also license school counselor and a life coach for both kids and adults she has a lot of great insights and we'll hear from her shortly our first guest is c e o and president of simple sugars which is a natural skincare line based in pittsburgh so welcome thank you thank you so much for having me today yeah i'm excited so tell me i know you brought some of your products i'm really excited to try them out but tell me a little bit about simple sugars and what it means to you and how you got sort all the fun stuff ok well simple sugars is my company it's an scrub they're all sugar based and completely all natural i started simple sugar is when i was eleven years old and i have really ridiculously sensitive skin where your skin looks great now that i had a horrible eczema ever since i was a baby and i couldn't find a single product that i could safely use on my very sensitive skin so i got really frustrated and decided to do some research and start making my own products so that's what i did and i started using them on myself and then about around the same time i watched my mom go through a bad experience with her job in the corporate world and that inspired me to want to become an entrepreneur so  i decided that simple sugars was the perfect opportunity for me to start a business and the rest is history is also so not only do you do it for the the natural skincare line but also the business side yes so nearly definitely so tell me about some of your products what are some of the ingredients i know we kind of had this discussion before and i'm totally against sugar yes and actually that's what the last segment was on was all about sugar but sugar in the natural form doesn't actually absorb in your skin current exactly exactly so you don't have to worry about you know getting a sugar high from using these products in the shower basically what they are is there an experience for anyone who's never used to mix fully and before it is a grainy product and that remove all of your dead skin cells so that's what the sugar does and then there's also a mixture of all different all natural oils in there so as you remove the dead skin cells you moisturize the skin underneath so it's a way to moisturize your skin that's much more effective than using a lotion  ok yes yes because when you use a lotion there is a barrier of dead skin cells that naturally sits on top of your skin so when you solution it's a water based product and you're applying it on top of that barrier so all of them which are just evaporates right back out again and that's why you have that kind of lotion the feeling on your hands after you use it and then i also that's also why you have to put on a lotion so many times before you feel like it actually works ok so when you especially you kind of eliminate the need for a lotion in a way  which is obviously what you need for your face they're also all formulated to be for a specific skin type so the otto is really good for super dry skin and then on the other end the green tea with teacher is good for oily skin and then we have a cucumber addition we also have a men's line that also means to me a little bit about that so how are men reacting to so many men are very interesting to market the skincare products to it's has definitely a bigger education component because a lot of guys aren't as aware as women about products and about what they're putting on their skin and most guys don't even know what a scrub is but once you can educate them a little bit and convince them to try it out they really like it because it's super easy it's a one step product which really appeals to guys in the way the whole men's line came about was actually because we had a bunch of guys who were using the regular simple sugars products and they absolutely love them but they were so embarrassed by the pink packaging and they went hide it in their products like why the natural route why not go over the counter things that we see every day so exactly a lot of people aren't aware that there are some pretty harsh chemicals in their skincare products there are chemicals that are available in most products in the united states that have been banned in other countries product ingredients that have been linked to things like breast cancer hormone disruption so it's some pretty serious things and a lot of people don't even realize they're there and it's really important to educate yourself about it and to be aware of what you're putting on your skin because your skin is your largest organ so anything you put on your skin gets absorbed into the into your bloodstream almost the same as if you're eating it so my personal motto is if you can't eat it you shouldn't put it on your that's one thing that i really really love about your products is because you can you can stand behind them and you you can eat it yeah you definitely i mean they're all colored it's the same way with skincare products the same way that we know there are all these artificial things in processed foods it's the same with skincare products and so on these are completely all natural all the colors come from the real whatever it is so the cranberry is red because it has actual cranberries in it and same thing with a sense and on something that's really important especially in the industry sense are one of the biggest things that are chemically produced and that are the most irritating to people with sensitive skin and that has some of the most serious chemicals in them yeah and i had a chance to talk with you on a networking event last week was  and one thing that you said to me that really stuck out was a lot of people get irritated skin and then they want to put another product on actually to to kind of kind of remove it whenever you get a breakout or something like that generally your first instinct is all my gosh i better go out and buy a product to take away this breakout but really what you should be doing is reducing the number of products you're already using because generally what happens is people don't actually have sensitive skin they're just reacting to a product that has all these harsh chemicals in it and they just think they have sensitive skin really they have normal skin and it's just that these chemical shouldn't be in the products in the first place so my advice to people when something strange starts happening with their skin is to first of all think about any new products they just start using and if they just started using something stop using it and then secondly to try using only water on your skin for a week and see if it goes away and if it does then you know it was definitely from one of the products you were using i actually took that tip that you gave you know using water and it actually made a huge difference i realize that one of the assurance i was using was it's definitely works and it's the same thing with a lot of companies that try to sell you like a multi step process most of the steps are necessary because the way those work is the first step will take something away from your skin so you need the second step to put it back and then the third step will again take something away so you need another step to put it back and because of the way that works it's really unnecessary for your skin and it's really hard on your skin too so it's always best to simplify your routine and make sure you using things that are simple and that have ingredients that directly benefit your skin that's awesome no real quick what do you know how many chemicals are found in the average of the average woman i forget what it is with the average woman puts  on it well in the in a day i think it's twenty one one pretty sure it's twenty one chemicals twenty one different chemicals in the woman's very care products and they're in everything from lotion to shampoo to foundation exactly exactly let's everything perfume one of the biggest offenders and toothpaste everything so it's really important to read your labels and think about what's in there but it's hard at the same time too because i know when you walk into the store and pick up your shampoo and try to read the label it pretty much seems like you're reading a foreign language because there's so much ridiculous stuff in there but there are several things you can be careful to watch out for that will help a lot for the biggest ones that i jeans will come with a number after them so it'll be like ten thinking about it and both of those have been linked to causing cancer so it's pretty serious and it's not the kind of thing that if you use it one time you're going to die but it's the kind of thing that if you think about how many exactly how many times have you shampooed your hair on the time you're born until the time you're thirty and then it's when it starts to have an effect they really are in sense they're the chemicals that make a scent stay with you throughout the day and they've been linked to hormone destruction so it's really important to watch out for those and those can kind of hide sometimes to a lot of perfumes will just list fragrance on their label i've seen them through and many times it's because it's considered a trade secret to the perfume to not have to list every ingredient that's in their fragrance and that number they hide a lot of the time now do you list everything on your yes and all of our fragrances are naturally derived from botanicals fruits or they're an essential oil ok which means it come and yet they make a special oils by using pressure extreme cold or heat to actually press an oil from an actual ingredient so like the cranberry uses primary essential oil which is to derive directly from a real cranberry and there's no artificial scent in there yeah well i could talk to you for hours as you know because i love health and nutrition and all of everything that you do i know i was a huge fan when i first met you you're so inspiring so young and and living your a little bit of scrap of here because now you're just going to rub it around like so you can pretend like you're at home in the shower using it on your whole body the whole room smells like delicious sugar and spice so this is the whole explanation this is what's happening right now all the dead skin exactly and that's the grainy part that you feel when sugar is also gentle enough of an experience you can use it every day even if you have sensitive skin why sugar because i know there's some some salt i personally think salt is counterint because the whole idea of using this is to moisturize your skin and salt naturally draws moisture away from your skin also salt can burn if you have sensitive skin or if you have a breakout or doing small business saturday yeah this week on saturday which is november twenty fourth we're having a small business saturday private shopping a vent at our headquarters in charge for you can also buy the products online all the time not just on small business ok very close yeah good well thanks again for coming on today so much for having me and we are just wrapped up with laney and we will be back shortly with what's it like when you hear your ca listen what if it calls you to go halfway around the world some things in life you can't control and this booklet can help from keeping your family healthy to saving for retirement or your free copy now from the american diabetes association because we want everyone to be healthy and happy  hello and welcome back to healthy inspiration we just had on with simple sugar scrubs she was awesome my hands are definitely smooth and i can't wait to try out more of her products and now we have my friend and fellow coach john l thank you for coming on the show today for having me lindsey i'm happy to be here i'm so excited i know we go we go way back we actually met on facebook believe it or not and became friends instantly because of a lot of our similarities so why you tell me a little bit about your work as a coach i know that you have a background in school counseling as well as life coaching so tell me how that kind of plays with one another right so i've been a school counselor for the past eight years and i decided to make the progression into life coaching and when i look back in my life there are a couple experiences that really stand out that made me want to work with kids and help them and one of the things that happened with me is that as a young adult i wasn't very confident and i didn't really have the love for myself that you should and i think that i was lacking a lot of life skills so when i started college i was ill prepared for things that life with throw at me and also had no coping skills when it came to dealing with stress and so part of my mission as a life coach is to help kids have those skills before before they reach high school before they reach college so they're really prepared and another thing that really stands out for me was the lack of career exploration and high school and when i got to college i made a lot of bad choices in regards to careers and the direction i should take because i wasn't given the opportunity to really explore what my interests were and more importantly than that i wasn't given the opportunity to explore who i was so who was i what were my strengths what was i passionate about these are questions that no one had ever asked me and as a coach these are questions that i ask the students that i work with to help them know who they are so that they make better choices that's awesome  now i know in my own experience i suffered from anxiety as a kid i mean i was hospitalized at age eleven it was a very very traumatic time for me what do you see most kids dealing with now with the pressures of school and society and media what some of the biggest issues that you see kids dealing with on a database day to day to day to day basis i think a lot of our kids are struggling with the pressures of life and a of times we see that showing up as depression and anxiety and we also have kids dealing with a lot of bullying and so like i said before you know the self love and the self confidence and teaching coping skills are really things that our kids need and i know we've talked about this before but one of the things that i see is also over achievers it's not just people that you know we label as bad or they're a bad kid i think over achievers tend to be the ones that we kind of miss because they're out doing their thing and then there are a lot of over two years of the ones actually have these internal pressures which can lead to anxiety and depression and and things like that do you write a law this is a great point and what i found as a school counselor is that a lot of the students that were first to me were students who who needed a lot of extra help and so sometimes the students who are getting very good grades who are very involved and maybe are a little bit more quiet about their anxiety or depression or other struggles they're having they kind of get overlooked and that's the thing that i really love about coaching is because coaching can be for everyone it can be for your normal student and it what it does is helps that student get from a to b where are you right now and where do you want to be yeah and i love that because i think when we look at coaching or we look at even counseling or therapy or things like that we think oh we need to be at this really really low point in our life in order to do that and it doesn't have to be like that now we can all benefit from some support and coaching is great for that because i can work with a student who's at an age and help them get to a nine you know or work with someone who they feel like everything in their life is perfect but there's always room for growth and that's what we're doing through life we're growing and we're learning from each experience that we have that's great what who inspires you who inspires you to keep to keep doing this work really and to you know who are some of your mentors or teachers in your own life most interesting leigh is that when i was growing up i did not necessarily have a mentor or coach and i think that was part of the the puzzle that was missing and so what i did was every self help book i could find every motivational speaker that i could listen to i did that and i spent many years doing a lot of self worth work and self exploration i remember i remember i just have to say as i remember we were on a kick for a while were it was the c d s in the car or our i pods and i would be speakers you know just trying to embrace that and try and i think anyway so i did a lot of self learning  a lot of self work and i was very lucky that i fell into the books and fell into the speakers and writers that i had found but i think for a lot of kids would it be so much better if we could just teach them these skills in grade school refine them in high school and have them really prepared for college and for the real world yeah totally so what's what are some tools or what's even just one tool that you would use with working with the student you know and overcoming an obstacle or fears or whatever it may be right so i think it really depends on the student sitting in front of me in individual coaching the skills will be based upon what that suit really needs at that time for example i may have a student that i'm working with that's in high school and they're really unhappy about the circumstances in their life so what we might do is start working on a gratitude journal together so they start really to focus on what's going well in my life and what do i have to be happy about so that's one thing i love that by the way yeah gratitude and i know we talk about this but gratitude is just one of those things that it seems silly at first it seems simple because it's so simple you know i remember the first time someone ever told me to start a gratitude journal i was like please you know like what what do i have to be grateful for you know because i was so in such a low place and it seemed almost like i brought oh you know my friends my family like stuff that you normally just like every day things but then once you start digging into it even just over time i think it just really develop suit you just realize that there's so much to be grateful for that you don't have time to like sit there in a journal and write write and it shifts you had a student i can think of vividly and she came in and her first session was a lot of negativity she didn't like the way things were going at home she didn't like the way things were going at school and the whole session was pretty much negative i urged her to sort of gratitude journal and the very next time i saw her she was a completely different student sitting in front of me to me because she had shifted into that positive state of mind because when you're so negative it just kind of takes you down all the time and just every nothing's going to make anything go go right right you know right so what would be a piece of advice that you would maybe give a parent working with a troubled a troubled child or a troubled teen if you will well i don't have one specific bit of advice because as we said not one size fits all and so which i love by the way it has to be an individualized approach  and so for that parent what i would suggest suggest is take a look at the troubles that you're having with your child you know is your child are they having some anxiety are they fearful to sleep in there about a night do you have a high school student who's lacking motivation and not wanting to do their homework i mean all kids have different struggles but what we need to do as parents is find out what are you struggling with and how can i support you so what i suggest to parents take take a lot if you need to if you're feeling a lot of trouble with yours and with your child and really try to approach them in a way that's helpful and supportive think of how you would want to be approached if you were in that same situation if you were struggling because basically what's happening is that student struggling the student who doesn't want to sleep in the bed on on their own there's something that they're struggling with and probably the they have some fearing zajac about something the student who's not motivated in school there's something that they're struggling with and what it what that might be we don't know maybe the work is too hard maybe they're apathetic about the classes that they're in but we need to step up and support them and if you're a parent and you're not able to reach your child what i suggest is asking for help you know so whether it's getting a life coach for your child getting a life coach for yourself so that coach can help you work through issues with your child or calling the school counselor to see if they can help i think that's very i think coaches are definitely needed at any stage you know like you said i loved when you said if you try to get from an eight to a ten in any spectrum so ginnell we have to wrap up here but i thank you so much for coming where can people find more information about you and your services so to find more information about new heights coaching you can go to new heights coaching dot com and there's a ton of information about what i do and my contact information and then people can also join the conversation with us on facebook at coaching kids for life success or at new heights coach on twitter awesome home well thank you so much to know i look forward to talking more with you about all this coaching business and thank you thanks for having me today so that wraps up our segment of healthy inspirations and we'll look forward to seeing you next time thanks so much