The Darkside of High Performance w/ Brittany van Schravendijk (aka KB Fit Britt)| Multi-event Master of Sport & World Record Holder

In this episode, I got to go deep with Brittany van Schravendjik who anyone in the kettlebell spor Welcome to the platform podcast where we talk to coaches, athletes, experts, and real people to learn about their approaches to training, nutrition, mindset, and much more. I'm your host, Jordan Kunde-Wright, founder and head coach of the Twin Cities catabuck club. And I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable, healthy lifestyles. Before we jump into this episode, I want to take a second to make an important announcement about the Twin Cities catabuck open. The event will still be taking place in person in Little Canada, Minnesota on October 23rd. With Delta variant causing travel restrictions, for many people, we've also decided to include video submissions for participants who are unable or unwilling to make the trip in person. You'll be able to submit your videos until midnight central time on October 22nd and still be eligible for all of the same prices as our in-person competitors and make rank in the IK on ranking tables. Just go to our website Twin Cities catabuck club.com to register. This week, my guest is none other than Brittany Vintravindike, also known as kettlebell fit Brit. Now, she is a multiple time master of sport, a former world record holder, a legend in the sport, and truly a pioneer for women in the sport of kettlebell sport. Because she is one of the first competitors to ever compete with double 24 kilo kettlebells in long cycle. So it was an honor that she agreed to come on the podcast. And honestly, the reason I brought her on the podcast was not to talk about her accomplishments in kettlebell sport. There's plenty of podcast episodes about that on other podcasts that you can go just look up and find. I really wanted to bring her on because I've been following Brit for a long time and she's somebody who I've always admired for a number of reasons. Her ability is only one of them, but her authenticity and her willingness to be open and her decisions to go in different directions than what other people think she should do. And to really focus on things that make her happy and really to be a seeker of truth and somebody who is passionately pursuing self improvement and growth, and she stepped away from the sport in pursuit of that growth. And I really wanted to talk to her about that because she's been sharing pretty openly on her email list about that journey that she's been on after taking a pretty significant break and stepping off of social media. And you know, I've been on her email list for the better part of five years or more. And I just really wanted to get a chance to bring her on and talk through a lot of those things. And this is honestly one of my favorite conversations that I've had. We talked for an hour on the podcast. We talked for an hour of the day before the podcast. She's just an awesome person to talk to and she really has a lot to give to the world and her perspective on things is fantastic. I cannot speak highly enough of Brit and I really hope that you enjoy this conversation as much as I do. I'm super grateful that you listen to this podcast. And the best thing you could do to support me is to register for the Twin Cities kettlebell open and come lift with me if that's your thing. And you know, you can just go to the website to do that. And if you haven't already, please give us a five star rating and review on Apple podcasts or in your app of choice, if it supports ratings, that's really a great way to spread the message and help me grow my audience. And of course, if you want to step on the platform and compete in kettlebell sport, you need help with your nutrition. You can reach out to me. I help athletes of all levels reach their goals without wasting time using my integrated coaching approach. You can also follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at Twinsies kettlebell club or email me at Twinsies kettlebell club at gmail.com. Now without further ado, let's step on to the platform with Brittany then Shravindike. Let's see. We'll go live on Facebook just a second. Where do we want it to go? Way too many groups. And so we're going live on like you got a group for your podcast. I have a kettle like the kettlebell fat blast is my is my group. So I have I have a group that's just for like the Twinsies kettlebell club sport team. But then I just have a general general group that's the the kettlebell fat blast. So that's more oriented around, you know, just fitness and anybody who's looking to use kettlebells to get to get healthier. So that's cool. That's a good way to do it. Use it like a Facebook group to build like a little community. Yeah, that's that's the goal. It's I mean, it's like 70 75 people right now, but I've only I've only had it for like a month and I haven't been as diligent about it as I as I should be. That's a good number. You get 75 people. That's good. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully now we'll get more. All right. We are we are streaming live. So I'm going to say welcome into this week's episode of the platform podcast streaming live on the kettlebell fat blast group on Facebook. And my guest this week, I alluded to last week, she's kind of a big deal. I know she's not going to say so, but if you know kettlebell sport, then you probably know the name. Brittany Van Schravendick, also known as kettlebell fit Brit or KB fit Brit because you know, Van Schravendick is Dutch and most people can't pronounce it. I probably just butchered the crap out of it, but Brit, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you for having me. And you know, you only miss the ending part. It's Van Schravendick. But very close, very close. I give you like good job. I was so I was so close and I didn't ask. I should have just asked you yesterday when we talked like, how do you actually pronounce the name? But I was clearly overconfident in my in my hubris. I mean, the fact that you had to come up with a moniker that people could actually pronounce probably is indicative of that. So it has started a lot of conversations. So there is that. Thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. And for those of for those of you that don't know, I'm not kidding, like Brit is is kind of a big deal, especially when it comes to kettlebell sport. So if you want to hear more about her exploits as a kettlebell sport lifter, there are literally dozens of other podcasts that have had her on to talk about her kettlebell sport exploits. So we're not going to go a ton into that, but I do want to give her a little bit of a chance to give some of her credentials and her background some of her achievements. What would you say you're crowning achievements are in kettlebell sport or what are you most proud of in kettlebell sport? How will people know you? So I would say what I'm most proud of is being one of the first women to compete with double 24 kettlebell kettlebells in long cycle and competition. So that's something that, you know, was done for the first time at the world championships in 2017. And that's something I'm super proud of. So that's when I won the world championship world championship in my weight class. And besides that, I've achieved seven different master sport titles along the way. I think the first one was probably one of the most meaningful was actually long cycle with a single 24 kilogram bell, but, you know, I had sort of dreamed of the day of being able to call myself a master sport at that point. So the other ones were pretty cool to along the way, but I guess those two are kind of stand out to me. Cool. Yeah, and one thing that I'm not sure if a lot of people know this, but technically the ranks below master sport, you're supposed to recertify in those every every year for them to still be considered your rank. But once you hit master of sport, it's like a lifetime achievement rank, right? Like you never have to quality once you hit master of sport, your master of sport for for life, right? Yeah, I, maybe I'll get there someday. But I don't, I don't have, I don't have that title yet. So I've, I've continued to work to work up. So that, that is fantastic. You, and now you've got a bunch of world records too, right? Or I'm not sure if they still stand, but you, you at one point held a bunch of world records as well. Yeah, so at one point, I held a lot of world records across the different results. I don't know if any excellent have to look back. I think there might be like one or two that that still stand, but most of them at this point have, you know, been, been obliterated, which is great because, you know, at the time, especially the double bell lifts, you know, there weren't a lot of women putting up those kinds of numbers. And now, you know, a lot of women have progressed further and the numbers are just getting better. So it's, it's really a good thing over all that, that they don't still stand in that women are just continuing to progress in the sport. Yeah, absolutely. You, I mean, you were a pioneer of that. So every time a world record falls, right? That's kind of got to be a little bit of like, yeah, well, I helped get that party started, right? So it's fantastic. You're, you're a trailblazer. So that's, that's awesome. I mean, but I didn't bring you on to talk a ton about kettlebell sport. But I do want to know, how, how did you get into sport? Because we talked a little bit yesterday and, and like, nobody gets into kettlebell sport on purpose. So it's almost, it's almost always been my, my finding. Like nobody's like, at least not in the US, it's not like in Russia, we're like, you're introduced to it at the age of five and you just, you know, grow up to be a kettlebell sport lifter, right? Like, like, how did you, how did you stumble into this crazy world that is kettlebell sport and competitive lifting? I stumbled into it, I think earlier than, than most. So I was in college at UC Berkeley. And I came upon a job listing for a, like an intern at a gym called the ice chamber. So I heard of that place. Yeah, I went to my interview. And I, well, before the interview, I was looking up their website. Okay, I should do a little research. You know, and I noticed there was tons of stuff about kettlebells and photos and all this stuff about their, their kettlebell stuff. And so I, I knew that going in, I didn't know that I didn't know anything about kettlebell sport was, and I didn't know that this gym was actually like a renowned gym within the little kettlebell sport niche for producing, especially like some of the top female lifters that there were. The lifters that there were at the time who had helped like propagate the sport for women across the world. And so I had no idea about that until I started started working there. But when I started working there, you know, I saw the different female trainers were doing this badass stuff with the kettlebell and they made it look really cool. And it was like a thing, you know. And so I was thinking, Hey, well, I think I could probably do that. strong, I can squat more than some of those ladies can. I could probably do this and I like pick up an 8k g bell and I cannot do it at all. I'm like, how are they doing that with like 20 and 24 like that's crazy, you know, just D. B. A. C. always all of like 95 pounds just slinging it around like no, that's a good D. B. A. C. Sarah Nelson and Saria and all the ladies who were, you know, setting setting, they were the pioneers then, you know, of the single bell lifting. And so of course they still are, they are great pioneers of the sport, but I was just lucky enough to like walk into this place where this was a thing, you know, and then slowly it started becoming like, I think I want to do this, you know, I want to do this thing and I want to go travel and compete, that sounds awesome. So I did also, like you said, stumble upon it, I wasn't going into this gym being like, I want to be a kettlebell athlete, I was like, I'm looking for a job and then fell into it. Evolved from there. So how old were you at this, at this point? I was 20, 20. Okay. Yeah. So much, much younger than most of the American athletes who get it, who get into the sport. So that's obviously, obviously served you well and how long did it take you before, before you were competing at, you know, a really high level from, from when you started to, to compete and started getting, you know, master of sport and, and those things. Yeah. Um, I went, well, I competed at my first world championships in 2013. So that was about two years after I had started, started training, but I was competing with it with a six, and then like 16 kg snatch, like the amateur level. And I would say, I think it probably took another two years that I was like competing and getting into like, I was competing at a higher level with like, you know, 24 kg single bell or, um, starting to move into the double bell lifts and then starting to lift between 2015, 2016, starting to lift heavier double bells. Nice. Yeah. So, so, I mean, it's still a solid five years to go from basically when you discovered it to when you started achieving the things that, that you're most well known for. So that's still like, that's a short path, but it's not a, it's not a short path. It's not like it's not like you were just an overnight success, like some, some people tend to think of it. No. And there's an article somewhere out there on the internet about me that, um, my first coach from the ice chamber, he actually said, uh, and I didn't see this article until, I didn't know he was writing this and I saw it later that he was like, Brittany was by no means a natural when she started kettlebell sport. And I was like, ow. Okay. Thanks. Good. But he was just being honest, I wasn't like a natural added it took a lot of practice and especially like, even with snaps, like, I feel like to this day, my technique still like needs a lot of work. It was a tough road to get it to any place where it, where it worked well. You show me somebody that thinks that their snatch technique doesn't need any work. And I'll show you an amateur lifting kettlebells because anybody that takes it seriously is like, oh, I just, I just need to get a little bit better at snatch. Just, just need a few more years and a few thousand, a hundred thousand more reps. And then maybe I'll have, that's like, meme to create for kettlebell sport. You should, you should create that one. Yeah, you know, that's, that's Todd Schwab's game. I'm not great at the memes. I can come up with the one liners, but like the, the creativity people have behind meme generation is fantastic. It's, it's awesome. So, well, with that, with that kind of framework as context for the, for the conversation, I really want to get into it. The reason I asked for it on, and I've been following Brit for a long time, and like I, I did your kettlebell mobility program. I bought that, you know, many, many years ago that was a huge help for me because I was, you know, old busted football player and I needed a lot of that work just to be able to achieve some of the positions and some of those things I'm still working on. But I've been on her email list for better part of probably seven years at this point. And she's, she just recently sent out a really, really cool email basically talking about the dark side of high achievement. I won't even say kettlebell sport because it's, it's not limited to kettlebell sport. It's, it's basically any, any high level athlete that decides that they're going to dedicate themselves to achieving, you know, super high performance at a super high level, there is a cost to that. And she sent out a really kind of open and vulnerable email about that process. And I wanted to bring her on to dive into some of that a little bit. So, you know, without, without spoiling it, I'm going to let, I'm going to let Brit talk about, you know, what is kind of some of the dark side that, that it took, you know, what, what happened for you? What was that journey, you know, over the course of, you know, a 9, 10, 11 year career where you were lifting at a super, super high level and tell us a little bit about, you know, what precipitated, you know, sending that email, sharing that story, all of those things. Okay. That is a big question. Let's, let's try to start one bite at a time. No soft balls here. Sorry. Well, I've, I've, I've always been pretty active my whole life. I got into four, it's more specifically in high school, I started doing track and field and, and that kind of started my like training, I started lifting weights as cross training for that. And so moving, moving into college and, and seeking this job at a gym, you know, I had always been interested in athletics and I thought it'd be a cool way to supplement. You know, I was, I was studying engineering so something like totally unrelated and I felt like I wanted to cultivate that like active side of myself. So I started training at the gym and getting really into all things fitness and then started training kettlebell sport. And I would say that, that kettlebell sport and even, even like just doing all the training at the gym, learning tons of new stuff, I would say it was a, a positive thing. For, for my health initially, for the, for the first several years, it was, it felt really good. You know, I was getting a lot stronger like I, I felt amazing doing all of it. And I really enjoyed competing and, and learning to lift in this head. You know, I, I kind of wanted to be an athlete in college, but it didn't work out and this kind of gave me a different outlet to be competitive. You know, as, as I started going along, at some point, I think a lot of it, when I left the, the gym that I initially worked at, I moved to San Diego, I became my own coach for kettlebell training. I started, you know, exploring double bells, I started lifting heavier, I started achieving more success in the sport and wanting to do more competitions, getting rewarded for achieving more in the sport and everybody wanting me to come to their competitions, it sort of snowballed into this unhealthy way of training where, where I was just constantly pushing for the next thing. I didn't take enough time to recover between competitions. I was, I think in many ways that achievement within the sport, you know, it was sort of like, becoming a little bit of like a celebrity status like theme within the small group of people and that affects, I think, your, your ego and your identity and getting those different like social rewards for achieving different accolades, that that also, you know, adds to the motivation and I think I, you know, there, there was definitely, it wasn't all like externally motivated, I wanted to achieve success in the sport and I never really stopped to question, you know, like what, what that internal motivation was, but I just, I kept pushing myself and I kept pushing myself, I had different warning signs at different times during, during the process of my training, I'd say, but over time, it just, I think I just sort of lost side of that, whereas initially it had all felt good, it had felt like I was getting stronger at some point along that way when I sort of began overreaching or just training a little bit too much, just not quite recovering enough. It started to not feel quite as good. I would notice if I went through a heavier cycle, a long cycle, my knees would start hurting or I would just be really stiff when I would like, just try to like tie it, tie my shoelaces, it would like hurt to like reach over and tie my shoelaces, and I would eventually started getting different, different things happening, including like I would get phases of just fatigue and demotivation during the training. I would take a few days off and then I'd be okay again and I would keep training because I needed to achieve this next master sport. I needed to achieve my ultimate goal was always to get master sport international class because there's very few people that have achieved this title and I thought that's what I wanted. That would be the crowning achievement of my kettlebell sport training and that's what it was all for, or that's what I thought. Over time, this just led to a complete overtraining and a burnout. It's hard to sum it all up, but I got a good 10,000 foot view of that. I got to a place where I just my body started breaking down and not even really injury wise, although I did have some different injuries along the way, but it just became completely exhausted and I would say that my immune function just plummeted. Eventually that led to me just needing to stop all together because I realized that the competitions were, they weren't the reason kettlebell competitions aren't like, oh, they automatically overtrain you or they're bad for you, but they were a reason for me to keep pushing and keep pushing and keep pushing myself and eventually my body just said no more. We're not doing this anymore, and so I had to stop and don't spoil too much of my story coming up in my emails, but that wasn't where it ended. There was more even after I stopped competing of this journey. Yeah, that's really interesting. I think it's one of those things we've talked about some on this podcast, but also with a lot of my athletes. One of the first things that we talked through is we call it the triangle of awareness from nutrition coaching institute and you have aesthetics, you have performance and you have longevity, and they're kind of the three peaks of the triangle. And you can only optimize for one peak at a time. Now, you can move directionally, you can obviously get healthier and perform better if you're losing weight and you're kind of like you're talking about in the early phase of it, but as you get higher and higher and higher in either aesthetics or achievement, there starts to be a cost when you optimize for performance, the longevity component of it, which is your health, your hormonal balance, all of those things. If you're optimizing for performance, you're not necessarily going to be the healthiest person, and if you over index on that direction for too long, there are some pretty serious consequences that can happen, you know, particularly like it sounds like you were talking like hormonal disruption and really and immune function disruption, you know, because your body is just in fight or flight all the time, and it never fully recovers from any of those things. How long, like how many years was it that you feel like you were probably in that, because I assume we're talking in the scope of years and not months, it sounds like. Yeah, and you know, the disruption to my hormonal balance had actually begun for me before I ever started kettlebells for it, because I was an active track and field athlete, and even during college, I would train back with my old coach from high school during the summers, and you know, I think it might have been in the off season. What was supposed to be your off season, right? Yeah, yeah. So, so I didn't think that I was over, I don't think I was over training then, when I was doing the track and field during the summers, I think it just, it may have been a little bit too much, and it disrupted my, my menstrual cycle, and it was something where I, I sought medical help from a doctor, and they did not know how to help me or address that. They just, they wanted, they wanted me to use birth control to regulate my period. This is my shocked face. My expression didn't change for those people. I can't see me. Sorry. The doctors don't know, seem to know what to do with, with that kind of a thing, you know, with, how to, you know, deal with your hormones, or if you're seem healthy to them, you know, like the doctors is like, oh, you might just be exercising too much, or you can just get on birth control, and what not, you know, and I try. Because if you have a hormonal dysfunction, let's take exogenous hormones, that's a great plan. Yeah, and I tried it because I didn't know what else to do, but it didn't work, and I realized very quickly, it didn't work, so I stopped, and then I just didn't really worry about it. I kind of pushed it away, and everything else seemed to function fine. So it was something that initially, and this is common, I think, with, from what I've read, with a lot of, and talk to other women that, that lose their menstrual cycle, that it's pretty common that it doesn't really seem like a big deal, especially like for, for a few years. It wasn't until later on down the path that I started thinking about, hmm, this is probably not great from like a just a whole body health perspective. This is probably not good. I was going to ask you, if anybody told you, if any other athletes, because, you know, I was on the track and field team in college, and it was, it was something that I had heard some of the female track athletes talk about, especially the, the long distance runners and some of, you know, some of those that were already lighter, and then the mileage that they were accumulating, and they were in season, they were trying to get lighter so they could be faster, right? And like, they just talked like it was just a normal part of their existence. It was like, oh, it's just part, like it's just part of the deal. Like, yeah, I don't, I don't have my period during the season. Like, it's just normal. Like, it's just part of the deal, you know, they're like, you know, and, and they just talked about it like it was an expected consequence of, or just like an expected, it was like an expected thing and like it was no, it was no big deal. Did you have any of that, like from, from talking to other athletes, where they just kind of, we're just like, yeah, that, that happens. No, I actually not really. I very much felt like in a bubble, you know, I talked to like my mom and my sister, but I didn't, I didn't know whether that was normal or that was weird or like, I had no clue really. It was only through starting to read different, like thank, thank you to the internet because I started reading different blogs that would talk about this and a lot of different women that had gone through this and, and their experiences and in the comments, there's a bunch of women. So I knew that there was other women experiencing it because of that, but you know, in, in my day-to-day life, I think I also, you know, at the time, I feel comfortable talking about that with a lot of people. And so, you know, perhaps if I had, I would have heard that it was more common, but it took a while for me to, you know, discover it through my internet research, you know, that this is actually like a thing that happens and that this is common for, for female athletes to experience, you know, and I would, I could be wrong, but I think most women that have ripped albs probably have had, you know, a missing cycle, or they've had some disruptions. I'm sure there's, there's always like, there's always exceptions, yeah, there's always exceptions, but yeah, but for most women to be that lean, it's, I think it's very hard not to have hormonal disruption. I think like the female body is not meant to be that lean, you're supposed to have that because that's how your, you know, reproductive system functions. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's a, I mean, in as a general rule of thumb when I'm prescribing, you know, macros with with any of my female athletes, I try not to go below 35%, you know, which, which a lot of coaches would be like, oh my god, that's super high, but like, I'm with you, like just from a, from a general physiology standpoint, like I just, I think that women need a lot higher fat percentage to support the hormonal fluctuations and to keep the hormone health more optimal. And, you know, I don't, I don't want those trade-offs for, for people that aren't, you know, that aren't super, super high level athletes, like I don't think it's worth those trade-offs. Yeah, it's not. And I think it's interesting you say that with the, with fat content, because eventually when I did make the, the effort to get my period back, it took me years to get to a place where I was ready to, to do that. But afterwards, I did find that when I ate a lot more fat, I was able to maintain my period while still doing doing some of that heavier training. But it felt like I just had this feeling like I, I, I need to eat a lot of fat or I can't maintain it, you know, and that's over time that's, that's changed a bit. Like, I still eat a decent amount of fat, but I don't eat as much as I, I did then. I also don't train as much now as, as I did then. Well, you were, you were in a restorative face, right? And that's one of those like, how long it takes you to get out of the hole and how much you need to get out of the hole depends how deep in the hole were you, right? It's like how much, how much dirt do you need to refill the hole? Well, it depends on how deep the hole was, right? Like, if you've been, if you've been digging for two years, well, you need a lot more dirt. If you've been digging for a couple of months, you know, then you don't need as much. But you mentioned, I think in your email that, that once you, that once you were ready to do it and, and, and that you, you started making the changes, it only took you a few, a few weeks, right? Before you started feeling normal again. But what, why did it take you so long to, to get to the place where you were ready for it? Because that, that seems like the, the bigger thing. You said, it took you a long time before you were ready to, to do that. Why, why was that? I would definitely say there, there was a large level of exercise compulsion for a long time. And, you know, I, I still get, like, sensations at different times of, like, this compulsion, like, I, I need to exercise and then having to check myself and be like, do I, do I really need to exercise or am I just feeling anxious or something? And so it, I think it took me a long time, especially when, as I mentioned to you, during those first few years, when I was training a ton and I, you know, I was working at the gym and I was taking tons of classes and I was training kettlebell sport and it felt amazing. And it, you know, it made my body look what, like, what I wanted it to look like. It made my body look like the way that got a lot of positive responses from other people. And that made it. The way a trainer is supposed to look. Yeah, the way a trainer's supposed to look, you know, like six pack, you know, not, not big, but musk, you're like, toned, you know, that, oh yeah, because you can't be big. Let's lay out. Exactly. So, um, I think I was, I was attached to that and thinking that doing a certain amount of exercise was what made me look that way. And I also, you know, that exercise compulsion looking back at it now, I think it came also from a place of, like a deeper place of repressing different emotions of wanting to feel like worthy or valuable in different ways and exercising and controlling my body being one way of feeling like I, I was doing that. A feeling, you know, my, my body looking a certain way got me certain external validation that made me feel better about myself. So, I think it was a combination of that and not wanting to stop my kettlebell sport training, not wanting to like, you know, lose progress or not wanting to, to miss out on a competition or not those kinds of things that made me really not want to stop training. And I knew at some level deep down that I had to stop training to get my period back because I had tried like upping my calories and it, you know, it didn't do anything for my, like I would gain some weight, but it still wasn't enough. There was still too much stress on my body and it just wasn't enough. So, I knew based on, you know, the research I had done and seen on these blogs that all of them said the same thing. You need to eat more and you need to stop working out. Not forever, but you need to stop for a while and just even stopping for a while to me just seemed like really horrible at that point. So, I didn't want to stop and it took me a long time to realize like, hey, you know, it's more important for me to have like a healthy hormonal balance than to, you know, stop or then to be able to train for like, those few weeks or months or whatever it is. And so, it just took me a while to get real and like honest with myself about it. And once I did, as you mentioned, it took only three weeks which really shocked me because I had been without a period for six years and I had read that it might take, you know, it could take a year or it could take a long time to get it back. And I was completely shocked and like happy to discover that, you know, it only took three weeks, which means it, you know, it perhaps wasn't as bad as I thought it was. But it also took, you know, another several years I would say before I had like a really regular normal menstrual cycle. Yeah, that's there's so much there's so much in there to unpack. I mean, kudos to you for going through that journey because like the hard part is the changing your relationship's part, right? Like changing your relationship with food, changing your relationship with exercise, changing your relationship with yourself, looking at the, looking at the dark scary parts of your psyche that are, that are nobody wants to explore those corners, right? Because that's hard work. And it's not necessarily pleasant to learn those things about yourself and to be like, you know, maybe I really like this external validation because I don't feel so good about myself. Like, I mean, I can't relate to that at all. I don't know you know, as somebody who's made, you know, making a podcast in my basement, you know, so it's, I, I, it's, it's, you know, it's really, really hard work to do that, to do that self work. So I, I give you, I give you a ton of, a ton of kudos for that. And we interrupt this interview to bring you a few updates on the Twin Cities kettlebell open on October 23rd here in Little Cana, Minnesota, and via video submission up to October 22nd. First of all, we will be giving away a cash prize to the first, second, and third place best overall coefficient lifter in the open. And bellevator belts from Dennis Facilio is giving us two belts to give away. Barefoot athletic shoes is giving us six pairs of ursa's barefoot training shoes to give away. Canberin customs is giving us two plate loadable maces to give away as well as customizable t-shirts from 27 degrees of peril, swag from expiring nutrition, and last but not least, pro kettlebell will be bringing their maiden USA kettlebells to try out on the platform. I hope to see you there in person or via video submission given us your best. Thank you so much. And without further ado, let's get back into the interview. I wanted to pull on the thread of, you talked a little bit about exercise compulsion, being a way of masking anxiety. I wanted to pull on that, I wanted to pull on that thread a little bit because I just recently had my wife say, well, maybe you're always moving all the time because you have some, some anxiety. And I was like, I'm not, I'm not anxious person. I know what you're talking about, totally attacked. So, so tell me, tell me a little bit about that, that, you know, exercise compulsion is a way of dealing with, with anxious feelings. Yeah, you know, I don't think I, I ever would have called myself an anxious person, but looking back now, I see that like in my childhood, there were certain signs of like, I was kind of an anxious child and I would stress and worry about things. I think as I got into like middle school, high school and college, I didn't consider myself an anxious person at that point. And I didn't think that I ever really felt stressed, but I think perhaps I just didn't really understand the way anxiety manifested for me. And I think that, you know, the anxiety, there would be anxieties around, you know, if I don't exercise, then, you know, these bad things are going to happen or, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to gain weight or I'm going to lose my progress or, you know, my body's not going to look good or people won't like me. You're like, these different things that spiral out of that. And I think exercise was was a way to control that both, you know, you get the, the endorphins after you exercise. So you feel good. And you feel like you're in control of your body. You know, for so many things where, you know, when people have eating disorders or different struggles with, I guess, control really, you try to control your body because that feels like something that is within your control and that you can, you know, keep it somewhere that feels safe or that feels like it gets you the results you want. So I think that was a way for me to mask that anxiety. And also, I think at a deeper level, there was other things inside that I, I think I've only come to know in the last couple of years of just, you know, feeling like I, I, you know, wasn't worthy or valuable with these different insecurities and having, having like not so great self-esteem and that though, you know, exercise was a way for me to feel good about myself, but not realizing that that's not actually, for me, it wasn't the way to, to build my self-esteem because the way that I felt good was from, you know, a lot of the external validation. Like, I did feel good about being strong and that made me feel empowered and some of that was definitely positive as well. But I think there was certain things about it that were not, not necessarily, the best way to learn how to feel good about myself because it was based in either how I look or how I perform. And, you know, our, our, our intrinsic value is not based on those things, you know, we, we are valuable humans, whether or not we achieve something or, or whether, you know, we look like what society thinks is, is attractive or, or stuff like that. So, yeah, both of those are mechanisms to achieve status, which, you know, in that, like, like, some type of status that makes you, or identity that, that you feel that, that you feel is valuable and that, and that helps mask that, that internal insecurity and that's, that's super, that's super challenging, I think, to, to recognize, like, it's a kind of a, I think insidious is the word I was going to use. Like, it's kind of, it's kind of an insidious little mechanism that we have in our, in our brain, because it can trip up a lot of people. I mean, it's, it's gotten me, for sure. Like, I, I've been a very achievement focused person for a lot of my life because of those same, those same things you're talking about, like realizing, like, oh, maybe I do have some, some self worth issues. Oh, maybe that's why I had a meeting disorder was because I needed to control things to feel better about myself. And, you know, it's a, and it's a pattern I notice in, in some clients as well as the, they, they want to use, they want to use exercise as a release because they have an unquiet mind. Like, I have an unquiet mind, but the, the, the bells or exercise can be their quiet place. And it's like, it's the one hour a day that where my brain stops screaming. And it's like, oh, it's great. It's my stress relief. It's like, no, it's your stress release. It's, it's giving you a release valve for some of that stress, but it's still a stress on your body. And if you don't account for that and you don't learn other techniques and like, it can, it can get out of balance. And like, that's, that's a really hard thing to, to come to awareness of, I think. Yeah. And I think what you said is important that exercise can be one way that may help, but those things in your mind and that ultimately are held in your body too, that they don't just go away by working out. You know, I think something that I realized after having to slow down and, you know, especially with the pandemic and like, sitting with myself is like, things came up that I did not even have a clue were, were in there and we're driving these different things. And only in hindsight, can I see it? Because in the moment, I, I would have been like, what are you talking about if somebody was like, you know, I think you might be insecure and like, you can validate yourself. I'd be like, what do you mean? I'm a master of sport. Exactly. But, you know, it took like the quiet reflection time and it was exactly what you said earlier of like, looking at the dark parts of my psyche and like being really uncomfortable and like, frying a lot just like a horrible time in some ways. But in other ways, like, really incredibly valuable. Like, I would not trade that for anything because I think it showed me myself honestly in a way that I just, I don't know how I would have come to it otherwise. No amount of exercise would ever have, you know, really shown me that the exercise in some ways was preventing me, the over exercising was preventing me from looking at it because similar to you, I didn't want to sit still because if I didn't do anything, eventually I would feel really bad. I would just start, you know, bad having bad thoughts. I would feel really, you know, sad or down emotionally. But I didn't see because I was avoiding those things. I was like, well, when I exercise, I don't feel that way. So it's a good thing. It was like, well, yes, no, yes and no, it's it's not binary. It can be both a good thing and a dangerous thing. That's the that's the tricky part. I think that's what, but you wouldn't trade it for anything. What about 100,000 Instagram followers? No, no, no. When we talked yesterday, I think I actually was thinking back on it. I was like, I was like, you dropped off the face of the face of the earth that I was like, she didn't actually drop off the face here. She just stepped away from social media, but because that was because that was like my mechanism of interacting with you. I was like, I was like, where did Britco? She's like, gone. She's not on Instagram anymore. She's not on Facebook. I don't know what's going on in her life. She's she's not doing handstands. What is she doing right now? I don't I have no idea. It was probably a shock to many people not just you because I got to the point where I was like posting like all the time. I was posting like everything in my life. And I think it, again, it took that reflection time and and a friend pointing certain things out to me that I was like, wow, like this is this is really gone too far. You know, this is this has gone way too far and just realizing that that I think Instagram also became a way to seek that external validation. And it's easy to get into like if you post a lot on Instagram and you have, you know, enough followers that you're getting consistent kind of likes on stuff. You start to notice what things get more likes. And it's like you start doing that. The analytics. Yeah, you could I could I could tell myself at some point like, oh, well, I'm growing my business, you know, or I'm this or that. But, you know, the stuff that people like is the stuff where, you know, my body is showing and it's the stuff where I'm showing impressive things. It's like the party tricks thing. And it started like trending more that way because that's what would get the response. And I was spending a lot of time on Instagram interacting with people and feeling like like feeling like that engagement was like moving me towards something. And eventually I think I realized like, it's not really moving me towards anything. I'm just spending my life like on Instagram. Yeah, engagement is not connection. That's that's the thing I've that's a tricky thing to learn, like to realize that engagement is not actual connection. Yeah. And I think in some ways I was I was lacking certain deeper connection in my real life and trying to seek it during Instagram over Instagram and realizing that like, especially during the pandemic, I started, okay, I'm going to do my only business. I'm going to push all this stuff. I'm going to do all the Instagram and start interacting like more on Instagram. And it just kind of brought everything to a head and made me realize like, this is not I don't think it's actually helping my business as much as I think it is. And the amount of, you know, not just anxiety it's creating and like feeling like I needed to respond and I needed to keep up. But just that I was using it and like finally realizing that I was like using it in an unhealthy way in some ways for like my mental state and just being like, you know what? I think I just need to stop doing Instagram all together. Like it just I just want to like delete it. I just want to, you know, so I ended up like just freezing my account like going off of Instagram and deciding like not to spend much time on social media because at the end of the day, most of the people who've actually worked with me or bought my programs are on my mailing list. Like I think 90 to 95 percent of them are on there already. They're not on Instagram. And some of them came from Instagram, I'm sure. But for the most part, like growing my business, I was like, I don't really need that. I could just use my mailing list and do it that way. And I think it would be healthier for me mentally and it really has been nice. Yeah. And you've you've you've really made it a point. Like I've seen a shift and it's not and I don't we talked about this yesterday. I don't mean to just come across you know pejoratively in any way, but you've made a shift towards authenticity that's been really, really cool. And it's not that you weren't showing up authentically before, but it's just like there's more vulnerability to it. Like like coming like just coming straight out and being like I needed to stop lifting weights because I lost my period and I realized that I was messing up my body, right? Like that's a super vulnerable thing to share with a mailing list of people, right? And to come on a podcast and be willing to talk about it, right? Like so what what was the the clarifying moment where you decided just to to show up more vulnerably? I think that sharing sharing my story on with my mailing list, I think I've always tried to be authentic, but I think as we just discussed, there were certain things that I didn't realize about myself at the time. And so it's only now after like this period of reflection stepping away from social media, you know, stepping away from training as much that I think I can see it more clearly. So it took that in order to be able to see it clearly. And as far as sharing my story, well, I've been trying to figure out with with the shift in myself and my training, how I want to shift like my job and helping people and the mailing list that I do have what can I provide for these people. And in that in doing that, I'm also thinking how do I how do I like, you know, tell people about what I'm doing and the shift I'm doing. And I think one of the most powerful ways to talk to people is to tell a story. So that's that's one one part of it. And the other part is like, I don't I don't want to to to sell to people. I don't want to try to try to do the whole I've tried going through all the how do you market to people? How do you sell your products or your coaching or your services? Like I don't want to do all that stuff. I don't want to force anybody to work with me. I don't want to, you know, scare people with things that might happen if they don't. I just want people to work with me if they resonate with with me, my experience and what I have to offer them. And so I think the most powerful way to do that is authentically sharing my story. I think also it's it's been an important part of my own healing to write the story. And you know, I write, I kind of just blah, put all the story down on filtered. And then I filter it a bit for the mailing list. I do. But not in the authorship process, right? Like you just brain dump and then then you go back and read it. Yeah. And like sometimes I read it and like I told you yesterday, I read something in my, oh, okay, that's a little like too embarrassing. Like that's too personal. Like there's something that are just for, you know, for me to know, I don't need to tell the world that. But try any. I just turn on a microphone and go live on Facebook. So clearly, I don't have your leftful itself restrained. Well, when you're writing something, you have more time to think it over. And I think, you know, it's, it's more powerful to tell a story without telling every single detail. I think a well written story leaves certain things to your imagination or for you to kind of interpret what exactly that means. So just trying to heal and have a good time writing my story. And I don't know whether it, you know, benefit ultimately benefits me business wise or not. It doesn't really matter to me. I think like healing and feeling good about myself is more important than any of that. And I think it seems like it's resonated with a lot of people and helped some people realize things about themselves, which is just like an added bonus. Yeah, that's, that's fantastic. Is there, is there a, a double edged sword to that vulnerability? Have you had any, have you had any negative consequences from, from putting yourself out there or have you, or have you mostly found it to be a positive experience? I've mostly found it to be a positive experience. I'm sure that like people unsubscribe after every email I send. So some people I think are, are no longer interested, but that always kind of is, is a flux. So it doesn't, it doesn't seem, it's not like a, you know, half the people my mailing was left and was like, I don't want to hear this, but, you know, some people unsubscribe because they're not not really interested in hearing that. And I think that's ultimately a good thing because I'd rather, you know, talk to the people who, who resonate with, with what I'm putting out. And if they just, you know, they just want, you know, the workouts I used to put out, then, then they can find that somewhere else. Yeah, there's plenty of places on Instagram to get a day, to get a daily swipe workout. Yeah, exactly. So mostly, yeah, the other responses I've gotten overwhelmingly positive, I haven't got anybody. Like, some people that I think, even though they're reading it and responding, and I think don't totally get the message at times, like sometimes I get responses where I'm like, I think maybe you don't get it, but it's okay. It's nothing like negative. I, you know, I have gotten a response about when I wrote about my experience competing and, you know, the response was like the person loves competing and disagreed and felt like competing is the best part of their experience training kettlebells. You know, and I did think about sending out something and telling people, like, look, I'm, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with kettlebell sport. Like, I still, like, love the sport and I love to see how people are progressing in it. And I, I think it, it can be used in a healthy way. And it's not to say, you know, you should never push yourself, never train hard. That's not what I'm trying to say. I'm just sharing my experience with it and what happened for me and there may or may not be things that resonate for people, you know, and there will be some people who, you know, they either truly like don't agree and that wasn't their experience or some people who it might even like trigger something that they're not ready to look at either and that they, you know, may relate to it at some level, but not like it. Because that's also part of, you know, we talked about. There's, there's like a dark part of everyone's psyche and it's hard. It takes a lot of courage to look at it. Yeah. Yeah. And you'll definitely, I'm sure you've experienced it. I know I have, you know, if you, if you challenge someone in the wrong way that that puts them to the dark part of their psyche, they, they can respond aggressively towards you, even if you were not in any way intending to be aggressive towards them or trying to hurt them, but you force them to look at something that that might be, you know, a source of pain for them. And that's that, you know, that can be, that can be reacted to aggressively sometimes unfortunately or, or people withdraw like you said sometimes, we're just like, no, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to go there. Yeah. And so I haven't really had any of that. It's all been, it's all been positive, but it's been really cool to hear people's responses or the ways that they've, you know, they can relate. There's been some people who have had like an extremely similar experience to me within their kettlebell sport training. It's like, wow, like, okay, that's like almost exactly the same. You know, so it's pretty, pretty interesting to see that it is, you know, probably more common than, than we think it's just not often shared because, well, it's very personal, you know, you may not want to share it with anybody. And that's totally understandable. And it's, it's, you know, it's just not a, yeah, it's not popular, I guess, to talk about sort of like the dark side of it, because I think for a long time, I also felt like I would get like blowback, maybe from people in kettlebell sport that they would think I was like bashing the sport or saying like, don't do it or that I was giving it a bad name, but I'm, you know, it's not any of those things, but it is, I think an important experience to be shared. Don't tell us our baby is ugly. Exactly. We're trying so hard to grow the sport. We don't want to hear about any of the negative parts of it, like, but it's like any other sport. There are, there are trade-offs if you're going to compete at the high level. It's not perfect. Yeah, any extreme endeavor in any sport you compete at the high level, like you said, there's, there's a trade-off. And I think it's important to know that because I think, especially in kettlebell sport, a lot of people kind of just immediately make it their goal to become a masculine sport. And I think sometimes they don't understand what the trade-offs are of that. You know, I've had certain certain students say that to me. And I know that in that moment, when they're saying it, they don't quite understand the level of dedication and what some of the trade-offs are and how, you know, when you're training with 24s, double 24s for the ladies or double 32s for the guys, I would say at least a part-time job, if not like the full-time jobs do that. So you better have like a career path that allows you to have a lot of time for training and for like recovering and not having an espresso in your life. Yeah, you better have 20 hours a week to train and you better have another at least 10 to recover, you know, active recovery. And then you better be able to get eight to nine hours a sleep a night, like if you're going to do it in any sustainable way. I think it's important for people doing kettlebell sport recreationally to be aware of the fact that like you may not actually want to become a masculine sport because there's going to be a trade-off and I don't know if they always realize what that is and that it's maybe unrealistic with either, you know, they have a very stressful job already, you know, they have a job and they have kids, they have different things that they have that it's like maybe going for master sport isn't the best thing for you because I think it really gets like exponentially harder after say like even for most guys lifting double 24s, like seriously going for high numbers, that is a lot for the body and same for the ladies in level 16. So to go beyond that, I think it gets like exponentially harder within each weight that you go up and it's not. It's a non-linear growth curve for sure in intensity. Yeah, it's not something to be taken lightly. Yeah, I have my strategy for achieving master sport and it's the people that have listened to the podcast. No, I'm just going to get I'm going to keep my numbers exactly the same as I get older. So I'm just going to just keep getting I'm just going to try and stay this strong for as long as possible. And if I can keep it up long enough, I'll just age into master sport. Like that's my strategy. So are you going to come back to kettlebell sport at any point or what are you doing for training now? Like what are you doing for physical activity and taking care of yourself in that way? So it's shifted a lot. I actually lift weights, like I train and lift weights like a fraction of what I used to because what I've discovered after taking time off to really let myself heal. And that was, you know, just letting myself not work out if I didn't feel like it, which, you know, or even if I felt tired at all, like whether it was related to anything physical or just I just felt tired for whatever reason, you know, just not training. And that was really helpful for me, you know, probably more mentally than anything else. And nothing horrible happened when I didn't train. I didn't lose all my strength. Like none of those things that I like was afraid were going to happen happened. And over time, in fact, my body got healthier. It felt better. It like, you know, my body weight normalized to a place that feels good. I found that by actually, this is, this is revolutionary right here. Actually let yourself recover training feels way better. And you enjoy it more too. Whoa, whoa, you're crazy, right? Equal dose of recovery to every dose of training, revolutionary concept, right? Simple but not easy. Simple but not easy. Not easy. So I these days, I, what's a constant for me is I usually walk every day for at least an hour, not at any fast speed, just like an enjoyable walk. And I do a few sets of pushups and split squats every day. And so if nothing else, like I do that and really I don't really need anything more than that. But I like working out. And I like, you know, learning new things. So I, I'll do a kettlebell workout every sometimes I go a couple weeks without lifting any weights at all. And sometimes I'll do like one or two kettlebell workouts. And, and this is fluctuated during the last year and a half. We're for a while. I was only walking. And then I started doing like some kettlebell stuff more regularly. And then I stopped again. And then it's kind of kind of like ebbs and flows depending on on what's going on. I think the biggest change is just if I don't feel recovered, I don't train. And I just wait until I feel recovered. Now there, there's days where I still feel a compulsion to exercise. And some days I'm really good about it. And I'm like, okay, what am I actually feeling anxious about? Let me just like do some meditation. Let me journal. Let me focus on that. And then I don't need to exercise. And there's some other days where I can possibly exercise because I feel that so because I'm not perfect. And you know, it happens. But for the most part, like just way less volume. And the amazing thing I found is when you let yourself recover, you actually make way more progress on things that you would have thought for how much I used to train that I would make so much progress. But in fact, I often like didn't make progress as quickly as I wanted. And I found that, you know, I was doing a lot of handstand training for a while. And I kind of like stopped doing it. And I was having some wrist issues from that. And I just stopped. And I also wasn't making progress in it. Like I wanted. And I found that just by doing like my daily pushups and letting myself recover, I actually my handstands when I came back to it months later, I found that I was stronger and like making progress by just, you know, building strength from the pushups and doing like some upper body, like activation work really like light isometric stuff on muscles that weren't really activating the way I wanted. And somehow my handstands just like magically got better. And so I found that just there's a minimum effective dose. And it's way lower than I ever thought it was. Like I can maintain my strength. Even if I do like one weight training workout a month or a couple, I've found that I can maintain. And of course, I've weight trained for years. So it's different from somebody just, it may be different than for somebody just starting. But it's shaped the way I view like exercise and training. And change did a lot because I don't think we actually need to exercise as intensely or get as much stimulus as the messaging out there is saying, oh, you need to work out like three to five times a week. I think that's way too much for most people based on the stress levels in our day to day life. And that I think if you just get like a little dose and do most of your exercises at a place where you're not pushing yourself super hard, that you get a much better outcome and a much more sustainable way to train. And particularly I'm referring to like, you know, training for health, training for longevity versus if you're trying to perform or do a sport. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I agree with so much that you said there. And you said, you said words that my clients here often, my athletes here, minimum, we're looking for minimum clinically effective dose. I say that will probably weigh more than they would like. But I do say that a lot because you know, intensity if it only goes up, you know, you can't go past 11. So, you know, that's why we want to, we want to move the dial as little on intensity as possible. Because if you move directionally more and more and more intensity, eventually the dial can't go any further. So I think it's not necessarily common within the kettlebell sport realm for for people to have that attitude. At least from my experience in the sport, it seems like across the board, most of the programs and coaching that's out there is pretty, you know, pretty. More volume, more volume. Yeah, and that's what I, that's what I did and that's what I was coaching. That's what I, that's what I knew, you know, that's how I learned you're supposed to do it. That's how I did it. That's how I was telling people to do it, you know, and I don't know if I were to go back and do less and put more like intensity and focus into that, whether it would get me to the same place. But, but I believe it would have been better. I believe I could have got myself somewhere where I wasn't, you know, didn't get burned out the way that I did. If I had been more smart and conscious and intuitive about my training. Yeah, but that's a, that's a really tough counterfactual to, to try and, to try and suss out. But like in my brain, I'm like, oh God, I can just see like if she was training like four days a week and having three days a week of like super active recovery and like in a day of just doing nothing, like, you know, I'm like, I can, I can only imagine how, how much more progress you would have made in, in those years. But, you know, say, love you. I can't, no time machine unfortunately, but, you know, despite those things, I, you know, I really loved training and competing and obviously the kettlebell sport community is awesome. So there was a lot of good things and it's not that I didn't gain anything awesome from kettlebell sport. I think it built a level of like mental tenacity. I do think it built a level of confidence in my physical abilities, my ability to push myself through difficult things. I do think that, you know, that, that helped me over the last year and a half of dealing with a lot of difficult things internally that the, that the strength that I built from pushing through, you know, that hard stuff in 10 minutes sets with really heavy bells, that that helped with that. So I think there's a lot of good stuff. I built a lot of strength. I built a lot of endurance. There was good things too. In the end, it just, you know, cost versus reward wasn't worth it for me anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't worth it for you anymore, right? And that's the thing. It's okay for it to be different. It's okay for it to evolve over time, right? And that's what my, my focus has shifted a lot. Like, I'm, you know, I joke about, you know, pursuing the, the master of sport by aging in, but that's kind of my, like, I'm not necessarily pursuing master of sport with any aggression anymore. And I initially got into the sport. Like you said, I was like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to go for master of sport. Like, and then I realized, you know, you get into it for a few years and you realize how much that cost, you know, and I couldn't pay the toll. So, you know, I'm not sure I had the capital. Yeah. And when, when you get into it, you know, I got, like I said, I got into it when I was 20. So I pushed myself through it through like most of my 20s, especially my early 20s, which, you know, if you're going to do it, it's probably a better time to do it because you're not, the injuries you're getting maybe are not as lasting. Your body can recover better than it would. If you were starting at 30 or you were starting at 40, you know, it's going to be more challenging and you don't have as much room for air then. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. All right. So we're up against time. And I always try and be respectful of people's time. So I'm going to ask you two questions. Usually there's only one closing question. But I'm going to ask you two because I think they're, I think they're important. So the first one is one that, you know, loyal listeners know is coming and it's if you could give advice to a brand new lifter starting kettlebell sport today, what would that one piece of advice that you would give to a brand new lifter be? That's a great question. I think the advice would be to learn, learn from a good coach. That's of course hard to hard for a beginner to know necessarily. But if you can learn from a good coach, the technique and how to progress in the sport, but you can still maintain your own still come back to your own intuition and your own feeling about how to progress and how to push yourself. Because I think, you know, it is very important to learn the technique from a coach and to learn, you know, be able to ask them questions that only somebody who's in that training world and that competition world would know, but at the same time, don't get so wrapped up in what someone else tells you to do that you don't listen to yourself and listen to your own body. That's great. That is a, that is a great nugget. And that's, that's a tough needle to thread because we, we do defer to our coaches a lot, especially when you're, when you're brand new. So that's, yeah, that's great. All right. Now the second question I'm going to warn you is going to be harder because we're going to take kettlebell sport out of it. And I'm just going to say, what is, what is the most valuable lesson you've learned over your, your journey over the last couple of years of taking a step back, walking away from a sport that you love, you know, and really doing the hard work, exploring the dark corners of your psyche. Like, what is, what is the hardest lesson or the best lesson that you've learned in that journey? That is, that is a great question. As you mentioned, very hard one to, to, to still it all down. I think a couple that stand out to me is that true strength is not about how much you can lift or how big your muscles are or literally about how physically strong you are. You know, I think true strength is about your ability to like be courageous in looking at yourself, in being authentic, in being able to support other people through times of their need. You know, I think it's about being able to to love really more than it is about being physically strong. And I think the other one would be the advice that I've gotten about remember the truth of love in the present moment. So it's about like that, that life is about being here and being present. And a lot of the darkness and the anxiety and the fears that we have are not about this moment. And as, as, you know, kind of cliche and as simple as that sounds, like a lot of things can be solved if you remember, like what's what's the truth of love in the present moment? Meaning, like, if, if what you, what you're thinking and stressing about or spiraling about or struggling with is not good, like it's something that's based in fear and it's not based in love, it's, it's not true. It's not true. And the thing to remember is like what is true if you think about love and what, what relates with love, you know, they say love is the opposite of fear. So if you think about what's what is the truth of love in that moment, whether it's with regards to you or someone else or certain situation or what's the best thing to do remembering that and choosing to make your, your, your action or your decisions or your mindset based on that, I think is the, the best thing to do. Awesome. That's, that's some gold right there. Love that. Those are some great. But I hope it's helpful for someone. It was helpful for me. So that was, that was fantastic. I love that. All right. So if people do want to follow you, you're not on Instagram anymore clearly. So how do they, how do they follow you? How do they, how do they get on your email list or, you know, how do people get at you? Yeah. So my Instagram is there. I just don't really use it. So you can find me on there, but I don't really go on it. So you would find me at kbfitbrit.com or if you, you know, type in kbfitbrit into YouTube. There's my YouTube channel. I'm planning to post some more stuff on there in the future. So that would be the, the best way and people can get on my mailing list through signing up for the, for the free ebook on my site or just contact me through through there. Awesome. And we'll put links in the episode notes as well. So for anybody that wants to, anybody that wants to follow you, it's, she's, she's a good follow. It's, it's been, it's been great. And Britney, thank you so much for taking the time. This was honestly one of my favorite conversations I've had. So I really, I really appreciate it. My, my face hurts from smiling. You've dropped some gold. We've laughed. We've talked about kettlebell sport and some serious stuff. So it's, it's been, it's been fantastic. So thank you so much. I truly appreciate your time. And I really, really appreciate you coming on. Thank you, Jordan. You've been a great host and I, I feel more comfortable talking to you on here than I have on, on, I think, any podcast I've been on. So thank you. Thank you. That means a lot to me. So all right. Thank you, Britney. We will talk soon. Okay. Thanks, Jordan. Bye, bye. Thanks for listening to this episode of the platform podcast. I'm Jordan. Good to be right. We'll be back with a new episode for you next week. Please don't forget to register for the Twin Cities kettlebell open on our website, Twin Cities kettlebellclub.com. And if you have a question or suggestion, please email me at Twin Cities kettlebellclub at gmail.com. And don't forget to follow us on social media at Twin Cities kettlebellclub. And if you want to step onto the platform and competing kettlebell sport, please reach out to me. Until next time.