don't feel like they're having to fit in
or having to pretend and they can actually, you know, just be themselves.
It's so powerful when you can get to that sweet spot.
And so I put a post out this week, actually on social.
(18:14):
So I have obviously this podcast and guests are constantly coming and pitching to my to meabout being on here.
And one woman recently pitched and said, Well, I can talk about anything, anything thatyour audience would benefit from.
Now, I'm sure that when we can all talk about loads of different things, but
you need to have the confidence say, this is my thing.
(18:37):
This is my mission.
This is what I want to help the world with and find the right podcast places or just havethe confidence say this one thing is what I want to talk about.
what I want to be known for.
And if it takes confidence to have that strength in conviction of this is the one thing.
so with you, obviously, I want to go back to you said previously, you had that peoplepleasing.
(19:03):
Jean, I think so many of us have struggled with that at points in our life, but you'vecome into weight loss, which sounded like a massive transformation for you where you
weren't in on corporate journey.
And then at some point, so that must've been difficult in itself.
But then at some point you've been like, hang on, my messaging is very different to therest of the weight loss community in its entirety.
(19:24):
So that must've been, it must've been quite a big decision for you.
And how did you handle that transition?
in yourself.
love that you've picked up on that because honestly behind the scenes it has been, I'vebeen on a journey myself whilst also building and growing the business.
(19:46):
And I think I felt such a misalignment a couple of years ago talking about the weight lossbecause I had started to realise just how it wasn't about that.
It was so much more behind.
There were so many different layers to it.
I actually realized as well that I was still holding on to shame and guilt andembarrassment in my own journey.
(20:12):
And that really only came to like last year when I was doing some work on my messagingwith one of my business mentors.
And, you know, she, she said, but that's not what you do, Naomi.
I've seen the results that you get, and this is what you get with your clients.
You're not a weight loss coach.
You're not, and I'm like, well, I am, but I, I am, but I'm not.
And that's when
(20:32):
we landed on the unconventional weight loss coach because people think it's all about thecalories and about the workouts and about the, 5 a.m.
club and all these different things.
And it's actually not.
It's so much more about the stories we tell ourselves, the belief system we have, that yousay the people pleasing, all those different things that we've, and I quite often say it's
(20:56):
a bit like the kind of, you know, the
the bag that we have just carried along through life and we get to, you know, and I'm justabout to turn 50 next week.
And I think we get to this point in life.
And actually I was, that's where I, you know, my, my health transformation came about at39.
And I think quite often when we get to those pivotal moments, like the new
know that I've been through it too, yes.
(21:18):
We're kind of a bit like, what am I doing?
And so I think my like meta, you know, my literal weight was like my 39th year into my40th.
And then what I feel like I've been doing over the last year coming into my 50th year isactually really releasing all the metaphorical weight.
(21:38):
And I feel like finally, you know, I wouldn't have even probably been able to do thispodcast a year ago because I have, I still have that self doubt of
Who am I?
What's my real message?
Who am I showing up as?
I probably would have been that woman that messaged you and said, hey, I can talk aboutanything to your audience.
(21:59):
And when I saw your post this week, it really resonated because I was like, I own what Ido now and it won't fit for everybody and it won't appeal to everybody.
about it, isn't it?
That is the beauty in it.
Yes.
This is what I said, you know, if we attract if we try and attract everybody, we end upconnecting with nobody, we have to be really clear in our messaging.
(22:21):
And the weight loss for you really is sort of the byproduct is it's something that happensaccidentally with the rest of the work.
And that's why I love so you have a book, I think it's just been released.
Yes, this week, I believe, and it's called Your Weight is Not the Problem.
And I absolutely love that.
Because it's so true, isn't it?
(22:42):
The weight is the aftermath and the byproduct of us not loving ourselves enough and nothaving that faith and not looking after ourselves.
that's just the, I suppose, the physical appearance of that self-neglect, really, isn'tit?
like the manifestation of it.
it took me 27 years of yo-yo dieting and disordered eating.
(23:06):
And again, I've only owned that in the last year.
I was so ashamed and so embarrassed that for nearly 30 years, I had such a disorderedrelationship with food that I couldn't even talk about it as a weight loss coach.
And then last year I was like, I need to own...
every piece of this, for me, and to honor what I've been through, but also to help otherwomen.
(23:28):
And so this book for me is just, I feel like the guide that I needed five years ago, 10years ago, 15, 20 years ago.
And you're right.
And I always use that terminology that actually the weight is just a by-product.
The weight loss is a by-product.
It's all the other areas that when you're looking after your health, when you're
(23:52):
got your boundaries in place when you understand how you work.
I didn't even know that I could reprogram my neural pathways.
just didn't, I didn't even know what a neural pathway was.
And it's only in learning those science-backed modalities and now teaching them thateverything makes so much sense.
(24:13):
And you can understand.
why certain times of your life or why relationships or why career or why business, you canstart to understand things and lean into them.
I always say if something triggers you, don't walk away from the trigger, don't hide fromthe trigger.
(24:34):
That's where the problem happens.
Sit with it.
What is it that's triggering you?
What is it that's uncomfortable?
But I think, again, we, you know, we often are in a world where we want to just soothe theproblem or, you know, or put the trigger warning out there before we say something.
And I, and I know, you know, firsthand that all those things keep fueling the feelingsbehind it, the failure, the embarrassment, the guilt, the shame, all those different
(25:04):
things.
So, yeah, it's about showing up.
wholeheartedly as you are.
That's the thing, isn't it?
You know, it's not an easy journey.
We all have a lot of baggage, like you say, that we've carried from our past.
And it's about, I suppose you need to be bold and you need to face up to those elements.
And it doesn't happen instantly.
(25:27):
Like you said, you you handled some of them and then almost 10 years later, you're readyto handle the next ones.
It's not an instant overnight fix for anything.
And business isn't either, you know, when we...
we will all come up against challenges.
you said that only last year, probably you wouldn't have been able to do the podcast oryou wouldn't have been as bold with your statement, this is who I am and this is what I
(25:50):
do.
And, you know, it was the same for me.
Years ago, I would have, well, I just wouldn't have dreamed of being on a podcast, like,alone hosting a podcast, you know, and the business, the work that I've done internally on
myself, the lessons I've had to learn, the boundaries I've had to push, you know, of thecomfort zone, really
grow through the tasks that you kind of have to do, being comfortable with beinguncomfortable has brought me to where I am.
(26:17):
you know, I've been in business a decade now, so it's not been an overnight thing, but Ifind it's really beautiful when you can actually sit back and appreciate the journey that
you've been on and celebrate the journey.
You know, and like you're saying a year ago, I wouldn't have been sitting here.
And here I am today and we need to be, we need to have the gratitude for that and theawareness of that journey.
(26:43):
So what do you think was the hardest point for you in your journey to date that youreally, you know, had to work hard to push through?
walking out of my corporate career was huge.
I was 41 and I'd had a successful 21 year career.
(27:04):
for a girl who left school with virtually no qualifications, I lost my mum during mycollege term.
And if I'm honest, I struggled with everything.
I struggled with schoolwork, I struggled with college.
So to have a 21 year career was like...
wow anyway I'd exceeded all my own expectations but my mental health was at rock bottomand I was not in a good place and you know I'm independent I didn't have a partner I don't
(27:33):
have a partner now I have two mortgages on my own I literally just had to like jump andtake the leap and do it I say I had to I didn't have to
I chose to.
And I think for me, that was the biggest thing, but actually it was what came afterwardsthat was the biggest thing.
And what I hadn't realized was how caught up my identity was in this career woman.
(27:59):
You know, I'd not become a mum by choice, but I hadn't become a wife and I hadn't become amum, so I wasn't a parent.
So I felt all I was, was a career woman.
And when I walked out of my corporate career at 41, I was a bit like,
Who is Naomi Holbrooke?
What does she like?
know, other than getting on the train at five o'clock in the morning and going to acorporate job and showing up in, you know, the suit that she's meant to be wearing and,
(28:26):
you know, performing this way in front of her team and everything.
And that was a huge thing.
And, you know, I know you and I were obviously somewhere last week together and we hadthis conversation with another lady about how...
There's almost like a grief process of grieving the corporate career that you've built up,everything you've poured into it.
(28:47):
So I would wholeheartedly say that was probably the most difficult time, you and eventhough I've been through a lot losing my mum in my early years and everything else, I
think that was one of my most lonely and difficult times.
And I live here in Hovindy, Sussex, and I must admit.
I cried some tears on that beach for probably for months on and on and off just what am Igoing to do next?
(29:10):
And one thing I kept saying to myself was I'm 41.
What do I want to do for the next 20, 30 years that lights me up that I don't feel everyday like, oh, here we go again.
And thankfully I've created that, you know, of just...
doing something that I love that feels like it's always been inside of me, but I didn'tknow it was there and I didn't know how to release it or how to kind of, you know, embrace
(29:38):
it or whatever it might be.
So I would absolutely say wholeheartedly that was the toughest time of my life.
And for every reason, like financially, mentally, you know, gosh, I had to really dig deepin some of those times.
So how did you make that transition?
you already started the coaching business and, were you literally, did you not even have aplan when you left your corporate?
(30:02):
I know.
No, this is amazing.
it
I had a, there was like a real mixed camp.
was like, I mean, I literally heard my colleagues whispering behind my back and saying, dothink she's having a midlife crisis?
Do think she's like gonna move to Africa and like go and like set up a, you know, like acharity or something.
(30:25):
And then there were other people that were literally coming up to me, shaking my hand andgoing, I wish I had your courage.
And I didn't feel like I had courage.
I felt like I was almost backed into a corner and it was like, for my own mental healthand sanity, there's only two ways out of this situation.
So there was no plan B.
(30:45):
And I've only come across Tony Robbins since I left my corporate career, but I do lovesomething that he says and it really resonates with me now and he's like, burn all your
bridges.
Because the problem is that when you have that safety net and actually when I left mycorporate career, they tried to get me to stay and actually they offered me a year
(31:09):
sabbatical and all these different things.
But I knew that having a year sabbatical was still like a plan B, an option in thebackground.
And I felt like I just needed this clear cut and this break.
So I have no plan B and
I literally left my corporate career and was like, what am going to do?
(31:30):
I've got to keep roof above my head.
So look, I got resourceful.
I took in a lodger in my flat so that, you know, some of the bills were being, beinghelped along.
I started up a pet sitting business because I actually, when I left my corporate career, Ididn't want to work with humans.
I was like, do you know what?
don't, I don't want to speak to another human being.
(31:53):
What can I do?
And I was like,
I love pets, I love dogs, and if I'm honest, those pets and those dogs healed a part of methat I don't think another human being could have healed.
I, you know, pet sat for people when they were away on holiday.
I even took a courier job six days a week delivering parcels and literally for threeyears, Claire, I worked.
(32:19):
solidly.
I didn't have a day off.
I just took a weekend off for my birthday every year.
The rest of the time I worked, was, you know, delivering parcels.
I then was studying to be recertified to get my nutrition and weight managementqualification.
So I was doing all these different things because I needed, you know, it was a case of Ineed to do this to make it work.
(32:41):
And it's, and it's one reason why nowadays, you know, I do truly believe that if, if it'simportant enough,
We'll find a way and if it's not, we'll find an excuse.
100 % yeah, can't agree more.
And I've just funny enough, I've just had a bracelet sort of commissioned for my 50thbirthday.
(33:02):
And I was like, want something really powerful put on it.
And my pretty much since 2019, my or 2016, when I walked out of my career, my littlemantra has been I'll find a way.
And I've had that put on there because I think we so often say, I haven't got the time, Ihaven't got the money.
And we say we haven't got the money.
And then we go on the holidays and we buy the frivolous
(33:25):
rubbish and we go out for all the drinks and all these different things.
But we're just, it's just what's important to us.
And what was important to me was changing my life, not just changing my job, but actuallyhaving the ability to completely change and transform every area of my life.
It was the freedom of choice for yourself and the ownership of your own life.
(33:49):
And I think we, you know, it's so often we get on the hamster wheel and you, and you juststay on it.
You don't see a way out of it at all.
And so when I, left my corporate career to set up my own business 10 years ago, I was thesame.
got a job in a pub, serving clients because I was like, I still need to be bringing themsome income.
(34:09):
The business is not going to be overnight bringing me in what I need.
So I'll go and serve points.
So, you know, luckily the business did grow very quickly and I actually didn't do it forvery long, but I would have happily continued that, you know, for quite a while if that
was what I needed to do because it gave me the freedom to be there for my daughter andwhat I needed at that point in that chapter in my life.
(34:34):
So yeah, I love that you would much have preferred to have that ownership of your life andbe currying parcels and, you know, pet sitting than getting your
probably very good wage in a corporate career, but it's about having that self belief, Isuppose.
And like you say, I will make it through, I will find a way.
Yeah.
(34:54):
And that self belief has been a learned behavior because if I'm honest, when I walked outof my corporate career, I was petrified.
I didn't believe that I'd be here today, you know, with the business that I've got, withthe clients that I've got doing what I love, having conversations like this.
But each time I've either failed or, you know, learned something from it, or each timeI've actually succeeded, you know, like I always say with my clients, belief is a, it's a
(35:21):
habit.
It's a behavior when we...
get a little bit of belief in one area, it fuels the next bit, it fuels the next bit andthe next bit.
And that's what's happened is that that belief has become, you know, a learned habit and alearned behavior.
think that's so powerful.
And it's exactly the same.
You know, it was what happened to me when we started, didn't believe that it would reallyeven be able to feel like two days of my time.
(35:42):
Let's be quite open about this, because I had never envisioned anything as big as what Ibuilt, it just was never in my line of sight at all.
But gradually, you know, I won the first client, that gave me the confidence to go out forthe second client.
And it comes over time, it's like a snowball compounding effect.
And now, if I face a challenge or something goes wrong,
(36:04):
it does not impact me anywhere near how it did in the beginning because I'm like, well,you know, it's a lesson learned or whatever, move on to the next thing.
it barely chips my armour at all anymore, whereas it would have been, you know, fatal inthe very beginning.
So yeah, it's such a powerful and, and, what's the word?
Analogy.
(36:25):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Absolutely.
And so many people, they see the transformation.
They don't see all the little steps that you take.
And the steps backwards.
We've all had that happen where, you know, things go backwards before it can kind of goforwards again.
But yeah, absolutely.
(36:47):
I love that.
Naomi, thank you so much for joining me today.
I've really loved our conversation.
So big question, if people are interested in learning more about how you work or buyingthe book, where can they find you and find that information?
Absolutely.
Well, first of all, I want to say thank you so much because it's been an absolute joychatting with you.
So www.theunconventionalweightlosscoach.com is my website.
(37:09):
Links and everything are on there.
But Instagram, I'm Naomi Holbrook Coach and Facebook, just Naomi Holbrook.
And the book is on Amazon.
amazing.
I'll put all the links in the show notes for everyone as well.
Yeah, just thank you so much.
I hope the listeners have gained loads from that and it might have sparked a few questionsand a few thoughts for them.
(37:30):
thank you for listening and joining us again this week and I will speak to you all nextweek.
Take care.
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