Hello everyone and welcome. I’m Laura Greco, your host, and you are listening to SuperPower Mommas. I’m so excited today because the topic we are discussing is courageously building self-respect. And I have with me Valerie Pawlowski, and she is actually a fitness trainer, I would say to sum up her bio, but I love what she wrote here about herself, that she’s dedicated with a strong desire to succeed and accomplish anything. She always strives to serve as an example of all to believe it and achieve it. And so I was very happy to meet Valerie and love her energy of the can do attitude and how she does not falter into a victim mentality, rather she really stands up and says, “Okay, how can we achieve this? It’s not whether or not we can, but how do we do it?” So I want to say welcome to you Valerie, and I love that we’re going to talk about this topic of courageously building self-respect.
Well, thank you, Laura. I really appreciate it and I’m so happy and excited to be here with you and have a discussion. It’s so vital and great information for everyone to understand what’s within themselves for those aspects. Thank you.
And as moms. Our listeners are mainly moms and they have, I’m speaking to you moms, you all have such a big and powerful role in the world. You may not feel like it every day with your everyday grind, but honestly, the big picture is, you have an impact on what’s happening in the world and how you be is what will influence the children that are in your care.
I’m very, very excited to have Valerie with us. So Valerie, please share with us our usual question, which is, what is your superpower?
Well, I think that has to do with definitely bringing out the best in someone. And no matter what, at what stage in life, what condition you’re in, or what you’ve been through, each and every day, each and every second, any moment you’re able to start over. You’re able to begin and you’re able to grab hold of, and reach for the goals and empower yourself in a physical sense that breathes life into your mindset and your intentions. So that’s a big thing. People are strong, but they don’t know it, so I really bring out the strength, the full strength of physical nature and not being inhibited to have that and the strength that it exudes into the mental capacity to really have control and forge ahead into progressions in many positive ways and manners of living.
Yeah. You were just hitting a note that I was I think contemplating recently too, is about how we live in one area of our life is how we live in all areas of our life. Right?
Definitely.
And you’ve decided to go into the fitness realm to share your gifts in the world, which obviously are to bring out the best in others. Right?
Sure.
And you decided to do that from a physical aspect. So when you think about this, and I’m going to ask you the next question, which is how you do use your superpower to really uplift and achieve this with the people that you work with?
Well, one of the things is it’s always incentivized. It’s always visualized and so, it’s in a positive manner rather than berating people or pointing out the faults that they have, even in the movements that they’re doing for exercises. It’s managing the discussion, the instruction, guidance, coaching, so that it is all in a positive forward moving sense. And this way people hear things that they don’t get to hear so often and people realize more quickly their capabilities and the feel good sense of it, and again, embracing that strength and embracing the sensation it gives them. I mean, it’s common sense in a way, but in this profession, you get a lot of people that might want to, especially because I did the boot camp thing, so that’s kind of a persona. But everyone always said that even if I made them do things, I would do it with a smile.
Once you form that habit and you start to get into that realm, you really feel good.
Yeah. So this boot camp thing, we’re going to touch on this before we go on break because I’d like to ask you a question in specifically, I know you work with a lot of different people, but I know that you work with moms and you’re speaking to this positive outlook. What do you notice about the moms that you’re serving and how your program, your boot camp assist them?
Well, one of the greatest things about it is, a lot of people have distractions or this tumultuous schedule and they have such high levels of responsibilities running a household, maybe working and you know, one, two, three and four or five kids. It became apparent to me that this 5:30 AM was not just the boot camp formula because that’s when boot camp is actually, in the general sense of it in real life world. So that was the only time I had in my schedule and I started to realize this more and more people started to come into it and say, this is great because I can get this done all for me before the household is up and then I can go on with my day. And it’s an adjustment, definitely, but once you form that habit and you start to get into that realm, you really feel good.
It really puts you in a position. And that’s why there was an attraction of a certain person who had determination and made that decision to commit to it. And that commitment, although sometimes scary, they would put forth and it was something that was going to incentivize and hold them to it and the comradely and the accountability of others who are going to be there with them together, and they were going to get through this and accomplish a four week session. So, the turnout was amazing. And the improvements again through that first thing in the morning and that outlook that poured into the day was wonderful. The feedback that I was getting, even though people were tired, but then it was invigorating.
You know, this is really an interesting concept because I know even as a mom, I raised four kids and I found that it was really important for me to get up early and to really center myself, whether I was went for a short walk, or took some pictures outside, or read, or in prayer, whatever it was, writing, I found that it really helped me to have a handle on the rest of the day. And I feel like this is really what you’re speaking to, isn’t it?
Absolutely. It sets the tone. There’s no interference other than if you didn’t wake up because the alarm didn’t go off or something like that. But most people look forward to it. Oddly, people become attached to it. The endorphins and the things and the chemicals truly and physically that are brought about in your body brings on again, it’s a good addiction. We all have things like serotonin and dopamine that are responses of our body for certain mechanisms and this will produce that. Of course, you want to come back for more once you get over the hurdle of creating and establishing that habit. And again, it is the health and the cohesiveness of a community of women, like-minded, they’re all in the same situation and that’s an outlet for them.
It’s also a bond for them. And it was so much fun because again, it wasn’t negative. No one was down on themselves or complaining. It was an uplifting and positive experience of cheering on one another no matter whether it was the first person over, say the finish line of a drill or the timed mile when we would do it, no matter how much people dislike it. For that final person who had to walk the first time, but then by the end of the session they were cheering because she was running and cut off like two minutes. So it was just an entire positive experience and uplifting for everyone’s benefit.
Yeah, and it sounds almost like a playful thing for the mother or the or the person involved in that exercise.
Most definitely.
Right. And, when we come back from break, we’re going to dive a little bit more into this and how this building of self-respect is tied into this kind of work that you’re doing with the people that come to you. So you’re listening to Valerie and she is talking to us on courageously building self-respect. Valerie, where can people find you?
It’s njbootcamp.com.
Perfect. That’s great. Okay, we’ll be right back. Stay tuned.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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