SUPER AWESOME DEAL IN THE INTRO: Lisa from @thewellnecessities is amazing and is offering Amy’s listeners a special deal when signing up for her ‘Fork the Noise’ program (limited spots available). Be sure to listen to hear how to get the deal that will help your relationship with food! FIRST THING: @JeremyCowart who was named by Forbes as “The Most Influential Photographer on the Internet” is on the podcast today to help give us all a little inspiration!! Jeremy shares with Amy about his life as a philanthropist, photographer and creator of The Purpose Hotel in Nashville. Jeremy is full of so many ideas. We are so inspired by him. As if that isn’t enough to make you love him he is also a father to 4 children, 2 of which he and his wife have recently adopted from Haiti! SECOND THING: Amy shares how this motivation hack by @melrobbins helps create new habits! Trust us, don’t procrastinate on listening to this! THIRD THING: ‘What the Guac?!?!’ Amy shares her trick that she heard about from @lilsipper for finding the best "bang for your buck" avocados at the store. Without opening the avocado - you'll know if. you're getting MORE avo and less seed. In. other avocado news Amy shares how to keep it from turning. brown and talks about an avocado shaped air b&b called the AVO-CONDO that you can stay in. FOURTH THING: You definitely have to check out Amy’s newest insta follow @theskinnyconfidential (shout out Lauryn)! While cyber stalking her, Amy found out about GG Crackers, known as the ‘appetite control cracker’. Listen to hear Amy talk with her husband about how these crackers could become your new secret weapon! FYI: You will definitely want to top them with yummy stuff like avocados or even a nut butter & some jelly. YUM!
(Episode 58)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Okay, little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty bay,
it's pretty beautiful thing that a little more kicking with
(00:30):
four Brown. Okay, it's Thursday again, so we got another
four Things podcast. So today we're gonna be running through
an interview with Jeremy Coward. Like. He is a super
famous photographer. In fact, he's been named most Influential Photographer
on the Internet before by places like Forbes and Yahoo
and Huffington Post. And he's photographed like super famous people
(00:52):
like Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood and the Kardashians, and
he's got great stories. But he also has or is
making a major impact in this world with photography. And
we're gonna talk about all the cool things that he's
done and this really cool hotel idea that he has.
I mean, this guy is pretty inspiring. So I hope
you enjoy my little chat with him. We're also going
(01:14):
to talk about a motivation hack. Let's see what the guawk. Yeah,
I'm calling it that because let's talk about avocado. Get it.
Let the glock like guacamole. Yeah, And then this cracker
that you need to be eating because it's like full
of fiber and it makes you feel full or something.
Speaking of crackers and food, Lisa from at the Well Necessities,
(01:35):
who has come on the podcast before a couple of times,
and I know when she's on her mission of fork
the Noise has come up. It's a class that you
can take online where it just teaches you to shut
off the noise in your head when it comes to food,
like put a fork in it, you're done. I mean,
I don't know that she says that for Sae, but
I'm gonna go ahead and say that. And I want
(01:56):
to tell you all about something she's doing super special
for you. My list her she created because there was
such good feedback from you all, and her wisdom when
it comes to just modern day mindful eating, which she
kind of describes it as like I want you to
just sit back for a second and imagine what it
would be like to be around like chocolate or regular
(02:18):
pasta maybe it's not even gluten free or pizza, and
like be around it and not feel guilty or not
feel like you have to have this crazy amount of
willpower to not you know, eat it. Like you could
actually maybe keep oreos in your home and you don't
have to like keep stuff out of sight, out of mind.
And I also learned from Lisa that we make like
two hundred food choices a day, and that is literally
(02:41):
a nightmare if you're obsessed with controlling what you eat,
which Lisa has been there, I've been there. A lot
of you listening maybe you have been there, and that
can just be It's like it's an it's such an
energy sucker. It's a good time sucker, Like you miss
out on life events because you're like freaking out about, well,
what am I going to eat there at that party?
And blah blah blah. And I think I put on Instagram.
(03:03):
I don't think I've shared on the podcast yet. Maybe
I don't. I don't think. But like, I ate a
turkey sandwich over my vacation when I was in Colorado
a couple of weeks ago. And this is one of
those things where you're just kind of in the moment
because that's all that was being offered for lunch. We
had gone hiking. There was like fifteen people. Somebody else
brought all the food and they brought stuff to make
(03:25):
turkey sandwiches. And I can't even tell you all the
last time I had a turkey sandwich but it was,
and I probably would not have had it had I
not recently had had Lisa on the podcast. I would
have just been like, m M, I guess I'll get
some lettuce and this tomato here and maybe put some
mustard on it, and is that bread gluten free? And
I don't know. I just would have been this whole
(03:47):
energy sucking process and I would have been annoying and
no fun to be around, and I just I would
have been hungry, and then that turns into hungary. So anyway,
because Lisa had come on and talk to me about
modern mindful eating, and it's like, if that's what's there,
and it actually does. If it had been something there
that didn't even sound appealing to me, then I don't
think it would have been issue. But part of me
was like, huh, maybe I kind of miss having a
(04:08):
turkey sandwich, Like why am I not having it? I'm
in the mood for it. Let's see what this is
all about, because I have forgotten and I made a
turkey sandwich and like everyone in my family was staring
at me, like, what the heck is happening right now?
Amy's making a turkey sandwich. My husband was like cheering
me on and smiling because he knows that sometimes my
anxiety that I have around food that I can't control,
(04:28):
and he was like so proud of me. And it's
like I was like spreading the mayo and like putting
the turkey on the bread and whatever, and he was like,
that's my girl. You got this, That's my girl. And
so then I got the turkey sandwich and I ate
it and it was amazing, Like it was so good.
Now I'm not freaking out about the turkey sandwich like
(04:51):
I had it. It was great. If I ever get
in the mood for one again, I guess I'll have it.
And now I know that my body is not going
to fall apart because I ate a turkey sandwich and
it was actually really awesome. I even had a few
chips on the side. It's pretty clutch, but that's because
I was really trying to practice what Lisa teaches, and
she teaches and the forked the norse course is that
(05:14):
you know, when you put something off limits, then you
obsess over it, like if I have for some reason
been like, oh, turkey sandwiches are off limits, and then
I looked at it as like some sort of like
cheap situation For me, I would have maybe normally eaten
the turkey sandwich, and that would have derailed me, and
I would have been like, well, I already ruined it.
I had a turkey sandwich, I had the bread, I
had the chips, so I might as well have the
(05:35):
cookies and the ice cream and the what are the
kids eating? And the cheetos and a little and and
it would have like been this domino effect follow me. Well,
it wasn't. I ate the turkey sandwich. I got full,
and I moved on with my day, and I think
I ended up having like a healthy dinner, like it
didn't derail my day. And I know that you're right
now you're probably thinking, wait, I'm so confused, because the
(05:55):
turkey sandwich sounds healthy, but like I swore off lunch
meat like a long time ago because I thought it's bad.
And then like having two slices of bread on like
a sandwich and mayonnaise and then the chips, like normally
that would have thrown me, and it didn't. And I
credit my uh conversations and my some of the research
that I've done with Lisa and her modern mindful eating approach.
(06:18):
So all this to say, definitely rambling here, but uh,
Fork the Noise is her program and she it is
if you want to register and be a part of it.
If this is you, I think there's like maybe ten
only ten or twelve slots open or something. I don't
even know if some of those have filled up. But
she does have a special discount for you guys, and
(06:40):
you just have to go to Amy dot Fork the
Noise dot com. So that's a custom you are l
just for us, and that's where you'll see the savings.
And I don't know, I just feel like, if this
is something you feel like you need in your life,
like a course that will help you out and allow
you to enjoy life more than I think, you should
(07:02):
check it out and thank you Lisa for offering that
discount to my listeners. Okay, so I guess now that
that is said, well we'll get on to the podcast.
I really really think you all are gonna love Jeremy
like he's He's the Bee's Knees first. Okay, So, as promised,
(07:22):
Jeremy Coward is here and super excited and before we
eve been going on, I'm like, so, how do you
introduce yourself? Because like I think I was calling you
a celebrity photographer. Um, but you have so much more
in your life than than than that, and you're you're
an artist, your creator, you're a visionary just professionally. A
d D me too. Were you officially diagnosed ever? You
(07:46):
know I wasn't. Both of my brothers were, and I
think I'm even worse than them, So I'm just assuming
that it's official. And do you think that that played
into some of your stuff as a kid? Like not? Um,
just some background, And there's a video on YouTube that
I would encourage all of you to go watch and
we'll link it at radio any dot com so you
(08:06):
can find it. But it's called Impossible and that's what
was like that inspired your book, right, Okay, So in
that video is where I learned that, you know, you
weren't struggled in school big time, And so do you
think that a d D played a role? Probably? So
I just wasn't wired like the other kids in terms
(08:28):
of yeah a d D. I mean I was very
quiet and I was just always in Germanland, just always
daydreaming and pretty creative and U s. Yeah, grades, My
grades weren't awful, but they weren't good either, just kind
of an average BC sometimes D student, you know, Um,
and it just blended in and so I just never
thought I'd be good at anything because I based my
(08:50):
value on my grades. Um, so I had to kind
of un learned that over time. But yeah, just kind
of an average kid. Yeah. And then it was kind
of at your parents encouragement, like going into more of
van uh the computer programming type stuff or like photoshop
or what was it specific, like photoshop? And then it's
just just a fast forward through like how you got
(09:12):
to photography. It was like you did um, you did that,
and you worked for some ad agencies and then um,
then you started working in the music industry doing like
web design late photoshopping for like CD covers, album covers. Yeah,
and then you got a camera uh huh, and then
people started paying you to take pictures and you're like,
(09:33):
what is happening? But I think, and I don't know
if I missed this part in the video, but was
it like because of your relationships with the record companies,
like doing maybe the graphic design side. Is that how
you got in with the photography and then you were
able to photograph people like Sting and Taylor Swift and
I don't know, I mean really well, and the Kardashians
(09:54):
like they're on the list too, But so how how
did that start? Yeah, it was all accidental, you know,
living in Nashville. I first, you know, quit my ad
agency job to start designing for my friends. I went
to college with Dave Barnes and then I remember when
he met met words and so I would just do
their okay, So he was kind of a foot in
(10:17):
the door there. Yeah, I mean, just all my just
being in Nashville. All my buddies were musicians, and so
I would start designing for them. They would get signed
to labels, the labels would then hire me, and over time,
you know, I bought my first digital camera and just
fell in love with shooting whatever around me, textures, and
then my friends would ask me to shoot for them,
(10:37):
and so it just was all very organic and you know, happenstance,
and um, one thing led to another. Then I got
a job where I beat out a Hollywood agent and
her roster of photographers, and then that took me to
the next level of shooting for TV networks and movie
companies and all that. And so through your photography some
(11:00):
really cool things have happened, And I think it's because
you're just sort of like, there's got to be there's
more to this than just like taking these pictures. Pictures
tell a story, and people have there's so many stories.
And I love the various projects that you've done. Um
One in particular I want to talk about because I
think it was so fascinating. Again it was it was
(11:21):
in the video, was the Forgiveness project in Rwanda? Um So,
why don't we tell people about that? And then how
how you thought of that? And then that happened after
the Haiti one, right, Haiti was the first, um so
maybe actually we should start there. Which side note, Jeremy
has adopted from Haiti as well, so we have that
(11:43):
in common. Which is the first time I ever met Jerry.
Jeremy was over at the Hamilton's house and there's some
People magazine shoot on adoption that Scott and Tracy were
doing and we were all there, and uh so that's
the first time I ever met you. But um and
how many kids do you all adopt? We adopt to
(12:05):
we afford total for total adopted too, So I think
we're going to do an adoption talk separate from this
and it'll air at an at another time because I
feel like that's the world people are very curious about
and you and I have that in common. And so
I guess with the projects side will start with Haiti
because the earthquake had happened and you decided to go
(12:27):
because you know, uh, they had a story to tell
and like you were here and like it the technology
the days, like we can just kind of tweet out whatever, well,
they couldn't do that. So like your thing behind that
was I'm going to go and I'm gonna help them
tell their story. Yeah, at the time, Twitter was still
pretty new. I mean even most of my friends weren't
on Twitter yet. But I'm always an early adopter, and
(12:49):
so yeah, when the earthquake struck, I was like, I
want to go down and give the people of Haiti
a chance to have a visual microphone of source because
the media was just really telling in the statistical side
of everything, and I wanted to share the stories. Um
see how I kind of on a whim decided to
get down there right after the earthquake um and use
(13:11):
photographs to act as a visual message of swords where
I'd have people literally pick up a piece of rubble
and right on it with art markers, you know. And so, um, yes,
went about two weeks down, they're doing that project. It
really took off and got a ton of publicity, and
you know, that led me to wanting to do a
(13:32):
lot more of those projects because there was so fulfilling,
much more so than shooting the next celebrity, you know.
Um So that really planted the seed of wanting to
use my work for good, and so that led to
the project in Rwanda, the Forgiveness Project. My friend Laura
Waters Hinson was doing a she just done a documentary
(13:55):
called As We Forgive, talking about the extreme forgiveness people
are doing it over in Rwanda after the ninety four
gen Son and uh so I was like, gosh, we
should do what I just did in Hate but with
your people in Rwanda. So um, but yeah, these people
are you know, going through this program to forgive each
other for murder, which is just crazy. And can't imagine
(14:18):
taking a picture with somebody who killed my brother or
my parents, you know. Um, but that's a level of
reconciliation taking place over there. Yeah. So if you go
to Jeremy's website, it's Jeremy Cowart dot com and under
Ideas you can scroll and you'll see Forgiveness Project and
that's where you talk about the voices of reconciliation. And
(14:39):
some of those pictures are so powerful, Like right now
I'm looking at um is it Jaspered or Gasper? How
to say his name? Gasper? So he's locking arms with
innocent and named after he was forgiven. They're like thirty
(14:59):
five and thir eight years old, and yeah, one of
them killed the other one's brother and the gym side,
so it's so crazy. And then you have a photo
of them and they're at the scene where it happened,
at the exact place, you know, where where the crime
took place. And can you imagine that an America? I can't,
(15:20):
Like you, no, I have. That's exactly the thought I
had as I was like, gosh, it's almost like only
in a place like that, do you do I feel
like something like that happens? Because what's that happened here? Unlikely? Unlikely? Yeah, So,
I mean these photos are very powerful and courage you
(15:42):
all to to go check them out. And there's under
the Ideas, I mean, that's where there's the earthquake relief
hurricane relief. Um, what's child art therapy? Yeah, I collaborated
with an organization called Exile inter Nationale and they do
art therapy with form were child soldiers, kids who have
been have been abducted by the army and forced to
(16:05):
kill with their own hands and shitties and anyway, So
this organization goes over there and works with him to
process everything and get it out of their systems and
through art and to heal. Essentially a friend Bethany and
Matthew Williams of the founders of Exile, and so I
worked with them to do another project where we use
(16:27):
art therapy too to do all that and kind of
work through what they've what they've been through. Yeah, And
there's a little bit about that in the YouTube video
as well, and it shows some of the art, which
is pretty I mean, you couldn't even show some of
the stuff because it was so graphic like what they
were having to relive through the therapy through the drawing.
(16:47):
But and those are pieces that then you know, you
kind of you did some what'd you call it for?
You can you did some photoshop thing altogether and then
you your art on top. I don't know it looked
extremely cool and way to wait over my head, but
it was amazing. I just do a lot of abstract
or and so yeah, I took their photos and their
(17:08):
portraits and the stories and I combine them all to
make these mixed media pieces of art. Yes, so you
have again, that's all in the YouTube video two and
it's also on his website. You have to check it
out because it's awesome. And then you would then sell
that art sell to raise more money for them, so
a hundred percent that the money went back to their
continued therapy. Yeah. So and then you know, while we're
(17:31):
on the the YouTube video it's called Impossible. That was
what jump started the idea for your book, which is
called I'm Possible, Jumping into fear and discovering a life
of purpose, right yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, wasn't planning
on trying to be an author doing a book, but
(17:53):
I got approached by my agent esther, and she said,
your story is amazing and needs to be a book,
so kind of pitch it. I was like, I degree,
yeah yeah, and so yeah, very accident dental and so
in the this video too, is something that you um
mentioned a lot in the beginning is I can't. Well
even even later in life too, even when you got
(18:15):
a camera, you're like, well, I can't, or even when
you had ideas for what you wanted to do, you're like,
like a global this is this is this is amazing
that you do this. You'll do this every year when
you get okay and you know what I'm talking about,
people are probably wait, what global thing? But you had
this idea where you wanted to um gather people and
(18:38):
so that they could have their picture taken. And then
it led to other photographers um coming in volunteering their
talents to take pictures, and people showed up. And when
you do something like this in places where they they
don't have cameras, some places don't really have many mirrors,
and like they've never seen a photo of themselves. And
(18:59):
so you're doing it here in the US, but then
also around the world. But what made me think of
it is because that's a that's a vision that you had,
an idea you had and you're like a global leader
this We're going to take the same global like I can't.
But then something your dad always told you um when
you were younger, and I think that a lot of us,
I mean if you grew up going to church or
(19:19):
your parents um would give you scripture. Like I remember
my mom always telling me, Yeah, Philippians four thirteen, I
can do all things through Christ. That strengthens me. But
I mean, he really that's something that you you did use,
your dad did give you, and um that you did stick.
It's stuck with you and you've used it in various
points in your life. Yeah, it kind of became his
(19:41):
his very predictable response to anything that I can't play
baseball or I'm a suck at piano, whatever it was
Philippians four thirteen. And uh, I think just see encouragement
of my parents support in that verse. Just you start
to you know, start, it's confidence building. And so yeah,
(20:02):
over the time, I think it did start to believe
in myself. Um, not only through their encouragement, but they
were always like literally, you know, support the interest. So
when I first expressed interest in art, next thing, you know,
I had an art table and all the art supplies,
Like they're always right on it in supporting my natural interest.
And I think that's a huge lesson for Parance. I
(20:23):
think a lot of times parents are afraid of their
art kid. You know, and they don't know what to
do with it. But if they just support it, you know,
they'll be amazed at what can happen. So anyway, so yeah,
they you know, I had this idea for global movement
where photographers just gave back people in need and took
their pictures, and so we did the first year here
(20:44):
in Nashville, and it was amazing, just so beautiful, and
it was so good that I was like, this needs
to be a global thing because I'm foolishly brave, I
guess um to think that it could go global. But
I use the industry. All appears in the industry to
help spread the word on blogs back when blogs were
(21:05):
legit and them. Yeah, that first year we were in
forty four countries, you know, the first attempt, and never
since then it's a gosh, it's it's just exploded, can you.
It's called help Portrait. And if anybody browsed us the
hashtag help portrait all one word on Instagram, um, they'll
(21:26):
see for themselves the endless stories out there. It's pretty incredible. Yeah,
and some people just seev an evil to how it's
like can be a game changer for someone again, having
a photo of themselves maybe they never had, UM but
also having a new picture headshot they can use for
an interview, because like he just thinks that we may
take for granted that we have but I mean they're
(21:51):
just stories for days. But people have gotten jobs, people
have mail their pictures of the family they haven't seen
in decade. It's all kinds of stuff. Yeah. So again,
Jeremy's super like you've got I feel like your ideas
are not done. Like you have so many cool things
that are out there that you've accomplished and you've done
and people have been inspired by and they're continuing to
(22:13):
go on and Um. Then there's the Purpose hotel, and
I want to tell people about that because that's an
amazing vision. I want to know, like, what is that
something that came to you? Was it a group of friends,
We're all just sitting around and like, how can we
create a space where people can come and they can
stay and really every you know, part of their visit
(22:35):
is going to impact the world in a positive way.
From your WiFi supporting going towards human trafficking against fighting,
but I mean supporting the fight against back up. So
I'm going to support human TRAVI right, you know what
(22:56):
I mean, it's going towards the fight, and uh, you know,
I just felt like even a little and down to
the keys, the hotel keys and giving keys being involved
and you know, I'm sure all the decor. I feel
like each room is the plan to sponsor sponsor a child.
Sponsor child and tell the story. Tell me how the
(23:20):
purpose hotel came to be in the most crazy um way.
I hate to, you know, over Spiritualiza. But I was
basically on a photo shoot in Los Angeles. I had
moved to Los Angeles for a year and soon after
I got there, I had a photo shoot and I
was walking through a hotel in Los Angeles for meeting,
(23:43):
just walking into my room, and as I walked through
the hallway, they had the room numbers designed like old
school name tags, like hello, my name is room one
for me one. And I just thought, Oh, that's cool
that they did that. And then I thought, but it'd
be cooler if the room numbers had a story that
you could read if you wanted to, if you had
the time. And I was like, Oh, that could be
(24:05):
the story of a child and it get sponsored child
and tell the story. And I look down in a
room key and they idea for the giving keys and
they want to walk to the room. It was like
the movie scene where everything transforms and roll down. Because
I looked at the art, thought of all my humanitarian
artist friends. I looked at the you know, Slipstance shampoo
has thought of this, whole farms here in Nashville, Um,
(24:26):
the Internet fee, the desks, you know, the blankets, there's
nonprofits to do amazing cause related blankets. And basically the
whole room just transformed. The whole I mean, the whole
idea from start to finish was about a sixties second
process where it's like a waterfall of vision. You know,
even the name, even the tagline that we're still using
(24:48):
to this day, change the world in your sleep. It
was all like the purpose hotel, change the word in
your sleep, every product, every room. You know. It's just
one of those moments. And I remember I sat down
for my meeting. I was like, yo, I'm sorry if
I'm distracted, but I'm having an idea for an entirely
new global hotel, ching like right now, like in this
very moment. And I just told them as it came
(25:10):
off top my head, and they were all just kind
of like speechless, and they're like, uh, that's amazing, Um,
but we gotta do this photo shoot, you know. So um. Anyway,
and I went home that day and I told my wife.
She's used to my ideas and I have so many
ideas that she doesn't really acknowledge him very much. Oh cool,
(25:31):
I'm running into target. I'll be back later, but this time,
and I fully expected her to be like, uh, no,
we're not building a hotel. Uh. And so I came
home and I started telling her and she just started crying,
like immediately, just started weeping because she got it, you know,
she got the vision. And and she's only probably loved
(25:52):
two ideas in our entire marriage of twenty years, and
that was one of them. And I've probably told her
about hundreds of ideas because I have them all the time.
But yeah, and the other one with the other idea
that she loved was her portrait, which we just talked about.
So she has a huge heart. And any time there's
an idea that involves serving others and living on people,
(26:13):
you know, she's she's going to be have the that response.
And so anyway, but then long sotorce for us spent
three years and fear of it because it was just
so big. I was thirty five at the time, working
for myself. What what freelance artist goes and builds the
global hotel chain? You know, the math didn't make sense.
(26:33):
But then in two thousand and fifteen we decided to
start moving towards it. And now we're running towards it
with management and architects and designers and all that stuff. Yeah,
so here we go first one, We'll be here in
town and so yeah, Nashville's first stop. When we say global,
I mean, do you have have you shared it? I
don't know if there's like the other cities there in
(26:53):
mind or where you go now. Talked to a lot
of other cities and have even been pitched specific patients.
But I think we're just trying to get the first one,
get it at first, and go from there. People that
I talked to in town, they're super excited for it,
And I know, I feel like it's a perfect place
because it's people are all coming here. I know a
(27:13):
lot of my listeners they come to Nashville, so if
they haven't heard of it and they're now hearing of
it now and they go and they learn more. I
feel like some of they're going to be so excited,
and I know that they'll they'll make it part of
their stay, Like they'll come to Nashville, probably even simply
to stay at the purpose of tel, Like, why are
you going to Nashville, Well, there's this hotel I want
(27:35):
to stay at. Normally you go for other reasons and
you find a hotel. I feel like this is a
place where people are going to like want to come
to the hotels and then they find things in Nashville
they want to do exactly. I think it's it's that specialty.
I mean, the day it opens will be the greatest
day of my life professionally and speaking. It's going to
be amazing. Is there a day it opens time frame?
(27:57):
Me where we have twenty two on the you know,
the target on the calendar, probably summer twenty two as
of right now, but we all know that subject to change.
You know, it could be end up being twenty three.
Who knows, Well, we will be cheering y'all on in
the next Like it's hardily that's only a couple of
years away. Well, just driving into your office, I was
(28:19):
at that red light looking up at the new Virgin
hotel or architects did that hotel, and so it's just
fun to think that's in we'll be looking up at
the Purpose. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I have goose thumps
when I think about it because I feel like even
my husband and my kids, you know how people do staycations.
I'm gonna come do with staycations at Purpose Hotel. I
(28:40):
wish I could get into. I mean, there's so so
many more ideas that it will do that we haven't
even explained yet. I mean, it's so much deeper than
just that surface with the rooms will do. It's gonna
be it's gonna be pretty special, Okay, like like I
don't know, is there Yeah, I can share one more idea.
I love your ide yes. I mean, and people when
(29:01):
you know, when you hear other people's ideas someone listening,
they might be inspired by something you're saying, like trigger
something in their brain, or they'll be encouraged that Like,
if I have an idea, I should go for it. Yeah, totally.
Even if you fail, you're gonna learn from it. So
that's why I always that's why I'm really never afraid
of failure because I'm still gonna gain some huge lessons
(29:22):
out of it. I failed a lot in my ideas,
that's for sure. So another idea that I had probably
last year for the hotel. Remember when I told my
kids and wife about this over Mexican food out like wept.
I was so excited about it. Um. So the idea
would be that when December rolls around, would be to
partner with National Rescue Mission UH, specifically the Female side
(29:47):
where we work with all the moms, single moms and
their kids, to find out what they went for Christmas.
We published that list to kind of hotel supporters the
City of Nashville asked people to buy those gifts right
and then they would come and bring them, wrap them
and put them under the tree in the lobby. So
we'd have this huge tree in the lobby full of
(30:10):
presents and Christmas Eve, the hotel is no longer open
to the public. It's only open to all those women
and their children. So the hotel becomes a homeless hotel
for the most special night of the year, and all
these moms and their kids stay at the hotel Christmas morning,
they all come down open gifts in the City of Nashville.
(30:31):
Do you see my arms right now? Okay, it's like yeah,
and so in every hotel that we built the future
would not be open like Chick fil A's not open
on Sundays, will never be open on Christmas because we'll
convert to a homeless hotel. So be incredible. Keeps things
(30:52):
like that that I really get pumped about. You have
a gift, and I will be there too with my
family and we'll all just cry all day. It'll be great. Yeah,
get it all out. Well. I mean you're an inspiration.
I totally admire, um, you know what you do with
your gifts and your talents, and and thank you for
(31:13):
having ideas and all being scared too to go after
them even though maybe your initial well but even if
your initial thought is I can't that. Yeah, it's a
big point to discuss because the fear is always still there.
Every day, I still open resistance and I can't. And
because people ask me all the time, when did you
(31:34):
ever come fear, I'm like I didn't. You know, I'm
terrified every day, but I just know that. Um, you know,
God gives us these ideas for a reason. They're like
little paper wides of messages. He gives us whiff to go.
You know, try to make them happen, and so despite
our own voices of resistance and doubt and all that,
m awesome. Yeah, well, thank you for sharing uh some
(31:58):
of this with us today, and then we'll we'll get
into an adoption talk and put that on another episode
so people can check that out if they've been interested.
And I feel like I'm gonna be maybe soaking up.
You've been an adoptive parent longer than I have, so
do you have any wisdom or just even parenting in general,
because you do have two biological children as well. So,
(32:21):
but thank you for coming on today. And then definitely
y'all check out Jeremy Jeremy coward dot com. It's where
you can find all the things and he will be back.
Second friend, Okay, if you're like me, sometimes you need
(32:43):
a little motivation hack, and I saw this one that
Mel Robbin's posted. Her Instagram handle is at Mel Robbins
EMM E L R O B B I N s now.
I will say my next three things that I'm sharing
with you. So, first thing was Jeremy, and then there's
this thing, and then I've got an avocado like trick
that I learned coming up and then this crazy cracker
(33:04):
that you might need to buy if you're wanting to
like eat a cracker but also suppress your appetite. So
I learned the next three things all on Instagram, So
I'll be giving the handles of people that I follow
where I learned this stuff. And this one came from
mel Robbin's account. And she did this whole post on
working out on the vacation. How she even motivates herself
(33:26):
to do it, and she does so by giving herself
a reward, and why she does it is based on science.
So I'm just gonna go ahead and read her posts.
So when you hear me talking, these are her words.
This is her talking. So she said, how do I
get my booty to yoga even when I'm on vacation.
I always buy myself a treat afterward. Why science, Try
(33:46):
this habit hack. If you struggle to exercise like me,
use this trick to force yourself to get it done.
You know, I love my research, So this is all
based on science. It works like a charm. First, let's
talk about habits. Habits have three parts, the trigger, the
pattern you repeat, and the reward. Here's how I use
(34:06):
three parts of habit to hack motivation. One place the trigger.
I lay my clothes out the night before, and when
I walk into my closet boom. Seeing them on the
floor triggers me to remember the commitment I made to exercise,
to do it anyway. To force myself to repeat the
pattern I hate, I use the five second rule five
(34:27):
four three to one. Get out the door and remind
myself that even though I don't want to and I
don't feel like it, I'm going to do it anyway.
Three The reward. This is the most important part of
creating a new habit. You must reward yourself. I always
always get myself an I S latte after I exercise.
(34:48):
Here's why your brain remembers. The ice latte is the reward.
So when you see your exercise clothes on the floor
of the closet, you don't even think about exercise. You
crave an ice slatte. When you are in kickboxing or
the gym or on the yoga mat, your mind drifts
to the iced latte. It's freaky, and trust me, it
works like a charm. Okay, so there you have it.
(35:10):
That's the motivation hack that I saw on Mel's Instagram
and I thought I would share it with you all,
so be thinking about the new habit that you want
to create, and maybe what's the reward that you can
give yourself that will help you hack motivation to make
that new behavior habit because a lot of times that
things are new, it's hard to get in the routine.
And so I love that Mel shared this. So in
(35:32):
case this is something you need, you need to try
those three things, place the trigger, do it anyway, and
then reward yourself. So for the third thing, if you
like avocados like me, and you also like getting the
most avocado possible, like most meat out of there possible,
you're gonna love this avocado tip. Like I never knew
(35:54):
there was a trick to buying avocados ever until I
saw at Little Sipper post it on Instagram, Like, this
is a game changer for me and buying avocados. And
if you already know about this tip, like why haven't
you shared it with me? But maybe you've never heard
of this either, But it's a game changer. So round,
smooth skinned avocados have larger seats. Pear shaped, bumpy skin
(36:17):
avocados have smaller seats. Now, of course I have bought
both kinds. I just kind of like, I think which
one I like looks best, or I feel like which
one is ripe and ready to buy or whatever, Like
I never buy buy both, and I never really knew why.
And I know when I cut into them that the
seeds are different sizes, but I never thought about how
I'm actually getting more avocado, or I could actually know
(36:40):
what size the seed is going to be before I
even buy it and cut it open. So the point
is you're mostly buying the seed and getting less meat
with smooth skins. Like, try it for yourself, little sip
or challenge you to try the challenges you to try
this for yourself. So definitely go for the pear shaped
bumpy skin avocados. And another thing that I learned from
(37:03):
Little Sipper, and this is from a while back. I'm
just like pulling this out of the vault, but you
can actually freeze avocado. Yeah, she does it because sometimes
she'll just use like a fourth avocado and a a smoothie,
or she'll just take a bite out of here. She
wants it to spread on something and she doesn't eat
the whole thing, so she puts the rest in the
freezer and then you can like throw it in to
smoothies and it's already frozen boom. Or you can make
(37:24):
avocado ice cream or maybe even just thaw it out
and eat it again and and it's fine. And then
if you're trying to avoid avocados from turning brown, here's
another tip just from the back of my brain that
a lot of people sometimes still don't know about. But
you can squeeze limon or lime on top and it
won't turn brown. Like the citric acid in the juice
is going to keep the browning at bay, which is
(37:47):
an awesome tip. Just squeeze it on there and then
put an air airtight container um to get as much
protection as possible. Um, don't just like throw it into
the fridge, but air tight container and then you're guacum only.
Or your avocado isn't going to have that nasty brown
color on top that people aren't really gonna want to eat.
Like my kids, if they see any brown, they're like, oh,
it's ruined, and I'm like, no, it's not. It's fine.
(38:10):
But if you're wanting to avoid that, squeeze a little
lemon or lime on type on top. Which speaking of avocados, more.
Who knew I had so much avocado knowledge in my
brain right now, but I did legit. Just see this
article about this giant avocado you can stay in. It's
called the Avocondo and it's taking reservations. But it's in Australia,
so I know that that's pretty far to go. But
(38:31):
it's located in Sydney. And if you're going, maybe you
maybe you're listening right now and you're like, oh my gosh,
so crazy, I'm actually planning on going to Sydney. Well
maybe you could try or you could try to stay
in the Avocondo. Yeah, because it's literally shaped like an avocado.
It sleeps up to two adults, it's got avocado themed decor,
(38:52):
it's air conditioned. There's an electrical outlet near the bed,
but no wifire Internet, just so you know, because heads
up on that that's important. And there's even a little
seating area, but again it's like the shape of avocado,
so it's not very big and it includes linens and towels.
It does not include a shower or a toilet, so
(39:12):
you go to booking dot com if you want to
know more information. But there are public facilities nearby. That
are open to guests if you need like a shower
or toilet. But how cool would it be to say
you stayed in the avocando. So I don't know. I
just thought that that was like an interesting thing. Like
I literally started talking about avocados, and then I remembered
seeing the article about the avocado, so I thought I
(39:33):
would share that with you all. I mean, you never
know what you're gonna learn here. Okay, so now it's
time to talk about this crazy cracker that has lots
of fiber and it will suppress your appetite. And I
learned about it from the Skinny Confidential and pretty much
(39:56):
I tried the crackers and liked them, So I'm out.
I don't have any crackers for my husband to try.
He never has tried them, but he's here with me. Now,
Sprinkle do this podcast with me. Well, first, before you
try the sprinkles, you know how I eat rice cakes
a lot, like we go through. My kids even love
rice cakes. I love, but no, they do know better
(40:17):
and they yes, they like them. And I like that
they like them because I'd rather than meet that than
you know, kettle corn. So I put almond butter tahini
go ahead, while I'm talking, you can try. You're gonna
try the Scandinavian fiber sprinkle. What do you think it's
definitely well, it's definitely, like I can tell there's it's wholesome.
(40:40):
There's some fiber up there, some fiber in there. Okay.
So on my rice cakes, I always put almond butter, avocado,
you know, maybe some blueberries, some you know, not with
the avocado, but with the nut butter, um, some stevia,
maybe sprinkle some sea salt, and then it's salty sweet
with the nut butter. And I realized with the rice cakes,
(41:01):
I'm getting a lot of carbs but no fiber. And
so if you put the same thing that I'm obsessed
with putting on rice cakes on these like fiber crackers,
then you're getting way less carbs and way more fiber.
And we all need fiber in our diet, like especially
the older that we get. So the Skinny Confidential start
(41:23):
following her. She's awesome. She was in Europe and she
saw these girls eating these crackers out of this weird packaging,
and she was like, and there's like, you know, skinny girls,
and not that you have to be skinny, but I mean,
she was just like into their bodies overly thin, but
like they've got they had great skin and hair and
all the things. So clearly they were taking care of
(41:44):
their bodies. And so she's like, what are they eating?
And as she zoomed in, she figured out they were
eating these crazy crackers, the crackers, and she says, well,
so those are the sprinkles, so, yes, you can sprinkle
them in to something. I have been adding them to
my oatmeil. Again, I still love the carbs, but oatmeal
(42:05):
doesn't have that much fiber. So I have been sprinkling
that in and adding it to my oatmeal and it's
adding fiber and I think that it is helping what
does it say, salads, desserts like a cupcake serious, I
don't know, and baking. Yeah, I've even put it in
like a little cup and I poured some almond milk
(42:26):
on top and added some liquid Stevia to it, just
for a little sweetness. And it's like I'm eating you
know that. Did you ever eat like brand? Yeah? I
only want to wear out of other things brands, like
if your mom had brand, if you're out of like
a cool cereal. So yeah, anyway, Ben just sampled the sprinkles,
and that's all I have less because I went through
the crackers. Y'all. The crackers are legit. I will say
(42:48):
they're pricier than rice cakes. But you're eating less because
it does. At least for me, it has made me
not want to eat more like I do. Feel like. Okay,
I ate it. That was satisfying. I'm good, I'm done.
So I got him on Amazon. Seriously, I didn't make
(43:09):
it up. There's a phone ringing. We have a phone.
We have a phone for the podcast. Huh, let's hello hello,
mm hmm. It's a automated important announcement for people. Oh awesome,
(43:29):
between If you're between ages eighteen and eighty five, there's
a new burial plan. Is that kind of morbid? Well,
we should suggest Scandinavian five or sprinkles so that they
live longer. Five You need these g sprinkles in your
live probably so. Anyway, these crackers are dubbed the appetite
(43:50):
Control Cracker. I've mentioned that, but here is the actual
legit description from the crackers. The Appetite Control Cracker e g.
Scandinavian brand Crisp bread has the highest dietary fiber and
is an all natural, traditionally baked Scandinavian crisp bread. At
(44:10):
just twelve calories of slice and two net carbs g G,
is ideal for those who are trying to lose weight
or maintain a healthy body weight. Now listen here, I'm not,
you know, putting this out there is some like diet
miracle food by any means, but I'm just saying for me,
it's been a great alternative to my rice cake addiction.
Sometimes you just get snacky, like you just want to
(44:32):
But what I'm saying, I get snacky and I have
the rice cakes and I'm up probably having more than
I should. But with the Bland crackers, you don't want
any more, Like you're satisfied like it. It fulfills that
you put the awesome toppings on top, like Skinny Confidential.
In her blog post about it, she puts like suggestions
(44:55):
as to how to eat them in her favorite flavors,
and in the blog post she meant is Kelly Lack
or girl Kelly be Well Mike Kelly. She said that
she reached out to Kelly and she said that they
are a great fiber source. So that's awesome. I trust
her and they have them in flavors like raisin and honey,
and they even have a pumpkin flavored one. I think
(45:16):
that's what I need to order. And yeah, well we
all order those all. And again I don't know if
I mentioned this, but I'll put the stuff on my
Amazon page so that you know with these, because it
might be confusing for the fining and you might be like,
am I find the right the right, the right one?
But just to make sure you get the right ones
in case you're interested. But she has, like she said,
(45:39):
she does like maybe peanut butter or raw almond butter,
and then she mashes up raspberries on top, so it's
like a peanut butter and jelly or you could do
which I do this on my rice cake, but now
I'm doing it on my G G Scandinavian crackers. It's
so weird. It looks like it's from I mean, it
is from another country, that's why, but it looks for it.
And if you see this in your pantry, you're gonna
be like, what is this? Um? But you could do
(46:02):
some alvocado with some sea salt and maybe some cayenne
pepper and some sprouts and a little mustard or something
like that would be really I think this would just
be for me, like especially dinner time, just a good
thing like throwing a salad like no kidding, sprinkle the
sprinkle it on there and it would be just kind
of hold you over, just be more. It adds more.
It's more fiber you add to your meals, the better,
(46:24):
which Kelly Looveck I know move mentioned her and I
talked about her all the time and how I want
to get her on the podcast be well by Kelly
and I I will. We have communicated about it. It
just hasn't been nailed down. But her four main things
in her Fab four plan is protein, um, fiber, greens,
and fat. So that is what she says to focus on.
(46:46):
And I think a lot of times we don't realize
that we're not having any fiber. So there you go.
You can, like Ben with saying, sprinkle some of these
Scandinavian fiber sprinkles on your meals to get it. Or
you can get the actual crackers and make little snacks.
She even suggests here, Ben, you'll like this one. These
crackers are a great vehicle for turkey or ham. You
(47:09):
can get creative here with mustard hummus or spicy sauce
and make a little Scandinavian oat brand turkey cracker. I
don't think so, bib, I don't know. And then what
we don't eat Dairyes, so what would the cheese be? Well,
you don't have to put cheese on nachos. You can
put like black beans and sauce and like cut up
(47:31):
vegetables and onions and jalapenos and all kinds of stuff.
I don't feel like these have a Mexican feel. They're
more Scandinavian. Get they get along fine? Yeah, but I
love that you you had not tried them before I
made you try them right here, right before we got
that random phone call. And I can scoop up my
favorite stuff. What about pizza? Can I make it? Yes?
(47:53):
A crust out of it? The Skinny Confidential talks about that.
She says, pizza is a great idea. You can do
maybe some sauce if you do eat cheese, like some
brass fed mozzarella or something on there, oh, or goat
cheese would be amazing. That's our dairy exception. Like, and
I'm not I'll have dairy. I'm not saying it's like
a no no, no, like I will consume it, but
(48:13):
I tend to feel better and notice my skin is
better when I avoid dairy. But I do love me
some goat cheese, which my body does digest differently than
other types of cheese, so that's why I allow myself
to have it more. But any hoosie, there you go.
There's the crazy cracker that I wanted to recommend to
you and to also tell you if you're not following
(48:35):
um skinny Confidential, you should. Her website is the skinny
Confidential dot com and she also has an Instagram page
on there you can find like Facebook. She blogs like crazy, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube.
Her and her husband do a podcast so look like us.
They know they're they're like legit, they've been they she
(48:57):
has like tons of followers and you. She her husband communicates,
you're not even saying anything. You keep talking? What am
I gonna start? Am I supposed to talk? I'm just
looking at you. You take a breath, I'll talk. Because
I was saying, like they have a podcast, and I
started talking about you were just staring at me like
(49:18):
coming for the pause. Okay, I paused. Yeah, that's amazing,
great couple. We're together we should listen to it together
see if we can get some tips. But they talk
about some pretty they get risk ay, sometimes talk about
topics that we probably even talked about, which is fine.
I love that they do it. We're talking about you
crushed me from the first time I was on a
podcast I didn't know. But we didn't talk about dirty
(49:40):
things or we talked about infertility on day one Okay,
podcast zero zero zero zero zero zero one was let's
talk about for infertility. If that's your definition of risk gay,
then that's interesting. Okay, this concludes the podcast. Well, we've
about the email shout out coming up, which I've done already,
(50:03):
full disclosure, already recorded that before I recorded this with
my husband. This is the fourth thing. Transparency, Full transparency.
I mean, you know, we don't keep anything from you.
When the phone rings in the middle of the podcast
and we don't stop and start recording again. I'm not
sure how do we know that number. I don't even
know the number, but I guess now it's a number
that exists because it's a number I can call to
do interviews on for the podcast, So I guess it's
(50:24):
a number out there now. I mean, these somebody has
a telemarketer people they the box yep, that's right, all
the bots. Okay over now, Okay, that's it. That's the
four things for today's episode. A big thank you to
Jeremy for coming on and he will be back. But
(50:46):
if you want to follow him on Instagram, his handle
is Jeremy Cowart. Just that so j E R E
M Y C O W A R T like cal
art Um, so definitely give him a follow, especially if
you're to anything that he was saying in his cool
projects and I don't know, he's just super inspiring. And
as you all know, this is typically well maybe you
(51:08):
don't know, maybe you're a new listener and you have
no idea, but typically at the end of each episode,
I do an email shout out. Last week with Tricia Yearwood,
I didn't do an intro or an outro because my
time with Tricia Tricia, excuse me was so long and
I don't want to add more to it. Um, so
apologize for not having the email shout out on that one.
(51:29):
But today we've got one and it's from Samantha, So
here you go. Hey, Amy, I only recently started listening
to the podcast, so I sort of started out of order.
I decided to go back and start from the beginning,
and I listened to an episode every day on my
way home from work. I'm a few episodes deep now,
and I've debated about even writing this email, but the
(51:49):
Unanswered Prayers episode really resonated with me and had me
in tears on my ride home. My husband and I
have struggled with infertility for almost ten years. I really
did with you when you spoke about seeing a negative
test month after month and how soul crushing it is
and asking God why me. I cannot say that I've
always been the most religious person, and I wasn't sure
(52:10):
if I entirely believed in the term it happens for
a reason. At the beginning of this year, we decided
to try a new approach to our journey. That new
approach brought to life a major health issue that we
had no idea I had. Had I gotten pregnant not
knowing about this condition, it could have ended fatally for
both me and an unborn child. It caused me to
(52:31):
take a step back and assess my situation. It made
me really question if there was a reason all along
we were not getting pregnant. Maybe this was the reason.
Maybe God knew all along, but my impatient mind couldn't
see that. I felt like this was an unanswered prayer
and I just had to be patient. Sorry, this is
a long email, but something inside of me told me
(52:52):
I had to thank you for the words you spoke
in that episode. Okay, So thank you Samantha for that email.
I'm glad you decided to share it, even though you
debated about even writing it, Because it's emails like this
that remind me why you know we're on here. Sometimes
I'm on here like talk, I feel like I'm talking
to myself, but this helps me know that y'all are
(53:12):
out there and things are resonating with you and they
mean something to you. So whether it's you know, a
topic that I've chosen or a guess that I have
had on like, if it touches y'all in UM, you know,
one way or another UM, or at least even just
one of you, not even multiple of you, then I
know that I've done my job and that warms my
(53:33):
heart a lot. So thank you Samantha for writing the email.
Thank you to everybody that since emails in Sorry I
can't always read all of them on the air, but
definitely do appreciate it and appreciate you all listening and
subscribing and writing and reviewing. And Samantha is going all
the way back to the beginning, even though she just
recently started the podcast. So if you haven't gone back
(53:54):
to listen to some old episodes, maybe you could do
like she does and listen to one every day while
you're driving to her from or something like that. And
then if you want to go review, then five stars
just kidding, unless you know you really feel like it's
five stars, and then maybe write something nice that would
be cool because my boss is like that. Okay, thanks
might be kind, joy, never lie, never cast up, broath thing,
(54:26):
little food for you sof life ain't. Oh it's pretty,
but hey, it's pretty beautiful thing beautiful that for a
little moth tighten up be said, he can't. You'll kicking
with four with Amy Brown
Okay, little food for you. So life. Oh it's pretty bay,
it's pretty beautiful thing that a little more kicking with
(00:30):
four Brown. Okay, it's Thursday again, so we got another
four Things podcast. So today we're gonna be running through
an interview with Jeremy Coward. Like. He is a super
famous photographer. In fact, he's been named most Influential Photographer
on the Internet before by places like Forbes and Yahoo
and Huffington Post. And he's photographed like super famous people
(00:52):
like Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood and the Kardashians, and
he's got great stories. But he also has or is
making a major impact in this world with photography. And
we're gonna talk about all the cool things that he's
done and this really cool hotel idea that he has.
I mean, this guy is pretty inspiring. So I hope
you enjoy my little chat with him. We're also going
(01:14):
to talk about a motivation hack. Let's see what the guawk. Yeah,
I'm calling it that because let's talk about avocado. Get it.
Let the glock like guacamole. Yeah, And then this cracker
that you need to be eating because it's like full
of fiber and it makes you feel full or something.
Speaking of crackers and food, Lisa from at the Well Necessities,
(01:35):
who has come on the podcast before a couple of times,
and I know when she's on her mission of fork
the Noise has come up. It's a class that you
can take online where it just teaches you to shut
off the noise in your head when it comes to food,
like put a fork in it, you're done. I mean,
I don't know that she says that for Sae, but
I'm gonna go ahead and say that. And I want
(01:56):
to tell you all about something she's doing super special
for you. My list her she created because there was
such good feedback from you all, and her wisdom when
it comes to just modern day mindful eating, which she
kind of describes it as like I want you to
just sit back for a second and imagine what it
would be like to be around like chocolate or regular
(02:18):
pasta maybe it's not even gluten free or pizza, and
like be around it and not feel guilty or not
feel like you have to have this crazy amount of
willpower to not you know, eat it. Like you could
actually maybe keep oreos in your home and you don't
have to like keep stuff out of sight, out of mind.
And I also learned from Lisa that we make like
two hundred food choices a day, and that is literally
(02:41):
a nightmare if you're obsessed with controlling what you eat,
which Lisa has been there, I've been there. A lot
of you listening maybe you have been there, and that
can just be It's like it's an it's such an
energy sucker. It's a good time sucker, Like you miss
out on life events because you're like freaking out about, well,
what am I going to eat there at that party?
And blah blah blah. And I think I put on Instagram.
(03:03):
I don't think I've shared on the podcast yet. Maybe
I don't. I don't think. But like, I ate a
turkey sandwich over my vacation when I was in Colorado
a couple of weeks ago. And this is one of
those things where you're just kind of in the moment
because that's all that was being offered for lunch. We
had gone hiking. There was like fifteen people. Somebody else
brought all the food and they brought stuff to make
(03:25):
turkey sandwiches. And I can't even tell you all the
last time I had a turkey sandwich but it was,
and I probably would not have had it had I
not recently had had Lisa on the podcast. I would
have just been like, m M, I guess I'll get
some lettuce and this tomato here and maybe put some
mustard on it, and is that bread gluten free? And
I don't know. I just would have been this whole
(03:47):
energy sucking process and I would have been annoying and
no fun to be around, and I just I would
have been hungry, and then that turns into hungary. So anyway,
because Lisa had come on and talk to me about
modern mindful eating, and it's like, if that's what's there,
and it actually does. If it had been something there
that didn't even sound appealing to me, then I don't
think it would have been issue. But part of me
was like, huh, maybe I kind of miss having a
(04:08):
turkey sandwich, Like why am I not having it? I'm
in the mood for it. Let's see what this is
all about, because I have forgotten and I made a
turkey sandwich and like everyone in my family was staring
at me, like, what the heck is happening right now?
Amy's making a turkey sandwich. My husband was like cheering
me on and smiling because he knows that sometimes my
anxiety that I have around food that I can't control,
(04:28):
and he was like so proud of me. And it's
like I was like spreading the mayo and like putting
the turkey on the bread and whatever, and he was like,
that's my girl. You got this, That's my girl. And
so then I got the turkey sandwich and I ate
it and it was amazing, Like it was so good.
Now I'm not freaking out about the turkey sandwich like
(04:51):
I had it. It was great. If I ever get
in the mood for one again, I guess I'll have it.
And now I know that my body is not going
to fall apart because I ate a turkey sandwich and
it was actually really awesome. I even had a few
chips on the side. It's pretty clutch, but that's because
I was really trying to practice what Lisa teaches, and
she teaches and the forked the norse course is that
(05:14):
you know, when you put something off limits, then you
obsess over it, like if I have for some reason
been like, oh, turkey sandwiches are off limits, and then
I looked at it as like some sort of like
cheap situation For me, I would have maybe normally eaten
the turkey sandwich, and that would have derailed me, and
I would have been like, well, I already ruined it.
I had a turkey sandwich, I had the bread, I
had the chips, so I might as well have the
(05:35):
cookies and the ice cream and the what are the
kids eating? And the cheetos and a little and and
it would have like been this domino effect follow me. Well,
it wasn't. I ate the turkey sandwich. I got full,
and I moved on with my day, and I think
I ended up having like a healthy dinner, like it
didn't derail my day. And I know that you're right
now you're probably thinking, wait, I'm so confused, because the
(05:55):
turkey sandwich sounds healthy, but like I swore off lunch
meat like a long time ago because I thought it's bad.
And then like having two slices of bread on like
a sandwich and mayonnaise and then the chips, like normally
that would have thrown me, and it didn't. And I
credit my uh conversations and my some of the research
that I've done with Lisa and her modern mindful eating approach.
(06:18):
So all this to say, definitely rambling here, but uh,
Fork the Noise is her program and she it is
if you want to register and be a part of it.
If this is you, I think there's like maybe ten
only ten or twelve slots open or something. I don't
even know if some of those have filled up. But
she does have a special discount for you guys, and
(06:40):
you just have to go to Amy dot Fork the
Noise dot com. So that's a custom you are l
just for us, and that's where you'll see the savings.
And I don't know, I just feel like, if this
is something you feel like you need in your life,
like a course that will help you out and allow
you to enjoy life more than I think, you should
(07:02):
check it out and thank you Lisa for offering that
discount to my listeners. Okay, so I guess now that
that is said, well we'll get on to the podcast.
I really really think you all are gonna love Jeremy
like he's He's the Bee's Knees first. Okay, So, as promised,
(07:22):
Jeremy Coward is here and super excited and before we
eve been going on, I'm like, so, how do you
introduce yourself? Because like I think I was calling you
a celebrity photographer. Um, but you have so much more
in your life than than than that, and you're you're
an artist, your creator, you're a visionary just professionally. A
d D me too. Were you officially diagnosed ever? You
(07:46):
know I wasn't. Both of my brothers were, and I
think I'm even worse than them, So I'm just assuming
that it's official. And do you think that that played
into some of your stuff as a kid? Like not? Um,
just some background, And there's a video on YouTube that
I would encourage all of you to go watch and
we'll link it at radio any dot com so you
(08:06):
can find it. But it's called Impossible and that's what
was like that inspired your book, right, Okay, So in
that video is where I learned that, you know, you
weren't struggled in school big time, And so do you
think that a d D played a role? Probably? So
I just wasn't wired like the other kids in terms
(08:28):
of yeah a d D. I mean I was very
quiet and I was just always in Germanland, just always
daydreaming and pretty creative and U s. Yeah, grades, My
grades weren't awful, but they weren't good either, just kind
of an average BC sometimes D student, you know, Um,
and it just blended in and so I just never
thought I'd be good at anything because I based my
(08:50):
value on my grades. Um, so I had to kind
of un learned that over time. But yeah, just kind
of an average kid. Yeah. And then it was kind
of at your parents encouragement, like going into more of
van uh the computer programming type stuff or like photoshop
or what was it specific, like photoshop? And then it's
just just a fast forward through like how you got
(09:12):
to photography. It was like you did um, you did that,
and you worked for some ad agencies and then um,
then you started working in the music industry doing like
web design late photoshopping for like CD covers, album covers. Yeah,
and then you got a camera uh huh, and then
people started paying you to take pictures and you're like,
(09:33):
what is happening? But I think, and I don't know
if I missed this part in the video, but was
it like because of your relationships with the record companies,
like doing maybe the graphic design side. Is that how
you got in with the photography and then you were
able to photograph people like Sting and Taylor Swift and
I don't know, I mean really well, and the Kardashians
(09:54):
like they're on the list too, But so how how
did that start? Yeah, it was all accidental, you know,
living in Nashville. I first, you know, quit my ad
agency job to start designing for my friends. I went
to college with Dave Barnes and then I remember when
he met met words and so I would just do
their okay, So he was kind of a foot in
(10:17):
the door there. Yeah, I mean, just all my just
being in Nashville. All my buddies were musicians, and so
I would start designing for them. They would get signed
to labels, the labels would then hire me, and over time,
you know, I bought my first digital camera and just
fell in love with shooting whatever around me, textures, and
then my friends would ask me to shoot for them,
(10:37):
and so it just was all very organic and you know, happenstance,
and um, one thing led to another. Then I got
a job where I beat out a Hollywood agent and
her roster of photographers, and then that took me to
the next level of shooting for TV networks and movie
companies and all that. And so through your photography some
(11:00):
really cool things have happened, And I think it's because
you're just sort of like, there's got to be there's
more to this than just like taking these pictures. Pictures
tell a story, and people have there's so many stories.
And I love the various projects that you've done. Um
One in particular I want to talk about because I
think it was so fascinating. Again it was it was
(11:21):
in the video, was the Forgiveness project in Rwanda? Um So,
why don't we tell people about that? And then how
how you thought of that? And then that happened after
the Haiti one, right, Haiti was the first, um so
maybe actually we should start there. Which side note, Jeremy
has adopted from Haiti as well, so we have that
(11:43):
in common. Which is the first time I ever met Jerry.
Jeremy was over at the Hamilton's house and there's some
People magazine shoot on adoption that Scott and Tracy were
doing and we were all there, and uh so that's
the first time I ever met you. But um and
how many kids do you all adopt? We adopt to
(12:05):
we afford total for total adopted too, So I think
we're going to do an adoption talk separate from this
and it'll air at an at another time because I
feel like that's the world people are very curious about
and you and I have that in common. And so
I guess with the projects side will start with Haiti
because the earthquake had happened and you decided to go
(12:27):
because you know, uh, they had a story to tell
and like you were here and like it the technology
the days, like we can just kind of tweet out whatever, well,
they couldn't do that. So like your thing behind that
was I'm going to go and I'm gonna help them
tell their story. Yeah, at the time, Twitter was still
pretty new. I mean even most of my friends weren't
on Twitter yet. But I'm always an early adopter, and
(12:49):
so yeah, when the earthquake struck, I was like, I
want to go down and give the people of Haiti
a chance to have a visual microphone of source because
the media was just really telling in the statistical side
of everything, and I wanted to share the stories. Um
see how I kind of on a whim decided to
get down there right after the earthquake um and use
(13:11):
photographs to act as a visual message of swords where
I'd have people literally pick up a piece of rubble
and right on it with art markers, you know. And so, um, yes,
went about two weeks down, they're doing that project. It
really took off and got a ton of publicity, and
you know, that led me to wanting to do a
(13:32):
lot more of those projects because there was so fulfilling,
much more so than shooting the next celebrity, you know.
Um So that really planted the seed of wanting to
use my work for good, and so that led to
the project in Rwanda, the Forgiveness Project. My friend Laura
Waters Hinson was doing a she just done a documentary
(13:55):
called As We Forgive, talking about the extreme forgiveness people
are doing it over in Rwanda after the ninety four
gen Son and uh so I was like, gosh, we
should do what I just did in Hate but with
your people in Rwanda. So um, but yeah, these people
are you know, going through this program to forgive each
other for murder, which is just crazy. And can't imagine
(14:18):
taking a picture with somebody who killed my brother or
my parents, you know. Um, but that's a level of
reconciliation taking place over there. Yeah. So if you go
to Jeremy's website, it's Jeremy Cowart dot com and under
Ideas you can scroll and you'll see Forgiveness Project and
that's where you talk about the voices of reconciliation. And
(14:39):
some of those pictures are so powerful, Like right now
I'm looking at um is it Jaspered or Gasper? How
to say his name? Gasper? So he's locking arms with
innocent and named after he was forgiven. They're like thirty
(14:59):
five and thir eight years old, and yeah, one of
them killed the other one's brother and the gym side,
so it's so crazy. And then you have a photo
of them and they're at the scene where it happened,
at the exact place, you know, where where the crime
took place. And can you imagine that an America? I can't,
(15:20):
Like you, no, I have. That's exactly the thought I
had as I was like, gosh, it's almost like only
in a place like that, do you do I feel
like something like that happens? Because what's that happened here? Unlikely? Unlikely? Yeah, So,
I mean these photos are very powerful and courage you
(15:42):
all to to go check them out. And there's under
the Ideas, I mean, that's where there's the earthquake relief
hurricane relief. Um, what's child art therapy? Yeah, I collaborated
with an organization called Exile inter Nationale and they do
art therapy with form were child soldiers, kids who have
been have been abducted by the army and forced to
(16:05):
kill with their own hands and shitties and anyway, So
this organization goes over there and works with him to
process everything and get it out of their systems and
through art and to heal. Essentially a friend Bethany and
Matthew Williams of the founders of Exile, and so I
worked with them to do another project where we use
(16:27):
art therapy too to do all that and kind of
work through what they've what they've been through. Yeah, And
there's a little bit about that in the YouTube video
as well, and it shows some of the art, which
is pretty I mean, you couldn't even show some of
the stuff because it was so graphic like what they
were having to relive through the therapy through the drawing.
(16:47):
But and those are pieces that then you know, you
kind of you did some what'd you call it for?
You can you did some photoshop thing altogether and then
you your art on top. I don't know it looked
extremely cool and way to wait over my head, but
it was amazing. I just do a lot of abstract
or and so yeah, I took their photos and their
(17:08):
portraits and the stories and I combine them all to
make these mixed media pieces of art. Yes, so you
have again, that's all in the YouTube video two and
it's also on his website. You have to check it
out because it's awesome. And then you would then sell
that art sell to raise more money for them, so
a hundred percent that the money went back to their
continued therapy. Yeah. So and then you know, while we're
(17:31):
on the the YouTube video it's called Impossible. That was
what jump started the idea for your book, which is
called I'm Possible, Jumping into fear and discovering a life
of purpose, right yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, wasn't planning
on trying to be an author doing a book, but
(17:53):
I got approached by my agent esther, and she said,
your story is amazing and needs to be a book,
so kind of pitch it. I was like, I degree,
yeah yeah, and so yeah, very accident dental and so
in the this video too, is something that you um
mentioned a lot in the beginning is I can't. Well
even even later in life too, even when you got
(18:15):
a camera, you're like, well, I can't, or even when
you had ideas for what you wanted to do, you're like,
like a global this is this is this is amazing
that you do this. You'll do this every year when
you get okay and you know what I'm talking about,
people are probably wait, what global thing? But you had
this idea where you wanted to um gather people and
(18:38):
so that they could have their picture taken. And then
it led to other photographers um coming in volunteering their
talents to take pictures, and people showed up. And when
you do something like this in places where they they
don't have cameras, some places don't really have many mirrors,
and like they've never seen a photo of themselves. And
(18:59):
so you're doing it here in the US, but then
also around the world. But what made me think of
it is because that's a that's a vision that you had,
an idea you had and you're like a global leader
this We're going to take the same global like I can't.
But then something your dad always told you um when
you were younger, and I think that a lot of us,
I mean if you grew up going to church or
(19:19):
your parents um would give you scripture. Like I remember
my mom always telling me, Yeah, Philippians four thirteen, I
can do all things through Christ. That strengthens me. But
I mean, he really that's something that you you did use,
your dad did give you, and um that you did stick.
It's stuck with you and you've used it in various
points in your life. Yeah, it kind of became his
(19:41):
his very predictable response to anything that I can't play
baseball or I'm a suck at piano, whatever it was
Philippians four thirteen. And uh, I think just see encouragement
of my parents support in that verse. Just you start
to you know, start, it's confidence building. And so yeah,
(20:02):
over the time, I think it did start to believe
in myself. Um, not only through their encouragement, but they
were always like literally, you know, support the interest. So
when I first expressed interest in art, next thing, you know,
I had an art table and all the art supplies,
Like they're always right on it in supporting my natural interest.
And I think that's a huge lesson for Parance. I
(20:23):
think a lot of times parents are afraid of their
art kid. You know, and they don't know what to
do with it. But if they just support it, you know,
they'll be amazed at what can happen. So anyway, so yeah,
they you know, I had this idea for global movement
where photographers just gave back people in need and took
their pictures, and so we did the first year here
(20:44):
in Nashville, and it was amazing, just so beautiful, and
it was so good that I was like, this needs
to be a global thing because I'm foolishly brave, I
guess um to think that it could go global. But
I use the industry. All appears in the industry to
help spread the word on blogs back when blogs were
(21:05):
legit and them. Yeah, that first year we were in
forty four countries, you know, the first attempt, and never
since then it's a gosh, it's it's just exploded, can you.
It's called help Portrait. And if anybody browsed us the
hashtag help portrait all one word on Instagram, um, they'll
(21:26):
see for themselves the endless stories out there. It's pretty incredible. Yeah,
and some people just seev an evil to how it's
like can be a game changer for someone again, having
a photo of themselves maybe they never had, UM but
also having a new picture headshot they can use for
an interview, because like he just thinks that we may
take for granted that we have but I mean they're
(21:51):
just stories for days. But people have gotten jobs, people
have mail their pictures of the family they haven't seen
in decade. It's all kinds of stuff. Yeah. So again,
Jeremy's super like you've got I feel like your ideas
are not done. Like you have so many cool things
that are out there that you've accomplished and you've done
and people have been inspired by and they're continuing to
(22:13):
go on and Um. Then there's the Purpose hotel, and
I want to tell people about that because that's an
amazing vision. I want to know, like, what is that
something that came to you? Was it a group of friends,
We're all just sitting around and like, how can we
create a space where people can come and they can
stay and really every you know, part of their visit
(22:35):
is going to impact the world in a positive way.
From your WiFi supporting going towards human trafficking against fighting,
but I mean supporting the fight against back up. So
I'm going to support human TRAVI right, you know what
(22:56):
I mean, it's going towards the fight, and uh, you know,
I just felt like even a little and down to
the keys, the hotel keys and giving keys being involved
and you know, I'm sure all the decor. I feel
like each room is the plan to sponsor sponsor a child.
Sponsor child and tell the story. Tell me how the
(23:20):
purpose hotel came to be in the most crazy um way.
I hate to, you know, over Spiritualiza. But I was
basically on a photo shoot in Los Angeles. I had
moved to Los Angeles for a year and soon after
I got there, I had a photo shoot and I
was walking through a hotel in Los Angeles for meeting,
(23:43):
just walking into my room, and as I walked through
the hallway, they had the room numbers designed like old
school name tags, like hello, my name is room one
for me one. And I just thought, Oh, that's cool
that they did that. And then I thought, but it'd
be cooler if the room numbers had a story that
you could read if you wanted to, if you had
the time. And I was like, Oh, that could be
(24:05):
the story of a child and it get sponsored child
and tell the story. And I look down in a
room key and they idea for the giving keys and
they want to walk to the room. It was like
the movie scene where everything transforms and roll down. Because
I looked at the art, thought of all my humanitarian
artist friends. I looked at the you know, Slipstance shampoo
has thought of this, whole farms here in Nashville, Um,
(24:26):
the Internet fee, the desks, you know, the blankets, there's
nonprofits to do amazing cause related blankets. And basically the
whole room just transformed. The whole I mean, the whole
idea from start to finish was about a sixties second
process where it's like a waterfall of vision. You know,
even the name, even the tagline that we're still using
(24:48):
to this day, change the world in your sleep. It
was all like the purpose hotel, change the word in
your sleep, every product, every room. You know. It's just
one of those moments. And I remember I sat down
for my meeting. I was like, yo, I'm sorry if
I'm distracted, but I'm having an idea for an entirely
new global hotel, ching like right now, like in this
very moment. And I just told them as it came
(25:10):
off top my head, and they were all just kind
of like speechless, and they're like, uh, that's amazing, Um,
but we gotta do this photo shoot, you know. So um. Anyway,
and I went home that day and I told my wife.
She's used to my ideas and I have so many
ideas that she doesn't really acknowledge him very much. Oh cool,
(25:31):
I'm running into target. I'll be back later, but this time,
and I fully expected her to be like, uh, no,
we're not building a hotel. Uh. And so I came
home and I started telling her and she just started crying,
like immediately, just started weeping because she got it, you know,
she got the vision. And and she's only probably loved
(25:52):
two ideas in our entire marriage of twenty years, and
that was one of them. And I've probably told her
about hundreds of ideas because I have them all the time.
But yeah, and the other one with the other idea
that she loved was her portrait, which we just talked about.
So she has a huge heart. And any time there's
an idea that involves serving others and living on people,
(26:13):
you know, she's she's going to be have the that response.
And so anyway, but then long sotorce for us spent
three years and fear of it because it was just
so big. I was thirty five at the time, working
for myself. What what freelance artist goes and builds the
global hotel chain? You know, the math didn't make sense.
(26:33):
But then in two thousand and fifteen we decided to
start moving towards it. And now we're running towards it
with management and architects and designers and all that stuff. Yeah,
so here we go first one, We'll be here in
town and so yeah, Nashville's first stop. When we say global,
I mean, do you have have you shared it? I
don't know if there's like the other cities there in
(26:53):
mind or where you go now. Talked to a lot
of other cities and have even been pitched specific patients.
But I think we're just trying to get the first one,
get it at first, and go from there. People that
I talked to in town, they're super excited for it,
And I know, I feel like it's a perfect place
because it's people are all coming here. I know a
(27:13):
lot of my listeners they come to Nashville, so if
they haven't heard of it and they're now hearing of
it now and they go and they learn more. I
feel like some of they're going to be so excited,
and I know that they'll they'll make it part of
their stay, Like they'll come to Nashville, probably even simply
to stay at the purpose of tel, Like, why are
you going to Nashville, Well, there's this hotel I want
(27:35):
to stay at. Normally you go for other reasons and
you find a hotel. I feel like this is a
place where people are going to like want to come
to the hotels and then they find things in Nashville
they want to do exactly. I think it's it's that specialty.
I mean, the day it opens will be the greatest
day of my life professionally and speaking. It's going to
be amazing. Is there a day it opens time frame?
(27:57):
Me where we have twenty two on the you know,
the target on the calendar, probably summer twenty two as
of right now, but we all know that subject to change.
You know, it could be end up being twenty three.
Who knows, Well, we will be cheering y'all on in
the next Like it's hardily that's only a couple of
years away. Well, just driving into your office, I was
(28:19):
at that red light looking up at the new Virgin
hotel or architects did that hotel, and so it's just
fun to think that's in we'll be looking up at
the Purpose. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I have goose thumps
when I think about it because I feel like even
my husband and my kids, you know how people do staycations.
I'm gonna come do with staycations at Purpose Hotel. I
(28:40):
wish I could get into. I mean, there's so so
many more ideas that it will do that we haven't
even explained yet. I mean, it's so much deeper than
just that surface with the rooms will do. It's gonna
be it's gonna be pretty special, Okay, like like I
don't know, is there Yeah, I can share one more idea.
I love your ide yes. I mean, and people when
(29:01):
you know, when you hear other people's ideas someone listening,
they might be inspired by something you're saying, like trigger
something in their brain, or they'll be encouraged that Like,
if I have an idea, I should go for it. Yeah, totally.
Even if you fail, you're gonna learn from it. So
that's why I always that's why I'm really never afraid
of failure because I'm still gonna gain some huge lessons
(29:22):
out of it. I failed a lot in my ideas,
that's for sure. So another idea that I had probably
last year for the hotel. Remember when I told my
kids and wife about this over Mexican food out like wept.
I was so excited about it. Um. So the idea
would be that when December rolls around, would be to
partner with National Rescue Mission UH, specifically the Female side
(29:47):
where we work with all the moms, single moms and
their kids, to find out what they went for Christmas.
We published that list to kind of hotel supporters the
City of Nashville asked people to buy those gifts right
and then they would come and bring them, wrap them
and put them under the tree in the lobby. So
we'd have this huge tree in the lobby full of
(30:10):
presents and Christmas Eve, the hotel is no longer open
to the public. It's only open to all those women
and their children. So the hotel becomes a homeless hotel
for the most special night of the year, and all
these moms and their kids stay at the hotel Christmas morning,
they all come down open gifts in the City of Nashville.
(30:31):
Do you see my arms right now? Okay, it's like yeah,
and so in every hotel that we built the future
would not be open like Chick fil A's not open
on Sundays, will never be open on Christmas because we'll
convert to a homeless hotel. So be incredible. Keeps things
(30:52):
like that that I really get pumped about. You have
a gift, and I will be there too with my
family and we'll all just cry all day. It'll be great. Yeah,
get it all out. Well. I mean you're an inspiration.
I totally admire, um, you know what you do with
your gifts and your talents, and and thank you for
(31:13):
having ideas and all being scared too to go after
them even though maybe your initial well but even if
your initial thought is I can't that. Yeah, it's a
big point to discuss because the fear is always still there.
Every day, I still open resistance and I can't. And
because people ask me all the time, when did you
(31:34):
ever come fear, I'm like I didn't. You know, I'm
terrified every day, but I just know that. Um, you know,
God gives us these ideas for a reason. They're like
little paper wides of messages. He gives us whiff to go.
You know, try to make them happen, and so despite
our own voices of resistance and doubt and all that,
m awesome. Yeah, well, thank you for sharing uh some
(31:58):
of this with us today, and then we'll we'll get
into an adoption talk and put that on another episode
so people can check that out if they've been interested.
And I feel like I'm gonna be maybe soaking up.
You've been an adoptive parent longer than I have, so
do you have any wisdom or just even parenting in general,
because you do have two biological children as well. So,
(32:21):
but thank you for coming on today. And then definitely
y'all check out Jeremy Jeremy coward dot com. It's where
you can find all the things and he will be back.
Second friend, Okay, if you're like me, sometimes you need
(32:43):
a little motivation hack, and I saw this one that
Mel Robbin's posted. Her Instagram handle is at Mel Robbins
EMM E L R O B B I N s now.
I will say my next three things that I'm sharing
with you. So, first thing was Jeremy, and then there's
this thing, and then I've got an avocado like trick
that I learned coming up and then this crazy cracker
(33:04):
that you might need to buy if you're wanting to
like eat a cracker but also suppress your appetite. So
I learned the next three things all on Instagram, So
I'll be giving the handles of people that I follow
where I learned this stuff. And this one came from
mel Robbin's account. And she did this whole post on
working out on the vacation. How she even motivates herself
(33:26):
to do it, and she does so by giving herself
a reward, and why she does it is based on science.
So I'm just gonna go ahead and read her posts.
So when you hear me talking, these are her words.
This is her talking. So she said, how do I
get my booty to yoga even when I'm on vacation.
I always buy myself a treat afterward. Why science, Try
(33:46):
this habit hack. If you struggle to exercise like me,
use this trick to force yourself to get it done.
You know, I love my research, So this is all
based on science. It works like a charm. First, let's
talk about habits. Habits have three parts, the trigger, the
pattern you repeat, and the reward. Here's how I use
(34:06):
three parts of habit to hack motivation. One place the trigger.
I lay my clothes out the night before, and when
I walk into my closet boom. Seeing them on the
floor triggers me to remember the commitment I made to exercise,
to do it anyway. To force myself to repeat the
pattern I hate, I use the five second rule five
(34:27):
four three to one. Get out the door and remind
myself that even though I don't want to and I
don't feel like it, I'm going to do it anyway.
Three The reward. This is the most important part of
creating a new habit. You must reward yourself. I always
always get myself an I S latte after I exercise.
(34:48):
Here's why your brain remembers. The ice latte is the reward.
So when you see your exercise clothes on the floor
of the closet, you don't even think about exercise. You
crave an ice slatte. When you are in kickboxing or
the gym or on the yoga mat, your mind drifts
to the iced latte. It's freaky, and trust me, it
works like a charm. Okay, so there you have it.
(35:10):
That's the motivation hack that I saw on Mel's Instagram
and I thought I would share it with you all,
so be thinking about the new habit that you want
to create, and maybe what's the reward that you can
give yourself that will help you hack motivation to make
that new behavior habit because a lot of times that
things are new, it's hard to get in the routine.
And so I love that Mel shared this. So in
(35:32):
case this is something you need, you need to try
those three things, place the trigger, do it anyway, and
then reward yourself. So for the third thing, if you
like avocados like me, and you also like getting the
most avocado possible, like most meat out of there possible,
you're gonna love this avocado tip. Like I never knew
(35:54):
there was a trick to buying avocados ever until I
saw at Little Sipper post it on Instagram, Like, this
is a game changer for me and buying avocados. And
if you already know about this tip, like why haven't
you shared it with me? But maybe you've never heard
of this either, But it's a game changer. So round,
smooth skinned avocados have larger seats. Pear shaped, bumpy skin
(36:17):
avocados have smaller seats. Now, of course I have bought
both kinds. I just kind of like, I think which
one I like looks best, or I feel like which
one is ripe and ready to buy or whatever, Like
I never buy buy both, and I never really knew why.
And I know when I cut into them that the
seeds are different sizes, but I never thought about how
I'm actually getting more avocado, or I could actually know
(36:40):
what size the seed is going to be before I
even buy it and cut it open. So the point
is you're mostly buying the seed and getting less meat
with smooth skins. Like, try it for yourself, little sip
or challenge you to try the challenges you to try
this for yourself. So definitely go for the pear shaped
bumpy skin avocados. And another thing that I learned from
(37:03):
Little Sipper, and this is from a while back. I'm
just like pulling this out of the vault, but you
can actually freeze avocado. Yeah, she does it because sometimes
she'll just use like a fourth avocado and a a smoothie,
or she'll just take a bite out of here. She
wants it to spread on something and she doesn't eat
the whole thing, so she puts the rest in the
freezer and then you can like throw it in to
smoothies and it's already frozen boom. Or you can make
(37:24):
avocado ice cream or maybe even just thaw it out
and eat it again and and it's fine. And then
if you're trying to avoid avocados from turning brown, here's
another tip just from the back of my brain that
a lot of people sometimes still don't know about. But
you can squeeze limon or lime on top and it
won't turn brown. Like the citric acid in the juice
is going to keep the browning at bay, which is
(37:47):
an awesome tip. Just squeeze it on there and then
put an air airtight container um to get as much
protection as possible. Um, don't just like throw it into
the fridge, but air tight container and then you're guacum only.
Or your avocado isn't going to have that nasty brown
color on top that people aren't really gonna want to eat.
Like my kids, if they see any brown, they're like, oh,
it's ruined, and I'm like, no, it's not. It's fine.
(38:10):
But if you're wanting to avoid that, squeeze a little
lemon or lime on type on top. Which speaking of avocados, more.
Who knew I had so much avocado knowledge in my
brain right now, but I did legit. Just see this
article about this giant avocado you can stay in. It's
called the Avocondo and it's taking reservations. But it's in Australia,
so I know that that's pretty far to go. But
(38:31):
it's located in Sydney. And if you're going, maybe you
maybe you're listening right now and you're like, oh my gosh,
so crazy, I'm actually planning on going to Sydney. Well
maybe you could try or you could try to stay
in the Avocondo. Yeah, because it's literally shaped like an avocado.
It sleeps up to two adults, it's got avocado themed decor,
(38:52):
it's air conditioned. There's an electrical outlet near the bed,
but no wifire Internet, just so you know, because heads
up on that that's important. And there's even a little
seating area, but again it's like the shape of avocado,
so it's not very big and it includes linens and towels.
It does not include a shower or a toilet, so
(39:12):
you go to booking dot com if you want to
know more information. But there are public facilities nearby. That
are open to guests if you need like a shower
or toilet. But how cool would it be to say
you stayed in the avocando. So I don't know. I
just thought that that was like an interesting thing. Like
I literally started talking about avocados, and then I remembered
seeing the article about the avocado, so I thought I
(39:33):
would share that with you all. I mean, you never
know what you're gonna learn here. Okay, so now it's
time to talk about this crazy cracker that has lots
of fiber and it will suppress your appetite. And I
learned about it from the Skinny Confidential and pretty much
(39:56):
I tried the crackers and liked them, So I'm out.
I don't have any crackers for my husband to try.
He never has tried them, but he's here with me. Now,
Sprinkle do this podcast with me. Well, first, before you
try the sprinkles, you know how I eat rice cakes
a lot, like we go through. My kids even love
rice cakes. I love, but no, they do know better
(40:17):
and they yes, they like them. And I like that
they like them because I'd rather than meet that than
you know, kettle corn. So I put almond butter tahini
go ahead, while I'm talking, you can try. You're gonna
try the Scandinavian fiber sprinkle. What do you think it's
definitely well, it's definitely, like I can tell there's it's wholesome.
(40:40):
There's some fiber up there, some fiber in there. Okay.
So on my rice cakes, I always put almond butter, avocado,
you know, maybe some blueberries, some you know, not with
the avocado, but with the nut butter, um, some stevia,
maybe sprinkle some sea salt, and then it's salty sweet
with the nut butter. And I realized with the rice cakes,
(41:01):
I'm getting a lot of carbs but no fiber. And
so if you put the same thing that I'm obsessed
with putting on rice cakes on these like fiber crackers,
then you're getting way less carbs and way more fiber.
And we all need fiber in our diet, like especially
the older that we get. So the Skinny Confidential start
(41:23):
following her. She's awesome. She was in Europe and she
saw these girls eating these crackers out of this weird packaging,
and she was like, and there's like, you know, skinny girls,
and not that you have to be skinny, but I mean,
she was just like into their bodies overly thin, but
like they've got they had great skin and hair and
all the things. So clearly they were taking care of
(41:44):
their bodies. And so she's like, what are they eating?
And as she zoomed in, she figured out they were
eating these crazy crackers, the crackers, and she says, well,
so those are the sprinkles, so, yes, you can sprinkle
them in to something. I have been adding them to
my oatmeil. Again, I still love the carbs, but oatmeal
(42:05):
doesn't have that much fiber. So I have been sprinkling
that in and adding it to my oatmeal and it's
adding fiber and I think that it is helping what
does it say, salads, desserts like a cupcake serious, I
don't know, and baking. Yeah, I've even put it in
like a little cup and I poured some almond milk
(42:26):
on top and added some liquid Stevia to it, just
for a little sweetness. And it's like I'm eating you
know that. Did you ever eat like brand? Yeah? I
only want to wear out of other things brands, like
if your mom had brand, if you're out of like
a cool cereal. So yeah, anyway, Ben just sampled the sprinkles,
and that's all I have less because I went through
the crackers. Y'all. The crackers are legit. I will say
(42:48):
they're pricier than rice cakes. But you're eating less because
it does. At least for me, it has made me
not want to eat more like I do. Feel like. Okay,
I ate it. That was satisfying. I'm good, I'm done.
So I got him on Amazon. Seriously, I didn't make
(43:09):
it up. There's a phone ringing. We have a phone.
We have a phone for the podcast. Huh, let's hello hello,
mm hmm. It's a automated important announcement for people. Oh awesome,
(43:29):
between If you're between ages eighteen and eighty five, there's
a new burial plan. Is that kind of morbid? Well,
we should suggest Scandinavian five or sprinkles so that they
live longer. Five You need these g sprinkles in your
live probably so. Anyway, these crackers are dubbed the appetite
(43:50):
Control Cracker. I've mentioned that, but here is the actual
legit description from the crackers. The Appetite Control Cracker e g.
Scandinavian brand Crisp bread has the highest dietary fiber and
is an all natural, traditionally baked Scandinavian crisp bread. At
(44:10):
just twelve calories of slice and two net carbs g G,
is ideal for those who are trying to lose weight
or maintain a healthy body weight. Now listen here, I'm not,
you know, putting this out there is some like diet
miracle food by any means, but I'm just saying for me,
it's been a great alternative to my rice cake addiction.
Sometimes you just get snacky, like you just want to
(44:32):
But what I'm saying, I get snacky and I have
the rice cakes and I'm up probably having more than
I should. But with the Bland crackers, you don't want
any more, Like you're satisfied like it. It fulfills that
you put the awesome toppings on top, like Skinny Confidential.
In her blog post about it, she puts like suggestions
(44:55):
as to how to eat them in her favorite flavors,
and in the blog post she meant is Kelly Lack
or girl Kelly be Well Mike Kelly. She said that
she reached out to Kelly and she said that they
are a great fiber source. So that's awesome. I trust
her and they have them in flavors like raisin and honey,
and they even have a pumpkin flavored one. I think
(45:16):
that's what I need to order. And yeah, well we
all order those all. And again I don't know if
I mentioned this, but I'll put the stuff on my
Amazon page so that you know with these, because it
might be confusing for the fining and you might be like,
am I find the right the right, the right one?
But just to make sure you get the right ones
in case you're interested. But she has, like she said,
(45:39):
she does like maybe peanut butter or raw almond butter,
and then she mashes up raspberries on top, so it's
like a peanut butter and jelly or you could do
which I do this on my rice cake, but now
I'm doing it on my G G Scandinavian crackers. It's
so weird. It looks like it's from I mean, it
is from another country, that's why, but it looks for it.
And if you see this in your pantry, you're gonna
be like, what is this? Um? But you could do
(46:02):
some alvocado with some sea salt and maybe some cayenne
pepper and some sprouts and a little mustard or something
like that would be really I think this would just
be for me, like especially dinner time, just a good
thing like throwing a salad like no kidding, sprinkle the
sprinkle it on there and it would be just kind
of hold you over, just be more. It adds more.
It's more fiber you add to your meals, the better,
(46:24):
which Kelly Looveck I know move mentioned her and I
talked about her all the time and how I want
to get her on the podcast be well by Kelly
and I I will. We have communicated about it. It
just hasn't been nailed down. But her four main things
in her Fab four plan is protein, um, fiber, greens,
and fat. So that is what she says to focus on.
(46:46):
And I think a lot of times we don't realize
that we're not having any fiber. So there you go.
You can, like Ben with saying, sprinkle some of these
Scandinavian fiber sprinkles on your meals to get it. Or
you can get the actual crackers and make little snacks.
She even suggests here, Ben, you'll like this one. These
crackers are a great vehicle for turkey or ham. You
(47:09):
can get creative here with mustard hummus or spicy sauce
and make a little Scandinavian oat brand turkey cracker. I
don't think so, bib, I don't know. And then what
we don't eat Dairyes, so what would the cheese be? Well,
you don't have to put cheese on nachos. You can
put like black beans and sauce and like cut up
(47:31):
vegetables and onions and jalapenos and all kinds of stuff.
I don't feel like these have a Mexican feel. They're
more Scandinavian. Get they get along fine? Yeah, but I
love that you you had not tried them before I
made you try them right here, right before we got
that random phone call. And I can scoop up my
favorite stuff. What about pizza? Can I make it? Yes?
(47:53):
A crust out of it? The Skinny Confidential talks about that.
She says, pizza is a great idea. You can do
maybe some sauce if you do eat cheese, like some
brass fed mozzarella or something on there, oh, or goat
cheese would be amazing. That's our dairy exception. Like, and
I'm not I'll have dairy. I'm not saying it's like
a no no, no, like I will consume it, but
(48:13):
I tend to feel better and notice my skin is
better when I avoid dairy. But I do love me
some goat cheese, which my body does digest differently than
other types of cheese, so that's why I allow myself
to have it more. But any hoosie, there you go.
There's the crazy cracker that I wanted to recommend to
you and to also tell you if you're not following
(48:35):
um skinny Confidential, you should. Her website is the skinny
Confidential dot com and she also has an Instagram page
on there you can find like Facebook. She blogs like crazy, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube.
Her and her husband do a podcast so look like us.
They know they're they're like legit, they've been they she
(48:57):
has like tons of followers and you. She her husband communicates,
you're not even saying anything. You keep talking? What am
I gonna start? Am I supposed to talk? I'm just
looking at you. You take a breath, I'll talk. Because
I was saying, like they have a podcast, and I
started talking about you were just staring at me like
(49:18):
coming for the pause. Okay, I paused. Yeah, that's amazing,
great couple. We're together we should listen to it together
see if we can get some tips. But they talk
about some pretty they get risk ay, sometimes talk about
topics that we probably even talked about, which is fine.
I love that they do it. We're talking about you
crushed me from the first time I was on a
podcast I didn't know. But we didn't talk about dirty
(49:40):
things or we talked about infertility on day one Okay,
podcast zero zero zero zero zero zero one was let's
talk about for infertility. If that's your definition of risk gay,
then that's interesting. Okay, this concludes the podcast. Well, we've
about the email shout out coming up, which I've done already,
(50:03):
full disclosure, already recorded that before I recorded this with
my husband. This is the fourth thing. Transparency, Full transparency.
I mean, you know, we don't keep anything from you.
When the phone rings in the middle of the podcast
and we don't stop and start recording again. I'm not
sure how do we know that number. I don't even
know the number, but I guess now it's a number
that exists because it's a number I can call to
do interviews on for the podcast, So I guess it's
(50:24):
a number out there now. I mean, these somebody has
a telemarketer people they the box yep, that's right, all
the bots. Okay over now, Okay, that's it. That's the
four things for today's episode. A big thank you to
Jeremy for coming on and he will be back. But
(50:46):
if you want to follow him on Instagram, his handle
is Jeremy Cowart. Just that so j E R E
M Y C O W A R T like cal
art Um, so definitely give him a follow, especially if
you're to anything that he was saying in his cool
projects and I don't know, he's just super inspiring. And
as you all know, this is typically well maybe you
(51:08):
don't know, maybe you're a new listener and you have
no idea, but typically at the end of each episode,
I do an email shout out. Last week with Tricia Yearwood,
I didn't do an intro or an outro because my
time with Tricia Tricia, excuse me was so long and
I don't want to add more to it. Um, so
apologize for not having the email shout out on that one.
(51:29):
But today we've got one and it's from Samantha, So
here you go. Hey, Amy, I only recently started listening
to the podcast, so I sort of started out of order.
I decided to go back and start from the beginning,
and I listened to an episode every day on my
way home from work. I'm a few episodes deep now,
and I've debated about even writing this email, but the
(51:49):
Unanswered Prayers episode really resonated with me and had me
in tears on my ride home. My husband and I
have struggled with infertility for almost ten years. I really
did with you when you spoke about seeing a negative
test month after month and how soul crushing it is
and asking God why me. I cannot say that I've
always been the most religious person, and I wasn't sure
(52:10):
if I entirely believed in the term it happens for
a reason. At the beginning of this year, we decided
to try a new approach to our journey. That new
approach brought to life a major health issue that we
had no idea I had. Had I gotten pregnant not
knowing about this condition, it could have ended fatally for
both me and an unborn child. It caused me to
(52:31):
take a step back and assess my situation. It made
me really question if there was a reason all along
we were not getting pregnant. Maybe this was the reason.
Maybe God knew all along, but my impatient mind couldn't
see that. I felt like this was an unanswered prayer
and I just had to be patient. Sorry, this is
a long email, but something inside of me told me
(52:52):
I had to thank you for the words you spoke
in that episode. Okay, So thank you Samantha for that email.
I'm glad you decided to share it, even though you
debated about even writing it, Because it's emails like this
that remind me why you know we're on here. Sometimes
I'm on here like talk, I feel like I'm talking
to myself, but this helps me know that y'all are
(53:12):
out there and things are resonating with you and they
mean something to you. So whether it's you know, a
topic that I've chosen or a guess that I have
had on like, if it touches y'all in UM, you know,
one way or another UM, or at least even just
one of you, not even multiple of you, then I
know that I've done my job and that warms my
(53:33):
heart a lot. So thank you Samantha for writing the email.
Thank you to everybody that since emails in Sorry I
can't always read all of them on the air, but
definitely do appreciate it and appreciate you all listening and
subscribing and writing and reviewing. And Samantha is going all
the way back to the beginning, even though she just
recently started the podcast. So if you haven't gone back
(53:54):
to listen to some old episodes, maybe you could do
like she does and listen to one every day while
you're driving to her from or something like that. And
then if you want to go review, then five stars
just kidding, unless you know you really feel like it's
five stars, and then maybe write something nice that would
be cool because my boss is like that. Okay, thanks
might be kind, joy, never lie, never cast up, broath thing,
(54:26):
little food for you sof life ain't. Oh it's pretty,
but hey, it's pretty beautiful thing beautiful that for a
little moth tighten up be said, he can't. You'll kicking
with four with Amy Brown
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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