209. A Personal Update & Gratitude Lesson

I have some updates to share on a personal AND business note...including how (and why) my business ran without me for over a month.

Enjoy!

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Hi, I’m Andrea Nordling – Nutritional Therapy Practitioner, business coach, entrepreneur, and host of The Profitable Nutritionist Podcast.

Since age 22, I’ve built 3 highly successful businesses from scratch, including my own online holistic nutrition practice. After deleting all of my social media accounts in early 2021, my business grew faster than ever — and now I teach other health professionals how to do the same.

On this pod, you’ll learn how to:

✅ Build a thriving online practice without relying on social media
✅ Consistently attract and convert clients
✅ Create simple systems that scale without overwhelm

💡 Subscribe or Follow so you never miss a new episode packed with practical strategies that actually work.

© 2021 - 2025 Andrea Nordling

DISCLAIMER: The podcasts available on this website have been produced for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only and do not make any representations as to the future income, sales, or potential profitability or loss of any kind that may be derived as a result of use of the content, including paid programs and all free resources. Listeners should take care to avoid program content which may not be suited to them. The contents of this podcast do not constitute medical or professional advice, No person listening to and/or viewing any podcast from this website should act or refrain from acting on the basis of the ...

Transcript

 00:00
Andrea Nordling
My friend and loyal listener of the profitable nutritionist podcast. How are you? This is an audio first podcast. What the heck does that mean? That means that it has been a second since I have sat down and just recorded an audio podcast. Because lately I have been repurposing YouTube videos into audio podcasts. If you've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you probably have noticed that little bit of a switch. And today I just felt like I wanted to sit down and record for you audio style with zero intention of this going on YouTube. This is just for the audio listeners. And honestly, this is where the best content comes anyway, is on an audio podcast. If you are a podcast listener like I am, obviously if you are, clearly you are. You're listening to the audio version of this podcast. 

 00:50
Andrea Nordling
I feel you. I see you. We are kindred spirits in this way. I think that audio podcasts are for sure my favorite way to get information. I like to listen to podcasts while I am doing other things in my life, while I am driving, while I am out for a walk, while I'm going for a run, while I am doing dishes. If ever I want to have something in my ears is probably going to be something that is either inspirational or entertaining or educational for me. And so you must be the same if you're listening to this podcast. Go you go us. So why am I recording this? I sent out an email to my email list a couple weeks ago, about a week and a half ago. And it was a personal email rather than really anything too educational. 

 01:35
Andrea Nordling
And the response from this email has been massive. We had tons of responses to this email. So clearly I hit a nerve with the message of the email. But also it just got me thinking, you know, I probably would be well served to do a little bit more personal type content on the podcast as well. So that's what this is. This is a little bit of a personal update and a reflection and some gratitude for having the flexibility that having a business allows. Because the last, I would say 45 days, but. But most acutely, the last 30 days have been really interesting in my life. 

 02:09
Andrea Nordling
So I'm going to bring you on that journey and I'm going to read a little bit of the email that I sent and why, I think like maybe give a little bit more context and also let you know why I think it did strike a nerve and really what the message is that I want you to get from this audio podcast as well. So let's just dive in. By the way, before I dive in, I always Say we're going to dive in. And I'm like, just kidding. We're going to dive in after I say this one more thing. My one more thing is if you don't get emails from the profitable nutritionist, you absolutely should. 

 02:40
Andrea Nordling
I send emails multiple times a week with strategy and tips and more motivation and inspiration for you to make more money and serve more people in your nutrition or health coaching practice. So that's where all of our best stuff goes. Again, I'm contradicting myself. I said the best stuff goes to the podcast. I mean, it does, but also I send emails to about the podcast and extra emails, so I think I actually have to correct myself. Our best stuff goes out via email. Make sure you're subscribed to get emails from the profitable nutritionist by going to the profitablenutritionist.com and signing up for anything on the website. Probably the free course would be the easiest thing to do. As soon as you get to the homepage, you will see a button to enroll in the free course. 

 03:21
Andrea Nordling
And when you do that, you will be getting our emails. So make sure you're getting emails. This is the most recent one that really struck a nerve. Like I said. Here is what it said. Subject line was, I've been MIA and I said, it has been a week. Scratch that, it has been quite a month. But I'm writing this email with so much freaking gratitude because amidst the chaos, I have remembered a few things and I need to share them. First of all, being a business owner is an insane blessing that I don't ever want to take for granted. And if there's one thing that I want you to get out of this podcast, it is a reset and recalibration and remembrance of the fact that we get to be business owners. Like, we get to do that. 

 04:00
Andrea Nordling
Never before in history has it been so attainable and doable and inexpensive to get started in having a business. And we are in a day and time when that is possible. And we should really be grateful for it because the time freedom and the financial freedom that is a result of having a profitable business is really important, especially in times when life gets chaotic, which it has been for me over the last couple months. I know that I'm not a. I'm not like a unicorn in this. I know that your life is stressful, too. We all have these periods of time where it just feels like one thing after another and all of it happens at once. And it's called life. This is really just called doing life. 

 04:46
Andrea Nordling
And so here's a little bit about what has been going on in my life the last few months. We sold our house and we moved not once, but twice. So I didn't go into much detail on the email that I sent out, but here's a little bit more context. In July, my husband and I had been having some serious conversations with each other about whether or not we should move, whether or not we should put our house up for sale and look for something different or something that would suit our family a little bit better. And the real on that is that we had a beautiful property that we loved, but it just wasn't quite right. 

 05:22
Andrea Nordling
And because of the way the market is in our area right now, and because we had a property with a pool and we live in Minnesota, it was really the time to sell this summer if were going to sell. So were like, oh, we had been talking about it and we decided in July, yep, let's put it up for sale and see what happens. And if we do, and if, you know, nobody buys at the price that we want for it, then we're, you know, then we're just going to stay and it's going to be fine. But if it does sell, then that's a pretty clear message that we're supposed to move and let's go find something better. So that was the thought process. 

 05:56
Andrea Nordling
Now what has happened is that we put our house up for sale in July and we got a perfect to perfect offer the very first week. And that offer was to close the beginning of October. So middle of July to beginning of October gave us a lot of time or so I thought, for us to find a new property. And what has actually happened is we haven't been able to find a new property. And we're a little bit picky. We like, privacy, lots of woods, trees, a little bit of acreage. And so that usually isn't hard to find in our area, but for the last three months, it certainly has been. And so we have not found a new property to buy. And I could not have fathomed that would be the case, but here we are. So we sell our house. 

 06:41
Andrea Nordling
We haven't been able to find another house that we want to purchase, so we found a rental property instead that was in the area that we wanted to be. And so we have moved into a rental, but we couldn't move into the rental when we moved because the rental wasn't available. So we actually had to move out of our house, which also had a very large shop and so we had our house stuff that we had to move, but we also had a really big shop full of tools and a lot of stuff that we needed to also find a home for in the interim. You can imagine there was just a lot of logistics happening here, and we had to move into an Airbnb for 10 days before we could move into the rental that I'm now recording this from. 

 07:25
Andrea Nordling
And we are still very hopeful that we're going to find a property to buy that we like. But right now, I'm in this rental. So we had to move twice. All that to say we had to move twice. We had to move out of our house, everything into storage, and then we had to kind of coast for a little bit of time in an Airbnb. That was a really interesting situation because where I live is not exact a tourist destination. So there aren't a lot of Airbnb options there for sure. Aren't a lot of Airbnb options where you can bring your dog. And so all that to say were in a really interesting house for 10 days. It was an adventure. And then we got to move everything out of storage into the rental and get situated in a new home. 

 08:06
Andrea Nordling
And, you know, everybody who has moved, which I'm sure is everyone who will listen to this episode, knows that is always a bigger deal than we think it's going to be. And my husband and I have moved a lot of times. I have sold real estate for 20 years. So occupational hazard is that we find a lot of good deals and we buy and sell and have moved a lot. And even 10 plus moves later, I still underestimate how much effort and time and exhaustion is going to be involved in moving. So this was no exception. I underestimated it. What? Shocking. No, not very shocking. I underestimated. 

 08:43
Andrea Nordling
And so I didn't include all of those details in this email that I sent out, but I did say, yes, we sold our house and we moved twice, which is exhausting in and of itself with no Internet and having to get the Internet set up. And then, you know, kids still being in sports and living their lives amidst all of it and all of the things that have to handle logistically day to day. I basically didn't work for two weeks and I had accounted for that. I, you know, I knew I wouldn't be working for two weeks, but I kind of in the back of my mind thought I would be. 

 09:15
Andrea Nordling
You know how we do this little game that we play with ourselves, it's like, well, of course I'M not going to be, but like actually I'll squeeze in a little here and a little there. And I didn't squeeze in very much. Let's just say for two weeks I didn't. Then two days after we moved into the rental that we are currently in that I am recording this from, like I said, which is super echoey because I don't have anything set up yet, but I'm imperfectly just going with it. Two days later were. Long story. Very, very long. I won't go into all of the details, but we happened to be at my brother's house because my daughter was hunting for the. It was like youth hunt weekend. 

 09:56
Andrea Nordling
And so that was another thing that added to all of the logistics of moving and all the things is we had to go over an hour away so that Chloe could hunt for this very limited window where my brother and she were going to be hunting. They're hunting buddies every year. And so were at my brother's house over an hour away and the hunting weekend went very different than we thought it would because my sister in law ended up getting into a really serious ATV accident while were there. But it just so happened that were there. 

 10:28
Andrea Nordling
This is my brother's wife and so were able to just swoop in and help with their kids and hold down the fort at their house and take care of dogs and do all of the things while my brother and she were in the hospital for the weekend. She is recovering now quite well and so thanks for everybody's prayers. A lot of the responses to this email were saying that she was going to be in your prayers and so I super appreciate that she's doing much better. But just timing of things and I guess the whole point of this is timing of things. Life happens. You have to be available for the priorities in your life when they become priorities. And obviously a sick family member or an injured family member and being able to help with that was the number one priority. 

 11:06
Andrea Nordling
So not anticipated to be something that were going to be doing in October, but it very much was the priority to not be at our house and to be at my brother's house and helping with him for three days. And that was fine and I'm happy to do that. However, I thought that once I got back to this rental that again, we had only slept in two times before we ended up being at my brother's for an extended period. I thought that we would have plenty of time to unpack and to get situated and I would get an office put together, and I would be recording some YouTube videos and some podcasts and doing all of the things life as usual. And I just laugh at myself that I even thought this, because no, that is not how it goes. 

 11:52
Andrea Nordling
If we don't take a break, our body will take a break for us. And that's exactly what happened to me, because I promptly got very sick as soon as we got home from my brother's house. And I thought that I would be back in business, literally and figuratively. And no, my friend, that is not what happened. So I was in bed for two days straight. Then I migrated to the couch and I was horizontal on my couch for way too long. Many days. Felt terrible, but the. The silver lining of getting sick, and maybe you felt this as well, is there is no guilt about not working because you can't do anything. And so it was one of those sicknesses where I was just like, this is a no, I'm not going to get anything done. 

 12:35
Andrea Nordling
None of these boxes are getting unpacked and nobody's gonna have their clothes. Cause who even knows where they are. And that problem's not gonna get solved right now because all I can do is lay down. So there was that for days. And then, because there always has to be another end then. And then I was feeling better by the end of the week. And that was good timing because my daughter had an out of state lacrosse tournament, so we had to fly to Indianapolis for a lacrosse tournament Friday through Sunday. And I. I was feeling better, so I was glad about that. And we flew on Friday night and we got to Indy and I said, chloe, I am actually not feeling great at all. And for the rest of the weekend, I completely lost my voice. I had no voice whatsoever. 

 13:21
Andrea Nordling
I was miserable. And then on the plane ride home on Sunday night, something really unpleasant happened in my ears, specifically my left one where I was congested. And I will tell you that now it's been over a week and I still cannot hear out of my left ear, so I'm going to need to go to that. But it was all part of the whole saga of just the unexpected things happening one after another after another. So I thought I was doing better. But then this trip to the lacrosse tournament and being outside and being cold and flying twice and all of it just my body said, no, we are just kidding. You are not feeling better. In fact, you're gonna get sicker than ever. 

 14:01
Andrea Nordling
And then I had another three and a half days of completely horizontal in bed and on the couch and the entire time I'm just thinking, oh, my goodness, I am so grateful that I have my own business, that I have the flexibility to be sick when I'm sick, that I can take care of myself when I have to take care of myself, that I can take care of my family when I have to take care of my family, and that I don't have somebody else that I need to report to when this stuff happens. So the whole point of all of this is not poor me, not at all. It's been a great month, actually. I've had a lot of time to reflect. I've had a lot of time with family. 

 14:36
Andrea Nordling
I've had a lot of time coaching myself and actually doing some planning and some slowdown type work that maybe I wouldn't have made time for otherwise. So it's been all good and everybody's healthy and everybody's fine, including me. I'm starting to get my voice back and feel better. So this isn't a, like, feel bad for me whatsoever. It's a holy cow. How blessed are we as business owners to have the flexibility and the freedom in our life that a business provides for when these things happen, because they always will. Hopefully I don't have another month anytime soon like October 2025 was. But, yeah, I probably will. I probably will and so will you. 

 15:18
Andrea Nordling
And the fact that we can do that and everything doesn't completely crumble is just such a blessing that I have been thinking so much about and I'm just so grateful for, like, so incredibly grateful. So the point of the email that I sent, and I'll read a little bit more about it, is that we make these decisions as a business owner and as an entrepreneur that to a lot of people in our lives, seems crazy because most people won't do this. Most people will not put in the work and do the hard things when nobody's watching so that they can have the freedom when nobody's watching later. That makes sense in my brain. I don't know if that makes sense when I say it out loud, but it's like, most people won't do that. 

 16:01
Andrea Nordling
Most people would rather have a different type of life and no judgment on that. But there's a lot of people around me who are just like, man, you work really hard and like, you could take a day off. Nobody would know. Like, of course I could, but I wouldn't get to my goals if I didn't show up when I needed to show up. So I do, and I have for years. And because of that, when I can't show up. I don't have to. And nothing really completely breaks. And our clients in TPN were still served. There were coaches that came in and coached for me on short notice, and I'm so grateful for that. And all the systems kept going. 

 16:37
Andrea Nordling
We had sales that kept coming in, money kept coming in because of the work that has been done previously and because that's how the business is set up to support me and to support my family and to support the students in the program and the clients that we serve without it being make or break. Oh, my goodness. Like, if I have to step away for a minute, everything will just fall apart. Now. Did a YouTube video get recorded and get published? No. Did two of them get missed? Yes, probably more than that. By the time we actually published another YouTube video, there might be a few weeks where there was nothing that was published. Podcast episodes didn't go out. As many emails as we normally send didn't go out. But it's all okay. I feel okay about it. 

 17:20
Andrea Nordling
My team is like, oh my gosh, we needed this, we needed that. I'm like, we don't. We actually don't. I don't feel good. It's all going to be okay. Nobody's going to die, and we'll pick up in a couple weeks. And even as I sent those emails and I sent those messages and I said that, I was thinking to myself, I need to record a podcast on this. And about just like truly the posture of gratitude that's even possible, because I do not know what I would have done the last 30 plus days if I had a job that I had to show up to, that somebody was depending on me to be at, that I had a boss I had to report to, that I had only a certain number of sick days or sick hours, like, I can't even imagine. 

 17:58
Andrea Nordling
It just, it just would have been so much more stressful than what was already a stressful few weeks and a, you know, period of time. I am so stinking grateful that is not the case and that I do have the freedom, time freedom, financial freedom that a business provides. So since I'm talking to fellow business owners or people that want to have a profitable business and don't want to have the time freedom that a business allows, I just have to reflect on that and I just have to think about, like, what an incredible opportunity it is for us. And I was thinking in one of my many, many hours that I was laying on my couch and thinking about these types of Things I was like, my goodness, I would love to talk to my grandma and tell her about this. 

 18:42
Andrea Nordling
My grandma has passed away about 10 years ago, and so she doesn't know me as an online business owner. And she really would be blown away by even, like, how that's possible and what my business looks like and how I can work with clients all over the world and how I can record a podcast or YouTube videos that people see all over the world. It would blow her mind. She would have. 

 19:01
Andrea Nordling
So any questions, I would love to tell her about it, but I think the thing that we would talk about in that conversation is how much harder it used to be for people to get started to be an entrepreneur and for how much more of an investment and a sacrifice it was at all times up until this very recent few years where it takes a few thousand bucks and a laptop or a phone and you can have a business with no, like, no income ceiling. No. The freedom is endless. And is it easy? No, absolutely not. As somebody who's been a business owner for over 20 years, I can say with a lot of authority, it's not easy. But is it worth it? It's so worth it. It's so worth it. So that's where I've landed. After a kind of. 

 19:49
Andrea Nordling
A lot of trials and tribulations over the last month that just seemed to all kind of pile on at once. I've been thinking a lot about how grateful I am that it's possible that when the things pile on, I can let that happen and I can take some time away from my work when I need to. It's such a blessing. I don't take it for granted. I hope you don't either. And yeah, I mean, I guess that's really just the point of this message, is that sometimes life is gonna life and it's all gonna feel like it's coming at once, and we need to have systems in place to deal with that when it happens. 

 20:21
Andrea Nordling
If we want to be able to prioritize ourselves and the other things in our life that are important, business really gives us a great vehicle to be able to do that. So, I don't know, just. I guess, like, my little pontification here is on how grateful I am. How cool it is that at this period in time, even though I have a lot of thoughts about technology and I have a lot of thoughts about AI, and I have a lot of thoughts about the digital world that we're in 2025, I also have a lot of gratitude for the fact that it makes it possible to help a lot of people and impact a lot of people and have a really profitable business with very little upfront time, effort, sacrifice, money, all of those things. 

 21:05
Andrea Nordling
If we want our business to be simple, just the fact that's even possible is so stinking cool. So these are the things I've been thinking about and I wanted to pass them on to you in this audio first episode. Audio first meaning like, just audio. You can't find this one on YouTube. This is just for you, my podcast listeners, because you are obviously like me, where you like to listen instead of watch. And I love that about you, by the way. I'm the same exact way. So hope this gave you a little, I don't know, just a little uplift in your purpose on why you have a business and why we do these hard things, because it totally is worth it. All right, I'm cheering you on, my friend, as always, and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.