Loving Someone Without Losing Yourself | Allie Cass | 205

What if one of the most powerful things you could do for yourself wasn’t helping someone else… but learning how to stop abandoning yourself?

In this heartfelt episode of Manders Mindset, host Amanda Russo sits down with former bodybuilding pro turned functional health and fitness coach Allie Cass for a powerful conversation about self-worth, resilience, grief, identity, and the courage to choose yourself.

Allie opens up about a toxic teenage relationship that shaped much of her early life, sharing what it was like to feel responsible for someone else's wellbeing while slowly losing sight of her own. Together, Amanda and Allie explore the difficult lessons that come from loving someone who refuses help, the importance of boundaries, and the journey of coming back home to yourself after years of self-abandonment.

The conversation also dives into grief, healing, mindset, athletics, confidence, and the experiences that ultimately led Allie into the world of health and coaching. From losing both of her parents to cancer to navigating her own personal growth journey through therapy, fitness, and self-discovery, Allie shares the moments that taught her how to trust herself, embrace change, and create a life she truly loves.

This conversation is a reminder that you can care deeply about others without carrying responsibilities that were never yours to hold.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do is choose yourself.

💡 In this episode, listeners will discover:

💡 In this episode, listeners will discover:
💜 How self-abandonment can quietly show up in relationships
🧠 Why you can't help someone who doesn't want help
🌱 The difference between caring for someone and being responsible for them
💔 How grief can resurface years after a loss
✨ Why confidence is built through keeping promises to yourself
🔄 The role identity plays in lasting personal transformation
🌟 Why creating a meaningful life starts now, not someday

⏰ Timeline Summary:

[2:00] Allie reflects on who she is at her core and her desire to experience life fully
[14:15] A teenage relationship that led to self-abandonment and emotional responsibility
[22:30] Learning that you can't help someone who doesn't want help
[29:15] College, grief, and becoming the "strong one"
[35:00] Losing her mother and the experience that sparked her passion for health
[49:00] Discovering bodybuilding and finding confidence through challenge
[54:00] From client to coach and helping women transform their lives
[57:30] Confidence, identity shifts, and creating lasting change

To Connect with Amanda:

Schedule a 1:1 Virtual Breathwork Session HERE

📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess

Follow & Support the Podcast:

📱Instagram: @MandersMindset
👥 Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE!

To Connect with Allie:

Website: www.alliecasshealth.com

📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alliecasshealth/ 

Transcript

Welcome And Content Warning

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers, and a variety of other people. We're your host Amanda Russo will discuss her own mindset and perspective, and her guest mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Welcome to Mander's Mindset. I'm your host, Amanda Bruce. And before we dive into today's episode with Ally Cass, a quick note. This uh episode uh includes uh a deep discussion of uh suicide, uh grief, uh emotional abuse and uh mental health challenges. Please uh take care of yourself while listening. And if uh this is a triggering time for you, skip this episode. If now is not the right time for you to listen to it.

Meet Allie And Her Core Values

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Welcome to Mando's Mindset, where we explore how shifting your mindset will shift your life. I'm your host, Amanda Verso, and today I am here with Allie Cass, and she's a formal bodybuilding pro, toned functional health and fitness coach. Thanks for joining me. Thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. So, who would you say Allie is at the core?

SPEAKER_02 1:38

That is a great question. I read a book a couple years ago, and it started out with literally the question of like, who am I? And I was like, oh my gosh. Like it seems like it should be such a simple question. And then you are asked that, and it's not so simple. For me at the core, I feel like I am just somebody who wants to experience life to the fullest. I have a background, obviously, in bodybuilding, in athletics. I love physical fitness. I love just being able to push myself and push my boundaries. Now that has been an interesting experience as I've gotten older because I've seen what it's like to push yourself past that threshold. I just love experiencing everything that the world has to offer: traveling, meeting new people, going on adventures, and just essentially really trying to squeeze the lemon of life. People often refer to me as their adventurous friend or the funny friend. And I just life is so short, and I've unfortunately had to learn that the hard way. And so for me, and what I like to try to accomplish in my work with women is helping people live life to the fullest right now.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

I love that. Living life to the fullest right now. I love that. I think that's so, so important. Can you take us down memory lane?

Childhood Roots And Athlete Mindset

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Tell us a little bit about your childhood, family dynamic, however deep you want to take that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

I grew up in a rather normal household. You know, I had two parents growing up. I was lucky to have them both through the duration of my life up until my mom passed when I was 22. But I had essentially a relatively stable, what you would kind of consider that quote normal upbringing. My parents were a little older. I was an oopsie. I was the youngest out of three girls. And so that had its own challenges. My dad had health challenges growing up. So that was something that we kind of faced from the time that I was about nine years old until the end of his life in my mid to late 20s. Um, but other than that, it was again a relatively normal childhood. I was born in Texas. I grew up in Texas for most of my young adult or sorry, young childhood life and then into adulthood, had two siblings, played sports, was pretty high achieving in academics. I was definitely a high achiever as a child. And so again, it was a relatively normal upbringing. Now it's funny, like as an adult, and the more that I get into my own mindset work and mindset work with clients, and the more I just start to kind of ask that question of who I am at the core and what are my patterns, the more I realize that just because I grew up in a good family unit, a relatively stable household, we all have our baggage and our stuff that we develop along the way. So that's been a fun journey. An interesting part of my upbringing actually was in high school. I had essentially my first long-term relationship. So I started dating someone when I was 16 years old. He suffered from a lot of mental health challenges. And basically from the time I was 16 to 18, I just slowly started to erode my own self-confidence, my own identity in the process of trying to show up for him, be there for him. And that was a really interesting experience that I've also worked really hard at unraveling through my adult life. It was something that really defined my outlook on life and my outlook on coming back home to myself, which has been a really big theme for me into adulthood and again in the work that I do with women.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

Now, you mentioned you played sports as a kid. Were you pretty athletic?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

I was. I was, I was definitely, I excelled in athletics. I was from a small town, so I always joke that you either played sports or you did drugs. Like there wasn't really anything else to do. Like that's not really true, but I was like, I can do drugs later in life. There's more time for that. I'll play sports right now. And so I played volleyball, basketball, I ran track. Those were like my big three. I did competitive cheerleading for a couple of years. I dabbled in some other things. But yeah, I mean, I was from a tiny town in East Texas. We had one stoplight until my sophomore year of high school. We got our second stoplight, which was a big deal. So would I say there was not much to do? There was not much to do. So I really threw most of my energy and most of myself outside of school into athletics. And I found a lot of, I guess, peace and purpose in physical activity and in pushing myself in that way. Growing up as an athlete was one of the first exposures that I had to really developing a strong mindset. So, again, being from a small town, we didn't have an extremely large talent pool. So one of the things that our coaches in athletics would really emphasize was the like the power of having a strong mindset, visualizing your success before you get there, practicing mental discipline. And so those were probably, I would say, the best lessons that I learned growing up, primarily through athletics. Wow. And you learned them pretty young. Pretty young, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

I mean, middle school into high school primarily. Yep. Wow. I bet that was very helpful. The visualizing your success. I hear so many people talk about that, that now, but I did not hear that like when I was a kid. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

I mean, it's so funny because it was helpful at the time. And I didn't realize how helpful it was till now as an adult. And there are times where, you know, I'm doing something that's challenging or I'm in a situation and I'll hear like a voice from one of my coaches or remember a phrase that they used to say. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like how applicable is that now? And it's awesome to be able to have those tools. But at the time, it was not something that I was really aware of. It's not, again, it's not something that was mainstream. Instagram wasn't a thing yet. So we didn't have a bunch of like mindset gurus or anything like that out there teaching stuff. I was good at following directions as a kid. So if my coach said to do something, I was like, all right, I'll do it. But yeah, such great life lessons learned through the process of playing sports.

A Toxic Relationship And Suicide Loss

SPEAKER_03 7:49

Now, you mentioned the long-term relationship that you were in from 16 to 18. I I'm curious how that ended for you.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

It is an interesting ending, I will tell you. So this particular individual, again, he had a lot of mental health challenges. So I very much self-abandoned in the process of trying to help him. And it's really interesting to look back because again, when you're 16, 17, 18, like you know things, but you're still very much a child. And I just I knew that if I didn't help him and something bad happened, that I would carry regret with me. So I chose to stay in this very toxic relationship, really kind of as a way of self-preservation. He did threaten suicide pretty frequently. Um, he would not accept help from any kind of mental health professional or family, friends, anything like that. So it was really a honestly kind of a dead end situation as far as how much impact anybody could really have. Unfortunately, he did end up taking his life, but it was interesting looking back at that experience. I really got to the point where I could say with full congruence that I felt like I did everything I could. Now, hindsight's, you know, 2020, I also observed what I allowed myself to go through during that process. And now at this stage in life, I would not put myself in that exact same situation again. But it is, if you look at it from like a mindset perspective or psychology, it was a very interesting time in life. And I fully made the choice to be there and to stay in that, which is also interesting to me when I look back on that time. That's tough.

SPEAKER_03 9:31

I myself dealt with a similar-ish situation. I was a little older, I think it was 19 to 21, but it was almost the same situation. The suicide threat, the not accepting help from anybody else. And looking back, I completely agree with the self-uh abandonment part. But I had the same mindset at the time. I didn't want to live with the regret of this was my fault. That is if it didn't.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

And to think like, you know, now you know consciously, even if you had made a different decision, right? It wouldn't inherently be your fault. But I I see this like similar pattern with women that I work with or even friends. And I think what what you and I are talking about is very much to a different degree, but just that pattern of kind of self-abandonment and oh, this person needs my help, so I must do everything I can to help them. And I see a lot of women that are essentially in that same pattern for a long time, whether it's with their family, with their friends, with their their partner, with clients, with work, things like that.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

Yeah. And now I'm curious, when did you leave the relationship before he ended?

Leaving When You Feel Responsible

SPEAKER_02 10:42

I technically did leave the relationship about two months before, but it was not a clean break. There was still a lot of communication, a lot of intertwining. I was still, I still allowed myself to be somewhat available to kind of support him, just not with the full girlfriend label. But he was still very prevalent in my life throughout that entire time. I'm curious what helped you be able to leave? That's a great question. I think if I recall, because again, it wasn't I think I hit first I hit a point where I just realized that nothing I did was going to make a difference. It wasn't gonna change his decision. And I just had that realization, like if he is going to do this, he's going to do this, whether I sit here and try to show up for him or not, like whether I'm in the picture or not. The second thing was he had a lot, a lot of his issues stemmed from anger. And again, he was very depression, depressive, almost to a manic level, but never got diagnosed because again, he would not accept help. He wouldn't go to a psychologist or a therapist or anything like that. But he would get very angry and he did have an issue with alcohol, despite the being of legal drinking age. There was only one incident where he was actually violent, but it got to the point where I was like legitimately afraid of him. There was one point in time where we had an altercation and I was able to get away from that altercation. But I called his mother and I had told her what was going on and you know what he was experiencing. And she basically told me, do not go back there. For me, that was also kind of validation. Like if somebody's mom is telling me, hey, like you need to stay out of this, then that's probably really good feedback that I should do that. So it just got to the point where I was afraid to be in that situation. And then again, having that realization, like, oh wow, like I have really exhausted every single resource I have. I've exhausted every single resource externally outside of myself that I could think to try to gather to help him, and he won't accept it. And like I just there's nothing I can do at this point. That was my first lesson in like you can't help someone that doesn't want to be helped.

SPEAKER_03 13:00

Yeah, that is so true in any aspect. And I'm I'm sure you've seen that in fitness too. Somebody that doesn't want to be helped. Yes, that no matter what you help them.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

No matter what if they if they're not I had a conversation not too long ago with a colleague of mine, and she was expressing that same thing of just the frustration of caring about somebody more than they technically care about themselves, and it's a hard, it's a hard thing, but it helps you learn the art of like just releasing control and just realizing what's within your control and what's not.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

I like that perspective shift. What's in your control? It's taken a long time to get here.

College Life And Buried Grief

SPEAKER_03 13:43

So now after you end this relationship, did you go to college?

SPEAKER_02 13:48

I did. I did, yes. I went to college. I was there for three years before I graduated. I had again a pretty, a pretty normal college existence. I didn't go to like a crazy party school despite living in Texas. Um, I had some friends who had some pretty wild experiences. Mine was very tame. I definitely thought that I had dealt with the grief of my ex committing suicide. What I realized that I did was I just decided I was going to be the strong one because that was another pattern of mine, and I was just gonna shove it down and not acknowledge it. But in my mind, I was like, nope, I'm strong, I've dealt with it, I've moved through it, and I realized probably seven years later that that was not the case, but neither here nor there. So I did go to college, did graduate, and had a good experience. And how did you realize seven years later that you just shoved it down? A great question. So shortly after college, my mother was unfortunately diagnosed with a very rare terminal form of brain cancer. So I was living in Texas at the time. My parents, while I was in college, had moved back to Arizona where they are from. So I moved to Phoenix, Arizona to help my dad essentially take care of her. So my mom growing up again, my dad had health issues from the time I was like nine years old until the end of his life. So my mom was the primary, the breadwinner, the one who took care of everything. My dad did more things around the house, but he would always have a lot of like fatigue and just other challenges that would just make working hard for him. So when my mom became sick, the roles reversed and he had to show up and he did a phenomenal job. But I went out there, I moved out there to help him and essentially helped take care of my mom for the last nine months of her life before she passed. Obviously, in that process, had a lot of grief come up. My mom was certainly like a she was a lighthouse for me. She was like my guide, my person that if I didn't know what to do or I knew I had a question, I would just call her, like to the point where I would call her multiple times a day and she'd answer and be like, What? What do you want now? Because I was just like such a mom's girl. And so that was really challenging. And it was really challenging in in that point in time because it was again right after college. At that point in time, I didn't realize I had a passion for health and fitness. It was actually her, her journey with cancer that made me start asking questions about what makes somebody healthy. What does health even really mean? She was a fairly healthy person for all intents and purposes. And so I didn't quite understand why someone like her would get that kind of diagnosis. And of course, a doctor doesn't have an answer, nor will they give you one. And so I started doing a ton of self-research, like at nighttime, and it really became a coping mechanism for me. And what I ended up falling into was this giant rabbit hole of nutrition, holistic health, how even like mindset, beliefs, repressed emotions, how that manifests in the body. And I just like the more I learned, the more pissed off I got that like nobody was talking about this. Again, social media was in its very early stages at the time. And so we had didn't have as much information like widely accessible. But I just got so frustrated that every doctor that I had taken her to, her oncologist, her primary care physician, all of those people, no one talked to us about nutrition, no one talked to us about stress management, no one talked to us about anything other than medication. And I don't know that it would have saved my life, but I felt that it was such important information that more people needed to learn it. So, anyways, that happened. And then the short version is my mom passes away. Unfortunately, about five years after that, my dad also passed away from cancer. And so it wasn't until after my dad passed away that I realized how much of my my grief, my anger, my sadness I had not truly

Therapy Commitment And Emotional Honesty

SPEAKER_02 17:27

dealt with. I went, I did a little bit of therapy after my mom passed away. But my challenge with that was that I would have more good days than bad days. So I would convince myself that I didn't need it or that I was fine. And then I had a specific night after my dad had passed away where I had a couple of drinks with the person I was dating at the time. And he did one little thing that upset me. It wasn't anything big. And I just became like the Hulk. I felt like I was like I was on another level. And the next day I woke up and was like, oh, that's not okay. I really took a step back and looked at myself and was like, that was not because of what he did. That was because you have not dealt with the ex who committed suicide, the loss of your mom, and now the loss of your father. And so I decided like I really needed to make a change. So I committed to four months. I was like, minimum four months of therapy. When I told myself I'm gonna go, I'm gonna show up every single week. It doesn't matter how good I'm feeling, it doesn't matter if I think I have a problem or not. I'm committed to going. And that really kickstarted that journey for me of just unraveling all of the stuff I had just pushed down, thinking that I was being strong and dealing with it and just moving forward. And I was really good at reframing things from a mindset perspective, which I think is important, but I would almost reframe myself in a way that I was just gaslighting my own experience instead of actually dealing with what was coming up. And so I would acknowledge I'm, you know, I'm stronger for this situation. I'm I can see how I'm better for it, and that's great. And at the same time, I just wasn't dealing with my emotions.

SPEAKER_03 19:03

Would you say that's the biggest thing you took away from therapy? That you weren't dealing with your emotions?

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Oh my goodness. I've taken so many things away from therapy. I think that was a really something I took away initially. For me, I didn't realize, you know, I've always been a very self-aware and self-reflective person. So I I could acknowledge like I have patterns like anybody else. I have my stuff that comes up. But there were certain things that I would have told you probably five years ago. No, I don't have that challenge. And through the therapy process, I'm like, oh, actually, maybe I maybe that does live underneath, or maybe that is a belief that I carry. And so I think just realizing how good I got at adapting to my environment and essentially dealing. I I have clients that I work with this all the time on. They get really good at like what I call managing their own baggage, that they don't even realize it's affecting them anymore. Because again, we're adaptable. When you're a high achiever and you know you have goals in life and you just want to move forward, you get really good at just managing what's there and then just not acknowledging it. And so I realized that's probably one of the big takeaways is I realized I just got really good at managing my stuff, but it was not serving me in a lot of ways. And it was holding me back in a lot of ways. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

That's great that you were you committed to it though, no matter how you were feeling. You gave yourself that little push almost, even though if you didn't necessarily want to, you knew it was something you needed almost.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Yes, absolutely. And I just knew that what I was doing and what I had done before didn't work, and so I was like, okay, obviously I've done the like touch and go. I'm not feeling great. Let me go to therapy. Okay, great. I'm feeling great. I don't need it. Like I was like, I've done a couple cycles of that, and it's clearly done like anything for me. So I think I really need to just commit to the process. And you know, like anything, it's it's a process.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Now you mentioned about getting involved in health after

Cancer Loss Sparks Health Research

SPEAKER_03 21:01

your mom. So were you not a coach prior to nope?

SPEAKER_02 21:07

I was not. So when I I again I grew up as an athlete, so I always loved exercise, fitness. We grew up lifting weights, I grew up running. And so I always appreciated that aspect of fitness, I guess. But I went to school for business and economics. And so I I just did not realize I had a deep passion for it. And again, that was like one of those periods in time where the obviously the internet was a thing, but social media wasn't really a thing. So you just didn't see stuff as often. I never knew like what a coach was outside of like the coaches I had that were specifically for a sport that were also teachers, you know. I knew what a personal trainer was, but I really didn't have interest in just becoming a personal trainer. It was also, again, the time where you're like, they don't make enough money. And that was a big thing in my family was like, get a good job, get a good education, get a good job, get something that's stable, something that will. Help provide for you financially, something that will always be needed. And so I kind of followed that advice from my parents and yeah, didn't realize that I had a passion for it. And it was actually, again, that self kind of self-research and self-learning process I went through when my mom was sick. And then after she passed away, a couple months later, I found myself in a very low place. I was depressed, again, dealing with a lot of grief, dealing with a lot of anger, a lot of sadness. I also just was not physically in a good place anymore. So once I stopped playing sports, I did not stop eating like I was playing sports. I joke, like being from Texas, like Mexican food and margaritas have their own like food like group on the pyramid. And so I just I was drinking a lot. I was putting things in my body that just were not supporting me, whether it was like the way I wanted to feel or the way I wanted to look. And so I remember sitting on my friend's bed one day. She wasn't even there. And I was just reflecting and I was like, I don't want to feel like this. I'm 22 years old. I feel like SHIT. I'm too young to feel this way. And then I really had that thought of like, if this is how life is gonna be, like, I'd rather not. And so in that moment, I was like, I obviously need to do something different. So I hired my first coach, and that's when like online coaching like first became a thing on the internet. And so I just was on Instagram one day, saw this woman, and that she was a fitness coach, and she said probably one thing that resonated with me. I'm very, like, I'm very easy to market to when I've already like gotten excited about something. So she probably said one thing, and I was like, sign me up. Um, so I I essentially started coaching with her. I didn't realize it at the time, but she coached a lot of bodybuilders, and that's how I actually got into bodybuilding. So she was like, Why don't you do a show? I think you'd be great at it. I was like, That sounds awful, absolutely not. Do not want to stand on stage in a bikini in front of strangers and then let them judge me. Like literally, it sounds like a nightmare I had last week. And so she she like flushed, and I was like, yeah, at the time, I was like, okay, I was actually bothered that it scared me so much. Like I was like, I don't know why this brings up so much fear for me. And I was working part-time for a tech uh technology company, a software company, and I was working remotely, but I really didn't have a lot of like passion or purpose in that. And so I was in this stage where I was like, I don't really know what I want to do with life. I don't feel like I have any goal I'm working toward. And growing up, there was always a goal, whether it was a sport or whether it was with your classes, you know, getting a good grade, like there was always a metric. And so that was the first time in life where I was like, oh my God, there's no metric. Like, what am I supposed to do? So I was like, fine, that'll at least give me something to work toward. And I competed for about a year and a half, and it really did serve me in that point of my life. It gave me an outlet for a lot of that anger that I experienced from my mom's death. It gave me a place to kind of go and just be with myself. And so I really appreciated it. And I also saw how the pendulum can swing from not prioritizing health to like then now we're hyper obsessed with everything we eat, everything we do. And I didn't particularly love that either.

SPEAKER_03 25:07

I am so curious how the coach convinced you, if it felt like an it seemed like a nightmare to you.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

I really don't remember. Like she probably didn't even do that much. She probably just told me I would be good at it and like really encouraged me. I don't think it took that much convincing. I think it was once I realized how much I didn't want to do it, I was like bothered. I've always been bothered by when fear comes up. Now, fear comes up for me like everyone else, and it doesn't always mean that I do anything about it, but there's been certain instances, like I'm afraid of height. So I've gone skydiving twice, and that was primarily just for me to prove to myself that I could do something instead of letting that fear control me. And so I think this was just an extension of that. Once I realized I was like, okay, if my coach is as good as she says she is, and I believe that she is, and if she thinks I can do it and I follow the plan, then why am I so scared of standing up there if I'm gonna look how I want to look? What's so scary about that? And so I think I just kind of had that realization like I don't want this fear to drive me. I'm already dealing with so much other stuff. So why not? And I was like, worst case scenario, I can pull out last minute and not do it, but why the hell not?

SPEAKER_03 26:22

I like the almost being bothered by the fear, you know, and not letting it control you and facing whatever the biggest fears are. I like that. Thank you. I think that can really help grow in any area, you know, like even like the skydiving, even if that's not gonna propel you forward even in business, it's building confidence a little bit, like showing yourself you can do whatever the thing is that you have a fear of.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Absolutely. And it's funny because like we're working in health and fitness, again, my women usually have some sort of health goal, but usually there's some element of like I want to be more confident in myself. And what I always tell clients, I tell them, they obviously they don't, they're like, okay, and then they experience it themselves and they actually are like, okay. But like that confidence component doesn't come from the

Confidence Comes From Kept Promises

SPEAKER_02 27:12

way that you look. That might help a little bit, but if I just like waved a magic wand and was like, poof, and you have your dream body or your dream aesthetic, you're not still not necessarily going to have a lot of confidence because you didn't have to do anything to get there. You didn't have to change your identity, you didn't have to grow through a challenge. Like there's nothing to back it up. So I tell clients all the time, like the confidence comes from just what you said, doing the thing that you didn't think that you could do and doing it consistently and continuing to show up. And when one thing gets hard, pushing through it and then getting to that new place of like, oh wow, okay, I did that. And then the next thing comes up, and then you continue moving through that. And so to me, that's where, and I think that was one of the things that athletics taught me too is confidence is built in the repetition. It's built in the showing up, it's built in the times when you don't do as well as you thought, and you still pick yourself back up and you still show up and you still move forward and start improving.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

I completely agree. And the repetition and doing what you say you're gonna do. I think that's a quick, small, easy way to also break the confidence. Like if you say you're gonna go to the gym on Monday, Monday morning, and you don't, like it's not just the fact of the one exercise. It's the fact that you broke a promise to yourself. It's so funny that you bring that up.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

I had a small period of time, I would say maybe a year and a half, two years, where I felt like for some reason I was not doing a very good job of keeping the promises to myself. And once I finally took a step back and realized that's what was happening, it really was. It was like eroding my own confidence, whether that was in my business, in my own health and fitness. Like I just I felt not like myself. I felt off. And it was like, oh, it's because I keep saying I'm gonna do these things and I keep not doing them or not doing them consistently. So you're absolutely right. It's keeping that promise to yourself and making that just as important as the promises that we make to other people. Because I see all the like so often women, and I say women because I work primarily with women. I'm sure it's a lot of you know, people in general, but women who make promises to others, they show up for others and they don't always give themselves that same level of consistency. And again, yeah, starts to erode that self-trust, starts to instill that belief of like I can't do this, or I don't show up for myself, or I can't trust myself as the big one that I have heard from women. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

It's so true. Completely agree. Now, I'm curious, how soon after your bodybuilding competition did you get into coaching yourself?

SPEAKER_02 29:42

That's a great question. So it wasn't until I competed for almost two years. I got my pro card and then I took a little break to do some traveling. And it was after that that I decided, okay, I I love this. The transformation for me changed my life. And it wasn't, it was hard. I don't want to say it's, you know, the things

Bodybuilding To Coaching Career Path

SPEAKER_02 30:03

that you have to do aren't necessarily easy, but it was fairly simple. Um, it really, once I realized what the right inputs were for me specifically, and then the outputs, I was like, oh, it's not really rocket science. And again, feeling like there's so much information or misinformation that's out there, I really wanted to have a way to like share that with women in a way that would actually give them impact and not just create more noise. So I started the certification process. I started with getting my nutrition coaching certification, just very basic. I got my personal training certification. And then shortly after that, my former mentor and coach, she asked me to come on as her assistant coach. So that's actually how I got my start into coaching. Um, I was coaching a few people here and there on the side prior to that, but that's really where I got my start as I came in. I became her assistant coach. I learned her process, I learned how she programmed for clients, how to coach clients essentially. And she took me under her wing. And then I ended up when she decided to exit the industry, I ended up buying her business, which was awesome. What that came full circle for you. It did, and it was great because again, I was a client, it changed my life. I became her assistant coach, bought her business. I also realized in that process, too, the way that the business was at the time, it was so impactful for me. But my desire to help women and the depth that I desire to serve women at had actually grown beyond what that business was capable of doing. So I did a rebrand in the process, kind of changed a little bit of like what I was helping clients with. But it was such a beautiful journey.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

How long have you been doing that? When did you buy her business?

SPEAKER_02 31:37

I bought her business right before the COVID shutdown. So it was like February of 2020. It was all online, the business itself. So that I did, I wasn't truly impacted in that way that other guests should work. But it was just an interesting time, lots of things happening at once. So again, yeah, I've been essentially in that space for almost six years now, and then was coaching with her for about two years prior to that.

SPEAKER_03 32:01

That's awesome. I love the way that happened for you. It's kind of like you got to see all the angles that she did it, what you liked, what you didn't, and just how you wanted to like shift it going forward.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Absolutely. Yeah, it's it was such a good learning lesson. And again, not really knowing anything about business, even though I went to business school. It's so it's until you get into a business, you don't, you just don't know. But so getting into the business, really understanding what goes into like running an online business, what goes into the back end, the infrastructure, like it just it was a lot of learning for a couple years. And yeah, it was such a great, a great full circle moment. And I think for her too to be able to know that her business was going to somebody who really loved it. Like I was so connected with the brand. I don't know that any condition would have existed where I would have said no, because I just loved what that business did for me when I was a client.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

That's awesome. I'm curious, what would you say it has been the biggest aha you've experienced in your life? Across the board. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Oh my gosh. Oh, oh wow, that's a great question. Okay, biggest aha. Oh my gosh, there's

Less Is More In Healing

SPEAKER_02 33:18

so many. I think, you know, I just I think one of the biggest ahas, not to sound super cliche, is just that you can really have the life that you desire. I think when you're willing to work through your patterns, when you're willing to look at yourself, and when you're willing to be honest with yourself, I will, I'll be honest now. I was not always good at being honest with myself. I thought I was, but I was not. And so I think when you can really sit with that and then do something about it, you can literally change your life. You can change your health, you can change your finances, you can change your career, you can change your love life. I feel like I've gone through, I don't know if you're into astrology, so I won't go super far into it, but we're having a lot of planetary transitions right now from certain cycles are ending. And I'm looking back, like, wow, 14 years, that's pretty much when all this stuff started. And so it's like, I feel like I've lived, as I'm sure you have and many of the listeners have, so many different iterations of my own life in this journey of just pivoting and starting over and moving, deciding this is not the thing and moving to this. So I think that's one of the biggest things, also from a health perspective. One of the biggest ahas that I have had is that your body knows what to do, like it knows how to heal itself. I fully believe there is a time and place for medical intervention. I am all for that. And sometimes the body just needs less and it needs to just let I work so many times with clients on just helping them get their body to a place where it can do what it naturally knows that it needs to do. Like we are such intelligent beings, we don't even realize. And I think that health has become so overcomplicated online, and it is nuanced and there's a lot of context to it. So I do want to honor that. But you have people that are like, this is the right way, this is the right way. And it's like your body actually just knows what to do, just get the F out of the way, and it'll most of the time do it. And a lot of times we're our own biggest barriers. So I think for me that was a really big aha in my own journey and in my journey as a coach because I always wanted to know what's the best protocol for this or what's the best supplement. And I still do protocols, I still do supplements, but I've realized in that process that oftentimes less is more, and a lot of times it's more about removing the barriers to healing than it is about forcing the body into a state where it's gonna heal.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

It's interesting you say less is more, you know. I'm not a coach myself, but I have a fitness weight loss in journey. I've lost and maintained a 70-pound weight loss. Thank you. I still regularly lift and strongly believe in the desire for it, but there is so much information, whether it's fitness, whether it's nutrition, it's almost overwhelming. So I really respect that you say less is more. You know, I think sometimes there's a supplement for everything, which I'm not knocking supplements. I take some myself. I work with a coach and I believe in the benefits, but like at what point is enough?

SPEAKER_02 36:27

Right. Absolutely. And like for me, what one of the lenses I've started looking at it is like, I again, I also use supplements and I think there's very much a time and place, but like I like, what is actually just blocking the body from again doing what it needs to do? Like, are we just trying to use the supplement or this protocol unintentionally just to band-aid what is happening? Like, why is this actually happening? And can we correct that and potentially use a supplement in the interim to as a support? But like the long-term goal for me, at least and my clients is not to have people taking a bunch of stuff. Yes, there are certain things that a lot of my clients will stifle on and off on more of like a maintenance type of basis. But I'm like, if you look at my supplement routine, it is extremely minimal. I don't wear a ton of like health tracking devices. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I'm not like an over-techy person, but we've just everything has become so complex. And I'm like, I mean, it's not that long ago, a couple hundred years ago, that we didn't have like any of this stuff. And so I'm like, we have just we've evolved so quickly. And like I just look at so many things and I'm like, is that really necessary though? Is it actually moving the needle forward or is it just creating more confusion, more stress, more dependency on something that is outside of ourselves when really most of what we need is inside. I completely agree.

SPEAKER_03 37:44

No, I'm curious on your thoughts, because I see so much of different aspects of this in the fitness community, about these quick fixes, all these different, whether it's a 21-day workout challenge, a fast, a supplement. Like, I feel like there are so many different aspects of quick fixes in the fitness industry.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Yeah, I don't love quick fixes. I tell clients when they come to me, like I I will occasionally get that client that's like, I'm going to Vegas in six weeks and I want to look amazing. And I'm like, okay, like I could get you some pretty probably solid results in that short amount

Quick Fix Culture And GLP 1 Risks

SPEAKER_02 38:23

of time, and I can tell you you're not gonna want to do what I would have you do. You're gonna feel good doing it, and I'm not gonna feel good giving that to you. So I tell clients when they come to me, I'm like, commit to yourself for at least six months. Ideally, this is a lifelong journey. But yeah, the quick fix thing, I think I don't love it for many reasons. I don't love it because I think it just continues to reinforce that instant gratification world that we live in, right? Like everything's a click away, a double tap away, and there's everything is so dopamine driven. And the reality is yes, you can make changes or you can see results in your health and your fitness in a short amount of time. But most of the time, that whatever you're doing to get you to that point is not going to help you keep it long term. And so people just end up in these cycles and these cycles. And kind of to the conversation that we were talking about earlier, the more that I see women get stuck in that cycle of like, all right, my 21-day fix, and then they go through the 21 days, they get results. Awesome. And now it's like now what? And then they just completely revert back to what they were doing before, or their body is in such a depleted state that metabolically it rebounds because, again, like it's not set up for long-term sustained results. I've seen that become so discouraging to women. I've seen them kind of lose that trust in themselves, lose the confidence in themselves, and just get really discouraged in the process. And I think that becomes more detrimental to somebody's mindset and someone's ability to show up and do hard things than if they were to just take a slower but more sustainable approach that actually supports their bodies. Now, from the like GLP1 side of things and those type of quick fixes, I think that they are good for a certain population, a certain person. I think they have become widely overused, over-prescribed. I mean, I know people pushing GLP ones that do not have any business giving GLP ones to people. Like they're not doctors, they're not nurses, they're not licensed practitioners of any kind. And so it is just, it's become like Wild West. And to me, that is a little scary in and of itself because I think people think like, oh, it's it's generally safe. We're just gonna, you know, everybody take this dose. And it's like, that's not how it works. And I actually had an experience with somebody I knew who ended up in the hospital hospital and I see you with a perforated bowel from a GLP one that he was on. And so I am seeing like the negative side effects. Again, I do think certain populations, certain people can be very helpful. I do want to be mindful of that. I think that the original intention of which those compounds were created has a positive purpose and a positive place. I think that for people who do not take it and also or who take it and then do not address again the reasons why they got to where they are in the first place, their lifestyle, their habits, their mindset, right? Like most people don't become obese or just neglect themselves because they just have bad habits. They do have bad habits. Usually there's something though going on in my experience underneath the surface that has caused them to engage in behaviors that end or that get them to that point. And so again, when we're not addressing those things, we now have more research that shows like long-term impact can be more detrimental than helpful. Again, a lot of people, especially with DLP ones, most of the weight that's lost is muscle mass, unless you are resistance training, unless you are eating adequate protein. So I have seen people who utilize those compounds and are doing all the right things. And I think that is like I'm much more supportive of that. But just the idea that, like, oh, I'm gonna take this thing and I'm gonna sit on my couch and not do anything, which I have literally heard people say, and I get to eat whatever I want and I'm still gonna lose weight, like again, just reinforces this um this culture of like people don't want to work hard for things. But when we think about the human evolution, like working hard for things is what creates meaning and purpose in our lives. It's what's helped us evolve to this point. So I actually, if I were to go on like a whole tangent, which I won't, it starts to it to me, it's a little scary. What is this doing overall mentally for humanity? Like, how is that changing the way that we show up in the world? And I mean, again, you can probably start correlating some of that to just the high increase in like mental health challenges. And so many people have lack of purpose in their lives and they don't do anything that challenges them. So that's my TED talk.

SPEAKER_03 42:48

I get it and I agree. I don't understand like not having a little bit of desire to work for something, even if it's work-wise, even if it's just not fitness. So I feel like even like you mentioned the magic wand, and you suddenly had the dream body, you wouldn't appreciate it the same way, you know? Even if you enjoy it to some aspect, it wouldn't be the same because you did nothing to get it.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

One of my favorite quotes, and I don't know who said it, it's about the idea that like the value in getting to a goal is not about getting to the goal, it's about who you become in the process. And I tell my clients that all the time, and that's in my experience too, right? Because you get to whatever your goal is, be it like I want to make X amount of money or I want to weigh however many pounds, like you get there, and that's great. And it's definitely something to celebrate, but it's a momentary bliff in time. Like after that moment passes, like that doesn't really exist anymore. But what does exist is who you are and who you've become in the process of getting to that goal. And I think that people who chase quick fixes miss that entire opportunity to develop themselves into more of a person that they want to be, or a person that would experience their life in a deeper, more enriching and more fulfilling way. Do you think it? Requires somebody who's shifting their identity to make it. Yeah, I'm really big on because I do a lot of NLP and hypnosis work with my clients as well as an adjunct. And I'm really big on identity work. I know for me, my biggest shifts have come, and some of it's been intentional for me personally, and some of it's been obviously intentional.

Identity Shifts That Create Lasting Change

SPEAKER_02 44:20

But when I have when I've looked at the things in my life that were really easy to just stop doing or to just shift away from, it was when I kind of look at the common thread, it was because I actually just decided that I was not the person who did that anymore, or there was an identity shift that took place underneath. It was less about I can't do this or I do do this. It's or like, yeah, I can't. It's about I either don't, I choose not to, I do choose to do this. That's because of who I am and what my values are. And so I do think that a lot of like long-term change requires a change in identity because most people were all operating on autopilot a lot of the time. So we're just, you know, our subconscious minds running the show, our sense of identity is kind of running the show. And if there's not a shift in that, we just continue to do the same things that reinforce the identity that we have in the present moment. So I do think it is a big component for change.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

I completely agree. Because if you look at yourself as one certain way, you're gonna, you're likely gonna show up that way. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

Right. And you're gonna continue to do the things that you do, or you're gonna do new things if you view yourself in a different light.

unknown 45:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

And it's so interesting. Like I feel like everything's a feedback loop too, right? So you have that shift, and then the more you show up and do the new things, the more it reinforces, you know, that new identity, right? Kind of going back to like keeping the promises to yourself, building that confidence. Like whether you are doing like an intentional identity shift or not, doing new things and challenging yourself and showing up for yourself consistently rewires your neural pathways, whether you're doing it intentionally or not.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

It completely does. Thank you so much, Allie. I really enjoyed this conversation. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. This was great. Yeah. Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? I have, yes. So I'm a big fan. He's got a podcast called On Purpose, and he ends it with two segments. And I've borrowed those two segments from his show, and I end my podcast with those two segments. First segment is the many sides to us, and there's five questions,

Rapid Fire Questions And Final Five

SPEAKER_03 46:30

and they need to be answered in one word each. Okay, love this. What is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as warm? What is one word someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as funny? What is one word you'd use to describe yourself? Resilient. What is one word that if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset would use to describe you as?

SPEAKER_00 47:12

Whatever the word is for like overly self-aware, like obsessive, we'll just say that.

SPEAKER_02 47:20

What is one word you're trying to embody right now? Oh my gosh. Um what is my word of the year? Unbothered.

SPEAKER_03 47:30

Unbothered.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Unbothered. I like that. Why was that your word of the year? You know, it came up because I have just found myself in situations at Lee, um, primarily in like a relationship context where I just am like, you know what? Like I at a certain point, again, going back to some of the lessons I learned a long time ago, like can't help people that don't want to be helped, and just kind of bless and release. And yeah, I just realized like I'm getting really worked up. I think it's great to get worked up about things you believe in and things that are important to you. And I found myself getting worked up and spending a lot of mental and emotional energy on things again that were outside of my control, things that I couldn't change, things that if I was really honest again with myself and really looked at reality, like I would see what was happening instead of projecting what I wanted to happen and then getting upset when it didn't. So I just decided, you know what? Like again, I don't want my energy, time and energy is so precious to me as it you know is for most people. And I'm I don't want to spend energy on things that don't need the energy. So I just was it's unbothered. Doesn't mean I'm not bothered. I still think I got bothered earlier today, but I'm doing my best to approach life in an unbothered manner.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

I like that. Thank you. Second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence. What is the best advice you've heard or received?

SPEAKER_02 48:58

The first thing that comes to mind is a phrase that I read on a Taco Bell hot sauce packet back in college. It was, if you never do, you'll never know. I just think that so often, and maybe this is just my personal experience, we live our lives in our heads, worrying about what's gonna happen, worrying about what's not gonna happen, projecting what we want to happen. And then, you know, we don't take risks or we don't do the thing that scares us because we have all of these scenarios. And the reality is like if you never do the thing, you're never gonna know what happens. And so for me, that's been a big driver of if I really want something bad enough, I've got to do it because if I don't, I won't know. Or, you know, again, I can create every single scenario in my head, and I'm probably wrong 99.9% of the time. So if you if you don't do it, you're not gonna know. If you do it, you find out and it's information and you take that and you move forward. I love that. What is the worst advice you've heard or received from? Oh man. Worst advice. Holy moly. I wish I was like writing these down over the years. You know, honestly, I don't the first thing that comes to mind, and I don't even know like who gave me this advice or what it is, but I think it's at this point for me in life, it's just the idea to like keep pushing through. I want to caveat that by saying I think everyone should continue to move forward, but I have just seen that become such a part of my identity in my younger years to again the point that I just would not acknowledge what was wrong. And I just carried so much stuff with me that was not mine to carry because all I was focused on was like just push through, just push through, persevere, be strong, and that's great. And it comes with context, and so I think I I've seen it affect my health, I've seen it affect my relationships, I've seen it affect just the way that I relate to myself, and so yeah. What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?

SPEAKER_00 51:03

My goodness that I used to value that I no longer value. I want to say the opinions of others.

SPEAKER_02 51:23

But I would probably be lying if I said that was like a full, a fully true statement I'm I'm working on. Really, again, not saying I don't value the opinions of people who are important to me, but the people who either don't live the life I want to live, don't embody the characteristics that I want to embody, don't have a good rapport with me. I don't, I've been, I don't value opinions from those people anymore.

SPEAKER_03 51:46

If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?

SPEAKER_02 51:53

Oh man. I would just want at a high level, since I'm supposed to keep it to one sentence, um, I would want my legacy to be that I encouraged people to live their life to the fullest and to do it now, not when they retire again. Saw my mom save and wait for a time that never came. So to live life to the fullest right now, whatever that means, not when you know I reach X amount of money or when I reach my weight loss goals, but like now, I want to encourage women in particular to do whatever it is that lights them up and it gives their life meaning and purpose. I'm such a big believer that the most important question that I try to ask myself is like, if I found out I was gonna die in six months, could I look back on my life and be happy with the way that I've lived it so far? And so to help women, to create a legacy where I help women be able to look back onto that question and say, hell yes, like that was a dope ride, is what I want. I want that for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 52:57

If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

Don't be an asshole.

SPEAKER_02 53:12

I think I am just gonna go with that answer, actually. And why? Because I think there's so much negativity in the world. Now, I don't mean not to set boundaries and speak your truth and be honest with people, even when it's rough or it hurts, but like I just don't understand when people are just blatantly rude. I think that the world would be a better place if everybody could just show like one percent more of empathy and compassion. And that's like regardless of political viewpoint or any kind of label that we label people, if everyone could just be a little kinder, a little more understanding, a little more empathetic, I think that we could live in a much better world where we agree to disagree and still respect the person sitting across from us. So just don't be an asshole, please. And thank you. I love that law. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 54:08

Thank you so much for speaking with me. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. Thank you so much. And I will link your website in the show notes. But are you active on any social media if anybody wants to connect?

SPEAKER_02 54:21

Yep, I am primarily active on Instagram. My handle is at AliCast Health. I am also on Facebook and LinkedIn, but Instagram is where you can find me most frequently.

SPEAKER_03 54:30

I

Trust Yourself And Keep Looking

SPEAKER_03 54:31

will link that in the show notes. And I do just like to give it back to the guest, no pressure, but any final words you want to leave listeners with?

SPEAKER_02 54:39

I think the one final thing I'll say, primarily for women, especially women who are on some kind of health journey or perhaps a journey of their own like self-development, is trust yourself, listen to yourself. I see this all the time with women who don't feel great, who have symptoms, are told they're fine. And if that is your lived experience, that is valid and that's your reality. So follow that. And if you haven't found the answers that you're looking for, keep looking, keep asking people, keep putting out the questions. I believe that there is an answer for everything. And I just think that if we don't have the answer, we haven't gotten there yet. Almost everything.

SPEAKER_03 55:19

Thank you so much, Allie. And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Mando's Mindset. Thank you guys for tuning in to that deeply profound episode with Allie. Before we wrap up, there was one part of this conversation that really stuck with me. When Allie shared her experience of staying in a

Host Reflection On Self Abandonment

SPEAKER_03 55:46

relationship because she was afraid of what might happen if she left, it resonated so deeply with me because I've uh experienced something very similar. While the outcome was different, and I'm grateful for that, I know what it's like to feel responsible for someone else's well-being. I know what it's like to stay longer than you should. And longer than you want to. Because you are afraid of what might happen to this other person if you leave. Looking back, one of the biggest lessons I've learned is that you can love someone, you can care about someone, and you can want the best for them without sacrificing yourself in the process. If you are listening to me right now and someone is threatening self-harm or making you responsible for their choices, or using fear or guilt or obligation to keep you in a relationship, please know this. You do not have to stay because of that. Support people. Encourage people to get help. Connect them with resources when it's appropriate. However, another person's choices are not your responsibility. I also really loved something Ali said during our conversation. And I've heard it before. You can't help someone who doesn't want help. That lesson applies far beyond relationships. It applies to friendships, family, coworkers, and often the people we love the most. At some point we have to recognize what is within our control and what isn't. For me, another powerful theme throughout this conversation with Ali was self-abandonment. So many of us become experts at showing up for everyone else while silently disappearing from our own lives. We keep promises to other people. But often break promises to ourselves. The fastest way to lose confidence is by breaking a promise you make to yourself. We often put our needs, our goals, our own well-being on hold because someone else, quote unquote, needs us. So maybe the question to reflect on after listening to this episode is this. And what would it look like to come back home to myself? Thank you so much for listening and tuning in to today's conversation. If today's conversation brought up anything difficult for you, please reach out for support. You don't have to carry it all alone. There are people here for you. I am in your corner. Thank you for tuning in to this deeply powerful episode with Ali Cass. Until next time. Keep breathing. Keep shifting. And remember, everything is figure outable. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you. I'm booting for you. And you got this. As always, if you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star rating, leave a review, and share with anyone you think would benefit from that. And don't forget, you are only one nine step shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next

Final Encouragement And Review Request

SPEAKER_03 1:01:24

time.