Business Reflections Podcast Episode #38 - How to Prioritize Taking Care of Yourself with Trinity Wellness RX Consulting

Episode Transcript

Meredith Matics: Welcome to Business Reflections with your host Meredith Matics, and we are here to reflect on the business topics that are affecting you today and how you can better run your business. Thank you so much Corine for coming on. 

Corine Ferebee: Hi, how are you?  

Meredith Matics: Good. Let's talk about what inspired you to starting your own company?  

Corine Ferebee: Yes. I have a unique story because I've been a pharmacist for the last 14 years.  I've always been passionate about health and wellness, but about four, almost five years ago now, I was diagnosed with lupus. And not only did I have lupus, but I had lupus nephritis, so my kidneys were failing. They wanted to put me on dialysis and that just completely changed my whole life. Right.  

Meredith Matics: Isn't that what Selena Gomez has? 

Corine Ferebee: Exactly. It's exactly that. Yes. So, it changed my life because now no longer was I the provider, I was now the patient. I got to see everything that happens on the other side from beginning to end. Unfortunately, no one had a conversation with me about nutrition, exercise, handling my stress so I had to research and do all of that stuff myself. 

And it was a long process. It took about two years, because originally when I was diagnosed, they put me on 13 pills a day 13. Yes. And so it's so funny because I just happened to be a pharmacist that doesn't swallow pills. Having to take 13 pills a day was so traumatic for me. But I did it for two years while I was researching alternative ways of taking care of myself and healing my body. What I found was that with diet and exercise and relieving the stress that I could come off of that medication. 

Once I got all the information, I immediately changed my diet. I took meat off the table. I took sugar off the table. I reduced dairy drastically. All of those things that cause inflammation. 

Why wasn't anyone having a conversation with me about this? I have no idea, but in addition to taking those things off the table,  I also started exercising on a regular basis. And then I said, what are the stressors in my life that I can remove as well? And I tell you when I did that, I felt better. Before you knew it, I went from taking 13 tablets a day to taking zero tablets a day. And I said, I have to tell people about this. I have to tell other women that this is possible. That is how Trinity Wellness RX Consulting came into play.  

Meredith Matics: What kind of services does Trinity Wellness RX Consulting offer?  

Corine Ferebee: We focus on women because I feel like women ultimately make the decisions of the household. If we can treat women and get them healthy, then it trickles down and we're able to take care of everyone else. What we do ultimately is to see integrative health and functional medicine to help women combat all of those symptoms that are related to chronic fatigue syndrome, all types of autoimmune diseases, as well as weight loss management issues. 

We have programs that are designed specifically for the patient, and then that allows them to create optimal health with just changing certain things, whether that's diet, whether that's adding exercise, whether that's learning how to deal with stress. It's different for each patient. But it's a set program that they all go through. On the other end, the goal is to be able to reduce all those symptoms and ultimately reduce the amount of medication that you're on.  

Meredith Matics: I think that's huge. I've shared with our listeners before that I'm really into juicing. Personally, once I started integrating juice, like getting my vegetables and everything through it and doing real juicing. I felt so much better. Everybody knows vegetables are good for you. I just didn't realize that like, putting that in such a high dose of like regularly was so good for you. It was just so interesting how that changed my health so fast because it's not like my doctor's ever suggested that.  

Corine Ferebee: No, and that's just such a scary thing. It's so interesting that you brought up juicing because that's one of the dynamics of the program is that we encourage our clients to either juice or make smoothies, because you can get such a large amount of vegetables and nutrients and start your day completely different. Ultimately, like you say, you just feel so much better so quickly.  

Meredith Matics: Today we wanted to talk specifically about burnout with our business owners. This is a topic we've explored a couple of times, but we like to talk about it because it's something that we all go through it in different ways, but I mean, burnout is just huge. Let's start with, why would you say taking care of yourself as a business owner is a priority? 

Corine Ferebee: So for me, my own personal experience is when I was diagnosed with lupus, I really had been suffering with symptoms probably for about the last 10 years, but because everything else was priority, I wanted to climb the corporate ladder. I got married, I had kids, I had a household, so I felt like I needed to take care of all of those things and do it well. In the meantime, my health was good dwindling. It was getting worse and worse. I think a lot of times business owners, they're like, you know, just let me just keep pushing forward, let me get this taken care of, and then I'll be able to take care of myself. Then I'll be able to go to the doctor when ultimately what you should be doing is taking care of yourself first. 

And then that'll make you have the strength and be able to push through to be a better business person. I feel like a lot of business owners are like these type a super driven personalities. We just take care of everything else. We're like on autopilot. And then you forget to take care of yourself until something happens that forces you to take a better look at yourself.  

Meredith Matics: For business owners who want to start taking better care of themselves, do you have like a first point to start out? Where should we even start? Is it exercise? Is it food? What do we do?  

Corine Ferebee: I think all of those things are important but I think it's going to be different for everyone. I found for me, even though, as a healthcare provider, like I know, okay, I should be eating right. 

I should be eating three meals a day. I should be exercising. It's still not easy. And so for me, I had to start scheduling. I realized that everything that's important in my life, I schedule it. So why am I not scheduling, okay, you need to be eating lunch at 12 o'clock? Hey, you need to exercise at 5:30, because for me if it's on my schedule, I'm going to try my best to get it done. That's where I started. I started scheduling things and making them a priority. I encourage everyone to do that until it becomes a part of your norm.  

Meredith Matics: I couldn't agree but I'm horrible at it. I have to have my staff basically, even if it's on my schedule, usually if I haven't eaten lunch by two o'clock, they're coming to my office and knocking and being like, you need to go eat lunch. Like you need to go now. Because we just get so caught up. But yes, scheduling would be huge so we don't miss them.  

Corine Ferebee: Yes. And it's so funny as business owners, how we can just forget to eat. My husband will come home in the evenings and he's like, Did you eat today? And I'm like, oh my gosh, I forgot to eat. And he, of course he doesn't understand because he's like, how could you forget to eat? Like, it's a priority for him. But yeah, we definitely have to schedule it or like you said, have someone that holds us accountable and says, Hey, have you eaten? Because we don't want to look up in six months in a year and we're not getting what we need to nourish our bodies. And then we're not the best version of ourselves.  

Meredith Matics: Yeah, definitely. Is there a suggestion that you have for business owners on how they could be more self-aware or check in on themselves if they're not meeting their crucial needs of like feeding their body nutrients or exercising?  

Corine Ferebee: Yeah. Again, accountability. Having someone that you go to that say, Hey, I haven't been eating every day. Can you make sure I eat? Can you just check in on me. 

I read this great book called The Miracle Morning. It teaches us how to get certain things done in order to be successful business people throughout the day. One of those things that they encourage us to do, in addition to exercising and reading, it's just taking some time and meditating and prayer. For me, that kind of changed the dynamics of how I start my day. It also change what our priorities. During that time, I say, okay, these are the things that I need to get done. I pray and I meditate and make sure that they become a priority in my life. The other thing, in addition to that, is that I always end my day with journaling. Then I can see, okay, what was priority for me? What did I get done? And what would I do different?  

Meredith Matics: Interesting. Yeah, I like that. Is there any reason why we should start at the beginning of our day with meditation versus the end of our day?  

Corine Ferebee: I think it just sets the preference for the day. I'm a believer in meditation and I believe that whenever you do it, it's beneficial. But for me, I just feel like that's how I start my day. What I found is that people who start their day, where they roll over, and I used to be this person where I would literally roll over and start to check emails and look at social media. And then, you don't have any time for yourself and you do look up and then it's 2:30 and you haven't eaten. You have to take time and set a precedence for the day. 

Meredith Matics: I think that makes sense. I was having a really hard time finding time to set aside for myself cause I felt like in the mornings I get up, and then it's like feed the dogs, do this, get them out for a walk then and get going, then get the lunches together, then whatever and then get to work and go a little more, like get home and make dinner and all that. 

And the one thing that I found that was like for myself was sitting and like prepping the food for juice.  It sounds so weird, but maybe it's the repetitive of like cutting the celery, just like chop, chop, chop, chop, and go in like in my brain and not talking to anybody, not looking at my phone and just kind of that repetitive piece was really something that for me, it started becoming my meditative moment and I almost like needed to do that when I got home first thing, just like, it didn't matter if it was what it was, but I just had to get home by myself and just do that. And it was really helpful, but I probably should incorporate something in the morning.  

Corine Ferebee: No, but I, I love that because I'm kind of the same way when I meal prep. Meal prepping, I do it every Sunday. That's my time. Like everyone knows I need them out of the kitchen, and I'm in there cutting up my vegetables and my fruits. 

Meredith Matics: Well, and I know that one of the things that the Buddhist traditions talk about is finding meditation within our daily activities. And I was like, oh, maybe this is what they mean. In that moment to like meditate within something you do every day. Let's get back on track as it got a little bit sidetracked. If we take it one step further, do you have any suggestions on how well business owners can lead their team to prioritize self care or taking care of themselves? I know even I see this within my own team. They feel like they need to go just as hard as me.  What do you suggest for us as leaders to help our teams prioritize?  

Corine Ferebee: Well, first, I feel like we have to be an example. With my team and some past teams that I've had when I worked in corporate America, I made sure that there was always some dialogue around self-care and what that looks like and letting them know, Hey, I went for a massage yesterday. What are you guys doing on your downtime? We constantly had conversation around that. I try to be very mindful of my team and their time. If we say that the outwork hours are from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, then after 6:00 PM, I try not to bother them. I want them to use that time to do what they enjoy, you know, because at some point you have to turn it off. 

And for me, I had to learn that there were what I call now my non-negotiables. I create a schedule for myself and whatever time I'm supposed to stop working, I stop working. It took a long time to be able to truly do that. I encourage my team to do the same thing. Number one, know what you're willing to give and after that you cut it off. You gotta cut it off.  

Meredith Matics: I think we, as business owners get caught up sometimes in that we're go going, but it's not their responsibility to be at the same level as us. That kind of takes us to my next question, which is about work life balance. Why or how should entrepreneurs really take that work-life balance seriously? At least for me, my work is a lot of my life. How can I better balance the two?  

Corine Ferebee: I'm 100% with you.  So much of my work is my life. But I do try to make sure that I'm incorporating my family and just those things that are important to me. 

A lot of times my daughters, I have a six year old and an eight year old.  I have a Zumba class on Thursday nights but they come to the Zumba class and they're there and they're enjoying that time. It doesn't necessarily feel like work. We get up in the morning, we make smoothies, you know, so it's things that I'm doing. Even though it's work, it's still me enjoying life. And then again, I have those times when I say it's absolutely no work. Not only do I set the expectations, but I make someone hold me accountable. My biggest issue was if we went on vacation, I had a phone in one hand or computer in the other, and it's like, you're not enjoying life. You don't want to look back and say, all I did was work.  

Meredith Matics: Yeah. That's huge because I think a lot of us think we're leaving this legacy of our business, but at the end of the day, it is only a part of our own life.  

Corine Ferebee: For me, I had this eye-opening experience when one of my daughters was four years old, she came to me and it was crazy. I was still working in corporate America, but she knew my boss's name. So this four year old knows my boss's name and she comes to me one day and she says, Hey, can you tell such and such that you need the day off? I need you to spend time with me. It was such an eye opening experience. Like, oh my goodness. Like even she knows I need a day off. We have to make time for the things in life that are important to us and we have to be the ones to do it because no one's going to say, oh my goodness, Corine, you look like you need a day off. Just take the day off. No, it's never going to happen that way  

Meredith Matics: I think as business owners, we all see something different than the rest of the world sees. We see a day off when no one's here, they see it as a day off to go swimming or something. We have to find that balance and it's hard. It is so hard. My last question is do you have any suggestions on how we can set up better boundaries for ourselves to keep that work life balance in check? 

Corine Ferebee: We have to check in with ourselves. A lot of times, especially when I work corporate America and the beginning of me being an entrepreneur, I don't think I even realized that there was an issue with the work-life balance. I was on autopilot and I just wanted to go and go and go and get it done especially in the beginning of having a business. A lot of times it's just you. If you don't do them, they don't get done.  I didn't even think about the fact that there wasn't this work-life balance that there should be.  

I think checking in with yourself and saying, am I happy? Is there anything outside of work that I missing out on? And is it worth it, what I'm doing and the hours that I'm putting in every day? And is there an alternative way to do things? In the beginning I was doing a lot of things, just manual. When there was opportunities to make sure that things were automated and systems that I could put in place just to make things run smoother. 

Meredith Matics: Yeah, definitely. As we close up, I'm wondering if you have one piece of advice that you've personally received that you want to share with another small business owner.  

Corine Ferebee: The thing that I've probably learned most in business is to have a great network. People that you can check in with and say how are you doing this? What do you think? Do you have any advice? Is there anything I can do differently so that I'm still moving forward, but enjoying life. As I've grown in the business, in my business, that's one of the things that I've done is I've kept people around me that can say, girl, you need to take a break. You're doing too much because we don't tell ourselves that, right? We're just like, if I could just get this project done, then I'll have some free time, but then what do we do? We just create a new project. Just having someone that can like check me every now and then.  

Meredith Matics: I could not agree more. I would like personally just thinking of one of my best friends who every now and then we'll be like, Hey, why don't you meet for coffee? And I'm like, I got to work. And she's like, oh, your boss is dragging you down again. Yeah. A variety of people and having that network is huge. And it's so important. Where can our listeners learn more about you? What if they want to reach out and talk to you about building boundaries and better health for themselves? 

Corine Ferebee: Absolutely. They can go to my website drcorineferebeeconsulting.com or you can message me on social media. I'm on all social media platforms at drcorineferebee. That's Facebook, Instagram, Twitter LinkedIn. Definitely reach out. I would love to connect  as well as see how we can work together to get you to a level of optimal health. 

Meredith Matics: I really appreciate all your opinions. It was wonderful to have you.  

Corine Ferebee: Yes, I loved it. Thank you so much.  

Business Reflections Closing: Please note that these are thoughts and opinions alone. For tax advice, please see your CPA or tax advisor, tax professional for business advice and legal entities. Please see your local business, lawyer, or attorney for advice. And if you'd like to reach out to us for any topics or questions about. Any subject, any episode you can reach us podcast@maticsbilling.com. That's podcast@maticsbilling.com.    

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