0:02

Welcome to Good Intentions, the podcast where we explore the world around us to find meaning and intention in what we do. I'm Kelly Harvard and I'm on a mission to spread positive stories that will inspire you to live a more meaningful and connected life. Meet Jess Gobbins, a dynamic force in the realm of fitness, coaching her journey from a dedicated management consultant, traveling the world and working endless hours to her current role as a fitness advocate is nothing short of inspiring. Jess treats everyone she coaches as an athlete because she believes if you have a body, you are an athlete. She wants us all to feel great about our bodies. Not only how it looks, but also what it can do. Whether it's carrying your groceries inside from the car in one trip, playing hide and seek with the kids, gardening without throwing out your back, or being able to stand up from the toilet unassisted when you're 95. The one thing that unites us as humans is that we have to live in our bodies. So why wouldn't he want to make that body as capable and as athletic as possible? Jess's infectious warmth permeates everything she does, be it strolling with her sausage dogs or wieners for my American audience, or sharing the highs and lows of life on social media. She's always been open about her struggles with mental health and sobriety, and I love talking to her about how to tackle the days when things don't go as planned. And how to navigate the challenges that life throws us. Her enthusiasm for life shines through in our conversation and you can feel her contagious energy. Whether you've encountered her in person or are tuning into this podcast, get ready for a discussion full of authenticity, optimism, and practical advice. I hope you enjoy it. Morning Jess. Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast.

1:41

Morning. Happy to be here.

1:42

Super nice to have you , um, on such a nice day. Nice Dubai winter's day that we're chatting today, which is lovely. So I wanted to start right back at the very beginning 'cause I think he's been in the UAE for 17 years. Am I right? It's 17, yeah. Okay. You are ,

1:54

You're a bit ahead. 17 years this summer. Wow.

1:57

You're a bit ahead of me. I'll be 16 in summer. So what initially brought you here? Uh , you know, what has this kind of experience sort of meant to you in terms of your connection to the region?

2:06

So I initially came out to Dubai when I was in grad school in London. I got a summer internship here. It was back in 2006. And so, although I was studying, you know , politics and economics, it was kind of that time in Dubai when it was the Wild West. And if you had like a degree and a good attitude, you could sort of come out and do any job that you were wildly under underqualified for. So got an internship working out here during grad school and then , um, you know, sort of after I finished grad school, London looked around for jobs in the US and um, you know, I had gotten the international bug a bit from being in London. So was keen to be somewhere out of the country and out of my comfort zone a little bit and knew Dubai and had a network in Dubai from having done the internship and , uh, moved back thinking it would be for, you know, a year or two. I, I bought my car on an 18 month loan. I bought all of my furniture from a hardware for like a thousand derms for the whole set. And my husband likes to joke. It was built of Popsicle sticks, you know, like the little pieces of wood. So, you know, just kind of wanted to be very like untied down and be able to sort of leave whenever I want and onto the next adventure. And uh, yeah, 17 years later and a marriage and four dogs and a child here. I'm <laugh>, I'm still here.

3:23

It happens to the best of us. Jess. Yeah, I turned up with like one suitcase and nothing and I , I did the same with the furniture, but mine came from Homer us at the Messiah Center. 'cause that was, you know, the highlight the , the pinnacle?

3:34

No, that was the iconic, it was the only place you could go for furniture. And I remember in fact, homes are rs , it was back when you could call the number in Dubai to get a phone number for somewhere. Do you remember the directory listing? And I remember calling for the number for homes , RS on the directory listing, and the operator was like, homes are SI don't understand. And I had to be like, homes are , um, uh, and then she got it <laugh>. So we're really dating ourselves.

4:00

Amazing. Yeah, it's , it is a very specific beautiful moment in time. Back then, things were so different. It worked so easy and so not easy at the same time. So back then, I mean I know you were this as this amazing like fitness coach, like super healthy athletic, but back then that wasn't what you were doing. What were you doing then?

4:18

Oh , so I initially came to Dubai to work in a strategy role for an investment arm of the Dubai government. Working on some of the big mega projects that, you know, back in 2006, 2007, there was a lot of optimism and energy around launching things like , um, you know, ski slopes in the middle of the desert, a new Las Vegas, but without prostitution and gambling, you know, 60,000 hotel rooms in the middle of the desert, all those kinds of things. So I came out in , um, in a corporate strategy role again, which I was wildly unqualified for. And then , um, parlayed that into a career in management consulting, working for an American consulting firm, which I did until about 2013 when I took a hard pivot to my current life.

5:02

A very hard pivot. And this is, I've had people on the podcast before that talk about this. I've had somebody who was very high up strategic in , in a similar sort of role and she just left it all behind. And you know, I've had a number of people who sort of left things behind to do other things. Another person who was a corporate lawyer and Emirates actually, and then now she goes into people's houses and , and declutters them, which is one of my dream jobs. So I just love people that are on this like very, you know, accepted set path. It's kind of what , to all intents and purposes, a fantastic path, right. You know, gosh, what , what a successful career that is to then just sort of leave it behind and sort of veer off. So it's sort of what were the moments that sort of led you to veering off and then was there like one final moment where you were like, right, this is it? Or was it just kind of like a buildup? How did it happen? Yeah,

5:43

You know, it's funny when people hear that I transitioned from management consulting into being a fitness coach. Oftentimes the reaction that I get is like, oh wow, that was so rave of you. Or like, wow, what a leap to take. And it really wasn't that proactive at all. I just sort of got lucky to be the victim of circumstances that ended up conspiring in my favor. So basically the consulting company where I was sort of like middling along, you know, like I was not greeted at it. I was not a high flyer , but like I was doing the job and and living the life and that was cool. But the consulting firm that I was working for ended up deciding to go out of the UAE market. And so I had a choice to either transfer to another expat office, you know, like Singapore, Hong Kong, whatever, or to, you know , lose my job and find something else. And um, I was already with my husband at that point who, you know, was also American, but I met in Dubai and we both really loved our lives here. He loved his job here. And so we figured, okay, you know, no problem, I'll , uh, I'll get let go and I will find a new job. And so then I spent the next two years looking for another job either in management consulting or a corporate strategy role in-house. And succumbing increasingly more to the sense of depression and hopelessness that I think comes when you are trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and trying to force yourself to do something that your heart knows you don't really want to do. So it was literally two years from 2013 to 2015 of um, just applying for job after job after job and cover letters and taking people out for coffee and you know, getting through a first round, a second round, a third round whatever. And then just things never working out. And it was really hard and I kind of felt worse and worse as the time went on. But concurrent to all of that, I had started to get more into fitness just as a way of keeping myself sane. So, you know, I had always been active. I grew up , um, running and swimming and doing gymnastics and stuff, but started to get more into doing CrossFit and having a bit more of structure and goals to my training. And as time went on and I still wasn't working, I found myself thinking, well I might as well get my coaching credentials and um, see if it's something that I'm interested in doing and just add luck would have it got them. And then sort of, you know, started to look for opportunities and one thing led to another and all of a sudden I had made this career change that I never really set out to make.

8:25

Gosh . So that's a really interesting story and I , I really like that story, Jessica . Sometimes people, I think when I talk to people, they're in corporate roles, they're kinda like, they're okay, you know, they don't hate it, they don't love it. It's not necessarily their passion, you know, it pays the bills. It's like I feel grateful to have a job and I think a lot of people are kind of thinking that, I think we're sort of sold to this story that you know, there's gonna be a massive lightning bolt and you'll be in a meeting one day and you'll look out the window and you'll see someone going past and you'll think, gosh, that's the path I was always meant to take. And then you walk out triumphant and ticket tape comes down and you're like, yes, I found my calling. But actually it can sometimes just be a gradual thing and it can be circumstance that kind of moves you. So I like this kind of more realistic way that you took. And it was something that you were also interested in as a kid as well, I guess. So it wasn't something that was like a brand new thing that kind of suddenly came into your head, which I think is quite interesting.

9:10

It was an interest, but it was never something that I sort of thought that it was okay to make a career from. You know, I had a lot of baggage, probably just my own insecurities and stuff around like I needed to have like what I viewed as a prestigious career and you know, high flying and traveling and a corporate role with a company people have heard of and whatever. And that was all just ego. But the ego is a powerful driver , right? So sometimes it takes really kind of getting knocked off your path to see that it's okay to question some of the assumptions you've had about what your life should look like. Oh ,

9:44

100%. Yeah. The ego is yeah, bottling it every day. It's a , it's a work in progress for sure. So you have men and you have women who come to you and they want to sort of come on this fitness journey. What do they want when they come to you? Why do they come to you and is it different between the genders?

9:59

I would say that the impetus to come to me is the same, but the way it plays out with men and women looks different. So in other words, 90, 95, 90 9% of the people who come to me, male or female come because they want to look better naked. At the end of the day, aesthetics is the driver for most people to make that big sacrifice, that time of money, of you know, opportunity costs of other things that they could be doing to try and get fit. So for sure the majority of people who come to me do so because they wanna look better. For me, that's not the main priority that I emphasize in the coaching that I do, but I get it. You know, we live in a society that is focused on appearance and looks and uses that to sort of slot you into your place in the culture. So that's fine . There's nothing wrong with having a set of goals. So the majority of people come to me to look and feel better in their bodies. The way that manifest though is very different between women and men because what looking better means is so culturally coded based on gender. So for women, again, with rare exception for women, it's to get smaller. And for men it's to get, you know, bigger, stronger, more defined, more muscular. So I think the reason is the same, but the way that it plays out is definitely very gendered. Gosh,

11:20

That's so interesting. And um, I love what you have to say. You talk a lot about the mind body connection, which I think we're all becoming a lot more aware of these days. How do you understand that as sort of being connected to one another? How do you work on that with your clients as well? Yeah . 'cause they come to you saying , I wanna look a certain way, I wanna be smaller or bigger. But then how does the whole mind body connection come into those conversations that you have with them?

11:41

Yeah, look, I think the body image part, I like to think of it as a Trojan horse that, you know, gets people into the gym and gets people training and sets things in motion. So in our culture, you know, we want to look a certain way and fit into society based on that. So the body part gets people in. I like to think and you know, if, if I have a successful relationship with a client over time and they sort of get what it is that I'm trying to do, that the real value of the gym is for that mind piece and for the mental strength, the mental toughness, the grit, the resilience confidence that you can get by using the gym almost as like a life slab, you know, like a microcosm of what you're gonna be doing outside those four walls of the gym. Because there's a lot of value in realizing that you can do a hard thing, you can lift a weight you haven't lifted before. You can learn to do a skill that you haven't learned before . You can, you know, shave 10 seconds off of a time that you thought was the fastest you could ever do a workout before. There's a lot of value in getting practice overcoming those small and tangible challenges in the gym that I think applies to the bigger challenges that we face in the other 23 hours of our lives every day .

12:57

Yeah, no completely. And I was one of those people that I think it changes with time, right? As well. I dunno if you see this with your clients, like in my twenties I was all about the bikini, right? That just, I mean I lived in a bikini, I'm from a beach . My , I grew up on a beach, in fact probably since like probably 15 and it was the seventies. So there's a lot of programming that I was going through about, you know, you have to look a certain way, my God. But then as I got older, and especially when you have a child, you know, you see your body very differently. And now, I mean, I honestly go to work out to be strong . I , I'm kind of thinking of my heart sometimes when I'm like lifting, I actually think like, gosh, I hope my heart is getting like stronger and my organ. Like, whereas before I would've just been thinking, God , I hope my acid's getting smaller. So I think, yeah, I dunno if this is a thing with age and I don't even see it. But yeah, it's definitely, I love what you said about body image is the Trojan horse because yeah, get in , but then your mind kind of, it all changes once you start, which I think is that's , that's what keeps you going, right? Because if you stop, your body doesn't look the same. So if that's, if that's what you're going for, it can be a bit short-lived when you have those sorts of peaks and tr Absolutely. You said this thing, Jess, which I absolutely loved because I'm sure loads of people are gonna relate to this. 'cause I have done this so many times. You said harried breakfast of Diet Coke and many Snickers bars snagged from the office pantry and very little motivation to hit the gym at the end of yet another conference call that dragged on until 10:00 PM Like I have lived that and so many of my friends and colleagues have lived that. But if you're living that and if you're, you know, you've just come off that conference call, someone telling you to go to the gym, you know you need to go, right? But it's just so difficult to do it. Like what's your advice to people who are living there who wanna start, they've really got the most , they , they wanna start this fitness journey, but they just don't know how even to fit it in. Especially with Dubai, you know, Dubai is a very , um, it's a very work intensive place. They really like to get their pound of SL from us when it comes to work. You know , how do you take that first step, which just must seem so overwhelming to people?

14:39

I think it absolutely seems overwhelming and I can sympathize with that because I am myself a very all or nothing person. So when I was in a corporate role where I was, you know, working long hours and had a hectic busy schedule dictated by other people, I would often feel like, oh well you know, what's the point of starting to train if I just kind of have 30 minutes, you know, a few days a week or whatever because I very much, if I'm not gonna do something well and to the standards that I set for myself, I am sort of like, well burn it all down. What's the point of doing anything? So the advice that I would give, and this is advice that I have to give to myself a lot, is just start with something. There are very few people I would reckon listening to this podcast who couldn't benefit from doing a 10 minute body weight workout with no equipment three times a week in their own house, right? Like, I mean that the vast majority of the human population could still get fitter by implementing some kind of, you know, structured, targeted training regime with literally like 10 minutes and their own body weight, you know, minimal equipment, what have you. So my advice would be take on that attitude of just start with something and be willing to invest a little bit of the time that you don't think you have in figuring out how to do it and make it work for you. Right? So maybe you know that you really only have 10 minutes three times a week, but you're gonna need to invest a couple hours upfront either having a couple, one-on-one sessions with a trainer, you know, to just learn some moves and how to move safely and well watching some YouTube videos to get an idea of like how you would structure an app and workout , you know, doing your own research, Googling around, you know, looking up some tiktoks, whatever it is, but like have the attitude of I need to start with something, but I may need to invest a little bit more upfront to set myself up for success down the road. Yeah,

16:26

No, I completely agree. Start small and I think for me and for quite a lot of people that I know as well, I think Covid made a big difference because we began to work from home. I'll be honest, the days I exercise the most are the days I work from home because I can get up early and I don't have to commute. I have to sit in a car 45 minutes each way to get to the office. So it instantly frees up so much of my time.

16:43

That's one thing that I love that has come out of covid is the normalization of you can do fitness anywhere and with anything and you know, with the training, the fitness trainer community kind of putting out more content that says you don't have to come to the gym, you don't have to see me in person, you don't need a lot of equipment. I think that mindset shift fitness can happen anywhere is absolutely one of the best things to come out of Covid. No,

17:06

I agree. I I saw that you um, you do, you are doing some workouts down at the beach and I often see people at the beach when I'm dragging Myd body up and down the running track. I see people like first thing in the morning doing, like there's a little old couple that do Tai chi and then there's loads of people doing yoga and then there's people walking and running and you don't have to be in the gym, you know, you can just be anywhere. And I think, yeah, you're right. I remember someone saying to me before Covid when I was moaning about not being able to exercise in , and they said, why don't you exercise at home? And literally it was like my head had exploded. I'd never ever thought ever about exercising at home. Like when I grew up it was, you get a gym membership or you get a trainer and you very much go there. It's not something that is in your life, it's not something that's made easy for you and it's not something that you can do on your own. So yeah, you're right. I think that mind shift change has helped a lot of people.

17:48

Well and you know , that's where like the fitness industry, which is you know, a huge multi-billion dollar industry has spent a lot of time and money convincing people that um, you know, you need their products and you need their supplements and you need their equipment and their clothes and whatever. And we've sort of disconnected from the fact that you can do some air squats and some pushups and some burpees literally anywhere in the world that you are. So covid kind of brought us back to that , uh, realization that like we basically have all the tools that we need to be fit as long as we have a little bit of guide .

18:14

Yeah , such a great point. You seem to me when I talk to you, when I see your content, like you have a very clear purpose in your life. You know, you're very sort of, you know , you have a very clear vision. How can we sort of discover our purpose? You know, if we're not like almost a professional athlete, if we're not having this sort of background, like how can we tap into that? How did you manage to do it?

18:32

I think you start with thinking about the things you do where you lose track of time. There's a lot of talk about flow states and I think that that's really something to look at. You know, what are the things that you're doing in your life that you just perform effortlessly and naturally, an hour, two hours can go by and you don't even realize. And I think that that is a good indicator as to some of the things that can give you purpose. You know, if, if I look back on my career prior to making the shift and going into fitness, you know, I was always sneaking out at lunch to go for a run and like watching YouTube videos of CrossFitters, you know, with the YouTube box minimized in the corner of my screen as I was like working on a PowerPoint deck and stuff. So, you know, think about the things that you do that make the time just fly by and try to incorporate more and more of those into your life.

19:30

I love it . And coming onto like when things are not so great, and if you're having a day where you just really can't face it, like if you are feeling overwhelmed, I mean, do you have days like that? And if you do, how do you sort of get through them? Could you just tell us a bit more about what your coping strategies are for days like this?

19:45

That's a great question. Yeah, I wish that I had a perfect answer for you. I mean, it, it's something that I've certainly thought a lot about, especially in the past couple of years of um, you know, I've spent the past couple of years going through IVF and then having a very rough pregnancy and you know, probably those couple of years have been the hardest years of my life. If I think back on it now. And I think the way that I've coped is to just keep trying a new thing until you hit on something that changes your mood or your state or your outlook, right? And of course there's all those cliche tips of like, take a walk outside, talk to a friend, drink some water, sit in the sun, you know, whatever. And sometimes those things work, but sometimes you try all of them and you try to be perfect at feeling better and none of them help. So you have to just keep trying something else and keep trying , keep trying, keep trying until you find something that helps you unwind, helps you de-stress helps you get your mind off of it. And you know, that thing might be scrolling through TikTok . That thing might be just like going to a mall, you know, for example, like in the summer of Dubai when I was like very pregnant and horribly depressed and didn't wanna leave my house, like I would force myself just to go to the mall and like get a Starbucks so that I had to talk to a human. And oftentimes that would succeed in making me feel at least a bit more like a human myself. So just kind of keep trying something until you find something that sticks. And it doesn't have to be, you know, the stereotypical like , um, unicorns and puppy cuddle, a rainbow advice that you tend to get about dealing with hard times.

21:34

Yeah, no, I agree. It's sometimes, like you say , it's these small connections, right? Which I think, I think sometimes we overlook them, but it's, you know , saying hi to the person at Starbucks or Costa or wherever saying hello to people that you see as you pass them. Like the , there's scientific evidence that this stuff actually works in terms of making you feel connected to other humans, connected to your community. And yeah, you know, going away on some self-care retreat is not achievable really for most of , most of us, you know, in our day-to-day lives. So how can we sort of tap into it on a day-to-day I think is the most important. And on this kind of leads quite nicely into what I wanted to ask you about next, which is you've been really open about your mental health struggles, which I absolutely love it when people open up because I've had my own, I think many people have that you wouldn't necessarily expect, right? So I just wanted to ask you, what prompted you to share that and then what kind of response did you get from people when you were open about it?

22:21

Yeah, so I've struggled with depression and anxiety pretty much all of my life. Looking back now, you know, knowing more about the symptoms and how they manifest for me. And I think now as an adult, I have grown into a person who, at least the outside doesn't seem stereotypically like what many people might picture depression and anxiety to look like. Just in terms of like, I'm engaging, I can play as pretty outgoing, although I'm , I'm actually very much an introvert, you know, I have the whole, the whole fitness angle and the energy and whatever. And so I have tried to be very open about my struggles with mental health just because I think it's important for people to know that struggling with mental health can look a lot of different ways and it doesn't necessarily manifest in, you know, somebody's sitting on their couch for a week on end just eating bags of potato chips and you know, not able to to leave their living room like, and I've been there too, <laugh>. But yeah , so anyhow, I've just tried to connect with people that a variety of us struggle with these issues and it doesn't always manifest or display itself outwardly in the way that people might think.

23:36

Yeah, no, I completely agree. And, and how do people react to it ? Jess, were people, did you sort of, were people, did they , you know , were they surprised? Were they supportive? Did people come out and say, I I feel the same way? Or people like, gosh, I'm surprised you're even sharing this. Like what was the reaction?

23:50

Yeah, it's funny, in this part of the world especially, I think that we still have a lot of stigmas around mental health , um, and a lot of misunderstandings. And so for example, probably 10 years ago I went to see a doctor and um, she was getting a list of medications that I was on and I said, oh, you know, and I take relex for anxiety. And she put down her pen and she stopped and she looked at me and she was like, oh , really ? You don't seem anxious. Oh ,

24:23

What you that come on?

24:25

And this was two minutes in to a conversation the first time that she had met me and she was a medical professional, right? So like if she had that reaction, imagine what your average person on the street thinks about mental health issues. So I think the reaction by and large has been positive and has resonated with people. But there is a lot of, I think education that if you decide to be open about sharing things like that, especially in this part of the world, in this cultural context, there is some education that you have to do or get to do as part of sharing. So people's reactions vary. Um, but I think in sharing I've realized that that, you know, I need to be willing to kind of take people along the journey with me and to sort of hold their hand a little bit to understand , um, you know, just because I'm not like visibly shaking in the two minutes that you have seen me in this doctor's appointment does not mean that I'm not struggling <laugh>.

25:24

Yeah, of course. Of course. And are you glad that you shared or did you regret it, do you think, gosh, maybe that people are not ready for it yet, or you, you think you made the right decision?

25:32

No. Oh gosh, I've never once regretted being open about my mental health struggles. I mean, sometimes I think, for example, my husband who's like a very private person and is not on social media and um, you know, doesn't really think that like mental health is a thing. We're working on it. Speaking of that education, I, I have to do a lot of it within the walls of my own home . But <laugh> of , I think sometimes he will like, you know, we'll be out walking the dogs for example, in our neighborhood and we will pass, you know, like a random like Emirati guy who I know and who happens to follow me on Instagram. 'cause I train his wife and he'll be like, this person knows all about your depression and your anxiety and your fertility struggles and you know, your sobriety and this and that and whatever. Like that's why are you so awkward as a human being <laugh> ? Um, but for me, like, I don't know , I don't like iveness, I don't like hiding things. I don't like secrets. Just like in general I'm kind of a big mouth . And so I guess, you know, I've just felt really good about just kind of being open and just being like, Hey, this is who I am, these are the things that I'm, you know, going through. And no , I've never regretted it

26:45

No good. I don't think you should. And I wouldn't either. I mean I'm the same when it comes to, I've shared about my sobriety as you know, on Insta and on social media and my husband is, has many of the similar traits to your husband actually. And he's like, you know, he's always says to me, you talk about it all the time, number one, I actually don't. I think that's honestly his perception. I really don't post very often. I maybe post like on the annual anniversary of it and I may mention like if I find a funny meme about you know, not drinking and how I feel, but I honestly don't think I post that much about it at all. Maybe I do, but it's just like part , it's not something I wanna hide. Like it's something that is me and also I'm quite proud of it. Jess like, like I think you should would feel as well, you know , it's like we have these challenges and we overcome them. And I'm almost six years now and the amount of people that have messaged me privately that have WhatsApped me, that have got my number, I don't even know where they get my number from. And they message me and they say either I think I have a problem, I know someone with a problem or not problem, whatever you wanna call it. Or I am , I'm feeling uncomfortable about my relationship with alcohol or someone else's relationship with alcohol. Like I'm not saying like I'm a one woman sobriety coach, but people do message me like in quite a lot and

27:52

Including me when I first stopped drinking. Yeah .

27:54

I never remember that's, we just met, you know , I just remembered that. So these connections that you make with people and these are the authentic connections for me as a person. One of the things, yeah, my purpose I feel is to have connections with people and to then maybe connect them with other people. And that's just what makes me feel happy and gives me purpose. So of course I'm gonna share that. Why would I hide it

28:15

A hundred percent? I mean, as humans we learn from observing the human experience, right? I mean, we're social beings. We learn from examining the human experience of others. And like I specifically remember, you know, with regards to when I decided that I had a problem with drinking and needed to stop drinking, I remember specifically like going to your and a few other people's Instagram pages who I knew didn't drink and you had your posts on on drinking are very helpful because you have like one year and that's what shows up in the grid or whatever. You can like scroll through your grid and see like one year, two years, whatever. So I was like going through your feed looking at those posts and I remember on one of them you said in the caption, this was the best decision I've ever made. And then I saw in the comment several other people commenting, same here, best decision I've ever made. And like I needed to just hear some real people that I knew, not somebody in a book, you know, not, I mean that that can be useful too and and is useful. But I needed to just like see some proof of like, okay, other people have done this thing, which seems big and scary and horrible and terrifying to me and come out of it on the other side saying it's the best thing they've ever done, therefore I can probably do it too.

29:31

Yeah, you're so right. It's kinda like one of these secretive things I think a little bit like mental health when you go, oh by the way, I don't do this thing anymore. And it's amazing. Notice if other people come out and say, I don't drink either or, you know, I take medication for my mental . So I think, yeah , by kind of opening the door we kind of give permission to other people to come out as well, which I think is really powerful.

29:49

A hundred percent. I wanted

29:51

To ask you about this anyway, so it's led beautifully into it. I mean, I think you've just passed a thousand days, right? Which is amazing Maru . What led you to sort of take that decision and how has it changed your life? How do you feel now?

30:02

It was kind of two-pronged. I had a growing realization that I needed to take the decision and then a specific event which prompted it. The, the growing realization came around to turning 39 and I saw all my friends having kids and you know, my husband and I hadn't decided whether we wanted kids and we had a lot of, let's say, public facing arguments for why we hadn't had kids, right? So we don't feel like anything's missing from our life. We really love our dogs, we really love to be able to be selfish with our time and our money and to, you know, travel and have adventures and whatever. So we had a lot of the external facing reasons that we cited for not having had a child. But around the time that I turned 39 and I started to realize that if I didn't make this decision one way or another, nature was eventually gonna make it for me. I started out this realization that the real reason that I hadn't decided to have a child was because I didn't know if I could stop drinking for nine months. And that was a horrific realization to have to sit with and to know in the back of my head and to hold onto , even as I kept drinking for quite a while after that. And then you get into a situation where like you're drinking more to deal with the stress of being worried about what is my relationship with alcohol that my fear of giving it up is keeping me from procreating. So that was the sort of big scary long-term driver that made me start to think about it. What really kicked me over the edge was in February of 2021, I went to go get my first shot of the covid vaccine and as the nurse put the needle in my arm, and this was like early on, there was a lot of like varying information, varying protocols around getting the vaccine and whatever. So as the nurse put the needle into my arm, she was like, okay, great, you know, go home. Your arm may be a little sore tomorrow and no alcohol for seven days.

32:01

Oh my goodness.

32:02

And like when I tell you the pit of terror that I felt in my stomach when she told me not to drink for seven days, it was just the most gripping sense of fear that I have ever felt. And so by the time I drove home, I had like Googled round at stoplights and like decided that based on my own Google research I could clearly still drink. And it was fine, but it was alarming enough that by the next time I went to get the second dose of the, of the vaccine, three weeks later I had stopped drinking and I have never looked back. So, you know, long term it was sort of realizing like, hey, my relationship with alcohol is such that it's preventing me from doing big things in my life that I think I otherwise might wanna do. And then short term it was , um, you know, nothing should be so important to you that aside from eating, sleeping and breathing, nothing should be so important to you that if someone tells you that for your own health, you can't do it for a week, that throws you into a tailspin of terror.

33:05

Oh, I didn't know that. That's so interesting. I don't think they told me that when I had my covid vaccine. Interesting. Yeah,

33:11

I mean I don't think that it's standard medical advice. No , no,

33:13

I don't think it is.

33:14

I think maybe it was just the universe, it was divine intervention. Like yeah, of course. Just taking me that, that one little push taking me down the road that I , uh, that I needed to finally tip over and make the decision. So yeah, who knows. Yeah,

33:26

No, absolutely. And I mean, how do you feel now, now that you've got through , I mean, a thousand days a long time. It's like, it's, it's well over, what are we three, gosh, sorry , my math . Awful. My math is awful. God , I should have known that.

33:37

<laugh> , it'll be three years alcohol free in , uh, in February.

33:40

Amazing.

33:41

Of 2024. Yeah, no, I mean <inaudible> as we say in the region, like thank God I just feel so thankful and free. There's a mantra, I'm not even sure what it's from. I think people say it sometimes in AA meetings, but it's grateful to be here, grateful to be sober. And that is literally just how I feel every single day. Now that I have this kind of , um, albatross off my back. I will say like it, it took me a while to get to that point, like the first six months or so, maybe even the first year, which I'm loathed to say because I feel like that might discourage some people. But in the interest of honesty, like early on was hard. It was really hard because alcohol was the coping mechanism that I had for, you know, numbing my anxiety, numbing my depression, dealing with stress. Like when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And alcohol was the tool that I had basically used for like a decade plus of my adult life to deal with some problems. And it wasn't a perfect tool, but it was the tool that I had . And so it was very hard early on, but the further away that I get from it, the better it gets.

34:56

Yeah, no, I completely agree. And I , I'm quite honest with people as well about, I found it hard at the beginning. I very clearly remember one evening when, 'cause I would just have to do anything to distract myself. And I can remember being in the garden with a packet of baby wipes, cleaning the garden furniture, like with the baby wipes because I , I'd literally, I'd cleaned the house, I'd cleaned the cupboards, I had like decluttered my wardrobes I'd given away. There was like nothing left of the house for me to do. So I went outside and after I'd swept and gardened and tidied, I was like, oh , she needs cleaning. So what kind , uh, baby wipes came out. So yeah, there was a lot of things because I just hadn't realized how much of a distraction it was and hadn't realized how much time it took up as well. 'cause you spend a lot of time thinking about drinking if you're in the mindset that we were of like, well maybe this isn't for me anymore. Then the thinking about the moderating, the drinking took a couple a lot of time. It was also really exhausting. Like as soon as I stop , that's what I say to people. 'cause a lot of people I know there's, there's all these stats isn't there, about how long it takes people to stop. So if you're actually thinking about stopping drinking, I think it's about eight years before you actually stop or something like this . So it's a wild amount of time. 'cause it takes so long because it's such an assiduous drug that is, is marketed so heavily to us and it's addictive . Absolutely, you're gonna be addicted to it. But yeah, it can take a long time to get to that point. And I always say to people like, get to that point and then it will get easier. The beginning is hard, but now, yeah, now I just, I feel exactly like you say , I feel free. I feel at peace. And mainly I just feel relief. Like people can't believe it. Now if I go out and people are drinking, I have, I don't care at the beginning I'd be a bit like, now I'm like okay, I don't , I don't care. 'cause I honestly, when I see you drink, all I feel is relief that I don't have to do it anymore. And that so freeing

36:33

A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Or you see the way that people change and, and again like this comes from someone who like loved alcohol, loved drinking so, and is fine with people drinking. Like I'm not anti alcohol by any stretch of the imagination. I'm anti alcohol for me. But you see people drinking and you see the way that their personalities change and it's not a good look. Like I remember I used to just feel like cute and like footloose and fancy free and like, you know, letting my hair down and uninhibited and then you see it from the outside and you're like, no man, like this is not a good look for you. Like you're just kind of on a five second delay and slurring your speech a little bit. Like <laugh>

37:16

And a bit repetitive.

37:17

Exactly. From the outside it's very different from how it feels on the inside. Yeah.

37:22

There's nothing better than the feeling about , you know, I'll go out with people and I love them all and I don't mind 'em drinking at all, like you say. But then just managing to slip away maybe about 10 30, 11. It's just like the magic time. And often if I , I've driven there as well, which, oh my god, driving to places and driving home is like a revelation. Yeah.

37:39

Never having to take awful full taxis in Dubai. Oh my God. It's wonderful. It's

37:44

Amazing. And I normally have like a ginger tea and like a heated cup 'cause I'm an elbow pensioner and I have that waiting in the car for me. And then I get in the car with my ginger tea and my little podcast and I drive home and I put my pajamas on and I do my skincare routine. I'm absolutely loving lines like the thought of swapping that now for what would've inevitably been, you know, one bottle of wine, two bottles of wine and taking a wrong turn and ending up in the Armani nightclub. Don't even know if that's still there. That's dating me as well. Yeah, I just feel pure relief. So I'm really glad that you feel the same because when people contact me who have also stopped drinking and they tell me, you know, I'm still sober and I feel amazing, it makes me feel like, so I'm just so pleased for them because it's like this amazing secret that you know, that some people know and some people don't. And when you meet someone else that knows, you're like, wow, you know what it's like. And it's amazing.

38:33

Absolutely.

38:34

Yeah. I'm really glad that you feel the same. I wanted to ask you, we touched on this a little bit earlier, about sort of getting through bad days, but because my po my podcast is all about good intentions, like how do you kind of ring fence and maintain sort of positive energy and your wellbeing and , and optimism as well? I mean the world is a really, it's pretty awful place at the moment. I think we're on day 45 or day 46 of the war on Palestine. I mean it's really hard. Um , and I say this on the personal front, it's really hard to stay positive and optimistic. How do you do it? How do you manage to keep going when it's really tough? When the world is going tell in a handicap ?

39:10

You know , I can't speak for global challenges, begin , you know, the tragic state of the current world because I think everyone processes and handles and reacts to those kinds of tragedies differently. But I think on a personal level, when I am going through something hard and trying to stay positive and trying to keep hope, it's a bit cheesy, but I really am guided by the mantra that the only way out is through. And that's something that kind of came to me probably like from the fitness world when you're like doing a terrible workout or running a marathon or whatever, if you know that you're not gonna let yourself quit, then the only way to get through it is to just keep going on. But I think it applies to many challenges outside of that sort of small bounded fitness sphere as well. Do you know, a similar kind of thing that I like to keep in mind is this is not forever, this is just for now. And um, it's something that I've had to draw on a lot, especially having a newborn baby at home, the way that my life has changed, obviously in so many ways for the better, but also in a lot of ways for the harder and scarier and more challenging. And just in trying to make those adjustments and reconcile myself to what my life looks like now, it's just coming back always over and over too . This is not forever. This is just for now. And you know, the only way outta this is through it. Like that's, you know, I just keep taking small steps and eventually I'll be on the other side of, of whatever it is that's challenging me. Um ,

40:56

Yeah, I agree. It's , it's a bit like this too shall pass, right? It's like nothing can last forever and eventually we'll get through it. No , I totally agree. I have that mindset too. You're a coach if you could coach anyone, could be a world leader, could be a celebrity, could be someone in the public eye. Do you have a dream coaching client? Who would they be and why?

41:14

I feel like I should say Donald Trump or something. <laugh> . He has this whole philosophy that humans shouldn't exercise because , uh, we're like batteries and we only have a finite amount of energy. And once you use that , uh, it's gone. Is

41:26

That what he says? And that's hysterical.

41:28

Yeah. Oh yeah, Google it. He has like a whole like position on it , right? That like , like literally we're batteries and the more you drain energy then the less that you have. I don't think he realizes we're rechargeable batteries. Um , but no, I definitely couldn't spend 60 minutes in the same room as Donald Trump without killing him, which might be good. Not that I'm advocating political violence, <laugh> , I mean in a public sphere , but no, this sounds like a cop out . But like my clients are my ideal clients. And I think what surprises people sometimes is the less fit someone is and the more uncertain they are about coming into the gym or using their body or you know, the more kind of challenges they have to overcome, the more I take fulfillment and joy in coaching them, which is something that I haven't probably communicated enough to the outside world in I feel like I, whatever limited social media presence I have, it's very like, you know, rah rah like hard things, CrossFit, like intense workouts, whatever. But genuinely the people that I most wanna coach are the people who like have never moved their body or used their body to do anything before because those are the people that have the most to gain from fitness. Before I started my coaching practice, I worked in a CrossFit gym coaching there. And that was wonderful and it was very cool to like help people get their first handstand pushup or to learn how to climb a rope or to, you know, back squat a hundred kilos for the first time. But what I ultimately realized was those are the people that, that already get it. They don't need my help. To the extent that someone who is overweight is pre-diabetic, you know, is struggling with mental health and maybe with confidence issues, all those kinds of things, those are the people where like, man, you teach that person how to squat and you give them a couple days where they feel sore and like they accomplish something and then they come back the next day and they can squat half a kilo more. And you know, they get the post-exercise endorphins and all of a sudden they're feeling great and happy and good about their life and what they've accomplished. That's my dream clients .

43:43

That's a great way of looking at it. I really love that. Thank you. And we love to talk about books on this podcast. So I always ask people, can you share a couple of books that have kind of shaped your life, that influenced you that you've maybe given as gifts to other people?

43:56

Absolutely. The book that I always cite is , my favorite book is a book that I read or assigned school reading the summer that I may be 12 or 13 and it's still in print. You can get it on Amazon, but you don't see it a lot in stores . It's called In These Girls Hope is a Muscle and it's by an author called Madeline Blay . And it follows a high school women's basketball team in Massachusetts as they go on their road to a ski championship season. And it is just the most life affirming study of what it is to be female, what it is to be a girl, what it is to be at that time in the world when you are gaining confidence, when you're learning about your own power. Of course, given the context of the book, when you're learning about the power of sport and the things that you can accomplish through sport and through grit and determination and a shared goal with a team. It's just a really like wholesome your hearted tribute to the power of all of those things. So that like a hundred percent kind of shaped a lot of my outlooks foundationally when I was again, you know , 12 or 13 or however old I was when I read it. And I reread it kind of every five or 10 years. And I always find like a different element of inspiration in the paths of these girls on the road to success. So it's a bit of an unconventional , um,

45:29

It sounds amazing

45:30

Seic choice, but uh, yeah, in these girls, hope is a Muslim

45:33

And is it a fiction or it's following a real group of people itself ? No, it's,

45:36

It's following a real, real group of people , of

45:38

People . I say that even better .

45:39

In fact, I met a girl in Dubai , uh, you know , five, 10 years ago who had gone to high school with and knew some of the girls in the book, which was like, whoa . Like why does it always come back to Dubai? Why do you always meet people in Dubai who like somehow connect to other parts of your life? But yeah, no, it , it's nonfiction. It

45:55

Sounds fantastic and it's definitely a book that hasn't been mentioned before. So I love it when people come up with new books that we've not, we've not heard of. Amazing. I'm gonna try and track it down. Sounds fantastic. And a bit of a deep question, a couple of deep questions to end on. I mean, why do you think we're here, Jess? What's our purpose on earth?

46:10

I have thought about this a lot in the past three months since becoming a mother, actually late night staring bleary-eyed at your baby trying to get him to sleep. And , um, I've thought so much about the power of nurturing and that to nurture is the most powerful thing that we can do as humans. And I guess wrapped up in nurturing is love, which is related and is also a , I think a foundational reason for why we're here. But to nurture, to draw out potential in someone I think is really at our most core DNA , like what we, I mean certainly for me, now that I am a woman who has a child, like it feels very fundamental to the purpose of who I am is to nurture. Beautiful.

47:08

I really love that. And if you have to look back on sort of your life, your journey, what's got you to this point? What do you think is your greatest achievement?

47:15

It's cliche, but I would have to say my son all 11 weeks and two days, 11 weeks and one day of him , you know, for who he is and for the fact that I created a person, but also for everything that I had to , um, I don't wanna say go through, but for the life that I had to live in order to be able to create him, right? In terms of, I mean, meaning my husband, learning how to have, you know, an adult mature, loving partnership and to trust and to be vulnerable and, and that kind of thing. To then sobriety and changing my relationship with something that was really not serving my life. And then to my fertility journey and a couple of years of IVF and just really feeling lousy and feeling I'm at my most depressed , at my most low, and having to find a way to get through that, that journey. And then having it end with this like perfect little human being. It doesn't feel like, well , I could have any accomplishment that that would top that.

48:23

What a gorgeous, gorgeous point to end on. Little Cha . I loved it. Thank you so much, Jess. That was such a lovely conversation. I really enjoyed

48:31

It. Thank you for having me. It was really fun.