Welcome to Built by Margin, the podcast where strategy meets the spreadsheet. I'm your host, Laurie Chen, fractional CFO and tax strategist, here to help you make smarter financial decisions, build a profitable business, and keep more of what you earn. Let's dive into the numbers that actually move the needle. Welcome to Built by Margin, the podcast where we talk about money, mindset and metabolism for modern entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Laurie Chen, a fractional CFO helping founders create clarity, cash flow, longevity in business. Today, we're exploring something often overlooked, nutrition habits and perimenopause health. I'm here with Charlene Chong, her monopause health and sustainable fat loss coach. Welcome to the Awesome. Thank you so much, Laurie , for having me. I'm so excited to share my journey and how I got here so I can help other women who have struggled just like me. So thank you. Yeah. What inspired you to get into nutrition coaching? Tell us all about that. Yeah, so I'll go back kind of like my origin story and how I kind of kicked off this business because it wasn't that long ago that I went through this. So I always say my journey started in 2020, in June of 2020. It was literally the middle of COVID. I was working a demanding six-figure IT project management role. I was juggling corporate success on the outside, but quietly struggling with my health kind of in behind the scenes. And at that point, I had reached like my highest weight and I felt exhausted, defeated. I was stuck in the same cycle. So many women know too well from like jumping from one fad diet to the next, hoping that this is the one that's finally going to stick. And I remember one morning I was lying in bed, and I was reading a whole bunch of like congratulatory emails from executives on this big project when that we had just achieved. And I realized, I didn't feel proud. I felt so empty inside. And I completely sacrificed my health for my career and family time too. So I'm a mom of two kids as well. So there's a lot of sacrifices that I made for this career. And I barely recognized myself. That moment led me to hire a coach and to begin learning about macronutrition. And I was mind blown. I wasn't eating, I wasn't eating too much, even though I thought I was eating too much because the weight kept coming on and it, it didn't matter how much I worked out or how much food I was restricting, I was so undernourished. And for the first time ever, I felt like I had found something that was sustainable, that didn't really involve any restriction or punishing myself for like enjoying foods that I love. And so I during that journey, I ended up losing 25 pounds, and I've been able to maintain that for the first time ever, which was has been so rewarding for me. And that transformation in myself just sparked something in me. And I started helping some friends and some family. And then I realized, like, I love this, this is fun. And so then in 2021, I went back to school to get certified in macronutrition. And then by 2022, that's when I was at the height of my burnout in my IT project management career. So I ended up walking away from a multi-year, six-figure contract to launch Designed by Char full-time. It was scary, but it felt right. Three months leading up to that decision, my husband and my family were encouraging me to quit because they saw it was taking a toll on my health. And then in so then I was just doing macro nutrition and helping women with sustainable fat loss. And then in 2023, I hit like another wall. And this time it was perimenopause. Again, I was doing everything right. But I was starting to gain more weight, I was feeling completely off. And being told by multiple doctors, everything was normal, quote, unquote, normal. And that frustration drove me to dive even deeper. So I got certified in a pause coaching. And I expanded my team to functional practitioners and a pharmacist so we could help women get the real answers that they deserve, not just surface level lab results or cookie cutter advice. And so today I just really help high achieving women break free from that dieting cycle and balance the hormones and just start to menopause with a holistic blend of macronutrition, strength training, and a lot on mindset coaching and just the personalized functional support as well with my team. I just feel women deserve more than just, you're fine. And that's what I had struggled with for a whole year when I was going through it. They deserve really to feel vibrant and strong and in control. Again, it was going through that phase myself with the medical system was so frustrating because every time I went there, so that was 2023. So it was two years ago, but leading up to that, like my perimenopause symptoms probably started in 2022. So three years ago, I would have been like 44 years old. I'm 47 right now. And every time I went to the doctor, they looked at my chart like, oh, no, you're too young That's kind of my origin story. Yeah. OK, that's great. How much does fitness you mentioned strength training? How much does fitness play into a holistic Yeah, it does. So a lot of us, we tend to think like, if you're on a fat loss journey, we think cardio, like cardio is the quickest way to get there. But as we age, our bodies adapt a lot quicker to cardio. And you want to be, I don't say don't do any cardio, because if you're a cardio junkie, you love it. All I'm asking is that you uh introduce some sort of strength training into your workout regimen because the strength training will build lean muscle mass because we start losing that as we age in our 30s the more lean muscle mass you have on your body the stronger your bones are so you actually prevent two age-related diseases which is osteoporosis and sarcopenia so just and you really you don't have to go to the gym six days a week you guys like two to three, even four, if you can fit is perfect. But yeah, just starting out with two is So I absolutely agree with that. Yeah, that's a theme I'm seeing a lot lately is strength training. And well, strength training combined with cardio is the best mix. But I do a lot of strength training myself. I go at least three times a week to the gym. Yeah, for you. I've definitely I've seen my strength definitely increase in the last year since I've been going consistently again. Yeah, yeah. And same with like for women in perimenopause, the more high intensity workouts you do, the harder it is on your body. And during this phase, we really want to protect our cortisol levels. So anytime you're doing high intensity, your body thinks it's like under additional stress. That's why strength training should be prioritized over Yeah, I go to one of the gyms I go to is Orange Steering Fitness. I don't know if you have that in Canada. Oh, great. Yeah, we have a ton here in Austin. And so there's one in my neighborhood. So I go there and I go there probably twice, twice a week, something like that. It's great because it's high interval training. Yeah, yeah. So let's talk more about health mistakes that people make. So you work with a lot of founders and high achieving women. What's one Well, I think the biggest mistake, this goes across the board, not even if you're an entrepreneur or a founder, but the biggest mistake I see, especially among high achieving women, is underestimating how long real sustainable changes is going to take. So most women come to me for fat loss, but they don't realize that 90% of them are actually undernourished. So their metabolism actually isn't even in a place to support fat loss and jumping straight into a fat loss phase only makes things worse for them. So we have to rebuild that first, increase their food intake to a healthy baseline, and then work on regulating hormones to support their metabolism. And that part, it takes time. So sometimes it can take as long as like six to eight months before we can even begin a fat loss phase. But because we live in this world of like quick fixes, a lot of women lose patience and they give up before the real transformation even starts. So a huge part of what I do is mindset work. So helping women shift from like this urgency, Amazon Prime results, to like more sustainability and from restriction to nourishment. So the beginning of my, I used to, my nutrition program used to be only 12 weeks and I quickly realized I'm like women need support longer than 12 weeks and quite often the women in my program would continue working with me up to a year. Because it will take like, it's a full year transformation program, really, with a six month commitment. So if you want long term results, give yourself a full year to see that you're not failing. It just takes longer than we've ever been led to believe. Yeah, I was just about to ask how long it usually takes someone to see results. Like what's the commitment period? Sounds like it's six months to a year. For me, I personally went on a health fitness journey as I turned 40. And I was like, you know, I'm gonna, I'm going to be working out almost every day, you know, and I'm going to be eating better. And I, yeah, it wasn't until that six month mark where I really saw results. And I just at that point, I was already committed. I was like, Pretty much going like five to seven times a week. I was eating much healthier But I didn't get that until the six-month mark, which is a very long time You know, it's very hard to commit to that time period but it absolutely you've got a you've got to have that set period Yeah, so in the beginning of my program, we're really focused on the habits and the standards and for the for the outcome. Like if you're just focused solely on the outcome, which is weight loss, you're going to forget all the things that you need to do to achieve that outcome. So it's really I just I just love it so much. And now all the women, you know, are have such great results when when we take that focus off the weight loss. You're just one of the markers that we track, but it's not the main success factor Yeah, and I also think having a coach is so important because it's about accountability, right? Not being alone, not doing things alone. You're much more apt to accomplish your goals if one, you write it down, and then two, you work with someone that keeps you accountable. So the work that you're doing is very important to keeping people on track, making sure that they're not alone, giving them that encouragement. Yeah, that's exactly it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So we're always optimizing for output outcomes, right? But not a lot of people talk about the input and you focus on the input because you're the coach. What's one easy, actionable step for high achieving women to improve their energy through So the simplest, most underrated thing is eat enough and eat regularly. So many founders And this was me too, they start their day with nothing but coffee. And then they wonder why that they crashed by like mid afternoon and then they binge in the evenings. So caffeine is not a real meal, but I would literally leave the house with my coffee. And I would not eat until like noon, sometimes two, but your body needs real fuel to function. And as we age, especially in perimenopause, regulating our blood sugar becomes so, so important because as estrogen declines, we start to become more insulin resistant. So if you're not eating until like noon, your blood sugar is going to be way out of whack. So I always say like, you know, and especially as women, we're juggling business, a family and a million tabs open kind of in our, on our brain. Sometimes we don't think about eating first thing in the morning, let's get the day started. So I always say start by prioritizing a protein-rich breakfast within an hour of waking up, something with like real nutrients, not just sugar or caffeine. That can really shift your focus, your mood, and your energy throughout the day. And it doesn't have to be something fancy and gourmet, like something simple as like eggs and toast or like meal preps and like overnight oats or Greek yogurt with berries. Just get something in your body. And also, like, I don't have it here, but I always start my day with a big glass of water. That's so simple. We are walking around so dehydrated. And if you think about it, your body hasn't had any water for probably over eight hours because you've just slept or even longer. So That's great. Yeah, for me, I always eat an egg for breakfast. So I'm getting the protein in and then typically also eat a banana. Just some healthy things corn. But yes, I water Yes, that's something keeping hydrated. Starting your day off hydrated is a very critical thing Yeah, yeah. And you find like when you start to feed your body consistently, like a lot of women that I work with, they were like me, they don't eat breakfast, so they don't feel hungry in the morning. We're hungry. Well, it's because your body's not used to you feeding it. But once you start feeding your body consistently, you know, your hunger hormones are going to get back up. Right. And it and it starts to trust you. And that's when your energy kind of stabilizes and your metabolism actually starts to work for you, not against you. So yeah, it's, yeah, it's really odd. So when clients come to me, they're like, not hungry in the morning, please just just start eating. And then within a couple weeks, like, oh my god, I'm waking up hungry. I'm like, yes, it's working like Are there one or two books you'd recommend for women wanting to learn more about health and Yeah, so there's a couple that are related to women with perimenopause. So Next Level by Dr. Stacey Sims is really good. And then the other one is looking over here. It's called The New Menopause by Dr. Mary Claire Haver. She also just had an episode with Oprah on Netflix that is actually a pretty good watch as well. Yep. Those two Awesome, thanks for the recommendations. Yeah, for sure. Let's switch gears and talk about building a business. How have you approached growth in a service-based, often one-on-one Yeah, so this is a great question. So it's, it's definitely been a layered process. So I started one on one, because that's where I could deeply connect with my clients, and kind of refine my, my method, right? And say, like, I have all this education, you know, and when you're starting out, it's like, Yeah, I do get I was getting imposter syndrome, like who am I to be doing this, I only have like 10 followers, you know, but I quickly realized that to grow without burning out, I needed to shift from being the business to actually building the business. So I focused on building signature programs. And so I have two of them that that I can scale easily. One is the empowered macro nutrition. program. And then the other one is the perimenopause mastery method, which still gives clients personalized support, but in a group or kind of hybrid model. So this let me increase my impact without sacrificing connection. And I also brought on a team of functional practitioners and a pharmacist so I could offer deeper value without having to wear that hat myself. Because I was like, oh, do I want to go back to school to learn more about functional nutrition? I'm like, you know what? No, like, I have a lot of expertise, but let's build my team. And now I'm leaning more into systems, automation, evergreen content, because growth in this space isn't just about more clients all the time. It's really about delivery, more consistency, and just protecting my energy as the founder. And I know because I've been burned out before, I'm really cautious about getting there again. So for me, it's just been about having structure, sustainability and staying anchored in why I started this in the first place, which is to help women get real results without burnout for them and for me. Because I know when a lot of women, when they embark on these journeys are like, I don't know if I can take on another thing. I'm like, I'm with you. I'm a high achieving, you know, individual as well. And I get it. So, you know, I really teach in simple frameworks that they can implement week to week and they Yeah, that's great. Energy management has definitely been a theme that for me this year that I've been working on, you know, it's protecting, protecting energy is a huge part of being a business owner. There's just so many hats that you have to wear. And so being able to protect your energy and offload things to an assistant, or your staff member or someone that's more of a specialist in a particular area, is key to growing the business and scaling and making sure that you're doing the things that you enjoy doing and, you know, not Yes. And for the longest time, Laurie , because I was new in the business and I wasn't making nearly what I was making as a consultant. And I kept telling myself, oh, I can't afford any help. I can't afford any help. And I had the opportunity to meet Jenna Kutcher in person at a conference. And there's like 13 of us women sitting around the table and I'm not one to like raise my hand and ask a question. I'm more of the introverted type, just sit back and listen to everybody. But I said to myself, I'm like, when am I ever going to get this opportunity to be in presence and ask her a question? So I actually asked, I said, Jenna, I feel like I'm at a place in my business. I feel the signs of burnout because you're doing everything. You're doing it all. I said, but I also struggle with like, can I afford it now? the right time. And she introduced me to the book, buy back your time by Dan Martell. And I read that book, I did the audio book and within two weeks, I had my first and it been the most amazing experience ever. So sometimes we tell ourselves these stories, but it's actually not not And how do you manage the financial side of the business? What are Yeah, okay. So I'm going to get real honest here, because I wasn't good. So honestly, in the beginning, I had no clue what I should be tracking financially, which is funny, because I have a business degree with a minor in accounting. So like, I knew the things, but I don't honestly, no offense, because I know your CPA, no offense, but accounting to me is just boring. Like, I don't enjoy it. So I was just so focused on like, serving my clients and building the business that I avoided numbers altogether. And in full transparency, my sales dipped last year, so I'm three years into this now, my sales dipped last year. And deep down, I knew they had, even though I wasn't fully looking at the numbers, I just knew by the amount of new clients I'm onboarding, but I was afraid to look. And it wasn't until I did my year end that it hit me like a punch to the gut, and that moment was a wake-up call for me. I realized I had to stop operating like a coach and start leading like a CEO. So I took action. I invested in a program called ChillBooks, which really helped me understand how to manage my books. Like I was already using QuickBooks, but I didn't really know what I was doing in there, or I'd leave it to the year end, and then I'm madly trying to reconcile everything, and it was just bad. So investing in chill books helped me learn how to properly manage my books, reconcile expenses, prepare for taxes. And now I dedicate Fridays to what I call my financial Fridays, which is kind of like a standing appointment with myself to check in on my revenue, check in with my expenses and my key numbers. And since implementing that habit and tracking real KPIs, my business has completely shifted. And in the last four months, I brought in more revenue than I did all of the previous year. So it actually does work. So my biggest lesson, if you don't measure it, you can't improve it. And so once you start owning your numbers and you kind of start owning your business, I just was scared to look at the numbers because I knew they weren't good. And I didn't really know what to look at, to be honest. So I So what's the most important KPI that you're tracking that made all the difference for you Well, one of them is looking at the revenue coming in against the expenses going out. That's one thing I knew, like I have a lot of subscriptions, I just never knew when they were renewing or anything like that. So I organized like all my subscriptions and expenses. And so now I know exactly where they're coming in and out. But some of the metrics that I look at is the customer acquisition cost. How much does it cost me to get the customers, customer lifetime value, a churn rate, a conversion rate from like mainly all of the leads, how many of them are converting. And then I look at my engagement metrics as well, which will really help with the marketing. Like how many likes am I getting, views, interactions, again, like the revenue profit margins I'm looking at. how often are we producing content to get new leads coming in. So every week, we kind of look at what are we doing this week for content Okay, that's awesome. That that's really a game changer tracking all those KPIs. Some of those KPIs you mentioned are actually like common trackers in a in a SaaS or software based business. I'm really glad that you you mentioned the customer acquisition costs. churn rate. I love that you mentioned that you now have financial Fridays. That's great because you're actually like carving out time in your week and specifically dedicating that to looking at your finances. That It is. I just found like doing my year end was really, it sucked. I was like, I knew it was bad, but I didn't really know how bad it was. And I was like, okay, like, I'm high achieving, I can do this, you know, and by like dedicating time, because I'm very routine driven. So if I know specifically, Fridays are my finance day, that's what I'm going to commit to. So it's logging into QuickBooks, you know, scanning any receipts that I need to do, reconciling that, and then just looking at all the metrics. And since I've been doing that, my sales have been going up again. So it does, it does actually work. That's beautiful. Yeah. Let's talk more about energy management, founder health and business success. I often say that entrepreneurs need to manage their energy Yeah, 100%. So in fact, going back to my experience of my sales being dipped, I was just talking to my business coach about this. And I mentioned that my sales had dipped when I was expecting the opposite. And he asked me if you were 300 pounds and trying to lose weight, how often would you wait? Oh, and I said, Well, I would myself every day. And he said, exactly, you can't improve what you're not measuring. So he said, my guess is that you haven't been tracking your finances and he was bang on. So that really stuck with me, not just financially, but energetically too. So in both business and health, you need to track what matters. So you know what, so that you know what to adjust going forward. It's the same with women in my programs. If you're not checking in on like how you're feeling yourself, how you're sleeping or how you're managing stress, how can you expect to feel good or perform well? Just like you wouldn't ignore cash flow, you can't ignore energy. It's really your currency for execution. I find it just when I started looking at the at the numbers, it's trying to feel this spark inside me to be like, okay, I got this. It was scary to do it because I knew or I thought it was bad. And when I looked at it, it was bad. But then it just sparks this new energy in Yeah, absolutely. I love that the analogy to the measuring your weight, getting on a scale, you know, measuring it every day, that, you know, it's easier said than done, right tracking, it's, it's a lot of work to track things and to actually identify all the inputs and outputs. Right. And so it's quite It just takes a lot from from someone or to measure it. But once you do measure it, like you said, you started getting results and it actually works because you started identifying the bottlenecks, right? You start identifying the weights of measure. And so all those things are important to running a business and keeping your yourself sane and making sure that you have time and energy for your family and other obligations outside of work. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Do you have any advice for founders or high achieving women who know that they're going out, but they feel like they don't have the time to eat better? What advice would you give them? Yeah. So listeners or people that are watching, if you're, if you have like a notebook, take this out and again, I'm going to share one of the simplest frameworks you can adopt right now. So first off is stop trying to rely on willpower. Founders are busy or just you know women in general are busy because we're busy moms right most of the people I work with are busy moms and founders and entrepreneurs, but also just work with like regular stay at home moms to their busy there, but they're also smart. And the smartest thing that you can do is plan instead of push. So I call it the 10 minute Sunday quickie. And no, it's not what you guys are thinking. So get your dirty minds out of the gutter. It's actually a mini prep session that saves your sanity like all week. And it takes like 10 minutes on a Sunday. And I say, do it Sunday so that you can wake up Monday morning feeling like a boss lady like you are. So number one is take two minutes and do a brain dump. So open your calendar, look at your week, note which nights you're busy or unpredictable, and which nights you have more time to cook. Number two is like, choose three meals. So I have a whiteboard in my laundry room where if me and the kids or me and the family, if we like a meal, I'm writing it on there. And it just helps me to create my meal plan for the week a lot easier. And I get the kids involved as well. So I encourage you all to write like your favorite meal on a board or something. And then step number two in this 10-minute quickie framework is pick your core meals. So choose three simple meals that you can rotate, but nothing fancy. Like you don't have to be spending hours in the kitchen. We don't have that time. So like taco bowls, like with frozen vegetables, slow cooker chicken, and then pick one like unexhausted, which is I call it's kind of your back pocket meal. It could be simple like eggs and toast, or it could be a lot of times I pick up a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store with a bag salad and some potato wedges, right? Maybe it's a smoothie, right? And then number three is start making your grocery list. So keep it basic, only buy what supports your meals that you have planned and order online. So yes, it does cost a little bit more to order online, but it does save time. And I'm going to share a fun fact too at the end of this framework that might get you to change your mind about ordering online. And the last step of this framework is at least stage an ingredient. So meaning chop on vegetable for the week, maybe defrost a protein, portion out a few snacks, that's it. Now Monday, you're walking in like the week feeling like a boss. You're not surviving on caffeine and vibes because you have a plan in place. This is how we really beat that burnout. Not with willpower, but with simple, repeatable systems. So this is a lot of the frameworks that I coach my clients on are just the simple systems that I've implemented in my own life and lifestyle. They adopt these same ones. So the fun fact, because my husband gets on my case all the time about it's just so much cheaper just to drive to Costco and get the groceries or just drive to Superstore to get the groceries. Since I started doing this consistently, this 10-minute Sunday quickie, not only do we have less food waste because I'm only buying what I need for the week and not being like, bought into consumerism like, oh, this is on sale, or you go to the grocery store and you're hungry and you're buying way too much food because you're just buying because you're hungry. And my monthly groceries have reduced by about $250 to$350 per month. So that's even with the increased convenience of online grocery shopping. So yes, you guys, it does cost a little bit more to order online in the end, you're actually saving money and you have less food waste. I'm a huge proponent for ordering online and it's time like we live on an acreage. So our nearest grocery stores is only maybe 15 minutes away but. every Monday, Sunday morning, I do my planning, submit my groceries, and then I have time for the rest of the day. I'm not driving in, you know, into the city to do my groceries. And then within that same day, my groceries delivered right to my doorstep. It's brilliant. So I Yeah, that's awesome. So what do you call those Sundays? Do you have a name for that? Yeah, 10 minutes, Sunday quickie. And then it's funny cookies. Okay. Financial Fridays. Yeah. So minutes, Sunday quickie. Yep. Okay, awesome. Thanks for sharing that tip. For sure. OK, so we're going to go into a lightning round of questions, just fun fun questions to ask and have one closing question. What Well, for me, it's chocolate, not because it's like a superfood, like dark chocolate has a lot of perks to it, but because sustainability requires flexibility. So I teach women how to incorporate foods that they love. No more like off limit lists. I used to think so much food was off limits. If it's satisfying, it fits your day, it belongs in your plan. So whatever it is for you, always find ways to include it. Otherwise, you're going to end up binging on it later and you're going to feel as guilty like, oh my God, why did I just binge on a whole pack of mini eggs? You know, just have them every single day. That's your thing. What is one food you think is overrated? Honestly, probably almond flour, everything. Just eat the damn cookie. I think we often overcomplicate healthy eating with too many like clean swaps. So you don't need to turn everything into like a cauliflower version to be healthy, which I used to do. And macronutrition really improved my whole relationship to food. So I still will use almond flour from time to time. But there was a time where I was swapping everything with and flour, you know, everything was like cauliflower rice or just cauliflower version What is your favorite productivity tool and you can be specific in Yeah, so again, we kind of talked about this before. So I'm a theme girl, and I like to batch tasks by energy, right? So on Mondays, always my client check-ins. Tuesdays, I theme them as my CEO days and social media. And I block off time to batch work, like quarterly to batch work any of my blogs or upcoming newsletters. I don't like feeling like, oh my gosh, my newsletter is coming out Monday, I've got to quickly draft it, right? I like to block time off and literally it's so easy to do. I can knock out each quarter's emails within an hour and a half. Right. And with my blogs, Wednesdays is kind of my education. So I'm always constantly learning. So when I'm saying dedicate to education and catching up on anything, and then Thursdays kind of catch up on Friday, we already talked about financial Fridays. And then I use a mix of like notion, uh, Google QuickBooks, I guess, for my finances and, and, uh, just an old plan or like, just honestly, it's like a, I don't like this. I keep it all together because I find low tech and still be really high impact. Yeah, I love being able to write in a notebook, you know, it's kind of same thing as like reading out of a paperback versus versus a Kindle. There's just a different feeling to it, right? 100% Yeah, different energy feeling for it. Yeah, for sure. Do you have a go to morning drink? Water? Yeah, water, water. Yes. And I actually switched from caffeine to decaf. I felt like I never drank a lot of coffee. Like, before I switched to decaf, I would drink maybe one or two cups of caffeinated coffee. And I found I really enjoyed the taste. It wasn't necessarily the I need to perk me up. If you're drinking coffee, because you need to perk me up. You should probably look at your sleep habits, not the coffee. I switched to decaf. but yeah got it okay great well our closing question i'm starting to ask this of all of our podcast guests what is the biggest risk that you've taken in your business and do you feel like it was worth it oh well yeah so the biggest risk well there's been a few biggest risk recently was admitting that my sales were down it was hard it was hard and i did it in front of a big group of people in our coaching group. And I was very vulnerable. Like it was just, it just sucks to hear that, especially when you hear other entrepreneurs coming in and they're sharing their wins, like, Oh, I can make like 1.2 million the last four months. I'm like, Oh shit, like my sales have dropped in half, you know? So that, that to me was really hard. So taking, I think just taking that risk to like admit that, but then the overwhelming support I got after that was so amazing. I think another risk that I've taken, cause I'm very, shy I know sometimes a lot of people they're like oh you don't come across as shy but I am I'm like a little socially awkward I don't put myself in situations and there's this one opportunity where I was in Kelowna and I did Dan Martell's founders hike and heading to or to that hike I said to myself I need to introduce myself to three people like charges do this. You can do it. All I have to do is like walk up to them, say, Hey, I'm sure for you. I just let the conversation flow. And I did that. And I met, uh, his name is Colin and he has a podcast called the seeds of success podcast. And two weeks later after meeting him, he invited me on his podcast. That was the very first podcast I've ever done. And, um, that podcast I shared with my parents. who didn't really quite understand what I did because I was no longer working for a corporate. So they really had to understand, comprehending, like, what is this that you do? And, you know, I forwarded that podcast to my parents and my dad listened to it. Now I'm going to get teary, but he listened to it within like a few weeks after listening, he phoned me up and he says, Char, I'm so proud of you. He's like, I listened to your podcast and I'm just, I'm so, so proud of all the work that you do. And then he passed away two months after that. So I feel like if I hadn't taken that risk to introduce myself, you know, opportunity wouldn't have happened. So my biggest thing and lesson from learning that is take the fricking risk. What do you have to lose? Like, just do it. And and if it was maybe the wrong decision, just go ahead and make a different decision, because I feel like sometimes we just get stuck and we don't progress at all. So just in my mind was just keep taking the risks. Right. Yeah, that's that's an amazing story. Thanks for sharing that. Well, this this was an awesome episode. Really enjoyed speaking with you. People can find you on Instagram and on your website. We'll have that on the Built by Margin website. Thanks again for being here. And to you listening, your business runs on you. Invest in your health like you invest in your growth. Track your KPIs. You know, have financial Fridays. If you enjoyed today's episode, share it with a founder friend who needs this. We'll see you next time on Built by Margin. Thanks for tuning in to Built by Margin. If you're ready to turn insights into income, subscribe and join me each week as we break down the numbers behind smart business growth. I'm