S3E19 - Tracy Pleschourt - Making You

Tracy Pleschourt tried every weight loss program out there. Her biggest struggle wasn't losing weight it was learning how to do the "mind math" behind how to lose weight. She now uses that mind math for all struggles in her life to help self-coach herself through them.

Tracy is the Founder of Self-Made U and the Host of Secrets of the Self-Made Podcast helps men and women create Self-Made wealth and wellness through life coaching. Tracy has mastered and now teaches the critical skills necessary to manage your mind and overcome any obstacle, including overeating, overdrinking, time management, and career & relationship changes.

Social media and contact information:

IG: Self_MadeU

Facebook: Self-MadeU

TikTok: Self_MadeU

Https://self-madeu.com

Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Hey, you made it to the Relatively Damaged podcast by Damaged Parents. I'm so glad you're here. I'm your host Angela Talent, and if you haven't done so yet, hit the subscribe button so you can hear all the fantastic stories we uncover. And if you love this podcast, share it with your friends. Let's get to today's episode.

welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today we have Tracy Pleschourt with us, and she has overcome many obstacles, including overeating, over drinking, time management, and career and relationship changes. She is also the founder of Self-Made U and the host of Secrets of the Self-Made Podcast, which helps men and women create self-made wealth

and wellness. And she does that through life coaching. And she literally has mastered all of these tools and now gets to teach these critical skills to people. So let's listen to her story. But before we get to her story, I wanna let you know her website is https://self-madeu.com. So just check out, uh, https://self-madeu.com .

Tracy, welcome to the show.

[00:01:16] Tracy Pleschourt: Thanks, Angela. I'm super excited to be here.

[00:01:20] Damaged Parents: Yeah, I mean, and to really lit, quite literally, talk about obstacles and overeating, overdrinking, time management career and relationship changes, would, which one would you say was the hardest to get through and why?

[00:01:38] Tracy Pleschourt: You know, I would say it was probably the overeating that I was doing.

Um, and that was probably because I had done it for so many years. It was like the way that I would cope with unwanted feelings or negative feelings, however you want to describe that. Feelings that I just, I had no idea how to process. And so using food to relieve my boredom, to relieve my anxiety, to relieve my fear, , became just an everyday practice.

And, day after day of overeating resulted in being overweight and it's very difficult to change, you know, that result of being overweight when you don't understand how you got there to begin with. That was so deeply rooted in me to turn to food, um, as a way to cope that it probably was the most difficult, but I would say.

That in retrospect, I'm so grateful for how difficult that journey was because it allowed me to really learn so much about myself. And I literally have that journey to thank for all of the other accomplishments that have now happened, like no longer over drinking, alcohol in particular, and creating a business so, Yeah.

But I would say that was probably the most difficult.

[00:03:16] Damaged Parents: Did you at first recognize even when you're, I mean, you're overweight, how did you even recognize that? Oh, I'm eating my feelings. I'm, I'm basically right. Yeah.

[00:03:28] Tracy Pleschourt: Yeah. It honestly, it wasn't until I would say five years ago when I.

Decided to become a life coach. I did it with the objective of helping other women transfer or transition out of corporate and into a purpose-driven business. That is a huge passion of mine, and so I started consulting women. On that topic and what they were bringing to a lot of the sessions were more personal type obstacles, and I didn't feel super equipped to help them, outside of the scope of business.

And so I went and pursued a life coaching certification that had like a a-la-carte, offering of weight loss. And it literally took the like process, the concepts that. I was learning and applied it very specifically to weight loss, and so that's when it all clicked for me. So I think that it's very helpful for my clients to know that, just because you're overweight, or just because you're overeating, that doesn't mean that you are broken.

What it means is that you haven't yet learned. How you got there in the first place. And so today I'm a life coach talking about the fact that I had no idea that I was eating my feelings to put it the way you put it. Um, until I learned, until I learned there was nothing wrong with me. It's just I hadn't yet learned.

[00:05:11] Damaged Parents: Did you learn it because of what they talked about in the program? Or was it more as you were taking what you were learning and trying it out that you were like, oh, this is what I'm doing. Does that make sense?

[00:05:25] Tracy Pleschourt: Yeah, it was for sure through personal application. Um, definitely. So I think that. You know, there's a big difference between insight and actual, like habit change.

You have to understand that, you know, concepts, although they can be very life-changing and they can make a lot of sense unless you put, you know, action behind that and you're willing to like test it out on yourself. It's very difficult to really create sustainable change. So, insight is like 20% of it or these concepts, these new, these new, you know, understandings, these universal truths, if you will.

And I would say, you know, the mental fitness is the 80% that's necessary to create. Habit change.

[00:06:21] Damaged Parents: Mm. Okay. So I think when I'm hearing you, I'm thinking of what I say when I say, oh, I get it logically, but I don't get it emotionally. Yeah. So it makes sense applying it is a whole nother ball of wax.

[00:06:35] Tracy Pleschourt: Yeah. And so the way I like to explain it is that, We all have a brain, you know, and I think it's, I kind of, I love to be playful in everything that I teach.

So the women who come to me and men who come to me who want to lose weight, they're very fixated on, you know, the weight, how much weight they have to lose, or how overweight they are, and what is most meaningful are. Three pounds. It's the three pounds that exist between your ears, it's your brain, and we all have a brain.

And there's two parts to that brain. There is the primitive part. And then there's the prodigy part. The primitive part is meant to keep us alive. It's that survival part of our brain that gives us very fear-based thoughts because it wants to keep us safe. It like avoids pain. It seeks pleasure, it runs.

It wants to be very efficient, so it's very habitual in the way that it offers you these thoughts. That's the primitive brain. Most people don't even recognize that they have this other part of their brain, which I call the prodigy brain scientists and researchers, and doctors would call it the prefrontal cortex.

But that prodigy brain enables you to create extraordinary results. But you have to be intentional with like tripping the trigger of your prodigy brain. And so just understanding that you have these two parts of your brain, and most of us operate from the primitive brain because we have no awareness that there is this other part that we can tap into that actually has strengths that would allow us to create new habits.

It's difficult to create that change. So I like to kind of draw the visual of you've got your primitive brain and you've got your prodigy brain, and you need both. Both have a purpose, but it's. When you manage the two that you're actually operating from, like a self-made mind to get the results that you most desire.

And so again, it takes that awareness of why it's happening. You gotta get to the root cause. Otherwise, no matter what circumstance we're talking about, relationships or weight or over-drinking or underearning or overspending, it doesn't matter, without understanding what the root cause of your results are, all you're doing is Band-Aiding problems over and over and over.

You wanna solve it at the root level and it goes right back to your brain and which part of your brain. The results are coming from,

[00:09:34] Damaged Parents: and how challenging is it to shift or to use both of them in such a way that you can find those strengths?

[00:09:45] Tracy Pleschourt: You know, I think it takes a level of commitment for sure. I think that, you know, it takes.

You being courageous enough to get honest with yourself and asking yourself, why do I want this particular result? Whatever it is, goal or why, why, you know, whatever problem it is that you want to be, um, to solve. You gotta understand why do you want it, and if it's meaningful enough to you to be committed.

The actual practice, the day in, day out practice. Is simple, but you gotta make sure it's backed with reasons that you like that create a sense of commitment because that'll have you coming back and putting forth the effort to practice. But ultimately it's just like learning to read. Mm-hmm. You learn it conceptually and then you practice it and so, right.

So it's the same thing.

[00:10:44] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And it sounds like you're not saying it's easy.

[00:10:47] Tracy Pleschourt: Right. I mean, it takes work. It takes work. So, you know, I kind of preempt people who are looking for that silver bullet who's looking for the magic pill. I'm definitely not the, the educator or the coach for them. because I want to teach people a system that is duplicatable, that no matter what problem they have, they feel equipped.

That they don't feel like they need to go to social media and find the latest and greatest overnight cure. Like I want them to feel like they have the control to solve every problem and achieve every goal. And so I teach it. As an operating system, and I actually call it the self control operating system.

And there's just four components to it. And because again, I, I believe I have kind of a small brain, my brain, the average brain is three pounds. Mine's probably like two and three quarters. So I use a lot of frameworks. I'm super visual, so I like to have like little reminders, but the self-control operating system is made up of four parts, and this is what gets you the results that you want.

It either gets you to the goals that you're looking to achieve or the solution to the problems that you have. And it's S E L F. So solving the mind math through self coaching, there's always a primitive and a prodigy brain. Thought that's happening, and you need to be able to see it. And so through self coaching, the S, you'll be able to use a tool that we teach you to really understand why you're getting the results you're getting and how to create new results.

The E is eliminating obstacles, primarily the saboteur voices that are coming from your primitive brain. The L is leveraging your prodigy brain strengths, so understanding what those are so that you can tap into 'em quite quickly, and then forging intentional results, just no longer like driving on autopilot.

It's all about doing things with intention.

[00:13:06] Damaged Parents: I'm trying to think in, in my life of an example, uh, you know, like I'm trying to apply that right now. Mm-hmm. To me, and I'm wondering that emotional piece is, I would think one that's hard to get past. So sometimes we don't reco. At least for me, I haven't recognized.

So I'm wondering how do you, how do people, or how did you, even with your overeating, start to recognize, oh, this is fear. Why am I eating this fear? Right.

[00:13:41] Tracy Pleschourt: Yeah. Yeah. it really does take you asking yourself, kind of prompting yourself. That's what self coaching is, is asking yourself questions, prompting yourself for new ways of thinking about the answers.

and so I will say that it's human nature to look at actions. You can actually see actions happening. You know, in retrospect, you can kind of visualize actions that are gonna happen. What is very difficult to kinda get your arms around are thoughts and feelings. You can't really see those, right? So I would look at my overeating patterns and I would just like beat myself up over it.

Like, oh, there I went again. I eat, you know, my husband brought home cookies and I ate nine outta 10 cookies, and I would just, I would fixate on the action of eating the cookies. And so it. Took a really long time for me to understand. It's not the action of eating cookies that are is the problem. It's not the overeating that's the problem.

The root cause is the thought of, you know, I need that. I want that. I mean, it's nothing poetic that's coming from your primitive brain. It's usually like a combination of four words. Yeah. You must have cookie now. , that creates the feeling of an urge. Mm. I would've never known that because I was so fixated on what I could see, which was the actions.

So, Working with a coach to really kind of get yourself to that point, to recognize its human nature, to look at actions because they're very visual. You can, you can see 'em. Mm-hmm. What you can't see is a little bit more, you know, it's the subconscious, it's the thoughts and the feelings, and that's the root cause.

So that's what we've gotta get to. So we teach a tool that helps you see it. Very clearly. It gets it outta your head, gets it outta your body, put it into what I call the mind math formula so you can see it. That's how you can change it.

[00:15:51] Damaged Parents: I heard you say, you were talking about the, the negative thoughts or the unhealth, unhelpful, however you wanna put it, the, those icky thoughts after the fact.

Yeah. And so, With the, looking back at those thoughts, I mean, did you look back at the thoughts or did you look back at the food and what you ate and then you had to go back? Okay, what am I thinking? What, and then how was I feeling? Um, and, and what was it you said? Yes. So I'll let you answer that question first.

Yeah.

[00:16:23] Tracy Pleschourt: So I would, I could kind of reverse architect it, I think is what you're asking. Like I can look at the actions that I was taking. And then I just asked myself like, why was I taking that action? but I'm, I'm very specifically looking for the, what, what was I feeling? Mm. What was I feeling that had me taking that action?

And you've gotta get in, you've gotta get honest with yourself.

[00:16:53] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Well, ok. So it's like, what was I feeling that had me take that action that now I'm beating myself up about? And. Yes. Like, because it seems like it would go in a very circular, um,

[00:17:07] Tracy Pleschourt: it can, yes. Without an awareness of it. It can just be this vicious cycle.

So you wanna put a stop to that vicious cycle. And so we have this mind math tool that is your thoughts. Create your feelings a hundred percent of the time, you're not gonna have a feeling unless you have a thought first.

[00:17:25] Damaged Parents: Okay. Even if it's subconscious thought like you're not even aware of the thought.

[00:17:30] Tracy Pleschourt: Correct? Yep. And then that feeling is what has you showing up and doing a k a behaving right? Has you acting in some way can be an inaction, but it's still an action. It's the way you're behaving, which your actions are, what create your results. So it's those four components. That make up our mind math tool and we look at it from under the microscope from of our primitive brain.

So in your example, what was I feeling when I grabbed that cookie? For me, I know it was entitled. Hmm. That was the feeling like I need that or, I'll start tomorrow, or I've done well up until now, like I did so good, you know, through the holidays, and so I deserve that. Right? Those are like the kind of primitive brain thoughts that if they go without being checked, you'll just keep rinsing and repeating, and you can see that very clearly in that mind math, and most of the time the thoughts that are coming from your primitive brain.

Are not true. They're fear-based thoughts, like, somebody's gonna take that away from me, or I'm never gonna be able to have that again if I don't eat it right now. Like, that's not true. That's not true. Cookies will be here tomorrow and they'll be here a week from tomorrow, right? Like, but our primitive brain is very dramatic.

And so when you see it, you can call it out for what it is. It's just a primitive brain thought, that's it. It's coming from a part of my brain that's absolutely necessary, but I want to turn down the volume of that so that I can turn up the volume of my prodigy brain and start questioning that thought and be like, is that even true?

Like the minute I question it, I've tripped the trigger of the other part of my brain, which is highly necessary to get the result that you want.

[00:19:29] Damaged Parents: Right. So even just thinking of this morning for me, I, you know, taking a drink of water, I already was getting some food and then I realized I wasn't hungry and that I'm still eating because I'm thinking, oh, this day is gonna be really hard and I just need to eat.

You know? So recognizing, so you're saying like sometimes it's, so it's going back and recognizing, oh. I don't need to do that right now. Yeah. I could have just put the, the food could have gotten back in the fridge or whatever, saved or put in a container and saved for later. Yes. And I could have just lived with my water.

[00:20:05] Tracy Pleschourt: Yes, so that is a great example of what it looks like to self coach and the tool, the mind math tool that I teach. I have a free, um, download on my website that takes you through the steps of how to put it in and look at what your primitive brain is thinking and how to trip the trigger of your prodigy brain to get the result that you want.

I have that step by step. Tool on my website right at the top, you can just download it . So I highly recommend that that is, it's so helpful to have a tool that gets it out of your head, get it, gets it out of your mind and your body and onto paper, so then you can be really objective about it and learn something about yourself, because that's really the name of the game.

It's like you gotta understand what got you here in the first place.

[00:20:55] Damaged Parents: Well, and it sounds to me too, like the people that you're coaching, it's not a forever coaching.

[00:21:02] Tracy Pleschourt: Correct.

[00:21:02] Damaged Parents: It's, let me give you the tools so that you can start recognizing this inside of yourself so that you're not coming to me for years on end because you're helping pay my bills.

I mean,

[00:21:13] Tracy Pleschourt: that's exactly right. Yep. Yeah, I, my goal, so at Self-made U, my mission is to create self-made people, like to create self-made minds. That feel very equipped with the tools, with the skill sets to go on to accomplish any goal they set out. After and to solve any problem now at first, it's really helpful to have a coach to kind of guide you along the path.

But yeah, the mission is to really be independent in your self coaching and, it doesn't take long to get there. And when you feel equipped to accomplish any goal or solve any problem, it's like, bring it on. The sky's the limit. You can put anything you want. In the equals line of our mind math formula, and you'll start blowing your own mind of how, you know, simple it is to follow that system.

[00:22:12] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And it sounds to me like, you know, early on you were talking about having a coach, uh, or, or taking that program and, and learning some of these tools. How helpful was it for you to have someone to mirror back to you what you were saying?

[00:22:25] Tracy Pleschourt: Oh, Incredibly helpful. I think that self-coaching, you are looking at your mind essentially is what you're doing when you're self-coaching, especially if you're using the mind math formula.

You're actually seeing it, seeing it unfold, but it takes a little bit of time to get there, and so having somebody help you see your own mind, prompting you with the right questions so that you can see your own mind. Is everything. Like it's, yeah. I mean, that is the job of a good coach is to show their clients their minds not to fix all their problems.

Right. Or, you know, solve all their problems. It's, it's really to bring them to that point where they're drawing their conclusions, but they're looking at their mind through a different lens. So, yeah. I mean, I still, I get coaching on a weekly basis, you know, cause Yeah. I'm always wanting, it's very difficult when you, when your emotions are high, your intellect is low.

Okay? So if you're super emotional about any given circumstance, applying our self-control operating system can be challenging, right? And so sometimes I need to bring in the coach to help me walk through this process. It's very, very helpful.

[00:23:50] Damaged Parents: And I just can't help but thinking how the people, you know, especially a coach with where someone feels safe, that they can not only someone could talk about, the struggles in their life.

And, and then you could maybe see it a little bit sooner because there's not that emotional attachment to it. But also how all these other people in our lives are great mirrors, but they're not always great at, Helping us learn about ourselves. Uh, yes, they are great about helping us learn about theirselves, but it's not, let's see, how, how do I wanna, maybe you have words for it.

[00:24:20] Tracy Pleschourt: You gotta, you've gotta be open to it.

[00:24:21] Damaged Parents: Yeah. There you go. Yeah. That was easy

enough words.

[00:24:28] Tracy Pleschourt: Yeah. I, you know, and. I would say for every person that walks through our door who's looking to achieve the goal of weight loss, we have another person who's looking to heal a relationship. I mean, we, across the board, we teach this system to anyone who has any circumstance that they deem problematic or.

A circumstance of, you know, a particular goal, something that they deeply desire to achieve. so yeah, and I would say a big component of what I teach is empathy. really trying to, once you understand your mind math, then I really challenge my clients to look at the mind math of the other person, you know, especially if it's a relationship that they're struggling with. Creating that empathy is a strength of your prodigy brain, and it's really like you get some great mileage, some great traction out of tapping into that strength.

[00:25:38] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Ooh. Okay. So we have had such a great conversation and always, well, most always, I asked for three tools or tips at the end of the podcast, so I'm just thinking of someone struggling with any of the challenges you struggled with or other challenges. What would be three tools or tips? Um, maybe, maybe one of them would be, go get your free download, but what would be, uh, some other tools and tips also that.

You would say, try this or do this before you call me? Yeah. Or something like

[00:26:10] Tracy Pleschourt: that. Yeah. I would say, um, for sure the free download. Secondly, I would say, um, get curious about what it is that you're feeling on the regular. So many people are just like, You know, running their life on autopilot that they have no concept for how their feelings are driving the behaviors that they might not like that might be creating like net negative results for them.

So, a really simple tool is to set your alarm. I look at my calendar at the beginning of the day. I find that white space, like the open space, and I just set my alarm for that hour. And when my alarm goes off, I just sit here, get centered and ask myself, how am I feeling right now? I want one word. I wanna be able to articulate one word, and I have like a feelings wheel.

Anybody could grab that off of the internet, um, Pinterest, or I Google it. if you are, if your vocabulary is. A little, small when it comes to emotions and feelings. You know, download something that where you can like, read through it and be like, that's what I'm feeling. It's so important to know what it is that you're feeling.

And then secondly, the next very simple step is ask yourself why. When you come to the conclusion that I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'm feeling frustrated, even wanted feelings, like excited. Ask yourself why. The answer to that question is the thought that you're thinking. Mm-hmm. It's the thought that's driving that feeling, making that connection is everything.

So those would be, yeah. And then, and that gets you started on using the mind math tool. So yeah, then go download that.

[00:28:04] Damaged Parents: That's fantastic. So everyone, this was Tracy Pleschourt with Self-Made U. You can find her at https://self-madeu.com. She's also on all social medias, but check out the website, this free tool sounds fantastic and we'll see you next week.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Tracy about how she learned to catch her thoughts. We especially liked when she talked about how to self coach. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Instagram. Look for damaged parents.

We'll be here next week. Still Relatively Damaged. See you then.