It’s never easy having to let go of one passion, even for another. And when it comes to choosing, how do you know? For Kendra Perry, it was a calling. Today on The Wealthy Coach, Kendra answers the question and goes way back to when she was starting and tells her story of unemployment, finding the perfect job, and having to give it up. Tune in and find out what made her switch from health coaching to business coaching.
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The REAL Reason Why I Left Health Coaching
In this episode, I am going to be diving a little bit more into my story and the real reason why I switched from health coaching to business coaching. This is a common question that I get asked, like, “What made you switch?” I made the official switch back in 2019. To show you how I got there to make that decision, we have to go back to 2014. That was when I was starting my business.
In the spring of 2014, I finished the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Certification Program, so I graduated. That summer, I was working my regular job in forestry. This is the closest thing to a real job I have ever had. I have never worked a regular corporate 9:00 to 5:00. I have never worked year-round with forestry. At least in British Columbia, where we have winter, you work from usually about April to maybe October. You get laid off and you collect unemployment over the winter, which was great. If you know a little bit about my story, I am a passionate skier. At that time, I was trying to be a professional skier. That would give me the winter off to ski, which was great.
When I graduated from Functional Diagnostic Nutrition, I started taking clients, but I was doing it on the side. I was working 50 hours a week in a physical job in the forest. It was pretty exhausting, but I would take the odd client on weekends and in the evenings. I was trying to figure out how I was going to go all-in on my business. I knew I was going to get laid off in the fall and I was going to get access to the unemployment checks. I didn’t know how to go from making money in my job and unemployment checks to making that amount of money in my business.
On unemployment, I need about $1,600 a month, which is crazy when I am thinking back, “How did I live off so little money?” I made it work and it was enough to pay my bills. I had to live frugally. I was looking into funding. There is this local organization called Community Features. They had a small business startup program where, essentially, you could get government funding. It was similar to what I would make on unemployment, but you would build your business.
I went to the meetings for that. It seemed like it was stressful. They wanted you to build this huge plan. I remember them saying that they had Kleenex in their single room because people would break down and cry. That didn’t sound great to me because, at that time, I was dealing with a lot of health issues, like insomnia and chronic fatigue. This is a big reason why I was even interested in health and wellness, to begin with, and I was trying to figure out what was going on in my own body.
This idea of not being stressed out didn’t feel aligned with what I was trying to do with my health. I didn’t feel like I needed a business plan. They seemed wary about online business. They were like, “We don’t approve a lot of online businesses because it is not a thing.” It is not like you can just build a website. I am like, “I know that.” It didn’t feel aligned but I was in this predicament because I didn’t know what to do.
From 2014 going into 2015, I was on unemployment. I was blogging and building programs. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do and at what point I was going to pull the plug. The thing with unemployment, as soon as you start making your own money, you can’t collect it anymore. I wanted to feel sure that I would be able to replace that income.
The Fresh Start
In early 2015, I saw that Functional Diagnostic Nutrition posted a job for a course mentorship position, essentially mentoring students as they went through the program. I remember it was $25 an hour. That was huge to me. I was like, “Wow.” In my forestry job, I was making about C$18 to C$20 an hour. $25 an hour is almost C$35 an hour. It was almost double what I was making in forestry. I thought that sounded like amazing money. They advertised for about 20 to 25 hours a week, so it was a part-time position.
I was like, “I am going to get this position 100% because I have to. If I got this, it would pay me more than 20 hours working in FDN than it was in my 50-hour job.” I ended up getting it. I was so happy. That was the day that I stopped filing my reports for my unemployment and I went all-in on my business. It was April of 2015. Since the day that I officially went all-in on my business, I have been working with coaches and practitioners.
In this role with FDN, I would meet with the students regularly. I would help them with their exams. I was there for them via email and would help them through the program. Ultimately, because of that position, I got a lot of questions from students about running their businesses. I ended up getting a lot of questions about the business. I was doing a lot of business coaching and business consulting and using my own experience as an example. I was building my business and learning things so I would share that with my students.
In 2016, I was promoted to the Director of the FDN Graduate Program, which they call their AFDNP Association. At that time, it was in its infancy. I was responsible for developing the program, running it, and coming up with ideas. It was a fun position because I had a lot of creative independence. They left me to my own devices to develop the program as I wanted. Because of that, I was answering a lot of questions in the Facebook group, and a lot of them were about business. I ended up doing a lot of the monthly webinars that were called Strictly Business. That was their monthly business training webinar.
Focusing On The Business
Ultimately, I ended up leading a lot of those, and I would create training based on the experience I was having and what I was learning. I was good at it. I always had a lot of fun with it. I always felt excited about it. In 2018, after three years with FDN, I decided it was time to move on. I love FDN. I am still much involved in that organization. I do a lot of training for them because they changed my life. They changed my life with my health and my business. It changed everything for me.
I cannot be more grateful to that program for what it taught me about health but also for the financial support it essentially gave me when I was starting my business. I don’t know what I would have done without that position. They have supported me so much. I love that organization and that program. If you are looking for a certification program to build your business and you are interested in utilizing lab tests, then this is the top program.
In 2018, I decided to leave. It was a scary decision because I was going from making pretty good money with my part-time job and paying my bills to go all-in on my business. It is full-time making my own money. I remember being scared. It was a scary move, but at that point, I was generating $60,000 to $80,000 a year. As soon as I left FDN, I hit six figures quite quickly because I finally had the time to focus on income-generating activities. That’s what happened in 2018.
The Burn Out
A few different things happened that year. The first thing that I noticed was that I missed working with the practitioners and teaching business. Suddenly, I wasn’t teaching business anymore. I do remember missing that. Ultimately, I ended up doing a little bit of business consulting on the side because I had some of the FDN students reaching out to me and saying, “Can I consult with you so you can teach me how you built your business?”
The other thing that was happening was I was starting to burn out with health. I was having a ton of health issues of my own. I built my business in one of the most profound health crises of my life. The fatigue I was experiencing was rough. Because of that, I was having a lot of hopelessness and depression. That’s what I built my business in. It was quite the ordeal. At that point, I had made a lot of improvements with what I had learned in FDN and what I eventually learned studying hair tissue mineral analysis, but I was still stuck.
I had seen a lot of improvements in other symptoms. I had had these windows of feeling normal, but I was still in this deep state of fatigue. I was exhausted trying to figure out my own health because I was trying to figure out my client’s health. I was diving into their lab tests and their intake and trying to help them. In my off time, I was obsessively researching all this health stuff. It became too much. The clients I tend to work with are chronically ill. Because I was pretty chronically ill, I attracted that type of person. I am so forever grateful that I got to help them. A lot of them saw great success and I am forever grateful for that. It ended up being a lot. I was truly burning out. I was starting to notice that I was tired.
I had this experience. This was interesting. There was a health coach that I followed. She was a health coach and made the transition into business coaching. I have followed her forever ever since then, but I was there when she was making that transition. I remember when she was doing that, I felt all this jealousy. I would feel all this ickiness, resistance, and resentment towards her. I could not figure out what it was but I feel this certain way when I consume her content.
I realized that I was feeling jealous because I wanted to be doing what she was doing. I had to go through this weird thing while I was like, “I don’t want to copy. That’s weird. Isn’t that copying? I can’t do what she’s doing. She’s already doing it.” I went through that whole thing. It was weird. Finally, I realized, “I need to do what is best for me. Who cares if this other person is also doing it? There’s room for everyone. I had to work through that.”
I decided to create a business coaching program, which I called Health Coach Accelerator. It is a group mentorship program, but originally it was a 90-day one-on-one coaching program that I sold for $5,000. I enrolled people in it easily. I enjoyed teaching it and doing it. It was fun. I am forever grateful to those first 10 or 15 coaches through it because I learned so much.
Finding My Calling
Ultimately, the information I got is what allowed me to create what is Health Coach Accelerator now. This was 2018. I was working with health clients. I was running my group membership program high on energy, which helped women reverse their chronic fatigue. I was also taking on business coaching clients. Essentially, I had two niches. I was posting both on social media. I decided to devote certain platforms to one thing or the other. Instagram was for business coaching. Pinterest was for health. LinkedIn was for business coaching and Facebook was for health or something like that.
I thought that would be great, but ultimately it was exhausting. I had to have 2 different funnels, 2 different types of content, 2 different niches, and 2 different messages. It was double the work. I remember my coach at that time told me, “You need to choose. It doesn’t seem like it is going to be sustainable for you to build these two businesses at once. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? What is the thing that, in your gut, you feel you are more passionate about?”
It was instant. I knew it was business coaching. I was more passionate about that at that point. I knew I needed to take a break from talking about health. I ended up selling off that group membership program to the coach who was working inside it for me, which was great. She took it over. That was fantastic. I fully transitioned my niche. I ended up hiring my own health coach who was Dr. Evan Hirsch. He has FixYourFatigue.org. He is an amazing coach. If you were someone who’s dealing with chronic fatigue, Lyme disease, mold, babesia, Bartonella, mycoplasma, or any of those weird tick co-infections, he is the man.
He’s an amazing coach. He’s incredibly humble, calm, balanced, and knows his stuff. I would recommend anyone to work with him who is looking for a good coach to help them. That’s what I did in 2019. I fully transitioned. I said goodbye to all the health coaching clients and programs. I fully transitioned over to focusing on my one-on-one program, Health Coach Accelerator. In the summer of 2019, a friend of mine, Christine Hansen, and I decided to run a year-long mastermind program.
I used to have a podcast with her called the 360 Health Biz Podcast. We both spoke at the FDN Conference in November of 2019. By early 2020, we started running the 360 Health Biz Mastermind, which was myself and Christine plus twelve coaches. We worked with them for a year. While that was a fun program, I learned a lot from it. Running a mastermind that was supposed to have live events in 2020 with new coaches starting their business was a crap show. 2020 was probably a crap show for everyone.
I remember we were supposed to be running our live event on March 20th, 2020. Everything got shut down. The borders and flights got grounded in Europe maybe a week before the event. It was incredibly stressful. We had a difficult time trying to get our deposit back from the resort. We had to cancel both events, plus we had new business owners trying to start their business with everything that went on in 2020, which was the pandemic, the shame around selling, the Black Lives Matter, and the election.
It was crazy. It became abundantly clear after that that I wanted to do something a little bit different. I did not want to have live events in the mix. It was a bit too non-minimalist for me. I realized that I needed to take Health Coach Accelerator and turn it into a group mentorship program. I ended up launching Health Coach Accelerator in the fall of 2020 as a group mentorship program. That’s what I have been doing ever since. The only way to work with me if you want business coaching is inside my group mentorship program, which is a 90-day program, Health Coach Accelerator.
It has been a long time in the making. It has gone through multiple iterations, but I love it. I have so much fun. I love every student in that program, and there is nothing that makes me happier than seeing our students get results, have breakthroughs, and finally start getting out of their own way and pursuing the business and life they truly want. It is truly a gift and I am grateful. It has been a long journey, but that is the real reason why I decided to transition from health coaching to business coaching.
I am still forever passionate about health. I am still a health nerd and love to geek out about health. I still do all kinds of weird biohacking things. I do breathwork. I have a cold vest. I do cold therapy. I have got my blue blockers. I eat weird foods. I am still all about that. I am still incredibly passionate about health. It will always be my first passion. For me, the impact that I want to have on the world is helping you build your business.
You are the one who can go off and help dozens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of people but only if you can build your business. If your business isn’t working, then you are not going to help the people who desperately need your help. That’s why I am passionate about this. To be honest, I love the business and the strategy. It is fun for me. I find it so interesting. I love the psychology of all of it. I do believe I found my calling.
That is my story. I hope you enjoyed that. I hope that gives you a little bit more insight into why I do what I do and how that journey unfolded. If you liked this episode of the show, I would love it if you could leave me a five-star review on Apple Podcast. If that is too much effort for you, which I totally get, hit the subscribe button or the follow button for this show. That alone helps me. That’s a simple two-second way that you can support me and this show.
If you have any questions about this episode, feel free to shoot me a direct message on Instagram. My handle is @KendraPerryInc. I loved chatting with you in DM. Pop in, say hi, tell me what you loved about this episode or another episode and let’s connect. My friend, that is all I have for you. As always, thank you so much for tuning in. I will see you next episode. Same time, the same place where I help you become wealthy AF.
Important Links
- Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Training Program
- Health Coach Accelerator
- FixYourFatigue.org
- 360 Health Biz Podcast – Apple Podcasts
- Apple Podcast – The Wealthy Coach
- @KendraPerryInc – Instagram
