EPISODE 271 NAVIGATING AN UNEXPECTED TURN WITH BECKIE GACKI
ANGIE: All right. Hi real-life runners. We are here today we have a special guest with us on the podcast. Today we are going to be talking with Becky Gali who is a real-life runner with a very interesting back story. It's a story of resilience, it's a story of life kind of throwing you a curveball and figuring out what to do with it, which all of us have experienced at some point in our lives and some point in our running journey, I am sure. So, I'm really excited to talk to you today, Becky, and I'm really looking forward to what we're going to cover on the podcast today. So welcome, Becky, to the Real-Life Runners podcast.
BECKIE: Well, Angie, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here, having the opportunity to both share my story and also discuss my business just a little bit and how my journey led me here through my fitness and health background. And yeah, I'm very excited about this conversation.
ANGIE: Awesome. So why don't we start out today and with your story because I really think that there's a lot of parts of your story that our listeners are going to connect to and I want to just kind of take us back because you had an incident in your life that kind of changed everything for you, right?
BECKIE: You are absolutely correct. If we back up, I made fitness and health a priority in my entire life. I mean, I'm a former Division One athlete, a personal trainer, a tennis club professional, and yes, I made fitness and health of priority, as I said, my entire life. But what ended up happening is, as I refer to it as that an unexpected turn happened. And what I mean by that is that life took me down a path. I knew I was headed in a direction and then an unexpected turn happened and I ended up being in a terrible accident. And the accident happened to take place during a triathlon competition. And there was a competition injury that I had done before and that I had actually won before as a member of a male-female relay team. So what had happened is that I was competing in this triathlon as a female-female relay team and my gosh, my partner was her first triathlon. She was the first woman out of the lake. And so she came running up to me and she threw her goggles off. She came running to me with a big smile on her face. She gave me a high five to take me out because I was going to do the bike portion. I was a competitive cyclist and so I knew exactly what needed to be done is just hold my own on the bike and then just finish off with my regular 10K run. And then Kate and I, yeah, we were going to win our division. I knew we were. But what ended up happening is that I was on the bike portion of the race, and I saw that last turn that was going to take place. And so then I'm like, oh, my gosh, all I have to do is get up that last hill, build my momentum going down the hill, and then, like I said, run my regular 10K. No other woman had passed me on the course, so I knew exactly what was going to happen. But what ended up happening is that I woke up six weeks later, I was in an ICU bed and my head was in my dad's lap. And I noticed that my mother was sitting in a chair next to the bed. And I looked around the room and Angie, there were people in the room. I didn't know who they were, but everyone had very serious look on their face. And my head was killing me. I never used to get headaches, but my head was killing me. And I just kept thinking, what's going on? Well, what ended up happening is that was explained to me is that when I was going down that hill, another competitor did an illegal bike change and he ended up cutting me off. And the speedometer on my bike read 35 miles per hour. What ended up happening is that his back tire hit my front tire. It flipped me. And the impact, when I hit the ground, it was my head that hit the ground on the left side. And because I was going so fast and the brain shifted on the inside of my skull and hit the inside right portion, so I had not one, but two traumatic brain injuries.
ANGIE: Wow. That's unreal, right? Because here you are leading the race, right, like your teammate was leading the race, handed it off to you. You were feeling super confident, and then just like, out of nowhere. So do you remember any part of the accident? When you tell the story, it sounds like you don't really remember the accident.
BECKIE: I don't at all. And I feel like that's our body's way of protecting ourselves, because truly, the last thing I remember was that turning that corner and pushing and pulling on my pedals. I was down on my arrow bars. I was feeling so good because no other woman had passed me on the course. I knew what was going to happen, Angie. I knew with all my art what was going to happen.
ANGIE: Yeah. But that's proof right there that even when we are so confident that we think we know what's going to happen, that's not always what happens. And I think that so many of us can relate to that, too. Hopefully no one has had as traumatic of an experience as that I'm sure people have. But even if it's just a muscle cramp, right? Like you're feeling really good in a marathon mile 20. Like this happened to Kevin in his Jacksonville marathon. He was up at the front. He was in the top five runners in Jacksonville for the full marathon. And all of a sudden, at like mile 20 or18, his calves started to cramp a little bit, 20. It was just like it seized upon him and he had to walk. Right. And so this was like a race that was going to be in his head. Like, this was a breakthrough. Right. And then his body just didn't cooperate. And unfortunately, yours was a lot more traumatic. It wasn't your body not cooperating, it was the external circumstances that took you out of this. But I think that this is just one of those times in life that we can do all the training correctly. We can be pushing hard, we can be recovering with the nutrition. We can be in the best shape of our lives. And there are just some things that are out of our control.
BECKIE: 100%. And I want to bring up the importance of living that healthy lifestyle because what my parents were told by the neurosurgeons is that they had never seen someone with injuries like mine live, let alone walk out of the hospital. Yeah. And they attested to the fact that I lived that healthy lifestyle.
ANGIE: That you were in as good a shape as you were when that accident happened.
BECKIE: Yes. And so that's a testament to just how important it is that we live a healthy lifestyle and that we do the right things because we never know when that unexpected turn might happen in our life and derail that healthy lifestyle.
ANGIE: Yeah. 100%. So after you woke up in the hospital six weeks later, what was your recovery process like?
BECKIE: Long and slow.
ANGIE: How long were you in the hospital?
BECKIE: I was in the hospital for the six weeks and little over six weeks. And I was released to go home because the accident happened about 2 hours from where I was living. And then I was at least to go home. And I was placed under care in my hometown with another neurosurgeon of physical therapy and rehab for about six to eight months afterwards, working on my left cochlear had shattered in the accident from the impact, and that caused vertigo, which I wasn't able to drive for along time because of it. And just going through that whole process of going through physical therapy on how to deal with that and also learning what I can and can't do. It was those little adjustments that you just take for granted. Like, for example, laying down on a bench to do a bench press or doing yoga and getting into a yoga pose. I had to be so careful because my vertigo would kick in, and often I would be at the gym and I would be laying down to do a bench press, but I'd lay down too quickly and I'd fall off the bench, say, oh, I'm okay, it's okay. Or I'll be in a yoga class doing a pose, but then I end up falling because my head is in the wrong position.
ANGIE: Yeah. So are you still affected by that today?
BECKIE: I am. Not to the degree, but yes, I still have to be careful.
ANGIE: So do you mind if I ask how old were you when this accident happened?
BECKIE: I was 32.
ANGIE: 32, okay. Yeah. So you are still young. It was at, like, prime athletic years, especially in triathlon. So what did that rehab process look like? You said you were in rehab for about six to eight months afterwards, and then what happened? Can you kind of take us through either the rehab process itself or kind of what happened after the rehab? Did you just kind of jump right back in to your athletic endeavors or did it take more time? What happened after?
BECKIE: Well, I wanted to jump back in, but what ended up happening is that now I wasn't one to take pain pills, or like I mentioned, I never got headaches. I never really needed to take headache medicine or any type of pain pills, but I was on pain medication for months and months, which I did not like. I hated I did not like being on it, but I mentioned it because that entire time that I was on that medicine, I thought that I wasn't able to smell and taste things because of the medicine, the pain pills that I was on. But really what ended up unfolding is that in that accident, my olfactory nerve was damaged, and so I could not smell and taste things at all. The neurosurgeons were more worried about the traumatic brain injury than so much about the fact that I can't smell or taste it, and that the decision was made not to do surgery on the olfactory nerve because it was such an advanced and obtrusive surgery.
ANGIE: Yes. And it was a secondary injury. They were much more concerned about the other thing.
BECKIE: Right. And again, mentioning how the body can heal itself is that the nerves can heal themselves. And they thought, well, there's a chance that since it's not completely separate, that it could be healed.
ANGIE: Right.
BECKIE: Well, unfortunately, that never ended up happening. And so I not smelling and tasting is that I learned later is that I was actually treating every meal like it was Thanksgiving and that I was eating until my stomach was full, but I wasn't able to manage that because I didn't know that I wasn't able to spell or taste, and that wasn't even on my radar at the time. Well, before I knew it, Angie, I went from 114-pound competitive athlete to when I got out of the coma, I was down to 99 lbs, which was way too lean for me at the time. But not understanding or being mindful of my eating, I ended up gaining over 100 lbs.
ANGIE: Wow.
BECKIE: And so it was in that process, it took less than two years, but I kept asking myself, oh my God, how did I let this happen? And more importantly, why didn't I stop the weight gain sooner? Why didn't I pay attention when my clothes started fitting tighter? Because I don't know what happened, but I let way too much time pass before I was able to get myself back on track.
ANGIE: So what do you think did happen? Because I'm sure you've reflected on it up to this, where you are today. So what do you think caused that?
BECKIE: I think dealing with all of the aftermath of being in such a severe accident and having my healthy lifestyle, being completely derailed. And I also I mentioned I'm a former athlete. I identified as an athlete. Oh my gosh. I used to wear that with pride, but I just slowly saw that slipping away because I was no longer able to train 6 hours a week. I was no longer able to run like I had before because of my vertigo. I had to keep into this day I still have to keep my head down. I can't run and look up. I could no longer play tennis anymore. I had tried to play tennis, but because of my vertigo and head injury, it just was too much to navigate on the court. And it was just trying to survive, just trying to get by and trying to survive and wanting to get back into the workforce, pushing myself too hard and letting things get off my radar.
ANGIE: Yeah. So what was that like for you mentally during that process? Because what I'm hearing from you is like this complete loss of identity. Like, you completely identified yourself as an athlete, and then all of a sudden, all of that was stripped away. You couldn't do the athletic activities that you were involved in. You couldn't run, you couldn't bike, you couldn't play tennis, you couldn't do any of that. So mentally, where were you?
BECKIE: Mentally, I was broken.
ANGIE: Yeah.
BECKIE: I was so disappointed in myself, the frustration of not being able to athletic, do the training to live my life how I used to, just not being able to do it. And also, I had severe memory issues both short and long-term. I was also trying to navigate people in my hometown who would say hi to me, who I didn't know I even had, a boyfriend that I used to date that I had no clue who he was because I dated him during a window of when that memory was gone, and just trying to navigate that. And even to this day, I still have trouble with I refer to it as my piston's not firing, meaning that sometimes I just can't get the right word out, or I can't find the right word, or I lose my train of thought. And so it took me a long time to just be able to accept this new reality.
ANGIE: Yeah. So do you think you turn to food for comfort in that? Because it's interesting to me, because so clearly you couldn't be as active as you were, but you also didn't have taste and smell. So was food a comfort? Like, you know, the overeating? Because, like you just said, you were overeating. You were eating to that point of, like, fullness or even past fullness, but you weren't really able to taste or smell the food. So where did the eating fit in there?
BECKIE: The eating fit in because I was not able to monitor what was happening. And when I was out with I was dating another gentleman at the time where we went out all the time. We went out to eat and it's just not being mindful of what I was eating and what I was not eating and not having it on my radar, because my focus was in so many other different directions, of just trying to get by, trying not to embarrass myself by saying something incorrectly or trying to make sure that I remember the people who were in the room. Certain things with food is that even though you can't taste them, your body still reacts to then. And what I'm getting at is sugar.
ANGIE: Okay.
BECKIE: Is that I wasn't one who ate a lot of sugar before, but it was interesting enough. Even though I couldn't taste sugar, it was interesting how my body still craved it.
ANGIE: Interesting. Because you would still get probably the dopamine hits from it in your brain even though you couldn't taste it.
BECKIE: Right.
ANGIE: Okay, that's interesting. So even though you couldn't taste it as it was going in, you still had some of the neural chemical reactions of the food in the brain.
BECKIE: Well, and one neurosurgeon who is a smell and taste expert, he explained to me later in life is that you get satiated from first smelling the food. And so that never happened for me. But when you would first smell it, then that would send off certain chemical reaction in the body.
ANGIE: Right.
BECKIE: But then by the time you reach the point, so there would be, like he explained it as, like, a lever, and that lever was just constantly open.
ANGIE: Got you.
BECKIE: And so it wasn't until my stomach was full that I was like, oh, I'm fine.
ANGIE: Yeah. 100%. The digestive response does start before you even start eating food, which is what I think you're referring to here. Like, when you start smelling the food. Yeah, when you start smelling the food. When you see the food that does trigger certain chemicals to be released in the brain, that actually starts the digestive process. So your digestive process was being started late because you were missing some of those early steps.
BECKIE: Right. And so all of those extra calories, they add up. And I also went through the stages of trying these quick fix approaches, and I'm telling you, they don't work. They don't work. Initially, you might lose some water weight, or initially, you might be able to stay on one of these restrictive diets. And I can't tell you how many times people would tell me, oh, well, you can't smell or taste. That would be easy for you.
ANGIE: (Laughs) Yeah.
BECKIE: So it wasn't until I created my own system and my own system, my own process, which I now call my five step building block process, that I was able to turn it back around. And it took me far too long. I spent decades trying to figure it all out.
ANGIE: Yeah, that was actually my next question is how long did you struggle with this after the accident?
BECKIE: Decades.
ANGIE: Decades.
BECKIE: Decades. I mean, the weight didn't come. I mean, it took me years to get the weight on and to manage how I would be able to do my workouts. I built tools to be able to navigate the new obstacles that I faced.
ANGIE: How long did it kind of take you to develop that process? Was there kind of a turning point that kind of triggered that in your brain? Of like, I need to start doing this for myself. I need to figure this out on my own. What kind of led you to that point where you decided I need to create a plan or a program that's right for me.
BECKIE: Well, if we back up before I got to that point, I also went through this. I obsessively had to tell people who I used to be, because here I was, this 215 pound I'm not even five foot four, Angie. And so that's a lot of weight for me to be carrying around. And people that knew me before, they were surprised and shocked, and I saw it on their faces when they saw me. I would obsessively tell people who I used to be. Oh, I used to be this, I used to be this competitive. And the trigger, I remember it distinctly is one particular person. They asked me, you used to do triathlons? And I think that was just the turning point for me that I had to figure this out, is that what I was doing? I was bumping my head against the wall trying all these quick fix approaches. So I'm a very analytical person. And since then, I had earned the certification project management professional and learned so much about how to take a large project scale and do the methodical process of going through the project management methodologies. And so I got to thinking, well, if it works on a large scale, would it work on a micro scale? And so I did an analysis to see if it would, and it did. And so that's what happened, is that I started to create a five step process which mirrored the five process groups of project management, which are the steps and methodology that a large project goes through. And I started to put together these pieces of the puzzle. And through that process, I started to create my own meal plan cards because by that point, I was learning what type of food, even though I couldn't taste it, but maybe what I might enjoy over other food and started looking at food from the macro standpoint rather than what I might like to eat standpoint.
ANGIE: So when you say that, though, like, you say you are trying to figure out foods that you would like, foods that you might enjoy, how did you measure that since you couldn't taste or smell?
BECKIE: Well, certain foods. Like so, for example, when it comes to fruit, my favorite fruit before was always a Granny Smith apple. Oh, shoot. I can't think of the other one but Granny Smith apple. And there's one other, but I'll come back to that. And papaya. Well, if I eat a papaya now, I wouldn't know what it was. There's not much to it. And a Granny Smith apple, I can't detect the specific taste to that. But what I will say is that now my favorite fruit is pineapple because there's more texture to it.
ANGIE: Okay.
BECKIE: Also, I need to be cognizant of the fact that there's also a higher sugar level in it, but it's texture. So textures, everything. And so now I went through, I actually went through and tasted all the different types of apples and my favorite apple now because there's more consistency with the crunch and that sound when you bite into a nice juicy apple and go to crunch it's the Fuji.
ANGIE: Okay. Yeah. So that's interesting. So it's like you had to totally shift the way that you thought about food because it was no longer about the enjoyment because of the smell of the flavor. So now you are going to get enjoyment based on maybe color and texture and like the mouthfeel of the food versus the other things.
BECKIE: 100%.And also looking at it from more of a nutritional standpoint.
ANGIE: Right. Which one will be more nutritional for your body.
BECKIE: Right. Before, of course, I would eat healthy and of course I'd eat my cells, make sure that I got all my vegetables and fruits and protein. But I turned and pivoted and looked at it from a more of a nutritional macro got you standpoint.
ANGIE: Yeah, like a more scientific standpoint, essentially.
BECKIE: Yeah.
ANGIE: You know one of the things that I wanted to point out about what you were saying before too, to kind of help our listeners relate a little bit more to this too, is just I wanted to highlight one more time that loss of identity because I think that this is something that all of us can go through on some sort of level. Whether it's a macro level like you did or a micro level. I think that as a mom, I think a lot of moms can relate to me when I say that there is a sense of that loss of identity once we become a mother. It's like we gain a new identity, we gain this identity of mother. But for a lot of us, there's also a loss of the person that we were before we became a mother and how we used to prioritize ourself and how we used to prioritize health and fitness. Right. Because motherhood, though people wouldn't necessarily think of it as traumatic, it is a complete upheaval of everything that your life looked like beforehand. Right. Fatherhood as well, to a different degree. But when you become a parent, there is that sense of like, okay, I have this new identity and I had this old identity that is really no longer applicable. And how do I kind of bring these two things together? Maybe before I had kids, I was this fit and healthy person, but now I'm like running my kids all over and I'm not eating healthy and I'm not exercising well. So it doesn't have to be an event as traumatic as a bike injury like you had a traumatic brain injury. It can just be there are lots of times in our lives when things shift and we can kind of lose a part of who we are. And then it's about trying to now redefine that for ourselves. Right. And I think that's the biggest process that you went through after your injury, right? Like trying to figure out who is Beckie now.
BECKIE: Well, as I mentioned, I took far too long to figure this out. And this was going through that process and not just building the five step building blood process that enabled me to get my blood work back into a healthy range, able to get myself back into a healthy weight, and being able, as you said, to accept the athlete that I am today. Again, it took a long time, but going through this process was the catalyst for me starting my business. Build your best you. And through that journey, what I also learned is that before I was able to turn it around and create, as I said, my five step building block process, what happened before that is that I'm actually working on my goals to do a TEDx Talk on this. And I'll be naming it the unexpected turn. But the lesson there is to have faith in your life's path because you never really know where that unexpected turn in your life will happen and why it led you there. And so what going through and thinking about that process and my entire journey is that there actually ended up being four pillars to being able to learn that life lesson. And which are; One, acceptance. Two, getting in line with your new reality, if you will, then being able to take action on it and holding yourself accountable. And so to answer your question. It was the process of acceptance. Being able to accept the person I am today and be thankful and grateful for what I can do because I know that there are I used to work down by the Shirley Ryan Lab Hospital. Which is in downtown Chicago. And I would see people who also suffered severe injuries and where I'm thankful and grateful for the fact that I can still walk. That I can still run. Maybe I can't compete. I'm not going to win any division titles in any races anymore, but I can still do it. And so acceptance was accepting the athlete I am today.
ANGIE: So it sounds like a big part of acceptance for you is gratitude.
BECKIE: Yes, understand. Thankful and grateful. Actually have it in my office. Thankful and grateful. And every morning when I do my meditations and prayers is that I always start up. I am thankful and grateful.
ANGIE: So is that really how you were able to accept the new you? Is just really trying to focus on those pieces that you were grateful and thankful for?
BECKIE: It was the first step, but it goes much deeper than that. And so it's finding the acceptance, but then starting back with why. You always start with why, as they say. And so why do I want to be healthy? Why do I want my fitness and health back? And another pivotal turning point in my life was my sister, who had stage four breast cancer. She was only 57 years old when she died of breast cancer. And then our mother passed less than four months later.
ANGIE: Wow.
BECKIE: And they were the pillars of our family, and we all looked up to them. After my sister passed, I knew that she would do anything to still be here. And I just felt such a responsibility to being able to let go of my past and the hurdles that I faced from my accidents and being able to accept who I am today and be thankful and grateful and do the most that I can with it. And I felt such a responsibility in her memory to do that because I know that she would do anything to be here. And how selfish of me for me not to be able to take the second chance that I received and do the most with it and be thankful and grateful for it. Because there are so many people who would love to be able to run a 5K. I've since done since the accident and since being able to get the weight off and manage my new methods of training, I've since done three marathons, three half marathons, and countless 5Ks. I have no medals from them, but that's okay. It's okay because I can still do it. And Angie, it took me a long time. That's easier said than done. When you're someone that used to just make fitness and healthier, my days revolved around my workouts that I got in.
ANGIE: So why do you think what role does health and fitness play in your life now? Why do you think it is so important for you? Obviously, you have this sense of responsibility that you feel for your sister and other people that have passed on. And I think that that's a really good way for it to kind of, like, bring a lot of us to start into action, but I think that it needs to go deeper than that on a personal level for us to continue forward with it. Right. So why do you think it's important for us to live a healthy and active lifestyle as we get older?
BECKIE: Well, there's so many levels, and so let's start with the extreme example that I shared earlier is that the neurosurgeons told my family that they've never seen someone with injuries like mine survive, let alone walk out of the hospital. And it was because I was in such good condition at the time. And so if you think of that, number one, you don't know what unexpected turn is around the corner for you. And so why wouldn't you put yourself in the best position possible to be able to manage your unexpected turn? Also, I missed that Beckie before the accident. I missed her confidence, and I missed her get up and go. And part of that was driven by not just looking the part, if you will, but also feeling the part. And that comes from eating healthy, nurturing your body and your mind so that you can again position yourself as best possible to move forward in this life. So why wouldn't you do that? Why wouldn't you do anything that you could to put yourself in a better position.
ANGIE: Yeah, I mean, it all sounds great. Unfortunately, it is tough. You understand that it happened to you for years, years. For decades, right. That it was hard for you to kind of overcome some of those mental and physical barriers that you had in the way.
BECKIE: And my mother would ask me, as only a mother could, she would ask me because she saw me gaining the weight, she saw how unhappy I was and how disappointed I was in myself. And she would ask me, Angie, you're the expert. Why aren't you doing something? And so I don't want to make it sound like this is something that's so simple and so easy. So if we look at how today's technology, how today's society is, we want to end. We want it. And so that is the message that I always give to my clients, is that there are no quick fix approaches. You have to be ready and committed to doing the work, because this is a marathon. It's not going to change and happen overnight. I'm not going to prescribe to you what to do. I'm going to coach you through these five steps. And the secret sauce is creating a plan that works for you. And that takes time, takes a commitment, and you got to be willing to do the work.
ANGIE: Yeah.
BECKIE: That's the answer. Maybe people don't want to hear it, but my friend, that is the answer. And so my advice to any athlete who was derailed from their healthy lifestyle, as I say, is, do you remember that game as a child? Etch a Sketch. Yeah. Where you draw with both the little nozzles and then to start over, you had to shake it and Etch a Sketch. Right. So Etcha Sketch, start over, start from the very beginning is that you have to get reeducated on what needs to be done, learn the basics of physical activity. What's the minimum what are the benchmarks that the experts are advising us to eat to be healthy? What are the minimum cardio workouts that we need to do? Let's not forget strength training. What are the minimum benchmarks after we've gone through the acceptance side, the building block one, if you will, the laying, the foundation, which is the mindfulness of how to get to determine your why, to determine your vision of where you want where do you want to be with your fitness and health? Then you can move forward and learn, educate yourself, as I said, on those benchmarks. Then you can start to develop your plan.
ANGIE: Yeah.
BECKIE: And it's creating the plan that works for you. My workouts, your workouts, they're for you. You're going to get the best benefit. I can't just mimic, oh, Angie, she's won these races and she's clicking off a 730. I'm going to do exactly what she does. No, it doesn't work. I have to find, if that's my vision, then I have to find the path that's right for me to get myself there.
ANGIE: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I think that's, like, one of the mistakes that a lot of runners make is that they do just try to kind of copy what other people are doing. They see someone that has the results that they want, and they just think that if they follow the exact plan and mimic what they're doing, that they'll get the same results. And unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. And that's definitely something that we coach all of our athletes on as well. It's like finding that individual customized plan that's going to work for you right. Based on where you are in your life, your lifestyle, your work, your family, like, all of the things that are happening in your real life. Right. It needs to fit into your real life to get you the results that you're looking for.
BECKIE: Yes. I heard a yoga instructor say once that, look, we all have different life circumstances. And just because if you're in a yoga class, flexible people just have to go a little bit further to get the same results as you. So don't judge yourself with someone else. We all have different life experiences, and we just have to accept them, get in alignment with them, so that then we can create the actions that are right for us.
ANGIE: That's it. I think you nailed it right there. I think that's a perfect place for us to wrap this up. So this has been so fun having this conversation with you. Is there anything else that you want to say that you haven't had a chance to say yet on the episode? Because I think you summarized everything very beautifully right there at the end.
BECKIE: I would just like to share with your listeners is that if you are dealing with an unexpected turn and if you have gotten derailed from your healthy lifestyle. Then please know. Whatever the aftermath that you're dealing with. Whether it was an accident. An injury. A stressful job. The worldwide pandemic. Whatever it is. Please just know that things can get better and that you can turn it around.
ANGIE: Absolutely. So as a listener, if you guys are interested in connecting with Beckie, Beckie, how can they reach you and connect with you more online if they like you and your message and want to connect with you?
BECKIE: Well, if anyone would like to connect with me, I'm going to say the name of my business, but then I'm going to spell it out for you because it is “Build UR Best U”. So it's Build, build, and then capital U R, best and then capital U. And so all of my social media, that is my handle. And you can find me on Facebook, on Instagram and LinkedIn and YouTube. So my YouTube channel is Build UR best U. And so that's where it all happens. And what I do with our clients, with our follow up is that we go through each week. We have a weekly theme, and we walk through the five-step building block process and just take each week to dive deeper into each of the components.
ANGIE: Awesome. So we will definitely put that information in our show notes. So if you guys are interested in connecting more with Beckie, you can find all those information on our website at reallife runners.com with the show notes for this episode. We will have all that information there for you.
BECKIE: Angel, I'd also like to add that we also do professional speaking and so if anyone is interested and on my website. They can find how best to work with me is that I not only do one on one health coaching. But throughout the year I offer online classes and then I have a presentation and workshops that I do throughout the year in regard to helping people build their best view. And so I now coach former athletes rebuild who are derailed from their healthy lifestyle, rebuild their inner athlete within three months, and that is the five step building block process.
ANGIE: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story with to us. It has been a pleasure having you here. And as always, guys, thank you for joining us on this episode of the Real-Life Runners podcast. Now get out there and run your life.
BECKIE: Thank you so much.
