#awinewith Anna Jarvie
MEET Anna Jarvie, Founder of Anna Jarvie, Aligned Health & Lifestyle
You can find them here:
Transcript
Danielle Lewis (00:05):
Amazing. Anna, welcome to Spark tv. I'm so excited to have you here.
Anna Jarvie (00:10):
Hello. Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me.
Danielle Lewis (00:13):
It's so exciting. And we are recording this just before Christmas. So we're all very excited about the holiday break.
Anna Jarvie (00:22):
Yes, yes.
Danielle Lewis (00:23):
So good. Now let's start off by telling everyone who you are and what you do.
Anna Jarvie (00:28):
Alright. Hello everyone. So my name is Anna Javi. My business is Aligned Health and Lifestyle. We just entered the third year, which is very exciting, also very hard.
Danielle Lewis (00:41):
Congratulations for making it this far.
Anna Jarvie (00:44):
Thank you all. There were a lot of moments when I was like, why am I doing this?
Danielle Lewis (00:50):
Yeah. Oh my God. I'm 12 years in and I still have those moments,
Anna Jarvie (00:56):
But going hat straight on and keep marching. It's one step at a time. Keep consistent. That's where all of the magic happened. If you are consistent, consistent, consistent, consistent with a lot of things, it's not just a business. It's also in your personal life. Also, if you are an athlete, because I'm also an athlete, I'm a bodybuilder and I do bodybuilding competitions.
Danielle Lewis (01:20):
Wow.
Anna Jarvie (01:22):
So yeah, there's a lot of things which also came from there when it comes to health, what is healthy, what is not healthy? Because I think a lot of people a little bit confused in this world of social media kind of. We don't know what healthy actually is.
Danielle Lewis (01:40):
Yeah. Oh my God, that's so true. I feel like you look at some people who are super skinny, some people who are super fit, some people who are super muscly, some people who maybe don't look like the ideal standard and you're kind of like, what am I supposed to be?
Anna Jarvie (01:56):
Yeah. And I think I always tell people, you need to cannot be following everyone else, and you just have to do you and you have to connect to you, to your body, to your mind. It has to work. I think we are living in this very fast paced life where people are very disconnected and your body is very clever. It tells you what it needs, but we are very blind to listen.
Danielle Lewis (02:26):
And
Anna Jarvie (02:27):
It also now, when we enter in Christmas, it's a very big time, very hard time for a lot of people, a lot of business women, because you want to put everyone in front of day, everything has to open, but you always sitting in the back seats and we are kind of conditioned to think that's how it should be. Because if you put ourself first, heaven forbid, I was like, oh, that's selfish. There's no time for us. Hello. But again, I'm very sure every single business woman knows you can't port from empty cap. We just don't quite act like that as well.
Danielle Lewis (03:05):
Yeah. It's like we know the information, we know we need to look after ourselves, but we don't.
Anna Jarvie (03:11):
Yes. Yes. Exactly. And that's where all of the idea also started when I started health and wellness. Think, well, if you ask me five years ago, do you want to have your own business? I will tell you, are you on something? Absolutely not. I was in hospitality for 12 years. I had really, really good career and I loved it. But covid hit happened and everything sort of changed and I realized that I don't want to go back to hospitality. It was just like this moment. And I also suffered with a lot of health issues back then. And you go to the doctor, I was like, oh, I have this, I have that. Oh yeah, take this, take that. It's like surely it's not always about pills, is it? But if you don't know, you don't know. You trust the doctors, right?
Danielle Lewis (04:03):
Yeah, absolutely. That's what we're taught, right? Is they're the person that knows how to fix us.
Anna Jarvie (04:07):
Yes, exactly. So I kind of listened for a while, but as I'm kind carrying on this, and then I've been introduced to network marketing for one health and wellness company, and that's how it all started. It was sort of just for me maybe having a little bit of extra cash on the side, but kind of learning a little bit more. Because back then I was not really sure what health and wellness is, what wellbeing actually means. And I would be the one who would be always after work opening a bottle of wine. And I thought, it's healthy, right? Everyone else does it so it's healthy, but it was not really, and I never really listened to my body either. I didn't know how to do it. But then as the time went, you started to learn a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.
(04:58):
That's also where bodybuilding came into the thing. Again, it was not something I planned, it's just happened. I always admired those people since I was 20, but I was like, I don't have that dedication. You're at 20. It was like, oh, I love look at it, can't do it. But then when I hit my 30 and I was like, maybe it's the time. Give it a go. Why not? And again, I gained a little bit more knowledge, but still it was like, oh, you still needs something else. And my very good friend, and also coach back then told me, he was like, why don't you start nutrition? Why you not learning a little bit extra? You are already giving ideas and tips and things to everyone around, so you might as well, it seems like it's your passion. Why don't you try, okay, I'll start studying nutrition again.
(05:49):
Still, I wasn't sold on idea. I'm going to have my own business. It is just all happened. And here we are third year in doing more things I love, which is educating people when it comes to nutrition, actually help them to thrive, to feel good, but really truly feel good. Get rid of all of these crazy diets, pashing themselves at the gym constantly and never seeing results. I see people at the gym day in, day out one year, two years, three years. I like, aren't you just sick of seeing the same thing and doing so much? And I said, yeah, I just cannot get out. And I said, because you're not listening. Your body is telling you. You just cannot just step back and listen. And I think a lot of people just need to be at the time where I hurt enough to change,
Danielle Lewis (06:48):
Sometimes you need to, I mean, I hate to use the phrase rock bottom, but sometimes you kind of need to be like, okay, sick of your own bullshit or hit rock bottom or be in so much pain that you go, right, something's got to change. I think that that's true for not just health and wellness in a lot of areas of life, relationships, business, career, sometimes we just don't listen to what we need. We wait until the pain is so much greater than staying. The pain of staying where we are is so much greater than making that change.
Anna Jarvie (07:26):
And there's another saying, what, you're not changing. You're choosing,
Danielle Lewis (07:31):
Oh my God, yes. That was, man, that is so true.
Anna Jarvie (07:36):
And when it comes to health and wellness and nutrition, I also find being in this space for now a few years, what I've also noticed, as you probably hear my accent, I'm not Australian. I'm originally from Slovakia all the way from Eastern Europe. I've been in Australia for over six years now.
Danielle Lewis (07:54):
Oh, amazing.
Anna Jarvie (07:56):
And I was talking about this with someone who's also from Europe, and she's like, don't you think people here in Australia have more problems with mental health and wellbeing than anywhere else in Europe, which is much tougher. And she was like, yeah, I had the same conversation. And I was like, just why is that?
Danielle Lewis (08:17):
Why do you think it is?
Anna Jarvie (08:19):
I think people here are very, maybe, probably a lot of people are going to hate me for this. That's okay. Grateful what you have. We just don't see how much you have.
Danielle Lewis (08:35):
And
Anna Jarvie (08:36):
I think you just get given so much and you just don't appreciate it anymore. I think
Danielle Lewis (08:43):
That's really, and that's really interesting because I mean, it's actually funny. I was having this conversation with my husband. I was complaining about something, and then we started watching this show about, it's a really old show on, I think it was on the A, B, C, and it's called, you Can't Ask That. And it talks about all these marginalized communities in Australia, and it's basically all the bad questions that people would want to ask, they actually answer. And there's homeless people, there's disabled people, there's people who've been in accidents, there's all of this stuff. And he made the comment about, oh, well maybe life isn't so bad. Is it about whatever I was whinging about? And I was like, yeah, but it's levels. There's just different levels of complaining and we're all living our own circumstances. But I do think there's something to what you're saying in the sense that it's like we just get so used to what we have that we stop being grateful for it. We go, oh, I've got this. I've had this crap customer today. And so now all of a sudden I forget about the amazing life I have the amazing business, I have the amazing house. I live in all of this stuff because I'm having this bad experience. Sometimes I think we just forget about how lucky we are in Australia.
Anna Jarvie (10:02):
Yeah, I think that also, I always ask people, how do you start your day? Is it with gratefulness or is it with some shitty or anything? Like, oh my God, I need to do this and I think I need to do that. If you really shift that energy straight in the morning before you even step on the floor and actually really say three things you're grateful for. I know it sounds very easy. And I was like, sure. It's not working. You're just going to shift that energy if you're going to constantly do it every single day. It doesn't have to be anything. Huge, simple things. You have clean water, some people don't. You have amazing weather. Some people don't look at people in England raining every day. Yeah, true. Oh my God, so true. And all of those things, it just change your vibration, change your viral brain to something else, and the things actually start shifting.
Danielle Lewis (10:56):
I love that
Anna Jarvie (10:57):
You will have also much higher tendency to have better breakfast than just scale the coffee on the empty stomach and running out of the door because you actually want to knowledge yourself. I think that's also where it also plays crucial parts, especially here, the food quality is not a hundred percent. Now when I'm digging everywhere into food more and more and the food industry and everything, what is out there? You are actually starting to see a little signs what actually healthy is, what actually marketing pursue as healthy. And if you are not very knowledgeable about food, you wouldn't know. It's like, oh my god, high protein, no sugar, no this. Yes, you're going to buy. Look at another side. There is 16 ingredients. What is that?
Danielle Lewis (11:52):
Yeah, totally.
Anna Jarvie (11:53):
And when people say when they go to shops, it's like, oh, the healthy aisle. But hold on, what is the rest of the shop?
Danielle Lewis (12:02):
And
Anna Jarvie (12:02):
I think people don't really stop and think about those things because again, you're rushing, you're rushing, you're rushing for Christmas, you need to have this, you need to have this. You don't have to. We are just making it more than it needs to be because a lot of people, like I'm doing this massive Christmas party for all of the people and friends who's going to come? But I said, who are you trying to impress? Majority of the things that people are not going to even eat, majority of them, they have kids. There's going to be just finger food, whatever, and the rest you're going to put in the bin. And she said, oh yeah, pretty much just every single year. And I said, why would you even waste the time, the money, and it has no value for other people really just to see. It was like, oh yeah, she done all of these things.
Danielle Lewis (12:51):
And even the stress that's associated with that right now. It's funny that you say that because my mom has been texting me all morning because they're doing a Christmas thing at her house and she's just so stressed and so over it and so cranky. And I'm like, it's not supposed to be about that. Who cares? Everyone will just come and have a drink and have a good time. They don't care. But it turns into weeks of stress because it's got to be perfect. It's got to be right. It's got to be all of these things. And I'm like, you are self-inflicting all of this stress onto yourself, and that's not healthy.
Anna Jarvie (13:25):
I think perfection. I think we need to get a bit easier perfection as well. And also expectations from other people and judgment from other people, because a lot of people do not want to be judged and it's like, oh, I just prepare very little and then, oh, people were not happy or they were judgy okays on Christmas. Who cares?
Danielle Lewis (13:46):
Yeah. Oh my God, I'm so glad we're having this conversation too, because I'm going through this even personally with presents. I'm like, well, I don't want presents because I don't want to just have more junk in my house and I don't want to give presents because of that same reason. And it's like, and I don't value that. I'm like, I would rather you call me during the year and we connect as humans than just to go, here's an obligatory present at Christmas time, but then everyone's calling me the Grinch. So I'm like, but it's like, it's almost like there's this set of rules around Christmas and we feel like we have to tick all of these boxes. And if we're not doing that, then we're failing as a wife, a mother, a family member, a friend, and it's just like, what about we just love each other to have good connections? And I don't know, it's a wild time.
Anna Jarvie (14:41):
I think it's also because it's not good enough. It needs to be something you can touch. It needs to be, what's the word? Need to, people need to spend money on it, otherwise it has no value. But I think people don't see the value in sending love sending you send a text or you pick up the phone and things like that. And I think things are slowly shifting, but a lot of people need a bit of reminder. It's not about presence. If you're giving me a present, which you spend zero time to think about whether I need it or not, I don't want
Danielle Lewis (15:24):
It.
Anna Jarvie (15:26):
Even with my husband, I said to him, he is like, oh, what do you want for? I want something that I can use. It's usable. I don't want anything that's going to be collecting dust. I want something which I can use. For example, he always gives me a massage voucher every year. Oh, that's cool. I said, get me something for my office. He was like, what an office? And I said, yes, because I can use it.
Danielle Lewis (15:48):
I did. Oh my God, I did that too. My husband just purchased new things for the podcast studio. So in 2025. So at the moment, I just sit at my desk. So this is just my office and I'm like, in 2025, I want a new podcast studio. So we have a spare room. And so we're setting that up as a cute little studio and I'm so excited, but it's so funny, like like, are you sure that's for the business? That's a business expense. And I'm like, yeah, but it's not one I would make. I just wouldn't do it. So I'm like, it is a present because it means that I get to level up in my business. I get really excited by that. I wouldn't do it for myself, but it's so useful.
Anna Jarvie (16:32):
Yeah, yeah. No, I a hundred percent agree and I'm all about use it and just sometimes you just maybe don't buy anything if you just, oh, yeah, just heavy go. I don't believe we should be giving gifts. Just saying something nice to someone, it can mean a lot. Simply, like I said, pick up the phone.
Danielle Lewis (16:58):
I love
Anna Jarvie (16:59):
That. The phone, back in the days they didn't have phones.
Danielle Lewis (17:03):
Yes. We now have the technology to connect with each other as humans
Anna Jarvie (17:07):
And also take time off for Christmas. I know. Look, not everyone is going to be able to do that, but as a business owner, you can. You just choose. Not true. It's a choice.
Danielle Lewis (17:24):
It's so true. I've blocked out my calendar to take two weeks of no meetings, but I'm already going. Awesome. Now I can do these a hundred things that were on my list that I didn't get to during the year,
Anna Jarvie (17:37):
As long as it's kind of spread across. So there's a little bit because then also comes a little bit of guilt as a business owner, oh, I'm taking all of this time. I should have done this. Oh my god, I could follow up on this thing or I could make something else. No, I think we need to step back at least for a few days during the Christmas and actually get a little bit clear picture and look in our business, on our business from the farm.
Danielle Lewis (18:07):
Someone once said to me as well, if you are doing work outside of hours, so like holidays or when you get home or whatever, don't do the adminy, crappy, boring stuff. Use that time to think strategically about the business, think about all the things that light you up and get you energized and excited. And it's like if you're going to do it in those kind of times, do the great work. Do the exciting high, big picture stuff that will actually bring you energy rather than bury yourself in your to-do list.
Anna Jarvie (18:38):
Yeah, just do something creative. Create something like different. Bring it a bit off you into business around this time. Really think out of the box. Where is the magic I can use next year?
Danielle Lewis (18:52):
Yeah, I love that. So this will go out in the beginning of 2025, so there's very likely to be some women in business who are listening and now like, oh my God, I had a break and I don't even feel energized for the year. Are there any tips that you would give women in business to help them start 2025 with some really good energy and momentum?
Anna Jarvie (19:17):
I'll circle it back. What I said on the beginning, start with the gratitude. Look into how you're starting your day. That would be the number one. See how you can improve your nutrition. Simple, basic things. Do not jump to any stupid crazy diets because that's going at all, not with the attitude. New year, new me, oh, please.
Danielle Lewis (19:43):
In the bin. Yeah,
Anna Jarvie (19:45):
A long time should be in the bin and start to really see how can you nourish your body more to actually feel, get the power. If you want to start the year with power, you need to have the fuel. If there is no fuel, there would be no power. Yeah, that is so true. There would be no speed. The gear is going to be very dry to turn. So actually really think of how can I fuel my body, my mind with something really productive, something really nourishing so I can really make that 25. Like the rock party.
Danielle Lewis (20:21):
I love that. Yeah, fuel. I think sometimes we just run from meeting to meeting, grab a quick something and it's like how can we expect to show up energized and be excited for our businesses when we're not actually giving ourselves the fuel that we need?
Anna Jarvie (20:42):
Yeah. One other thing I would like to say is run your body. You're running your business. I'm very sure that you would be pouring a lot of fuel to your business. Why don't you put that fuel to your body? I love that. And yeah, a lot of people are very unknow and like you said, meeting to meeting, jumping here, replying to emails, but also you prepped for all of those meetings. Why not prepped all of your foods and things like that as well in the background,
Danielle Lewis (21:16):
So
Anna Jarvie (21:16):
You literally, you have something ready because you're ready for your meeting. I'm very sure you're ready for your meeting. You're just not ready for you.
Danielle Lewis (21:25):
Oh my God, I love that. Yeah. I love the concept of run your body, you run your business.
Anna Jarvie (21:33):
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's where it all started, and that will leak everywhere else. Food and everything else in your life. And business is very much related. It's just not making sense for a lot of people who doesn't have much knowledge when it comes to food and nutrition.
Danielle Lewis (21:49):
I
Anna Jarvie (21:49):
Was like, oh yeah, forget it. Really, if you think about it, your gut is your second brain. If it's not happy, the mind is not happy. And when people say, oh, trust your gut, trust your gut. Well, if it's not working well, would you trust it?
Danielle Lewis (22:05):
Oh my gosh, it's so true. It is that how can you, would you trust a system that you're not putting good inputs into? Yeah.
Anna Jarvie (22:14):
Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (22:16):
Incredible
Anna Jarvie (22:17):
How all of those things are really going to spark some people in the spark community to actually really give big to yourself.
Danielle Lewis (22:27):
I think that is beautiful. What an epic way to end. Now, I always love to wrap up these podcasts with one last piece of advice, so reflecting on your time in business, what would be one piece of advice that you would give to another woman on her business journey?
Anna Jarvie (22:47):
I need to pick one. No pressure. Give yourself time to be great. First few years. Get good at business, not get rich. Get that idea first. Let's get good before I get rich and keep consistent.
Danielle Lewis (23:09):
I love it so much. It's so important to give ourselves that time and take the pressure away from, I'm going to go viral. I'm going to be a millionaire overnight. All of those get rich quick schemes or grow quick schemes. Yeah, I love that. Give yourself the time to be great. That's a beautiful sentiment.
Anna Jarvie (23:30):
Yeah. My first year I was like, no, first year making hundred grand. That's it. No question ask. I was like, oh, I was very wrong the second year. Okay, we're going for that K. And I said, no, Anna, you need to learn. You really need to. That instant gratification we all want, it needs to take time, and that's also something I've learned through my bodybuilding journey. I've been doing any for four years. That's something actually really fueled my journey in business as well, because you have to be really dedicated and disciplined and keep on track. Yeah.
Danielle Lewis (24:06):
Oh, absolutely Incredible. Anna, thank you so much for your time, for sharing your story and your insights and your wisdom with the Spark community. That was absolutely beautiful and so many great practices that we can bring into our business. So thank you so much for your time.
Anna Jarvie (24:22):
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
✨ Thank you to IP Australia for supporting the SPARK podcast and women in business ✨
