Building a Foundation that Will Last for Generations with Jessica Kostrzewski

SPEAKERS

Rita Suzanne, Jessica Kostrzewski

Rita Suzanne  00:01

Welcome to the mom owned and operated Podcast, the podcast about moms and for moms, where we have candid conversations about running a business, raising a family, and remembering ourselves. I’m your host, Rita Suzanne, a single mom of four, digital strategist and provider of no nonsense business strategies and tactics. Hi, I’m Rita Suzanne. And today I have my friend Jessica with me, Jessica, please tell everyone all about you, your business and your family.

Jessica Kostrzewski  00:37

Hi, everyone. I’m Jessica Kruszewski. I am a certified health and life coach, mindfulness facilitator and advanced nutrition specialist. I live here in Florida, and I absolutely love where I’m at around the Navarre Beach area, me and my family reloc located here actually, when my husband and I both were stationed in the military, we got married shortly after meeting and we’ve been together 12 years now. So it’s been really exciting for us here in this area, I decided to become a health and life coach, because there was a lot of issues and problems that I was having in my life. And I really wanted to be able to solve them for myself. And now that I have learned how to find my happiness in every day, that is my mission to help other moms put themselves first. So they know how to teach their children how to do the same for them. I love that.

Rita Suzanne  01:40

How old are your children?

Jessica Kostrzewski  01:42

I have a 15 year old daughter. She’s 16 And just a couple of months. So we’re working on driving and all of that it’s been a whole lot of fun. Oh, scary, but a whole lot of fun.

Rita Suzanne  01:54

Yeah, I have a 15 year old too. And she has not asked me to start driving yet. But I’m, I’m prepared. And then I have I have four and they’re like one year under each other. So after that I’ll be you know, I’ll be teaching people to drive for the next four years, which is scary.

Jessica Kostrzewski  02:15

Absolutely. My daughter couldn’t wait. She was just like at 14 Like, let’s go. Let’s start learning. Like Give me the keys.

Rita Suzanne  02:23

I love her enthusiasm, right. So, my, my question, my first question is, you know, what started you on the path of becoming an entrepreneur, but you kind of already answered that. But is there any more details as to what made you decide that entrepreneurship was the way to go versus getting into like a corporate environment?

Jessica Kostrzewski  02:49

Yeah, absolutely. So I decided to open my own business and have my own company so that I could not only help myself, but I could teach other people how to help themselves. I found that in the corporate world, you really kind of given scripts, and you just kind of run with those, you help people in that area. But I feel like there’s enough there, people aren’t getting help at home. Like they need it. They’re not getting the support, there’s no one to talk to. And just having a health and life coach is completely different than therapy. So, you know, I had struggled with some problems in my past. Some of these problems were depression, I had suicidal thoughts. I come from a long line of people that also struggled with depression. My father actually took his life a few years ago. Sorry. It’s okay.

Rita Suzanne  03:47

My sister also also took her own life, as well. So I can completely relate to to that. So

Jessica Kostrzewski  03:56

yeah. So it was tough. So I guess the big reason why I wanted to help other people was so that they could know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, like I 100% believe I am never going to be depressed again. Like I’m in how sad moments. Sure. But depression ran in my family. And the biggest reason that I became a health and life coach was to stop these generational traumas that keep unfolding in our lives, so that I don’t pass that on to my children. I don’t want my children to grow up with this depressed mom and seeing like, that’s how it is and that’s okay. And that’s normal. And it’s not, it’s absolutely not when I was depressed, I wasn’t present with my children the way I wish I could have been. Sorry. No, I

Rita Suzanne  04:49

completely understand because like, like I’ve mentioned and if any of my listeners know this about me, but in 2020 I found out that my husband ended was cheating on me. And then two weeks later, my sister passed. And then COVID kicks in. And so I was really sitting in a seat of grief and heartbreak all at the same time. And then in May, I filed for divorce and for custody and my two nieces. So now I have four kids. And I’m single and just imagine the, and I’m trying to run a business. So I can completely relate to that, because I probably needed you during that time, right? Because I was so depressed. But I started my podcast in January 21, and just started talking to other moms. And that’s kind of what helped me because I couldn’t understand how they were able to run their businesses and raise their families. But most importantly, remember themselves because I was not taking care of myself at all. And I wasn’t president with my kids. And my business was struggling because I was not able to function. So do you have any advice for maybe someone who’s in similar situations as we were in?

Jessica Kostrzewski  06:04

Yeah, absolutely. The first thing that I had to learn to do was to put myself first. So like you, you weren’t taking care of yourself properly. And I also was not I was the last on the list, right, the last to eat the last to take a self care day, like the last to get a moment to myself to breathe, right? Because everybody as moms, I feel like everybody comes before us, our work our partners, our family, like the kids and all the chores, right? Your job, like all these things come first. And so we’re so last and we’re so used to that it’s, you know, my mom was last and her mom was last. And these are the generational traumas that are being passed down. So if my cup was empty, if I’m not doing even just one thing to help myself today, then I’m teaching that to my daughter that like she’s gonna eventually become last. And that’s not how we that’s not how we healthily support ourselves, right? So some of the things that I started with was journaling, meditation, get your thoughts out, start this internal curiosity of like, Why am I last, right? Like, do I want to be passing these same habits on to my children. Another thing that I did was making sure that I was getting in movement. So when you’re sad or depressed, or not feeling like get right, we tend to not move our bodies, and we stay really stuck. We’re isolated. Right? Depression is a self isolating disease. And so moving my body, I was able to move that pain and trauma and issues out. And the more I felt better, the more I wanted the next thing like what’s the next thing? Right? So then it was my diet, like, Okay, now I’m moving my body and I’m being mindful how my body hurts, right? As I started to age, I was like, developing diseases. And I was like, Man, I don’t know about all this stuff, guys, right? I’m not interested. If this is how it feels to get old then this. I don’t, I don’t want this. Right. So your diets huge. There’s so many things that you’re eating, consuming and putting in your body that it’s affecting your mood, it’s affecting your weight, it’s affecting all these diseases that pop up. Things that I struggled with was like endometriosis. I had, I see, I was getting eczema, rashes all over my skin. So once I started to look at my diet, reduce my stress, like, I have no problems anymore. I have no diseases, I have no skin problems. My mood is always exactly where I want it to be. I’ve learned emotional control. That was another big thing. You know, when I think when I was younger, I didn’t have the language. I didn’t have the tools. And I didn’t have the knowledge. And my family didn’t have the language tools or knowledge, the skills to teach me how to take care of myself. Right? Because that was what was being passed on was how to not take care of yourself. Right. And I believe that if you’re just going to do one thing, I love the 1% rule, right? What’s 1% What’s one thing that I could be doing for myself today that I didn’t do yesterday? Maybe just 1% better? Maybe I spent an extra 1% taking care of myself in the bathroom, right spending some self care time. Maybe it’s 1% I walk a little longer today. Right? Just 1% it when you’re depressed. It’s really hard to even just get that motivation to get out of bed. Right? If you can just 1% yourself. Absolutely.

Rita Suzanne  09:57

I love that. That’s that’s a really good Nice way to say it. And I agree, you know, it’s really hard to just get motivated. And I think that a lot of people have a different ideas of what self care is, I know that when I would ask the moms that I was interviewing, what they were doing for self care, sometimes they would say, you know, spa days and things of that nature, but I’m like, Listen, my self care consists of locking myself in my room, okay? And being alone for a moment, just so that I could catch my breath, you know, so it doesn’t necessarily mean going somewhere, pampering yourself. I think that that’s where it’s different. The Pampering and the self care are two different things.

Jessica Kostrzewski  10:43

Absolutely, self care looks differently for everybody. For me, the best self care day I have is to go for a hike, like, like you, you like to kind of be alone, I’m, I’m an introverted person, so I recoup on my own. So if I can also do that in nature, where I’m vibing with the energies of the world, like, I really love this, I love the sounds, the smells, I get out of the city out of the stress. And it’s been really vital to my self care.

Rita Suzanne  11:14

Me too. I when I a long time ago, I will say a long time ago, I feels like forever ago, I lived in Southern California. And the thing that I loved the most was the hiking, I loved hiking all the time. And here I’m in Ohio. Now. It’s not the same. And you know, I just I missed that so much. I still will go on hikes. But you know, it’s just, it’s a little bit different. But also I have a bike and I love getting out and just going for a long, long bike rides. And being like, like you said, isolating, I just want to be alone. That way. I’m not worried about anybody else’s safety because my kids, you know, love to come with me sometimes. But okay, so let’s talk about what is your core service that you have for your business? What is the main thing that you offer?

Jessica Kostrzewski  12:03

So the core service that I offer is my 90 day health and life coaching course. So you come in, and you take that with me, and it’s all about filling your own cup, putting yourself first learning to trust your intuition and honoring your bodies, yes, and nose. So that’s around health and like your fullness, right? If you’re eating too much. If you’re out partying too much, we’re going to learn to honor ourselves and what our bodies actually need. I feel like a lot of people, when we’re younger, we get disassociated with our bodies, right, we push them off to the side, because it’s not important right now, or somebody told you no, you’re gonna eat all your food, even though you were full. So we learn to turn off these signals. And that biggest part of self care is learning to turn back on those. So we’re gonna go on a journey of self discovery for 90 days. And for everybody, it’s totally different. It’s, it’s not a designed course. So some people that I work with are working through depression, some people I work with are trying to get a divorce. Some people I work with want to lose weight, some people I work with are just looking for mental stability. So there’s so many things that we can do to get you to work on goals that you want in your life. It’s all about finding what fits you because nobody is the same. Everybody’s chemically different, emotionally different. Our families are different, we don’t have the same times of day that we can operate and do different they know we can operate and do different things. So we really develop the course around you and what you need in your life at this moment. The second thing I offer is a mindfulness course. And this is an eight week course to help you become more centered in yourself emotionally balanced. We learned relationships, we learned how to be here. Now, we start with journaling, and meditation and all these great things. The course was developed at Stanford University, for the master degree students who wanted to achieve success in business. And this course was also given to the 911 widows, and they found extreme success after taking this course.

Rita Suzanne  14:21

So you’re a facilitator of of that curriculum that they have. Absolutely, yes, referral. I love that. So when someone signs up with you, what does the onboarding process look like? What does that look like?

Jessica Kostrzewski  14:36

So mostly, it’s just a whole bunch of personal questions. I’m gonna get curious with you try to figure out what it is that you’re actually looking for. So a lot of my clients might come to me and say, Oh, well, I want to lose weight. Like, okay, that’s cool. Like we can do that. But why do you want to lose weight? Well, I want to lose weight, so I look good in my bikini. Okay, well Why do you want to look good in your bikini? Well, I want to look good in my bikini so that I can have more confidence. So it’s like, okay, so your goal is that you want to have more confidence. So everybody’s goal looks differently, but the reasons why there’s always a why under that, right? And another why under that. And so some of my clients come to me and they’re like, Well, I want to be closer with my husband. All right, well, why do you want to be closer to your husband? Right? Well, I’m just feeling like we’re disconnected. And maybe I’m on the fence about leaving. Okay, so why do you why do you want to figure out whether to leave or stay? You know, and so again, we’ve worked on these wise, we get curious, everyone’s answers are different. And so I really value every client that comes, it takes about an hour to kind of walk through the onboarding. And whether we decide to work together or not depends on basically our vibes, like, do you feel like I can help facilitate you in what you’re looking to gain in your goals?

Rita Suzanne  16:02

So are you mostly working with moms or just women or both?

Jessica Kostrzewski  16:09

Yes, so currently, I am only working with moms. Again, I really revamped my program. So when I first started health and life coaching, I was very much centered around depression and suicide and helping people get over that. And I say that lightly not get over it. Right. But that, I mean, that is what it is. But I found my why, under my why, right. So why did I want to help people with depression, and a lot of it came down because I didn’t want that passed down to the next generation. So a lot of my clients now are moms, because they’re the ones that are really focused on what they’re trying to pass down to the next generation or not passed down. Right? We have bad habits and some of these bad habits as moms, I feel like we’re more connected with our children. And we get the ability to kind of help them more. And that’s really where I want to focus on working with moms.

Rita Suzanne  17:11

I love that. So why do you think your clients like working with you?

Jessica Kostrzewski  17:17

Yeah, I get because I’m pushy, in a good way. So I help my clients actually achieved their goals. And it can be hard to have a goal on your own. Have you ever set a new year’s resolution and totally, like botched it, right? Maybe you stuck to it for the first week. But like, and then you’re like, Man, I’m over this. Okay. Um, I believe you have to have somebody in your corner. Somebody’s cheering you on somebody supporting you. somebody’s giving you the right tools, the right support, and the right accountability when you need it.

Rita Suzanne  17:55

I love that. So what is your favorite thing about what you do? I think that I

Jessica Kostrzewski  18:00

know, but I just want to ask. Yeah, yeah, it’s probably the typical answer, right? I love to help people transform. I love to see that. I’m not really sure how to say this. Because each client for me is completely different in the ways that they grow and change. And I think I just love to see everybody’s different transformation. Because I know that when they’re done, they have more confidence. They’re more powerful, more purposeful, and their life more mindful, they now have the ability, right to consider what it is they want. Next, where do they want to go? What do they want to do? I feel like in the beginning, a lot of my clients are very odd, or I don’t know what I need. I don’t know what I want, right? We’re in this bucket of it just it’s never gonna happen. For me, this isn’t, you know, life just sucks. And to see my clients completely transform their mentalities and ideologies. And actually who they are. They’re completely different people by the time they get done working with me, so to say that each one comes out a certain way or that each session is the same as is just not everyone’s completely different and to be able to see that it’s beautiful. It’s like walking in a field of flowers. Every flower is just beautiful, but they’re all different. No two flowers are exactly the same.

Rita Suzanne  19:33

That’s that is so beautiful. So okay, now we’re going to skip to What are you’re currently reading or listening to.

Jessica Kostrzewski  19:42

So currently, I am listening to a lot of the Mel Robbins podcasts and listening to a lot of Jewish Studies. I love these guys. Dr. Joe Dispenza is one of my biggest like influences into why I kind of got into a lot of this work as well. Um, knowing that I can work my brain and my nervous system, I can heal my body, I can heal myself. So those are a lot of the things that I’m interested in right now. The couple books that I’ve been reading, I can’t quite remember the name of it.

Rita Suzanne  20:24

Always have that problem. I’m like, No, good. And I can’t tell you what

Jessica Kostrzewski  20:28

should I should have did? Yeah, so I just completed the Gosh, I don’t know. I can’t think of that one. Either. My habits? Okay. Well, okay. Okay.

Rita Suzanne  20:41

So if you could give one piece of advice to anyone who wanted to start their own business, what would it be?

Jessica Kostrzewski  20:49

Yeah, just to jump in, right. It’s like a swimming pool. Like, you know, in order to learn to swim, you just have to jump in, start flailing around, hope that your body works in the right way. Right, and you get to stay afloat. Like, there is no right or wrong, you know, good, bad. You know, there, there might be some mistakes, but that’s how we learn. So absolutely, just jump in and go for it, you’ll start getting feedback and reviews, and people are gonna let you know what’s up. And once you start getting those reviews, and that feedback, then you can hone in. But it’s really hard. You can’t you can’t make everything perfect, and then just be able to jump in, right. It doesn’t work that way. Even if I’ve had the most perfect website or the most perfect, you know, client and was able to get these perfect reviews. Like, I just it just doesn’t happen that way. I wish.

Rita Suzanne  21:43

Right? And that’s the thing, the problem that a lot of new entrepreneurs have anyways is they get stuck in that perfection, you know, trying to be perfect mode anyways. And then they just kind of flounder out. And so don’t worry, you can make mistakes. It’ll be okay. And you know, it’ll be all right. And you’re as you’re going to be better for them.

Jessica Kostrzewski  22:04

Absolutely. Yeah, I tell myself all the time. I’m a recovering perfectionist, right? So I grew up with the idea that everything had to be perfect. And my room had to be perfect. Like my looks had to be perfect. Like the website has to be perfect. You know what I mean? But nothing’s nothing. I mean, what is perfect, right? Perfect is a

Rita Suzanne  22:25

thing that doesn’t exist, and then it might not be perfect. So Right?

Jessica Kostrzewski  22:31

Yeah, we all have a different idea of what perfect is.

Rita Suzanne  22:35

Exactly. So where can everyone find you? On

Jessica Kostrzewski  22:39

so my website is healthy habit coaching method.com. I have my Facebook, which is Jessica Kruszewski. Or you can find my group, which is building the foundation for generations, which is also the name of my podcast, building the foundation for generations. So you can find me on Apple, podcast and Spotify. Perfect.

Rita Suzanne  23:05

And I will put all the links to all just because things in the show notes. So thank you so much. Jessica’s been such a pleasure chatting with you.

Jessica Kostrzewski  23:15

Thank you so much for having me. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you a little and I am so blessed to have this opportunity. Thank you.

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Rita Suzanne  23:16

And there you have it. I want to encourage you to remember that being a mom who runs her own business is not easy. We all struggle, but just keep moving forward. And don’t forget to make time for yourself. As moms we are usually the first thing to go to the bottom of the list. If your business is overwhelming you and you need real solutions, not just some sugar coated suggestions apply to work with me at ritasuzanne.com/apply