Season 2 Faves & Season 3 Sneak Peek!
Today I am sharing my top 5 favorite episodes from season 2 of the podcast, and a sneak peek of the AMAZING things to come in season 3!
Podcasting has been my favorite part of this virtual business journey since I stepped away from emergency medicine 2 and a half years ago. I am constantly blown away by the incredible guests that take time from their day to chat, and I have been blessed by their stories and expertise as many of you have as well.
In fact, it is thanks to you that in its first year, it hit the top 3% worldwide of health and fitness podcasts and this spring hit the top 2.5%. This global rating is calculated by the definitive podcast database at Listen Notes and is based on downloads and podcast reviews.
If you have not written a review yet for the imPERFECTly emPOWERed podcast I would be so grateful if you would take a minute to do it HERE. Just mention an episode that has resonated with you and why. Thank you so much!
What an honor it has been to hear from you. It is because of my amazing listeners that I am in podcasting for the long haul, and in an effort to maintain quality and sustainability, I have decided to podcast in seasons that correlate with my kids’ school calendar which will mean taking off for the months of June and July.
The workaholic in me hates the idea of taking a break for 2 months and the business side of me recognizes the risk of losing listeners in the interim, but I want to practice what I preach and put my money where my mouth is by promoting a home/work life of balance and not an all-or-nothing, hustle-harder approach. Maybe you need this permission too, but it is ok to take a break.
So today wraps up season 2 and in today’s show, I am sharing my top 5 favorite episodes from season 2 (and why!) and a super fun look at the amazing things coming in season 3!
I sincerely hope you will join us for season 3 which will air on Tuesday, August 1, and will continue to air every Tuesday thereafter.
You are amazing. And you are loved.
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Transcript
We have a rockstar lineup already for season three, we are going to really hone into the concept of health, home, fitness, and family. There’s a lot of home stuff on the podcast that’s going to continue to be there because as I have said before, the walls of our home. As women have a direct impact on three specific dimensions of our health, our emotional health, our mental health, and our social health.
Not as much on the other two, which is physical and spiritual, but it has a massive impact on those other three dimensions of our health. So you will continue to get tips, budget friendly ideas to design efficient kitchens to decorate, to fill in the blank. There will still be home stuff because it is such a massive part of our health, especially as women.
But we are going to really hone a little bit more. On the concept of health fitness, welcome to the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast with DIY Healthy Lifestyle blogger Ahna Fulmer empowering you to transform your life one imperfect day at a time. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast.
I’m your host, Ahna Fulmer today we are wrapping up season two of the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast. I am going to share my top five favorite episodes from this last season and give you a little sneak peek of the amazing things to come for season three of the podcast. Where we’re headed, why we’re going the direction that we’re going, what you can expect when Season Three airs on August 1st.
Podcasting has truly been my favorite part of this virtual. Business entrepreneur journey so far since I stepped away from emergency medicine two and a half years ago, I am constantly blown away by the incredible guests that find their way onto my show, take time from their day to share their stories and their expert advice.
I know I have been blessed as well, as many of you have, and really it is. Thanks. To you all, to the listeners, to those of you who watch on YouTube. Thank you. This podcast hit the top 3% worldwide in health and fitness podcasts in its first year, but in the last half a year, it hit the top 2.5%. Moving that needle even 0.5% is massive when you’re kind of already at the top like that.
So I truly, I cannot thank you enough. I’ve been so blown away those numbers. By the way, those ratings are based on downloads and podcast reviews, so I have to throw this plug in here. If you have not written a review yet on Apple Podcast, for whatever reason, apple is the name of the game in the podcasting world.
If you have not written a review yet, I would be. So grateful. If you would take the time to do that for the show. I included the link in the show notes. I’d be so honored if you would take the time to rate and write a written review of the show. If you’re wondering, I don’t even know what to write. You can just mention an episode that has resonated with you and why.
Truly, it’s been an honor to hear from you and it is because of all of you. Amazing list. And just my love for doing this and meeting people and learning from people and offering you more scientifically based advice for holistic wellness in our hearts and homes and family, that I’m in this for the long haul in an effort to practice what I preach.
And pursue an approach that is balanced as opposed to the all or nothing mentality, as well as to be able to maintain the quality and sustainability of the show. I’ve decided to podcast in seasons, so what this will look like is it will run from August to May in sync with my kids’ school calendar. So I am going to completely take off in June and July in order to really take some of the busyness away and embrace more time on vacation just like my kids are, and my husband’s a teacher as well.
So in an effort to practice what I preach, the workaholic in me. Hates the idea of taking a break for two months. I like the consistency of once a week. You know, there’s gonna be an episode on Tuesday, and the business side of me recognizes the risk of losing listeners in the interim. Everything you read on the business of podcasting is all about consistency, but truly, truly, for those of you busy women that constantly feel the pressure of having to hustle harder to do, do, do I really?
This is. An example of me trying to practice what I preach, put my money where my mouth is by promoting a home work life balance that continues to push back all or nothing hustle harder. Croach. So it is okay to take a break. I sincerely hope you come back in August and the next episode will error August 1st and every Tuesday thereafter.
But let me press rewind a little bit and share with you my. Top five favorite episodes from this season. Season two has encompassed every episode from December until now. All right, number five, we’ll go five to one. I really appreciated all of these episodes. I mean, every single episode, the guests I thoroughly enjoy, but I’m gonna share with you five that especially were meaningful to me for various reasons.
And this one I really enjoyed because. She highlighted a disorder that so many women have struggled with and yet could probably not have put a name to it. This was episode 114 with Kiki Atheist called Conquer Emotional Eating and Enjoy Food Freedom in Three Steps with Intentional Eating Coach Kiki Atheist.
I loved the fact that she was so niche down. To intentional eating. We talked a lot about different things, but the bottom line that I took away from this that I really, really enjoyed is that our society with the diet culture has created a disordered eating, which is not just what people typically think of as an eating disorder, like bulimia, anorexia, but just simply.
Thinking too much about food, being food obsessive, even if you are relatively healthy. Otherwise, there is an issue with the fact that some of us just simply think too much about food, and this was a really great episode. She was very sensitive to eating disorders, if that’s something that you’ve struggled with, certainly a fair warning, but she had so many great.
Practical tips, and we talked about our own experiences. I love that she is serving a whole community of women who are struggling, but not with the classic disordered eating that we would think of. I highly, highly recommend this episode if you are a dieter, if you are somebody who has really struggled in with weight or just sort of with an obsession.
Around food. This is an episode worth listening to. I guarantee you, you will take something away from it. Number four of my top five favorite from this last season was episode 115, how to Save money and Relieve Financial Stress with author, speaker, and financial advisor, Chris Felton. I had several revelations during this interview.
I have been open before about the fact that I. Have had to learn through trial and error and making mistakes when it comes to finances, which is a little bit of an eyebrow raise considering I am now an entrepreneur managing all of my own finances for a business. But I loved his perspective. He shared his own story of.
Basically being on the brink of financial ruin and one, the power of forgiveness in moving forward. And he talks about an exercise that he was encouraged to do that I thought was so powerful in helping him move forward. And I really thought it was an incredible exercise, very practical that you can use, especially if you’re struggling with that sense of guilt and shame, really regardless of what it is.
In his case, it was financial and it was a financial advisor who was on the brink of financial ruin himself. Another thing that he said that really resonated with me was the exercise of writing down all your beliefs about money. I did this and it was incredibly eye-opening, and this is something that I have had to come to terms with myself over the last several years, and I’ll tell you a couple things that I definitely wrote on my list that he addressed was, one, money is hard to save.
Two. You shouldn’t take risks with money. This was something I did think I should say once upon a time, three. Debt is bad and should be paid off right away. That third one, that debt is bad and should be paid off right away. He talked about. A practice that was such a light bulb moment for me with finances.
It has literally revolutionized an understanding of mine that speaks to one of my money beliefs that it is hard to save and it is this, the importance of working out the money saving muscle. And what he said is like, oh my gosh, I can totally, totally see how I was doing this over the years. Zach and I both were doing this.
He said, the problem is that we’re often told that debt is bad, which I’ll be honest, I haven’t always bought into. I have no problem for good or for bad. I don’t necessarily mind debt if it is like short-term investment to a long-term goal, and I have a strategy in place for leveraging that debt to ultimately profit, if that makes sense.
However, his point was this, that too often what we end up doing is we take the excess income that we have. And we’re told we should instantly put it to pay off our debt. He said the problem with that is that if you have never been in the habit of saving, you create a short-term savings goal and you meet that goal, you’re constantly feeding this negative cycle of money is hard to save.
What he suggests you do instead say you have to use simple numbers. Say that you have a hundred extra dollars a month, a week, whatever it is, a hundred dollars that you. Keep paying off your debt. Maybe you put 50 extra dollars to the loan, whatever it is, but then you take the other 50 and you put it into savings as opposed to taking the entire $100.
And putting it towards your debt. His point is that you need to change the belief that saving is hard, and if you are constantly spending your life paying off debt, you will always struggle to save. This concept to me was just, I absolutely loved it. I’ll never forget it. I thought it was. It made so much sense to me because that has been true of us.
We’ve been really, really, really good about paying off debt, but we have struggled to save. Now, we’ve gotten a lot better over the last couple years, but in our like 12 year marriage and history and just personally, even before I got married, this was a concept that I really. Struggled with and so I thought that was absolutely brilliant.
If you are in a similar place, and some people don’t struggle with this, some people were raised with like a very financially minded, like you were taught how to manage money really early. For those of us that that wasn’t really structured into our upbringing, I thought this was a really. Excellent, excellent episode.
I learned so much from Chris and highly, highly recommend it if you feel like you could use some financial guidance. He just said a lot of really, really great things, and when we talk about holistic health, you said if you don’t have financial peace, you probably don’t have peace. If you are not financially at rest, that doesn’t mean you have all the success income.
It means that you’re not stressing over finances. If you are stressing over finances, you are probably struggling in other areas of your health. So again, great episode. One of my favorites may be of all time actually that I’ve done. For me personally, it really resonated. You have tried it all, worried you will never lose the extra weight or reclaim the energy you once enjoyed.
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Free seven day Fat loss accelerator course today and start your own transformation story, episode one 18. This is number three on my top five breathing techniques to release stress and relax with functional breathing, coach JoAhna Crisc. I was so unaware of some of the science behind. Breathing. I have been a huge proponent, I’ve shared it before, of the 4 78 breathing technique to help you relax and fall asleep faster.
I personally have used that one with my kids, specifically Graceland, my oldest daughter. But she shared such incredible techniques to use breathing to help manage stress and anxiety. And what I loved about it too is it really made me self-conscious of that exhale phase. Her point is that in stress and chronic anxiety, we are breathing faster and more shallow, and ultimately you end up retaining co2, which is not healthy because instead of allowing for a long, relaxed exhale, we inhale again too quickly.
So she gave really, really great tips on. This holistic stress management technique. If you have kids that struggle with anxiety, I cannot recommend this episode enough. Personally, I recommend this episode being shared with school principals, with educational leaders, like we need to be teaching our children how to use these management techniques.
Your teens, she even gave tips for how to use this with kids She offers. In this episode, a free consult. You guys, this is well worth the money. In fact, I actually have not done it yet. I need to want to do it with our whole family, with her, so that our kids can learn techniques from her. She’s really, really incredible.
Cannot recommend this enough anywhere around the world. She, herself has an incredible story, heartbreaking, difficult, and she shares how this. Practice revolutionized her mental health as well as physical number two of my top five from season two is episode 1 17, 27 years of cousins camp with grandma and grandpa and my cousins.
This was such a fun episode. This was the. First group episode interview that I did. I’ve had couples on the show, but I have never actually done like a group of us. I would say it went pretty well. There wasn’t too many voiceovers, if you will. This one is pretty obvious why it was special to me. It was one really meaningful to have my cousins and grandparents on this show, but this one is such a great testimony to the power of intentional time.
Even if it’s not with your family, even if it’s not with biological family, the concept of investing, especially in children as an adult, we just passed Mother’s Day and I know that there’s a lot of women who would give anything to be a mom. They weren’t able to, or their kids were grown and out of the house and they missed the time, you know, with their children, whatever.
I think the number one takeaway from this, Episode and from my own personal experience is the concept of being intentional with your time and your relationships. Whoever those relationships are with you might not have the credible family legacy that I have. I am incredibly, I always say there’s many different types of wealth and I have been incredibly blessed with.
Familial wealth as well as relational, but just within our family, Zach and I both. Incredible legacy of family and grateful for that. And this speaks to that. But you guys, the intentional time with people does not just have to be biological family. So great episode. If you have grandchildren. There’s practical tips in this episode with how my grandparents set up a cousin’s camp.
It was one weekend at their house on their farm. You don’t need a 100 acre farm, by the way, to have cousins camp. We talked a little bit about ideas. I know for a fact of other families starting this tradition who just live in a normal suburban home. There is lots of ways to make this time special with your grandkids.
Great episode. Grateful for my family. Love my cousins. We laugh a lot. So many memories. Number one, probably my top favorite episode from season two was episode 106. My grandfather’s Unlikely Success Story, leaving a Legacy with Paul and Sylvia Hollinger, the entrepreneur world, has been an experience. Just like before I had children, I could imagine the stress of being a mom like I would like to say I’m a pretty empathetic person.
I could certainly imagine what the stress of being a mom might involve, but I could not truly understand it until I became one. It is just one of those things, you can only understand it so much. You think you know what stress is, and then you become a mom and you’re like, what? It’s been to my life. The entrepreneur world is really similar.
I feel like it has just been this whole different level of stress and responsibility, but also possibility. And my number one example in my life of approach to just financial legacy, especially as an entrepreneur, is my grandfather. As you just heard me say, we’ve, these are two different sets of grandparents, by the way.
The Cousins’s Camp are my dad’s parents, and the leaving a legacy episode are my mom’s parents. Again, what a blessing, right? To have two sets of grandparents that are heroes of mine in different ways. Such a blessing. But this episode showcased my other set of grandparents, especially my grandfather who came from very little, came from a farm with no electricity, no indoor plumbing.
First time he had indoor plumbing was when he went to college, and ultimately he ended up through a. Radio station, we talk about the whole story, but left a multimillion dollar legacy. But what I appreciated about my grandfather and still appreciate he’s still living, I’m talking like he’s in the past tense, is this concept that he has always lived by of money stewardship as opposed to ownership.
I can’t tell you how many times in my life I heard him say, I am simply a steward of the money God has given me. It speaks to the concept that I have said many, many times that I firmly believe is that money is not a destination. It is a vehicle. It’s simply a tool in the tool belt. There’s no inherent value to it.
There’s no inherent, uh, worth in it, and we have given it too much power in our lives. However, there is nothing wrong with building wealth, but what is your intention for so many people, and you guys, I see this all the time in the entrepreneur industry. Well-meaning hearts are in the right place, but money is a destination for them.
Or the representation of what money can buy them is the destination, the car, the vacation home, the whatever. What I saw from a very early age with my grandfather was that money. Or what it could buy was not the destination. There was a higher purpose. The wealth was used with intention that was outside of himself where it was used to bless other people.
They have an incredible legacy of a giving. They have given massive percentages of what they have made. Over the years, it was really, really an honor to have them on the show and to be able to speak to his journey. I think I especially resonate with it because I am in a similar position and I am at this place in my life with the program that I’m creating.
Early Morning Habit, public launch happening in January. That I am absolutely looking to help transform lives with it and build wealth with intention. We want a massive percentage of this to go to moms who are trying to overcome the financial burdens of bringing a child home to a forever family and more to come on that.
There’ll be plenty more to come on that, but I, I’m just so, so excited and I have been, Overwhelmed by the support for my vision for early morning habit. Lots is happening on the backend here with early morning habit that you’re not seeing massive website rebrand. The app is in development. It is going to be all on an app.
One stop shop. Make life simpler. It’s not more stressful. Anyways, more to come on that. But the bottom line from this episode is this idea of building wealth with intention. No matter what that wealth is, whether you have a familial wealth, you have an incredible family home situation where there’s a lot of safety, there’s love.
How are you sharing that? Are you just keeping your children close? Are you keeping your family close? Or are you using that safety, comfort and love to share it with others? Who do not have that time. You might have a wealth of time, you might not have a lot of money, but you’ve got lots of time. How are you using that time?
Are you using it with intention or do you just sit around and watch YouTube for hours regardless of your stage of life? Live with intention, use what you have with intention. Money, certainly we already talked about that. Ways to use that with intention. Leave a legacy with the wealth that you have, whatever that is.
That was the takeaway from my number one favorite episode. Of this past season, season three, airing on August 1st, you guys, we have a rockstar lineup already for season three. We are going to really hone into the concept of health, home, fitness, and family. There’s a lot of home stuff on the podcast that’s going to continue to be there because as I have said before, the walls of our home as women have a direct impact on three specific dimensions.
Of our health, our emotional health, our mental health, and our social health. Not as much on the other two, which is physical and spiritual, but it has a massive, massive impact on those other three dimensions of our health. So you will continue to get tips, budget friendly ideas to design efficient kitchens, to decorate to, you know, fill in the blank.
There will still be home stuff because it is such a massive part of our health, especially as women. But we are going to really hone a little bit more on the concept of health. Fitness, there’s not going to be as much business related stuff on the podcast, and I’ve really valued the business entrepreneurs and the experts who have been on the podcast.
But we’re gonna hone in a little bit more on health, home fitness and family. Just to give you a little rundown, these are just like a little sneak peek with an expert coming on intermittent fasting. A color specialist, her entire specialty is helping women determine their best colors. For their skin tone, their hair, how to ladder your skin tone.
Look at me. I’m clearly not a specialist. I’m like, how do I say this? She’s a color specialist. Oh man. Fashion’s clearly not my forte. I don’t even know how to describe what she does. I cannot wait to have her on though. She is a friend from college, so that one will be really, really fun. Celebrity makeup artist.
When I say celebrity, I mean like red carpet, celebrity makeup artist. This woman has. Done makeup for a-listers. She’s got a really incredible perspective. She’s coming on. She is the one that revolutionized my makeup repertoire. Funny story. I’m very excited to have her on the show as well. We have a physician who is going to share natural period repair approaches and strategies.
I have already benefited from some of these strategies. Cannot wait to have her on a clothing stylist offers tips and tricks to fit and flatter your body, a hair pro. We’re gonna dive a little bit more into fashion here and lots of stories of faith, family, especially as concerns. Adoption, we’re going to hear from more couples who have either adopted are in the process of adopting who have experienced foster to adopt.
As many of you know with the early morning habit, a massive through line is when you invest in yourself and you successfully complete the initial six weeks on the app tracking and logging. My company is going to give you a digital gift card to give forward to an adopting mom through Life song for orphans.
We want to empower you to materialize that, Ruth, that you are worth investing in because you have the power to change the world of a little child somewhere around the world who needs to come home to their forever family. You’re gonna empower that adopting mom. To overcome the financial burdens of adoption power to change the world, you matter.
It is because of you, quite literally, that I podcast. I am so grateful for those of you watching, for those of you who listen, don’t go anywhere. I hope you have an amazing summer. You can hang out on Instagram at Ahna Fulmer. On Instagram where we share a lot of clips from previous podcast episodes, one might resonate with you and be like, oh, I don’t think I listened to that episode.
Or if you just need a little bit of imperfectly empowered inspiration over the summer, certainly hang out there on Instagram and remember, you matter. And you are loved. I will see you back here in August. Have an amazing summer. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Imperfectly Empowered Podcast. I would love to hear your thoughts from today, head to your preferred podcasting platform, and give the show an honest review and let me know what you think. Remember, you cannot be redefined, only redeveloped, one imperfect day at a time. Your story matters and you are loved.