Episode 98: Design a Guilt Free Life with Denise Antoon

Transcription for Episode #98 with Denise Antoon

Dr. Debra Muth 0:00
Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to the new year 2021. This is going to be a fantastic year for all of us. I’m Dr. Deb, I’m your host of Let’s Talk Wellness Now. And today, we’re going to have a little different topic than what you’re used to hearing with us. But I have an incredible guest that you really need to hear what she has to say about our topic. So I’d like to introduce you to Denise Antoon. She is an adjunct professor with a law degree, trained wellness expert who integrates philanthropy, and social entrepreneur into clients lives. We’re going to be talking today about human trafficking, wellness, and being a working mom. So our show today is going to focus on how Denise turned from a career as a celebrity into wellness. And then we’re also going to talk about the global issues that are happening today with human trafficking, and how this impacts all of us. So I’d like to introduce you to Denise Antoon, who is the chief experience officer and founder of the Human Experience Group, where their mission is to help others create a resume of extraordinary life experiences, and coach people to their full potential. Miss Antoon has over 25 years of remote work in education experience. She’s a lifelong learner, she has earned multiple certifications and degrees while traveling the world. She is an adjunct professor at both the undergraduate and graduate levels for several non and for profit institutions. Denise provides businesses with company wellness programs, and her training not only increases the company’s bottom line, but it also increases the happiness of those employees. Her work with high profile and celebrity clients helps create total life wellness, and solutions for their busy lives.

Dr. Debra Muth 2:07
Welcome to Let’s talk wellness. Now I’m your host, Dr. Deb. This is where we talk about everything wellness, and learn to defy aging, and live our lives on our own terms.

Dr. Debra Muth 2:21
Well, Denise, welcome to Let’s talk wellness. Now I’m so happy to have you here as our guest today.

Denise Antoon 2:27
Very excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Debra Muth 2:29
Thank you. So you have a very interesting background. You’re an attorney, you work with celebrities and wellness, you’re doing some flat philanthropy. Tell me how you got started with everything. How was your journey?

Denise Antoon 2:48
So I started in law, and you know, as many people do, they do all the right things, and they go to school and get the degree and then get into the rat race of everything. And I was fully in it working my 80/90 hour weeks. And then I had my second child, the first one, I felt like I was balancing well, but the second one, I was like, pulling my hair out. Like I feel like I’m not doing well in any area of my life now. And I had the unfortunate wake up call of one day, I thought I was having a heart attack. And I had to drive my kids in the car feeling like I was having a heart attack to the hospital. And the doctor had said three times with my kids sitting there, if you don’t change the way you’re living your life, you’re going to die. And so I realized at that moment, like, every time I get on my computer, my kids would say you’re gonna die, you’re gonna die. Like they were so worried that they were little at the time. And so I realized I needed to make some changes. And so I started just studying a lot of stuff and personal development and wellness and changing different areas of my life. And that’s kind of how I just wanted to help other people who were stuck in those same places.

Dr. Debra Muth 4:03
It’s really crazy, isn’t it because women who are driven and powerful and we run from kind of that masculine side we go, go, go do do do conquer, conquer, conquer, we all seem to get to a place at some point where we look at our lives and just go “This isn’t what I signed up for this is is not what I wanted it to be. I didn’t want it to consume my entire life and all of me”, and that’s where we end up starting to diversify our lives a little bit and change them so that we’re not doing that 80/90 hour work week that is become the typical American lifestyle workweek these days.

Denise Antoon 4:42
Right? And it was like a badge of honor for me. Oh, I only get one hour of sleep two at max like like he was a great accomplishment and I was doing other people serve to me like I was crazy like normal.

Dr. Debra Muth 4:57
I can so relate because I’ve done the same thing for 25 years and I was thinking about this this morning. I was like, you know, I used to get up in the morning, I’d be to work by seven, I wouldn’t get home till nine, I’d be on my computer till 11 or 12. And then I’d go to bed. And I did that seven days a week while raising three children. And I remember thinking the same thing like, this is a badge of honor for me, like, I am proud, I am strong, I’m able to do this. And then one day, I woke up and I said, What the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this, I have no life, I’m not living it. I’m not spending quality time with my family. And I don’t know who I am anymore. And, and I’m in wellness, I do this for a living, I help people create wellness every day. And I’m telling them to do all the right things. And I’m not taking my own advice. And I had to wake up one day to and just go Okay, wait a minute, let’s redesign. Let’s shift our lives a little bit differently here. So I actually have a life outside of working. It’s crazy. And there’s so many women that

Denise Antoon 5:56
You feel like you’re being present because you’re with your like, I would say I’ve never missed a game when my son. But while I was at those games, I was on my phone sending emails, or at times, I would get out to take a phone call. So I wasn’t really at the game. And I didn’t want to do that anymore.

Dr. Debra Muth 6:12
Yeah, it is so true. We’re not present in what we’re doing. Because we’re taking every little minute to do what we need to do. And I’ve been in practice 25 years, and I’ve treated over 8,500 women. And I will tell you that 70% of the women I’ve treated are just like us, they’re out burning the candle at both ends and trying to figure this whole thing out. And no longer serving them is their life that they’ve created. And now they’re in the place of 45/50 and trying to say, Okay, wait a minute, I need to redesign my life. You redesigned your life a little bit. How did you do that?

Denise Antoon 6:48
Well, I started off obsessing. Actually, you know, as a type A learner, I was like, it must be my diet. And so I read every book and listen to every podcast and everything could change my diet. Well, what ended up happening was then everything else went to the wayside. And so I realized I would like it heavily focused on one area of like, okay, now I’m gonna read every book on sleep, and I’m gonna change that. But then the diet went away. And so I had to just step back and say, Okay, let me just look at what my weeks look like. And I realized how important routine is. And I was very like, like, forever, the seat of my pants kind of flexible and open. That’s how I can do all these things. I realized I needed some semblance of routine. And so I started heavily relying on my calendar. Let’s just plot out the month. And so I tried to be ambitious last year and plot out the whole year. And after COVID, it all flew out the windows. Yep, we’ll just do one months now. So I would look at the month, and I would put in my personal stuff first. And then I put the work around that. Because like this is what’s most important is my kids, my relationships, my friendships and all these things. My extended family like that should go on here first. And then I mean, luckily, I have the privilege of working for myself, so I can do that. But at points, I was actually still in an office job. And so I would just you know, know that this is the hours and when they want me to work extra, I say no, I’m sorry, I have a football game or a basketball game. And that takes priority, I get my work done in my time. So I’m going to go and do these other things. I just made that a priority, the more personal things, and slowly all the other things filled in the exercise and that I started to do with my kids. So then it was an excuse to not exercise I would do with the kids or diet, I would incorporate the kids into cooking so that it made it fun. And we can learn new recipes together and like expand what they were doing. So the other day we did a cooking class, my family, my extended family all over the country. We did a cooking class with a chef in Rome. We can’t travel right now we can’t see each other right now for the holidays. How do we all get together and cook a meal together? And we literally spent five hours on zoom together. All my extended family 27 people cooking a meal and learning how to do it from a chef in Rome, and then we all ate together on zoom.

Dr. Debra Muth 9:27
Oh my gosh. That is awesome. That is so exciting to do, you know, and I want to come back to that topic and how you found that person too. But I was like you too and when I got burned out. And of course you know as we do. We’re so proud that we do everything ourselves and we don’t have anybody that helps us, right? And last year, I broke down and hired myself a personal assistant. And I felt so guilty about that for like the first couple of months. And she asked me the same thing about the calendar. They You did like, how do you want your calendar to look? What do you want it to look like? And I’m filling my calendar in and I’m like, Oh my god, there’s no time in this calendar for anything else or anyone else. And so we started spending the year working through my calendar and saying, Okay, can I hire somebody to do this? Or can I find somebody on my team to do this for me, so I don’t have to so it frees up an hour here. So I can go to the gym, or I can take a walk or I can take a lunch and, and just making some of those small changes has made such a huge difference. Now I like I offload everything to her. It’s like, okay, I don’t want to do this, can you do this? Okay, I can’t do this today, can you do that, and I’m offloading stuff like left and right and trying to find ways that I can let other people work for me, since I pay them to work for me anyway. And it’s made such a huge difference in my life. It’s amazing how it’s, it’s changed everything and how I look at it.

Denise Antoon 10:58
Well, that’s the thing we’re kind of raised, I think to like, the first time I had someone come clean my house, I can remember, like my family, that is not a good thing. You are not a good wife, mother, like if you have someone else cleaning your house. And I’m like, this is the best thing ever, like clean, clean all the time. And it cost me $75 a month. And I think you don’t understand until you actually do it. You don’t understand like how much it can actually help your life and your family’s life. And everyone around you all your employees are happier, because you’re happier and not stressed out about the exam. It’s just like getting over that hurdle of doing it the first time.

Dr. Debra Muth 11:39
And then getting over the hurdle of feeling guilty about it, like you’re guilty that you’re giving something away for someone else to do and you’re asking for help. You know, if you’re raised as you and I probably were this strong, independent woman, you feel guilty asking for help, because you think you should do it all. And I love that this new concept of ideas of women don’t have to do at all and we can prioritize what it is we want to do, and give away to somebody else who loves to do what you don’t love to do. And they can earn a living at it. I mean, it’s awesome.

Denise Antoon 12:15
Every year I use that charge of like, where my expertise is what I love what I hate, I was like, Okay, this year we’re offloading least.

Denise Antoon 12:25
That is that is perfect.

Denise Antoon 12:29
Do you ever get into that mood where you’re running through the network, and you’re like, I don’t even like and then you feel like you don’t like what you’re doing because of one task that you really could have often somebody else? And it’s not that you don’t like what you’re doing is that one task that just keeps getting in the way but has to be done. Yeah. And your business. So,

Dr. Debra Muth 12:48
…and routinely, usually. So you do some wellness travel. And I’d love to know how you found somebody in Rome to teach you how to cook here in the US virtually. And then I’d love to know about wellness traveling, what is that? And how does someone make that work?

Denise Antoon 13:09
So wellness travel, I started doing retreats and traveling, I wanted to travel more personally. So I started looking into what the travel industry was all about. And and I’m one of those that are continually learning and getting some other certification or some other degree always. And so like I’m going to become a certified wellness travel advisor and advise people on wellness and going into what I thought it was like spas like I don’t get to go to the spa. I don’t get massages enough. That’s what it’s about. And then when I really started to dig into it, it’s about all it can be anything from, a pickleball group, and we are going to go to another country and play pickleball with people in another country, or we want to run through the city of Rome. And so we’re going to do a 5K through the city of Rome, and we incorporate that into our trip. It’s not just spas or like the old school thinking of you know, I’m going to fat camp and I’m going to go lose weight for three weeks and come back. It’s digital detox. That’s a big one that was happening right before the shutdown of travel, that families did not want their kids on technology. So they would travel to places that didn’t have the capability of having technology. I was in Jamaica not ago and there is a resort there that has no internet access at all, none. Like once you get there if there’s not there’s no way of getting on it at all. They’ve shut it down so that you can completely detox from your devices. And so it gives you the ability to just relax and rejuvenate and go hiking or swimming or you know eating food and that was one of the things I found this woman there is a company that when you actually travel to these locations you would actually eat in their home with them and they are a local cook you a meal so you get to be in culture. And because of COVID, they had to change up what they were doing. And so they were offering it on zoom. And I like what a great way for us to gather but I can get people from all over the country together at the same time and, and have a family gathering, while learning to cook something with a woman who actually lives in Rome. And so we got to hear how it was what was happening with COVID and Rome and how their world is changed. And so now I’ve done two classes with this woman. So it’s like she becoming a friend now where you know what I do to go to Rome, then I’ll be able to hang out there in Rome and actually have a meal.

Dr. Debra Muth 15:37
That’s awesome. I love that idea. That is great. And you know, I think it’s things like this that we just don’t think are possible. And is that kind of what the wellness traveling is about? It’s like, here’s what we’d like to do. How do we make that happen?

Denise Antoon 15:53
It is because like a lot of people before COVID, they just live healthier lifestyles, now, a lot of people try to live a healthier lifestyle. And when they go on vacation, they don’t want to throw it all out the window with bad food and not exercising and you know, being slobby and, and so a lot of hotels are focused on sleep, like some of the hotels have a sleep pillow menus, they have special lighting at night, Special Air they pump in at night, to help people have better sleep when they’re in a hotel. They have Well, there was one hotel, I went in Miami that when you arrived and checked in, they gave you a green juice. And in your room, you had a veggie tray, like upon arrival, and they had different activities. You could do yoga in the morning. They had kids activities that involve exercise, they had relationship activities. So it was all aspects of wellness, not just food and exercise.

Dr. Debra Muth 16:49
So if someone is listening to us, and they’re finding this interesting, how does someone find someone like you that’s a certified wellness traveler? Or how do they find venues that will do this kind of thing is it’s simply as easy as going to a Google search?

Denise Antoon 17:06
There now there are a lot of hotels that incorporate wellness. So you could do a Google search, or you could find someone like me who does specifically wellness travel. There’s only a handful of us that certified in it, because it was a new thing. And but now wellness is one of the top things that people aren’t thinking about because of COVID. They realize like I need to change my lifestyle. And you know, in the beginning, some people were very, like exercise all the time, eating great. And as this lockdown went on, people were getting depressed, and they were stuck in their homes. And they stopped doing that. And you know, you’re the COVID, 15, and all those kinds of things happening. And now people are kind of like, okay, we start to get back out there. How do we incorporate wellness. And, you know, I heard the other day, the New Year’s resolutions, the biggest, the top three were typically, you know, lose weight is always somebody’s, relationship connections and travel. So they realize the importance of their well being traveling and experiencing other cultures and the way the world is in other places and being open to learning and new things.

Dr. Debra Muth 18:21
So I assume there’s going to be some wellness, travel changes, happening, the travel changes in general happening in 2021. You know, we’re talking about the vaccine passport, we’re talking about COVID testing prior to getting on a plane, we’re still talking about mask on a plane, what are you guys hearing in your industry for travel changes coming up in 2021 and beyond?

Denise Antoon 18:47
So all of what you said, but then the difference is, is that every country is handling it differently. And that’s going to be the challenge for a lot of people who want to travel that they don’t understand that component of it. And they think, oh, we can travel now. So hey, I’m going to go to France or I’m going to go to the Bahamas or something and not understanding that each country is establishing their own travel restriction. Yeah. And you know, when I just went to Jamaica, we had to go through this whole testing process to the application process and the screening process. And when I got there, some of that stuff, had I not been in the industry, I would have not known and people were it was chaos, people who didn’t know. And so this is where actually using a travel advisor is gonna benefit people because they know and research all of the countries and we get guidelines that the general population doesn’t, on what these different restrictions are. And it changes from day to day. I don’t try to send somebody just to Disney World and change within the week that they were there. So you know, it’s constant flux right now with that. Yeah, it’s not that you can’t travel. I mean, there’s a lot of places you can’t travel to right now.

Dr. Debra Muth 20:02
But going forward for certain in the beginning, when they open up travel restrictions, having somebody on your side to help you navigate those rules, especially if you’re going to leave the country is going to be pretty necessary, I’m thinking, unless you want to take that test.

Denise Antoon 20:21
Right. And then what you run into is, is also like companies with their cancellation policies. Some of them are very open of like, this is the world we live in, we will give you a complete refund, and others are like, sorry, it’s non refundable, and you’re out of luck. And so really paying attention, if you do do these things yourself, that you’re looking at the fine print, because in the beginning of this, a lot of them were very flexible, we’ll give you credit, we’ll give you a refund. But now that we’re in almost a year into it, they’re not that way anymore, because they need to recoup their writer losses as well. And that’s another thing people think, oh, there’s going to be all kinds of travel deals, because we haven’t been able to travel. And that’s not what we’re finding at all, actually, because they have to recoup what they’ve lost. Right? So it’s not going to be a great deal that you get to find and travel that way.

Dr. Debra Muth 21:14
Yeah, it’s kind of like what we’re finding in the stores, right? We thought the holiday shopping was gonna have all these great deals, and we’re not seeing them because there is just too much financial loss around the country that they can’t afford to pass those deals on like they used to. Yeah, I hear the same thing in my practice right now with the lockdown. You know, it’s the COVID 15, there’s a lot of anxiety, there’s a lot of depression, there’s a lot of fear, because the world is just in a place that we’ve most of us in our lives that are alive today have never experienced. And it’s scary for a lot of people, it’s creating a lot of anxiety. How are you guys working with things like that? For people? Like, do you have retreats in places where people can go and just kind of recoup and get themselves back?

Denise Antoon 22:03
We do have some places, it’s very limited. So we’re trying to help people find more of that Zen and “ohm”, like their own area. Like we just took a trip to Austin and we took a trip to San Antonio, we only went like an hour away. But we stayed at a very lovely resort. And you know, we use like, Oh yeah, sanity back. And like, even though it really wasn’t traveling far, it was enough to get that feeling back of like, okay, I don’t have all this craziness and chaos in my life, we can take a moment and take a breath and enjoy. And that’s the thing, a lot of people just aren’t leaving their homes. And it’s like, if you just maybe it’s just going to the park Yeah, and getting outside a little bit more is enough to help you. So we’re kind of working with people one on one to kind of, and for people who really do want to travel like they want to go to Italy or France or something where they can’t right now, we’re doing a lot of museum tours online with them and like sending them little care packages of things to get them ready. So when they can do it, that they’ll be excited and that it keeps that momentum going of like I will be going to Italy or I will be going to Spain and and kind of keep them in the energy of that. And have something to look forward to.

Dr. Debra Muth 23:22
Yeah, exactly. Because we all need that we need to be able to look forward to normalcy again, not our new normal, but normalcy like we knew it. Or something different, but not this lockdown feared all of this, we have to be able to get back. And I love that, like you mentioned just go away for an hour to just unplug from our day to day world and the craziness in our own household. Because a lot of times, even if you make your household a sanctuary, you still have craziness within it. Because you’re used to that and you have to get away to unwind and get rid of all of that.

Denise Antoon 23:57
Exactly. And one of the things I did personally during the holidays, because even though I do all those things that I just said, I still was feeling just like I don’t know, it was like a feeling I couldn’t explain which was causing the stress and like I just don’t know why I’m feeling this way. Like things aren’t that bad for me. Like, why am I feeling this way? I have kids here for the holidays, and they’re homeschooling on with them a lot. And so I started, I’ve always been doing philanthropy work, but I started volunteering more, especially during the holiday period, I found ways that I could one of the organizations that I volunteer with is a organization that helps sex trafficking survivors and so what I ended up doing was delivering gifts to them during the holiday time from this nonprofit then is it can you be a driver and you know what the social distance so I’d ring the bell and step back and if they came, and I you know, Merry Christmas and gave them the package that was on their doorstep and if they weren’t there, then I would hide it in a place and so you guys me to feel like okay, there’s other people out there in need. And it made me feel so much better that I can serve somebody else. And because the people who did come to the door, were just so excited because it was the only thing that they were going to have for the holidays. Yeah. And so I found like, that made me feel better getting out there and volunteering more than I normally would. When I was feeling this way.

Dr. Debra Muth 25:23
Yeah, that’s a great, great way to give back and feel like you’re doing something good for others. And when we do that, we feel so much better inside of ourselves as well. Yeah. Will you talk a little bit about what you do for human trafficking? And and maybe explain for some of our listeners who don’t understand what that is? What is human trafficking? And can we talk a little bit about how that impacts us?

Denise Antoon 25:54
Sure. So human trafficking, a lot of people think that it is sex trafficking, and it’s just runaway kids. And, you know, it would never happen in their neighborhood. It only happens in other countries. And it’s actually something that happens everywhere. Yeah. And it could be anything from labor trafficking, which could be people working on farms or construction, the nail technicians in restaurants, like you don’t necessarily know that that stuff’s happening behind the scenes do what we typically think of with the sex trafficking. And that could be, we had a case that a girl, she was a straight A student cheerleader, somebody just overheard her having a conversation during a basketball game, and they started grooming her. And she ended up for two weeks was trafficked. And her parents had a lot of money and were able to like flesh out where she was and get her back. But she’s got like a lifetime now of psychological issues and things from that. And with online stuff, there’s a lot of people out there that will talk to kids as a kid. That’s how I kind of got started into it. I was doing undercover work, and I was the person who would chat with the people online, and then we do sting operations, and they would get arrested, they would think I was a 10 year old 12 year old girl. And when I started to see how prevelant it was, I just, I couldn’t imagine that it was in my own neighborhood. And while I started speaking on it to different organizations, and I can’t even tell you how many times I will go and speak in a suburbia area and people will walk out that doesn’t happen here. I don’t need to hear this. Because they don’t want to recognize that it’s the last statistic was all of the major league sporting NBA, NFL, all the all of them combined, the profits that they make is still not what a organization with human trafficking brings in like billions of dollars, this industry. And so it happens everywhere. And the word is getting out more and more. January 11 is human trafficking day actually. And this whole month is human trafficking Awareness Month. And so there’s a lot of places that you can go. Now, in the past there wasn’t but now there is a lot of places people are being prosecuted now for it. And it’s something that’s everywhere. And it affects everyone, because the supply chains of what you’re buying, if it’s not fair trade, there could have been trafficking involved in that. And so looking at where you’re buying now, people are becoming more and more aware of that. And whether it’s the candy that they’re eating, or the clothes that they’re wearing, they’re starting to become more aware, because it’s become more mainstream in the media to hear about it. TV shows are incorporating it and you know, this month, there’s a lot of promotions in various places for it. So people are starting to make better choices on things they’re purchasing. But it’s just one of those things that we can’t deny that it’s happening anymore, because they talk about it so much now, which is a great thing that they’re talking about it now because when I started with this, it’s been least 25 years now. And people didn’t talk about it. They didn’t want to hear about it. They didn’t want to talk about it. It doesn’t happen here. It’s in other countries. And it’s not it’s everywhere.

Dr. Debra Muth 29:23
Yeah, totally taboo. I have a client that has worked on human trafficking things here in Wisconsin, too. And I remember when she told me one of our largest areas for human trafficking is Lacrosse, which is a very large college well it’s not large. It’s actually small college town, but it borders Minnesota. And so very easily people can have the border and take someone over to another border or it’s on the waterway so they can hop the river and they can be gone like that. And she was explaining to me how much of that traffic comes in and how our rural areas are really affected by human trafficking, even sometimes more than our more populated cities, just because it’s so easy to move people around, and those people don’t have access to things that are promised a lot of things. And so it becomes a very big thing in some of those more rural areas. And I was blown away. It was the first time I had ever known anything about that. But it makes you look at your areas of your your own cities and your own towns very differently.

Denise Antoon 30:28
It definitely does and your own children because they are online. I mean, the predators are everywhere online posing as you know, I’ve had many conversations with my kids where they know it’s another kid and like, no, I can tell you right now, that’s another kid. And they we did a training with some pimps that were trafficking people. And they had said, Look, we will take years to groom someone because it’s worth millions to us to get a kid. And so it’s a slow, slow process. It’s not like we’re snatching someone off the street, like they are willing to take the time to groom those kids. And so a lot of the digital awareness, and that’s where it comes into the digital detox and the wellness component of it of like getting your kids safe on technology, and I put restrictions on my kids, and they figured out how to get around it, you got to stay ahead of the game, you know, whether doing the high apps, that if you look at their phone, you think it’s safe, and they’ve hidden the apps behind the apps. And so the kids are getting sneaky on the way that they’re doing it. And so keeping up to date on some of that stuff is helpful for parents do. Yeah.

Dr. Debra Muth 31:40
How does someone find out about those kinds of things? Like if you’re not techno-savvy, and most of our kids know more than we do? How do you learn about some of those things, so you can protect your kids and keep them safe? Do they have training programs or things that they teach parents to look for?

Denise Antoon 31:58
They do, there’s one organization called the Underground Railroad. And they do a lot of rescues. And they they are now expanding all across the country. And that’s an organization that has a lot of information, a lot of great online training there. One training just to learn the basics about trafficking is like a 45 minute training doesn’t take very long. Because sometimes, you know you can be we had a woman that was in Whole Foods. And she saw this young woman and she thought something’s not right, because she had gone through the training. And she called 911. Just, you know, caution. And the girl, in fact, was being trafficked. And so the traffickers had her go in and buy some food. And so they were able to like pull her out of Whole Foods, because this lady was just aware of what to look for. So there’s now in pretty much every city, there’s organizations dealing with this in the past, there wasn’t and you only saw things on a national level. But if you google your own city, you probably find some local resources or local ways to get involved. Or you can also Google for the national organizations. But now Luckily, we have a lot of material and and a lot of the kids in our getting involved in creating training for kids. There’s a local organization here that it’s all high school kids, and they they’ve created the training so that they understand it at their level. Because you know, we can create a training for the kids, and I’ve done many of them where they just don’t, I don’t want to listen to you. But when it here gives them the training, then they pay attention. Yeah.

Dr. Debra Muth 33:32
Because then it’s more on their level. So Denise, you do a lot of really cool things. This is awesome. But is there a challenge for you? What’s one of your biggest challenges in being the person you are and doing all of the things that you do?

Denise Antoon 33:50
That is the biggest show. The challenge that I had in corporate? Where do I put my focus, like I need to be able to do it all and get it all done. And that’s where I have learned to just really look at the calendar and and make sure that the most important things get done. So now what I started to do is, you know, my long to do list every day. I like no, I have three major things like I will have three things for the week for my business and three things for the week for personal and then each day I break it down even smaller Like okay today three things and so by the end of the week, I’m like wow, look at that. I’ve done 21 business days and 21 more accomplished. Three things. Am I to buy a personality? I only accomplish three things this week. That’s not good. Yeah. What am I college 21 Okay, that’s good. And so I’ve had to just break it down into smaller chunks and say it’s okay if today all I did was clean out the closet, you know I was clearing some clutter in my life that I didn’t need. I didn’t need to clean every closet today, right? And so giving myself some grace of like, I did accomplish something. I see, okay, I did accomplish something today. It was not a zero day. And, and things that I enjoy, like podcasts and books on tape and things like that, I started to just listen to it in the shower, I put a speaker in the shower, so that I don’t feel like oh, I don’t have the time to read that book, or I listened to it in the car when before I wouldn’t. And I realized, okay, this is how I can get some extra time to actually get these things that I do enjoy. I was doing a mundane task yesterday, it was just like a stuffing envelope kind of thing. And I listened to four podcasts in that time. So that I felt like okay, I did, accomplished two things that I wanted to do. And I listened to the podcast.

Dr. Debra Muth 35:57
Yeah, I do a lot of that same thing, too. I have a long drive back and forth to work. So I listened to podcasts and ebooks and all kinds of audiobooks. Now, not ebooks. But it allows you to get things done so that you don’t feel like you’re just wasting time, or you can’t take the time to do these kinds of things. But it really frees up your time so that you’re not just listening to the same old rhetoric that’s on the radio, or whatever it is that consumes our time. And it helps us to learn and grow and accomplish what we want to accomplish. I, I hold meetings while I’m driving now and the phone, you know, because we have speakers that come through. And that way I can talk and I can use that time, I have a two and a half hour drive. So I have a lot of time, that just feels like it’s a wasted amount of time unless I do some of those things while I’m driving. But it’s a great way to listen to things and learn on my road trips so that I don’t feel like it’s a waste. I love that too.

Denise Antoon 36:55
And I chunk tasks together too. Whereas, especially like errands, I used to do Oh, I’m just going to run this one, Aaron and it would take an hour to do the one errand and then like well, now if I did these three, they’re all relatively close together, I do a three in one hour, instead of like, I’ll just do this one today, because I only have that hour. Yeah, so looking at what I actually have to do every week helps me to narrow it down. And some days, you know, I kept saying over the holiday break, I was going to redo the whole kitchen and go through all the cabinets. And every day can get something else got in the way. And you know, my family’s like you’re not doing it. I’m like, Hello, like, that’s the way it goes. Whereas in the past, they’re like very stressed that I failed and like so what so the spices are still in there in a jumbled mess. Yes, okay, I’ll get to I get to,

Dr. Debra Muth 37:45
yep, I’m the same way these days, you know, I give myself much more grace. And if someday, it’s a Sunday, and I just be like binge watching Netflix all day, then that’s what I do. And in the past, I would have been, no, I can’t watch Netflix, I gotta check my emails, or I gotta do the balancing of the books. Or I got to look at my numbers, and I’ll watch the movie while I’m doing this. But I’m just kind of not there. Now, I just don’t. It’s like, I just spend time with my family. We just binge the TV. And it’s certainly not something I do all the time. But if I feel like doing it, I feel like doing it. And then I just put everything else aside and be like, you know what, it’ll be there. When I get to it next time. It’s okay though, the house of cards will not come down. Because I chose to spend six hours enjoying Netflix, you know, but it takes time to get there to realize that it’s not going to happen, you know, or

Denise Antoon 38:36
Especially when it’s with your family because like my son said the other day, we were binge watching a show on Netflix. And he’s like, I really liked spending that time with you. You were not working because I used to do the same thing. I’d be on the computer. And I’m watching it now. Like you’re not watching it. What happened? Oh, well. You’re not watching it.

Dr. Debra Muth 38:56
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Well, Denise, I know you’re so busy. And I don’t want to take your entire day. We could talk for hours here. Is there anythingelse that you would like our listeners to know or have some piece of advice for them that you’d still like to share?

Denise Antoon 39:14
I just want to let people know like, it’s okay. Like we just say it’s okay to do nothing sometimes, or to do something that you think is not a productive task. Like it’s okay to do those kind of things and let yourself be okay with that. It’s okay. If you sleep an extra hour or you decide to go to bed earlier or get up later. It’s okay. And not let other people guilt you. Because you did that because obviously your body’s telling you this is what you need to do your brain, your heart whatever speaking to you. It’s pulling you in that direction. Like, be okay with it.

Dr. Debra Muth 39:52
Yeah, yeah, I agree. It’s okay for us to be okay with whatever it is we want in our life at that moment in that day. And it can change on a dime. And it can change from day to day. But ladies just learn to roll with it. Because once you learn to roll with it, life is so much better.

Dr. Debra Muth 40:10
Well, Denise, thank you for joining us today. If people that are listening to us, we want to reach out to you and connect, how can they do that.

Denise Antoon 40:19
So they can go to my website is the humanexperience group.com. Or you can email me at info@thehumanexperiencegroup.com

Dr. Debra Muth 40:30
Awesome. And for those of you who are listening to us driving, please don’t stop and try to write that down. We will have that on our show notes. And we will also have it in our social media. Let’s talk wellness now Facebook page, and you will be able to connect with Denise and let her help you travel in wellness and happiness. And if you want to get involved in the human trafficking work that she does, please reach out to her. This is much needed in our communities right now. We need to protect our young people, and bring them home safely. So thank you for joining us today, Denise.

Denise Antoon 41:04
Thank you for having me.

Dr. Debra Muth 41:06
Our show today is brought to you by SerenityU. SerenityU is a university for health and wellness that I personally created. Because I wanted to be able to share all of the knowledge that I’ve learned and gained over 25 years in a platform that you could have access to 24/7. SerenityU is a place where you can tap my knowledge and my information whenever it’s convenient for you. It is a library of over 100 different topics, audios and PDFs that will help you learn all about integrative medicine. We want you to check it out now because we’ve got a great special going. So go to serenityu.com and look for our membership program today.

Dr. Debra Muth 41:58
Hey, it has been really great sharing this time with you guys on the let’s talk wellness now podcast. If this episode has helped you or you feel as though this episode would help someone else we’d love for you to leave us a review, share this podcast and if you don’t want to miss the most exciting episodes we have coming. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Google Play. Until next time, live every day to the fulles